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| The leaders of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and U.S. forces in Korea testified on the military's preparedness in the region and potential threats from China, Russia, and North Korea. | ||
| This Senate Armed Services Committee hearing is just over two hours. | ||
| And this thing will come back to order. | ||
| We've already had a classified part of the hearing beginning at 8 a.m. | ||
| But at this point, we held a hearing on the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the U.S. Force Korea. | ||
| At the outset, I want to thank Admiral Paparo and General Brunson for their distinguished service to our country. | ||
| Last year at this hearing, I said that the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific was shifting in China's favor. | ||
| Since then, the Chinese Communist Party has significantly increased its coercive activity toward Taiwan and the Philippines. | ||
| Last week, the Chinese conducted an exercise called Straight Thunder 2025A. | ||
| This exercise demonstrated the extent to which the People's Liberation Army could execute a maritime blockade of Taiwan and pummel it with missile strikes. | ||
| As China conducts more exercises with Taiwan in mind, it also escalates the rhetoric against the island. | ||
| Last week, Chinese military officials called Taiwan's democratically elected president a parasite. | ||
| The Chinese have also substantially increased their harassment of our Filipino allies. | ||
| China's vast maritime militia, backed by the PLA Navy and Chinese Coast Guard, is using increasingly aggressive tactics to advance its expansive claims in the South China Sea. | ||
| The 2nd Thomas Shoal remains a major flashpoint. | ||
| Chinese maritime militias have tried to keep the grounded Filipino Navy ship, the Sierra Madre, from being resupplied. | ||
| Secretary Hegseth recently visited the region. | ||
| I was pleased to see that he reaffirmed our mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, reminding the world that the treaty applies to attacks on the Filipino armed forces anywhere in the South China Sea. | ||
| Even so, it is clear that the Chinese have been emboldened by four years of weakness during the past administration. | ||
| There is another reason China has become so confident in its malign schemes. | ||
| Xi Jinping has steadily modernized his military, and that hardware has made him more brazen. | ||
| China boasts the world's largest navy. | ||
| It also has an air force that is capable of denying the U.S. air superiority in the first island chain. | ||
| We'll certainly want to ask about that, gentlemen. | ||
| Its missile force can saturate our theater defenses. | ||
| China has been expanding its nuclear arsenal at a pace that far outstrips our own. | ||
| Multiple Stratcom commanders have called China's growth breathtaking. | ||
| In just a few short years, Beijing has built more intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States. | ||
| Meanwhile, our own modernization programs languish from past neglect. | ||
| But China is not the only urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific. | ||
| The Biden administration chose to ignore North Korea. | ||
| It allowed Kim Jong-un to increase his nuclear arsenal and project his military into European theater to aid Vladimir Putin in Russia's war against Ukraine. | ||
| Kim Jong-un has abandoned the goal of unification of the Korean Peninsula, and again, we'll want to talk about that, and has declared South Korea to be the principal enemy. | ||
| The North Korean nuclear and missile arsenal continues to grow and diversify, with the rogue nation adopting a strategic doctrine that embraces nuclear first use. | ||
| Kim will surely seek remuneration for his support to Moscow. | ||
| The Russian technology transfers and military assistance Kim receives will help him to further strengthen his strategic military forces, missile forces. | ||
| The continued demonstrations of Russia, China, and North Korea aligning and cooperating should be of great concern to all the West. | ||
| This concern should then lead to action. | ||
| If we are to maintain global peace and stability, we must continue taking steps now to rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence. | ||
| As I noted in my Peace Through Strength report last May, it's time to make a generational investment in our national security. | ||
| I do believe that view is bipartisan. | ||
| We must be able not only to deter and defeat the People's Liberation Army, but also to maintain deterrence in other theaters. | ||
| Our adversaries, led by Beijing, are playing a global game. | ||
| We must be smarter and more agile than they are across the board. | ||
| Last year, Indo-PACOM's unfunded requirements list totaled $3.5 billion. | ||
| This year's unfunded requirement list was $11 billion, and virtually none of that was funded under the full year CR. | ||
| This is unacceptable, and also I hope we're going to get from everyone an accurate and full assessment of the various unfunded requirements. | ||
| We need real growth in the FY26 budget request, in addition to a historic defense reconciliation package. | ||
| We need more survivable long-range munitions, more assured U.S. command and control systems, and an improved ability to counter China's increasingly capable cyber and space systems. | ||
| We need a wholesale overhaul of our logistics infrastructure and a rapid deployment of unmanned systems. | ||
| We need a renaissance in our camouflage and deception programs, and we need a drastic improvement in our shipbuilding. | ||
| The risk is simply too high for us to avoid making these changes. | ||
| So I look forward to hearing from our distinguished and well-informed witnesses and having a candid conversation about what this committee and this Senate and this Congress can do this year to address these challenges. | ||
| Senator Reed. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| And Admiral Paparo, General Brunson, welcome. | ||
| Thank you for appearing today, and please convey our thanks to the men and women serving under your commands and defending us. | ||
| This is a challenging time for our forces in the Indo-Pacific. | ||
| China is deploying a wide range of military, economic, and political pressures against its neighbors while aggressively challenging America's leadership in the region. | ||
| The United States does not seek conflict with China, but we have deep economic and security interests in the Indo-Pacific that must continue to be protected through strong deterrence and smart competition. | ||
| Several months ago, I traveled to Guam, South Korea, and the Philippines to assess our part in the region. | ||
| I observed a number of joint military exercises, met with allied leaders, spoke with foreign business leaders, and inspected our military infrastructure. | ||
| Overall, I was impressed with our progress, particularly the development of our partnership with the Philippines and the remarkable emerging partnership between Korea and Japan. | ||
| These relationships should inspire us to redouble the development of networks like the Quad, AUKUS, and ASEAN as we bring other nations into our security cooperation efforts. | ||
| Indeed, as countless U.S. military leaders and diplomats have told me, the key asymmetric advantage our nation has over China is our network of allies and partners. | ||
| With that in mind, I am concerned that the Trump administration is unraveling much of the progress we have made. | ||
| Many observers fear that President Trump may shrink the U.S. troop presence in Korea and Japan, reduce our military exercises with both nations, and scale back plans for our joint forces headquarters in Japan, despite the fact that Korea and Japan contribute significantly to burden-sharing and hosting our forces. | ||
| Although the President has temporarily suspended tariffs against our closest allies and partners, the last few days have undoubtedly sown seeds of doubt about America's stability and trustworthiness, feelings that would be amplified if the President decides to reinstate the sanctions after 90 days. | ||
| In addition to dismantling America's soft power tools like the U.S. Agency for International Development, President Trump's actions serve only to push our friends away from us, and that is not appropriate. | ||
| Admiral Paparo, General Brunson, you engage with our foreign partners every day, both as a matter of diplomatic leadership and military necessity. | ||
| I am interested in your views on how tensions with our allies would disadvantage your forces and America's interest in the region. | ||
| Admiral Paparo, Taiwan remains the most dangerous flashpoint in our competition with China. | ||
| We have seen a recent surge of aggressive Chinese military exercises around Taiwan's airspace and territorial waters, and the world has a right to be concerned. | ||
| In several consecutive National Defense Authorization Acts, this committee has provided new security assistance tools to help develop Taiwan's capabilities and strengthen our own posture. | ||
| In particular, the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative and the Indo-Pacific Campaigning Initiative should enable greater support and training for Taiwan and facilitate Indo-PACOM's increased exercises and freedom of navigation operations, consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act. | ||
| However, your command has once again had to divert ships and aircraft for prolonged and intensive operations in the Middle East. | ||
| Admiral Paparo, I would like to know your assessment of Indo-PACOM's readiness to carry out your missions as well as the United States' broadest strategy in the region. | ||
| Key to America's success in the Indo-Pacific is the posture of our forces in South Korea. | ||
| As I mentioned, I am encouraged by the recent progress we have seen in the trilateral relationship among South Korea, Japan, and the United States. | ||
| And I hope that developments like these will provide more opportunities to engage other regional partners. | ||
| As we do so, we must continue to manage the threat posed by North Korea. | ||
| We know that Kim Jong-un continues to view nuclear weapons as, quote, the ultimate deterrence against foreign intervention, and he intends to gain international acceptance as a nuclear armed state. | ||
| North Korea's relationships with Russia also continues to grow, especially in light of North Korea sending troops and weapons to support Putin's invasion of Ukraine. | ||
| And Kim Jong-un is likely receiving technical assistance from Russia for missile and nuclear capabilities. | ||
| General, I would appreciate your view on the current threat from North Korea and how your forces are maintaining readiness through training and exercises with their South Korean counterparts. | ||
| Again, thank you to our witnesses. | ||
| I look forward to testimonies. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We'll now recognize each of our panelists for opening statements. | ||
| And General Brunson, you went first in the closed session. | ||
| Would you like to do that again? | ||
|
unidentified
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My boss says yes, so I do. | |
| Thank you for giving me at least the illusion of choice. | ||
| Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. | ||
| I'm honored to appear before you for my first posture hearing in front of this committee as a commander of United States Forces Korea, Combined Forces Command, and United Nations Command. | ||
| I'd like to take a moment just to simply thank you all for your steadfast leadership, your friendship, and your critical support to our service members, their families, our civilians, and the contractors who support us around the globe. | ||
| But I especially want to thank you for your continued time and attention to the people of the Republic of Korea and the soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardian, and Marines who serve there on the peninsula. | ||
| I'd also like to thank the Korean people right now for their continued resilience through challenges and hard times. | ||
| I'd like to thank them for their dedication to our alliance. | ||
| And I'd also like to thank them for their continued provision of an environment that allows us to build, sustain, and retain the readiness that we develop on the peninsula. | ||
| In my career, every opportunity that I've had to lead our nation's men and women has been an honor. | ||
| It's a privilege to serve alongside Admiral Paparo, our friends, our partners, and allies in the region, working to strengthen our ties to further security, freedom, and prosperity amongst the nations. | ||
| For over 75 years, we've invested our national treasure in the Republic of Korea and remained the last U.S. fighting force on the continent of Asia. | ||
| The return on investment of U.S. forces being stationed in Korea is not measured only in dollars, but in terms of access, forward-basing, enduring partnerships, and deterrence. | ||
| In 2024, the DPRK focused on advancing their cruise missile and hypersonic glide vehicle research and development programs, launching 47 ballistic missiles with one failed satellite launch attempt. | ||
| Kim Jong-un also has two highly publicized visits to nuclear sites. | ||
| And over the past year and a half, DPRK has exported munitions and troops to support Russia, demonstrating the ability to provide external support while simultaneously advancing domestic capabilities. | ||
| In the coming year, we expect the DPRK to further develop hypersonic and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle MRV capabilities to complete its eighth-party Congress goals. | ||
| Kim Jong-un's leadership has shifted focus from reunification to declaring sovereignty. | ||
| This change is evidenced by the hardening of DPRK's southern border, the rejection of reunification discussions, and the destruction of unification monuments and buildings. | ||
| The DPRK continues to build its nuclear weapons program and boasts a Russian-equipped, augmented, modernized military force of over 1.3 million personnel. | ||
| Lastly, DPRK's cyber threat is increasingly sophisticated, as demonstrated by the recent theft of approximately $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency. | ||
| In contrast to that, I would speak to the ROK-U.S. Japan trilateral efforts, which are bearing much fruit, not only in ballistic missile defense, but in training and readiness developed on the peninsula. | ||
| I thank you all for allowing me again to appear before you. | ||
| I look forward to your questions and thank you. | ||
| Thank you, General. Admiral Poparo. | ||
| Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reid, and distinguished members of the committee, thanks very much for the opportunity to appear. | ||
| With me over my right shoulder is United States Indo-PACOM's senior enlisted leader, Fleet Master Chief, Special Operations Dave Isom. | ||
| He is, this is his last hearing. | ||
| He's retiring after 38 years of selfless service as a SEAL and special operator. | ||
| Speaking of asymmetric advantages, the NCO Corps of the United States of America is one of the Joint Forces' absolute asymmetric advantages. | ||
| Fleet Isim's leadership in this critical duty has been exemplary. | ||
| It has been indispensable to my own transition as the commander of U.S. Indo-PACOM. | ||
| He's been indispensable to me personally. | ||
| I honor his service. | ||
| In a region that's home to over half the Earth's surface and half the operational joint force, Indo-PACOM faces a confluence of challenges. | ||
| China's unprecedented aggression and military modernization poses a serious threat to the homeland, our allies, and our partners. | ||
| In 2024, the People's Liberation Army demonstrated growing capabilities through persistent pressure operations, with military pressure against Taiwan increasing by 300 percent. | ||
| China's increasingly aggressive actions near Taiwan are not just exercises, they are rehearsals. | ||
| And while the PLA attempts to intimidate the people of Taiwan and demonstrate coercive capabilities, these actions are backfiring, drawing increased global attention, and accelerating Taiwan's own defense preparations. | ||
| As General Brunson said, North Korea's development of advanced nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles pose a direct threat to our homeland and our allies, and are executing a deepening cooperation with Russia. | ||
| Russia's growing military cooperation with China adds another layer of complexity, creating a compounded challenge with the deepening cooperation among China, Russia, and North Korea. | ||
| And China and Russia's Pacific fleet is a growth enterprise. | ||
| U.S. Indo-PACOM deters these challenges to regional stability and competition and crisis while maintaining the availability to prevail. | ||
| But that margin is eroding, as Chairman and Ranking Member have discussed. | ||
| In 2024, we conducted 120 joint exercises, among them 20 major joint exercises, including not just the U.S. joint force, but allies and partners. | ||
| We continue to strengthen the relationship with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, India, Taiwan, the ASEAN nations, Pacific Island countries, and, in fact, European partners are active in the theater. | ||
| As the first priorities, we must be dominant in space and across the information environment, leveraging capabilities to counter the PRC's command, control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting complex. | ||
| This will enable us to gain a non-linear advantage over potential adversaries. | ||
| In fact, to maintain and increase that non-linear advantage. | ||
| To maintain credible deterrence, Indo-Paycom requires additional sustained investment in long-range survivable fires, in integrated air and missile defense, in force sustainment with an emphasis on autonomy and AI-driven systems. | ||
| China is out-producing the United States in air, missile, maritime, and space capability and accelerating these. | ||
| I remain confident in our deterrence posture, but the trajectory must change. | ||
| The Pacific Deterrent Initiative should counter the China threat by investing in key readiness and capability, which would, in fact, if funded, advance the intent of this initiative and deliver major posture improvement. | ||
| Deterrence remains our highest duty. | ||
| However, that must be backed up by the real capability to prevail in combat. | ||
| The Joint Force remains confident, resolute, and determined to prevail. | ||
| Thank you for your attention. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I look forward to the questions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Well, thank you both for your testimony and for your service. | ||
| Let's start with General Brunson. | ||
| Just quickly, yes or no. | ||
| Korea, North Korea continues to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| And they continue to expand their delivery systems of nuclear weapons. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Okay. | ||
| You know, you never know whether to believe what you read in the newspapers and see on the media, but there are reports that some mid-level officials in the Pentagon are considering reducing our military presence on the Korean Peninsula to focus instead on the China threat and defense of the U.S. homeland. | ||
| If our strategy in Korea is to deter war and win it if we have to, would that be a good or bad idea? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator, Chairman, to reduce the force becomes problematic, and I won't speak to policy, but what we do provide there, sir, is the potential to impose costs in the East Sea to Russia, the potential to impose costs in the West Sea to China, and to continue to deter against North Korea as it currently stands. | |
| I'm trying to focus right now on the capabilities necessary to do all those things that we might participate routinely in the campaign that my boss is fighting, which is to prepare, deter, and then prevail in conflict should it come. | ||
| But the forces in Korea play an important role, and over 75 years they've done the same. | ||
| Admiral, a significant reduction of our military presence on the Korean Peninsula, good or bad. | ||
| Inherently, it would reduce our ability to prevail in conflict. | ||
| And for both of you, would a conflict on the Korean Peninsula likely involve China? | ||
| My belief is that there would be a risk that it would involve China and would have to be conducted carefully if it were so. | ||
| And so that risk has got to drive our calculus. | ||
| And General Brunson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sir, our preparedness would prevent them from entering in any conflict because of the potential to take them off their own party goals. | |
| Okay, who wants to take the question about the air superiority of the PRC over ours in that theater? | ||
| Chairman, the People's Republic of China have an order of battle of 2,100 fighters, an order of battle of over 200 H-6 bombers, and they are producing fighters at a rate of 1.2 to 1 over the United States. | ||
| Furthermore, their advanced air-to-air missile, long-range air-to-air missiles, also present a tremendous threat. | ||
| If you don't hold the high ground along the First Island chain, you are vastly limited in your ability to operate. | ||
| I think everybody knows the importance of the high ground. | ||
| So ceding air superiority is not an option if we intend to maintain capability against our adversaries and the ability to support our allies. | ||
| Admiral, is it a fact that China is now capable of denying U.S. air superiority in the first island chain? | ||
| I give them high marks in their ability to do that. | ||
| I have some game too. | ||
| And air superiority, air supremacy is the complete mastery of the air. | ||
| Neither side will enjoy that. | ||
| But it'll be my job to contest air superiority to protect those forces that are on the first island chain, such as 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, and also to provide windows of air superiority in order to achieve our effects. | ||
| Admiral, Kim Jong-un is not motivated by charity in helping Russia in Ukraine. | ||
| What does he expect back? | ||
| What's he likely to get back? | ||
| Chairman, he expects concessions. | ||
| He's doing it in order to gain concessions. | ||
| And those concessions would be modernization of their air defenses, specifically the MiG-29, the SU-27, advanced help for their surface-to-air missiles, quieting technology for their submarines, | ||
| additional help in order to instantiate a ballistic missile submarine as well, and then likely propulsion help and potentially even help with re-entry vehicles for their burgeoning nuclear programs. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| We'll take another round. | ||
| Let me just make sure that people understand General Brunson. | ||
| You are USA Commander, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea. | ||
| You do not answer at all to the United Nations headquartered in New York City, do you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, sir. | |
| Those authorities go through the chairman to the Secretary of Defense and then on to the President. | ||
| Okay, totally different organization. | ||
| Thank you very much, and the distinguished ranking member is recognized. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| First, let me begin by thanking the Command Master Chief for his dedicated service to the nation. | ||
| Thank you, Chief. | ||
| And let me associate myself with Honorable Parrot's comment that our asymmetric advantage, one of the keys, is our non-commissioned officers. | ||
| General Brunson, you have indicated the importance of our forces on the Korean Peninsula. | ||
| Can you also elaborate on the support and the magnitude of the burden sharing that the South Koreans contribute to us? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Senator Reed. | |
| So, first, I would like to say that forward presence provides unmatched access, unmatched deterrence at minimal cost, comparatively speaking, by other forces that are stationed forward. | ||
| We recently received help from the Department of Defense with our tour normalization, which brings tours in Korea on par with other Oconus locations, which changes our exposure to the region and our understanding of the adversaries therein. | ||
| I would also say that 2,100 U.S. companies have ties to the Republic of Korea. | ||
| That's 450,000 jobs that are a part of that. | ||
| That's a piece that I think is critical to know and understand. | ||
| And I would also say that we receive about half a billion dollars a year in Korean-related construction. | ||
| That builds the brand new school on Pyongtek at Camp Humphreys, that builds additional towers to house our families in quality housing, that also builds skiffs for us right now in the Republic of Korea that we might be able to do the important work to stay tied to Indo-PACOM. | ||
| I would also like to say that, in kind, the overall contribution in the past fiscal year was about 1.4 trillion won, which works out to be close to a billion dollars worth of support that we receive in kind. | ||
| I'd also mention the continued and growing maintenance, repair, and overhaul facilities that exist on the East Sea and the West Sea that we've utilized most recently to bring the Wally Shira back out of that overhaul and looking better than ever. | ||
| The Cesar Chavez also visited recently. | ||
| But there is a lot that we get. | ||
| Some of it is fiscal and monetary. | ||
| Others of it is materiel that's irreplaceable. | ||
| General Brunson, again, in previous National Defense Authorization Act, we have established a manpower floor of 28,500 troops as a demonstration of our unwavering commitment to the U.S. Republic of Korea Alliance and also the strategic reasons you said. | ||
| Would you suggest we include such language again? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Admiral Parrow, can you give us your perception as the overall commander of the value of the South Korean forces to us and the presence of our troops on the peninsula together with the contributions they're making, the South Koreans? | ||
| Ranking Member, in addition to the elements laid out by General Brunson, Korea makes significant contributions outside the Korean peninsula, and that is in their participation in multilateral exercises, including Pacific Partnership, among many others. | ||
| And so in the ability of that force to deter conflict, the ability of that force to avoid from having two conflicts at once by dint of the strength of the capability, and by what they're doing in the trilateral relationship with Japan, that growing trilateral relationship with Japan, and on their path to become a global pivotal state, | ||
| they are a key partner in the Western Pacific with a purview that goes far beyond just the Korean Peninsula. | ||
| Thank you very much, sir. | ||
| I mentioned in my opening statement that currently you have forces that have been transferred into CENTCOM, the Convention Carrier Group. | ||
| Open sources suggest 6B-2 bombers are at Diego Garcia with supplementary tankers. | ||
| What effect does these have on your capabilities? | ||
| Well, presently, For Carl Vinson, we do have George Washington coming out of Yokosuka very shortly, and Nimitz is at sea. | ||
| But we have to maintain a high state of indications and warning so that we can get those forces back if there is a crisis with greater exigence than there is one in the CENCOM AOR. | ||
| And I owe the Secretary and the President constant vigilance on this and a constant awareness of that force's ability to flat, which is assigned to U.S. Indo-PACOM, is Carl Vinson's strike group and a Patriot Battalion. | ||
| If need be, they return to the Indo-PACOM theater for a higher priority threat. | ||
| Thank you very much, gentlemen. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Reed. | ||
| Senator Cotton. | ||
| Gentlemen, welcome back. | ||
| Admiral, let's take a step back to first principles. | ||
| We've talked a lot here about the threat that China poses to Taiwan and what you're doing to try to address that threat. | ||
| I'd like you to explain why that threat is so severe. | ||
| Some people might look at the map and say, well, Taiwan is a small island and it's really far from us and it's really close to them. | ||
| And China has marched into Tibet in the past and they've marched into Hong Kong in the past and that was bad and they shouldn't have done those things. | ||
| But it didn't lead to world war and it didn't lead to Great Depression. | ||
| On the other side, you've got one of your ancestors, so to speak, Douglas MacArthur, who said at the dawn of the Korean War that the domination of Taiwan by an unfriendly power would be a disaster of utmost importance to the United States. | ||
| He was speaking then, as we do today, of communist China. | ||
| Ian Easton, a Naval War College professor and one of the military's leading experts on Taiwan, says that it's possible that the Chinese invasion of Taiwan would cause a 21st century version of the Great Depression. | ||
| And the famed investor Ken Griffin put it more bluntly, it's an immediate Great Depression. | ||
| So why is it that Taiwan is different? | ||
| Why is Taiwan such a hot flashpoint? | ||
| Why could it lead not only to a catastrophic war but also global Great Depression? | ||
| Why should Americans care about an island on the other side of the world? | ||
| Senator Cotton, that last point is quite salient. | ||
| Many a research organization postulate that conflict in the Western Pacific over the Taiwan question would result in a 25 percent GDP contraction in Asia and a knock-on effect of 10 to 12 percent GDP reduction in the United States of America, with unemployment spiking seven to ten points above base and likely 500,000 excess deaths of despair above base as well. | ||
| And this is just the importance of the regional stability to the world economy and its effect on people's lives. | ||
| And this is as a function of freedom of navigation. | ||
| It's a function of the world dependency on semiconductors. | ||
| In the longer term, for the United States, our strategic center of gravity is our network of alliances and partners. | ||
| The sum total of 350 million people's talent, 130 million Japanese, 130 million Philippines, 25 million Australians, not to mention 500 million in Europe, as well as partners across the globe. | ||
| The knock-on effect of the brittleness of that network of alliances and partnerships means that some of the states could confer and be and submit to the PRC's mode of exploitation en route to their long-range goal of setting the rules of the world and reaping the benefits of that. | ||
| And then finally, some nations in the area of responsibility will submit, but others it would never happen just because of the historic tensions. | ||
| And in that case, the proliferation question comes to mind with nuclear-armed states that are treaty allies with the United States and minimal warning for launch among those nuclear states. | ||
| It is a vital interest for the United States. | ||
| My job is to have a force ready to make those choices. | ||
| You know, I don't make the choices on whether or not it's important or not. | ||
| I'm explicating how it is, and my job is to present those options to the Commander-in-Chief to be ready to fight and win. | ||
| And to be clear, a lot, if not all, of those consequences would follow whatever the outcome of a conflict over Taiwan, whether China succeeds in going for the jugular or fails, or there's some kind of indecisive outcome, simply having the conflict over Taiwan, which is such a center of gravity in the modern economy, could lead to many of the consequences you just outlined. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| I can't quote the source. | ||
| I will later. | ||
| But most of the things I've studied indicate that American intervention would have that impact. | ||
| A successful American intervention would potentially do so. | ||
| So still a grave result, but half as grave with the savings of a lot of human misery. | ||
| So the key then is to prevent the war from happening in the first place. | ||
| We don't want to be in a situation where we have to win a war over Taiwan. | ||
| We want to stop it from happening. | ||
| And the way to do that is through strong military and resolute, confident leadership. | ||
| What do you need most that you don't have right now to deter that conflict from happening in the first place? | ||
| Senator, counter-C5 ISR capabilities in cyber, space, counterspace to ensure that the United States can see, understand, decide, act, assess, learn faster than the PRC can, to enhance our ability to blind, to deceive, and to destroy the adversary's ability to see and sense. | ||
| And then, in addition, the requirement to effect those long-range fires and effects that make the Joint Force effective in attacking centers of gravity, the platforms that they ride on, the sustainment that sustains them, absolutely key and critical foundation, and then the critical infrastructure across the theater that enables the force to reach the principles of expanded maneuver and puts geography on our side, which it is. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Cotton. | ||
| Senator Hirono, you are recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Welcome, Admiral Paparo. | ||
| It's always good to see you. | ||
| Thank you for your leadership. | ||
| While successive administrations have identified China as the pacing threat and the Indo-Pacific as a priority theater, you still identified $11 billion in unfunded priorities this past year. | ||
| You talked about just now the importance of deterrence because a conflict over Taiwan would have massive negative effects. | ||
| Is some of this $11 billion having to do with the deterrence that you talked about regarding Taiwan? | ||
| Yes, Senator Hirono, thank you. | ||
| Absolutely right. | ||
| Deterrence must be backed up by the real capability to fight and win. | ||
| The United States of America enjoys key advantages in space, counterspace, command and control between the Carmen Line and the surface, and undersea dominance. | ||
| But that margin is shrinking, and we must regain the margin and increase the margin. | ||
| And that ability to fight and win is what will make sure that our adversaries do not execute any aggression to do so. | ||
| What would happen if this very large funding gap is not addressed in this year's NDAA? | ||
| The joint force, the trajectory that I'm discussing continues. | ||
| The joint force has an eroded capability to prevail. | ||
| It manifests itself in lost people, in lost capability, in lost money, and in lost time. | ||
| And it confers to the confidence of the PRC and inherently erodes deterrence as they see more and more, they see the potential of their prevailing in the conflict themselves and achieving their goals by aggression. | ||
| And by the way, thank you for explaining to this committee the importance of the Taiwan situation, because often I get asked, why should we, our country, care about Taiwan? | ||
| So thank you for that. | ||
| Regarding the dismantling of USAID and the impacts on us, whenever the United States creates a void, such as by ending foreign aid, such as through USAID, it has an impact on our asymmetric advantage, which also include our partners and alliances. | ||
| How does ending foreign assistance programs and other regional aid efforts impact Indo-PACOM security cooperation missions and the command's relationship with partners in the region? | ||
| Senator, those other instruments of national power are very important and they're critical to our ability to fight and win. | ||
| My understanding is that U.S. aid is under review and I continue to advocate for it. | ||
| The loss of that, the PRC would see the opportunity and they would seize it and they frequently do. | ||
| Wherever they see a void, they fill it in in order to confer more influence to their own national power. | ||
| So indeed, if China is our pacing threat, we know that every time we create a void in any part of, particularly in the PACOM area, including, by the way, providing assistance to our Compact nation friends, that China just steps right in and fills that void. | ||
| General Bronson, you raised an important point in your opening statement regarding North Korea hackers stealing $1.5 billion, probably more, in cryptocurrency to fund their military. | ||
| And at the same time, the Justice Department has disbanded a team of prosecutors targeting crypto crimes. | ||
| Does that concern you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Madam Senator. | |
| First, that does not bother me at all. | ||
| What I'm thinking about is all the instruments of military power that have to be brought to bear to stop illicit activity. | ||
| That is only one of the illegal things they're doing. | ||
| We've talked a lot about what is North Korea getting from Russia. | ||
| One of the things they're getting is the ability to circumvent sanctions. | ||
| And that theft is a piece of that. | ||
| Ma'am, I'm also encouraged by the fact that we can see what's going on. | ||
| Do you have an awareness of the Department of Justice's team that targeted and basically was able to prosecute to the tune of billions of dollars crypto crimes? | ||
| Are you aware of that team, highly successful team that is being disbanded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| I am aware of that team. | ||
| However, I believe that we have the instruments to continue to proceed to prosecute these crimes. | ||
| That's somewhat reassuring, but I think that with all the crimes that are going on in the crypto space, I think that we should not be disbanding any efforts that we have in that space. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Hirono. | ||
| Senator Ernst, you are recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair and gentlemen. | ||
| Thank you for being here, Admiral Poparo and General Brunson. | ||
| Chief, good luck to you in your retirement. | ||
| Thank you so much for your service. | ||
| I'll go ahead and start with Indo-PACOM. | ||
| Admiral, thank you so much. | ||
| As you've clearly laid out for the committee today, the Indo-Pacific is growing very dangerous. | ||
| It is extremely complex. | ||
| Our deterrence depends not just on our warfighting capability, but also on the ability to sustain our operations. | ||
| I started my career as an engineer, became a transporter, and ended my career as a logistician. | ||
| Not a big, sexy topic here in this committee, but it is absolutely necessary that we talk about it. | ||
| If we wish to win the fight, we've got to sustain the fight. | ||
| So, Admiral, what gaps still exist in our theater logistics network that put our forward posture at risk? | ||
| Morning, Senator. | ||
| Significant gaps in sea lift. | ||
| First, the combat logistics force in total is about 60 percent of the actual requirement. | ||
| We account for that by hiring console tankers and by contracting other capabilities. | ||
| But when the unforgiving hour comes, the only ships that will be able to commit to areas to put into harm's way will be gray ships. | ||
| And as I utter these words, 17 of those combat logistics force ships are laid up for lack of manpower. | ||
| In addition, I discussed in the previous committee, we have to have many millions of pounds of fuel, of jet fuel in the air for every capability. | ||
| And so our tanker fleet is below what we need. | ||
| We account for that for some contract air services as well. | ||
| But once again, those same factors obtain for you have to have a you have to have a gray tail. | ||
| And then finally, just cargo lift and the number of short tons of C-17 lift. | ||
| Like for instance, just having moved a Patriot battalion into the CENTCOM AOR, it took 73 C-17 loads to move that Patriot battalion. | ||
| 73. | ||
| What's that? | ||
| 73. | ||
| 73 of one battalion of a force element. | ||
| So our lift requirements must be paid attention to. | ||
| And I share your passion for sustainment. | ||
| That's what won World War II. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| So those logisticians, the maintenance dudes and dudettes that are out there working every day to make sure that our warriors are able to fight the good fight. | ||
| So with that, you talked about contractors, and we use them extensively. | ||
| But how can Congress help accelerate the improvements necessary in Indo-PACOM when that hour comes? | ||
| Well, I think we've got to get at the problems of why we don't have enough combat logistics force, and that's shipbuilding, why we don't have enough labor, and those are looking hard at pay and incentives in order to recruit and Retain those people. | ||
| Rates of production and diversifying the tanker fleet is key. | ||
| And then continuing on to find alternatives of lift capability that we can order into harm's way. | ||
| And then over top of all of this, we're incorporating artificial intelligence tools with command and control tools so that it's not an on-demand system, but so that we are executing that absolutely indispensable joint function as effectively as we possibly can. | ||
| You know, we are an AI-enabled headquarters, and that's important too. | ||
| But you can't AI your way out of a material deficiency. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I agree completely, and we need to spend more time on this topic. | ||
| But just very briefly, General Brunson, I apologize, I've got 30 seconds. | ||
| We rely heavily on allies, neighbors, friends, or force multipliers, but so do our adversaries. | ||
| We've heard that there are North Koreans now that are fighting the fight over in Ukraine. | ||
| Can you tell us what are the North Koreans learning from this experience and what will they take back to your region? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ma'am, I've said several times now in several hearings that we can't confuse the tactical lessons that they're learning with strategic benefit. | |
| What we've got to understand is that they've gone over, they've done some things. | ||
| There's been strategic movement, there's been operational maneuver, that they're learning some things, but it's the technology that's coming back in that is of threat to the Republic of Korea and the world. | ||
| Wonderful. | ||
| Thank you, gentlemen, very much. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Ernst. | ||
| Senator King, you are recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| General Brunson, without our presence on the microphone. | ||
| Without our presence on the Korean Peninsula, would Kim invade the South? | ||
| Sir, I would tell you that I don't believe he would. | ||
| But what I would tell you is he would take advantage of other weapons and systems that he has, conventional, to limit the Republic of Korea's great growth that's taken place over the past 75 years. | ||
| I think that if we look at the hardening that's occurred on his border at the present time, the fences have been raised, mines have been seeded in the demilitarized zone. | ||
| I think that what we see is- Why is he doing that? | ||
| Is there any threat that the South Koreans are going to invade North Korea? | ||
| Sir, I think it's as much about the things that he's broadcast in open source that he is a sovereign nation. | ||
| He's not looking to work at reunification. | ||
| He's blown up all the means of industry in the DMZ. | ||
| I thought you said in your opening testimony he's not talking about reunification. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's talking about one whole country. | |
| Doesn't that imply an invasion of the South? | ||
| No, sir. | ||
| He considers himself sovereign north of the MDL, sir. | ||
| So he's. | ||
| Which he claims is his southern boundary now. | ||
| So he's accepted the boundary. | ||
| In which case, if you testified he wouldn't invade, then why are we there? | ||
| I think it's, Senator, I don't think it's a matter of whether he'll invade or not. | ||
| I think that these intentions to cordon off North Korea could very well be temporary. | ||
| And so to say, will he invade or won't he invade, you know, we're talking about probabilities. | ||
| With the loss of the force on the Korean Peninsula, there's a higher probability that he would invade. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that was my expectation when I asked that question. | |
| I would assume that if we weren't there, it would encourage him to take steps to try to cripple the South. | ||
| I think it's essential. | ||
| We have a treaty ally. | ||
| It's the number 10 economy in the world. | ||
| Our economies are very much intertwined. | ||
| KJU's intentions could shift with the wind. | ||
| And he's built a military that is designed to impose tremendous costs directly on South Korea. | ||
| It's very important we maintain that deterrent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I agree. | |
| And to the extent that the South Korean economy is somehow affected or diminished, that would be against our interest because of the relationship that we have. | ||
| Yes, Senator, and I misheard you, so please forgive me. | ||
| But as I mentioned previously, 2,100 U.S. countries tied to the Republic of South Korea, 450,000 jobs as well. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| This is sort of an intelligent question, General Brunson, but I know you have intelligence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do the North I didn't mean that the way it sounded. | |
| I know you have access to intelligence assets. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How's that? | |
| Better. | ||
| Do the North Koreans know the extent to which they are being screwed by the regime? | ||
| We have all seen the famous picture of no lights in North Korea, and South Korea is full of energy and prosperity. | ||
| Do the North Koreans have any inkling of the way that their opportunities in life are being diminished by this regime? | ||
| Senator, I would answer that, having fully listened to the question that I might answer it correctly this time. | ||
| I would fully answer that by looking at the forces that they sent to Ukraine to that fight. | ||
| Absolutely dyed-in-the-wool ideologues who are tied to and believe in that regime that exists there. | ||
| I think a great many of the people are not witting to what's going on there, but the elites, as long as he maintains control of the elites, there was a recent article that talked about the things that he is doing to circumvent sanctions and other things to continue to bring luxury goods into this country. | ||
| Those luxury goods don't go to the people. | ||
| No, sir. | ||
| The point I'm making is that as long as he can sort of provide a palliative to the elites, the other folks won't. | ||
| There's no way that they can get communications in or out. | ||
| One of the things that was coming from the NGOs going to the North was radios. | ||
| And those things then begat TCs balloons and garbage balloons back to the South. | ||
| So I would say that the rank and file, everyday people, other than those within his special operations units, are not witting to anything outside of their country. | ||
| That certainly is my impression. | ||
| Admiral, final question. | ||
| If we pulled back in terms of our support for Ukraine, would that incentivize Japan, South Korea to develop their own capacity, including a nuclear capacity? | ||
| Senator, I'm ignorant of the policy. | ||
| I don't know the policy that's going on. | ||
| It's another theater. | ||
| But I'll say that Russian failure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sorry, did I say Ukraine? | |
| I meant Taiwan. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| If we withdrew our support from Taiwan, would that incentivize Japan and South Korea to develop independent capacity, including the possibility of nuclear weapons? | ||
| My assessment is yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Admiral, go ahead and answer that question with regard to Ukraine. | ||
| So without, you know, I'm in the Indo-Pacific, so I don't have perfect knowledge of the ongoing. | ||
| But my assessment, and it's to a very deep extent backed in the Intel record, is that Russian failure and/or Russian success has the effect of deterring or emboldening the People's Republic of China, and they've already taken notice of the tremendous costs that Russia has endured. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. | |
| Mr. Chairman, thank you for that, because that's a question I would have asked if I'd had another 10 seconds. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And it only took us 59 seconds. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Senator Scott, you are recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman. | ||
| Thank both of you for what you do. | ||
| Thank you for the men and women you serve with. | ||
| So, Admiral Paparo, how much of your time do you spend trying to anticipate or counter actions by Communist China? | ||
| Senator Scott, that consumes my duties, which is a constant stare, the constant analysis of intelligence sources, of open source sources, and then the physical movement on the ground to be able to see and understand, to anticipate, and to be able to pace their actions that look to coerce Taiwan and to bring, | ||
| to demonstrate the prospect of settling the matter by force. | ||
| And number two, their encroachment on treaty allies in the Philippines, as well encroachment on partners in the South China Sea with their excessive and illogical claims in their nine-dash line claim. | ||
| And their continued ability to build ships, airplanes, weapons, all these things, does that cause you to spend more time and money? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| They built combatants at the rate of 6 to 1.8 to the United States. | ||
| And I could go through every force element that we're talking about. | ||
| Before they joined the World Trade Organization and before we allowed them to basically sell whatever they wanted to this country, did they have a military that you had to spend a lot of time worrying about? | ||
| Just by dint of the weight of the civilization, we worried about it. | ||
| You know, we've had to worry about this now since 1949, but it's step-level change. | ||
| In the last 20 years, they've increased their military 10 to 15-fold. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So if they didn't have the economy they have, which is completely created by selling goods and services to the American citizens, they would not have the resources that you would have to spend your time and money to try to counteract. | ||
| The society has grown greatly. | ||
| That was a matter of design for the international community, but unanticipated was the aggression and the buildup that followed. | ||
| So your life would be better if no American bought any Chinese product to use any service and no American dollar went to Communist China. | ||
| I'll say that China's inability to pump resources into its national defense enterprise, which is bolstered by its trade position, is a direct corollary to the success of their business model. | ||
| So would you recommend American citizens stop buying Chinese products and stop using Chinese services? | ||
| I'd recommend that we build greater resilience and that we beat them on market principles. | ||
| And so I don't want to go beyond my remit as a military officer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Let's talk about naval readiness and specifically the C-130s. | ||
| The Marine Corps and Air Force are 100% recapitalized on the C-130s. | ||
| The Navy needs over 30 C-130s and yet to program for this critical tactical airlift platform. | ||
| The Navy now, I think, only has one under contract. | ||
| Does that concern you? | ||
| Should we be doing something about it? | ||
| As discussed with Senator Ernst, sustainment is, in fact, what won the Second World War. | ||
| That's what our would-be adversaries believe and have studied. | ||
| And everything that confers to our ability to execute LIFT and C-130 is one of a kind with its short field operations, with its capacity. | ||
| It remains absolutely relevant and indispensable today. | ||
| And we can't neglect it. | ||
| It's a key priority for Indo-PACOM. | ||
| Do you think there is a role for dual-use uncrewed airlift capabilities in a contested logistics environment? | ||
| I think, You know, the precepts of unmanned is never send a human being to do something that a machine can do. | ||
| And so, you know, inherently we're moving in that direction. | ||
| And I'd welcome the ability to execute that lift. | ||
| And it would also give me the ability to diversify the places that we do, bringing smaller payloads into simultaneously smaller maneuvering units and would enhance our ability to sustain by the speed it would confer. | ||
| General Mahoney testified before the Readiness Subcommittee that only 13 of 32 amphibious ships are ready. | ||
| How does this state of the amphibious fleet impact your ability to do your job? | ||
| The amphibious fleet is indispensable. | ||
| The whole principle of sustaining and moving a force, ships exist to move people, mass, and energy from one place to the other place efficiently. | ||
| And our amphibious force is under-resourced and not ready enough. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Senator Shaheed. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for your service and for being here today. | ||
| Admiral Poparo, I think I understood you to say in your opening statement that we must be active across the information environment. | ||
| So one of the things that's happened in the last month is that we have stopped, we've pulled the plug on Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. | ||
| We had a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year where it was pointed out to us that China is spending over a billion dollars a year, billion with a B, on information systems and efforts to provide miss and disinformation across the region and across the world. | ||
| So what are we doing to counter that and how does the loss of something like radio free Asia affect our ability to counter what the PRC is doing? | ||
| China and its political works division and its United Front is incredibly active, effective, and untruthful in the information space. | ||
| And the delivery of truthful information, really bolstered by free speech, having respect for everybody and everybody's ability to discern truth from lies is absolutely vital. | ||
| We do have an effort that is companion, that is where Special Operations Command is nested within this unit with their capabilities to execute information operations, but it's focused in the military space as it should be, given the fact that we're in the military. | ||
| But in my opinion, we must work hard to counter PRC misinformation and disinformation. | ||
| And our own principles of free speech greatly enable us to have faith in people to be able to suss out truth from lies. | ||
| And can you talk about why that matters when we're talking about military conflict? | ||
| It matters because in order for us to achieve the effects of expanded maneuver, our network of alliances and partnerships is the strategic center of gravity of the United States of America. | ||
| And so inherently, because governments are accountable to the people they serve, that public opinion will have a great bearing on whether or not those allies and partners are a party to enable a coalition because The bigger the coalition, the greater legitimacy, the greater capability, the greater access facing an overflight. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Clearly, we need to do better. | ||
| General Brunson, South Korea and Japan recently renewed negotiations with the PRC toward free trade talks that have been stalled since 2012. | ||
| I'm concerned that the tariffs that have been announced and withdrawn, then announced and withdrawn are pushing our allies toward closer trade and integration with countries like China, and that poses security risk. | ||
| So from an integration and cooperation perspective, do you see any challenges that would be posed by renewed economic talks between China and our closest allies in Asia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ma'am, I'll answer by what I'm seeing on the peninsula right now. | |
| My concerns would be my hackles would raise, if you will, and I'll allow my boss to answer for the wider region. | ||
| But if we were not continuing to move along the pathway for the bilaterally agreed upon OPCON transfer, if we weren't able to move on that path by way of economic challenges facing the nation, that would bother me. | ||
| If we had impacts that led to lessening human and procedural interoperability coupled with technological interoperability being lost, that would concern me. | ||
| And I think Admiral Poparo made a very good case on the economic circumstances earlier in response to Senator Cotton's question. | ||
| But I want to ask a follow-up on this with respect to the political dynamics in the Republic of Korea, which you referred to in your opening testimony. | ||
| And the democratic process is playing out, but we expect an election. | ||
| And are there concerns that depending on the outcome of that election, it will affect our relationship with ROK? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ma'am, the realities of the region, where Korea sits, the adversaries which they can impose cost upon, is going to keep us in good stead going forward. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you both. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Senator Budd. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman. | |
| And again, thank you all both for being here. | ||
| Good to see you again. | ||
| So last weekend, a fresh rotation of fighter units arrived at Kadena Air Base, including the 336th Fighter Squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. | ||
| Can you speak to their mission while deployed and how they fit into the larger strategy, Admiral? | ||
| Senator Budd, good morning. | ||
| Kadena Air Force Base and the wing there is a you know a critical mobile dynamic capability that is just not fixed in Kadena but has the ability to move throughout the area of responsibility under the principles of agile combat employment and so this is our on-point contact layer immediate Ability to impose costs, | ||
| immediate ability to achieve ephemeral air superiority in the AOR, and it's a foundation on which the larger forces that would flow in in the event of a conflict rests. | ||
| And the Fifth Air Force, of course, is the headquarters in Yakota with the wing in Massawa and the wing in Kadena. | ||
| So it's absolutely crucial. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for that. | |
| Heaven forbid, I mean, we hope this never happens, but should deterrence fail in the region, does the Strike Eagle have or Strike Eagle have a role to play that can't be accomplished by other fighters at all? | ||
| Yes, sir, it does. | ||
| And I mean, with F-15EX coming on board and with what that portends with its dominant electronic warfare capability in addition to the already dominant elements of range, speed, sensors, and payload of the mighty Eagle, former Eagle pilot myself on exchange. | ||
| But without being a homer for it, indispensable. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for that. | |
| Switch gears a little bit. | ||
| Can you both elaborate on the demand for our special operations forces and how you're currently resourced to meet those demands? | ||
| And General, we'll start with you in Korea. | ||
| Sir, Special Operations Command Korea is augmented within our headquarters by some very particular intelligence assets, I would call them, that help us to best see, sense, and understand on the peninsula itself. | ||
| SOC Corps is commanded presently by a one-star National Guard officer. | ||
| Very capable formation in terms of ensuring that our partners around the region, not just the Koreans, but all forces that come to the peninsula to train, maintain great awareness of not only the region, but the discrete activities that might occur should they need to happen. | ||
| Most recently in the West Sea, we're able to, during Freedom Shield, conduct an air assault while being in the daytime. | ||
| It allowed us to take the Korean forces and bring them to a higher state of readiness than they'd achieved previously. | ||
| Thank you, General. | ||
| Admiral, you've talked about previously being underinvested in SOF. | ||
| Do you care to expand on that? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Senator, currently we have a counter-terror operation that's ongoing in the South Philippine Islands, Operation Pacific Eagle. | ||
| In addition, the Special Operations Forces are a critical contributor to our counter-command control information surveillance reconnaissance and targeting efforts. | ||
| In addition, Special Operations Forces are actively augment and are a part of our intelligence collection. | ||
| And this is all notwithstanding the immediate ability to do some of the more traditional roles as direct action. | ||
| And so I've been working closely with General Fenton on this to be able to define to him exactly how much special operations forces that we have. | ||
| But I believe that we want, well, I know what I want, and we need more. | ||
| And I can gain a lot of early leverage and a lot of deterrent capability with more SOF. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Admiral. | |
| General, does the increased military cooperation between DPRK, Russia, and China concern you as it relates to containing escalation on the Korean Peninsula? | ||
| And if so, what does that mean for the role of SOF in prevention? | ||
| Well, it does worry me. | ||
| It worries me by virtue of the fact of the things that I'm seeing that SOF helps us to see, whether that be with them operating their own UAS or whether that's them doing operations in the region. | ||
| Most recently during Freedom Shield, we saw Chinese ships violate and come across the northern limit line in the West Sea. | ||
| And in the East Sea, we had violation of the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone by the Russians. | ||
| And seeing them work together along with the information, what was going on in the information environment, SOF helps me to counter some of those things. | ||
| Because what happened was North Korea said, hey, they need to stop these illegal exercises, working together with the U.S. and the ROC coming together. | ||
| And then you had these two other adversaries take actions in the region which have to be countered. | ||
| And I don't mean countered in a kinetic fashion, but there are non-kinetic things that that SOC Corps allows us to do that we might counter in the information space and other domains to continue on with our mission. | ||
| Thank you both. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Budd. | ||
| Senator Cain. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Admiral Papar, I'd like to direct this question to you. | |
| The discussion has had an awful lot, as it should, about North Korea, about China. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to ask you about the cooperation that we're seeing some of our adversaries engage in. | |
| So in the Indo-PACOM, talk about joint activities between Russia, China, and North Korea and the growing closeness of the relationship and the threats that posed to the work that we do with our allies. | ||
| Morning, Senator Kaine. | ||
| It's a transactional symbiosis where each state fulfills the other state's weakness to mutual benefit of each state. | ||
| You know, for instance, is that China has provided 70 percent of the machine tools and 90 percent of the legacy chips that's enabled Russia to rebuild its war machine. | ||
| And then coming back to China is potentially submarine quieting help, as well as other help in some of the areas where Russia is strong. | ||
| In addition, you've got the North Korea that are sending thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and thousands of KN-24 short-range missiles to Russia, with, as General Brunson said, the expectations of concessions coming back in the form of air defense, surface-to-air missile help, quieting terror to help with their Kilo submarine fleet and so forth. | ||
| And then finally, in the physical space, this last summer, I saw the longest-range joint patrol of PLA Navy and Russian Pacific Fleet formation in the Bering Sea. | ||
| And so they're deepening their ability to operate together, and they're demonstrating that by going further afield and in bigger formations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Quickly, I just would like to ask for your impression of the importance of the AUKUS framework in the Indo-Pacific. | |
| AUKUS is a, it's going to confer a generational advantage on both countries, but I cherish the advantage it confers on the United States of America. | ||
| And so, you know, I'll say, first of all, the ability to operate out of Sterling in submarine rotational force west in Sterling gives the American submarine force an Indian Ocean port. | ||
| It gives us the ability to range the Indian Ocean without limitation in the Straits of Malacca, the Lumbok, or the Sunda Strait. | ||
| It's a straight shot to the South China Sea, closer and faster than Hawaii, San Diego, Banger Main, and then Australia's contribution into the defense industrial base, a $3 billion investment in the submarine defense industrial base. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Imagine Congress having that debate about whether we would invest $3 billion in the Australian workforce. | |
| It would be a very tough discussion here. | ||
| It'd be worth it. | ||
| But the fact that the Australian Parliament made that investment in the U.S. workforce demonstrates the degree to which they're concerned about China. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me just do one last thing here. | |
| I have filed a resolution with a number of my colleagues to turn off the tariff, the global tariffs imposed by the President last week, which are now somewhat on pause. | ||
| There's still a 10% tariff. | ||
| I'm not going to ask you about the policy. | ||
| But I just want to point out one of the reasons I filed the motion, primarily because it's a tax increase on American consumers. | ||
| But I don't think we should treat allies badly. | ||
| Use Australia as an example. | ||
| You've talked about how AUKUS is very important. | ||
| The President has imposed a tariff on Australia. | ||
| We have a trade surplus with Australia, not a deficit. | ||
| We have a trade surplus with Australia. | ||
| So why put a tariff on their products? | ||
| How about other allies? | ||
| Japan, 25% tariff on Japan. | ||
| Why 25%? | ||
| The measure of the tariff was not Chinese trade barriers. | ||
| It was the trade deficit that we have with Japan measured by deficit in goods. | ||
| It did not include the full trade picture, goods and services. | ||
| If you add in services, all these trade deficits actually get narrow because the U.S. is such a great exporter of services. | ||
| But even if there's a trade deficit in goods with Japan, of course there is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The trade deficit is we buy more of their stuff than they buy of our stuff. | |
| Our population is three times the size of the Japanese population. | ||
| So yes, we buy more Japanese goods with 340 million people than 120 million people buy of American goods. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so we're going to punish them for that. | |
| It makes no sense. | ||
| The primary reason I'm filed the challenge is because I don't want to tax American consumers with a big national sales tax. | ||
| But the tariff strategy that punishes allies is no way to be strong in an international world where the U.S. has built allies over decades that provide some of our greatest edge, qualitative edge, against our adversaries. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's just an editorial comment, but thank you for your appearance, I guess. | |
| It surely is. | ||
| And under the First Amendment, you are entitled to that. | ||
| But I didn't hear a question, so we'll move along to Senator Duckworth. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Although I do endorse my colleague from Virginia's editorial statement. | ||
| Admiral Poparo, General Brunson, thank you for being here today and for sharing your assessment of our posture capabilities and readiness in the Indo-Pacific. | ||
| One of my major priorities, everyone knows I am TransCom's biggest advocate, so I can't go through a posture hearing like this without asking questions about the logistical environment that we will face if our nation's darkest days come and we must fight a war in the Pacific. | ||
| Preparing for the logistical realities of large-scale conflict is not only critical for the fight tonight scenario, but it is also key to deterrence. | ||
| We must demonstrate to our adversaries that we have the capability to sustain a fight if necessary, even as they seek to contest that, to make it clear that such a war would be costly for all of us. | ||
| And I applaud both your efforts to improve the logistical readiness of the force and with our allies and partners, but I do think there's more to do. | ||
| And I'd just start off with medical readiness. | ||
| We must improve our ability to provide life-saving care to wounded service members, including the regional hospital access and effective aeromedical evacuation. | ||
| We have partners in the ROK, in Thailand, in the Philippines that have medical facilities that meet U.S. hospital certification standards. | ||
| Those are opportunities for us to develop those relationships. | ||
| The Indo-Pacific's vast distances, logistical challenges, and maritime environment present a much less permissive environment than for the medical mission than the global war on terror did. | ||
| And as I've said before, long gone is the golden hour, and we must do comprehensive planning to ensure that our warfighters have foreign medical facility access in the Indo-Pacific. | ||
| This is why I secured a provision in the fiscal year 25 NDAA to establish an Indo-Pacific medical readiness program. | ||
| Admiral Paparo, General Brunson, as you implement this program, what are the primary barriers that hinder the necessary medical cooperation, and how can this committee help as you begin that effort? | ||
| Morning, Senator Duckworth. | ||
| I strongly endorse your viewpoint, and also, too, I strongly endorse what's essentially a concept of operation within what you're saying, which is put the medical expertise of our allies and partners to ensure that that can augment what our own medical providers can execute. | ||
| And so one is mede-vac capability in order to get to the location, the agreements to do so, the ability to practice and exercise so it's not the first time that we do it if the unforgiving hour comes. | ||
| And so I think some of the barriers are physical, and that is lift, medical lift, medevac lift. | ||
| And then some of the barriers are, I should say, authorities. | ||
| And we'd hope for more authorities to be able to broaden our ability to plan for this, for bringing to bear the medical capabilities of our allies to care for the wounded in conflict. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| General Brunson? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ma'am, one of the things that you know, and I know you're full well aware of this, is our health care comes from the community. | |
| You have the agreement in the ROK. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| So we get tremendous amounts of care there. | ||
| What we're trying to do at All Good Hospital at the present time is have greater access to PROTIS doctors routinely. | ||
| I need them to be on the peninsula in times other than crisis or conflict. | ||
| In competition, we want to bring them to the peninsula so that they better understand the medical landscape and what might be required of them. | ||
| We're also looking to UN command. | ||
| There are several nations that provided hospitals during the Korean conflict. | ||
| We want the Italians to come back with their hospitals again. | ||
| We want the Dutch to come back with their hospitals again as well. | ||
| And those things we think we then provide to the greater Indo-PACOM family that we might be another resource used in time of conflict. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to pivot to the critical platforms we need to project and sustain forces in a contested logistical environment, especially our sea lift fleet. | ||
| Admiral Paparo, do you agree that Indo-PACOM would benefit from the ability to surge replacements of naval auxiliary vessels or to conduct battle damage maintenance of these vessels within the region closer to the point of need? | ||
| Strongly. | ||
| I urge for that, Senator. | ||
| Because I am concerned that in a war, naval auxiliary vessels would be easy targets. | ||
| And we're going to have to fight our way in and fight our way out. | ||
| And what can we do to help you with that effort? | ||
| Well, as we enhance our protection capability, we enhance our ability to see understand the operational environment, to build windows of opportunity, to execute sustainment capability, you know, nine classes of supply, medical and so forth, in those areas. | ||
| And so first is just the quantities, the quantities of TAKEs, AOs, the quantity of gray tails, C-17s, tankers. | ||
| That's critical, and then the ability to exercise it. | ||
| What about co-sustainment with our allies like Japan or the ROK of those vessels? | ||
| Because they certainly have the capabilities, especially the auxiliary vessels. | ||
| When we game this, we frequently rely on one another to do this. | ||
| And then while operating at sea, sometimes actually the necessity of having one leads us to use a Japanese oiler or for an American oiler to refuel a coalition ship. | ||
| And so we have to be able to sum all of the sustainment capability among us, have the authorities to do so so we can turn to it with alacrity. | ||
| But I would be more comfortable with our own ability to contribute to that effort with U.S. capability. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Momentary Substitute Chair recognizes Senator Rosen. | |
| Well, thank you, Momentary Substitute Chair. | ||
| Thank you, actual chair, Senator Wicker, and of course, Ranking Member Reid holding, of course, really important hearing. | ||
| I want to thank Admiral Poparo, General Brunson, for your service, for your support, and your care, and everything that you do. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| So I want to talk a little bit about attacks on digital infrastructure by the PRC. | ||
| So, Admiral, our growing concern about the vulnerability of Taiwan's digital infrastructure is highlighted by the frequent attempted sabotage of undersea Internet cables. | ||
| These events are part of a larger trend of gray zone operations where actions short of war, often involving non-military forces or proxies, are used to exert pressure or destabilize regions. | ||
| The PRC's reckless, coercive, and aggressive activities pose a threat to democracies around the globe, and its sabotage of those undersea cables has emerged as a particularly alarming tactic. | ||
| These cables are essential for our global communications, transmitting around 95 percent of global internet traffic. | ||
| They facilitate financial transactions, bolster our security, the security of our partners and allies. | ||
| Admiral, while some experts view incidents like the damage to Taiwan's undersea cables as merely a test or low-level enhancement, others warn they could be part of a broader Chinese strategy to prepare for future coercion or even invasion of Taiwan. | ||
| So, given this, what do you see as the actual threat these incidents pose to U.S. national security, and what steps is the U.S. taking to effectively counter these digital threats? | ||
| Senator Rosen, you know, as ever, you're quite astute in identifying this threat. | ||
| Most certainly, that's an element of the intention and an element of the design. | ||
| They would do so likely with people armed forces, maritime militia, which enables them to execute this operation without potentially signaling an intent to go to war, but by weakening the information enterprise of the states over whom they're executing aggression. | ||
| And I think a greater, well, one, I think the first is that the ability to penetrate from an intelligence standpoint and to be there in the locations where they would be otherwise cutting those cables in order to deter that activity. | ||
| Second of all is the resilience to have other redundant networks that enable those states and their partners, including the United States, Guam, Hawaii, and so forth, to achieve what we need to do in the information environment, and that's proliferation in low Earth orbit and not just one single constellation, but multiple constellations. | ||
| About how we can help Taiwan bolster its digital infrastructure. | ||
| What do you think we can do to help them be sure? | ||
| Yeah, I think enabling, training them to be able to, you know, I shouldn't say training them, but enabling them to build that resiliency that's required that if we're unsuccessful in our efforts to thwart their cable cutting, | ||
| that there are other spectra and other means for information technology so they have the proper bandwidth to prioritize those functions that they have to within that bandwidth and latency that you get out of low Earth orbit, middle Earth orbit, among the many commercial constellations that are going into orbit. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm going to talk a little bit about North Korean support to Russia because we see a growing alliance between North Korea and Russia, particularly in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. | ||
| It presents new challenges for us in the United States and, of course, for our allies. | ||
| So we know North Korea providing troops and munitions to Russia. | ||
| The partnership has potential to fuel the conflict and challenge the global order. | ||
| It raises concerns about the effectiveness of existing diplomatic strategies and economic sanctions. | ||
| So to both of you, the partnership between North Korea and Russia poses a serious threat to global stability. | ||
| So in each of your views, how should the U.S. respond to North Korea's military assistance to Russia? | ||
| And what diplomatic or military strategies should we pursue to prevent further destabilization, not just there but within the international community? | ||
| So General, we'll start with you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right, Senator, one of the things that we have to do is what we're doing presently. | |
| We've got forces there on the peninsula that can impose costs on them. | ||
| We also maintain lines to continue communication so that we might not have miscalculation in the region writ large, whether that be on the MDL or across the northern limit line in the West Sea. | ||
| I think that we have to continue to try to communicate out, but make sure that we're always prepared in the event of a miscalculation. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Senator, hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, thousands of KN-24 missiles, and manpower is leaving North Korea with the intent of gaining a concession back. | ||
| And so first, exposure in the international community is one, which is to not be shy about exposing this naked aggression, using all instruments of national power to impose costs on individuals to find to build the deterrent from this activity. | ||
| And then, as General Brunson has talked about early and earlier, being wary of what is coming back and to be able to be in generations of overmatch with what's coming back, if it's submarine quieting, if it's air defense, if it's missile technology. | ||
| And so it's an area we need to work really hard. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Yield back. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Senator Banks. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Admiral, great to see you again. | ||
| I enjoyed our visit in my office last week. | ||
| And we talked about slickam quite a bit, but I wanted to ask you in this setting: slick a men, as we talked about, will be one of the best tools to deter China in the Pacific. | ||
| But can you talk a little bit about the capability gaps that it fills, why it's so important in NOPACOM? | ||
| Good morning, Senator. | ||
| First, I'm a strong advocate of slickamen at the soonest possibility, just because of the doubt that it imposes, the potential to execute tactically. | ||
| Presently, there is a gap between low tonnage and high tonnage, on which the United States, that gap is a critical vulnerability between 400 kilotons and below. | ||
| And it gives us a choice of either suicide or surrender when we have to default straight to strategic weapons. | ||
| So it gives us the ability to close that asymmetry. | ||
| It also imposes doubt throughout the force and would change the calculus of aggression inherently just because of the nature of those weapons. | ||
| We use nuclear weapons every single day because they deter. | ||
| And we use them by not using them, by having them be a potential deterrent. | ||
| And I'm quoting Dr. Brad Roberts on that, who's quite expert. | ||
| Can you talk for a minute? | ||
| How does that affect the Chinese mindset, their decision making? | ||
| How does it deter them? | ||
| It raises the costs and the implications of attacking any unit because it raises the stakes. | ||
| And so inherently, it provides more stability on each side because there's not an asymmetry to exploit. | ||
| As you know, last year's NDAA direct the Navy and the NNSA to deploy Slickam N no later than 2034. | ||
| That's nine years from now. | ||
| Part of that delay came from the Biden administration saying that slick a N wasn't needed. | ||
| Do you agree that there needs to be stability and a commitment from Congress, the DOD, and the Navy to Slickam N to speed up that process and get it here before the 2034 deadline? | ||
| I agree. | ||
| 2034 is too late. | ||
| Sooner, please. | ||
| Good. | ||
| I agree with that as well. | ||
| Admiral, the Army says that it will field a long-range hypersonic weapon with the U.S. Army Pacific forces this fall. | ||
| That would be the first U.S. hypersonic weapon that we put into the field. | ||
| How will this new hypersonic capability help you deter China as well? | ||
| Senator, the nature of a hypersonic weapon is to close in time any actor's kill chain. | ||
| And if your adversary can strike you five times faster than you can strike your enemy, then it incentivizes first strikes with this capability. | ||
| And so, you know, the coin of the realm in the 21st century is speed. | ||
| Who does things faster wins. | ||
| And so the ability to close distance and execute before counterfire can come, the ability to execute and then move in order to thwart counterfire, and your ability to act on ephemeral intelligence for a target to be able to reduce that cycle time from find, fix, target track to engage. | ||
| Hypersonics is critical to that, and it's an asymmetry that exists right now. | ||
| And we must close it soonest with both the Army's land-based convention, with all elements of hypersonics, including the Navy's conventional prompt strike, which is also not moving fast enough, for my liking. | ||
| We're going to talk about that for a minute. | ||
| How much more will it help you when the Navy deploys its hypersonic weapon too? | ||
| I mean, I think it is step-level change in our ability to gain early leverage in any engagement and really any conflict. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I think Senator Kelly is next. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Admiral, you were just discussing Slickum, and I do understand the need and desire for a tactical option in theater. | ||
| Certainly provides a certain level of deterrence. | ||
| I get that. | ||
| One concern I have with upgrading Virginia-class submarines with this capability is how it impacts the conventional kinetic effect of that submarine. | ||
| Admiral, would you agree one of our areas of overmatch with the Chinese is in our submarine attack force? | ||
| Strongly agree, Senator. | ||
| Do you have any concerns about the magazine depth for conventional torpedoes if we were to add a tactical nuclear capability to Virginia-class submarines? | ||
| Inherently, it would occupy some of the vertical launch system tubes that would be in a Virginia-class submarine, so there would be a cost. | ||
| It would be a cost involved. | ||
| And do you agree that the likelihood of using a tactical nuclear weapon is significantly less than the likelihood of using a conventional torpedo? | ||
| Most certainly. | ||
| There would be a very high threshold to employ it. | ||
| And are you concerned with having to take Virginia-class submarines temporarily out of the fleet and out of the AOR in order to refit this capability? | ||
| My assessment is that there are ways where we can do it quickly. | ||
| However, I would rather not lose the availability of the platform. | ||
| And how about the amount of security that would have to be put on the ship and how that affects the overall operation of the conventional attack role for the Virginia-class subs? | ||
| My assessment is we have done it before. | ||
| You and I lived in that Navy, and I am in favor of executing it and moving fast on the security requirement. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
| I do understand the need and the deterrence factor. | ||
| I am concerned that we might go down a path and we find out, especially in a conflict, that, boy, I wish we had that each of these Virginia-class subs were a full-up conventional round. | ||
| So thank you for that, Admiral. | ||
| And, General Brunson, there is recent reporting that the United States is considering withdrawing as many as 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe, which would signal to Putin our commitment to our allies and partners in that theater is waning. | ||
| Additionally, UCOM handed control of a key logistics hub in southeast Poland over to other NATO forces, again highlighting this idea of wavering U.S. commitment to our allies. | ||
| And to underpin all of this, there are rumors within the DOD that the Department will direct a reduction of U.S. presence in South Korea or retask these forces to focus on the threat from China. | ||
| So, General Brunson, I acknowledge you cannot comment on the policy. | ||
| I understand that. | ||
| But from a strategic lens, what impact would a force reduction or a retasking of forces have on your ability to deter North Korean aggression? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator Kelly, the 28,500 troops that we have in the Republic of Korea are responsible wholly for preserving peace on the peninsula, in the region, in Northeast Asia. | |
| They are a critical component to ballistic missile defense in the region. | ||
| They are a critical portion of helping the Indo-PACOM command see, sense, and understand in the North and to deter a great many adversaries. | ||
| The MDT that we share with the Republic of Korea does not mention an adversary. | ||
| That's always been the way it is. | ||
| Should an adversary arise, the troops that are there are prepared well, along with our Korean allies, to meet any mission. | ||
| And do you feel your force is the right size? | ||
|
unidentified
|
For the missions as given, yes. | |
| And what do you assess the impact would be to our relationship with South Korea and partners in the region if we downsize the force on the peninsula? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What I think we ought to do, Senator, is remember that there's diplomacy and defense on the peninsula currently. | |
| We share the unique focus of being able to look at our partners eye to eye. | ||
| Recently received instructions to move assets. | ||
| We were able to talk through those things. | ||
| So we've got to make sure that we use strategic clarity to explain what is being asked of our forces. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you, General. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| That would be me for right now, so I will recognize myself. | ||
| Admiral Poparo, it's great to see you. | ||
| Always appreciate your testimonies. | ||
| Very clear-eyed to the point. | ||
| So I've long been very concerned about the Chinese president's presence at the Panama Canal and what they might be able to do with that if, heaven forbid, something were to happen. | ||
| Could you just elaborate a little bit on how the closure of that, let's just assume that that would happen, the closure of that or an interruption in its availability, how that would affect the flow of both combatants and support vessels to the region? | ||
| Morning, Senator. | ||
| I mean, inherently the geography, you know, the alternative being all the way south around the Horn, that's about a two-week transit. | ||
| Think about how critical it is to get forces on front when the PRC's intention is a short, sharp war that provides a fait accompli to the international community. | ||
| And so inherently, anything that slows us down over time and distance is bad for us. | ||
| Now, consider that all of the shipbuilding in the United States of America is east of the Panama Canal, but the preponderance of the threat is in the Pacific. | ||
| And that just shows the inherent logic of the requirement for the Panama Canal as ever. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I think, yes, the concerns that we had when it was, I think, mistakenly sort of given away are even more concerning now as our orientation, I think, shifts to the Indo-Pacific in a more meaningful way. | ||
| General Brunson, it's good to see you. | ||
| I wanted to ask you, and I know that Admiral Poparro got a question somewhat related to this, but concerns about airlift capabilities. | ||
| And we don't have enough aircraft and many of our C-130s don't have the survivability in a contested environment. | ||
| Could you speak a little bit to the current limitations we would have supporting forces in the Korean Peninsula, given our current inventory? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's just the amount of, as we look at TIP-FID flows, sustainment, and those things that are required to prosecute in the KTO. | |
| It's why we've begun to move. | ||
| It's a recognition of that, it's why we've begun to move with the Combined Logistics Command. | ||
| It's why we've begun to look at how can we set the theater now, looking at the stores of munitions, some of which will expire soon. | ||
| How do we get those replaced in a quick fashion so that we don't provide drain for sustainment things in order to prosecute the campaign? | ||
| I'm readily aware of the fact that I'm fighting until help comes. | ||
| That's what we're expected to do there. | ||
| Myself and the Republic of Korean forces, as well as the forces apportioned to UN command. | ||
| We're fighting until they get there. | ||
| So, a great many of the exercises that we do, Senator, are all aimed at understanding what magazine depth needs to be resident on the peninsula so that we don't have to count on external support coming to, and so that we might not drain from the overall effort. | ||
| But it's fair to say that a lot of those plans that are being drawn to account for that are meant to address the fact that we probably don't have the inventory that we need right now. | ||
| Is that fair to say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It would be accurate. | |
| We're challenging those assumptions every day, Senator. | ||
| Right, okay. | ||
| Admiral Poparo, I wanted to go back to you. | ||
| I think with the it's related as far as maintenance and availability and execution in the Indo-Pacific. | ||
| There was recently, I think, a big win for the U.S. and our allies with the tanker mission in South Korea, and then we're also seeing this, obviously, with submarine maintenance in Australia. | ||
| What, to you, what's the next big step? | ||
| Because you've articulated, I think rightly, that speed is going to matter, but the logistical hurdles in the vast expanse of the Pacific is, I think, it's hard for people to really actually put their mind around it until you put a map up and you just and you see just the expanse. | ||
| So, what's the next big step to address those logistical challenges for us? | ||
| Senator, first, enrich the kind of work that we're doing in our partner shipyards. | ||
| So, beyond the standard voyage repairs, is to do deeper, deeper repairs for our forward-deployed naval force is one step. | ||
| And then, if we can get into the space of production of that capability, of enhancing the Korean worldwide ship capacity, which is, I think, 23 percent of global total is built in Korea. | ||
| Japan is 15 percent of global shipbuilding. | ||
| The United States of America is 1 percent of shipbuilding. | ||
| This confers immediately to speed. | ||
| So, more maintenance being executed at these partner yards where it makes sense. | ||
| And then the next step, and I've heard a lot of talk about this from all throughout government, which is to avail ourselves of our partners' unique shipbuilding expertise, and then while we regain our own shipbuildes in the United States. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Senator Peters. | ||
| Thank you, gentlemen. | ||
| Thank you for being here today, and certainly thank you for your service to our country. | ||
| Admiral Poparo, as you know, Exercise Northern Strike in Michigan brings over 6,300 participants from all across the United States, as well as our international partners, to Michigan's National All-Domain Warfighting Center. | ||
| It's the largest training area east of the Mississippi. | ||
| In past briefings before this committee, you discussed the importance of Exercise Northern Strike to Indo-PACOM and particularly our ability to cooperate with our partners in the region. | ||
| Could you elaborate on your prior comments and discuss the importance of Northern Strike to supporting Indo-PACOM's mission, please? | ||
| Senator, without given more of the details of what's executed on Northern Strike, it is a key point of leverage. | ||
| And I have this even from my interlocutors who report that those personnel that return from Northern Strike are changed. | ||
| And so I treasure it, and I want more of it, and I want to expand it. | ||
| And I thank the state of Michigan for their diligence in it. | ||
| Well, that's great to hear, Admiral. | ||
| And happy to hear that. | ||
| And you will know that I'm actually co-sponsoring a proposal for the NDAA with Senator Slotkin to make Northern Strike permanent and funding permanent. | ||
| And I certainly look forward to working with members of this committee to do that. | ||
| And your words of encouragement, I hope, will help that process move along. | ||
| General Brunson, as you know, Russia is strengthening military ties with North Korea through a mutual defense pact, troop deployments to the Ukraine, and efforts to modernize North Korea's conventional forces. | ||
| Meanwhile, China is mounting a pressure campaign on South Korea through political interference, economic pressure, maritime disputes, cyber operations, targeting critical infrastructure, and the list goes on. | ||
| So, my question for you, sir, is how is USFK adapting its force posture or training to counter the hybrid nature of threats, including military, cyber, and disinformation that's now posed by both Russia and China in this region? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Senator. | |
| So, one of the things that I believe in the future, whether it's in competition, conflict, or crisis, we've got to be able to do is we've got to be able to protect, we've got to be able to sustain, and we've got to recognize that our posture, which entails our organization and a host of capabilities, has all got to be in the right place. | ||
| Part of doing that is by utilizing the assets at our disposable and the authorities inherent in other nations that come to join us on the peninsula. | ||
| So, to sort of keep this clean, if you will, we're able to leverage the special operations forces within the Republic of Korea. | ||
| We're able to leverage our own forces, whether that be a military information support team that operates inside embassy spaces or whether it's us using them along with our J-39 to ensure that we're not only hardening access to ports, but we're also testing all our lines. | ||
| As you know, Senator, we fight off of the Centrix K network. | ||
| It's important that we stay on that network with cyber defense teams and then encourage our partners to do the same thing, which is what we're doing right now to ensure that we limit access to our networks, protect our information properly, and look at those whole hosts of threats and how we might counter them on the peninsula. | ||
| Well, very good. | ||
| From your perspective, is there a risk that China and Russia could coordinate actions on the peninsula to distract or perhaps divide U.S. attention from other strategic challenges, including Taiwan or Ukraine? | ||
| How concerned are you about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm concerned about that from the perspective of how they might enlist the DPRK to aid in some form of subterfuge, nefarious activity, or anything else that might happen in the region to keep us from focusing wholeheartedly on the mission of Indo-PACOM in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| General Papara, Congress created the Pacific Deterrence Initiative in fiscal year 2021, National Defense Authorization Act, to strengthen our military capabilities and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. | ||
| The PDI has aimed to boost deterrence against China by investing in force posture, in logistics, missile defense, allied cooperation. | ||
| Sir, could you share some specific examples of how PDI funding has improved the U.S. force posture or our readiness and what steps can we take to enhance or fully operationalize PDI? | ||
| Senator, an example is the Joint Fires Network and our ability to move fast in order to execute the fires function among joint fires faster. | ||
| Our material improvements throughout the theater has enabled us to move faster. | ||
| And enhancing Pacific Deterrence Initiative, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is an advisor to the process. | ||
| The services choose which elements that they do is Pacific Deterrent Initiative. | ||
| And as the AOR is 53% of the world, almost any joint force element that is acquired is applicable to the Pacific. | ||
| So more agency for United States Indo-PACOM and able to close the seams throughout the services would enhance the already good effect of Pacific Deterrent Initiative. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you again. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Senator Sullivan. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Gentlemen, Admiral, General, I want to first begin by thanking you for your decades of service, both you. | ||
| You both do a great job. | ||
| I think sometimes we don't always say that. | ||
| Same with your staffs. | ||
| I have shown this chart to many, many, many folks here in the last few months. | ||
| This is the action that's happening in the North Pacific, Admiral, as you know, up in the Arctic. | ||
| Very, very aggressive Russian-Chinese actions into our ADAs, into our EEZ. | ||
| And the unprecedented element of this is the joint task force nature. | ||
| Russian-Chinese joint strategic bomber task forces last summer in our ADAs. | ||
| Every summer now, last three years, we have joint Russian-Chinese naval task forces in our EEZ, very aggressive, pushing out Alaska fishermen from their grounds. | ||
| So we need more, everybody's testified we need more infrastructure up there. | ||
| Admiral, you in a classified hearing said we need to reopen this very strategic port, Navy base, ADAC. | ||
| By the way, I did a little geography test. | ||
| It's over 1,000 miles west of Hawaii. | ||
| Most people have no clue about that. | ||
| It's also the gateway to the Arctic. | ||
| NORTHCOM Commander has testified we need to reopen ADAC. | ||
| The CNO has testified. | ||
| Why do you think ADAC is so important, Admiral? | ||
| Senator, it is a further western point, which would enable, which would enable, and along with Ericsson, in order to gain time and distance on any force capability that's looking to penetrate. | ||
| Russia's Pacific Fleet in Russia frequently takes that great circle route through Alaska. | ||
| And it would enable up to 10x the maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft coverage of that key and increasingly effective or increasingly contested space. | ||
| So you testified in a classified hearing you think that we should reopen that. | ||
| Just now that we're in an unclass hearing, you want to say that in an unclass setting too? | ||
| We should reopen ADAC and we should enhance the ability to operate out of Ericsson. | ||
| So thank you on that. | ||
| It has three piers, two 8,000-foot runways, a big hangar, 22 million gallons of fuel storage, one of the biggest fuel storage depots anywhere on the planet Earth. | ||
| The CNO just sent a team up there, Navy, State of Alaska, the Aleut Corporation, and the NORTHCOM commander just reached out to me two days ago saying they're going to have a final report completed in the next two weeks on a low, medium to high reopening scenario. | ||
| Can you work, commit to this committee to work with the NORTHCOM commander to get that report out in the next two weeks? | ||
| I commit. | ||
| And then you also have plans with regard to Northern Edge in terms of that really important exercise using ADAC. | ||
| Can you talk a little bit about that to the extent you can in an unclassified setting? | ||
| United States Air Force's concept of agile combat employment is the means by which we achieve more dynamism among the force. | ||
| And so the 11th Air Force is based in Alaska. | ||
| That is an assigned force to United States Indo-PACOM. | ||
| 11th Air Force with over 100 fifth generation fighters up there. | ||
| The preponderance of Indo-PACOM's fifth generation fighters is in Alaska. | ||
| And so we will be exercising the Agile Combat Employment Concept in this summer's Northern Edge exercise. | ||
| And ADAC's going to be part of that? | ||
| They will operate out of ADAC. | ||
| Great. | ||
| Let me mention one thing. | ||
| You know, when the President, after his election, he actually put a statement out saying we will ensure Alaska gets increased defense investments as we fully rebuild our military, especially as Russia and China are making menacing moves in the North Pacific. | ||
| So that's a quote from the Commander-in-Chief. | ||
| I know I've raised this with you, but it's a little bit of an issue, and just in terms of the urgency. | ||
| As I mentioned, the state of Alaska, the Aleut Corporation, that is the great Alaska Native Corporation that owns the land there, and the U.S. Navy were in ADAC. | ||
| A couple weeks ago doing a site assessment. | ||
| They're going to get that to us soon. | ||
| The Aleut Corporation, I've talked to them. | ||
| These are great patriotic Americans. | ||
| Alaska Natives serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country. | ||
| They would love to do a deal with the Navy, 99-year lease or something like that. | ||
| But you know who checks in with them once a year, Admiral, on ADAC about leasing ADAC? | ||
| I would guess it's not a friendly power. | ||
| It's not. | ||
| It's a Chinese shipping company that is certainly, in my view, a front company for the PLA. | ||
| So how embarrassing would it be to the Pentagon or the Navy? | ||
| These guys would never do it. | ||
| The Aleut Corporation is all patriotic. | ||
| But if some, let's assume they weren't, and somehow they signed a 100-year lease with a, quote, Chinese shipping company that always is out there looking at ADAC, you think that would be embarrassing for the U.S. Navy and Pentagon? | ||
| On substance, I think it would be bad because this is the modus operandi in the Belt and Road Initiative. | ||
| Imagine having the Belt and Road Initiative include Alaska. | ||
| One of the most strategic ports in the world. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| So we have a sense of urgency on this, and I look forward to working with you and the committee, Mr. Chairman, on this important issue. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I sense a sense of urgency. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Senator Womenthal. | ||
| Thanks, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Thank you both for your service. | ||
| Admiral, I want to ask you Some questions based on your extraordinarily impressive experience as a aviator as well as combatant commander. | ||
| We're building new aircraft carriers at huge expense. | ||
| Are you concerned about their vulnerability in light of the increased Chinese capabilities that you mentioned in your testimony? | ||
| AI, cyber, hypersonic missiles. | ||
| My guess is the everyday American sees an aircraft carrier as a huge sitting duck out there in the middle of the Pacific. | ||
| Are you concerned? | ||
| It's a moving duck with the ability to defend itself, unique among airfields as a mobile capability. | ||
| It is not uniquely vulnerable, but it is uniquely valuable. | ||
| And the PRC, seeing that value, have made it a focus because they have every other fixed land-based targeting complete. | ||
| Its value lay in the enormous variety and the enormous mass of fires. | ||
| And so it is not more uniquely vulnerable to the PRC. | ||
| It is more uniquely threatening to the PRC, which is why they're working so hard to strike it. | ||
| And I hear people say, well, in war games, we lose these aircraft carriers. | ||
| The war games must have a terrible Paparo simulator because I'm going to put them into harm's way judiciously and when they can strike. | ||
| And it will be my job to return those aircraft carriers to their home bases after they have done their duty. | ||
| So I am no more concerned about aircraft carriers than I am about destroyers, submarines, squadrons, wings, battalions, regiments. | ||
| But those fires are, the mass of fires that they bring are absolutely unique step-level change above any other particular single unit. | ||
| And you pay me to find ways to protect those aircraft carriers along with everything else that's in the joint force. | ||
| For every one air-to-surface missile, for every one maritime-oriented missile, there are eight others that are designed to strike land targets. | ||
| And so I note that. | ||
| This topic comes up frequently, but you have my opinion on it, is that instead of waxing into a culture of, well, we should give up on this capability. | ||
| No, we should do something about it. | ||
| And we are doing something about it. | ||
| And that is well included in my integrated priorities list that I've presented to the committee. | ||
| I think that answer is extremely compelling. | ||
| And thank you for it. | ||
| Turning to submarines and asking the same question in a different form. | ||
| Are submarines more vulnerable today than, say, three years ago, five years ago, because of those advanced detection and countermeasures that the Chinese or other adversaries could mount? | ||
| The PRC is growing in their capability on anti-submarine warfare, which I would expect them to do. | ||
| I respect them for doing it. | ||
| They are more vulnerable than they've been before, and that equally confers the responsibility for the command to take the steps that gain more margin. | ||
| I mean, the United States has a generational lead on submarine, on undersea warfare, and it remains critical, absolutely one of my highest priorities. | ||
| The introduction of quantum computing could well enhance the PRC's ability to flood the zone and to target submarines and to take that away. | ||
| They're pushing sensors into the sea to find them. | ||
| They're working very hard to find them, and they're working very hard to counter them. | ||
| I have an equal duty to protect those and to preserve the unusual, the outsized combat capability of those submarines. | ||
| And I take a similar view of refusing to quit on a unique capability. | ||
| And on that front, if I leave the space between the surface and the Carmen line, our adversaries are going to flood that space with capability and become even more effective against our submarine force. | ||
| Well, I thank you for both of those answers, which, again, I find very persuasive. | ||
| We can't quit on those weapons platforms. | ||
| We just need to make them more capable and stronger. | ||
| And I look forward to working with you on that mission. | ||
| Thank you very much, Admiral. | ||
| Thank you both for your service to our nation. | ||
| Thank you all. | ||
| Senator Slotkin, we'll be in just a moment. | ||
| Let me ask you, in a follow-up to Senator Blumenthal's line of questioning on submarines, we still need a lot more submarines, do we not? | ||
| Strongly agree. | ||
| We have to increase our production rates. | ||
| We have to invest in the submarine industrial base. | ||
| We have to increase the rates of the number of submarines. | ||
| And we have got to increase the availability of our submarines. | ||
| And you had a valuable exchange with Senator Banks about nuclear weapons. | ||
| And I understood you to say they are useful to us every day because of their deterrent effect. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| And also, just because we don't often hear about this, the doctrine of the United States for years has been not to rule out a first strike. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| I affirm that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Senator Slotkin. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Apologies for being late. | ||
| Welcome. | ||
| Glad to have you here. | ||
| I would just like to talk about strategy vis-a-vis China and Taiwan. | ||
| I'm sure you've gotten a lot of questions on this. | ||
| I'm trying as the co-chair of the bipartisan Taiwan Caucus to understand what our approach is given that we talk about the Chinese threat to Taiwan. | ||
| We talk about that we're in a period of vulnerability, right? | ||
| We want to make sure to be particularly watchful about what's going on in Chinese military intentions. | ||
| But at the same time, we're calling into question the commitments by allies and partners who we would need, I think, in any Taiwan contingency scenario, right? | ||
| I think even the Trump administration's year national interim national defense strategy talks about the importance of allies and partners. | ||
| And I've seen public reports from CSIS and others that say that actually if there was a war with China over Taiwan, if they tried to take over Taiwan, we could not manage that situation to satisfaction if allies and partners weren't with us in that fight. | ||
| Just we're so far away, the tyranny of geography, what we always talk about. | ||
| And I'm just concerned that our approach to allies and partners is threatening the very thing that I think we believe in in a bipartisan basis on this committee, that we need to have a muscular deterrent approach. | ||
| So can you tell me about the value of allies and partners to whatever you need to do in that region, understanding we're in an unclassified space and the dependence we have on other nations hosting our forces, allowing operations from their land. | ||
| Can you walk me through it, please? | ||
| Senator, good morning. | ||
| Allies and partners have an outsized effect. | ||
| It is the strategic center of gravity of the United States of America. | ||
| And by having access, basing, and overflight with our allied partners, we have the ability to achieve the principles of expanded maneuver. | ||
| And that is to have multiple attack vectors across multiple domains, where our adversary would potentially just be putting, would be focused onto one point. | ||
| There'd be threats coming from multiple points. | ||
| It would confer, it confers legitimacy on the force. | ||
| It confers greater access-basing overflight freedom of movement of the force. | ||
| And then to the extent that allies and partners are participating in the operation, it enhances your fires capability as well. | ||
| So all across those fronts, allies and partners are critical. | ||
| You do pay me to build a plan that does not fall on the loss of a partner. | ||
| But the cost, the bill comes in the form of people, capability, money, and time. | ||
| The more partners and allies that we have, the less it will be the bill across those four domains. | ||
| So I guess my confusion comes with my view, again, my view as a senator here, that this administration is implementing a strategy of cozing up to our adversaries and kicking our allies in the teeth. | ||
| And I say that as someone who's a border state and lives right next to Canada. | ||
| You know, we can go to a concert in Canada. | ||
| I mean, the idea that we need partners to make deterring China affordable and approachable, but that we're going to attack our allies, put significant tariffs on again, off again on these allies. | ||
| We're going to humiliate them in public, speak badly and speak ill of them, including countries we share intelligence with, is to me the most astrategic thing I have seen in a national security approach to China. | ||
| So for all someone claims they care about deterring a military threat from China, if your approach is, and thank you for your incredibly articulate description of how our allies and partners are the center of gravity, your words, I believe it to my core. | ||
| I cannot for the life of me say with a straight face that for all the huff and puff this administration puts on about China, that they actually give a crap about deterring them because then you wouldn't be alienating all the allies and partners who live around China. | ||
| And I'm watching the Chinese put in a base in Cambodia, right? | ||
| Sounds like a terrible vulnerability for us that other allies and partners are cozing up to China. | ||
| So I deeply appreciate the work that you do. | ||
| We depend on you. | ||
| We need you all to do your work well. | ||
| But for the life of me, I think whatever bravado this administration has about China, the play is actually being undermined every day by the way that they kick our allies in the teeth. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Senator Slotkin. | ||
| That concludes the hearing. | ||
| We appreciate the testimony, both in the closed session and in this open session. | ||
| And with that, this hearing is adjourned. | ||
|
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Coming up this morning, we'll talk with Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign and founder of the grassroots group Repairers of the Breach, about the role of the faith community in opposing elements of the Trump agenda that they say hurt poor Americans. | |
| And Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow and Constitutional Studies Director Ilya Shapiro on the administration's scrutiny of federally funded colleges and universities, museums, and public media. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern this morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| I look now at some of our live coverage coming up today on C-SPAN. | ||
| At 10:30 a.m. Eastern, the Afghanistan War Commission holds its second public hearing on Capitol Hill focused on early U.S. decisions in that conflict. | ||
| And at 1.10 in the afternoon, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff speaks ahead of a discussion on U.S. tech priorities and competition with China with a focus on AI, cryptocurrency, and critical mineral supply chains. | ||
| You can also watch live coverage on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-SPAN.org. |