develop a new laser or electronic warfare system that we think is going to offer a lot of promise. we go build a few of them and demonstrate them and communicate that so it's more widely understood. i think we could take a radical transparency and turn it around and use it for our own purposes by creating uncertainty in the minds of potential enemies. >> i certainly agree with that. dr. singer? >> part of why they've been so successful at it is they're using a technology that's inherently networked and coming at it with a network-style approach, so i would guard against us coming at it with a kind of 1940s centralized approach. that's part of why we're not doing well. second is they know specifically what they want to do. we've not yet figured out whether we want to counter narrative or take them off the network or in turn take advantage of this very same radical transparency and intelligence gather on them. so, on one hand isil is getting its message out.

on the other hand, we're gathering more information about them than any adversary before because of this, so we need to figure that out for ourselves. and third, why they've been able to do it in some manners better than us is that they have cohesion between their communication strategy and their battlefield operations. so, for example, before they launched the operation against mosul, they had preset hash tags ready to go. we don't have that kind of cohesion between our strategic communications and our battlefield operations. >> thank you, all. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. singer, earlier you said the per-unit cost of the cart is driving where we steer the horse. i would like to open it up to the entire panel and ask, what can we do about cutting? where can we do less? a lot of times we talk about where we can do more. i'd like your opinions on where we can do less with regards -- with research, with buying,

training. what won't we need in the future? dr. singer? >> i think you've heard from the panel many great ideas and the question is whether we'll be able to implement them and shifts in everything from our personnel system and professional military education all the way to the example of distinguishing between the type of systems and the requirements that we build for them, when we approach it. the problem of legacy systems. another thing that i would put specifically on the table is our tendency to plan and assume for the best and then we act surprised when things don't work out that way. and that was what was i was referenced in terms of the pontiac aztec of war problem, where we have systems -- and, again, all of you are thinking about certain systems in terms of, you know, we develop a warship that the navy's own

tester says won't be survivable in combat and then we act surprised and say, gork, we got to fix that or tanker aircraft that are planned not to be in anything above a medium-threat environment and then, of course, the enemy gets a boat and we go, gosh, we should have figured out about that. what i'm getting at is that we too often in an attempt to, again, we get caught within this dynamic of the per-unit costs, it's shaping everything from what we develop to, oh, my goodness, we can't change the amount we were planning to buy for what it will do to the future per-unit cost of it, and as part of it we should be able to revisualize how certain weapons systems can take on new and important roles the way the b-52 bomber, for example, went from strategic nuclear deterrence operations to close-air support. we may be able to rethink that approach from everything to what is an aircraft carrier, will submarines be able to take on that role, to the long-range strike bomber. is it just for strike or will it

be able to take on isr or even air-to-air combat roles in the future? these are possibilities if we allow them to happen and not be locked in by past decisions. >> mr. shaire? >> thank you, senator. i think there's an issue of quantity. there certainly are places to trim the quantities of assets. not just to have fewer numbers of more capable things, but then to trade that for larger numbers of lower-cost systems. so, moving to this issue of thinking about, as dr. singer mentioned, sort of the major combat assets as -- think of them as sort of a quarterback behind a fight, right? a bomber that is not just carrying assets to the fight, but the pilots are controlling a swarm of maybe lower-cost unmanned vehicles. and a submarine as a hub of a network of autonomous undersea vehicles or undersea payloads that then expand the capabilities we actually have in the fight.

>> what this kind of points to is separating the platform, if you will, from the payload. so, what we've done in the past is we've developed the ship or the aircraft with all of its systems built into it. and we would then periodically modernize that by tearing it all apart and then -- with new technology every 10 or 20 years or so. we need to move towards not buying the next generation of these aircraft and ships and other platforms in a way that integrates all those systems but instead buy much cheaper and less equipped things and then equip them with payloads that can then adapt much more quickly over time. the innovation cycle for something like a missile or a passive radar sensor is much quicker than that of the overall platform. in terms of what we have today, i wouldn't say we want to throwx stuff on the scrap heap that we currently have in the fleet, but

we want to look at ways we can reequip it with the next generation of payloads and instead replacing them with another highly integrated airplane or ship, let's keep them, take out their old stuff and just use, then, interchangeable payloads in the future to start reducing the cost of the platforms in the future. so to get to the f-35 example, so maybe the f-35 is the last aircraft we buy that's really a purpose-built strike fighter and, you know, to dr. singer's point, maybe you do end up with airplanes in the future that are just larger and have bigger sensors and they do all the missions and the payload changes to accommodate that. >> senator, i think one of the things that we should look at is the commercial industry spends billions, if not trillions, of dollars a year in cybersecurity alone. and when you think about all that money that's being spent, it's being spent to solve their problem. but they -- if they work together create a sector solution, and that sector solution could be very important

for defending our country. if we had government and industry work together in a way that was meaningful so that what they applied those resources for helped them -- -- needed. so, i think the idea of having a war game and then looking at how you get the financial sector, the energy sector, the health care sector and the government together and maybe a few others. put those in a room and look at what they're doing. what you would find out is, you know, one big bank alone is spending almost $750 million a year in cybersecurity. what if it was done in a way that helped protect the whole sector and if they worked together. that surface would be far better than anything the government could do. we need them to do that so that the government can focus on what you want -- especially the defense department -- to do. 5pm . we must defend critical infrastructure of which 85% resides in the private sector. we must defend military personnel in shopping center

recruiting stations. we must defend military infantry in 20, 30, how years? the infantry can take an hold ground. can technology replace that? >> taking ground, yes. when it comes to holding it and building up security infrastructure to pass on to someone else, that's something that's going to require interpersonal interaction. would we use robotic systems more? absolutely. there's probably more tuntss the army is not yet seizing to look at a modern day robotics to experiment with maneuver warfare. i think absolutely. i think there's a lot of

>> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you to the witnesses. general alexander, you talked about, and we read about all the time the number of cyber attacks on the nation or on governmental agencies that are occurring with greater frequency. i think you used 350 cyber attacks. i'm not sure what unit of time that was. give us a good example of a counter cyber attack that the united states has undertaken so when we've been attacked give me a good example of something we've done in response. >> senator, i can't give you that in this forum, but i think that's something that would be good to discuss in a classified session. >> can i just -- i want to make this point. i thought that was going to be your answer. there's not a deterrence doctrine if people don't know what the answer will be. the president said he would send 50 people to syria. i know how many bombing raids

we've run in the war against isil in its nearly 16th month. we know the number of personnel that are deployed. when the american public and policymakers read over and over again, they're very public. but when we can't discuss even with the committee in a public setting or with the american public what we're doing in response, it kind of leads to a little bit of a feeling like we're impotent against these attacks. and i know we're not. but if we can talk about troop deployments in the war on isil and bombing sorties run but we can't talk about cyber attacks that are every bit as in the public news as any of the bombing campaigns are, i think it really leads to a sense of helplessness by the public and the committees themselves. i hope we will have a follow-up and talk about this. >> could i offer, senator -- >> please? >> let's he go hypothetical instead of actual.

we can talk hypothetically what the defense department could do and others -- >> can i -- i would rather actually move to another topic. hypotheticals are great. why can we know actual in so many realms of defense but not in cyber? we hear about the actual attacks on us. i think that raises a question i'd like to explore more. very interesting hearing all of your written testimony and oral testimony, too. and the title is, too. one of the interesting areas about the future of warfare is the question of unilateral with partners. we were attacked on 9/11 by al qaeda and we immediately assembled a coalition that amounted to about 60 nations to try to respond to that. the first thought after the attack on pearl harbor was not we have to go out and assemble a coalition, although there were other nations obviously that were involved in world war ii. is there something unique about

the future that certainly the future and current warfare that renders this whole idea of coalitions kind of more of a common feature? the f-35 is a platform that was built with the participation of nine partner nations, not just different service branches but partner nations. talk about coalitions and alliances in the future of warfare. i'd be curious to any of your thoughts about that. >> if i could in the cyber realm, you see we would be much better off with partners in this area. think about the undersea cables. 12 of the 17 or 18. so the united kingdom and europe, if they had a similar approach to cyber security and they agreed to defend their end, we defend our end, we've moved our defense out to europe for our country. i think that's a very good thing and we can do things like that. i believe there's much need for collaboration but it brings in the civil liberties and privacy because every nation sees it different even in europe, every one of those see it differently. so i think we have to set the standard.

that's something we could do as a country. >> the benefit from coalitions is nonmaterial. they don't bring a lot of military capabilities to bear. it actually makes it a little bit harder if you're trying to do it with multiple nation forces. they do bring access to areas we would otherwise not be able to operate from or be able to monitor. and then it provides the political top cover so if we can demonstrate that is the way we are used to operating it may drive into a calculation where they realize i'm not just upsetting the united states but a number of my other neighbors which could re-create other problems down the road politically for them. there may be a political benefit

to managing things through a coalition. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general alexander, do we have a stated doctrine with regard to what is a cyber attack or do we have a defined limit where we identify something as an act of war if our financial resources are attacked? >> the only thing i know that comes close to that is the president's statement in 2009 about how we would respond using any form of power -- cyber, military, diplomatic -- to respond to a cyber. there are no rules of the road. war games can help tighten some of that up and should. >> would anyone disagree with that analysis? >> if we try to use cyber to

attack a cyber attack, we may use the access we have into the network. we don't want to burn the source. we don't want to give up the fact that we are able to monitor his abilities in the future. we could gain new access that we don't want to make clear to the enemy. >> the key is not the means. it's not that it's cyber. it's the end effect which will determine it. whether it's through cyber or a missile, it's whether it causes loss of life, physical damage, even if someone set a foreign adversary set a fire that killed hundreds of americans, we wouldn't, say, gosh, you used

matches not cyber or a muscle. cyber can be a misdirection. it's the end effect and how we judge that. >> do we need a different doctrine, an established doctrine to determine whether or not a cyber act is an act of war? >> i would say so, a more clear definition what have we think constitutes an attack that would be meriting of a response. we do that to a much greater degree and this is built up as a body of action over time so it's a precedent that does it to some extent. >> if i could, when you look at our nato responsibilities, i think we do have to have this laid out. we can't walk into a war because we didn't understand this would be an act of war so that if someone were to attack one of our nato allies and cause destruction and lives, what constitutes an act of war is not clearly stated. there's been a lot of stuff in the papers written, but it

doesn't get to the point of this is clear and so i think we need to have those discussions that are classified in an unclassified realm. it's the intent of the individual. if their intent is to do harm, you now need to look at where you take -- >> will you share what you consider an appropriate response should there be an act of war in the cyber realm? >> i think, first, ideally, you could prevent it. if you can't prevent it, you have two things going on. resilience in your network, bringing those back up, and political, diplomatic, and military. in cyber there are a lot of things you can do to stop that nation from communicating outside that nation with other tools. i think it's war gaming and things that ought to be looked at analogous to the way we did armored warfare 70 years ago. >> sometimes we talk about this in a way in which we have a

tendency to literally scare ourselves because we're talking about how serious these can be. do we have the capability and the resources now to respond should we have that type of cyber attack that would amount to, if we define it properly as an act of war? >> so you have 40 offensive teams created at cyber command. those teams have some great capabilities. it gives you a great starting point. and i think that our first thought in 2010 was let's set up with the initial structure, set it up in terms of offense and defense and teams that could do offensive actions to defend the country. >> anyone have anything to add to that?

>> yes, sir? dr. singer? >> just two things. the first is the idea of assuming that our response would have to be limited just to cyber means. if someone carries out an act of war against us using cyber means we are not and should not be limited in our response to use other means, and that's why we're seeing that kind of deterrence hold. the second, though, is as general alexander said, we've built up great capabilities. there are many things mr. snowden did but one of the other things he did was reveal we have very potent cyber offense capability. i would add to those who believe building up more will deliver deterrence. the question, why has not not delivered deterrence yet? there's no question we have great capabilities and yet the attacks have continued to come. we need to build up deterrence or denial making ourselves more resilient so we can shrug off

those attacks which, therefore, makes the attacks less productive. less likely on us. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. singer, i must complement you. to found a technology firm is an act of genius. i also enjoyed your churchill quotes. one of my favorite is how he thought history would treat his role in world war ii. his response was, very well, because i intend to write it. on this issue of deterrence, and i think senator rounds really hit the point, and i think we should follow up on this is the question of what is an act of wore and when will we respond because if an act of war isn't defined, your opponent has to know you will consider it an act of war and there will be a response. mr. singer, i think your point

is well taken. it doesn't necessarily have to be a cyber response. i do think there needs to be some response. deterrence by denial ultimately you have to have some offensive capability. you have to be able to punch back or you're simply always on the defense. if you're nodding your head, i assume you agree with that concept. >> i very much agree. i'll compliment you in return. i'll have an article next week on this question of deterrence and the three approaches are what the committees wrestled with, very clear norms, so both sides, all the sides understand what is and isn't an act of war so that there's no miscalculation. the second is to understand that you can respond but you can respond in other means, other areas, and it's not just through military, it may be through trade or espionage.

there's a far more complex war where you hit me with a nuke, i threaten to hit you back. and the third is deterrence by denial, something that wasn't possible in the cold war, the idea of civilian. it would be an incredible, useful concept and importantly resilience works not just against state level attacks but it is also effective against all the other attacks out there whether it is nonstate actors like terrorists or just criminal groups. >> on that point, general, good to see you again and i think a point you made i hadn't really thought about was the idea of a join private sector cyber security effort perhaps facilitated by the government but not government environment

so we don't have the privacy issues. it seems inefficient to have bank of america spend millions and anthem and target and walmart when in reality they're all chasing the same problem and it may be that a consortium similar -- there was a semiconductor consortium years ago to deal with this in a joint way might save the private sector a lot of money. the government could act as a facilitator. dr. clark, an important point made today and it was made in one of the hearings, instead of building weapons systems that have absolutely everything that will last 40 years and be by definition obsolete, we ought to build modular systems, if you will, that can be modernized on the fly rather than starting all over again. is that essentially what your testimony was?

>> definitely. it gives you the ability to take advantage of the refresh cycle that exists for those smaller systems. we talked about moore's law and how that results in a doubling of computer programming power every 12 to 18 months. and computers are at the heart of every one of our payloads whether it's a sensor or a missile or even a smart bomb. today an unmanned vehicle. we should take advantage of the fact that refresh cycle will be so fast and develop those payloads on a much faster time line. >> in trying to develop a weapons system that has everything for everybody at one time that will be fixed in time is just the wrong way to go. >> which gets back to the requirements problem. if i define my requirements in isolation from what the technology might be able to give me in a near term time frame, i end up aspiring to something i'll never be able -- >> and the requirements proliferate because it's the problem of a camel is a horse designed by a committee. >> instead of defining the

requirements in conjunction with what the technology has delivered. >> mr. singer, if your article hasn't gone to press, i would urge a quote from robert frost, good fences make good neighbors. when people know where the rules are, that's when you can avoid conflict. final question just for the record, mr. alexander -- general alexander, very chilling in your early testimony that we won't have time for human decision making in responding to some of these kinds of attacks. in other words, the 30 minutes or an hour for the missiles is now in a matter of seconds. the question is how do we war game and prepare a response that can be done instantaneously without the intervention of human discretion? i think that's an issue -- my time has expired but i think ' that's an issue that deserves some serious thought and discussion. thank you, gentlemen, very much. this has been very illuminating.

>> dr. singer, i would suggest, it's always darkest before it's totally black. senator ernst? >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, thank you for your support to our nation in so many varying ways. the discussion today has been very beneficial i think for all of us and our constituencies. general alexander, i'd like to start with you, sir. we've spent a lot of time talking about the cyber threats that exist out there and the devastating effects to our networks should they be attacked or when they are attacked. and really the ability to recruit and retain some talent to deal with the cutting edge threats that exist out there. what i'd like to know is a little bit more how can we utilize our reserve and our national guard forces to bring in some of the best and the brightest? we have a lot of folks that certainly serve in very similar capacities and there is civilian employment.

can we use them to leverage our forces? >> actually, senator, that's a great question. we were doing that when i was on. i know that continues. each of the national guard units are setting up cyber teams that would also help. as you note some of these have some of the best technical experts in the civilian industry that partner with us. you go out to washington, microsoft employees, all around the world. all around the u.s. there are some great partnerships there and it also gives you an opportunity to bring those on to active duty when you need them and then take them off. finally if we work it right it helps provide security for the state and local government. >> i think that's wonderful. i know in my transportation company we had some computer wizzes working in the civilian industrial. there were truck drivers when we

were mobilized, but a lot of talent that exists out there. and mr. scharre, paul, i know we have spent some time talking about future personnel generations in our department of defense. and i would like to visit a little bit with you about, again, the national guard and the reserves and where you see their role in the future. whether it's army, navy, air force, marines. and how they can support future conflicts. >> thank you, senator. i think this issue of civilian expertise is a unique capability that the national guard and reserves brings to the table and this example of computer experts driving trucks, right, and i saw many things in iraq. we had people misaligned. not as aligned as they could be with some of the skills that are resident in the force and a process to actually identify those skills and tracked inside

the department so if the nation needs to be able to draw upon that we would know who are these experts would be extremely valuable and a way to increase even further the skills and capabilities that the national guard and reserve brings to the table. >> i think that's a great idea. we do identify our civilian skill sets through the guard and the reserves. i don't know that the dod truly pays attention to that and i think we have a lot of, as i said, talent and abilities that could be better utilized with the force. do you think the dod will continue to rely heavily as we move into future conflicts in outlying years as heavily as they have maybe in the past 14 years? >> i think there's no question

they'll continue to play a valuable role. we have given a lot in the last 14 years. they'll continue to be a valuable contributor in the future. >> i'll move on to mr. clark. i did lead my colleagues in a letter with concern for russia's activities near some of our under water cables. and it is very concerning because these are fiber-optic cables and they carry sensitive information, communications, many of these things vital to our economic stability and i know that it is a very sensitive topic. but i think it's vital that we talk about our interests. so are you concerned at all about the security that we have that exists or does not exist out there? and if you could expound on that, please.

>> i'm very concerned about it. those cables carry trillions of dollars in financial transactions every year, about 90% of the world's economy runs undersea cables as a result of that. the russians for a long time have had an undersea reconnaissance program and they've taken we can tell by the areas where they're operating that they are looking for something down there. out in the open ocean these cables are fairly hard to find. you have to search a large area. where they have their landings on the shore, over in europe or the middle east, they're relatively easy to locate and trace back into the water. those cables could be easily broken. they're broken fairly regularly today in terms of trawlers. responding or replacing those cables lies with industry. you're talking time frames of weeks to months to repair a cable that's been damaged as a result of hostile or accidental action. we need to improve being able to rapidly respond to these attacks to restore the activity on the

cables and need better monitoring capabilities where it's a target rich environment for an undersea vehicle or a ship that will deploy a remotely operated vehicle to attack them. there are technologies that could provide the ability to monitor these areas well. being able to find something small like dr. singer or mr. scharre talked about will be really hard. we need to detect the vehicles that could be used.

it's a huge potential vulnerability that could be exploited in peacetime or war. >> i agree. i appreciate it. i think that's something we need to turn our direction to, also. thank you, mr. chair. >> to all of you who are testifying, thank you. the department of defense has used technology basically quality over quantity to stay ahead of the other countries. we are falling behind in our ability to rely on our technical superiority. do you share that view? what are some very fundamental steps we should be taking in order to increase our capacity? any of you can answer. >> okay, i'll start. i think one of the main factors

is time. talked about payloads over platforms. i would encourage software over payloads, being able to upgrade very rapidly. there are more fundamental shifts. thinking of taking a major platform and breaking it apart entirely into a larger number of just the payloads that are all interacting together and that's something worth experimenting with and exploring. >> are you saying that we should spend more money on r&d or is it the way we're structuring how the money is spent? >> the way we spend money is critical.

>> how old how would you change? a more centralized focus on the key areas and efforts under way with the long range defense acronym. i think are beneficial in that regard. >> senator, i would add i think it's both the way but we don't spend enough on r&d. and we've seen the percentages on the government as was mentioned in the defense industry. the issue is not just in terms of weapons but if you run out of missile in a fight you may have to exit. you've deferred to the enemy in that time. >> one more thing. we have a pretty good investment

in r&d. in addition to that industry used to do a lot of research and development with their own money to explore capabilities that might be beneficial in the future. they've reduced that with the reduction over the last several years and the amount of procurement. that is in the past has given us things like stealth, like new radar technology. how do we encourage industry to be looking at problems they address with their new technologies. >> to have the potential of technology transfer and whatever research that they're doing and developing. for mr. scharre and mr. clark, what impacts do you anticipate relying on fossil fuels will have on planning and effectiveness of our future warfighters? and what is your assessment of

the department's progress in terms of reducing reliance on fossil fuel sources? >> one is strategic risk and vulnerability. another one is cost.@#bá=ñ but an important one is alternatives can increase the endurance for many various long endurance capabilities, particularly robotics that we could put on the battlefield. better batteries can allow us to have persistent surveillance to protect the enemy for virulent months or years at a time. >> it's about not so much fossil fuels as reducing our energy independence. we have to project forces over a long distance because our friends and allies are an ocean away from us. so we're generally transferring

them over a long distance and even when they get there they're having to operate at the very edge of our logistics change. so the energy they need in general would be important. in taking advantage of technologies that don't require fuel at all would be important. the idea of going to new battery technologies that last for a very long period of time and then recharged by the sun or returning to a docking station would be a very good way to reduce the tether that we have to maintain. right now we have to have refueling aircraft and ships out at the edge with the ships that they're refueling and then refuel a ship, for example, every few days while it's operating and then aircraft have to operate for a much shorter period of time before they need

to be refueled. moving to energy technologies that don't require fuel to be delivered to the platform on a regular basis would be very important. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chair. sorry, senator hirono and i had to step out. we were celebrating the 240th birthday of the united states marine corps. welcome the chair and the ranking member as members of the navy and the army -- >> a dark day. >> gentlemen, thanks very much for your testimony. general alexander, i was actually struck by your testimony in one area that -- well, in a couple areas i thought was very insightful. this idea of cyber, this notion we're constantly being attacked, and you mention it in some of the dollars and statistics is eye popping. there's been this notion of us being on defense, defense, defense. one thing that i liked about your testimony is you talked about a little bit in terms of offense where we invented the

technology and we're the leader. there are opportunities for offense. could you provide examples? the chairman's statement of turning technologies into offensive advantages was illuminating from a historical perspective. what are some opportunities in terms of offense that we have with regard to cyber? >> there are a number of offensive capabilities. first and foremost you have to see what the adversary is doing, hence the need for the commercial sector to be part of the solution. so what's hitting them can be seen by everyone. if you think about how two computers actually talk, i want to talk to you, that takes time.

and if you think about a computer trying to get in while that's happening, if the government can see it, the government can stop it or do things with it. you have opportunities to change what's happening in cyberspace with offensive tools that would defend the country. the issue comes down to so what would you authorize cyber command to do in order to defend it? you might say i'm going to let you do everything to block everything from where it's originating from but i don't want you destroying systems yet. we're going to go a step further. but technically speaking, and you've seen this, you could destroy a computer in cyberspace by getting on it and doing certain things to it. it's public record. now all you need is access. you take the capabilities of an nsa and the fbi at times and put those together. so you have tremendous opportunities. when we look back at our capability, we're the most integrated network society in

the world and we look back, look at all these opportunities and you look at ours on the defense you say, man, we're broke. if we throw rocks, we have all threes glass windows. the first step, fix those. >> just a related question. i know there's been a lot of discussion in this testimony on occurrence and it seems to me i would welcome any of your opinions that if you're from an authoritarian regime like russia or iran or china that they in some ways have an advantage because they deny and lie -- oh, we had nothing to do with that -- even though they did or they do. you mentioned one example the iranians were attacking our financial system. would it make sense to say if you do that again we will crash your entire financial sector. if you're an authoritarian regime you can lie about who is doing it, that the costs of all these attacks is almost minimal because we don't react. should we maybe look at being more public and upping the ante saying, if you do this, north

korea, iran, china, we'll responsibility. and some of these countries, i'm sure, we could crash their whole economy. what would be the problem with that deterrence that makes it more transparent but raises the cost? if we announce that we'd have to act. i'm curious what would you think of something more transparent from our perspective, and do we have a disadvantage when we're dealing with regimes that routinely lie about the issue?

>> i'd say one thing we have to think about is the deterrent action might need to be proportionate with the action it's intended to deter because it won't have credibility otherwise. if we say the iranians are attacking our banking sector that we would crash their financial system, that might be disproportionate and they don't find that a credible threat. if we did it, it may deter further action but may be seen by the international community as being highly disproportionate. we might need something that they would say, they will actually do that. that's where the response needs to be. electronic warfare, jamming, small attacks on oil infrastructure, a small amount of collateral effects while also demonstrating the resolve of the united states that would be

credible and we could repeat but does not cause a huge, damaging reaction. >> the challenge is there's not the mutual in terms of the old destruction so we are far more vulnerable to cyber attack than north korea, but that's actually a good thing because we're integrated, we have freedom. we wouldn't want to be in that position that they're in so recognizing the lack of maybe looking at other deterrence angles. i would add one more important thing talking about steering cyber command to taking on these roles in the civilian lead is moving it and us away from its

role in clear warfare itself and the determinant of success or failure in future wars with cyber will not be thinking about it individually but how it's integrated with other warfighters. the more we focus on the power grid, the less it's ingrating in terms of the u.s. and war. using it to take down an air defense so it's cohesive with your warplanes going over. as for example, israel was able to pull off an operation orchard. be careful of steering cyber command more and more to civilian roles. may lead us to success in nonwar but set us up for a fall in real war. >> i want to add some clarity. to make sure that at least from my perspective, we understand. where you can get commercial industry to help is to do their part. that's the war game and the effort. but cyber command in our defense department can't work without the energy sector.

if that shut down, we got a problem. our defense department needs to defend the nation this this area. i'm not proposing they go in and pop up any energy company or any of these. help them build the right cybersecurity company so they can defend themselves and push that out beyond the boundary. i think our defense department has to think more comprehensively of this whole thing. i agree going after all the targets is part of it but my concern is the easy thing, if i were a bad guy, i'd go after our infrastructure. i'd take it out before you could respond. and that's what the chinese approach to warfare is. so, we have to put all that on the table, war game it, and ensure we have it correct for cyber. . >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i want to thank you for being here, appreciate it. i want to follow up on something that you had in your prepared statement and you wrote that

russia's intervention in ukraine and syria are the start of potential actions that seek to reshape the interenvironment. your experience of what comes next with moscow and what should we be doing to respond? >> my greatest concern is eastern ukraine. i think everything that's going on is for putin to get more closure on eastern ukraine, where the weapons platforms he really cares about are created. i think hemts control of that. i think by pushing what he's done, he's going to continue to go for that. there is nothing that i've seen he's going to stop from doing that and i think he will lie, do everything he can and then help make that map. syria is a great way to push that, think of it as a faint. he can accomplish some real

objectives there between iran, syria and russia and is doing that by helping to shape what he thinks are the best proxies for russia. syria and iran, in the region. so, he wins twice there. it takes our our focus off of eastern ukraine. people are still dying there and focuses everybody on syria. i would not be surprised if over the next six months we see more action in eastern ukraine at the same time. with respect to syria, what i'm really concerned about is the tension that creates up. we get to a point where we have to fire back against russia or iran for their actions in syria. if we do that, i think we'll see their response in cyber. i really do. i think it will come -- because there's no way iran can come after us. they've been fairly good at stopping those but they can hit us with cyber. what happens if they change their approach from disruptive

attacks against the financial sector to destructive against the financial and then the energy. >> so i guess i would -- anyone who wants to comment on this but as i hear you discuss this i think if we let him continue to do this without any response as far as i can see doesn't this almost become a fait accompli, which we could see ourselves headed in this direction, which will put us in a more dangerous situation? if you were advising the president, what would you tell him to do to respond to putin? >> i would say refocus on ukraine. ukraine is a situation where we have a friend of the united states, not an ally, but a partner that is under athretackd

threat by russia. disrupt the russian attempts to gain more territory. that would force putin to refocus his effort back onto that and make a determination as to whether he's going to be resolved in continuing in ukraine or able to recede. he's able to create influence without any counter. >> i think our vital interests in eastern europe and the middle east are at risk. i think we've already had some outcomes of the iranian deal. i think having some deal with iran to stop nuclear weapons is important, but we lost some of our allies in doing this. and losing those allies is something we cannot afford to have happen. so i think we have to step back and say what's our strategy for both? we're going to have to deal with

both at the same time. in the middle east, we need our allies to know we're going to stand beside them. it's the same thing in eastern ukraine because everybody's looking at it, you made all these declarations about nato. are you going to be there? and at times unintentionally our actions may look like we're not. and what i'm concerned about when you talk to saudis, the israelis and others, they think hold it, are you here with us or are you with iran? what's your objective? i think we have to clarify that. our nation needs to let our allies know we're there for them. i think that's the first and most important thing we should do, and we should discuss with them how we're going to stop issues in ukraine with nato and what we're going to do in the middle east to shore up our allies there. >> does anyone want to add to that? >> i would just add that the last several decades of u.s. foreign policy strategy, defense

strategy, has been focused on the challenge set of networks of individuals, criminals, insurgents, terrorists, and the problem set of failed states and moving forward, we're going to have to recognize that whether it's russia or also china, we have a return to great state competition. and what that means when we look at certain areas, we need to look at it through the lens of not just the failed state, but proxy warfare as well. i think we're seeing certain echoes of that. we're going to need to learn lessons of what does and doesn't work in proxy warfare and reframe our approaches along those lines. and on top of this is focusing on how do you keep a lid -- how do you win a competition but also keep a lid on it from escalating. >> thank you, all. appreciate it. >> general, just to follow up on your comment to senator ayotte, you say we'd have to take some actions to reassure our allies,

other nations in the region, in the middle east. what actions would those be? >> i think we need to reach out to saudi arabia, the united arab emirates, kuwait, jordan and egypt and walk to sit down with them and say we're here. i think some of the thoughts we ought to talk about is -- >> we say that all the time, by the way. >> and then put in place -- you know, when you look at it and you look at egypt, perhaps some of the best comments i've heard on a strategy from egypt is how do you get them stability? how do you get them security? you have to have energy to get jobs. 24% unemployment is really bad for us. it's bad for the world. how do we help get the middle east in place? they have enough money to do it. we have the expertise to help them get there. i think we've got to look at the security, the stability, the energy sector, and the jobs, the economic development for the middle east to get them to a place where they can be looking forward to their future versus fighting all these issues that

we're seeing with radical islam. so i think a comprehensive program like that led by our country and others in the middle east is a step forward and let them know that we're going to be there not just for a couple hours, but for the next several decades. >> right now the egyptian regime is becoming more and more repressive. 45,000 people in prison, no semblance of any really progress on a number of areas which are in contradiction to our fundamental principles. >> this is a tough area. i've been to egypt several times. and there is no good solution without economic growth. so i guess the question, chairman, is, how do we help them get out of this.

in my dealings with our counterparts, they understand and want to do it. how do you get there? and there is so much tension in that region. if we don't help get them to economic growth, what they're going to have is continued failed states and with those failed states, now we've got just another one. and so it seems to me at some point we've got to come up with a strategy that counters that. i personally believe that that is some way of developing their economies. >> dr. singer, i have your book on my desk admittedly in a pile of books on my desk. i will move it to the top of the pile, and the next time i encounter you i will be able to give you a vigorous critique of the thesis that you espouse in that book. congratulations on its success. mr. scharre, thank you for your articulate answers to the questions to mr. clark and general alexander, a special

thanks to you for your past service, but also it will be the intention -- and we do work in a bipartisan basis as you know, this committee, to start looking at the follow-on to the cyber legislation that we just passed through the senate, and we'll be calling on all of you as we move forward with that effort. i think you would agree additional legislation is necessary. would you agree with that, general? >> i do, chairman. >> thank you. jack? >> mr. chairman, this was an extraordinarily insightful panel. i'm not surprised. you chose wisely a west point graduate commander who has shaped his life. you have a submarine officer, an army ranger and a graduate of harvard university, good job, mr. chairman.

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