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i 

99–629 2017

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–98] 

FULL SPECTRUM SECURITY CHALLENGES 

IN EUROPE AND THEIR EFFECTS ON 

DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 25, 2016 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

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

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

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 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

KATIE SENDAK, 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 

Davis, Hon. Susan A., a Representative from California, Committee on Armed 

Services ................................................................................................................. 2 

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

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

WITNESSES 

Breedlove, Gen Philip M., USAF, Commander, United States European Command ..................................................................................................................... 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Breedlove, Gen Philip M. ................................................................................. 37 

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

Committee on Armed Services ..................................................................... 35 

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. Castro ......................................................................................................... 65 

Mr. Conaway ..................................................................................................... 65 

Mr. Gibson ......................................................................................................... 66 

Mr. Hunter ........................................................................................................ 65 

Mr. Scott ............................................................................................................ 66 

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 65 

Mr. Takai .......................................................................................................... 66 

(1) 

FULL SPECTRUM SECURITY CHALLENGES IN EUROPE 

AND THEIR EFFECTS ON DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Thursday, February 25, 2016. 

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. Committee will come to order. Seventy years ago 

next week, Winston Churchill gave his famous Iron Curtain speech 

in Fulton, Missouri. Among his insights was this, quote: ‘‘I do not 

believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the 

fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.’’ 

He went on, ‘‘From what I have seen of our Russian friends and 

allies during the war I am convinced there is nothing they admire 

so much as strength and there is nothing for which they have less 

respect than weakness, especially military weakness,’’ end quote. 

I think what was true then is true now and we are seeing it play 

out before our eyes. The famous reset by the Obama administration 

with regard to Russia has not gone so well. Just over the past year 

or so Russia has consolidated its gains in Ukraine, has intervened 

in Syria, establishing a stronghold in the Middle East for the first 

time since the 1970s, and has continued to take unprecedented, 

provocative actions against NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] ships and planes. 

Russia presents a full spectrum of threats, from a modern nuclear arsenal which Putin has threatened to use against conventional forces, to hybrid tactics based on deception and confusion 

and little green men. So far, NATO and the U.S. have grappled to 

find effective countermeasures. 

The President’s budget proposal significantly—proposes to significantly increase our exercises in Eastern Europe as part of the 

European Reassurance Initiative. But rather than ask for more 

money to pay for it, his budget proposal would take it out of readiness, modernization—both of which have been under siege for 

years. That can hardly leave the Russians quaking in their boots. 

Of course, Russia is not the only issue on the plate of our distinguished witness today. The growing threat of terrorist attack from 

ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] coming both from Syria, 
2 

Iraq, and from Libya, as well as the migration of refugees more 

generally, are a significant issue for this theater. 

In addition, whether a cyberattack would invoke Article 5 obligations under the NATO treaty, as we talked about in our hearing 

a couple weeks ago, is one of the many questions facing us all. 

Finally, the security of Israel, which is also within this geographic command, is always a matter of keen interest and concern 

before this committee. 

We are privileged to have before us a witness to help clarify all 

of these issues. Before introducing him I will turn to the gentlelady 

from California for any comments she would like to make. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CALIFORNIA, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly 

ask unanimous consent that the ranking member’s statement be 

entered into the record. 

General—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 35.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. General Breedlove, thank you very much for being 

here today with us, and as you conclude your time in command and 

you look to your retirement as well—and we hope that will be a 

good and smooth transition—I want to thank you for your work to 

enhance cooperation with our European partners and for moving us 

forward to address the challenges to Europe’s security. 

The chairman has made some excellent points, of course, about 

the complex and ever-changing situation that we face every day. I 

am very interested in your thoughts on Russian motivations and 

how U.S. and our allies can most effectively respond without pushing Russia—the Russian government to be even more adversarial. 

Russia’s destabilizing efforts continue, and it seems clear that 

Russian aggression and malign influence in Europe are likely the 

issues that the United States and our partners in Europe will have 

to grapple with for years to come. We must continue to lead in deterring Russian aggression and, if necessary, in concert with our 

partners—but our first priority has to be to prevent conflict. 

I look forward to your testimony today and again thank you very 

much. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Our witness today is General Philip Breedlove, 

Supreme Allied Commander of our NATO forces and commander of 

the United States European Command. 

General Breedlove, my understanding is that our current schedule is for you to rotate out of your current position and move on 

to other challenges after just about 40 years in the United States 

military. And so as we begin I want to thank you very much for 

your service in this position. 

And throughout your career your interaction with this committee 

has been extremely valuable. You have been in a key position at 

a very critical time when literally the world has changed. And I 

know I speak on behalf of all our colleagues in thanking you for 
3 

the way you have done this job especially, but also your entire military career. 

Without objection, your entire witness statement will be made 

part of the record and we will turn the floor over to you. 

STATEMENT OF GEN PHILIP M. BREEDLOVE, USAF, 

COMMANDER, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND 

General BREEDLOVE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congresswoman Davis, distinguished members of the committee. Thank you 

for the opportunity to testify before you today. 

I have had no greater honor in my 39-plus-year career than to 

lead the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guard, and civilians of the U.S. European Command [EUCOM]. These remarkable 

men and women serve not only in the EUCOM theater, but also 

in harm’s way across the globe. 

I thank this committee for your continued support to them and 

to their families. 

I am also honored to serve alongside the men and women in uniform of the nations of Europe. They are willing and capable. They 

play an essential role in helping protect our own vital interests. 

The last time I addressed this committee the security situation 

in Europe was complex. Since then, the situation has only grown 

more serious and more complicated. 

Today Europe faces security challenges from two directions. 

First, to the east Europe faces a resurgent, aggressive Russia. Russia has chosen to be an adversary and poses a long-term existential 

threat to the United States and to our European allies and partners. 

Russia is eager to exert unquestioned influence over its neighboring states to create a buffer zone, and Russia is extending its 

course of influence yet further afield to try to reestablish a leading 

role on the world stage. 

Russia does not want to challenge the agreed rules of the international order; it wants to rewrite them. Russia sees the United 

States and NATO as threats to its objectives and as constraints on 

its aspirations. So Russia seeks to fracture our unity and challenge 

our resolve. 

Russia, Mr. Chairman, as you said, recognizes strength and sees 

weakness as opportunity. To that end, Russia applies all instruments of national power, including its military, to coerce, corrupt, 

and undermine targeted European countries. 

Some call this unconventional warfare; some call it hybrid; I like 

to talk about it as sending in little gray men who use their diplomatic, economic, and informational tools, in addition to military 

pressure, to shape and influence nations without triggering a 

NATO Article 5 military response. 

To the south, from the Levant through North Africa, Europe 

faces a complicated mix of mass migration spurred by state instability and state collapse, and masking the movement of criminals, 

terrorists, and foreign fighters. 

Within this mix ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], or 

Daesh, as I call them, is spreading like a cancer, taking advantage 

of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations and our 

own with terrorist attacks. Its brutality is driving millions to flee 
4 

from Syria and Iraq, creating an almost unprecedented humanitarian challenge. 

Russia’s entry into the fight in Syria has wildly exacerbated the 

problem, changing the dynamic in the air and on the ground. Despite public pronouncements to the contrary, Russia has done little 

to counter Daesh but a great deal to bolster the Assad regime and 

its allies. And together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration from Syria in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve. 

All genuinely constructive efforts to end the war are welcome, 

but that is not yet what we are seeing. 

EUCOM is standing firm to meet this array of challenges. To 

counter Russia, EUCOM, working with allies and partners, is deterring Russia now and preparing to fight and win if necessary. 

That demonstrated preparedness to defeat is an essential part of 

our deterrent message. To counter Daesh, EUCOM is actively facilitating intelligence-sharing and encouraging strong civil-military 

relationships across ministries and across borders. 

And to meet all real and potential challenges, EUCOM is a central part of U.S. leadership in the NATO alliance as the alliance 

continues its adaptation through the Warsaw Summit, including 

the readiness and responsiveness of the entire NATO force structure. 

This year’s budget request reflects our solemn commitment to the 

security of our allies and partners and to protecting our homeland 

forward. EUCOM does not yet have the personnel, equipment, and 

resources necessary to carry out this growing mission. 

But the continuation of the European Reassurance Initiative, or 

ERI, would strongly support EUCOM’s efforts to counter Russian 

aggression and other threats by closing gaps in our posture and 

resourcing. EUCOM has carefully planned and executed the ERI 

funds you have authorized over the past 2 years, even as our headquarters has shrunk to become one of the smallest. 

This year’s budget request would significantly increase ERI funding to $3.4 billion. That would let us deepen our investment in Europe along five key lines of effort: providing more rotational forces, 

increasing training with our allies and partners, increasing prepositioned warfighting equipment in theater, increasing the capacities 

of our allies and partners, and improving the requisite supporting 

infrastructure. 

Together, the tools ERI would provide would send a clear and 

visible message to all audiences of our strong will and resolve. Our 

further efforts to assure, deter, and defend, supported by ERI, 

would complement those of the entire whole-of-government team. 

EUCOM remains committed to a shared vision of Europe whole, 

free, at peace, and prosperous. 

Mr. Chairman, as my military career draws to an end I want to 

thank you again for your unwavering support of the men and 

women of our Armed Forces. And at this time I want to thank you 

for the personal opportunity to command them. I look forward to 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Breedlove can be found in 

the Appendix on page 37.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 
5 

We had a hearing a couple weeks ago talking about Russia. 

Among the witnesses, for example, was your predecessor. And the 

question was raised, is ERI to really deter Russia or is it to make 

our allies feel better? And maybe it will do one but not the—the 

latter but not the former. 

What is your view of that? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, sir, I would agree with parts of that but 

I would like to elaborate on some others. I would agree that ERI 

does both assure our allies and I believe ERI begins the movement 

or the changes we need to make to fully deter Russia. But it is a 

step along that path. 

For the past two decades, as you know, Mr. Chairman, we have 

been in the position where we have been trying to make a partner 

out of Russia in Europe. And we have downsized our forces, downsized our headquarters, capabilities, et cetera, to become a community that was focused on engaging Russia as a partner and building 

partnership capacity in Europe. 

And what we now have is clearly not a partner in Russia. And 

so we have to begin reshaping the European Command and the 

NATO force structure to be able now to confront someone that does 

not wish to share our norms and values in Europe. 

And those 20 years of change will not be overcome in one or two 

steps. ERI is one of the steps along the way to reposition us, I 

think, in forces, in headquarters capability, in the way we deal 

with our allies, to get to where we need to be to deter. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, let me follow up with one other question 

for you, and it really goes to the heart of deterrence, what deters. 

There was an article that just came out in the Foreign Affairs 

magazine that raises a point that I have thought about, and let me 

just read you a couple of sentences and then get your reaction. 

This is an article entitled ‘‘Eurasia’s Coming Anarchy,’’ by Robert 

Kaplan. He says, ‘‘In China and Russia it is domestic insecurity 

that is breeding belligerence. Whereas aggression driven by domestic strength often follows a methodical, well-developed strategy, one 

that can be interpreted by other states which can then react appropriately, that fueled by domestic crisis results in daring, reactive, 

impulsive behavior which is much harder to forecast or counter.’’ 

And then he goes on to say, ‘‘Part of what Putin is doing is for 

the more chaos he can generate abroad, the more valuable the 

autocratic stability he provides at home will appear.’’ 

So I guess my interpretation of that is part of what is going on, 

especially in Russia and maybe China, is for domestic political concerns they gotta have outward aggression, and the last point was 

the more chaos out there the more valuable he tries—he believes 

it makes him for his internal purposes to stay in power. 

But that makes it harder to deter, because if it is all about what 

is happening inside Russia then maybe this deterrence and ERI 

and other things isn’t really going to get much done. I would appreciate your reaction to the thought and anything you can shed on 

that. 

General BREEDLOVE. Thank you, Chairman. And I, again, would 

like to agree with some of the terms but elaborate on others. 
6 

You have heard me say before that deterrence is in the mind of 

the deterred. And so we are after the mind and the decision-making process of Mr. Putin. 

And I did see some of the discussion you had with Jim Stavridis, 

and I would like to use a similar formulation in that what I believe 

Mr. Putin sees and will deter him is using all of the instruments 

of a nation’s power—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. But they are all required. 

As you said in your opening statement and I did in mine, Mr. 

Putin understands strength and recognizes weakness. If we only 

use the diplomatic, the informational, and the economic to address 

Mr. Putin, he will see that the military is absent or, as I think Admiral Stavridis talked to you about, a lack of will to use the military may be absent. 

And so I think that to deter Mr. Putin we have to have an allof-government response which shows resistance diplomatically, 

informationally, militarily, and economically. And then, important 

to the military piece is not only having the capability and the capacity, but showing the will to use it if and when required. 

Could I then address the other two pieces of your question? 

First, exterior chaos: I believe exterior chaos is a tool that Mr. 

Putin likes to use to give him a platform to show that the great 

power of Russia needs to intervene in a West that cannot bring 

order to the world, and it gives him that platform to try to talk 

about the game that great Russia, as an equal player on the stage, 

bringing order. 

The second piece that you talked about, sir, is domestic crisis inside the nation. I believe Mr. Putin is using a crisis inside his nation. I do believe that his people are feeling the drop in the oil 

prices, the sanctions, and the other things affecting his government. 

But he uses that to focus them on an external enemy to bring 

their focus to what he wants to do with his nation and his power. 

And he is now focusing his people completely on the United States 

first and foremost, and secondarily NATO as an external enemy 

that they need to be ready to rise up to meet. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much, General, for being here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We have an opportunity to work with our allies, our partners, 

and I think the discussion that you just had with the chairman is 

very helpful. Is that something that you feel is understood throughout the—our allied community? 

General BREEDLOVE. Ma’am, I do. But understood is not attached 

always to the kind of action that maybe we would seek or hope for. 

But I will tell you that I am an optimist here. I am more of a glass 

full—half-full in the way our allies are now approaching the security environment in Europe. 

In Wales we saw the leading edge of the problems in Ukraine 

and we made the biggest changes to NATO ever, and some things 

are going extremely well—most things are going extremely well in 

that change. The military things we have done to change at a very 

high level this joint task force, the way we have organized our 
7 

headquarters, the overall changes in the readiness and responsiveness of NATO forces, most specifically the ERF [European Rotational Force]—all these things are completely moving apace to be 

completed before Warsaw, and we have deployed and demonstrated 

them. 

And as I mentioned to you in not the too-distant past, we see the 

nations now turning around budgets. The numbers may be wrong; 

it changes from day to day. But 16 to 17 of our nations have 

stopped declines in their budgets; 5 were over 2 percent; 6 or 7 now 

have a credible plan to get to 2 percent spending in a reasonable 

amount of time. 

So I have seen change which is good. 

Mrs. DAVIS. And the European Reassurance Initiative—how do 

you see that as a tool then for us to support, I think, those efforts 

specifically? And I just want to get a sense of—you mentioned that 

this is not going to be a 1-year budget. As I understand it, this is 

part of our Overseas Contingency Operation funds, and yet it is 

something that is going to have to continue. 

What would that look like to you? We are sorry that you are 

going to be leaving the command, but we know that you want to 

leave something in place. What should that look like as we move 

forward? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, ma’am, as I explained before, and I 

won’t go too far back but we have got about 20 years of a different 

paradigm to correct. We are on our third—we will have had 2 years 

of ERI and we are now asking for this third year of ERI. 

We have kept, as you heard me mention in my opening remarks, 

a focus on basically five areas. 

Infrastructure—and that is not building buildings, that is fixing 

ports, fixing rail yards, changing exercise and training areas, 

changing storage areas in order to make it easier for us to rapidly 

reinforce Europe. 

Preposition of equipment we talked about, and that is that we 

are in this ERI looking to bring across our second heavy force to 

put into preposition status. And this one will be used not for practicing but for warfighting. 

We are using the ERI to rotationally increase our forward force 

structure. I have been very straightforward: There is no real substitute for permanently forward-stationed forces. But a second best, 

which is acceptable and which is where we are heading, is to have 

a heel-to-toe rotational forces fully funded to increase our presence 

in Europe, and that is a part of the ERI. 

Building the partnership capacity, bringing other nations in the 

NATO alliance up alongside of us in the skill sets and capabilities 

we need. 

And then the last piece: training and exercise with our partners. 

So I don’t mean to build a watch, but those five elements are 

going to be needed to be sustained for some number of years to get 

us to that position where we believe we are now in the position 

where we can deter—as well as ensure, but deter. And we are 

working now on what that future position we think should be. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, sir. And I think as people are refining 

that further that will be helpful for us to know and to work with 

our budget folks, as well. 
8 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to join with you in thanking General Breedlove for your 

service. It has been an incredibly important time for you to be in 

Europe because you have both been incredibly articulate of the rising threat of Russia but not alarmist. You have balanced in telling 

us policymakers and decision makers as to what we need to do to 

give you the tools to change the dynamics. 

You and I have discussed the very public RAND study that most 

recently has tried to give a picture of that vulnerability, looking at 

the Baltics perhaps being available within 60 hours to Russia’s new 

aggression, their modernization, and their forces. 

I appreciate your use of the word ‘‘deter’’ because it is incredibly 

important that we deter aggression, not just meet aggression. Preventing it from happening in the first place is going to require a 

military force for which there would be risk to the other side. 

You have indicated prepositioning as an important aspect. I 

would like to talk to you about two aspects of our change in posture 

that we need. And General Ben Hodges, who is the commanding 

general of U.S. Army Europe, has stated that, quote: ‘‘There used 

to be 300,000 soldiers in Europe during the height of the Cold War. 

Today we have 30,000 with the same mission: to assure allies and 

to deter Russia.’’ There is a big difference between 300,000 and 

30,000. 

So there are two vulnerabilities that we have, in listening to your 

comments; and I would like to know how to address them. 

One: We don’t know what we used to know about what Russia 

is doing. We used to have all eyes on them and when they would 

do buildups and preparations for what you described as snap exercises we knew where they were going, what they were doing, and 

how they were going to do it. 

And two: With the concept of prepositioning, you know, we just 

don’t have what we need there and we might not be able to get 

there. In the RAND study they point out the vulnerability of playing an away game while the adversary is playing a home game. 

Could you please describe what we need to be doing in both the 

aspects of greater understanding, greater visibility into Russia’s actions and what they are doing, and secondly, then, emphasize 

again your statements of our need to have forces there? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, thank you very much for the question, 

and I will try not to go long because it is quite a—to walk this from 

left to right will take a moment. First and foremost, a lot of smart 

people in RAND. I really love their work and I have known most 

of these people most of my military career. 

But what you find from a study is tied a lot to how you have 

been given the problem. And what is the status of the forces at the 

beginning of a problem I think is at the heart of the matter of the 

question you are asking me. 

We used to have a very persistent and capable look at Russia at 

the strategic level, the operational level, and the tactical level so 

that we could understand what they were doing with their forces. 

And we built a robust system of indications and warnings, INW, 

that was based on that robust intel. 
9 

For the past 20 years we have been refocusing—for all the right 

reasons, I think you would agree—some of our intelligence on Al 

Qaeda, Daesh, Taliban, other elements around the world. And so 

for the past 20 years, as we have been trying to make Russia a 

partner we have reapportioned a large portion of our ability to see 

away from Russia and towards these other threats. 

So the bottom line is we do not have that insight into their 

operational- and tactical-level work. We retained a view of that 

strategic force which makes them an existential threat, but we lost 

contact with the operational and the tactical. 

And in order to determine that we need to move forces into position that might change the outcome of the studies that you are referring to we need to have that capability and capacity of intelligence to reestablish indications and warnings so that we can deploy quickly the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, or 

deploy quickly the U.S. IRF [Immediate Response Force] to have 

them in position before or possibly to deter a conflict, and that 

might change some of the outcomes of what you are talking about. 

So it is incredibly important for the first part of your question 

that we reestablish our ability to see and interpret so that we can 

deploy early to hope to avoid conflict or to change the outcome of 

the conflict. 

Secondarily, as I said before, I believe that we will never go back 

to where Europe was when Captain Breedlove went there in 1983. 

Two corps, seven divisions, multiple brigades, 10 fighter wings—it 

was a force to be reckoned with. We will never go back there. This 

is not the Cold War. 

But I do believe we are not where we need to be now in the mixture of permanently forward-stationed forces, prepositioned stock 

so that we can rapidly fall in on it. And then as you mentioned at 

the last part of your question, we are not where we might need to 

be to be able to penetrate with A2AD—anti-access and area denial 

environment that would allow us to do the third part, which is rapidly reinforce. 

So just 20-second wrap up: I believe that we need to move forward in what our forward forces are, forward in how much 

prepositioned stock we have so that we don’t have to have as many 

forward forces, and we need to make sure that we have the capacity to do anti-access/area denial to break it so that we can continue 

to rapidly reinforce. 

I hope I answered your question, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you. General, for your leadership and your thoughtful 

testimony here today. 

On page 4 of your written testimony you advocate that the U.S. 

should join the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea treaty, UNCLOS. I find that kind of striking because yesterday your 

colleague, Admiral Harris, who is dealing with a totally different 

part of the globe and totally different set of issues in terms of maritime contest, made precisely the same recommendation. And I was 

wondering if you could sort of describe what you think the benefits 

would be if we took your advice and ratified UNCLOS and what 
10 

are the hindrances that you are dealing with today by not being 

part of the convention. 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, thank you for the question. I think our 

uniformed military has been pretty consistent over time in the support of the UNCLOS. 

If I could just do a vignette for you of the Arctic. We are facing 

a very challenging situation in the Arctic. The Arctic, I think, 

should be an opportunity. As the ice flow pattern changes, the maritime trade route in the Arctic shortens by over 30 days, I am told, 

transit to the Far East. That should be an opportunity. 

Many of our NATO allies, Canada, and the U.S. are concerned 

about what we see as the militarization of the Arctic now by Russia. What we would see in the Crimea situation and the Duma situation, currently in Syria, is that Russia has a pattern of putting 

military force in the field to set the conditions to negotiate from a 

position of power. 

And so what we see now in the Arctic is Russia establishing a 

military capability and capacity to influence that new passage in 

the north. And being part of the UNCLOS would allow us to be at 

the table in the diplomatic, informational, and economic arenas to 

address that. 

Last week I think, sir, you saw that Russia changed its claim in 

the North Pole area. It didn’t affect U.S. claims, but it affected 

three of our other allies’ and partners’ claims. And these are the 

kind of things that will be severed in the framework of the 

UNCLOS. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. 

Again, I think we learned again the harm recently when the 

Hague Convention denied the U.S. request to intervene on the 

Philippine claims in the South China Sea—again, a trend that I 

think really mirrors what you are talking about, militarizing a part 

of the Pacific. And our inability to even be at the table when these 

issues are being resolved that will have a direct impact in terms 

of military strategy and resources in the future, you know, is the 

ultimate unforced error. So thank you for your input this morning 

on that issue. 

Admiral Stavridis, when he was here a couple weeks ago, talked 

about the fact that the undersea realm is getting much busier, 

said, you know, highest level of activity since the Cold War. Do we 

have enough assets in terms of naval resources—submarines, antisubmarine, surface ships in terms of the European Command to 

address that issue? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, sir, I am glad you asked that in the context of the European Command. I wouldn’t want to try to advise 

you on the CNO’s [Chief of Naval Operations] business on numbers. 

But these undersea assets are a very highly sought-after asset. 

I will just factually say I did not get what I have asked for, and 

what that means is that in the North Sea in the vicinity what we 

call the GIUK gap—Greenland, Iceland, U.K. gap area—where all 

of the sophisticated submarines and surface combatants that Russia has comes out of the bastion area where they are built, tested, 

and fielded, and then employs in the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, and some of transits to the Pacific. 
11 

But the bottom line is in that very contested, very highly sophisticated part of the world we play zone defense. We can’t play manon-man. And so I hate to simplify this, but it is just a very simple 

way of understanding. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. 

Again, our fleet today of attack subs is about 52 and, as I think 

you know, it is going to dip just because of the legacy fleet going 

offline. And, I mean, I guess we would probably agree that that is 

just going to make that stress even worse for your successors, in 

terms of trying to get those—the assets you need to play zone defense, let alone man-to-man. 

General BREEDLOVE. And, sir, I would just—and not to change 

the question or to divert, but this is similar to other stories in what 

we call low-density, high-demand requirements: high-end ISR [intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance], high-end aircraft, certainly submarines, et cetera, et cetera. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rogers. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, it is good to have you back in front of us. Thank you 

for your service, and I don’t think the administration has announced who is going to follow you but you are going to be tough 

to follow and I appreciate all you have done for our country. 

General, do you have an opinion as to whether you believe Russia has any intention of returning into compliance with the INF 

[Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, thank you for the question and I am 

going to answer it in the way I answer a lot of things. I am unable 

to ascertain and I don’t think I am qualified to really determine 

what Mr. Putin and his folks intend, but what I would say is that 

what I have done—and I have said this to you before—I look at 

what our opponent does as far as building capabilities and capacities, and then I infer from that how he would use them or what 

he might do with them. 

And I think you have heard me testify before, as have many others, that we firmly believe that Russia is in violation of the INF 

Treaty, and that not only are they in violation of the INF Treaty 

but the type of weapons system that they have tested and fielded 

in that category is very easily hidden or masked in its conventional 

forces. And so it is worrisome to me that they have created a capability that will be very problematic for us to keep track of. 

Mr. ROGERS. How do you think we should raise the cost to Russia for its violations? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, the Secretary of Defense has laid out 

his approach to that and it is an escalating approach starting with 

diplomacy and then moving to more what I would call kinetic 

means. And I believe that we are in the phase where we are—we 

and our allies are trying to reach a diplomatic solution to that. But 

I support the Secretary of Defense framework for addressing the 

breach in the INF. 

Mr. ROGERS. What do you think Russia is trying to hide from us 

in Kaliningrad by illegally denying our flights over this heavily 

militarized piece of Russian territory? 

General BREEDLOVE. So Kaliningrad, sir, as you know, is a very 

militarized piece of property. And as we talked about just a little 
12 

bit before, in this discussion of anti-access/area denial, A2AD, as 

we shorten it, Kaliningrad is a fortress of A2AD. It projects land 

attack cruise missile capability; it projects coastal defense cruise 

missile capability; and it projects air defense capability; so a complete bubble to defend against land approach routes or land targets, air targets, and seaborne targets. 

And as I mentioned before, some of the land attack cruise missile 

systems or land attack missile systems in Kaliningrad are those 

that can be dual-use, meaning they can be nuclear. And I would 

not guess what they are trying to hide, but there are a lot of things 

in there that support these capabilities. 

Mr. ROGERS. Lastly, you made reference in your opening statement to Russia weaponizing the migration from Syria. Can you 

speak more specifically to that? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, I cannot—again, I look at what I see 

in capabilities and capacities and I determine intent. So what I am 

seeing in Syria in places like Aleppo and others are what I would 

call absolutely indiscriminate, unprecise bombing, rubblizing major 

portions of a city that do not appear to be—to me to be against any 

specific military target because the weapons they are using have no 

capability of hitting specific targets. They are unguided, dumb 

weapons. 

And what I have seen in the Assad regime from the beginning 

when they started using barrel bombs, which have absolutely no 

military utility, they are unguided and crude, and what are they 

designed to do is terrorize the public and get them on the road; 

later, Assad using chlorine gas and other chemical-type approaches 

to these same barrel bombs. Again, almost zero military utility, designed to get people on the road and make them someone else’s 

problem—get them on the road; make them a problem for Europe 

to bend Europe to the will of where they want them to be. 

And so I see a continuing pattern in Aleppo and other places of 

this indiscriminate use of military capability that all I can determine from it is the goal is to get more people on the road and make 

them a problem for someone else to bend the will of those being 

affected. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, General. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very disturbing. 

Mr. Ashford. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, thank you very much. We had the opportunity a few 

weeks ago to—in conjunction with the trip to the Gulf States, to 

stop at NATO headquarters and be briefed, and much of what was 

said there is what you have suggested today. And I want to thank 

you for the efforts to get the other NATO partners to contribute the 

2 percent. I think you had a great deal to do with that and it is 

such a big deal. 

And also the shift in the last 2 years in how we approach Russia, 

the threat of Russia, is much to do with your efforts, so I really— 

you know that, but I want to thank you again for that. 

One of the discussion points at NATO headquarters really was 

the discussion about the treaty itself, about Article 5, about—is— 

in your view, does the language of that agreement, which was—or 
13 

that treaty, which is relatively older now—a little younger than 

me, but older—is the language sufficient as we look at the types 

of threats that you have described, whether it is cyber or whether 

it is little gray men or it is a different kind of situation? 

How close to Estonia do the Russians have to be or if there is 

some sort of cyber activity or other kinds of activity like that? At 

what point does it trigger? And that is my question. 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, thank you for that. And if I could just 

wind the clock back a little bit to the other articles of the treaty. 

We often talk about Article 5; as important to me is Article 3 and 

Article 4. 

Article 3 can be summarized very succinctly in defense begins at 

home, and we have been using that with our allies and partners 

to talk to them about just what you said: increasing and thickening 

their own defense, investment in their own country. And that investment is not only 2 percent in total, but what is also important 

is that 20 percent of that needs to be recapitalization of investment 

in kit. It is not helpful if the entire portfolio is in personnel costs. 

And so Article 3—important. 

Defense begins at home, and we have been working with allies 

and partners to build capabilities that fit nicely into the alliance. 

Everybody doesn’t need to be flying F–16s. Some people need to be 

creating tactical air control parties, rotary-wing lift, et cetera, et 

cetera. So molding the alliance via Article 3. 

Article 4, of course, is that point at where the nation feels threatened and begins a conversation with the other nations about, ‘‘We 

are facing a threat and how are we going to respond?’’ And this is 

the point when the nations are starting to look at and say, ‘‘This 

is a legitimate breach of what NATO was built to do—collective defense.’’ 

And then Article 5, of course, is the most highly recognized one. 

To your point, the language is not precise when it comes to what 

we now call sort of the gray areas: the cyber, the hybrids. And Mr. 

Putin is trying to live below that Article 5 level. He is taking action 

in nations now all around his periphery, trying to remain below 

that level at which the alliance would respond. 

That is tough. It is tougher in the states between Russia and 

NATO, but I think he is already taking these actions in some 

NATO nations. 

I would encourage maybe your staff to look at Mr. Gerasimov’s 

model, his strategy of indirect action and deterrence. It is completely unclassified and out there on the Net, and if you look at his 

stage one, two, and three and what the actions he prescribes in 

that model of war, he is already taking those actions in many of 

our nations. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Franks. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, thank you for coming before this committee again. I understand this might be your last time before this committee, so if 

you will forgive me I would like to just take a moment and express 

my personal gratitude to you for being the noble and benevolent 

leader you have been on behalf of human freedom in this country, 
14 

and I know my 7-year-old children have a better chance to walk in 

the light of freedom because of people like you. 

And I truly believe that on just the basis of this committee’s perspective that you have been a strategic asset in the arsenal of freedom, and I can’t express to you just the personal goodwill I have 

for you and your family. 

With that, in your opening statement—or your written statement—you talk a lot about the assurance and deterrence missions 

you accomplished under the umbrella of Atlantic Resolve. And it is 

my understanding that Atlantic Resolve is really not a named operation. What additional authorities and resources could you tap into 

if Operation Atlantic Resolve were a named operation? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, sir, thank you. And thank you for your 

support of—Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, which is dear to my 

heart, but also to our military forces. 

So the difference between the operation itself—and a named operation is subtle but important. Named operations have funding 

streams, they have dedicated rules of engagement, they garner certain priorities and allocations of forces, et cetera, et cetera. And so 

a named operation would bring more stability and long-term focus 

to Atlantic Resolve. 

We are thankful to this committee and others for 3 years—or 2 

years and possibly a third year—of ERI, which is very important 

to Atlantic Resolve because it pays for those rotational forces and 

things that explain we are a part of the way forward. I think a 

named operation would give a sustained funding stream to things 

like that. 

Mr. FRANKS. You also mentioned that EUCOM does not yet have 

the personal—personnel, equipment, and resources necessary to 

carry out its growing mission. And to me that implies that although there is a plan for the future, that if a military crisis were 

to break out in there tomorrow, that you would not be equipped to 

deal with it as you would see fit. 

So what specific resources do you need to fulfill your missions 

which are not included in the current budget? And secondarily, is 

your headquarters adequately sized and staffed at the levels required for you to execute your mission? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, sir, if I could step back just to piggyback 

on a thought that I put out before, for 20 years we have been trying to make a partner out of Russia and we have changed our force 

structure and our headquarters and other capabilities in Europe to 

reflect a mission that was about engagement and building partnership capacity. 

Now we have determined that we—people categorize it differently, but we definitely do not have a partner in Russia. And our 

resolve now is to be able to meet the challenge of a resurgent, revanchist, however you want to label it, Russia. 

We have to be able now to be a warfighting headquarters and a 

warfighting force, as opposed to an engagement and partnershipbuilding capacity force. We will still do those functions, but we 

have to rethink, do we have the capability and capacity to be a 

warfighting force? And we do not. 

And I think that we have got to look at our forward force structure; we have got to look at our prepositioned capability; and we 
15 

have got to make sure we have the access to Europe in the face 

of A2AD. That will take capacity and it will take some new capabilities. 

And as to the headquarters, our Secretary—Assistant Deputy 

Secretary of Defense has recognized that our headquarters is not 

sized right. We are still downsizing the headquarters from the BCA 

[Budget Control Act], first $478 billion cuts. We had 5 years’ worth 

of cuts to the headquarters laid in. We are still getting smaller. But 

this year the Deputy Secretary has increased our headquarters size 

to stop—to arrest that, and hopefully we will continue to do that 

across the next years. 

But it will take some time to reconstitute a warfighting headquarters from where we have been for the last 20 years. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I hope that this committee and this country have the opportunity to access the wisdom 

and acumen of this gentleman in the future. 

The CHAIRMAN. Appreciate it. 

Mr. Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

And, General, thank you very much for your service. 

Are we meeting Russia’s threat in the Arctic, from your perspective in Europe? Are we adequately meeting the militarization of the 

Arctic today? 

General BREEDLOVE. I am going to try to answer this question 

along the following lines: I do not believe that our nation, nor most 

of the other nations of the Arctic Council, wants to militarize the 

Arctic. 

Mr. MOULTON. Well, I agree with that. 

General BREEDLOVE. But what we see is that our opponent has 

decided to militarize the Arctic. And so I think this is again a discussion of do we have the appropriate capabilities of all manner— 

aircraft, icebreakers, other things—and do we have the capacities? 

And that is work that is being looked at now. I think—— 

Mr. MOULTON. From your assessment today, do you believe that 

we have those capabilities and capacities to meet and deter Russia’s activity in the Arctic? 

General BREEDLOVE. In the Arctic? We do have some extremely 

capable Arctic capabilities, as do some of our allies. 

In fact, just before arriving here for this series of engagements 

with Congress I was in Alaska and we were talking about this with 

the leadership in Alaska and the forces of the ALCOM [Alaskan 

Command] there, and they do specialize in these capabilities. The 

real question is we have to determine what the capacities that are 

required are. 

Mr. MOULTON. General, moving on to a different topic and back 

to Representative Ashford’s question, some experts have said that 

now we have to afford additional policy authority to DOD [Department of Defense] to allow for training of National Guard, other 

forces, to counter the little green men and little gray men in Eastern Europe. How can this be best accomplished and what changes 

to statute or what policy provisions would better enable that kind 

of cooperation? 
16 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, I am going to be very honest. I don’t 

think I can answer it the context of how you asked it, but I do believe I can address this issue. 

Mr. MOULTON. Okay. Okay. 

General BREEDLOVE. So the capacity to address hybrid warfare 

in its many forms—and it is bigger than little green; as you have 

heard, we also talk about little gray men, meaning that hybrid 

warfare goes across all four elements of national power—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. And so leaving the 

nations where they are and helping them to determine what they 

need to do is important, and I will get to the part that is important 

to you. 

For instance, if you look at the three Baltic nations from north 

to south, they do things very differently. This hybrid approach in 

one nation is almost completely a military problem and very slightly a ministry of interior problem. In another of the nations it is 

about 50/50, ministry of defense, ministry of interior. And then the 

other one is exactly opposite; it is almost entirely ministry of interior and partly ministry of defense. 

So I think where your question is heading is, as you know, we 

have unique title 10 limitations of what we can do with other nations, so it is an all-of-government engagement. The National 

Guard brings some interesting capabilities, when you have guardsmen who have experiences in other fields—for instance judiciary, 

legal—— 

Mr. MOULTON. Sure. 

General BREEDLOVE. And so I think that is where this may have 

headed. 

Mr. MOULTON. So, General, do you think that we need to revise 

the current policy to be able to do that kind of training, to better 

meet this hybrid warfare or whatever you want to call it threat 

from Russia? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, I don’t think I know—or I am not familiar with the limitations enough to pass judgment. But let me tell 

you, as a commander I need the ability to engage a government 

across all the elements of government power to train them to address the hybrid war. 

Mr. MOULTON. That is very helpful, General. I think my concern 

is that, as you said, we are never going to get to the seven divisions 

that we had in the Cold War, and we can expend all our resources 

trying to incrementally move in that direction, which may be headed in the right direction, but if [we] expend all our resources doing 

that and don’t get to a point where it adequately does deter Putin 

at the expense of all these other aspects of this warfare we are 

going to really miss the boat. 

General BREEDLOVE. I completely agree that we have to have capacities in all of those elements of national power to deter, as we 

have talked about with Congresswoman Davis. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, General. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Fleming. 

Dr. FLEMING. General, I want to thank you for testifying before 

us today and, once again, thank you for your sage counsel and ad-
17 

vice and all your years of experience and what you have brought 

to the table. You will be sorely missed. Everything you said I think 

is spot-on to where we need to be in terms of deterrence and dealing with an emerging Russia. 

I do have some questions. I told you earlier with respect to B– 

52s, Barksdale Air Force Base is in my district, home of Global 

Strike Command and General Rand, and so I want to know from 

you, what is the deterrence effect of the B–52 bomber? What do you 

see as the future for that bomber in terms of what it can bring to 

the battlefield both in kinetic action but also in deterrence? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, I will not dodge your question, but I 

would say this is much more appropriately addressed by General 

Welsh and others as to that specific platform. But let me tell you 

what the bomber—and the B–52 being a mainstay of that fleet— 

the bomber brings to deterrence. 

And that is as you know the B–52, the B–1, and to a certain degree the B–2 have become much more flexible across their lives. 

And the B–52 as a platform for employing all manner of weapons 

like the other bombers, but certainly the B–52 is a great deterrent 

effect because it can be a part of a purely conventional response to 

try to de-escalate the situation, which is what we really want. 

We don’t want to fight. We want the capacity and capability to 

defeat, but we don’t want to go there. And so the ability of that 

particular platform to be able to do all missions and bring capacity 

to both a conventional and a non-conventional war is important. 

The other piece is it has proved, as you know, to be an incredibly 

long-living airframe with capability still into the future. I am not 

sure if it is still true, but when I was the vice chief of staff at the 

Air Force now 5 years ago we used to say that the mother of the 

son or daughter that will be the last pilot of the B–52 has not been 

born yet. 

Dr. FLEMING. Right. 

General BREEDLOVE. And it will be well over 100 years old before 

we are done with it. 

Dr. FLEMING. Yes. Amazing. 

Well, and since you brought that up, we are looking at the development of the Long Range Strike Bomber [LRS–B], so my question 

is what will be that effect and what are the current timelines for 

both the upgrade to B–52 and replacement of long-term strike 

bombers? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, sir, as you remember, we were talking 

earlier about A2AD—anti-access/area denial. One of the biggest 

keys to being able to break anti-access/area denial is the ability to 

penetrate the air defenses so that we can get close enough to not 

only destroy the air defenses but to destroy the coastal defense 

cruise missiles and the land attack missiles, which are the three 

elements of an A2AD environment. 

One of the primary and very important tools to busting that 

A2AD environment is a fifth-generation ability to penetrate. In the 

LRS–B you will have a platform and weapons that can penetrate, 

key to the future in the—of the older generation bombers and platforms are developing, and we are and have those weapons that can 

penetrate. And so those upgrades are all important to me as a user 
18 

so that I can call on the service to bring forward the capabilities 

and capacities to address A2AD. 

Dr. FLEMING. Right. Great. Thanks. 

And in the remaining time I have, could you comment on the 

current state of research by the Navy and Air Force into deterrence 

assurance? By this I mean the gaming scenarios in planning to address the aggressive behavior and Russia’s apparent shift in nuclear doctrine. 

General BREEDLOVE. So I can’t speak specifically to just the services. You may be familiar with what we call the RSI, the Russian 

Strategic Initiative. It is modeled after the CSI, the Chinese Strategic Initiative, which is nearly 7 years old. As we in the past couple of years have seen Russia as no longer a partner we have developed the Russia Strategic Initiative to do just this kind of work, to 

look at the things we need to change in weaponry, but more importantly, to do things like war gaming to understand how they would 

react to our war plans, et cetera, et cetera. 

So what I am aware is as the leader of the Russia Strategic Initiative for the Department of Defense, we are getting some very exquisite help in understanding this business. 

Dr. FLEMING. Great. Well, thank you, General, and so much for 

the Russian reset. 

And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, I want to thank you for your testimony today and for 

your service to our nation. Your service has been absolutely invaluable to our country and we will miss you in your retirement. But 

I certainly want to be among the many to wish you well in this 

next chapter of your life. 

Officials within the Department have stated that they are very 

worried that our military’s ability to counter and wage electronic 

warfare has atrophied pretty significantly while other partners 

around the world—or I should say adversaries around the world— 

have invested heavily in this area, and that we may be lagging behind countries such as Russia. Would you agree with this assessment, and how do you believe EUCOM is currently positioned to 

address this challenge across the AOR [area of responsibility]? 

My other question that I have I hope we can get to is—and I 

spend a lot of time obviously on cybersecurity, and you mentioned 

that the challenges that we face in that space with respect to what 

Russia is doing. And my question is, how do you believe that we 

are doing at countering cyber threats with our allies against what 

Russia is doing and what their capabilities are? And do our NATO 

allies see eye to eye on this threat, and are our partners’ capabilities mature enough to manage the dangers that—and challenges 

that we are seeing across cyberspace? 

General BREEDLOVE. Thank you, sir. 

On the electronic warfare the same sort of situation applies. For 

20 years we have been making a partner out of Russia so our focus 

has not been on the capabilities that they have been developing. 

And secondarily, again, for all the right reasons for the last 13 or 

so years our nation’s military has been focused on counterinsurgen-
19 

cy operations, COIN, in Afghanistan and fighting Al Qaeda in some 

of the spaces around the world. 

And so we have been focused very deeply on addressing a threat 

that does not have electronic warfare capability. So while we have 

retained capability, we have not really practiced to it to the veracity that we used to, nor have we retained the capacity that might 

be required to bust these growing A2AD problems we see around 

the world. 

So to really shorten the answer up, we have electronic warfare 

capability; we probably do not have the capacity we need now to 

address it. Our suppression of enemy air defense capabilities, 

SEAD, to take down air defense nets and things are very good but 

they are not dense. We don’t have a lot of them. 

Russia knows how we roll and they have invested a lot in electronic warfare because they know that we are a connected and precise force and they need to disconnect us to make us imprecise. 

When it comes to cyber, this is, sir, I think a glass well over halffull. When I arrived to my station about 3 years ago I think that 

many of the nations of the alliance and in Europe were very 

insularly focused. They were acknowledging the cyber threat but 

they were worried primarily about their own cyber problem. 

What we discovered, though, is with 28 nations in alignment in 

an alliance you may have an absolute iron curtain wall around two 

or three of them, but there are 25 other doors into the enterprise. 

And so what we had to do is come to a larger, more corporate approach to cyber. 

And, sir, I see that happening. I am encouraged by what I see 

happening. 

I would recommend that someday in your travels you stop into 

Estonia and go to the NATO cyber center in Tallinn. It is absolutely superior and they are adding value to our alliance every day. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, General. 

Next question: Is there a role for the U.S. and for EUCOM to 

play in assisting our European allies to mitigate the potential national security threats when it comes to the ongoing refugee crisis? 

What does that role look like and what resources are needed? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, there is a role and we are executing 

that role now. The refugee crisis and the part that we are addressing the most is that embedded in this refugee flow is criminality, 

terrorism, and foreign fighters. We have adopted and built a very 

good network of sharing information, sharing intelligence, and trying to target and understand these flows of criminals, terrorists, 

and foreign fighters as they move back and forth, and so we are 

a part of that now. 

As you are aware, the NATO alliance began an operation in the 

Aegean Sea essentially just about a week ago where we are beginning to try to help our Greek and Turk allies to address the dense 

flow of refugees across that water space by being a part of managing that water space in terms of surveillance and reconnaissance 

and handing off data to the coast guards of Turkey and Greece. It 

is a little more complicated than that, but we have—the NATO alliance has begun to enter into that portion of the mission as well. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, General, and thank you again for 

your service. We wish you well. 
20 

General BREEDLOVE. Thank you, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I definitely want to thank General Breedlove and his staff 

for your honest answers in the prior meeting that we had. It is 

very sobering to hear where we are and without illusion. 

I worry as we move forward. You know, we have done this now 

pivot to Asia, rebalance in the Pacific, all those types of things, and 

I think we are trying to do, unfortunately, way too much in regards 

to the stresses that we are putting on the military. 

You know, there was a point in time where our policy was to be 

able to fight, you know, two major conflicts while, you know—but 

what we found is that we had a hard time doing one when you look 

back at Afghanistan and we had to have, you know, forces there 

for 15 months on a single rotation. 

And so I think that we are fooling sometimes the American public to think we have the—I know we have the desire and I know 

that we have the best trained, best equipped force on the face of 

the Earth. But I don’t know that we have enough, and I think we 

hit that on capacity, that we have enough to do the things that we 

told the American people that we can do and should do. 

I think we have been really I guess hiding the ball in regards to 

hoping that our adversaries don’t see that, and I truly have a lot 

of—I believe that Mr. Putin is very calculating and is not stupid 

by any stretch of the imagination. 

But I guess the question is, you know, back when I first ran 6 

years ago it was a big deal about, ‘‘Hey, listen we need to get out 

of Europe; we need to let the Europeans deal with their issues.’’ 

And I think while that sounded good at the time, obviously now we 

are paying a dear price for that. 

So why is it so important? And we need to stress this to the 

American public because everyone is footing the bill. Why is it so 

important that we have permanently stationed—forward-stationed 

troops and equipment in Europe? Why is it that important that we 

should invest that? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, sir, thank you for the question. And just 

a 30-second recap: I believe that permanently forward-stationed 

troops are a part of that mixture. 

Mr. NUGENT. Correct. 

General BREEDLOVE. We have to have the appropriate amount of 

permanent-stationed, the appropriate amount of prepositioned so 

that we can rapidly reinforce, and then we need to have the capability and capacities to be able to rapidly reinforce to include busting this A2AD problem. So the permanently forward-stationed 

forces are an important part. 

And here are some things that are not often heard. Permanently 

forward-stationed forces buy you a lot of things. One of them is relationships, and relationships equal access. 

The flexibility that our—many of our nations, but let me just 

mention a few—that Spain, Italy, Greece, and even Turkey—the 

flexibility that they give us to move around and employ forces to 

address problems across all of North Africa, the Levant, and even 

to support CENTCOM [Central Command] into Syria and Iraq, this 

is all built on relationships and trust that are established over time 
21 

by permanently stationed forward forces. I cannot overstate the importance of having these—this access. 

A couple of sort of quippy remarks that I will give to you. One 

is that you cannot surge trust. You cannot surge relationships. If 

we are not in a nation, establishing trust and relationship, and 

then when we desperately need to be able to do execute force from 

or within that nation you don’t—you can’t surge the trust or the 

relationship. 

Mr. NUGENT. And doesn’t having permanently stationed forces 

buy us time to do just what you are talking about? When you have 

prepositioned equipment it buys us time to actually get to that 

equipment? 

General BREEDLOVE. It does. It does, and that is why it is a mix. 

The permanently forward-stationed forces are there, ready, and can 

execute. They are ready to fight forward if they have to, and that 

allows—enables the prepositioning and enables the capability to respond. 

Mr. NUGENT. So do we have enough prepositioned—or not prepositioned, but do we have enough permanently stationed troops in 

Europe? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, I am on record multiple times as saying 

no. We are looking at that now, but if we choose not to increase 

permanently stationed forces forward then we can adjust and pick 

up the requirement in the rotational force. 

Mr. NUGENT. But hasn’t it been a problem in regards to—and I 

know we—and I’m getting gaveled out on this one—but in regards 

to when you have different commands flushing through that you 

don’t have a continuity? 

General BREEDLOVE. Right. This is a problem that could manifest itself. Our U.S. Army and Navy and Air Force, by the way, in 

their rotation patterns are dedicating units. It will not always be 

perfect, but we have units assigned with a primarily European mission that are a part of that rotational force. We are trying to address just your concern. 

Mr. NUGENT. I appreciate it. 

And I appreciate the Chair. Thank you for very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Duckworth. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. I am actually going to continue the 

gentleman’s line of questioning because we were thinking along 

much of the same ways. 

General, thank you again so much for being here. I want to pick 

up on this line of questioning. 

You know, the fiscal year 2017 budget request quadruples the 

amount of the fiscal year 2016 request for the European Reassurance Initiative, but a lot of that is for prepositioning of equipment 

in Central and Eastern Europe, and for heel-to-toe rotational deployments. I was reading the National Commission on the Future 

of the Army’s report that has two significant recommendations. 

One is to forward station an ABCT [armored brigade combat team] 

in Europe itself, whereas the other has to do with the aviation, the 

CAB [combat aviation brigade]. 

And I want to sort of peel back the layers of the effect of the 

Army’s Aviation Restructuring Initiative and what it has done to 

our aviation capability in Europe. Specifically, you know, we go 
22 

back to this idea of building trust and long-term relationships. One, 

let me start off by saying—am I right in saying that you would prefer to have permanently placed ABCT and additional equipment in 

Europe? Would that be a true statement? 

General BREEDLOVE. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Okay. So on the aviation side, the report actually suggests that the rotational model will work except that we 

need more of a warfighter-aligned headquarters. What is there now 

is really more of an administrative aviation headquarters as opposed to a CAB-type of headquarters there that would actually be 

much more aligned to that rotational mission, they can come in, 

they can pick up. Would you agree with that? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, ma’am, the report I think correctly identifies the absolute value of having a dedicated command and controlled force. And frankly, it just emphasizes the value in general 

of Army aviation as one element of air power in Europe. And they 

are all absolutely critical. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. They are. Thank you. I am not promising anything, but I would hope that with such an increase in the ERI 

funding that we might be able to address some of the aviation 

shortfall. 

Can you talk a little bit more about the rotational model on your 

aviation needs in Europe? And where have you assumed specifically the most risk and what capability gaps needs the most attention when it comes to Army aviation? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, ma’am, what I need to do is give some 

thanks and respect to what the Army did as they took the last 

tranche of aviation out of Europe. If you look at it in a net way, 

we really didn’t lose any presence because the aviation that we had 

in Europe at the time was continually being tasked into theater. 

So while it was assigned in Europe it was gone a fair amount. 

A larger piece left Europe, but the rotational piece that we got 

to replace it is dedicated to Europe and does not rotate into theater. So it netted out almost exactly the same in the amount of 

time that we had aviation on the ground. So I need to—we need 

to properly acknowledge the Army’s efforts to make this right for 

Europe. 

But the larger picture is that faced with the revanchist, resurgent Russia, we do not have the aviation requirement that we need 

in Europe, and that will be the focus of my command into the future. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Okay. And so you are actually saying—are you 

saying then that you would like to have a full—a CAB permanently 

stationed in Europe? 

General BREEDLOVE. Ma’am, the planning is ongoing. It may be 

more than a CAB. I would not want to put a number on it now and 

have it exactly wrong when the planning is finished. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Okay. I only have a minute left. Can you comment a little bit on the State Partnership Program? Having been 

in the—spent my 23 years in the Illinois National Guard—— 

General BREEDLOVE. Cannot say enough about it. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Since Poland is our country and they are staring down the barrel of Russian aggression there in Poland—— 
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General BREEDLOVE. The State Partnership Program, 21 States, 

22 nations, is one of my premiere tools. I hate to use a word like 

that, but literally they represent 23, 24 percent of the engagement 

that I have in Europe. 

I have told this committee a couple of times that I much prefer 

permanently stationed forces, rotational forces being an acceptable 

but second option. 

I would recategorize a little bit the State Partnership Program. 

They are a rotational force. They are a bit episodic. But the difference is that they maintain long-term relationships in leadership, 

in command, in training. 

Forces are going left to America, right to Europe, and the—most 

of these programs are wildly successful. Some of them are just successful. But the point being that this is a very valuable tool in our 

quiver to be able to develop capacity in our allies, especially the 

smaller, former Soviet allies, et cetera, et cetera. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. And I thank you for service to this country, 

General. 

General BREEDLOVE. Thank you, ma’am. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And, General, thank you. As everyone else has, you are a great 

military leader and we appreciate it more than we could ever tell 

you. 

Yesterday on the floor of the House, Mr. Brooks, who just left a 

few hours ago, gave a very disturbing speech on the fact that 

America is headed toward Greece financially. I later came along to 

give another 5-minute speech about the waste of money in Afghanistan, talked about the fact that John Sopko said that, to the Senate, that our country, Department of Defense spent $6 million to 

buy nine goats from Italy to send to western Afghanistan. 

I wonder, when I listen to you, and—because I have such great 

respect for your evaluation of Russia and the threat that they could 

bring to more of Europe than it does today. Then I think about the 

comment by Admiral Mullen when he was Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs when he said, ‘‘The biggest threat to our military is the 

growing debt of our nation.’’ 

I listen to you and your recommendations and the things that 

you feel like we need to do not only in Europe but for our military, 

but specifically Europe today that we need to do to be a stronger 

deterrent in Europe. My concern is that I have read recently that 

a couple of the civilian leaders in a couple of the countries have debated reducing the amount of money going into the defense budget 

of some of those countries. 

You, having relationships that you have had both with military 

leaders and civilian leaders, do you feel—talking about the civilian 

leaders now, not the military leaders—that they fully understand 

that they have got to make a financial investment as much as 

America has to make to keep Europe safe from being taken over 

by Russia? 

General BREEDLOVE. Sir, thank you much. And if I could just 

comment that I have deep respect for Admiral Mullen. I have 

worked for him a couple of times directly in my life and he is a 

man of, I think, incredible character, and he really has it upstairs. 
24 

The answer to the last part, which is the focus of your question, 

is we need to have a sober reply. But I have said that I am a glass 

half-full—— 

Mr. JONES. Right. 

General BREEDLOVE [continuing]. Here. 

In Wales we made a commitment—we being the nations of the 

alliance—made a commitment to get towards the 2 percent. They 

gave themselves a broad time period, which, you know, was a little 

bit worrisome—10 years. But they made a commitment to get to 2 

percent. What I have seen is because of the continued aggressive 

behavior of Russia the nations have become much more focused on 

this. 

And I have used these three numbers a couple of times. They are 

exactly wrong. They change, but they are pretty close to right: 16 

of NATO’s nations have stopped the decline in their budget; 5 of 

NATO’s nations are already at 2 percent—we need to qualify at 

least one of those and I will mention that in a second; and then 

I believe—this is Phil Breedlove’s opinion, not others—that there 

are about 7 nations that have I think a legitimate plan to get to 

the right spending in a reasonable amount of time, not 10 years 

but 4, 5, 6 years. 

And so I think I would use those numbers to point out to you 

sir, that I do believe the leadership of the nations are beginning 

to make decisions with their budgets. I do not want to overstate because there is a lot here to do. And as I mentioned earlier, one of 

the important things in the 2 percent is that it is important and 

the other goal is that 20 percent of that 2 percent is on recapitalization investment so that they can bring capability to the table. 

If the entire budget is a personnel budget it is not going to be 

helpful over time as a force. And so we also need to bring focus 

among our allies and partners that they not only get the investment up, or certainly arrest the decrease, but they also need to 

look at the investment accounts to make sure that they are bringing capabilities to the fore. 

But I just want to close with it is not perfect. A lot of work to 

do, but I am over half-full here because of what I see in these trend 

lines. 

Mr. JONES. General, thank you so much. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I was just looking; we are at 26 percent, according to the last chart we have up here, on the monetization part. 

So we got a little work to—have a little work to do. 

Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General Breedlove, for being here to testify and 

for your service and leadership to our nation. 

I am interested to hear your thoughts on the increased online 

presence of ISIL in Europe and our capacity to truly counter these 

threats at the combatant command level. How is EUCOM leveraging technology and new ideas to counter online propaganda and 

equipment as it relates not only to the hybrid threat posed by Russia but also this increased online recruitment and digital propaganda that we are seeing by ISIL in Europe? 
25 

General BREEDLOVE. So I would categorize this in two ways. We 

are not where we need to be yet. We have a lot to do. We have 

started and are headed in the right direction. 

I am sure you will have Admiral Rogers here from NSA [National Security Agency]/Cyber Command to talk to you. He has 

been a magnificent partner in that he has taken the approach of 

pushing capacity and capability to the combatant commanders so 

that the combatant commanders can individually focus and target 

that capability and capacity. 

In this open forum I will have to stop there on what that looks 

like, but let me assure you that the admiral has a wonderful focus 

on how he is going to do this for us, but it is—we have a lot farther 

to go. 

Inside of EUCOM itself, again, in an open forum I will tell that 

we have several venues where we are using exquisite tools to get 

after this problem set. And I will just stop there. Again, not enough 

yet, but we have started this process. 

Ms. STEFANIK. So as much as you can say in an open forum, 

what tools do you need? How will increased ERI funding assist in 

the area? Broadly, can you give us guidance? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, ma’am, ERI is more focused on our allies and how we fight there, and so I will have to have my staff 

get back to your staff. I don’t want to misstate. 

I am not sure that there is this specific capability. There are capabilities in cyber, but what you are talking about I cannot definitively speak to that. I will have my staff contact your staff on 

that—— 

Ms. STEFANIK. Great. 

General BREEDLOVE [continuing]. Rather than misstate. 

[EUCOM has contacted Rep. Stefanik’s staff and will provide a 

briefing in response to her questions.] 

Ms. STEFANIK. Let me shift to another area. A mission as complex as EUCOM requires a great deal of international partnership 

and interagency communication. How well, in your assessment, is 

EUCOM integrated with the various agencies throughout Europe 

to counter the increased threats, and would you say there is a solid 

unity of effort between partners and agencies to counter the challenges posed by a resurgent Russia and the various unconventional 

threats that face Europe today? 

General BREEDLOVE. Ma’am, this is a place I am very proud of 

our command. We are well integrated. And partially that is because this committee made decision years ago to develop a distinct 

branch of our command called J9 where we pull in all of the other 

agencies. It is a little mini agency. And we pay for their presence 

in order to ensure that we have connections to law enforcement, 

FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], and a lot of other agencies 

which we will not mention here. 

But we know that in Europe when we try to combat things like 

foreign fighter flows and terrorism—in Europe this is not about kinetic strikes like it is in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and portions of 

North Africa. In Europe this is about integrating with the highly 

capable legal, judicial, and police systems of Europe. And so we 

have invested distinctly in this capability to have connective tissue 

to the other nations of Europe. 
26 

And so this is a place where EUCOM before my time—I do not 

take the credit except for that we have expanded it and continued 

to fund it before me—but leaders before me have seen the wisdom 

and the value of this interagency approach in Europe. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Great. Thank you very much. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. McSally. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, General Breedlove, for your service and commitment 

to our troops and to our security. You have talked many times 

about the force structure and our downsizing in Europe. I think 

back at one point we had I think six A–10 squadrons in the U.K. 

back in the day, then we went to one at Spain, and less than 3 

years ago that one closed down. 

We are now deploying A–10 units of the nine remaining operational across the active Guard and Reserve for part of the ERI in 

order to help with training and deterrence. So that is just one example, but that was just a couple years ago. 

Can you give some insight into the logic? That is an entire capability, because now there is none there, that we have lost. 

And I am still waiting to hear about from the Air Force as the 

cost comparison of stations that are full-time versus rotating over. 

But can you give some insight as to that logic, and do you think 

looking in hindsight that was not a good decision? 

General BREEDLOVE. So I will allow the Air Force to talk to you 

about cost-benefit ratio. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Right—— 

General BREEDLOVE. As a user I am just looking for the capability. 

And I think, you know, I—the round number that my staff gave 

me is that we are—we have about two A–10 exercises and about 

200 flying hours a month on average now in EUCOM. So we are 

asking for that capability. 

I try to refrain from asking specifically for airframes; I try to ask 

for capabilities. And certainly we have airplanes that can deliver 

what the A–10 delivers, but the A–10 is extremely good at delivering—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. I mean, just based on your overall testimony, 

though—— 

General BREEDLOVE. Right. 

Ms. MCSALLY [continuing]. Would it be better to have a capability like that stationed in Europe versus rotating over, just in line 

with everything that you said? 

General BREEDLOVE. So what we have seen is that that capability serves a very important niche of our requirements. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thanks. 

You may not be able to answer the next question but a recent 

RAND study, looking at defense of the Balkans, talked about, 

among other things, a, you know, lack of air superiority because of 

just the swift nature of that potential scenario. You said you were 

looking into force structure options, but if you were not resourceconstrained and you had everything you wanted, could you give a 

sense or can you get back to me with a sense of what would the 
27 

fighter force structure look like in order to make sure we have air 

superiority. 

It has been now 60 years since the last time we did not have air 

superiority in any military operation so—— 

General BREEDLOVE. April 1953—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Exactly. 

General BREEDLOVE. So yes, ma’am. We do not at present have 

sitting on the ground in Europe sufficient capacity—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Right—— 

General BREEDLOVE [continuing]. To ensure air superiority over 

the battlefield. We would have to start off any conflict working towards localized air superiority to employ troops and then reinforce 

from the rear. 

If I could, I would actually attack this question a little differently. The premiere aircraft in air superiority these days are not 

only air superiority platforms but they are explicit, stealth, precision, attack platforms. 

And these kinds of capabilities are incredibly important to busting that A2AD problem that we have talked about several times 

today, not only to provide air superiority for the troops but that 

stealthy ability to deliver precise weapons to take down A2AD is 

incredibly important. And it will take a significant amount more of 

that capability to establish what you and I have known to be air 

superiority over the battlefield. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Yes. Could we maybe get back in a classified setting about what that—like how many—what would that look like? 

What would the force structure look like? What—— 

General BREEDLOVE. So, as you know, we are working our war 

plan through the business now, and that will allow us to definitize 

that. It is not ready for primetime yet. 

Ms. MCSALLY. I have just got about a minute left. Obviously we 

have talked about the challenge of our partners not reaching 2 percent of their GDP [gross domestic product] and their spending. It 

seems like the awareness level is going up and some turning 

around, but it is still not enough. 

If we compare the—with the PACOM [Pacific Command] theater, 

you know, our allies see the value of us being there for their own 

defense and they often support in other ways, even if it is not just 

with the military. They are paying the bills; they are providing 

that monetary support. 

Are there other initiatives we could push a little harder on right 

now, now that we have got the Russian threat, we have got the 

ISIS threat, to say, ‘‘All right, fine. If you are not ramping up your 

military capability, you are going to start paying some of the bills 

for us to be here so that we can free up resources for other things’’ 

just to be a little more creative and have them step up their contribution. 

General BREEDLOVE. As you know, in limited ways that has already happened in a couple of places. And as I mentioned before, 

it is not perfect. We need more. But what we really see, especially 

in the Mediterranean nations, is the flexibility that they allow us 

to move forces around, especially to meet the threat in North Africa, is quite demonstrative. 
28 

I asked someone once, ‘‘Would you—what would happen if another nation asked to come into your state and on a routine basis 

move around large groups of foreign military and foreign aircraft, 

and sometimes do that on less than 48 hours’ notice?’’ And so I 

think we have to acknowledge that there are some sacrifices these 

nations are making. 

Ms. MCSALLY. They get value out of it too. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. General, do you know off the top of your head 

how many permanent U.S. military installations we still have in 

Europe? 

General BREEDLOVE. I do not. The number of new major installations is less than two dozen, but there are a lot of small ones. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Okay. Thank you. 

One other question I want to ask you with your NATO hat on 

that has not been raised today is Turkey. You know, we read every 

day about the tensions related to this Syria situation especially, 

and so from a NATO perspective what is that relationship like with 

Turkey today as it integrates into the alliance? 

General BREEDLOVE. So, Mr. Chairman, let me say unequivocally 

in a mil-to-mil environment, which is where I am most qualified, 

it is a strong and remaining strong relationship. Of course, the position of the military inside Turkey has changed over time, but our 

mil-to-mil relationship is strong. 

We don’t always see perfectly eye to eye, but we have incredible 

cooperation and personal relationships. The chief of defense there, 

General Hulusi Akar, is not American-trained but he is Westerntrained and he really understands the way we do business, and he 

has—he is a very much a cooperative partner. 

Turkey, as you know, Mr. Chairman, lives in a really tough 

neighborhood: to their south a civil war that is really going quite 

badly; to the north the Black Sea, which has become a bastion of 

Russian power—again, one of the three major A2AD nodes that we 

have talked about. And so Turkey is in a tough place and facing 

what they see are some tough problems around them. 

But let me assure you, I feel only qualified to speak to the milto-mil piece. We have a strong and continued relationship mil-tomil with our ally Turkey. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we have seen in other cases where that 

continuation of a strong military relationship is really the bedrock 

as governments come and go that our relationships can often depend on, so I think that is a very important thing for us to keep 

in mind. 

General BREEDLOVE. Nineteen major installations, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir, I appreciate that. I often get 

asked at home why don’t we close some bases in Europe, and so 

that is—helps arm me with the facts. 

General, I have got to warn you that you have received lots of 

accolades today and people saying they are going to miss you. The 

problem is even this week we have had interactions with two 

former combatant commanders and picking their brain, so we don’t 

usually let people get off too lightly or completely away from us. 
29 

And we may see you again before the change of command, but 

thank you very much for being here today and for your insights. 

And with that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 25, 2016 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 25, 2016 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 25, 2016 

(65) 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER 

Mr. SHUSTER. Do you believe we have enough Patriot battalions to support the 

continued mission of deterrence against Russia? 

General BREEDLOVE. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the 

committee files.] 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. CONAWAY 

Mr. CONAWAY. Russia has greatly expanded its distribution of natural gas 

throughout Europe. This pattern appears to be part of a larger geo-political agenda 

in countries such as Syria and Ukraine, as witnessed by incursions into Crimea and 

elsewhere. Natural gas exportation significantly enhances Russia’s ability to operate 

abroad, playing a significant component in an otherwise weakening economy. In 

view of increased use of Russian natural gas at regional energy facilities that supply 

heating to numerous U.S. military installations throughout Western Europe, is the 

expansion of Russian energy not a considerable risk factor? 

General BREEDLOVE. Using natural gas from countries who rely on Russian supplies does pose a risk. While not ideal, the United States government is working 

with our European Allies and partners to determine ways to diversify their energy 

sources. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. CASTRO 

Mr. CASTRO. Has NATO discussed changes to Article 6 to include non-conventional attacks such as a cyber attack? 

General BREEDLOVE. Article 6 of the Washington Treaty relates generally to the 

location of an armed attack on a NATO member that could trigger the collective defense provisions of Article 5. While there have been many discussions relating to 

cyber attacks and Article 5, we are unaware of any specific discussions on Article 

6 changes. 

It is NATO’s articulated policy, expressed in paragraph 72 of the Wales Action 

Plan (Sep. 5, 2014), that ‘‘cyber defense is part of NATO’s core task of collective defense.’’ In general, NATO assets exist to protect NATO networks, and allies must 

protect their own national assets. As set forth in the ‘‘Active Engagement, Modern 

Defence’’ statement at NATO’s Lisbon Summit in November 2010, cyber attacks 

‘‘can reach a threshold that threatens national and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security and stability.’’ As NATO Secretary General Rasmussen said in October 2010, 

there is a ‘‘constructive ambiguity’’ with regard to the use of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, including in the case of cyber attacks. Such a decision would be taken 

by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis. 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. HUNTER 

Mr. HUNTER. Russia has greatly expanded its distribution of natural gas throughout Europe. This pattern appears to be part of a larger geo-political agenda in countries such as Syria and Ukraine, as witnessed by incursions into Crimea and elsewhere. Natural gas exportation significantly enhances Russia’s ability to operate 

abroad, playing a significant component in an otherwise weakening economy. In 

view of increased use of Russian natural gas at regional energy facilities that supply 

heating to numerous U.S. military installations throughout Western Europe, is the 

expansion of Russian energy not a considerable risk factor? The Army is about to 

construct a major new medical center at the Rhine Ordnance Barracks Installation 

in Germany, a facility to replace Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. This facility 

provides medical care for service personnel and their families in the European Theater from each branch of the military. There remains a possibility that Russian natural gas will be the exclusive energy source for heat at the facility. Would such an 
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acquisition policy be counter-productive to NATO’s efforts to address Russia’s recent 

posturing? 

General BREEDLOVE. No, we do not believe this acquisition policy is currently 

counter-productive to NATO’s efforts. We recognize that in the long term overreliance on Russian natural gas could prove problematic. The United States government is working with our NATO Allies and partners on energy diversification efforts. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GIBSON 

Mr. GIBSON. What is your assessment of the criticality of the Global Response 

Force? Also, what is your assessment of the level of risk of continuing the Army 

drawdown, and what it would mean in terms of buying down risk to station an Armored Brigade Combat Team and a Combat Aviation Brigade in Europe? 

General BREEDLOVE. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the 

committee files.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT 

Mr. SCOTT. Can you describe the infrastructure and capabilities European Command (EUCOM) needs now in order achieve information and cyber dominance in a 

hybrid conflict? 

General BREEDLOVE. A future conflict will be characterized by a combination of 

regular, irregular, and cyberspace-based warfare typically supported by an aggressive propaganda campaign. In order to achieve information dominance in such a 

conflict in its area of operations, EUCOM would need to be able to inform, persuade 

and influence both foreign decision makers and population groups. Specifically, it 

would require both the capacity and capabilities to conduct sustained ‘‘influence operations.’’ While EUCOM has some capacity and capability to conduct these kinds 

of ‘‘influence operations,’’ shortfalls exist that create risk to U.S. objectives in a hybrid conflict. Capacity could be achieved through an increase in the numbers of 

qualified analysts available to the command, both in reach back and at the headquarters, sub-unified command level (Special Operations Command Europe), and 

the component level (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines). It is key to have qualified 

persons who can conduct the activities that lead to dominance, including Military 

Information Support Operations. We require new influence operations capabilities 

emphasizing research, analysis, and assessment, as well as the employment of social 

media. The capacity and capabilities we need are very difficult, if not impossible, 

to ‘‘surge.’’ Russia, as we know, is employing many resources in its influence operations in Eastern Europe. Accordingly, EUCOM believes that funding for influence 

operations should be increased and included in the Department’s base budget. 

Mr. SCOTT. What are the current gaps in your intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities with regard to your combatant command? How does 

the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System platform integrate into your 

current ISR network? 

General BREEDLOVE. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the 

committee files.] 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. TAKAI 

Mr. TAKAI. You focused the majority of your testimony on explaining how Russia 

is our greatest threat. Though most focused on Europe and the Middle East, Russia 

is also engaged politically and militarily in the Indo-Asia-Pacific. Ships and submarines of the Russian Pacific Fleet and long range aircraft routinely demonstrate 

Russia’s message that it is a Pacific power. America’s future demands greater attention to the Asia-Pacific region. Russian ballistic missile and attack submarines remain especially active in the Asia-Pacific. The arrival in late 2015 of Russia’s newest class of nuclear ballistic missile submarine (DOLGORUKIY SSBN) in the Far 

East is part of a modernization program for the Russian Pacific Fleet and signals 

the seriousness with which Moscow views this region. Your testimony highlighted 

the importance of maintaining relationships. I quote, ‘‘You can’t surge trust.’’ The 

same could be said for relationships with our allies in the Asia-Pacific; the risks associated with major combat operations in the Asia-Pacific theater place a premium 

on preexisting command relationships. 
67 

Don’t you think the European Reassurance Initiative could do with less so that 

resources could be adequately distributed to the growing threat of Russia, and 

China, and North Korea, in the Asia-Pacific region? 

General BREEDLOVE. The European Reassurance Initiative (ERI) is necessary to 

address the Russian threat to NATO Allies and other partners within the 

USEUCOM Area of Responsibility (AOR). With the FY17 ERI budget request, we 

are consciously beginning to address the requirement to take prudent actions now 

(e.g., store prepositioned Army equipment, provide full-time Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) presence, enhance exercises with Allies, etc.) that will aid in deterring future Russian aggression in Europe. I believe the scope of FY17 ERI is appropriate and necessary to meet the threat in Eruope, and it does not address the 

challenges in other theaters. However, I am also sensitive to the needs to address 

emerging requirements in other Combatant Command AORs as well given overall 

budget constraints. 

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