Thank you so much for inviting me to speak today. This conference is both timely and opportune as we struggle to fully understand the problem of political warfare and how we should be postured to respond to this threat in our free and open democratic system. Getting information out into the public sphere about the nature of the threat emanating from Russia is a good first step.  As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis so famously said, “sunlight is the best of disinfectants.”

The Russian Malign Influence Threat

Currently in Washington, much of the legislative business has been overshadowed by dramatic hearings into whether there is a connection between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. It is of paramount importance that we get to the bottom of what happened: how the Russians interfered in our election, and whether the President or his campaign associates cooperated with Russia. This knowledge is absolutely critical for the integrity of our democracy and the credibility of our political institutions. It is not a partisan issue.

While we in Washington are reacting to the whiplash of the daily news cycle, we must not lose sight of the serious threat that Russia’s broader malign activities pose for our national security, and that of our allies and partners globally.  As former FBI Director Jim Comey reminded us emphatically during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Russian interference in our electoral process is “a big deal” and “about as un-fake as you can possibly get.”  The consensus of our entire intelligence community, in a report issued in January, is that a Russian influence campaign targeting the U.S. election was ordered by President Putin, with aims of eroding public confidence in the election process, denigrating Hillary Clinton, and aiding their preferred candidate, Donald Trump.  The intelligence community also concluded that the Russian interference represented a “significant escalation” of the kinds of activities previously observed. 

In addition, Director Comey correctly said about the Russians, “They’ll be back.”  The intelligence community described this new type and level of political warfare as the “New Normal.”  The same techniques that were used against the Clinton campaign last year were employed against the Macron campaign during the French presidential elections this year, including fake news, disinformation on social media, and the disclosure of hacked private emails carefully timed to effect the French campaign.   With German elections later this year and U.S. elections in 2018 and 2020, it is absolutely imperative that we and our allies and partners take all reasonable measures to prepare for Russian confrontation in the information domain. 

What is deeply disturbing about the current environment in Washington, however, is that President Trump refuses to acknowledge the problem and may even not recognize the national security threat of Russian malign influence. He said, “If Russia or anybody else is trying to interfere with our elections, I think it’s a horrible thing and I want to get to the bottom of it.”   But this is not a question of “if.”

In recent congressional testimony, neither Director Comey nor Attorney General Sessions could recall a single conversation with President Trump in which the President expressed concern about what the Russians did in the 2016 U.S. elections.  When I asked Defense Secretary Mattis whether the President had directed him to begin intensive planning to protect our electoral system against the next Russian cyberattack, he was not able to point to any guidance indicating that the President recognizes the urgency of the Russian threat or the necessity of preparing to counter it next year during the mid-term elections.  Further, Attorney General Sessions—the nation’s chief law enforcement officer—seems willfully oblivious to this threat. Sessions admitted when he testified before the Intelligence Committee to not having had a single briefing on this critical threat to the United States. Earlier this week, officials from the Department of Homeland Security testified that 21 states were potentially targeted by Russian government linked hackers in advance of the 2016 Presidential Election. When I asked these officials whether the President had directed them to come up with a plan to protect our critical elections infrastructure, they also responded no.

So a first step for addressing the Russian malign threat is for the White House to recognize the problem.  The President needs to state publicly that there is an ongoing Russian military strategy for undermining the integrity of our democratic processes and the credibility of Western political systems.  

It’s time to sound the alarm bells.  The Russians know they cannot win in a conventional war, so they have adapted their tactics asymmetrically to leverage their strengths.  Russian strategy and tactics have been defined in various ways, including active measures, hybrid warfare, information warfare, or disinformation. At this conference, all of you have done significant work on this issue, and we will benefit from the conclusions coming out of these discussions. I think a useful term to describe this threat is “information confrontation.” The Russians are using a strategy of confronting us with fake or misleading information to achieve their national security objectives while avoiding open conflict. This is a campaign of influence rather than force, but it’s just as effective, if not more so, because it is done in a subversive manner so that we don’t even realize it’s happening until it’s too late – as was the case in the 2016 election.

Evolution of the new Russian Threat

I don’t want to go over what I assume is well-trodden ground from the last two days, but I would like to highlight the nature of the Russian threat.

At the end of the Cold War, we emerged from the fight victorious. We saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and equated its fall with our ideas and values prevailing once and for all.  We proceeded to dismantle our cold war architecture, which was deemed no longer relevant. We did away with the United States Information Agency, Russian expertise throughout our government dissipated, and we came to question the value of security assistance as a tool of influence. We presumed that all could see the benefits of the West’s liberal democratic order.

The Russians saw the situation in a drastically different light. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the end of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century.  In 2007, he warned of “uncontained,”  “hyper” use of force by the United States in a unipolar world, calling it inherently dangerous. Putin peddled doubt directly to the U.S. public, writing in the New York Times in 2013, “it is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.” This mind frame—of competition, of confrontation, of attempts at moral equivalency— guides Kremlin actions even today.

The Russians have taken a much broader and longer view of the problem and have harbored these grievances against us since the end of the Cold War. Some of our foreign partners caution that there never was a break in Russia’s information confrontation against them, it was just coming from the Soviets one day and the Russians the next. And the Russians leverage all tools of influence as part of their strategy.  

Part and parcel with this strategy is the underling idea that while the Russians have invested considerably in military modernization and hardware, they cannot, for now, match the United States when it comes to our conventional military capabilities. Instead they have been able to leverage their asymmetric capabilities in a way that causes maximum effect with minimal investment.

The Russians are able at times to make it seem like their capabilities are superior— without ever firing a shot. A fake news item that was propagated by Russia and disseminated twice in the last few years alleged that the Russian military invented a new technology that can jam any of our electronic systems. They claimed that the weapon was so sophisticated that it knocked out the electronic systems of the USS Donald Cook—an Aegis class missile frigate. The story ran in April on Russian-government-owned TV despite being utterly and completely false.  This fake news item then went global— getting picked up by the British newspaper The Sun, Fox News, and nearly 40 additional outlets. The Fox News version was reportedly shared over 27,000 times while The Sun’s version was shared over 10,000 times—primarily through Facebook.  Even worse, this was not the only time Russians thrust this fake story in the spotlight. In 2014, the German outpost of Russian-government-owned Sputnik claimed that a Russian attack aircraft had “crippled” an American destroyer in the Black Sea and further alleged in a Russian newspaper a few weeks later that the Russians had “knocked the entire Aegis system out of action” and that the ship had to dock at a Romanian port to restore the ship’s “nerves.” The Russian report further states that the crew was demoralized and 27 members resigned.

This anecdote showcases all of the Russian tricks— an endless barrage of propaganda in the form of fake and distorted stories, multiplied by the speed of the 24-hour news cycle and rapid social media posts and amplified by a cyber-army of paid trolls and bots.  They do not have physical capabilities to take out our radars with electronic warfare, but they have a Potemkin capability of a fake Russian “electronics bomb.” As you have discussed extensively during this conference, we repeatedly have seen Russian active measures successfully influence the course of public discourse in the Netherlands, Ukraine, Brexit, the United States and France.

The chief Russian propagandist has said “Information wars have already become standard practice and the main type of warfare. The bombers are now sent in after the information campaign.”

Our military on the other hand, sees information warfare as adjunct to our military planning. It’s a tactic that we employ as part of and in support of our broader military operations, but it by no means drives our strategy.  During the Cold War, we used information operations in a more strategic way, but currently we lack this capability due to a dearth of strategy, attention, expertise, and funding. As we found ourselves embroiled in two long counterinsurgency wars, we reoriented our planning, our systems, and our weapons to counter the threats of insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. We took our eye off the growing challenges to the international order in Europe, and frankly we were late to realize that the Russians had either pushed past any reset in U.S.-Russian relations or had never stopped seeing us as the enemy.  

Challenges to counter the threat in a free democratic society

The threat of Russian information confrontation is serious and we are behind the curve in implementing solutions. But in thinking about how to effectively counter Russia, we have to work through additional challenges that are particular to our democratic and open society.

One challenge to our being best postured to meet these new threats is how our budget is allocated across national security agencies. As we have increased the Department of Defense budget, the State Department’s budget and its place in the national security decision-making process has been significantly diminished. But the funding cuts proposed by this Administration— approximately 30% of State’s budget— are a new low. We need a fully-funded, fully-staffed, State Department that is able to conduct diplomacy across the world. Every military commander who has testified before my committee this year has echoed the need for a well-funded State Department and said that without it, their job is only harder.

A second challenge unique to the United States is a need to craft a strategy that respects our first amendment rights. Free speech and freedom of the press are a cornerstone of our democracy.  But as a society we need to build resilience to fake news and be willing to challenge sources when a story doesn’t pass the smell test.

A third challenge is to counter the Russian narrative without losing a sense of our values. The Russians are trying to promote the narrative that the United States and Russia are moral equivalents, to disorient public perception of the truth—and erode our democracy. This is why I was particularly dismayed by statements coming from the President on Russia. Several times when asked about Putin’s record, President Trump  answered that the United States, including our men and women in uniform— are on the same level as Russia, countering denouncements of  Putin’s regime with,  “You think our country is so innocent?” and “our country does plenty of killing too.”  These sentiments are contrary to our values and to U.S. leadership since World War II. Any U.S. strategy must emphasize our values—democracy, human rights, and the rule of law—not downplay or diminish them.

Policy prescriptions

Having noted these challenges, the very real question is what to do about it. Fortunately, we are not starting from scratch. Though President Trump may be unwilling to confront or condemn Russian interference in our democracy, the U.S. Senate recently passed long-overdue Russian sanctions. This legislation would codify existing sanctions and expand authorities for additional ones. We also designated our elections infrastructure as a critical asset. In addition, in last year’s defense authorization bill we expanded the mandate of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which was stood up originally to counter ISIS propaganda, to include state-sponsored propaganda and disinformation.  While this is a start, these actions are not enough. We are still playing catch up as we seek to reorient our government in concert with allies and partners with the goal of countering this threat and building resilience in our society at home.

Starts with saying the right things

As I alluded to earlier, a very important component of fixing the problem would be for President Trump to recognize the threat and direct his administration to make countering it a priority. It is equally important that the President say the right thing to our allies. It’s unconscionable that the President went to Brussels and spoke in front of the NATO headquarters, at the unveiling to a monument to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and refused to use that opportunity to affirm our commitment to Article 5 of the alliance. This is not a reality show where you attempt to create suspense to get better ratings. Our allies and partners want to know that the United States will continue to support them both in word and in deed. Putin said last month in an interview that if NATO is completely falling apart, that would help.  More recently, the President has gone on record affirming our commitment to NATO’s collective defense, but I fear that significant damage has already been done to the alliance.

Whole-of-Government Strategy

Beyond saying the right things, our strategy needs to be a comprehensive approach, engaging all aspects of statecraft.  The Russians are using the full range of tools in the Kremlin playbook. A leading expert from the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, Keir Giles, described the Russian approach as “much broader than simply sowing lies and denial...Russian state and non-state actors have exploited history, culture, language, nationalism and more to carry out cyber-enhanced disinformation campaigns with a much wider objective.”  To counter such wide ranging tactics, we need to use our full range of tools of influence including diplomacy, development aid, security assistance and partnerships to build security relationships, and cultural engagement.   We need to recognize that in information confrontation, we need a unified approach and work across the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors accordingly. This is challenge in a democracy where a Ministry of Truth is not acceptable. Yet, clear-eyed leadership at the top can bring the disparate components of our government together. 

This requires coordinated strategic communications, across government departments and agencies. We need to get a better handle on how best to use these various means of communication to get our narrative out and counter Russian propaganda.  This should include an operational capacity that would provide a 24/7 response center to counter fake news and disinformation rapidly, to nip false news in the bud.

Cyber Deterrence (Offense)

Within the Department of Defense, we need to cultivate better coordination as well. We need to look at ways to bring our security policy towards Russia together with our information operations and our Cyber Command.  Our response should be not only defensive but also consider offensive cyber measures to deter future cyberattacks.  We need to be prepared to put at risk those assets valued by the Kremlin or other foreign leaders engaged in political warfare against us.  Deterrence should send a clear message to Russia that it is unacceptable to attack our critical infrastructure, including instruments of our democratic system. However, we need to be cognizant of the challenges of moving to using cyber deterrence through offensive operations in the international arena. We operate under well-established laws of armed conflict which have broad acceptance across the international system. The application of these rules in the cyber sphere remains unclear. We need to work with allies and partners to ensure that in enacting these new methods, we don’t sacrifice international norms. By the same token, Russia’s information confrontation—with cyber as one tool to amplify its operations— is a violation of international norms, and their non-cooperation with the international system will continue to erode their credibility over time.

Projecting our values

In addition, as I discussed earlier, we need to sharpen our strategy and leverage all of our tools while maintaining the integrity of our free and democratic society. We need to stay true to our core values—human rights, political freedom and democracy and using those values as a basis to tell our story.  As Alina Polyakova, who I understand was a previous speaker during the conference conveyed “we cannot respond to state propaganda with more state propaganda. The proper response is to use the main advantage that Western societies still have over authoritarian regimes: a really robust pluralistic society.”   Our skilled diplomats are an essential tool for engaging with the broader world and accurately conveying the principles and ideals that the United States upholds.

Bilateral/multilateral support

Together with our allies and partners, we must build on the bedrock of our international system and work in concert to counter the Russian threat. We certainly don’t have all the answers, and some of our partners have been addressing this problem for a lot longer than we have.  We also need to reach out to those who are the most vulnerable to Russian information confrontation. To that end, I recently co-sponsored legislation which passed the Senate and would provide $250 million to establish the Countering Russian Influence Fund to implement programs in EU and NATO member countries. The purpose is to combat Russian interference with programs that develop cybersecurity capacity, address public corruption, respond to humanitarian crises, counter disinformation and support democratic institutions.

Public/ private component

Dealing with these challenges cannot simply rely on wholly governmental solutions.  We are not always the best at catching fake messages, inventing technology to work a solution or even the best communicators. The private media sector should have a strong incentive to fight false news to preserve the integrity and confidence in their services. At the same time, we need to build relationships between the government and traditional and social media to encourage cooperation in combating disinformation and stopping false news stories early before they spin out control.   

We should and must depend on public-private partnerships. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Google News have taken some steps, but more must be done to head off clearly false stories. During the French presidential election several media organizations said they found it difficult to report potential fake news items about the candidates to Facebook. We need to be able to respond at the speed of the news cycle and we are not there yet.

Building the Resilience of the American People

Finally, at home, we must also ensure our domestic public is inoculated from the effects of Russian disinformation.  

It’s shocking that there has been such a change in values since the height of the Cold War when everyone was well aware of the Soviet threat, and the American people were resilient against Soviet propaganda.  Now it seems like we’re living in an alternate universe.  Polls conducted in 2014 registered Republican support for Putin at about 10%. However, a subsequent Washington Post poll from December 2016 shows that 37% of Republicans had a favorable view of Putin. As we now know, this was right after the Kremlin—at Putin’s direction— waged a successful campaign of political warfare against our democracy.  The French and the German governments have adapted their tactics, learning from our experience. After the Macron campaign was hacked and information released at a time to cause maximum damage, the National French Election Commission issued a statement to journalists to “remember their sense of responsibility” and not report the content of the hacked emails. The Commission further warned that an organization disseminating information that turns out to be false could face criminal penalties.  As I discussed earlier, we would not be able to take a tact like this because of the way the first amendment is structured in our country, but we need to look for ways to adapt a type of warning system to work within our legal and societal framework.  The Germans have focused on being more transparent with their public, telling their citizens that the Bundestag and some political parties had been hacked, and warning them to be vigilant about information sources in the run up to the election. The German Ministry of Education has also set up a new cybersecurity school where politicians and Information Technology officials are educated on hacking techniques and how to appropriately counter them.  We know this threat is not going away, so we must find ways to educate our public on Russian fake news and disinformation.

Conclusion

As I have outlined, much work remains to be done to successfully counter Russian information confrontation. We are at the beginning of this process, but we don’t have time to waste. I continue to look for opportunities to work together with Chairman McCain and others who recognize this Russian malign influence threat as a matter of national security and to bring all tools to bear on confronting this threat.

With that, I would love to hear your thoughts and some of the conclusions you have drawn over the last few days on how we can best counter the threat of Russian political warfare.