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S. HRG. 115–184 

RUSSIAN INFLUENCE AND UNCONVENTIONAL 

WARFARE OPERATIONS IN THE ‘‘GRAY ZONE’’: 

LESSONS FROM UKRAINE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 29, 2017 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Chairman 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

THOM TILLIS, North Carolina 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

DAVID PERDUE, Georgia 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

BEN SASSE, Nebraska 

LUTHER STRANGE, Alabama 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

TIM KAINE, Virginia 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

CHRISTIAN D. BROSE, Staff Director 

ELIZABETH L. KING, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

JONI ERNST, Iowa, Chairman 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

DAVID PERDUE, Georgia 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

MARCH 29, 2017 

Page 

RUSSIAN INFLUENCE AND UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE OPERATIONS IN THE

‘‘GRAY ZONE’’: LESSONS FROM UKRAINE .............................................................. 1 

Oliker, Olga, Senior Advisor and Director, Russia and Eurasia Program, 

Center for Strategic and International Studies ................................................. 3 

Carpenter, Michael R., Senior Director, Biden Center for Diplomacy and 

Global Engagement, University of Pennsylvania .............................................. 12 

Cleveland, Lieutenant General Charles T., USA (Ret.), Senior Fellow, Madison Policy Forum, and Former Commanding General, United States Army 

Special Operations Command ............................................................................. 20 

Appendix A ............................................................................................................... 38 

(III)

(1) 

RUSSIAN INFLUENCE AND UNCONVENTIONAL 

WARFARE OPERATIONS IN THE ‘‘GRAY ZONE’’: 

LESSONS FROM UKRAINE 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING

THREATS AND CAPABILITIES, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in Room 

SR–222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Joni Ernst (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Subcommittee members present: Senators Ernst, Fischer, Sasse, 

Shaheen, Heinrich, and Peters. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JONI ERNST 

Senator ERNST. Good morning, everyone. We will call this meeting of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities to 

order. 

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. This is a very 

important topic, and we are glad to have you and appreciate your 

point of view. 

Today, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee 

meets to receive testimony on Russian influence and unconventional warfare operations in the ‘‘gray zone’’ and the lessons 

learned from those operations in Ukraine. 

I would like to welcome our distinguished witnesses this morning: Dr. Olga Oliker, senior advisor and director of the Russia and 

Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International 

Studies; Dr. Michael Carpenter, senior director of the Biden Center 

for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania; and retired Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland, 

former commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command and 

currently a senior fellow at the Madison Policy Forum. Thank you 

very much for joining us today. 

The invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in the spring of 

2014 represents the breadth of Russia’s influence campaign in 

Ukraine and the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty represents the 

first attempt to change the boundary of a European nation since 

the end of the Cold War. Russian operations span the spectrum 

from covert information operations intended to influence political 

opinion to overt deployment of military forces for unconventional 

warfare designed to dominate civilian populations. We cannot afVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
2 

ford to understate its importance or ignore its lessons. It is my 

hope our witnesses can help us understand in more detail what 

happened, why it was successful, and how to stop it from happening again in the future. 

Last week, the commander of United States European Command 

[EUCOM], General Scaparrotti, characterized the Russian operations in Crimea as activities short of war or, as it is commonly referred to, the ‘‘gray zone.’’ Russia’s gray zone activities in Crimea 

are important for us to review today and unique because it was an 

influence campaign of propaganda and disinformation, culminating 

in the employment of Russian special operations forces on the sovereign territory of Ukraine. 

This hearing today also allows us to discuss our own special operations forces. It is time we review their unconventional warfare 

capabilities. 

I look forward to hearing from General Cleveland about his 

thoughts on the need to strengthen the capabilities in our special 

operations forces which may have understandably atrophied after 

over a decade focused on direct action counterterrorism missions. 

The Russian influence campaign and unconventional warfare efforts in Ukraine contain all the hallmarks of the gray zone operations: ambiguity of attribution, indirect approach, and below the 

threshold of open conflict. As we continue to see Russia conduct 

these operations across the globe, I hope our witnesses today can 

better help us understand and better counter these efforts. 

Senator Heinrich, would you like an opening statement? 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARTIN HEINRICH 

Senator HEINRICH. Thank you, Chairwoman Ernst. I want to 

thank you for holding this important hearing and thank our witnesses for their testimony on Russia’s use of influence activities 

and unconventional warfare in the so-called gray zone that encompasses the struggle between nations and other non-state actors 

short of direct military conflict. 

This hearing builds on the testimony the full committee received 

last week on the security situation in Europe. At last Thursday’s 

hearing, General Scaparrotti, commander of United States European Command, stated that Russia is using a range of military and 

nonmilitary tools to, ‘‘undermine the international system and discredit those in the West who have created it’’. 

When I asked him about Russia’s conduct of denial, deception, 

and disinformation operations, General Scaparrotti stressed that 

Russia takes not only a military approach but a, ‘‘whole-of-government approach’’ to information warfare to include intelligence and 

other groups, which accounts for its rapid and agile use of social 

media and cyber. 

Russia’s use of the full range of political, economic, and informational tools at its disposal provides it the means to influence operations in the gray zone short of a direct conventional war. Today’s 

hearing is an opportunity to examine the lessons drawn from Russia’s maligned activities in the Ukraine. 

In 2014, General Scaparrotti’s predecessor at EUCOM Commander General Breedlove said that Russia was engaged in, ‘‘the 

most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in 

3 

the history of information warfare’’. Russia used information warfare as a dimension of its own military operations in Ukraine, including the sowing of confusion and disorganization prior to initiating more traditional military operations. 

Russia’s combination of information warfare with other unconventional warfare techniques, including the training, equipping, 

and advising of proxies and funding of separatist groups, is what 

allowed them to, ‘‘change the facts on the ground’’ before the international community could respond effectively through traditional 

means. 

This is relevant not simply as a history lesson but to better prepare us for the kinds of operations we can expect to see Russia conduct in the future. For example, the January 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian activities and intentions in the 2016 

United States presidential election assessed that what occurred 

last year represents a significant escalation in Russia’s influence 

operations that is likely to continue here in the United States, as 

well as elsewhere. 

So there is much to explore with our witnesses this morning, and 

again, I thank them and look forward to their testimony. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Ranking Member. We will start with 

Dr. Oliker, please. 

STATEMENT OF OLGA OLIKER, SENIOR ADVISOR AND DIRECTOR, RUSSIA AND EURASIA PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Dr. OLIKER. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Ernst, Ranking 

Member Heinrich, members of the subcommittee. I am honored to 

be here today. So I have been asked to address the topic of Russian 

influence and unconventional warfare operations in the gray zone, 

lessons from Ukraine. I will talk briefly about what we saw in 

Ukraine, a little bit about Russian activities elsewhere, and then 

I will talk about how the Russians appear to think about these 

issues. I will conclude with some thoughts about what that means 

for all of us. 

Really quick, a definitional point as it were. We are talking— 

when we talk about the gray zone, we are talking in this case 

about operations that are not clearly peace or war and perhaps intentionally meant to blur the line between the two. A note of caution is that these lines are always a bit blurry. When Carl von 

Clausewitz wrote that war is an extension of politics, he did not 

mean the politics ends when war begins. Rather, we should expect 

military, political, economic, and diplomatic instruments to be 

brought to bear to attain national goals, together and separately. 

But when we talk about the two things I think we are going to 

focus on here today, military actions characterized by subterfuge 

and efforts to mask who is and who is not a combatant and information operations, we have a different—we face a bit of a different 

challenge. One of these, information influence operations, clearly 

on the noncombat side of the equation. On the other hand, subterfuge and efforts to mask who is and who is not a combatant are 

something that the Russians have been exercising increasingly and 

increasingly effectively. I think we want to think about both of 

4 

these less in terms of whether they are or are not gray zone and 

more in terms of their strategic effects. 

So turning to Ukraine, in terms of the public information campaign, Russian language print, internet, and television media had 

pretty heavy saturation in Ukraine long before 2014 and particularly in Crimea and in the east. They propagated a narrative in 

2013 in the lead up to the expected EU [European Union] Association signature that was meant to convince audiences that EU Association would lead to political chaos and economic collapse of 

Ukraine, and social media activism amplified these messages. 

As time went on and as unrest grew, the message came to include attacks on the protesters on Ukraine’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, 

Independence Square. They attacked the government that took control after Yanukovych fled the country. They attacked Western governments, which were depicted as orchestrating what was termed 

a fascist coup. Eventually, of course, they attacked the elected government of President Petro Poroshenko. 

Now, these messages probably resonated most with people already inclined to believe them, people who were nervous about EU 

Association and distrustful of the West. That was a lot of folks in 

both Crimea and east Ukraine. So Russian information operations 

I would argue may have helped bring some of those people into the 

streets, implemented some of the unrest, but I would also point out 

that it is important to remember that is not how Russian annexed 

Crimea. This, while almost bloodless, was a military operation 

made possible in large part by Russia’s preexisting preponderance 

of force on the peninsula. I would also say that information influence operations of this sort were not responsible for keeping the 

conflict in east Ukraine going. That also took Russian military support and eventually Russian troops. 

Another form of influence that I would like to talk about in 

Ukraine is that engendered by economic and political ties. 

Ukraine’s and Russia’s economies were deeply intertwined since 

the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some of this was corrupt, including with the Yanukovych regime and its supporters. Some of it was 

not. I would argue that corrupt ties, just like the rest of the corruption in Ukraine, creates a lobby and created a lobby against EU Association, which was going to bring with it requirements of greater 

transparency and more open business climates. But the broad 

range of economic relationships, many of them completely legal, 

also worried Ukrainians who thought that their livelihoods were 

genuinely less certain if ties with Russia waned. Many of those 

people were in Ukraine’s east and south. 

On the military side, of course the most touted example of Russian unconventional operations is the insertion of additional forces 

into Crimea in late February of 2014. Wearing uniforms without 

insignia, these personnel, which we termed little green men and 

the Russians termed polite people, pretended to be Ukrainian soldiers and police. They seized the Parliament building. They surrounded an airbase. The lack of uniform markings contributed to 

confusion, and enabled Russia to deny their deployment of additional forces to Crimea. 

Similarly, Russia has denied its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, as well as the insertion of its regular army troops into 

5 

that fight as both advisors and active forces. As with Crimea, this 

feeds confusion and allows for deniability. The actual fighting in 

east Ukraine though is very conventional, tending towards a great 

deal of artillery and some trench warfare. 

Cyber tools have been used by Russia but with limited effect. The 

most interesting exception is the December 2015 attack on 

Ukraine’s power grid, which took down electricity to hundreds of 

thousands of people for several hours. So that is interesting because it is using cyber tools for the sorts of effects you might normally use military forces for. But again, the effect in this particular 

case was not that great. 

So turning outside Ukraine, we see influence operations in full 

swing in Europe and even here in the United States, and I am not 

sure I would actually call those gray zone, but I would call them 

efforts to undermine and subvert Western unity and trust in existing governments and institutions, so I do think there are important. 

So in some ways what Russia does elsewhere is similar to what 

it does in Ukraine. Russian language media targets Russian-speaking populations around the world, particularly in neighboring countries where the media is often popular. Russia also supports outlets 

around the world such as RT [Russia Today] and Sputnik, which 

broadcasts in other languages, including English. The M.O. [Modus 

Operandi] of these outlets is to raise questions about the reporting 

of other sources and of other government statements and views 

such as by denying Russian military presence in Ukraine. They 

also tend to highlight what they portray as the hypocrisy of these 

non-Russian governments, for instance, collateral damage caused 

by United States and NATO military actions. These messages are 

then amplified by social media, including through so-called trolls. 

Happily, there is no evidence to date that these messages are 

reaching audiences previously unfavorable to them and changing 

minds. Just like in Ukraine where Russian messages were most effective with those predisposed to trust them, the same is true 

around the world. I would argue that the real threat posed by these 

phenomena is less their independent effect but the fact that they 

fall into an echo chamber. They are one sliver of a much larger increase in chaos and untruth in the information space as a whole. 

The widespread use of these same techniques of smears, blatant 

lies, uncorroborated reporting, amplified by like-minded social 

media users, real and robotic, created an environment in which it 

is indeed really hard to tell truth from falsehood. The resulting situation is not so much one in which more people trust Russian 

sources but one in which people only trust whichever sources they 

prefer and discount all the others. This is dangerous. Russia is exploiting it, but we make a mistake if we look at it as uniquely or 

predominantly a Russian threat. 

I also want to talk a little bit about Russian economic influence 

in Europe and elsewhere. Here, too, it is a bit of a mixed bag. 

Countries where there are strong business ties to Russia do indeed 

tend to have lobbies that support closer ties at the national level. 

This is not necessarily nefarious, right? It becomes nefarious when 

we see efforts on the part of the Russian Government to leverage 

6 

it into something that increases Russian influence in ways that are 

not for the good of both countries. 

A greater concern might be Russian support for fringe parties in 

Europe. We see these ties in Hungary, in France, in Austria, 

among others. We do see that leaders and members of right-wing 

and ultranationalist parties throughout the West have looked to 

Russia as a model, and we have seen that the Kremlin increasingly 

looks at these groups and supporting them because they tend to be 

anti-EU and sometimes anti-NATO as a mechanism for weakening 

Western unity. Russia, I would argue, might be particularly 

emboldened by what looks like recent success on this front, though 

I would also point out that the Kremlin is increasingly very nervous about its own right-wing nationalists and has been cracking 

down on them. So that is something to keep in mind. 

So in the United States of course our intelligence agencies have 

judged that Russia was trying to influence our election last year. 

There is nothing unusual, I would say, about using cyber tools to 

collect intelligence. It is unusual and crosses any number of lines 

to then take action to use the information collected that way to 

interfere in other countries’ political processes. It is likely to me 

that Russia’s expectations were that they could disrupt the United 

States election, contributing to confusion and raising questions 

about its legitimacy. 

If they believe this has been successful and even more so if they 

judge that they had a hand in the outcome, something I personally 

do not believe to be the case, they may be emboldened to undertake 

similar actions elsewhere and also in the United States again. We 

see evidence of this in Europe. This said, I would underline the fact 

that Russian efforts exploit weaknesses already in place rather 

than creating them. 

So what do the Russians think about all this? The Russians are 

writing a lot about the broad range of mechanisms that can advance national and political goals. What is interesting is that they 

write about them not as approaches Russia can use but rather as 

tools that are being developed by the West against Russia, and 

they cite everything from economic sanctions to their longstanding 

complaint about supportive what they call colour revolutions. They 

view this as a concerted whole-of-government effort to weaken and 

overthrow governments abroad and that Russia has to learn how 

to counter these. 

They assume a substantial Western advantage in all of these 

areas, and importantly, Russian writing on the future of war also 

tends to emphasize the importance of conventional warfare and 

particularly air power and advanced technologies. So I think this 

is a very interesting thing to keep in mind. Their argument is that 

we do this to them, and when they write about the things that they 

see in the American literature, they completely ignore the references to Russia undertaking these actions. 

So, bottom line, I think there is no question that Russia is undertaking action across the spectrum of political, diplomatic, and military power. I would warn against viewing Russian approaches as 

a well-thought-out strategy throughout the world. Russia is testing 

approaches, it is experimenting, and it is trying to build on successes. So I would say one of the most important lessons for us to 

7 

take from Russia’s action in Ukraine and elsewhere is that Russia 

is learning lessons. It is studying what works and what does not. 

It is assessing how to adapt these techniques. 

So take Crimea and east Ukraine. The Crimea operation was extremely successful. Russian planners then thought something similar could succeed in eastern Ukraine and perhaps Ukraine as a 

whole. They were proven wrong. They adapted, they recalibrated, 

they changed their approach. So this is one of many reasons that 

I do not think a Crimea-like scenario is what we should be worrying about in, say, Estonia or elsewhere in the Baltics. 

Russia’s ability to use military personnel without insignia while 

denying their presence was not just specific to the Ukrainian situation. It was also not decisive in the success or failure of Russian 

efforts. Russia’s success rather was based on the combination of 

large-scale military presence and a Crimea population that was 

confused and sympathetic. This way, the insertion of the personnel 

without insignia could be helpful, and all of this, we must remember, worked far less well in east Ukraine with a more skeptical 

population and failed entirely elsewhere such as in Odessa. 

So not only is there excellent reason to think that the population 

of, say, Narva and Estonia, which a lot of us think about a lot, has 

more in common with Odessa than Donetsk or Sevastopol, but I 

would also point out that Estonians are at this point hyperaware 

of this particular threat and the Russians know that and they 

know all of this and they know all of these lessons. So should Russia have designs on the Baltics, they may try many things, but I 

would be surprised if the operation looked much like anything we 

saw in Ukraine. 

One question I am asking myself today is whether there is a Crimea equivalent in the influence operation space. Is there a point 

at which Russia feels it has hit upon a successful tactic but it overreaches? I believe that its efforts to affect election campaigns may 

get them to that point, but Russia’s limitations in its efforts to 

weaken existing institutions depend tremendously on the strength 

of those institutions. Russian tools exploit weaknesses. The challenge then is to eliminate or at least mitigate those weaknesses. 

I will close there. I thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Oliker follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY DR. OLGA OLIKER

Subcommittee Chair Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich, and members of the subcommittee, I am honored to be here today. I have been asked to address the topic 

of Russian influence and unconventional warfare operations in the ‘‘gray zone:’’ lessons from Ukraine. I begin by defining terms a bit, because there are a few ways 

to think about this question. I will then talk briefly about what we have seen in 

Ukraine, Russian activities elsewhere, and how Russians appear to think about 

these issues, before concluding with some thoughts about what we in the United 

States might learn from these experiences. 

DEFINING TERMINOLOGY

The ‘‘gray zone’’ means different things to different people. In the United States 

in recent years, one definition that has emerged is geographical. It refers to countries and parts of the world to which there is not a clear United States commitment, 

but where the United States has interests. In Europe, this means countries that are 

8 

not members of NATO (as NATO members do have an explicit security commitment 

from the United States). This, of course, includes Ukraine. 

Another definition for gray zone refers to operations, specifically those that are 

more difficult to define as either peace or war, and indeed possibly those undertaken 

intentionally to obfuscate and blur the lines between the two. Of course, those lines 

have always been blurry. Carl von Clausewitz wrote that war is an extension of politics; he did not mean that politics ends when war begins, or that there is a stark 

divide between the two. Rather, military, political, economic, and diplomatic instruments should all be expected to be used to attain national goals, together and separately. Armed conflict then, is, definitionally enough, characterized by the use of armaments in a conflict, almost certainly alongside other tools. 

In the context of Russian operations in Ukraine, we are interested today in two 

kinds of activities. Influence operations, which seek to leverage media and propaganda efforts as well as business and political ties to attain national goals are, if 

not always aboveboard, surely short of armed conflict. They thus may be in the gray 

zone from a geographical perspective, but are not from an operational perspective. 

This said, such actions, even when undertaken in countries that are not in the ‘‘gray 

zone,’’ may still be of strategic interest. Unconventional warfare, if it is unquestionably armed action by military personnel, is of course armed conflict. If, however, it 

is characterized by subterfuge and actions by those who cannot be clearly identified 

as combatants, it may be in the operational gray zone as well (it is also, in its own 

way, an influence operation, in that it seeks to affect the calculus of other parties). 

In Ukraine, we see all of these to varying degrees, with a range of implications for 

other parts of Europe and the rest of the world. 

INFLUENCE OPERATIONS IN UKRAINE

As I alluded to above, I see two types of non-military influence operations that 

have been and continue to be used by the Russian Federation in Ukraine and elsewhere. The first is public information campaigns and propaganda—efforts to target 

a broad population with press stories, social media tools, and so forth. The second 

is building up and leveraging business and political relationships. This includes support to political activists and parties, and efforts to develop business ‘‘lobbies’’ that 

will support Russian goals. 

I start with the first of these. In Ukraine, Russian-language print, internet, and 

television media had fairly heavy saturation prior to 2014, particularly in Crimea 

and in the East. Their narrative, aimed at both Russians and Ukrainians, was 

meant to convince audiences that EU association would lead to political chaos, widespread homosexuality, and economic collapse. Social media activism amplified these 

messages, particularly on Russian-language websites. As the crisis unfolded, the 

coverage denigrated the protesters on Ukraine’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) who called for the ouster of then-President Yanukovych; the government that took control after Yanukovych fled; Western governments, which were depicted as orchestrating this ‘‘fascist coup;’’ and eventually the elected government 

of new President Petro Poroshenko. Social media disseminated both intercepted and 

apparently doctored recordings of Western officials discussing the situation in 

Ukraine, with the intent to both embarrass and to suggest a Western hand behind 

Kyiv’s emerging government. The narrative emphasized unrest in Kyiv and elsewhere and reported that fascist gangs were roaming the capital city’s streets. Another thread sought to instill and play on fear among Russian-speaking Ukrainians 

that they would be persecuted by the new government (this was admittedly helped 

along by some of the rhetoric in Kyiv, including an ill-considered, and quickly reversed, effort to require the use of Russian in official transactions when other languages had previously been allowed). 

What did this do? I would argue that it likely did make some people even more 

nervous than they had been before. But the extent to which Russian media coverage 

contributed to protests and unrest in both Crimea and Eastern Ukraine is difficult 

to judge. These campaigns were surely most successful with populations that were 

already inclined to believe them—people who were nervous about EU association, 

distrustful of the West, and, once a new government took shape in Kyiv, fearful of 

what this might mean. In Crimea, where a large part of the self-identified ethnic 

Russian majority is comprised by retired Russian military personnel and their families, and where the Russian Black Sea Fleet continued to be based after the collapse 

of the USSR, this was a substantial proportion of the population. In Eastern 

Ukraine, where Yanukovych had his base of support, this message also resonated. 

But if information operations of this sort helped bring people into the streets, they 

cannot be credited with Russia’s annexation of Crimea. This, while almost bloodless, 

9 

1 Russia of course had a sizable pre-existing military presence on the peninsula, in the form 

of its Black Sea Fleet. 

was a military action made possible in large part by Russia’s pre-existing preponderance of force on the peninsula. 

Similarly, while Russian propaganda may well have played a role in public dissatisfaction, to truly get a conflict going in Eastern Ukraine took more than that. 

As the protests grew, there was increasing evidence that while some of the protesters were local, Russians crossed the border to join in as well. When fighting 

flared, Russian supplies of armaments (and, it soon became clear, advisers and 

troops) were what kept it viable in the face of Ukrainian response. Today, Russian 

efforts to propagandize to Ukrainian populations in the East are blocked and countered, to the extent possible, by the Ukrainian government. However, the best defense against false narratives at this point is surely the stream of displaced persons 

from the separatist-controlled territories, the experience of continued fighting for 

those near the front lines, and other first-and second-hand knowledge of the realities of the situation. 

Influence engendered by economic and political ties presents a different dynamic. 

Ukraine’s and Russia’s economies were deeply intertwined since the collapse of the 

USSR. This involved both legal, above-board activity and a variety of corrupt contacts and ties, including with the Yanukovych regime and its supporters. Ukraine’s 

East and South were particularly closely tied to Russia, with highly interdependent 

economies. To the extent that these ties and exchanges were corrupt, they, along 

with other forms of corruption, made it highly unlikely that their beneficiaries 

would support EU association, with its requirements of greater transparency and 

a more open business climate as a whole. Today, it is plausible to argue that some 

continuing ties with Russia, many of them increasingly secretive, may be part of 

what is hampering reform efforts and thus undermining Ukraine’s future. But the 

broad range of economic relationships, most of them completely legal, also created 

concerns among the many Ukrainians whose livelihoods were genuinely less certain 

if ties with Russia waned, something that surely exacerbated their other fears. 

UNCONVENTIONAL MILITARY OPERATIONS IN UKRAINE

The line between conventional and unconventional military operations is not always a clear one. Among unconventional operations are counterinsurgency and insurgency missions, the use of specialized forces, electronic warfare and cyber campaigns, and such things as the use and backing of foreign government and non-government forces as proxies. All of this is present in most conflicts, to varying extents. 

Because of our focus on the ‘‘gray zone,’’ we are most interested here in areas that 

appear to be, genuinely or arguably, short of actual international armed conflict. 

In the case of Russian operations in Ukraine, perhaps the most touted example 

is the insertion of additional Russian forces into Crimea in late February 2014. 1

Wearing uniforms without insignia, these personnel, termed ‘‘little green men’’ in 

the Ukrainian and Western press and ‘‘polite people’’ by Russia, took an active part 

in events on the peninsula, including seizing the Parliament building and surrounding the Belbek air base. Russian military personnel also pretended to be 

Ukrainian military and police and worked with local ‘‘self-defense’’ units. Their ack 

of uniform markings contributed to confusion, even as Russia denied the deployment 

of additional forces to Crimea. 

Russia has also denied its support for the separatists fighting the Ukrainian 

Army in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, as well as the insertion of its regular army 

troops into that fight as both advisors and active troops. Here, too, we see examples 

of Russian forces masquerading as locals. We also, of course, see the support and 

development of a proxy force. As with the ‘‘little green men’’ in Crimea, this feeds 

confusion and allows for deniability. The actual fighting in Eastern Ukraine, however, is highly conventional, tending towards a great deal of artillery and some 

trench warfare. 

Finally, it is important to note the use of cyber in the Ukraine conflict. Early in 

the conflict, these took the form of distributed denial of service (DDOS) and defacement attacks on Ukrainian government and NATO websites. This was more a form 

of harassment, however, than anything else. More debilitating was a December 2015 

attack on Ukraine’s power grid, which shut down electricity to hundreds of thousands of people for several hours. Both Ukrainian and United States officials 

blamed Moscow. If this was, indeed, an orchestrated attack by Russia, it is an example of precisely the type of cyber operation that could be seen as warfare, in that 

it approximates effects similar to those that might be attained through the use of 

armed force. 

10 

RUSSIAN ACTIVITIES ELSEWHERE

In assessing Russian activities outside of Ukraine, I focus on influence operations. 

In the military context, the only current example of Russian operations outside of 

Ukraine is Syria, where the most unconventional aspect is Russian support of proxy 

forces, which the United States and its allies are also engaged in. As noted above, 

influence operations against the United States and its NATO allies cannot really be 

termed ‘‘gray zone’’ operations, because they fit neither the geographical nor operational definition of the term. However, the growing concern about these activities 

requires us to pay attention to them as what they are—political influence operations 

undertaken with hostile intent, in this case, efforts to undermine and subvert Western unity and trust in existing governments and institutions. 

Russian influence campaigns outside of Ukraine share some similarities with its 

activities within that country. In terms of media and social media efforts, one aspect 

of this is Russian-language media targeting Russian populations around the world, 

and particularly in neighboring countries, where it is often popular. In addition, 

much attention has been paid in recent years to, on the one hand, Russian government-supported outlets around the world, such as RT and Sputnik, which are heavily advertised and, by broadcasting and publishing in English and other languages, 

able to reach a wide population around the world. While these outlets do consistently report Russian government positions, they are probably more effective when 

they raise questions about the reporting of other sources, and of other government 

statements and views—such as by denying Russian military presence in Ukraine. 

They also tend to highlight what they portray as the hypocrisy of non-Russian governments, for instance by highlighting collateral damage caused by United States 

and NATO military actions abroad. 

Also notable is the Kremlin’s use of social media outlets. This was also evident 

in Ukraine, and is utilized much the same way around the world, in a range of languages. Researchers have unearthed so-called ‘‘troll farms’’ that rely on human-and 

machine-run social media accounts to amplify Kremlin messages and raise doubts 

about other viewpoints. This, like the direct media campaigns, tends to combine elements of truth and falsehood, building trust among like-minded people on a range 

of issues in order to heighten tension and frustration and perhaps further expand 

influence on other issues. 

While we can establish the presence of a sizeable Russian effort in this regard, 

this begs the most important question: does any of this work? Happily, there is no 

evidence to date that these messages are reaching audiences previously unfavorable 

to them and changing minds. In Ukraine, Russian media messages were most effective with those predisposed to trust them. The same is true of both Russian and 

foreign-language media and social media efforts elsewhere in the world. I would 

argue that the real threat posed by these phenomena is not their independent effect, 

but the fact that they are just one sliver of a much larger increase in chaos and 

untruth in the information space. The widespread use of these same techniques of 

smears, blatant lies, and uncorroborated reporting amplified by like-minded social 

media users (paid, robotic, and genuine) create an environment in which it is, indeed, difficult to tell truth from falsehood. The resulting environment is not so much 

one in which more people trust Russian sources, but in which people only trust 

whatever sources they prefer, and discount all others. This is dangerous, and Russia 

is exploiting the situation, but it is far from a uniquely, or predominantly, Russian 

threat. 

Russian economic influence in Europe and elsewhere is a mixed bag. It is true 

that there are pro-Russian politicians in Europe, and that some of them have ties 

to Russian business. But it can be hard to figure out which of these came first. For 

instance, when Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban supports collaboration with 

Russian firms, is this because he seeks closer relations with Moscow (which he does) 

or does he seek closer relations with Moscow because of the economic gains that 

would accrue? In the United States, firms that had business in Russia have been 

more skeptical of sanctions; this plays out similarly in Europe. France’s Republican 

Party also supports a better relationship with Russia, no doubt in part because it 

has constituents in industries such as defense, energy, luxury goods, transportation, 

and banking, all of which stand to gain from more trade with Russia. Many years 

of solid economic ties between Russia and Germany lead some German parties to 

also desire better relations with Moscow. The fact is that most of the economic ties 

that exist are surely above-board, the product of years of seeking to integrate Russia 

into the global economy. Moreover, the requirements of operating in the West force 

Russian companies to adopt higher standards for transparency, which may have 

positive longer-term effects. Thus, while any Kremlin efforts to leverage economic 

11 

2 Vladimir Putin, ‘‘The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,’’ December 25, 2014. 

English language version available at http://rusemb.org.uk/press/2029 (accessed March 27, 

2017) 3 Ibid. See also Samuel Charap, ‘‘The Ghost of Hybrid War.’’ Survival (00396338) 57, no. 6 (December 2015): 51–58. For more recent examples, see Valerii’ Gerasimov, ‘‘Mir Na Graniakh 

Voiny,’’ March 15, 2017; S. G. Chekinov and S. A. Bogdanov, ‘‘E’voliutsiia Sushchnosti I 

Soderzhaniia Poniatiia ‘voi’na’ v XXI Stoletii,’’ January 2017; V. A. Kiselev, ‘‘K Kakim Voi’nam 

Neobkhodimo Gotovit’ Vooruzhennye Sily Rossii,’’ March 2017. 4 Valerii’ Gerasimov, ‘‘Tsennost’ Nauki V Predvidenii,’’ February 27, 2013; Charap, ‘‘The Ghost 

of Hybrid War’’; Charles K. Bartles, ‘‘Getting Gerasimov Right,’’ Military Review 96, no. 1 (February 1, 2016): 30–38. 

ties for political gain should be monitored, this does not mean that business with 

Russian firms and individuals should be demonized. 

A greater concern may be Russia’s support for fringe parties in Europe. Bela 

Kovacs, who helped finance Hungary’s pro-Russian ultranationalist Jobbik party, 

may have used Russian funds to do so. He is now under investigation for spying 

for Russia. Not a few have noticed the 2014 and 2016 loans from the First Czech 

Russian Bank to France’s far right National Front Party—to say nothing of party 

leader Marine Le Pen’s friendly relationship with Vladimir Putin. Late in 2016, 

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party inked a cooperation deal with the United Russia 

Party. There is no doubt that leaders and members of right wing and nationalist 

parties throughout the West see Russia as a model. It is equally clear that the 

Kremlin sees support for these political groups, which tend to be anti-EU and sometimes anti-NATO as well, as a means of weakening Western unity. It may be particularly emboldened by seeming recent successes. Interestingly, the Kremlin is increasingly wary of its own right wing nationalists, and has been cracking down on 

them. 

In the United States, of course, our intelligence agencies have judged that Russia 

released information obtained through cyberhacks of American organizations, including political party organizations, in order to influence our Presidential election 

last year. There is nothing particularly unusual about using cyber tools to collect 

intelligence. It is unusual, and crosses any number of lines, to then take action to 

use such information to interfere in another country’s political processes. It is likely 

that Russia’s expectations of influence were that they could, in this way, disrupt the 

United States election, contributing to confusion and raising questions about legitimacy. If they believe that this has been a success, and even more so if they judge 

that they had a hand in the outcome (something I do not believe to be the case), 

they may be emboldened to undertake similar actions in the future, vis-a ́-vis the 

United States and other countries. We have certainly heard rumors that such efforts 

are underway in the context of Germany’s election, upcoming in September of this 

year. Again, particularly in concert with Russian support of right wing parties in 

Europe, this should be watched carefully. However, I would underline that Russian 

efforts at best exploit weaknesses already in place. It seems highly unlikely that 

they can be decisive under current conditions. 

RUSSIAN DOCTRINE AND THINKING

Before turning to the lessons we might draw from all of this, it is worth stopping 

to ask how Russian military and security analysts view the situation. While much 

recent Russian analysis of modern-day conflict and warfare highlights the broad 

range of mechanisms that can advance political goals, Russian analysts tend to 

present these not as approaches Russia can use, but rather as tools that are being 

developed by the West against Russia, which Russia must learn to counter. This 

was evident in Russia’s most recent military doctrine, released in late 2014, 2 and 

in a variety of analysis and writing produced since. Even Russian discussions of socalled ‘‘hybrid’’ conflict, a term that they have picked up from Western authors, ignore the fact that those analysts use the term almost exclusively to describe Russian political and military action. Russians, by contrast, use it to describe a range 

of Western activity, from economic sanctions to support of ‘‘color revolutions,’’ all 

geared to weaken and overthrow governments abroad. Moreover, they assume a substantial Western advantage in these areas. 3 This was the nature of the much touted 

2013 piece by Russian General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov, which was, in the 

aftermath of Crimea, read by many in the West as presenting a new Russian approach to warfare. In fact, the text described a Russian view of Western approaches. 4

Despite these concerns, Russian writing on the future of war continues also to emphasize the importance of conventional warfare, with particular emphasis on air 

power and advanced technologies. The most recent piece by Gerasimov, published 

12 

5Gerasimov, ‘‘Mir Na Graniakh Voiny.’’ 

just a few weeks ago, argues strongly that for all the new and creative ways Western countries are seeking to subvert Russia, conventional capabilities are at the core 

of what the country should itself emphasize. 5

WHAT WE SHOULD BE LEARNING FROM UKRAINE AND ELSEWHERE

There is no question that Russia is undertaking action across the spectrum of political, diplomatic, and military power. However, I warn against viewing Russian approaches as a well thought out strategy undertaken throughout the world. As is evidenced by Russian writing on these topics, Russia is testing approaches, experimenting, and trying to build on successes. Thus, one of the most important lessons 

from Russian actions in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world is that Russia is learning lessons from its own operations. It is carefully studying what works and what 

doesn’t, and trying to assess how to adapt techniques for other purposes. Take the 

example of Crimea and East Ukraine. The Crimea operation was extremely successful. At least partly on its basis, Russian planners thought that something similar 

could succeed in Eastern Ukraine, and perhaps Ukraine as a whole. They were 

quickly proven wrong, and they recalibrated their goals and their tactics accordingly. 

This is one of the many reasons that I do not think that a Crimea-like scenario 

is what we should be worrying about in, for example, Estonia or elsewhere in the 

Baltics. Russia’s ability to use military personnel without insignia while denying 

their presence was specific to the Ukrainian situation, and not, in the end, decisive 

in the success or failure of Russian efforts. These and other Russian tactics of supporting separatist attacks on government buildings, backed by propaganda and influence operations, worked best where there was large-scale military presence and 

the population was confused and generally sympathetic—that is to say, in Crimea. 

It worked far less well where the population was more skeptical as in Eastern 

Ukraine, and such approaches proved completely ineffective where Russia did not 

have much influence, for instance in Odessa. Not only is there excellent reason to 

think that the population of Narva, in Estonia, has more in common with Odessa 

than Donetsk, much less Sevastopol, but authorities are at this point hyper-aware 

of this particular threat, and the Russians know that. Should Russia have designs 

on the Baltics, they may try many things, but I would be surprised if the operation 

looked much like Ukraine. 

One question I am asking myself today is whether there is a Crimea equivalent 

in the influence operations space. Is there a point at which Russia feels that it has 

hit upon a successful tactic and it overreaches? I believe that its efforts to affect 

election campaigns may play just that role. But Russia’s limitations in its efforts 

to weaken existing institutions depend tremendously on the strength of those institutions. Russian tools exploit weaknesses. The challenge, then, is to eliminate, or 

at least mitigate, those weaknesses. Thank you and I look forward to your questions. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you very much, Dr. Oliker. 

Dr. Carpenter? 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL R. CARPENTER, SENIOR DIRECTOR, 

BIDEN CENTER FOR DIPLOMACY AND GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Dr. CARPENTER. Chairman Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich, 

members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to 

speak about the lessons learned from Russia’s influence operations 

in Ukraine. 

Russia’s unconventional war in Ukraine has demonstrated a formidable toolkit of measures for fighting in the gray zone from 

world-class cyber and electronic warfare capabilities to sophisticated covert action and disinformation campaigns. Russia has used 

propaganda, sabotage, assassination, bribery, proxy fronts, and 

false-flag operations to supplement its considerable conventional 

forces in eastern Ukraine. 

13 

Moscow has been doing its homework. Recognizing its conventional capabilities lag behind NATO’s, Russia has been investing in 

asymmetric capabilities to gain advantage over conventionally superior Western militaries. At the same time, Moscow has dispensed 

with its longstanding foreign policy of cooperating with the West 

where possible and competing where necessary and now seeks to 

actively undermine the transatlantic alliance and delegitimize the 

international order through a continuous and sustained competition short of conflict. 

But even with Russia’s well-honed unconventional capabilities, 

the United States and its NATO allies can prevail in this competition if we recognize the Kremlin’s goals for what they are, develop 

smart strategies to counter them, properly align our institutional 

structures, and invest in the right capabilities. 

Today, I would like to briefly highlight six areas where the 

United States must counter Russia’s new generation warfare. First 

is information warfare. In eastern Ukraine and Russia, the Kremlin has used its monopoly on broadcast television in particular to 

spread false narratives. For example, as Olga mentioned, that fascists control the government in Kyiv. Here in the United States, 

these lies are easily debunked, but we should not underestimate 

how even here Russian trolls and bots can spam us with propaganda and thereby shift the media’s focus from one story to another. 

I believe an independent commission should be established to 

identify and take action against Russian misinformation in addition to resourcing a more robust interagency body. Frankly, we 

should also go beyond debunking lies in the Western media space 

and take a much more active role in exposing corruption and repression inside Russia. 

Second, we urgently need to upgrade our cyber defenses and 

those of our allies and partners. Regulatory oversight should be 

strengthened to ensure that private corporations that manage 

much of our critical infrastructure are taking the necessary steps 

to harden defenses. I also support the establishment of a national 

cyber academy and expanding the Pentagon’s public-private partnerships with the IT [information technology] sector. 

In cases where the United States is able to attribute a specific 

attack, our response must be firm, timely, and proportionate. The 

[persona non grata] PNG-ing of Russian officials in response to 

Russia’s cyber attack is unfortunately just a symbolic act with very 

few real consequences. Until our adversaries learn that the cost of 

such actions outweigh the consequences, they will keep probing. 

Third, we must get better in exposing Russia’s covert operations. 

In addition to its little green men, as Olga referred to, Russia also 

deployed what SNMs call little gray men who organize demonstrations and seize government buildings across eastern Ukraine in the 

spring of 2014. The lesson we learn here is that once these forces 

were outed in Ukraine, strong social resilience and effective local 

law enforcement succeeded in thwarting most efforts to foment insurgency. Where Russia’s efforts succeeded in Ukraine it was largely because they were backed by coercion and more overt military 

force, a point you made as well. 

14 

Fourth, Russia relies on a range of proxy groups to carry out subversive actions. However, Moscow’s greatest success with proxy 

forces has not been on the battlefield but rather on the diplomatic 

stage. One of the biggest mistakes made by Western leaders of the 

so-called Normandy Group was to elevate the role of Russian proxies in the February 2015 Minsk Agreement. The result today is a 

kabuki negotiation in which Russia’s proxies stonewall any meaningful progress on implementing Minsk, and Russia largely avoids 

blame. 

Fifth, sabotage and terrorism have been used to great effect in 

the Ukraine conflict. A week ago today, former Duma member 

Denis Voronenkov was assassinated in central Kyiv on the same 

day as an act of sabotage destroyed a munitions depot. As with 

proxies, preventing terrorism and sabotage depends on good intelligence and strong social resilience. Ukraine has in fact averted 

many terrorist incidents over the last three years thanks to tipoffs 

from vigilant citizens and good law enforcement work. 

Sixth, Russia has dramatically ramped up its political influence 

operations not just in Ukraine but throughout Europe and the 

United States. To counteract Russian influence operations, we need 

more transparency in political party financing, more effective 

anticorruption tools, better sharing of information on financial 

crimes, and stronger law enforcement to root out entrenched and 

corrosive Russian patronage networks. 

I believe the United States should establish a standing interagency operational body dedicated solely to interdicting Russian influence operations. Most importantly, however, it is absolutely vital 

that an independent special prosecutor be appointed in the United 

States to investigate allegations of ties between the Russian Government and United States political actors during the last election 

cycle. This is the one Russian influence operation that most directly affects our national security, and to protect the integrity of 

our democratic institutions, we simply must follow the evidence 

where it leads, free from political influence. 

Finally, if I may be permitted to say a few words on how the 

United States should push back on Russia’s unconventional war in 

Ukraine itself, I believe we should start by expanding our military 

training programs and by providing Ukraine with much-needed defensive weapons. On the diplomatic front, the United States must 

stop outsourcing the negotiations to France and Germany and get 

directly involved to help the parties develop a roadmap for implementing the Minsk Agreement. This roadmap must specify dates 

by which actions must be completed and consequences for failing 

to meet these deadlines. 

To sharpen United States leverage, we should consider unilaterally tightening financial sanctions if Russia fails to meet these 

benchmarks. Lastly, the United States needs to continue to support 

Ukraine’s reforms in part by applying strict conditionality to 

United States assistance but also by encouraging our European 

partners to play a much more active role than they have today. 

Chairman Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich, subcommittee members, Russia’s operations in the gray zone have not only grown 

bolder in the last decade, but they have expanded from states on 

Russia’s periphery like Georgia and Ukraine to Europe and even to 

15 

the United States. Our responses at home and abroad must demonstrate the seriousness and urgency that these threats demand. 

Thank you, and I look forward to taking your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Carpenter follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY DR. MICHAEL CARPENTER

Note: The statements, views, and policy recommendations expressed in this testimony reflect the opinions of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement or the University 

of Pennsylvania. 

Chairman Ernst, Ranking Member Heinrich, members of the Subcommittee on 

Emerging Threats and Capabilities, thank you for the opportunity to speak about 

the lessons learned from Russian influence operations in Ukraine. 

Russia’s unconventional war against Ukraine has revealed a formidable toolkit of 

measures for fighting in the so-called ‘‘gray zone,’’ from world-class cyber and electronic warfare capabilities to sophisticated covert action and disinformation operations. Russia has used propaganda, sabotage, assassination, bribery, proxy fronts, 

and false-flag operations to supplement its considerable conventional force posture 

in eastern Ukraine, where several thousand Russian military intelligence advisors, 

unit commanders, and flag officers exercise command and control over a separatist 

force consisting of roughly 30,000–40,000 troops. 

Moscow has been doing its homework. Recognizing that Russia’s conventional 

military capabilities lag behind those of NATO, Russian Chief of the General Staff 

Valeriy Gerasimov called in 2013 for investing in asymmetric capabilities to enable 

Russia to fight and win against conventionally superior Western militaries. 

Gerasimov’s call for more emphasis on unconventional warfare also coincided with 

a subtle but important shift in Russian foreign policy. After Mr. Putin’s return to 

the Kremlin in 2012, Moscow dispensed with its post-Cold War foreign policy of cooperating with the West where possible and competing where necessary. Instead, 

the Kremlin now actively seeks to corrode the institutions of Western democracy, 

undermine the transatlantic alliance, and delegitimize the liberal international 

order through a continuous and sustained competition short of conflict that takes 

place across all domains. 

However, even with Russia’s well-honed unconventional warfare capabilities, the 

United States and its NATO Allies can prevail in this competition if we recognize 

the Kremlin’s goals for what they are, develop smart strategies to counter them, 

properly align our institutional structures, and invest in the right capabilities. 

I will briefly discuss six areas where Russia has invested in significant unconventional or ‘‘new generation warfare’’ capabilities, and suggest some responses the 

United States should consider. All of the capabilities I will highlight were used during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and remain on display as Russia continues 

to wage its unconventional war against the government in Kyiv. 

INFORMATION WARFARE

First, Russia has demonstrated a mastery of the tools of information warfare. 

Russia’s intelligence services understood through their ‘‘operational preparation of 

the environment’’ (OPE) how to tailor messages that would resonate with the population of eastern Ukraine. Such efforts began long before the Maidan protests as 

networks of influence were established across virtually all of Ukraine’s government 

and military institutions, allowing for rapid activation once the conflict began. Immediately after President Yanukovych’s ouster, Russian media outlets and government officials began to disseminate a narrative that Yanukovych had been forced 

out of power by Ukrainian fascists supported by the West. This propaganda was so 

insidious that even an 86-year-old Ukrainian-American living in the United States 

whose sole source of news is Russian TV could believe that a fascist government 

had come to power in Kyiv. 

It is not just the message that matters, but also Russia’s virtual monopoly of the 

medium. To guarantee its control of information, one of the first operations Russian 

special services carried out inside Ukraine in the spring of 2014 was to seize key 

television transmission towers. This monopoly on broadcast television lasted until 

only recently. In December 2016, Ukraine inaugurated a new television tower near 

Slovyansk to broadcast its own public programming into occupied eastern Ukraine, 

while Ukrainian public radio only began broadcasting into the Donbas in January 

2017. 

16 

To counteract Russian propaganda, the United States needs to take a more proactive approach. 

United States European Command led the way during the Ukraine crisis by revealing de-classified images of Russian tanks and equipment, and NGOs [Non-Government Organizations] like Bellingcat followed suit with further proof of Russia’s 

involvement, including evidence of Russia’s role in the shoot-down of MH–17. However, more is needed beyond simply publicizing evidence of Russian aggression. The 

United States should consider making greater use of regulatory tools to label Russian propaganda for what it is, for example by mandating a screen banner warning 

viewers of RT [Russia Today] or Sputnik that they are watching Russian government programming. An independent commission should also be established to identify and take action against Russian misinformation. In parallel, the 2016 Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act should be used to spur the development 

of a robust whole-of-government toolbox for exposing and countering Russian propaganda, ideally drawing on expertise outside of government. 

Counter-disinformation strategies will also be more effective when coordinated 

across the NATO Alliance, particularly since Russian disinformation has found fertile ground in many European societies. Expanding the funding and mandate of the 

NATO Center of Excellence on Strategic Communications in Latvia would help 

share best practices on counter-messaging. The Center should also explore how to 

use big data analytics and other social media tools to counteract Russia’s well-financed army of internet bots and trolls. For example, technological solutions should 

be explored, including ‘‘spam filters’’ for content generated by programmed bots. 

Finally, the United States should not limit itself to refuting lies in the Western 

media space but should take a more active role in exposing lies and corruption within Russia. Those who claim Russian citizens are inured to revelations of high-level 

corruption or Russian military involvement in the war on Ukraine do not understand what the Kremlin knows well. Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov 

was murdered only a few hundred yards from the Kremlin in part because he had 

revealed information about the Russian military’s direct involvement in the war in 

Ukraine. Exiled Duma lawmaker Denis Voronenkov was murdered last week in 

Kyiv because he was ready to speak about Russia’s ties to Yanukovych and the war 

in Ukraine. The Russian NGO Soldiers’ Mothers was declared an ‘‘undesirable foreign agent’’ by the Russian government after its members exposed the cover-up of 

Russian service-members’ deaths in Ukraine. Clearly, the Kremlin does not want 

this information to be disseminated within Russia and is willing to go to extreme 

lengths to silence these voices. Protests across Russia just within the last few days 

also provide ample proof that Russian citizens do not accept corruption as a way 

of life. 

To speak directly to Russian citizens and Russian speakers, the United States 

should devote more resources to projects like Current Time, the Broadcasting Board 

of Governors’ new 24/7 Russian-language digital network, which provides information to Russians and Russian-speaking audiences on Russia’s periphery. The United 

States should also consider supporting efforts like Estonia’s Russian-language public 

television station, which has filled an important vacuum in the Baltic region’s information space. 

CYBER OPERATIONS

A second unconventional tool Russia is using to great effect in Ukraine is cyberattacks, which range from ‘‘hacking’’ Ukrainian networks to steal information for intelligence or propaganda purposes to crippling denial of service attacks on critical 

infrastructure. At the start of the conflict, the deployment of Russian special forces 

to Crimea was accompanied by cyber-attacks on cellular and internet connections 

to disrupt the government’s ability communicate with its citizens. Similar operations 

were launched in Georgia during Russia’s invasion in August 2008. Cyber operations were also augmented by the use of electronic warfare equipment to block cellular and radio signals used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces as well as civilians. 

Cyber-attacks against Ukraine have escalated since the conflict began. In December 2015, evidence shows Russia hacked into the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks of two Ukrainian energy companies, shutting off electricity and heat for a brief period before Ukraine was able to restore power. The 

attacks on the SCADA systems were accompanied by distributed denial of service 

(DDOS) attacks on telephone-operated customer call centers so complaints of a 

power outage would not get through to company operators. However, even when 

Russia was identified as the perpetrator of this attack, it was not deterred. In December 2016, Ukraine’s power grid suffered another cyber-attack, and Russian cyber 

actors separately targeted Ukraine’s payments system for government salaries and 

17 

pensions. These attacks should serve as a wake-up call for the West, particularly 

since many Western power companies lack the backup manual functionality that 

helped Ukraine avert what could have otherwise been a crippling power shutoff. The 

potential for disruptive cyber action is enormous and deterrence is complicated by 

the difficulty of attribution. While recent discussions of Russia’s cyber-attacks in the 

United States have focused on hacking and disclosure of information, we must not 

overlook the fact that Russia’s cyber weapons have a potential lethality and scope 

that is matched only by strategic nuclear weapons. 

The Defense Department must therefore invest more in United States Cyber Command’s capabilities, and the United States should also continue to help build our 

Allies’ and partners’ cyber-defenses, which in many cases are more vulnerable than 

our own. Election-day attacks in Montenegro in October 2016 not only spread 

disinformation about the election on social media platforms such as Viber and 

WhatsApp, but also targeted the Ministry of Defense’s network. At a December 

meeting of the United States-Adriatic Charter, defense ministers from across the 

Balkans noted their cyber defenses needed to be urgently upgraded in the face of 

increased Russian cyber activity. 

United States-based efforts should also include stronger regulatory oversight to 

ensure standards are met for hardening critical infrastructure against cyber intrusions and attacks since much of this effort is currently left at the discretion of the 

private corporations that manage this infrastructure. Admiral Stavridis’ suggestion 

to establish a National Cyber Academy is also worth considering, and the Defense 

Department’s public-private partnerships with the information technology sector, 

like the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) launched by former Secretary of Defense Carter, should be expanded. 

Finally, in cases where NATO or the United States are able to attribute a specific 

attack, the response must be timely and proportionate to deter future attacks. In 

the case of the cyber-attack against the United States during the presidential election, the declaration of Russian intelligence officials as persona non grata (PNG) is 

unfortunately a largely symbolic action with few lasting consequences given that 

these positions will soon be backfilled with other operatives. As long as Russian 

cyber actors encounter weak resistance, the Kremlin will continue to leverage its 

cyber capabilities against the West. 

CLANDESTINE AND COVERT OPERATIONS

Third, Russia’s intervention in Ukraine demonstrates a mastery of the art of clandestine and covert operations. During its armed takeover of government buildings 

and military installations in Crimea in 2014, Russia deliberately chose to deploy 

what are now known as ‘‘little green men,’’ or special forces in uniforms without insignias. The deployment of these semi-overt, semi-covert forces allowed Russia to 

maintain the fiction on the international stage that the conflict involved only local 

actors. At the same time, it made perfectly clear to those on the ground that the 

troops were in fact highly capable Russian special forces. Through this ‘‘asymmetric 

ambiguity’’ Russia was able to stave off the international community’s immediate 

condemnation while simultaneously deterring Ukraine’s interim government from 

fighting back. In essence, the Russian General Staff set the same trap it used in 

Georgia in 2008 when it covertly deploy special forces to create unrest: if the host 

government fights back and there are casualties, then the Kremlin is handed a pretext for launching a war to protect Russian compatriots; if the host government 

chooses not to fight, Russian forces have a free hand. In either case, Russia wins. 

In addition to its semi-overt ‘‘little green men,’’ Russia also deployed true covert 

operators to the Donbas. These ‘‘little gray men’’ organized and sometimes even led 

demonstrations and seizures of government buildings and police stations across 

eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014. In April 2014, for example, Russian covert 

actors organized the seizure of the Kharkiv Opera House, which they mistakenly believed was City Hall, using paid protestors who had been bussed in from outside 

the city. A deadlier and more tragic incident occurred in May 2014 when pro-Kremlin protestors barricaded themselves inside a building in the port city of Odessa, 

which was then set on fire. 

Importantly, Russia’s covert agents were far less successful in stoking separatist 

sentiments in other parts of southern and eastern Ukraine than they were in Crimea. Thanks to the social resilience of the local population and more effective local 

law enforcement operations, Russian-directed efforts to foment anti-government 

insurgencies failed in major cities like Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, and Mariupol. Russia’s recent attempted coup d’e ́tat in Montenegro is also illustrative of how effective 

collaboration between intelligence and law enforcement agencies can thwart such 

covert operations. In the Montenegrin case, Russian military intelligence officers reVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
18 

cruited mercenaries among far-right nationalist groups in Serbia and local criminal 

elements and hatched a plan for them to fire on anti-government protestors on election day while wearing stolen Montenegrin police uniforms. Fortunately, a tip-off 

and good intelligence work prevented the plot from moving forward as planned. 

More broadly, defeating or neutralizing influence operations requires strengthening societal resilience through government programs that build stronger ties to 

disaffected ethnic groups or communities that are less well integrated into a country’s social fabric. This requires a ‘‘wholeof-government’’ approach that coordinates 

among ministries of defense, internal affairs, and intelligence bodies, as well as 

health, social, and economic agencies. Finally, awareness of the threat is critical. In 

the Ukrainian case, Russia’s operation in Crimea was successful in part (though 

there were other reasons) because it occurred first. Once Ukrainian citizens became 

aware that Russian forces were intervening militarily in their country, subsequent 

operations proved much more difficult even in areas where there were historically 

high levels of distrust in the central government. Within NATO it is vital for the 

Alliance to develop Indicators and Warnings (I&W) that rely not only on military 

factors, but also on social trends and dynamics. 

PROXY FORCES

Fourth, Russia relies on a range of proxy groups to carry out subversive actions 

and fight as irregular forces. In Ukraine, these groups include local organized criminal groups, Yanukovychregime thugs known as tytushki, former Berkut riot police, 

Cossacks and Chechen fighters who came from Russia, members of the infamous 

Russian ‘‘Night Wolves’’ motorcycle gang, and a smattering of Russian and East European neo-Nazi volunteers. This medley of proxy groups proved to be little match 

initially for Ukraine’s conventional military in the summer of 2014, during which 

Ukrainian forces succeeded in retaking significant territory. However, when it appeared that Ukraine might actually defeat the separatist forces, Russia intervened 

with a large number of conventional brigade combat teams that were ready and 

waiting in staging areas near the Ukrainian border. 

Even after the tragic defeat of Ukrainian forces in Ilovaysk in August 2014, the 

Russian military encountered considerable difficulties with command and control of 

its proxies. Rampant criminality also prevailed as the various proxy groups organized themselves into mini-fiefdoms. This led the Kremlin to send high-level emissaries to reign in the various warlords, and when that failed special forces even resorted to assassination and forced extraction from the battlefield. The leader of the 

Cossack Great Don Army, Nikolai Kozitsyn, was for example forced out of the 

Donbas by Russian services. Another prominent Russian commander, Igor Strelkov 

(aka Igor Girkin), was also removed. To instill greater professionalism among its 

proxy forces, therefore, Moscow has increasingly turned in both Ukraine and Syria 

to private military companies. 

I would contend that Moscow’s greatest success with proxy groups has not been 

on the battlefield but on the diplomatic stage. Using the Geneva International Discussions on Georgia as a model, the Kremlin has insisted that no negotiations take 

place without the involvement of proxy leaders. One of the biggest mistakes made 

by the Western leaders of the ‘‘Normandy Group’’ (France, Germany, Ukraine, Russia) was to agree to Russia’s demands and elevate the role of Russian proxies in 

the February 2015 Minsk Protocol. By establishing a parallel negotiation process involving proxies, Russia has largely been able to evade blame for its failure to implement even the most basic elements of the Minsk agreement: ceasefire, withdrawal 

of heavy weapons, and unlimited access for OSCE [Organization for Security and 

Co-operation in Europe] monitors to the territory of the Donbas. The result is a kabuki negotiation led by the OSCE in which the proxies stonewall any meaningful 

progress on implementing the agreement. So long as this dynamic is maintained 

and Moscow is able to hide behind the claim that local leaders are to blame for the 

impasse, the conflict will almost certainly continue unabated. Conversely, the sooner 

the international community cuts through the fiction that local actors call all the 

shots and applies pressure on Moscow, the closer we will be to a real negotiation 

aimed at resolving the conflict. 

SABOTAGE AND TERRORISM

Sabotage and acts of terrorism have also been used in the Ukraine conflict. On 

the same day that former Duma member Denis Voronenkov was assassinated in 

Kyiv, an act of sabotage destroyed a large munition depot in Balaklia, forcing the 

evacuation of 20,000 civilians form nearby areas. Earlier in the conflict, Ukraine’s 

security service, the SBU, accused Russia of having orchestrated a bombing attack 

on a rally in Kharkiv in February 2015 that killed a policeman and a civilian as 

19 

well as bombing attacks on railroads, a courtroom, a pub frequented by pro-Maidan 

supporters, and the offices of a pro-Maidan NGO. Given the long border between 

Russia and Ukraine and extensive societal and family ties between the two countries, preventing acts of terrorism and sabotage remains difficult and relies heavily 

on good intelligence and societal resilience. 

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SUBVERSION

Finally, political and economic subversion have increasingly become Russia’s favored method of seeking to exert control over the government in Kyiv. Indeed, Russia has increased its political influence operations not just in Ukraine but throughout Europe and the United States, seeing them as a cheaper and more effective way 

to achieve its aims in the gray zone. Unconventional military operations carry a significant degree of risk, while political influence operations are easier to carry out 

and are camouflaged behind an often convoluted faˇade of corrupt business and political ties. 

As part of this subversive campaign, Russia’s intelligence services and Kremlinlinked oligarchs have targeted Western political parties, businessmen, politicians, 

media organizations, and NGOs. The goal is not always to influence a near-term political outcome, but sometimes simply to burrow into a country’s political and economic fabric. In this way, corrupt ties and kompromat (material for blackmail) can 

be built up in reserve and deployed at the opportune moment. The primary tool 

used in these influence operations is Russia’s vast network of corrupt patron-client 

relations, which extend not only to the former Soviet space but also to Europe and 

the United States. Russian businessmen who have professional ties in a particular 

country can be ‘‘encouraged’’ to donate money to select NGOs, offshore companies 

can be used to funnel money to political parties, and Russian cultural organizations 

such as state-run Rossotrudnichestvo can be used to forge ties with pro-Kremlin diaspora groups. Money laundering schemes using shell companies or ‘‘one-day firms’’ 

help to channel the flow of licit and illicit money from these various actors to favored politicians, NGOs, and media organizations. 

To counteract this rising tide of Russian political subversion, Western states need 

to build more transparent institutions, particularly with regards to political party 

financing, and empower anti-corruption organizations, financial investigation units, 

and law enforcement bodies to coordinate with intelligence organizations to root out 

entrenched and corrosive Russian patronage networks. The United States should seriously consider establishing a standing interagency operational body dedicated solely to interdicting illicit Russian influence operations. Current interagency efforts to 

track Russian malign influence are not sufficient because of the firewall between 

policy agencies like the State Department and National Security Council on the one 

hand, and law enforcement bodies on the other. 

On the policy side, the United States must also make better use of the tools already at its disposal. Financial sanctions against Russia remain vastly under-utilized given the scope of financial leverage the United States has over Russia. To 

date, the United States has only applied full blocking sanctions on one Russian 

bank, and that bank is not even among the 20 largest Russian financial institutions. 

Furthermore, personal sanctions against corrupt individuals such as those mandated by the Magnitsky Act have barely been utilized at all, with less than 30 individuals designated since 2012. 

Finally, in the United States it is vital that an independent Special Prosecutor 

be empowered to investigate allegations of ties between the Russian Government 

and United States political actors. Of all the lessons from Russia’s influence operations in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, this one impinges most directly on our 

national security. It is frankly impossible to understand how one could point to 

vulnerabilities among our Allies and partners while neglecting to thoroughly and 

impartially investigate Russia’s influence operation right here in the United States. 

CONCLUSION

The effort to counter Russia’s operations in the gray zone should start in Ukraine, 

where Moscow continues to fight an unconventional war against Kyiv. To check Russian influence in Ukraine, the United States must dedicate more resources to bolster military training programs for Ukraine’s conventional and special operations 

forces. It should provide Ukraine with defensive weapons such as anti-tank missiles 

and equipment such as counter-battery radars with advanced fire control systems 

and more effective Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. 

On the diplomatic front, the United States cannot afford to remain a spectator as 

the Normandy Group engages in endless negotiations. The United States must get 

involved in these negotiations and help the parties develop a concrete roadmap of 

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actions to implement the two Minsk agreements of September 2014 and February 

2015. Crucially, this roadmap must specify specific dates by which actions must be 

completed and consequences for failing to meet required deadlines. To sharpen 

United States leverage, the United States should consider unilaterally tightening 

current debt and equity restrictions on Russian financial institutions, and if necessary incrementally apply blocking sanctions to signal resolve. Positive incentives 

should also be offered for compliance with the Minsk roadmap. Lastly, the United 

States needs to continue to support Ukraine’s reforms, in part by applying strict 

conditionality to United States assistance and insisting on Ukrainian followthrough, but also by encouraging our European partners to play a more active role 

in supporting reform. 

As we consider more robust measures to push back on Russian influence operations in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, we cannot blind ourselves to the painful 

fact that these operations have been targeted at the United States as well. I have 

argued before that if Russian aggression in places like Georgia and Ukraine is not 

checked, Russian malign influence will continue to spread to our allies in Europe 

as well as here in the United States. Now it is a fact that Russia has sought to 

corrode one of the most sacred institutions in this country: our democratic process. 

We must be prepared to respond with the sense of seriousness and urgency that is 

required. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Dr. Carpenter. 

Lieutenant General Cleveland. 

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL CHARLES T. CLEVELAND, USA (RET.), SENIOR FELLOW, MADISON POLICY 

FORUM, AND FORMER COMMANDING GENERAL, UNITED 

STATES ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND 

General CLEVELAND. Thank you. Chairman Ernst, Ranking 

Member Heinrich, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 

opportunity to share some thoughts, some old-guy thoughts as I 

would say, on unconventional warfare, population-centric warfare, 

and the challenges the United States faces encountering nontraditional or nonconventional strategies. 

Russia’s success in Crimea and its actions in eastern Ukraine 

have caused the world rightly to take note. Through the creative 

use of violence and threats, Russia redrew, as was mentioned earlier, the international boundaries for the first time in decades. Its 

success to date is destabilizing an international system that had 

put in check the territorial ambitions of its members. Disturbing is 

the fact that they were so successful without paying much of a 

price, at least politically, as Putin remains popular with his people. 

The United States military’s response has been appropriate and 

if not predictable. Increased exercises engaged in joint planning 

learn from Ukraine and try to find and apply countermeasures in 

the Baltics. In the last few years, though, I would submit not only 

from that experience but from my experiences around the world, 

we have learned a few things. We have learned that the limits of 

our understanding of foreign cultures matter. We have learned how 

important that understanding is to developing viable security policies and responses. We have learned the limits of our funding authorities and the inadequacies of some of our existing civilian and 

military organizations and their understanding of indigenous-centric warfighting. We have learned the inadequacy of our current 

ability to use psychological and information operations, which has 

been mentioned earlier. We have learned the hard lesson of the inelastic element of time in these population-centric wars. 

But these limitations obviously are not just with Russia and its 

nefariousness. It is in fact with actors that are practicing this form 

21 

of warfare around the world. I would submit that our lack of understanding of this form of warfare has helped lead to poor results 

in Iraq and Afghanistan as well, and have limited our thinking and 

options in Syria, Yemen, and pretty much everywhere populationcentric wars are being fought. 

I offer the following eight points: First, recognize that these population-centric wars are different from traditional war. Two dangerous myths are that such wars are only a lesser case of traditional war or, to the contrary, these are graduate levels of the same 

war. Neither is correct and both lead to bad assumptions that we 

can be successful by just doing better with what we have got or go 

bigger with what we have got or invest more money more wisely. 

We have a laundry list of alphabet soup ad hoc structures created over the past 16 years. It was the battlefield’s way of telling 

us that what we brought to those fights was not enough. New models, concepts, and resulting doctrine organizations and leaders and 

soldiers are needed in my view, particularly above the tactical 

level. 

Secondly, whatever America’s new strategy works out to be, I 

sincerely hope, as one who lived my life under the special forces 

motto of de oppresso liber, that it does not relegate hundreds of 

millions of people around the world to tyranny. The inevitable instability that would result would force our involvement anyway, 

given as interconnected as the world is today. So it is better that 

we proactively gain an understanding, shape and act in concert 

with like-minded friends, partners, and allies, providing leadership 

when necessary and inspirational always. 

Consensus on a national strategy beyond simply an open-ended 

fascination with CT [counter-terrorism] is critical for providing direction and clarity. Containment was a powerful centering concepts 

that helped drive security-sector efforts. It was perhaps practiced 

differently between the political parties, but by and large it remained an organizing principle throughout the Cold War. Whatever comes next, my recommendation, given the instability in the 

system and the provocations by regional actors and non-state 

groups, that it be underpinned by an unmatched soft indigenouscentric and direct-action warfighting capability, superior and elite 

high-end conventional forces, and a robust diplomatic core. 

Third, organize around the reality of modern political warfare or, 

as my lawyer preferred to call it, unconventional diplomacy. Russia, China, Iran are each employing these forms of political warfare 

and calls for the United States to relearn lessons from the Cold 

War on its own approach to political warfare are worth serious consideration. For example, our acknowledged problems conducting effective information campaigns might improve with a 21st century 

variation of the United States Information Agency. 

Some other ideas are, one, ensure that the NFC has UW [unconventional warfare] expertise or unconventional warfare expertise; 

two, create a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special 

Warfare, that being unconventional warfare to foreign internal defense or population-centric warfighting; at the State Department, 

create a bureau for political warfare led by an official of ambassadorial rank similar to what they have done with counterterrorism; 

and four, create the creation of a joint special warfare command 

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within SOCOM [Special Operations Command] that would hopefully match the success of its direct-action counterpart. It would be 

an interagency command with perhaps a deputy from another 

agency, another government agency or state and other interagency 

officers serving as fully empowered members on a tailored headquarter staff. 

The TSOCs or the Theater Special Operations Commands, currently COCOM [combatant command] to SOCOM, could be subordinated to such a headquarters, freeing the SOCOM staff to focus on 

their policy procurement, joint soft doctrine development, and unitreadiness missions. This structure would give more weight to 

SOCOM’s unconventional warfare of foreign internal defense, civil 

affairs, and psychological operations or military information support operations by providing a single headquarters that would, by 

necessity, be the advocate for U.S. support to indigenous 

warfighting, unconventional warfare, and foreign internal defense. 

SOCOM has concentrated money and effort rightly towards 

building an exquisite direct action capability, but other of its legislative missions have suffered, particularly, in my view, information 

operations. 

Fourth, the U.S. has been seeking the holy grail of whole-of-government warfighting for well over 50 years. Presidents have issued 

several decision directives to get at this, but it remains elusive. 

There must be an outside forcing function to do better in my mind. 

Putin’s success directly reflects the Russian hold on all levels of 

government and the elements of power outside of government and 

their adept use, resulting in a sophisticated, complex, hybrid war 

or unconventional warfare campaign. Certainly that is easier for an 

authoritarian government. But the stovepiped authorization and 

appropriation of funds creates internal pressures that work against 

developing cross-department solutions. Add to that the different 

cultures of the security sector departments and agencies, and it is 

rare to see any real moves towards creating a truly interagency solution. 

It is fair to ask the question who funds whole-of-government or 

whole-of-nation solutions to a problem? We do not. Instead, we 

fund in pieces and parts. Department and agency projects entrust 

they come together somewhere to get the job done. Congress may 

want to look at funding incentives to promote collective planning. 

Fifth, recognize that our critical weaknesses and gaps in defense 

are above the tactical level. Our standing campaign-level headquarters, primarily the U.S. Army Corps and U.S. Marine Corps 

MEFs [Marine Expeditionary Forces] are rightly organized around 

conventional warfighting. The one operational-level SOF headquarters is primarily organized around the counterterrorism and 

direct action mission, as it needs to be. 

A dedicated operational-level headquarters around the execution 

of indigenous-centric campaign such as Iraq and Syria today is 

merited. A hybrid soft conventional interagency U.S. Army base 

core that is designed for complex contingency merits consideration. 

These kinds of operations are no longer the aberration but in fact 

are the norm. We should organize accordingly. 

Six, develop the 12XX funding authority like 1208 for CT, for soft 

formations now need access to funds to develop indigenous UW caVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
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pabilities obviously approved by the country team, obviously approved by the geographic combatant commander in an approved 

campaign on the part of the United States or the foreign internal 

defense appropriate capabilities to counter a hostile country’s unconventional warfare threats that are not CT-related. 

Seven, the most prevalent forms of competition and conflict 

around the world today are resistance, rebellion, and insurgency. 

They manifest themselves oftentimes in the use of the tactic of terror and, if successful, they culminate in civil war. Yet despite its 

prevalence, DOD has no professional military education dedicated 

to these forms of warfare, the service’s own professional military 

education responsibility for their soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. The result is that a deep understanding of these conflicts, 

these most prevalent forms of war, within the ranks depends primarily on the individual initiative of the leader. There are some 

electives at the various command and staff in war colleges but the 

net result is that military leaders get very little formal education 

on this form of war. 

More concerning to me is the fact that our Special Forces, Civil 

Affairs, and SIOP officers, and those who eventually become the 

leaders who learn the basics of population-centric warfighting in 

their qualifications course, but from that point on are in a professional military education program focused on essentially conventional warfighting. 

Those who attended Army schools appreciated the—those of us 

who attended the Army schools appreciated the year at Command 

and General Staff College and the Army War College, both institutions of which I am a graduate, and I appreciated the year with 

our conventional counterparts and some of the lessons certainly 

that are universally important to warfighting. But it did not make 

me much better really at the form of warfighting that I was to 

practice on behalf of the Nation. SOCOM or the Army—in my view 

SOCOM should create a career-long professional development path 

for those who are charged with being expert at indigenous 

warfighting. 

Point number eight and my last point is we are the good guys. 

You know, our asymmetry again in my view is who we are and 

from where the United States Government and this great nation 

derives its strength. While Russia, China, and Iran must control 

their people, the strength of our country is our people and their belief in our form of government, the inalienable rights granted by 

our Creator, the guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think that provides us and those that are privileged 

enough to have this as a form of government around the world the 

resilience that Dr. Carpenter was talking about in our social structure. 

A deep understanding and commitment to the development and 

maintenance of world-class unconventional warfare capability can 

be a powerful tool in countering the use of surrogates in hybrid 

warfare by revisionist and revolutionary movements. It has the potential to impose costs on them. It holds them at risk. In addition 

to providing an offensive capability from which we can learn and 

stay abreast of the art and science of warfighting, it is in fact I 

24 

think necessary as we see the evidence of an emerging domain— 

a new emerging domain of war, the human domain. 

I am not optimistic, however, that DOD can address its deficiencies. It will need Congress’ help. We should be asking on behalf 

of the American taxpayer if we knew in early 2002 what we know 

now, what would we do differently? What has SOCOM, the Army, 

and the Marine Corps as land components learned these last 16 

years, and what does that portend for the future? 

Multidomain battle might be the beginnings of a replacement for 

air-land battle but only if we acknowledge in my view that the 

human domain, this place where insurgencies, resistance, and rebellion happen, takes its place along the traditional four domains, 

land, sea, air, and space, and the newly acknowledged cyber. It appears in fact in my view the Russians have learned this lesson and 

are getting better at it, as we continue to admire the problem. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you to our witnesses. 

We will start with our rounds of questions, and we will limit 

those to five minutes of questions and answers per Senator. 

General Cleveland, if I could start with you, why were the Russians so successful in achieving their objectives of illegally annexing Crimea and destabilizing eastern Ukraine, and why do you 

think United States special operations forces are prepared today to 

counter situations like that in the future? 

General CLEVELAND. Ma’am, I am not sure—I mean, the Russians had a tremendous home-field advantage in Crimea, and we 

would have had to recognize and understand alongside the Ukrainian Government early, early on what was happening. I am not sure 

that we had our antenna out to be sensitive to that and then be 

able to react early enough to counter what was going on using 

many of the things that were spoken about earlier, being transparent, you know, shaming, bringing that out, providing perhaps 

some information warfare antidote to just the blitzkrieg, as was described on the information front. 

I think that special operations forces today, as you have noted in 

your opener, we have been focused primarily on the CT mission. 

However, there is an element within SOCOM in the special operations community which has been applying its trade in indigenous 

warfighting that maybe earlier on, had we had the political will to 

commit to supporting the Ukrainian Government in its early, early 

stages, we could have at least been a tripwire. We could have perhaps provided some capability. We would have shown perhaps resolve that we would not let this type of nefariousness stand. 

But that is a policy decision. That is what you all get paid the 

big bucks for. So, again—but I think that the tools were there. 

Whether they were considered in the deliberations and whether 

those that were in a position to advise were literate enough to provide what those options might look like, that I do not know. I was 

obviously focused still at Fort Bragg. 

Senator ERNST. Absolutely. Thank you very much, General. I appreciate it. 

Dr. Carpenter, to counter Russian information operations, you 

say that the United States should take a more proactive approach, 

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formation or debunking those false stories, and I agree with you on 

that point. Can you explain to us what role the messaging in Russian films and TV shows plays into this information campaign, and 

then also what about social media and how that applies to the situation? 

Dr. CARPENTER. Well, Russia has made great use of the virtual 

monopoly that it has on broadcast television inside Russia but then 

also in occupied parts of Ukraine to be able to get its message out. 

It relies on very slick programming that appeals to the folks that 

tune into TV. It is shows, it is other—it is comedy, it is movies, but 

then it is also interspersed with propaganda. It is very difficult to 

combat when most people in these areas get their sources of information from TV. 

I think the way to go about combating that is to try to go and 

use the various platforms that we have available to get the message out in this information space. So I would actually separate 

this into two things. There are things that we need to do here in 

the United States so we have RT, we have Sputnik, which are Russia propaganda programs here in the United States. Frankly, I 

would advocate using more regulatory tools to, for example, put a 

banner at the bottom of the screen saying this programming is financed by the Russian Government or is Russian Government programming so the people are aware. We still protect the First 

Amendment rights to watch what they want to watch, but they are 

aware just like we do with cigarette packages to warn them what 

it is that is inside the package. 

In Russia and inside occupied Ukraine, it is a little bit more difficult. The BBG [Broadcasting Board of Governors] has developed 

some digital tools so that is programming that is now available on 

a 24/7 basis that can get inside to Russia, but it is available on the 

internet. Most people still tune into broadcast TV to get their news 

and to get sources of information. 

But we need to push more. We need to get out a message not 

just—we cannot just play whack-a-mole and continuously try to debunk every single fake news story that Russia puts out there. That 

puts us on the defensive. We need to start to put out information 

about what is going on in Russia in terms of corruption. You see 

the protests that just took place on Sunday across almost 100 cities 

within Russia, and so I think getting the message out will resonate 

in Russian society. 

It is just simply a matter of letting people know what is actually 

happening with their government. I think a lot of Russians to this 

day believe the government in Kyiv is run by fascists. They believe 

all kinds of fake news stories that have been peddled simply because they do not have an alternative source of information. So we 

need to get better at that. 

The Baltic States have also been good at putting out some broadcast programming that aims at Russian-speaking audiences. It is 

limited to the Baltic region, but we should explore supporting them 

and trying to get that broadcasting out to more Russian speakers. 

Senator ERNST. Very good. Thank you. 

Ranking Member Heinrich? 

Senator HEINRICH. Dr. Carpenter, what would be the technological limitations or other limitations to allow us to reach people 

26 

on broadcast television as opposed to the internet platform from 

some of those neighboring states? 

Dr. CARPENTER. So I think—— 

Senator HEINRICH. What kind of reach could we foreseeably actually have? 

Dr. CARPENTER. So I think it is very difficult to be able to broadcast into Russia itself because they control the means of both blocking foreign broadcasting and, as I said, they have a virtual monopoly on this. But that does not mean that we should not try, especially in regions like the Baltic. I was told by those who lived 

through the Soviet experience in the Baltics that those who lived 

near the Polish border would tune in to Polish TV, they would listen to—even though Polish TV was also part of the Warsaw Pact, 

it was also propagandistic. But it was more open than Soviet television, and so they would listen, and then they would transmit 

those messages to friends and acquaintances and spread it through 

their social networks. 

I think if you have broadcast programs in the Baltic, in Ukraine, 

in Moldova, in Georgia, in places on Russia’s periphery, it will seep 

into Russia. It may not be as effective as if you had broadcast television in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but it will go a long way. I 

think the Russian people actually crave more information, and 

when they are exposed to it, they will benefit. 

Senator HEINRICH. On a sort of related question, and this is really for any of you, given Russian employment of disinformation and 

digital trolls and bots in Western elections, including our own last 

year, and the fact that the issue that you, Dr. Oliker, brought up 

of people preferring their own information sources and discounting 

all others is certainly not limited to Europe. We see that very much 

the case in the United States today, people self-selecting information sources and almost living in parallel universes. 

What lessons can we learn actually from countries like Estonia 

and others that have been on the frontlines of this dual world 

for longer than we have and have developed a sensitivity to the 

manipulations of the Russian Government? How can we take some 

of the lessons that they have had and utilize them in our own selfawareness of what is going on here and now? This is for any of you 

really. 

Dr. OLIKER. Thank you. I would actually say, you know, I was 

watching the protests in Russia on Sunday. One of the things that 

is most striking about them was the number of youth that were out 

there. The protests we saw in Russia in 2011 and 2012 were mostly 

middle-aged and older folks. This was a lot of young people. This 

is very preliminary, but my sense is they do not get their information from television. They get their information from the internet, 

from each other. The other thing we saw before the protest was 

some reports of conversations of faculty and students in Russian 

schools, which also evidenced a certain amount of critical thinking. 

So I think there are actually lessons we can take from Russia 

here that—and I do not—you know, I do not know that governments can do this well but I think the private sector may be able 

to, which is about figuring out how to target youth, recognizing 

that youth are bright and are discerning and are, you know, perhaps intrinsically distrustful of what older people tell them and 

27 

using that— not so much using it as a propaganda tool of the 

United States Government but creating in the marketplace of ideas 

a real market for truth. 

I think that is something—and we in the United States and our 

partners and allies in Europe can help support our private sector 

in doing that. But I very strongly do not think this is a government 

task. 

Senator HEINRICH. Do either of the rest of you have an opinion 

about what lessons we might learn from some of our allies like Estonia? 

Dr. CARPENTER. So I would just say that we do need to get much 

more savvy about using social media to reach out to Russian youth. 

I do not think it necessarily has to be a government-funded website 

or a government-run social media platform, but providing the content to others to be able to disseminate I think is important. 

To give you an anecdote, about a year and a half ago there was 

a woman in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg who was putting— 

on her personal blog she was just simply putting stories from Reuters and AP [Associated Press] on what was happening in Ukraine, 

and she was charged with treason and put in jail. So this demonstrates to me that the Russian Government is extremely sensitive to having this information even on a digital platform, even 

on a blog, and reacts accordingly. 

I think if we can get the information out there and, yes, it tends 

to be clunky when it is run by government public institutions, but 

there are ways we can partner with more commercial, private, 

sleeker outfits that are able to get the message out, and I think it 

will have a great effect if we do that. 

Senator HEINRICH. Thank you. 

Senator ERNST. Senator Peters. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I would like to expand some of the conversation and, Dr. Oliker, 

you brought this up is that, as troublesome as the Russian activities are, and they are very troublesome, it also I think indicates 

that we have some greater vulnerabilities across the globe in terms 

of some of the weakness in institutions that are essential. In fact, 

I think in your written testimony you talk about the only way we 

really protect ourselves and others against this is to have strong 

institutions. 

I was struck by the Munich Security Conference, which I had an 

opportunity to attend, and the theme of that was post-truth, postorder, and post-West, which are all pretty scary concepts to think 

about, moving away from order and away from truth. If you do not 

have truth, how do you survive as a democratic society? 

In your testimony you talk about how the Russians do exploit 

those sorts of weaknesses with institutions. Could you explain a little bit or elaborate on where you think the greatest vulnerabilities 

are with our institutions and how do we strengthen them? 

Dr. OLIKER. I think right now the greatest vulnerability in our 

institutions is our own move away from truth. The stooping to the 

same level, the shift to an effort to influence rather than an effort 

to inform, and I think also affected very heavily by the way that 

the internet-based news cycle creates a demand for information 

28 

now before it has been processed and understood. I do not have a 

great solution for that one. 

I do think that, over time, accountability, transparency, and to 

some extent regulation can make a real difference, but I do think 

our greatest vulnerability is that if everybody plays this game of 

muddying the waters, the people who are best at muddying the 

waters are going to win, and that is not going to be us. 

I also think that our institutions have additional weaknesses 

which are that they were created for a different situation. I think 

our institutions do need reforms and they do need strengthening 

and they do need to be adapted for the situations we find ourselves 

in. Here I am talking about international institutions. I am talking 

about NATO. I think these things have served us tremendously 

well for a very long time. We are finding that people are not satisfied with the extent to which they serve them now, and I think it 

is important to look at how to adapt them. 

I also think that in Europe we know that Russia does not feel 

it is served well by the institutions that have sprung up since the 

end of the Cold War, and Russia has not been happy about this for 

25 years. I am not saying we appease the Russians. I do say that, 

as long as they feel insecure, we are going to continue to have a 

problem. 

Senator PETERS. Well, if you look at the playbook of how someone who wants to take advantage of these vulnerabilities, we have 

seen the playbook before. You go after the press. You try to 

delegitimize the press and say it is all fake news. It is just not real 

and attack it. You keep people of certain press organizations out 

of press conferences, let us say, because you attack them. You attack the judiciary. You say there are so-called judges or folks of 

their certain ethnic background, and then you can operate perhaps 

when an institution that has to step up and actually be a counterbalancing institution like the 

United States Congress that refuses to really bring light and 

bring transparency when we know there have been activities that 

have undermined our basic democracy. 

Is that why, Dr. Carpenter, you believe that we have to have a 

special prosecutor when we know we have direct attacks on our democracy? If we are asking other countries to improve their institutions, to bring more transparency, how do we make that argument 

when we are not willing to do it ourselves? 

Dr. CARPENTER. Well, I think we absolutely have to do it ourselves, and in fact I would unpack that and say I think there are 

a couple of separate things that we need to do to get precisely at 

this corruption of our institutional base. One is I think we absolutely need an independent special prosecutor to look at alleged 

ties between the Russian Government in the Trump campaign. I 

mean that to me—we have advised other countries—one of the conditions for Montenegro to get into NATO was that they establish 

an independent special prosecutor, and then when Russia attacked 

Montenegro on election day with an attempted coup d’e ́tat and 

cyber attacks—— 

Senator PETERS. Right. 

Dr. CARPENTER.—that special prosecutor was then brought in to 

investigate and has done a standup job in doing so. If we can adVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
29 

vise Montenegro to do that, we need to be able to have the political 

will to do that here at home. 

But I also think that in addition to investigating this particular 

instance of Russian interference in our electoral process, I think we 

need a 9/11-style commission as well to look at Russian influence 

operations in the United States writ large and what we can do 

about it. It will be independent. It will have time, not focus narrowly on the prosecution of this particular case, but look at a 

broader writ and examine what Russia is doing and how we can 

combat it. 

Finally, as I have said in my testimony, I think we need to stand 

up an operational body that is composed of interagency players 

that is dedicated—so within government, separate from the 9/11- 

style commission—that will look at Russian influence operations 

and how to counter them. 

Right now, we have a number of groups in the State Department, 

in the Pentagon. I participated in them. I can tell you they are 

largely talk shops that try to diagnose the problem. They do not 

necessarily propose solutions, and they are not resourced to be able 

to do anything about it. So we need to have this sort of operational 

group that can specifically go after instances where we know Russia is interfering in our process and then try and eradicate that. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you. 

Senator ERNST. Senator Fischer. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Oliker, I assume that you both believe 

that Russia is going to attempt another gray zone provocation? 

First of all, is that correct? 

Dr. OLIKER. I think eventually almost certainly. I think, you 

know, again, it depends on how you define the gray zone. If we are 

looking at action across borders that involve some military, quasimilitary activity, I am probably looking at Moldova and Belarus 

more than I am looking at the Baltics. 

I do think that when the Russians do it, it is not a—oh, I do not 

think the Russians are sitting around thinking where can we create a provocation. I do think that they tend to respond to what 

they see as threats to them with actions and sometimes actions in 

different areas, what we call horizontal escalation where you are 

attacked on one front and you respond on another. I do think they 

are looking for point of weakness where they might do that. 

I do not think that for them Crimea and east Ukraine started out 

intentionally as a provocation of the United States, the West, and 

the global order. They were thinking of themselves very genuinely 

as defending their interests. When they realized, though, that they 

could affect the system that way, I think they got excited. 

Senator FISCHER. Before you answer, Dr. Carpenter, if I could 

just follow up. You said not the Baltics but Belarus and Moldova. 

Does that follow along with a comment you made then also that 

it may not be where they feel a direct threat but kind of a—I do 

not know if you would say it is a diversion, a softball over someplace else to divert attention or just an opportunity presents itself 

in another country instead of where they might really be focused? 

Dr. OLIKER. So I think that the Russians are deterred in the Baltics pretty effectively. The Russians would not have been so 

30 

neurologically afraid of the incredibly unlikely contingency of 

Ukraine joining NATO if they did not believe in NATO. So, first 

point. The Russians have pretty much accepted the Baltics are 

gone. 

This said, I think if the Russians feel that NATO is sufficiently 

weakened that there is a question there. There are certainly people 

in Russia who might develop designs on the Baltics. Right now, 

they are concerned about the Baltics, they are concerned about a 

Western military buildup there, they are worried about 

Kaliningrad. But if you look at it from their perspective and the 

way they write and talk about it, it is about the Western threat 

to them. 

I think they also are spread thin enough with their operations 

in Ukraine and Syria with that, and they recognize the possibility 

that Ukraine might evolve to require even more, that they are not 

that interested right now in doing too much elsewhere. I could be 

wrong on that, but on the one hand they claim that they have very 

high manning levels. On the other, they have instituted a sixmonth contract. They do not send conscripts into combat but they 

are letting people sign a contract to become official military for just 

six months, which I take to mean they are having a hard time 

staffing even the limited contingencies they are in, which makes it 

very difficult to stretch. 

Senator FISCHER. Dr. Carpenter, your thoughts, please. 

Dr. CARPENTER. I guess I take a little bit of issue with that. I 

would distinguish between whether you are looking to understand 

whether Russia would carry out an operation like that in Crimea 

involving little green men, special forces in uniforms without insignias or whether we are talking about something a little bit even 

more covert than that, which is little gray men, the sorts of intelligence operatives who directed the seizure of buildings in the 

Donbas in the spring of 2014. 

I think if you are talking about the latter, I think it is ongoing 

throughout Europe. I think we see influence operations of various 

degrees happening as we speak obviously in Ukraine but also in 

Georgia, in Moldova. If you look back just a couple years ago, an 

Estonian senior law-enforcement official was abducted from Estonian territory—now, this is a NATO ally—and taken to Russia. 

That was in a sense a gray zone provocation. It was not little green 

men crossing the border, but it was intelligence agents crossing the 

border and abducting and kidnapping. 

As I mentioned in my testimony, there was an assassination last 

week, exactly a week ago today, in central Kyiv of an exiled Duma 

member because he was revealing information about Russian Government ties to both Yanukovych and also the start of the war in 

Ukraine. 

These operations are happening each and every day sub rosa. 

But do I also worry about the potential for something that is more 

military that involves special forces either in or out of uniform? I 

do. I think that there is—I think Belarus right now is also very 

vulnerable, although it is very closely aligned with Russia geopolitically. 

I think Russia believes that Belarus has strayed a little bit outside of the orbit, and it has therefore planned and exercised in SepVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
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tember of this year Zapad 2017 where it has requisitioned 83 times 

the number of railcars to go into Belarus than it did when it last 

did this exercise in 2013. Something there does not add up in terms 

of just purely this being a traditional exercise. I think Russia is exerting this sort of influence each and every day. 

Senator FISCHER. Could I follow up with just hopefully a short 

question? Is that okay, Senator Shaheen? Thank you. 

Dr. Carpenter, when you mentioned that a NATO ally had basically had its borders breached so that one of its citizens was kidnapped and then you mentioned other countries that are not within 

NATO and events that are happening there, so does being a NATO 

member help these countries or—first of all, just yes or no. We do 

not have—I am already over my time. But would it be more helpful 

to say Estonia, the Baltics if American soldiers were stationed 

there? 

Dr. CARPENTER. I think it absolutely does help. I think the article 5 guarantee deters Russia from doing a lot of things in the 

NATO space than it might otherwise want to do. That said, I do 

believe there is still room for some of this covert provocation and 

other types of operations that would be below the level of conflict, 

below the level of Crimea as well. Yes, United States force posture, 

in addition to the multinational battalions that are deployed in the 

Baltics, would augment that deterrent force. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you, Senator Shaheen. 

Senator ERNST. Senator Shaheen. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. Thank you, both Chair and Ranking Member, for holding this hearing. 

Dr. Carpenter, I want to start with your recommendations that 

we need an independent investigation of Russia’s meddling in our 

elections because I absolutely agree with you. I am puzzled by why 

we do not have more of the country outraged about this and why 

Congress is not outraged about this. This is not a partisan issue. 

This is about Russia meddling in our elections. That takes their activities in the United States on a political level, on espionage, 

whatever you talk—to a whole different level. They are not only 

doing it here, they are doing it in Europe. What message does it 

send to Russia that we have failed to take action in response to 

their activities? 

Dr. CARPENTER. Well, I think it is incredibly provocative that we 

have thus far failed to seriously investigate this. I think we still 

have time to do so. But this was an influence operation aimed at 

the heart of American democracy, and if we do not respond, Russia 

will learn the lesson that it can continue to probe and it can continue to push the boundaries. It will interfere again, and it will 

continue to meddle in our process. 

You know, there was an article that appeared in the Associated 

Press indicating that Mr. Manafort, who was campaign chairman, 

had proposed in fact confidential strategies, ‘‘that he would influence politics, business dealings, and news coverage inside the 

United States, Europe, and the former Soviet republics to benefit 

President Vladimir Putin’s government’’. That is from an AP story. 

I cannot verify whether that is correct or not, but I can say if 

it is correct, then we have a former campaign manager for our 

32 

President who was involved in the type of influence operation that 

we are discussing, the gray zone operation that we have been talking about in all these other countries here in the United States if 

this is true. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Well, I agree. 

Dr. Oliker, one of the things that you said I think in response 

to a question from Senator Peters was that Russia’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine were not looked at as a provocation of the West. 

That really is very different than everything else I have heard in 

the Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee about what Russia is doing. The explanations that I have 

heard in both of those committees from our witnesses has been 

that Putin is looking at how he can restore Russia’s sphere of influence and how he can undermine the West, and he sees the United 

States as the best opportunity to do that. His actions are taken 

with that aim in mind. So do you disagree with that? 

Dr. OLIKER. The way I would describe it is that Russia has been 

very unhappy with the security order that emerged at the end of 

the Cold War. If—— 

Senator SHAHEEN. Let me just interrupt you for a minute—— 

Dr. OLIKER. Yes. 

Senator SHAHEEN.—because one of the things that I have heard 

from those people who were part of the effort with the fall of the 

Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union was that there 

were real efforts, outreach efforts made at a time when Vladimir 

Putin was working for Yeltsin to try and get Russia more engaged 

with the West, to try and point out that the expansion of NATO 

was not aimed at threatening Russia; it was aimed at protecting 

the West. So that does not square with what you are saying. 

Dr. OLIKER. We have gone back and forth. Twenty-five years is 

a long time, and we have gone through phases of trying to engage 

the Russians and doing that less. The Russians, however, after a 

very brief period of indeed thinking that engagement was possible, 

began to view the United States as looking to limit and contain 

them, as they had in the past. Again, there have been times when 

Russian Governments, including Vladimir Putin’s, have thought 

there was room for cooperation. 

The problem has been that the Russian vision of cooperation is 

one of the quality of Russia and the United States as two great 

powers making decisions. The United States view has been of Russia as one more power that should certainly be at the table but not 

driving the decision-making. That fundamental disagreement has 

been I think at the core of the problem, that they expect far more 

than the United States has been able to give. 

Senator SHAHEEN. General Cleveland, again, I could not agree 

more with what you are saying about efforts that we need to make 

to address the new threats that we are facing and that we have 

our military primarily designed to address conventional warfare. 

Testimony to that is that I have been on the Armed Services Committee now for over five years, and I never heard anybody talk 

about population-centric wars in those hearings. 

You talked about changing military to address the new threats 

that we face, whether they be gray zone threats or cyber threats 

and that Congress would need to do that. Are there efforts within 

33 

the military to make some of these changes? I ask you that—I 

asked a question about our ability to respond to what we are hearing from Russia in terms of, you know, that future warfare is one 

part conventional—four-to-one unconventional to conventional warfare. I did not get an answer that we have a strategy to address 

that. So are you seeing other places within our military where we 

ought to be looking to try and encourage a more robust response 

to the threats that we face today? 

General CLEVELAND. I think, you know, part of the problem is 

that it is the old ‘‘if the only thing you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’’ sort of problem, right? We have defined 

what is war along what has been very convenient for us and where 

we were very successful. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Right. 

General CLEVELAND. The problem is our ability to dominate in 

that space—and I have written some articles about that that I have 

asked that they put in the record just in case you want to read 

some more about it, but our ability to dominate there by necessity 

has pushed folks into traditional forms where the weaker—and I 

put Russia in that basket as well—will use these techniques and 

have used these techniques since time immemorial against the 

stronger. 

The problem and challenges that we have been able to—probably 

up through Vietnam—get away with using largely conventional 

forms of warfare against even population-centric wars with some 

success because you did not have a 24/7 news cycle, you did not 

have everybody with a smartphone sitting there as a reporter, and 

you did not have international bodies that actually start bringing 

people up on war crimes. Population control measures and things 

that you in the past would use or even the, you know, reduction 

of cities if you go back far enough, just no longer are acceptable. 

There is a growing recognition that that aspect of our 

warfighting, that environment if you will, has shifted out from 

under us. There is discussion about, okay, what do we do about 

that. But it is like the 180-pound running back that gets the task 

of hitting, you know, the 290-pound defensive end, right? That 290- 

pound defensive end represents a pretty robust, you know, military-industrial complex, you know, to use Ike’s term, that is kind 

of built to protect the Nation a certain way. That 180-pound running back cannot hit him shoulder pad to shoulder pad. You really 

have to go at the knees. In other words, there is something fundamentally—and that is where in my own way of thinking about 

this is we for too long have been kind of saying let us bounce these 

ideas off of conventional warfighting. That just has not worked, 

right? 

My own analysis is I go to the more fundamental assumptions 

and ask myself whether those assumptions that built this militaryindustrial complex if you will are still valid. My answer is not completely, and that space that has changed is why I say that what 

is emerging is in fact this human domain of warfare where any domain, just like what was imposed with cyber, requires you to 

build—you know, have a concept in order to dominate there and 

build the right assets, you know, the concept, and then build the 

doctrine, the organization, the DOTMLPFs [Doctrine, Organization, 

34 

Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities 

and Policy] as the military terms it, in order to dominate there. 

So there is awakening, I think, a growing understanding. I think 

there is reluctance because budgeting is a zero-some game, and if 

you say I am going to— you know, think about what happened 

with cyber. You created cyber as a top-down issue. All services 

have to cut out pieces of their budget to do what? Build a 

CYBERCOM and so forth. 

So you are entering dangerous territory when you say, well, really what has happened in these wars, a domain of—the human domain has emerged because now your military campaign and the 

success of it depends on your ability to actually fight successfully 

in these population-centric wars. If you backwards engineer from 

that, you say, okay, well, then what does it take to fight there? 

What you bump up against is two philosophies. Either you need 

something new, which I would say 16 years after Afghanistan we 

probably ought to start asking that question, or you use differently 

what you have. I would say that is what we have been doing for 

this entire period. 

I think that there is a growing understanding of it. Whether that 

understanding internally can lead to developing these new tools 

and taking more out of other people’s budgets, I am skeptical of 

that. That is why I say—and I am not saying that, you know, it 

has got to be a lot, but, you know, I think if you look at Afghanistan and Iraq, I go back to my closing, you have to ask the question, you know, what would we have done differently? I have got 

to hope that it would be something different, right? Because we 

have not delivered on the political objectives that were set in force. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Right. Thank you very much. 

Madam Chair, could you share with the committee the articles 

that General Cleveland has submitted? 

Senator ERNST. Absolutely. We will make sure those get to the 

committee members. 

[The information referred to can be found in Appendix A.] 

Senator ERNST. I think we have time if you would like just briefly a second round of questions. We will conclude with that second 

round. 

Dr. Oliker, you note at the end of your written comments that 

you do not think a Crimea-like scenario is what we need to worry 

about in the future. As we witness continued gray zone activities 

from Russia throughout the Baltics and Balkans, I am worried 

about what scenario we might possibly see there in the future. 

Specifically, I am concerned about Russia’s involvement in Serbia 

right now and its impact on Iowa’s sister country. We have a state 

partnership program with Kosovo, so I do get very concerned about 

those activities in Serbia and how they might lead to activities with 

Russia and Kosovo. So just last week, General Scaparrotti said he 

shared my concerns about Russia’s activities in Serbia as well. So 

what type of Russia scenarios do you think we might see in the future specifically, you know, in that region? 

Dr. OLIKER. I am also concerned about the Balkans, and I think 

they bear watching. I think the Russians are very much testing the 

waters for what is possible and what they can get away with. I 

think that—as I said, I do not think they went into Ukraine thinkVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
35 

ing that this was a way to get a standoff with United States, but 

they got one, and it has been more advantageous to them than they 

thought, and it has given them opportunities to push in other 

areas. I think very much the Balkans are one of them. 

This said, one of the things I worry about most is not things that 

are intentional, you know, action response, but things that are unintentional. I worry a lot about Russian military provocations in 

the seas and the air of Europe. I worry about us operating in close 

proximity in Syria. I worry about things that could go wrong because there is so much distrust for very good reasons and because 

there—you know, there is a danger of overreaction on both sides. 

So, you know, what I worry about most—I worry about what the 

Russians might do in the Balkans, but what I worry about most 

on the day-to-day level is that somebody is going to shoot down an 

airplane. 

Senator ERNST. Right. Right. Those greater implications. 

I thought it was interesting, Dr. Carpenter, that you mentioned 

the railcars that are being purchased with Russian dollars. That 

was brought to my attention by the Kosovars. They mentioned that 

there are railcars that have been purchased that are located in Serbia that have been run into Kosovo. So there are some concerns out 

there. They are wondering, you know, what is going on, what type 

of propaganda is this that exists out there. Do you have any brief 

comments on those types of activities? 

Dr. CARPENTER. So earlier, I was referring to the railcars that 

Russia is using to conduct its Zapad exercise in Belarus, but in 

Serbia as well there were railcars that illegally tried to enter into 

the territory of Kosovo and that had come from Serbia. 

I would say that Russian influence in Serbia is growing by the 

day. The pressure that Russia is exerting on the government in 

Belgrade is enormous. But I think almost more nefarious is the 

pressure and the ties that Russia has with Serbia’s neighbor, particularly Republika Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina. There 

the ties between the Kremlin and Milorad Dodik, the President of 

Republika Srpska, are incredibly close, and Russia has essentially 

been supporting Dodik’s efforts to talk about secession from the 

rest of Bosnia, which would be a disaster for the whole Balkans 

and can plunge the region into war yet again. 

You have these active attempts by Russia in Bosnia, in Serbia, 

in Macedonia as well to undermine political structures and to use 

influence operations to penetrate government institutions, and it is 

all lubricated by corruption. 

While the Serbian Government has been trying to find a way to 

pursue European Union integration, Russia has also come in and 

you have had the Russian Ambassador make comments in Belgrade about why is this in Serbia’s interest? 

Senator ERNST. Right. 

Dr. CARPENTER. So clearly, they are fomenting opposition to 

Euro-Atlantic integration into Western norms and standards across 

the region. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you very much. 

Ranking Member Heinrich? 

Senator HEINRICH. General Cleveland, I want to go back to something you mentioned in your testimony. You talked about potenVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
36 

tially looking at something similar to section 1208 authority that 

we use in counterterrorism operations. Could you talk a little bit 

about, you know, what would it look like to have 1208 authoritylike structure for gray zone entities that might be partnerable? 

General CLEVELAND. Certainly. Again, I think 1208 and the 

strength of 1208 is in its ability to tap into SOCOM’s very expedited processes to obtain equipment and to deploy forces in order 

to work with partners without having to go through the security— 

cooperation security assistance apparatus, right, which has done 

well by us I think for the most part. I think it needs some review 

overall and streamlining, but it is certainly not good enough for 

helping an advisor who goes into a country to say I need to build 

a CT force. 

For instance, my own case in Paraguay, for instance, we did that 

and we used 1208, and you were able to get money invested. You 

bought equipment and weapons, and it was done through open contracts that SOCOM had, and they showed up with the counterparts 

fairly rapidly. If you go through the security assistance system, 

they have obviously a process in place to protect us from abuse and 

all that other kind of stuff. SOCOM has a process as well, but it 

is much more streamlined. 

A 12XX program would do the same thing for countries that it 

is not necessarily a CT problem, but it is actually training forces 

in order to recognize, for instance, counterterrorism or unconventional warfare activities. It might be something that would have to 

be expanded to perhaps provide a country’s police with some training as well. Its military perhaps would have to be competent in 

some elements of their own form of unconventional warfare, staybehind activities if they are overrun, for example. 

Senator HEINRICH. Right. 

General CLEVELAND. As it exists right now, there is really not a 

pot of money that the soft forces can call upon to do that in what 

I think is the—with the agility that is necessary given the problem 

there. 

Senator HEINRICH. Yes, I think that is something we may want 

to look at in the upcoming NDAA [National Defense Authorization 

Act] process as we move forward. 

I want to go back to you, Dr. Carpenter, for one final thought 

and then I will relinquish the balance of my time. But, you know, 

it occurred to me that the recent Supreme Court decision around 

Citizens United has created a very different situation in our internal domestic elections than what has historically been the case. I 

have seen this in my own elections. I am sure all of my colleagues 

have watched as there has been less transparency as to where the 

money is actually coming from within elections. 

In most national elections now you have a preponderance of the 

financing of advertisements and things within elections actually 

not originating with the candidates themselves. So you may have 

a Democrat and a Republican running for Congress someplace or 

running for the United States Senate, but the majority of the actual financial activity in that election is actually from third parties 

who it is not clear where the financing is coming from. 

Do you see that fundamental lay of the land right now within our 

own election structure as an opening for Russia to be able to potenVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:56 Mar 16, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\USERS\WR47328\DESKTOP\28945.TXT WILDA
37 

tially manipulate, especially given their expertise at moving financial resources and networks? 

Dr. CARPENTER. Absolutely, Senator. I think it is an eight-lane 

highway that allows Russia to plow financial resources into our 

electoral system. Russia has perfected this over the years. They do 

not use Russian Government institutions to funnel this money. 

They often use Russian oligarchs or not even oligarchs but businessmen who have ties to the Kremlin. These businessmen then 

funded NGOs or other types of organizations that are registered in 

the country where they want to have influence, and then those institutions in turn rely on shell companies and other types of organizations that are subsidiary to them to be able to fund money to 

candidates, to media organizations, to NGOs. 

We saw spontaneously the emergence of NGOs, for example, in 

Romania that were anti-fracking that had come out of nowhere 

seemingly because Russia obviously had an interest in preventing 

that from happening due to its monopoly on gas flows to Western 

Europe. 

So they are very adept at using all kinds of shell companies to 

funnel resources to political candidates and parties that suit their 

interests, not necessarily that are pro-Russian but in Europe that 

are euro-skeptic, that are either far right or far left, but that serve 

Russia’s purpose in one way, shape, or form and advance their interests. And so, yes, Citizens United in my view has opened up 

floodgates for this type of money to pour into our system. 

Senator HEINRICH. Thank you. 

Senator ERNST. I want to thank our witnesses for joining us 

today for this subcommittee hearing. I appreciate your input, your 

thoughts. Ranking Member Heinrich, I appreciate your participation as well. 

With that, we will close the subcommittee meeting on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities. Thank you, witnesses. 

[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

38 

APPENDIX A 


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Æ 


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