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i 

73–795 2012

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–123] 

UNDERSTANDING FUTURE IRREGULAR 

WARFARE CHALLENGES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS 

AND CAPABILITIES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 27, 2012 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

CHRIS GIBSON, New York 

BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois 

ALLEN B. WEST, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

KATHLEEN C. HOCHUL, New York 

PETER VILLANO, Professional Staff Member 

MARK LEWIS, Professional Staff Member 

JAMES MAZOL, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2012 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, Understanding Future Irregular Warfare Challenges .................................................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 ........................................................................................ 31 

TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2012 

UNDERSTANDING FUTURE IRREGULAR WARFARE CHALLENGES 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island, Ranking 

Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ..................... 2 

Thornberry, Hon. Mac, a Representative from Texas, Chairman, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ............................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Jones, Dr. Seth, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation ........................... 3 

Killebrew, COL Robert, USA (Ret.), Non–Resident Senior Fellow, Center for 

a New American Security .................................................................................... 4 

Maxwell, COL David, USA (Ret.), Associate Director, Security Studies Program, Georgetown University ............................................................................. 6 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Jones, Dr. Seth ................................................................................................. 37 

Killebrew, COL Robert ..................................................................................... 54 

Langevin, Hon. James R. ................................................................................. 36 

Maxwell, COL David ........................................................................................ 63 

Thornberry, Hon. Mac ...................................................................................... 35 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 97 

(1) 

UNDERSTANDING FUTURE IRREGULAR WARFARE 

CHALLENGES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, March 27, 2012. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:33 p.m. in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mac Thornberry (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAC THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The hearing will come to order. One of our witnesses is on the way and will be here shortly, but I think we will 

go ahead and get started because I understand he is just moments 

away from being here. I appreciate everybody’s patience while we 

were over voting. 

Last fall, this subcommittee held a hearing to begin exploring the 

possibility that what we call irregular warfare may be a regular, 

that is frequent, challenge for us in the future, as, in fact, it certainly has been in the past. And we began to explore how we ensure that the hard-won lessons of the past decade are not simply 

shelved and forgotten as we ‘‘get back to normal.’’ 

Today we want to go a little deeper in looking at what types of 

future irregular warfare challenges we are likely to face? What 

strategies are best suited to deal with these future challenges? And 

what examples or models may exist to support those strategies and 

effectively deal with the irregular challenges? 

Let me just say that I have read all of the statements from all 

of the witnesses and they were excellent. Each of you provided 

well-written statements that were thought-provoking. I have to 

say, Colonel Maxwell, I got some chuckles out of your description 

of the naming game that goes on in the Pentagon and it made me 

feel better. Because sometimes I hear all of these terms that describe the same thing, and as I am trying to sort through what the 

difference between this, that, or the other thing is, it is somewhat 

reassuring to know that other people have the same issue and that 

part of what is going on is just to make sure we don’t understand 

what is going on. But I appreciate very much the statements that 

each of you provided and I look forward to the subcommittee getting down into asking more questions about them. 

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

Appendix on page 35.] 
2 

Mr. THORNBERRY. First, though, I would turn to the distinguished ranking member Mr. Langevin for any opening statement 

he would like to make. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 

our witnesses for appearing before us today. Congress, as we know, 

has the constitutional responsibility to ensure that our military is 

fully prepared to defend our country and our vital interests. To do 

that effectively, we must understand the full range of potential security challenges that we face. Irregular warfare is just such a 

challenge and it is fitting that we are addressing it today in the 

Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. 

The term IW [Irregular Warfare] evokes mental images of shadowy adversaries on uncertain or ill-defined battlefields, and there 

is certainly some truth to that. Terrorism is a classic form of IW 

and—but it is only one subset. Enemies will attempt to forgo a direct confrontation in one of our areas of strength, instead seeking 

an asymmetrical advantage in an area where we may be less prepared or less able to defend ourselves. For example, our formidable 

joint formations of air, ground, sea, and air forces and space forces, 

rather, quickly become ineffective if a cyber attack disrupts our 

command and control or the critical infrastructure on which our 

bases depend. And even our most precise weapons become difficult 

to employ against an enemy who has embedded himself within a 

civilian population. 

So the nature of warfare is, of course, uncertain, but what is certain is that potential challengers will seek ways to circumvent our 

strengths and exploit our weaknesses. Therefore, it is our responsibility to educate ourselves about developing trends, capabilities, 

technologies, and tactics that an adversary might use to find an advantage against us or our partners and then posture our forces 

properly to meet that sort of threat. We need to develop the agile 

thinking necessary to make prudent defense choices, and this hearing is an important part of that process. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, 

and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the Appendix on page 36.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. We are pleased to have before us 

today to testify, Dr. Seth Jones, senior political scientist with the 

RAND Corporation. When he gets here, Dr.—I mean Colonel Robert Killebrew, everybody is a doctor today for some reason—Colonel 

Robert Killebrew, U.S. Army retired non-resident senior fellow at 

the Center for a New American Security, and Colonel David Maxwell, U.S. Army retired, Associate Director, Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Without objection, your complete 

written statements will be made part of the record. And if you 

would, we would appreciate it if you could summarize your comments. We will run the clock for 5 minutes, that is a rough guide 

just to help you keep track of time. But then after you summarize 

your statements, then we would proceed to questions. So we will 

get started. Dr. Jones, thanks for being here, please proceed. 
3 

STATEMENT OF DR. SETH JONES, SENIOR POLITICAL 

SCIENTIST, RAND CORPORATION 

Dr. JONES. Thank you very much for having this hearing, Chairman Thornberry and Ranking Member Langevin. It is an honor to 

be here. What I will do is I will briefly touch on the three questions 

that we were asked to look at, what types of irregular warfare challenges is the U.S. likely to face? What strategies are best suited? 

And what are existing examples or models to manage irregular 

warfare challenges? But let me just say, based partly on my own 

experience in conducting irregular warfare in Afghanistan, that we 

do face considerable challenges. By today, in Afghanistan, we have 

about 432,000 counterinsurgency forces. We have spent over $100 

billion per year, at least this fiscal year and deployed a range of 

sophisticated platforms of systems. 

The Taliban and its allies, on the other hand, have deployed between 20- and 40,000 forces, a ratio of nearly 11-to-1 in favor of 

counterinsurgents, and had revenues of between $100 and $200 

million per year. A ratio of about 500-to-1 in favor of 

counterinsurgents. Yet the Taliban’s ability to utilize limited resources and sustain a prolonged insurgency, I do think highlights 

some of the challenges we face on irregular warfare. 

What I would like to do briefly is then first touch on irregular 

warfare challenges. There have been some individuals who have argued that groups like Al Qaeda are on the verge of strategic defeat. 

What I would argue is that we face a range of irregular warfare 

challenges in the future. They include threats from nonstate actors, 

including terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, and Hezbollah; drug trafficking organizations, including Mexican cartels and others; violent 

global activists, including some of the anarchist groups that have 

appeared in some of the major G8 and other summits. Also from 

states, those that challenge purposely the United States through irregular warfare, including Iran and those who do so inadvertently 

because of weak governance. One might think of our neighbor to 

the border, for example, Mexico more on the weak governance side. 

I think as we look at the future, even as we look at Al Qaeda, 

and I have included a map, this is figure 1 in my testimony, indicating a range of areas where we have Al Qaeda involvement in irregular warfare, either through its core, its key affiliates, or its key 

allies. That includes a range of countries in Africa, especially North 

Africa, but including countries of concern like Nigeria, the Middle 

East, including expansion in countries like Syria, South Asia, and 

then in East Asia and countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. 

I would also highlight several other challenges that are worth 

mentioning; one is interagency cooperation. My personal view, 

there have been some improvements between organizations like 

United States Special Operations Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency as demonstrated, in part, during the bin Laden raid 

of improved interagency cooperation in irregular warfare. But I 

would submit that including, based on my own experience in theater and on the ground, there clearly are challenges between the 

Department of Defense and other civilian agencies, including the 

Department of State and USAID [United States Agency for International Development] on a whole range of strategic, operational, 

and tactical issues. We can get into more of that more later. 
4 

I would also highlight issues and concerns about a Vietnam war 

syndrome. In an effort to forget lessons from the past, issues related to the health of U.S. forces because of irregular warfare, both 

past, current, and future. And in a range of technological challenge, 

I have noted some future projections on Wi-Fi and mobile devices; 

it is part of figure 2 in my testimony just to give a sense of stuff 

that is possibly coming down the pike. 

On strategies, I have highlighted a range of strategies that the 

U.S. should and could consider. Let me just briefly note for the purposes of this abbreviated testimony that I would remind individuals 

that as we talk mostly about supporting counterterrorism and 

counterinsurgency, we also not forget as we experienced in 2001, 

the United States may also serve in the role of supporting insurgent groups as we have in Libya, as we did in Afghanistan, and 

as we may in Syria as well. There are a range of issues that need 

to be addressed along those lines. 

Models, and I won’t go into details here, but we can in the testimony. I would highlight Village Stability Operations and Afghan 

Local Police as being a useful model to drill down on one aspect 

of irregular warfare. 

And then, let me just conclude by saying there are a few things 

I would submit are worth considering. One is on the organizational 

side, continuing to fund programs such as 1208 and VSO [Village 

Stability Operations] and ALP [Afghan Local Police], the latter of 

which are paid for using Afghan security forces funds; issues related to health of U.S. forces; continuing training and education for 

irregular warfare and that deals with the war colleges. And then 

efforts to consider assessing interagency cooperation as useful in 

the future. So with that, I will conclude my testimony and hand 

back to you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Jones can be found in the Appendix on page 37.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. Colonel Killebrew, have you had a 

chance to catch your breath? 

STATEMENT OF COL ROBERT KILLEBREW, USA (RET.), NON– 

RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN 

SECURITY 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I have, sir. Thank you. And as self-punishment for that, I will only read part of my testimony, because you 

have seen it all already. I apologize for being late. 

I was asked to come and talk about the future of irregular warfare and insurgency. I am a senior fellow at the Center for New 

American Security, which means I am probably the oldest guy in 

the room. And I need to make the point that the remarks I am 

going make here complement my research there, but my remarks 

are my own not, CNAS [Center for a New American Security]. 

You have my testimony, there are some paragraphs I would like 

to read to you just to make the point and to set the tone. 

Insurgencies have three characteristics that are always useful to 

remember. One is that they are always ultimately about politics. 

And because they are about politics, insurgencies are always different because there is a different political objective or a different 

political environment in each insurgency. So Vietnam is not like 
5 

what we are fighting today. What we are fighting today is not like 

what we are going to fight next. And I will talk about that in a 

second. 

Insurgencies follow sort of a ‘‘sine curve.’’ They start with lawbreaking and matters for police, the curve goes up until they reach 

such a level that military force is required, and then if a 

counterinsurgent is successful, the curve comes down again and 

eventually again becomes a matter for crime, for police. That is 

what we see in every insurgency, even though I have said they are 

all different, they all follow this curve. And the purpose of counterinsurgency is to drive the level of violence down to the point that 

the host government can deal with it as a matter of criminal law. 

And the second point I would like to make is the relationship of 

crime to conflict has changed. One of the big changes in the past 

20 years or so has been the emergence of crime for a number of 

reasons as a political force in the world. The experts with whom 

I deal estimate that as much as a fifth of the world’s GDP [Gross 

Domestic Product] is now from the black economy. When that happens, then illegal money, as in drug money, becomes a political 

force, akin to ideology, akin to Marxist philosophy in the prosecution of the crime. 

One way to look at the Taliban and its associated warlords supporters, for example, is these big smuggling operations. And this 

committee knows that our operations in Afghanistan the Drug Enforcement Administration has agents that go in with the Delta 

Force and the black operators because what they are dealing with 

is a hybrid of insurgency and crime. The insurgency will probably 

never be snuffed out until some handle is put on the money that 

flows into the Taliban. 

The same is true of the Colombian FARC [Revolutionary Armed 

Forces of Colombia], or virtually any insurgency in the world today 

can also be viewed through the eyes of the police as a transnational 

criminal organization, that is true of all insurgencies. And that is 

a major change since the day I studied Mao and chased through 

the jungles of Vietnam. 

In the 21st century, crime, terrorism, and insurgency are blending in new political and social combinations that call for new understandings of approaches to counterinsurgency. Although some 

still deny the reality, and I have been lectured by experts on this, 

one need look no further than the impact and the reach of the 

Mexican criminal cartels which are the prototype of the 

transnational criminal organization to see the face of modern irregular warfare, insurgency, and terrorism. 

One of the more ominous things that has happened in the very 

recent past has been the combination of the Iranian influence and 

Mexican drug cartels. You saw that in the Saudi ambassador plot, 

which needs to be taken very seriously because in my view, and 

this is a subject of some more work I am doing, in my view that 

represents a policy decision by the Government of Iran to make an 

active alliance for purposes of striking inside the United States 

with the drug cartels. Now the Qods force has been in Venezuela 

for a decade, and the Qods force and the Iranian Republican 

Guards Corps and the cartels and the FARC and that whole crowd, 

have always been very deeply involved in the drug trade. 
6 

The fact now that the Qods force reached out to the Zetas to engineer or pay for a strike in the U.S. indicates policy change. We 

ought to be alert to that. There have been other indications we can 

talk about in testimony that they have already been striking inside 

the United States at a low level and has just not been detected yet, 

at least as far as I know in the unclassified sources. 

Finally, in the subject of resource allocation, we need to think 

carefully about how we do the whole-of-government approach. I 

personally am very impatient now with the overwording we are 

doing trying to describe what we see emerging as the new form of 

terrorism. When we use words like irregular warfare, counterinsurgency, asymmetric warfare, and all those other things, those words 

down the funding stream have meaning in the terms of stovepipes 

we put that go into the agencies that fight these people. And at the 

very bottom of the pipe with our young men and women out there 

in Central America, or Venezuela, or wherever they are, it is difficult for them to operate if their funding is so restricted they can 

only apply it in one direction. 

This is not a paid political announcement by any of those agencies, but I have seen it firsthand and it is a serious problem. As 

the sphere of warfare changes, the way we think about supporting 

our war against it has to change. And the most visible sign of that 

on the operational level are the stovepipes that we built around different definitions of a problem that is changing faster than we can 

redefine it. 

Sir, with that, I will conclude my remarks and wait for testimony. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Colonel Killebrew can be found in the 

Appendix on page 54.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Colonel Maxwell. 

STATEMENT OF COL DAVID MAXWELL, USA (RET.), ASSOCIATE 

DIRECTOR, SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM, GEORGETOWN 

UNIVERSITY 

Colonel MAXWELL. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member 

Langevin, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this distinguished panel. In my testimony, I would like to discuss three areas that have been the focus 

of my studies and my military experience, lessons from Operation 

Enduring Freedom-Philippines, the potential for irregular warfare 

following war or regime collapse in North Korea, and some recommendations for special operations forces operating in the future 

irregular environment. 

Let me begin with what I see as the future of conflict. I think 

we can put the nature of the threats that we will face into three 

categories: First there will be those existential threats to the 

United States or allies that will be characterized by state-on-state 

military conflict, conquest of territory, and the potential for largescale death and destruction among the participants, military and 

civilian. 

The second type of conflict will be those that threaten the status 

quo and regional stability of friends, partners, and allies, with lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, and terrorism. However, the third 
7 

category of threat is one that combines the potential for high-end 

conventional conflict that can only be conducted by states, or 

among states, along with a non-conventional conflict to include the 

potential for insurgency and terrorism as well as humanitarian crises. There is currently at least one threat to a U.S. ally that meets 

this description, and that is North Korea, and so I will touch on 

that briefly. 

Because of the nature of the Kim family regime in the 60-plus 

year indoctrination of its population into what Australian scholar 

Adrian Buzo termed ‘‘the guerilla mind-set of the guerilla dynasty.’’ 

Whether there is war or regime collapse, the potential for insurgency, terrorism, and instability in the north could make Iraq and 

Afghanistan pale in comparison. 

Now let me return to the second category of threats, which I 

think is really the main focus here. Those are the threats that 

threaten the status quo and regional stability of friends, partners, 

and allies, but may not require the commitment of large-scale regular U.S. military forces, but a select and tailored force to be able 

to assist as appropriate in support of U.S. interests. We have seen 

these types of conflict in Colombia, the Philippines, Trans-Sahel, 

Horn of Africa, and Yemen as examples. These are conflicts where 

SOF [Special Operations Forces] can and has played a significant 

role. 

I would like to touch on something here and mention that SOF 

really brings two distinct capabilities to support both theater and 

national strategies. Surgical strike and special warfare, and the 

term ‘‘special warfare’’ being the traditional term, historical term 

for special operations. 

Now summarize these two capabilities, surgical strike is the execution of activities in a precise manner that employs special operations in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive territory, or environments to seize, destroy, capture, exploit, recover, or damage designated targets or influence adversaries and threats. 

While special warfare is the execution of activities that involve 

a combination lethal, and non-lethal actions, taken by a specially 

trained and educated force that has a deep understanding of cultures and foreign language, proficiency in small unit tactics, and 

the ability to build and fight alongside indigenous combat formations in a permissive, uncertain, or hostile environment. 

And together these two really illustrate the missions that are in 

Title 10, section 167 in the law for special operations. But those are 

the two distinct categories that describe the spectrum of special operations. 

Now, the United States possesses the finest special operations organization for surgical strike in the world in its national level joint 

special operations force. However, there is no complimentary national joint level task force capability for special warfare. I would 

recommend investing in such a national level special warfare joint 

force that would possess the capabilities to support the requirements of Chiefs of Mission and geographic combatant commanders 

to be able to advise and assist host nations with discrete capabilities and a small footprint. 

Second, for those contingencies that require capabilities beyond 

SOF, we should consider the establishment of a hybrid corps head-
8 

quarters with both regular and SOF personnel to be able to prepare, train, and deploy enabling support or select combat capabilities when such situations require. 

Let me touch on Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines because it offers some lessons for consideration when dealing with 

the second category of threats. First and foremost, U.S. operations 

there were shaped by assessments. These assessments occur before 

the plan is developed and these assessments are continually updated through the duration of the operation. Assessments conducted by special operations personnel are critical to providing information that can cause adjustment to the campaign plan as well 

as support balance and coherency among the ends, ways, and 

means of strategy. 

Now while SOF provided training, advice and assistance in the 

Philippines, they did not try to create a military in the U.S. image. 

Advice was tailored on understanding the Philippine military as 

well as culture. However, they did integrate some high-tech capabilities into Philippine operations, particularly intelligence capabilities. 

Finally, U.S. SOF was in a supporting role, never taking the 

lead, always protecting the legitimacy of Philippine sovereignty. 

This is a critical element in preventing the perception of the U.S. 

as an occupying power. I have attempted to look at the future of 

irregular warfare and, of course, only touched on it. The key to the 

future is having a force that is trained for certainty and educated 

for uncertainty. 

The three potential categories of threats should shape the force 

as well as the strategy. A new SOF organization as well as a hybrid corps construct should be considered for dealing with the second category of threats to provide assistance to friends, partners, 

and allies when they are threatened with lawlessness, subversion, 

insurgency, and terrorism. An overlooked threat is North Korea. It 

has the potential to be an extremely dangerous and complex threat 

and this requires that the ROK [Republic of Korea]-U.S. alliance 

prepare for that threat now. 

There are many lessons to be learned for ongoing operations that 

will have application in the future operating environment. I 

touched on the Philippines, but as I said, Colombia, Trans-Sahel, 

Horn of Africa, Yemen, all provide lessons that should be studied. 

The uncertain future demands an agile force that can fight and win 

the nation’s wars and yet operate in other environments that may 

it not require a large footprint and massive combat power. 

Finally, a successful support to U.S. national security objectives 

in the future will be characterized by efficient, effective, joint military and interagency operations, executing strategy with balance 

and coherency amongst ends ways and means. And I will close with 

that, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Colonel Maxwell can be found in the 

Appendix on page 63.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you all for your summary and for your 

excellent written testimony. We can’t quite match you all Colonel 

for Colonel, but we will give it our best shot. I will yield my first 

5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida. 
9 

Mr. WEST. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are two of 

them and only one of me. As I listen to the testimony here, it reminds me of the quote from George Santayana who said those who 

fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We have Somali 

pirates, well, guess what, we used to have to contend with the Barbary pirates. You go back and you look at the old United States 

Marine Corps small wars manual, you think about what General 

Blackjack Pershing had to contend with in the Philippines. So I 

don’t think there is anything new under the sun here. 

So the first question I have is at the strategic level, do you think 

that the United States of America really understands the nature of 

this 21st century battlefield that we are discussing right now? Are 

we failing at the strategic level, because having been at the tactical 

level, and being in Vietnam, you know we always won at the tactical level, but it was at the strategic level where we have problems. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I will answer because I am oldest. He said 

Vietnam so I get to come in. I think the commands in the field understand it. U.S. SOUTHCOM [Southern Command], for example, 

is reconfiguring itself to handle the TCO [Transnational Criminal 

Organization] threat, the transnational crime threat. I think that 

the operators, certainly in the field know it. The man who would 

be sitting here who could give you the best testimony is the DEA 

[Drug Enforcement Agency] agent in Colombia who lives with this 

every day, who has the grand title of the Agent in Charge of the 

Andean Ridge. He is up to his neck. 

I am not sure in this town and in the deeper understandings of 

strategy we understand it. What is happening in Mexico a new 

kind of insurgency. As you know, the Secretary of State and Assistant Secretary of the Army got their hands slapped when they said 

that, and for political reasons I understand why. But the fact is 

that the insurgency that I studied for Vietnam is changing because 

it is blending with crime, and the information age is giving it capabilities it never had before. We might slightly disagree that we 

have seen this before. I am not sure that the U.S. Army at least 

ever had to deal with a hybrid crime-insurgency threat. That cuts 

across agencies to such a degree, I don’t think we have quite taken 

that on yet. 

Dr. JONES. A couple of comments, this is a $64,000 question, I 

think. I would say the picture is very mixed along these lines. If 

we look, for example, at the history of Afghanistan, it is in the 

news today because of some of the public opinion polls, I would say 

we spent 2002 to 2009, that is a period of 7 years with a bad strategy, a strategy that was focused primarily on building a central 

government in Afghanistan, neglecting to understand the tribal, 

sub-tribe clan, informal nature of the country. So I think strategically, we have made mistakes. We made mistakes in Iraq, in my 

view, for several years; we corrected them. In the Iraq case beginning around 2006, Afghanistan, we made some course corrections 

beginning 2009 and on to today. But I do think it does demonstrate 

that we—that our ability to understand and craft strategic decisions and policies has been mixed. 

I would also say I don’t believe we have a strategic document on 

this subject. We have a field manual for counterinsurgency, we can 
10 

argue about how good or bad it is, but we don’t have one on various 

other aspects of this broader problem set. So I don’t—I could not 

point to a strategic document which outlines this, even from the 

Department of Defense’s perspective. That seems to me insufficient. 

Colonel MAXWELL. Yes, sir. I think your question is spot on. 

Strategy is hard, and I think that is the hardest thing. I think, you 

know, and, of course, Sun Tzu said strategy can, of course, take 

care of bad tactics, but tactics without strategy is the noise before 

defeat. And I think that is where we really have to focus. And as 

Dr. Jones said, we have done well correcting ourselves. Strategy is 

not a silver bullet, there is not a Holy Grail, there is not going to 

be a single strategy that will work everywhere. It takes understanding, as Colonel Killebrew, I think, laid out some very—very 

important ideas about some of the threats that we will face. We 

have got to understand those, but then developing a strategy at the 

national level is hard. But I don’t think we are ever going to see 

again an NSC [National Security Council]-68, a containment, a single strategic document as Dr. Jones alludes to, that is going give 

us that answer. It has to be continually worked. And we haven’t 

done it well at first, but we usually—and we have done well over 

time learning the lessons and adapting, but I think that is what 

we really need to focus on is strategy. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I wonder if I could make one interjection? 

Mr. WEST. Sure. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. The most fundamental error we have made 

in the three insurgencies that my career has covered is that we go 

in thinking that we are going to be the counterinsurgency force. 

Dave Maxwell will drill me on this over and over that we are not 

the primary counterinsurgency force. The primary counterinsurgency force is the host country. We always go in with conventional 

forces, we always fight Whack-a-Mole for a few years until public 

patience is exhausted, and then we are driven to the right strategy, 

because resources start becoming scarce. So if I could make one 

comment about strategy, it is that we start from a strategically bad 

place with our understanding about the problem we are facing. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you gentlemen, thank you, Mr. Chairman, I 

yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Great question, great way to start. Mr. 

Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you again to 

the panel for your testimony. Let me start off with a broad question, in terms of irregular warfare capabilities, which will become 

more salient to meet future challenges? And are these capabilities, 

particularly cybersecurity properly resourced, both fiscally and in 

terms of manpower and training? Let’s start with the panel and go 

right down. 

Dr. JONES. Sir, if I understand your question, you were focused 

specifically on cyber capabilities? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. No, I want to know what irregular warfare capabilities will become more salient to meet future challenges, what 

will we need to be focused on in terms of the enhanced capabilities 

and get particularly proficient at? I think that goes to the Colonel’s 
11 

question in his last comment about getting really good at using our 

resources properly. 

Dr. JONES. Sir, my own personal view based at least partly on 

experience up through 2011 in the field is that we face enemies, 

whether they are states or nonstate actors that are adaptive, that 

have the ability to use and leverage a range of communications, 

technological abilities to push out propaganda, to recruit, to use for 

financing, and that means when it comes to capabilities, developing 

a range of capabilities that allow us to move quickly. From the organizational structure, there is a broad discussion about giving 

U.S. Special Operations Command more command over theater 

special operations forces. 

I think organizationally, we have some constraints on moving 

quickly across different theaters. I think also on capabilities, we do 

need to invest more on the technological side in also being able to 

push out information in ways on the strategic communications side 

that takes advantage of the proliferation of the social media. And 

when one looks at what the Taliban are doing, for example, in Afghanistan they have began to take advantage and disseminate 

propaganda from mobile phones. It is becoming increasingly effective. 

We have got to be able to respond to these activities through our 

own capabilities, disseminating through SMS networks, Twitter 

sites, Facebook, pushback against individuals, he is now dead, like 

Anwar al-Awlaki. Part of the capability is, in my view, where we 

tend to be lacking is not just on our technological side, but is also 

in how we are—who is the lead agency for this? I am not even sure 

we could identify a lead agency along these lines. I would identify 

a range of capabilities. 

Let me just come back to—the point, I think, is that the speed 

with which irregular warfare is having, the territory in which it is 

being involved in, and the ability to reach out to multiple diaspora 

populations, states and nonstate actors, charities, is incredible, and 

requires an ability to be able to move fast. So we could get specific 

on capabilities, but I think we have got to be able to respond quickly because I do think, take the incidents in Afghanistan over the 

last several weeks, we were slow in responding in several of those 

cases. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. Colonel. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Sir, I associate with everything my colleague 

just said. I would just like to expand it a little bit. From the point 

of view of this old infantryman, we are in the middle right now of 

a shift in political affairs in the world that is, perhaps, best understood with the speed of the telecommunications revolution, but also 

in migration patterns and the crime that I have already addressed 

and weapons proliferation, things are happening out there that 

don’t fit the old traditional bounds. 

I apologize in my testimony for using the term Westphalian. But 

the fact is, the old boundaries, like national border matter, don’t 

matter anymore to our opponents. So with that, I would just say 

cyber is certainly a capability we have got to get better at. It is an 

essential part of fighting in the new environment that is developing. I would say Treasury has got to get much, much better at 

cutting out funding streams. If, as I believe, crime is becoming a 
12 

major component of insurgency and counterinsurgency, the easiest 

way, and probably the only way to hurt those people decisively is 

to go after their funding streams. But that capability inside the 

U.S. Government is not as robust as it should be. 

Justice has a major role to play in the future world as it is unwilling. One of the most effective things we ever did in Colombia 

was to turn the DEA loose with its Trusted Officer Program to reform the Colombian police, which has made a huge effort in that 

country, which they are now trying to propagate the rest of Central 

America. 

State Department, everybody always makes a plug for the State 

Department, I do, too. If I understand my sources correctly, they 

cannot hire FSOs [Foreign Service Officers] now, even at the replacement rate, but State particularly with this new crop of State 

Department people coming along who had been bloodied in Afghanistan and Iraq are now going to start moving into senior positions. 

And the State Department, there is a chance now to change the 

State Department and make it much, much more proactive. So 

those agencies have got to happen. 

Within DOD [Department of Defense], the agency I don’t know 

the most about, we have got to get, and this will take the cooperation of the Congress, much, much better at quickly recognizing 

states that are threatened, forming competent advisory efforts, 

whether they are from special forces or whatever they come from, 

getting FMS [Foreign Military Sales] reformed, and getting that 

stuff to the people who are going fight our wars for us in the future. 

Colonel MAXWELL. Sir, I would focus on capabilities and say that 

rather than material and technology, irregular warfare capabilities 

rest in people. And I think that that is where we really have to invest, especially in this time of fiscal constraint. It is our people that 

have to be able to solve complex, political-military problems. And 

I think we have seen many soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast 

guardsmen, DEA, our State Department partners around the world 

doing many great things to solve complex political-military problems. That is something that we can’t afford to lose. 

As Dr. Jones said, 1975 we were saying never again, counterinsurgency and the like, and we lost a lot of our doctrine. But I 

would focus our capabilities on developing our people and taking 

advantage of the hard-won experiences that our military personnel 

and Government agency personnel have learned over the last 10 

years. 

In terms of cyber, let me just—we have to continue to train as 

we have to maintain our combat capabilities from shoot, move, and 

communicate to complex operations and irregular warfare. I think 

our focus has to be also on equipment that is dual-use. That is— 

we are not going have the luxury to specialize in major combat operations and irregular warfare. So we have to search for equipment 

that will be able to operate in multiple environments, and I think 

we are on that path. 

Cyber, that is something that is really tough for me. I agree 

wholeheartedly that it is a vulnerability, a strength and vulnerability, a strength that has to be protected. I am reminded of an 

anecdote that I recall from back in the 1990s, hearing a lecture 
13 

from the NSA [National Security Agency], a senior official, who 

said that it was very difficult to recruit people to defend our networks. Everybody wanted to be a hacker, everybody wanted to be 

able to penetrate other networks, but nobody wanted to defend, defend our network because it just wasn’t a very glamorous job. And 

of course, that—it is just like terrorism, you can be successful defending a thousand times, but one penetration of the network and 

you have failed. Whereas the hacker can fail a thousand times and 

one penetration, he is a success. And so I always recall that, is that 

defense of our network is very, very hard, but we have got to put 

a lot of emphasis in that. It is not an area that I am very familiar 

with except I depend on it, I think we all depend on it, and we are 

going to depend it more in the future. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. So true, thank you gentlemen. I have more questions but maybe the second round. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I 

yield back. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thanks for 

being here. Dr. Jones, I appreciate that phrase, he’s now dead, I 

would like to see that used more often. Bad CPA [Certified Public 

Accountant] humor. 

A couple anecdotes, and then to the broader question. First started going to Afghanistan 2005, and it was startling to see how siloed 

the fight was between going after Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the 

drug war; DEA had a lane, FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] 

had a lane, and the Department of Defense had a lane. And they 

didn’t cross each other and they didn’t go after each other. And 

that has gotten fixed over the past 7 years. 

I was also in Jalalabad one afternoon on a Sunday afternoon 

with a Provincial Reconstruction Team and we were basically having a Chamber of Commerce meeting. This was an effort to try to 

figure out how to take advantage of the agricultural system there 

in that province. Value added, do some canning or processing and 

then ship it to Kuwait and all those kinds of things, and have electricity. A flat-out Chamber of Commerce deal. And the guys running this deal was a team from the 101st Airborne who the day before, had been in an 8-hour run-and-gun fight with a bunch of bad 

guys. And so they took those hats off, and Sunday afternoon, just 

sitting there trying to figure out how we solve the economic issues. 

And they don’t come here for a second knowing how to do that, but 

they were full-out trying to make it happen. 

And you look at—Colonel Maxwell, you may have alluded to this 

a little bit—irregular warfare, we don’t just take a military team 

to go do that and fix all of that. Struggles with folks at the State 

Department who won’t deploy, or we can’t deploy them because 

they don’t volunteer in the same way that our folks in uniform deploy. So how do we put together the capabilities under some umbrella that allows us to go at it at the right time as opposed to a 

stair-step approach where we go in there and get security squared 

away, and then that bright line is done, and then you step in with 

the State Department capabilities to help build governances, those 

kinds of things. 

It is not linear like that, or should it be, so how do we put together—and none of you really talked about, what kind of blended 
14 

agency needs to be there so that you have one person making the 

decision who has the authority across that spectrum to deploy people, deploy assets and that kind of stuff. And can you do that or 

is there value in doing that? 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I will start, sir. There is a wonderful story 

from World War I about an old British NCO [Non-Commissioned 

Officer] on the day the guns stopped firing. He looked out over no 

man’s land and he said, ‘‘Thank God all this is over and we can 

go back to real soldiering again.’’ 

When you leave agencies alone in peacetime, they revert to doing 

what agencies do in peacetime. That guy from the 101st—I am a 

proud 101st guy—that guy from the 101st, you know, was trained 

to fight wars, and he probably enjoyed the firefight the day before 

more than he did the Chamber of Commerce meeting, but he was 

doing the best he could, you know, doing the best he could. Probably not the right thing to do with a soldier. The fact is that military forces of any country are probably the wrong outfit to use 

when you are trying to have Chambers of Commerce meetings, or 

get the economy going, and that kind of thing. I had a friend on 

a PRT [Provincial Reconstruction Team] say, you know, every time 

we do something over there, my PRT does something, the people 

in the village are saying how come the government’s not doing 

this? And we are stealing the air from the government rep who 

should be doing it. 

We have learned an enormous amount the hard way over the 

past 10 years in both Iraq and Afghanistan. At the operational 

level, we have learned to do a multi-department organization. If 

you want to see an organization that goes well, go to JIATF [Joint 

Interagency Task Force]-South, guy from SOUTHCOM down in 

Key West, where you will see representatives from the entire U.S. 

Government working together on a common problem. Your question is, how do we preserve that? And my answer is, first, we take 

advantage of the new blood that has come in in the past 10 years 

that understands that. 

We develop interdepartmental schools; we develop interdepartmental exercises; we go for the JIATF kind of organization wherever we can find it. And there are more of those around than we 

realize, where commanders have thrown together branches of government. We recognize them and resource them. And we make the 

path to success in the various agencies depend on their willingness 

and capability to work with other agencies. 

Now, that is easy to say because I am a military guy. Military 

people understand how to do that. State Department, if they put 

together a joint exercise, has to pull somebody out of a critical slot 

and put them in the joint exercise. And that seat goes unfilled because they don’t have the staffing slack to send somebody to school, 

or to do a joint exercise. So there are methods that approach what 

you correctly pointed out is something we have to do. They have 

long tendrils that hang down underneath that we have to address. 

But I think the overall response is yes, we have to do it; two, we 

have a force in the field and all the agencies that understand that; 

and three, the question will become when this is—if it ever is over, 

as we draw down in Afghanistan, how we keep people from going 

back to real soldiering again. 
15 

Dr. JONES. I will be brief because I see we are over time. I want 

to give a very quick example to your question. The week before 

last, I was down in Florida with Special Operations, U.S. Agency 

for International Development, and State Department, and conventional forces leaving for Afghanistan. So I spent a chunk of time 

talking to people who were headed over there and some that had 

come back temporarily for this meeting. There were about 500 total 

people there. And one very serious issue along these lines—well, 

there were several that came up; I will just highlight one—and 

that is with all the effort the United States has spent, in this particular case in trying to get out to the villages, which, in my view, 

is a critical part now of where we are at, it requires an ability to 

understand the governance component, that is, helping villagers 

and locals improve their formal and informal governance, the development component so that we can improve the economic wellbeing of locals, and the security. That requires multiple agencies. 

The problem we have on the ground is not an unwillingness of 

civilians to go into these areas. There are plenty that are willing. 

It is not a capability. We have plenty that are capable. Part of this 

is security offices don’t let them go, even with trained Special Operations Forces who are living in and around these villages. This is 

the practical problem we face on bringing them together where it 

matters most. It is not at the higher levels, per se, that we are running into the problems. It is at the security—well, I mean it is in 

some sense. But it is, we restrict ourselves for security practices. 

And it has very serious complications. I just highlight that as one 

of several areas that has impeded our ability to do exactly what 

you are talking about. 

Colonel MAXWELL. Sir, I think as you correctly pointed out, our 

people on the ground, if left alone, will figure it out. And across the 

military, State, all of our organizations, they sort it out on the 

ground. To go back to Congressman West’s question on strategy, 

we really need to have a process that integrates at the national 

level. In my written statement, I talked about an example that I 

experienced back in the 1990s, Presidential Decision Directive-56 

in May of 1997, which was for the management of complex contingency operations, based on a lot of lessons learned from Bosnia, 

Kosovo—or prior to Kosovo, but Somalia, Haiti, and the like. But 

what that provided here inside the Beltway was a structure for the 

interagency to come together and to assess the mission, assess the 

problems, understand the problems, and develop strategies to be 

able to solve those problems. And I think if we develop, at the national level, a process—and I know we have our national security 

processes in the executive at the National Security Council and the 

like, but if we could develop a disciplined process along the line of 

the former PDD–56 [Presidential Decision Directive-56], we might 

be able to solve some of the problems that Dr. Jones is alluding to. 

As an example, the agencies from here could give the strategic 

guidance to make sure that we don’t have those restrictions for security and the like. So I think on the ground, we eventually sort 

it out. But we have got to have a process at the strategic level here 

that will help us focus on these complex operations and to really 

orchestrate all the instruments of national power and these agen-
16 

cies to be able to properly resource with proper authorities and the 

guidance for their organizations. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would really like 

to follow up with this discussion. Thank you all very much for 

being here. Because I think we have talked about whole of government, I understand it can be trite, and I agree with you on that. 

But there are just a few things. And maybe I am going to take you 

out of your lane for a second, but something that strikes me. I 

mean, one of the things that we know is that we have been a military at war and not a nation at war. Would you agree with that 

statement? 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Sure. 

Mrs. DAVIS. How does that affect what we do? You mentioned, 

Colonel, that above all, we should be a unified and committed nation. Where does that fit in? 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Well, Madam, you are running a grave risk. 

I have a whole sermon I give on this. But I will try to restrain myself. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. The social changes and the political changes 

are happening in the world right now, in my view, and I am not 

a Ph.D. social scientist, but having studied it, I believe are undermining in many cases the concept of nationhood. One country, as 

I said in my testimony, that is going back at that is Colombia. And 

you have to look at them, get away from the help we have given 

them, and look at how they are deliberately trying to foster the 

concept under law of Colombian nationhood to understand the really depth of what they are doing. 

In this country, we have always taken that for granted. And I 

still take it for granted. We developed a volunteer armed force in 

which—and by the way, I came in during the draft. So I have seen 

both. I don’t believe a draft would ever be practical again in this 

country. I think we have a volunteer armed force. I have to tell 

you, I am very impatient with the fact that no national leader has 

ever said, since the volunteer force came in, that it would be a good 

thing for someone’s son and daughter to join the Armed Forces. 

Never. Not even after 9/11. 

The concept of nationhood that we have to engender are the 

things that matter to us under the Constitution. And I don’t believe 

it is furthered by the kind of red-blue split we see right now in the 

country. I think as you look 10 to 20 years in the future, with the 

impact of the technology and the social change going on in the rest 

of the world, I think this runs the risk of undermining our common 

concept of what we are as a nation. And I think that is something 

we have to take on. National leadership, persons as yourself, people 

like me who write, we have to come to understand there is some 

core idea about what being an American means, that may include 

serving in the Armed Forces or paying your country back through 

some kind of service, but larger than that, being willing to accept 

the concept that a lot of people make up this country, and everybody is an American. That is a kind of grand strategic view, but 

it has occupied my thought for quite a while now. 
17 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Did you want to comment on that, too? 

Dr. JONES. I do. Very briefly, I think your question are we a nation at war? If you look at the last decade, decade and a half, we 

have been at times. We were a nation at war after September 11th, 

because there was a threat that brought us together as a nation 

that there was a mutual feeling that we had to defend the borders. 

I think there was—we were a nation at war in May of last year 

during and after the bin Laden raid. 

I think the challenge we find ourselves in along these lines is in 

many of the areas where we face irregular warfare challenges, we 

are talking about countries like Syria now, countries like Libya, 

where we have, and this is just a subset of them, large Muslim 

populations. I think we have found that adding and deploying large 

numbers of conventional forces to these kinds of theaters is not 

only, in some cases, counterproductive, but certainly doesn’t provide a lot of domestic support. 

We see that on the Afghan front today. I do think one of the 

things that this suggests, as we move forward, is, and this goes 

back to comments that both of the panelists have made, is does it 

make sense on the irregular warfare threat to think of this really 

as focusing predominantly on the indirect side? Smaller numbers, 

competent U.S. Special Operations and intelligence forces dealing 

more systematically with these kinds of threats rather than deploying hundreds of—over 100,000 forces. Because I don’t think, unless 

we are attacked, like we were on 9/11, we will be a nation at war 

from a domestic standpoint the way we were on 9/11. I think those 

kinds of incidents are extremely rare, but the threat is real. 

Colonel MAXWELL. Madam, I think, really, to echo both my colleagues’ comments, we have to look at the nature of the conflict 

that we are engaged in. And I think Dr. Jones is right, after 9/11, 

we were a nation at war, and we have been at times. But we also 

have to ask ourselves should we be a nation at war? And I think 

as I look at the categories that I have laid out, the first category, 

existential threat to U.S. or our allies, we have to be a nation at 

war if we are faced with that. 

I think at the second category, those threats to regional stability 

and status quo, our friends, partners, and allies, subversion, terrorism, insurgency, lawlessness and the like, that may not cause us 

to be a nation at war. And as Dr. Jones says, it might require a 

smaller footprint, a discrete force that may not require the Nation 

to be focused. The third, a more hybrid threat, I think, would require us to be a nation at war, because the scale and scope of that 

complex threat, we would need to be a nation at war. So I think 

it is really a question of the type of threats that we face, and then 

the strategies that we employ to deal with those threats. But I 

think—the other aspect I think you are getting at is—and I think 

we all know this—our Nation supports our military. You know, 

there is support for it. But the question is, you know, as always, 

who serves? And there are a lot of people that are serving, and 

have continued to serve, and they feel that burden on their shoulders, and they are tired. 

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

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. Mr. Franks. 
18 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank all of you. 

We certainly appreciate all that you do for our families and for future generations. You are kind of the unappreciated front line of 

freedom, but we appreciate you. Colonel Maxwell, if it is all right, 

I will start with you. How does manmade electromagnetic pulse or 

EMP [electromagnetic pulse] factor into your assessment of, you 

know, on the one end of the spectrum, possibly existential threats 

to our country, or on the other end, you know, just potentially very 

significant threats that an enemy waging irregular warfare might 

use against the United States? And what must the DOD do before 

we are prepared to react to such a threat and mitigate its effects? 

Colonel MAXWELL. Sir, that is a very complex question. EMP, I 

think, is, from my limited understanding, is very dangerous to us. 

I think many of our systems are vulnerable to that type of threat. 

And as we have already talked about the importance of cyber, I 

think our cyber systems, you know, while some of our individual 

systems may be hardened, you know, the entire network may not. 

So I think we could be vulnerable to that. 

You know, I think that if someone was to be able to detonate a 

device that would have EMP here in the United States or somewhere where we are operating, it could probably have devastating 

effects, even if not directly on our military systems, because I think 

we are very—you know, we are so interconnected, and the entire 

global network is not hardened. And so I think there are areas that 

are vulnerable. And we probably would be severely affected by an 

EMP strike in any kind of operation. I don’t know how to defend 

against it other than to be able to harden our systems. But again, 

the nature of the global information grid is something that, you 

know, that I don’t think can be totally protected. 

Therefore, we, Department of Defense, U.S. Government, we will 

have to learn to work through if we lose access to the global information system. And that is something that I think, you know, 

frankly we have become so dependent on it, may be a real challenge for us. And I think that is a strategic vulnerability that we 

do have to consider. 

Mr. FRANKS. I hadn’t planned to, but I might expand on that a 

little bit. You know, we hardened our nuclear triad to the tune of 

tens of billions of dollars. And most nuclear scenarios are at least 

precipitated by an EMP laydown. And if this isn’t the threat that 

some of the reports that we have seen in the last half-dozen years 

say it is, then we are spending an awful lot of money we don’t need 

to spend. And my thought is, you know, everything I can see is 

that it is a very significant threat. It potentially is one of the most 

significant short-term threats that we face. And if that is the case, 

I am just wondering—and I am just, you know, this is most respectful, but I am just wondering why DOD doesn’t seem to be as 

obsessed with it as some of us are, especially in terms of our grid 

vulnerability since, you know, DOD relies on the civilian grid for 

about 99 percent of its electricity. Maybe if anybody wants to take 

a shot at that question. 

Dr. JONES. Sir, I am not an expert on EMP—— 

Mr. FRANKS. Nobody is, it seems like. 

Dr. JONES. Right. What I will say, though, I would say most of 

the threats we face, both here and overseas, have tended to be ei-
19 

ther conventional, and what I mean by that is transportation-type 

targets, such as the Al Qaeda-type and Hezbollah-type threats. 

Iran’s proxy efforts have been fairly simple, straightforward types 

of attacks, not these sophisticated. There have been efforts we have 

seen for nonstate actors and state actors to look at chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. 

I have not seen, and even when I served in the Government, a 

lot of evidence that there was EMP being prepared directed at the 

U.S. homeland. 

So again, I may not be the best expert along these lines, but I 

think one would have to systematically analyze the kinds of threats 

and attacks we would like to see and we are seeing both state and 

nonstate actors prepare for, and then put EMP in that context. 

Mr. FRANKS. Let me ask the Colonel here to expand on that. But 

I will just say this much to you, Iran thinks that it is a viable option, because they have certainly done some things that I think are 

fairly discomforting. And I hope that is on your radar. And Colonel, 

go ahead, please. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Sir, I just add that the Chinese military doctrine has talked for years about the use of EMP. And they have capabilities we couldn’t discuss here. I am not aware of an Iranian 

capability, but they borrow an awful lot of their doctrine from the 

Chinese. 

Mr. FRANKS. This is the plan, not a capability. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. So it should never be discounted. EMP can 

be both, as you know, a strategic and a tactical problem. If it is 

a tactical—let’s hypothetically say if someone used it on our fleets 

in the Pacific, it would probably be a tactical radius kind of thing. 

And most, in fact, all the systems aboard ship I know are hardened 

against EMP, against a certain degree of EMP. A strategic EMP 

on the United States would have to be accompanied by other kinds 

of attacks, as in the Cold War, when it was going to be part of the 

nuclear exchange. 

The military systems would probably be okay. I mean, things 

would fail, but guys would fix that. The systems that would go 

down would be the civilian systems. And as far as I know, and I 

don’t—I know a little, but not a lot—as far as I know, civilian 

power grids have a very low tolerance against the kind of EMP-directed weapon you are talking about. 

Mr. FRANKS. That is an understatement, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your testimony, Mr. Chairman, for the hearing. A lot of Americans say they 

remember, obviously, September 11th, 2001. I remember September 12th, 2001. I woke up, after barely sleeping at all the night 

before, and wondered how, as someone who had spent 10 years in 

the Armed Services Committee, I had not done enough to think 

about the kind of attack that was successful against our country 

that day. I had sat through hundreds of hearings and briefings, 

and read reams of material. And if you would have said to me on 

September 10th that 19 people with box cutters and airline tickets 

are going to be able to kill 3,000 Americans, I would have been 

very dubious about that prospect. 
20 

And I think that the sin that I committed prior to September 

11th was the sin of hubris. I thought that we were so powerful and 

so mighty and so good at what we did, and we were all those 

things, that we really were invulnerable to that sort of thing. Help 

correct my hubris at this time. What should I be worrying about, 

within the bounds of a public discussion of this, obviously? What 

should we be worrying about that we are not? You know, we have 

these discussions, we are all looking at cyber, and that is very, very 

important. We certainly look at chemical and biological warfare 

and nuclear IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices], and we worry 

about all those things. What would you suggest as an area where 

we are vulnerable that you think people in our position are not 

paying enough attention to? 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I get pushed out on the ice floe again. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Again, within the bounds of this public venue. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Mr. Andrews, I will tell you, sir, that a lot 

of us were sleepless on that night. And in my career in public service and studying defense issues, I made two great mistakes: We 

failed to see the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ramifications, 

we failed to see the terrorism threat. I was on the Hart-Rudman 

Commission about global threats. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yeah. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. And no matter what the retrospective view 

is, I will tell you we had it figured out. It was China and a resurgent Russia. Terrorism didn’t even hardly come up on the scope, 

despite the people who came in and tried to convince us it was serious. So what is the next big thing? That has been my preoccupation since then. And the best advice I could offer is, we in the defense business, and you in the national leadership business, have 

got to learn to see the world the way it really is, and not through 

the prism that we want to see it through. That led me to the crime 

studies. Because the world outside Washington has changed dramatically and is changing dramatically. We can’t predict the future. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Right. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. But what we can do is see things as they 

are, and not the way we want to see them, and then try to build 

defenses against that. And that is the best I can do, sir. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Gentlemen? 

Dr. JONES. Sir, I think there are several issues. I will highlight 

two of them. One of them, and I keep hearing it, this mantra over 

the last several months with the death of Osama bin Laden, that 

the global jihadist movement is on the verge of strategic defeat. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I wish that were true. 

Dr. JONES. I think that represents extraordinary hubris. I think 

as we look around, what we thought was a benign effort that resulted from the Arab Spring in encouraging democratization across 

the Arab world, has, in many countries, contributed to instability, 

the collapse of regimes. And as I look across North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, I see weakening regimes in some places and 

a strong push of this movement back in. I think that is one area 

where we would be very—we would be gravely mistaken to be 

hubristic about. The other thing is hubris that everybody likes us. 

I think our strategic—— 
21 

Mr. ANDREWS. We in Congress know that is not true. Oh, you 

mean the country. I see. Okay. 

Dr. JONES. I think our strategic communications on irregular 

warfare has been, how shall I put it, deeply lacking. And our ability to project our image overseas, or images that we would like, 

have been deeply troubling. And I think we fool ourselves into arguing that we have a competent strategy across agencies and that 

we are able to effectively do that overseas. 

So those two areas, that the global jihadist movement is dead, 

and that our ability to proliferate our image overseas and that we 

are pretty good at it I think would be our—I think would be— 

would be deeply—we would be deeply mistaken. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Go ahead, Colonel. 

Colonel MAXWELL. Sir, I don’t have a direct answer. I wish I 

could answer your question directly. I apologize for the cliche, but 

you know, the failure of 9/11 was the failure of imagination. And 

I am reminded of the anecdote, you know, 1995 when the terrorists 

were policed up in Manila in the Philippines and Operation 

Bojinka was compromised. And you know, the focus was on assassination of the President, the Pope, hijacking airlines, blowing 

them up in the sky. But within that computer that was seized was 

also a plan to fly airplanes into buildings. 

And the information was there. It wasn’t a developed plan, but 

it was there. And none of us recognized that as a possibility. I mention that because that was 1995, and 6 years later that happened. 

And I think one of the things that we have to ensure that we don’t 

have a failure of imagination, is we also understand our adversaries and their timelines are much different than ours. I agree 

with everything that Colonel Killebrew and Dr. Jones have said. 

And in fact, I agree that the global jihad is not on its last legs. And 

I think that what is happening now, what they are planning now 

may not manifest itself for some years down the road. 

And so we cannot have that failure of imagination in the future. 

And we have got to understand that our timelines are a lot different. We focus on threats now. They are developing threats for 

the future. And we have got to be prepared for that. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. I guess I kind of want to go back 

to the beginning for just a second. And I am kind of mentally working my way briefly around the world, starting in Mexico, of course, 

where you mentioned we have the huge portions of the country run 

by criminal drug gangs, and indications of foreign influence to work 

with or take advantage of that situation. We go across the water, 

for example, Mali, just had a coup. Weak government, but in a 

neighborhood where there may be a lot more weapons floating 

around right now, and you have got some separatists in part of the 

country that are trying to take advantage of the situation. 

You have got the mess that is Somalia; you have got Yemen, a 

situation that has deteriorated since the President has left, and 

you have got areas of the country that press reports indicate the 

Al Qaeda-affiliated groups are rather controlling. Of course, you 

have got Iraq, Afghanistan, go around Philippines and Indonesia, 

where you have had some kind of either terrorist, separatist-type 
22 

groups, which we have had great success at. But my point is as I 

am thinking around the world, very different situations. And as 

you all have alluded to, we cannot predict the future, but we have 

to be prepared for very different situations. And part of our challenge on this side of the table is, what can we do to see that either 

the programs, authorities, institutions of Government are prepared 

to deal with very different situations in a very uncertain future. 

And as you all talk, you know, each of you kind of has a little 

different expertise in a different region of the world in addition to 

your background and expertise, I think that is a big challenge for 

us. And I would just offer as a beginning for my questions suggestions that you all have for what we can do to try to help make sure 

that we are prepared for very different circumstances that are 

going to arise in the future in a variety of places around the world, 

and yet we have important interests there that are worth becoming 

involved in some degree. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I am not going first this time. 

Colonel MAXWELL. Yes, sir, that is the $64,000 question. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. We have already had one of those. Now we are 

up to $100,000. 

Colonel MAXWELL. $128,000, I guess, yes, sir. I would, as a private citizen now, no longer affiliated with the Department of Defense, but I do feel strongly, as I mentioned in my testimony, the 

number one investment that we have to make for the future is in 

people and education. I think we have got to make sure that we 

are educating all of our leaders to be able to understand the environment and to be able to see those threats as they emerge and 

be able to make the proper recommendations for campaign plans 

and strategies and the like. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I am sorry, Colonel, but let me just follow up. 

Are we doing that now? Do you think we are educating properly, 

for example, our military, to deal with this wide variety, from 

narco-criminal situations, to failed states, to all the rest? 

Colonel MAXWELL. I think that our military is, because of the nature of the last 10 years of war, we have not been able to focus as 

much on education, professional military education, as we should 

because of the nature of the conflicts. I don’t have the data. I would 

recommend asking the Army as an example. But I think there is 

quite a backlog for intermediate level education because those officers have been serving. 

And so I think that as we draw down from Afghanistan, you 

know, obviously withdrawing from Iraq, that I think now is the 

time to refocus professional military education to be able to do 

those things. I think that is where an investment, a long-term investment is needed, especially with a professional military force, 

all-volunteer force that is going to be a—that is a career force. We 

have got to invest in education. That would be my number one recommendation. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Okay. Yes, sir. 

Dr. JONES. I think there are a few things worth taking a hard 

look at. One is education not on the military force side, but the 

American population. I do not think there is an appreciation for the 

types of threats that face the American homeland in all the areas 

you outlined. In many areas, I do not think the Government writ 
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large has explained to the American population why we are there, 

what the threats we face are. And so in that sense, I do think there 

is also an additional element to the education on the American population. I think, and I will go back to this earlier, Congress has 

various ways of, through NDAA [National Defense Authorization 

Act] and other things, of conducting assessments. I do think there 

is a strong need to look at the interagency aspects of irregular warfare. I do not believe we are appropriately, strategically, operationally, and tactically prepared for—and flexible enough to respond to 

a range of these threats across the interagency. I do think there 

is a grave need to look very hard at what we have done, look at 

what the threats are in the future, and make a range of recommendations on how to improve what multiple U.S. agencies do. 

And that includes not just the civilian and fighting components per 

se, but that also includes the information realm. I mean, who controls that? Who is the lead agency for information on irregular warfare and that whole information operations campaign? 

And lastly, I would just say along these lines, I do think there 

is a very strong need, based on the kinds of discussions we have 

had already, to ensure that we have a very competent, well-trained 

Special Operations community. That a lot of what we have talked 

about, whether it is the drug trade, when it comes to military 

forces, my own personal view, we are talking about a much lighter 

footprint. This is not, with the exception of possibly of the Korean 

case and a small number of others, we are talking about small 

numbers of American soldiers on the military front. I mean that is 

really our SOF world. And that means that as we consider ways 

to cut our defense budget, I think I would be very cautious in the 

future about cutting too much of those budgets. Because I think 

this is the kind of future we face. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me ask just one drill down question. Do 

you agree with Colonel Maxwell that we need a JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command] equivalent on the special warfare side 

and within Special Operations Command? 

Dr. JONES. I think we need—I am not sure what that means. I 

do think we need an equivalent at least that would pull together 

our training end, the training and equipping end. JSOC has done 

a whole range of things well, and improved their ability to move 

quickly across the globe. I don’t think the Special Operations community has done this as well on the sort of Special Forces training 

and equipment side. Yeah, I think there is—I am not quite sure if 

that is where he is going, but I do think there is a strong rationale. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. A number of people have commented on the 

suggestion, so I was interested. Then Colonel Killebrew, you mentioned in your testimony this is about politics, and no two were 

ever the same, no two situations were ever the same. And that is 

part of where my question goes. We have got a lot of different situations. And it gets really back to how we prepare for no two situations being the same. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Mr. Chairman, in the services we have a 

term we use called ‘‘centralized authority but decentralized execution.’’ I think one of the things we have to shed ourselves of in the 

United States is the idea that we can micromanage the world. We 

can’t. We have tried that. It doesn’t work. 
24 

To preface my comments, sir, that will support this, remember 

my discussion about the curve. It starts in a police action, winds 

up in military affairs, and then if we are successful we help a country drive it down to a police action again. I think we have to start 

with a policy of the United States Government to support the survival of legitimate governments around the world, and to integrate 

U.S. capabilities to help those governments operate under their 

laws. That is the success story in Colombia that is working. 

It is the tendency of the human person anywhere they live to 

want to live in a settled, ordered society under the rule of law. 

That is the great thing we have in our kit bag that the jihadist 

forces and other forces around the world don’t have. That is what 

we have to export. Whether we do it with Special Forces or conventional forces trained to be advisers, it doesn’t matter. My point 

would be that the effort of the United States Government, however 

organized, should be to support governments around the world that 

are struggling against these kind of disruptive forces to reestablish 

the rule of law in their countries. 

I have reached a point in my studies where I say if we do that 

successfully, then if we deploy conventional military forces in any 

case other than a direct attack on us, it represents a failure of U.S. 

policy. We should be able to focus our efforts so successfully that 

we have a lot of Colombias out there who manage the problems in 

their own countries with our help. And by the way, the United 

States DEA and Defense Department works very, very comfortably 

with Colombia, who is settling their own problems, which are our 

problems as well. 

We don’t have to fight every war. We have to be able to support 

the people who want to bring justice and law to their countries. 

That in the beginning, when I was in Special Forces, and probably 

still is, was the ultimate objective of those kinds of operations anyway. And sir, that would recommend how your committee could do 

great work driving in that direction. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. And just on that for a second, do you think 

there are enough commonalities in how that is done, despite differences in culture and regions and the nature of the threat and 

that sort of thing? I mean, it has taken us—Colombia is a tremendous success, Philippines is another tremendous success, but it has 

taken us quite a while to get it down. And part of the question is, 

do we have a decade or whatever to figure out what is going on on 

the ground, to train our people up, and then to go implement it? 

I mean I think the world is moving faster than that. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Actually, I think we have the time. I think 

one of the great advantages we have now is in the last 10 years 

it has certainly sensitized the Armed Forces and the young officers 

and young NCOs and the other agencies of Government to this 

kind of a problem. I do think, though, that what we have to start 

with is going to those countries rather humbly and saying how do 

we help you? How do we not change your institutions but reinforce 

what you are doing? The case in Colombia, that is what we did. It 

took us a decade. We were down there longer than that, but the 

real change started in the year 2000. Armies around the world everywhere are kind of similar. I can talk to a soldier from any country and understand that. Police forces are very different. And we 
25 

go to another country’s police forces with a different kind of an understanding, different skills. The same is true of legislators. 

As you know, we have had very close ties between the Colombian 

legislative branch and ours. I think these things are not impossible. 

I think it is a thing that ties together everything we have talked 

about here today, and that we have to get started. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I agree, by the way. But it is just helpful to 

flesh out and think a little deeper about it. I have a number of 

other issues, but I may not be able to get to all of them, including 

the sorts of technology we need to invest in to help with these capabilities, for example greater emphasis on non-lethals has always 

been an interest for me. Dr. Jones has talked about information operations. How successful we have been on human terrain teams as 

we have tried to figure out the people, human landscape. And then 

contracting, and how—whether we have the flexibility within the 

current authorities to do that as we apply this in a variety of situations. I may pursue those in a different way, if I can. At this time 

I would yield to Mr. Langevin for other questions he has. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thanks to our 

panel. You know, if I could just revisit the discussion we had with 

respect to Islamist groups in particular, I know Iran and their connections with Latin American criminal organizations. I know we 

were focused on Iran, but is it my understanding that in the broader context other Islamic groups have these connections with the 

criminal groups? And if so, what is the extent of the collaboration 

between the groups? And are these relationships likely to mature 

in the future? 

Colonel KILLEBREW. Well, sir, the answer to the first question is 

I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody totally knows now. We 

know that the Saudi Arabian hit, or the Saudi Arabian attempt on 

the Saudi ambassador was probably approved at the highest levels 

of the Iranian Government. But what those contacts are in the region we don’t know. We know that the Qods Force, the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps], and the Mexican cartels, and the 

FARC are all deeply involved in the drug trade, and frequently collaborate. What goes on inside that collaboration I don’t think we 

know for sure. We certainly couldn’t discuss in an open forum if we 

did. Your second question was what can we do about it? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Are these relationships likely to mature? 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I think they will. That is my opinion. I think 

that it is in the nature of clandestine and covert operations to get 

better as time goes on. I think there have been a couple of incidents around the United States that indicate they are trying out 

relationships now. I think as time passes, both the Qods Force and 

the various cartels—that by the way will be doing this for money, 

not for ideology—will probably improve. And I think this feeling is 

shared by a member of the Los Angeles Police Department who is 

a real expert. I think there is a real danger we are going to start 

seeing car bombs in some parts of the country unless we are more 

successful in cutting it off. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. And that goes to the second part of that question, 

the types of irregular warfare challenges that this development 

poses will be exactly what types of things we are going to see. And 

you touched on clearly one of them. 
26 

Colonel KILLEBREW. That is correct. There was an incident in Arizona just very recently, I believe it was Arizona, where the Border 

Patrol was chasing a car, managed to stop it with caltrops, and as 

they approached the car, the guy blew himself up in the car. Those 

are the kinds of small incidents we are seeing now that in my view 

should be raising some concern in the Intelligence Community. If 

you ever go into closed session, that would be a good question to 

ask. 

Dr. JONES. Sir, on the Iranian front, including in Latin America, 

what we see, based on some research, is not just the Hezbollah activity in multiple countries, and the state to state with Iran’s relationship with Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and a range of other 

countries, but is a much more subtle effort to push and work 

through Shi’a communities across Latin America, including Mexico. 

I would expect that as Iran expands its power and tries to expand 

its power it will continue to reach out, frankly as the Soviets did 

during the Cold War, to proxy organizations, whether they are 

groups like Hezbollah. I have written also about Iranian-Al Qaeda 

connections in Foreign Affairs. But I would say what is discouraging is if one looks at some of the use by Mexican cartels of improvised explosive devices south of the border, including vehicle-borne 

improvised explosive devices, they have not gotten that expertise 

from the global jihadists, they have gotten it from buying off and 

getting training from former, in some cases, current Mexican security officials who have been trained in these things. But what we 

have also seen is a lot of the technology techniques, with the proliferation of social media, is capable of being pushed around on not 

just the Internet, but on social media. 

So Mexican cartels, for example, have downloaded this information. This is why I would strongly suspect that at some point—well, 

we have seen this. The Faisal Shahzad attack, attempted attack in 

Times Square was a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. He 

got that capability in the Pakistan area. The year before, 

Najibullah Zazi, they were suicide bombs based very much like the 

UK 2005 London attacks. The ability, with communications media 

today, to push lessons on IEDs is deeply concerning. So it is not 

just the Islamist groups, it is not just Sunni or Shi’a, and it is not 

just the connection with these groups, but it is also the ability to 

proliferate that information and to be able to download it and pull 

it from other sources is what has enabled even the cartels in Mexico to improve their tactics, techniques, and procedures. 

That is very concerning. And as we look at the special interest 

alien networks that are going into and out of the United States to 

Somalia and a range of other countries, you better believe that not 

only are there people leaving and coming into the United States 

with that expertise, but they are able to educate others. 

So I think you have put your finger on something that is deeply 

concerning. And as we look at the countries that this has proliferated on, there were no suicide attacks in Afghanistan before 

2001. No suicide attacks in Pakistan. No suicide attacks historically in Iraq. They have proliferated in a range of the countries we 

are talking about. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. Colonel, unless you had something 

else—— 
27 

Colonel MAXWELL. I would just add one, take a slightly different 

look. I also am concerned with what happens to our interests outside of the United States. I think the threats outlined are very important. But I think we should also just recall recently what Iran 

potentially did in Thailand, in India against Israelis. I think that 

it is not a stretch that that could happen against American targets 

overseas in other locations as well. We have got to protect the 

homeland, but we have a lot of Americans and interests around the 

world. And I think that it is not a stretch for them to eventually 

become targets in those other countries. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. True. Point well taken. Thank you, gentlemen. I 

yield back. 

Mr. FRANKS. [Presiding.] Dr. Jones, in your written statement 

you mentioned programs carried out by our Special Forces to empower the Afghans in matters of security, and economics, and government. However, Iran and Afghanistan, as you know, recently 

signed an agreement to increase economic ties between the two 

countries, which at least, in my mind, indicates that Iran is also 

seeking to influence the Afghan people in these matters and to 

marginalize U.S. interests ultimately. How well prepared are you 

to respond to these increasing Iranian elements of influence and 

ensure that whatever progress we have made in Afghanistan at 

such great cost in American lives and material is not wasted by 

what could turn out to be a precipitous withdrawal? Do you have 

any thoughts along those lines? 

Dr. JONES. Sir, I do. On the Iranian front in Afghanistan, I 

would, to put this in broader context, what I would argue is if there 

is a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan, the concern is not just 

Iran, but is multiple governments in the region, as we have seen 

historically in the 1990s, will likely back a range of its proxy organizations in the country. That means the Russians, the Indians, 

clearly the Pakistanis, the Chinese, and the Iranians. 

The Iranian threat tends to be primarily in the west and the 

Hazara regions in the center of the country, as well as in some 

parts of the south. I do think that if the U.S. were to precipitously 

withdraw from Afghanistan, there would, without question, be an 

Iranian effort to increase its influence, economic, security, political 

influence in Afghanistan without question. We have seen it on 

Iran’s other border in Iraq after the U.S. departure. That should 

be a lesson. 

But I would also say that it is not just Iran. We would also see 

a range of other countries, including Pakistan, pushing out its 

proxies through Pashtun groups. So your concern I would say in 

many ways is slightly broader. 

Mr. FRANKS. I think if my 3-year-old twins were analyzing the 

situation, they would essentially conclude that the Iranian leadership isn’t very nice. So I continue to be concerned about them obviously. 

Last question. And I hope that you will try not to succumb to the 

failure of imagination, and that you will try to see the world as it 

is, and not as you would like it to be. If you were to give this committee what you thought to be the most prevalent and the most 

dangerous irregular warfare tactic or challenge that we would face, 
28 

what would that be? And I will start with you, Dr. Jones, and see 

if everybody would give us just a brief response. 

Dr. JONES. I still think a low probability but a very dangerous 

development would be, and one that I don’t think we have completely got our hands on, would be the ability of a nonstate actor 

to smuggle in, it wouldn’t have to be a nuclear device, but a chemical or biological device into—or radiological—into the United 

States to target U.S. citizens. That is something I think that would 

have a very high impact, low probability. But the continuation 

among, say, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula of research on this 

component is deeply concerning. It is one thing to take an aircraft 

down, as Abdulmutallab tried in December of 2009. But with continuing research along these lines from some of the affiliates, this 

is a very concerning development. And if one were to add in Iran 

with nuclear weapons and increasing friction with the United 

States and others, you know, there are a range of low probability, 

but highly concerning roles along those lines. 

Mr. FRANKS. And you see that as more dangerous than perhaps 

if Iran gained access to a warhead and tried to do some sort of an 

offshore EMP attack on the country? 

Dr. JONES. I think both would be extremely dangerous. 

Mr. FRANKS. Sub-optimal. 

Dr. JONES. Sub-optimal, yes, sir, as my 4-year-old would say, I 

think. 

Mr. FRANKS. Yes, sir. All right. Please, go ahead. 

Colonel KILLEBREW. I get two answers, sir, with your courtesy. 

One is nuclear proliferation, to include nuclear strikes inside the 

United States. I think with everything we have talked about, we 

can never forget nuclear weapons. They are always there. 

The second is a failure of legitimate governments around the 

world and their fall to jihadists, or criminals, or whatever we 

choose to call it. In my mind, they are the same problem. If, in 50 

years, we wind up with a few legitimate surviving governments 

surrounded by governments that have collapsed and are ruled by 

jihadists or criminals, we will be in a very different strategic situation from where we want to be. 

Colonel MAXWELL. Sir, I didn’t get to talk about it during the testimony, but my imagination leads me to fear what happens on the 

Korean Peninsula in North Korea and the collapse of that regime 

and the irregular threats that are going to emanate from that peninsula, which is going to draw in the United States as allies to 

South Korea, China, potentially Russia, affect Japan. The nexus of 

the world’s largest economies on that peninsula, it will have global 

effects. And I think that what will arise from a collapsed or postconflict North Korea, the nature of the population, the nature of 

the weapons that they have, the guerrilla mind-set of the people 

and that dynasty, I think we are going to face an irregular threat 

that we have not comprehended. And that is, not to discount any 

of the other threats, I agree with those, but I think that is one that 

we have not fully imagined. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I appreciate that. And I am concerned that if 

Iran is as belligerent as they are now without nuclear weapons, I 

wonder what their posture will be as they actually gain them. Anybody else? You know, I started my line of discussion just thanking 
29 

all of you. And let me end there, and say thank you for what you 

do for this country. Those 3-year-old twins mean a lot to me. And 

I know that they have a much better chance of walking in the sunlight of freedom because of people like you. So I hope that you keep 

on imagining and writing notes to yourself and keep on trying to 

outsmart the bad guys. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 4:11 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 27, 2012 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 27, 2012 

(35) 

Statement of Hon. Mac Thornberry 

Chairman, House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and 

Capabilities 

Hearing on 

Understanding Future Irregular Warfare Challenges 

March 27, 2012 

Last fall this subcommittee held a hearing to begin exploring the 

possibility that what we call irregular warfare may be a regular, 

that is frequent, challenge for us in the future, as, in fact, it certainly has been in the past. And we began to explore how we ensure how the hard-won lessons of the past decade are not simply 

shelved and forgotten as we ‘‘get back to normal.’’ 

Today we want to go a little deeper in looking at what types of 

future irregular warfare challenges we are likely to face, what 

strategies are best suited to deal with these future challenges, and 

what examples or models may exist to support those strategies and 

effectively deal with irregular challenges. 

Let me just say that I have read all of the statements from all 

of the witnesses, and they were excellent. Each of you provided 

well-written statements that were thought-provoking. I have to 

say, Colonel Maxwell, I got some chuckles out of your description 

of the naming game that goes on in the Pentagon, and it made me 

feel better. Because sometimes I hear all of these terms that describe the same thing, and as I am trying to sort through what the 

difference in this, that, or the other thing is, it is somewhat reassuring to know that other people have the same issue, and that 

part of what is going on is just to make sure that we don’t understand what is going on. 

I appreciate very much the statements that each of you provided, 

and I look forward to the subcommittee getting down into asking 

more questions about them. 
36 

Statement of Hon. James R. Langevin 

Ranking Member, House Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats and Capabilities 

Hearing on 

Understanding Future Irregular Warfare Challenges 

March 27, 2012 

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us today. Congress has the constitutional responsibility to ensure that our military is fully prepared to defend our country and our vital interests. 

To do that effectively, we must understand the full range of potential security challenges we may face. Irregular Warfare is just such 

a challenge, and it is fitting that we are addressing it today in the 

Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. 

The term ‘‘IW’’ evokes mental images of shadowy adversaries on 

uncertain or ill-defined battlefields, and there is certainly some 

truth in that. Terrorism is a classic form of IW, but it is only one 

subset. Enemies will attempt to forgo a direct confrontation in one 

of our areas of strength, instead seeking an asymmetrical advantage in an area where we may be less prepared or less able to defend ourselves. For example, our formidable joint formations of air, 

ground, sea, and space forces quickly become ineffective if a cyber 

attack disrupts our command and control or the critical infrastructure on which our bases depend. And even our most precise weapons become difficult to employ against an enemy who has embedded himself within a civilian population. 

The nature of future warfare is uncertain, but what is certain is 

that potential challengers will seek ways to circumvent our 

strengths and exploit our weaknesses. Therefore, it is our responsibility to educate ourselves about developing trends, capabilities, 

technologies, and tactics that an adversary might use to find an advantage against us, or our partners, and then posture our forces 

properly to meet that sort of threat. We need to develop the agile 

thinking necessary to make prudent defense choices, and this hearing is an important part of that process. 
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 27, 2012 

(97) 

QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Describe North Korean IW capabilities. Could Combined Forces 

Command effectively deal with these challenges in a defense of Korea scenario? How 

would North Korea use cyber-warfare in coordination with other IW assets in such 

a scenario? 

Colonel MAXWELL. North Korea (DPRK) has a broad range of IW capabilities beginning with the world’s largest Special Operations Forces (SOF) consisting of 

80,000 to 120,000 personnel, depending on how SOF are defined as they range from 

individual agents through small commando raiding forces to large unit light infantry Ranger-type forces. SOF will conduct a wide range of operations in time of war 

to include subversion and sabotage throughout the Korean Theater of Operations as 

well as in Japan and even in other parts of the world specifically targeting U.S. and 

allied capabilities. North Korea possesses multiple means of infiltration by air in 

such aircraft as the bi-plane AN–2 COLT, by sea in submarines, semi-submersibles, 

and surface vessels and both overland crossing front lines as well as tunnels that 

have likely been constructed under the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ). We can expect 

North Korea SOF to wear South Korean military and police uniforms as well as civilian clothes. Attacks on U.S. facilities by North Korean SOF in Republic of Korea 

(ROK) uniforms will sow distrust between ROK and U.S. forces. They will also link 

up with in-place sleeper agents and attempt to recruit South Korean sympathizers. 

Their targets will include military and civilian, from air bases and missile defenses 

to logistics and communications as well as headquarters capabilities. They will attack civilian targets of all kind with the intent to cause chaos among the civilian 

population to divert security forces from supporting the defense of the ROK. SOF 

will also conduct operations to complement the other asymmetric capabilities such 

as when missiles are used to attack alliance air bases. They will target first responders to attacks and continue follow up attacks to increase both the lethality and 

the chaos caused by missile strikes. Finally, we can expect them to use various 

types of biological agents to contaminate water, food, and even fuel to disrupt alliance defensive efforts. Furthermore, the North can be expected to employ extensive 

propaganda operations to influence the ROK public as well as the US and international community. North Korea has studied extensively U.S. and insurgent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and we should expect to see false reports of atrocities being committed by ROK and U.S. forces and similar propaganda building on 

the lessons learned from other campaigns around the world. 

While all these capabilities provide the North with a range of irregular or asymmetric threats valuable in any war scenario, these same capabilities provide the 

foundation for a resistance force that will prove extremely capable and dangerous 

in any post-conflict or post-regime collapse situation. 

The Combined Forces Command has developed the plans and conducts the training to counter these threats. In the rear areas the responsibility will rest with the 

Second ROK Army commanded by a Korean four star general and it is likely that 

the Korean government will impose martial law in order to counter these threats 

and maintain population and resources control which is critical to any counter-SOF 

fight. The ROK and U.S. Naval forces will establish defenses to counter maritime 

infiltration and the combined air defense forces train to counter the air infiltration 

threats. In addition, U.S. assets effective in rear area security such as the AC–130 

gunship and helicopter assets will support the ROK ground forces against SOF 

threats. Many of the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities 

and other counterinsurgency (COIN) techniques and platforms developed to support 

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will be effective in the counter-SOF fight in 

South Korea. Many of these platforms will be vulnerable to forward area combat 

operations but will be very useful in the ROK rear area. While the Combined Forces 

Command plans and trains well to defend against these threats, it is difficult to defend against all the threats and be one hundred percent effective. Two anecdotes 

illustrate the difficulty. First, the recent sinking of the Choenan by a North Korean 

submarine indicates that it has a capable subsurface force. It can both attack naval 

vessels as well as infiltrate SOF. Second, the 1996 Sango Submarine incident that 

washed up on the east coast of the ROK before completing its infiltration mission 
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shows how difficult it is to capture or kill some 20+ SOF infiltrators when they were 

on the run trying to escape the ROK military manhunt and return to the North. 

This illustrates how difficult counter-SOF operations will likely be. There will be 

many CFC successes against North Korean SOF but there will be some attacks by 

the North that will get through. As the saying goes it is much easier conducting 

SOF attacks than it is defending against them. However, the cumulative effects of 

a few successful SOF attacks will not cause mission failure for CFC but will nonetheless cause problems. The training time and resources devoted to countering 

North Korean SOF and irregular capabilities will be well spent in the long run. 

The DPRK will make extensive use of cyber capabilities in an attempt to disrupt, 

degrade, and influence ROK–U.S. alliance operations and will focus at all levels 

from the political and strategic to the operational and tactical. There are three examples of cyber operations that might foreshadow the types of operations to be conducted. First, the 1999 book Unrestricted Warfare by the two Chinese Colonels provides a template for a wide range of cyber operations from computer network attack 

against military command and control to financial markets outside the theater of 

operations. We should expect the North to conduct globally targeted cyber operations. The second example is how the Chinese are conducting cyber operations. One 

of the traditional Chinese military targets has been the unclassified computer networks of U.S. military logistics and in particular those networks that control the 

deployment of forces (Time Phased Force Deployment Data (TPFDD)). Interruption 

of or degradation of the flow of U.S. reinforcing forces will be an obvious effect the 

North will try to achieve. Third, current DPRK cyber operations likely indicate some 

of the activities they will conduct such as targeting ROK military computer networks. Finally, they are likely to exploit the full range of cyber capabilities to include social media to support their propaganda efforts. They will not only introduce 

false information (to include photos and video) to the internet, they will provide information to international news organizations to affect public opinion in the ROK 

and around the world. 

In conclusion, both irregular and cyber capabilities are key elements of any North 

Korean campaign. However, if the regime collapses we can expect elements of the 

military and security forces to attempt to employ these same capabilities as part of 

the resistance to ROK reunification efforts. The ROK–U.S. alliance takes these 

threats very seriously and trains hard to be able counter them. Investment in 

counter-SOF and rear area operations in the ROK by the ROK government and enabling capabilities from the U.S. will be effective when North Korea attacks and at 

the same time if the regime collapses, those same capabilities will be useful against 

resistance forces. But it should be noted that there are no 100 percent effective defenses against irregular and cyber threats. The alliance must be both psychological 

as well as physically prepared for the few successes that the DPRK will likely be 

able to achieve. This is important because over-reaction in response to such threats 

may magnify the effects of these limited successful attacks. The alliance is sufficiently prepared to deal with these threats and must have the requisite resources 

provided on a continual basis to sustain readiness. 

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