▶ 0:00:16Subcommittee on Europe will come to The purpose of this hearing is to examine the scope of Russia's and China's hybrid warfare tactics in Europe and to assess policy solutions to support US interest. I now recognize myself for an opening Ladies and gentlemen, we are at war.
▶ 0:00:38As the world enters a new age of fifth generation warfare, malign actors, including the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, are stopping at nothing at undermining our United States and our The rules of engagement are changing before our eyes. Hybrid warfare is in full effect.
▶ 0:00:57Across Europe, governments are facing new found threats that were once considered unimaginable, blatant violations of airspace, weaponized migration, intricate sabotage of infrastructure, crippling cyber intrusions, and more. Taken together, these actions point to a simple reality. We are at war even if it is not declared in the traditional sense.
▶ 0:01:23The MAD concept, mutual assured destruction, does not apply in this gray zone conflict, and we don't know where the line of kinetic conflict lies between the great powers. But what is hybrid warfare? What are these new threats? According to NATO, hybrid warfare is the combination of military and non-military, as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed and use of regular forces.
▶ 0:01:52Hybrid models are used to blur the lines between war and peace, and attempt to sow doubt in the minds of target populations. They aim to destabilize and undermine whole societies. While the nature of these threats remains fluid and are changing by the day, I would simply describe the strategy being employed by Russia and PRC through the dime framework.
▶ 0:02:16They're using diplomatic, information, military, and economic means to intimidate, harass, and sabotage NATO member states, institutions, and societies. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, these new-found strategies employed by Moscow and Beijing have only increased in intricacy and persistence across Europe.
▶ 0:02:38It is vital that this subcommittee identifies, analyzes, and acts accordingly to address these emerging threats today to ensure a more secure tomorrow. In the air, drone incursions over major civilian travel hubs, in addition to military installations, remain a safety, security, and intelligence challenge. The results of these drone sightings have been chaos for governments and passengers with airports having to temporarily shut down.
▶ 0:03:08With authorities still struggling to grapple with this emerging threat. Just this past September, Polish and other NATO aircraft shot down several Russian drones that entered Poland's airspace, and NATO F-35 fighter jets intercepted Russian MiG-31 fighters violating the airspace of Estonia. Overall, this increase of malign aerial activity has heightened tensions, especially on NATO's eastern flank, that has exponentially increased the potential for future kinetic conflict.
▶ 0:03:37On the ground, Russia, particularly through its GRU intelligence service, is conducting a range of conventional and non-conventional sabotage schemes. These schemes include arson attacks on commercial hubs like shopping malls, the sabotage of railways to cause derailments, the severing of underwater power and communications cables, and the smuggling of illicit items and disruption of airspace using weather While the malign actions range in sophistication and effect, the
▶ 0:04:07objective of the Federal Federation is to cause general chaos and damage, not just against strategic targets, but across all areas of society. In cyberspace, Russia and PRC are running rampant targeting governments, businesses, and private citizens across Europe. According to a report from Microsoft, cyber attacks emanating from the Russian Federation against NATO countries has increased 25% year-over-year. I suspect that's low.
▶ 0:04:34These attacks target critical infrastructure, government services, financial services, transportation systems, energy, health care sectors of NATO members. Similarly, the PRC is unleashing its own state-sponsored hackers, including Salt Typhoon, in addition to continued efforts to embed its embed its own technology throughout key areas of the European economy.
▶ 0:04:55Last week, two technology companies based in China were sanctioned by the UK for dangerous and indiscriminate cyber attacks that carried that carried out against that were carried out against 80 government and private industry IT systems. Frankly, to our witnesses, your written your written testimonies lend absolute credibility to the fact that we are at I wish I could assign them as required reading for a significant segment of the American population.
▶ 0:05:25Every nation in Western civilization needs to understand the breadth and the depth of China burrowing into Western national defense backbone and just how much China controls. I believe the sovereign nations of the West are awake to the danger. We now need to accelerate our ridding of the West of Chinese influence and control. I look forward to your testimony today.
▶ 0:05:50We hope that you can provide this committee with concrete policy recommendations on addressing these hybrid threats that threaten US interests. That I recognize the ranking member, Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Russia and and China's hybrid warfare in Europe poses one of the most significant threats to transatlantic unity and security since the fall of the Soviet Union.
▶ 0:06:19Our Russian and PRC tactics are not new. They're they're enduring. And in recent months, we've seen Lithuanian authorities indict 15 individuals for an alleged Russian plot to blow up mail parcels on aircraft reportedly inbound to the US and Canada and dealt with the fallout of China's salt typhoon attacks on US critical infrastructure among many other This week, the chief of M16 in United Kingdom warned
▶ 0:06:49Russia's warned of Russia's acute threat to the West. As the benefits of the democratic system have become clear and deterrence to security alliance have proven effective, Russia and China have become fast friends, refining their playbooks to exploit vulnerabilities, manipulate political discourse, and chip away at our shared transatlantic values. As both Beijing and Moscow seek to undermine European security, they take significantly different tactics to achieve their goals.
▶ 0:07:18Seeking respect and leadership in a multipolar world, Beijing has sought to undermine the European Union through bilateral economic cooperation with countries like Hungary and Serbia. Through nodes of friendship in Budapest and Belgrade and elsewhere, Beijing has bullied allies and partners for the recognition of Taiwan, eroded eroded, rather, European resilience to cyber attacks and sow doubt in our democratic Meanwhile, the Kremlin's
▶ 0:07:48illegal invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated that Moscow's playbook includes much more than hybrid attacks. After almost 12 years of conflict, Vladimir Putin has supplemented his illegal invasion with continuous hybrid attacks against Europe and against NATO. In the recent months, more than 20 Russian drones flew over Polish territory, blurring the line between hybrid and all-out military attack.
▶ 0:08:16And the Kremlin has been accused of terrorism by Polish authorities for blowing up train infrastructures. At the political level, the Kremlin has sought close ties from friendly far-right political parties in Moldova and Romania, as well as the AfD in Germany, who both knowingly and unknowingly will do the Kremlin's Unfortunately, Beijing and Moscow's hybrid tactics are not limited to Europe.
▶ 0:08:41Last week, a California court indicted Russians for targeting critical infrastructures in five US states. And literally today, a group of affiliated a group affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, long to believe to be a cover for the FSB, is in Congress seeking meetings with members and staff to spread false narratives about religious persecution. And and persecution.
▶ 0:09:04Meanwhile, the PRC state-sponsored uh cyber attacks like Volt Typhoon uh and have targeted American power grids and American companies, stealing sensitive files and intellectual property. For decades, Beijing and Moscow have uh only ceased their hybrid attacks when the transatlantic alliance remains united in defense of our shared values.
▶ 0:09:31that brings in Ukraine, where the only way to ensure a Ukrainian future, a future that's free of Russian hybrid attacks is with credible US backing and security guarantees for Kiev. It also means calling out Russian political interference and Beijing's malign investment schemes in Europe wherever they're seen and subsequently responding with sanctions and other punitive measures to show the Kremlin and President Xi that the United States is serious.
▶ 0:10:02rather than respond effectively to Russia and China's hybrid tactics in Europe, the Trump administration has embraced Beijing and Moscow. On December 8th, the White House approved the export of advanced Nvidia H200 chips to China. On the same day, the Justice Department indicted an American and two PRC natives for the alleged illegal smuggling of those exact chips to China.
▶ 0:10:30Meanwhile, the State Department's Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy met last week with a politician from the far-right AfD who the Kremlin had once described as a member of Parliament under our absolute control. This administration's actions have consequences. Failing not to stand up to Moscow and and Beijing's hybrid tactics, but rather embracing them makes America less safe, less strong, and less prosperous.
▶ 0:11:00I hope this distinguished panel of witnesses here today can help shed some light on the true hybrid threats posed to Europe and the United States and recommend a way forward for the Trump administration to change course. I look forward to their testimony and I yield back the balance of my time. Other members of the committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record. We're pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses before us today on this important topic.
▶ 0:11:30Uh Mr. Craig Singleton, the China program senior director and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies, Mr. Christopher Walker, the vice president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, and Ms. Laura Cooper, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown Uh this committee recognizes the importance of the issues before us and is grateful to have you here to speak with us.
▶ 0:11:55Your full statements will be made part of the record, and I'll ask each of you to keep your spoken record uh remarks to 5 minutes in order to allow time for the member questions. I now recognize Mr. Singleton for an opening statement. Chairman Self, Ranking Member Keating, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today about Chinese hybrid warfare in Europe. I'm pleased to offer policy insights from the non-partisan Foundation for Defensive Democracies, where I serve as a senior fellow.
▶ 0:12:25In my view, China's hybrid warfare strategy is best understood as a campaign to shape European decisions before a crisis, so that when a crisis comes, Beijing faces a more divided, distracted, and dependent continent.
▶ 0:12:40To achieve that objective, China is investing in hybrid tools to gain access and leverage using commercial deals, cultural outreach, cyber operations, disinformation, and quiet economic coercion today to create the strategic advantages it needs tomorrow. In that sense, Beijing does not see Europe as a side show. It sees Europe as a central arena in its long-term competition with the United States, a key source of technology, capital, and regulatory weight.
▶ 0:13:10If Beijing can blunt or break transatlantic resolve, it can improve its chances of prevailing in future fights over Taiwan, global standards, or sanctions because any US-led response will be slower, narrower, and easier for China then On the ground, China's hybrid campaign in Europe falls into three lines of effort: penetration, pre-positioning, and pressure.
▶ 0:13:34Penetration targets Europe's networks, politics, and information space through state-backed hacking, United Front and party-to-party ties, and norm-shaping tools such as Confucius Institutes and loosely regulated research partnerships. Pre-positioning embeds Chinese firms in ports, logistics hubs, telecom networks, data centers, and renewable energy supply chains, creating strategic dependence by design. And then comes pressure.
▶ 0:14:02Informal trade blockages, counter-sanctions, and threats to market access when European states cross Beijing's political red lines. All of this is happening while China acts as a lifeline for Russia's war machine and its broader hybrid assault on Ukraine and NATO. Chinese companies now provide a large share of the machine tools, microelectronics, and other dual-use goods Russia needs to sustain high-intensity combat. Taken together, Russia and China are running a complementary hybrid playbook.
▶ 0:14:32Moscow relies on overt aggression and crude disinformation. Beijing prefers slow, patient moves, softer influence, and economic leverage wrapped in the language of partnership and peace. At the same time, Russian attacks drain European unity and stockpiles. Chinese dependencies make it harder for some governments to absorb the costs of a long struggle. The goal is the same.
▶ 0:14:56To corrode confidence, fracture and normalize a narrative of Western Some European governments have restricted high-risk vendors, tightened investment screening, and have begun to reassess Confucius Institutes. But the broader response is still uneven, especially in ports, telecom networks, supply chains, and research ecosystems. And that unevenness is exactly what Beijing seeks to exploit. So, what should we do? In my view, three priorities stand out.
▶ 0:15:25First, treat Chinese hybrid warfare in Europe as a frontline China challenge, not a secondary theater. US diplomacy should frame Chinese and Russian hybrid activities as a linked problem, and our embassies and missions to NATO and the EU should raise Chinese cyber activity, economic coercion, and research security whenever they discuss Russia and Second, help Europe reduce their most dangerous dependencies and harden the digital front door against Chinese hybrid threats.
▶ 0:15:53Congress can support European efforts to de-risk from Chinese leverage in ports, telecom, and critical minerals. And encourage joint cyber resilience work with European allies. Third, raise the costs for Chinese coercion and support to Russia. Beijing needs to understand that weaponizing trade against European partners or enabling Russia's war will not be cost-free. Congress can press for regular public reporting on Chinese entities that support Russia's defense industry for targeted sanctions and export controls.
▶ 0:16:23And for visible US backing when European allies face Chinese coercion. At the end of the day, this is about more than troops and tanks. It's about who controls the ports, platforms, pipelines, and public narratives that shape Europe's choices in a crisis. A Europe that is more resilient, more diversified, and more clear-eyed about China will be a powerful force multiplier for US strategy. A Europe that remains dependent, divided, and distracted because of Chinese hybrid warfare will not.
▶ 0:16:53On behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, I thank you again for inviting me to testify today. Uh thank you, Mr. Singleton. I now recognize Mr. Walker for an opening Chairman Self, Ranking Member Keating, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on a threat landscape that strikes at the foundations of US national security and undermines American strategic influence.
▶ 0:17:18Russia's broad-spectrum warfare across Europe and China's pivotal enabling role in sustaining and amplifying these efforts. This is not an abstract challenge. It's a systemic assault on free societies that's being waged by ambitious dictatorships, which themselves deny their own people basic freedoms.
▶ 0:17:38For its part, domestically, the Chinese Communist Party uses extensive state power to suppress Abroad, where the possibility for such direct direct coercion is more limited, Beijing relies on educational, cultural, media, and other overseas platforms to extend its influence within open societies. China and Russia together represent among the world's most repressive censorship regimes.
▶ 0:18:06They seek by their nature to eliminate free speech domestically and export the tools to do so abroad. This is an important backdrop to recognize for a context in which the authorities in Russia and China, increasingly working with a grouping of like-minded autocratic regimes, have strong ideas about the way the world should be organized.
▶ 0:18:28A report the Center for European Policy Analysis released in November 2025, titled War Without End, Russia's shadow warfare puts the threat from Moscow's progressively brazen approach into context. War Without End observes the following: that the Kremlin's overriding concern is not national security, but the survival and continuation of the current regime.
▶ 0:18:52That Russia's leadership already believes that it's at war with the West, even if many Western democracies still do not see it this way. Finally, this report observes that the Kremlin does not compartmentalize various wars it's prosecuting. It views its full-scale war on Ukraine and its shadow warfare in Europe as two linked fronts in the same wider conflict against the West.
▶ 0:19:17Russia's shadow warfare represents a crucial dimension of Moscow's playbook, a concerted campaign of attacks designed designed to degrade an adversary without provoking a military reprisal. Russia's leadership understands that at least for the time being, it can't fight Europe directly, so it pursues shadow war, which tests the vulnerability of critical infrastructure, to destabilize societies and governments, and provokes reactions designed to undermine national, European,
▶ 0:19:47and transatlantic unity and institutions. Our Our research makes clear that Russia, like China, does not view conflict through a binary war-peace lens. Instead, Moscow operates in a constant state of confrontation, using shadow warfare to manipulate, coerce, and destabilize targeted states without triggering a conventional military response. Russia uses its toolkit to achieve several crucial objectives, which have the effect of undermining US interest.
▶ 0:20:18First, undermining NATO cohesion through covert and denial deniable operations. Second, it targets critical infrastructure vital to US force protection. Third, it creates ongoing sustained instability in This is not a coincidence, it's a strategy, and this is where China's role becomes especially important.
▶ 0:20:41China functions as a crucial crucial enabler of Russia and Moscow's shadow warfare, and these two authoritarian powers share a common interest. Weakening US leadership, fracturing Western unity, and creating strategic paralysis across the free world to the extent they're able to do so.
▶ 0:21:01Among other forms of support, Chinese-backed and Russian malign networks distort policy debates and make democratic systems more vulnerable to both Russian and Chinese influence. They reinforce each other. Among other forms of support, Chinese backed and Russian malign networks are sharing technology and components that are used by Russia, including microchips for weapons and surveillance systems and drones used in reconnaissance and covert action.
▶ 0:21:29The various forms of support for from China for Russia's activities makes it harder for the US and its allies to impose meaningful costs. The result is that Russia gains political space to conduct such activities with fewer risks and fewer consequences.
▶ 0:21:47Since 2012 when Xi Jinping became China's top leader, the same year that Vladimir Putin returned to the Russian presidencies, I would argue the two leaders have arrived at what might be understood as a shared consciousness on the world they would like to take shape. It's one that's at direct odds with the values and interests of the United States and other free societies.
▶ 0:22:09In this context and focusing on CEPA's focus on resilience, allied unity, and confronting authoritarian coercion through shadow warfare, I offer the following top order recommendations. Strengthen transatlantic resilience against shadow warfare, reduce economic vulnerabilities exploited by Russia and China, counter covert influence and malign finance in democratic systems and reinforce NATO cohesion and deterrence. I thank you for your attention.
▶ 0:22:40Uh thank you, Mr. Walker. I now recognize Ms. Cooper for an opening Thank you, Chairman Self, Ranking Member Keating, members of the subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss Russian hybrid threats. This is my first appearance before Congress since my final assignment at the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, capping 25 years of federal service. And the views I will express today are solely my own. This is a condensed version of the statement I submitted for the record.
▶ 0:23:11What was a dribble of destructive actions from 2014 to 2022 has become a wave of Russian hybrid attacks that has intensified and broadened in scope. We have seen Russian-linked individuals carry out well over 100 acts of sabotage and attempted attacks in Europe since 2022.
▶ 0:23:32For example, damage to railway lines, cyber attacks with physical effects, explosions in warehouses and factories, and assassination attempts, as well as incursions into NATO airspace by Russian drones and fighter aircraft. Russia and the Lukashenka regime in Belarus have weaponized migration, flooding NATO countries with illegal migrants.
▶ 0:23:56All the while, Russia projects an image of inevitable victory with propaganda that paints a false picture of swift Russian battlefield advances. So, how does this hybrid war fit into Russia's strategy? Russia's calculus on hybrid war in Europe is enmeshed in its objectives for its conventional war against Ukraine. The Kremlin's immediate goal is to cut support for Ukraine by creating fear.
▶ 0:24:27The long-standing Russian goal is to exploit fractures within the NATO alliance and undermine NATO's Further, Russia's information strategies strategy uses threats about Russian use of force to try to intimidate the United States and Europe.
▶ 0:24:46I believe weakness in our response to Russia's war of conquest in Ukraine and hesitancy in our response to this hybrid campaign, in turn, will lead to further Russian escalation. How do we disrupt this cycle of Russian escalation and regain initiative to protect US interests? There are literally dozens of steps we can take.
▶ 0:25:09Just a few examples, sanctions and more robust sanctions enforcement including clamping down on Russia's shadow fleet, bolstering NATO's eastern sentry operation, showing vigilance against undersea threats, and exercising a unified NATO response playbook for hybrid threats. The bottom line is that we need to show the Kremlin that we are aware of what it is trying to do and that it will fail to achieve its war aims.
▶ 0:25:38This means supporting the armed forces of Ukraine in their defense of Ukraine's very existence and it means working closely with NATO allies on a unified response to Russia's hybrid war to show Putin he can neither divide nor intimidate us. On Ukraine, the NDAA's inclusion of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative is a start, but it does only provide a fraction of the requirements.
▶ 0:26:03When the United States outsource support for Ukraine to earlier this to Europe earlier this year, we played into Putin's strategy of division and we took the risk that European support alone will not be enough to deny Putin his After all, if Russia succeeds in Russia could pursue ambitions elsewhere in Europe beyond the hybrid war.
▶ 0:26:27This is another reason why congressional support for US troop presence in Europe, reflected in the NDAA, sends an important message of US interests in a secure Europe, our number one security and trade partner. Finally, I certainly defer to other experts on China's actions, but I'll note that increasingly the China challenge and the Russia challenge are inextricably intertwined.
▶ 0:26:52Russia is now dependent on China, and China has an interest in seeing Russia win against Ukraine. At the strategic level, China is watching to see how the West responds to Russia's hybrid warfare, whether it rewards Russia's aggression, and if the United States turns its back on its allies and partners.
▶ 0:27:13At the operational level, on the one side, the United States abandonment of direct security assistance for Ukraine's military complicates our ability to learn firsthand from Ukraine's battlefield On the other side, Russia's partners, China, Iran, and DPRK, are learning battlefield lessons from Russia. We've already seen that China has access to Russian missile, electronic warfare, and air defense technology.
▶ 0:27:42This authoritarian quartet sees eye-to-eye on one critical issue, the desire to degrade US power. Any US strategy to protect our national interests in Europe must account for the fact that the United States is unlikely to be successful in driving a wedge between Russia and China. Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions. Uh thank you. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions. Uh Mr. Singleton.
▶ 0:28:10Uh in your testimony, uh you mentioned that Europe still depends on Chinese technology, capital, and raw industrial outputs in ways that Beijing can weaponize in a future crisis. Uh a couple of couple of issues, and I want to I would like for you to put this in the context of the Chinese playbook, uh which is to steal, and then strangle markets.
▶ 0:28:38Uh so, how deep is Europe's dependence on Chinese on Chinese output in those areas for its own defense capabilities. And some examples, if you have them, please. Sure, thank you very much sir for the question. I would say it's they're in deep and it's in certain instances deepening. Um these represent soft choke points for the Chinese Communist Party to leverage. Um there's a strategic upside here for the Chinese.
▶ 0:29:05Dependencies turn all of these commercial footholds into leverage. China gains insight into European systems. They get a say over their supply chains uh and their economic prosperity. And I'd also say they get the ability to raise or lower economic pain with little to no notice. I think they could be used in a in a crisis to veto European decision-making. Um control over, for example, European ports or logistics hubs.
▶ 0:29:32That could complicate the flow of forces in a crisis and NATO logistics. Uh telecom and data penetration, just like we've seen here with Salt and Volt Typhoon, could do the same thing. You see intelligence collection collection, but also opportunities for disruption in European networks. And then we can't forget the critical mineral supply chain chokehold that the Chinese are employing against us and the rest of the world right now.
▶ 0:29:54If you could restrict components or weaponize critical inputs, uh particularly as they relate to um Chinese inverters and batteries and basic manufacturing, uh the Chinese will in effect have a a veto over certain European decision-making, which will complicate our our efforts broadly. Uh thank you. Uh for Mr. Walker and Ms. our GDP is roughly 29 trillion. The EU GDP is roughly 20 on the order.
▶ 0:30:23Russian GDP is 2.8. So, in in light of that, all three of you, I think, said they are trying to fracture uh Western unity. Uh so, for the two of you, starting with you, Mr. how what is it going to take to get Europe to realize, if they simply try, this will not be a fair fight. What is it going to take?
▶ 0:30:47So, Congressman, I think you put your finger on on the central issue, which is Russia and China alike operate by divide and conquer. They do this domestically in their own politics, and now they're exporting it internationally even beyond the subject matter we're discussing today. This is their stock and trade. I think we've yet in the free world come to grips with the cohesiveness that's required to respond to this divide and conquer strategy.
▶ 0:31:16Just to illustrate three examples of shadow warfare that touch on different dimensions to provoke disunity. One was last month. This was the Warsaw-Lublin rail line in which a rail corridor that would carry a hundred trains a day was attacked. This is also a critical rail link to Ukraine for delivering supplies for the war effort there.
▶ 0:31:41Last year, there was an assassination attempt or plan on the CEO of Rheinmetall, Armin that was brought to light. And then finally, these are not exhaustive. These are illustrative examples. The year before in 2023, the Baltic Corridor pipeline was attacked, and this is widely understood to have been both Russia and China.
▶ 0:32:07This has in reverse order implications data and energy trans transmitters in the context of the sea cables, indicating to the West, to the Europeans, and I would say to the US our vulnerabilities there. With respect to the CEO of Rheinmetall, it reflects a willingness to go after the leadership of our defense industrial community.
▶ 0:32:34And finally, with the rail attack, it also suggests that Russia is willing to go beyond Ukraine to attack critical infrastructure signaling perhaps a view to the future. Thank you. I have about 30 seconds. Please, Ms. Cooper. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question. I would just add to that dimension that with the size of the European economies and the size of the US economy, the the portion that we're we're spending on security assistance is quite little.
▶ 0:33:04And the other dimension of resources that we didn't acknowledge is the lives. Right now, it's Russian lives that are on the line in Ukraine, and it's Russia that is paying the price. This tells us that Russia can't last forever, and that we can surge our support to really push Russia back. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Keating from Massachusetts. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh Ms.
▶ 0:33:31Cooper, thank you for your quarter century of service to our Uh and you had mentioned the hundreds of acts of sabotage. Uh the witnesses have also mentioned the and the assassination attempts, as well as the attacks on vital infrastructure as targets that are there.
▶ 0:33:54this week, the new uh United Kingdom chief of MI6 you know, talked about the acute threats, and they mentioned uh in particular uh AI, and the increasing threats there. So, Ms.
▶ 0:34:10with all the hybrid warfare tactics like cyber and social manipulation depending on artificial intelligence, and in light of the recent decision to allow China to buy Nvidia H200 chips, how does that reflect on this tension that we have with AI?
▶ 0:34:30And how do we keep up uh from a transatlantic sense with uh the threat being emphasized by use of AI as the new MI6 chief referenced in in her speech? Thank you, Ranking Member Keating. I would I would say that on this issue of AI, I would describe it as bolstering what is already a concerted area of Russian hybrid warfare, and that is their information warfare.
▶ 0:34:57And AI is enabling Russia to go further in its in its ability to reach audiences across Europe, across the United States, and do what it always seeks to do, which is inflame existing tensions in society and exacerbate existing fears. In the European context, this has manifested itself as trying to dissuade people and governments from supporting Ukraine.
▶ 0:35:27That's that's particularly true, I I think with their influence on political parties and some of the parties that Could you you know, mention the effect on that as well that they're using? Yes, so Russia is seeking to have sympathetic audiences across Europe. Now, this is something that they've done for years and years and years, and you know, previously employed, you know, traditional methods like corruption and you know, paying politicians off.
▶ 0:35:54Now, what you see is this combination of support for individual leaders as well as support for political parties and this information competition in which they are amplifying these messages, destructive messages in many cases. Russia does not offer an alternative. Russia does not offer a positive ideology. What Russia does is tear down societies through this information campaign.
▶ 0:36:23Yeah, all of our witnesses uh troubling coalition that now exists between uh China and Russia in particular. And And that's something historically uh we've never seen before. How important is that uh uh Ms. Cooper for us keeping our coalition strong? In In the past, we had the one thing China and Russia did not have, that kind of coalition. In fact, in Ukraine, uh we're able to assemble 50 countries in a coalition.
▶ 0:36:53So, how important is that? And and how is China looking on uh you know, upon that in terms of their own potential aggression in Taiwan? Uh thank you, Ranking Member Keating. I would say that for um you know, for the the coalition building in Europe, we have to start with NATO.
▶ 0:37:11And China is watching just as well as Russia is watching whether NATO will stand firm against Russia's hybrid campaign, and whether NATO, uh including the United States, of course, will acquiesce to Russia's uh you know, land grab in Ukraine. Uh China is watching because they're going to derive deep meaning for their own ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
▶ 0:37:37And as long as we are strong with our NATO allies, we're investing in our own security, we're unified in our approach to Ukraine, it makes it very difficult for Russia and China to take advantage of us. Yeah, I think too that uh all our witnesses talked about uh the shadow warfare. Uh really the lines are being blurred. Uh the chairman's remarks and my remarks both reflected that, I think, in our opening statements.
▶ 0:38:02And just quickly, you know, this is hybrid warfare doesn't really uh describe well what's happening on. Can a couple of words is how more How important is it that we begin to look at this is actual warfare? If you got 15 seconds, that's tough.
▶ 0:38:19I'll I'll just chime in quickly. The Russians look at it as warfare. I mean, hybrid warfare to the Russians actually can include conventional warfare under this information umbrella. So, you know, we have to start thinking about it this way because that's where Russia is already. That's what I think the important part of this hearing is as well. So, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. thank you, and I'll recognize Mr. Fine from Florida. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um I appreciate all of you being here today. It's very interesting.
▶ 0:38:48I'm relatively new to the committee. You get to learn a lot. But, what interests me the most is how these tactics relating to hybrid warfare might also be employed in the United States. And And so, I want to ask about two specific aspects of the hybrid warfare we see the Russians and the Chinese engaged in and describe what they're doing in Europe, so perhaps we can learn something about them today. And I'd like all three of you to answer this.
▶ 0:39:13The first is um is efforts made in disinformation using online tools, social media, TikTok, X, those sorts of forms because I believe that we see this a lot in the United States. So, what insight can you give us into what they are doing over there on what issues in order to destabilize the European continent? We'll start with Mr. Singleton, and I'm interested in all three of your perspectives. Sure, thank you, sir. TikTok is a key platform for the Chinese Communist Party to influence views in the United States.
▶ 0:39:44Chinese Communist Party technicians control what Americans see and what they don't see. It's a primary tool. Today is the last day of the TikTok divestiture executive order, and we still have not heard whether a deal has been completed. And the reason is because Beijing gets the final vote. And ultimately, I think it's an it's incumbent upon Congress to ask the right questions about what was agreed to in that deal and whether it's a true divestiture as consistent and mandated by the law.
▶ 0:40:11And before we go on, and you believe the Chinese, for example, use TikTok in order to foment discord, disinformation, create division on issues frankly that the Chinese may not even care about. It's just that they use those issues. Like I don't think they really care about Israel and China, but I think they use that just to create division. Is that Is that your sense?
▶ 0:40:30agree and Laura Cooper mentioned it The amount of anti-Semitism that is prevalent on the platform is entirely inconsistent with what you see on other other social media platforms and that's by design. Uh this week in the Washington Post, Matt and I wrote a TikTok op-ed highlighting uh the use of disinformation at TikTok as a tool and I think it it sort of shows both the promotion of self-harm against our children, but also anti-Semitic trends that are broadly consistent with China's divide and conquer strategy.
▶ 0:41:00Thank you, Mr. Walker. Over a decade and a half, uh Russia and China alike have used the asymmetry of open information systems not only in the United States, but around the world both to uh manipulate the information environment, but to project what I would describe as their preferred strategic narratives into the discussion about the ostensible benefits of their systems as compared with the ostensible unreliability and fecklessness of ours.
▶ 0:41:30And they haven't stopped. And so I think if you look at the channels that they have access to, they continue to use them um wherever we permit them to. Ms. Cooper. Congressman, I'll just give you an example of how this played out um when sought to use information operations to turn a narrative that should have been a Russian defeat into something that they could count as a victory.
▶ 0:41:55When there was uh sabotage, Russian-sponsored sabotage of Polish railways, Russia actually employed Ukrainians to do the operation. They then had an information campaign in Poland to try to whip up anti-Ukrainian sentiment. Incredible when you think that this operation was a Russian operation to begin with. Do you all and I'll start with Ms. Cooper and go down there. Do you all have any policy ideas that we could employ?
▶ 0:42:25Obviously, forcing China to sell TikTok is an obvious one, but other than that, um in as strategies, bills, ideas that we could pass that might um affect these state actors' ability to manipulate our systems, which are built on freedom, they're trying to use them to take freedom away. Do you have any ideas on things that we could do in that Hopefully, you do.
▶ 0:42:49This is a a phenomenally vexing question precisely because we don't want to harm our own freedoms and free speech. I suspect ultimately, we'll need to compete more assiduously in the information domain as a conceptual matter, as a way to compete against Russia and China. This is the way they see it. China, for its part, uh invests billions of dollars annually in their global information outward-facing efforts.
▶ 0:43:14Russia is widely understood to invest hundreds of millions of dollars at a minimum globally. Uh we don't do Well, thank you. Look, I I just I'm about to run out of time, but I I would say the risk that we have is these nations use our freedoms, manipulate our freedoms to then try to take them away. And so, I think that dealing with this, we see what's happened in Europe with the division over there, it's certainly come here, and I appreciate all of you focus on this this hybrid warfare because I think we're experiencing it in our own country right now.
▶ 0:43:44Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Uh thank you. And I'll recognize Mr. Amo from Rhode Island. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our witnesses for being here. Uh from Russia's attacks in Europe to China's continued aggression in the Indo-Pacific, hybrid war warfare poses a new and growing risk to the United States and our allies around the the We cannot face this threat alone. Uh we must work with our allies to successfully counter and deter these attacks.
▶ 0:44:13And we must continue our support for our ally Ukraine, uh which is at the literal front lines of these hybrid attacks. However, President Trump's national security strategy chooses a different path. Uh he'd rather undo our alliances and embolden Russian aggression. We need pre-peace in Ukraine and ensure that they have a central role in the resolution uh of this war.
▶ 0:44:37Uh we must make it clear that aggression is unacceptable, whether from Russia, from China, or some other uh malign Russia and China have increased their cooperation using hybrid warfare methods. China is clearly watching Russia's use of them and how the US and our allies stand up to these threats. A clear example of how Russia and China have been using similar hybrid warfare tactics are the attacks on our allies' critical undersea infrastructure, like undersea cables and pipelines.
▶ 0:45:07Undersea infrastructure, as you know, enables the flow of data and internet and provides the gas and electric needed for a country's day-to-day operations. And since 2022, Russia uh has been accused of damaging undersea cables and gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and actively mapping undersea infrastructure for future sabotage.
▶ 0:45:28China has also been accused of sabotaging undersea cables around Taiwan using uh the hybrid warfare tactics they are seeing uh in Europe and uh around the world. Uh Ms. Cooper, this question is for you. Uh how does Russia and China's alleged uh sabotage of undersea infrastructure undermine European and transatlantic security? And what are the long-term risks of these operations both in Europe and uh around the world? Thank you, Congressman.
▶ 0:45:56So, Russia is is trying to probe potential weaknesses in the Western alliance and in the alliances dependency on undersea infrastructure. And this relates to certainly telecommunications infrastructure, but also energy infrastructure. And Russia is testing us in many of these areas. Russia is probing and testing to see how we'll respond and to see how we address our vulnerabilities.
▶ 0:46:25Now, with undersea cables, we have seen the Europeans as part of NATO surging support for a Baltic century operations to try to further manipulation of undersea infrastructure. That's one area where NATO is showing that it is responding. But we have to treat this as, you know, full spectrum because undersea cables is one thing, but undersea cables coupled with cyber attacks is a much more complicated problem.
▶ 0:46:55So this should lead us to continue to work together with our NATO allies to both improve our resilience, but also to determine what our responses are. Because when we don't respond, Russia thinks it can just keep escalating. Yeah. And and you you point to the importance of of the NATO alliance and you know, some of the work that they've done of late in the critical undersea infrastructure network to share information and best practices to counter developing threats from Russia and China in the Baltic Sea.
▶ 0:47:25You know, really essential work. Why again it's important that our national strategy is in alignment with what we know to to be true that we need these alliances and the technical capacities behind them to to to thrive.
▶ 0:47:40Miss Cooper, what can the alliance with NATO more broadly do to counter threats to this undersea infrastructure both in this network, but how specifically can our country, I mean, States, support this coordination and play a vital role in the security that that we we need to provide. Thank you, Congressman.
▶ 0:48:04Well, as part of NATO efforts, we need to continue to support NATO in its vigilance in operations to deter these attacks. We also need to support resilience of our infrastructure, and this is infrastructure in Europe, but also transatlantic infrastructure, certainly. And that includes a big focus on cyber.
▶ 0:48:24There is a particular aspect of this undersea challenge that is unique to Russia's shadow fleet, because we've seen Russia's shadow fleet vessels used in cable damage operations. So, there are host of policy initiatives that we can pursue in the United States to target Russia's shadow fleet.
▶ 0:48:46This is everything from undermining their you know, their their flag, their foreign their administrative support, and also enabling our intelligence to track these vessels where they operate. Thank you for your insights, and thank you for to all our witnesses for your work in this area. It's it's essential. I yield back. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Wilson from South Carolina. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And indeed, we are so grateful for each of the witnesses today.
▶ 0:49:16It's so informative, and it's also so encouraging to see the bipartisanship today with Chairman Self, with a ranking member Keating as indeed war criminal Putin is being for his conduct around the world. As chairman of the Helsinki Commission, I issued a report on Russian so-called hybrid attacks, including terrorism, sabotage, explosives on allied And the report details are for 200 different subversive and direct kinetic attacks on the West.
▶ 0:49:47This number has multiplied, and war criminal Putin has been emboldened murdering civilians across Ukraine destroying Ukrainian utilities to freeze the Ukrainians as Stalin froze the Ukrainians by way of starvation. I ask unanimous consent to consent to include this report in the record.
▶ 0:50:07Without I'm really grateful that Donald Trump is reinstating peace through strength revealing war criminal Putin lies insulting and mocking Trump as the New York Post has editorialized last week. Quote, Putin sent Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner packing with yet more aerial assaults on Ukrainian civilians. American support for Ukraine is growing. End of quote.
▶ 0:50:32With that in mind, we're aware of the ongoing attacks on US infrastructure and Mr. Singletary uh how do we respond proportionately and in kind to deter these attacks and how do we respond to the complicit Chinese Communist Party along with the regime in uh calls for death to America? No, thank you, sir. I mean, I think as we were talking about how do we define gray zone, we should view it as I think Senator Ricketts and Senator Coons do.
▶ 0:51:02I think it's helpful framing for this question. They call it illegal, coercive, aggressive, and deceptive. And I think those four qualities capture what we're talking about about Chinese pre-positioning here on our electrical grids and throughout our critical infrastructure. Of course, the first is better defense, but we need to increasingly start to evaluate opportunities for offense and it goes beyond DOJ indictments and potentially sanctions against Chinese companies.
▶ 0:51:28We need to work collectively with our partners and friends to share intelligence about what we're doing and impose real costs, whether that's uh going after Chinese banks, going after different parts of the Chinese government. Uh at this stage, Marxist-Leninists have a phrase, if you feel mush, push. And I think at this point we haven't uh sent the correct message about deterrence and what we're willing to do and perhaps not do to protect our networks. Thank you very much. And Mr.
▶ 0:51:54Walker, a great fake myth of Russian disinformation info operations paints war criminal Putin as a defender of Christian values. In reality, there is no freedom of religion and evangelizing and of Christianity is illegal in Russia. Only religions that are subordinate to the Russian state are allowed. According to a Forbes article, runs the Russian state and the Russian church, too.
▶ 0:52:21Patriarch Kirill was a long-time, long-time KGB agent for maybe 20 years in Switzerland. The thought that he would be patriarch to me is inconceivable. He blesses bombs on civilians and justifies kidnapping children. Russia explicitly murders Christians in Ukraine. Protestants are targeted in particular as they associate with America.
▶ 0:52:47There is a review of Faith Under Attack in Ukraine by Fort Russ Productions by Colby Barrett. And I ask unanimous consent to include this review for the No objection. And with that in mind, Mr. Walker, how do we support Christians who are targets of the Putin state? How do we counteract the state control of the Russian Orthodox Church? So, this is a critical question.
▶ 0:53:18I think what I would focus on here is is what was implicit in the first part of your question. That is the Russian state under Vladimir Putin, who's now entering his fourth decade in power, is very adept at strategic narratives in suggesting to the wider world that there is religious freedom in that country. Of course, there's not.
▶ 0:53:41And this is something that he's played to his advantage in certain instance while um attacking Christians in Ukraine. It's really a slight of hand that he's been masterful at projecting beyond Russia's borders. And indeed, it's really sad in studying Russian history.
▶ 0:54:00Sadly, uh, the state, whether it be under the czars, under the Soviet Union, and now continuing, uh, there's been a subversion of the state of the church and we only wish uh, for freedom ultimately for the people of Russia. Thank you. Gentleman yields. Uh, I now recognize Ms. Titus from Uh, thank you. You know, a lot of the conversation has been about the side of shadow warfare that attacks infrastructure. And I appreciate Ms.
▶ 0:54:30Cooper talking about the other side of it or other aspect that uh, where Russia aligns with authoritarian leaders, influences right-wing parties, uh, and focuses on issues. And one issue I have learned about and found interesting recently in Moldova and Romania is the use of the immigrants who had left Ukraine and come to those countries and now were using their resources. And so, trying to turn the people there against the Ukrainians.
▶ 0:55:00And also, not just doing it in those countries, but among their diaspora around Europe. And both of those countries were successful in standing that off. But would you talk to us about maybe what lessons we can learn from them that might apply to other countries so you can see how to uh, stand up against that kind of influence during an election period? I can take a crack at that, Congresswoman. Please.
▶ 0:55:27I just like to give uh, a bit of my take on Moldova, the Moldova case, and how they withstood tremendous Russian pressure uh, to turn the election in Russia's favor and failed. Um Moldova first uh had a a lot of vulnerability in energy sector because it was very dependent on Russian oil.
▶ 0:55:49But smartly, Moldova actually diversified its energy resources and has become significantly less dependent on Russia has also always used corruption to fuel uh its political candidates and has used corruption as this tool of political influence.
▶ 0:56:09Well, in Moldova, you have a President Maia Sandu who is known to be uh immune practically to corruption and has a tremendous reputation uh for being anti-corruption. I think that, you know, corruption can be uh Russia's uh you know, weapon, but it also can be Russia's Achilles' heel because the voters in Moldova, they made the choice, the opposite choice of what Russia wanted.
▶ 0:56:38You know, I might just add to this in Moldova's case, it's it's understood that there were astonishing, shocking amounts of resource that Russia put into the country in an effort to um uh manipulate those elections and to Moldova's remarkable credit, they fended it off. It's a country of 3 million and um managed to um have an election that was competitive and had a legitimate result.
▶ 0:57:05Well, I I still think we need to look there for some lessons. I mean, not everybody can diversify their economy and not everybody fights corruption, but uh maybe that gives us some clue. I think uh the big elephant in the room though is as I've heard we've heard from all of you, most of the people on the panel, how we need to stand up to Putin and strengthen our alliances.
▶ 0:57:28And yet, we've just come out with a new uh national security strategy that takes just the opposite approach of that seems to me. It fails to call out our adversaries and doesn't really support our allies especially in Europe actually insults them. It advocates for stability with Russia despite all the challenges and concerns that you all have addressed.
▶ 0:57:53I wonder if you might focus start with you Miss Cooper on you know, what do you think about that and how does how do we deal with that coming out of the administration if we want to kind of strengthen our position against Russia in this shadow war? Thank you Congresswoman. I would say that there's a lot that could be said about that document. But you know we're not talking about it very much and that's what's concerning too. Absolutely.
▶ 0:58:18The thing that jumps out at me is the lack of identification of Russia as a threat. Russia has viewed us as its primary adversary for decades. And if we look at what Russia has done to Ukraine and how Russia is attacking Europe we have to recognize that Russia is a serious threat to US national security and to miss the opportunity to call them out in our national security strategy is a huge
▶ 0:58:49Do the rest of you comment? So I think we've touched during this hearing on the extent to which Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have found ways to work together one whether one considers them an axis or a coalition in a sense is beside the point they're practically collaborating with each other.
▶ 0:59:12I think in an environment of this kind of competition it behooves us as free societies to find ways to collaborate better for our own security. You know the best laid diplomatic and national security strategies often encounter real-world realities. And I think that this this national security strategy in particular will be tested early and often, and will be forced to reevaluate our priorities.
▶ 0:59:41We'll we'll be forced to think about what our resource constraints are, and where we're going to really need allies to step up. I do think there is value in talking about partnerships, not dependencies, but it remains to be seen how this will be brought forth in the national defense strategy. When that's released, I think there'll be a lot of room for debate about how we allocate our resources against these emerging Thank you. I yield back. I recognize Mr. Davidson from Ohio. thank you, Chairman.
▶ 1:00:11I'd like to applaud the Trump administration, uh President Trump's administration, for their pro-peace agenda, especially in Eastern Europe. Uh the Russia-Ukraine war has been a humanitarian tragedy where millions have died and been displaced. Uh and ending it is a noble cause.
▶ 1:00:28The book of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 9, reminds us, quote, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." I do worry that any peace deal that is predicated solely on US security guarantees would do more harm than good in the long run for America's national America should continue to motivate Europe to take primary responsibility for European security.
▶ 1:00:54Instead, NATO expansion has essentially compelled Americans to serve as the European defense force. Uh this is not healthy or sustainable. President Trump tried to call attention to it in his first term. We've seen tragic consequences for Europe not paying attention to their own security. Uh so, I'd like to say, why is President Trump administration's recently published national security strategy not only right for America's national security, but also right for Europe.
▶ 1:01:28Mr. Walker. So, I think there's little disagreement that Europe should and needs to invest more in its own security. That's not mutually exclusive of working more closely with Europe, I would argue. At the same time, if we look at the countries in Europe that have been subjected to Russian aggression over the last two decades, it's been those who have been outside of NATO. Vladimir Putin clearly has an interest in the Baltic states, but hasn't seen fit to attack them yet.
▶ 1:01:58He has seen fit to attack Ukraine and Georgia, both of which have had ambitions to join NATO, but have been denied that option. And in every case, the countries who have joined NATO have done so voluntarily. So, I think this is part of a larger discussion about how we can achieve peace through strength because Vladimir Putin understands strength. Yeah, I I do think he understands strength. I I guess do the Europeans understand it?
▶ 1:02:25Because it seems to me that the Europeans as they expand their social state and undermine their own national security, that they feel like they just bought war insurance from the United States. And and in fact, if you look at, you Vice President Vance's speech in Munich, where he said, "What are we defending?" If you look in Western Europe, you've got people claiming political asylum in Eastern Europe in places like Hungary, because they're being put in jail for free speech, in England, in France, in Germany, and
▶ 1:02:56you know, what be used to be bedrock portions of Western civilization. So, what are we defending? Uh is Europe basically deciding that to beat China, they should be more like I would just chime in and say that I think we would all agree that too long Europe has under invested in its I think largely what we're seeing now is a as a broad step up in their support for taking care of themselves.
▶ 1:03:25Um I think at the end of the day, rogue, revisionist regimes like Russia, like fear a collective response. They fear allied scale. Yeah, when you look at traditional defense spending there, but we're talking about hybrid warfare here. You look at supply chains, Europeans are very dependent upon China. Uh their their linkage to China's been very strong. They basically didn't want to do trade deals with the United States cuz they didn't want to They want to take the United States for granted, and and uh and keep their deals with China.
▶ 1:03:55They didn't want to help in the negotiations with China, and frankly haven't uh aggressively. When you look at um with with respect to civil liberties, um you know, there Is Europe stronger because they've become more like China and they're putting people in jail for posted memes? I think you mentioned Europe's dependencies on China, and we're overly reliant on China.
▶ 1:04:17in fact, but the national security strategy addresses that in the United States. And when you look at speech, you know, we've got colleagues, including one of the members here on the panel that essentially wants to criminalize speech in the United States. Um Is Europe doing the right thing in hybrid warfare by just saying, "You know, we've got government people that'll take care of security. We'll just put you in jail if you say the wrong things." I don't agree with those policies, but I would state that at the end of the day, uh there's a lot more in common between Europe and the United States that divides us.
▶ 1:04:45Uh and ultimately, the Chinese are going to exploit those dependencies and weaknesses. It's one thing to have it in a national security strategy. It's going to be another thing to translate that into concrete action of allied scale, and I think that's where the administration's going to have to focus its work for the next year. I I I think that's exactly right. When you look at the trade policy, for example, that gets it.
▶ 1:05:04So, I was glad to introduce last week a bipartisan uh effort to deal with biologics, uh limiting the export to China, and uh hopefully curtailing China's exploitation of that supply chain in the United States. Hopefully we'll have a panel talking about Arctic security. You see a lot of Europe and America coming together in the Arctic. But the bad actor, the real bad actor is China in particular. So if you look at China's influence, they're not just in Europe.
▶ 1:05:30They're as if someone said it's like humidity, but from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, they're in the Western Hemisphere and the National Security Strategy gets that Recognize Mr. Costa from California. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's timely that we hold this subcommittee hearing.
▶ 1:05:47Frankly, I get appalled in recent weeks, months listening to some of my some of our Republican colleagues repeating Russia Russian propaganda speaking points. And and that's real. If if you don't believe me, take uh our colleague uh some representative Turner's comments about this who also feels very frustrated.
▶ 1:06:17I I refer to modern-day Russia and I like your comments just yes or no. Modern-day Russia as a syndicate masquerading as a country with a mob boss called Putin. I would agree with that. I think Russia over time has emerged as a kleptocracy with global reach. Yeah, it's a syndicate masquerading as a country. I think that's a pretty good pretty good
▶ 1:06:45And and President Putin is therefore when you look at the attacks on Ukraine and elsewhere on US and NATO interests is is frankly I think been very clear about his positions on this. I don't know whether he sees himself as a a recreation of Peter the Great or not, but when this war started in 2022 and the ramifications of it. It was very clear on a bipartisan basis and I think it's so there that this is about good versus evil. Do you agree with that?
▶ 1:07:21I would note that the war started in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine. And it is it's metastasized since that I would agree.
▶ 1:07:36You know, I I'm I'm I look at the situation with our colleagues and I get frustrated with our own lack of response or resolve because we were all in there finally during the invasion of World War and it took a long time to to create the circumstances for us to to engage.
▶ 1:07:55Then we post World War were in a Cold War and we recognized it and we formed a world umbrella of alliances to to stand up in that Cold War. Today we're in a hybrid war and I don't think we we appreciate the fact that the challenges that we face with our allies and and coddling our enemies.
▶ 1:08:23I mean, China is an adversary, right? No one disagrees with that. They're also a competitor, right? And they're a vast market and their allies conflicts. Russia has dependency on China in what I believe the Chinese view as a proxy war in terms of their own interests.
▶ 1:08:46So, you know, I'm I'm going back to a book that was published in the late 1930s called While England Slept. to interview Jared quickly comment on our is the United States sleeping now at this point in time? Is our comparative analogy?
▶ 1:09:10Well, Congressman, I would point to where we are on Ukraine, as well as on Russia's hybrid attacks, as a sign that in fact we are not seeing the real threat that Russia poses. How should Europe and we respond to the Russian hybrid thoughts to better deter Russia from further aggression against not only Ukraine, but the West? You can all respond quickly. My time's I can just start.
▶ 1:09:35I would say first of all, it's really important that our leaders are all on the same page and making the same statements publicly uh to push back on Russia's hybrid warfare.
▶ 1:09:46not happening yet.
▶ 1:09:47And no, sir, that is not happening. I would say that we need to see the shadow warfare from a transatlantic perspective, not as an individual attack or a set of individual attacks, but more as a campaign that's actually designed to divide our cohesiveness. And NATO's being undermined by President Putin, and certainly she thinks it's a good thing, Uh they would welcome that. Yes.
▶ 1:10:15I would just argue that collective response here is what the authoritarians fear more than anything. And that's why we ought to be doing everything we can to formulate a strategy on that collective response. And we have the alliances in place, do we not? We do, yes. We both have anchor alliances, but also we have to build out this architecture of agile alignments. And they're going to differ by region and by topic, but that takes hard work.
▶ 1:10:43So, what steps should we be taking in the cyber world to better deter Russia in supporting these regional security operations in Europe to counter their their cyber operations? I think we're at the point where we need more pre-agreement among allies on how to respond so that we don't get caught flat-footed and in reactive mode on a consistent basis, which has often been the case. But we are in a cyber hybrid war today, are we not?
▶ 1:11:12It's a part of the broader spectrum war. My time's expired, but more needs to be continued in all of this, and we need to come together. Thank you. Uh thank you. I couldn't agree more. I would love to do uh several more rounds of this, but we have a classified briefing with the Secretary of State we're going to get to. Uh I thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony on shadow war. I realize we've gotten into the kinetic war a little bit, but the shadow war uh for this uh briefing uh I will tell you the members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions.
▶ 1:11:42I certainly will. We'll submit those in writing, and I ask that you respond to them because uh we have only broached the subject. Uh pursuant to committee rules, all members have 5 days to submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials for the record subject to the length limitations. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me here. Yeah, thank you. Mr. Chairman, you're good. Hey, can Can we go back to the schedule?