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94–090 2015

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–3] 

WORLDWIDE THREATS 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 3, 2015 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

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

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

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

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

JOE WHITED, Professional Staff Member 

LINDSAY KAVANAUGH, Professional Staff Member 

AARON FALK, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

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

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

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

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

WITNESSES 

Stewart, LtGen Vincent R., USMC, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency; 

accompanied by Lt Gen William C. Mayville, USA, Director for Operations, 

J–3, The Joint Staff, and Mark S. Chandler, Acting Director for Intelligence, J–2, The Joint Staff ................................................................................ 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Stewart, LtGen Vincent R. .............................................................................. 40 

Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ ............................................................... 39 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Conaway ..................................................................................................... 69 

Mr. O’Rourke .................................................................................................... 69 

Mr. Takai .......................................................................................................... 69 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Aguilar ........................................................................................................ 75 

Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 73 

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 74 

(1) 

WORLDWIDE THREATS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 3, 2015. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room 

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

Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

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

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. 

For the first time in nearly a decade, the House Armed Services 

Committee meets today to hear testimony on threats facing our 

country from around the world. 

And I have certainly been struck by the consensus of opinion 

from our most respected and practiced statesmen that our country 

faces a strategic environment today more complex, more diverse, 

and, in many ways, more dangerous than we have ever faced before. 

I noticed just last week Dr. Henry Kissinger testified before the 

Senate that we have not faced a more diverse and complex array 

of crises since the end of the Second World War. And former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said we are living through a 

time of monumental change across the world. 

Several observers have said if it was any one or two of these 

challenges we could probably deal with them, but it is the combination of things all happening at the same time that presents unprecedented national security challenges. From the continued modernization of nuclear programs to conventional and unconventional 

aggressiveness by rival competitors, to global spread of a terrorist 

ideology and dealing with new domains of warfare, a clear-eyed 

look around the world is sobering. And, as members of the National 

Defense Panel testified before us just about 2 months ago, they expect the situation to deteriorate further. 

I think it is essential that we better understand this threat as 

we approach the annual National Defense Authorization Act and as 

we discuss with our colleagues the appropriate amount of money 

that needs to be spent to defend the country. 

Today, we are pleased to welcome the new Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, as 

well as Acting Director for Intelligence for the Joint Staff, Mr. 

Mark Chandler, and the Director for Operations for the Joint Staff, 

Lieutenant General William Mayville, to give us a consumer perspective on intelligence. 
2 

I would ask unanimous consent that my complete opening statement be made part of the record. 

And I would yield to the distinguished acting ranking member, 

Ms. Davis. 

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

Appendix on page 39.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. SUSAN A. DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CALIFORNIA, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I certainly want to welcome our witnesses here today, and 

thank you very much for joining us. 

I want to make just a few comments that Ranking Member 

Adam Smith had prepared in response to this hearing today on the 

worldwide threats. 

As you acknowledge, Mr. Chairman and others, the world is a 

dangerous and complicated place, and it seems to be getting more 

complicated. 

It is easy to recite a list of challenges. We see Russia seizing the 

territory of Ukraine and supplying men, weapons, and assistance 

to the rebels there. 

In recent months, North Korea conducted a cyberattack against 

a major movie studio, bringing home to many Americans not just 

the challenge posed by the regime but the very real ways in which 

cyber operations can impact all of our lives. 

While we are engaged in very difficult negotiations with the Iranian regime, they continue to pose challenges in a number of 

places, such as backing the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Assad regime in Syria. 

At the same time, both they and we are assisting the Iraqi Government in its struggles with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL. ISIL and the Syrian conflict at large provide 

a seemingly endless list of potential challenges and threats, from 

waves of refugees to stabilizing neighborhood regimes, to the 

spread of terrorism, to broader Sunni-Shia fighting, to foreign 

fighters returning home, and the list goes on. 

Even as all of this continues, Al Qaeda core has not entirely been 

eliminated, and some Al Qaeda offshoots continue to plot attacks 

against us and cause further regional problems. We cannot take 

our eye off that ball, just as we need to be very cognizant that we 

still maintain troops in Afghanistan. And that country, while vastly 

better off than before, is still very fragile. 

And, similarly, Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, is currently conducting major and effective operations against some internal extremist threats but hardly all of them, and the future stability of 

Pakistan is not a settled matter. 

As we look long term, Russia’s role in Europe and Asia is not 

clear, but their recent actions and their renewed and ongoing military buildup are not encouraging signs. Although we should not assume an adversarial relationship with China, their actions in the 

South China Sea and their military developments bear watching. 

In summary, the world has hardly become less complex since the 

fall of the Iron Curtain. While we may not face the same existen-
3 

tial threat posed by the Soviet Union, the threats we face today are 

still very real and, again, very complex. 

An increase in deep understanding of these threats and the 

trends and developments that drive them is key for this committee 

as we work to shape the defense budget and help the Department 

of Defense [DOD] and the rest of the national security establishment in their ongoing actions in our defense. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We look forward to the presentations 

today. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Davis. 

For the members’ information, our plan is to have a closed classified session, as time and interest permits, after the open session. 

So I would just remind everybody we are in open session here and 

to keep that in mind with the questions. And, obviously, our witnesses will remember that too. That closed session will take place 

in 2212. 

Again, I want to thank you all for being here. 

Without objection, your complete written statements will be 

made part of the record. 

And right now we would certainly turn it over to you for any oral 

statements you would like to make. 

General Stewart, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF LTGEN VINCENT R. STEWART, USMC, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY; ACCOMPANIED BY 

LT GEN WILLIAM C. MAYVILLE, USA, DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS, J–3, THE JOINT STAFF, AND MARK S. CHANDLER, 

ACTING DIRECTOR FOR INTELLIGENCE, J–2, THE JOINT 

STAFF 

General STEWART. Thank you, sir. 

Good morning, Chairman Thornberry, Congresswoman Davis, 

distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify and for your continued support to the dedicated intelligence professionals of the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]. I 

am honored to serve as their director and to represent them at this 

hearing. 

I am also pleased to be joined today by Lieutenant General William Mayville, Director of Operations at the Joint Staff, and Mr. 

Mark Chandler, Acting Director of Intelligence for the Joint Staff. 

Mr. Chairman, the global security environment is the most challenging of our lifetime, a confluence of political, military, social, 

and technological developments which, taken in aggregate, have 

created security challenges more diverse and complex than any we 

have ever experienced. Our challenges range from highly capable, 

near-peer competitors to empowered individuals with nefarious intentions. 

Increasing demands, coupled with today’s challenging fiscal environment, have stressed our defense and intelligence establishments 

and forced us to accept greater risk. This strategic environment 

will be with us for some time, and the threats’ increasing scope, 

volatility, and complexity have become the new normal. 

Your DIA focuses on a myriad of threats, actors, and challenges, 

as noted in our written statement to the committee. I will highlight 

three of our priorities in my oral remarks. 
4 

One, capable military competitors. Russian military activity, for 

example, is at historically high levels. Moscow is pursuing aggressive foreign and defense policies, including conducting destabilizing 

operations in the Ukraine, conducting a record number of out-ofarea naval operations, and increasing its long-range aviation patrols. 

In addition, Beijing is focused on building a modern military capable of achieving success on the 21st-century battlefield and advancing its core interests, which include maintaining its sovereignty, protecting its territorial integrity, and projecting its regional influence. 

Two, an increase in vulnerable and ungoverned territory due to 

the erosion of moderate and secular Islamic states. 

While coalition strikes have degraded ISIL’s ability to operate 

openly in Iraq and Syria, the group retains the ability to conduct 

limited offensive operations and is seeking to expand its presence 

and influence beyond these two countries. 

Governments in countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, and 

Lebanon are under stress from a variety of sources, thereby reducing their capability, as a region, to confront the threat posed by violent extremists. The breakdown of order of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, 

Libya, and northern Nigeria are fertile spawning grounds for the 

growth of terrorist organizations that can pose a significant threat 

to the U.S. homeland and our allies. 

Moreover, Al Qaeda core leaders and followers retain transnational-attack capability and will seek to use its remaining personnel to target Western interests in South Asia and worldwide. 

Three, malign actors seeking to challenge the U.S. and our allies 

in space and cyber domains. 

China and Russia increasingly recognize the strategic value of 

space and are focusing on diminishing our advantage. Both countries are conducting anti-satellite research and developing anti-satellite weapons with the intent of denying the U.S. the use of space 

in the event of conflict. 

For the Department of Defense, the cyber threat is particularly 

alarming because of the interconnected nature of our military 

weapons, communications, and networks. At low cost, with limited 

technical expertise, our adversaries have the potential to cause severe damage and disruption to U.S. systems, leaving little or no 

footprint behind. 

Finally, the exponential growth of communications; both mobile 

and social media have the potential to magnify international crises 

and shorten our already compressed decisionmaking cycle. 

In closing, I would be remiss if I did not note my concern about 

the impacts of sequestration on DIA and other members of the 

military intelligence community. The demand signal for more intelligence from our consumers, including the Congress, has never 

been greater. Sequestration and the support to crisis operations 

around the globe has forced us to accept risk in important areas 

that will have a direct and lasting impact on our ability to provide 

high-quality, nuanced intelligence required by policymakers and 

warfighters. I fear that the true cost of these difficult choices today 

may be paid on the battlefield of the future. 
5 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for this opportunity. We look forward to answering the questions of the committee. 

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

Appendix on page 40.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Who is next? 

You all do not have oral statements that you are going to make? 

Mr. CHANDLER. That is correct, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Good. Thank you. 

General, let me just ask one preliminary question; then I want 

to get to my colleagues, who obviously have a lot of things on their 

minds. 

For some time, I have cited this book, ‘‘America’s First Battles,’’ 

where the editors write that ‘‘the record of Americans’ ability to 

predict the nature of the next war, not to mention its causes, location, time, adversaries, and allies, has been uniformly dismal.’’ 

I think General Dempsey has said we have a 100 percent record 

of getting it right zero percent of the time, of who we are going to 

fight in our next war. 

So do you agree that that is kind of the history of things, we are 

not very good at predicting? And, secondly, would you amplify a little bit about how resources affect DIA’s ability to gather intelligence and help us be prepared for whatever threat may be coming 

next? 

General STEWART. Congressman, I think historically the community has done a fairly decent job of predicting, in the past, crisis. 

I think that is getting more complex. I think the ability to cover 

the globe with the intelligence capability of either the Department 

or our partners is making it very difficult to see the world, see it 

in a timely manner, and deliver, convincingly, the argument that 

says there is a crisis looming. 

I think it is also complicated by social media and the current use 

of media around the globe. Many times, what we can in fact detect 

is, does it give sufficient warning across the globe? 

So our ability to warn is being reduced. Our ability to influence 

the action compellingly is being reduced. And I don’t see it getting 

any easier, quite frankly. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

General Mayville, let me ask you briefly, from a consumer-ofintelligence perspective, just give us, if you will, an overview of the 

challenges you face in your job as the J–3 in the sort of security 

environment we are in now. 

General MAYVILLE. Thank you, sir. 

First off, it is important to remember that every one of our adversaries studies us. So, as we evolve and prepare, they take close 

lessons of our last fight and they look for indications of how we will 

fight tomorrow. This is dynamic. So one of the challenges is we always come up against adversaries that are well-prepared against 

us. 

Intelligence typically falls down, at least initially, in the last 300 

meters of the fight, the tactical fight. I think we are very good at 

broad, strategic directions. We get a sense of operationally what is 

in the art of the possible. And indications and warnings vary, but, 

by and large, I think we have a general sense of the trajectory of 
6 

how things are going. Where we typically suffer is understanding 

the last 300 meters. 

And that requires that we have an adaptive force, a force that 

is well-versed in a wide range of capabilities. But we have leaders 

that have been developed so that we can shift and adapt to the environment that we have. I saw that in the initial steps of the OIF 

[Operation Iraqi Freedom], when we came in focused against Republican Guard divisions, very much trained for that type of fight, 

and literally overnight, the nature of the fight changed on us, and 

we had a different fight on our hands. And what you saw over the 

last decade or so was an adaptive force that figured it out. 

I would say that one of the challenges we have, particularly with 

non-state actors, is the demand for intelligence is insatiable. It is, 

in some ways, more complex to try to figure out what is going on. 

So many other factors impact what your adversary is doing outside 

just—the traditional military lines of operation. What is going on 

inside the communities? What is going on inside the tribal constructs? Where are their sources of power? How are they getting 

that together? 

And the intelligence to pull all that together, one, it puts great 

demands on our intelligence agencies, and two, it is an insatiable 

demand that is out there. And it is very, very difficult for tactical 

commanders on the ground to have the kind of understanding that 

they want. And they will always put a demand on whatever intelligence is available to them. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Well, I suspect other members will want to explore further how 

well we have done at predicting state actors, like Russia and 

Ukraine, and how well we did in predicting ISIS [Islamic State of 

Iraq and Syria] and a variety of other challenges. 

But I will yield to Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And perhaps this is just following up somewhat. I think in even 

in a whole-of-government approach, because one of the things that 

we know is that we don’t always understand what is going on—on 

the ground, of course. And I am wondering if you could speak to, 

I guess, where, in fact, we approach things in a way that we least 

understand. 

And as an example, the Shia-Sunni divide. And do we expect 

that a Shia government can incorporate, can be inclusive when it 

comes to the region and the Sunnis there, as well? And there are 

other examples like that. 

Are those some of the ways in which we really have great difficulty trying to understand the dynamics in the region? 

General STEWART. I think part of the challenge, our military intelligence was designed for a different type of adversary—large formations constructed to be easily seen and defined. 

The conflict we face now is much more diffused. Understanding 

cultures and understanding tribal interactions and understanding 

really the deep intent behind some of these extremist ideologies is 

hard to define with the existing system. 

You need probably a much more robust human intelligence capability to get after some of the intentions and the culture and the 

ideology differences in order to be really effective. We are really 
7 

good at finding large formations, targeting large formations, and 

watching those movements, but some of the nuances that come 

with individuals and leadership intentions become really, really difficult. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Chandler, did you want to—— 

Mr. CHANDLER. Ma’am, I will echo General Stewart’s comments, 

when you look at the cultural intelligence aspects of this and understanding the societies and the interaction between the societies. 

And another aspect to go into is the historical nature of some of 

these conflicts and the tribal alliances that you start to look at, not 

just in a Sunni-Shia but, as that spreads out, around the globe. 

The societies that we are looking at, and as General Mayville alluded to, looking deeper into some of the threats and some of the 

challenges we face, go much beyond state actors, go much beyond 

what we see in a Western society. And that is where we have to 

take our intelligence capabilities and look on a different level and 

in a different contextual framework. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Are we positioned to do that? 

Mr. CHANDLER. Ma’am, I think we are. I think it is a process 

that we go through. 

As General Stewart said, we are great at finding big formations, 

targeting them, and then turning that over to our operational elements. However, we have a good core of young intelligence professionals, and we have to nuance this. We have to work our way 

through an understanding of how we take the large formations, understanding tribal societies and elements and the changes, and look 

at history. We cannot ignore history, and bring that core of intelligence professionals up. 

It’s not an all technological advantage that we can utilize here; 

it is an understanding. And I think we have a good core of professionals that are starting to work their way through that. So we 

have the core capability, yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

I am going to yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to thank you for 

having this hearing. It is so important that we discuss these 

threats and bring them to the country’s attention. 

And, to each of you gentlemen, thank you for the service that you 

render to our country, and thank you for being here today. And one 

of the things that we benefit so much from you being here for is 

that you are able to give us not just the Department’s view but you 

are able to give us your best professional military judgment. And 

that is what I am asking for now. 

And, General, for you, here is the dilemma that I have, is, as I 

listen to you, it obviously concerns me and scares me, as we see 

all of these enormous threats that are around the world. And yet 

I look at what we have been doing as a nation for the last 6 years. 

We cut $780 billion dollars out of national defense before sequestration even got there, and then we got another $500 billion with 

sequestration. And it looks like those curve lines for our national 

defense are going down and these threats are just proliferating 

around the globe. 
8 

And so the question I would ask of you today, on your best professional military judgment is: Did the Pentagon just miss all of 

this that was happening, or did we just ignore it? 

General STEWART. Congressman, I think most of the service 

chiefs have been on the record as saying that the requirements continue to go up while resources continue to go down—— 

Mr. FORBES. But, General, let me just, if I can—because I respect you so much. They did not. On that $787 billion dollars, I pleaded 

with them, ‘‘Tell us what we need,’’ and they continued to come up, 

not sequestration, but up until sequestration, they kept saying, we 

are good to go with this. 

And we just need to learn, maybe from our mistake, and this is 

our opportunity to do it. Looking back in hindsight, not putting fingers on anybody, did we make a mistake by making all those drastic cuts, when we now see all of these huge threats around the 

world? 

General STEWART. I will offer only this, Congressman. The 

threat, the requirements for the intelligence community is growing. 

The resources are going down. The risk is getting greater. At some 

point, there are things that we will have to say we cannot do. 

That’s where we are today. At some point, I will have to come 

back and identify the things, one through X, that we can do, and 

everything else will have to be risk. And I’m not comfortable at all 

with that posture. 

Mr. FORBES. General Mayville, in your estimation, your best professional military judgment, looking at it now with hindsight, did 

we make mistakes by making that many cuts that we did, when 

we look at these threats that are out there? And did we miss these 

things, or did we just ignore them? 

General MAYVILLE. I won’t look back, Congressman, but I will 

look forward. I think that we, and what I saw in testimony from 

the service chiefs is a broad agreement that we have the military 

we need to meet today’s requirements, that we are at minimally acceptable levels for what is required today. 

If you are asking me, what are the trend lines for the future, my 

concern is that we continue to see new threats, threats that have 

studied us, both state and non-state actors. And I am concerned 

about our ability to posture ourselves to meet tomorrow’s threats. 

I think we have the best military—I know we have the best military in the world, and I am confident that we can meet all of the 

requirements our Nation gives us today. I am, however, concerned 

about the future. 

Mr. FORBES. And, Mr. Chairman, I would just go on the record 

as saying, because I know you have been preaching this same sermon, but, for the last several years, I have just seen cut after cut 

after cut to national defense. And now we come in today and we 

see these enormous risks around the globe. And I think, at some 

point in time, we need to say enough is enough and begin getting 

those curve lines turned back in the right direction. 

And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Walz. 

Mr. WALZ. I pass. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Takai. 
9 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chandler, you have made the statement that we cannot ignore history. And I just hope that we can learn from—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Excuse me. I am sorry, Mr. Scott. It is this Texas 

accent that people are having trouble with. I want to stay on this 

side of the aisle, and then I will come back. I—— 

Mr. SCOTT. I understand. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. No, I said Mr. Takai. 

Mr. TAKAI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Stewart, with all the focus on the Middle East, can we 

shift gears and tell me what currently is the biggest threat to stability in the Asia-Pacific area? 

General STEWART. There are a number of things in the Asia-Pacific area that causes me concern. 

North Korea’s destabilizing action is cause for concern. They continue to modernize their military. They continue to seek nuclear capability. That is very destabilizing on the peninsula. 

We also see extended operations by the Chinese, as they modernize their military forces and extend their reach into areas such 

as the South China Sea. Those are destabilizing factors. 

Those are probably the two biggest ones in the region. 

Mr. TAKAI. Okay. Thank you. 

General Mayville, how does our current force posture in the Pacific align with these responding threats in the Pacific? 

General MAYVILLE. In the Pacific, we want to make sure that we 

have—and we do have—the requisite forces to deter a DPRK 

[Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] aggression. We want to 

make sure that we can dissuade them of the use of nuclear capabilities. We want to be present in meaningful numbers to assure 

our allies of our U.S. commitment and our reliability. We want to 

have a presence in the region, and we do have a presence in the 

region, sufficient to preserve the freedom of navigation through 

international laws and norms. And we want to have the ability to 

sustain our presence and be ready not just for what is required 

today but to be postured to respond to a contingency tomorrow. 

Mr. TAKAI. Thank you. 

So would reductions in the U.S. force posture in the Asia-Pacific 

exacerbate the current security challenges that we have? 

General MAYVILLE. I am not aware of any reductions, planned reductions, within the Department for our forces in the Asia-Pacific. 

But I think that if what you are referring to is how might the lack 

of resources impact our current capabilities and presence, it would 

be significant. 

Mr. TAKAI. Thank you. 

Maybe more specifically, there is some discussions regarding possible force reductions on the Army side, in Hawaii specifically. Can 

you talk about those reductions affecting the security challenges in 

the Asia-Pacific area? 

General MAYVILLE. I apologize. I can’t speak to an Army-specific 

decision, as, again, I am unaware. But I will take that back and 

make sure we get you a response from the Army on that. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 69.] 

Mr. TAKAI. Okay. Thank you. 
10 

And are any countries in a position to prevent the United States 

from effectively operating in the Western Pacific? 

Either of you can answer that. 

General STEWART. China has done extensive training to counter 

U.S. forces in the region. They have sophisticated air and missile 

and space defense capabilities. I think that they are designing their 

forces to challenge military presence of the United States in the region. They have fairly sophisticated missile systems that can 

counter a number of our platforms. 

And we would certainly welcome an opportunity to talk a little 

bit more about this in closed session, but I think both China’s 

training and some of their weapons capabilities are a significant 

threat to our forces. 

Mr. TAKAI. Thank you. 

One last question. Do you think we are losing, you are speaking 

about China. What about technology? Do you think we are losing 

our technological edge to China? 

General STEWART. I do not believe we are losing our technological edge to China, but I do believe China has a concerted effort 

to, as much as possible, gather intellectual property to close the 

gap between our technological edge and their capability. I do not 

believe, at this point, that we are losing our technological edge, but 

it is at risk based on some of their cyber activities. 

Mr. TAKAI. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General Stewart, if you don’t mind, if you would pull your microphone closer to your mouth. Especially when you turn your head, 

it gets a little hard to hear up here in the stratosphere. I would 

appreciate it. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank each of you for being here today. 

And as we are talking about threats to the American people and 

security around the world, I want to join with Congressman 

Forbes. I believe that we are at the most dangerous period since 

1939 in the instability around the world, the threats to the American people. 

And he has already brought up, Congressman Forbes, that there 

has been projected a trillion dollars in reductions in our defense capability. The result of that is that we will have the smallest Army, 

and the American people need to know this, the smallest Army 

since 1939, the smallest Navy since 1916, the smallest Air Force 

since it was created in 1947. 

This is in contravention to something that we learned during the 

Cold War: Peace through strength. By having a strong military, the 

American military produced a situation with the broadest spread 

of democracy in the history of the world. Dozens of countries became free because we had a strong national defense. But the consequence of what I see going on today, under this administration, 

is putting the American people at risk. 

An additional risk is cyber warfare. And for each of you, how 

would you characterize the disruptive and destructive cyber threats 
11 

to the Department of Defense network from state actors and from 

terrorist organizations such as ISIL and Al Qaeda? 

General Mayville. 

General MAYVILLE. Thank you, Congressman. 

To your point, I think a smaller force puts a greater demand on 

the force you have. I think it also puts a demand on their families. 

It will force us to have a greater reliance on our allies and partners, and it will cause us to make tough decisions in terms of operational priorities. 

On cyber and the ability of the Department of Defense to defend 

its networks, I am very, very confident in our abilities to defend 

our network. It is an area that we look at every day. I am well 

aware of the intrusions, or attempts at intrusions, and have confidence in our systems, and in our training, as well as in Cyber 

Command, to address the current threats. 

General STEWART. Our ability to defend the networks is pretty 

strong, but the threat is growing from a number of nation-states: 

Russia, China, Iran. 

The cost of entry in cyberspace operations is pretty low. It 

doesn’t take a really high-tech capability to do damage to our networks. And you only have to get it right once. So the threat is real 

from a wide range of actors, nation-states and non-nation-states. 

So the challenge, I think, going forward for us is, how do you see 

the threat environment more discretely? Because this is really a 

tough space. We have built tremendous capabilities to defend our 

network and to maybe even conduct offensive operations. What we 

have not done, I believe, is built the intelligence capability to see 

the threat early enough, warn early enough, rather than reacting 

to an attack on our network. 

Also, the intelligence required to do anything offensively is pretty 

exquisite. And so I don’t know that we have invested sufficiently 

in that capability to do cyberspace operation in its fullest extent. 

Mr. CHANDLER. I would just echo the general’s comments on 

being able to identify the threat early enough based on the complexities of the cyber environment. That is what we have to look 

at into the future and be able to identify that. We have a great 

cyber capability within the Department of Defense, but the problem 

is identifying those threats to the networks early enough. 

Mr. WILSON. And I have a real concern, too, of adversaries coming into our systems and determining the technology we have and 

replicating it to match whatever defensive capabilities we have. 

And, General Mayville, I appreciate your comments relative to 

working with our allies, but, due to economic stagnation that is existent in many countries around the world, particularly allies to the 

United States and Europe, there is a shift, where the military 

budgets are extraordinarily reduced to virtually nonexistence. 

And so I am very concerned at the thought that we might be 

counting on countries that, actually, their view is, if not America, 

who? And so it is not them. And so I look forward to working with 

you to try to help work together. 

Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Ashford. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Pass. 
12 

The CHAIRMAN. You pass? 

Mr. Moulton. 

Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, gentlemen, thank you very much for your testimony here 

this morning and your service to the country. 

Having spent some time in the Department of Defense myself, I 

understand that the strength of our Nation’s military is about our 

capabilities. And there is not always a strict correlation between 

the strength of a military and the size of the budget or the number 

of personnel. As a platoon commander in Iraq, there were times 

when I would have gladly traded another 40-man platoon for one 

ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] feed. 

And so the point is we really have to understand as best we can 

what the threats are going forward. And I am relatively new to this 

committee, but it strikes me that much of the testimony we have 

heard just over the past few weeks has been focused on Russia and 

China. Now, hearing you describe your own capabilities at the DIA, 

you note that you are very good, really good, at finding large formations and big adversaries but, also, that many of today’s threats 

are more diverse, dispersed, and difficult to understand. 

My question is, looking very broadly and looking long-term, how 

much do you believe that our focus on Russia and China is a product of the defense intelligence establishment we have built, designed to focus on those larger adversaries, versus a very conscious 

balance of the threats from those larger adversaries and the terrorist organizations and other dispersed threats that we see around 

the globe today? 

General STEWART. While some of the more dispersed threats can 

do us harm, Russia and China could be our most existential threat. 

And so the focus is probably appropriate, to spend time looking and 

understanding Russian and Chinese capability because they pose 

the gravest threat to our Nation. 

Striking the right balance, though, so that we can cover down on 

the globe, really, from destabilizing influence, ungoverned spaces 

across the globe, becomes increasingly challenging. 

So I think we are postured about as good as the force that we 

have today. I would like to see us understand ISIL and Syria and 

Libya and all those other countries in a lot greater detail, but those 

are probably some areas we will take risk just because, although 

they can do us harm, they don’t pose an existential threat to the 

United States. 

Mr. MOULTON. That is very helpful. Thank you. 

I would like to shift for a moment to Iraq, in particular, and to 

your written testimony. You note that defeats of the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] and the collapse of multiple [Iraqi] army divisions 

highlight large-scale institutional deficiencies within the ISF. 

I would like your opinion on how much it is the institutional deficiencies within the ISF that are at question here or deficiencies 

within the GOI, the Government of Iraq, that have led to a lack 

of trust and fundamental corruption within the armed services of 

Iraq. 

General STEWART. I think it may be a little bit of both. I think 

the forces are not as well trained, not as well equipped, not as well 

organized, not well paid, and that stems right from the senior lead-
13 

ership and the Government of Iraq. So I think that it is a little bit 

of both. 

General MAYVILLE. There are multiple lines of effort to counter 

the threat posed by ISIL in Iraq and Syria. The preponderance of 

those lines of efforts, however, fall outside the military domains. 

And I think it is very, very important that the pace of operations 

be such that the military lines of operation, the military lines of 

effort, don’t get out in front of the political lines of effort that must 

be achieved in order to get an enduring solution here. 

And I think that, as you think about this conflict and what is it 

going to take to really resolve it, you will find that the finishing 

solutions exist outside the military tool bag, if you will, and that 

the management of this campaign and the pace of this campaign 

has got to be one where what we can achieve militarily does not 

get out in front of what must be achieved politically. 

And I will leave it there. 

Mr. MOULTON. Yes, sir. 

General STEWART. Can I add also, one of the things that really 

concerns me going forward, if the Shia forces believe that they can 

control ISIL without reconciliation with the Sunnis, that could 

cause some additional issues. So that will not drive towards reconciliation. 

The CHAIRMAN. Time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. Rogers. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Stewart, can you say, over here. Can you say anything 

about how Russia, in this venue, is using their Open Skies flights 

over the United States? And as the principal intelligence officer for 

the Secretary of Defense, can you tell us if that concerns you? And 

what are those concerns? 

General STEWART. The Open Skies construct was designed for a 

different era. I am very concerned about how it is applied today. 

And I would love to talk about that in closed hearing. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. 

Staying with Russia, do you have believe or do you have an assessment as to whether Russia is in any way making moves to 

come back into compliance with the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty? 

General STEWART. There have been some Russian officials who 

have talked about whether the INF Treaty is still valid today. And 

there are some things that they are doing that are pushing the envelope. And, again, I regret to say I can talk more about this in 

closed session. But there have been some officials who have talked 

about the value of the INF Treaty going forward. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yeah. I am one of those officials, you know. If we 

are the only team that is sticking to the treaty, then I don’t know 

why we are sticking with the treaty, since they are flagrantly violating it. 

But I would love to visit this subject with you in private. And I 

understand that in this venue we can’t talk about it explicitly, but 

I think it is important for the record for us to note that Russia is 

in violation of the INF Treaty and making no moves to come back 

into compliance. 

With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 
14 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Aguilar. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the 

opportunity to have this panel. For those new members, it has been 

very educational, so I very much appreciate it. 

And thank you, gentlemen, for being here. 

Gentlemen, this committee has been exploring acquisition reform 

to ensure the military has the best possible equipment for the mission at the best possible cost. 

General Stewart, you mentioned that the conflict is more diffused; it is a very different conflict now. What are your thoughts 

about how we best approach reform while ensuring the best capabilities to respond to these threats moving forward? 

General STEWART. I am probably going to have to come back and 

follow up on this. I have asked the folks to look at ways that the 

intelligence community can be more interactive with the acquisition community. So, as the environment changes, how do we shape 

acquisition decisions throughout the entire process of the acquisition cycle and to be able to do that in a much more timely manner 

than we currently do today. 

So I have some folks looking at that, and if you would allow me, 

I will come back and talk about how we might do this a little bit 

more efficiently than we do today. Because I don’t think the system 

currently provides sufficient intelligence to shape the acquisition 

decisions and then during the process to adjust acquisition decisions as the environment changes. 

So we are going to take a good, hard look at that. So if you will 

allow me, I will come back and talk about that in a separate session. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Sure. Thank you very much. 

I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

General Stewart, I appreciate that, because we will be very interested to get your input on what we can do together to improve the 

agility of the intelligence community, especially in the kind of 

world that we are living in. So I appreciate very much what you 

have asked your folks to do. 

Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here, and thank your families for 

supporting your efforts. And based on General Mayville’s right 

sleeve, I suspect those efforts have been quite considerable, to support you in your careers. I appreciate that. 

General Stewart, getting back to Russia, I am concerned about 

Putin and his intentions. Obviously, everyone is. Can you talk to 

us about the impact that these lower oil prices are having on his 

ability to maintain his position, the elites in the country, as to 

what their perspectives are on keeping him in place? And are there 

any particular threats to him? 

And then do you see him accelerating his mischief in eastern 

Russia to Eastern Europe, excuse me, to help his countrymen rally 

to the flag while he tries to do the guns-and-butter thing? 

General STEWART. Congressman, Russian military modernization 

remains a strategic priority of the Russian government. In spite of 
15 

oil prices, in spite of the ruble value, in spite of the sanctions, that 

remains a strategic priority. And I don’t see any time in the near 

term that the effects of the sanctions or effect of the economy will 

change their desire to build strong strategic forces that will counter 

our efforts across the globe. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I guess, General Stewart, what I am asking is, 

can you get inside Putin’s head? Can he maintain control in spite 

of those efforts? 

He told his countrymen within the last 10 days, Russians will eat 

less. Can we do that kind of collection that allows us to try to foretell how he is going to help create the bogeyman that will either 

be NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] or us to keep his 

folks focused on Putin protecting them from the rest of the world? 

General STEWART. I think he has already done that. I think he 

has made the West and NATO the bogeyman. And I think Russians will suffer—the Russian people will suffer far more than the 

Russian elites will, but it is probably something that Putin is comfortable with. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. 

General STEWART. And if you would like to talk about Ukraine, 

I think you asked about Ukraine also? 

Mr. CONAWAY. About what? 

General STEWART. Or Eastern Europe? I will stop—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, yeah. The Ukraine is a good example of Mr. 

Wilson mentioned 1939, that Stalin used the same technique. 

Let’s switch gears a little bit. Taliban Five. Can you talk to us 

about the DIA’s role in the reversal of the White House position 

they should be detained to sending them Qatar? And was DIA consulted about what that continued detention in Qatar might look 

like? 

General STEWART. DIA participates on the periphery to observe 

detainees who are transferred with conditions. We know that over 

the last 4 or 5 years, about 18 percent of detainees have gone back 

into business, confirmed to have gone back into business. About 11 

percent are suspected of having gone back into business. 

So if those numbers translate, of the five that were transferred, 

probably one in five could be expected to go back into the business. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Yeah. Well, given that they are, I guess, going to 

be set free sometime, May-June timeframe, I guess to go back to 

Afghanistan if they can convince their families to go back to living 

in mud huts versus the palaces they are living in now, what would 

DIA’s role be in protecting the 10,000 or so U.S. troops we will 

have from these 5—either 1, 2, 3, or all 5 of them—working to hurt 

Americans? 

General STEWART. So we continue to provide tactical intelligence 

support. We continue to look at monitoring the number of sources 

that would tell us whether these individuals have gone back into 

business. Directly, though, besides notifying folks that these terrorists have gone back into business, there is very little at this point 

the DIA could do—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Yeah. 

General STEWART [continuing]. Besides warning of their continued operations. 
16 

Mr. CONAWAY. I know you weren’t the head of DIA at the time, 

but was DIA consulted on the potential, the transfer of these five 

in exchange for Sergeant Bergdahl? 

General STEWART. I would have to get back to you. I do not know 

the answer to that one. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. 

General STEWART. Let me take that one back, sir. 

Mr. CONAWAY. All right. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 69.] 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Garamendi. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Like you, I can’t wait to get to the classified section. 

We had a discussion here a moment ago about sequestration. The 

President’s budget blows through sequestration. The question will 

be ours, whether we accept that, both on the discretionary as well 

as on the military side. So the real question is not to the military; 

it is to us, as to whether we are willing to accept a level higher 

than the Budget Control Act. 

A question, I think this will probably have to be in classified. The 

DIA, the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], the NSA [National Security Agency] coordination, cooperation, and the rest. If you would 

like to comment now, and maybe we will just save it until later. 

That will be my question in classified. 

General STEWART. The level of cooperation between the agencies? 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Yes. 

General STEWART. Sir, I have been doing this for about 30 years 

now; I have never seen better cooperation. 

And on the battlefield the cooperation is excellent. And even here 

in Washington, which is where the competition really usually begins, the cooperation and the support for each other is unprecedented, in my opinion. And I have been watching this closely for 

the last 12 years I have been in the DC area. Very, very good relationship among us all. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I will let it go at that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Fleming. 

Dr. FLEMING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Mayville, during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan 

wars in 2008, the Army had 48 Active Duty brigade combat teams 

[BCT]. By the end of the year, we will have 32 BCTs, based on the 

ongoing Army 2020 process. And if the Army fully executes additional reductions over the next few years, we may end up with between 24 to 26 BCTs. 

I am concerned that the Army end strength we are building 

today and for tomorrow will not be able to meet the various threats 

we are discussing today. 

So my question is, if the Active Duty Army was stressed to fulfill 

its missions in Iraq and Afghanistan with 48 BCTs, could we fulfill 

any combat mission in Iraq and Afghanistan today, let alone 

against some of the other worldwide threats we are discussing 
17 

today? And what will be the capability with an Army of only 24 

BCTs? 

General MAYVILLE. Well, I would add to the scenario that you 

just laid out, sir. I would also say that, you know, one of the things 

that we have seen less of is less forward-stationing of the forces. 

And I think, with a reduced number, the challenge we will face is, 

how much of the force do you want forward, shaping and preventing, and how much of the force do you want maintaining the 

high levels of readiness to respond to contingencies? The challenge 

will be the balance and a sense of operational priorities. 

With regards to the situation that—the counter-ISIL mission 

that we have in Iraq and Syria today, that is a fundamentally different mission statement than the one that we had in the last 10 

years under OIF. To that end, I think our strategy is sound. I think 

it is properly regionally focused. It’s Iraq-first framework to get the 

Iraqi forces, get their feet underneath them through building partnership capacity. And that train, advise, and assist is the right 

way. Use of the air campaign has frozen the most immediate threat 

posed by ISIL forces. 

And I think that, as I said earlier, if I was to focus on one area 

of this campaign, it would be in the non-military lines of effort and 

the things that we need to do to get the diplomatic and the political 

outreach. Quite frankly, we need to see in Iraq political outreach 

that addresses the fact that some 20 million Sunnis are disfranchised with their government. 

Dr. FLEMING. Well, I guess, let me approach it from another direction. Certainly, now that we have ISIS, or ISIL, something we 

didn’t have before, they are—have become a threat around the 

world and could be a huge threat. We could see another severe attack on the U.S. We may have to go back again, redo the work 

against a major force. 

Do we have, with what we are going to end-strength with, 24 to 

26 BCTs, do we have what it takes to deal with that, perhaps to 

destroy ISIL, as the President has suggested, indicated he would 

like to do, and to be able to deal with other threats around the 

world unrelated to ISIL? 

General MAYVILLE. To defeat ISIL, we are going to need the partners, and we are going to need a partner in the Government of 

Iraq, and we are going to need partners in the region, and we are 

going to need the help of the coalition. This is not one that we 

would want to put squarely on the back of the United States military. 

To that end, I think that the way we have resourced the fight, 

the phasing of our campaign plans is adequate. And, again, I point 

back to pace. I think that we can do a lot on the military lines of 

effort, but it cannot outpace what must be done politically. 

Dr. FLEMING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Gabbard. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Stewart, you spoke briefly about your efforts, particularly in the Middle East, dealing with this Islamic extremist threat 

that we are seeing growing there. And I wondered if you could 

speak to how critical your assessments are and the intelligence 
18 

that you are gathering regarding the intent behind this extremist 

ideology informing the strategy to defeat this enemy. And what is 

that motivation? What is that intent? 

General STEWART. I think ISIL, in this particular case, is a radical ideology that must be countered with a moderate ideology. I 

think they intend, if I were to try to ascribe intent, their intent is 

to destabilize large countries in the region, force Western countries 

to depart the region, and then, of course, as they have already stated, to create this Islamic state. It is based on a violent, extremist 

interpretation of Islam, and it is not, I would argue, common 

throughout the entire region. 

So if I were to map out what ISIL would love to do, ISIL would 

love to have the United States and Western countries out of the region and slowly pick apart those other moderate nations who would 

counter their radical ideology. And if they could do that, then they 

could have a fairly easy opportunity to create this state that they 

think is appropriate for the region. 

Ms. GABBARD. And what are the common elements that you find 

while much of the action has been occurring in Iraq and Syria, you 

listed a number of other countries in the Middle East. And we see 

what is happening in Libya, for example. What are the common 

elements that you see between these different actors, whether it be 

ISIL, Al Qaeda, AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula], Boko 

Haram? And the list goes on. 

General STEWART. Ungoverned states, weak government institution, economic instability, poverty. 

Ms. GABBARD. What are the, you are referring to the common 

elements between the different geographic locations—— 

General STEWART. That is correct. 

Ms. GABBARD [continuing]. Or the common elements between 

these groups specifically? 

General STEWART. The common element really is just a radical 

approach ideology. I think that is the common element. 

ISIL can create, ‘‘create’’ in quotes, regions just by declaring that 

ISIL is in Libya. It doesn’t have to be anything substantive; it just 

has to create the impression that it is there and it is a different 

force to offer to the people in that region. 

So I don’t know that there is anything more common than just 

the very extreme approach, very violent, very strict interpretation 

of the religion, and finding opportunities in ungoverned spaces. 

Ms. GABBARD. I think it is important that we recognize this because as you are well aware, there is a debate right now about 

whether, about how this ideology, how this motivation must be 

identified in order to define our enemy, and in order to defeat this 

threat. And I think it is important as we look at dedication of resources, and strategy, and planning, that this identification of their 

motivation, of this radical Islamic ideology is made very distinctly, 

as we would with any other type of enemy. 

I know for the members here who have served in the military at 

one point or another, when we look at a basic thing like the fiveparagraph Operations Order, when we look at the situation, we 

look at and examine our enemy. We look at what their capabilities 

are, and what their motivations are. And so as we look at this 
19 

threat that exists both in the Middle East, and in countries in the 

West, that we recognize this and identify it clearly. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. If I can just say amen to what the gentlelady 

just said. As a matter of fact, we are going to have a hearing next 

week on this very topic, and I think it is very, very important. 

Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I appreciate you being here and your service to the 

country. And Mr. Chandler, I know you said that we cannot ignore 

history. I would certainly hope that we could learn from it as a 

country. And the Sunnis and the Shias have been in conflict, shall 

we say, since the seventh century. I find it hard to believe that a 

Judeo-Christian nation can step in and referee that conflict and 

that that fight won’t just continue once the referee leaves. And I 

think that is one of the things that we continue to see. 

I want to speak with you briefly, though, about the U.S. involvement and the things that we do that perhaps create the vacuum 

that allow organizations like ISIL to expand. And if I could read 

from what you presented: ‘‘In Libya, political instability and ongoing militia violence have worsened over the year, exacerbating conditions that have already made Libya an attractive terrorist safe 

haven. ISIL has increased its presence and influence in Libya, particularly in Darnah, where it has begun establishing Islamic institutions. Without a unified government and capable military, there 

is limited possibility of stability in the near-term.’’ 

People at the DOD and the White House made a decision to take 

Qadhafi out. And part of that decision included not putting U.S. 

troops on the ground to secure the weapons of Qadhafi. And now 

that we have removed him, we acknowledge that the situation is 

worse. Yet, we tried to do the same thing with Assad—the administration did. And in undermining Assad, it created a vacuum that 

in my opinion certainly allowed ISIL to grow in strength. 

While at the same time we are engaged in these activities that 

are close to or even neighboring Russia and China, we have Central and South America that we have basically lost focus on, if you 

will. And I would like you to speak to the issue of Russia and 

China and the inroads that they are making in our backyard with 

Latin America and South America, while we are focusing on these 

parts that are so far away from us, and their potential threats to 

the United States. 

General STEWART. Congressman, even before ISIL, Russia considered the Western Hemisphere a place that they could stage, get 

basing rights, and seek partners, if for nothing else, to curry votes 

in the United Nations. China also has done the same thing. 

So both for resources, and for partnership, and for influence, we 

see China and Russia expanding their reach, establishing cultural 

centers, establishing military bases that, to a lesser extent now 

than they have, certainly, Russia has in the past. It is for influence. It is for resources. It is for opportunities in the region. So 

that is not new as a result of ISIL, but it is ongoing. 

Mr. SCOTT. Would you agree that we have paid more attention 

to those parts of the world that are in China and Russia’s backyard 

than we have to those parts that are in our backyard? 
20 

General STEWART. I don’t know that I would agree with that entirely. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, I certainly respect your opinion. 

I would like to bring to the attention of the committee and other 

people one last statement in your presentation, ‘‘Speaking of Iran, 

the regime faces no insurmountable technical barriers to producing 

a nuclear weapon, making Iran’s political will a central issue.’’ And 

I think that is one of the reasons that we in the House have certainly tried to at least give the President the authority to bring 

more sanctions against Iran should they choose to go that path. 

If I could, one last question: Iran’s, it has been reported that Iran 

has recently signed some type of agreement with Russia. Could you 

speak to that briefly? 

General STEWART. I saw recently that the Iranians and the Russians were having some conversations. I have not seen anything 

that suggests that they have signed a recent agreement. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, sir. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Veasey. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I wanted to ask the panel about the spread of terrorism on 

the continent of Africa. As was pointed out a little bit earlier, obviously, in northern Africa, and places like Libya where we have seen 

problems that are very well documented, and we know that there 

are starting to be some issues in other parts of Africa, and I wanted to ask you, what is your assessment of preventing the continent 

of Africa from going into the same level of disarray as so much of 

the Middle East seems to be in right now? 

General STEWART. Congressman, that is a really tough question 

because so many of the conditions that we talked about that allows 

extremist ideology to grow, exists on the continent; ungoverned 

spaces, weak central government, weak security forces, extreme 

poverty. Those create opportunities that are exploited by this extreme ideology. 

So there are a number of places across the continent. However, 

having said that, the African Union is starting to push back, and 

you are starting to see call for forces from moderate states on the 

continent to fight against those extreme ideologies. But the force 

alone, the military effort alone, will not stop this movement. It 

must be replaced by a moderate ideology with all of the other 

things that will keep that ideology from growing: Good governance, 

good security forces, good rule of law, all of those things that must 

be developed. Those are not military solutions, but they are critical 

to success if you are going to counter terrorism. 

Mr. VEASEY. How much does it trouble you that a, take for instance a large country like Nigeria, that has resources, they have 

oil money, they do spend a lot of money on military resources, but 

yet, they have been unable to, you know, to quell or extinguish a 

force like Boko Haram. When you look right next door to Nigeria 

at a country like Chad that is smaller in population, smaller in resources, but yet they were able to push out Boko Haram out of 

their country in an area that they had recently taken over. 
21 

What is your assessment of a, you know, you talk about disorganized governments, or governments where there is no stability, but 

a large government like Nigeria, is that troubling to you? 

General STEWART. It is troubling in that the lack of leadership, 

the lack of commitment to developing the military, the lack of 

equipping those forces, caused Nigeria some challenges in, especially in the northeast, to counter Boko Haram. If there is any good 

news, the oil wealth is to the south and they would have to fight 

a long way in order to get to that. I am not sure that is their objective. So capitalizing on the oil resources is a long way off. 

The other good news is that Chad, and Cameroon, and Niger, 

and other countries around the region, are starting to take on Boko 

Haram. So it is a violent, brutal movement, but it is at this point 

isolated to the northeast portion of Nigeria, and it is starting, we 

are starting to get some help from neighboring countries to counter 

that threat. 

Mr. VEASEY. Do you think that there is some more potential to 

work with Nigeria to be able to extinguish Boko Haram, or do you 

think that the government there is not stable enough yet, or not 

honest enough yet to where we can be able to really work with 

them, to be able to get this situation more under control? 

As you know, there are many Members in Congress that are still, 

you know, concerned about, obviously, about the kidnapping of 

those girls, and the government’s, I am not going to say unwillingness, but their inability to be able to, you know, have the intelligence and the military power to do something about that. 

General STEWART. I think there are elections that will go on the 

14th of February and I think the results of the election will give 

us a better sense of who we have to work with and what we can 

do to help. So stay tuned for 14 February for the elections, and 

what else we might be able to do with a new government. 

We are concerned about the violence that might come with that 

election, quite frankly, and that will also shape what we can do in 

that country going forward. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

both generals for being here today and Mr. Chandler for your service to this country. 

And I know this is not of your creation, sequester. It is our creation. And I am obviously very concerned as, Mr. Thornberry is, in 

regards to how we move forward, because we know that the end 

strength of all of the services, but particularly the Army, at the end 

of this is going to put us in a very precarious situation. We also 

know that when we had, you know, a 500,000-man Army, we were 

stretched to the limit to try to fight in two different theaters where 

we wind up stretching the Army to 15-month deployments and, you 

know, stop-loss in regards to letting guys retire out that needed to 

retire. 

And so I worry about how we are going to go forward. Like I 

said, sequestration is not your making. It is ours, and it is our re-
22 

sponsibility, I think, to overturn sequestration as it relates to the 

military in particular. 

But Lieutenant General Stewart, based upon where we are today 

with the dollars that we have, I mean, how, and maybe we can do 

this in a closed setting, how stretched are you to actually do all the 

things that we have talked about, and we have covered a litany of 

things from Africa, to Asia, you know, to Russia. How do we do 

that with the confines? 

General STEWART. Are you talking from an intelligence standpoint or from forces? 

Mr. NUGENT. No, no, from an intelligence standpoint. 

General STEWART. Yes, sir, we are pretty stretched. Can we talk 

about that in closed session? 

Mr. NUGENT. Absolutely. 

General STEWART. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NUGENT. And I have other questions for the closed session. 

With that, I yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to build on the Chairman’s comments about the challenges that we have had in predicting the threats that we will face 

and the kinds of wars that we will fight, and add to that, that we 

also seem to be challenged in predicting the consequences of our 

military interventions, whether they are in Iraq, Libya, more recently. And I wanted to ask you, General Stewart, and General 

Mayville, and Mr. Chandler, how those challenges in the past inform how we approach military interventions going forward and 

the potential threats that those interventions will generate. 

General STEWART. I was trying to rack my brain for the quote 

about how difficult prediction is, but I couldn’t come up with it. But 

it is hard work, and the environment continues to change, even as 

you make forecasts about what you think will happen. 

So it is a very dynamic environment that especially now, has so 

many variables, and so many second- and third-order effects. The 

challenge I think, and we talked about this with my team recently, 

we are all very interested in the current fight. And so there is an 

incredible demand from us to talk about what is going on in Syria, 

and all those things are important. 

But it peels away capability to look to the future, and so how we 

think about how we divide up the challenges from the current fight 

and allow organizations like DIA to really look deep, to think about 

what the world looks like 4 or 5 years from now, is one of the great 

challenges that I think I will face as the director. 

Because the insatiable demand for current intelligence robs us of 

the ability to look a little bit deeper and think about the secondor third-order effects of our current actions. So we are going to try 

to do this a little bit better going forward. I can’t promise you that 

we will get it all right, but hopefully we won’t get it all wrong 

going forward. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. General Mayville, let me ask an additional question before you respond. Mr. Scott mentioned some of the vacuums 

our interventions unintentionally create, some of the problems that 

we are fighting today you can correlate to previous actions, military 

and otherwise, and decisions that we have made. How would you, 
23 

how are you approaching those second- and third-order consequences in arming moderate opposition forces in Syria, potentially 

sending weapons and aid to Ukraine? 

General MAYVILLE. The training and equipping of moderate Syrian opposition groups fits within a broader counter-ISIL strategy. 

And in that strategy, it is Iraq first, finding a partner, by that a 

political partner, not just Iraqi security forces, but a political partner that we can work with. While we do that, we want to take initial steps to allow Syrian opposition groups to defend themselves 

against ISIL. 

And we are just on the beginnings of that. There will be some 

bumps in the road. I think there will be some challenges as we 

move forward. I think the initial pace will be very deliberate. 

Maybe even the first numbers not particularly high, but I think 

there will be a certain amount of momentum. And I think as that 

evolves, we go back and look at where we are with the work we 

are doing to get the Government of Iraq and its military back up 

on its feet to look at the next phase, and I think you will find that 

the thinking on that is how do these two lines of operation complement each other. 

With regards to the Ukraine, I think first we have got to recognize that what Russia is doing in the Ukraine, first and foremost, 

represents a challenge to NATO, and we are members of NATO, 

and we want to look at how we can support NATO. We want to 

look at responding to this within the context of NATO. 

What is most important for us is that we maintain our ability to 

meet our Article 5 responsibilities. We will not allow that to be 

held at risk. And we need to look at what we can do to stiffen the 

confidence in us as a partner, as well as to assure our allies. Specifically, to what we can do in Ukraine, I think we need to look at 

a wider menu of options and explore that. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, I am out of time, but what I am 

really interested in knowing for the future is what potential threats 

are we generating by interventions in these two areas, Syria and 

Ukraine. But I will come back to you and maybe for the record get 

your response. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 69.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Bridenstine. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to address the threat from Russia specifically. When 

you think about the aggressive actions they have taken going back 

to 2008 with the invasion and occupation of South Ossetia, and of 

Abkhazia inside Georgia; cutting off of energy going back to the 

1990s; cutting off energy to the Baltic States, and people suffering, 

and in fact, people dying because they don’t have heat in the 

wintertime; cutting off energy to the Ukraine; threatening, you 

know, nuclear war in Poland because of a missile defense shield 

that had no offensive capability, but purely defensive; and of 

course, the invasion and occupation of Crimea. 

And now we hear that the Russians are claiming that international law allows them to put nuclear weapons—we know they 
24 

are in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 

that has been established by this administration, and now they are 

claiming that they have the authority to put nuclear weapons in 

Crimea. 

General Stewart, do you believe they have international law on 

their side when they put nuclear weapons in Crimea? 

General STEWART. No, Congressman, I do not. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. And as far as the reaction from the United 

States when this occurs, if it hasn’t already, and I would love to 

discuss this more in closed session, what is our reaction to that 

kind of activity? 

General STEWART. I would defer the answer to that question to 

our policymakers, sir. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. Well, I look forward to getting an answer to that question, because that is a question that is going to 

be—Mr. Chandler, I see you smiling. Would you like to answer 

that? 

Mr. CHANDLER. No sir, I just agree with General Stewart on deferring that question to the policymakers. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. Well, good. What I would like to say 

also, General Stewart, and I would like to commend you on the 

great testimony that you provided to Members of Congress, in particular, one line I think is important for every Member of this body 

to understand, which is you write that: ‘‘Rapidly-evolving commercial space technology will support the global pursuit of enhanced 

space and counter-space capabilities that may narrow the technological gap with the United States.’’ 

So when you think about Russia, they have launched into space 

devices that have not been registered with any international body. 

They are doing, you know, very sophisticated orbital maneuvers, 

potentially targeting, if you will, or at least moving in the direction 

of some of the space assets that would be important to the United 

States. The ability of our adversaries to take advantage of commercial capabilities I think is a concern for all of us. And I would also 

like to stress the fact that those commercial capabilities are available to us as well to the extent we take advantage of them. 

Would you like to expound on your statement about the commercial capabilities? 

General STEWART. I would offer only that both China and Russia 

have counter-space in their doctrine, and will use all of the available means to support a counter-space strategy. Beyond that, we 

probably got to talk in the classified session, sir. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Yes, and certainly I agree with that. 

And when we think about counter-space for people on this committee, as a Navy pilot I relied heavily on space. And ground warriors also rely heavily on space. When we lose space, we lose the 

ability to fight on land, on sea, and in the air. The enemies of our 

country have stated this publicly. That is why they are so aggressive in this area. 

And certainly, you go back to 2007, the Chinese have launched 

anti-satellite missiles that have, you know, targeted their own satellites, but created, you know, tens of thousands of pieces of debris 

that ultimately put at risk not only military assets, but also put 

at risk commercial assets. 
25 

So if space is truly a place for commercial activity, we need to 

be clear about what proper behavior is as it relates to the international community, and not be rewarding that kind of behavior, 

especially when it comes to, you know, now we are going to be 

partnering with China and providing information to them so that 

their space assets don’t hit the space debris that they themselves 

created. 

In essence, we could be potentially encouraging more bad behavior, and I think this is an area that we need to be very cognizant 

of going forward. 

So my time is expired, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Ms. Stefanik. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony this morning. This 

question is for General Mayville and General Stewart. In your 

opening statement, General Stewart, you state, I quote, ‘‘A confluence of global, political, military, social, and technological developments have created security challenges more diverse and complex than those we have experienced in our lifetimes.’’ Much of today’s testimony focuses upon what we do know. 

My question is related to what we don’t know, but should. What 

do you think are the biggest gaps in our understanding of threats 

to our national security? 

General STEWART. Let me think about that one. I am hesitating 

just a little bit for a couple of different reasons. One, we have covered a pretty wide front when we talked about the threat. So we 

talked about existential threat with China and Russia, all the way 

through terrorism, and narco-terrorist capability in our statement. 

So the biggest gap is, is really just understanding them all enough, 

with enough exquisite detail to shape policy early enough. 

So we think we have got the scope of the threat about right. How 

we can do this in a more nuanced, more exquisite way and deliver 

it early enough for decisionmakers is probably the gap. And do it, 

as I mentioned earlier, in an environment where it is so dynamic, 

where events are changing constantly, where social media is shaping our policy because we can now transmit at a moment’s notice 

around the globe on a whole host of social media devices. 

So it makes the decision space that we used to be able to give 

policymakers much shorter. And so the challenge is finding the 

key, you know that needle in the haystack, and doing it early 

enough, and getting out ahead of the social media today, the information space. So, I think that is probably where I would say the 

gap is. Finding the range of threats, I think we are pretty close. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Great, thank you. General Mayville. 

General MAYVILLE. So what is going on in the world? Well, we 

are seeing the emergence of not just violent, extreme organizations, 

but violent, extreme organizations within a much broader transregional framework. We are seeing global economic shifts. We are 

seeing shifts in regional power balances. We are seeing rising powers, the return of some geopolitical rivalries. There are clearly some 

new relationships that we need to develop, and the management of 

current client states is challenging. 
26 

I am concerned that there are conflicts that on the surface don’t 

appear to affect us, and that we somehow can ignore them. But if 

you ask me—and that is not true, I think we have to, there are 

some things that only we can do, and we are a global leader. 

But if you ask me what is it that I am most concerned about, 

I am concerned about our services’ and our forces’ ability, our military force, our joint force, their ability to have the wherewithal, the 

flexibility to manage the training, the readiness, and the modernization. And I am, it is perhaps, it is important to remember it 

is an All-Volunteer Force. And the stress and demands that we are 

placing on this force we should not take for granted. 

There are the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, the marines, and 

their families. I think we are asking a lot of them, and it is very, 

very important that as we think about the future, a future that we 

will continue to not get right, that we need to make sure that we 

have given to the Department the flexibility it needs to manage the 

three major balls that we need to manage, the current contingencies, the training, the readiness, the force modernization, and 

being able to take care of people. 

And I think that we will continue to have the force we need. And 

I think our Nation will continue to be secure and we, your military, 

will be able to meet its security requirements. 

Ms. STEFANIK. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady. 

Ms. McSally. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony today. I really appreciate it. 

I agree, I served 26 years in the military, that we live in a more 

complex and dangerous world than I have seen in my lifetime. So 

I think we are in agreement. Thanks for the breadth of the testimony. And you know, as I was in the military, we would see that 

often the intel and the forces would be focused usually CENTCOM 

[Central Command], PACOM [Pacific Command], EUCOM [European Command], but I live on the border, and you have some mentions of transnational criminal organizations [TCOs], the cartels, 

and the porous borders. 

And there is the opportunity, of course, for additional non-state 

actors to try and use that vulnerability as an access point for us. 

And again, usually the preponderance of your assets are not focused in that area, but geographically it is the closest to us for a 

potential threat to the homeland. 

So I was wondering if you could just comment on your assessment of the threat coming from Latin America, and up through the 

south, and what percentage, and maybe this answer is in the closed 

session, of your assets, your intel assets, are focused on the threats 

that might be emanating both from the TCOs and potential other 

non-state actors to take advantage of those vulnerabilities? 

General STEWART. Certainly, the number of capability we would 

probably have to talk about in closed session. 

But drug-traffickers is still a great focus, especially for the folks 

down at Southern Command and the folks in Texas. And so we provide support to those efforts. I think they would love to have more 
27 

capability diverted to that effort. It is, although dangerous to our 

society, the drugs that are coming in through those narco-traffickers, I think it is viewed as somewhat of a lesser threat. I don’t 

know that I agree with that ultimately. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Nor do I, just for the record. 

General STEWART. And so we tend not to devote as much resources there. Violence is down in the region. We are concerned a 

little bit about elections coming up in Venezuela, and what that 

might mean in terms of violence and humanitarian efforts. 

Colombia has absolutely turned around over the last several 

years. Plan Colombia has been very effective, so there is less of 

that threat from the region. We don’t see the same level of insurgency that we did just 10 years ago. So the real threat from Latin 

and Central America is the drug trafficking, narco-traffickers, and 

we are invested a little bit, but probably not nearly as much as we 

should. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. 

And again, for those who do live on the southern border and the 

potential for violence, with the cartels trafficking literally onto 

their lands and through their property, that is a very real threat 

for us; but again, the potentiality that someone else would take advantage of that for a larger national security threat is something 

we are concerned about in southern Arizona. 

I want to transition to, I was part of the team standing up U.S. 

Africa Command and running our counterterrorism operations. 

And we were very limited on resources all the way around. And so 

in addition to the resource limitations, we were limited in the process for how, when we would find a bad guy, how we would be able 

to quickly go sensor to shooter, find, fix, finish, and again, this may 

be more for the closed-door session. 

But I do want to have a deeper conversation about, with the 

ungoverned spaces and the rise of terrorist organizations on that 

continent that pose a threat to us, again, I saw opportunities we 

had to take out some of these guys, but we were either limited by 

resources or by the process, which was too slow and painful. And 

we would miss opportunities; way too centralized. 

And we allowed a number of bad guys to continue to go about 

their business and train additional terrorists as we watched that 

happen. So I am deeply concerned about that. And I don’t know if 

you can comment on it, General Mayville, if any of that has 

changed? And I look forward to talking more in the closed session. 

General MAYVILLE. Much of your question, I think, is better discussed at the policy level, and I will defer to policymakers to take 

that question. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Okay, great. 

But resources-wise, intel-wise, we were very limited there, too. 

General MAYVILLE. I can speak quickly to that. It continues to 

be a challenge. You mentioned two networks in your questions, one 

that goes east-west, from Kabul to Mali, and one that goes northsouth in the Western Hemisphere. The demands for resources, the 

demands for enablers are in those areas, the non-state activities, 

is quite high and managing them is a challenge. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thank you. 

My time is expired. 
28 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. MacArthur. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I sincerely want to thank all three of you for your service 

to our country. We really owe a debt of gratitude to those that keep 

us safe day and night, and I want to express that on behalf of my 

constituents. 

General Stewart, you mentioned three threats in your opening 

remarks. And I heard them this way: Capable military competitors. 

We are not the only game in town is how I heard that; an increase 

in ungoverned states, and you talked about ISIS. It is the third 

that has sort of arrested my attention, and that is, other actors’ 

focus on space. 

And I wanted to ask you about that. You talked about anti-satellite actions, and I thought I heard you say that with low cost and 

relative ease that rogue actors could interrupt our assets in space. 

And I think about, if I leave my cell phone home, I am an 

ungoverned state. We are so dependent on technology as a nation, 

both in our military response, but in our day-to-day life, in our financial markets, in everything we do. 

And so I wanted to ask you to elaborate a little bit on what do 

you mean by low cost and relative ease? How vulnerable are those 

assets to the degree you can talk about it? And then what do we 

do about that? What are we doing? What could we do to make 

those assets more secure? 

General STEWART. So I clearly wasn’t as clear as I had hoped to 

be. The low cost and ease of capability is in reference to things in 

cyberspace, not in terms of our space assets. 

So in terms of cyberspace, it is relatively easy to buy the tools 

and find the information on the network to conduct low-level cyberspace operations. Whether that is destroying or degrading, or in 

some cases being—denying services. 

So in terms of cyberspace activity, the cost of entry is low. In 

terms of counter-space, that is pretty high tech, and a pretty high 

barrier to entry there. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. Okay. Well, thank you. 

Cyberspace is a whole different subject, disturbing as well. But 

I think you have touched on that. 

My second question is for any of you, or all of you. And it is in 

regard to sequestration. I find it difficult to get my mind around 

how much is enough. How much spending is enough? To what degree does sequestration interrupt your operations? And I would like 

to hear some examples from you of where sequestration has 

squeezed your operational or intelligence-gathering operations and 

compromised our readiness. 

General STEWART. I can tell you that we have taken cuts in modernizing our information services, which as we talked about, the 

cyberspace threat. We are taking some hits there. 

We have not invested, in fact, we have taken a significant cut in 

intelligence support to cyberspace operations, and that happened in 

2013, if I remember the numbers correctly. 

And I think we are right on the margins, doing about as much 

as we can in support of counterterrorism operations as a result of 

the cuts. So those are three areas that come immediately to mind 

where we are really cutting into muscle at this point. 
29 

Mr. MACARTHUR. So does it follow back to my first question 

about vulnerability in cyberspace, as it turns out, and that is an 

area that we are cutting investment in intel support to that area 

where you are saying it is relatively easy for people to come after 

us? 

General STEWART. I am uncomfortable with how much intelligence capability I have within DIA and within the DIA enterprise 

to support the exquisite level of intelligence you need to conduct 

full-spectrum cyberspace operations. I am uncomfortable with the 

level of capability at this point. 

Now, we built tremendous mission teams, and those things are 

in the process of being built. But in terms of how you support that 

with the level of intelligence I think you need to do this well, I 

don’t think we are there at this point. 

Mr. MACARTHUR. All right, thank you. 

My time is expired. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank you all for being here today. We touched on a lot of 

things. And it literally makes your head spin when you think of all 

the things we have to deal with to keep ourselves safe and to try 

and make the world a better place. 

You know, when it comes to so many of the things taking place, 

I think of the battles that we have, you know, we use our diplomatic intelligence, military, economic means to handle things. We 

also have to have the American people behind us. And I think of 

a quote from our colleague Sam Johnson, who spent 7 years as a 

POW [prisoner of war] in Vietnam. He talks about, ‘‘The taste of 

freedom is an experience that is lost on the protected.’’ And so you 

talk about a volunteer force, and those that serve, and the struggles that they go through, and the appreciation you have for peace 

in a safe environment in your home. 

But we need the American people to understand all that we face 

beyond just this room and amongst our peers in Congress as well. 

And it makes it difficult. But to shift just a little bit to go to another topic that ties into probably everything that we are talking 

about, the immediate threat is to our homeland. Are you comfortable with where we are right now as a nation as far as our border security? And what can we do to make it better, to make the 

American people feel safer when it comes to drugs, disease, terrorism, et cetera? 

General STEWART. In terms of how we secure the border, I probably am out of my depth to talk about that, but I can talk a little 

bit about the threat. There are Westerners who have gone to participate in activities in the Middle East. We think that number is 

upwards of 3,000. We know that some of those are Americans who 

have gone or have tried to go in support of operations with ISIL. 

And so that is a concern. 

I think within the country I am very confident that the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and the director of FBI have got a 

program to account for those individuals. And beyond that in terms 

of the policy, how we counter that, I probably am going to stop 

there, sir. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. I thank you for your honesty on that. 
30 

But let’s also take a look at things near to us; possibly the rise 

of Russian involvement in Cuba. This is getting into more conventional type things, but how do you see that type of threat, and do 

you see something on the horizon with them engaging more in 

Cuba, which is very near to us? 

General STEWART. All right, we have seen no indications that the 

relationship between Russia and Cuba has changed. Cuba remains 

a base of operations. They provide a good bit of support—the Russians do—to the Cuban economy. We haven’t seen anything that 

changed either in terms of growth or decrease in activity. So it is 

a pretty stable environment at this point. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Did you have something to add, sir? 

General MAYVILLE. No, sir, I don’t, but thank you for the question. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Brooks. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Stewart, are you familiar with the Chinese technology 

company Huawei, H-u-a-w-e-i? 

General STEWART. Yes, sir, Huawei. 

Mr. BROOKS. Huawei, thank you. 

Is Huawei telecommunications equipment a potential threat to 

the United States security? 

General STEWART. I believe any time that we put systems on our 

networks that are developed in foreign countries, we ought to make 

sure that we have the assurances that that equipment is clean, can 

be looked at all the way down to the BIOS [basic input/output system] level to ensure that there are no malicious tools. 

So I won’t necessarily single out the Chinese company, but I 

would be very concerned about our supply chain with any equipment that transits countries that we have dissimilar interests. 

Mr. BROOKS. Well, in your position with the Defense Intelligence 

Agency, would you recommend or oppose any, say that again. 

General STEWART. Huawei. 

Mr. BROOKS. Huawei. 

General STEWART. Yes sir. 

Mr. BROOKS. I wish it was spelled that way. Would you approve 

the procurement of Huawei technology for DIA? 

General STEWART. I would be very hesitant without some real assurance that I could look inside of those equipments to make sure 

they did not have any malicious code or capability within those systems. 

Mr. BROOKS. Are you familiar with any of their technology now 

being in use at the DIA? 

General STEWART. I am not aware. I will ask that question, but 

I would be surprised, because I think we are pretty good at making 

sure we have an approved list of vendors that we acquire equipment from. I can’t imagine that that is one of the approved vendors. 

Mr. BROOKS. Let me expand on that a little bit. If you are asked 

by the Secretary of Defense whether any of their technological 

equipment should be used in the Department of Defense generally, 

would you have a recommendation? 
31 

General STEWART. I would probably want to make sure we have 

some pretty good assurance. I wouldn’t be comfortable making that 

recommendation on its face. 

Mr. BROOKS. Is there anything in particular about this Chinese 

company that causes you to be hesitant? 

General STEWART. Just controlling the entire supply chain of the 

equipment would make me a little bit nervous. 

Mr. BROOKS. All right. General Stewart, do you have a judgment 

of how much unclassified controlled technical information China 

has obtained from cleared defense contractors? 

General STEWART. No, sir, not a definitive amount, but that is, 

in fact, an area where China continues to make attempts to steal 

intellectual property. I couldn’t quantify the amount, but I would 

probably put it in a substantive amount. 

Mr. BROOKS. How would you describe the term ‘‘substantive’’? 

General STEWART. I am a Marine, sir. A lot. 

Mr. BROOKS. A lot. Okay. 

General STEWART. I don’t know that there is a real way, because 

in this space, you may take out a number of files and the files may 

contain a large quantity of information within the one particular 

file. So it becomes very hard to quantify how much is being taken 

through intellectual property theft. 

So I think it is an effort that China continues to pursue. And so 

I would say that there is a good deal, but I couldn’t give you X 

number of terabytes or petabytes that would make anyone here 

comfortable. That would be an absolute guess. 

Mr. BROOKS. So in your position with DIA, you are familiar with 

a lot of technical information with our DOD efforts that China has 

obtained. Of course, there is also the quantity that we don’t yet 

know about. Would that be a fair statement? 

General STEWART. Theft of intellectual property is as old as history itself. And they are just doing it in cyberspace, where you can 

get a lot more than you could by sending someone to steal that 

property. 

So we do know some is taken. We don’t know how much, and we 

don’t know if we have a good sense if it is all, or just a portion. 

Mr. BROOKS. And do you have a judgment as to whether or not 

China’s theft of our defense technological information has adversely 

affected our defense capabilities? 

General STEWART. I would probably want to take that into a 

closed session, sir. 

Mr. BROOKS. All right. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nothing further. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. There is just a handful of things I 

wanted to touch on, gentlemen, before we go into the closed briefing. Just briefly, hopefully. 

Is the Ukrainian government outgunned by the Russian-supported rebels? 

General STEWART. I looked at that this morning. And Russia has 

set up basically a no-fly zone over the area. So not a whole lot of 

Ukrainian aircraft can operate in the area. They have got a number of battalion tactical groups that are poised on the Russian side 

of the border that freezes Ukrainian forces from moving. 
32 

The separatists are well armed. They have lots of artillery tubes. 

They have got support from the Russians in terms of ISR capability. I probably could, pretty close to saying outgunned. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Next week we are going to have a hearing 

focusing on state actors using unconventional tactics, folks without 

uniforms, various forms of political warfare, subversion, and so 

forth. 

General Stewart, you struck me with one of your earlier comments saying, ‘‘Our military intelligence was geared for formations 

marching across borders where we can see,’’ and so forth. How is 

our military intelligence geared for detecting and dealing with 

these unconventional threats that we are increasingly seeing? And 

I am talking about in addition to insurgency sorts of, and terrorism 

operations? 

General STEWART. I would argue that over the last 12 or 13 

years, as we have gotten into this counterinsurgency, counterterrorism fight, we are probably better in that space than we have 

been in the past. It is very easy, though, to default back to that 

easy Soviet motorized regiment coming across the Fulda Gap. That 

is an easy, relatively easy problem set. 

I worry that we don’t strike the right balance between understanding that threat that is really an existential, and understanding some of the smaller formations where you really need exquisite, on-the-ground support and on-the-ground intelligence in 

order to understand. 

Trying to find five guys in an urban environment is a hard, hard 

problem. You don’t do that very effectively from some of our very 

technical capabilities. And so that makes understanding them very 

difficult, sir. 

General MAYVILLE. Mr. Chairman, could I add one other area of 

concern, not only in the hybrid fight, but our adversaries’ use of social media. I think that increasingly we are finding our adversaries 

very skillfully and very effectively using social media for military 

activities. And I am concerned about our ability to deal in this particular domain. So as you look at the non-state activities or the hybrid fights, I would also encourage that we consider the social 

media as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. That might be a good topic for our Emerging 

Threats Subcommittee to dig into a little bit further. I appreciate 

that. 

Just a few months ago, Ebola was a huge thing. The only folks 

who could deal with it was the U.S. military, and we sent them. 

Obviously, that was, or I assume, everybody assumes that was naturally caused and created. 

On the other hand, we know that terrorists have experimented 

with various sorts of biological agents. How are we set up to detect 

biological threats, whether naturally created, or manmade-induced 

in the future? 

General STEWART. Can I take that one for the record, come back 

with a good answer? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. 

[The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

General STEWART. I don’t have a good answer for that one, sir. 
33 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate it. 

Mr. Chandler, I want to give the hard one to you. There are some 

folks who believe that increased domestic stability inside Russia 

and inside China will lead them to be more aggressive outside. 

They need to distract their people, they need to, you know, focus 

on an enemy, et cetera. It is going to be a natural reaction. 

Do you think that is true? Do you think that is something we 

have to prepare for because there are clearly stresses inside of Russia and China going on right now? 

Mr. CHANDLER. I think that the internal dynamics don’t necessarily have a direct correlation to what either China or Russia 

are going to do externally. We have seen historically proven, and 

China is on a path for regional expansion and assertiveness in the 

East China Sea and South China Sea, regardless of the internal domestic situation. 

Russia is, in its near abroad, takes its most important actions to 

the near abroad. Regardless of that, Putin today has about an 85 

percent approval rating, today, despite the economic problems that 

they are facing. But when challenged there, and you have to remember that the Russians have suffered, if you go back historically, tremendous amounts, and Putin is going to push forward 

whatever he needs to do on his agenda. 

So I don’t necessarily think there is a one-for-one correlation between domestic strife and what either country will do to push outward. They have their objectives and they will go ahead and pursue those. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Fair point. 

General Stewart, and is it your assessment that it is possible to 

talk Iran out of voluntarily continuing their nuclear program? 

General STEWART. Can you negotiate them out of their nuclear 

program? I think that is a great question, Congressman. That is a 

great question. I know that Iran has done everything that it could 

at this point to retain that capability. The decision to go down the 

path of a nuclear weapon has not been made. 

So if the decision, when they have the capability to do so, has 

not been made, suggests that you could negotiate them out of doing 

a nuclear capability. Because there is nothing that could stop them 

right now if they said, if the Supreme Leader said go, they have 

all of the technology, they have all of the capability. They could go. 

So there must be something that would convince them to not take 

that path. So I think there is room for negotiation yet. 

The CHAIRMAN. Or at least delay. 

General STEWART. The delay probably adds not a whole lot for 

them. If they decided to go, they could go fairly quickly. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

The last question I have got, you answered a previous question 

that roughly we think 30 percent of the folks who have been in 

Guantanamo Bay detention facility have either been confirmed or 

suspected of returning to the fight. But that figure is true over the 

life of the releases from Guantanamo, is it not? So that the folks 

that are left are the people who we have judged not—to be less releasable, if you will. And so the chances of the people who would 

be released now returning to the fight could well be even greater. 

Do you agree with that? 
34 

General STEWART. I have significant concerns about the remaining detainees. And I think it is also important, I want to add for 

the record, that DIA was not consulted on the release of the 

Taliban Five. I wanted to make sure that got on the record. But 

the remaining detainees cause me concern, and I think we can talk 

about that in the closed session. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, I think that is good. 

Thank you all very much for answering questions on a whole variety of topics. 

We will adjourn this hearing, and then everybody has time to 

make a pit stop, but we will move quickly upstairs to 2212 for a 

classified briefing. 

And with that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 3, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 3, 2015 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

FEBRUARY 3, 2015 

(69) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. CONAWAY 

General STEWART. Late in the hearing General Stewart came back to this question and answered it [see page 34]: ‘‘General STEWART. I have significant concerns 

about the remaining detainees. And I think it is also important, I want to add for 

the record, that DIA was not consulted on release of the Taliban Five. I wanted to 

make sure that got on the record.’’ [See page 16.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. O’ROURKE 

General MAYVILLE. We have no intelligence indicators that U.S. actions related 

to Syria and Ukraine are generating new, specific threats to the United States. I 

defer analysis of potential threats to the Intelligence Community. [See page 23.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. TAKAI 

General MAYVILLE. Upon consultation with the US Army Staff and the Joint Staff 

J5/OSD Policy Global Posture Integration Team, force structure decisions beyond 

FY15 for Army’s active force have not yet been made. Future force reductions could 

impact U.S. Army Pacific forces and increase risk to OPLANs and CONPLANs by 

reducing the number of ready and available forces required for successful plan execution. [See page 9.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 3, 2015 

(73) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS 

Mr. ROGERS. The United States has ceased its development of ‘‘new’’ nuclear 

weapons with new military capabilities to show its ‘‘leadership in nonproliferation 

and disarmament.’’ What state has followed our lead? Are any of the following 

states developing new nuclear weapons with new military capabilities: China, Russia, India, or Pakistan? Are they all doing so? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Can you please provide a complete list of states developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with an intention of threatening the U.S. 

homeland? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Please describe the types and quantities of Russian tactical nuclear 

weapons. Is it true they deploy nuclear land mines, nuclear artillery, nuclear torpedoes, and other systems? How many of these tactical nuclear weapons do they 

have? How many does the United States have? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

Mr. ROGERS. There is a concept called disaggregation for space systems, which 

would change the approach from having large highly capable satellites to move to 

smaller distributed space systems. For example, one notion is to separate the strategic and tactical aspects of the missile warning missions. What would be the practical impact of such a move on potential Chinese and Russian counter-space activity? Would this provide greater protection to our space systems? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Recently, the Under Secretary for Defense for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics briefed the committee on the state of U.S. technical superiority. 

Given the erosion manifest by our adversaries’ relentless pursuit of U.S. intellectual 

capital, what are you and the Defense Intelligence Agency doing about it? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Given that we have a need to more closely tie intelligence to acquisition and requirements, what is your assessment of the value/role of Scientific & 

Technical Intelligence in achieving that goal? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

Mr. ROGERS. What is the health of the Scientific and Technical Intelligence community in being able to support our acquisition, operations, and warfighters? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

Mr. ROGERS. How would you describe the relationship between Scientific & Technical Intelligence and S&T? Where do we need to move the communities in the future and why? What can Congress do to help in the National Defense Authorization 

Act of Fiscal Year 2016, including as part of the acquisition reform push we are engaged in at present? 

General STEWART. There is a close relationship between Scientific and Technical 

Intelligence (S&TI) and Science and Technology (S&T). ‘‘Science’’ is the description, 

identification, and investigation of natural and physical processes and events to explain and understand observed events. ‘‘Technology’’ is the application of science to 

solve problems and to achieve specific objectives. S&T organizations in the U.S. and 

abroad leverage scientific understanding of defense and intelligence problems to devise technical solutions to defeat and overcome our adversaries’ weapons systems 

and defense capabilities, and to understand unexplained foreign activities, research 

and construction. Defense Intelligence S&T solutions can include new ground and 

satellite collection platforms, nontraditional exploitation capabilities, and breakthrough weapons systems. S&TI is the systematic study and analysis of foreign S&T 

research, development, and engineering. S&TI products are used to warn of foreign 
74 

technical developments and capabilities that may threaten or compromise U.S. commercial, defense, and intelligence advantage. S&TI’s focus spans near-term weapons 

development to game-changing technologies and landmark scientific advances. 

DIA’s Defense Intelligence Office for Scientific and Technical Intelligence is responsible for integrating scientific and technical intelligence across the defense intelligence enterprise to develop a strategic S&TI plan aimed at preventing technical 

surprise in critical domains. The mission of DIA’s Directorate for Science and Technology is to develop and deliver leading-edge scientific and technical understanding 

and capabilities to provide our warfighters and policymakers with a decisive advantage. 

We fully endorse and support the current efforts underway in USD (AT&L) related to the Better Buying Power 3.0 initiative: Anticipate and plan for responsive 

and emerging threats and build stronger partnerships between the acquisition, requirements and intelligence communities. The defense intelligence enterprise must 

become more adaptive, responsive, and flexible to best address the time-sensitive 

needs of the defense acquisition and requirements communities. DIA is currently piloting several new tools and capabilities to provide greater acquisition efficiency. 

Mr. ROGERS. Russia and China like to complain about U.S. missile defenses and 

prompt global strike systems. So, I have two questions for you: (1) Are Russia and 

China developing missile defenses to counter U.S. nuclear forces and are they developing their own prompt strike capabilities? (2) If the U.S. ceased to deploy missile 

defense and halted development of prompt strike systems tomorrow, would Russia 

cease its incredible reliance on nuclear weapons? (3) Does Russia deploy nucleartipped ballistic missile defense systems? Does the United States? 

General STEWART. [The information is classified and retained in the committee 

files.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER 

Mr. SHUSTER. Do you believe we have the necessary industrial base capacity for 

our current as well as our future military commitments? 

General STEWART. Generally speaking, contracts with the defense industrial base 

support our current capabilities with manageable risks and are meeting current 

military commitments. While future military commitments are largely undefined, 

additional capacity beyond contractual requirements may require additional time 

and funding. I defer further analysis to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. 

Mr. SHUSTER. How would a reduction in industrial base capacity impact the ability of the warfighter to respond to the array of threats that have been mentioned 

here today? 

General STEWART. The defense industrial base is extremely diverse, with varying 

capabilities and business dynamics residing in separate sectors and tiers of the supply chain. The Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy (MIBP), in coordination with the Services, perform multiple industrial base assessments and analyses 

across programs to identify and mitigate risks that impede the Department’s effort 

to deliver systems and services to the warfighter. I defer to the MIBP office within 

the OSD(AT&L) staff. 

Mr. SHUSTER. In your estimation, is the United States maintaining its historical 

advantage in industrial base capability compared to emerging powers like China? 

General STEWART. DIA is not the proper agency to address this question and defers to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Do you believe the industrial base still has the capacity to support 

U.S. action in a major, large-scale conflict? 

General MAYVILLE. Generally speaking, contracts with the defense industrial base 

support our current capabilities, including surge capacity in some instances, with 

manageable risks. Because commercial suppliers normally guarantee only what is 

under contract, any additional capacity beyond contractual requirements may require additional time and funding. I defer further analysis to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. 

Mr. SHUSTER. If our industrial base capacity were reduced through the loss of one 

or more of our depots, how badly would this hurt our military’s ability to respond? 

General MAYVILLE. To prevent the loss of necessary depot capacity, 10 U.S.C 

§ 2464, Core Logistics Capabilities requires the Services to maintain a ready and 

controlled source of technical competence and the resources necessary to ensure effective and timely response to mobilization, national defense contingency situations, 

and other emergency requirements. The Services annually report their ability to 
75 

meet this requirement for core depot capacity. I defer further impact analysis to the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. AGUILAR 

Mr. AGUILAR. The committee has been exploring acquisition reform to ensure the 

military has the best possible equipment for the mission at the best possible cost. 

What are your thoughts about how best to approach this reform effort while ensuring we have the best capabilities to respond to threats? General Stewart indicated 

that the Defense Intelligence Agency is doing a review about the deficiencies in the 

current acquisition process and that there may be significant room for improvement. 

Please provide the committee with at least an initial overview of your findings. I 

hope we can work together to improve the process to ensure we are able to respond 

efficiently and effectively to threats around the world. 

General STEWART. DIA has been actively involved with OUSD (AT&L) to improve 

the overall acquisition process and develop stronger linkages within acquisition policy through USD(AT&L)’s Better Buying Power 3.0 initiative. DIA is an IC leader 

in areas such as competition where DIA achieved 81% against a 74% FY14 competition goal, and a small business utilization rate close to 25%. DIA continues in its 

efforts to improve intelligence support to acquisition and has an active dialog with 

OUSD (AT&L) and USD(I) on acquisition improvements. DIA also completed a Contracting Task Force in 2013 that uncovered a few cases of duplication and overlap 

in the acquisition process, and adjustments were made to various Acquisition Strategies which were incorporated into the Spend Plan build for 2014 and the out-years. 

DIA contracting is set up to be rapid and agile, with many Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity type contracts, that DIA (and in many cases other agencies and 

the Services) can place orders against as warfighter needs arise. DIA also utilizes 

flexibility with placing surge requirements on many of our contracts, to be rapidly 

utilized as world events unfold. Additionally, DIA has a strong working relationship 

with the contractor community, and has initiated industry forums and cross-talks 

on a routine basis with appropriate business-side personnel to compare best practices and lessons-learned, which enhances our partnerships. 

From the defense intelligence perspective, DIA has conducted a review on intelligence support to acquisition and is developing a plan to address how DIA and the 

Defense Intelligence Enterprise can better support defense acquisition requirements. 

DIA recognizes the difficulties in providing intelligence on future threats to 

OUSD(AT&L) as a factor to determine future capabilities and weapon systems of 

the Department of Defense. Within DIA, the Defense Intelligence Officer for Scientific and Technical Intelligence, in partnership with the Directorate for Intelligence, has taken the lead to improve the intelligence support to acquisition in the 

Department of Defense. A number of efforts have been initiated, such as evolving 

specific acquisition-intelligence products to dynamically address intelligence requirements, modernizing analytic production, and informing both the Requirements and 

Acquisition systems at major decision points earlier in the process. 

DIA is aware of the new acquisition legislation that Chairman Thornberry has recently introduced and applauds the Chairman’s efforts to transform the acquisition 

process. We look forward to improving many of our policies and procedures as the 

laws change in the future. 

Mr. AGUILAR. The committee has been exploring acquisition reform to ensure the 

military has the best possible equipment for the mission at the best possible cost. 

What are your thoughts about how best to approach this reform effort while ensuring we have the best capabilities to respond to threats? General Stewart indicated 

that the Defense Intelligence Agency is doing a review about the deficiencies in the 

current acquisition process and that there may be significant room for improvement. 

Please provide the committee with at least an initial overview of your findings. I 

hope we can work together to improve the process to ensure we are able to respond 

efficiently and effectively to threats around the world. 

General MAYVILLE. Congressman Aguilar, thank you for the opportunity to answer this question regarding acquisition reform. I agree that we must ensure our 

acquisition system delivers the best capabilities to respond to worldwide threats, but 

am unfamiliar with DIA’s review of the acquisition process. I respectfully request 

deferral to the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology and 

Logistics to comment on the findings of the DIA acquisition process review. 

Mr. AGUILAR. The committee has been exploring acquisition reform to ensure the 

military has the best possible equipment for the mission at the best possible cost. 

What are your thoughts about how best to approach this reform effort while ensuring we have the best capabilities to respond to threats? General Stewart indicated 
76 

that the Defense Intelligence Agency is doing a review about the deficiencies in the 

current acquisition process and that there may be significant room for improvement. 

Please provide the committee with at least an initial overview of your findings. I 

hope we can work together to improve the process to ensure we are able to respond 

efficiently and effectively to threats around the world. 

Mr. CHANDLER. Congressman Aguilar, thank you for the opportunity to address 

military equipment acquisition reform. While I agree that ensuring our military has 

the best possible equipment at the best possible price is an important priority, I 

must respectfully request to defer comment to the experts on the OSD and DIA 

staffs that specialize in Acquisitions, Technology, and Logistics. 

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