Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing on the security environment in Europe.  I also want to thank our distinguished panel for appearing before us this morning.  Collectively, this panel represents many decades of foreign policy and national security expertise, and I look forward to benefiting from your insights. 

This morning’s hearing provides an opportunity for the Committee to begin to examine in more detail the threat posed by Russia’s malign activities aimed at undermining the U.S.-led international order, one where countries are sovereign and free to make their own choices about integrating economically and politically with the rest of Europe, rather than being coerced into a sphere of influence.  Hopefully this morning we can also discuss what we need to do to respond to and defend against the Russian threat.  This threat was brought especially close to home last year with Russia’s interference in our own presidential elections.  Countering Russia’s malign activities is a matter of national security and we have a responsibility to ensure that any examination of such activities by Congress, the intelligence community, or the Executive Branch is not politicized.  Russia’s attack on American democracy is just one part of a broader Kremlin-directed assault on the cohesion of the NATO alliance, the EU, and other Western institutions and a rejection of the post-Cold War vision of an integrated and stable Europe.  Our national security depends on our better understanding Putin’s worldview and Russia’s strategic aims in its aggression toward the West.  I am interested in hearing our witnesses’ views on these matters.

President Putin has proven willing to use a broad range of military and non-military tools to advance what he sees as Russia’s strategic interests.  Militarily, Putin has used force and coercion to violate the sovereignty of Russia’s neighbors and undermine their further integration into Europe.  In the Republic of Georgia, the Russian military has occupied two separatist regions since 2008 and Moscow has recognized the regions’ independence from Georgia, contrary to the international community’s determination that these regions are sovereign Georgian territory.  In Ukraine, Russia used hybrid warfare operations by combining influence operations with clandestine military and financial support to separatists to seize Crimea, changing the boundary of a European nation by force for the first time since the end of the Cold War.  Since then, Russia has sought to consolidate its control by providing direction and equipment, including heavy weapons, to separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, while failing to fulfill its commitments under the Minsk ceasefire agreements.  We have also seen Putin draw upon similar tools to prop up the Assad regime in Syria while seeking to mislead the international community by stating the purpose of its military involvement there is to counter ISIS.

Putin has even gone so far as to engage in nuclear saber rattling, conducting nuclear exercises during the 2014 Crimea invasion.  According to recent news reports, Russia is fielding a missile system that violates the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces or INF Treaty and threatens all of NATO.  I would be interested in hearing from General Breedlove and our other witnesses about their thoughts on whether U.S. and NATO military forces are appropriately postured and trained to deter Russian aggression across Europe and to respond in the event of a crisis.   

At the same time, the Kremlin’s playbook also includes a wide range of non-military tools at Putin’s disposal to influence the West.  Russia employs an array of covert and overt asymmetric weapons short of military conflict, including cyber hacking, disinformation, propaganda, economic leverage, corruption, and even political assassination.  General Breedlove, I would be interested in your recommendations from your time as EUCOM Commander and SACEUR on how to detect and respond to the appearance of “little green men” in Ukraine and Russian disinformation operations intended to conceal Russian aggression on the ground. 

In addition, we need to better understand how the Kremlin is conducting influence activities as part of a concerted effort to harm Western cohesion and opposition to Russia.  There needs to be a recognition that Russia-state controlled media, such as RT and Sputnik, disseminates “fake news,” amplified through social media, to undermine people’s faith in democratic institutions in Europe and the United States.  Just last week we heard warnings in the Banking Committee about how divisions within the EU could weaken sanctions imposed against Russia following its seizure of the Crimea peninsula in Ukraine. 

Moreover, Russia appears to be growing bolder in its use of influence operations to coerce its neighbors and undermine Western opposition.  The January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections, found that Russia’s influence efforts in the 2016 U.S. presidential election reflects a “significant escalation” compared to Russia’s previous information operations.  The report also warned that these cyber-enabled, multifaceted influence operations that the Kremlin used to target the U.S. democratic process likely represent a “new normal” in Russian conduct toward the United States and our European allies and partners.  This pattern of Russian interference will only continue and intensify over time if it goes unchallenged.

Countering this national security threat will require a whole-of-government approach that brings together the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and others.  I would be interested in our witnesses’ thoughts on how the U.S. Government needs to be organized to counter the Russian influence threat, and how Congress might resource such an effort.  I will ask our witnesses whether they agree that significant cuts at the State Department and other civilian agencies would significantly hamper our ability to use diplomacy, strategic communications and other foreign policy tools to counter these Russian malign activities. 

Finally, what is clear is that we need a comprehensive strategy for countering the anti-Western aggression from the Kremlin.  Such a strategy will need to be based on a clear-eyed understanding of Russia’s strategic aims and how it is using the full range of influence operations to achieve those goals.  I intend to work with Chairman McCain to undertake the necessary effort within this Committee to examine this question in depth.  I believe we can work in a bipartisan fashion to address this national security threat.  I look forward to this morning’s hearing to begin to shed light on this critical issue for our country and for European security.