[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 118-2]
THE PRESSING THREAT OF
THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY
TO U.S. NATIONAL DEFENSE
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
FEBRUARY 7, 2023
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
51-704 WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Eighteenth Congress
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ADAM SMITH, Washington
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado JOHN GARAMENDI, California
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Vice DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
Chair RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
SAM GRAVES, Missouri SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York RO KHANNA, California
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi ANDY KIM, New Jersey
MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
MATT GAETZ, Florida JASON CROW, Colorado
DON BACON, Nebraska ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
JIM BANKS, Indiana MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SARA JACOBS, California
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington
RONNY JACKSON, Texas PATRICK RYAN, New York
PAT FALLON, Texas JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
NANCY MACE, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO,
BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota Pennsylvania
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina
JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
NICK LaLOTA, New York STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam JIMMY PANETTA, California
MARK ALFORD, Missouri Vacancy
CORY MILLS, Florida
RICHARD McCORMICK, Georgia
Chris Vieson, Staff Director
Mark Morehouse, Professional Staff Member
Spencer Johnson, Counsel
Brooke Alred, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 1
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
WITNESSES
Harris, ADM Harry B., Jr., USN (Ret.), Former Commander, U.S.
Indo-Pacific Command........................................... 4
Sisson, Dr. Melanie W., Foreign Policy Fellow, Brookings
Institution Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and
Technology..................................................... 6
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Harris, ADM Harry B., Jr..................................... 71
Sisson, Dr. Melanie W........................................ 84
Documents Submitted for the Record:
Trade Associations Letter.................................... 97
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Ms. Tokuda................................................... 101
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Bergman.................................................. 106
Mr. Gallagher................................................ 105
THE PRESSING THREAT OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY TO U.S. NATIONAL
DEFENSE
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 7, 2023.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Rogers (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. Committee will come to order. Our first
hearing this Congress is on the threats posed by the Chinese
Communist Party and what our military needs to do to stay ahead
of them. China is the most challenging national security threat
America has faced in 30 years. If we fail to acknowledge that
and take immediate action to deter it, the next 30 years could
be devastating for our Nation.
Under President Xi, the Chinese Communist Party has nearly
tripled its defense spending in the last decade alone. The PLA
[People's Liberation Army] has gone from an obsolete force
barely capable of defending its borders to a modern fighting
force capable of winning regional conflicts. The CCP [Chinese
Communist Party] now controls the largest army and navy in the
world with a goal of having them fully integrated and
modernized by 2027. The CCP is rapidly expanding its nuclear
capability. They have doubled their number of warheads in 2
years. We estimated it would take them a decade to do that.
We've also were just informed by the DOD [Department of
Defense] and the CCP now has more ICBM [intercontinental
ballistic missile] launchers than the United States.
The CCP is starting to outpace us on new battlefields, as
well. They have leapfrogged us on hypersonic technology. They
are fielding what we are still developing. They are making
advances in AI [artificial intelligence] and quantum computing
that we struggle to keep pace with. Finally, their rapid
advances in space were one of the primary motivations for us
establishing a Space Force.
The CCP is not building these new and advanced military
capabilities for self defense. In recent years, the CCP has
used its military to push out its borders, to threaten our
allies in the region, and to gain footholds on new continents.
In violation of international law, the CCP has built new and
commandeered existing islands in the South China Sea where it
has deployed stealth fighters, bombers, and missiles. It
continues to intimidate and coerce Taiwan, most recently by
surrounding the island with naval forces and launching endless
fighter sorties across its center line. In recent years, the
CCP has also established a space tracking facility in South
America to monitor U.S. satellites, as well as an overseas
naval base miles from our own on the strategically vital Horn
of Africa.
These are just a few destabilizing actions taken by the
CCP. They speak nothing of the CCP's Belt and Road debt-trap
diplomacy, its illegal harvesting of personal data and
intellectual property, its ongoing human rights abuses, and its
advanced espionage efforts, the latter of which came into full
focus for all Americans last week when the Biden administration
allowed a CCP spy balloon to traverse some of our Nation's most
sensitive military sites. Make no mistake, that balloon was
intentionally launched as a calculated show of force.
We have to stop being naive about the threat we face from
China. We no longer have the luxury of time. We need to act now
to get ahead of this threat. We need to make the right
investments in the right capabilities to ensure our military
can effectively deter and, if necessary, defeat the threat.
That will be the focus of this committee this Congress.
I look forward to working with all of you on this effort,
and, with that, I yield to my friend, the ranking member, Mr.
Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. And
thank you for making this the first hearing of this session. It
is very appropriate, as the last two National Security
Strategies and as just about everyone acknowledges now, China
is the greatest threat that we face to our national security
objectives and the biggest problem that we face as a country,
and we need to figure out how to deal with that. And I think
you outlined the threat quite well. I will not repeat that,
except to say that, without question, in the last decade, China
has decided to try to impose its will on the world and move us
in a direction that takes us away from the rules-based
international system that the United States and so many other
nations are trying to impose.
We must, without question, meet that threat, and part of
meeting that threat is also, without question, to deter it
militarily, to make sure, basically, that China does not feel
that they can succeed by trying to move forward their
objectives through the use of their military. Certainly in
Taiwan, but Taiwan is not the only place that China claims at
the moment that we have to worry about whether or not they
would use their military to achieve those objectives. We need
to build up our military, look very carefully at what China is
doing, and make sure the decisions we're making deter that
threat. In fact, that is one of the challenges that I know the
chairman and I see the same way. We have to have a modernized
military; cliche, but we can't be fighting the last war. A
number of lessons have been learned by the conflict in Ukraine
and elsewhere. We need to apply those lessons and make sure
that our military is modernized to meet the threats that we
face today.
And part of that also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention
success for the U.S., Ukraine, and the coalition in Ukraine is
crucial to that deterrence message against China. President Xi
is absolutely watching what goes on there; and if President
Putin is able to achieve his aims lawlessly and through the use
of the military, that will only further embolden President Xi
in his objectives in China.
We also have to be aware that this is not only and not even
primarily a military struggle. China is trying to expand its
influences, as the chairman alluded to, in a number of
different ways. We need to use diplomacy and alliances to meet
this threat. The U.S. will not be able to deter China on its
own. We need our allies, we need our partners across the globe,
and the Biden administration very much recognizes that and has
done an outstanding job of building up those partnerships and
alliances in a number of areas. The AUKUS agreement between
Australia, Great Britain, and the U.S. has helped empower our
partners there. We have developed the Quad with Japan,
Australia, India, and the U.S., also to build up our strengths
as partners and alliances. And, most recently, the Philippines
has allowed us to enhance our military presence in partnership
with them and their country, largely because they see the
threat from China. They don't want that bully right above them
to be able to push them around. They're looking for
partnerships and alliances, as we move forward, to be able to
meet that.
It is also really important to understand what our
objective here is. Our objective is to have a world where China
and the U.S. can coexist peacefully. I think it is a dangerous
mistake if we think we are somehow going to defeat China,
whatever that might mean. They are the second-largest economy
in the world. They are a large and powerful nation. We need to
guide them down a better path. And I want to make this
statement 100 percent clear: War with China is not inevitable.
It is not even likely. It is something we must all work to
avoid, not to treat as an inevitability. It doesn't have to be
that way. Let us use our skills, our diplomacy, and our ability
to deter to avoid it.
And the last thing I want to say is, as we look at this
problem, we need to be careful to separate the Chinese
government from the Chinese people and certainly from the Asian
people. In the last couple of years, there has been a massive
increase in anti-Asian bigotry and hate in this country. The
Asian-American population in the U.S. is an incredibly vital
part of our country and also really rather important to the
fight to set a different vision for the world than the one
China lays out. Let's take on China, but let's remember to
respect the Asian-American people who are so crucial to what we
are doing here in this country.
With that, I look forward to the testimony. I want to
welcome our witnesses, Dr. Sisson and Admiral Harris. Great to
see you both back. Look forward to your testimony. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Now I'd like to take a minute to
introduce our panel. First, a fellow who has had my admiration
for many years is Admiral Harry Harris, former Commander of the
U.S. Pacific Command, now INDOPACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific
Command], under Presidents Obama and Trump, as well as former
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea. And Dr. Melanie Sisson is a
fellow with the Brookings Institute Talbott Center for
Security, Strategy, and Technology. We had Ambassador O'Brien
slated to appear, but, unfortunately, he had an emergent
personal matter that he could not be with us today.
So Admiral Harris, Dr. Sisson, we look forward to your
testimony; and, Admiral Harris, we'll start with you.
STATEMENT OF ADM HARRY B. HARRIS, JR., USN (RET.), FORMER
COMMANDER, U.S. INDO-PACIFIC COMMAND
Admiral Harris. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, and Ranking
Member Smith, and distinguished members. I am honored to appear
again before this committee, this time alongside the esteemed
Dr. Melanie Sisson.
That your first meeting of the 118th Congress addresses the
threat that the United States faces from the People's Republic
of China, or PRC, sends a powerful signal to the region. I am
grateful for Congress's passing of the FY23 [fiscal year 2023]
National Defense Authorization Act, including the embedded
Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act which increases military aid and
security cooperation to that embattled island. There are very
few bipartisan issues in Washington these days, but our
national concern about the PRC is one of them.
The U.S. has enduring national interest in the Indo-
Pacific, a region at a precarious crossroad where tangible
opportunity meets significant challenge. We find ourselves
again in peer competition with adversaries who are developing
and deploying cutting-edge weaponry and information disorder to
undermine our democracy and defeat us.
In 2018, I talked about our challenges: a rogue North
Korea, a revisionist PRC, and a revanchist Russia. Over the
past 5 years, the situation has worsened, in my opinion, in
almost every geostrategic measure, a security environment more
complex and more volatile and more dangerous than any that I've
seen. We are in what I call the decisive decade.
Last fall, the current administration finally released its
National Security Strategy. Though I would use the term
adversary rather than competitor, the strategy recognizes that
the PRC is the only competitor with both the intent and,
increasingly, the capability to reshape the international
order.
Now, while the U.S. has partnered well with China on
several important fronts, Washington and Beijing fundamentally
disagree on how to approach the international order. The PRC
does not keep its word, from its treaty with the British on
Hong Kong, to its human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and
others, to its attempts at commercial espionage, and its quest
to intimidate, isolate, and ultimately dominate Taiwan.
The PRC's aggression in the South China Sea continues
unabated, despite the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration's
ruling that invalidated China's ridiculous nine-dash line claim
and unprecedented land reclamations. Beijing's actions are
coordinated, methodical, and strategic, using its military and
economic power to erode the free and open international seas.
Last week's spy balloon drama playing out on the doorstep
to the Secretary of State's planned visit to Beijing typifies
PRC bad behavior and disregard for international norms. That
Beijing would claim that the incursion over sovereign American
airspace was innocuous and unintended beggars the imagination.
China's considerable military buildup could soon challenge
the U.S. across almost every domain. Now, while some might say
that PRC is already there, I am not one of them, yet. However,
the PRC is making significant advances in missile systems,
including hypersonics, fifth-generation fighters, a blue-water
navy, and the next wave of technologies, including artificial
intelligence and advanced space and cyber. Geopolitically,
Beijing seeks to supplant the United States as a security
partner of choice for countries not only in the Indo-Pacific
but globally.
The U.S. makes it clear that we reject foreign policy based
on leverage and dominance. We encourage every country to work
in its own interest to protect its own sovereignty, and we must
work in our own enlightened self-interest to develop our own
reliable sources of rare earths, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals
essential for weaponeering, independent of the PRC. Former
Deputy National Security Advisor [for Strategy] Nadia Schadlow
wrote last year that the PRC is ``the sole source or a primary
source supplier for a number of critical energetics
materials.'' And by energetics, she is referring to those
materials that are used for explosives and propellants, from
bullets, to artillery, to missiles.
We find ourselves sailing into rocks and shoals, to use a
nautical analogy; we must invest and innovate to right the
errant course that we are on. Otherwise, the joint force will
struggle to compete with the People's Liberation Army on future
battlefields.
Now, I note that the current administration's fundamental
understanding of the PRC is consistent with its predecessor, as
my esteemed colleague knows well. The Secretary of State
testified that the previous administration's tougher approach
is right, that what is happening in Xinjiang is genocide and
the democracy is being trampled in Hong Kong. The Secretary of
Defense testified that he is focused on the threat posed by the
PRC, and he promised strong support for Taiwan.
Look, Taiwan is democratic, an idea factory, and a global
force for good. Just last week, the Cato Institute called
Taiwan the freest country in East Asia, ahead of Japan, ahead
of South Korea. I've called for ending the almost 44-year U.S.
policy of strategic ambiguity in favor of strategic clarity. I
also believe that we should ink a bilateral free trade
agreement with Taipei as soon as possible. The new Indo-Pacific
strategy calls for an environment whereby Taiwan's future is
determined peacefully by its own people. What a concept. My
successor at Indo-Pacific Command testified before Congress in
2021 that the PRC could invade Taiwan in 6 years. That is 2027.
We ignore Admiral Davidson's warning at our peril.
The PRC's intent is crystal clear. Maya Angelou once said
that when someone shows you who they are, believe them the
first time. Well, Xi Jinping has showed us his intent regarding
Taiwan time and time again, and shame on us if we ignore him.
We must not allow the PRC to dictate America's Taiwan policy.
Indeed, I am worried about the trajectory of the PRC's body
politic. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently
wrote that last October's 20th party congress ``is an era-
defining event, cementing Xi Jinping as China's paramount
leader, solidifying the country's turn to the state and away
from the market and officially underscoring the primacy of
Marxism-Leninism.'' In other words, Deng Xiaoping is dead in
more ways than one.
Mr. Chairman, while challenges to our interests in the
Indo-Pacific, especially from the PRC, are real, I believe that
America's resolve is powerful and steadfast. I thank you and
this committee and the whole Congress for your enduring support
to INDOPACOM, to our Armed Forces, and our diplomatic corps.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Harris can be found in
the Appendix on page 71.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Admiral. And, Dr. Sisson, you are
recognized.
STATEMENT OF DR. MELANIE W. SISSON, FOREIGN POLICY FELLOW,
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION STROBE TALBOTT CENTER FOR SECURITY,
STRATEGY, AND TECHNOLOGY
Dr. Sisson. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and
members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today
to support your efforts to assess and to respond to the threat
of the Chinese Communist Party to U.S. national defense.
Under the rule of the CCP, the People's Republic of China
is seeking to expand its influence culturally, economically,
politically, and militarily. It has used illicit and illegal
means to advantage its economy. It has been obstructionist in
multilateral organizations and on critical transnational
issues, such as climate and health. And it has not only
improved the capabilities of its armed forces, the People's
Liberation Army, but also has used those forces to advance
discredited territorial and resource claims and to threaten and
intimidate its neighbors.
Advances in the capabilities of the PLA, together with the
CCP's longstanding interest in unification with the
democratically self-governing island of Taiwan, has energized
concern about China's near-term intentions toward the island
and about the role of the United States in cross-strait
relations. Since 1979, the United States has adopted a
constellation of official positions, together known as the One-
China Policy, that allow us to acknowledge but not to accept
China's perspective that there is one China and that Taiwan is
part of China.
Under the One-China Policy, the United States has developed
robust unofficial relations with the government and the people
of Taiwan consistent with our interest in preserving peace and
stability in the Taiwan Strait. U.S. policy is guided by an
interest in ensuring cross-strait disputes are resolved
peacefully and in a manner that reflects the will of Taiwan's
people. This has required the United States to deter Taiwan
from declaring independence and also to deter the CCP from
attempting unification by force.
The 40-year success of this strategy of dual deterrence
rests upon the unwillingness of the United States to provide
either an unconditional commitment to Taipei that it will come
to its defense militarily or an unconditional commitment to
Beijing that we will not.
The U.S. national security interest in the status of Taiwan
remains that the CCP and the people of Taiwan resolve the
island's political status peacefully. Dual deterrence therefore
remains U.S. strategy, reinforced by U.S. declaratory policy,
which is to oppose unilateral changes to the status quo by
either side.
The modernization of the PLA has changed the regional
military balance and significantly enough that the United
States no longer can be confident that we would decisively
defeat every type of PLA use of force in the Taiwan Strait.
This fact, however, does not necessitate that the U.S. abandon
the strategy of dual deterrence, and it doesn't mean that the
United States should seek to reconstitute its prior degree of
dominance.
Posturing the U.S. military to convince the CCP that the
PLA could not succeed in any and every contingency over Taiwan
is infeasible in the near term and likely beyond. The PLA's
advances are considerable and ongoing. Geography works in its
favor, and history demonstrates that it is far easier to arrive
at an overconfident assessment of relative capability than it
is to arrive at an accurate one.
Attempting to demonstrate superiority for all contingencies
would require a commitment of forces that would inhibit the
United States from behaving like the global power that it is
with global interests to which its military must also attend.
This posture, moreover, is not necessary for dual deterrence to
extend its 40-year record of success. We can instead encourage
the government of Taiwan to adopt a defense concept that forces
the PLA into suboptimal strategies and increases the battle
damage Beijing would have to anticipate and accept.
The CCP should also be reminded that, in addition to
retaining the option on direct U.S. military engagement, U.S.
military superiority in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean
allows us to threaten the maritime shipping upon which China
depends for access to energy, global markets, and supply
chains. The inevitable damage a use of force would cause to the
global economy and the imposition of sanctions and restricted
access to critical inputs needed to sustain China's economic
development and the quality of life of its people, moreover,
would certainly compound China's losses.
The CCP should have no illusion, however, that it can
inflict a first strike on the United States that prevents us
from joining in the defense of Taiwan. Militarily, this will
require the armed services to develop concepts of operation
that maximize the effects of dispersal, mobility, and localized
decision making, and to make investments in the portable and
expendable assets that those concepts require: uncrewed systems
that launch sensors and anti-ship missiles, for example,
without the need for runways that are difficult to defend. DOD
must also prioritize improving the resilience of its command,
control, and communication systems against disabling electronic
and cyber attacks.
These and related measures will position the United States
not only to implement its strategy of dual deterrence in the
Taiwan Strait but also will prepare us to detect and respond to
Chinese incrementalism throughout the Western Pacific and
beyond. Plentiful surveillance, resilient command and control,
and small situationally aware mobile deployments are necessary
for the Armed Forces to minimize opportunities for the PLA to
engage in unlawful and coercive actions and to deny it gains
when it does.
The U.S.-China contest is definitionally strategic. Its
outcome will be determined by the respective abilities of the
CCP and the government of the United States to marshal all
instruments of national power and to deploy them in a
comprehensive, well-executed grand strategy. It is therefore
essential that Congress ensures DOD is equipped in concept and
in capability to deter PLA aggression regionally and also to
shape and constrain the geopolitical conditions within which
the CCP pursues its objectives globally.
I look forward to discussing these important issues with
you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Sisson can be found in the
Appendix on page 84.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Sisson. One of the many things
I liked about Chairman Smith, when he served as Chairman Smith,
was his rigorous enforcement of the 5-minute rule. I think that
that is the only way we can show respect for our colleagues. So
understand I will be following the mold set by Adam Smith when
I tell you your time is up. But know this: it is going to apply
to me and the ranking member, as well. We are going to put
ourselves on a 5-minute clock.
With that, I recognize myself for a couple of questions.
Recently, we've heard from military leaders that we could have
a U.S. conflict with China in the near future. My question is
what do we need to be doing to prepare for that, assuming that
assessment is correct, that we could have a near-term conflict?
Admiral, what do you think?
Admiral Harris. Thanks, sir, for the question. My
colleagues in uniform have given a couple of different
timelines. Admiral Davidson, the Davidson window is 2027. I
talked about it in my remarks. General Minihan just last week
said 2025. I think the most important thing is less the
specific date than the fact that our military is committed to
defending the United States whenever an attack happens,
whenever they are called upon. And I think that Admiral
Aquilino, who is the current INDOPACOM commander, is doing just
that. You know, he has developed this concept called see,
blind, and kill. You know, see the enemy, blind the enemy, and
then kill the enemy, and he is working on that with expeditious
need because his requirement is really what we've said all
along about the Indo-Pacific, and I am sure the other combatant
commanders would say the same thing. Their job is to defend and
be ready to fight tonight, not in 2025 or 2027 or 2030 or
whenever those hypothetical dates are thrown out there.
The Chairman. Great. Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. Thank you. Representative, first, I would say I
agree with Admiral Harris in terms of the responsibility of the
services to be prepared always for those sorts of unfortunate
events. What I would say in terms of among the most important
things that can be done now is to reinforce our deterrent
posture. I think it is harmful for us to have repeated
incidents of high-level Department officials making different
estimations. It suggests that we don't have a coherent view of
what is happening over the strait, and that certainly is not
helpful to our effort to deter the CCP.
The Chairman. Great. I am curious, what do you all think we
could do to improve Taiwan's defenses that could help deter
China in any kind of aggressive behavior? Admiral Harris.
Admiral Harris. Sure. So I was in Taiwan last week meeting
with senior leadership there. I was there for 5 days. I got a
chance to travel down to Kaohsiong, Taiwan, to look at the
progress they are making on their Indigenous Defense Submarine,
or IDS. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that there is a lot that we
are doing, but there is a lot more that we could do.
The Chairman. For example?
Admiral Harris. For example, we could sign a free trade
agreement with Taiwan. That is important not only on the
economic side but also because of the example that that sets
for other countries who might be considering doing trade deals
with Taiwan, opening up to Taiwan, but they are waiting for
cover from a country like the United States. So that is one
thing we could do.
We could help them more, I believe, in training. You know,
as they go from a 4-month draft, a 4-month conscripted force,
to a 1-year conscripted force starting in 2024, they are going
to need some help, one, in training them and, two, how to train
them because this is a new thing for them. But I do believe,
based on my time in Taiwan last week, that I've come away with
a belief that Taiwan is both resilient and understanding of the
need for their self-defense, and this is driven a little bit by
the Chinese move on Hong Kong but most currently by Russia's
move on Ukraine.
The Chairman. Dr. Sisson, is there anything in particular
you'd like to see us do to help Taiwan be more able to deter
any aggressive behavior from China?
Dr. Sisson. I think it is absolutely the case that there
can be changes made to enhance the porcupine position in the
defense concept. You know, those are things like investments in
short-range anti-air and anti-ship defenses, naval mines, and
so forth. I am sure I don't need to tell the committee those
specifics.
The admiral raises the other good point that it is
essential, and one of the lessons that we've absolutely learned
from Ukraine, that the people of Taiwan will need to be
prepared to be resilient in the event of a blockade for
example, and ready to engage in any prolonged and intensive
resistance to invasion and occupation. That preparation,
visible preparation, can serve as a deterrent.
The Chairman. Great. Thank you very much. The Chair now
recognizes the ranking member.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Building off of the chairman's
comments, I think, you know, setting a specific date on it
isn't really the point. At this point, I think China could do
it right now. They have the capability. They are jockeying for
position, trying to figure out how to maximize their chances
for success. We obviously need to be prepared to deter that. I
do worry about the inevitability comments because these words
get played up in China, and then China is like, well, the U.S.
is coming for us, so we may as well go for them. I think we
need to be careful about that particular language.
But building off of what can be done to deter, Dr. Sisson,
you mentioned the need to disperse and make our forces more
mobile, and that has been a big piece of analysis of what we
are doing there. I have seen the analysis. What is your
assessment, both of your assessments about how we are doing on
making us less of a target initially in that way, and what do
you think we need to do to get there more quickly?
Dr. Sisson. I think that we are making good progress. Where
I look for those advances starts with the concepts, the
concepts of operations, what it is the services understand that
it is they need to be doing, followed then by the investments
in the capabilities they need to implement and execute on those
plans.
So I think the Marine Corps is a good example of the kinds
of changes that we are seeing that are moving in the right
direction. And I think that that is having a positive effect,
and we are starting to see that move through the Department a
little bit more broadly. We need to be thinking about
resilience. We need to be thinking about how we are working
with AI-enabled capabilities and autonomy, including in
surveillance and getting information right up to what we call
the tactical edge. And I see the Department working in those
directions very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Admiral.
Admiral Harris. Thanks, sir. I think that, among other
things, we need to understand more fully the PRC--the Chinese
surveillance capabilities and systems. Shooting down that drone
and then recovering the parts over the Atlantic I think is very
helpful in that regard. General VanHerck, the NORAD/NORTHCOM
[North American Aerospace Defense Command/U.S. Northern
Command] commander, spoke yesterday about what he called a
domain gap in his ability to understand China's balloons that
they've sent forward across the United States over the past
several years. So that ought to concern all of us, so I think
getting these parts of this balloon together and understanding
their surveillance will help.
It is hard to disperse a fixed airfield, and I am speaking
a little parochially since I am from the Navy. And that is why
development of aircraft carriers is so important. I think that
Dr. Sisson is spot-on when she talks about Dave Berger's moves
to bring the U.S. Marine Corps into the 21st century. I support
what he is doing, and I am excited by where he is going with
it.
So those are some of the things that we could be doing and
we are doing to address the threat from the PRC.
Mr. Smith. And what about our partners in the region?
Japan, in particular, has really stepped up. I think they now
recognize the threat from China. Australia, to some extent, as
well. What role do you see our partners in the region playing
in deterring China's aggression towards Taiwan and, frankly,
aggression towards many of the other neighbors, as the chairman
outlined?
Admiral Harris. Well, I'll start. I think that America's
greatest asymmetric capability, our greatest asymmetric
strength, is our alliance--alliances and partnerships, our
whole network across the globe. Japan, as you mentioned, sir,
they have clearly stepped up to the plate. Before the late Abe
Shinzo was assassinated, you know, he was leading that, and I
am happy and pleased to see that Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio
has followed in his footsteps. They recognize that they are in
a precarious position vis-a-vis China.
I think South Korea is an important ally. They realize it,
as well, as does Australia, especially Australia. I mean, it
was Peter Dutton, the former Minister of Defense down there,
who said of course we will defend Taiwan with the United
States. That is a powerful statement for a country to make when
you are talking about armed conflict with the PRC over Taiwan.
He made that comment about 2 years ago.
So, I think that we cannot do it alone. We rely heavily on
our allies, and that is our greatest asymmetric strength.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. I am about out of time, so I will
yield back. Thank you.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Dr. Sisson and
Admiral, thank you very much for being here. My appreciation of
the people of China is lifelong. My father served in the Flying
Tigers, the 14th Air Force, in Chengdu, Xi'an, and Kunming to
liberate the people of China. I inherited his appreciation of
the people of China with several meaningful visits by me and my
family from Beijing to Shanghai to Hong Kong. Sadly, my hopes
for a mutually beneficial relationship were misplaced,
culminating with the spy balloon over my home community this
weekend threatening Fort Jackson and the Savannah River nuclear
laboratory. The Biden administration is blaming the military
for the delay. To me this is duplicity. The responsibility of
not acting sooner is the sole responsibility of President
Biden.
With that in mind, Congress, Admiral, has created the
Pacific Defense Initiative in the FY21 [fiscal year 2021]
National Defense Authorization Act, to modernize and enhance
our presence, logistics, and maintenance capabilities, exercise
program infrastructure and security cooperation in the region.
What is your view on the impact of the Pacific Deterrence
Initiative? What value do you believe we have in this
initiative over time? We need to be building peace through
strength.
Admiral Harris. Yes, a great question, sir. I support it
completely, the Pacific Defense Initiative. I wasn't good
enough when I was the PACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command]
commander to convince all of you to buy into that. Admiral
Davidson is far more eloquent than I am, and he was able to
convince the right folks that that is an important thing.
INDOPACOM needs that initiative in order to have the funds
to do the things that it needs to do in the far reaches of the
Pacific, not only in terms of our allies like the Philippines,
but especially part of America in Guam, and ballistic missile
defense, which can now be funded to a better rate because of
the Pacific Defense--Deterrence Initiative.
Mr. Wilson. And I am really grateful that you mentioned
INDOPACOM. It was President Trump that added ``INDO'' to show
the appreciation and importance of India and what opportunities
we have to be working with that country and how their own
capabilities, they do not need to be reliant on Russian
military equipment. We have an extraordinary country of 1.4
billion people who can make their own.
With that in mind, it is bipartisan that there is an
understanding we are in a worldwide competition of democracies
with rule of law opposed by autocracies with rule of gun.
Sadly, we see war criminal Putin invade Ukraine being supported
by the Chinese Communist Party, as they are also threatening
Taiwan, and then as Iran threatens Israel. With that in mind,
it is so important that Ukraine achieve victory to reduce the
potential of a wider war.
With that in mind, Dr. Sisson, the combination of China's
desire to expand its influence, the U.S. to maintain its own
influence, Taiwan's international aspiration roles in the
global economy make the island status an especially contentious
issue threatening Korea, Japan, all the way to Australia. It is
bipartisan that the United States understands how important it
is to maintain a constructive role to prevent a cross-border
conflict. What can be further done to avoid a conflict?
Dr. Sisson. Representative, that is exactly right and well
put. The most important thing I think that we can do
conceptually right now is to remember that Taiwan is not the
crucible for great power competition, that China's ambitions
are strategic and they are global, as are ours, and the best
thing that we can do is treat it as such.
With regards to Taiwan specifically, I believe we should
maintain our policy of dual deterrence and we should do so in a
manner that projects the place that we are in, which is a place
where we should feel confident that we can effectively deter
and calm and cohesive with all of our allies and partners in
the practice of implementing that strategy.
Mr. Wilson. Indeed. I am looking with the leadership, Adam
Smith, others, bipartisan, working together. And encouraging
the administration, there has been a delay in providing proper
defensive munitions to the people of Taiwan, and this needs to
be bipartisan to indeed create an Asian porcupine so that we
can have peace through strength.
Thank you. And I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to
both witnesses for your thoughtful testimony today. Admiral
Harris, on September 15th, 2021, President Biden announced the
new AUKUS security agreement, Australia, U.S., and U.K. [United
Kingdom], which seems perfectly aligned with the comments you
just made a moment ago, which are on page 5 of your testimony,
that, ``America's single asymmetric strength is our network of
security alliances and partnerships.'' David Ignatius, the
veteran journalist at Washington Post described AUKUS as ``the
most important strategic move in decades.''
As someone who served as commander in Indo-Pacific, can you
describe the strategic importance of AUKUS, in particular
providing Australia with nuclear technology to have a nuclear-
powered submarine force, as it relates to the priority of
building regional partnership capacity in the Indo-Pacific?
Admiral Harris. Thanks, Congressman. AUKUS is supremely
important. We are going to share the crown jewel of America's
military technology--the nuclear submarine, the nuclear
reactors--with another country, and that is Australia. We have
not done that with any other country, except for the U.K. back
in the late 1950s and into the 1960s. So here we have the two
countries with that capability, the United States and the U.K.,
and we are going to share that with Australia. It is
significant, but it is only going to be significant over the
long term if we follow through. So it is a decade-long process,
you know. Some people, the CNO, Chief of Naval Operations, has
said it could be 30 years before we see an Australian nuclear
submarine underway in the Indian Ocean. I said that, if we put
our hearts and minds to it and our resources to it--and by ours
I mean ours, the United States, the U.K.'s, and Australia's--we
can do this faster than that. I mean, we put a man on the moon
in 8 years, and we developed a COVID [coronavirus disease]
vaccine in 1 year. We can do this, but we are going to have to
put our shoulders to the task.
For Australia, which has a tremendous military, for them to
have the long reach of a nuclear submarine force would be
dramatic. It would help us dramatically. It would change the
balance of power in the Indian Ocean, and it would make
Australia a blue-water navy. They are our key ally in that part
of the world, and I am all for it.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Admiral. And your comments about
execution are very timely because, in about a month's time, the
process that has been underway since the President's
announcement is going to be going public and live. And one of
the biggest questions that we have to solve as a Congress is to
make sure that we knock down the barriers of export controls to
share that nuclear technology, and that actually is going to be
a task for this committee.
Doctor, I don't know whether you had any comments you want
to add to that.
Dr. Sisson. Thank you. Yes. Just briefly, I think it is
important to note that anything that improves our situational
awareness in the Western Pacific and ability to operate there
broadly is very good for our policy overall in the region and
our interests in the region. And part of the reason for that is
it is a visible demonstration to the CCP of how widespread the
commitment is of its regional neighbors and beyond to certain
standards and expectations of behavior. And that will limit and
constrain the environment in which they are able to pursue
their interests in ways that are, at a minimum, problematic
and, at most, illegal and dangerous.
Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you. And regarding, again, the
asymmetrical advantage of regional networks, again, just in the
last month, we've had two announcements about the U.S. being
able to have four new bases in the Philippines, as well as now
some new rotational agreements with Japan. Again, Admiral,
maybe you could just describe how that sort of fits in to the
discussion this morning.
Admiral Harris. Sure. So the Philippines is the key. I
mean, they are at the point of the spear in the South China
Sea. You know, it is hard to imagine a fight with the PRC
without being able to use bases on the Philippines. Separately,
we have a longstanding relationship with the Philippines, some
of it troubled, and this, I believe, will go a long way toward
making us a better ally of them. They are an ally of the United
States, but we need to be an ally for them, and I think this
will help in that regard also.
Sir, just back to your previous question. I can't emphasize
enough how important it is to get through this export issue,
export control issue, with Australia. I mean, we could have
every good intention in the world, but we could be bound up by
our own regulation and our own regulatory policy. So whatever
can be done to relax that would be----
The Chairman. The gentleman's time is expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Lamborn.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today
and to Chairman Rogers for organizing this timely and urgent
hearing on national security threats from China. Admiral
Harris, and welcome to Colorado Springs when you finally get a
chance to finally retire.
Admiral Harris. Thanks.
Mr. Lamborn. My top priority as chairman of the Strategic
Forces Subcommittee is to accelerate our hypersonic
capabilities, both offensive and defensive. Nowhere is the need
for this more clear than in the Pacific. I am extremely
concerned about the anemic pace with which the Department seems
to be pursuing hypersonic capabilities, and I am also troubled
by the current limited plan to field these systems. Most
relevant for this hearing is the Navy's plan to field offensive
hypersonics on the Zumwalt destroyer of which we only have
three.
Could you discuss the strategic implications of China's
hypersonic weapons for our planning and the importance you
place on fielding American hypersonic capabilities as quickly
as possible? And I am going to ask you to pull the microphone
just a little closer to you. Thank you.
Admiral Harris. Thanks, thanks, sir. It is good to be from
Colorado, I believe. So I'll be brief with my answer because
the real expert is right here, but I'll just say that we are
shooting behind the Peking duck on hypersonics. China is ahead
of us in that regard. We need an offensive capability, and we
need a defensive capability. Imagine a missile that is flying
so fast that you can't pick it up on radar, let alone shoot it
down. And that is what we are up against, and we need to invest
in that capability now in order to, again, right the errant
course that we are on.
Mr. Lamborn. Doctor.
Dr. Sisson. So I should also say it is good to be from
Colorado. I grew up in Colorado Springs, and I come from a line
of Colorado natives, in fact, so I am happy that the admiral is
getting a taste of the good life there, too.
Sir, in regards to your question, I understand the interest
in hypersonics and the concern about the CCP's advances in that
area. My perspective is that the priority investment in terms
of technology is less, from the United States perspective,
should be less on those large and very exquisite kinds of
platforms and capabilities. I favor much more strongly the
ability, again, to disperse and be mobile and the AI-enabled
technologies that support those kinds of missions.
This is not to say we shouldn't be continuing to invest in
and learn from research into hypersonics and the development
thereof. It is just not, to my mind, the first priority.
Mr. Lamborn. Let me shift gears to China's breakout in
nuclear forces. A former STRATCOM [U.S. Strategic Command]
commander, Admiral Richard, called it breathtaking, and I
agree. And, Chairman Rogers, you referred to this also, the
number of launchers that they have is now at or higher than the
amount that the U.S. has. And I think they are also watching
what is happening in Ukraine where Putin, to some degree of
success, is having his threats of nuclear--of the use of
nuclear weapons have an effect on some of the players there.
How do you assess that China's nuclear build-up fits into
its strategy to attain what they call national rejuvenation?
And this is for both of you. Thank you.
Admiral Harris. So I believe that their nuclear force
breakout, if you will, is part and parcel of what they believe
their overall intent is. You know, they want to overcome this
100 years of humiliation piece and their dream of national
rejuvenation by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the modern PRC,
will be enhanced by their nuclear capability.
Twenty twenty-seven, the Davidson window, if you will, that
is the 100th year of the PLA, the People's Liberation Army, so
that is another important milestone. And it behooves us to
modernize our nuclear arsenal, as well, so that we keep up. We
never want to create a situation whereby China or any other
country can envision a successful first strike.
Mr. Lamborn. Doctor.
Dr. Sisson. Thank you, Representative. I think the admiral
is correct that there is a status element involved in the
expansion of the PRC's nuclear capabilities. I think it is also
a response to their perceptions of a more threatening
international environment. I also agree with the admiral that
we need to be attentive to modernization of our triad and, yet,
we can be confident that we still retain vast stocks far in
excess of what the CCP's ambitions suggest that they will be
able to achieve in the near term.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
New Jersey, Mr. Norcross, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman. As we are witnessing the
invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we hear a tremendous amount of
talk about red lines on both sides. The one thing that we
certainly continue to have is that top-level discussion and
understanding of where those red lines are and what can happen
in the event that there is a breach before we go out to a more
wider war.
Let's look at China right now. You have each talked about
the breakout times, 2025, 2027, but the heightened awareness of
what is taking place in that area of our globe. How do we avoid
miscalculation at this point when our relations are not the
same with China? Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. Thank you, Representative, for your concern in
miscalculation. I think it is one of the most serious risks in
our relationship with China right now, as evidenced by, in
fact, the spy balloon incident recently. I think that the way
that we can minimize those risks is to engage in as many high-
level conversations with the government of the PRC as we can. I
think it is a shame that Secretary Blinken's trip was canceled
because we need those high-level contacts. It would have been
an opportunity to discuss crisis management, for example, in
addition to being able to press the CCP on their other such
problematic behaviors worldwide.
Mr. Norcross. Admiral Harris, you've been----
Admiral Harris. I'll just add a little bit to what Dr.
Sisson has said and emphasize that diplomats and diplomacy
matter in the 21st century. It is a shame that the Secretary of
State's visit was canceled or postponed. It is indicative of
China's tone deaf behavior that, even on the eve of his visit,
they would have this balloon travel across the United States.
They claimed that it was--it's a weather balloon that went off
course, yet they didn't tell us that it was going off course
until we discovered it. So, I mean, it just--again, it beggars
the imagination what they are saying over there.
So I do think that diplomacy matters. At the height of the
Cold War, we should never forget that we maintained diplomatic
relations with the Soviet Union even in those dark days of the
1960s and 1970s. So I hope that we get back on some diplomatic
footing with the PRC. It is important to both countries that we
do so.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Virginia, Mr. Wittman, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our
witnesses for joining us today. As we watched this past
weekend, we really shouldn't be shocked that the CCP had taken
the brazen effort to fly a spy balloon over the United States.
We've seen behavior by the CCP, purchase of agricultural lands,
purchase of strategic lands around military bases. We look,
too, at their recruiting of intellectual capacity from the
United States to China. We see, too, the incredible importation
of illicit fentanyl here to the United States and the havoc
that it has wreaked on our communities.
This committee understands very clearly both the near-,
medium-, and long-term effects of Chinese aggression.
The challenge for us is to figure out what do we do in a
timely way that matches the capability and capacity that China
is building right now. I believe that our force structure, as
we have it today, is misaligned to the challenges that are not
only in front of us but that are emerging from China.
Admiral Harris, I wanted to get your thought on critical
weapon systems for the United States. In your experience in the
Indo-Pacific AOR [area of responsibility] and your
understanding of Beijing's strategic intent, you said in your
opening statement you have seen things morphed in the past 5
years to a much, much more aggressive stance and an increased
capability. Do you think the Department of Defense in their
planning and budgeting is doing so in such a way that addresses
the near-term threat from Beijing?
Admiral Harris. Thanks, Congressman. I think so, to the
degree that we all have to realize that, you know, the ships
that we are building today, for example, are going to be around
for 30 or 40 years. You know, the ships and the airplanes and
the tanks and whatever that we use to fight the PRC have been
extant now for a decade or longer, so these things take time to
build and they take time to field and to train for it.
So we have the military that we have that we are going to
use to defend America against the PRC or any other threat. We
have it. Whether it could have been better, whether different
ships could have been built, or whatever, it is what it is, and
that is the force that we have.
That said, I am pleased with some of the improvements that
I've read about. Shipbuilding in the Navy, for example, with
the new frigates that are coming online, the new aircraft
carriers that are coming online, and all of that. It takes a
long time, and, for some reason, I couldn't understand it when
I was in uniform either. It seems to take longer than it should
to develop and field a new weapon system.
I do think that the most important capability that we have
to get right is the nuclear deterrent. That is the first thing.
It is also the most expensive thing.
Mr. Wittman. Admiral Harris, I think you hit the nail on
the head. I think the speed of relevance is critical today. We
cannot take years to develop, whether it is software or
advanced weapon systems, whatever it may be. It has to be
months; and, unfortunately, the history shows us recently that
that is not the case. We see 2 years for the Navy to make a
decision on the next-generation jamming efforts. We see 2 years
to work through the F/A-18Fs production, totaling about 20
jets. You know, those things take much too long. The TR-3
upgrade for our F-35s, again, met with General Brown today,
another delay. You know, we are not in the realm of where we
can survive taking years to do things. It has to be done in
months.
Can you give us your perspective, and you talked a little
bit about it, about pacing on modernization, pacing on
developing and implementing emerging technologies to counter
Beijing and the things that they are doing. I said at the
Reagan National Defense Forum, China starts out with a blank
sheet of paper; our process to do acquisition at the Pentagon
takes an 11 by 17 sheet of paper, and you have to use a
microscope to read the words on it and understand the flow
chart.
Admiral Harris. Well, we follow, and rightly so, you know,
law, regulation, and policy. The PRC is able to insert
themselves in the middle of our acquisition, long acquisition
cycle through theft and cyber espionage. So they get a jump on
us because they are not bound by our laws, regulation, and
policy. I do believe that if we are serious about China, the
entire country needs to--our entire country needs to move
faster, as you said.
Mr. Wittman. Yes. Very good. Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. Just quickly, Representative. I don't worry
about lethality for the U.S. military right now. I worry about
resilience. And so if we are going to accelerate development in
any particular area, that is where I would go first.
Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. [Inaudible.]
Mr. Gallego. Thank you. This first question is actually for
both and just a commentary, if you'd give it to us, in regards
to our diplomatic and strategic relations with some South
Pacific island nations. I led a delegation last year, as
chairman of Intel and Special Operations [Subcommittee], and
some of the things that we heard were, number one, that a lot
of our South Pacific friends did not like the fact that we use
Australia as kind of a proxy for us; and number two, that they
are fearing more and more and feeling more and more Chinese
exertion of power. And also if you could comment, I think it
was Fiji that has really started leaning even further towards
China. Because this is also a, this is a game of space, and the
closer we can get to China the more we can deter them and the
further they can get to us where they can deter us. So I would
love to hear what you guys are thinking or feeling about our
relations down there.
Dr. Sisson. Well, I will begin, Representative, by saying
that I am a strategist who studies deterrence primarily, and so
I am not going to be the most sensitive observer or most
nuanced analyst of the full spectrum of regional dynamics. But
what I will say is it is very clear that the nations in the
region are increasingly uncomfortable with China's behaviors
and that they are looking to the United States and our partners
and allies broadly to help them carve out the space that they
need to do their primary job, which is to take care of the
interests of their countries and their people.
Mr. Gallego. Admiral Harris, as former Ambassador to
Australia, I believe; is that correct?
Admiral Harris. I beg your pardon?
Mr. Gallego. And as former Ambassador to Australia, or is
it just South Korea?
Admiral Harris. No, I wished I was.
Mr. Gallego. Right. I think we nominated you.
Admiral Harris. I was nominated.
Mr. Gallego. Yes, we nominated you, but then we moved you
over. I don't know if you have any----
Admiral Harris. I loved my time in South Korea. And at the
same time, I was disappointed I didn't go to Australia.
Mr. Gallego. Right. So are we. But I don't know if you have
any----
Admiral Harris. Is that diplomatic enough?
Mr. Gallego [continuing]. Any insight into our relations in
the South Pacific.
Admiral Harris. Yes. So where we are in the South Pacific,
I believe, is an outcome of some very bad decisions that we
made in the 1990s or so. For example, we made the decision to
shut down the embassy in the Solomons, and we should not be
surprised in 2023 or 2022 that China moved into that vacuum in
a big way and inked a defense relationship with the Solomons.
You know, I was in Fiji last year, and the American Embassy
in Fiji is responsible for five islands, five independent
countries that the ambassador there is accredited to. That is a
mistake. It is probably a budget-driven mistake that we need to
fix and we are fixing. The U.S. is going to re-stand up our
embassy in the Solomons, and we are going to put at least one
other embassy in that area of five countries that the American
Embassy in Fiji was responsible for.
Separately, but related, we are doing the same thing in
Maldives. Maldives right now is covered by the ambassador and
the embassy in Sri Lanka. We are standing up an independent
separate embassy in the Maldives. We need to do more of this
because, again, I hate to go back to what I keep saying, but
diplomacy and diplomats matter. I came to that realization late
in my life, but I hope to be able to influence----
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Admiral. And I will say, from our
travels, and we went to Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines,
we did hear that we need to exert our diplomatic initiatives
stronger in that area.
Dr. Sisson, on the topic of Taiwan, you write that you want
to encourage the government of Taiwan to adopt a defensive
concept that forces the PLA to suboptimal strategies. Could you
describe in greater detail that defense concept you have in
mind?
Dr. Sisson. I will give you as much detail as I can but
caveat it by saying that it is a big question, and I would be
happy to engage with you and your staff after we're done on
more specifics if you want. But the basics are actually not,
you know, they are not rocket surgery, right. I mean, they are
things that would make it more difficult for the PLA to get its
ships close to the island. There is advantages of the terrain
on the island that Taiwan could certainly work with. There is
long shorelines that you can take advantage of with particular
kinds of munitions, and fast-attack ships, for example. So
those are the sort of pointy edge of the immediate kinds of
response.
But, again, you know, the defense concept really has to
have at its core the resilience of the Taiwan people, which is
something that they are clearly aware of and, unfortunately and
painfully even more so given the events in Ukraine. So those
are the combination of the kinds of elements we would want to
see in a strategy for Taiwan's defense.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman. The chairman now recognizes the gentleman
from Tennessee, Dr. DesJarlais.
Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Chairman. My question is for
Admiral Harris. Admiral, all of us on this committee have faced
questions from our constituents about the degree of U.S.
involvement in Ukraine. Some of the individuals point out our
own depleting stockpiles and the nearly $20 billion backlog in
arm sales to Taiwan. Many conclude that we just don't have the
present capacity to maintain the level of assistance to Ukraine
that we currently are seeing while remaining ready and able to
deter the Chinese threat.
In your view, is this a binary choice between helping
Ukraine now and preparing for Taiwan for a looming conflict
with China later, or do you think we can adequately address
both at the same time?
Admiral Harris. Thanks, Congressman. My relatives in
Tennessee where I grew up have asked me that same question. I
believe that we can do both. We can walk and chew gum at the
same time. We are hamstrung by what we can do with Taiwan by
policy, not by law, not by the Constitution, but by policy. And
I think we can and should do more with them.
That said, Ukraine is the wolf closest to the sled, and we
have to deal with Ukraine today. I believe that we are doing a
lot with Ukraine, but I think there's more juice in that
orange, if you will. You know, we have given them Stingers and
Javelins and HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System] and
helicopters, and soon we are going to give them VAMPIRE
[Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment]
anti-drone systems, Patriots, and Abrams tanks, and that's what
they need.
If we don't help Ukraine fight Russia today, then are we
going to be asked to help Moldova when Russia attacks Moldova
or Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan or any of the other countries
that are on the periphery of the former Soviet Union. The
Baltics, too, but that is a different nut to crack because the
Baltics are a part of NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization]
now.
So I do believe that we need to do as much as we can for
Ukraine, and we have the capacity to help Taiwan at the same
time. So it is not binary, but we have to overcome policy on
the Taiwan front and not so much on the Ukraine front.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. Understand that. What role does
Congress have in helping alleviate these concerns? Are there
certain initiatives that you would like to see us undertake to
support the industrial base and the warfighter and to help get
us out of the hole that we are in right now?
Admiral Harris. Sure. I think the biggest thing is to pass
a budget. I mean, the lack of a budget hamstrings industry and
prohibits the Department from doing adequate long-range
planning. That is one thing.
We talked before about export controls with regard to
Australia. If we don't get the export controls right, then it
doesn't matter how much good intent there is in getting them a
nuclear submarine capability. The export controls will bite us
right in the--well, I won't say where it is going to bite us,
but it is going to bite us right there if we don't get that
right.
With regard to Taiwan, I have mentioned some of the things
already. A free trade agreement helps Taiwan in an economic
sense probably more than it helps us. But what it does do, it
creates this sense that we are willing to engage in a free
trade agreement with Taiwan and other countries might also be
encouraged to pile on to that, which helps them in a big way.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. I want to try to get in one other
question because you brought up the other countries that are
threatened by Russia, and you know, it ties into Taiwan, as
well. I just kind of wanted to get your opinion on your
thoughts on the deterrence strategy that was adopted by the
current administration in the lead-up to the invasion of
Ukraine. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was here last
week, and he reminded us, one of the biggest reasons not to let
Ukraine join NATO was that Putin might invade Ukraine, and we
saw how that worked out.
So if we are going to keep these type of things from
happening in the future, Taiwan, you know, what happened to
Ukraine, what could happen to other countries if we don't stand
strong right now, what is your opinion on how we can do better
next time?
Admiral Harris. So I have talked about it in other venues.
I think this issue of strategic clarity versus strategic
ambiguity is critical, and we have been well served, I will be
the first to say that, by the policy of strategic ambiguity
with Taiwan over the past 44 years. But I think the time for
ambiguity is over. I think we have to be as clear about our
intent with regard to what would happen if the PRC invades
Taiwan, as the PRC is clear in its intent that it is ultimately
going to seize Taiwan if need be.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time is expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Moulton.
Mr. Moulton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you very much, both of you, for joining us today. Ukraine is
winning the war that Russia started by invading their country
illegally, in part because we have assembled a remarkable
coalition of allies, the best we have seen since World War II.
We have provided them with extraordinary weapons and
capabilities, and, of course, the Ukrainian fighting spirit is
something that the world is admiring.
The problem is that all three of those factors have come to
the forefront after Putin invaded. And so we have to admit
that, for everything that is going well in Ukraine, deterrence
failed. And I certainly agree with the chairman and ranking
member that we cannot let deterrence fail in the Pacific.
So can you talk to me about how our preparations to be more
resilient in the face of Chinese aggression are actually
translating into deterrence? How are we showing China that
these exquisite capabilities we are developing, often very much
behind the scenes, are going to severely impact their ability
to conduct a successful war.
Dr. Sisson. You raise the important point about
preparations and also the important point about signaling and
what it is that we convey and demonstrate to the CCP and how
that affects their perceptions of our intentions and,
therefore, are or are not deterred.
I would start by pointing out that, when we think about a
strategy of deterrence, we have to begin from the presumption
of failure. We have to accept that failure is likely to some
greater or lesser extent; and, therefore, we have to design our
strategies of deterrence with two things in mind. The first is
when the strategy fails, what position does it leave the United
States in; and the second is are there things that we can do to
decrease the likelihood of that failure.
In regard to Taiwan, the fundamentals of both of those
things right now are still sound. Adding capabilities, whether
behind the scenes or in full public view of the CCP
fundamentally won't change the nature of the dynamic where it
is clear that we are not giving Beijing a free pass and we are
also not giving Taipei a blank check. And so I am not concerned
that we need to demonstrate capability at this point in any
greater extent than we have. What we need to do is convey
cohesion, we need to convey confidence that we understand what
is happening in the strait, and we need to exude calm and
confidence in the role that we have in preserving peace and
stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Mr. Moulton. Ambassador Harris.
Admiral Harris. Yes, I will associate myself with
everything that Dr. Sisson said. I will also add to it that the
PRC is a learning machine. Xi Jinping, if nothing else, is
watching and learning about what is happening in Ukraine. And I
think he has got to be wondering if his army, which is trained
in the Soviet model, is as bad as Russia's army appears to be,
if his Navy is as weak as the Black Sea fleet appears to be.
And I will just add, you know, if he had gone to my alma mater,
he would have known that lesson one is don't lose your
flagship. So he has got to be thinking about that, and he has
got to be thinking if his generals are as bad as the Russian
generals are wanted to be.
Mr. Moulton. Thank you very much. Let me get a second
question here. There is increasing evidence that China is
facing a demographic and economic cliff in the coming years. If
that is true, does it make it more or less likely that Xi
Jinping does something rash and aggressive?
Dr. Sisson. I, unfortunately don't have a great answer to
that. I have been studying the behavior of my husband for 20
years, I'm the world's foremost expert, and I still get it
wrong 30 percent of the time. I think that you're right to
identify that the CCP is sensitive to conditions, that this is
not an inevitability because they are aware of the environment
in which they operate, the resources that are at their
disposal. And so we will have to pay close attention to all
those conditions and go to the experts in the intelligence
community for their assessment of how Xi is interpreting them.
Admiral Harris. Yes. I think the only answer to that
question is in hindsight because there are lots of folks that
will weigh in on either side of that. So we are going to have
to just prepare to fight tonight, to use something I said
before.
The PRC is also facing a demographic cliff. You know, just
this year, they have been surpassed by India as the world's
most populace country. And so that is another driver behind
some people who would say that the likelihood that China will
attack Taiwan is sooner rather than later.
Mr. Moulton. Well, there are a lot of differences between
Russia and China, but it seems like there could be a
frightening analogy here or a comparison, or a parallel,
rather, between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes
the gentleman from Nebraska, General Bacon, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can't think of a more
important topic for our first hearing, so I appreciate the
focus. It seems to me that deterrence in Taiwan should be one
of our top national security priorities because day one of the
war it is too late. And I hear a lot of talk from the
administration. I don't know that I see the action, you know,
that is equating to the talk that we have. We have a huge
backlog of weapons that I read about. It seems to me they
should be getting Harpoons, long-range air defense, anti-
shipping mines, and so forth.
So my question to both of our great panelists, and thank
you for being here today, are we seeing the right sense of
urgency from this administration when it comes to Taiwan?
Admiral Harris, you first, please.
Admiral Harris. Yes. I don't want to get in the business of
discussing this administration's view as opposed to the last
administration's or any others. I will just observe that, over
the course of the last 20 or 30 years, we have not done enough
for Taiwan writ large across all administrations. We have not
done enough, given the threats that Taiwan faces and given the
fact that we have put Taiwan in this place.
We are seeing the PRC systematically attack Taiwan's
foreign relations such that their list of countries that
recognize them is dwindling. Of course, we led that way in the
1970s. But I think we have the right sight picture on Taiwan
now. I think we have had that now for sure from the previous
administration and into this administration, as I mentioned in
my remarks, Secretary Blinken and his view and Secretary Austin
and his view.
There is still far more that we could with Taiwan, and most
of it is tied up not in law where you all are behind but in
policy. And I think it is those policy things that, if we could
get through those, then we would be in a better place and
Taiwan would be in a much better place to defend itself. I
mean, isn't that what we really want? We want them to fight and
die for their country, not us to fight and die for their
country.
Mr. Bacon. I will give Dr. Sisson a chance. I just want to
say we have billions and billions of dollars in backlog
weapons, and there is a lot of these policy discussions but the
actions are not going on that we need to see. Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. I think we do need to move with seriousness but
not in a way that is overreactive. We don't want to heighten
tensions by overmilitarizing the way in which that we engage
with Taiwan right now. I think the admiral is correct to point
out that there are any number of important other ways that we
can support Taiwan in the international system that are very
important to deterrence.
Mr. Bacon. Okay. Thank you. I heard the same thing from the
administration when it came to Ukraine, though. They didn't
want to provoke Russia. So I would rather move with expediency
to give Taiwan what they need to defend themselves.
And my second question is, I think we need a more holistic
policy when it comes to China. There is a lot of different
aspects to our policy, you know, whether it is predatory trade,
the theft of our technology, the genocide with the Uyghurs, the
denial of democracy in Hong Kong, the threat to Taiwan, the
buying of access in our institutions in America. We need a
comprehensive policy that looks at all of this.
Is it your view that we right now have a comprehensive
policy with China? Admiral Harris.
Admiral Harris. Yes, thanks. I don't think we have that
comprehensive policy, but I think we are much further along now
in 2023 than we have ever been. I used to talk about, during
the Cold War with the Soviet Union, almost every branch of the
U.S. Government understood that the Soviet Union was the
threat. You know, I used to joke even a park ranger, Smokey the
Bear, would tell you that the Soviets were the bad guys. We
didn't have that comprehensive unified view of the PRC. You
know, the State Department looked at it as a negotiation; DOD
looked at it as a military operation; Commerce looked at it as
a trading partner; and Treasury looked at it as a lender. So we
didn't have this unified view across the government, but I
think now we are getting to that unified view and I think the
Congress has a lot to do, has done a lot, rather, to get us in
that position.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Admiral. And with the 35 seconds
left, I will turn the rest of the time to Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. Thank you. Yes, I will use it briefly to
wholeheartedly agree with what the admiral has said and point
out also that, in addition to the external levers and
mechanisms of addressing the strategic activities of the CCP,
we also are seeing much more progress looking internally and
the things that we need to do domestically to position the
United States to be able to use all of its sources of national
power. So I think we are not all the way there, but the
direction of travel is good.
Mr. Bacon. My thanks to you both. I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Carbajal, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Sisson and Admiral
Harris. Last year, the State Council Information Office of the
People's Republic of China published a white paper entitled
``China's Space Program: A 2021 Perspective'' outlining it's 5-
year space strategy. The report stated the space industry is a
critical element of the overall national strategy. The PRC is
expanding its investment in space technology and launch
capabilities.
Here at home, the United States continues to stand up our
Space Force and increase our investment in space-based
capabilities. As we rely more on the space domain, what PRC
space capabilities do you perceive as the most advanced
compared to U.S. Space Force's, and is there a platform or
technology in the space domain that the United States should be
more focused on as we further analyze what the PRC plans to
invest in?
Dr. Sisson. Those are all very important questions,
Representative, and I can only report with sadness that I am
not actually a rocket scientist. I do know some and would be
happy to follow up.
Broadly speaking, what I would say is that, when we think
about the space domain, we have to think about resilience and
we have to think about defending those systems of not just
obvious physical attacks but incursions through cyber domains.
Mr. Carbajal. Admiral.
Admiral Harris. Yes. Thanks for the question. I will note
that, when I was in uniform, I did not support the idea of a
separate space service. But since then, I have come to realize
that without a separate space service we will not do what needs
to be done to maintain our supremacy in space. We are
challenged in space by the Russians and the Chinese, and we
need to up our game, if you will. And I think the Space Force
is critical to that, and I am a believer in it completely.
One of the things that I hope that we wean ourselves from
is our reliance on Soviet rockets, or Russian rockets--sorry, a
little Cold War slipping out there--a little on Russian rockets
for our manned space programs. So I am looking forward to
seeing our own rockets sending American women and men to the
moon and beyond.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you. My colleague, House Republicans,
have started this Congress very focused on China and strategic
competition with the CCP. This committee understandably focuses
on the People's Liberation Army, but I think we are missing a
part of this conversation and the strategic competition
conversation broadly.
To truly compete with China, we must invest in ourselves
and in our people to boost the economy and our American talent.
Even in former President Trump's National Security Strategy,
one of the main components is ``promoting American prosperity''
and explicitly noting the United States must preserve our lead
in research and technology. How should we do that? I would
argue that we must invest in the American people to ensure they
have access to affordable higher education and have a welcoming
society that attracts foreign talent to American companies.
It also requires investment in American high-tech
manufacturing and ending resilience on China, like what the
CHIPS [Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors]
and Science Act does, which only received, if I must point out,
24 votes from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We
must invest in domestic programs to improve our strategic
competition on the global stage. It is not just about
purchasing more weapons.
Dr. Sisson, what is your experience in writing about
artificial intelligence and machine learning? How important is
having an educated qualified workforce to conduct the research
of this emerging technology?
Dr. Sisson. Well, none of those things can happen, we can't
have emerging technology without a trained workforce invested
in the mission and interested in undertaking the work. I think
your emphasis on artificial intelligence is particularly apt
when we think about the strategic competition with China. There
certainly are and will continue to be military applications of
artificial intelligence in the defense enterprise.
Really, when I think about the competition over artificial
intelligence, it is beyond that. It is about a competition to
see where the discoveries that help human health, wealth, and
well-being worldwide happen and how they get distributed. And I
very much would like to see the where be here and how be based
on our values and principles and not those of the CCP. All of
that will require, as you know, concerted investment in the
sources of human talent that are the ones that innovate those
technologies in the first place.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you. I'm out of time. I yield back, Mr.
Chair.
Mr. Scott [presiding]. The Chair recognizes Mr. Gaetz for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gaetz. Admiral Harris, it is great to have you back
before the committee. Few people know China's capabilities like
you do. When you saw this balloon traversing the continent of
North America, what concerned you most?
Admiral Harris. Yes. Thanks, Congressman. Good to see you
again. Well, I mean, the most concern was what was it doing and
what information is it getting and is it itself dangerous. I
mean, we don't know. I mean, General VanHerck talked about the
possibility that there were explosives on the balloon and all
of that. General Hertling talked about whether the balloon was
sent up as a ploy to see what we would do. And I think that
your comments about it, in the media at least, were some of the
best that I read, and that is does it give--would shooting it
down give China a sort of pretext for them to do the same
thing. We just don't know at the time that it happened.
Fortunately, we had time because, I mean, let's face it,
it's a balloon, so we had time to think about it, to consider
it, to weigh it, and I think, most importantly, perhaps not
most importantly but certainly importantly, it gave China a
chance to address the issue diplomatically, which they failed
to do, to no surprise.
So, ultimately, the decision was made to shoot it down and
did so in a way that was safe for people and property and in a
way that we could collect the information. It is only in 47
feet of water.
Mr. Gaetz. In our limited time, let's bifurcate that: the
danger and then the transmission of information. We have the
capability to block the transmission of information from the
balloon back to China, don't we?
Admiral Harris. We do.
Mr. Gaetz. And in this type of an environment, do you think
it is probably likely that we did that?
Admiral Harris. I would only guess, but I think General
VanHerck said that----
Mr. Gaetz. Well, you can't see any reason why we wouldn't
do that.
Admiral Harris. Right.
Mr. Gaetz. And when it comes to the danger that the balloon
poses, are you aware of capability with this type of a balloon
system to berth sensors or drones or other hardware or assets?
Admiral Harris. I am not, but that is why it is so
important to try to collect up all the pieces of this thing to
understand. I mean, this thing is huge, right? The balloon
itself is bigger than this room. It is 3,000 or 4,000 pounds of
equipment, a couple of buses, I think, is what has been said.
Mr. Gaetz. Yes. I just wonder, like, why would the Chinese
use this balloon rather than a satellite system for
surveillance, and one thing that, presumably, a satellite could
not do would be berth other sensors or drones. And just so that
it gives Americans comfort, your testimony here is, during your
time in command, you never were aware of or briefed on a
capability that the Chinese had to use a balloon system like
that for that type of a proliferation of other hardware or
assets?
Admiral Harris. That's correct. And, again, that is why it
is so important to collect as much of the balloon pieces that
we can to understand exactly what we are dealing with.
Mr. Gaetz. And while----
Admiral Harris. It could very well be also that, maybe, it
is just me speculating here because I am under pressure and I
am liable to blurt out the truth, you know, it could very well
be that maybe we have overestimated the capability of Chinese
satellites in low-Earth orbit.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, and you have shared with me that we have
the capability to block any transmission of information from
the balloon. And while you weren't in the situation room while
this decision was being made, as you join us today, you can't
assess a circumstance in which we would have ever allowed
information to be----
Admiral Harris. Right. I would think----
Mr. Gaetz. It sorts of begs the question was this a big
PSYOP [psychological operation]? Was this an effort by China to
see how we would react to something like this that might not
have had the danger that we spoke of because you are not aware
of that capability and then also didn't have an intelligence
collection function, and so, you know, to others, it may have
been an effort to try to see how we would react, how we
wouldn't react, and then to try to use that to inform their
decision making.
In my limited time I have left with the admiral, in the
broadest sense, if we had $100 billion to dedicate to the China
scenario, in which domain would that be the smartest
investment?
Admiral Harris. It would not be in counter-balloon warfare.
Mr. Gaetz. I would agree. Would it be space, would it be
cyber, or electronic warfare?
Admiral Harris. I think it would be cyber. I think it would
be cyber and space.
Mr. Gaetz. And what dividends--if we made a $100 billion
investment in cyber, what could the American people expect
regarding the enhancement to their safety?
Admiral Harris. I think we could be assured then that we
wouldn't have intrusions, intentional or otherwise, from any
number of actors, including Chinese.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, assured of no intrusions from the Chinese
sounds to me like a lot better than sending $100 billion to
Ukraine, but that will be something we will assess as a team.
Thank you so much. Yield back.
Mr. Scott. The Chair recognizes Mr. Keating.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Russia's illegal war
with Ukraine has had enormous worldwide ramifications. In the
shorter term, there has been some economic benefit to China in
that regard, given their relationship. One example is the two
permanent bridges they built between the borders of China and
Russia to facilitate trade, and they have estimated that is, in
1 year, an increase over the last of $190 billion there. China
has also given information that their trade has increased 30
percent with Russia during this period.
So in the short run, but, in the longer run, I think this
illegal war presents difficulties to China in terms of their
economic strength and their overall plans. Can you comment on,
you know, short-run and long-run ramifications of this war and
what the U.S. can do to drive a wedge or to fill a vacuum that
might be there in this time, and, importantly, how the U.S.-led
coalition shapes China's decision not just militarily but
economically and----
Admiral Harris. Yes. I will start, and I will yield to Dr.
Sisson. I think that Xi Jinping is no fool and he is watching
this closely, and it throws a monkeywrench into his grand
plans. So he is supportive of Russia, but I don't think he is
all in on Russia.
The coalition that you spoke about is key, and I believe
that more and more countries who are on the fence regarding
their relations with China and with Russia are seeing the
reality of what Russia is all about in Ukraine, and that is
forcing them to evaluate how they see their relationships with
China. You know, are they going to fall in that same trap as
being invaded by China at some point in the future. Are they
going to yield their own sovereignty like Sri Lanka has done to
Hambantota Port and others. You know, are they subject to debt
diplomacy, the weaponization of debt, that the PRC has
committed against any number of countries.
Mr. Keating. Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. Yes. I think that your question comes with the
right perspective built in, which is, certainly, the CCP is
going to take advantage of short-term opportunities as it can.
I also will say that they probably didn't expect a need to do
so, that this, I don't think, as the admiral said, was in their
grand plans or something that they preferred to have happen.
Now that it has, they have learned. They are taking advantage
of these near-term opportunities, but they are not seeking any
longer term entanglements, at least as far as I can see, and I
would expect that to continue for the duration.
I would also note that my understanding is that Xi has
communicated to Putin that he ought not consider the use of any
kind of nuclear detonation, which is among the most important
things that I can possibly think of for the CCP to have done in
regards to the conflict in Ukraine.
Mr. Keating. I couldn't agree more. I think that Xi has
made his point clear not to go beyond certain red lines. And
without China there as an ally, that is going to have a huge
and harmful effect on Russia going forward. So I do think China
plays a critical role there, not by any motivations that aren't
self-serving.
But I would like to touch base, too, that coalition, as we
think of the west, is always there. But we are seeing
economically that extend to the Pacific, as well, Indo-Pacific,
as well. So this has really, I think, facilitated relationships
with a coalition of countries that really wasn't there before.
Would you like to speak to that, either one?
Admiral Harris. Sure. I think that there are a lot of
countries that are coming together because of Ukraine and
separately but related because of Chinese bad behavior. So we
see the AUKUS, which is a formal defense arrangement. We see
the Quad, which is an informal arrangement of like-minded
democracies.
Mr. Keating. And we also see international friendshore
supply chains being established that weren't there. What you
said, Admiral, the importance of export control.
Admiral Harris. Yes. And I have talked about other
countries joining the Quad, you know. The Big 10 has 14 teams,
the Big 12 has 10 teams. Nothing that says the Quad has to have
only four teams. So, you know, I think we should be open to
that possibility.
Mr. Keating. Yes. I think Russia's aggression is not only
hurting Russia, I think it is hurting China, as well. And I
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Gallagher, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you. Thanks to our witnesses. Admiral
Harris, good to see you again. I think the last time was in
Singapore. You were wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and you reminded
me that Marine was an acronym suggesting we ride in Navy
equipment. I won't use the precise words you used because it is
not appropriate for the hearing, but I appreciate that.
In recent years, we have heard a slew of timetables from
high-level officials about a prospective PLA invasion of Taiwan
in 2027, 2025, 2024. Regardless of which timetable you
subscribe to, do you agree that there is an increased threat of
a PLA invasion of Taiwan within the decade?
Admiral Harris. Yes. And what I used to say when I was in
uniform was the decade of danger is the 2020s, but I wouldn't
nail down a specific year. Though I would also say, when
Admiral Davidson said that 2027 was his year, that he was privy
to a lot more intelligence at the time he said it than I was.
And so for whatever intelligence drove him to make that call,
we should pay attention to it. There is something out there
that caused him to say that 2027 was the year.
Mr. Gallagher. Is your sense that the balance of power has
eroded against us since you left that post?
Admiral Harris. I think China's power has increased since
2018.
Mr. Gallagher. And then looking at the war in Ukraine, it
seems to me there are two primary stories coming out of it.
First, there is the failure of deterrence on February 24th,
and, second, there is the success of the Ukrainian military in
resisting Russian aggression. What lessons, if any, for Taiwan
do you take from both of those, the initial failure of
deterrence and then, subsequently, our security cooperation and
training and equipping missions with the Ukrainians before and
during the war.
Admiral Harris. So we got it wrong with Ukraine in terms of
intelligence because we thought that the Ukraine, at least what
I read, you know, how would I know, but we thought that Ukraine
would fall. So we got that wrong. We got it wrong with
Afghanistan, and we estimated intelligence-wise that the Afghan
National Army would last longer and that the Taliban could not
possibly take over their country in the short amount of time
that it did. So we got that wrong.
So I am worried about our ability to do strategic
intelligence. I think tactical intelligence we are unrivaled.
But strategic intelligence, if we get it wrong with Ukraine, if
we get it wrong with Afghanistan, then are we going to get it
wrong about Taiwan and other countries? So that is an issue.
As I said, I was in Taiwan. I left Taiwan with a sense that
the people of Taiwan, the Taiwanese, are resilient, understand
the threat, and understand what they have to do to meet that
threat. So I was pleased and optimistic when I left.
Mr. Gallagher. If our goal is to deter the threat, deter
war, how important in your mind is it to arm Taiwan to the
teeth prior to shooting starting?
Admiral Harris. I think it is critical. I mean, you know,
that goes back to what I said before about strategic clarity.
Now, there is an argument that says if we are clear, then that
could precipitate an attack, just like the other issues we
talked about here before. I am of the other opinion, that if we
are ambiguous, that might encourage an attack because Xi
Jinping has been clear from day one that he is going to take
Taiwan peacefully, hopefully, but by force if necessary.
Mr. Gallagher. Well, I appreciate that. And I would note
that clarifying strategic ambiguity has bipartisan support on
this committee. It is not widespread, it is not uniformly
shared, but I am hoping it is something we continue to discuss
over the next 2 years on this committee, on the Select
Committee on China, as well.
Quickly, I remember, I don't know if it was testimony or a
think tank speech you had given about when the INF
[Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty was still in force
and pointing out that China was not bound by it. And I think
that laid the intellectual groundwork for us getting out of the
INF Treaty. I think we have a massive opportunity to field INF
noncompliance systems that we are not taking advantage of. Do
you see AUKUS as a vehicle for doing that? Is ITAR
[International Traffic in Arms Regulations] still a barrier to
working with the Aussies in terms of fielding longer range
intermediate ground-launch missile systems?
Admiral Harris. So ITAR is a barrier to realizing the full
potential of AUKUS, as we talked about before. I don't see the
direct correlation between AUKUS and INF. I was a complete
supporter of getting out of INF because it was self-limiting.
Russia wasn't abiding by it, and China is not a signatory to
it, so I was in favor of pulling out of it. But we haven't
realized the benefits of pulling out of it, as you just stated.
Mr. Gallagher. I'm out of time.
The Chairman. Thank the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes
the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Kim, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kim. Yes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for both
of you coming here. Admiral Harris, I wanted to start with you.
You mentioned this now several times, this concept of strategic
clarity. So I guess I just wanted to kind of pull the thread on
this and get a sense of what you are thinking here. Are you
thinking about this as some type of standing AUMF
[Authorization for Use of Military Force] that would go into
effect if--in the case that China were to move on Taiwan?
Admiral Harris. No, I am thinking of it as a policy. Right
now, our policy is strategic ambiguity. Will we define Taiwan
if China attacks? I don't know. I mean, that is what strategic
ambiguity is. So it keeps the option, I guess, open. I think it
is too late for that now. I think we need to move to a position
of strategic clarity, and I think that----
Mr. Kim. So you are saying there wouldn't be a standing
AUMF. Would it be some type of treaty or security guarantee to
Taiwan?
Admiral Harris. No. Well, it would be a security guarantee
in terms of a policy. It is policy is what I am talking about.
And I think it is important for----
Mr. Kim. Well, I guess I am asking here, you know, is that
something that you think the Executive can set on its own or--
--
Admiral Harris. Yes.
Mr. Kim [continuing]. Or would you seek congressional, some
type of congressional approval on this?
Admiral Harris. I am neither in the Executive or in the
House. The Executive can set policy on the Executive's own
but----
Mr. Kim. I am just trying to contain the magnitude of what
you are asking for here. What you are asking for is a policy
that would bind the United States to military conflict?
Admiral Harris. Yes.
Mr. Kim. Setting a red line by the executive branch without
the Congress weighing in on whether or not that is actually a
policy that we would seek for the American people; is that
correct?
Admiral Harris. No, no. I am saying it is a policy change.
We have a policy of strategic ambiguity, which the Congress
hasn't weighed in on that one either. It is driven----
Mr. Kim. That is because they are not asking for a binding
element to be able to bind us to war.
Admiral Harris. It is a policy change, Congressman. And I
believe that there are three constituents that need to
understand a policy of strategic clarity. One is the Taiwanese
so they know. So if they know that, for example, that we are
not going to go in, then they can then make the decision to
either defend themselves or to capitulate to China. The Chinese
ought to know, so they understand full well the costs of what
will happen if they invade Taiwan. But most importantly, the
American people need to know because it is your sons and
daughters that are going to do the fighting and die, and you
have the----
Mr. Kim. Well, that is why I think that it is important
that they have a say in this and that it is not just set by the
executive branch.
Admiral Harris. Well, I think they ought to know going in.
Mr. Kim. But one question here. So I get it about the
strategic clarity when it comes to sending a message to China.
Are you also calling for strategic clarity in terms of Taiwan--
--
Admiral Harris. Yes.
Mr. Kim [continuing]. For instance, saying that we would
never support unilateral----
Admiral Harris. Yes.
Mr. Kim [continuing]. Independence of Taiwan?
Admiral Harris. Yes. I mean, strategic clarity goes both
ways. We should ensure that we are clear with Taiwan with
regard to the question of independence and with regard to the
question of defending themselves so they are not a free rider
on our statement of clarity with regard----
Mr. Kim. So if they were to pursue, if Taiwan were to
pursue formal independence, they would know that we would not
be supportive of them----
Admiral Harris. That could very well be part of strategic
clarity.
Mr. Kim. Let's play this out. Let's say, I thought Dr.
Sisson kind of had a really interesting framework of this in
saying that we should be assessing different frameworks of
deterrence from that presumption of failure, you know, the idea
that it could come apart. So let's presume that this falls
apart. China is moving forward on Taiwan. Then we would have to
come to Congress for an AUMF at that point; is that what you
are asking for?
Admiral Harris. Yes.
Mr. Kim. Okay. So, honestly, it is not necessarily an
automatic effort. It does not necessarily actually have the
kind of clarity that is guaranteed in that way; is that
correct?
Admiral Harris. Right, right. I mean, there is no law. I
mean, the only law that we have to guide us is the Taiwan
Relations Act, which says that we would support a peaceful
resolution across the strait but we would oppose a forcible
resolution.
Mr. Kim. Well, I just want to just point out here that I do
want us to be very careful about what kind of red lines an
executive branch can draw, especially when it is something that
brings the full force of the United States military potentially
into action and something that is, you know, this is something
that I think all of us would agree is the most sacred and
important duty that this body can be engaged in, and we are
here to represent that voice of the American people. And I will
be honest with you. When I talk to people in my district about
China, about Taiwan, they are not tracking at all what
conversations are often happening in this chamber.
So if we really want to be thinking about this kind of
posture and what kind of changes need to happen, I really urge
us all to engage with the American people, bring them into this
conversation, so we can think about what comes next.
With that, I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Indiana, Mr. Banks, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Banks. Admiral, welcome back. It is great to have you
back in this hearing room. You retired 2018, so you were in
uniform at least for half of the Trump Presidential term. Are
you aware of any balloons that were spotted, at least in the
first couple of years that President Trump was in office?
Admiral Harris. I am not.
Mr. Banks. Okay. Were you surprised by how the Biden
administration responded to the balloon?
Admiral Harris. No.
Mr. Banks. Even in its lack of clarity to the American
people about the early sightings, what it was, as it traversed
our airspace?
Admiral Harris. I was in Taiwan at the time, so I wasn't
tracking it minutely. But I wasn't surprised with the response.
I think it was a good response, to be frank with you. And at
the end of the day, we were able to shoot this thing down with
no risk to Americans and collect the intelligence from it.
Plus, we were able to understand more about what it was doing
up to the point of the shootdown.
Mr. Banks. So you would have advised the President shoot it
down later, not sooner?
Admiral Harris. If I were in uniform, based on the
information that I have now received from the media, I would
have advised the President to wait until it was over water.
Now, if it was a threat to the United States, if it was
collecting information that could not be blocked that
Representative Gaetz and I talked about, then that is a
different issue, you know. If it presented an immediate threat
to the United States, then it needed to be handled at the time
of the threat. But I think this one is interesting because,
again, it gave China a chance to exercise the diplomacy that
China says that it has, but China failed to do that. So we
should not be surprised by that, and I think, at the end of the
day, the reality is that the Chinese were incapable of doing
anything but blaming us for the balloon's demise.
Mr. Banks. The Pentagon seemed to go out of its way to
publicly inform the American people that three balloons were
spotted while President Trump was in office. Were you surprised
by the sort of political nature of the spokesman of the
Pentagon telling us that, well, this happened under President
Trump, so no big deal?
Admiral Harris. No, I don't think he said no big deal. And
he also said that there was another one in the Biden
administration. So I am not surprised by it. I didn't know
about it.
Mr. Banks. It didn't strike you as the Pentagon playing
politics?
Admiral Harris. No. What it did strike me, though, was what
General VanHerck said was, for some reason, he, as the NORAD/
NORTHCOM commander, wasn't aware of it either. So there is a
disconnect there. He called it a domain gap, but there is a
disconnect in our ability of the Defense Department, I guess.
He is NORAD/NORTHCOM commander. There is a disconnect in our
ability to understand these balloons. Henceforth, even more so
the need to collect the balloon and then see the parts of it.
Mr. Banks. Concerning, nonetheless.
Admiral Harris. Concerning for sure.
Mr. Banks. Yes. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death
of Americans my age. Almost all of it is manufactured in China
and pushed over our southern border with the help of the
Mexican drug cartels. What can we do about it?
Admiral Harris. One, I think we need to pressurize China
more and ensure that the world understands that China is behind
the fentanyl crisis, not only in America but elsewhere. And
then there is the enforcement piece at the point of entry into
the United States, which is the Mexico and the cartels and all
of that. But we should never give China a pass on the fact that
they are behind the manufacture of this scourge across America.
Mr. Banks. Do you believe it is a strategy on the part of
the Chinese Communist Party to kill Americans?
Admiral Harris. No. I have never thought of it in that way.
You know, I just never have.
Mr. Banks. It doesn't strike you, though, as curious that
our biggest adversary is responsible for almost all of the
fentanyl that comes in, flows in----
Admiral Harris. I think it is concerning, sure.
Mr. Banks [continuing]. And is obviously a national
security issue.
Admiral Harris. It is a national security issue.
Mr. Banks. Yeah. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Michigan, Ms. Slotkin, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Slotkin. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I
was walking down to this hearing, I got news of an active
shooter in one of my high schools. I had a school shooting in
my district almost exactly a year ago. Luckily, it was a false
alarm, but I find it ironic that, in a conversation where we
are going to be talking about protecting the homeland, this
idea that we are not addressing school shootings in a real way
in this body is at this point insane. But I will leave that.
Admiral Harris, it is good to see you again. And, you know,
the balloon, I think, certainly got people's attention in the
homeland. People who don't think about national security very
often were, I think, fascinated by this balloon coming across
our country and particularly given that it covered a lot of our
country. We don't know if it was for surveillance, if it was
testing our reaction, if it was a mistake. But, certainly, in
the wake of the Chinese government attempting to reset the
relationship, it is hard to not interpret it as something that
was pretty assertive. So can you give us very quickly, you
know, we have speculated about what it was meant, but, if you
were in uniform watching this happen, how would you advise the
President on what to do as a signal, not shooting it down;
we've talked about that, but as a signal of what the Chinese
were trying to develop in the relationship?
Admiral Harris. Yes. I think it--and good to see you again,
too, by the way. Yes. The behavior of the Chinese here is the
real issue. To me, as a former military guy and a poor
diplomat, it is less the when we shot it down than the fact
that the Chinese sent this thing across the United States on
the eve of the Secretary of State's visit to China. I mean,
that is just a huge issue, and it is not when we shot it down.
It is China's fault, and this stuff that the Chinese Foreign
Ministry is putting out, it was an errant weather balloon. I
mean, they must make some pretty crappy balloons because there
was an errant weather balloon over Colombia, South America,
right now also. It must have come from the same batch.
Ms. Slotkin. Yeah. Yeah. But you agree that, again, on the
eve of this summit, that it is a pretty aggressive move for
them to send this balloon, whether it got off course or not,
and the way that they didn't notify us, right? If it was a
simple mistake, you notify other countries when you have
something floating over their airspace. So it is hard to
interpret that as anything other than a pretty assertive move.
I have no beef with the Chinese people, but it is certainly
hard to miss the sort of aggressiveness on this.
Also, on the homeland, I think a way that people have
really understood the threat lately is on supply chain issues,
and I come from a district, we have two auto plants that have
been on again, off again for the past 18 months because we
can't get a 14-cent microchip. Our economic security is
connected to China, whether we like it or not. Representative
Gallagher and I led a task force on defense supply chains to
kind of pick up the rug and see what creepy-crawlies were under
there in terms of dependencies on China by our military, which,
of course, would be beyond ironic. In your time, were you at
all focused or do you have any known dependencies on China that
concern you for our military?
Admiral Harris. For sure. And I was more focused on it
after I retired. I was asked to give a speech at Purdue on
energetics, which is the technical term for the stuff that goes
boom and bullets and weapons and rockets, missiles. And the
majority of the components of energetics comes from China or is
controlled by the Chinese supply chain. That is shocking.
Ms. Slotkin. Yes, that one we heard about, as well, in our
supply chain task force, and, at one point, 90 percent of the
stuff that goes boom in our weapons is sourced to China. And no
one is missing the irony that, God forbid, we ever had to go to
war, that they would control the supply. I think the Defense
Department has tried valiantly to wean us off that, but that is
a concern.
And then, last, Dr. Sisson, it is great to see you. I
think, again, sometimes Taiwan and the struggle over Taiwan or
the debate feels very far away. Can you very briefly explain
particularly what the Taiwan Straits means to the American
public? If traffic through the straits was slowed or stopped,
what does that mean for every person in this room and in my
district?
Dr. Sisson. Absolutely. And, first, let me say good
thoughts and wishes to everyone in Michigan and particularly in
the high school. You know, when you were asking about
dependence, the word that came to my mind was ocean, the fact
that how much transits through the Taiwan Strait and the
dependence of effectively every part of our economy on
shipping. That alone is a frightening amount of dependence. So
if there is a contingency over the Taiwan Strait, I think the
global economy basically comes to a screeching halt.
The Chairman. The gentlelady's time is expired. The Chair
now recognizes another Michigander, General Bergman, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to you
both. I guess I am going to have to work--this is the first
hearing here and I am going to have to work around Mr. Strong's
head right in front of me to see you. So just don't move, Mr.
Strong, and I won't have to move my firing position again.
Mr. Chairman, the CCP has spent time, money, and resources
greatly expanding their capabilities for espionage. We all saw
last week, as we've talked about here unendingly, the spy
balloon carrying thousands of pounds of equipment made its way
across the United States. This was not an anomaly. For years,
the CCP has tried to infiltrate every facet of American life,
including our telecommunications infrastructure.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter for the record a letter
from the Competitive Carriers Association and other trade
associations on the necessity of full funding to rip and
replace untrustworthy equipment from our networks.
The Chairman. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 97.]
Mr. Bergman. Admiral Harris and Dr. Sisson, glad you are
here. Broadband internet access is vital to ensuring the United
States continues to grow technologically, economically, and I
would suggest to you especially educationally. However,
billions of dollars of Chinese equipment and services deemed to
pose a threat to national security remain in place. While
Congress has taken steps to fund the removal of this equipment
from our networks, it will take time to complete.
To the panel, that would be you all, how much of a risk
does Chinese-made telecommunications technology embedded in our
internet infrastructure pose to our national security?
Dr. Sisson. Well, I am not able to put a risk indicator on
it with any kind of confidence. I think it is certainly
something, you are correct, that has received appropriate
scrutiny and should continue to do so, not least because it is
additional evidence that the CCP's primary objective is not to
beat us in war, it is to beat us in everything else, and this
is part of that and we need to be attentive to that strategic
view.
Mr. Bergman. Thank you. Admiral.
Admiral Harris. Yes. I will say, sir, that I think it is a
risk. When I was Ambassador to Korea, we worked with the Korean
government to have them not include Huawei in their 5G
infrastructure, and I think that we have achieved that
objective in a variety of countries around the world. We can't
ever forget that the Chinese intelligence law requires Chinese
companies--requires them--to provide information to the
government of the PRC when asked to do so.
Mr. Bergman. Okay. Thank you. And going down a different
road here, Admiral, the PRC maintains military ties with U.S.
partners and allies such as Thailand, Philippines, Djibouti.
How should the U.S. respond to counter the continuing expansion
of PRC's military ties with U.S. partners and allies?
Admiral Harris. Well, I mean, there is a number of ways we
can and should do that. One is to continue to help our allies,
partners, and friends. You mentioned Thailand. Thailand is a
treaty ally of the United States, and they have a strong
relationship with China. South Korea's only ally is the United
States, but their largest trading partner is China.
So it is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Countries are sovereign, and they act in their own enlightened
self-interest, as we should. There is nothing wrong with having
a trading relationship with China. We do, too. But China is the
aggressor. I view them as the adversary. The National Security
Strategy views them as a competitor, and so we have work to do
in that regard.
Mr. Bergman. Yeah. You know, and just to close that out
with Djibouti because I was still involved in building Camp
Lemonnier when we resurrected it into a really first-class
place to deploy to. We know that we were there first, and the
Chinese piggybacked on to what we were doing, and we know what
our purpose is in the region. We are still not too sure what
their purpose is in the region.
And I see my time is about to run out. I am going to yield
back 25 seconds, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. You are all right. I don't care what anybody
says about you. The Chair will now recognize the gentlelady
from New Jersey, Ms. Sherrill, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Sherrill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you both
for being here today to testify in this important hearing. I
have a broad question about the kind of good news and bad news
in the INDOPACOM, and then I will turn it over to both of you
to respond.
As our National Defense Strategy states, conflict with the
PRC is neither inevitable nor desirable. I think every member
of this committee would agree that and share my belief that the
most desirable outcome of our policy towards the PRC would be
to deter them from taking aggressive actions to achieve their
ambitions. But innovation and modernization are not the only
tools we have. It is clear one of our main advantages is our
alliances and security partnerships, and that is clear from the
PRC's transparent efforts to undermine those partnerships and
to use its influence and strength to coerce neighbors in the
region.
Just in the past month, the Philippines announced a
landmark agreement that will expand U.S. military presence
there and strengthen U.S.-Philippines military cooperation, a
striking contrast to our relations of even 3 years ago when the
previous Filipino administration threatened to end our Visiting
Forces and Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreements. In 2021, we
inaugurated the AUKUS agreement, which will strengthen one of
our oldest partnerships in the INDOPACOM AOR, and we are seeing
Japan increase its defense spending by 50 percent.
So, Admiral Harris, Dr. Sisson, could each of you give me
your views of the best next steps to build on the successes of
the last 2 years in restrengthening our partnerships in the
INDOPACOM AOR and, conversely, where are those major fault
lines in the region? What are the overt pressure mechanisms,
economic or military, that the CCP can apply to our allies and
partners and what are the covert behind-the-curtain mechanisms
and how can we mitigate that risk?
Thank you. And I will turn it over to both of you.
Dr. Sisson. I think that is a very good description of the
big-picture view of what is happening regionally. I think that
the National Defense Strategy made an important stride this
cycle by including the idea of campaigning, which is not
unrelated to the agreements that you've just highlighted in the
Philippines, which is to say a particular kind of presence and
activity on the part of our military forces to be more
available and vigilant in the surrounding waters, which is
important to those allies and partners and other nations in
that region.
The other way and place that we can continue to create some
space for these nations is through engaging with them on other
sources of national power, like trade, primary among them. We
have concerted diplomacy, and that should continue. And,
ideally, what we will do best is listen to what they are
telling us about what it is that they need and they want as
they pursue, as the admiral put it, their own enlightened self-
interest.
Admiral Harris. Thanks. I think that, as I have said
before, diplomacy and diplomats matter. And the fact that we
haven't had an ambassador to India in over 2 years matters to
the Indians. We shouldn't be surprised if they are not as
supportive of Ukraine as we would like them to be. It took us 5
years, 5 years, to put an ambassador in ASEAN [Association of
Southeast Asian Nations]. Do we think that the Southeast Asian
countries didn't notice that? It took us 5 years to get an
ambassador to Singapore and all the good things that Singapore
does for us and for the joint force. And China fills those
vacuums.
You know, it took 18 months to get an ambassador to replace
me. Philip Goldberg is fabulous. I mean, the Koreans certainly
traded up, but they shouldn't have had to wait for 18 months to
get one. It took 18 months to get Caroline Kennedy down to
Australia. Australia. Eighteen months to get an ambassador to
Australia, and that's on us, the United States.
And some people say it is a manifestation of the divided
political landscape in Washington, but I have said that you
can't criticize the United States Senate if the White House
doesn't nominate people in a timely fashion.
Now, we are further along now than we have been. We are
over 2 years in. But still there are holes out there that need
to be filled, must be filled. It took us 3 years to get an
ambassador to Ukraine, you know. And thank goodness that we had
an ambassador in Russia, John Sullivan, that he agreed to stay
over into this administration. He had to leave because his wife
died. I'm so sorry about that. And so, right now, Russia is
gapped.
So that's on us in not taking diplomacy to the level that
it needs to be, which affects our relationships with these
countries, whether they are with us or against us.
The Chairman. The gentlelady's time is expired. The Chair
now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Jackson, for 5
minutes.
Dr. Jackson of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Thank
you, Dr. Sisson and Admiral Harris. Thank you for being here.
And I will start off by saying I was a big fan of yours
while I was on Active Duty, of your leadership, and thank you
for your service.
My question is--and this has been hit on a little bit by
some of the other members here--but I have traveled extensively
during my time in the military and also during my short time
here in Congress. And I am also on the Foreign Affairs
Committee as well. And one of the things that I have noticed is
that, no matter where you go, China is there now. It just seems
like places you wouldn't expect them to be, they are having a
big influence and they are slowly winning people over, because
they are making them dependent on them economically and they
are offering military assistance, when needed, so on and so
forth.
And I know we have talked about this a little bit before,
but my question for you is, with the exception of Japan and
Australia, which we all agree is critical, what partner nation
is a ``must-have'' right now that we're currently--you feel
like we are overlooking; that we should spend more time in
building a relationship with, you know, if things go south in
this relationship?
Admiral Harris. Yes. Thanks. I hope you are still a fan.
Dr. Jackson of Texas. Yes, sir.
Admiral Harris. All right. So, our treaty allies in the
Indo-Pacific are critical. That is Australia, Japan, South
Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. I think we are
overlooking--``overlooking'' is probably too strong a word--
that we could do more with our relationships with Malaysia and
Indonesia. They are critical, Indonesia especially. It is
large, the largest Muslim nation in the world, and that
relationship is very important to us. So, I think that we can
focus on that and do more in that regard.
India, of course, is the key to the Indian Ocean and
beyond.
Dr. Jackson of Texas. Yes, sir.
Admiral Harris. And I am glad our relationships with India
is improving, are improving.
Dr. Jackson of Texas. Yes, sir. Well, thank you, and I
appreciate it.
One of the things I heard when I traveled from a couple of
different locations--you know, I was surprised to hear it more
than once--and it mostly dealt with some of the South Pacific
island nations, some of the smaller, not the bigger countries
that we just were discussing. But one of the things I heard
commonly was that these are people where the Chinese are
actively courting them. They are coming in aggressively,
whether it is building infrastructure, or whatever. They are
building a relationship with these folks. And these are people
that we have, typically, had a strong relationship with over
the years.
One of the things that I heard repeatedly was that they are
getting mixed messages from the United States. Being that the
military will come in, the U.S. military, and they will see the
strategic importance of these partners, and they will promise
them things and they will pledge support to them, so on and so
forth, and then the State Department will roll in behind them
and they won't have the same aggressive attitudes towards
supporting them that maybe the military did.
Do you see that? Was that a problem, and do you think that
continues to be a problem? And what can we do to better get on
the same page and instill confidence in these people that we
will be there to help them?
Admiral Harris. So, it is a problem. It was a problem. It
remains one today. It is different constituencies in the U.S.
Government have different viewpoints on what is important and
what is not. That is probably human nature. But it has to be
driven from the top. We have to have a unified--or clarified,
rather--national policy on what to do with country A or country
B or country C. So that instruments of national power, whether
it is the military, whether it is diplomacy, whether it is
commerce, trade, money, and so on, they align up behind the
national policy. And that is the only way forward, in my view.
Dr. Jackson of Texas. Yes, sir. Thank you.
My last question is--and I was also surprised to hear this
when I was there--but I was wondering, when you were PACOM
commander, were there conversations, because I know there are
conversations now, about NATO and what is NATO's role in all of
this, you know, if China moves on Taiwan? Were there
conversations going on back then? Was it significant? And
should we be having more conversations about that?
Admiral Harris. I think we should. You know, China is a
global issue and not an Indo-Pacific--solely an Indo-Pacific
issue. And I am probably going to travel to Italy this summer
to speak to the NATO Defense College about some of these
issues. We are negotiating that right now.
Dr. Jackson of Texas. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.
That is all the questions I have, sir.
I yield my time back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman, Mr. Ryan, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Ryan. All right. Good morning both, and thank you for
being here. I guess it is afternoon now. Good afternoon.
So, I want to build on some of the themes you both talked
about earlier in terms of asymmetric capabilities. And as we
look at sort of ourselves versus our competitor or adversary
China, my concern is that, as we continue to invest
significantly in longstanding, quote-unquote, ``legacy''
programs, we see China being innovative and adaptive both in
their acquisition and also their employment of these
technologies. I won't use the ``B word'' that we have heard
much throughout the day today, but even sort of reversion back
to older technologies, employed in more creative and adaptive
ways.
So, as we think, coming into this year and our
conversations, how should we be thinking about how to guide our
Department towards more innovative strategies? You talked
about, Admiral, our alliances as an asymmetric capacity. I
agree, but are there other, particularly on the commercial
technology or other emerging technology fronts, areas we should
really focus on to enhance our asymmetric capabilities? To you
both, please.
Dr. Sisson. Yeah, thank you.
I would point out, first, that what the PLA has been able
to do is focus very excruciatingly closely on a particular
regional concern and orient a lot of its modernization around
contingencies, specifically, you know, in the Western Pacific,
in its near seas, and specifically or especially, around
Taiwan. Those ambitions are becoming more global, no question
about it, but it is a little bit of an apples-to-an orange
comparison when we think about what the U.S. military has to do
and be responsible for.
I think that, right now, there is good momentum in the
Department--despite all of the programs of record, sort of the
tyranny of the programs of record, and how acquisition and
procurement flow that way--in terms of working on data and
information, and the tools that we need to work with it
effectively. So Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks I think has
been giving a lot of attention to the way the Department is
thinking about and organizing around data and artificial-
intelligence-enabled technologies, both for the business of the
Department of Defense, but also for the mission of the
Department of Defense operationally. And I think that is
absolutely to be encouraged by Congress with, you know,
appropriate levels of oversight, interest, and investment.
Admiral Harris. I have nothing to add.
Mr. Ryan. The second theme that I have heard over and over,
and would appreciate both your additional thoughts on, is
resiliency. And I think these two questions are obviously
interrelated. But specifically, within a cybersecurity and
other C4I [command, control, communications, computers, and
intelligence] domain, as we see, to your point, Dr. Sisson,
specific focus on our capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region
and being able to disrupt them, are there specific areas that
we should be focused on ensuring resiliency around, both
conventional and, again, more C4I-focused assets?
Dr. Sisson. So, we absolutely need to worry about
resilience conventionally in all of our systems. Because,
again, our deterrent posture depends on the PLA not thinking it
can have a blinding, sort of knockout strike that keeps us out
of a conflict, should policymakers choose to engage in it.
The place where the cyber concern really keeps me awake at
night is in the nuclear domain, nuclear command and control,
and we--not just in terms of resilience of our own, but also
that we don't have conversations ongoing about limitations and
restrictions on what cyber tools we can and cannot deploy on
each other in that domain. And that is an enormously worrisome
fact that I would like to see remedied as quickly as possible,
because I do like to sleep.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Ryan. I have a 1- and 3-year-old. So, I don't sleep at
all.
But, Admiral Harris, anything to add there?
Admiral Harris. Yes. I will just agree with what Dr. Sisson
said and highlight the need to invest fully into our nuclear
deterrent capability, the new nuclear deterrent capability.
Mr. Ryan. Again, thank you both.
And yield back the balance of my time.
The Chairman. Okay. Thank the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Gimenez, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Soviet Union, and now Russia, they have had like a
first-class military, but it was a third-class economic power.
And they pose a significant threat to us. China, on the other
hand, is a first-class economic power with ambitions to become
a first-class military. Do you consider China to be a far
greater adversary than the Soviet Union ever was?
Admiral Harris. I do not at this point in 2023, because of
the overwhelming nuclear capability that is resident in Russia.
So, if you took the nuclear off the table, which you can't do,
but if you took it off the table, then I would say today Russia
is a third-rate military. And we are seeing that play out in
Ukraine. I mean, they have lost--what--100,000 people, 12
general officers, and thousands of fighting vehicles, and the
like.
But, at the end of the day, they have an enormous nuclear
capability that we cannot discount. China doesn't have that
capability today, but they are building to that. And we know,
by the end of this decade, they will have that capability.
Then, I would agree with you, I think I am agreeing with you,
that China then becomes the leading threat in all domains. But
today, because of the overwhelming nuclear threat, Russia
predominates.
Mr. Gimenez. Yes, I can agree with it. But I am taking
away, I am looking now at conventional forces--all right--a
conventional kind of war, that China will have a much greater
capacity to wage a much more effective conventional war against
the United States than, say, Russia.
Admiral Harris. Could be. The Chinese military hasn't been
tested in sustained combat operations since 1979, and that was
really a skirmish with Vietnam. We have been in almost
continuous combat for the last 20, 25 years. The Russians have
been in combat, also, in Chechnya and Afghanistan and the like.
So, theirs is a tested military and they are getting a severe
test now in Ukraine.
So, the jury is still out on how good the Chinese military
really is. And I think they don't know how good they are,
either.
Mr. Gimenez. Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. I think there is, obviously, no question that
China can build stuff. So, if it is a question about, do they
have industrial capacity and can they build a lot of ships, and
so forth, we know that the answer is yes today, and will
continue to be so into the future.
The comparison with the Soviet Union I think is different
to the extent that it is not just a matter, as you well know,
of the industrial capacity and what the militaries can have. It
is also force employment and what they can do. There is a trend
towards overconfidence, as it turns out, especially in
autocratic forms of government, about how those two things add
up.
The other part I would highlight is that, at this moment,
we also have an opportunity to work on the CCP's intent and the
way that they behave in the world, that we didn't have as much
of an option with in the bad old days with the Soviet Union. We
still have an awful lot of agency in the relationship between
the United States and China, and that is where, you know, when
I look at the ways and places it could go wrong, and turn China
into the single most powerful adversary that the country has
ever had, that is where I start to worry. Right now, they are a
pacing challenge. I agree with the DOD's assessment. And we
should do things to keep it that way.
Mr. Gimenez. Yes. Well, I think it is emerging, though, and
I can see in the future that they will probably--they could be
a much more serious adversary.
One final question on energy. Could energy be a weakness
for China?
Admiral Harris. For sure. But I think energy can be a
weakness for us also.
Mr. Gimenez. Okay. That is great, because my follow-up
question is, we have the capacity to be energy-independent,
obviously, but we also have the capacity to be energy-dominant.
So, could we use energy as a way to try to keep them at bay?
Admiral Harris. I think we can in the sense that they are
going to get their energy either over land from Russia
primarily or through sea lanes. So, we can dominate in the sea
lanes to prevent them from getting the resources they need.
But they also have a way to pressurize us, not on energy in
the fuel sense, but in rare earths and other commodities that
we depend on them really for the things that we need for our
own society, let alone our weapons.
Mr. Gimenez. My final--I know my time is up. My final
thought is that that may be self-imposed on us by us.
Admiral Harris. For sure.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time is expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina,
Mr. Jackson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jackson of North Carolina. Thank you. And, Mr. Chair,
if I may say, it is nice to meet you. It is a pleasure to serve
with you. I haven't had a chance to meet you yet.
This has been incredibly informative. I have taken several
pages of notes.
I would like to ask you both a question with respect to
hypersonic weapons. I am going to give you my assumption, and I
would like you to tell me how I am wrong.
My assumption is that, were China to gain full capability
or significant capability with respect to hypersonic weapons,
that that would have a strategic-level impact on us, were we
not to match it with defensive capability; and that
specifically, it would impact our Navy's operational range of
movement. That is my very basic assumption. Am I wrong about
that?
Dr. Sisson. You are not wrong that hypersonics could limit
the scope of movement of the Navy, just as the current missile
and rocket forces of the PLA can limit the movements of the
Navy.
Mr. Jackson of North Carolina. Can I follow up with you?
Let's talk about the difference between the current missile
capability, the level of deterrent that--the difference between
the conventional missiles that exist and the hypersonic
missiles that exist. My assumption has been that the hypersonic
missiles pose a game-changing-level impact to the operational
range of our Navy. Am I wrong? Is this an incremental
difference between the existing missiles and hypersonic or is
this really an exponential difference?
Dr. Sisson. From what I have seen--and I am not a
hypersonics expert; again, I am a strategist who studies
deterrence--I have not seen anything that suggests to me that
it would make a transformative difference in our ability to
operate. So, the evidence is still probably early. The
investigations are ongoing. Data is still being collected and
gathered, and work is ongoing. So, I will reserve final
judgment. But, from what I have seen so far, I don't see it as
a transformation.
Mr. Jackson of North Carolina. Well, I guess we are going
to have to figure that one out, because there are some people
who are presenting this as a transformational risk. I don't
know. You have so much more expertise on this than I do. But it
does sort of stand to reason that weapons that can beat any
radar and beat any existing defense mechanism would pose a new
and significant threat to our carrier groups.
Dr. Sisson. What I would say to that is that there are a
lot cheaper ways to overcome those kinds of defenses right now.
And so, the fact of what becomes strategic is the ability to
actually defeat them. Hypersonics doing it slightly faster than
the traditional mechanisms at a much higher cost is what
doesn't strike me as being especially transformative.
Mr. Jackson of North Carolina. So, what you are saying is
there is worse news than hypersonics; that there are other
easier, cheaper weapons that could have game-changing impact?
Dr. Sisson. And that has long been the case. So, that part
isn't the new part. The new part is that hypersonics have
entered into that conversation.
Mr. Jackson of North Carolina. Okay. If we knew that an
invasion was 3 years out, what are the first two things that we
would do? Admiral, if you would?
Admiral Harris. Well, if we knew that it was 3 years out,
then we could probably relax some of the operational tempo of
the forward-deployed units. But we don't know that, and we have
to assume that they might attack tonight. And so, we have to be
ready to fight tonight, as INDOPACOM says. If we knew it was
going to be 3 years out, then we could invest now in some of
the weapon systems that we might actually realize in 3 years;
but we don't know that. And so, we find ourselves with weapon
systems with longer lead times, and maybe a misapplication of
investment, because we don't know.
Mr. Jackson of North Carolina. Doctor.
Dr. Sisson. Well, if we knew it was 3 years out, what I
would suggest is that our leaders get on a phone and start
talking right away to see if we can move them off of that 3-
year estimate. You know, I think, as the admiral has pointed
out, the job of the military is to be prepared to fight
tonight, if needed. And that wouldn't change between now and 3
years from now. I still think that the United States has the
most capable and combat-credible force in the world. If we
couldn't find a negotiated solution on a 3-year time horizon,
then, you know, we would be in bad shape for more than one
reason, and we would have to figure out the best fight we could
put forward.
Mr. Jackson of North Carolina. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time is expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from South
Carolina, Ms. Mace, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member
Smith.
Admiral Harris, Dr. Sisson, thank you for being here today.
As we all know, China continues to remain a global threat.
We saw the imminence of some of that aggression just here last
week, even in my home State of South Carolina. The Chinese
Communist Party's economic, political, social, and security
policies are reinforced, as we have seen over the last 20
years, with increases in their defense spending and budget to
one of the largest in the world. They are disputing the
sovereignty of other nations in the East China Sea, the South
China Sea, and the Line of Actual Control.
And we have seen them over the years increasingly escalate
their aggression. The timelines keep moving. Some of them keep
moving up, which is of great concern to our Nation. We are a
country who values freedom, sovereignty, and democracy around
the world, and we know that Chinese Communist Party's values
directly contradict our values, especially when it comes to
human rights, free speech, and some of the most basic freedoms
that our Nation and other nations were founded on.
So, I just have a few questions this afternoon geared to,
how do we strengthen our position and how do we deal with
China's aggression? Admiral Harris and Dr. Sisson, either one
of you can answer these questions.
But the CCP has undertaken a significant, long-term
military modernization effort. We have seen some of those
timelines move up over the years. But in what areas, in your
opinion, has it made the most progress? And then, in what areas
have we seen them falling behind maybe some of their publicly
stated goals?
Admiral Harris. I will take the first stab at that.
We have seen significant improvements in their command and
control, you know, in how they fight--not what they fight with,
but how they fight in terms of joint warfare and how the
Chinese military, the PLA, the People's Liberation Army, have
reorganized in order to fight in a more joint way. Whether they
can do that or not, again, they have not been tested, but they
have made moves in that direction.
And equipment-wise, we have had a lengthy discussion about
hypersonics. They are doing well in that. And they have
improved their naval capability. They have two aircraft
carriers now, building a third, and that is significant, you
know. Their aircraft carriers in no measure can compare with an
American aircraft carrier, but they are better than any other
aircraft carrier in the region. So, that is not insignificant.
And then, their nuclear enterprise, they will have a
massive capability in terms of warheads by 2030.
I will stop here.
Ms. Mace. Dr. Sisson.
Dr. Sisson. I think he is exactly right on all of those
measures. The organization, the focus on information
capabilities, cyber, command and control, surveillance, those
are very important.
I would highlight, though, when we think about--you asked
about sort of areas where maybe things aren't going so well.
The reorganization of the PLA was significant and I think very
important. We have talked a lot about the balloon today. I
think the alternative hypothesis to them being clever and
probing, and doing those sorts of things intentionally, and
being assertive, and the timing, is that they just sort of did
it poorly; that there is an embarrassment hypothesis here,
right? That they just weren't as coordinated and organized
about the different elements of their own national government
working together.
So, I think, in addition to sort of some of the jointness
concerns that the admiral mentioned, that this lack of sort of
a coordinated effort, or at least the indications that it might
be, are all suggestive that they have some ways to go there as
well.
Ms. Mace. Yes. And that leads, Dr. Sisson, into my next
question really. We have seen that, like last summer, Russia,
we saw news reports, their claims to hack our most high-value
weapons systems. In 2020, there were 11 Federal agencies hacked
by agents aligned with Russia and China. So, how do you see
China's ability in cyber to compromise U.S. capabilities
militarily and elsewhere?
Dr. Sisson. So, I have no direct knowledge or insight.
Those are some of the most closely guarded pieces of
information----
Ms. Mace. Yes.
Dr. Sisson [continuing]. In the defense domain. So, I
presume that they have a lot. I think that they have devoted a
lot of time and attention to those capabilities.
Ms. Mace. Uh-hum.
Dr. Sisson. I think it continues to be sort of the Wild
West in terms of all of the military domains, where we don't
have a lot of good standing practices and, you know, the
favored term of ``guardrails.'' A lot of the times, we don't
exactly know what is going to happen when we release a piece of
code into the wild, and probably neither do they. And so, I
think that there is a lot to be concerned about in that area.
Ms. Mace. What about AI? Any thoughts on AI and China's
use? We know they put out a lot of research papers about AI.
The Americans--we are all really hearing the advent of that
technology. I don't have very much time left. But any quick
thoughts on that?
Dr. Sisson. Yes. I think the importance of AI is not only
military, although that is important, but it is broadly
societal, about being able to find the discoveries that bring,
again, health, wealth, and well-being, and to being able to
distribute them in ways that the CCP would prefer in terms of
values and principles, as opposed to us. And that is where we
need to make sure that we are keeping pace.
Ms. Mace. Thank you.
And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Texas, Ms. Escobar, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this timely and
important conversation.
And many thanks to our witnesses for sharing your expertise
and your wisdom and your knowledge with us.
This is a very timely topic. And I was taken, Dr. Sisson,
by something that you mentioned in your testimony, when you
said that we can ``encourage the government of Taiwan to adopt
a defense concept that forces the PLA into suboptimal
strategies and increases the battle damage Beijing would have
to anticipate and accept.'' Can you elaborate a little bit more
on this defense concept, please?
Dr. Sisson. Sure. So, I think it is really taking advantage
of the terrain of Taiwan and the kind of work that the PLA
would have to undertake, either to do an amphibious kind of
invasion or even a blockade. So, there are certain kinds of
defense equipment that Taiwan can integrate into its defense
concept. So, you can think about naval mines and other anti-
ship defenses, small attack, you know, fast-attack missile
boats and those sorts of things that would really make it
difficult for the PLA to move.
The other thing I think is really fundamental is preparing
for a whole-of-nation defense on the part of the Taiwan people.
I was actually in Taiwan the week following then-Speaker
Pelosi's visit. And, you know, the interesting element at the
time in terms of the population wasn't that the PLA's
histrionics around the island were particularly frightening. It
is not as though the military activities conveyed to them
information they didn't already have. But that it was met with
this sort of collective sense of, yes, we know and we are going
to continue to get ready. And more of that sensibility of
preparedness and national resilience, along with the material
sort of preparations that would require for a blockade, much
less any sort of active resistance to an invasion, that is the
kind of thing we can continue very much to support the Taiwan
people with.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you.
And what would you say are the obstacles that Taiwan faces
in order to make this defense concept a reality?
Dr. Sisson. That is a really important question and element
of it. Some of it is working with the defense forces there to
change mindset, frankly, and to be willing to invest in some
platforms that might not be their first choice, for any number
of reasons.
I think Congress, obviously, plays an important role in
terms of streamlining the relationship in terms of the weapon
support that we can provide through foreign military sales,
which was a very heartening inclusion in the last NDAA
[National Defense Authorization Act], and those sorts of
things.
I think that the other obstacle is something that Taiwan
has to work with in terms of engaging beyond the United States.
And if we can facilitate relationships with allies and partners
and like-minded nations worldwide, I think that very much helps
the Taiwan people's sense of confidence, stability, and is
important to deterrence as well.
Ms. Escobar. Great. Thank you so much.
Admiral Harris, how can we better develop and integrate
cyber talent at our colleges and our universities? I mean, I
have long pushed that our military better collaborate and use
that talent, the brilliance that we have at our institutions of
higher learning, so that we can help close some of those
capability gaps between our government and that of the CCP.
Admiral Harris. Yes, it is a great question. Thank you for
it.
I think that we already have taken steps to improve that
field of study, in the sense that we have now formal
relationships between the Department and at least 10, or maybe
a dozen, universities that are teaching now majors, major
fields of study, in cyber and cyber warfare. So, that
relationship is important.
Certainly, it can, and maybe should, be expanded. But the
fact that we have it at all I think recognizes the talent that
is extant in the communities, that we are not receiving in the
Department.
Ms. Escobar. Are we moving quickly enough in that
direction?
Admiral Harris. I don't think you can move quickly enough,
but I think we are moving, and that is the important thing at
this point.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you both very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Alabama, Mr. Strong, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Harris, Dr. Sisson, this is the most informative
committee hearing I have ever been in. Matter of fact, this is
my first committee hearing to be in. So, I appreciate each of
your time to review the threats of our homeland posed by the
Chinese Communist Party.
The National Security Strategy refers to the CCP as ``the
most comprehensive and serious challenge to the security of the
United States of America.''
First, I want to briefly introduce myself to my colleagues
present and those that are tuning in. My name is Dale Strong. I
am a freshman Member of the 118th Congress representing
Alabama's Fifth Congressional District. Prior to being elected
to Congress, I served as chairman of the Madison County
Commission in Huntsville, Alabama, more affectionately known as
``Rocket City USA, the Propulsion Capital of the World.''
Alabama's Fifth District is proud home to Redstone Arsenal
and hosts many important Department of Defense equities,
including Army Materiel Command, Army Space Missile Defense
Command, the Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Intelligence
Agency's Missile and Space Intelligence Center. While Redstone
employs more than 46,000 people, my district also hosts
thousands of contractors in Research Park, with more than a
quarter of the top 100 defense companies in the world calling
north Alabama home.
I specifically want to thank my friend, now colleague,
Chairman Rogers. I am proud to serve on this committee under
your leadership and with each of the members thereof.
I truly believe that America's finest days are still ahead.
Admiral Harris, the FY23 NDAA called for a more robust
procurement for missile defense systems for Guam. It also
requires the Secretary of Defense to designate a senior DOD
official to develop and deploy this system. Given your
experience in the region, which DOD official do you believe
would best suit--is best suited for this role?
Admiral Harris. Yes, Congressman, thank you.
At this juncture, I think the best DOD official would be
someone expert in program management, because they have got to
build up Guam in a joint way with the Army, the Air Force, and
the Navy differing systems, different sensor packages into a
unified ability to shoot down both air-breathing cruise
missiles with a 360-degree threat sector or ballistic missiles.
So, at this point, I think we need to focus on program
management--probably a military officer, could come from any of
the services, but more on the programmatic side. And then, a
few years from now, after the system is in place, then I would
think that we would want an operational officer to be in charge
of it, and probably to stand up what INDOPACOM has called for,
a Joint Task Force Guam.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
What key elements should this missile defense system for
Guam contain?
Admiral Harris. Well, I mentioned some of them. You have
got to deal with the 360-degree threat arc, assuming that the
threat is from China, because it doesn't have to come just from
the 180 to 360. It could come all around, given China's
capabilities.
It has to be able to shoot down air-breathers, cruise
missiles, because you are in range of cruise missiles from the
mainland of China into Guam.
And then, there is the ballistic missile threat, the
medium-range ballistic missiles that will come in. So, you
know, you have got to have a system that can look high and low,
and then, ultimately, we are going to have to deal with the
hypersonic threat that we spent some time talking about
already.
So, in totality, it is a significant challenge, not an
overcomeable one--I mean not one that we are going to not be
able to overcome, but it is a significant challenge.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
We have learned that the People's Liberation Army has a
habit of describing its campaign of military intimidation
against Taiwan as ``exercises.'' Recent exercises have included
significant mobilization of units in mainland China, as well as
nationwide movement of roll-on/roll-off ferries that would
likely play a role in an actual invasion.
Do you believe these exercises negatively impact the United
States ability to protect--or to predict kinetic operations?
Admiral Harris. Not at all. I think the exercises actually
help us understand from an intelligence perspective the PRC's
capabilities.
Mr. Strong. Thank you.
And then, referring back to comments earlier related to
space launch earlier, you look--just in recent days, the United
Launch Alliance has received their new American-made BE-4
engine. ULA also has shipped their Vulcan rocket to the Cape
for testing. I concur with you, America is more than able to
make these rockets and we shouldn't be dependent on any other
country.
I yield back to the chairman.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Deluzio.
Mr. Deluzio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Dr. Sisson, Admiral Harris, thank you for being here.
Admiral Harris, especially as a fellow Academy grad, Annapolis
grad, it is nice to have you here. Appreciate getting the
chance to talk with you my first hearing of this great
committee.
I had the great honor of serving as a surface officer at
sea. I saw deployments in the Middle East and the Pacific,
seeing some of these threats you were both speaking about
today. I am lucky to represent a district with a significant
number of those who have also worn the uniform.
I share the concern here about the rise of China. That has,
undoubtedly, become a threat to our national and economic
security.
Admiral Harris, my first question is for you. You advocate
changing our policy to one of ``strategic clarity,'' as you
describe it, when it comes to Taiwan and its defense. I would
like you, if you would, please, to explain what strategic
clarity means in layman's terms for my constituents in western
Pennsylvania.
Admiral Harris. Yeah. So, for me, strategic clarity means
that we are clear as a nation that we would defend Taiwan if
China attacks Taiwan to forcibly reunite with them. Our current
policy has been in place for 44 years. It is strategic
ambiguity. So that the question of whether we would defend
Taiwan or not is unanswered. I think that policy has served us
well, looking back, but I think the time to change the policy
is now. The PRC has been nothing but clear. They have exercised
complete strategic clarity on their intent with regard to
Taiwan. I think it is important, as I mentioned before, to
three constituencies.
It is important for the Taiwanese to know whether we are
going to defend them or not. So that, then, they can make the
decision to either increase their defensive capabilities
significantly or capitulate and join the Chinese, the mainland.
The second constituency is the Chinese themselves. They
need to know the cost of invading Taiwan.
And the third constituency is the American people, because
it is your sons and daughters that are going to do the fighting
and dying if we defend Taiwan against an attack by China. We
ought to know, the American people ought to know, that that is
in the plans.
They knew during the Cold War that we would potentially
have to fight the Soviet Union on the Fulda Gap and the GIUK
[Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom] gap, and everywhere else.
And they bought into that for the most part. And that question
remains unexplored today because of this doctrine, this policy
of strategic ambiguity.
Mr. Deluzio. Well, Admiral, I appreciate your answer and
explanation. And one piece I do agree with is that the sons and
daughters of this country are the ones who bear the brunt of
fighting, should it happen.
And as you--essentially, strategy clarity would have us
make a firm and definitive commitment. And I would ask, if you
have a sense, what would we expect that sacrifice to be in
terms of dollars, in terms of human lives in this country----
Admiral Harris. Yes.
Mr. Deluzio [continuing]. Should we have to rise to
Taiwan's defense, as I think we would----
Admiral Harris. Yes, I don't have a sense of the dollar
value, but the cost in human lives would be significant.
Mr. Deluzio. Admiral, thank you.
Dr. Sisson, thank you as well for being here today.
The district I represent, western Pennsylvania, is a place
like many who have been hit economically by our trade imbalance
with China, by the economic competition with the People's
Republic of China, and their disregard for U.S. international
laws and norms. I think Washington is waking up more and more
to these costs. I am pleased that the Biden administration is
fighting to bring more of our manufacturing and supply chains
back home.
My question, Dr. Sisson, to you is, how does this change
our economic strategy to be more confronting of China's
economic rise? How might that impact our military posture under
the strategy of dual deterrence that I understand you think we
ought to continue to support?
Dr. Sisson. Quickly, I want to actually answer your last
question about the costs----
Mr. Deluzio. Please do.
Dr. Sisson [continuing]. To be expected from any kind of
militarized engagement. I think that the best estimate to be
put on it is potentially catastrophic, right? If we really need
to think about what it would entail, it would not be
significant, it could be upwards of catastrophic, which is why
I think moving off of a strategy of dual deterrence is
especially dangerous, especially given that it is not
necessary.
To your other question about sort of the economic
relationship and how these two domains might interact, I think
it accesses, again, the idea that the entirety of the
relationship between the United States and China has to be
wholly strategic. It has to do with a grand strategy where the
United States addresses our economic interests and negotiates
bad behavior with China in that domain, just as much as we do
its bad behavior in the military domain. What it is going to
require is a lot of good coordination.
Mr. Deluzio. Thank you, Dr. Sisson.
Admiral, thank you as well.
I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Virginia, Ms. Kiggans, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Kiggans. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our witnesses for your testimony today.
As a daughter of a Green Beret who served in Vietnam, as a
Navy pilot and married to a Navy pilot, and the mother of now
two midshipmen, this is an issue that is super important to me.
And it is just a great honor to be in the room today with you.
It is fitting that our first hearing is about the threat
that is facing our country from the Chinese Communist Party.
Under Xi Jinping, China has seen a rapid military buildup,
stolen valuable intellectual property, increased economic
warfare, and increased aggression, including a surveillance
balloon that we all saw drift across our Nation last week.
The CCP has demonstrated that it will continue to increase
its influence and aggression far beyond the South China Sea. As
you know, the Chinese military operates an overseas base in
Djibouti. And a recent report from U.S.-China Economic and
Security Review Commission stated that Chinese Communist
Party's PLA is seeking sites for military installations in West
Africa, a location that would give the Chinese military direct
access to the Atlantic Ocean.
So, what, if anything, can the United States do to
disincentivize nations, such as those in West Africa, from
allowing the PLA to operate military installations within their
countries? And are we contrasting the effort by contracting
with foreign strategic ports and countries ourselves?
Admiral Harris. So, you know, we have to convince countries
not to yield their sovereignty to China. And a case in point--I
mentioned it before--is Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka. And we
are seeing this weaponization of debt by the PRC against these
countries.
All we can do--well, not all--but what we can do and what
we must do is to ensure that we share with them the information
about the ramifications of falling under this debt diplomacy
that China is known for. But every country is sovereign and
they make their own independent decisions, just as we do. And
that's why diplomats and diplomacy matter in those countries.
Dr. Sisson. I think all of that is correct, and I would
add, in addition to diplomacy, the purpose of diplomacy is to
listen to what the needs and interests of those sovereign
nations are. And I think we can do that without being
overreactive to China's engagements in those areas. A lot of
times, there are other options for those nations. China just
underbids, and so wins contracts because it makes the most
financial sense for the country at the time.
A lot of that is actually self-harming for China because
people are getting what they pay for and finding that it is not
meeting their needs and their aspirations. And that word is
spreading.
And so, we can continue to provide an alternative,
understanding that that alternative might not always be
accepted by those nations, and that that is not always a
terrible outcome in terms of the overall strategic
relationship.
Mrs. Kiggans. Along those same lines, I am just wondering
about the level of confidence and trust that all countries in
the world have, but especially our allies out there have. You
know, we watched a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. We have
seen our response to Russia in the Ukraine. And we even watched
the response of having a surveillance balloon drift across our
country.
So--and then, listening to you talk about just the slowness
in filling the ambassador positions and this lack of strategic
clarity we have, and, you know, diplomacy matters, and we have
cancelled these diplomatic meetings. And I agree with you very
much so.
So, I just wonder if you both could comment about the level
of confidence that is out there from not only our NATO allies,
but other allies in the region.
Admiral Harris. So, I will start by simply saying that I
think the level of confidence in the United States is on the
rise internationally, primarily, in the recent past, due to
Ukraine. I think the American response, and bipartisan American
response, to Ukraine surprised a lot of people. Most assuredly,
it surprised Russia, and it galvanized our European and NATO
allies to do more.
So, we see Germany, for example, which has increased its--
or stated its intent to increase its defense budget to over 2
percent, which we have been trying to do since NATO began, and
now they are doing it. And so, there is that.
And then, on the other side, is China's own bad behavior
which is causing countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and
others, to view China differently and to understand the kind of
partner that China is. And I think that has gone a long way to
moving countries away from the Chinese orbit into an orbit of
free nations.
Mrs. Kiggans. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now--I am sure I am going to
butcher this name. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Tokuda from
Hawaii.
How did I do?
Ms. Tokuda. You did great.
The Chairman. All right.
Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very good.
Good morning. Good afternoon, Admiral Harris, Dr. Sisson.
Thank you so much for being here on our very first hearing, as
an incoming freshmen.
You know, we have talked a lot about this balloon. So, I am
not going to belabor the point, except to say that it was an
unacceptable violation of our U.S. sovereign airspace, and I
fully support the President's actions to shoot it down in a
manner that did not put any U.S. lives or property at risk.
What concerns me about this incident, though, was the
whirlwind of outbursts here in the United States that
highlighted just how tense the political leaders of our country
are when it comes to the PRC and when they are involved. As we
saw this past week, we now have an environment here in the U.S.
where these types of incidences, intentionally or not, trigger
rushed reactions amongst our political leaders to pressure the
President and our military leaders to be tough on the PRC.
What this committee should be worried about is what happens
in the event of a more dangerous incident, especially as PRC
assets in the South China Sea and Western Pacific act more and
more recklessly. We saw it just last December when a PLA
military jet came within 10 feet of one of our Air Force
planes.
As our relationship with the PRC grows more and more
challenged, and our ability of our governments to cooperate
whenever there is an incident continues to decline, how does
this politicization of our relationship with the PRC, and the
growing political pressure of oneupmanship, increase the risk
of undesired confrontation and affect our national defense?
Dr. Sisson. I think that is a good depiction of a lot of
the reaction to this particular incident. And it is a
mechanism, precisely as you state, to highlight how important
crisis management is and being able to have connections at the
top level of governments to make sure that these things don't
spiral out of control unintentionally.
I think part of the dynamic--and hopefully, we are coming
to a little bit of, you know, sort of we had this sort of very
heightened awareness sort of of a sudden about the PRC and the
PLA's development. And now, hopefully, we can get our bearings
a little bit more. Remember that we are starting from a place
of great national advantage, not just militarily, but across
all other domains. And we can return ourselves to focusing not
being tough on China or worrying about being soft on China, but
we can really just focus on being smart on China instead. And
any event that can move us back to remembering that I think
would be well used.
Ms. Tokuda. Admiral.
Admiral Harris. Yeah. I will just say that it is important
to have these connections, either mil-to-mil, government-to-
government, diplomatic connections, with the PRC--arguably,
more now than ever.
And again, at the height of the Cold War, we had those
relations, particularly mil-to-mil, navy-to-navy, with the
Soviet Union, which helped diffuse a lot of issues that we had.
We don't have that to the degree that we had with regard to
China, and we need to work on that.
And I think the Secretary of State's visit would have
helped, and it was China's own, I guess you could call it their
own goal in the sense of the balloon fiasco, which caused him
to have to postpone his trip. Hopefully, it will get back on
track and we will have those government-to-government
relationships start anew with Beijing.
Ms. Tokuda. Thank you. You know, just building up on that,
Congress has really been playing the leading role in
strengthening the U.S.-Taiwan relationship under the
foundations laid out with the Taiwan Relations Act way back in
1979. Going forward, more recently, we had the Taiwan Travels
Act. We have had the TAIPEI [Taiwan Allies International
Protection and Enhancement Initiative] Act just last Congress.
We had the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act, although I would
note we need to follow that up with an appropriation, if we are
to take Dr. Sisson's recommendation seriously and assist them
with FMF [foreign military financing] assistance as well.
I strongly support these measures because they are
appropriate responses to the PRC's unrelenting campaign to try
to isolate Taiwan from the international community, and to
unilaterally make the question of Taiwan's future secure in
their interest.
At the same time the PRC's government has made it clear
that, with the moves that they have seen from the United
States, it is still committed to retaliate and use force
against the United States, especially when it comes to the
issue of Taiwan.
How can we continue to strengthen our relationship, on one
hand, with Taiwan and deter the PRC from further military
aggression against Taiwan, while at the same time preventing
destabilization, if you will, of cross-strait and U.S.-China
relations that heightens the risk of conflict between our two
countries?
Admiral Harris. So, that is higher math for sure, all of
that. I do think that we must not, as I mentioned in my
remarks, we must not allow the PRC to dictate our policy with
regard to Taiwan or any other country. So, that is the first
thing. And I think that a country like the United States, we
can do both.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 101.]
The Chairman. The gentlelady's time is expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr.
LaLota.
Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, Doctor, very good for you to be here.
Admiral, we are fellow Academy grads, too, though you
graduated in the year that I was born, sir. So, appreciate you
being here.
But, prior to coming to Congress, Admiral, I was a Navy
ship driver; did three deployments in the Western Pacific. So,
I couldn't have chosen a better witness to be at my first HASC
[House Armed Services Committee] hearing, given our mutual
service in the same area.
Admiral, rather than present another question about the CCP
spy balloon, I was hoping that you can share with us, based on
your extensive experience in the Pacific, what you think China
would do if the shoe was on the other foot. Specifically, what
if the United States flew an unmanned aerial vehicle over
Chinese territorial waters, its land? What would they do? What
would go into their decision making if the shoe was on the
other foot, sir?
Admiral Harris. I think they have been clear about that. I
think that they would shoot it down. So, the issue is, you
know, it is the manned surveillance platforms that are flying
in international airspace, that we recognize as international
airspace, that the PRC doesn't. So, you know, we don't know
what they are going to do in that regard. Hopefully, they won't
take kinetic action against a Rivet Joint [RC-135V/W aircraft]
or a P-8, or something like that, or a ship sailing in the
Taiwan Strait, for example, or a FONOP [freedom of navigation
operation] in the Spratly Islands. You know, I am hopeful and
almost certain that the PRC wouldn't take kinetic action,
because that would escalate to a completely different order of
magnitude.
But if we were to fly a surveillance balloon, if we were to
fly a weather balloon over Beijing, they would probably shoot
it down, especially now.
Mr. LaLota. And why do you suppose that is, sir?
Admiral Harris. Because we did.
Mr. LaLota. And if it was weeks ago, prior to this
incident, and we flew an unmanned vehicle over their
territorial waters or land, what do you think their reaction
would have been weeks ago?
Admiral Harris. Potentially different. You know, this is a
little bit of tit for tat. And so, you know, they have
blustered about our gall at shooting down a weather balloon
that went off course that was flying over sovereign United
States airspace. I mean, if it was a weather balloon that went
off course, why didn't they warn us, tell us, communicate with
us? ``Sorry about that,'' you know. We do that with satellites
that have fallen out of orbit. We communicate with them, they
communicate with us, and, you know, we proceed on orders aside.
But here, you have this surveillance balloon flying over
sovereign U.S. airspace; errantly, coincidentally, over our
nuclear sites and other key military facilities. And we are
supposed to believe that this is accidental? I mean, it beggars
imagination how crazy that is.
Mr. LaLota. Sticking with China's reaction to our actions,
rewind the clock 20 years ago. I understand that you were
associated with the P-3 and EP-3 platforms.
Admiral Harris. Right.
Mr. LaLota. In April of 2001, there was an incident over
the Hainan Islands, or around there, I think 70 nautical miles
around it. Can you describe to us in this unclassified
environment what you understood China's reaction to be then,
given a similar incident, but----
Admiral Harris. Yes.
Mr. LaLota [continuing]. With the distinction of that being
a manned aircraft?
Admiral Harris. So, in a nutshell, there was an EP-3 flying
a surveillance mission in the South China Sea. A Chinese
surveillance jet--I mean, a countersurveillance jet flew
alongside the P-3; got too close to it. You know, it was a
miscalculation, an error, not an intentional collision. I mean,
who would be crazy enough to, you know, fly their airplane into
another in peacetime? And it impacted one of the engines on the
P-3, on the EP-3, cut the jet in half. It crashed. The pilot
died. And the P-3, then, had to do a crash landing, an
emergency landing, on Hainan Island.
Now, was that a smart thing to do or a dumb thing to do?
Well, the week before, that very squadron had flown the 7th
Fleet commander to Beijing. Treated well; you know, happy to
have him there, and all of that. So, the crew thought, well,
yeah, we are friends with China. And so, they had an emergency,
you know, a legitimate emergency. And there was a runway, the
closest runway. So, they elected to crash land the EP-3 on that
runway. Right decision? Wrong decision? It is not for me to
say. But that is what happened.
Mr. LaLota. Thanks for your insights, Admiral.
I yield back.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
North Carolina, Mr. Davis, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Davis. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And we appreciate
you convening us today, as well as Ranking Member Smith.
And to the admiral and Dr. Sisson, thank you so much for
being with us.
I want to start with a question, Admiral Harris. You noted
in your testimony that China's military buildup could soon
challenge the U.S. across almost every domain. My question is
to you, if there is one development that they have made that
concerns you the most, one single, what would that be?
Admiral Harris. Cyber.
Mr. Davis. Cyber. Okay.
And shifting to Dr. Sisson, your prior reporting states
that China's capability of threatening the U.S. military
command-and-control systems and the United States domestic
telecommunications systems creates vulnerabilities on a scale
that the United States has not experienced since the end of the
Cold War. And my question for you would be, could you
prioritize what the United States should do to harden domestic
infrastructure in anticipation for the most sophisticated
methods of attack?
Dr. Sisson. Well, I can't give specifics about the
mechanisms of doing it. I do know that precisely what you said
at the end is the absolute priority: that we need to focus on
resilience and hardening all of our command-and-control and
information systems, both operationally for the Department of
Defense, but also, domestically, here at home for our national
critical infrastructure.
And I think that is a place where--that sort of gets a
little bit less attention than the military domain. But we need
to be attentive to the fact that the CCP could in any
contingency choose to try to access another of our sources of
national power, which is the hearts and minds of the American
people, and impose some hardship here that we haven't had to
experience for a very long time. And so, the point is that we
need to work on creating that resilience and hardening the
infrastructure, as you say, militarily, but also here
domestically in our critical infrastructure as well.
Mr. Davis. Super.
And the last thing I have here is, we have covered a lot of
ground today. And this is, you know, my first hearing, and I
really appreciate being part of this hearing and look forward
to future hearings.
How would you summarize and prioritize--I mean, we have
talked a lot today--how the United States should engage in
strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party, while
simultaneously reducing the risk of miscalculation and
escalation that could lead to conflict?
Admiral Harris. So, we all hope for competition and not
war. But we have to be, you know, based on my background, we
have to be ready to do the latter, even as we exercise the
former.
I have characterized the PRC as an adversary already. They
view us as the enemy. They view us as an adversary. And to be
naive, to operate in the naive hope that we are all going to be
friends in the end, is dangerous. That is the most dangerous
thing, and that itself leads to instability.
So, if we go in with eyes wide open, and we are willing to
engage diplomatically, and they are willing to engage
diplomatically, then I think we can coexist in a world of
strategic competition that doesn't rise to the level of armed
conflict.
Dr. Sisson. The admiral makes some very good points. We do
need to be ready militarily, and yet, this is a strategic-level
competition. And the best thing we can do is to remember that
this is not a military competition. The military is part of it,
but it is a strategic competition with a military element.
And what that means is that we get to focus on reinforcing
and extending the strengths and advantages that we have long
had as this country. We are not building creativity and
productivity, and a vibrant economy, and appealing
universities, from whole cloth. We already have those things.
And we should not lose sight of that. We should have confidence
in them. We should look to reinforce them wherever and however
we can, and we should retain that air of calm and confidence,
as we engage in the complicated nature of the U.S.-China
relationship.
Mr. Davis. Thank you so much.
Yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair would like to announce that we will be making a
hard stop at 1:30 for two reasons. One, votes are going to be
called at 1:30, and the admiral has a plane to catch.
With that, Mr. Alford of Missouri is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Alford. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Admiral Harris, and thank you, Dr. Sisson.
I am honored to represent two very prestigious military
bases in our district, that being Whiteman Air Force Base, home
to the B-2 stealth bomber, and, of course, Fort Leonard Wood
that trains more than 80,000 military and civilian personnel
each year.
The recent Chinese surveillance balloon that flew unchecked
over our U.S. airspace in my home State of Missouri, and
directly over Whiteman Air Force Base, really reconfirmed what
we already knew--that China is our number one national security
threat. We cannot allow--we cannot allow--China to walk all
over us and outpace us militarily. When we project weakness on
the world stage, as the Biden administration has done, China
and other adversaries will take advantage, and they are.
I am extremely, extremely concerned about the lackluster
approach the Biden administration has utilized with our Armed
Forces. We are not moving fast enough when it comes to ramping
up our military capabilities to meet the threats of today and
the future. Heck, we are more concerned about which pronouns we
are going to use than we are defending our great Nation.
Currently, we have the smallest and oldest bomber force
since post-World War II, and China has surpassed us with the
world's largest navy. I hope--I sincerely hope--that especially
after the Chinese balloon fiasco that we wake up as Americans,
as a nation, to accelerate, where we can, the necessary
military assets to deter China.
And now my questions to each of you. I will start with you,
Admiral. Do you agree with General Minihan's assessment; will
we be at war with China within 2 years?
Admiral Harris. No.
Mr. Alford. Why not?
Admiral Harris. As I have said before, I am less concerned
about a date certain than I am of the readiness of the force to
respond to any contingency that arises anytime.
So, when I was in uniform, I said that the decade of the
2020s is the decade of danger. General Minihan said 2025. I am
not sure what he based that on. However, you know, he is privy
to current intelligence that I am not. So, you know, it
behooves us to consider that. Admiral Davidson said 2027. And I
fall back to the 2020s as the decade of danger.
Mr. Alford. Okay. So, 2 years, 4 years, 5 years, 7 years.
Are we ready?
Admiral Harris. Well, that is the question. I mean, I think
we are. I think we can respond today to any threat from today's
PLA, the People's Liberation Army. If we don't continue to
invest and innovate, then, in 5, 6, 7, 8 years--pick a
timeframe--we might not be able to compete levelly with the
joint force across all domains, and that is the concern.
Mr. Alford. Dr. Sisson, what should we do now to
effectively deter China from invading Taiwan?
Dr. Sisson. I think the good news is that our strategy of
deterrence is in good standing and is working well. I think we
should remember that and we should do things to reinforce it.
Again, we need to reaffirm for both sides our adherence to the
One-China Policy.
We need to coordinate and collaborate with Taiwan on their
defense concept and getting them to be as prickly of a
porcupine as they can be and ready to be prepared and resilient
in the event the worst happens.
And then, internally, here in the United States, I think we
need to do some planning, planning, planning. We need to have
coordinated across the interagency any number of options that
we could use to respond quickly and effectively, if we saw
indications and warnings that we were concerned about emanating
from the PLA.
Mr. Alford. Admiral, back to you. What should we do if
China launches another balloon towards U.S. airspace?
Admiral Harris. Well, we need to assess it and to see what
kind of balloon it is. And if it is a threat, and if we can't
mitigate that threat, and it is over the United States, we have
to destroy it.
Mr. Alford. What are the top three actions the DOD should
take now to deter China from building islands in the China Sea?
Admiral Harris. It is too late.
Mr. Alford. Further islands, more islands? More power
there?
Admiral Harris. Well, I mean, short of kinetic operations,
then we would have to apply soft-power measures, including,
potentially, threatening China's economic strength,
strengthening them--or challenging them in the financial
sectors, and things like that.
But they have already built six or seven major military
bases----
The Chairman. The gentleman's time is expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Panetta, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Sisson.
And you get to choose now whether or not you go by admiral
or ambassador, I guess, is that correct? For this session, I am
going to call you admiral.
Admiral Harris, good to see you.
Prior to the spy balloon being floated over the United
States, I think we could say that we saw a few months of what I
would call detente--with the meeting in Bali between Biden and
Xi and, yes, a planned Secretary of State visit to China this
last weekend.
However, with that clumsy miscalculation by China and
spying that we know goes on of the United States, what I think
we need to be wary of is, obviously, incidents like this
leading to escalation. Now, during the Cold War with the Soviet
Union, after it took almost going to the brink of a nuclear
war, we had agreements to contain hostility, to de-escalate.
However, I am not sure if we have that right now with China.
Are there better ways to communicate? Are there better ways
to mitigate these types of risks during such a crisis as we
just had? Are there better guardrails that we could put in
place to prevent escalation?
Admiral Harris. Yeah. So, there are some guardrails, some
agreements, mil-to-mil, military-to-military, with the PRC,
including something called CUES [Code for Unplanned Encounters
at Sea], C-U-E-S, which is a navy-to-navy agreement for
interactions on the high seas. So, we have some limited
agreements like that.
In the case of the EP-3 crash, which we talked about
before, you know, those things happen in a flash. So, there is
no time for diplomacy during the conduct of the event itself.
Then, diplomacy kicks in afterward to try to resolve it and
mitigate it.
In the case of the balloon, I mean, we had 7 or 8 days for
diplomacy to work, and China could have stepped forward at any
time in that and said, ``Hey, this is ours. This was a bad
move. We won't do it again. Sorry about that. We'll help you
bring it down,'' or something like that. But they did not take
advantage of the window, a week window, 8 days, 7 days, to do
that. So, that is on them.
And I think that the U.S. Government did reach out to the
PRC and gave them ample opportunity, which is why you want to
extend this thing out, stretch it out for as long as you can--
until it went over water 8 days later, 9 days later, whatever
it was, and they shot it down.
Mr. Panetta. And besides the brief avenues that you
mentioned, Dr. Sisson, is there anything else? Any other
avenues for this type of communication?
Dr. Sisson. My view is that the U.S. Government should
always pursue direct communication at the highest levels of
government, especially in conditions like this. The worst-case
scenario is where communication happens through military action
and not through phone lines, and now, Zoom screens, I guess.
Mr. Panetta. Okay. Moving on to my next topic, Admiral, you
talked about Taiwan being the number one democracy, at least in
the Pacific. And as we all know, living in a democracy,
elections have consequences. And it seems like the DPP's
[Democratic Progressive Party's] extended focus on China sort
of failed to connect with the Taiwanese people, as evidenced by
the last election. In that KMT [Kuomintang], obviously, which
has a warmer relation with China, if it makes gains and
actually has significant wins in the 2024 elections, what would
be the consequences of our deterrence capabilities in dealing
with a KMT majority?
Admiral Harris. Yes, so a great question.
I met with the KMT chairman last week in Taipei. I believe
that, you know, it was the Cato Institute that called Taiwan
the freest nation in East Asia. And I think that a definition
of free and democratic is when you have a successful handover
of power. And they have had several now since they became
independent. They haven't been independent that long.
But I believe that we could work with the KMT. I don't
think the KMT is going to roll over on China, just like I don't
think the DPP is going to declare independence. They are both
viable, strong parties in Taiwan that have the best interests
of the Taiwanese at heart, not the PRC.
Mr. Panetta. Dr. Sisson, 20 seconds.
Dr. Sisson. I agree entirely with the admiral.
Mr. Panetta. Outstanding.
Thanks to both of you.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Florida, Mr. Mills, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mills. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
Admiral Harris, Dr. Sisson, thank you.
You know, I hear us still talk a lot about the definitions
of warfare, and I think that that is something that needs to be
redefined or re-thought about. And I really appreciate Dr.
Sisson's stance with regards to strategy, as well as for
resilience.
You know, my whole thing is that, while the U.S. may not be
at war with China, I would argue that China has long since been
at war with the U.S. from an economic, a resource, and a cyber
warfare perspective.
I think that we also have to identify the geopolitical
alliances that have occurred with regards to Russia, China,
Iran, and North Korea. You know, the entire incursion that we
have seen in this war in Ukraine has a lot to do with Chairman
Xi's One Road, One Belt Initiative; his desire to expand the
Eurasian border; take Africa; take Oceania; recreate this
maritime Silk Route, while dominating ports and railways, as we
have seen with the development in Djibouti.
I think that, ultimately, what we are looking at here is a
real need to defend our maritime shipping lines, because their
ultimate goal will be to eliminate the U.S. dollar as a global
currency, while cutting off the Western Hemisphere supply chain
with the Horn of Africa, the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Black Sea.
And that is why areas like Moldova, as you mentioned, are
certainly key areas. It does not fall under Article 5 with
NATO.
I would say, however, that one of my colleagues, Carlos
Gimenez, Representative Gimenez, had talked about the
importance of energy, and I agree with this. I think that if we
wanted to actually go after China, we would have to look at the
economic strains that we would put on them by stopping
reliancy, but also by understanding that the true global
currency will be energy.
We are seeing where he is exploiting the strains between
ourselves and the KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] with regards to
OPEC [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] and
trying to eliminate or replace the petrodollar to the
petroyuan, petroruble, as a way to throw us into
hyperinflation.
But we are also watching Russia go ahead and start
utilizing the communist agendas and push things like Chavez in
Venezuela, looking at Petro in Colombia, but also the mainland
Chinese in the Darien Gap, who are actually printing fentanyl.
Now, in knowing this, and knowing that we are being
outpaced--we are being outpaced militarily; we are being
outpaced economically--I believe that resilience/readiness is
really a key here, not pronouns and DEI [diversity, equity, and
inclusion], as it is being defined.
I would say, however, Admiral Harris, that one of the
things you talked about was this surveillance balloon. And
while I agree that it was good to go ahead and to shoot it
down, I also view this as a vulnerability assessment by the
Chinese in how we will react; where our actual mitigating
measures will be; when we will identify, and how; at what
altitudes we will identify.
And I think that allowing it to come across the United
States was a huge mistake and a failure. If the idea was to
shoot it down in a safe area, then we could have done that over
the Pacific. And that would have been something where they had
already violated our airspace.
I also noted that you said that you did not think they were
printing fentanyl with the intent to kill Americans, and I
disagree with that strongly. I think that this is a multi-
pronged strategic attack that does not involve kinetics. And
while we do need to get involved in the kinetic element for
readiness, I think that the economic, resource, and cyber
warfare has long been launched.
Could you please say once again what your stance is in
regards to those two?
Admiral Harris. Yeah. So, I disagree with you, Congressman,
on both. I do think that shooting it down over the Atlantic was
the appropriate response. And I don't think that China is
creating fentanyl with the express purpose of killing
Americans.
Mr. Mills. But you don't think that that is one of the
things that they take into a factor of that? This is actually a
focus now by the Americans. Yes, you have utilized the term we
can walk and chew bubble gum, and I do understand that, but I
have a hard time of understanding that this is just some type
of an economic advantage, as opposed to something which is
intentional and killing more Americans than any conflict that
we are currently in.
So, with regards to the spy balloon, I will ask once more,
you still feel, though, that allowing it to transverse across
the entire United States, going across areas that even civilian
aircrafts are not allowed to go across, was a correct approach
to this incident?
Admiral Harris. I do, Congressman, in this instance,
because of the danger that shooting it down over the United
States could have presented. I mean, it was----
Mr. Mills. But we could have shot it over the Pacific, is
that not correct?
Admiral Harris. Only in territorial waters of the United
States.
Mr. Mills. As in when it came across around the Aleutian
Chain area or as it----
Admiral Harris. Right. If it is in territorial waters, then
it is flying over sovereign airspace.
But I don't know if--when we first detected it. I mean,
according to General VanHerck, we did not detect, he did not
detect, as the NORAD/NORTHCOM commander, at least four previous
balloon transits of parts of the United States--Florida, Texas,
Guam, and Hawaii.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Mills. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Nevada, Mr. Horsford, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you and the ranking member. I am looking forward to
working with all of my colleagues, again, during this 118th
Congress. And I know that this is a committee that is known for
its bipartisan work, and I think that that should be evident in
how we address the threats coming from the Chinese Communist
Party.
I also want to thank our witnesses for testifying today.
Your expertise and insight have been informative, as we
consider the threat that the Chinese Communist Party plays in
our national security.
I would be remiss not to mention the events that have
transpired. Last week, Americans experienced a symbol of the
national security challenge we in this committee have been
dealing with for years--the Chinese Communist Party's disregard
for the United States sovereignty--when a surveillance balloon
flew over the U.S. airspace. President Biden and Secretary
Austin took decisive action to protect our national interest,
while also assuring that American lives were not disrupted or
harmed.
Dr. Sisson, in your September 2022 report on ``Managing the
Risk of a U.S.-China War,'' you explained how, if the United
States is to maintain a constructive role in preventing the
outbreak of a cross-strait war, it will need to implement a
strategy to deter Chinese aggression that is consistent with
U.S. interests and capabilities. Can you expand on what that
would look like, please?
Dr. Sisson. Certainly. I think we are in good standing with
the way our strategy currently does that today. As you know, we
have a strategy of dual deterrence across the Taiwan Strait,
which makes sure that the PRC doesn't think that it has a free
pass and the Taiwan government doesn't think that it has a
blank check.
And we support that by continuing to provide adequate
defense capabilities, in keeping with the Taiwan Relations Act,
to the defense forces of Taiwan. We continue to make sure that
the United States military is capable, combat-credible, ready,
well-equipped, well-positioned to respond in the case of any
indications and warnings of a contingency. And we continue to
support the Taiwan people in other unofficial ways by reducing
pressures on them to be isolated from the international
community, and to support the resilience of the Taiwan people.
We need to continue to do all of those things, while we
address China as a strategic challenge. And I am confident that
we are in a good position to do that. We have an enormous
number of national strengths, and we are going to continue to
rely on those. We have the asset of allies and partners who are
like-minded in countering PRC coercion. And these are all
attributes that we should take full advantage of.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you.
And just to restate again, what problems do you foresee us
needing to solve in order to compete with the Chinese Communist
Party militarily?
Dr. Sisson. I don't think we have problems to solve per se.
I think we have areas with opportunities to enhance and to
develop and to grow. I think that, as the competition continues
to have highly technological elements, when we talk about
resilience in terms of cyber defenses, when we talk about
artificial intelligence and its societal implications, those
are areas where we are going to need to take a long, hard look
at how we develop talent and how we attract talent here
domestically.
And I mean that from everything from, you know, early
childhood education all the way through to visa programs. And
so, there are ways and places in which we can reinforce the way
that our system has historically operated to be creative,
generative, and highly productive.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you.
Before I close, Mr. Chairman, I just want to express that I
think it is important for every member of this committee to use
responsible language when referring to the People's Republic of
China and the Chinese Communist Party. While there are valid
reasons to critique the actions of the Chinese Communist Party,
it is important that we do not conflate the actions of a
political party and the Chinese people.
These anti-China sentiments can lead to an increase in
xenophobia and racism towards the broader Asian community,
which we saw during then-COVID-19 pandemic, when an increase of
339 percent anti-Asian hate crime was reported last year
compared to the year before. So, as we continue our work in
this Congress, we, as Members of the House, have a duty to use
responsible language while also holding the Chinese Communist
Party accountable.
Thank you.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time is expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
McCormick.
Mr. McCormick. Thank you so much for sticking around for
me. I really am excited to have you both here.
You mentioned earlier, Dr. Sisson, that the Marine Corps
had reorganized, and I think you implied that a lot of that was
with the eye towards China and the island area. Understanding
the history of the Marine Corps, and being a Marine myself, and
being on some MAGTFs [Marine air-ground task forces], my only
concern is a lot of times we prepare for the next war, but we
don't know what the next war is going to be.
Like the admiral said, we hope we don't go to war with
China, and we don't expect to go to war with China. If,
strategically, we have a difference between the way we prepare
to deploy our weapons systems, whether we be in a proxy war
where Taiwan has to defend itself against China, much the way
that Ukraine did against Russia, or if we get in direct
conflict, which we all agree we don't want to have, and we hope
we don't have, my question is, why prepare the Marine Corps for
that sort of war, when we know that almost never have we
predicted the next war? Why not keep with that same fluid MAGTF
model that allows us to fight any clime, any place, like the
greatest fighting force that we have always been?
Dr. Sisson. So, I think you are right to note that we often
get predictions about war wrong. Full stop. We predict which
ones are going to happen incorrectly. We predict how they are
going to go incorrectly. We predict their costs and
consequences incorrectly. And so, that is all very well-taken.
My interpretation of what the Marine Corps has done in
terms of its reorganization and orientation is be directly
responsive to the National Defense Strategy. And so, I have a
hard time faulting the Marines for that choice, given that that
is the direction that they have been given.
I think the points that you make are well-raised at the
strategic level, and that is a conversation to be had. But, to
the extent that General Berger has been responsive to the NDS
[National Defense Strategy], I have to give him high marks.
Mr. McCormick. Okay. Well, I will look forward to that
conversation.
Admiral, likewise, in the area of our biggest concern with
an ally that's--I consider them an ally--of 1.35 billion
people, and a large economy, right next to China, which being
India, I understand the political sensitivity of doing more
tactical engagement with a country like that, but I don't
understand why we don't engage more in arms sales and,
actually, military exercises, and stronger economic ties with
an ally that really sees the world similarly to the way we do.
Admiral Harris. Yeah, it is a great question. I addressed
it when I was the PACOM commander. I spoke at the first three
Raisina Dialogues calling for a resumption of the Quad, and all
of those things.
But just because we want to exercise more with India, just
because we want to sell them more military hardware, doesn't
mean that the Indians want to exercise more with us or buy our
military hardware.
The have some foundation--we call them foundation
agreements that prohibit them from buying directly from us. And
we had to overcome some of those. I didn't state that right.
Not that those foundation agreements prevented them from buying
from us; the foundation agreements prevented us from selling
certain equipment to them; for example, communications gear,
because of their rule sets. So, we overcame a lot of those, and
now, we are selling a lot more military hardware to India. They
have the largest C-17 fleet outside of the United States, for
example. And all of that is good.
I think that there is great promise and great potential in
working with a country of 1.35 billion, which is now the
world's most populous country. So, it is important that we do
more with India. It is important that we get an ambassador
there, so that a Senate-confirmed ambassador representing the
President would be in place. But we haven't had one now for
over 2 years.
Mr. McCormick. Yes, I couldn't agree with you more. I think
that is something we need to focus on.
Likewise, do we have the industrial ability to ramp up to
supply, for example, Australia and India, and other allies,
with the necessary equipment to fight the next war? Because,
right now, I feel like, especially in our shipbuilding
capacity, we are severely lacking.
Admiral Harris. For sure. For sure we are. Our industrial
capacity is far different now than it was even 5 years ago, let
alone 20 and 30 years ago. So, that is an industrial base issue
that we need to get our arms around.
You know, we haven't built Stinger missiles in this country
up until the Ukraine thing for 20 years, that we have built
here, except for just hands full that we provided to one of our
friends.
Mr. McCormick. In 10 seconds, I just want to congratulate
our F-22 pilots for their first kill. Carry on. Let the Marines
lead the way, though. God bless. Thanks.
I yield.
The Chairman. I would tell the witnesses we saved the best
for last.
[Laughter.]
My friend from the great State of Alabama, Ms. Sewell, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Sewell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a new member of the House Armed Services Committee, I
would like to take a point of personal privilege to say that we
in the Alabama delegation are very proud of the chairman, and I
look forward to working with him and the Ranking Member Smith
on issues of great importance to our military.
I represent, as you know, Mr. Chairman, Alabama's Seventh
Congressional District, which is the proud home of Maxwell Air
Force Base and the 187th Air National Guard Fighter Wing, as
well as the 117th Air National Guard Refueling Wing in
Birmingham. Countless men and women in uniform that proudly
serve our country are natives of our great State. And I look
forward to continuing to work with you in the efforts to
protect them and, also, to pursue our military capabilities.
Dr. Sisson, I wanted to ask you, I know that the CCP is
trying to expand its reach and influence around the globe. They
have established a foothold in Djibouti and they are pursuing
transit right agreements in the South Pacific.
What tools do we have in our toolbox to strengthen our
alliances around the world and discourage countries from
hosting PLA bases? And could pursuing more economic engagement
in the Pacific area be helpful? For example, the Biden
administration is currently pursuing more engagement via the
Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Your thoughts on this?
Dr. Sisson. Yes, absolutely, I think economic engagement is
an important element of the ways that we can engage with
nations in the Western Pacific, but, also, as you know, rightly
in other parts of the world.
You know, the CCP has taken advantage of what are truly
remarkable gains in its internal development to, essentially,
sell that model overseas. And they have been able to put
together appealing packages, in part, because they keep the
cost of their loans low, construction contracts, and so forth.
So, the thing that we can do is to continue to engage with
countries around the world; listen very carefully to their
interests and needs; present alternatives to the Chinese
option. We can also count on those countries seeing what has
happened to others who have engaged with the CCP in these ways.
These construction projects that are shoddy and don't last very
long, and that, ultimately don't serve the needs of the nation,
that's a lesson that is not lost on others who are looking to
improve their own development. So, we can continue to provide
that alternative in terms of quality and to listen and engage
[with] them in areas where the quality of those relationships
is really important.
Ms. Sewell. While this is my first hearing on HASC, I
served on the House Select Committee on Intelligence for 8
years prior to this. And I can tell you that cybersecurity and
AI were like at the foremost of things that we were discussing,
and I know that you are an expert in artificial intelligence,
military application of them.
And so, how is the PLA approaching the use and integration
of AI into their tactical and strategic planning? And moreover,
how can we integrate emerging AI technology into our national
security infrastructure, which will also ensure that there are
proper checks on this novel technology?
Dr. Sisson. That is among the most important questions
today, I think, not just specific to the military domain, but
beyond. In the military domain, the PLA has been very focused
on using AI-enabled technologies to conduct what it calls
systems warfare, which is the idea that information, as it has
always been in warfare, is so essential to the ability to use
the forces that you have, to force deploy--force employment.
And what we need to do in response to their gains and their
concepts in that domain is to create enough resilience and
enough defense around our command-and-control networks, so that
they can't deploy those AI-enabled tools to effect a blinding
strike and, essentially, cut portions of our services off from
the information that they need to effect their missions.
Ms. Sewell. Very good.
Admiral Harris, I only have a minute. But in your
testimony, you mentioned the new administrations in Korea and
Japan. And my State of Alabama has close ties with both Korea
and Japan. And both of our countries have benefitted by our
automotive manufacturing presence in Alabama.
How can we encourage the development of deeper defense and
economic ties with our allies in the Pacific region?
Admiral Harris. Well, one of the best ways of doing that is
to encourage countries with companies that are operating in
China to offshore those companies to the United States, near-
shore them somewhere outside of China.
With regard to our defense relationships, they are very
close between us and South Korea and us and Japan.
Ms. Sewell. Thank you.
The Chairman. The gentlelady's time is expired.
I would like to thank our witnesses for this very
informative hearing. You have been very helpful.
And I thank our members for their participation.
And with that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
February 7, 2023
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 7, 2023
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
February 7, 2023
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
February 7, 2023
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RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. TOKUDA
Admiral Harris. As I said in my testimony in response to this
question before time expired, we must not allow the PRC to dictate our
policy regarding Taiwan, or any other country for that matter.
Diplomacy and diplomats matter . . . but diplomacy must be backed by
military power when dealing with naked aggression by countries like the
PRC and Russia. The U.S. can, indeed, walk and chew gum at the same
time. We deter the PRC and support Taiwan by (1) ensuring we have the
military strength to defeat the PRC if it comes to war; (2) helping
Taiwan to the full extent of the law--the Taiwan Relations Act--with
arms sales, bilateral all-domain exercises, and support in the
international arena; (3) enacting as quickly as possible a bilateral
free trade agreement with Taipei; and (4) adopting a policy of
strategic clarity by rejecting our current 4-decades long policy of
strategic ambiguity when it comes to the question of whether we'd
defend Taiwan militarily if the PRC attacked Taiwan in order to
forcibly compel reunification with the mainland. We should be clear to
the PRC of our intent so they understand the cost of war against the
U.S.; we should be clear to Taiwan so that the Taiwanese can make a
truly informed decisions about their future; and we should be clear to
the American people. In 2023, ambiguity serves none of these
constituencies. [See page 54.]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
February 7, 2023
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLAGHER
Mr. Gallagher. In recent weeks, we've heard encouraging reports
from Japan and the Philippines about their receptivity to hosting new
U.S. bases, particularly in the Ryukyus and Luzon. With both the Army
and Marine Corps developing new CONOPS like MDTFs and MLRs that utilize
ground-launched fires, just how important to deterrence is it to take
advantage of these new opportunities and incorporate additional forces
forward in the First Island Chain before the shooting starts?
Admiral Harris. This is extremely important for 3 reasons:
1. Strategically, Tokyo's and Manila's receptivity to hosting new
U.S. footprints in their countries highlights their commitment to their
alliances with the U.S. This is especially important for the
Philippines due to the fraught relationship between the U.S. and the
Duterte administration, despite our treaty alliance with Manila.
2. Strategically, their receptivity to hosting new U.S. footprints
in their countries underscores the concern they have with increasing
Chinese aggression in the region, especially in view of their own
territorial issues with the PRC. Xi Jinping's ongoing outreach to
Vladimir Putin is a slap in the face to the International Criminal
Court's warrant for the arrest of Putin on war crimes charges, and
underscores what a poor international partner the PRC is.
3. Tactically, building additional facilities in the Philippines
and Japan increases the staging points and resulting threat vectors and
dilemmas that the PRC will have to deal with if we go to blows with
Beijing.
Mr. Gallagher. As a combatant commander, how important was Red Hill
to your ability to keep your forces fueled and operating, particularly
in a protracted conflict?
In your judgement, do how can we replace its fuel storage capacity
and what would be the impact if we can't do so quickly?
As an operational commander, would you see a benefit to defueling
Red Hill but keeping it ``in stasis'' where if need be, in the event of
a conflict, it could be utilized to resupply the fleet?
Admiral Harris. As COMUSPACOM and, before that, COMPACFLT, Red Hill
was critical to my operational flexibility since there was no
alternative at the time. I do believe, however, that there could have
been (and are) acceptable operational alternatives if the Navy was (and
is) willing to resource them. While I'm not happy that leaks/spills
caused DOD and the Navy to make the decision to close Red Hill and move
to other solutions, I am glad that the decision was made to close Red
Hill and move to other solutions. To the question of ``how'', while I
believe there are acceptable commercial solutions in the near term,
including mobile solutions, to add to extant facilities, I defer to DLA
expertise on this. Operationally, putting all our eggs in one basket
makes far less sense today than it did 80 years ago, in 1940, when
construction of Red Hill first began, especially given precision and
deeply penetrating 21st Century weapons. For the longer term, the U.S.
must look to staging forward, hardened, and defended logistics sites
along the Second Island Chain. This will require a whole-of-government
effort, to include negotiating basing rights, building the facilities,
acquiring the manpower to operate the facilities, building the
infrastructure to defend the facilities, and addressing the
environmental issues. After all, at the end of the day, we don't want
to simply replicate a ``Red Hill Forward'' with all the problems we had
with ``Red Hill 1.0''. Regarding keeping Red Hill ``in stasis'', while
it would give the INDOPACOM and PACFLT commanders options, the issue
remains that if Red Hill is defueled today, and then refueled again at
some point in the future, we will have to deal with the leak issues all
over again, and maybe much worse. I'm certainly not a civil or
structural engineer, but I believe there might be an issue of
``internal collapse'' or weakening of the tanks' walls if there is no
fuel or other liquid to exert outward pressure on the walls to keep
them intact over a long period of ``in stasis''. This will have to be
studied, of course, if we're going to consider this course of action.
But, again, I defer to experts on this issue.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BERGMAN
Mr. Bergman. The PRC has a significant influence operation
currently in place within U.S. think tanks, academic institutions, and
other prominent policy institutions that favorably shape and achieve
the PRC's goals. Agreements made by Brookings with foreign governments
put the think tank's independent research in serious question. For
example, the memorandum of understanding with Qatar that the Brookings
Doha Center would ``engage with regular consultation'' and provide an
``agenda for programs that will be developed by the Center'' indicate
the level of influence and control foreign entities have over
institutions such as Brookings. Did Brookings Institution have a
similar agreement for the John L. Thornton China Center with the
Chinese government, the CCP, or any affiliated entity? How do we ensure
Think Tanks such as Brookings maintain independent research in the
future when such memorandum of understandings with Qatar jeopardize the
public's perception of so-called independent research?
Dr. Sisson. As indicated in my disclosure form, while I am a Fellow
at the Brookings Institution, I provided testimony before the Committee
representing my individual views based on my own scholarship and do not
speak on behalf of the Institution. In an effort to be responsive to
your question, Brookings leadership has provided the following
information:
Brookings personnel have long been subject to research independence
and integrity policies, which contain requirements for research
independence, nonpartisanship, and avoidance of plagiarism, research
misconduct, and conflicts of interest. These policies serve to protect
the integrity and objectivity of Brookings's scholarship and
operations. Brookings's policies also require vetting and disclosure of
funding relationships. For decades, the institution has voluntarily
published a list of donors and other financial information in its
annual report. Annual reports dating back to 2004 can be found on
Brookings's website: https://www.brookings.edu/about-us/annual-report/.
The John L. Thornton China Center is part of Brookings's Foreign
Policy research program, and its activities are governed by the
policies described above. The Center does not have, and to the best of
our knowledge has never had, any funding agreements with the Chinese
Government, the CCP, or entities that are known by Brookings to be
controlled by or otherwise acting on behalf of the Chinese government
or the CCP. Nor to the best of our knowledge has Brookings ever had any
agreement which gives the Chinese government, the CCP or any related
entities influence or control over Brookings research.
Mr. Bergman. Are you aware that the Brookings Institution has
accepted millions from Chinese sources, including from the China-United
States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a Hong Kong-based nonprofit.
According to Foreign Policy Magazine, ``CUSEF is a registered foreign
agent bankrolled by a high-ranking Chinese government official with
close ties to a sprawling Chinese Communist Party.'' Did Brookings
disclose its funding from CUSEF and other entities tied to the Chinese
government in its policy papers and op-eds, as well as during its
briefings on Capitol Hill and with the Administration?
Dr. Sisson. As indicated in my disclosure form, while I am a Fellow
at the Brookings Institution, I provided testimony before the Committee
representing my individual views based on my own scholarship and do not
speak on behalf of the Institution. In an effort to be responsive to
your question, Brookings leadership has provided the following
information:
For decades, the institution has voluntarily published information
about its finances and a list of donors in its annual report. With
respect to the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF),
Brookings received a total of $612,000 in support from CUSEF between
2008 and 2016. Brookings has not received funding from CUSEF since
April 2016. Brookings voluntarily disclosed CUSEF's financial support
in its annual report in every year it received CUSEF support as well as
in publications directly supported by CUSEF funding.
[all]