[Senate Hearing 115-184]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-184
RUSSIAN INFLUENCE AND UNCONVENTIONAL
WARFARE OPERATIONS IN THE ``GRAY ZONE'': LESSONS FROM UKRAINE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
of the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 29, 2017
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
28-945 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma JACK REED, Rhode Island
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi BILL NELSON, Florida
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
JONI ERNST, Iowa RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina JOE DONNELLY, Indiana
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TIM KAINE, Virginia
TED CRUZ, Texas ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
BEN SASSE, Nebraska ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
LUTHER STRANGE, Alabama GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
Christian D. Brose, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director
<____________________________________________________________________
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
JONI ERNST, Iowa, Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska BILL NELSON, Florida
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
TED CRUZ, Texas GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
_________________________________________________________________
March 29, 2017
Page
Russian Influence and Unconventional Warfare Operations in the 1
``Gray Zone'': Lessons From Ukraine.
Oliker, Olga, Senior Advisor and Director, Russia and Eurasia 3
Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Carpenter, Michael R., Senior Director, Biden Center for 12
Diplomacy and Global Engagement, University of Pennsylvania.
Cleveland, Lieutenant General Charles T., USA (Ret.), Senior 20
Fellow, Madison Policy Forum, and Former Commanding General,
United States Army Special Operations Command.
Appendix A....................................................... 38
(iii)
RUSSIAN INFLUENCE AND UNCONVENTIONAL
WARFARE OPERATIONS IN THE ``GRAY ZONE'': LESSONS FROM UKRAINE
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Emerging
Threats and Capabilities,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
Room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Joni Ernst
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Subcommittee members present: Senators Ernst, Fischer,
Sasse, Shaheen, Heinrich, and Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JONI ERNST
Senator Ernst. Good morning, everyone. We will call this
meeting of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and
Capabilities to order.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. This is
a very important topic, and we are glad to have you and
appreciate your point of view.
Today, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee
meets to receive testimony on Russian influence and
unconventional warfare operations in the ``gray zone'' and the
lessons learned from those operations in Ukraine.
I would like to welcome our distinguished witnesses this
morning: Dr. Olga Oliker, senior advisor and director of the
Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies; Dr. Michael Carpenter, senior director
of the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the
University of Pennsylvania; and retired Lieutenant General
Charles Cleveland, former commander of U.S. Army Special
Operations Command and currently a senior fellow at the Madison
Policy Forum. Thank you very much for joining us today.
The invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in the spring
of 2014 represents the breadth of Russia's influence campaign
in Ukraine and the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty
represents the first attempt to change the boundary of a
European nation since the end of the Cold War. Russian
operations span the spectrum from covert information operations
intended to influence political opinion to overt deployment of
military forces for unconventional warfare designed to dominate
civilian populations. We cannot afford to understate its
importance or ignore its lessons. It is my hope our witnesses
can help us understand in more detail what happened, why it was
successful, and how to stop it from happening again in the
future.
Last week, the commander of United States European Command
[EUCOM], General Scaparrotti, characterized the Russian
operations in Crimea as activities short of war or, as it is
commonly referred to, the ``gray zone.'' Russia's gray zone
activities in Crimea are important for us to review today and
unique because it was an influence campaign of propaganda and
disinformation, culminating in the employment of Russian
special operations forces on the sovereign territory of
Ukraine.
This hearing today also allows us to discuss our own
special operations forces. It is time we review their
unconventional warfare capabilities.
I look forward to hearing from General Cleveland about his
thoughts on the need to strengthen the capabilities in our
special operations forces which may have understandably
atrophied after over a decade focused on direct action
counterterrorism missions.
The Russian influence campaign and unconventional warfare
efforts in Ukraine contain all the hallmarks of the gray zone
operations: ambiguity of attribution, indirect approach, and
below the threshold of open conflict. As we continue to see
Russia conduct these operations across the globe, I hope our
witnesses today can better help us understand and better
counter these efforts.
Senator Heinrich, would you like an opening statement?
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARTIN HEINRICH
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairwoman Ernst. I want to
thank you for holding this important hearing and thank our
witnesses for their testimony on Russia's use of influence
activities and unconventional warfare in the so-called gray
zone that encompasses the struggle between nations and other
non-state actors short of direct military conflict.
This hearing builds on the testimony the full committee
received last week on the security situation in Europe. At last
Thursday's hearing, General Scaparrotti, commander of United
States European Command, stated that Russia is using a range of
military and nonmilitary tools to, ``undermine the
international system and discredit those in the West who have
created it''.
When I asked him about Russia's conduct of denial,
deception, and disinformation operations, General Scaparrotti
stressed that Russia takes not only a military approach but a,
``whole-of-government approach'' to information warfare to
include intelligence and other groups, which accounts for its
rapid and agile use of social media and cyber.
Russia's use of the full range of political, economic, and
informational tools at its disposal provides it the means to
influence operations in the gray zone short of a direct
conventional war. Today's hearing is an opportunity to examine
the lessons drawn from Russia's maligned activities in the
Ukraine.
In 2014, General Scaparrotti's predecessor at EUCOM
Commander General Breedlove said that Russia was engaged in,
``the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever
seen in the history of information warfare''. Russia used
information warfare as a dimension of its own military
operations in Ukraine, including the sowing of confusion and
disorganization prior to initiating more traditional military
operations.
Russia's combination of information warfare with other
unconventional warfare techniques, including the training,
equipping, and advising of proxies and funding of separatist
groups, is what allowed them to, ``change the facts on the
ground'' before the international community could respond
effectively through traditional means.
This is relevant not simply as a history lesson but to
better prepare us for the kinds of operations we can expect to
see Russia conduct in the future. For example, the January 2017
intelligence community assessment on Russian activities and
intentions in the 2016 United States presidential election
assessed that what occurred last year represents a significant
escalation in Russia's influence operations that is likely to
continue here in the United States, as well as elsewhere.
So there is much to explore with our witnesses this
morning, and again, I thank them and look forward to their
testimony.
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Ranking Member. We will start
with Dr. Oliker, please.
STATEMENT OF OLGA OLIKER, SENIOR ADVISOR AND DIRECTOR, RUSSIA
AND EURASIA PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES
Dr. Oliker. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Ernst, Ranking
Member Heinrich, members of the subcommittee. I am honored to
be here today. So I have been asked to address the topic of
Russian influence and unconventional warfare operations in the
gray zone, lessons from Ukraine. I will talk briefly about what
we saw in Ukraine, a little bit about Russian activities
elsewhere, and then I will talk about how the Russians appear
to think about these issues. I will conclude with some thoughts
about what that means for all of us.
Really quick, a definitional point as it were. We are
talking--when we talk about the gray zone, we are talking in
this case about operations that are not clearly peace or war
and perhaps intentionally meant to blur the line between the
two. A note of caution is that these lines are always a bit
blurry. When Carl von Clausewitz wrote that war is an extension
of politics, he did not mean the politics ends when war begins.
Rather, we should expect military, political, economic, and
diplomatic instruments to be brought to bear to attain national
goals, together and separately.
But when we talk about the two things I think we are going
to focus on here today, military actions characterized by
subterfuge and efforts to mask who is and who is not a
combatant and information operations, we have a different--we
face a bit of a different challenge. One of these, information
influence operations, clearly on the noncombat side of the
equation. On the other hand, subterfuge and efforts to mask who
is and who is not a combatant are something that the Russians
have been exercising increasingly and increasingly effectively.
I think we want to think about both of these less in terms of
whether they are or are not gray zone and more in terms of
their strategic effects.
So turning to Ukraine, in terms of the public information
campaign, Russian language print, internet, and television
media had pretty heavy saturation in Ukraine long before 2014
and particularly in Crimea and in the east. They propagated a
narrative in 2013 in the lead up to the expected EU [European
Union] Association signature that was meant to convince
audiences that EU Association would lead to political chaos and
economic collapse of Ukraine, and social media activism
amplified these messages.
As time went on and as unrest grew, the message came to
include attacks on the protesters on Ukraine's Maidan
Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square. They attacked the
government that took control after Yanukovych fled the country.
They attacked Western governments, which were depicted as
orchestrating what was termed a fascist coup. Eventually, of
course, they attacked the elected government of President Petro
Poroshenko.
Now, these messages probably resonated most with people
already inclined to believe them, people who were nervous about
EU Association and distrustful of the West. That was a lot of
folks in both Crimea and east Ukraine. So Russian information
operations I would argue may have helped bring some of those
people into the streets, implemented some of the unrest, but I
would also point out that it is important to remember that is
not how Russian annexed Crimea. This, while almost bloodless,
was a military operation made possible in large part by
Russia's preexisting preponderance of force on the peninsula. I
would also say that information influence operations of this
sort were not responsible for keeping the conflict in east
Ukraine going. That also took Russian military support and
eventually Russian troops.
Another form of influence that I would like to talk about
in Ukraine is that engendered by economic and political ties.
Ukraine's and Russia's economies were deeply intertwined since
the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some of this was corrupt,
including with the Yanukovych regime and its supporters. Some
of it was not. I would argue that corrupt ties, just like the
rest of the corruption in Ukraine, creates a lobby and created
a lobby against EU Association, which was going to bring with
it requirements of greater transparency and more open business
climates. But the broad range of economic relationships, many
of them completely legal, also worried Ukrainians who thought
that their livelihoods were genuinely less certain if ties with
Russia waned. Many of those people were in Ukraine's east and
south.
On the military side, of course the most touted example of
Russian unconventional operations is the insertion of
additional forces into Crimea in late February of 2014. Wearing
uniforms without insignia, these personnel, which we termed
little green men and the Russians termed polite people,
pretended to be Ukrainian soldiers and police. They seized the
Parliament building. They surrounded an airbase. The lack of
uniform markings contributed to confusion, and enabled Russia
to deny their deployment of additional forces to Crimea.
Similarly, Russia has denied its support for separatists in
eastern Ukraine, as well as the insertion of its regular army
troops into that fight as both advisors and active forces. As
with Crimea, this feeds confusion and allows for deniability.
The actual fighting in east Ukraine though is very
conventional, tending towards a great deal of artillery and
some trench warfare.
Cyber tools have been used by Russia but with limited
effect. The most interesting exception is the December 2015
attack on Ukraine's power grid, which took down electricity to
hundreds of thousands of people for several hours. So that is
interesting because it is using cyber tools for the sorts of
effects you might normally use military forces for. But again,
the effect in this particular case was not that great.
So turning outside Ukraine, we see influence operations in
full swing in Europe and even here in the United States, and I
am not sure I would actually call those gray zone, but I would
call them efforts to undermine and subvert Western unity and
trust in existing governments and institutions, so I do think
there are important.
So in some ways what Russia does elsewhere is similar to
what it does in Ukraine. Russian language media targets
Russian-speaking populations around the world, particularly in
neighboring countries where the media is often popular. Russia
also supports outlets around the world such as RT [Russia
Today] and Sputnik, which broadcasts in other languages,
including English. The M.O. [Modus Operandi] of these outlets
is to raise questions about the reporting of other sources and
of other government statements and views such as by denying
Russian military presence in Ukraine. They also tend to
highlight what they portray as the hypocrisy of these non-
Russian governments, for instance, collateral damage caused by
United States and NATO military actions. These messages are
then amplified by social media, including through so-called
trolls.
Happily, there is no evidence to date that these messages
are reaching audiences previously unfavorable to them and
changing minds. Just like in Ukraine where Russian messages
were most effective with those predisposed to trust them, the
same is true around the world. I would argue that the real
threat posed by these phenomena is less their independent
effect but the fact that they fall into an echo chamber. They
are one sliver of a much larger increase in chaos and untruth
in the information space as a whole.
The widespread use of these same techniques of smears,
blatant lies, uncorroborated reporting, amplified by like-
minded social media users, real and robotic, created an
environment in which it is indeed really hard to tell truth
from falsehood. The resulting situation is not so much one in
which more people trust Russian sources but one in which people
only trust whichever sources they prefer and discount all the
others. This is dangerous. Russia is exploiting it, but we make
a mistake if we look at it as uniquely or predominantly a
Russian threat.
I also want to talk a little bit about Russian economic
influence in Europe and elsewhere. Here, too, it is a bit of a
mixed bag. Countries where there are strong business ties to
Russia do indeed tend to have lobbies that support closer ties
at the national level. This is not necessarily nefarious,
right? It becomes nefarious when we see efforts on the part of
the Russian Government to leverage it into something that
increases Russian influence in ways that are not for the good
of both countries.
A greater concern might be Russian support for fringe
parties in Europe. We see these ties in Hungary, in France, in
Austria, among others. We do see that leaders and members of
right-wing and ultranationalist parties throughout the West
have looked to Russia as a model, and we have seen that the
Kremlin increasingly looks at these groups and supporting them
because they tend to be anti-EU and sometimes anti-NATO as a
mechanism for weakening Western unity. Russia, I would argue,
might be particularly emboldened by what looks like recent
success on this front, though I would also point out that the
Kremlin is increasingly very nervous about its own right-wing
nationalists and has been cracking down on them. So that is
something to keep in mind.
So in the United States of course our intelligence agencies
have judged that Russia was trying to influence our election
last year. There is nothing unusual, I would say, about using
cyber tools to collect intelligence. It is unusual and crosses
any number of lines to then take action to use the information
collected that way to interfere in other countries' political
processes. It is likely to me that Russia's expectations were
that they could disrupt the United States election,
contributing to confusion and raising questions about its
legitimacy.
If they believe this has been successful and even more so
if they judge that they had a hand in the outcome, something I
personally do not believe to be the case, they may be
emboldened to undertake similar actions elsewhere and also in
the United States again. We see evidence of this in Europe.
This said, I would underline the fact that Russian efforts
exploit weaknesses already in place rather than creating them.
So what do the Russians think about all this? The Russians
are writing a lot about the broad range of mechanisms that can
advance national and political goals. What is interesting is
that they write about them not as approaches Russia can use but
rather as tools that are being developed by the West against
Russia, and they cite everything from economic sanctions to
their longstanding complaint about supportive what they call
colour revolutions. They view this as a concerted whole-of-
government effort to weaken and overthrow governments abroad
and that Russia has to learn how to counter these.
They assume a substantial Western advantage in all of these
areas, and importantly, Russian writing on the future of war
also tends to emphasize the importance of conventional warfare
and particularly air power and advanced technologies. So I
think this is a very interesting thing to keep in mind. Their
argument is that we do this to them, and when they write about
the things that they see in the American literature, they
completely ignore the references to Russia undertaking these
actions.
So, bottom line, I think there is no question that Russia
is undertaking action across the spectrum of political,
diplomatic, and military power. I would warn against viewing
Russian approaches as a well-thought-out strategy throughout
the world. Russia is testing approaches, it is experimenting,
and it is trying to build on successes. So I would say one of
the most important lessons for us to take from Russia's action
in Ukraine and elsewhere is that Russia is learning lessons. It
is studying what works and what does not. It is assessing how
to adapt these techniques.
So take Crimea and east Ukraine. The Crimea operation was
extremely successful. Russian planners then thought something
similar could succeed in eastern Ukraine and perhaps Ukraine as
a whole. They were proven wrong. They adapted, they
recalibrated, they changed their approach. So this is one of
many reasons that I do not think a Crimea-like scenario is what
we should be worrying about in, say, Estonia or elsewhere in
the Baltics.
Russia's ability to use military personnel without insignia
while denying their presence was not just specific to the
Ukrainian situation. It was also not decisive in the success or
failure of Russian efforts. Russia's success rather was based
on the combination of large-scale military presence and a
Crimea population that was confused and sympathetic. This way,
the insertion of the personnel without insignia could be
helpful, and all of this, we must remember, worked far less
well in east Ukraine with a more skeptical population and
failed entirely elsewhere such as in Odessa.
So not only is there excellent reason to think that the
population of, say, Narva and Estonia, which a lot of us think
about a lot, has more in common with Odessa than Donetsk or
Sevastopol, but I would also point out that Estonians are at
this point hyperaware of this particular threat and the
Russians know that and they know all of this and they know all
of these lessons. So should Russia have designs on the Baltics,
they may try many things, but I would be surprised if the
operation looked much like anything we saw in Ukraine.
One question I am asking myself today is whether there is a
Crimea equivalent in the influence operation space. Is there a
point at which Russia feels it has hit upon a successful tactic
but it overreaches? I believe that its efforts to affect
election campaigns may get them to that point, but Russia's
limitations in its efforts to weaken existing institutions
depend tremendously on the strength of those institutions.
Russian tools exploit weaknesses. The challenge then is to
eliminate or at least mitigate those weaknesses.
I will close there. I thank you, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Oliker follows:]
Prepared Statement by Dr. Olga Oliker
Subcommittee Chair Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich, and members of
the subcommittee, I am honored to be here today. I have been asked to
address the topic of Russian influence and unconventional warfare
operations in the ``gray zone:'' lessons from Ukraine. I begin by
defining terms a bit, because there are a few ways to think about this
question. I will then talk briefly about what we have seen in Ukraine,
Russian activities elsewhere, and how Russians appear to think about
these issues, before concluding with some thoughts about what we in the
United States might learn from these experiences.
defining terminology
The ``gray zone'' means different things to different people. In
the United States in recent years, one definition that has emerged is
geographical. It refers to countries and parts of the world to which
there is not a clear United States commitment, but where the United
States has interests. In Europe, this means countries that are not
members of NATO (as NATO members do have an explicit security
commitment from the United States). This, of course, includes Ukraine.
Another definition for gray zone refers to operations, specifically
those that are more difficult to define as either peace or war, and
indeed possibly those undertaken intentionally to obfuscate and blur
the lines between the two. Of course, those lines have always been
blurry. Carl von Clausewitz wrote that war is an extension of politics;
he did not mean that politics ends when war begins, or that there is a
stark divide between the two. Rather, military, political, economic,
and diplomatic instruments should all be expected to be used to attain
national goals, together and separately. Armed conflict then, is,
definitionally enough, characterized by the use of armaments in a
conflict, almost certainly alongside other tools.
In the context of Russian operations in Ukraine, we are interested
today in two kinds of activities. Influence operations, which seek to
leverage media and propaganda efforts as well as business and political
ties to attain national goals are, if not always aboveboard, surely
short of armed conflict. They thus may be in the gray zone from a
geographical perspective, but are not from an operational perspective.
This said, such actions, even when undertaken in countries that are not
in the ``gray zone,'' may still be of strategic interest.
Unconventional warfare, if it is unquestionably armed action by
military personnel, is of course armed conflict. If, however, it is
characterized by subterfuge and actions by those who cannot be clearly
identified as combatants, it may be in the operational gray zone as
well (it is also, in its own way, an influence operation, in that it
seeks to affect the calculus of other parties). In Ukraine, we see all
of these to varying degrees, with a range of implications for other
parts of Europe and the rest of the world.
influence operations in ukraine
As I alluded to above, I see two types of non-military influence
operations that have been and continue to be used by the Russian
Federation in Ukraine and elsewhere. The first is public information
campaigns and propaganda--efforts to target a broad population with
press stories, social media tools, and so forth. The second is building
up and leveraging business and political relationships. This includes
support to political activists and parties, and efforts to develop
business ``lobbies'' that will support Russian goals.
I start with the first of these. In Ukraine, Russian-language
print, internet, and television media had fairly heavy saturation prior
to 2014, particularly in Crimea and in the East. Their narrative, aimed
at both Russians and Ukrainians, was meant to convince audiences that
EU association would lead to political chaos, widespread homosexuality,
and economic collapse. Social media activism amplified these messages,
particularly on Russian-language websites. As the crisis unfolded, the
coverage denigrated the protesters on Ukraine's Maidan Nezalezhnosti
(Independence Square) who called for the ouster of then-President
Yanukovych; the government that took control after Yanukovych fled;
Western governments, which were depicted as orchestrating this
``fascist coup;'' and eventually the elected government of new
President Petro Poroshenko. Social media disseminated both intercepted
and apparently doctored recordings of Western officials discussing the
situation in Ukraine, with the intent to both embarrass and to suggest
a Western hand behind Kyiv's emerging government. The narrative
emphasized unrest in Kyiv and elsewhere and reported that fascist gangs
were roaming the capital city's streets. Another thread sought to
instill and play on fear among Russian-speaking Ukrainians that they
would be persecuted by the new government (this was admittedly helped
along by some of the rhetoric in Kyiv, including an ill-considered, and
quickly reversed, effort to require the use of Russian in official
transactions when other languages had previously been allowed).
What did this do? I would argue that it likely did make some people
even more nervous than they had been before. But the extent to which
Russian media coverage contributed to protests and unrest in both
Crimea and Eastern Ukraine is difficult to judge. These campaigns were
surely most successful with populations that were already inclined to
believe them--people who were nervous about EU association, distrustful
of the West, and, once a new government took shape in Kyiv, fearful of
what this might mean. In Crimea, where a large part of the self-
identified ethnic Russian majority is comprised by retired Russian
military personnel and their families, and where the Russian Black Sea
Fleet continued to be based after the collapse of the USSR, this was a
substantial proportion of the population. In Eastern Ukraine, where
Yanukovych had his base of support, this message also resonated. But if
information operations of this sort helped bring people into the
streets, they cannot be credited with Russia's annexation of Crimea.
This, while almost bloodless, was a military action made possible in
large part by Russia's pre-existing preponderance of force on the
peninsula.
Similarly, while Russian propaganda may well have played a role in
public dissatisfaction, to truly get a conflict going in Eastern
Ukraine took more than that. As the protests grew, there was increasing
evidence that while some of the protesters were local, Russians crossed
the border to join in as well. When fighting flared, Russian supplies
of armaments (and, it soon became clear, advisers and troops) were what
kept it viable in the face of Ukrainian response. Today, Russian
efforts to propagandize to Ukrainian populations in the East are
blocked and countered, to the extent possible, by the Ukrainian
government. However, the best defense against false narratives at this
point is surely the stream of displaced persons from the separatist-
controlled territories, the experience of continued fighting for those
near the front lines, and other first-and second-hand knowledge of the
realities of the situation.
Influence engendered by economic and political ties presents a
different dynamic. Ukraine's and Russia's economies were deeply
intertwined since the collapse of the USSR. This involved both legal,
above-board activity and a variety of corrupt contacts and ties,
including with the Yanukovych regime and its supporters. Ukraine's East
and South were particularly closely tied to Russia, with highly
interdependent economies. To the extent that these ties and exchanges
were corrupt, they, along with other forms of corruption, made it
highly unlikely that their beneficiaries would support EU association,
with its requirements of greater transparency and a more open business
climate as a whole. Today, it is plausible to argue that some
continuing ties with Russia, many of them increasingly secretive, may
be part of what is hampering reform efforts and thus undermining
Ukraine's future. But the broad range of economic relationships, most
of them completely legal, also created concerns among the many
Ukrainians whose livelihoods were genuinely less certain if ties with
Russia waned, something that surely exacerbated their other fears.
unconventional military operations in ukraine
The line between conventional and unconventional military
operations is not always a clear one. Among unconventional operations
are counterinsurgency and insurgency missions, the use of specialized
forces, electronic warfare and cyber campaigns, and such things as the
use and backing of foreign government and non-government forces as
proxies. All of this is present in most conflicts, to varying extents.
Because of our focus on the ``gray zone,'' we are most interested here
in areas that appear to be, genuinely or arguably, short of actual
international armed conflict.
In the case of Russian operations in Ukraine, perhaps the most
touted example is the insertion of additional Russian forces into
Crimea in late February 2014. \1\ Wearing uniforms without insignia,
these personnel, termed ``little green men'' in the Ukrainian and
Western press and ``polite people'' by Russia, took an active part in
events on the peninsula, including seizing the Parliament building and
surrounding the Belbek air base. Russian military personnel also
pretended to be Ukrainian military and police and worked with local
``self-defense'' units. Their ack of uniform markings contributed to
confusion, even as Russia denied the deployment of additional forces to
Crimea.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Russia of course had a sizable pre-existing military presence
on the peninsula, in the form of its Black Sea Fleet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia has also denied its support for the separatists fighting the
Ukrainian Army in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, as well as the
insertion of its regular army troops into that fight as both advisors
and active troops. Here, too, we see examples of Russian forces
masquerading as locals. We also, of course, see the support and
development of a proxy force. As with the ``little green men'' in
Crimea, this feeds confusion and allows for deniability. The actual
fighting in Eastern Ukraine, however, is highly conventional, tending
towards a great deal of artillery and some trench warfare.
Finally, it is important to note the use of cyber in the Ukraine
conflict. Early in the conflict, these took the form of distributed
denial of service (DDOS) and defacement attacks on Ukrainian government
and NATO websites. This was more a form of harassment, however, than
anything else. More debilitating was a December 2015 attack on
Ukraine's power grid, which shut down electricity to hundreds of
thousands of people for several hours. Both Ukrainian and United States
officials blamed Moscow. If this was, indeed, an orchestrated attack by
Russia, it is an example of precisely the type of cyber operation that
could be seen as warfare, in that it approximates effects similar to
those that might be attained through the use of armed force.
russian activities elsewhere
In assessing Russian activities outside of Ukraine, I focus on
influence operations. In the military context, the only current example
of Russian operations outside of Ukraine is Syria, where the most
unconventional aspect is Russian support of proxy forces, which the
United States and its allies are also engaged in. As noted above,
influence operations against the United States and its NATO allies
cannot really be termed ``gray zone'' operations, because they fit
neither the geographical nor operational definition of the term.
However, the growing concern about these activities requires us to pay
attention to them as what they are--political influence operations
undertaken with hostile intent, in this case, efforts to undermine and
subvert Western unity and trust in existing governments and
institutions.
Russian influence campaigns outside of Ukraine share some
similarities with its activities within that country. In terms of media
and social media efforts, one aspect of this is Russian-language media
targeting Russian populations around the world, and particularly in
neighboring countries, where it is often popular. In addition, much
attention has been paid in recent years to, on the one hand, Russian
government-supported outlets around the world, such as RT and Sputnik,
which are heavily advertised and, by broadcasting and publishing in
English and other languages, able to reach a wide population around the
world. While these outlets do consistently report Russian government
positions, they are probably more effective when they raise questions
about the reporting of other sources, and of other government
statements and views--such as by denying Russian military presence in
Ukraine. They also tend to highlight what they portray as the hypocrisy
of non-Russian governments, for instance by highlighting collateral
damage caused by United States and NATO military actions abroad.
Also notable is the Kremlin's use of social media outlets. This was
also evident in Ukraine, and is utilized much the same way around the
world, in a range of languages. Researchers have unearthed so-called
``troll farms'' that rely on human-and machine-run social media
accounts to amplify Kremlin messages and raise doubts about other
viewpoints. This, like the direct media campaigns, tends to combine
elements of truth and falsehood, building trust among like-minded
people on a range of issues in order to heighten tension and
frustration and perhaps further expand influence on other issues.
While we can establish the presence of a sizeable Russian effort in
this regard, this begs the most important question: does any of this
work? Happily, there is no evidence to date that these messages are
reaching audiences previously unfavorable to them and changing minds.
In Ukraine, Russian media messages were most effective with those
predisposed to trust them. The same is true of both Russian and
foreign-language media and social media efforts elsewhere in the world.
I would argue that the real threat posed by these phenomena is not
their independent effect, but the fact that they are just one sliver of
a much larger increase in chaos and untruth in the information space.
The widespread use of these same techniques of smears, blatant lies,
and uncorroborated reporting amplified by like-minded social media
users (paid, robotic, and genuine) create an environment in which it
is, indeed, difficult to tell truth from falsehood. The resulting
environment is not so much one in which more people trust Russian
sources, but in which people only trust whatever sources they prefer,
and discount all others. This is dangerous, and Russia is exploiting
the situation, but it is far from a uniquely, or predominantly, Russian
threat.
Russian economic influence in Europe and elsewhere is a mixed bag.
It is true that there are pro-Russian politicians in Europe, and that
some of them have ties to Russian business. But it can be hard to
figure out which of these came first. For instance, when Hungary's
Prime Minister Viktor Orban supports collaboration with Russian firms,
is this because he seeks closer relations with Moscow (which he does)
or does he seek closer relations with Moscow because of the economic
gains that would accrue? In the United States, firms that had business
in Russia have been more skeptical of sanctions; this plays out
similarly in Europe. France's Republican Party also supports a better
relationship with Russia, no doubt in part because it has constituents
in industries such as defense, energy, luxury goods, transportation,
and banking, all of which stand to gain from more trade with Russia.
Many years of solid economic ties between Russia and Germany lead some
German parties to also desire better relations with Moscow. The fact is
that most of the economic ties that exist are surely above-board, the
product of years of seeking to integrate Russia into the global
economy. Moreover, the requirements of operating in the West force
Russian companies to adopt higher standards for transparency, which may
have positive longer-term effects. Thus, while any Kremlin efforts to
leverage economic ties for political gain should be monitored, this
does not mean that business with Russian firms and individuals should
be demonized.
A greater concern may be Russia's support for fringe parties in
Europe. Bela Kovacs, who helped finance Hungary's pro-Russian
ultranationalist Jobbik party, may have used Russian funds to do so. He
is now under investigation for spying for Russia. Not a few have
noticed the 2014 and 2016 loans from the First Czech Russian Bank to
France's far right National Front Party--to say nothing of party leader
Marine Le Pen's friendly relationship with Vladimir Putin. Late in
2016, Austria's far-right Freedom Party inked a cooperation deal with
the United Russia Party. There is no doubt that leaders and members of
right wing and nationalist parties throughout the West see Russia as a
model. It is equally clear that the Kremlin sees support for these
political groups, which tend to be anti-EU and sometimes anti-NATO as
well, as a means of weakening Western unity. It may be particularly
emboldened by seeming recent successes. Interestingly, the Kremlin is
increasingly wary of its own right wing nationalists, and has been
cracking down on them.
In the United States, of course, our intelligence agencies have
judged that Russia released information obtained through cyberhacks of
American organizations, including political party organizations, in
order to influence our Presidential election last year. There is
nothing particularly unusual about using cyber tools to collect
intelligence. It is unusual, and crosses any number of lines, to then
take action to use such information to interfere in another country's
political processes. It is likely that Russia's expectations of
influence were that they could, in this way, disrupt the United States
election, contributing to confusion and raising questions about
legitimacy. If they believe that this has been a success, and even more
so if they judge that they had a hand in the outcome (something I do
not believe to be the case), they may be emboldened to undertake
similar actions in the future, vis-a-vis the United States and other
countries. We have certainly heard rumors that such efforts are
underway in the context of Germany's election, upcoming in September of
this year. Again, particularly in concert with Russian support of right
wing parties in Europe, this should be watched carefully. However, I
would underline that Russian efforts at best exploit weaknesses already
in place. It seems highly unlikely that they can be decisive under
current conditions.
russian doctrine and thinking
Before turning to the lessons we might draw from all of this, it is
worth stopping to ask how Russian military and security analysts view
the situation. While much recent Russian analysis of modern-day
conflict and warfare highlights the broad range of mechanisms that can
advance political goals, Russian analysts tend to present these not as
approaches Russia can use, but rather as tools that are being developed
by the West against Russia, which Russia must learn to counter. This
was evident in Russia's most recent military doctrine, released in late
2014, \2\ and in a variety of analysis and writing produced since. Even
Russian discussions of so-called ``hybrid'' conflict, a term that they
have picked up from Western authors, ignore the fact that those
analysts use the term almost exclusively to describe Russian political
and military action. Russians, by contrast, use it to describe a range
of Western activity, from economic sanctions to support of ``color
revolutions,'' all geared to weaken and overthrow governments abroad.
Moreover, they assume a substantial Western advantage in these areas.
\3\ This was the nature of the much touted 2013 piece by Russian
General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov, which was, in the aftermath of
Crimea, read by many in the West as presenting a new Russian approach
to warfare. In fact, the text described a Russian view of Western
approaches. \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Vladimir Putin, ``The Military Doctrine of the Russian
Federation,'' December 25, 2014. English language version available at
http://rusemb.org.uk/press/2029 (accessed March 27, 2017)
\3\ Ibid. See also Samuel Charap, ``The Ghost of Hybrid War.''
Survival (00396338) 57, no. 6 (December 2015): 51-58. For more recent
examples, see Valerii' Gerasimov, ``Mir Na Graniakh Voiny,'' March 15,
2017; S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, ``E'voliutsiia Sushchnosti I
Soderzhaniia Poniatiia `voi'na' v XXI Stoletii,'' January 2017; V. A.
Kiselev, ``K Kakim Voi'nam Neobkhodimo Gotovit' Vooruzhennye Sily
Rossii,'' March 2017.
\4\ Valerii' Gerasimov, ``Tsennost' Nauki V Predvidenii,'' February
27, 2013; Charap, ``The Ghost of Hybrid War''; Charles K. Bartles,
``Getting Gerasimov Right,'' Military Review 96, no. 1 (February 1,
2016): 30-38.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite these concerns, Russian writing on the future of war
continues also to emphasize the importance of conventional warfare,
with particular emphasis on air power and advanced technologies. The
most recent piece by Gerasimov, published just a few weeks ago, argues
strongly that for all the new and creative ways Western countries are
seeking to subvert Russia, conventional capabilities are at the core of
what the country should itself emphasize. \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Gerasimov, ``Mir Na Graniakh Voiny.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
what we should be learning from ukraine and elsewhere
There is no question that Russia is undertaking action across the
spectrum of political, diplomatic, and military power. However, I warn
against viewing Russian approaches as a well thought out strategy
undertaken throughout the world. As is evidenced by Russian writing on
these topics, Russia is testing approaches, experimenting, and trying
to build on successes. Thus, one of the most important lessons from
Russian actions in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world is that Russia is
learning lessons from its own operations. It is carefully studying what
works and what doesn't, and trying to assess how to adapt techniques
for other purposes. Take the example of Crimea and East Ukraine. The
Crimea operation was extremely successful. At least partly on its
basis, Russian planners thought that something similar could succeed in
Eastern Ukraine, and perhaps Ukraine as a whole. They were quickly
proven wrong, and they recalibrated their goals and their tactics
accordingly.
This is one of the many reasons that I do not think that a Crimea-
like scenario is what we should be worrying about in, for example,
Estonia or elsewhere in the Baltics. Russia's ability to use military
personnel without insignia while denying their presence was specific to
the Ukrainian situation, and not, in the end, decisive in the success
or failure of Russian efforts. These and other Russian tactics of
supporting separatist attacks on government buildings, backed by
propaganda and influence operations, worked best where there was large-
scale military presence and the population was confused and generally
sympathetic--that is to say, in Crimea. It worked far less well where
the population was more skeptical as in Eastern Ukraine, and such
approaches proved completely ineffective where Russia did not have much
influence, for instance in Odessa. Not only is there excellent reason
to think that the population of Narva, in Estonia, has more in common
with Odessa than Donetsk, much less Sevastopol, but authorities are at
this point hyper-aware of this particular threat, and the Russians know
that. Should Russia have designs on the Baltics, they may try many
things, but I would be surprised if the operation looked much like
Ukraine.
One question I am asking myself today is whether there is a Crimea
equivalent in the influence operations space. Is there a point at which
Russia feels that it has hit upon a successful tactic and it
overreaches? I believe that its efforts to affect election campaigns
may play just that role. But Russia's limitations in its efforts to
weaken existing institutions depend tremendously on the strength of
those institutions. Russian tools exploit weaknesses. The challenge,
then, is to eliminate, or at least mitigate, those weaknesses. Thank
you and I look forward to your questions.
Senator Ernst. Thank you very much, Dr. Oliker.
Dr. Carpenter?
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL R. CARPENTER, SENIOR DIRECTOR, BIDEN
CENTER FOR DIPLOMACY AND GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT, UNIVERSITY OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Dr. Carpenter. Chairman Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich,
members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to
speak about the lessons learned from Russia's influence
operations in Ukraine.
Russia's unconventional war in Ukraine has demonstrated a
formidable toolkit of measures for fighting in the gray zone
from world-class cyber and electronic warfare capabilities to
sophisticated covert action and disinformation campaigns.
Russia has used propaganda, sabotage, assassination, bribery,
proxy fronts, and false-flag operations to supplement its
considerable conventional forces in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow has been doing its homework. Recognizing its
conventional capabilities lag behind NATO's, Russia has been
investing in asymmetric capabilities to gain advantage over
conventionally superior Western militaries. At the same time,
Moscow has dispensed with its longstanding foreign policy of
cooperating with the West where possible and competing where
necessary and now seeks to actively undermine the transatlantic
alliance and delegitimize the international order through a
continuous and sustained competition short of conflict.
But even with Russia's well-honed unconventional
capabilities, the United States and its NATO allies can prevail
in this competition if we recognize the Kremlin's goals for
what they are, develop smart strategies to counter them,
properly align our institutional structures, and invest in the
right capabilities.
Today, I would like to briefly highlight six areas where
the United States must counter Russia's new generation warfare.
First is information warfare. In eastern Ukraine and Russia,
the Kremlin has used its monopoly on broadcast television in
particular to spread false narratives. For example, as Olga
mentioned, that fascists control the government in Kyiv. Here
in the United States, these lies are easily debunked, but we
should not underestimate how even here Russian trolls and bots
can spam us with propaganda and thereby shift the media's focus
from one story to another.
I believe an independent commission should be established
to identify and take action against Russian misinformation in
addition to resourcing a more robust interagency body. Frankly,
we should also go beyond debunking lies in the Western media
space and take a much more active role in exposing corruption
and repression inside Russia.
Second, we urgently need to upgrade our cyber defenses and
those of our allies and partners. Regulatory oversight should
be strengthened to ensure that private corporations that manage
much of our critical infrastructure are taking the necessary
steps to harden defenses. I also support the establishment of a
national cyber academy and expanding the Pentagon's public-
private partnerships with the IT [information technology]
sector.
In cases where the United States is able to attribute a
specific attack, our response must be firm, timely, and
proportionate. The [persona non grata] PNG-ing of Russian
officials in response to Russia's cyber attack is unfortunately
just a symbolic act with very few real consequences. Until our
adversaries learn that the cost of such actions outweigh the
consequences, they will keep probing.
Third, we must get better in exposing Russia's covert
operations. In addition to its little green men, as Olga
referred to, Russia also deployed what SNMs call little gray
men who organize demonstrations and seize government buildings
across eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014. The lesson we
learn here is that once these forces were outed in Ukraine,
strong social resilience and effective local law enforcement
succeeded in thwarting most efforts to foment insurgency. Where
Russia's efforts succeeded in Ukraine it was largely because
they were backed by coercion and more overt military force, a
point you made as well.
Fourth, Russia relies on a range of proxy groups to carry
out subversive actions. However, Moscow's greatest success with
proxy forces has not been on the battlefield but rather on the
diplomatic stage. One of the biggest mistakes made by Western
leaders of the so-called Normandy Group was to elevate the role
of Russian proxies in the February 2015 Minsk Agreement. The
result today is a kabuki negotiation in which Russia's proxies
stonewall any meaningful progress on implementing Minsk, and
Russia largely avoids blame.
Fifth, sabotage and terrorism have been used to great
effect in the Ukraine conflict. A week ago today, former Duma
member Denis Voronenkov was assassinated in central Kyiv on the
same day as an act of sabotage destroyed a munitions depot. As
with proxies, preventing terrorism and sabotage depends on good
intelligence and strong social resilience. Ukraine has in fact
averted many terrorist incidents over the last three years
thanks to tipoffs from vigilant citizens and good law
enforcement work.
Sixth, Russia has dramatically ramped up its political
influence operations not just in Ukraine but throughout Europe
and the United States. To counteract Russian influence
operations, we need more transparency in political party
financing, more effective anticorruption tools, better sharing
of information on financial crimes, and stronger law
enforcement to root out entrenched and corrosive Russian
patronage networks.
I believe the United States should establish a standing
interagency operational body dedicated solely to interdicting
Russian influence operations. Most importantly, however, it is
absolutely vital that an independent special prosecutor be
appointed in the United States to investigate allegations of
ties between the Russian Government and United States political
actors during the last election cycle. This is the one Russian
influence operation that most directly affects our national
security, and to protect the integrity of our democratic
institutions, we simply must follow the evidence where it
leads, free from political influence.
Finally, if I may be permitted to say a few words on how
the United States should push back on Russia's unconventional
war in Ukraine itself, I believe we should start by expanding
our military training programs and by providing Ukraine with
much-needed defensive weapons. On the diplomatic front, the
United States must stop outsourcing the negotiations to France
and Germany and get directly involved to help the parties
develop a roadmap for implementing the Minsk Agreement. This
roadmap must specify dates by which actions must be completed
and consequences for failing to meet these deadlines.
To sharpen United States leverage, we should consider
unilaterally tightening financial sanctions if Russia fails to
meet these benchmarks. Lastly, the United States needs to
continue to support Ukraine's reforms in part by applying
strict conditionality to United States assistance but also by
encouraging our European partners to play a much more active
role than they have today.
Chairman Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich, subcommittee
members, Russia's operations in the gray zone have not only
grown bolder in the last decade, but they have expanded from
states on Russia's periphery like Georgia and Ukraine to Europe
and even to the United States. Our responses at home and abroad
must demonstrate the seriousness and urgency that these threats
demand. Thank you, and I look forward to taking your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Carpenter follows:]
Prepared Statement by Dr. Michael Carpenter
Note: The statements, views, and policy recommendations expressed
in this testimony reflect the opinions of the author alone, and do not
necessarily reflect the positions of the Biden Center for Diplomacy and
Global Engagement or the University of Pennsylvania.
Chairman Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich, members of the
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, thank you for the
opportunity to speak about the lessons learned from Russian influence
operations in Ukraine.
Russia's unconventional war against Ukraine has revealed a
formidable toolkit of measures for fighting in the so-called ``gray
zone,'' from world-class cyber and electronic warfare capabilities to
sophisticated covert action and disinformation operations. Russia has
used propaganda, sabotage, assassination, bribery, proxy fronts, and
false-flag operations to supplement its considerable conventional force
posture in eastern Ukraine, where several thousand Russian military
intelligence advisors, unit commanders, and flag officers exercise
command and control over a separatist force consisting of roughly
30,000-40,000 troops.
Moscow has been doing its homework. Recognizing that Russia's
conventional military capabilities lag behind those of NATO, Russian
Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov called in 2013 for
investing in asymmetric capabilities to enable Russia to fight and win
against conventionally superior Western militaries. Gerasimov's call
for more emphasis on unconventional warfare also coincided with a
subtle but important shift in Russian foreign policy. After Mr. Putin's
return to the Kremlin in 2012, Moscow dispensed with its post-Cold War
foreign policy of cooperating with the West where possible and
competing where necessary. Instead, the Kremlin now actively seeks to
corrode the institutions of Western democracy, undermine the
transatlantic alliance, and delegitimize the liberal international
order through a continuous and sustained competition short of conflict
that takes place across all domains.
However, even with Russia's well-honed unconventional warfare
capabilities, the United States and its NATO Allies can prevail in this
competition if we recognize the Kremlin's goals for what they are,
develop smart strategies to counter them, properly align our
institutional structures, and invest in the right capabilities.
I will briefly discuss six areas where Russia has invested in
significant unconventional or ``new generation warfare'' capabilities,
and suggest some responses the United States should consider. All of
the capabilities I will highlight were used during Russia's invasion of
Ukraine in 2014 and remain on display as Russia continues to wage its
unconventional war against the government in Kyiv.
information warfare
First, Russia has demonstrated a mastery of the tools of
information warfare. Russia's intelligence services understood through
their ``operational preparation of the environment'' (OPE) how to
tailor messages that would resonate with the population of eastern
Ukraine. Such efforts began long before the Maidan protests as networks
of influence were established across virtually all of Ukraine's
government and military institutions, allowing for rapid activation
once the conflict began. Immediately after President Yanukovych's
ouster, Russian media outlets and government officials began to
disseminate a narrative that Yanukovych had been forced out of power by
Ukrainian fascists supported by the West. This propaganda was so
insidious that even an 86-year-old Ukrainian-American living in the
United States whose sole source of news is Russian TV could believe
that a fascist government had come to power in Kyiv.
It is not just the message that matters, but also Russia's virtual
monopoly of the medium. To guarantee its control of information, one of
the first operations Russian special services carried out inside
Ukraine in the spring of 2014 was to seize key television transmission
towers. This monopoly on broadcast television lasted until only
recently. In December 2016, Ukraine inaugurated a new television tower
near Slovyansk to broadcast its own public programming into occupied
eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian public radio only began broadcasting
into the Donbas in January 2017.
To counteract Russian propaganda, the United States needs to take a
more pro-active approach.
United States European Command led the way during the Ukraine
crisis by revealing de-classified images of Russian tanks and
equipment, and NGOs [Non-Government Organizations] like Bellingcat
followed suit with further proof of Russia's involvement, including
evidence of Russia's role in the shoot-down of MH-17. However, more is
needed beyond simply publicizing evidence of Russian aggression. The
United States should consider making greater use of regulatory tools to
label Russian propaganda for what it is, for example by mandating a
screen banner warning viewers of RT [Russia Today] or Sputnik that they
are watching Russian government programming. An independent commission
should also be established to identify and take action against Russian
misinformation. In parallel, the 2016 Countering Disinformation and
Propaganda Act should be used to spur the development of a robust
whole-of-government toolbox for exposing and countering Russian
propaganda, ideally drawing on expertise outside of government.
Counter-disinformation strategies will also be more effective when
coordinated across the NATO Alliance, particularly since Russian
disinformation has found fertile ground in many European societies.
Expanding the funding and mandate of the NATO Center of Excellence on
Strategic Communications in Latvia would help share best practices on
counter-messaging. The Center should also explore how to use big data
analytics and other social media tools to counteract Russia's well-
financed army of internet bots and trolls. For example, technological
solutions should be explored, including ``spam filters'' for content
generated by programmed bots.
Finally, the United States should not limit itself to refuting lies
in the Western media space but should take a more active role in
exposing lies and corruption within Russia. Those who claim Russian
citizens are inured to revelations of high-level corruption or Russian
military involvement in the war on Ukraine do not understand what the
Kremlin knows well. Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was
murdered only a few hundred yards from the Kremlin in part because he
had revealed information about the Russian military's direct
involvement in the war in Ukraine. Exiled Duma lawmaker Denis
Voronenkov was murdered last week in Kyiv because he was ready to speak
about Russia's ties to Yanukovych and the war in Ukraine. The Russian
NGO Soldiers' Mothers was declared an ``undesirable foreign agent'' by
the Russian government after its members exposed the cover-up of
Russian service-members' deaths in Ukraine. Clearly, the Kremlin does
not want this information to be disseminated within Russia and is
willing to go to extreme lengths to silence these voices. Protests
across Russia just within the last few days also provide ample proof
that Russian citizens do not accept corruption as a way of life.
To speak directly to Russian citizens and Russian speakers, the
United States should devote more resources to projects like Current
Time, the Broadcasting Board of Governors' new 24/7 Russian-language
digital network, which provides information to Russians and Russian-
speaking audiences on Russia's periphery. The United States should also
consider supporting efforts like Estonia's Russian-language public
television station, which has filled an important vacuum in the Baltic
region's information space.
cyber operations
A second unconventional tool Russia is using to great effect in
Ukraine is cyber-attacks, which range from ``hacking'' Ukrainian
networks to steal information for intelligence or propaganda purposes
to crippling denial of service attacks on critical infrastructure. At
the start of the conflict, the deployment of Russian special forces to
Crimea was accompanied by cyber-attacks on cellular and internet
connections to disrupt the government's ability communicate with its
citizens. Similar operations were launched in Georgia during Russia's
invasion in August 2008. Cyber operations were also augmented by the
use of electronic warfare equipment to block cellular and radio signals
used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces as well as civilians.
Cyber-attacks against Ukraine have escalated since the conflict
began. In December 2015, evidence shows Russia hacked into the
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks of two
Ukrainian energy companies, shutting off electricity and heat for a
brief period before Ukraine was able to restore power. The attacks on
the SCADA systems were accompanied by distributed denial of service
(DDOS) attacks on telephone-operated customer call centers so
complaints of a power outage would not get through to company
operators. However, even when Russia was identified as the perpetrator
of this attack, it was not deterred. In December 2016, Ukraine's power
grid suffered another cyber-attack, and Russian cyber actors separately
targeted Ukraine's payments system for government salaries and
pensions. These attacks should serve as a wake-up call for the West,
particularly since many Western power companies lack the backup manual
functionality that helped Ukraine avert what could have otherwise been
a crippling power shutoff. The potential for disruptive cyber action is
enormous and deterrence is complicated by the difficulty of
attribution. While recent discussions of Russia's cyber-attacks in the
United States have focused on hacking and disclosure of information, we
must not overlook the fact that Russia's cyber weapons have a potential
lethality and scope that is matched only by strategic nuclear weapons.
The Defense Department must therefore invest more in United States
Cyber Command's capabilities, and the United States should also
continue to help build our Allies' and partners' cyber-defenses, which
in many cases are more vulnerable than our own. Election-day attacks in
Montenegro in October 2016 not only spread disinformation about the
election on social media platforms such as Viber and WhatsApp, but also
targeted the Ministry of Defense's network. At a December meeting of
the United States-Adriatic Charter, defense ministers from across the
Balkans noted their cyber defenses needed to be urgently upgraded in
the face of increased Russian cyber activity.
United States-based efforts should also include stronger regulatory
oversight to ensure standards are met for hardening critical
infrastructure against cyber intrusions and attacks since much of this
effort is currently left at the discretion of the private corporations
that manage this infrastructure. Admiral Stavridis' suggestion to
establish a National Cyber Academy is also worth considering, and the
Defense Department's public-private partnerships with the information
technology sector, like the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx)
launched by former Secretary of Defense Carter, should be expanded.
Finally, in cases where NATO or the United States are able to
attribute a specific attack, the response must be timely and
proportionate to deter future attacks. In the case of the cyber-attack
against the United States during the presidential election, the
declaration of Russian intelligence officials as persona non grata
(PNG) is unfortunately a largely symbolic action with few lasting
consequences given that these positions will soon be backfilled with
other operatives. As long as Russian cyber actors encounter weak
resistance, the Kremlin will continue to leverage its cyber
capabilities against the West.
clandestine and covert operations
Third, Russia's intervention in Ukraine demonstrates a mastery of
the art of clandestine and covert operations. During its armed takeover
of government buildings and military installations in Crimea in 2014,
Russia deliberately chose to deploy what are now known as ``little
green men,'' or special forces in uniforms without insignias. The
deployment of these semi-overt, semi-covert forces allowed Russia to
maintain the fiction on the international stage that the conflict
involved only local actors. At the same time, it made perfectly clear
to those on the ground that the troops were in fact highly capable
Russian special forces. Through this ``asymmetric ambiguity'' Russia
was able to stave off the international community's immediate
condemnation while simultaneously deterring Ukraine's interim
government from fighting back. In essence, the Russian General Staff
set the same trap it used in Georgia in 2008 when it covertly deploy
special forces to create unrest: if the host government fights back and
there are casualties, then the Kremlin is handed a pretext for
launching a war to protect Russian compatriots; if the host government
chooses not to fight, Russian forces have a free hand. In either case,
Russia wins.
In addition to its semi-overt ``little green men,'' Russia also
deployed true covert operators to the Donbas. These ``little gray men''
organized and sometimes even led demonstrations and seizures of
government buildings and police stations across eastern Ukraine in the
spring of 2014. In April 2014, for example, Russian covert actors
organized the seizure of the Kharkiv Opera House, which they mistakenly
believed was City Hall, using paid protestors who had been bussed in
from outside the city. A deadlier and more tragic incident occurred in
May 2014 when pro-Kremlin protestors barricaded themselves inside a
building in the port city of Odessa, which was then set on fire.
Importantly, Russia's covert agents were far less successful in
stoking separatist sentiments in other parts of southern and eastern
Ukraine than they were in Crimea. Thanks to the social resilience of
the local population and more effective local law enforcement
operations, Russian-directed efforts to foment anti-government
insurgencies failed in major cities like Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, and
Mariupol. Russia's recent attempted coup d'etat in Montenegro is also
illustrative of how effective collaboration between intelligence and
law enforcement agencies can thwart such covert operations. In the
Montenegrin case, Russian military intelligence officers recruited
mercenaries among far-right nationalist groups in Serbia and local
criminal elements and hatched a plan for them to fire on anti-
government protestors on election day while wearing stolen Montenegrin
police uniforms. Fortunately, a tip-off and good intelligence work
prevented the plot from moving forward as planned.
More broadly, defeating or neutralizing influence operations
requires strengthening societal resilience through government programs
that build stronger ties to disaffected ethnic groups or communities
that are less well integrated into a country's social fabric. This
requires a ``wholeof-government'' approach that coordinates among
ministries of defense, internal affairs, and intelligence bodies, as
well as health, social, and economic agencies. Finally, awareness of
the threat is critical. In the Ukrainian case, Russia's operation in
Crimea was successful in part (though there were other reasons) because
it occurred first. Once Ukrainian citizens became aware that Russian
forces were intervening militarily in their country, subsequent
operations proved much more difficult even in areas where there were
historically high levels of distrust in the central government. Within
NATO it is vital for the Alliance to develop Indicators and Warnings
(I&W) that rely not only on military factors, but also on social trends
and dynamics.
proxy forces
Fourth, Russia relies on a range of proxy groups to carry out
subversive actions and fight as irregular forces. In Ukraine, these
groups include local organized criminal groups, Yanukovychregime thugs
known as tytushki, former Berkut riot police, Cossacks and Chechen
fighters who came from Russia, members of the infamous Russian ``Night
Wolves'' motorcycle gang, and a smattering of Russian and East European
neo-Nazi volunteers. This medley of proxy groups proved to be little
match initially for Ukraine's conventional military in the summer of
2014, during which Ukrainian forces succeeded in retaking significant
territory. However, when it appeared that Ukraine might actually defeat
the separatist forces, Russia intervened with a large number of
conventional brigade combat teams that were ready and waiting in
staging areas near the Ukrainian border.
Even after the tragic defeat of Ukrainian forces in Ilovaysk in
August 2014, the Russian military encountered considerable difficulties
with command and control of its proxies. Rampant criminality also
prevailed as the various proxy groups organized themselves into mini-
fiefdoms. This led the Kremlin to send high-level emissaries to reign
in the various warlords, and when that failed special forces even
resorted to assassination and forced extraction from the battlefield.
The leader of the Cossack Great Don Army, Nikolai Kozitsyn, was for
example forced out of the Donbas by Russian services. Another prominent
Russian commander, Igor Strelkov (aka Igor Girkin), was also removed.
To instill greater professionalism among its proxy forces, therefore,
Moscow has increasingly turned in both Ukraine and Syria to private
military companies.
I would contend that Moscow's greatest success with proxy groups
has not been on the battlefield but on the diplomatic stage. Using the
Geneva International Discussions on Georgia as a model, the Kremlin has
insisted that no negotiations take place without the involvement of
proxy leaders. One of the biggest mistakes made by the Western leaders
of the ``Normandy Group'' (France, Germany, Ukraine, Russia) was to
agree to Russia's demands and elevate the role of Russian proxies in
the February 2015 Minsk Protocol. By establishing a parallel
negotiation process involving proxies, Russia has largely been able to
evade blame for its failure to implement even the most basic elements
of the Minsk agreement: ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, and
unlimited access for OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe] monitors to the territory of the Donbas. The result is a
kabuki negotiation led by the OSCE in which the proxies stonewall any
meaningful progress on implementing the agreement. So long as this
dynamic is maintained and Moscow is able to hide behind the claim that
local leaders are to blame for the impasse, the conflict will almost
certainly continue unabated. Conversely, the sooner the international
community cuts through the fiction that local actors call all the shots
and applies pressure on Moscow, the closer we will be to a real
negotiation aimed at resolving the conflict.
sabotage and terrorism
Sabotage and acts of terrorism have also been used in the Ukraine
conflict. On the same day that former Duma member Denis Voronenkov was
assassinated in Kyiv, an act of sabotage destroyed a large munition
depot in Balaklia, forcing the evacuation of 20,000 civilians form
nearby areas. Earlier in the conflict, Ukraine's security service, the
SBU, accused Russia of having orchestrated a bombing attack on a rally
in Kharkiv in February 2015 that killed a policeman and a civilian as
well as bombing attacks on railroads, a courtroom, a pub frequented by
pro-Maidan supporters, and the offices of a pro-Maidan NGO. Given the
long border between Russia and Ukraine and extensive societal and
family ties between the two countries, preventing acts of terrorism and
sabotage remains difficult and relies heavily on good intelligence and
societal resilience.
political and economic subversion
Finally, political and economic subversion have increasingly become
Russia's favored method of seeking to exert control over the government
in Kyiv. Indeed, Russia has increased its political influence
operations not just in Ukraine but throughout Europe and the United
States, seeing them as a cheaper and more effective way to achieve its
aims in the gray zone. Unconventional military operations carry a
significant degree of risk, while political influence operations are
easier to carry out and are camouflaged behind an often convoluted
faade of corrupt business and political ties.
As part of this subversive campaign, Russia's intelligence services
and Kremlin-linked oligarchs have targeted Western political parties,
businessmen, politicians, media organizations, and NGOs. The goal is
not always to influence a near-term political outcome, but sometimes
simply to burrow into a country's political and economic fabric. In
this way, corrupt ties and kompromat (material for blackmail) can be
built up in reserve and deployed at the opportune moment. The primary
tool used in these influence operations is Russia's vast network of
corrupt patron-client relations, which extend not only to the former
Soviet space but also to Europe and the United States. Russian
businessmen who have professional ties in a particular country can be
``encouraged'' to donate money to select NGOs, offshore companies can
be used to funnel money to political parties, and Russian cultural
organizations such as state-run Rossotrudnichestvo can be used to forge
ties with pro-Kremlin diaspora groups. Money laundering schemes using
shell companies or ``one-day firms'' help to channel the flow of licit
and illicit money from these various actors to favored politicians,
NGOs, and media organizations.
To counteract this rising tide of Russian political subversion,
Western states need to build more transparent institutions,
particularly with regards to political party financing, and empower
anti-corruption organizations, financial investigation units, and law
enforcement bodies to coordinate with intelligence organizations to
root out entrenched and corrosive Russian patronage networks. The
United States should seriously consider establishing a standing
interagency operational body dedicated solely to interdicting illicit
Russian influence operations. Current interagency efforts to track
Russian malign influence are not sufficient because of the firewall
between policy agencies like the State Department and National Security
Council on the one hand, and law enforcement bodies on the other.
On the policy side, the United States must also make better use of
the tools already at its disposal. Financial sanctions against Russia
remain vastly under-utilized given the scope of financial leverage the
United States has over Russia. To date, the United States has only
applied full blocking sanctions on one Russian bank, and that bank is
not even among the 20 largest Russian financial institutions.
Furthermore, personal sanctions against corrupt individuals such as
those mandated by the Magnitsky Act have barely been utilized at all,
with less than 30 individuals designated since 2012.
Finally, in the United States it is vital that an independent
Special Prosecutor be empowered to investigate allegations of ties
between the Russian Government and United States political actors. Of
all the lessons from Russia's influence operations in Ukraine and
elsewhere in Europe, this one impinges most directly on our national
security. It is frankly impossible to understand how one could point to
vulnerabilities among our Allies and partners while neglecting to
thoroughly and impartially investigate Russia's influence operation
right here in the United States.
conclusion
The effort to counter Russia's operations in the gray zone should
start in Ukraine, where Moscow continues to fight an unconventional war
against Kyiv. To check Russian influence in Ukraine, the United States
must dedicate more resources to bolster military training programs for
Ukraine's conventional and special operations forces. It should provide
Ukraine with defensive weapons such as anti-tank missiles and equipment
such as counter-battery radars with advanced fire control systems and
more effective Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)
platforms. On the diplomatic front, the United States cannot afford to
remain a spectator as the Normandy Group engages in endless
negotiations. The United States must get involved in these negotiations
and help the parties develop a concrete roadmap of actions to implement
the two Minsk agreements of September 2014 and February 2015.
Crucially, this roadmap must specify specific dates by which actions
must be completed and consequences for failing to meet required
deadlines. To sharpen United States leverage, the United States should
consider unilaterally tightening current debt and equity restrictions
on Russian financial institutions, and if necessary incrementally apply
blocking sanctions to signal resolve. Positive incentives should also
be offered for compliance with the Minsk roadmap. Lastly, the United
States needs to continue to support Ukraine's reforms, in part by
applying strict conditionality to United States assistance and
insisting on Ukrainian follow-through, but also by encouraging our
European partners to play a more active role in supporting reform.
As we consider more robust measures to push back on Russian
influence operations in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, we cannot
blind ourselves to the painful fact that these operations have been
targeted at the United States as well. I have argued before that if
Russian aggression in places like Georgia and Ukraine is not checked,
Russian malign influence will continue to spread to our allies in
Europe as well as here in the United States. Now it is a fact that
Russia has sought to corrode one of the most sacred institutions in
this country: our democratic process. We must be prepared to respond
with the sense of seriousness and urgency that is required.
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Dr. Carpenter.
Lieutenant General Cleveland.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL CHARLES T. CLEVELAND, USA
(RET.), SENIOR FELLOW, MADISON POLICY FORUM, AND FORMER
COMMANDING GENERAL, UNITED STATES ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS
COMMAND
General Cleveland. Thank you. Chairman Ernst, Ranking
Member Heinrich, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to share some thoughts, some old-guy thoughts as I
would say, on unconventional warfare, population-centric
warfare, and the challenges the United States faces
encountering nontraditional or nonconventional strategies.
Russia's success in Crimea and its actions in eastern
Ukraine have caused the world rightly to take note. Through the
creative use of violence and threats, Russia redrew, as was
mentioned earlier, the international boundaries for the first
time in decades. Its success to date is destabilizing an
international system that had put in check the territorial
ambitions of its members. Disturbing is the fact that they were
so successful without paying much of a price, at least
politically, as Putin remains popular with his people.
The United States military's response has been appropriate
and if not predictable. Increased exercises engaged in joint
planning learn from Ukraine and try to find and apply
countermeasures in the Baltics. In the last few years, though,
I would submit not only from that experience but from my
experiences around the world, we have learned a few things. We
have learned that the limits of our understanding of foreign
cultures matter. We have learned how important that
understanding is to developing viable security policies and
responses. We have learned the limits of our funding
authorities and the inadequacies of some of our existing
civilian and military organizations and their understanding of
indigenous-centric warfighting. We have learned the inadequacy
of our current ability to use psychological and information
operations, which has been mentioned earlier. We have learned
the hard lesson of the inelastic element of time in these
population-centric wars.
But these limitations obviously are not just with Russia
and its nefariousness. It is in fact with actors that are
practicing this form of warfare around the world. I would
submit that our lack of understanding of this form of warfare
has helped lead to poor results in Iraq and Afghanistan as
well, and have limited our thinking and options in Syria,
Yemen, and pretty much everywhere population-centric wars are
being fought.
I offer the following eight points: First, recognize that
these population-centric wars are different from traditional
war. Two dangerous myths are that such wars are only a lesser
case of traditional war or, to the contrary, these are graduate
levels of the same war. Neither is correct and both lead to bad
assumptions that we can be successful by just doing better with
what we have got or go bigger with what we have got or invest
more money more wisely.
We have a laundry list of alphabet soup ad hoc structures
created over the past 16 years. It was the battlefield's way of
telling us that what we brought to those fights was not enough.
New models, concepts, and resulting doctrine organizations and
leaders and soldiers are needed in my view, particularly above
the tactical level.
Secondly, whatever America's new strategy works out to be,
I sincerely hope, as one who lived my life under the special
forces motto of de oppresso liber, that it does not relegate
hundreds of millions of people around the world to tyranny. The
inevitable instability that would result would force our
involvement anyway, given as interconnected as the world is
today. So it is better that we proactively gain an
understanding, shape and act in concert with like-minded
friends, partners, and allies, providing leadership when
necessary and inspirational always.
Consensus on a national strategy beyond simply an open-
ended fascination with CT [counter-terrorism] is critical for
providing direction and clarity. Containment was a powerful
centering concepts that helped drive security-sector efforts.
It was perhaps practiced differently between the political
parties, but by and large it remained an organizing principle
throughout the Cold War. Whatever comes next, my
recommendation, given the instability in the system and the
provocations by regional actors and non-state groups, that it
be underpinned by an unmatched soft indigenous-centric and
direct-action warfighting capability, superior and elite high-
end conventional forces, and a robust diplomatic core.
Third, organize around the reality of modern political
warfare or, as my lawyer preferred to call it, unconventional
diplomacy. Russia, China, Iran are each employing these forms
of political warfare and calls for the United States to relearn
lessons from the Cold War on its own approach to political
warfare are worth serious consideration. For example, our
acknowledged problems conducting effective information
campaigns might improve with a 21st century variation of the
United States Information Agency.
Some other ideas are, one, ensure that the NFC has UW
[unconventional warfare] expertise or unconventional warfare
expertise; two, create a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Special Warfare, that being unconventional warfare to
foreign internal defense or population-centric warfighting; at
the State Department, create a bureau for political warfare led
by an official of ambassadorial rank similar to what they have
done with counterterrorism; and four, create the creation of a
joint special warfare command within SOCOM [Special Operations
Command] that would hopefully match the success of its direct-
action counterpart. It would be an interagency command with
perhaps a deputy from another agency, another government agency
or state and other interagency officers serving as fully
empowered members on a tailored headquarter staff.
The TSOCs or the Theater Special Operations Commands,
currently COCOM [combatant command] to SOCOM, could be
subordinated to such a headquarters, freeing the SOCOM staff to
focus on their policy procurement, joint soft doctrine
development, and unit-readiness missions. This structure would
give more weight to SOCOM's unconventional warfare of foreign
internal defense, civil affairs, and psychological operations
or military information support operations by providing a
single headquarters that would, by necessity, be the advocate
for U.S. support to indigenous warfighting, unconventional
warfare, and foreign internal defense.
SOCOM has concentrated money and effort rightly towards
building an exquisite direct action capability, but other of
its legislative missions have suffered, particularly, in my
view, information operations.
Fourth, the U.S. has been seeking the holy grail of whole-
of-government warfighting for well over 50 years. Presidents
have issued several decision directives to get at this, but it
remains elusive. There must be an outside forcing function to
do better in my mind. Putin's success directly reflects the
Russian hold on all levels of government and the elements of
power outside of government and their adept use, resulting in a
sophisticated, complex, hybrid war or unconventional warfare
campaign. Certainly that is easier for an authoritarian
government. But the stovepiped authorization and appropriation
of funds creates internal pressures that work against
developing cross-department solutions. Add to that the
different cultures of the security sector departments and
agencies, and it is rare to see any real moves towards creating
a truly interagency solution.
It is fair to ask the question who funds whole-of-
government or whole-of-nation solutions to a problem? We do
not. Instead, we fund in pieces and parts. Department and
agency projects entrust they come together somewhere to get the
job done. Congress may want to look at funding incentives to
promote collective planning.
Fifth, recognize that our critical weaknesses and gaps in
defense are above the tactical level. Our standing campaign-
level headquarters, primarily the U.S. Army Corps and U.S.
Marine Corps MEFs [Marine Expeditionary Forces] are rightly
organized around conventional warfighting. The one operational-
level SOF headquarters is primarily organized around the
counterterrorism and direct action mission, as it needs to be.
A dedicated operational-level headquarters around the
execution of indigenous-centric campaign such as Iraq and Syria
today is merited. A hybrid soft conventional interagency U.S.
Army base core that is designed for complex contingency merits
consideration. These kinds of operations are no longer the
aberration but in fact are the norm. We should organize
accordingly.
Six, develop the 12XX funding authority like 1208 for CT,
for soft formations now need access to funds to develop
indigenous UW capabilities obviously approved by the country
team, obviously approved by the geographic combatant commander
in an approved campaign on the part of the United States or the
foreign internal defense appropriate capabilities to counter a
hostile country's unconventional warfare threats that are not
CT-related.
Seven, the most prevalent forms of competition and conflict
around the world today are resistance, rebellion, and
insurgency. They manifest themselves oftentimes in the use of
the tactic of terror and, if successful, they culminate in
civil war. Yet despite its prevalence, DOD has no professional
military education dedicated to these forms of warfare, the
service's own professional military education responsibility
for their soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. The result is
that a deep understanding of these conflicts, these most
prevalent forms of war, within the ranks depends primarily on
the individual initiative of the leader. There are some
electives at the various command and staff in war colleges but
the net result is that military leaders get very little formal
education on this form of war.
More concerning to me is the fact that our Special Forces,
Civil Affairs, and SIOP officers, and those who eventually
become the leaders who learn the basics of population-centric
warfighting in their qualifications course, but from that point
on are in a professional military education program focused on
essentially conventional warfighting.
Those who attended Army schools appreciated the--those of
us who attended the Army schools appreciated the year at
Command and General Staff College and the Army War College,
both institutions of which I am a graduate, and I appreciated
the year with our conventional counterparts and some of the
lessons certainly that are universally important to
warfighting. But it did not make me much better really at the
form of warfighting that I was to practice on behalf of the
Nation. SOCOM or the Army--in my view SOCOM should create a
career-long professional development path for those who are
charged with being expert at indigenous warfighting.
Point number eight and my last point is we are the good
guys. You know, our asymmetry again in my view is who we are
and from where the United States Government and this great
nation derives its strength. While Russia, China, and Iran must
control their people, the strength of our country is our people
and their belief in our form of government, the inalienable
rights granted by our Creator, the guarantees of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. I think that provides us and
those that are privileged enough to have this as a form of
government around the world the resilience that Dr. Carpenter
was talking about in our social structure.
A deep understanding and commitment to the development and
maintenance of world-class unconventional warfare capability
can be a powerful tool in countering the use of surrogates in
hybrid warfare by revisionist and revolutionary movements. It
has the potential to impose costs on them. It holds them at
risk. In addition to providing an offensive capability from
which we can learn and stay abreast of the art and science of
warfighting, it is in fact I think necessary as we see the
evidence of an emerging domain--a new emerging domain of war,
the human domain.
I am not optimistic, however, that DOD can address its
deficiencies. It will need Congress' help. We should be asking
on behalf of the American taxpayer if we knew in early 2002
what we know now, what would we do differently? What has SOCOM,
the Army, and the Marine Corps as land components learned these
last 16 years, and what does that portend for the future?
Multidomain battle might be the beginnings of a replacement
for air-land battle but only if we acknowledge in my view that
the human domain, this place where insurgencies, resistance,
and rebellion happen, takes its place along the traditional
four domains, land, sea, air, and space, and the newly
acknowledged cyber. It appears in fact in my view the Russians
have learned this lesson and are getting better at it, as we
continue to admire the problem.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator Ernst. Thank you to our witnesses.
We will start with our rounds of questions, and we will
limit those to five minutes of questions and answers per
Senator.
General Cleveland, if I could start with you, why were the
Russians so successful in achieving their objectives of
illegally annexing Crimea and destabilizing eastern Ukraine,
and why do you think United States special operations forces
are prepared today to counter situations like that in the
future?
General Cleveland. Ma'am, I am not sure--I mean, the
Russians had a tremendous home-field advantage in Crimea, and
we would have had to recognize and understand alongside the
Ukrainian Government early, early on what was happening. I am
not sure that we had our antenna out to be sensitive to that
and then be able to react early enough to counter what was
going on using many of the things that were spoken about
earlier, being transparent, you know, shaming, bringing that
out, providing perhaps some information warfare antidote to
just the blitzkrieg, as was described on the information front.
I think that special operations forces today, as you have
noted in your opener, we have been focused primarily on the CT
mission. However, there is an element within SOCOM in the
special operations community which has been applying its trade
in indigenous warfighting that maybe earlier on, had we had the
political will to commit to supporting the Ukrainian Government
in its early, early stages, we could have at least been a
tripwire. We could have perhaps provided some capability. We
would have shown perhaps resolve that we would not let this
type of nefariousness stand.
But that is a policy decision. That is what you all get
paid the big bucks for. So, again--but I think that the tools
were there. Whether they were considered in the deliberations
and whether those that were in a position to advise were
literate enough to provide what those options might look like,
that I do not know. I was obviously focused still at Fort
Bragg.
Senator Ernst. Absolutely. Thank you very much, General. I
appreciate it.
Dr. Carpenter, to counter Russian information operations,
you say that the United States should take a more proactive
approach, including identifying and taking action against
Russian misinformation or debunking those false stories, and I
agree with you on that point. Can you explain to us what role
the messaging in Russian films and TV shows plays into this
information campaign, and then also what about social media and
how that applies to the situation?
Dr. Carpenter. Well, Russia has made great use of the
virtual monopoly that it has on broadcast television inside
Russia but then also in occupied parts of Ukraine to be able to
get its message out. It relies on very slick programming that
appeals to the folks that tune into TV. It is shows, it is
other--it is comedy, it is movies, but then it is also
interspersed with propaganda. It is very difficult to combat
when most people in these areas get their sources of
information from TV.
I think the way to go about combating that is to try to go
and use the various platforms that we have available to get the
message out in this information space. So I would actually
separate this into two things. There are things that we need to
do here in the United States so we have RT, we have Sputnik,
which are Russia propaganda programs here in the United States.
Frankly, I would advocate using more regulatory tools to, for
example, put a banner at the bottom of the screen saying this
programming is financed by the Russian Government or is Russian
Government programming so the people are aware. We still
protect the First Amendment rights to watch what they want to
watch, but they are aware just like we do with cigarette
packages to warn them what it is that is inside the package.
In Russia and inside occupied Ukraine, it is a little bit
more difficult. The BBG [Broadcasting Board of Governors] has
developed some digital tools so that is programming that is now
available on a 24/7 basis that can get inside to Russia, but it
is available on the internet. Most people still tune into
broadcast TV to get their news and to get sources of
information.
But we need to push more. We need to get out a message not
just--we cannot just play whack-a-mole and continuously try to
debunk every single fake news story that Russia puts out there.
That puts us on the defensive. We need to start to put out
information about what is going on in Russia in terms of
corruption. You see the protests that just took place on Sunday
across almost 100 cities within Russia, and so I think getting
the message out will resonate in Russian society.
It is just simply a matter of letting people know what is
actually happening with their government. I think a lot of
Russians to this day believe the government in Kyiv is run by
fascists. They believe all kinds of fake news stories that have
been peddled simply because they do not have an alternative
source of information. So we need to get better at that.
The Baltic States have also been good at putting out some
broadcast programming that aims at Russian-speaking audiences.
It is limited to the Baltic region, but we should explore
supporting them and trying to get that broadcasting out to more
Russian speakers.
Senator Ernst. Very good. Thank you.
Ranking Member Heinrich?
Senator Heinrich. Dr. Carpenter, what would be the
technological limitations or other limitations to allow us to
reach people on broadcast television as opposed to the internet
platform from some of those neighboring states?
Dr. Carpenter. So I think----
Senator Heinrich. What kind of reach could we foreseeably
actually have?
Dr. Carpenter. So I think it is very difficult to be able
to broadcast into Russia itself because they control the means
of both blocking foreign broadcasting and, as I said, they have
a virtual monopoly on this. But that does not mean that we
should not try, especially in regions like the Baltic. I was
told by those who lived through the Soviet experience in the
Baltics that those who lived near the Polish border would tune
in to Polish TV, they would listen to--even though Polish TV
was also part of the Warsaw Pact, it was also propagandistic.
But it was more open than Soviet television, and so they would
listen, and then they would transmit those messages to friends
and acquaintances and spread it through their social networks.
I think if you have broadcast programs in the Baltic, in
Ukraine, in Moldova, in Georgia, in places on Russia's
periphery, it will seep into Russia. It may not be as effective
as if you had broadcast television in Moscow and St.
Petersburg, but it will go a long way. I think the Russian
people actually crave more information, and when they are
exposed to it, they will benefit.
Senator Heinrich. On a sort of related question, and this
is really for any of you, given Russian employment of
disinformation and digital trolls and bots in Western
elections, including our own last year, and the fact that the
issue that you, Dr. Oliker, brought up of people preferring
their own information sources and discounting all others is
certainly not limited to Europe. We see that very much the case
in the United States today, people self-selecting information
sources and almost living in parallel universes.
What lessons can we learn actually from countries like
Estonia and others that have been on the frontlines of this
dual world
for longer than we have and have developed a sensitivity to the
manipulations of the Russian Government? How can we take some
of the lessons that they have had and utilize them in our own
self-awareness of what is going on here and now? This is for
any of you really.
Dr. Oliker. Thank you. I would actually say, you know, I
was watching the protests in Russia on Sunday. One of the
things that is most striking about them was the number of youth
that were out there. The protests we saw in Russia in 2011 and
2012 were mostly middle-aged and older folks. This was a lot of
young people. This is very preliminary, but my sense is they do
not get their information from television. They get their
information from the internet, from each other. The other thing
we saw before the protest was some reports of conversations of
faculty and students in Russian schools, which also evidenced a
certain amount of critical thinking.
So I think there are actually lessons we can take from
Russia here that--and I do not--you know, I do not know that
governments can do this well but I think the private sector may
be able to, which is about figuring out how to target youth,
recognizing that youth are bright and are discerning and are,
you know, perhaps intrinsically distrustful of what older
people tell them and using that-- not so much using it as a
propaganda tool of the United States Government but creating in
the marketplace of ideas a real market for truth.
I think that is something--and we in the United States and
our partners and allies in Europe can help support our private
sector in doing that. But I very strongly do not think this is
a government task.
Senator Heinrich. Do either of the rest of you have an
opinion about what lessons we might learn from some of our
allies like Estonia?
Dr. Carpenter. So I would just say that we do need to get
much more savvy about using social media to reach out to
Russian youth. I do not think it necessarily has to be a
government-funded website or a government-run social media
platform, but providing the content to others to be able to
disseminate I think is important.
To give you an anecdote, about a year and a half ago there
was a woman in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg who was
putting--on her personal blog she was just simply putting
stories from Reuters and AP [Associated Press] on what was
happening in Ukraine, and she was charged with treason and put
in jail. So this demonstrates to me that the Russian Government
is extremely sensitive to having this information even on a
digital platform, even on a blog, and reacts accordingly.
I think if we can get the information out there and, yes,
it tends to be clunky when it is run by government public
institutions, but there are ways we can partner with more
commercial, private, sleeker outfits that are able to get the
message out, and I think it will have a great effect if we do
that.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you.
Senator Ernst. Senator Peters.
Senator Peters. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to expand some of the conversation and, Dr.
Oliker, you brought this up is that, as troublesome as the
Russian activities are, and they are very troublesome, it also
I think indicates that we have some greater vulnerabilities
across the globe in terms of some of the weakness in
institutions that are essential. In fact, I think in your
written testimony you talk about the only way we really protect
ourselves and others against this is to have strong
institutions.
I was struck by the Munich Security Conference, which I had
an opportunity to attend, and the theme of that was post-truth,
post-order, and post-West, which are all pretty scary concepts
to think about, moving away from order and away from truth. If
you do not have truth, how do you survive as a democratic
society?
In your testimony you talk about how the Russians do
exploit those sorts of weaknesses with institutions. Could you
explain a little bit or elaborate on where you think the
greatest vulnerabilities are with our institutions and how do
we strengthen them?
Dr. Oliker. I think right now the greatest vulnerability in
our institutions is our own move away from truth. The stooping
to the same level, the shift to an effort to influence rather
than an effort to inform, and I think also affected very
heavily by the way that the internet-based news cycle creates a
demand for information now before it has been processed and
understood. I do not have a great solution for that one.
I do think that, over time, accountability, transparency,
and to some extent regulation can make a real difference, but I
do think our greatest vulnerability is that if everybody plays
this game of muddying the waters, the people who are best at
muddying the waters are going to win, and that is not going to
be us.
I also think that our institutions have additional
weaknesses which are that they were created for a different
situation. I think our institutions do need reforms and they do
need strengthening and they do need to be adapted for the
situations we find ourselves in. Here I am talking about
international institutions. I am talking about NATO. I think
these things have served us tremendously well for a very long
time. We are finding that people are not satisfied with the
extent to which they serve them now, and I think it is
important to look at how to adapt them.
I also think that in Europe we know that Russia does not
feel it is served well by the institutions that have sprung up
since the end of the Cold War, and Russia has not been happy
about this for 25 years. I am not saying we appease the
Russians. I do say that, as long as they feel insecure, we are
going to continue to have a problem.
Senator Peters. Well, if you look at the playbook of how
someone who wants to take advantage of these vulnerabilities,
we have seen the playbook before. You go after the press. You
try to delegitimize the press and say it is all fake news. It
is just not real and attack it. You keep people of certain
press organizations out of press conferences, let us say,
because you attack them. You attack the judiciary. You say
there are so-called judges or folks of their certain ethnic
background, and then you can operate perhaps when an
institution that has to step up and actually be a
counterbalancing institution like the
United States Congress that refuses to really bring light
and bring transparency when we know there have been activities
that have undermined our basic democracy.
Is that why, Dr. Carpenter, you believe that we have to
have a special prosecutor when we know we have direct attacks
on our democracy? If we are asking other countries to improve
their institutions, to bring more transparency, how do we make
that argument when we are not willing to do it ourselves?
Dr. Carpenter. Well, I think we absolutely have to do it
ourselves, and in fact I would unpack that and say I think
there are a couple of separate things that we need to do to get
precisely at this corruption of our institutional base. One is
I think we absolutely need an independent special prosecutor to
look at alleged ties between the Russian Government in the
Trump campaign. I mean that to me--we have advised other
countries--one of the conditions for Montenegro to get into
NATO was that they establish an independent special prosecutor,
and then when Russia attacked Montenegro on election day with
an attempted coup d'etat and cyber attacks----
Senator Peters. Right.
Dr. Carpenter.--that special prosecutor was then brought in
to investigate and has done a standup job in doing so. If we
can advise Montenegro to do that, we need to be able to have
the political will to do that here at home.
But I also think that in addition to investigating this
particular instance of Russian interference in our electoral
process, I think we need a 9/11-style commission as well to
look at Russian influence operations in the United States writ
large and what we can do about it. It will be independent. It
will have time, not focus narrowly on the prosecution of this
particular case, but look at a broader writ and examine what
Russia is doing and how we can combat it.
Finally, as I have said in my testimony, I think we need to
stand up an operational body that is composed of interagency
players that is dedicated--so within government, separate from
the 9/11-style commission--that will look at Russian influence
operations and how to counter them.
Right now, we have a number of groups in the State
Department, in the Pentagon. I participated in them. I can tell
you they are largely talk shops that try to diagnose the
problem. They do not necessarily propose solutions, and they
are not resourced to be able to do anything about it. So we
need to have this sort of operational group that can
specifically go after instances where we know Russia is
interfering in our process and then try and eradicate that.
Senator Peters. Thank you.
Senator Ernst. Senator Fischer.
Senator Fischer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Oliker, I assume that you both
believe that Russia is going to attempt another gray zone
provocation? First of all, is that correct?
Dr. Oliker. I think eventually almost certainly. I think,
you know, again, it depends on how you define the gray zone. If
we are looking at action across borders that involve some
military, quasi-military activity, I am probably looking at
Moldova and Belarus more than I am looking at the Baltics.
I do think that when the Russians do it, it is not a--oh, I
do not think the Russians are sitting around thinking where can
we create a provocation. I do think that they tend to respond
to what they see as threats to them with actions and sometimes
actions in different areas, what we call horizontal escalation
where you are attacked on one front and you respond on another.
I do think they are looking for point of weakness where they
might do that.
I do not think that for them Crimea and east Ukraine
started out intentionally as a provocation of the United
States, the West, and the global order. They were thinking of
themselves very genuinely as defending their interests. When
they realized, though, that they could affect the system that
way, I think they got excited.
Senator Fischer. Before you answer, Dr. Carpenter, if I
could just follow up. You said not the Baltics but Belarus and
Moldova. Does that follow along with a comment you made then
also that it may not be where they feel a direct threat but
kind of a--I do not know if you would say it is a diversion, a
softball over someplace else to divert attention or just an
opportunity presents itself in another country instead of where
they might really be focused?
Dr. Oliker. So I think that the Russians are deterred in
the Baltics pretty effectively. The Russians would not have
been so neurologically afraid of the incredibly unlikely
contingency of Ukraine joining NATO if they did not believe in
NATO. So, first point. The Russians have pretty much accepted
the Baltics are gone.
This said, I think if the Russians feel that NATO is
sufficiently weakened that there is a question there. There are
certainly people in Russia who might develop designs on the
Baltics. Right now, they are concerned about the Baltics, they
are concerned about a Western military buildup there, they are
worried about Kaliningrad. But if you look at it from their
perspective and the way they write and talk about it, it is
about the Western threat to them.
I think they also are spread thin enough with their
operations in Ukraine and Syria with that, and they recognize
the possibility that Ukraine might evolve to require even more,
that they are not that interested right now in doing too much
elsewhere. I could be wrong on that, but on the one hand they
claim that they have very high manning levels. On the other,
they have instituted a six-month contract. They do not send
conscripts into combat but they are letting people sign a
contract to become official military for just six months, which
I take to mean they are having a hard time staffing even the
limited contingencies they are in, which makes it very
difficult to stretch.
Senator Fischer. Dr. Carpenter, your thoughts, please.
Dr. Carpenter. I guess I take a little bit of issue with
that. I would distinguish between whether you are looking to
understand whether Russia would carry out an operation like
that in Crimea involving little green men, special forces in
uniforms without insignias or whether we are talking about
something a little bit even more covert than that, which is
little gray men, the sorts of intelligence operatives who
directed the seizure of buildings in the Donbas in the spring
of 2014.
I think if you are talking about the latter, I think it is
ongoing throughout Europe. I think we see influence operations
of various degrees happening as we speak obviously in Ukraine
but also in Georgia, in Moldova. If you look back just a couple
years ago, an Estonian senior law-enforcement official was
abducted from Estonian territory--now, this is a NATO ally--and
taken to Russia. That was in a sense a gray zone provocation.
It was not little green men crossing the border, but it was
intelligence agents crossing the border and abducting and
kidnapping.
As I mentioned in my testimony, there was an assassination
last week, exactly a week ago today, in central Kyiv of an
exiled Duma member because he was revealing information about
Russian Government ties to both Yanukovych and also the start
of the war in Ukraine.
These operations are happening each and every day sub rosa.
But do I also worry about the potential for something that is
more military that involves special forces either in or out of
uniform? I do. I think that there is--I think Belarus right now
is also very vulnerable, although it is very closely aligned
with Russia geopolitically.
I think Russia believes that Belarus has strayed a little
bit outside of the orbit, and it has therefore planned and
exercised in September of this year Zapad 2017 where it has
requisitioned 83 times the number of railcars to go into
Belarus than it did when it last did this exercise in 2013.
Something there does not add up in terms of just purely this
being a traditional exercise. I think Russia is exerting this
sort of influence each and every day.
Senator Fischer. Could I follow up with just hopefully a
short question? Is that okay, Senator Shaheen? Thank you.
Dr. Carpenter, when you mentioned that a NATO ally had
basically had its borders breached so that one of its citizens
was kidnapped and then you mentioned other countries that are
not within NATO and events that are happening there, so does
being a NATO member help these countries or--first of all, just
yes or no. We do not have--I am already over my time. But would
it be more helpful to say Estonia, the Baltics if American
soldiers were stationed there?
Dr. Carpenter. I think it absolutely does help. I think the
article 5 guarantee deters Russia from doing a lot of things in
the NATO space than it might otherwise want to do. That said, I
do believe there is still room for some of this covert
provocation and other types of operations that would be below
the level of conflict, below the level of Crimea as well. Yes,
United States force posture, in addition to the multinational
battalions that are deployed in the Baltics, would augment that
deterrent force.
Senator Fischer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Senator Shaheen.
Senator Ernst. Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Thank you, both Chair and
Ranking Member, for holding this hearing.
Dr. Carpenter, I want to start with your recommendations
that we need an independent investigation of Russia's meddling
in our elections because I absolutely agree with you. I am
puzzled by why we do not have more of the country outraged
about this and why Congress is not outraged about this. This is
not a partisan issue. This is about Russia meddling in our
elections. That takes their activities in the United States on
a political level, on espionage, whatever you talk--to a whole
different level. They are not only doing it here, they are
doing it in Europe. What message does it send to Russia that we
have failed to take action in response to their activities?
Dr. Carpenter. Well, I think it is incredibly provocative
that we have thus far failed to seriously investigate this. I
think we still have time to do so. But this was an influence
operation aimed at the heart of American democracy, and if we
do not respond, Russia will learn the lesson that it can
continue to probe and it can continue to push the boundaries.
It will interfere again, and it will continue to meddle in our
process.
You know, there was an article that appeared in the
Associated Press indicating that Mr. Manafort, who was campaign
chairman, had proposed in fact confidential strategies, ``that
he would influence politics, business dealings, and news
coverage inside the United States, Europe, and the former
Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putin's
government''. That is from an AP story.
I cannot verify whether that is correct or not, but I can
say if it is correct, then we have a former campaign manager
for our President who was involved in the type of influence
operation that we are discussing, the gray zone operation that
we have been talking about in all these other countries here in
the United States if this is true.
Senator Shaheen. Well, I agree.
Dr. Oliker, one of the things that you said I think in
response to a question from Senator Peters was that Russia's
actions in Crimea and Ukraine were not looked at as a
provocation of the West. That really is very different than
everything else I have heard in the Foreign Relations Committee
and the Armed Services Committee about what Russia is doing.
The explanations that I have heard in both of those committees
from our witnesses has been that Putin is looking at how he can
restore Russia's sphere of influence and how he can undermine
the West, and he sees the United States as the best opportunity
to do that. His actions are taken with that aim in mind. So do
you disagree with that?
Dr. Oliker. The way I would describe it is that Russia has
been very unhappy with the security order that emerged at the
end of the Cold War. If----
Senator Shaheen. Let me just interrupt you for a minute----
Dr. Oliker. Yes.
Senator Shaheen.--because one of the things that I have
heard from those people who were part of the effort with the
fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union
was that there were real efforts, outreach efforts made at a
time when Vladimir Putin was working for Yeltsin to try and get
Russia more engaged with the West, to try and point out that
the expansion of NATO was not aimed at threatening Russia; it
was aimed at protecting the West. So that does not square with
what you are saying.
Dr. Oliker. We have gone back and forth. Twenty-five years
is a long time, and we have gone through phases of trying to
engage the Russians and doing that less. The Russians, however,
after a very brief period of indeed thinking that engagement
was possible, began to view the United States as looking to
limit and contain them, as they had in the past. Again, there
have been times when Russian Governments, including Vladimir
Putin's, have thought there was room for cooperation.
The problem has been that the Russian vision of cooperation
is one of the quality of Russia and the United States as two
great powers making decisions. The United States view has been
of Russia as one more power that should certainly be at the
table but not driving the decision-making. That fundamental
disagreement has been I think at the core of the problem, that
they expect far more than the United States has been able to
give.
Senator Shaheen. General Cleveland, again, I could not
agree more with what you are saying about efforts that we need
to make to address the new threats that we are facing and that
we have our military primarily designed to address conventional
warfare. Testimony to that is that I have been on the Armed
Services Committee now for over five years, and I never heard
anybody talk about population-centric wars in those hearings.
You talked about changing military to address the new
threats that we face, whether they be gray zone threats or
cyber threats and that Congress would need to do that. Are
there efforts within the military to make some of these
changes? I ask you that--I asked a question about our ability
to respond to what we are hearing from Russia in terms of, you
know, that future warfare is one part conventional--four-to-one
unconventional to conventional warfare. I did not get an answer
that we have a strategy to address that. So are you seeing
other places within our military where we ought to be looking
to try and encourage a more robust response to the threats that
we face today?
General Cleveland. I think, you know, part of the problem
is that it is the old ``if the only thing you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail'' sort of problem, right? We have
defined what is war along what has been very convenient for us
and where we were very successful.
Senator Shaheen. Right.
General Cleveland. The problem is our ability to dominate
in that space--and I have written some articles about that that
I have asked that they put in the record just in case you want
to read some more about it, but our ability to dominate there
by necessity has pushed folks into traditional forms where the
weaker--and I put Russia in that basket as well--will use these
techniques and have used these techniques since time immemorial
against the stronger.
The problem and challenges that we have been able to--
probably up through Vietnam--get away with using largely
conventional forms of warfare against even population-centric
wars with some success because you did not have a 24/7 news
cycle, you did not have everybody with a smartphone sitting
there as a reporter, and you did not have international bodies
that actually start bringing people up on war crimes.
Population control measures and things that you in the past
would use or even the, you know, reduction of cities if you go
back far enough, just no longer are acceptable.
There is a growing recognition that that aspect of our
warfighting, that environment if you will, has shifted out from
under us. There is discussion about, okay, what do we do about
that. But it is like the 180-pound running back that gets the
task of hitting, you know, the 290-pound defensive end, right?
That 290-pound defensive end represents a pretty robust, you
know, military-industrial complex, you know, to use Ike's term,
that is kind of built to protect the Nation a certain way. That
180-pound running back cannot hit him shoulder pad to shoulder
pad. You really have to go at the knees. In other words, there
is something fundamentally--and that is where in my own way of
thinking about this is we for too long have been kind of saying
let us bounce these ideas off of conventional warfighting. That
just has not worked, right?
My own analysis is I go to the more fundamental assumptions
and ask myself whether those assumptions that built this
military-industrial complex if you will are still valid. My
answer is not completely, and that space that has changed is
why I say that what is emerging is in fact this human domain of
warfare where any domain, just like what was imposed with
cyber, requires you to build--you know, have a concept in order
to dominate there and build the right assets, you know, the
concept, and then build the doctrine, the organization, the
DOTMLPFs [Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel,
Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities and Policy] as
the military terms it, in order to dominate there.
So there is awakening, I think, a growing understanding. I
think there is reluctance because budgeting is a zero-some
game, and if you say I am going to-- you know, think about what
happened with cyber. You created cyber as a top-down issue. All
services have to cut out pieces of their budget to do what?
Build a CYBERCOM and so forth.
So you are entering dangerous territory when you say, well,
really what has happened in these wars, a domain of--the human
domain has emerged because now your military campaign and the
success of it depends on your ability to actually fight
successfully in these population-centric wars. If you backwards
engineer from that, you say, okay, well, then what does it take
to fight there? What you bump up against is two philosophies.
Either you need something new, which I would say 16 years after
Afghanistan we probably ought to start asking that question, or
you use differently what you have. I would say that is what we
have been doing for this entire period.
I think that there is a growing understanding of it.
Whether that understanding internally can lead to developing
these new tools and taking more out of other people's budgets,
I am skeptical of that. That is why I say--and I am not saying
that, you know, it has got to be a lot, but, you know, I think
if you look at Afghanistan and Iraq, I go back to my closing,
you have to ask the question, you know, what would we have done
differently? I have got to hope that it would be something
different, right? Because we have not delivered on the
political objectives that were set in force.
Senator Shaheen. Right. Thank you very much.
Madam Chair, could you share with the committee the
articles that General Cleveland has submitted?
Senator Ernst. Absolutely. We will make sure those get to
the committee members.
[The information referred to can be found in Appendix A.]
Senator Ernst. I think we have time if you would like just
briefly a second round of questions. We will conclude with that
second round.
Dr. Oliker, you note at the end of your written comments
that you do not think a Crimea-like scenario is what we need to
worry about in the future. As we witness continued gray zone
activities from Russia throughout the Baltics and Balkans, I am
worried about what scenario we might possibly see there in the
future.
Specifically, I am concerned about Russia's involvement in
Serbia right now and its impact on Iowa's sister country. We
have a state partnership program with Kosovo, so I do get very
concerned about those activities in Serbia and how they might
lead to activities with Russia and Kosovo. So just last week,
General Scaparrotti said he shared my concerns about Russia's
activities in Serbia as well. So what type of Russia scenarios
do you think we might see in the future specifically, you know,
in that region?
Dr. Oliker. I am also concerned about the Balkans, and I
think they bear watching. I think the Russians are very much
testing the waters for what is possible and what they can get
away with. I think that--as I said, I do not think they went
into Ukraine thinking that this was a way to get a standoff
with United States, but they got one, and it has been more
advantageous to them than they thought, and it has given them
opportunities to push in other areas. I think very much the
Balkans are one of them.
This said, one of the things I worry about most is not
things that are intentional, you know, action response, but
things that are unintentional. I worry a lot about Russian
military provocations in the seas and the air of Europe. I
worry about us operating in close proximity in Syria. I worry
about things that could go wrong because there is so much
distrust for very good reasons and because there--you know,
there is a danger of overreaction on both sides.
So, you know, what I worry about most--I worry about what
the Russians might do in the Balkans, but what I worry about
most on the day-to-day level is that somebody is going to shoot
down an airplane.
Senator Ernst. Right. Right. Those greater implications.
I thought it was interesting, Dr. Carpenter, that you
mentioned the railcars that are being purchased with Russian
dollars. That was brought to my attention by the Kosovars. They
mentioned that there are railcars that have been purchased that
are located in Serbia that have been run into Kosovo. So there
are some concerns out there. They are wondering, you know, what
is going on, what type of propaganda is this that exists out
there. Do you have any brief comments on those types of
activities?
Dr. Carpenter. So earlier, I was referring to the railcars
that Russia is using to conduct its Zapad exercise in Belarus,
but in Serbia as well there were railcars that illegally tried
to enter into the territory of Kosovo and that had come from
Serbia.
I would say that Russian influence in Serbia is growing by
the day. The pressure that Russia is exerting on the government
in Belgrade is enormous. But I think almost more nefarious is
the pressure and the ties that Russia has with Serbia's
neighbor, particularly Republika Srpska within Bosnia and
Herzegovina. There the ties between the Kremlin and Milorad
Dodik, the President of Republika Srpska, are incredibly close,
and Russia has essentially been supporting Dodik's efforts to
talk about secession from the rest of Bosnia, which would be a
disaster for the whole Balkans and can plunge the region into
war yet again.
You have these active attempts by Russia in Bosnia, in
Serbia, in Macedonia as well to undermine political structures
and to use influence operations to penetrate government
institutions, and it is all lubricated by corruption.
While the Serbian Government has been trying to find a way
to pursue European Union integration, Russia has also come in
and you have had the Russian Ambassador make comments in
Belgrade about why is this in Serbia's interest?
Senator Ernst. Right.
Dr. Carpenter. So clearly, they are fomenting opposition to
Euro-Atlantic integration into Western norms and standards
across the region.
Senator Ernst. Thank you very much.
Ranking Member Heinrich?
Senator Heinrich. General Cleveland, I want to go back to
something you mentioned in your testimony. You talked about
potentially looking at something similar to section 1208
authority that we use in counterterrorism operations. Could you
talk a little bit about, you know, what would it look like to
have 1208 authority-like structure for gray zone entities that
might be partnerable?
General Cleveland. Certainly. Again, I think 1208 and the
strength of 1208 is in its ability to tap into SOCOM's very
expedited processes to obtain equipment and to deploy forces in
order to work with partners without having to go through the
security--cooperation security assistance apparatus, right,
which has done well by us I think for the most part. I think it
needs some review overall and streamlining, but it is certainly
not good enough for helping an advisor who goes into a country
to say I need to build a CT force.
For instance, my own case in Paraguay, for instance, we did
that and we used 1208, and you were able to get money invested.
You bought equipment and weapons, and it was done through open
contracts that SOCOM had, and they showed up with the
counterparts fairly rapidly. If you go through the security
assistance system, they have obviously a process in place to
protect us from abuse and all that other kind of stuff. SOCOM
has a process as well, but it is much more streamlined.
A 12XX program would do the same thing for countries that
it is not necessarily a CT problem, but it is actually training
forces in order to recognize, for instance, counterterrorism or
unconventional warfare activities. It might be something that
would have to be expanded to perhaps provide a country's police
with some training as well. Its military perhaps would have to
be competent in some elements of their own form of
unconventional warfare, stay-behind activities if they are
overrun, for example.
Senator Heinrich. Right.
General Cleveland. As it exists right now, there is really
not a pot of money that the soft forces can call upon to do
that in what I think is the--with the agility that is necessary
given the problem there.
Senator Heinrich. Yes, I think that is something we may
want to look at in the upcoming NDAA [National Defense
Authorization Act] process as we move forward.
I want to go back to you, Dr. Carpenter, for one final
thought and then I will relinquish the balance of my time. But,
you know, it occurred to me that the recent Supreme Court
decision around Citizens United has created a very different
situation in our internal domestic elections than what has
historically been the case. I have seen this in my own
elections. I am sure all of my colleagues have watched as there
has been less transparency as to where the money is actually
coming from within elections.
In most national elections now you have a preponderance of
the financing of advertisements and things within elections
actually not originating with the candidates themselves. So you
may have a Democrat and a Republican running for Congress
someplace or running for the United States Senate, but the
majority of the actual financial activity in that election is
actually from third parties who it is not clear where the
financing is coming from.
Do you see that fundamental lay of the land right now
within our own election structure as an opening for Russia to
be able to potentially manipulate, especially given their
expertise at moving financial resources and networks?
Dr. Carpenter. Absolutely, Senator. I think it is an eight-
lane highway that allows Russia to plow financial resources
into our electoral system. Russia has perfected this over the
years. They do not use Russian Government institutions to
funnel this money. They often use Russian oligarchs or not even
oligarchs but businessmen who have ties to the Kremlin. These
businessmen then funded NGOs or other types of organizations
that are registered in the country where they want to have
influence, and then those institutions in turn rely on shell
companies and other types of organizations that are subsidiary
to them to be able to fund money to candidates, to media
organizations, to NGOs.
We saw spontaneously the emergence of NGOs, for example, in
Romania that were anti-fracking that had come out of nowhere
seemingly because Russia obviously had an interest in
preventing that from happening due to its monopoly on gas flows
to Western Europe.
So they are very adept at using all kinds of shell
companies to funnel resources to political candidates and
parties that suit their interests, not necessarily that are
pro-Russian but in Europe that are euro-skeptic, that are
either far right or far left, but that serve Russia's purpose
in one way, shape, or form and advance their interests. And so,
yes, Citizens United in my view has opened up floodgates for
this type of money to pour into our system.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you.
Senator Ernst. I want to thank our witnesses for joining us
today for this subcommittee hearing. I appreciate your input,
your thoughts. Ranking Member Heinrich, I appreciate your
participation as well.
With that, we will close the subcommittee meeting on
Emerging Threats and Capabilities. Thank you, witnesses.
[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX A
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]