U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

i 

24–675 2017

[H.A.S.C. No. 115–3] 

THE STATE OF THE WORLD: NATIONAL 

SECURITY THREATS AND CHALLENGES 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

TRENT KELLY, Mississippi 

MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin 

MATT GAETZ, Florida 

DON BACON, Nebraska 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CAROL SHEA–PORTER, New Hampshire 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

A. DONALD MCEACHIN, Virginia 

SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California 

ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland 

STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida 

RO KHANNA, California 

TOM O’HALLERAN, Arizona 

THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York 

(Vacancy) 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

KARI BINGEN, Professional Staff Member 

WILLIAM S. JOHNSON, Counsel 

BRITTON BURKETT, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2 

Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Chairman, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

McLaughlin, John E., Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Central Intelligence 

Agency ................................................................................................................... 8 

Petraeus, GEN David H., USA (Ret.), Chairman, KKR Global Institute, Former Commander of U.S. Central Command and Director of the Central 

Intelligence Agency .............................................................................................. 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

McLaughlin, John E. ........................................................................................ 68 

Petraeus, GEN David H. .................................................................................. 59 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 83 

Mr. O’Rourke .................................................................................................... 85 

Ms. Stefanik ...................................................................................................... 84 

(1) 

THE STATE OF THE WORLD: NATIONAL SECURITY 

THREATS AND CHALLENGES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, February 1, 2017. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ 

Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. 

I want to welcome our witnesses, members, and guests to the 

first hearing of the House Armed Services Committee [HASC] in 

the 115th Congress. It seems to me that a good place for us to start 

this year is to ask the question: What is the state of the world in 

which the U.S. military must operate and in which U.S. national 

security must be protected? 

Two years ago at a similar hearing, I quoted Dr. Henry Kissinger, who said the United States has not faced a more diverse 

and complex array of crises since the end of the Second World War. 

I am not sure that anything has been simplified or made easier in 

the last 2 years; in fact, I think the world has only grown more 

dangerous. 

What is indisputable is that our own military has grown smaller 

and has been damaged by budget cuts and other factors in recent 

years. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the new administration to turn that around. 

But, at the same time, we cannot just pour more money into a 

system that may have served us well during the Cold War, but 

does not have the agility necessary to meet the wide array of complex challenges we face today and into the future. 

This committee will continue to push defense reform related to 

organization, acquisition, authorities, and personnel, including the 

intellectual development of the outstanding men and women who 

serve our country in the Department of Defense. 

A challenge we all face, however, is sorting through which issues 

are more and less important. To quote Dr. Kissinger again, ‘‘because information is so accessible and communication instantaneous, there is a diminution of focus on its significance or even on 

the definition of what is significant.’’ 

It is certainly true that 24-hour news and the internet can make 

perspective hard to come by. That is the reason I am so grateful 

to have our two witnesses today, each of whom have had out-
2 

standing careers serving our country. They can help us to sort 

through the torrent of news and information and to identify the 

most important threats and the most important trends affecting 

the national security of the United States. 

Before turning to them, let me yield to the ranking member for 

any comments he would like to make. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with you; I think 

this hearing is very appropriate. And I welcome our two witnesses 

and their expertise, and I think this will be very informative. 

And I also agree with you that we face an incredibly complex 

threat environment. Between North Korea and Iran, Russia, China, 

obviously radical Islamist extremism in a variety of different forms 

throughout the globe, it is a complicated threat environment. 

As far as the size of the military is concerned, just the two issues 

that I want to raise that hopefully will be addressed as we deal 

with that, we did spend $619 billion, or I should say are spending 

$619 billion, for fiscal year 2017 on our defense budget, which is, 

again, far and away more than any other country in the world by 

a fairly comfortable margin. And, yes, the size of our military has 

come down, but let’s keep in mind that it has come down from a 

military that I believe at its peak had somewhere close to 200,000 

of our troops deployed in combat zones, primarily Afghanistan and 

Iraq, and that number is now significantly smaller. 

I will also agree with the chairman that we have to figure out 

how to spend the money smarter, and that really gets me to the 

points I want to raise. 

As we look forward and if we are looking at the budget and saying, oh, my goodness, we have this incredible threat environment, 

we need to spend more on defense, we have to find, you know, more 

troops, we have to find more ships, we have to find more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and on and on and on, 

we also have to look at the fact that we have a debt that I believe 

is now close to $20 trillion and a deficit that—I forget the exact 

number but I believe to this year was $580 billion. And, ironically, 

we were kind of happy about that because it was better than the 

$1 trillion that it had been a few years ago, but it is projected to 

go up. 

So if we look at all of this and even if we look at ways to reform 

and get more out of our money and we still say, look, we need more 

money for defense, we are going to have to look at the entire budget to figure out how to do that. And I will suggest that, you know, 

cutting taxes again by multi-trillion dollars is not going to make 

that easier. If we look at our country’s needs and say we need 

more, to then say we are going to bring in less revenue is a questionable approach. 

I think the second thing that is really important when we look 

at this complex threat environment and our finite amount of resources is the incredible importance of alliances. And that is what 

alarms me slightly about the ‘‘America first’’ approach. To a certain 

extent, of course, we are Americans; we are always going to put 
3 

ourselves first. But when we look at what we are going to have to 

do to combat that threat environment, we are going to need other 

countries. We are not going to be able to get there if we continuously offend them and push them away, and belittle alliances that 

have served us quite well since World War II. 

I mean, just to cite one example, on the Horn of Africa, we have 

been quite successful, relatively speaking, in dealing with Al 

Shabaab and the difficulties in Somalia and then the difficulties 

right across the sea in Yemen, and we have done that with a relatively low U.S. footprint. How have we done it? We partnered with 

Kenya and Ethiopia and Uganda and Rwanda and Djibouti. We 

have partnered with nations that were friendly to us and willing 

to help us. So I think partnerships are going to be enormously important. 

So I hope to hear from the witnesses today their thoughts on how 

we deal with the budget challenge. And I don’t want to hear we 

need 350 ships, we need, you know, 500—I want to hear how we 

are going to get there, how are we going to make that work financially and have a national security plan that fits into what is likely 

to be our budget. 

And, with that, I yield back and look forward to the testimony 

and the questions from the panel. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am pleased to welcome two witnesses who really don’t need an introduction. You have detailed bios that have 

been provided. 

I would simply say General David Petraeus spent 37 years in the 

Army, former commander of our coalition forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as commander of the U.S. Central Command, Director 

of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], and is now chairman of 

KKR Global Institute. 

Mr. John McLaughlin, career CIA analyst focusing first on Europe and Russia, former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the 

CIA, created the CIA’s Senior Analytic Service and founded the 

Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis, and now is at the 

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 

Again, to both of you, thank you for being here. Without objection, your full written statement will be made part of the record, 

and we would be pleased to hear any comments you would like to 

make at this point. 

General Petraeus. 

STATEMENT OF GEN DAVID H. PETRAEUS, USA (RET.), CHAIRMAN, KKR GLOBAL INSTITUTE, FORMER COMMANDER OF 

U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND AND DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL 

INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

General PETRAEUS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Ranking Member Smith, members of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege to be with the HASC 

once again and to be here with my friend John McLaughlin, a 

former Deputy Director of the CIA, as was mentioned, and someone 

whose counsel I sought on numerous occasions during my time in 

government and beyond. 

This morning, in fact, we will try to complement each other’s 

opening statements. I will highlight the increasingly complex and 
4 

serious threats—and I agree with Dr. Kissinger’s assessment, by 

the way—those threats to the international order that has stood us 

in reasonably good stead since the end of World War II. And John 

will provide a more detailed accounting of the specific threats we 

face. And we will both be ready to address questions on the debilitating effects on our defense capabilities of sequestration, the failure to pass defense budgets in a timely manner, and excess basing. 

In thinking about the topic of today’s hearing, the state of the 

world, I was reminded of Winston Churchill’s famous adage, the 

farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. 

So, before turning to where we are in the world today, I think it 

would be useful to consider where we have been and how we got 

to where we are now. 

A little more than a century ago, at the dawn of the 20th century, Americans had reason to be hopeful. The great powers were 

at peace, economic interdependence among nations was increasing, 

miraculous new technologies were appearing at dizzying speed. 

Yet this optimistic vision would soon fall to pieces. Instead, the 

first half of the 20th century would prove to be the bloodiest, most 

devastating period in human history, with the two most destructive 

wars in history, the worst economic collapse in history, and the 

near takeover of the planet by an alliance of dictatorships responsible for the worst crimes against humanity in history. 

The United States came of age as a world power amidst the rubble left by this succession of calamities and resolved, in the wake 

of 1945, to try to prevent them from ever happening again. To keep 

the peace, we led an effort to establish a system of global alliances 

and security commitments underwritten by U.S. military power 

and the deployment of our forces to bases in Europe and Asia. 

To create a foundation for prosperity, we put in place an open, 

free, and rules-based international economic order intended to safeguard against the spiral of protectionism that would produce the 

impoverishment and radicalization of the 1930s. And to protect 

freedom here at home, we adopted a foreign policy that sought to 

protect and, where possible, promote freedom abroad, along with 

human rights and rule of law. 

These were the bipartisan foundations for the international order 

that emerged after World War II. They were the product of American leadership, American power, and American values. And, while 

imperfect, on balance, they succeeded. 

The extent of that success can be seen when we compare the first 

half of the 20th century with the second half of that century, a period that witnessed the longest stretch without a great power war 

in centuries, the most dramatic expansion of human prosperity in 

history, and the spread of democracy to every inhabited continent 

on the planet. 

To borrow a phrase from the historian Robert Kagan, this is the 

world that America made. It is also the world that I fear is now 

in danger of being unmade. 

The international order that America created is now under unprecedented threat from multiple directions, including by increasingly capable revisionist powers—that is, countries dissatisfied 

with the status quo—by Islamic extremist organizations that want 
5 

to destroy our way of life, and by technologies and tactics that are 

reducing America’s capacity to defend ourselves and our interests. 

As important as those various threats are, however, the world 

order has also been undermined by something perhaps even more 

pernicious: a loss of self-confidence, resolve, and strategic clarity on 

America’s part about our vital interest in preserving and protecting 

the system we sacrificed so much to bring into being and have sacrificed so much to preserve. 

The major challenge to the U.S.-led international order, the rise 

of a set of revisionist powers, is a development Americans have recognized but been somewhat reluctant to confront. Since the end of 

the Cold War, our hopeful assumption has been that mutual selfinterest could provide a pathway for deepening partnership among 

the major powers while globalization would gradually liberalize the 

internal policies of all countries. 

What we have seen instead, unfortunately, is that, as certain 

countries have grown more powerful, so too has their desire to 

challenge at least some elements of the status quo, while domestically their authoritarianism has grown both more entrenched and 

yet also more insecure. 

In particular, we see several countries, including Iran, Russia, 

and China, now working to establish a kind of sphere of influence 

over their respective near-abroads, which include areas of vital 

strategic importance to the U.S. and where we have allies and 

partners to whom we are bound by shared interests and values. 

To be sure, each of the revisionist powers requires a very different approach on America’s part. China, for example, is not just 

a rising great power and strategic competitor; it is also our number-one trading partner, and our relationship with it is the most 

important relationship in the world. 

In fact, in each case, our relationship inevitably combines some 

aspects of intensifying rivalry with other aspects of shared interest, 

including the need to develop some concept of mutual restraint and 

respect. The challenge for the U.S. is to find the often elusive equilibrium, something that is likely to occur only if we combine hardheaded diplomacy with an equally hardheaded reinvestment in 

shoring up what has become a deteriorating balance of power. 

A very different, far more radical revisionist force threatening 

the international order is Islamic extremism, the ideology that animates the Islamic State and Al Qaeda and their affiliates. The 

greatest weakness of Islamic extremism is also its greatest 

strength, which is its protean ability to exist and indeed thrive 

without inhabiting a conventional nation-state. What it lacks in 

traditional power terms, it compensates for in conviction, resilience, 

resourcefulness, and ferocity. And in its hydra-like qualities, it is 

unlike any adversary we have faced before. 

What is still missing, in many cases, is the truly comprehensive 

approach needed to combat these extremists, though, to be fair, 

there has been progress in recent years in developing an approach 

that enables local partners and allows us to achieve a sustainable 

strategy, with sustainability being measured in blood and treasure 

and sustainability being an essential quality given the likely duration of the struggle in which we are engaged, which I have characterized as generational in nature. 
6 

The defeat of Islamic extremist groups does, of course, require a 

vital military component. But even if we succeed militarily in metaphorically putting a stake through the heart of Daesh elements in 

Iraq and Syria, as I believe we will, that success will be fleeting 

unless the underlying conflicts in those countries and the greater 

Middle East that enabled the ISIL’s [Islamic State of Iraq and the 

Levant’s] rise are addressed and resolved. 

We must also recognize that long-term success in this conflict requires that the ideology of Islamic extremists is itself discredited. 

And contending with the ideological caliphate in cyberspace may 

well prove more challenging than taking away the rest of what is 

now a shrinking physical caliphate on the ground in Iraq and 

Syria. 

Here I should note that our most important ally in this war is 

the overwhelming majority of Muslims who reject Al Qaeda, Daesh, 

and their fanatical, barbaric worldview. Indeed, it is millions of 

Muslims who are fighting and dying in the greatest numbers on 

the front lines of this war, including Arab and Kurdish fighters 

bravely battling ISIL in Mosul, Gulf Arab forces taking the fight 

to AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] in Yemen, Afghans 

courageously struggling against a resurgent Taliban and a nascent 

Islamic State affiliate, Somali forces confronting Al Shabaab, and 

the Libyan elements that recently drove another Islamic State entity from the enclave it had seized on the North African coast. 

We must also remember that Islamic extremists want to portray 

this fight as a clash of civilizations, with America at war against 

Islam. We must not let them do that. Indeed, we must be very sensitive to actions that might give them ammunition in such an effort. 

Compounding the danger posed by revisionist forces are technologies that are eroding America’s conventional military edge. In 

this respect, the wars of the post-9/11 period were, in some respects, a preview of the future. While the U.S. deployed forces into 

Iraq and Afghanistan that were superbly constructed for rapid, decisive operations of the kind that we waged during the Gulf war 

in 1991, our adversaries responded with strategies that for a fraction of the cost nullified many of our advantages. 

What Islamic extremists demonstrated through insurgency and 

terrorism, revisionist powers like Russia, China, and Iran promise 

to take to a whole new level of sophistication and with much more 

sophisticated weaponry as well. 

Among the fast-developing tools in their arsenals are anti-access 

area-denial weapons that will complicate our ability to project 

power into vital regions and uphold our security commitments; increasingly capable cyber weapons for employment alone in attacks 

on infrastructure or in influence campaigns or in support of conventional and unconventional force operations, including so-called 

hybrid warfare; a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons and 

threats to U.S. primacy in space, a vital sanctuary for U.S. military 

power that is increasingly contested. These are all serious threats, 

and John will enumerate them further in his opening statement. 

Despite these challenges, I believe America is in a commanding 

position to sustain and indeed bolster the international order that 

has served us and, paradoxically, some of those seeking to change 
7 

it as well. We have an extraordinary network of partners who are 

stakeholders in the current order and can be mobilized far more effectively for its defense. Our economy remains the largest in the 

world and an engine of unsurpassed innovation. And as a result of 

America’s values, political pluralism, rule of law, our free and open 

society, we can recruit the best and brightest from every corner of 

the planet, a strategic advantage that none of our competitors can 

match. 

The paradox of the moment is that, just as the threats to the 

world order we created have grown ever more apparent, American 

resolve about its defense has become somewhat ambivalent. To be 

clear, America cannot do everything everywhere. Indeed, no one 

understands that better than the individual who was privileged to 

command the surge in Iraq and the surge in Afghanistan. But 

when the most egregious violations of the most basic principles of 

the international order we helped shape are tolerated or excused, 

that lack of action undermines the entire system and is an invitation to further challenges. 

Americans should not take the current international order for 

granted. It did not will itself into existence. We created it. Likewise, it is not naturally self-sustaining. We have sustained it. If we 

stop doing so, it will fray and eventually collapse. 

This is precisely what some of our adversaries seek to encourage. 

President Putin, for example, understands that while conventional 

aggression may occasionally enable Russia to grab a bit of land on 

its periphery, the real center of gravity is the political will of the 

major democratic powers to defend Euro-Atlantic institutions like 

NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and the EU [European 

Union]. That is why Russia is tenaciously working to sow doubt 

about the legitimacy of these institutions and our entire democratic 

way of life. 

Perhaps because Russian civilization has a foot in the West, Russia as a great power has always been well-positioned, in a way that 

China and Iran are not, to wage ideological warfare that eats at 

the Euro-Atlantic world from within. 

In this respect, Mr. Chairman, I would argue that repulsing this 

challenge is as much a test of America’s faith in our best traditions 

and values as it is of our military strength, though our military 

strength obviously is a crucial component of our national power 

and does need shoring up, as you and your Senate counterpart 

have explained so clearly. 

I began my remarks this morning by evoking a dark time in the 

history of mankind. Yet it was only at our darkest hour in the 

1940s that we summoned the imagination and determination to 

build the world order of which all of us here today have been many 

lucky heirs. Perhaps it is in the nature of humanity that only when 

we come to grasp fully how bad things could be were we capable 

of galvanizing ourselves to set them right. 

That is also the great responsibility and equally great opportunity that those in positions of power have before them now: to 

conjure out of the accelerating crises and deepening challenges of 

the moment a world that is better than the one we inherited. And 

it is my hope that we will demonstrate the will and commit the resources needed to do just that. 
8 

Mr. Chairman, I have typically ended my testimony before the 

House and Senate Armed Services Committees in the past by 

thanking the committee members for their steadfast support of our 

men and women in uniform, particularly during the post-9/11 period. I end my statement this morning the same way, repeating the 

gratitude that those in uniform felt during the height of our engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan for the committee’s extraordinary support for so many critical initiatives on and off the battlefield, even when some members questioned the policies we were 

executing. 

I can assure you that this committee’s unwavering support of 

those serving our Nation in uniform means a great deal to those 

on the battlefield and to those supporting them. And it is with 

those great Americans in mind that I have offered my thoughts 

here this morning. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of General Petraeus can be found in the 

Appendix on page 59.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. McLaughlin. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN E. McLAUGHLIN, JOHNS HOPKINS 

SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, FORMER 

DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Smith, 

members of the committee, thanks so much for the opportunity to 

testify to this great committee. And thanks so much for pairing me 

with my friend, General David Petraeus, who has done so much at 

home and abroad to advance American interests and keep our Nation secure. 

Your ambitious title, ‘‘The State of the World,’’ is enough to make 

any briefer a little humble. You have a lengthy, detailed written 

statement from me, so I am going to summarize it quickly so we 

can get to your questions. 

You know, as General Petraeus points out, the world is going 

through a major transition toward one that more closely resembles 

the great power politics, the balance-of-power period that predates 

the Cold War. Meanwhile, the norms that make up the global 

order, as General Petraeus has said, are under challenge, as Russia, China, and others test the sanctity of borders, the rules governing the maritime and air domains. And without consensus on 

rules, the international order, the international system, slips into 

chaos. This is the story of the 20th century. 

My testimony does two things to elaborate on this. First, I sketch 

some of the broad global trends that will condition everything else 

in coming years. And then I am going to look at some specific 

issues, arraying them along a spectrum from those that are urgent 

to those that are longer range or emerging. 

First, global trends, big things that affect everything else. First, 

we are witnessing a diffusion of power among nations. The U.S. 

will remain, I am convinced, the single most influential country in 

the world, but, as General Petraeus suggested, success for us will 

center on our ability to manage alliances and build coalitions. 
9 

Second, demographic trends over the next couple decades will 

contribute to societal stresses and instability. By 2035, world population will hit 8.3 billion, but less than 3 percent of this growth is 

going to occur in the developed world. So that means that demand 

for services will be rising precisely in those parts of the world least 

able to handle that. 

Third, we are seeing a growing discontent with governance almost everywhere: our own election; populist movements in Europe; 

Brexit in the U.K. [United Kingdom]; years ago the Arab Spring, 

where those pressures are still just under the surface. 

And, fourth and finally, a technology revolution greater in speed 

and scope than anything we have experienced in the 20th century 

or the 21st century so far. Last century, it was physics and engineering; this century, it is information technology, biotechnology, 

nanotechnology, robotics, and all of these jammed together in a 

continuously inventive way, and not always by the United States. 

One symptom is the devolution of power to individuals, asymmetric power you might say—social media, for example. And they 

are free to use this for good or evil in measures beyond anything 

we have experienced in the past. 

So now let’s turn to some specific issues and start with the urgent. Now, ‘‘urgent’’ for me means those that threaten the lives of 

Americans and our closest allies or the physical security of the 

United States. Those are the things that are urgent on an immediate and ongoing basis. So that takes me to things like terrorism, 

nuclear weapons, cyber. 

On terrorism, ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] is still a very 

serious threat, but I think it is weaker on four of the five measures 

that I mentioned the last time I testified to this committee about 

a year ago. It has less territory, less money, a slowing recruitment 

pipeline, and a less attractive narrative. But it is still strong on the 

final measure that I mentioned: access to us, to targets. 

By virtue of having gathered so many more foreign fighters from 

the West, close to 7,000 at its height, its jihadists can filter back 

into Western societies and neighboring societies, including Russia. 

Nineteen hundred have reportedly already returned to Europe, 

where, based on my experience with those security services, they 

have to be stretched to the limit. 

Moreover, ISIS has a more robust international network than Al 

Qaeda ever had and, if driven out of Syria and Iraq, can shelter 

and plot in dozens of countries around the world. 

Al Qaeda, meanwhile, is not out of business. It is working to exploit ISIS’s weakening position in Syria and Iraq. And its Yemen 

branch, responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris and for 

several attempts against the U.S. homeland, is using the civil war 

there in Syria to seize additional territory and sink deeper roots. 

On the nuclear front, the most urgent issue facing us, as you 

have already referred to, is North Korea. They have been working 

on an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] since the mid-1990s. 

They achieved staged separation at altitude in 1998. They have 

since launched 2 satellites with multistage rockets, they have carried out 5 nuclear tests, and reportedly have between 12 and 20 

nuclear weapons, with the potential to go to about 100 in the next 

5 years. The bottom line here: The odds are high that they will get 
10 

to a nuclear ICBM capability during this administration and possibly even during the current Congress. 

On cyber, the Russian hacking of our election, the reported Chinese steal of OPM [Office of Personnel Management] data, illustrate our vulnerability. We can tighten our defenses, of course, but 

we need something more, possibly some international agreements 

on what norms govern this domain on which the entire world depends. Some work is underway on that in the G20 [Group of Twenty], but it is very early. 

Now, in today’s world, everything can be seen as urgent, but let’s 

call this next batch of issues ongoing and vitally important. And I 

am going to mention four. 

First, the Middle East. All of its problems converge in Syria. Syria’s importance is in the long list of things that will be affected by 

how it ends. Consider them: the durability of ISIS; U.S. standing 

in the region; Russia’s influence there; Iran’s reach beyond its borders; Turkey’s clout in the region; how Turkey balances its NATO 

commitments with its budding partnership with Russia; the flow of 

migrants to Europe, where perceptions of overload played into the 

U.K.’s Brexit decision and have increased centrifugal pressures 

within the European Union. 

Second, Europe itself, contending simultaneously with at least 

four destabilizing trends. We used to take Europe for granted. No 

more. The volatility of the euro, the migration crisis, the centrifugal forces strengthened by Brexit, the challenges to existing 

borders flowing from Russians’ actions in the east—this at the very 

center of America’s traditional and most reliable alliance partnership. 

Third, China is moving aggressively to check U.S. influence and 

dominate Asia. China’s economic growth, on the one hand, is at a 

25-year low, but President Xi has not stopped from fielding potentially transformational initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank most of our allies have joined and the New Silk 

Road trade and transportation network connecting China with the 

Middle East and Europe. Moreover, he is moving into a vacuum 

created by our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership by 

pushing a competing initiative that will pull in 16 of the world’s 

fastest-growing economies, comprising about one-half of the world’s 

population. 

Here is my point: Our Asian allies, whose trade is already heavily oriented—30 percent for Australia, for example—are deeply 

worried they will be pulled into China’s economic orbit if the U.S. 

does not stay heavily engaged. 

Fourth, regarding Russia, I came away from a recent trip there, 

in which I also stopped in Ukraine and Latvia, impressed with the 

hostility of Russians’ narrative and Putin’s domination of the 

media and the opposition. Meanwhile, there is no let-up of Russian 

pressure on Ukraine; you can see it in The Washington Post this 

morning. But Putin will still be maneuvering to get Western sanctions lifted. 

Now, let me say, there is no harm in seeking an improved relationship with Russia. I remember times when we had such a relationship. But in any bargaining we need to know our own interests 

clearly and calculate them as dispassionately, as coldly, as clini-
11 

cally as Putin will calculate his. Historically, when Russia encounters weakness or hesitation, it demands more. Then it blames the 

opponent for escalation when the opponent resists. Then it calls for 

discussions, which it uses to consolidate its gains. So deals with 

Russia will not come easily. 

Another batch of issues are those that will be emerging or evolving in days ahead. Let me mention just two, one fairly obvious, the 

other less so. 

First, the Iran nuclear deal. As a compromise, it is by definition 

not perfect, but Iran is giving up 98 percent of its enriched stockpile of uranium and mothballing about 13,000 centrifuges—you 

know these things—and all of this buys time. But we will have to 

stay alert for cheating and continuously gauge what is in store 

when the provisions expire in 10 or 15 years. 

So far, the U.N. [United Nations] organizations responsible for 

monitoring all of this are not reporting major violations. You may 

have seen reports of an Iran missile test in the last several days— 

technically not a violation under the nuclear agreement. And the 

U.N. resolution on this says it can be a violation if there is a nuclear connection to it. So far, that is not established. 

Second, it is going to be important to keep track of an ongoing 

revolution in the international energy market. This is the one that 

is a little less obvious. Oil has been a key driver of geopolitics for 

years and has determined the policies and, I would say, the very 

character of many countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, to an extent Iran. But a combination of fracking here in the 

United States, conservation, battery technology, declining Chinese 

demand, have created an oversupply and pushed crude oil prices 

downward. 

Now, OPEC [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] 

is trying the old gambit of jacking prices up by cutting supply, but 

I doubt this will work as it once did. And this will introduce 

stresses into societies overly dependent on oil revenue. 

The U.S. is insulated from this, because North America is heading for self-sufficiency in energy—natural gas—over the next couple 

decades, with the U.S. becoming a net exporter of oil. This could 

tempt us to pull back from engagement in areas we have traditionally depended on for oil, but this would be a mistake. 

Let me conclude these remarks by returning to the humility I expressed at the beginning of this testimony. I would say we will 

probably be surprised in coming months by something neither General Petraeus nor I have mentioned. That is almost always the 

case. And it is the best argument for maintaining high agility in 

our military, diplomatic, and intelligence agencies. 

So I want to thank you once again for the invitation to testify 

in this committee. It is always a pleasure. And I think we are 

ready to engage with your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McLaughlin can be found in the 

Appendix on page 68.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you, sir. 

Thank you both. I think you all have helped us frame our work 

for the year very, very well, and I am grateful for your comments 

and testimony. 
12 

My opinion is we have taken for granted the world America 

made, and we have not helped the American people understand 

how we Americans benefit from the world we have made. And I 

want to ask a little more about that. 

As you all well know, the National Intelligence Council publishes 

an unclassified document every 4 years called ‘‘Global Trends’’ 

where they summarize a lot of the things that we have been talking about. On the first page of the version that came out January 

2017, it says, ‘‘For better and worse, the emerging global landscape 

is drawing to a close an era of American dominance following the 

cold war. So, too, perhaps, is the rules-based international order 

that emerged after World War II.’’ 

To me, that has a tone of inevitability about it. And that is my 

question. Is it inevitable that our relative power in the world is declining, that the world America has made since the end of World 

War II is no longer going to be there, or do we have some say in 

it? Is it inevitable, or does it depend on the choices we make, I 

guess? 

General. 

General PETRAEUS. Well, first of all, I think that, certainly, further evolution is inevitable. China is going to continue to grow. Interestingly, in dollar terms, in each of the last couple of years, the 

U.S. has grown more in GDP [gross domestic product]. So, again, 

it is not necessarily that coming soon to a theater near us is the 

point where China, in dollar terms—nominal, not purchasing 

power parity. 

Nonetheless, eventually, a country of 1.3 billion people which is 

rapidly modernizing and has benefited more from the existing system than any other country has during that time or in history— 

because no other country has ever in history had two decades of 

double-digit GDP growth less maybe 1 year in there. 

So, clearly, there is going to be a relative rise—and, relatively 

speaking, U.S. domination of the world, as we enjoyed for a period 

after the end of the Cold War, the fall of the wall, and Desert 

Storm—our relative dominance is obviously going to be diminished. 

The question, I think, is how does this evolve. And that is where 

we have considerable influence. How do we have a relationship 

with China that is based on mutual respect and so forth, the foundation of which ultimately is the U.S. economy and then our military, diplomatic, and other instruments of power? And how do we 

accommodate, how do we work with China to accommodate its 

understandable desires so that we can help shape this world together rather than clash? 

You know, there is a book coming out, in fact, by a professor at 

Harvard, Graham Allison, the dean of the Belfer Center, titled 

‘‘The Thucydides Trap.’’ And it chronicles the cases in history 

where there is a great power and then there is a rising power and 

then, I don’t know, 80 percent of the time, they clash. Not always, 

but in many cases they do. And this goes back to Thucydides 

chronicling the Peloponnesian War, where you have Sparta and 

Athens is rising and of course they ultimately clash. 

Can we prevent that? Is there the kind of strategic relationship 

that can be established between our two countries that can avoid 

that kind of situation, while still preserving those elements of the 
13 

international structure, the order, the norms, and so forth that 

have stood us in very good stead, have helped our allies and partners flourish, despite all of the challenges, despite all of the imperfections, and enable the rise of China, our number-one trading 

partner as well as arguably our biggest strategic competitor, in a 

way that, again, avoids the kinds of clashes that Graham Allison 

chronicles in this book that is about to come out? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. If I can add to that, Mr. Chairman. I don’t 

think it is inevitable that we are moving into a time when our 

power will be somehow dramatically diminished. 

We are facing more competitors, but let’s think about power for 

a minute. Power, typically, on the nation-state level, consists of two 

big things: the natural things you can’t affect, like geography and 

possession of natural resources, but then there are the things you 

can affect, like your culture, your expenditure on military matters, 

your population policies, your immigration policies, your demography. Those are things you can affect. On all of the things that 

you can affect, I think the United States remains the preeminent 

power in the world. 

Just anecdotally, for example, our culture remains more appealing to the rest of the world than any other major nation-state. 

Anecdotally, 70 percent of the box office receipts for Hollywood 

movies are overseas, and a fair number of them are in Russia and 

China, for example. 

So I think we are going through another one of those periods 

like, when Sputnik launched in 1957, we thought we were losing 

the space race, but we didn’t. When we struggled in Vietnam, we 

thought that our military power was somehow neutralized. It 

wasn’t. In the 1980s, when Japan was surging, Japan, Inc., was 

seen as taking over the world. It didn’t. 

Today, though, it is a little different. And China is a rising 

power, not a declining one as the Soviet Union was. It has many 

more people than Japan has. It is an innovative society. So it is a 

competitor. We are facing more competition than we have had in 

the past. 

So that is how I see it. You know, we are still the most influential country in the world, but the problems we are dealing with are 

almost always problems we can’t solve on our own, whether it is 

terrorism, proliferation of weapons, the Syria problem, Iran. Almost everything requires—and the examples that were given by 

Mr. Smith, for example, about Africa. Almost every problem we are 

dealing with requires us to be in partnership with someone else. 

The other thing I would mention is—and I will stop in a second, 

but we have gone through stages here. The Cold War was bipolar. 

Seventeen years after the Cold War, from 1991 to 2008, we didn’t 

have to check with many other people in the world about what we 

wanted to do. China was still rising; Russia was in chaos. From 

2008 forward, I think there is some declining confidence in the 

world in our model and more competition. Russia has its act together now; it did not back then. China is a rising power. 

So a competitive world. We are still number one, but we have to 

have the ability to work well with others in order to lead. And 

American leadership, to me, is still, you know, preferable to anyone 
14 

else taking that role. We are the only ones who lead with our own 

interests in mind and the interests of others as well. 

So it is not inevitable. It is challenging. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Just two areas of questioning. 

One, General Petraeus, you mentioned how the Muslims are our 

greatest allies. And I think, you know, one of two things that is always troubling to me about the new—— 

General PETRAEUS. In the fight against Islamic extremism. 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah. 

General PETRAEUS. Right. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. And I think the thing that is most troubling to 

me, as I see the new administration take shape—and I have heard 

this from some of my conservative friends, not in Congress directly, 

but constituents and others complaining about how we are not 

standing up enough to violent Islamist extremism. And, most notably, Mr. Bannon has expressed this opinion. And from his seat on 

the National Security Council and from his proximity to the President, his opinion is going to be rather important. 

And I hadn’t really seen it clearly until I saw a quote from him 

that basically said it is their view that Islam is not a religion, it 

is an authoritarian viewpoint based on subjugation, and that that 

is what—and they sort of lumped all Muslims together in that 

viewpoint. 

And, as you might imagine, I find that rather troubling. Because 

if the U.S. viewpoint is, you know, Islam in and of itself is a threat, 

then we are in for the very clash of civilizations that I personally 

would like to avoid, I would think most people would want to avoid. 

You know, you have spoken with President Trump and spoken 

with others. I will also add that I have not seen a similar precise 

quote from our national security adviser, General Flynn, but I 

know he feels similarly, based on some of the comments he has 

made. 

If we are really facing an executive branch that says Islam is the 

enemy, period, not ISIS, not Al Qaeda, not Al Shabaab, not the violent extremist groups, but the religion itself, isn’t that, A, a big 

problem? And, B, how can we go about convincing the folks who 

are in power not to view it that way? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, first of all, look, I am not necessarily 

an expert on theology. I have certainly spent a lot of time in the 

Muslim world, and there certainly are various sects. And they do 

range, in some cases, from quite secular, if you will, to certainly 

much more fundamental. 

Islam is not, by definition, I don’t think, our enemy. Radical or 

extremist versions of Islam are what we are combating and, frankly, what the Islamic world is combating. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

General PETRAEUS. Again, this is not actually a clash between 

civilizations as much as it is a clash within a civilization. And this 

is an existential struggle for Muslim countries around the world. 

The biggest target of all for Islamic extremism is the Kingdom of 
15 

Saudi Arabia because that is where you have—led by the Keeper 

of the Two Holy Mosques. So, again—— 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah, but those groups have killed more Muslims 

than anybody else. 

General PETRAEUS. Yes. The ongoing wars have indeed done just 

that. And, again, that is why I emphasized the importance of our 

Islamic country partners and the importance of Muslims, who right 

now, indeed, are on the front lines. 

And you can ask whether we moved quickly enough, whether we 

were hesitant, or whether we didn’t push rapidly enough, and I 

would argue that—you have heard me actually argue that we 

should have taken action sooner in a number of cases. But the fact 

is we have evolved to an approach, a strategy, that in Iraq has indeed rolled back the Islamic State and will ultimately clear the Islamic State from Mosul, where I spent a year, of course, as the 

commander of the 101st Airborne Division, and indeed ultimately 

clear it from the rest of Iraq. 

The question, then, is, actually: Can the Muslims of that country 

and the other minority groups, can they develop governance that 

is sufficiently inclusive that you avoid the creation of fertile fields 

for the planting of the seeds of extremism and ISIS 3.0? And that 

is indeed the big question that is there, because you still have to 

have all of the elements that we had present during the surge in 

Iraq. 

Although, what is heartening is that the frontline fighting, the 

politics, the reconciliation, the restoration of basic services, reconstruction, all the rest of this is being done by our partners, as we 

are enabling them very, very impressively with the assets, frankly, 

that this committee and your Senate counterpart and Appropriations Committees enabled our military to have. We did not have 

this armada of unmanned aerial vehicles, of all the precision weapons systems, the industrial-strength ability to fuse intelligence 

even less than a decade ago. And we do appreciate that very much. 

Mr. SMITH. I want to ask a quick question about Russia. But I 

think that is why it is really, really important, I mean, the whole 

controversy over the last few days over the, you know, change in 

our refugee immigrant status. I mean, you can drill down into the 

weeds of it and say, well, why shouldn’t we be more careful about 

who we let into the country, and that is fine. But what I hope people understand is the language around it, you know, the portion of 

it that said, well, we will give preference to Christians over Muslims, the degree to which it was called a, quote, ‘‘Muslim ban,’’ 

which did come out of some people’s mouths, the way we do that 

is deeply damaging to our effort to rely on those allies in the Muslim world that we need to defeat this extremism. 

On Russia, I want to get your viewpoint, both of your viewpoints, 

on just one quick thing. And I think you described very well, you 

know, the way the Russians do things, Mr. McLaughlin. I think 

that is what they are doing in Syria right now, is, you know, they 

are negotiating, and then they are breaking the negotiations, gaining ground. 

And I think anyone who thinks that, you know, well, Russia is 

just—you know, they view Assad as a problem, as well, and eventually they are going to need to have him move on because Assad is 
16 

not going to need them—no, I think the Russians have made a 

friend for life in Bashar Assad in basically saving his bacon, and 

that this is the Russian viewpoint, that Putin is basically starting—I don’t know if you can call it a new Cold War, but it is based 

more on fascism than communism. But he is basically trying to undermine liberal democracies anyplace he can and, at the same 

time, prop up authoritarian dictatorships. 

And there are a bunch of reasons for it. I think, one, he honestly 

believes that is the best way to run a country. Two, obviously, that 

is the way he is running Russia, and he does not want the people 

of Russia to start thinking that liberal democracy is a good idea. 

But I see this—and, you know, I am not one for conspiracy theories or, you know, grand paranoia, but I see Putin as having a very 

clear plan to push fascist authoritarian governments wherever he 

can and to undermine liberal democracies, like ours or Ukraine, 

wherever. 

Am I overstating the case? Is there more room to work with Russia on this? Or is he really that scheming about how he is trying 

to reshape the world? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I don’t think you are overstating the case by 

much, if at all. We don’t know whether he is a strategic genius or 

a tactician who exploits things smartly and luckily. We don’t know 

that. But with our own eyes we can see what he is doing. 

I think there are a lot of things involved here. I came away from 

my time in Russia about 6 weeks ago, where I met with people 

from the Kremlin and the foreign ministry, with a couple of impressions that relate to the question you asked. 

If you look at the first period of Putin’s rule, from roughly 1999 

through roughly 2008 or so, he was lucky in that time because oil 

prices were real high, and the Russian economy is fundamentally 

based on exporting natural resources. 

Oil prices have been diving, he has been under sanctions, and he 

has now shifted his emphasis, to maintain the support of the Russian people, to external adventures, which are quite popular in 

Russia. Let me emphasize that. His popularity is high. Russians 

believe what he says. He has total control of the media. The media 

is, I would say, sycophantic with regard to Putin, with one or two 

tiny exceptions. 

So, I mean, the irony here is that he needs us as an enemy in 

order to maintain his popularity. And it is working for him. 

Now, on your broader point about what he is trying to achieve, 

yeah, I think he has two or three major aims here. First is to consolidate and keep his control and power in Russia, and he is doing 

that quite effectively. Two, it is to ensure Russia’s freedom of action in the neighboring sphere around him. 

When you talk to someone from the Kremlin and you say, ‘‘Why 

are you harassing NATO members like the Baltics?’’, their perspective, their narrative is, ‘‘Why did you put NATO on our border?’’ 

So they have a narrative here that is deeply felt. And we disagree, 

but I am just making the point that that is how they think. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. I am sorry. We will have to leave it at 

that. I have taken more time than I should. I will let other members get questions in. 

Thank you. I yield back. 
17 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, General and Director, for being here today. 

And, General Petraeus, I want to particularly thank you for 

being an inspiration for young professionals to serve. It was really 

heartwarming a moment ago to see Captain Seth Moulton and you 

greet each other. And you certainly have contributed to him being 

an effective Member of Congress. Thank you. 

Additionally, it is personal. I have had three sons—— 

General PETRAEUS. A couple of others in the audience now too— 

or in the seats now as a result of the latest election. 

Mr. WILSON. And, General, they are multiplying. This is good. 

And it is personal. I have had three sons serve in Iraq, in Afghanistan—field artillery, Navy doctor, Corps of Engineers. And, again, 

it has just been so meaningful for their service, and thank you very 

much. 

With your background, obviously, with Iraq, a country that we 

hoped would be stable and prosperous for the people of Iraq, they 

are still in crisis. Can you describe where they are today? What can 

we do for the future? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, first of all, I think what has evolved 

has been a very impressive strategy that, by my definition, it is 

sustainable. And, again, that is hugely important, because this is 

a generational struggle. The blood and treasure that we are committing there is, again, not the kind of vast amount that we had 

to do to retrieve the country from the brink of a civil war, say, during the surge. 

The issue really is the battle after the battle. That is the issue 

in Nineveh province, where you visited when we were up in Mosul, 

and the most complex human terrain in all of Iraq. And, again, the 

test is going to be can governance there be sufficiently representative of all the people, sufficiently responsive to them within the 

means available, and, above all, guarantee minority rights as well 

as majority rule. 

And then the same test will acutely have to be answered in 

Baghdad. And there is an enormous challenge there. The Prime 

Minister, Haider al-Abadi, is someone who knows that the country 

has to have inclusive governance. He has reached out; he knows 

that there has to be reconciliation, remembering that the biggest 

achievement during the surge in Iraq was not necessarily driving 

down the level of violence, it was actually bringing the Sunni Arabs 

back into the fabric of society, which actually did then help bring 

that level of violence down so considerably. 

He is challenged, however. There are Iranian-controlled Shia militia, three of them that are among the most effective fighting 

forces in the country. The former Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, 

who pursued the ruinous sectarian policies that undid what we did 

during the surge some 31⁄2 years after its end, is out there trying 

to get his old job back. And it is a very, very fractious situation. 

So our effort there now has to be to help him in any way that 

we can, without being so overt, without being—he cannot ever appear to be, obviously, an American puppet. And yet we have to provide the assistance that we can to him, to his coalition, and to others who feel the same way that he does, knowing what we do about 
18 

the country: that, again, if you cannot get that fabric of society 

back together, then you are not going to be able to resolve the differences that have led to this kind of situation. 

There is one unique factor in Iraq that does help the country 

enormously, a country with a tremendous number of centrifugal 

forces pulling it apart: It has a centripetal force, which is the central government’s distribution of the oil revenue. And that does 

bring the people back to the center, and it is what will sustain the 

Sunni Arabs, whose areas no longer have any major energy production in them as a result of changes of control of the northern oil 

fields and the fact that the big oil has always been in the south, 

the Shia-controlled south. 

Mr. WILSON. I appreciate in your testimony you addressing the 

issue of sequestration. The American people need to know about 

this. Just the word is confusing. But it affects readiness and puts 

our troops at risk. 

Can you give specific examples of what the American people need 

to know, why we need to address sequestration right away? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, I think it is the worst damage to readiness that can possibly be imagined: the way it is implemented, the 

lack of ability to plan for it, particularly that first time. I was talking with the chairman before this hearing. Services are still working their way out of the challenges that were created during that 

time, where there were very limited ways to take the kinds of substantial cuts that were levied other than laying off civilian workers, 

others. 

And readiness took a major hit, I think the single biggest cause 

of those pockets of readiness challenge that still exist out there and 

still need to be dealt with. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you to both of you for being here and providing us with 

that sweeping study of the international order. 

General Petraeus, I wonder if you could just take us back in 

many ways to your role of commanding in Iraq, in the theater 

there, and if a travel ban had occurred during your time, how do 

you see that affecting? And, today, as we continue to really have 

relations with many of our interpreters there, how is that being interpreted? What do you think the long-range effects for that could 

be? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, the long-range effects I think will be 

determined by how quickly now whatever changes that are identified can be implemented and we can get back to, if you will, a routine conduct of business. 

There are numerous individuals who, of course, put their lives at 

risk and those of their families as well. A number of them have 

been in various pipelines, have waited for years to get the opportunity to leave the country, where they are at risk because of their 

service alongside us. And so, clearly, allowing that process to resume with whatever additional safeguards I think will be very 

helpful. 

I have been very heartened by Secretary Mattis, Secretary Kelly, 

others, who have come out and identified where there need to be 
19 

exceptions and exemptions and so forth. But, I mean, the paradox 

is that we have General Kenani, a four-star general with whom I 

worked very closely in a number of different positions in Iraq. He 

is the head of the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service, the most professional and most reliable and finest fighting force that is in Iraq. It 

has borne the brunt of much of this fighting throughout the time 

of the battle against ISIS. And he is prevented from coming here 

to coordinate with Central Command and others and, indeed, his 

family, which is here because of the risk that he has incurred 

there. 

So, again, I think just the sooner that we can figure out what additional steps need to be added to the process to ensure that we 

double- and triple-check to ensure that individuals coming to our 

country won’t become engaged in terrorist acts. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. McLaughlin, would you agree? Does this give Islamic extremists ammunition? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Almost everything we do gives the Islamic extremists ammunition. They can take almost anything, any American policy, and turn it into propaganda. And they will do that with 

this. 

Mrs. DAVIS. If I could just turn to Russia for a moment as well 

and thinking in terms of our NATO interests. And I know that, 

General Petraeus, you mentioned how, obviously, President Putin 

watches the political will of the major democratic powers to defend 

Euro-Atlantic institutions like NATO. We certainly are quite aware 

of the influence campaign that we just experienced from Russia. 

How do you see that going forward, in our ability to continue 

sanctions, with our partners, as well as dealing with cybersecurity 

issues? Should we be cooperating on that, in that area? How would 

you move forward? What advice would you give President Trump 

on that? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, I would say we have to really first figure 

out what are our interests, be as clear in our minds on that as we 

can be, before we go into any kind of negotiation with the Russians 

because they will be very clear about what they want. So we have 

to know what we want. And we have to understand where the 

trade space might be, if there is any. 

And we have to be very clear that we will not put up with aggression against NATO. NATO has done its most impressive forward deployment—it is in the process of doing it now—sending four 

battalions forward, three in the Baltics and one in Poland. The one 

in Poland is led by Americans. And we have to be firm on that 

score. 

We have to guard against the Russians creating situations of ambiguity, such as they did when they went into Crimea with their 

little green men. And now we are very aware of that. This is what 

makes strategy with the Russians, against the Russians so difficult. They use this array—General Petraeus referred to hybrid 

warfare. What that translates to in the Russian sense is a mixture 

of conventional forces, special forces, information operations, cyber 

operations, propaganda, and, to put a bald face on it, lying. And we 

are not used to that. We are sort of straightforward, this-is-it, put 

our cards on the table. So we have to kind of become more subtle 

in the way we deal with them. 
20 

The Latvians when I was there said something very impressive, 

I thought. They are on the front line. They have about 25 percent 

of their population ethnic Russians. 

Those people are bombarded with propaganda from Russian TV 

stations and so forth. They said: Our objective is to make sure we 

do not allow them to create a situation of ambiguity here; that is, 

they come in, they do something like take over a TV station, and 

claim it is not Russians. Latvians said: If they are Russians, we are 

going to take action right away. We can’t wait. And that will lead 

to an Article 5 in NATO if that ever happens. And NATO will then 

have to be stepping up to that. And that will be a very difficult moment for us. So I think this is very dicey. 

General PETRAEUS. May I just underscore something that John 

mentioned I think is hugely important? And that is being firm with 

respect to the Russians. 

He highlighted that also in his opening statement. But when we 

are not, they are going to push further. And the same is true of 

some of the other, if you will, revisionist powers that are out there. 

I have been heartened to see the deployments of armored forces 

in recent weeks to Europe, to the Baltic States, and to eastern Poland; heartened by the calls by Secretary Mattis to his NATO 

counterparts reiterating the inviolability of the Article 5 commitment that we have made. 

But there have been times where we have not been as supportive. This committee and the Senate counterpart authorized and 

appropriated by the Appropriations Committee, shoulder-launched 

anti-tank guided missiles. These cannot be interpreted as offensive 

weapons. You are not going to run to Moscow with these on your 

shoulder. And yet we did not deliver those to the Ukrainian forces 

that are battling the Russian-supported separatists. 

So, again, we have got to be very careful how we do this. Firmness shouldn’t get into provocation. Again, finding that equilibrium, having strategic dialogue, understanding the interests of 

each side. But at the end of the day, there has to be a degree of 

firmness there, or, again, they will push further and further and 

further until eventually they feel that. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Can I add one very brief point? When I was 

in Ukraine, a Ukrainian Member of Parliament, the head of their, 

I think foreign affairs committee, said something that really stuck 

in my head. She said: Ukraine is the only former member of the 

Soviet Union that can change Russia. That is why Putin is so worried about it. 

They think of Ukraine as, first, the origin of the Slavic nation. 

They think of them as their kind of little brothers. And if Ukraine 

actually achieves pluralism, democracy, independence, prosperity, 

it is a threat to the system that Putin has constructed in Russia. 

So that tells us that maybe our greatest way to combat Russia is 

to help Ukraine, which hasn’t helped itself all that much in recent 

years. But I would say there are positive trends underway in 

Ukraine. The committee might actually have someone come and 

take a deep dive into Ukraine for you because they are doing some 

good things now, and they are becoming a smart political nation. 
21 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. And I might add, Mr. Chairman, that 

the Democracy Partnership has been working with Ukraine for a 

number of years. And so thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Important discussion. I know some members are 

going there before too long. 

Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this important hearing on the world’s threats and challenges. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your contribution. 

And, General Petraeus, good to see you again. I appreciate your 

opening with the statement on Churchill of looking back can allow 

us to see forward. So, with that theme, I am going to take you back 

to the nineties and to the Balkans. Thank you for your service as 

part of the NATO stabilization force in Bosnia. I served as the 

mayor of Dayton during the negotiation of the Dayton Peace Accords and traveled to Bosnia twice in 1996, once with Commerce 

Secretary Mickey Kantor on the follow-on to the tragic Ron Brown 

crash. And my community took part in helping build democratic institutions with exchanges with hospitals, government institutions, 

and schools. 

The Dayton Peace Accords, as you know, were intended to be a 

transition to peace. It was a great accomplishment by our country 

where we ended the war and the disintegration of Yugoslavia. It 

is an area that has been largely neglected, though, since the Dayton Peace Accords. It has been left with an unworkable constitution. The Republika Srpska continues to talk about seeking independence, which, of course, has the potential of resulting in conflict 

in the area. 

The Prime Minister of Serbia continues to openly state that he 

is concerned that conflict could result. General Hodges, as he looks 

through the area, also identifies it as an area of concern. Yesterday, I met with the president of the American University in Bosnia 

and Herzegovina, Denis Prcic. 

General PETRAEUS. So did I. 

Mr. TURNER. That is what my transition was. He related to me 

that he had met with you. As you know, his view is very pessimistic, although his organization has been part of the transition to 

a future for Bosnia. This is an area that I do believe could result 

in conflict once again in the heart of Europe and is just an absolute 

result of our neglect in leadership. 

So, with that, General, with your expertise and having served in 

the area, I would love your thoughts on, as we look forward, what 

does America need to do to ensure that conflict does not result in 

the Balkans? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, we need to stay with it, frankly, not 

with vast sums of money, but, frankly, with very, very assiduous 

counsel and constant pressure, if you will, which is what is needed. 

I have actually been back there a number of occasions. The financial firm in which I am privileged to be a partner did the biggest 

private equity deal in the history of the Balkans, which is not a 

long history and not very big, but $1.5 billion in telecommunications in overall all the Balkans. And I go to Bosnia two to three 

times a year to try to help advance that particular effort. 
22 

The issue is, once again, about governance, as it often is in countries like this. And it is the layering of governance. It is the corruption that eats at the system. It is the inability to push through the 

partisanship that there is embedded in ethnic and sectarian differences and political parties that then get into the economy and 

so forth and so on. 

The declaration of the desire to join the EU is probably the most 

hopeful sign I think that has taken place there in a number of 

years. And, again, helping them to get down that road, to meet the 

different requirements is hugely important. If they can do that, by 

the way, if Serbia can do the same thing, some of the other countries, this will be very, very helpful to them and to their citizens. 

Failing that, they are going to stay mired in this kind of internecine political conflict that could actually result, once again, perhaps into something more kinetic. And that is very worrisome, as 

you know, to the Republika Srpska in that regard in particular. 

Mr. TURNER. General, I appreciate your saying that because I 

think, whenever we have an item on our agenda that is being neglected, it can be elevated by people understanding the risks. And 

I truly believe, as you have stated, the risk in the Balkans is not 

just inefficient government and continued division, but it is the 

prospects of conflict in Europe. And I appreciate your certainly involvement in the area to help on the economic side and your advocacy to help the United States identify this as a priority. 

General PETRAEUS. As I have said to them, I felt privileged to 

serve there for a year when Bosnia needed soldiers, and I am privileged to be back there now when they need investors. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, gentlemen. General, it is good to see you. 

General PETRAEUS. Great to see you. 

Ms. BORDALLO. As a Congresswoman from Guam, we are acutely 

aware of the state of Asia-Pacific and the threats that our island 

and our country face in this region. And I am concerned that the 

President’s rhetoric and actions weaken our alliances, undermining 

American leadership while creating a power vacuum in the region 

that China and Russia appear eager to fill. 

Just last week, we heard from the Prime Minister of Australia 

that China may be welcomed into the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] trade agreement, which no longer includes the United States. 

In a world where American leadership has been challenged, you 

both know the value of building coalitions. 

And, General Petraeus, I agree with your assessment that China 

is seeking a broader sphere of influence. 

So, to you both, do you believe actions such as rejecting negotiated trade agreements or antagonizing long-term treaty allies in 

Japan and South Korea serve to deepen our relationship in the region? Does this demonstrate positive American leadership? And in 

your assessments, do you see our allies shifting away from or toward China? 

General. 

General PETRAEUS. Thanks very much for that. First of all, let 

me just note that I am heartened to see Secretary Mattis traveling 
23 

so quickly to Japan and to the Republic of Korea and reassuring 

them, again, his phone calls, once again, with his counterparts. It 

is interesting, because I just met with two very senior Australian 

officials, and we discussed these kinds of issues. 

And I think it is important in the wake of the TPP being shelved 

to immediately launch initiatives for bilateral economic treaties. I 

think that is hugely important. There is a degree of uncertainty out 

there. There is a degree of waiting. In the past, individuals in 

Singapore, for example, have publicly said that, you know, if we 

don’t get TPP, you are finished in the Pacific, this kind of thing. 

And I think we have to show that that is wrong now at this point 

in time. 

But China will be very happy to move out. They already have an 

alternative economic council, if you will, that they are constructing. 

They have the One Belt and One Road strategy. We have to keep 

all of that in mind, and indeed, we have to strengthen the ties that 

we have, very, very important allies there, alliances there, and economic partners, who share our values and our beliefs in the freedoms that we hold so dear. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

Now, for you, Mr. McLaughlin, and General Petraeus just mentioned it, the Secretary is heading to Japan and South Korea. What 

is unclear, will Secretary Mattis be bringing a message of reassurance and commitment to our historical agreements, or will he have 

White House talking points that retreat from our treaty obligations, for example, Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, I literally don’t know what he has got 

in his briefcase, but I am confident that he will not be stepping 

back from those agreements. 

At the same time, I would say, leaving politics aside, that just, 

objectively, what my eyes tell me, what Asian contacts tell me, is 

concern about having stepped back from TPP. Asian nations have 

invested a great deal of their political capital in getting to this 

point in the negotiations on that, and there is palpable fear from 

our closest allies that they will be swept into China’s economic 

orbit if the United States is not deeply engaged. 

So, that said, I would share General Petraeus’ confidence and reassurance that at least we are stepping out—I am sure General 

Mattis is doing this—stepping out to emphasize the bilateral commitments remain, the treaty commitments remain. And we are 

going to have to get—if we stay out of TPP—and it is hard for me 

to see how we walk that back now. But if we stay out, getting actively engaged in the economics of the region through bilateral 

agreements, which will be hard to construct, by the way, is essential. 

Here is the point I would make about China, a broad point: I 

could run through all of the things they are doing, and General 

Petraeus just mentioned them. The stark fact is that the initiatives 

they are putting forward have a more transformational potential 

than practically anything the United States has proposed in Asia 

in recent years—transformational. So what we need here is either 

deep engagement or a really big idea. 

Now, the pivot toward Asia was a great idea, but it didn’t take 

material form. We were to get 60 percent of our naval assets into 
24 

the Asia-Pacific region. I don’t know where we stand on that. But 

we need to move ahead with—that is our future, Asia, so we need 

to be really careful how we do it. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, gentlemen. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Hartzler. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your service to our country. 

General Petraeus, it was good to see you in Afghanistan. And in 

2011, several of us here came and visited with you and saw the operations on the ground. I want to commend you for your leadership 

there that enabled our training bases to be taken out and the pushback on the Taliban to give the people of Afghanistan an opportunity for freedom. 

But as we are moving forward there, I would like your insights 

into what you think we need to be doing. We had in our Oversight 

and Investigation Subcommittee some hearings looking at force 

management levels. What we found is that those levels were causing a split in some of the brigades, with the maintenance people 

being left home and contractors backfilling, et cetera. 

So the sense that I have gotten is that there hasn’t been a clear 

mission there. And I have been concerned about the resurgence of 

the Taliban as well as Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, ISIL, 

coming in there, filling up the void as we have pulled back. 

So what would you advise, from your vast expertise there? What 

should be our mission? What should be the force management levels there moving forward? 

General PETRAEUS. First of all, it was great to see you, and 

thanks for visiting us with the other Members. 

In two words, what we need to provide is a sustained commitment. Now, let me explain. The mission I think is actually still 

very clear. It is to prevent Afghanistan forever once again becoming a sanctuary for transnational extremists, the way it was when 

Al Qaeda had the bases there under the Taliban rule in which the 

9/11 attacks were planned and where the initial training of the 

attackers was conducted. 

The only way that you can accomplish that mission without us 

doing it ourselves is obviously to enable the Afghans to over time 

secure themselves and govern themselves to a good enough fashion. 

We are not trying to turn Afghanistan into Switzerland in 10 years 

or less or something like that. ‘‘Afghan good enough’’ was often the 

phrase. We sometimes exceeded that, but I think we have learned 

that that is the approach. 

Now, I share your concerns about troop caps. I have all along. 

I share your concern about time-phased force drawdowns. I think 

that, in fact, there should be, and I believe there is, a reexamination of these caps, of the effects that they have on units. As you 

know, if a commander is given only a certain number of forces, he 

is going to fill that number with those who can do what only those 

in uniform can do, which is to go outside the wire and help partners engage with the population and occasionally, in this case, engage with the enemy because we are now much more enablers than 

we are frontline fighters. 
25 

And that means that you are going to leave behind all those that, 

you know, don’t do that, but do the important maintenance and 

other logistical tasks that are so critical to sustainment of forces. 

And then you contract that out, which costs a vast sum of money. 

And, of course, you have left part of your unit behind, so you now 

have a readiness issue on your hands as well. 

So I think reexamining that kind of issue without getting the 

numbers going wild, because, again, sustainability of our strategy 

is crucial, blood and treasure, because this is going to be a long effort. Also, again, the sustained commitment that I envision reassures the Afghans. Still put the pressure on them to make the 

changes, to get this pernicious corruption out of some of the really 

critical areas in which they are causing such problems and then 

also to have rules of engagement that allow our forces to support 

our Afghan partners, who are fighting and dying for their country 

in a mission that is important for us to be there. But when we 

pulled our forces back from the front lines, we also pulled our air 

cover. Now we have relaxed some of that. General Nicholson has 

been given a degree of greater freedom. I think there is probably 

still more of that that needs to be done. And keeping in mind that 

it was under the Taliban that Al Qaeda had those bases where the 

9/11 attacks were planned. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Absolutely. I want to switch gears quickly—I 

only have 40 seconds left—but to Iraq, with your experience there, 

what is the role that you see in Iran there doing a lot of the fighting, the training, and what is it going to look like afterwards? You 

talked about a coalition. I mean, that is a tough sell. 

General PETRAEUS. It is very difficult. On the one hand, Iraq 

does not want to be the 51st state of Iran. On the other hand, Iran 

is always going to be their neighbor to the east. It is always going 

to be much bigger. It is always going to have a certain degree of 

shared interest. And Iran, frankly, would love to Lebanonize Iraq, 

using these three Shia militia, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and the Badr Corps, which they support and the Quds 

Force commander does selfies with on the front lines. I mean, he 

went from being an invisible figure to very visible on social media. 

So that is the context in which this is going to play out. And we 

have to help those Iraqis who—which is the bulk of the country— 

do not want to be dominated by Iran, do not want to become 

Lebanonized, and want to be able to determine their own future, 

free of undue influence in that regard. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to both witnesses for your thoughtful testimony 

today. 

And I just want to go back again to Asia-Pacific. Mr. 

McLaughlin, you raised the question about whether or not the sort 

of pivot militarily and Navy-wise is actually taking place. I mean, 

it actually has. Twelve of us last July visited RIMPAC [Rim of the 

Pacific Exercise] and actually got a really good view of American 

leadership still in that region of the world, 26 navies deploying collaboratively. And Admiral Harris, you know, was the quarterback 

that was running those operations. 
26 

Obviously, at that point, TPP was sort of a big question mark 

and a big topic, but the other was that, in July, the Permanent 

Court of Arbitration ruled against China in terms of the South 

China Sea claim by the Philippines. And the frustration that Admiral Harris as well as other combatant commanders in other parts 

of the world have expressed is that our nonparticipation in the 

U.N. Law of the Sea treaty really does undercut our ability to tout 

what really was, I think, you know, the perfect sort of rules-based 

international order, you know, system response to the historic 

rights claim that China I think has, you know, really outrageously 

asserted in that part of the world and threatens international order 

as far as it pertains to international commerce; $5 trillion of goods 

flow through the South China Sea, and the whole world depends 

on it. 

So I was wondering if you would comment, in terms of whether 

you think we should get off the bench and become part of the process of the international Law of the Sea treaty. And I would ask 

that to both witnesses. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes, I do think we should do that. I don’t 

know why we haven’t. There probably is some argument against it 

that makes sense in some quarters. But we observe the Law of the 

Sea; we just haven’t ratified it. And I think it does get us on a 

lower high ground, not on a high ground when we have these disputes. 

Nonetheless, it is undeniable that what China has done in the 

South China Sea is indefensible in terms of traditional maritime 

law. You know, you are entitled to a certain amount of territory off 

of your coast, 12 miles, as I recall. And what they have done by 

building these islands is enabled themselves to claim 90 percent of 

the South China Sea. 

The larger issue here is the one you put your finger on, that both 

General Petraeus and I referred to in our testimony, and that is 

erosion of rules that typically have governed the global order. And 

in this case, it is the freedom of the seas. We have challenged that, 

as you know, with our forces, and that is a good thing. 

It is also interesting that the Russians have done a joint exercise 

with the Chinese in the South China Sea. So there is a lot of competition in that part of the world for who is going to be the dominant power. And if we don’t defend that, we will pay in the long 

run, because 50 percent of the world’s cargo, container cargo, goes 

through that channel. 

China reacted badly, as you know, to the decision of the international court. Fortunately, they have not done anything aggressive in response to that of note, but I think it is one of those ongoing nagging problems in Asia that we have to keep a constant eye 

on, both militarily and politically and diplomatically, and make 

sure that we don’t turn our attention away from it. 

General PETRAEUS. I agree that we ought to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and I would expand a bit on what 

John was talking about where the rebalance to Asia, the pivot I 

think had a lot of good conceptual value. 

I think we should remember from that that what was unhelpful 

at times was rhetoric that was very ringing about our rights and 

freedom of navigation and so forth, say, the Secretary of Defense 
27 

Ash Carter at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. And then we 

would wait 6 to 8 months before we actually put a ship through 

the South China Sea. And perhaps instead of the ringing rhetoric, 

just take ringing actions. Again, it is time for a little of the, you 

know, ‘‘speak softly and carry a big stick.’’ 

Mr. COURTNEY. Great. Thank you. Really quickly, General, I was 

with you in 2007, Memorial Day. We lost 10 of our personnel that 

day. It was a really rough time. And, you know, you mentioned the 

sort of balancing act, in terms of the Prime Minister not being perceived as an American puppet. The Iraqi Parliament voted 2 days 

ago to suspend visas from U.S. citizens into Iraq. He has publicly 

stated he won’t enforce it. 

General PETRAEUS. That is right. 

Mr. COURTNEY. But I mean, that puts him in almost the worst 

possible circumstance, in terms of trying to hold together the alliance, but being, you know, politically internally viewed as just simply a defender of the U.S. 

General PETRAEUS. We had a sign on the operations center in 

every headquarters that I was privileged to command. And we always had a sign that asked: Will this operation or policy take more 

bad guys off the street than it creates by its conduct or implementation? I think it is always a good question to ask. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Franks. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Petraeus, thank you for your noble service to the country 

and to just, again, the cause of human freedom. 

General, you mentioned earlier that it was important to confront 

ISIS and just radical Islam in general on the strategic level so that 

we were dealing with some of the ideology that foments it. And do 

you think our current countermessaging against the ideology of 

radical political Islam is adequate at this point? What suggestions 

would you make? 

General PETRAEUS. I don’t think it is adequate. I think it is very, 

very challenging. I freely acknowledge that we are making a lot 

more efforts, indeed, in that area. We tried this when I was the 

commander of Central Command, so I have a lot of firsthand experience with how difficult it is. 

I think, at the end of the day, if there can be a solution, as close 

as we can get to a solution is going to come from much greater 

partnerships with the internet service providers and those who 

oversee the social media platforms that are so important in enabling Islamic extremists to communicate, to proselytize, to share 

tactics, techniques and procedures, to issue orders and so forth. 

There is, with machine learning, with artificial intelligence, 

much, much more opportunity now than in the past, and yet these 

IT [information technology] firms have been able to shut down a 

fair amount, for example, of child pornography. Again, there is recognition software, there are apps and all the rest of this that can 

be used to identify. And, again, with the advent of machine learning—and I am actually engaged in some of this in the private sector in a variety of different fields—there are much greater opportunities. 
28 

I have discussed this with Eric Schmidt of Google, with also 

Jared Cohen of what used to be called Google Ideas. I think it is 

now Jigsaw or something. And, in fact, we are meeting to discuss 

this further in a few weeks in New York, where they have their 

big setup for it. There is progress in this area, and that I think actually is going to be far more important than what will prove to 

be—you know, we will be whistling into the wind in our efforts if 

you are doing it just with individuals, even if you can amplify that, 

magnify that many different times. 

So I think, again, the solution will be with the internet service 

providers, social media platform firms, and their help to this and 

their commitment that they should not allow this on, again, 

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever other means are being 

used. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, certainly, I just want you to know a lot of us 

strongly agree with you on that front. We think it is extremely important, as important as it is to tactically deal with ISIS, as we 

have had in some cases when we are serious about it unprecedented success, but we still have to prevail. 

And I guess the second question followup is that, as we actually 

squeeze ISIS on the battlefield, there are some concerns that I 

think are probably justified, that we will create sort of a terrorist 

diaspora, for a lack of a better term, and that it may increase 

small-scale terror attacks in Europe and the U.S. And what would 

you suggest that we do to try to prevent that? 

General PETRAEUS. Let me just start with that, and then I will 

hand off to John, who has been engaged with the European services continuously. 

Look, first of all, we can’t play whack-a-mole. So you have got to 

whack all the moles wherever they are. It takes a network to destroy a network. We have that capacity to do that. And we need 

to intensify that particular effort. We have to go after them wherever they are. 

We do have to recognize that, as they are defeated in Iraq and 

Syria, again, if they are not killed and if they don’t just sort of melt 

into the population in those areas, retire from a life of extremism, 

they may well go home. And they will go home to European services that, in some cases, as John mentioned earlier, are already 

stretched. 

So let me hand off to you there. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes. The problem, one of the problems—first 

off, your broad point is absolutely correct, that the likelihood is 

that they will spread. This will not be like dealing with Al Qaeda. 

When we cornered Al Qaeda and basically smashed the 9/11-era 

leadership, there weren’t too many of them left, and they didn’t 

have too many places to go. This group is very different. It has 

pretty well-developed nodes in five or six countries overseas. I 

would point to the Sinai and Egypt as a particularly developed 

node. They have been damaged in Libya, but they have scattered 

in Libya. Libya is a highly ungoverned area, so there are a lot of 

places to hide there, although we have had some success in the last 

week. 

In Europe, the problem that I see is the lack of sharing and coordination among all of these services. It took us years to figure out 
29 

how to do that in the United States. We did it reasonably well before 9/11, much better after 9/11. It took us years to learn how to 

share classified, sensitive information. 

The Europeans haven’t figured that out yet, as best I can determine. So we have to work with them to make sure that they do 

that, because that is the launching pad for attacks here. If we have 

terrorists in Europe with passports that don’t require the same sort 

of attention to visas, they can come here. And, of course, they can 

come here anyway if we are not very careful with our visa policy. 

So I think I would leave it there other than to say the classic formula for defeating terrorism to me has always had three parts: destroy the leadership; deny it safe haven; change the conditions that 

give rise to the phenomenon. We are pretty good at destroying the 

leadership. They have more ungoverned space than they used to 

have in the world, Arab Spring and all of that. And, third, we are 

far from changing the conditions that permit this thing to metastasize and grow. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you both very much. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Tsongas. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you both for being here. We certainly appreciate your wide-ranging testimony over the many challenges we 

face across the globe and as it is informed by your great experience, 

and we are certainly the beneficiaries of that. 

And in the course of your service, you have both served in positions that have depended, to a great extent, about partnerships 

with our allies around the world in the pursuit of mutual goals. 

And both of you today have referenced a need to maintain these 

global alliances in the face of diffuse threats, that we can’t do it 

alone. 

So, with that in mind, to achieve U.S. goals, General Petraeus, 

you spent many years working with our Iraqi partners to defeat extremist groups seeking to plunge that country into chaos. And to 

that end, today, American forces are working alongside the Iraqi 

military to build their capacity to defeat ISIL. And as you say in 

your testimony, this approach that enables our local partners has 

allowed us to achieve a sustainable strategy in our fight against 

ISIL. 

So I would like to go back to the President’s executive order that 

included the ban on the entry of all Iraqis for 90 days, including, 

as it was first implemented, although now it has been corrected, 

those who have directly aided our mission in that country. 

But how might that order confound our two countries’ mutual 

goals in Iraq and the region? And I am going beyond the individual 

impact, the general who couldn’t come here, the translator who 

served us so well barred from entry. My question really is, does it 

undermine the element of trust that must be key to successfully 

working together? 

And on the ground, I do have a concern about our American soldier who is working side by side with an Iraqi counterpart. What 

does that soldier say to that Iraqi counterpart who wonders why, 

despite the fact that we are trying to work together, that our newly 

elected President has enacted this ban? 
30 

General PETRAEUS. Well, clearly, again, the message has to be 

one that is going to reinforce and build these partnerships. And I 

should also point out, of course, we are not just working with the 

Iraqis alone. We are working with what I think is now the largest 

coalition in history. I think the Afghan coalition was the largest, 

but I think this has actually surpassed it in fighting against the 

Islamic State. 

Churchill was very right on this as on so many issues when he 

said that the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting 

without them. So we need them. And, as I mentioned, we especially 

need Muslim allies. Our Muslim country partners are the ones who 

are on the front lines. And it is, again, a struggle within their civilization even more than it is between our civilizations. And we 

don’t want to heighten the differences between those civilizations. 

Beyond that, I feel that we have a moral obligation to those who 

put their lives on the line and put their families at risk to serve 

alongside us in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, on Friday, 

I am doing an event at the American Enterprise Institute that is 

titled ‘‘Lost in Translation.’’ And it is about these individuals that 

have been left behind and have had such a very difficult time to 

get here. Again, how we treat them will influence the willingness 

of others to put their lives on the line and put their families at risk 

to serve with us as well. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Mr. McLaughlin, would you like to comment at all? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I agree with what General Petraeus said. I 

don’t want to take a lot of your time other than to just say, in my 

old world, the world of intelligence, which General Petraeus has 

also led, the relationship we have with other intelligence services 

is extraordinarily important. People sometimes ask me: ‘‘Why don’t 

we do all this stuff ourselves?’’ And when I would have a small intelligence service come into my office from some tiny country, they 

would always say: ‘‘Oh, you are so big, and we are so small.’’ And 

I would always say: ‘‘No, where you are, you are so big, and we are 

so small. You know your society. You know the culture. You know 

the streets.’’ 

So, in this world, globalized world, terrorism, you need a worldwide coalition in the intelligence sphere just as desperately as you 

do in the military and diplomatic arenas. And I trust we will continue to work for that. 

Ms. TSONGAS. And I would say we need to be mindful of not 

sending conflicting messages in order to maintain the durability of 

those partnerships so that we can work together to meet the common threats that we share. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. McLaughlin, is there a solution in Syria that does not include the Russians? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, you know, isn’t that the question? I 

would say, if we went back 3 years, I might have said yes, but let’s 

face it: Putin has played his cards very well. He is now, if not the 

kingmaker, he certainly has a seat at the table. It is very hard for 

me to imagine a future circumstance in which Russia does not have 

a voice in the outcome in Syria. 
31 

Mr. SCOTT. I agree with you 100 percent. 

And, General Petraeus, whenever I have been overseas and talking with our friends, they talk about the risk of terrorism to Russia, to Putin, and to the Russian citizens. 

And in dialogue with Russian generals, do they recognize the 

threat from ISIS and terrorism to their country? 

General PETRAEUS. Oh, absolutely. And they have combatted it 

and have had huge challenges fighting it, of course. 

Mr. SCOTT. And so, to us as Americans, we believe that the instability in Syria increases the threat of and the risk of terrorism actually impacting our country directly. Would they share that same 

opinion? 

General PETRAEUS. They would. I would actually highlight that 

the even bigger issue for us is what it has done to our European 

allies and partners. 

Mr. SCOTT. I agree. 

General PETRAEUS. A tsunami of refugees has caused the greatest challenges in domestic political terms that they have had in 

decades. 

Mr. SCOTT. Absolutely. And so I think there is an area here 

where the United States, our allies, and Russia and others who are 

not our allies have a common interest. And I do think that, sooner 

or later, the United States is going to have to sit down, have a discussion with Russia, and see if we can come to some common 

ground on how we resolve this situation. 

General PETRAEUS. Of course, we have been sitting down with 

them. And, unfortunately, what we have been trying to achieve has 

obviously proved to be unobtainable. 

Mr. SCOTT. Fair enough. Fair enough. But I don’t buy into Putin 

wanting Assad to stay. I think he is smart enough to recognize that 

Assad is going to go. I think he wants an organized, negotiated resolution that removes Assad and has somebody in there that would 

be loyal to Russia. Obviously, we don’t want somebody that would 

be loyal to Russia. 

I just wonder, as we go through the negotiations, the other thing 

that keeps coming up is we have this area where we have this common interest in finding a resolution to Syria because the refugee 

crisis creates a tremendous number of problems for our friends, especially many of our NATO allies. 

I wonder, if we didn’t go ahead, from our standpoint, controlling 

the things that we can absolutely control, fully fund the European 

Reassurance Initiative so that General Hodges has what he needs 

to make sure that the Baltic States and the others—I wouldn’t say 

are not at risk—but certainly that Putin understands that we are 

going to hold that alliance together and protect our friends. So that 

shifts, take that aspect out of it as best we can first: go ahead and 

commit to fully funding the European Reassurance Initiative, and 

then negotiate some type of Syria resolution. 

I am just interested in your thoughts on—— 

General PETRAEUS. Well, there are a number of issues there. 

Mr. SCOTT [continuing]. What steps we take. 

General PETRAEUS. Those are a couple of those. I think one of the 

questions is, do we seek to link Syria, for example, to Ukraine or 

do we try to address it just as an issue, which I think may be the 
32 

better approach. Certainly, there needs to be a strategic dialogue 

between the United States and Russia, something that we have not 

had for some time, very cold-eyed confrontation of each other’s vital 

interests and so forth, red lines. 

But when it comes to Syria, I think, again, the objective there 

needs to change somewhat from not—certainly, the common objective that we will have is defeating the Islamic State and the Al 

Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, but I don’t know that it is 

possible to negotiate a settlement that results in a democratically 

elected pluralist democracy in Damascus for all of the country. 

And I think the question is whether the objective shouldn’t be 

‘‘stop the bloodshed’’; and if the objective is ‘‘stop the bloodshed,’’ 

then you will probably look at some alternative methods of going 

about that. 

Mr. SCOTT. Gentlemen, thank you. I am out of time. 

Mr. Chairman, I just hope that we will fully fund the European 

Reassurance Initiative and take the questions of our resolve off the 

table as to whether or not we would defend our allies. 

General PETRAEUS. That is the issue of firmness. And General 

Hodges is a great soldier and former Screaming Eagle of the 101st 

Airborne. 

Mr. SCOTT. Yes, sir. He is still screaming. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Speier. 

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And thank you both, gentlemen, for your extraordinary service 

and for your very insightful presentations this morning. It was, I 

think, very helpful. 

The former CIA Director Michael Hayden commented on the 

President’s Muslim ban. These are his words, quote: ‘‘It is a horrible move. It is a political, ideological move. And, in fact, what 

we’re doing now has probably made us less safe today than we 

were on Friday morning before this happened, because we are now 

living the worst jihadist narrative possible, that there is undying 

enmity between Islam and the West. And, frankly, at the humanitarian level, it is an abomination.’’ These aren’t words of an Obama 

administration official or the ACLU [American Civil Liberties 

Union]; these are the words of a four-star general and George W. 

Bush’s appointee to the post of CIA Director. 

Do you agree with General Hayden’s assessment, General 

Petraeus? 

General PETRAEUS. I might offer a slight bit more nuance than 

his on Morning Joe or wherever that was. But, again, as I mentioned earlier, it is always worth testing any policy by asking 

whether it will take more bad guys off the street than it creates. 

And I think this is one where, if you had done the kind of staffing 

that perhaps might have been done, that would have been identified earlier on. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. McLaughlin. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, ditto to what General Petraeus said. I 

would only add the thought that, when I saw the reaction to the 

EO [Executive order], my thought was, this is the action of an administration that hasn’t—I am leaving my politics out of this. This 

is the action of an administration that doesn’t yet know how hard 

government is, because you always have to ask, what are the sec-
33 

ondary and tertiary consequences of what you are about to do? This 

was the import of the sign that General Petraeus had in his headquarters. 

And probably the proper way to have done this—because certainly our visa policy needs to be examined—would have been to 

assemble all of the relevant players and ask, ‘‘what are the consequences of this thing we are about to do,’’ and then build into 

that assessment an implementation that would have avoided a lot 

of these problems. 

Ms. SPEIER. All right. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I would like to think an administration learns 

these lessons, but we will have to see. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. 

General Petraeus, the President has said that he has talked to 

a lot of people in the intelligence community who are big believers 

in torture. What is your opinion of the use of torture in intelligence 

gathering? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, and on that, I was pleased to see that 

he has deferred to General Mattis, who believes as I do, that, first 

of all, it is wrong. And if you don’t buy that, it is also generally 

not the best way of going about getting information from a detainee. 

Now, there is an exception, and I think we actually all should realize that there is the so-called ticking time bomb scenario. And in 

that scenario, I think that, frankly, the policymakers owe those 

who might be the executors of policy to address that. I tried to 

raise this in my confirmation hearing for CIA Director, and no one 

wanted to touch it. 

But for your normal detainee operations—and no one was in 

charge of more detainees than the guy who commanded the surge 

in Iraq. We had well over 20,000—I think it was 27,000 detainees 

at the height of that and then also during the surge in Afghanistan. And our experience was that, along with General Mattis’ 

colorful line, ‘‘Give me’’—I think it was—‘‘a beer and a hot dog’’—— 

Ms. SPEIER. A pack of cigarettes. 

General PETRAEUS. A pack of cigarettes. Our view was a little bit 

more to try to establish a relationship with the detainee, have very 

skilled translators and interpreters and interrogators. They understand the network, the organization. And they establish a relationship, as we say, become the detainee’s best friend. 

By the way, I published something on this when I was a commander in Iraq. It was called, ‘‘Living Our Values.’’ I said: Look, 

we can get very, very frustrated. The enemy visits things on us 

that we find absolutely abhorrent and barbaric. We cannot sink to 

their level. 

You can argue whether enhanced interrogation techniques will 

work or not. There is an argument. I don’t buy it, but there are 

those who argue it. 

Ms. SPEIER. General, I want to get one more question in. 

General PETRAEUS. But at the end of the day, you will pay a 

much higher price for having done that than the value that you 

will get from using those techniques. 
34 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. One last question to both of you. NATO, 

do we need to stay in NATO, regardless of what our colleagues and 

the various other countries contribute to it? 

General PETRAEUS. That is a loaded question. We need to stay 

in NATO, but we need our NATO partners to do more. Interestingly, having just been in Europe in the last month or so with a 

number of security leaders of NATO, they actually are taking the 

challenge that President Trump has given them very seriously, 

which they did not in many cases in the past when Secretary Gates 

lectured them or President Obama did. And a number of them said: 

You know, maybe we really need to do more. So—— 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Brooks. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Petraeus, good to see you again. I am going to refer to 

your written remarks. Quote: ‘‘Our most important ally in this 

world,’’ referring to the conflict with Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, 

Boko Haram and the like, ‘‘is the overwhelming majority of Muslims who reject Al Qaeda—and their fanatical barbaric world view,’’ 

end quote. 

How confident are you today that the, quote, ‘‘overwhelming majority of Muslims,’’ end quote, to which you refer will defeat the Islamic State without a major world power’s intervention or support? 

General PETRAEUS. Oh, no, they need our enabling. But they are 

critical to this fight. Without them, again, if the populations ever 

turn either very supportive of these individuals or very rejecting of 

us, then, obviously, the conditions change completely, and we are 

in a very, very big world of hurt, as they say. 

Mr. BROOKS. The same question, but with respect to Boko 

Haram. How confident are you that the, quote, ‘‘overwhelming majority of Muslims,’’ end quote, will defeat Boko Haram without a 

major world power’s intervention or support? 

General PETRAEUS. Oh, again, absolutely they need enablers. The 

challenge in Nigeria, of course, was that we had a very difficult 

time finding good partners to combat that when I was in my final 

position in government. 

Mr. BROOKS. And would your answer be the same with other entities, like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, that, without major world 

power or support, the overwhelming majority of Muslims would not 

be able to defeat them? 

General PETRAEUS. I think in virtually every case, our assistance 

is invaluable. I can certainly envision cases where a country can 

do this on its own. I think that Saudi Arabia defeated, if you will, 

Al Qaeda, say, a decade or so ago. Certainly, there was a partnership there. There was intelligence sharing. There was assistance in 

a variety of ways. But they were the ones who defeated Al Qaeda 

in their country. There are other examples of that, where countries 

have also defeated Al Qaeda or held it back. 

But, again, in the cases where this becomes I think hugely important—i.e., it is spilling over the boundaries; it is spreading extremism, instability, and refugees into neighboring countries and 

even farther—then clearly there is a role for the United States and 
35 

a coalition of allies, noting that we want as many as we can there, 

and we want Muslim partners in this as well. 

Mr. BROOKS. Given your comments that, as I interpret them, 

seem to say that the support of a major power is either much needed, if not necessary, to defeat these Islamic terrorist groups, is it 

your judgment that Islamic extremism is destined to dominate Islamic nations unless the world powers intervene with manpower, 

weaponry, and other material support? 

General PETRAEUS. No. I think, again, there are certainly many 

Muslim countries around the world that can either deal with this 

themselves or with a modicum of sort of the traditional sharing 

and so forth and perhaps some training and assistance. 

It is more the case in the ungoverned spaces where I think we 

have to learn five very, very important reasons or lessons, if I 

could, very quickly. First is ungoverned spaces—— 

Mr. BROOKS. If I could interject. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. Will be exploited by extremists. 

It will be. 

Mr. BROOKS. General, thank you. You have answered my question. 

General PETRAEUS. Okay. 

Mr. BROOKS. Any additional comments you want to give, please 

submit them in writing. But I want to move to a second line. 

You also state in your written remarks, quote: ‘‘We must also 

recognize that long-term success in this conflict requires that the 

ideology of Islamic extremism is itself discredited,’’ end quote. 

What, in your judgment, is the source of the, quote, ‘‘ideology of 

Islamic extremism,’’ end quote, if it is not the Koran and the imam 

or Islamic leader’s interpretations of the Koran? 

General PETRAEUS. It is a very twisted interpretation and, again, 

an interpretation that is rejected by the mainstream religious 

scholars of Islam. But there are diabolically, barbarically skillful 

uses of phrases from the Koran to justify this very extremist behavior, and it is sufficiently convincing to some who are in certain 

circumstances in life and so forth that it motivates them to join 

them. 

Mr. BROOKS. Okay. If I could interject—— 

General PETRAEUS. Of course, one of the great ways to discredit 

them is to defeat them on the battlefield because nothing succeeds 

like success in the internet and so forth where they are recruiting 

like success, and nothing is worse than failure on that battlefield. 

And that is why it is so important to beat them. 

Mr. BROOKS. Well, you answered my second question before I 

even asked it. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Chairman, 

thank you for convening this panel. I cannot think of a more ideal 

way for us to begin this session of Congress and the work on this 

committee than to have your insight and experience and guidance 

on the work before us. And I also want to thank you both for your 

service to this country and the insight that you provided to the 

committee today. 

General Petraeus, I don’t think I have heard a better articulation 

of America’s role in the world than the one that you gave at the 
36 

outset of this hearing and your reminder that this international 

order, of which we are the lucky heirs, did not will itself into being 

and did not sustain itself. There has been a tremendous cost in 

lives and treasure in order to achieve what we have today. As imperfect as it may be, it beats the alternatives. 

And I have got to tell you, I wish that previous Congresses and 

our past administration took your guidance to heart when it comes 

to having strategic clarity, when it comes to ensuring that we don’t 

excuse or tolerate the most egregious violations of the international 

order. There are real costs to that that we are bearing today. 

And by that same token, I hope the current administration hears 

you when you said today that there is a cost to this spiral of protectionism to that international order, when you underscored the importance of our alliances, and someone else pointed out that NATO 

might be one of the most important, if not the most important, and 

the importance of not alienating our closest allies in the fight 

against ISIS, the majority of Muslims, who absolutely abhor the 

fundamental ideology that underpins ISIS. So, incredibly important 

for us to get those messages today, but we don’t control the administrations. We are a separate, co-equal branch of government. 

What is your advice for us on this committee in Congress when 

it comes to how we authorize the use of military force, the oversight and control of that force? And the fact that we have what is 

approaching 16 years of an Authorization for the Use of Military 

Force [AUMF] that has been used in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, 

Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, is it time for us to write a new authorization more closely tailored to the needs that we have today? Is 

this open-ended, fairly vague authorization sufficient for the crises 

we face? And what kind of additional oversight would you like to 

see and guidance would you like to see from Congress going forward? 

General PETRAEUS. I think it is long overdue. I think Congress 

has failed in its responsibility in that regard. The previous administration requested on a number of occasions. Leaders of Congress 

pushed hard for that, and for some reason, there was an inability 

to come to grips with this. So the result has been that the previous 

administration had to constantly test the elasticity of the authority 

to use military force to, not just Al Qaeda, but Al Qaeda affiliates, 

and son of Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda and ISIS, the grandson, the cousins, 

and so forth, and this is where we are in the challenge. And to be 

fair to the previous administration, relative to the use of force 

against the Taliban, you know, is that explicitly covered by the authority to use military force, which was about Al Qaeda and 9/11 

and those related to Al Qaeda? You know, you can make a case for 

it, but why not have Congress perform the role that it is supposed 

to perform and actually debate these issues, hear from the Cabinet 

Secretaries and the White House, and then provide what you believe those individuals need within, you know, your own wisdom 

and judgment? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Mr. McLaughlin, any thoughts on the 2001 

AUMF, whether it should be amended, closed out, reopened under 

a new authorization that is specific to the threats that we face in 

2017? 
37 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I just completely agree with General Petraeus 

on that. 

General PETRAEUS. I participated as the Director of CIA, and I 

think even before that, a couple of different efforts where we 

sought to recast the AUMF, to update it, to bring it into the, you 

know, the new decade, if you will. And there was never sufficient 

traction up here to get that done, and I think it really should be 

done to—— 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I would only add that I was present in 2001 

when all of that occurred. And we have to remember that was done 

hastily and in emergency circumstances that the United States had 

never faced before, and it served adequately for a period of time, 

very adequately; but, again, I would just ditto what General 

Petraeus said. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I hope your presence today helps to create the political will to do that because I agree it is very necessary. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. McSally. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your service and your testimony 

today. You talked a lot about ISIS and radical extremism and how 

to address this generational threat, and I appreciate your insights 

on that. 

As we are looking at going after the core ideology and the roots 

of that, what are your thoughts on addressing some of our—or 

working with some of our, quote-unquote, allies who have historically been funding schools around the world that are teaching fundamentalist versions of Islam? There is no large leap between a 

fundamentalist version and then someone taking the leap to extremism. It is like the frog in the, you know, the water being turned 

up one temp—you know, 1 degree at a time, or other countries that 

are our allies that have been, you know, funding these types of organizations? Without naming them, can I hear some of your 

thoughts on that as far as getting to the very underlying issue of 

the ideology? 

General PETRAEUS. No. I think we absolutely should engage partners whose governments or indeed individual citizens are doing 

what you described. That is not to say that there hasn’t been engagement on this in the past. 

I would add, for example, that I had a lot of discussion in relationship with individuals in Saudi Arabia over individual citizens 

that were alleged to have been funding different organizations, extremist organizations, and so forth. And I can tell you that they 

were good to their word that, if we could ever show true evidence 

of this taking place, that they would deal with it. The challenge is 

that typically individuals have learned how to move money without 

certainly using the SWIFT system or something like that and were 

using Hawalas or other means, and then it becomes much more difficult, although there were interdictions as well in cases like that. 

And we engaged those Gulf States in which that was taking place 

on a very regular basis, as did our Treasury Department counterparts. 
38 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. And what about, Mr. McLaughlin, in the 

madrassas and the funding of just the indoctrination of a fundamentalist version that then is not a far leap to extremism? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, this is the toughest problem we face, I 

think, because, on the one hand, you need these societies to be 

working with you; on the other hand, they have within them this 

problem, which manifests itself in the way you suggest. I too had 

worked with the Saudis and with many others on this. I agree with 

what General Petraeus said about their willingness to help if you 

can document your point. 

I see the way to do this in sort of two ways. First—it has been 

a long time since I have had access to the data on precisely who 

is funding and so forth, but I suspect it hasn’t changed all that 

much. And the two things you have to do are aggressively attack 

what you can see and detect. So in terms of supporting terrorism, 

you go after fundraisers, people who move money, and people who 

raise the funds, those three categories. And the latter two are easier, and you can go and find them, and we were very successful with 

disrupting them. And then, based on that evidence, you go to the 

countries where the fundraisers are coming from and you present 

them with that evidence. And you just keep battling this problem. 

But these societies are like ours. They have strongly discordant, 

different, divergent points of view, and you go to the leadership, 

and they tell you that. They say, well, we don’t want this to happen, but we don’t have complete control over everyone in our society, just as we don’t. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Right. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. And it is the toughest problem we face, I 

think. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thanks. Shifting gears towards Russia, I 

mean, just looking at them as a country, they have got a nondiversified economy; they have got a declining demographics; yet they 

are still, you know, military buildup, foreign adventurism, meddling all over the world. Is this sustainable, and how do you see 

that playing out? 

General PETRAEUS. It is not. They used to depend on export of 

oil and gas to produce 60 percent of their government revenue. Obviously, the price of each of those has declined somewhere around 

a half or so. And, again, you mentioned the other challenges that 

they have, also a relative degree of dysfunction in their economy. 

To say that there are market distortions would be a bit of an 

understatement. So, no. Clearly, there are challenges there, and 

what Vladimir Putin has done, as John explained, is shift from providing for the people when the prices of oil and gas were high, to 

now providing ‘‘at least Russia’s a great country again’’—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. But that can’t last. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. That kind of inspiration. There 

are limits to how long that can go, and that is why he wants to 

get out of the sanctions. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. It is not sustainable, but the one way that 

they will keep it going is by deepening authoritarian policies, and 

that is what we see happening. I was told in Russia, by people who 

are well plugged into the society there: Don’t make the assumption 
39 

that there will be some sort of uprising here against this. It is not 

going to happen. 

So it is not sustainable, but it is not going to crack overnight. 

General PETRAEUS. Yeah. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Petraeus, it was an honor to serve with you. It is an 

honor to have you here. 

General PETRAEUS. Semper fi. 

Mr. MOULTON. All the way. 

I have often said that you are the best boss I have ever had, and 

I am grateful for your service. 

And, Mr. McLaughlin, thank you so much for your service, often 

much more behind the scenes, but so incredibly important as well. 

Taking the strategic view, General, when we look at getting the 

big ideas right from this committee, would you say that our challenge in fighting ISIS in the Middle East is more about killing 

more bad guys on the ground and taking territory from them or 

more with the fight against the underlying causes, the political 

issues, their recruiting efforts and whatnot that allow them to sustain their effort? 

General PETRAEUS. It is, of course, all of the above, as you know. 

Again, if you think back to the surge—and thanks again for your 

great service during that time and in several earlier tours—it was 

always a comprehensive approach. Certainly—— 

Mr. MOULTON. Right. If you look—— 

General PETRAEUS. Certainly, you have got to kill or capture—— 

Mr. MOULTON. Right. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. A lot of the bad guys. You have 

got to take away their terrain. You have also got to take away their 

funding, their sanctuary, their ammo, their explosive experts, their 

communications, command and control, sanctuaries, and all the 

rest, but then to reinforce, to build on the security gains is the 

other pieces of this. 

Mr. MOULTON. Which part are we doing well and which part 

needs more work? 

General PETRAEUS. We are clearly doing well at enabling our 

Iraqi partners, who have now been reconstituted, retrained, reequipped, and so forth, and taking away that territory from them, 

killing or capturing a large number of the Islamic State forces. We 

are killing a large number of them as well. The question is the sustainability of this. Again, it is the battle after the battle: What happens after Mosul is cleared, the rest of Nineveh province is cleared? 

Can there be an inclusive governance that guarantees minority 

rights as well as majority rule? If that is the case, you won’t see 

fertile fields for planting of the seeds of extremism and ISIS 3.0. 

If not, I fear that we may see that movie again. 

Mr. MOULTON. Unfortunately, that reaffirms my fears as well, 

that we don’t really have—we have been doing very well at taking 

killers off the battlefield. We haven’t been doing as well at making 

sure we have a sustainable political solution to come after. 

Mr. McLaughlin, would you say that—— 
40 

General PETRAEUS. What is interesting is I think we did have 

that in Iraq for a good 31⁄2 years—— 

Mr. MOULTON. I agree. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. Or 4 years. So—— 

Mr. MOULTON. I agree. 

General PETRAEUS [continuing]. In the second surge—— 

Mr. MOULTON. It is not impossible, in other words. Yep. And it 

can be done. 

General PETRAEUS. It can be done, but it also can be undone, 

tragically. 

Mr. MOULTON. Mr. McLaughlin, would agree with that assessment? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes. I would just add for emphasis that the 

changing the conditions is the hardest part. When we testified here 

about a year ago, I was with Ryan Crocker, and I remember the 

term that Ambassador Crocker used over and over and over again 

in talking about what we need to do in Iraq is engage, engage, engage, engage, and he implied that we weren’t engaging as much as 

we should be with the government to keep moving toward this reconciliation between the Sunni and Shia portions of Iraq. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, General. 

There has been a lot of testimony, a lot of questions asked about 

the President’s travel ban. And I appreciate your test that it does 

not meet, which is taking more people off the battle—more bad 

guys off the battlefield than it perhaps put on, but let’s get down 

to moving forward here. What can we do? 

General PETRAEUS. I think it is already happening. I think there 

has to be clarification. There have to be exceptions, exemptions and 

so forth. And then let’s determine what are the additional steps or 

actions that need to be taken so that we are reassured about those 

who are coming to our country and then move forward and communicate this with our allies, with our partners, especially, obviously, 

our Muslim country partners. 

Mr. MOULTON. What can we in Congress do to change the perception of the order and improve this communication with our allies? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, I think for those Members of Congress 

in the oversight committees where this is most applicable, certainly 

communicating with General Kelly, especially in this case, since he 

is the organization that is most engaged with this, but also State 

and Defense and others. And then, I think, having satisfied yourself that there is a solid approach going forward, there has been 

a good after-action review, as we would have said in the wake of 

this, that then I think you can offer reassuring words and note that 

this is a temporary activity, and as soon as it is completed, we will 

get back to business with perhaps some additional steps or checks. 

Mr. MOULTON. General, one last question. There have been reports coming out, quite a number of reports, about the role of dissent in the administration. There has been a State Department 

cable circulating expressing dissent with this order, and the administration has made statements to the effect that people should resign if they dissent. 

In your view, in your experience, what is the role of dissent in 

furthering our national security? 
41 

General PETRAEUS. It is a very interesting question. And, obviously, I have thought a bit about it watching events of recent days. 

I have generally felt that disagreement, dissent, and so forth 

should be voiced behind closed doors and offered, and that, generally, having had your say—I mean, there are a number of cases 

publicly known where my advice was not followed when I was a 

military commander or the Director of the CIA. And my general 

view was the troops don’t get to quit, so I shouldn’t get to quit, but 

there could come a point in time where, if your advice is not taken 

over and over and over again, then I think you actually have an 

obligation to your own organization and to the country to say, ‘‘Perhaps I should let you get someone whose advice you might listen 

to, since mine is not being regarded,’’ and then, at a certain point, 

perhaps go public as well, having had a principled position in that 

regard. 

I am a bit uncomfortable with the very public activities, candidly. 

And I think that has to be very, very carefully considered as Rex 

Tillerson, presumably, is confirmed expeditiously and takes over at 

State. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, gentlemen. 

And, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for allowing the extra 

time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Abraham. 

Dr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, both gentlemen, for keeping us safe over so many 

years. 

We have talked about several organizations of Islamic terror that 

continue to have pretty good infrastructure. Some have great social 

media, such as ISIS, and they are all, I perceive as a continuing 

threat, albeit maybe not as great sometimes as others. 

What do we do? What is your advice, both of you, when we have 

a terrorist group like Hezbollah that gets embedded into a government like Lebanon? Where do we go from there? How do you 

counter that, because that will continue to be a continuing threat, 

because they are now in government positions? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, this is why I highlighted the issue of 

Lebanonization of Iraq. I think you could also highlight the concerns about Lebanonization of Syria, situations where militias get 

embedded in society and then take on a political role. And it is the 

height of irony that the three militias in Iraq that are supported 

and trained and equipped by Iran, several of them are headed by 

individuals who were in detention facilities back in our day for 

very, very good reasons, ultimately served their time. They are not 

just militia leaders; they are also now members of Parliament. So 

you now get this linkage, and, of course, these are very religiously 

linked militias as well. And you see the erosion of what we would 

see as legitimate governance, and we have seen that happen in 

Lebanon to the point where Lebanese Hezbollah at the very least 

has a bit of a veto on any action, a very significant check in the 

political world, and it should be a cautionary tale. 

We have also seen it, perhaps maybe more so, in the case of 

Hamas, where a militia extremist organization has actually taken 

over a slice of territory, albeit not a country. 
42 

So, again, I think we should be very concerned about these developments, and this was what I was trying to highlight with one of 

the threats that Iraq does indeed face. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. You know, the reason, among others, many 

reasons why Hezbollah has become embedded in Lebanon, but one 

of them is that Lebanon itself as a country was not able to provide 

for the social welfare of many of its people. So, at one point, I could 

document, when I was in government, that Hezbollah was responsible for the social welfare, medical care, schooling and so forth of 

about 250,000 citizens of Lebanon. So we have to work with countries like that that are on the front line to not necessarily give 

them money, but to help them develop, help them with their civic 

society, help them with their institutions in order to guard against 

that sort of problem. 

And the main reason Iran is so interested in Syria is not just 

Assad. It is the fact that is their channel to keep Hezbollah going. 

They traditionally have gone through Syria. 

Dr. ABRAHAM. No. I know. They have got to get to Lebanon 

through Syria. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yeah. 

Dr. ABRAHAM. That is their highway. Just a quick followup—— 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. And you have to come back, Hezbollah when 

it—you know, the other wing of Hezbollah is a militant terrorist 

wing—— 

Dr. ABRAHAM. Right. Very much so. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN [continuing]. And before 9/11, they were the 

principal source of trouble for the United States. So you have got 

to combat them with intelligence and military and diplomatic channels. 

Dr. ABRAHAM. And so, with you-all’s testimony, and I think everybody here would agree, we can’t, as Americans, go it alone anymore. It is just too great—too big a bite of the apple. 

How do we get more buy-in from our allies to combat this? You 

have got China and Russia, they are on the increase. You have got 

the Middle East in chaos. What do we do to get our allies to even 

buy in more so we can combat things like the Lebanonization of 

these countries and issues such as this? 

General PETRAEUS. For starters, we have to lead. And it is not 

an alternative. Again, I was going to start the quick five lessons, 

but ungoverned spaces will be exploited by extremists, the effects 

will not be contained to the areas where they are. Las Vegas rules 

don’t apply. Something has to be done. The U.S. has to lead, because only we have the assets that are capable of doing what is 

necessary, but we don’t go it alone. But if we don’t lead, no one 

else—or very seldom will you see someone else step up to the plate. 

And then we have got to have, not only in that coalition NATO and 

European and other members, but, again, Muslim countries engaged in this as well. And then it has to be a comprehensive effort, 

but without us doing all of it ourselves as we are able now to do, 

we show that we can do this kind of approach in Iraq. And we have 

to recognize this is a generational struggle, so sustainability does 

matter, and that is measured in blood and treasure. 

Dr. ABRAHAM. Thank you. I am out of time. Thank you so much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Shea-Porter. 
43 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you. 

And thank you both for being here. It has been very informative. 

General Petraeus, in your statement, you say, and I am quoting 

you: ‘‘As a result of America’s values—political pluralism, rule of 

law, a free and open society—we can recruit the best and the 

brightest from every corner of the planet, a strategic advantage 

that none of our competitors can match.’’ 

I agree with you that this openness is a strategic advantage, and 

that is why I am concerned about some of the recent actions that 

we have seen this new administration take. 

What is going to be the impact if we can’t recruit from the best 

and the brightest from every corner of the planet? Will people who 

are looking to come here and bring their gifts and their talents 

here look at this and say, ‘‘Well, maybe they will fix it this time, 

maybe the United States will back off a little bit, but for long term, 

I am not sure that the United States is going to welcome my particular family and the gifts and the talents that I have’’? Do you 

have concerns about that? It is not just like the 120-day ban. I am 

looking forward, saying, when people decide where they are going 

to live and where they are going to, you know, bring their gifts and 

their talents, what impact do you fear that might have, or don’t 

you? 

General PETRAEUS. Sure. This is a huge part of our economy. By 

the way, as the Congress takes up the discussion of the H–1B visa 

limit or not limit or raise the limit or whatever, this will be a big 

issue there as well, and getting that right is vitally important to 

certain sectors of our economy, in which—sectors in which we lead 

the world, the IT revolution, manufacturing revolution, life 

sciences, and so forth. So it is critically important. 

And, oh, by the way, if you ever fly into Canada, you will see 

signs up there that literally say: ‘‘Can’t get an H–1B visa? Happy 

to have you.’’ So there is competition out there. There are other 

countries that will welcome the best and brightest of the world. 

I still think that our beacon burns brightest. I think this is the 

place where people want to go. Even those who criticize our country typically fight to send their sons and daughters to our universities. So I think that is going to continue. We will get through the 

current kerfuffle here and then become once again, I think, and as 

we are, the place where everyone would like to go to school, work, 

and raise a family. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. I agree with you. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I just have to add, I teach at a university 

down on Mass [Massachusetts] Avenue. We have about 50 different 

nationalities represented in that little school, and I am astonished 

at the diversity of experience and expertise when I sit down with 

my students. So that is a vital part of America, end of story. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. And it is a great gift to us and a gift that we 

give as well. 

And then I want to shift a little bit and talk about Russian Television. I was very shocked to go to a hotel in this country and turn 

on the channel, and there was Russian Television. So I watched it. 

And it was subtle, but it was definitely propaganda. And so I have 

been asking other people from other countries, you know, are they 

seeing it as well? And the answer is yes, they are. And I think we 
44 

have been rather silent about it, you know, the impact that this 

could be having, in addition to all the other steps that the Russians 

have taken. 

So I would like you both to address that. You know, are we concerned enough or over-concerned or what? 

General PETRAEUS. No. We should be concerned about it. It is not 

unique to Russia. I mean, remember all the issues we had with Al 

Jazeera. I remember as the CENTCOM [Central Command] commander going into Qatar and saying: ‘‘You know, you have got to— 

you have our air base. You have my forward headquarters. You 

have done all this. And you are allowing this state-funded, by and 

large, to beat us up on television. So how about taking it easier?’’ 

So, again, this is an issue that is, again, not unique just to those 

two countries either. And by the way, Qatar did over time make 

adjustments and so forth. 

But at the end of the day, this is about competition. It is about, 

again, what people want to watch, what do they feel is truly fair, 

and so forth. And I think, as a matter of fact, that Al Jazeera 

English—or America went away. It is a competitive process. 

So, again, we have just got to make sure that we provide the context in terms of the laws and so forth and the regulation that ensure that those media that emanate from here are ones that are 

seen as attractive to others abroad, ‘‘attractive’’ meaning in terms 

of objective, fair, honest, and so forth. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yeah. When I was in Russia in October, it 

wasn’t so subtle. What you saw on the media there on television 

were programs for the Russian population projecting war with the 

United States and advising people to prepare their bomb shelters. 

A little hard to believe, but that is what Russian citizens were 

hearing at that time. 

The television you are seeing here is much more subtle. It is very 

effective. And there aren’t a lot of things that Russia does well, but 

this is one of the things that it does very well. It comes out of having been a national security state for so many decades. It is an inheritance of that. So they put a lot of effort and emphasis into this. 

Smart people run it, linguistically talented and well-trained. 

So as General Petraeus says, it is a competitive world. We have 

to just be aware of that. We should probably pay more attention 

in the United States to our overall policy of strategic communications with the world. 

General PETRAEUS. Yeah. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Maybe General Petraeus might want to elaborate on that, but that is something where I think we have dropped 

the ball a bit in recent years. 

Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Thank you. I would agree. And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Banks. 

Mr. BANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to both of you for your enlightening testimony 

here to us today. You have both described the significant challenges facing us with Russian growth and involvement in Europe, 

the Middle East, and even here at home. I want to ask questions 

specifically related to NATO. You have talked about our allies and 

the significance of our allies around the world, but for a moment, 

I would like to turn our attention to NATO. 
45 

General, you know firsthand how important NATO is as a partner to the United States of America in combating the threats that 

we face, but in my opinion, NATO serves today as the prime target 

for Russia and Putin. At the same time, the Trump administration, 

President Trump himself, has drawn some—has indicated some interesting questions and rhetoric regarding our future relationship 

with NATO, our involvement in NATO, and that is really my question to both of you. What is your advice to President Trump, your 

insight that you can direct there, and what are some ways that we 

can strengthen our relationship with NATO moving forward to 

combat the threats that we face? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, I think, again, that Secretary Mattis 

has spent a great deal of time on the telephone and meeting visitors already here, and now on his travel, to reassure our allies and 

partners around the world, and has spent a lot of that particularly 

with NATO. You know, he held a four-star billet in NATO. I was 

a one-star, three-star, and four-star in NATO billets. It is a hugely 

important organization. As General Mattis said, if it didn’t exist, 

we would have to invent. It is the most successful alliance in history. 

Having said that, NATO does need to continue to change with 

the times. It does need to continue to evolve to address new threats 

now in the cyberspace as a true battle space in particular. Its members do need to spend more. They cannot freeload in the way that 

they have in the past. And I think that they are—the President has 

gotten their attention with respect to that, as I mentioned my experience at the recent gathering of security leaders from Europe. 

So, look, we have got to sustain it. We also have to encourage 

its members to do more for themselves but certainly to stay together as well. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yeah. When George Shultz was Secretary of 

State, he used to say about diplomacy that you have to continually 

tend the garden, by which he meant you have got to go there, you 

have got to talk to people, you have got to listen to them. I think 

that is what I would—that is the way I am thinking about NATO 

these days. General Mattis is off to a great start on that point. But 

what I mean is that the Russians are doing that. They are trying 

to get into our garden and tend it. They are looking for opportunities among the NATO countries, remember, NATO has gotten very 

big, just as the European Union has gotten big, and they are looking for opportunities in places where they traditionally have had 

good relationships with locals, such as Bulgaria, some of the East 

European countries, where they think they can peel members away 

from NATO or make them less likely to be firm in the event of a 

conflict. So we have to tend that garden. It isn’t all in Brussels. We 

have got to go to each of those NATO countries and talk to them— 

Congress would be a great vehicle for that, our administration and 

so forth—and strengthen NATO at the roots. 

Mr. BANKS. General, if I could turn my focus back to Afghanistan. You spoke briefly much earlier about our role there. Currently, in the news over the last couple of days, the disintegration 

of the rule of law in Afghanistan is under siege by Vice President 

Dostum, who appears to be a rogue operator within the Afghan 

Government. Over the past year, we have seen other examples of 
46 

disintegration of the rule of law there just by billions of dollars that 

we have spent and our efforts, along with our NATO allies, in Afghanistan. 

What evidence do you see that might give us some foresight that 

we can turn that around and get Afghanistan back on the right 

track in the future? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, I think the most important indicator 

there is the fact that Afghan forces are fighting and dying for their 

country, unfortunately in larger numbers than perhaps needed to 

be the case if we could support them more effectively. And to be 

fair, now we have relaxed those rules of engagement, and we are 

doing more than we have been able to in the past. I know that 

General Nicholson is looking at what adjustments could be made 

to the structure of his force, to the numbers of his force, again, to 

the rules of engagement. President Ashraf Ghani is someone who 

is committed to what I would assess is all the right things, but it 

is a very, very tough situation. And this is why, again, I think we 

have to have a sustained commitment, not one that every single 

year you are doing another relook and everyone gets very anxious 

about whether or not there is going to be another drawdown and 

so forth. Thanks. 

Mr. BANKS. Thanks again. I yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Rosen. 

Ms. ROSEN. Thank you. I want to thank you both for being here, 

for your thoughtful and thorough testimony today, and, of course, 

your service to our Nation. 

You know, just this past weekend, Iran tested a ballistic missile, 

as we know, a violation of the agreement in the international community. Some say overtly this aggressive action does not violate 

the letter of the law, but it cannot be denied that Iran’s missile 

launch violates the spirit of the law. That is why I am working 

with my colleagues to look explicitly at the possibility of expanding 

sanctions against Iran to include a prohibition on the acquisition 

and use of ballistic missiles. 

So, thankfully, the test failed, but my question is to you. In the 

worst-case scenario—this missile went about 500 miles, a distance 

from my home in Las Vegas to about Sacramento. In the worst-case 

scenario, what happens if Iran does have a long-range ballistic missile? 

General PETRAEUS. First of all, Iran does have a variety of different missiles of a variety of different ranges. The concern in this 

case, I think, is the gradual development of technology that would 

at some point down the road enable them, if they can develop a nuclear weapon, miniaturize it, and put it on the nose of this, to then 

threaten our partners and our ally in the region or perhaps even 

farther, and that is the big concern. 

And, of course, this is a country that may or may not be deterred 

by the traditional forms of deterrence that have worked with other 

so-called rational powers in the past when we have had thousands 

of nuclear weapons pointed at each other. So I think that is the big 

concern. That is why there is a determination not to allow them 

to have nuclear weapons. 

And if I could offer something, as people are looking at, you 

know, the nuclear deal and all the rest of this, however imperfect 
47 

it may be, it is a multilateral deal. If you tear that up, you are 

probably more likely to isolate yourself than Iran. And it appears 

that the President has concluded that, based on his conversation 

with the King of Saudi Arabia, in which he said there will be very 

strict enforcement of it, which there should be. 

Congress might actually consider working with the White House 

at this point in time on a statement of national policy that says 

that Iran will never be allowed to enrich uranium to weapons 

grade. Now, this should not cause concern for Iran, because it says 

it does not want nuclear weapons, so there should be no big concern there. And then, by the way, then very clearly maintain the 

capability of U.S. Central Command to carry out whatever contingency plans it might have to have, and which it does have, in fact, 

to ensure that it could act to enforce that policy. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I would augment that by pressuring Iran to 

ratify the additional protocol of the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], 

which I don’t think they have done yet formally. They kind of accepted it in principle, but they have got to ratify it in their Majlis 

[parliament], because once they do that, they subject themselves to 

very intrusive monitoring beyond what they have now in order to 

keep them from getting to that point of a nuclear weapon. 

Also, in my old field, I would keep an eye on how other countries 

are working with them. Their medium-range missile, the Shahab3, is based on a North Korean design. So there is probably some 

stuff going on there. The Russians back in the nineties helped 

them with missile testing. We worked hard to get the Russians off 

of that. I went to Russia many times and made that point. And I 

think they backed off, but we need to keep our eye on that RussianIranian relationship as well. 

And, basically, I support what General Petraeus said about the 

nuclear declaration. All of those things together kind of reinforces 

the point we were making earlier. It is a complicated world; you 

have got to work with a lot of other countries to get this done. 

Ms. ROSEN. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Cheney. 

Ms. CHENEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you very much, General Petraeus and Mr. McLaughlin, 

for your service and for being here today and for sticking it out till 

the bottom row of questioning. So I appreciate that. 

General PETRAEUS. Welcome to the bottom row. 

Ms. CHENEY. Thank you. I got a very close eyewitness view of 

you guys. But thank you for your service. I want to ask about two 

things. 

A number of my colleagues have expressed real concern about actions the administration has taken and the potential for those actions to be recruiting tools. And I wanted to ask you, General 

Petraeus, to expand on something you began to talk about, which, 

in my view, is the largest recruiting tool of all, and that is failing 

to defeat the terrorists. And in particular, if you look at where the 

world stood, where Iraq stood, where the Middle East stood in January of 2009, with Al Qaeda in Iraq largely defeated because of 

what happened with the surge, because of your efforts and your 

leadership, with the Shia militias largely defeated, and you compare that to where we are today—Al Qaeda in more nations than 
48 

it has ever been in the past, failed states across the region—it 

seems to me that the recruiting tool we really need to be focused 

on and concerned about is, what happens when terrorist organizations survive, when we don’t take the kind of extensive action that 

is necessary to defeat them and they are then able to claim that 

they are standing up against the United States, against the West, 

that, in fact, isn’t that perhaps the most effective recruiting tool of 

all? 

General PETRAEUS. No. Absolutely. Look, recruiting depends on 

an attractive pitch. The pitch includes: Hey, come join us; we are 

a winning team. You can—you know welcome to the National Football League or whatever else. 

And it is pretty hard to have that pitch if you are losing. And 

so that is why I said for so many years that it is very important 

to demonstrate that the Islamic State is a loser, not a winner. And 

the faster we can do this, the better, because that is the faster that 

they are no longer able to recruit as effectively. So time has actually mattered. Now, we do have them very much in the retreat. We 

have got to maintain that. We have got to press it to the end, and 

then we have got to make sure that the battle after the battle is 

successful as well. And we have to follow them wherever they are 

in the world, and we have the capability to do that. 

Ms. CHENEY. Thank you. And let me turn now to Iran. 

Mr. McLaughlin, in your testimony, you talked about the Iran 

agreement buying us time. And I wonder if you could just explain 

your basis for that, given the real concern that many people had 

and continue to have about the total inadequacy of the inspections 

regime, where you have got the Iranians able in some instances 

with respect to the former military sites, able to actually to inspect 

themselves, where you have got the IAEA [International Atomic 

Energy Agency] having stated that in some instances they actually 

have less access now than they did pre-agreement. I think we all, 

you know, would hope that that would be the case in terms of buying us time, but I don’t see any evidence that we actually have any 

insight that could give us comfort into what the Iranians are truly 

doing, given the tremendous holes in the inspections regime in the 

agreement. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, I don’t really disagree with that. I might 

have added the term ‘‘warily’’ to my observation that it buys us 

some time. I fall back on the wisdom of Ronald Reagan here: trust 

but verify. So a degree of trust is appropriate in anything that we 

have negotiated this carefully, but in my old business, and I assume, and this committee can certainly have access to that, that 

people must have—in addition to the formal monitoring that is 

going on through the IAEA, we must be keeping a very—we should 

be keeping a very close eye on this with intelligence means. 

And I have some confidence that we will detect cheating when 

it occurs. The professionals now in office can elaborate on that, but 

I know we have detected it in the past. We discovered the underground facility. We discovered Natanz, actually, long before it was 

announced publicly by an Iraqi dissident group. So I have some 

confidence that we will pick it up if they cross the line. 

Ms. CHENEY. Well, I hope you are right. With all due respect, 

with our history in that regard with respect to actually being able 
49 

to know about, to discover the existence of other nations’ nuclear 

programs has actually not been one where we have been tremendously successful. As you know, it was Israelis who brought us evidence of the Syrian—the North Korean-built Syrian reactor. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yep. 

Ms. CHENEY. So I hope that is the case. And unfortunately—— 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, we should be talking to the Israelis 

about this one too. 

Ms. CHENEY. Yes. Exactly. Well, thank you very much. 

And I yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McEachin. 

Mr. MCEACHIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you all for being here. 

The CHAIRMAN. You might hit the button there. 

Mr. MCEACHIN. Might hit the button. There we go. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to associate my comments or 

at least my thanks that Ms. Cheney gave for you all hanging out 

for the rookies down here. 

Gentlemen, in my estimation, we were attacked recently by Russia when it determined that it was in its national interests to try 

to intervene in our domestic elections. I am concerned and disturbed that our Commander in Chief has barely acknowledged that 

attack, much less condemned it. To my mind, the so-called Russian 

bear is back on the prowl and being exceedingly active now. And 

I am interested in your thoughts on what this administration 

should do in terms of engaging Russia in trying to limit its influence in the world. 

And I appreciate, Mr. McLaughlin, your comments about 

Ukraine, and I did hear those, but in addition to that, what should 

we be doing? 

And then, if you have time, I would also like you to talk about 

the strategic importance of the Philippines and what we need to do 

to sort of corral them back into our sphere of influence, as they 

seem to be hell-bent on leaving it. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, we have talked a lot about Russia, and 

I think you have to start—I am going to say something I said earlier, but I feel it strongly, which is that the first thing we have to 

do is make sure we understand precisely what we want out of the 

relationship. You know, I came back from my time, recent trip to 

Russia saying to myself, the big question for us is, how do we want 

this to end? What do we want this to end up, because it is spiraling 

downward? They accept no responsibility for the fact that the relationship has deteriorated. Let’s be clear about that. And, therefore, 

they are very cold-eyed and hard when they evaluate their own interests, and they press them aggressively. So we have to know 

what we want first. 

And I would say the things we have to want are observation of 

the rules that govern the world order, particularly the inviolability 

of borders. We cannot give that up. They have broken at least three 

treaty agreements in what they have done in Ukraine, one of them 

signed by 57 countries. So we have to be hard over on that. That 

means we probably have to keep the sanctions in place. We cannot 

reduce them. They will want to bargain for the reduction of those 

sanctions. 
50 

And at the same time, we have to amp up our efforts in the leadership realm. I think Putin has stolen a march on us in the Middle 

East. Before he sent troops into Syria, I was keeping track of their 

diplomatic effort, and I cannot think of a major leader in that area 

who had not visited Moscow for diplomatic consultations, including 

our allies, in the year or so preceding their entry into Syria militarily. 

So we have to match them diplomatically around the world because they are playing a weak hand very well. We have got to 

watch what they are doing with China because they are never 

going to be natural allies, but they share an interest right now in 

checkmating us in that part of the world. 

So we are not in a new Cold War yet; that is the wrong term. 

But we certainly are in a competition with a wily opponent who 

has no opposition and total control, both of his—can make decisions 

overnight. Putin basically meets with five other people on a Friday 

afternoon and decides what they are going to do next week. That 

is a little less complicated than our government. So agility is what 

we need in dealing with them. 

General PETRAEUS. And with respect to the Philippines, look, 

this is a strategically significant development that has taken place 

with President Duterte taking control of that government and, instead of continuing the policy of balancing with the United States 

against China, who had picked so many fights with them and with 

their other maritime neighbors, has seemed to be bandwagoning, is 

the term, more with China, or at least staying in-between. And so 

I think this is going to require a great deal of patience, as we are 

going to have to demonstrate capability, we are going to have to 

demonstrate our system, example, determination, and so forth, and 

I think that will be the key in the long term, but I think we are 

going—we are in for some rocky seas in that particular neighborhood. 

Mr. MCEACHIN. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gallagher. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Petraeus, thank you for your willingness to always take 

a chance on young marines like Seth and myself. Thank you—and 

your continued ability to out PT [physical training] younger marines such as myself. 

Thank you, Mr. McLaughlin, for your distinguished service as 

well. 

My colleague mentioned Iran’s nuclear program, and yesterday 

had seen the Iranians confirm that they conducted another ballistic 

missile test. Ballistic missiles are wrongly, in my view, not covered 

in many ways under the purview of this deal, although they are 

covered by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. 

How do you suggest we respond to something like that, and more 

broadly, can you talk about the difficulties of disaggregating Iran’s 

nuclear program, its missile program from the other ways in which 

Iran advances its interests throughout the Middle East and, indeed, throughout the world? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, again, clearly what is happening is already the U.N. Security Council is going to meet on this. Unfortu-
51 

nately, there is a degree of ambiguity in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions on that particular topic. It is linked to the 

nuclear program. They claim this is not linked to the nuclear program, and therefore, it is permissible. So you are going to have 

some international lawyering going back and forth. And certainly 

there should be an effort to try to clarify that, to try to reduce that 

ambiguity, to try to expand the scope of the resolution, although I 

think that is going to prove to be very difficult. 

And so, again, what we are going to have to do, I think we have 

two huge interests with respect to Iran. One is to ensure they 

never get a nuclear weapon. The other is to, with our partners and 

our ally in the region, to counter the malign activities that they 

have ongoing much more effectively than we have been in recent 

years. The partners out there are eager to see that kind of leadership from the United States, and they will certainly welcome and 

be part of efforts along those lines. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I don’t think I would add anything to that. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. And then, secondly, there has been some talk 

about safe zones in Syria today. I know we have heard that on the 

call with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the President discussed the 

use of safe zones in Syria and Yemen, I believe. 

Could you talk a bit more about the risks and rewards of going 

down that path right now, and what questions do we need to answer before we march forward with safe zones? 

General PETRAEUS. Well, this is something that I have actually 

recommended for a number of years, although once Russia intervened, this became a much dicier proposition. And I think the issue 

now is one of, if there is to be a safe zone, then clearly you are 

going to have to have an agreement with Russia on that, or you 

are going to have to be willing to establish that you are going to 

fight for the security of that safe zone, and if Bashar al-Assad’s 

forces bomb innocent civilians, that, you know, his Air Force is 

going to be grounded. 

I think it would be very important that everyone understands 

what the ramifications, what essentially the rules of engagement 

would be for such a safe zone. This is not a place where I would 

want to leave a lot of ambiguities, for fear that you could end up 

in an escalating situation. 

At the end of the day, I think it is very possible that these areas 

that are outside the control of the Bashar al-Assad regime, supported by Iran and Hezbollah and the Russians and other Shia militia, that these areas may actually begin to firm into some zone, 

maybe one under the control of Turkey in the northwest, a Syrian 

Kurdish—and that will be a tough issue with the Turks; there will 

have to be assurances from us—and then perhaps a Sunni Arab 

zone that could stretch from Daraa in the south, perhaps all the 

way up to the Deir ez-Zor and maybe even up to Raqqa, that these 

zones could ultimately become some element in a future if there is 

a federal form of government but, at an interim basis, could actually reduce this bloodshed, which I highlighted earlier as being one 

of the overriding objectives at this point, much more important 

than whatever efforts are ongoing to get a pluralist democracy into 

Damascus, which I think is very unlikely. 
52 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. If I could just add a little bit to that. I recommended that we pursue a safe zone when I testified here about 

a year ago. It has become harder. I think there is still merit in considering doing this, in large part because it is hard. 

What I mean by that is that is what leaders do. Leaders take on 

hard things. I am not lecturing this committee, but we are now 

seen as being behind the curve in the Middle East, as having allowed a vacuum to open up, and Putin has moved into it. So taking 

on a really hard job like that would demonstrate leadership that 

would put us back in the center of things. 

And when I say it is hard, it is for all the reasons General 

Petraeus mentioned. You would have to tell the Russians: You stay 

out of there, or do it with us, but let’s not get in the clash in there. 

You would have to have a way to ensure that it wasn’t infiltrated 

by terrorists. Hard, hard stuff. 

And you would have to protect it. You would take risks, but once 

again, it would show leadership in what I think is the most consequential event taking place on the face of the Earth today. 

Mr. GALLAGHER. Well, thank you both for your leadership and for 

a career of doing very hard things. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Veasey. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Petraeus, Mr. McLaughlin, I wanted to ask you, you 

know, obviously you can turn on any cable news station and learn 

about some of the more dangerous places in the world as far as 

Syria is concerned, different parts of the Middle East, but are there 

parts of the undeveloped world or even some suburb in Europe that 

should be getting attention and focus or that we should be worried 

about that no one is talking about right now? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Well, that is kind of what I meant at the end 

of my remarks when I said we will probably be surprised by something that General Petraeus and I have not mentioned. It could 

be—and I could give you so many examples from the past on that 

score. 

I would say Sub-Saharan Africa. Among other things, a large 

portion, perhaps a majority of the refugees migrating to Europe actually come from Africa, not from the Middle East, because of conditions there. Not every country there is doing badly. In fact, there 

are a lot of hopeful signs in Africa. But a number of them are suffering from the kind of societal stresses that I suggested would 

come about as a result of burgeoning population and a huge youth 

bulge in those societies as distinct from the pensioner bulge we 

have in the West. So that is one thing that is not in the headlines 

particularly. 

You know, oddly, Venezuela is not much in the headlines, but 

that is a place that looks close to meltdown to me: a shortage of 

goods, unpopular President, authoritarian steps being taken in the 

country that has the largest proven oil reserves in the world and 

that is a stone’s throw from us. That is another one. 

Colombia, I think, needs a look, because they have come to a 

really inventive agreement on how to stop a war that went on for 

decades there, but it is not perfect. And the problems that have 

devilled Colombia, in which the United States has played an enor-
53 

mously important role moving forward—it is one of the few successful, really totally successful partnerships to fight both terrorism and narcotics, and very appreciated by the Colombians. 

So there are a lot of places in the world that we haven’t mentioned that—you could almost have a hearing here on parts of the 

world that aren’t in the headlines but which may hold potential for 

trouble. 

Mr. VEASEY. You know, the Ivory Coast, about a year and a half 

ago, there was an explosion there, and it got—it dominated the 

news for maybe 24, 48 hours, and then, after that, there was absolutely no talk about it, and I haven’t heard anything else about terrorism in that part of the world since then, and so that kind of 

thing is very worrisome. 

I also wanted to ask both of you, what is your assessment of the 

administration’s recent reorganization of the NSC [National Security Council]? I know that was talked about a lot. And what do you 

think the inclusion of political staff on the NSC does to alter how 

that runs? 

General PETRAEUS. First of all, my sense is that this has been 

worked out. The idea that you would have an NSC meeting and a 

meeting on national security where the individual responsible for 

providing intelligence analysis might not be there, I think, was, 

you know, very unlikely. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has a 

statutory role as the senior military adviser to the President and 

National Security Council. The CIA Director has been added back. 

He, of course, by law is responsible directly to the President for 

covert action, does not go through the DNI for that, so he has to 

be at that table as well. And, again, my sense is that they have 

worked this out. 

There have been individuals in the room from time to time that 

were from more of the political strategy side of the house. It is unprecedented, I think, to have someone explicitly made a statutory 

member in this case. And so, again, as with all of these, you are 

going to have to see how this works out. 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I would just add that someone needs to think 

through what is the role of the Director of National Intelligence. 

The CIA Director is always very prominent and holds a special 

role, inevitably, but by law, 2004, by law, the Director of National 

Intelligence is the Nation’s chief intelligence officer and the only 

one truly empowered to bring together the view of the entire intelligence community. So, unless they are going to change that and 

tell the CIA Director to do it, I think the DNI—they have to figure 

out, where does the Director of National Intelligence fit in the mix? 

Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Our witnesses have a hard stop at 1 o’clock. And so I apologize 

to the three of you, but I will tell you what. We will put you all 

at the head of the queue for next week’s hearing with the Vice 

Chiefs on the state of our military, which is the followup to this. 

Thank you both for your patience, for your insights. It has been 

terrifically helpful. 

And, with that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:02 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 

(59) 

"The State of the World" 

General David H. Petraeus (US Army, Retired) 

House Armed Services Committee 

I February 2017 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, members of the Committee, thank you for the 

opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege to be with the HASC once again and to be here with 

my friend John McLaughlin, a fonner Deputy and Acting Director of the CIA and someone 

whose counsel I sought on numerous occasions during my time in government and beyond. This 

morning, we will try to complement each other's opening statements. l will highlight the 

increasingly complex and serious threats to the international order that has stood us in reasonably 

good stead since the end of World War II, and John will provide a more detailed accounting of 

the specific threats we face. And we will both be ready to address questions on the debilitating 

effects on our defense capabilities of sequestration, the failure to pass defense budgets in a timely 

manner, and excess bases. 

In thinking about the topic oftoday's hearing, "The State of the World," I was reminded of 

Winston Churchill's famous adage: "The farther back you can look, the fartherfimvard you are 

likely to see." So, before turning to where we are in the world today, I think it would be useful 

to consider where we have been-and how we got here. 

A little more than a century ago, at the dawn of the twentieth century, Americans had reason to 

be hopeful. The great powers were at peace. Economic interdependence among nations was 

increasing. Miraculous new technologies were appearing with dizzying speed. 

Yet this optimistic vision would soon fall to pieces. Instead, the Jirst half of the twentieth 

century would prove to be the bloodiest, most devastating period in human history, with the two 

most destructive wars in history; the worst economic collapse in history; and the near-takeover of 

the planet by an alliance of dictatorships responsible for the worst crimes against humanity in 

history. 

The United States came of age as a world power amidst the rubble left by this succession of 

calamities-and resolved, in the wake of 1945, to try to prevent them from ever happening again. 

To keep the peace, we led an effort to establish a system of global alliances and security 

commitments, underwritten by U.S. military power and the deployment of our forces to bases in 

Europe and Asia. 

To create a foundation for prosperity, we put in place an open, free, and rules-based international 

economic order intended to safeguard against the spiral of protectionism that produced the 

impoverishment and radicalization of the 1930s. 

And to protect freedom here at home, we adopted a foreign policy that sought to protect and, 

where possible, promote freedom abroad, along with human rights and rule oflaw. 

These were the bipartisan foundations for the intemational order that emerged after World War 

II. They were the product of American leadership, American power, and American values. And 

while imperfect, on balance they succeeded. 
60 

The extent of that success can be seen when we compare the first half of the twentieth century 

with the second half of that century-a period that witnessed the longest stretch without a great 

power war in centuries; the most dramatic expansion of human prosperity in history; and the 

spread of democracy to every inhabited continent on the planet. 

To borrow a phrase from the historian Robert Kagan, this is the world that America made. 

It is also the world that, I fear, is now in danger of being unmade. 

In my testimony this morning, I would like to speak about how the international order that 

America created is now under unprecedented threat from multiple directions, including by 

increasingly capable revisionist powers-that is, countries dissatisfied with the status quo, by 

Islamic extremist organizations that want to destroy our way of life, and by technologies and 

tactics that are reducing America's capacity to defend ourselves and our interests. 

As important as those various threats are, however, the world order has also been undermined by 

something perhaps even more pernicious-a loss of self-confidence, resolve, and strategic clarity 

on America's part about our vital interest in preserving and protecting the system we sacrificed 

so much to bring into being and have sacrificed so much to preserve. 

The major challenge to the U.S.-led international order-the rise of a set ofrevisionist powersis a development Americans have recognized but been reluctant to confront. Since the end of the 

Cold War, our hopeful assumption has been that mutual self-interest could provide a pathway for 

deepening partnership among the major powers, while globalization would gradually liberalize 

the internal politics of all countries. 

What we have seen instead, unfortunately, is that, as certain countries have grown more 

powerful, so too has their desire to challenge at least some elements of the status quo, while 

domestically, their authoritarianism has grown both more entrenched and yet also more insecure. 

In particular, we see several countries-including Iran, Russia, and China-now working to 

establish a kind of sphere of influence over their respective near-abroads, which include areas of 

vital strategic importance to the U.S., and where we have allies and partners to whom we are 

bound by shared interests and values. 

To be sure, each of the revisionist powers requires a very different approach on America's part. 

China, for example, is not just a rising great power and strategic competitor; it is also our number 

one trading partner and our relationship with it is the most important relationship in the world. 

In fact, in each case our relationship inevitably combines some aspects of intensifYing rivalry 

with other aspects of shared interest, including the need to develop some concept of mutual 

restraint and respect. The challenge for the U.S. is to find the often elusive equilibriumsomething that is likely to occur only if we combine hard-headed diplomacy with an equally 

hard-headed reinvestment in shoring up what has been a deteriorating balance of power. 

A very different, far more radical revisionist force threatening the international order is Islamic 

extremism-the ideology that animates the Islamic State and al Qaeda. The greatest weakness of 

Islamic extremism is also its greatest strength-which is its protean ability to exist and indeed 

thrive without inhabiting a conventional nation-state. What it lacks in traditional power terms, it 

compensates tor in conviction, resilience, resourcefulness, and ferocity. And in its hydra-like 

2 
61 

qualities, it is unlike any adversary we have faced before. What is still missing in many cases is 

a truly comprehensive approach to combating these extremists, though to be fair, there has been 

progress in recent years developing an approach that enables local partners and allows us to 

achieve a sustainable strate!,>y-with sustainability being measured in blood and treasure, and 

being an essential quality given the likely duration of the struggle in which we are engaged. 

The defeat of Islamic extremist groups does, of course, require a vital military component. But 

even if we succeed militarily, as I believe we will, in metaphorically putting a stake through the 

heati ofDaesh elements in Iraq and Syria, that success will be fleeting unless the underlying 

conflicts in those countries and the greater Middle East that enabled ISIL' s rise are addressed 

and resolved. We must also recognize that long-term success in this conflict requires that the 

ideology oflslamic extremism is itself discredited. And contending with the ideological 

caliphate in cyberspace will undoubtedly prove more challenging than taking away the rest of 

what is now a shrinking physical caliphate on the ground in Iraq and Syria. 

Here I should note that our most important ally in this war is the overwhelming majority of 

Muslims who reject al Qaeda, Daesh, and their fanatical, barbaric worldview. Indeed, it is 

millions of Muslims who are fighting and dying in the greatest numbers on the frontlines of this 

war-including Arab and Kurdish fighters bravely battling ISIL in Mosul; Gulf Arab forces 

taking the fight to AQAP in Yemen; Afghans courageously struggling against a resurgent 

Tali ban and a nascent Islamic State affiliate; Somali forces confronting AI Shabab; and the 

Libyan elements that recently drove another Islamic State entity from the enclave it had seized 

on the North African coast. 

We must also remember that Islamic extremists want to portray this fight as a clash of 

civilizations, with America at war against Islam. We must not let them do that; indeed, we must 

be very sensitive to actions that might give them ammunition to use in such an effort. 

Compounding the danger posed by revisionist forces are technologies that are eroding America's 

conventional military edge. In this respect, the wru·s of the post-9/11 period were, in some 

respects, a preview of the future. While the U.S. deployed forces into Iraq and Afghanistan that 

were superbly constructed for rapid decisive operations of the kind that we waged during the 

Gulf War in 1991, our adversaries responded with strategies that, for a fraction of the cost, 

nullified many of our advantages. 

What Islamic extremists demonstrated through insurgency and terrorism, revisionist powers like 

Russia, China, and Iran promise to take to a whole new level of sophistication. Among the fastdeveloping tools in their arsenals are anti-access area denial weapons that will complicate our 

ability to project power into vital regions and uphold our security commitments; increasingly 

complex cyber-weapons for employment alone in attacks on infrastructure or in influence 

campaigns, or in supporting conventional a11d unconventional force operations, including socalled hybrid warfare; a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons; and threats to U.S. primacy in 

space-a vital sanctuary for U.S. military power that is increasingly contested. These are all 

serious threats, and John will enumerate them further in his opening statement. 

Despite these challenges, I believe America is in a commanding position to sustain and indeed 

bolster the international order that has served us-and, paradoxically, some ofthose seeking to 

change it--so well. We have an extraordinary network of partners who are stakeholders in the 

current order and can be mobilized far more effectively in its defense. Our economy remains the 

3 
62 

largest in the world and an engine of unsurpassed innovation. And as a result of America's 

values-political pluralism, rule of law, a tree and open society-we can recruit the best and the 

brightest from every comer of the planet, a strategic advantage that none of our competitors can 

match. 

The paradox of the moment is that, just as the threats to the world order we created have grown 

ever more apparent, American resolve about its defense has become somewhat ambivalent. 

To be clear, America cannot do everything, everywhere. Indeed, no one understands that better 

than the individual who was privileged to command the Surge in Iraq and the Surge in 

Afghanistan. But when the most egregious violations of the most basic principles of the 

international order we helped shape are tolerated or excused, that lack of action undermines the 

entire system-and is an invitation to further challenges. 

Americans should not take the current international order for granted. It did not will itself into 

existence. We created it. Likewise, it is not naturally self-sustaining. We have sustained it. If 

we stop doing so, it will fray and, eventually, collapse. 

This is precisely what some of our adversaries seek to encourage. President Putin, for instance, 

understands that, while conventional aggression may occasionally enable Russia to grab a bit of 

land on its periphery, the real center of gravity is the political will of the major democratic 

powers to defend Euro-Atlantic institutions like NATO and the EU. 

That is why Russia is tenaciously working to sow doubt about the legitimacy of these institutions 

and our entire democratic way oflife. Perhaps because Russian civilization has a foot in the 

West, Russia as a great power has always been well-positioned-in a way that China and Iran 

are not-to wage ideological warfare that eats at the Euro-Atlantic world from within. 

In this respect, Mr. Chairman, I would argue that repulsing this challenge is as much a test of 

America's faith in our best traditions and values, as it is of our military strength, though our 

military strength obviously is a crucial component of our national power and does need shoring 

up as you and your Senate counterpart have explained. 

I began my remarks today by evoking a dark time in the history of mankind. Yet it was only at 

our darkest hour in the 1940s that we summoned the imagination and determination to build the 

world order of which all of us here today have been the lucky heirs. Perhaps it is in the nature of 

humanity that, only when we came to grasp fully how bad things could be, were we capable of 

galvanizing ourselves to set them right. 

That is also the great responsibility, and equally great opportunity, that those in positions of 

power have before them now-to conjure out of the accelerating crises and deepening challenges 

of the moment a world that is better than the one we inherited. And it is my hope that we will 

demonstrate the will and commit the resources needed to do just that. 

Mr. Chainnan, I have typically ended my testimony before the House and Senate Armed 

Services Committees in the past by thanking the committee members for their steadfast support 

of our men and women in uniform, particularly during the post-91!1 period. I end my statement 

4 
63 

this morning the same way, repeating the gratitude that those in uniform felt during the height of 

our engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan for the committee's extraordinary support for so many 

critical initiatives, on and off the battlefield, even when some members questioned the policies 

we were executing. 

I can assure you that this committee's unwavering support of those serving our Nation in 

uniform means a great deal to those on the battlefield and to those supporting them. And it is 

with those great Americans in mind that I have offered my thoughts here this morning. Thank 

you very much. 

5 
64 

General (Ret) David H. Petraeus 

General (Ret) David H. Petraeus (New York) joined KKR in June 2013 and 

is Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. Gen. Petraeus is involved in the KKR 

investment process and oversees the Institute's thought leadership platform focused 

on geopolitical and macro-economic trends, as well as environmental, social, and 

governance issues. Prior to joining KKR, Gen. Petraeus served over 37 years in the 

U.S. military, including command of coalition forces in Iraq, command of U.S. 

Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Following his 

service in the military, Gen. Petraeus served as the Director of the CIA. Gen. 

Petraeus graduated with distinction from the U.S. Military Academy and 

subsequently earned M.P.A. and Ph.D. degrees in international relations from 

Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International 

Affairs. Gen. Petraeus has received numerous U.S. military, State Department, 

NATO and United Nations medals and awards, and he has been decorated by 13 

foreign countries. He is also a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at CUNY's 

Macaulay Honors College, Judge Widney Professor at the University of Southern 

California, a non-resident Senior Fellow at Harvard University, and Senior VicePresident of the Royal United Services Institute, as well as a member of the 

advisory boards of the Institute for the Study of War and a number of veterans 

organizations. 
65 

DISCLOSURE FORM FOR WITNESSES 

COMMITTEE ON AR.~ED SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

INSTRUCTION TO WITNESSES: Rule 11, clause 2(g)(5), of the Rules of the U.S. 

House of Representatives for the llS'h Congress requires nongovernmental witnesses 

appearing before House committees to include in their written statements a curriculum 

vitae and a disclosure of the amount and source of any federal contracts or grants 

(including subcontracts and subgrants), or contracts or payments originating with a 

foreign goverrunent, received during the cur1·ent and iwo previous calendar years either 

by the wltness or by an entity represented by the witness and related to the subject matter 

of the hearing. This form is intended to assist witnesses appearing before the House 

Committee on Almed Services in complying with the House nue. Please note that. a copy 

of these statements, with appropriate redactions to protect the witness's personal ptivacy 

(including home address and phone number) will be made publicly available in electronic 

form not later than one day after the witness's appearance before the committee. 

Witnesses may list additional grants, contracts, or payments on additional sheets, if 

necessary. 

Witness name:,_..DuA::u.oU:.oT..JD...._ __ P:...._..f.'-'f'-'lt-'='ft"'-'"{"'(,_/_.$'---------

Capacity in which appearing: (check one) 

@Individual 

0 Representative 

If appearing in a I'epresentative capacit · name o 

entity being represented: -----'~"""1'=+:7'17T:_::::===---------

Federal Contract or Grant Information: If you or the entity you represent before the 

Committee on Armed Services has contracts (including subcontracts) or grants (including 

subgrants) 'iYith the federal government, please provide the following information: 

2017 

r--Federal grant/ Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract grant 

·~"·--·h- ... - .............. ··-·-··-

.. -· .... ___ 

i--- ···---

'--······· 
66 

2016 

Federal grantf Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract ... __ ___l;;!ant -------·----

-~~"-~-----~~--"-~· 

!······················· i····· ..... i·· !················ 

2015 

Federal grantf Federal agency Dollar value Subject of contract or 

contract grant 

----· 

Foreign Govcmmcnt Contract or .Paymentinformation: If you or the entity you 

represent before the Committee on Armed Services has contracts or payments originating 

from a foreign govemment, please provide the following information: 

2017 

Foreign contractf Foreign govemment Dollar value Subject of contract or 

payment 

..... 

--- !·-··-----·· 

. 

--

2 
67 

2016 

·- ---·-

I Foreign contraclf Foreign DoJlar value 

payment )!;OVel·nment 

2015 

-F;;r~i~ contra elf- - Foreign I D~llar va lu.e 

r--~ment ______ _&o_ver!lll:l:ent -----+----~-

Subject of contract or 

payment 

-

- ·~·~~~··"-~··-· 

Subject o£ contract or 

_________ payment 

I 

I 

'--------.L-------L------.1..-·-~--------

3 
68 

Statement Before the Committee on Armed Services 

US House of Representatives 

"The State of the World: National Security Threats and Challenges" 

A Testimony by 

John E. Mclaughlin 

Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence 

School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) 

Johns Hopkins University 

February 1, 2017 

2118 Rayburn House Office Building 

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thanks very much for the opportunity to 

testify today in your first hearing of the new Congress. And thanks so much for pairing 

me with my friend General David Petraeus, who has done so much at home and abroad 

to advance American interests and to keep our nation secure. 

I understand this to be a "framing" hearing, that is, one to set the stage for more detailed 

and policy-oriented hearings later. You have given it an ambitious title, The State of the 

World, which any briefer must approach with a large dose of humility, given the 

turbulence and uncertainty that mark our times. 

My strategy to make sense out of all this is two-fold. 

First, I will talk about the things that make these times seem so turbulent- not just a 

list of issues but a number of broader global trends that affect almost everything else. 

Second, we'll turn to some of the specific issues but try to array them in some priority 

order based on their relative importance and urgency. 

Cross Cutting Global Trends 

The international system is in transition from a period when things were quite clear, 

moving toward some new alignment for which we do not yet have a name or a broadlyaccepted guiding concept. 
69 

The Cold War from the late 1940s to the fall of the USSR in 1991 was certainly a 

threatening period, but we had the luxury of viewing and interpreting everything through 

the prism of a single adversary- the Soviet Union. 

The 17-year period after the Cold War from 1991 to the 2008 global financial crisis was 

a unique time when American power was essentially unchallenged. America's actions 

around the world were constrained chiefly by whether it had the resources to do what it 

wanted. Russia was in turmoil, China's influence was still building, and our focus was 

mainly on regional instability in places such as the Balkans and, toward the end of this 

period, on terrorism. 

But dating roughly since the financial crisis almost a decade ago we have been moving 

into a new era - a period of enhanced global competition, and the acceleration of 

trends that challenge our preeminence, complicate our decision-making, and demand of 

us greater agility and geopolitical savvy than we have needed in the past 

So let's look at some of the broader global trends that help account for this period of 

accelerating change. There are many, but I'm going to mention five: 

First, we are witnessing a diffusion of power among nations. Over the next couple 

decades the world will be without a hegemonic power- that is, without a country so 

powerful as to exert dominant influence and advance policy with little reference to 

others. Emblematic of this is the decline of great power clubs like the G-8 and the rise of 

the G-20 and a series of ad hoc and informal coalitions and forums. 

The US held a dominant position for those 17 years after the Cold War, but as new 

powers emerge and economic patterns shift, we are moving toward a more multi-polar 

world. We remain the single most influential country and no major problems will be 

solved without the US but the US cannot solve them alone. And others are 

competing for the preeminence we have long enjoyed. This means in these coming 

years coalition-building and alliance management will be more important than 

heretofore and the keys to success in international politics. 

Second, demographic trends over the next couple decades will contribute to 

societal stresses and instability. By 2035, the world will have grown to about 8.8 

billion people. But less than 3 percent of this growth will occur in the developed world, 

many parts of which - Europe and Japan especially - are now aging societies. What 

some have called a "pensioner bulge" will contrast with a youth bulge elsewhere, 

especially in sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin 

America. 

An underlying trend will be a continued growth in urbanization - now at more than 50 

percent but projected to rise to two-thirds within the next couple decades, triggering an 

urban construction boom exceeding that of many previous decades. 

2 
70 

A worrisome impact of these trends is a growing demand for services and employment 

in the societies least able to provide them, triggering more migration and possibly 

sectarian and ethnic tensions. Moreover, the wars of the last 15 years have produced a 

generation of terrorists trained to exploit these circumstances by virtue of their 

experience with urban warfare. 

Third, an early manifestation of this is the growing discontent of populations with 

government at various levels. We saw this in our US election campaign, and it is 

plainly evident in Europe in the form of burgeoning populist movements and the Brexit --

and in the Middle East with the frustrations that exploded during the Arab Spring and 

that are still there just under the surface. 

This combines with a fourth trend- a technology revolution that exceeds in 

speed and scope anything we've seen in modern history. The last century was 

driven by physics and engineering --which led to air power, improved mobility, and 

nuclear energy. This century's trending technologies appear to be biology, information 

technology, nanotechnology, and robotics- and the synthesis of these in a continuously 

inventive manner. This finds expression in phenomena such as the so-called Internet of 

Things, a world of unprecedented connectivity - one that holds advantages but also 

vulnerabilities for the United States. 

Here's the key point: this technology revolution has brought a truly revolutionary and 

unprecedented devolution of asymmetric power to individuals and small groups through 

things like social media and easy access to knowledge. This is power they can exert for 

good ends or ilL This of course is part of what explains the growing gap between 

citizens and government 

Fifth- and this may be the most important point I make today- the next few 

years are likely to see growing controversy over the basis for global order. Most 

of our current global institutions were created by the victors in WW II- now 70 years in 

the past- and enforced by the United States and its partners. As new powers rise, 

challenges to all of this are appearing everywhere. 

Global order is of course a slippery concept It boils down to this: throughout modern 

history, most countries have accepted a few simple rules to ward off total chaos: laws 

and conventions around land, sea and the air. These rules are not sexy - maritime law 

isn't exactly known to quicken the pulse - but they're as vital to the international order 

as a score is to an orchestra. 

But now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Soviet collapse, one of the most 

worrisome trends is that the "rules" we take for granted on land and sea and in the air 

are for the first time since then under simultaneous challenge on three continents. The 

challenges come from Russia, China and a host of non-state actors in the Middle East, 

which collectively are breaking internationally sanctioned "rules" of normal conduct -

and thus adding another element of instability to today's very chaotic world. 

3 
71 

For example, Russia's invasions of Ukraine violate treaty pledges taken by Russia and 

56 other countries to consider borders "inviolable"; the Russia-U.K.-U.S. agreement not 

to use force against the territory or independence of Ukraine after it gave up nuclear 

weapons in 1991; the 1997 bilateral friendship treaty in which Russia and Ukraine 

agreed to respect each other's borders; and a host of U.N. agreements against such 

violations. 

China, for it's part, is disregarding in the South and East China Seas international 

consensus on maritime and aviation freedoms. Under international law, states can claim 

territorial waters only 12 miles from shore. China flouts that rule by building artificial 

islands atop coral reefs 500 miles from the Chinese mainland and interpreting its 

construction to claim 90 percent of the South China Sea; never mind the claims of at 

least five other nations, including the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. And in the 

East China Sea, China unilaterally declared an Air Defense Identification Zone, telling 

nations they need Beijing's permission to fly through. Both seas are vital to Asian and 

U.S. commerce and security. 

Unlike during the Cold War, the enemy now is not a singular competing ideology but 

rather a struggle over the rules governing international conduct and over global 

leadership. I firmly believe that the United States- and the world -will run great risks 

if America neglects its leadership responsibilities. No other nation has a record of 

leading with both its own interests and the global common good in mind. 

We already live in a violent era, and if these issues of order are left unsettled, the 

chances of further conflict, if only by miscalculation, will grow dramatically. That is the 

story of the 20th century. 

Stacking Up the Issues 

It is in this global context that we now confront a long list of complex bilateral and 

multilateral challenges. I will resist an encyclopedic listing in favor of trying to array them 

in some sort of priority order. This is not easy because today, most of the major issues 

are more intertwined than in the past and difficult to peel off or assess in isolation. 

Personally, I've always tried to divide problems among four categories, recognizing that 

these categories will never be mutually exclusive. But I'll take a stab at sorting out which 

issues should belong initially in each of four buckets: Urgent, Important, Emerging 

and Deserving of Maintenance. 

What gets a problem into any bucket is very debatable, and Committee members will all 

have their own take. Here's mine: 

Urgent. My assumption is that things crossing this threshold directly threaten the lives 

of Americans or the physical security of the United States or our closest allies on an 

immediate and ongoing basis. That criterion points you to things like terrorism, nuclear 

weapons and cyber threats. 

4 
72 

On terrorism, there has been significant progress against ISIS over the last year but it 

remains dangerous- kind of like a wounded beast. In my testimony here a year ago, I 

mentioned that ISIS at the height of its power and popularity in 2014-15 had at least five 

advantages that AI Qaeda in its heyday never had - an abundance of territory, a lot of 

money, a powerful narrative, social media mastery, and access to Western targets by 

virtue of its many recruits from among our allies and neighboring countries. 

All of these are hard to measure confidently but reports indicate that ISIS has now been 

degraded on at least four of these. 

Territory: The so-called ISIS "caliphate" occupied about one third of Iraq and Syria. 

The US-led coalition has clawed back close to 50 percent of Iraqi territory seized by the 

group. But there's still very far to go in Syria, where the ISIS capital of Raqqa is intact, 

opposition forces are divided, and Russia's intervention has fortified the Assad regime 

in power. 

Money: At one point, estimates of ISIS wealth ranged from the hundreds of millions into 

the billions- derived from taxes, oil, kidnapping, smuggling, and theft. By all accounts, 

that has been degraded by an uncertain amount through attacks on oil infrastructure, 

cash storage sites, and the costs of administering territory. One sign of this is that pay 

for ISIS recruits is reportedly down by about 50%. 

Narrative: ISIS recruits were pouring in at 1000/month in 2014-15. Reports are that this 

is down to a couple hundred per month. More importantly, surveys of youth in the 

Middle East have shown increasing disenchantment with ISIS, with about 80 percent 

ruling out support for ISIS, compared to 60 percent in earlier surveys. 

Social Media: The group still has a powerful cyber presence but on one important 

measure, its use of Twitter, the US military says there is a decline of about 40 percent. 

Access: This is the major advantage that ISIS retains by virtue of having pulled in 30-40 

thousand foreign fighters over the years, many with travel documents that make it hard 

to keep them from returning to Europe and neighboring countries in particular. The 

Congress's Homeland Security Committee reported last year that of the close to 7000 

fighters who had joined ISIS from the West, about 1900 had already returned to Europe. 

In all likelihood, the intelligence services on the continent and in the UK are stretched 

thin if not overwhelmed by the task of detecting and monitoring this population of 

jihadists. 

Assuming ISIS is eventually pushed out of its principal nodes in Iraq and Syria, unlike AI 

Qaeda it has a global network that ranges from fairly well developed nodes in a half 

dozen countries to affiliates or organized sympathizers in several dozen more. So 

unless they are decisively smashed, we can anticipate continued plotting and attacks 

like those we saw in Europe, Turkey and elsewhere. 

5 
73 

Meanwhile, AI Qaeda is positioning itself to take advantage of ISIS's weakening position 

in Iraq and Syria. It has reinforced its leadership structure in Syria and carefully 

cultivated an image of moderation relative to ISIS. But it continues to be focused on 

attacks against Western targets. And its Yemen branch, AI-Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula (AQAP) is exploiting the civil war there to sink deeper roots and expand its 

territory. This AI Qaeda branch of course was behind the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris 

in 2015 and has come closer to successfully mounting an operation in the United States 

than any other part of AI Qaeda. 

Moving beyond terrorism, North Korea probably presents the most pressing near-term 

concern and this administration and Congress will face a decision predecessors have 

not had to confront with the same urgency: how to protect against or neutralize its 

nuclear and missile capability. 

Until a few years ago, I would have described the North as episodically dangerous but 

manageable. In the last few years, though, a series of developments has moved the 

isolated state up near the top of the U.S. "nightmare list." 

First, the North's ability to project military power far beyond its borders has grown 

dangerously. 

Second, its leader is not just implacably hostile to the United States- he is also much 

more volatile and unpredictable than his predecessors. 

North Korea has long had the capability to hurl artillery, chemical weapons, 

conventional military and Special Forces at Seoul, the capital of U.S.-allied South 

Korea. The city is a mere 35 miles away from the Demilitarized Zone that divides the 

two countries. The country's arsenal and proximity have simultaneously worried and 

constrained both Seoul and Washington as they've tried to manage the threat. 

Now there is also the looming prospect of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) 

exploding somewhere on U.S. soil. After years of struggle, Pyongyang is finally within 

range of that goal, which the intelligence community first detected in the mid-1990s. 

Back then, Pyongyang was incapable of managing the two- or three-stage missile 

sequence required to lob a missile from Asia to the U.S. But in 1998 it demonstrated an 

ability to achieve stage separation and ignition at altitude and in recent years has twice 

successfully launched a satellite into space with multistage rockets - a critical 

stepping-stone toward an intercontinental capability. 

Since then, U.S. military officials have publicly noted two new multistage missiles, the 

KN-08 and KN-14, displayed by Pyongyang but apparently not yet flight-tested. Both are 

road-mobile, making them harder to detect and monitor. The North is systematically 

testing the missiles' component systems, and though it's hard to say when it will be able 

to put all this together, the goal is now clearly within reach. 

6 
74 

Add nuclear advances to the new missile technology, and you're squarely in the 

nightmare realm. The North has now conducted five nuclear tests, two last year alone. 

The latest, last September, was the largest, with a yield comparable to the bomb the 

U.S. dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. 

Washington's prestigious Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) 

estimates that Pyongyang has between 12 and 20 nuclear weapons and could over the 

next five years raise that number to as high as 100. Its nuclear and missile tests in 

recent years have moved the North very close to a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach 

the United States. Possessing such a weapon would give the North a blackmail 

capability in its various disputes in Asia and with the U.S. 

Turning to cyber, the threat's immediacy is evident from Russia's hacking of our 

election, which has led both the Senate intelligence committee and the Trump 

administration to mandate investigations aimed producing recommendations . 

Beyond election hacking, cyber security will be an abiding concern for years to come 

because of the degree to which our country is now dependent on connectivity in various 

forms. And now with the so-called Internet of Things (loT) coming into view, that 

dependence will only grow. 

As an aspect of national security, cyber is now roughly where the nuclear weapons 

issue was in the early Cold War, when we knew the destructive power the Soviets and 

we possessed but had little idea of its longer-range implications. Gradually, through 

arms control negotiations we came to understandings that put some element of 

predictability into this. 

We need to move through similar multilateral consultations on cyber while 

acknowledging that not all the power is in the hands of nation states. The latter reality 

should push in the direction of some international agreements on limiting the danger 

from non-state actors- because ultimately the prosperity of all nations will depend on 

secure communications. This is the newest element of what we call the "global 

commons". 

Unquestioned Importance. These are issues so complex and long-range as to be in 

the "this will take time" category. In my last testimony to this Committee, I discussed the 

Middle East's many simultaneous disputes- Sunni-versus-Shia, terrorists-versusregimes, terrorists-versus-terrorists, autocrats-versus-reformers, Palestinians-versuslsraelis, all of Syria's problems. These all fall into this category and raise the 

overarching issue of America's standing in the region, which, fairly or unfairly, is 

somewhat, diminished. 

Nearly all of the region's problems converge in Syria, which could just as easily fall into 

the forgoing "urgent" category. It is a civil war, and civil wars historically last about a 

decade. They typically end when the combatants are exhausted, run out of supplies, or 

when their external proxies stop supplying them. I doubt that Syria's war will end until 

7 
75 

the Great Powers now at arms there- Russia, the United States, Iran, Turkey- come 

to some agreement about its future. 

As we meet, there is a fragile cease fire but no progress on a diplomatic settlement, on 

which UN-brokered talks are set to begin in a week. We cannot know how or when a 

settlement will come about but we can know what's at stake. The list is long: the 

durability of ISIS, US standing in the region; Russia's influence there; Iran's reach 

beyond its borders, Turkey's clout in the region; how Turkey balances its NATO 

membership with a budding Russian partnership; the flow of migrants to Europe -

where perceptions of overload played into the UK's Brexit decision and have increased 

centrifugal pressures within the EU. 

And with regard to Europe, it was until recently a "not to worry" fixture on the world 

stage. Today, for the first time since the European integration movement took off in the 

1950s, Europe is contending simultaneously with at least four potentially destabilizing 

trends: the volatility of the Euro; the migration crisis; the centrifugal forces strengthened 

by the Brexit; and the challenges to existing borders flowing from Russian moves in the 

East. In short, a sort of "disturbance in the force" at the very center of America's 

traditional and most reliable alliance partnership. 

Also perched in this category are large, important countries with uncertain futuresmainly China and Russia. The relationship with China is big and complex - perhaps 

America's most important- with a tangle of interdependencies that get in the way of 

simple-minded approaches. This said, China's push for Asian dominance and its 

specific challenges to America's conception of global order- Beijing's sweeping 

sovereignty claims in the South and East China Seas, for example -will preoccupy the 

new administration and Congress throughout their tenure. 

China has its problems, with its economic growth (6.7%) now at a 25 year low. But 

President Xi has consolidated great power, partly with the aim of yanking China toward 

a new development model, based less on selling cheap imports and more on domestic 

consumption. 

At the same time, he has launched a range of potentially transformational initiatives that 

could ultimately consolidate a Chinese role as the leading country in that hemisphere -

the 57-member Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank that most US allies have joined; the 

New Silk Road, intended to connect China to the Middle East and Europe via a series of 

air, rail, and port facilities; and most recently, Xi has been moving into the vacuum 

created by the US abandonment of the TPP by negotiating a trade pact of his own. This 

is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is pulling in 16 of 

the world's fastest-growing economies, comprising 12% of global trade and one-half of 

the world's population. 

Without a robust regional engagement by the US, the danger is that Asian nations, 

including allies like Australia and South Korea (34 percent and 25 percent of their trade 

with China respectively) will be pulled irresistibly into China's economic orbit. They 

8 
76 

desperately want the US to follow through more robustly on the so-called Asia "pivot" 

begun in the last administration. 

Russia, too, will be an enduring issue for the Congress and the administration. I came 

away from a recent trip to Moscow, Kiev, and Riga impressed with the hostility of 

Russia's narrative and with Putin's iron control. Officials in the Kremlin and foreign 

ministry acknowledge that the US-Russian relationship has deteriorated but accept 

absolutely no responsibility for this. They are full of bitterness about what they portray 

as a deliberate US effort to weaken and encircle Russia since the collapse of the Soviet 

Union. Putin has nearly total control of a sycophantic media and no effective opposition. 

Meanwhile, there has been no let up of Russian pressure on Ukraine. The Minsk 

agreement, negotiated by the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe 

(OSCE), has yet to produce a durable cease fire and Russian mainline troops are still 

inside the Don bas - eastern Ukraine. 

NATO's response to this and to the insecurity felt by eastern-flank NATO members has 

been to authorize four battalions going forward - one each for the three Baltic states 

and one for Poland. The Baltics are nervous because of Russia's military maneuvers on 

their borders and because of the propaganda that Moscow directs toward their large 

ethnic Russian populations. 

The economic sanctions the West has slapped on Russia are anathema to Putin and he 

will be seeking some agreement to lift them in any bargaining underway with the new 

administration. 

There is nothing at all wrong with aiming for an improved relationship with Russia, but 

the US must be aware that Russia calculates its interests in a cold-eyed clinical way 

and Washington will have to be equally dispassionate in dealing with Putin. Historically, 

when Russia encounters weakness or hesitation, it demands more, then blames the 

opponent for escalation when the opponent resists - then calls for discussions, which it 

uses to consolidate its gains. Deals don't come easily. 

Emerging Issues. This hopelessly difficult category has to include issues that are 

evolving, many of which hold great potential for surprise. 

For example, we will have to keep an eye on the Iran nuclear agreement, under which 

Iran agrees to reduce 98% of its stockpile of enriched uranium, mothball13,000 

centrifuges, reconfigure its major underground facility and its plutonium reactor, and 

submit to inspections - in return for significant sanctions relief. 

The agreement is not perfect; it is a compromise, but it does buy time during which we 

will have stay alert for any cheating on Iran's part. So far, the UN organizations 

responsible for inspections have not reported major violations. 

9 
77 

More broadly, the US must be prepared for the geopolitical turbulence that could come 

from changes in something that for decades has been the X factor in international 

relations: the global supply of oil. 

The availability and price of oil has determined the policies of many countries and the 

character of others. But the world, after decades of shortages or uncertainties about 

supply, is now dealing with the consequences of oversupply. This has come about due 

to a combination of factors including: increased US production due to "fracking" 

technology, conservation, "green" technologies, new battery technologies, declining 

Chinese demand, and the fact that-- with oil prices low, most producers have pumped 

at record rates to capture market share. 

For all of these reasons, it is harder for the big oil producers to push up prices by 

limiting supply as in the past. OPEC is currently trying to revive this practice, but with so 

far uncertain results. One catch-22 for OPEC is that any success getting higher prices 

is likely to bring more US fracking firms back onto the market, pushing supply back up. 

The precise impact of this on politics is incalculable, but it is not hard to imagine that it 

holds potential to alter the policies, character, and politics of countries like Russia, the 

Gulf States (principally Saudi Arabia), and Venezuela --countries that depend 

disproportionally on oil revenues. 

The US is largely insulated from direct impact because of its diversified economy and 

the likelihood that North America will achieve energy self-sufficiency sometime in the 

next couple decades, with the US actually becoming a net exporter or oil. But it will 

have to adjust to the indirect impacts and above all resist any temptation to believe that 

its self-sufficiency on energy gives license to ignore the kind of turbulence we are now 

seeing in oil producing areas such as the Middle East. None of its key allies, 

particularly in Europe have the luxury of independence, and they will look to the US to 

lead in ensuring the stability of supplies from such areas. 

Once again, it's the burden the leader has for protecting the "global commons". To 

dodge this responsibility would be to forfeit leadership -- although in a world of rising 

powers the US should certainly demand a greater degree of burden-sharing than has 

existed heretofore. 

Then there is a host of building problems that could burst at any moment, starting with 

Venezuela- the Latin American country closest to economic and political meltdown. 

We do not want political instability and humanitarian crises anywhere, let alone in a 

nearby country with the world's largest proven oil reserves. 

Maintaining Global Expertise and Insight. Then there's the rest of the world. If 

America wishes to keep its global leadership role, it cannot ignore much that goes on. 

Therefore, through its diplomatic, military and intelligence capabilities, the U.S. must be 

prepared for almost any eventuality. 

10 
78 

In my experience, it's usually something that no one has planned for or about which 

there is little consensus such as the financial crisis or the sudden collapse of a 

government (Suharto in Indonesia in 1998) ... or an American spy plane forced down by 

a hotshot Chinese pilot in 2001 ... or the humanitarian collapse in Somalia in late 1992 

that caused President George H.W. Bush to send 28,000-U.S.-troops just as Bill Clinton 

was preparing to take office. 

So while Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and parts of South Asia and 

Southeast Asia have not figured large in what I've said, our diplomatic, military, and 

intelligence authorities must still maintain effort on these areas sufficient to ramp up in 

the event developments there shift in ways that present threat or major uncertainty for 

the United States. 

Let me just close, Mr. Chairman by expressing appreciation again for the opportunity to 

testify before this Committee. I continue to hold a view formed during my time in 

government: it is that this committee, by virtue of size, diversity, and its tradition of 

bipartisanship captures so much that is good about the great nation whose interests we 

all seek to secure and advance. 

We are now ready to take your questions. 

11 
79 

John E. McLaughlin 

Background and Education 

Practitioner in Residence in the Merrill Center for 

International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins 

Earlier in his career with the CIA, which 

Russian, and Eurasian Issues in the 

served as Director of the Office of 

Wall and the collapse of communism in 

Then, four months after the break-up of the Soviet Union, he became Director of the CIA office - Slavic 

and Eurasian that was for CIA's analysis of the fifteen independent states that 

from the this he the Intelligence Community on the 

rlinlnn1;,tir. newly-independent countries, 

While Director for Intelligence from 1997 to 2000, he created the Senior Analytic Service, a CIA 

career enables analysts to rise to senior rank without out into management He 

also founded the Sherman Kent School for Analysis, an institution to teaching the 

history, mission, and essential skills of the profession to new CIA employees, 

Intelligence Community Service Award and the 

the Council on Relations, the American Academy of 

DirJiolmacv, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the and Chairman of the C lA Officers 

r-o,umJauorL He also serves on the Board of Board, 

and the Aspen Institute's Homeland Security Advisory Board, at the 

Aerospace Corporation and the Noblis Corporation, 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 

(83) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I am deeply disturbed by President Trump’s executive order freezing refugee resettlement from certain Muslim-majority countries and ceasing the intake of any refugees from Syria. This action is contrary to the very core principles 

of our democracy, and it endangers our service members abroad. 

In your opening statement, you noted that ‘‘our most important ally in this war 

is the overwhelming majority of Muslims who reject al Qaeda, Daesh, and their fanatical, barbaric worldview.’’ Do you believe that this executive order—which bars 

these allies from the United States, many of whom who have put their lives on the 

line to assist and fight alongside our service members—undermines the critical relationship you characterized in your opening statement? Does it provide ammunition 

to terrorists who seek to portray this fight as a war between America and Islam? 

You also stated that the defeat of Islamic extremist groups requires a military 

component. I believe this executive order undermines our service members’ security 

in theater and threatens the goodwill among the coalition of the military components at work in our fight against extremist organizations. Would you agree with 

that assessment? 

General PETRAEUS. The executive order referred to in the question was, of course, 

blocked by court action, as has been the subsequent EO, which contained a number 

of changes (e.g., exempting green card holders and those already holding visas) and 

did not include Iraq. So, at this point, it is difficult to assess whether the existing 

EO, if allowed by the courts, or a subsequent EO with further changes, will undermine critical relationships. Certainly, the whole endeavor has been unhelpful in certain respects given the sentiments it may be depicted as reflecting. And it is possible that terrorists may try to use this effort to make the ongoing war against ISIS 

and AQ and their affiliates a war between Islam and the U.S. or the western world. 

That underscores the importance of U.S. policy clearly identifying that we and our 

coalition partners (included in which are Islamic countries, of course) are united in 

fighting Islamic extremists, not those of the Islamic faith. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I am very glad that in Mr. McLaughlin’s opening statement, he 

included cyber threats in your ‘‘urgent bucket’’ when discussing the ongoing challenges we face in the world today. Like you, threats in cyberspace concern me greatly. Rather than looking retrospectively and instead looking ahead to the future both 

at home and abroad, how should we ensure the Department of Defense is prepared 

to combat information warfare operations, which are increasingly being enabled by 

cyber attacks? What about when a foreign military is conducting an operation targeting a domestic institution? Does DOD have a role in such a scenario? 

General PETRAEUS. I believe that DOD is moving ahead as quickly as resources 

allow to be prepared for enemy combat operations in cyberspace—to defend against 

them, identify the sources of them, and respond to them. In a number of cases, however, it is important that DOD efforts be complemented by those of DHS, domestic 

law enforcement authorities, and assistance from internet service providers and social media platforms. What about when a foreign military is conducting an operation 

targeting a domestic institution? Does DOD have a role in such a scenario? DOD 

assets certainly can have a role, as do elements of the IC and the FBI and other 

law enforcement elements, but DHS has been assigned the lead—the ‘‘quarterback’’—for guiding responses to attacks on domestic institutions. While Congress finally passed legislation on cyber security responsibilities and authorities in recent 

years, there clearly is further legislation needed and, more importantly, there clearly also are additional resources needed, especially for DHS. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats 

and Capabilities, I have been a long-time advocate for the cultivation and 

operationalization of matured, advanced technologies to assist our warfighter whenever and wherever we are able. In light of all the threats we face that have been 

mentioned here today—many of which will require non-traditional, innovative responses—would you agree that it is critical the Department of Defense continue to 

prioritize advanced technologies, such as directed energy and autonomous systems, 

in order to provide for our warfighter and maintain our technological superiority on 

the joint battlefield? 
84 

What do you believe must be done in order to make our warfighters more comfortable utilizing these advanced technologies? 

General PETRAEUS. Yes, I agree. 

Provide them the resources needed to enable education and training on advanced 

systems—and also, of course, to ensure that we consistently put cutting edge technologies in the hands of our men and women in uniform. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I am very glad that in your opening statement, you included cyber 

threats in your ‘‘urgent bucket’’ when discussing the ongoing challenges we face in 

the world today. Like you, threats in cyberspace concern me greatly. Rather than 

looking retrospectively and instead looking ahead to the future both at home and 

abroad, how should we ensure the Department of Defense is prepared to combat information warfare operations, which are increasingly being enabled by cyber attacks? What about when a foreign military is conducting an operation targeting a 

domestic institution? Does DOD have a role in such a scenario? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. 1. I believe DOD is reasonably well prepared to combat information operations enabled by cyber. This said, I believe Russia, China, Iran, and 

North Korea have given this a very high priority over the years. This is an asymmetric way for them to compensate for the superior conventional and other power 

possessed by the U.S. But the need for dominance in this area is now well understood in military and intelligence circles and that augurs well for our future capabilities. The Russian cyber interference in our election has in my view been a 

crystalizing event that drives home the need for cyber superiority in exploitation, 

attack, and defense—the three domains that come together in this field. 

2. If a foreign military is targeting a U.S. domestic institution with cyber techniques, my understanding is that DHS would be the overall coordinator of U.S. response. But DHS would assuredly seek assistance from both military and intelligence sources in scoping the problem and organizing response. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats 

and Capabilities, I have been a long-time advocate for the cultivation and 

operationalization of matured, advanced technologies to assist our warfighter whenever and wherever we are able. In light of all the threats we face that have been 

mentioned here today—many of which will require non-traditional, innovative responses—would you agree that it is critical the Department of Defense continue to 

prioritize advanced technologies, such as directed energy and autonomous systems, 

in order to provide for our warfighter and maintain our technological superiority on 

the joint battlefield? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. The short answer is yes of course. My conviction on this score 

comes from the realization that we live in the midst of the most revolutionary period 

of technological advance in history. Never has the time between discovery of scientific principle and its application been so short. In both military and intelligence 

endeavor we always have to be ahead of the adversary technologically because the 

adversary these days will always possess advanced capabilities that are commercially available. Hence the need for advanced R&D and technological innovation 

without peer. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. STEFANIK 

Ms. STEFANIK. Russia and China have both exercised an increased use of cyber 

capabilities to support their national security objectives. This threat is also used by 

terrorist organizations. As General Petraeus described it, the ‘‘. . . ideological caliphate in cyber space. . .’’ As we continue to develop our own cyber defenses, how do 

you anticipate this threat to evolve and how do you believe we can best respond? 

General PETRAEUS. I believe the breakthroughs in this arena will come through 

a partnership between DOD, IC, and domestic law enforcement elements with internet service providers and social media platform providers who use AI to identify and 

remove what clearly are extremist sites, messages, and other activities in cyberspace. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Russia and China have both exercised an increased use of cyber 

capabilities to support their national security objectives. This threat is also used by 

terrorist organizations. As General Petraeus described it, the ‘‘. . . ideological caliphate in cyber space. . .’’ As we continue to develop our own cyber defenses, how do 

you anticipate this threat to evolve and how do you believe we can best respond? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Terrorist organizations have been slow to come to cyber as a 

weapon per se—leaving aside the advantages they derive from imaginative use of 

social media and the internet generally. But with the increasing cyber literacy that 

marks all populations these days and with the wealth that ISIS in particular has 

amassed, I believe we cannot be at all complacent about terrorist progress in this 
85 

arena. So I anticipate that it is only a matter of time before we begin to see cyber 

used as an offensive tool by terrorist organizations who will realize that the danger 

they can do with key-strokes may equal in impact what they can achieve with conventional bombs. This calls for continued laser-like focus in developing intelligence 

on terrorist capabilities, to include the sorts of skills they are prioritizing in recruitment efforts. Once we understand these things we can prepare appropriate offensive 

and defensive strategies to check mate developing terrorist capabilities. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. O’ROURKE 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I very much appreciate your comments regarding an updated Authorization for Use of Military Force for the wars we currently wage. Of course, finding consensus on what a new AUMF should include has proven challenging for Congress. Can the two of you provide recommendations on how to improve our current 

AUMF? 

General PETRAEUS. There is a classified model for a revised AUMF on which we 

were working in the interagency before I left government. My recommendation is 

that you use the existing draft in the IA (presumably a copy can be obtained from 

the NSC Legal Counsel) as a departure point. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I very much appreciate your comments regarding an updated Authorization for Use of Military Force for the wars we currently wage. Of course, finding consensus on what a new AUMF should include has proven challenging for Congress. Can the two of you provide recommendations on how to improve our current 

AUMF? 

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. General Petraeus informs me that there was a classified model 

for a revised AUMF being worked in the interagency before he left government. My 

recommendation is that you use the existing draft in the interagency records (presumably a copy can be obtained from the NSC Legal Counsel) as a departure point. 

My only thought is that which I always applied to guidance given to intelligence 

agencies: that a revised AUMF be general enough to cover a variety of contingencies 

in a very fluid world, so as not to require constant revision or stimulate continuous 

debate—but specific enough to leave little doubt about what U.S. forces are permitted to do. 

Æ