During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) questioned witnesses about nuclear terrorism and the US's deterrence posture.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 months that has saved lives. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman for your indulgence.
00:04 Thank you Senator Rounds for your thoughtful questioning. Senator Peters please.
00:08 Chairman I'm going to defer to Senator King and then take the next one. Senator King is recognized.
00:15 Thank you Mr. Chairman. There's a human tendency called the recency effect and that is to pay most
00:21 attention to things that happened recently and then sort of lose track. To put it most bluntly,
00:26 I'm afraid we're taking our eye off the terrorism ball. That because of September 11th is
00:34 in the 20 years ago and now we're focused on China and Russia which I think is appropriate,
00:39 I just worry that we're losing focus on the threat of terrorism. The recent attack in Moscow
00:48 indicates that ISIS wants to attack in other countries. There's no doubt that they would like
00:52 to attack here and the technology is developing where they can do so. The thing that keeps me
00:57 awake at night is nuclear terrorism. If one of these organizations gets their hands on a nuclear
01:03 weapon, deterrence doesn't work because they don't have a capital city to worry about. They don't
01:08 care about dying. Mr. Secretary, I just hope that you will advocate strongly that we maintain
01:15 the attention both in the intelligence community and the defense department
01:19 on the risk of terrorism. It hasn't gone away. Senator, your concerns are ones that I share.
01:27 I've spent most of my career in the counterterrorism community and I think we have
01:33 done great things in keeping that threat at a low level but I think you're recognizing some of the,
01:40 if you will, asymmetric capabilities in the lack of deterrence of different groups if they get
01:45 capabilities is something we need to remain very focused on. I think we sometimes forget that the
01:50 national defense strategy has five elements to it. We'd like to talk about the PRC in Russia,
01:56 but one of those is counterterrorism and has been across administrations for a long time. So,
02:00 if we're taking our own direction, sir, it says that counterterrorism remains a focus for this
02:05 country. I just want you to be irritating in the councils of the defense department on this issue
02:10 and I understand that you're very capable of doing that. So, please keep pushing because I don't want
02:17 a hearing here five years from now or three years that everybody says what happened, how did we miss
02:22 this? Yes, sir. Well, I would certainly stay on it. Hopefully, I don't have a reputation for being
02:27 that irritating, but on this issue, I think it's very important, sir. So, I take your guidance.
02:31 Thank you very much. General Hawke, one of the pillars of the cyber strategy is disrupt and
02:40 dismantle threat actors. My concern is we don't have a deterrent strategy in cyber. We tend to
02:47 patch, defend, sanction after the fact, but we really don't have a deterrent strategy.
02:53 I hope that you will pursue, defend forward and make it defend aggressively because if an adversary
03:01 doesn't have any concern that they're going to pay any price for a cyber attack, whether it's
03:06 misinformation in one of our elections or a cyber attack on our financial system or our electric
03:12 grid, if they don't feel that they're going to pay a price, they're going to go ahead. There's no,
03:17 it's a low cost option for them and I believe that one of the weaknesses of our cyber strategy over
03:24 the years has been the lack of a credible deterrent which requires an offensive capability and the
03:32 adversary fearing the use of that offensive capability by cybercom. Senator, I think this
03:40 is exactly where the department wants us to go. So, when we think integrated deterrence and we
03:45 think about it in cyberspace, it's about how do we come together with a bunch of partners that all
03:51 can make it more difficult for an adversary to operate and to impose costs as necessary. That
03:56 can be industry in terms of ensuring that they are a much more difficult target than they are today.
04:02 It's our international partners and so in the DoD cyber strategy, which is how do we accelerate
04:06 our partnerships with those international elements that can be a teammate that assist
04:11 in the opposing costs and then it's about how we use the resources we have to generate capabilities
04:16 that allow us to have the effects that you're discussing and I think those are the areas that
04:21 we also view in how we think about Cyber Command 2.0, which is how we use all the authorities you've
04:27 given us to now have the greatest effect for the best interest of the nation. Well, as I say,
04:31 I think the heart of deterrence is capacity and will, but another piece of it is that the
04:37 adversary has to know about the capacity, otherwise it doesn't deter them. Right now,
04:42 we're experiencing a sophisticated, consistent, and purposeful misinformation attack from Russia
04:49 with regard to Ukraine and it's very reminiscent of the attack of the Nazis in the late 30s
04:56 in terms of the pro-Nazi propaganda here in the United States, which went up to and included
05:03 members of Congress. This is an attack. This is an effort to disrupt our political process by a
05:12 foreign agent and this is one of the things that the framers of this constitution most feared and
05:18 we have to be active and not just say, "Oh, well, it's just the Russians again." I believe, again,
05:24 I'm advocating a strong response that will make them think twice before they undertake such an
05:32 attack. Senator, I understand and I do believe that both the PRC and Russia understand our
05:41 capabilities and I'd like to be able to walk through with you in the closed session some
05:45 examples of that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator.