US Senate Hearing LIVE | China To Attack Taiwan? US Commander Makes SHOCKING Revelation | Xi Jinping

Summary

Highlights

• China's military activities have significantly increased near Taiwan, drawing global concern. 🌏
• The hearing discussed how China's advancements could potentially deny US air superiority in the first island chain. ✈️
• Senators emphasized a multi-billion dollar funding gap in defense that needs addressing. 💸
• Strategic alliances, notably with South Korea and Japan, remain key to counter Chinese influence. 🇰🇷🇯🇵
• North Korea's alignment with China and Russia intensifies threats in the region, requiring strategic vigilance. 🔍
• Discussions highlighted the role of economic sanctions and diplomatic strategies in countering regional threats. ⚖️

Key Takeaways

• The US Senate hearing on Indo-Pacific tensions highlighted China's growing military threat in the region, especially towards Taiwan and neighboring countries. 🛡️
• Discussions emphasized the importance of allies, noting that strong international partnerships are crucial for strategic operations against China. 🤝
• Economic and military repercussions of a conflict over Taiwan could be severe, affecting global GDP and stability. 📉
• Senators stressed the urgency of investing in military technology and strengthening deterrence capabilities against potential Chinese aggression. 💪
• Both North Korea's and Russia's growing ties with China pose additional challenges, complicating the security landscape in the Indo-Pacific. 🌀
• There's a critical need for enhanced logistics, air, and cyber capabilities to ensure preparedness against any sudden threats. 🚀

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Capable of Denying US Air Superiority The chapter discusses the growing military capabilities of China, particularly in terms of their ability to challenge the US air superiority in the first island chain. It highlights the expansion of China's missile force, which can potentially overwhelm US theater defenses. China's rapid growth in its nuclear arsenal is described as 'breathtaking' by multiple US Strategic Command (Stratcom) commanders. In a short span of time, Beijing has developed more intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States. Concurrently, the chapter touches on the status of US modernization programs in response to these developments.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Military Threats in Indo-Pacific The chapter discusses the various military threats in the Indo-Pacific region, emphasizing that China is not the only pressing concern. It critiques the Biden administration for overlooking North Korea, allowing its leader Kim Jong-un to expand his nuclear capabilities and extend military support to Russia in its conflict against Ukraine. Moreover, it notes that Kim Jong-un has shifted away from the goal of Korean Peninsula unification.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Kim Jong-un's Abandonment of Unification Goal This chapter discusses Kim Jong-un's shift away from the goal of Korean unification, portraying South Korea as North Korea's primary adversary. It highlights the expansion and diversification of North Korea's nuclear and missile arsenal, and its adoption of a nuclear first-use strategy. Additionally, it mentions the potential benefits Kim may seek from his support of Moscow, including Russian technology transfers and military assistance.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Global Peace and Stability The chapter discusses the strategic military forces and missile forces, emphasizing the threat posed by the alliance of Russia, China, and North Korea. It raises concerns about their cooperation and urges the West to take action to ensure global peace and stability. The chapter stresses the need for rebuilding the military and reestablishing deterrence to maintain peace.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Generational Investment in National Security The chapter discusses the need for a generational investment in national security, highlighting bipartisan support for this perspective. The focus is on deterring and defeating the People's Liberation Army while maintaining deterrence in other areas, acknowledging that adversaries like Beijing are engaged in a global strategy. The emphasis is on the necessity for smarter and more agile responses. The report referred to, 'Peace Through Strength' from last May, is suggested as a guiding document.
• 02:30 - 03:00: US Forces in Korea The chapter discusses the challenges faced by the US Forces in Korea concerning unfunded requirements. It highlights a significant increase from $3.5 billion to $11 billion in the unfunded requirements list, none of which were funded. The chapter calls for an accurate assessment of these needs and emphasizes the necessity for real growth in the FY26 budget request.
• 03:00 - 03:30: China's Air Superiority Challenge The chapter addresses the pressing need for the US to counteract China's growing air superiority. It emphasizes enhancing survivable long-range munitions and improving command and control systems. A significant focus is placed on strengthening defenses against China's advanced cyber and space capabilities. The text calls for overhauling logistics infrastructure, rapidly deploying unmanned systems, and revitalizing camouflage and deception strategies. Additionally, it stresses the necessity for substantial advancements in naval capabilities.
• 03:30 - 04:00: North Korea's Concessions from Russia The chapter discusses the potential risks and necessary changes related to North Korea's dealings with Russia. It highlights a conversation among senators, indicating a high level of concern and urgency regarding the situation. The meeting involves distinguished and knowledgeable witnesses, including Senator Reid and Admiral General Brunson, to discuss what actions the Senate and Congress can take within the year to address these challenges. The chapter implies the importance of acknowledging and responding to these international developments.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Importance of South Korea to US The chapter discusses the strategic importance of South Korea to the United States amidst rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. China's deployment of military, economic, and political pressures against its neighbors highlights the challenges faced by US forces. The United States aims to protect its economic and security interests through deterrence and competition, without seeking direct conflict with China. The context underscores the necessity of collaborations and alliances, like with South Korea, to uphold regional stability.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Shift in US Military Focus The chapter discusses a shift in US military focus, highlighting joint military exercises and engagements with allies in Korea and the Philippines. The narrative includes meetings with allied and foreign business leaders and inspections of military infrastructure. Key developments include the strengthening partnership with the Philippines and the emerging relationship between Korea and Japan. The chapter advocates for the expansion of networks such as the Quad, AUS, and ASEAN.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Impact of Military Presence on Korean Peninsula The chapter discusses the impact of the US military presence on the Korean Peninsula and the significance of cooperation with allies. It highlights concerns about potential changes in US strategy under President Trump, specifically the reduction of US troops in Korea and Japan and scaling back military exercises. The importance of maintaining alliances as an asymmetric advantage over China is emphasized.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Infrastructure and Logistics In this chapter, the focus is on the potential reduction of plans regarding the joint force headquarters in Japan, despite significant contributions from Korea and Japan in terms of burden-sharing and hosting American forces. The chapter also touches upon the temporary suspension of tariffs against close allies and partners by the president, highlighting concerns over America's stability and trustworthiness. These concerns could intensify if the sanctions are reinstated after 90 days, adding to the dismantling of America's soft power tools.
• 06:00 - 06:30: Role of Japan and South Korea The chapter discusses the role of Japan and South Korea in the context of international relations, particularly focusing on the consequences of President Trump's actions which have been seen to alienate allies, affecting diplomatic and military ties. The chapter highlights the importance of maintaining strong relationships with allied nations in the region to ensure America's interests are supported and secure. It touches upon the perspectives of military leaders like Admiral Pavaro and General Brunson on the significance of these alliances and the strategic importance of Taiwan.
• 06:30 - 07:00: Information Warfare The chapter titled 'Information Warfare' delves into the increasing tensions between China and Taiwan. It highlights the aggressive maneuvers by the Chinese military in areas surrounding Taiwan, which has led to global concerns. The chapter also covers legislative measures taken by the committee, as seen in several National Defense Authorization Acts, aimed at bolstering Taiwan's defense capabilities. This includes the introduction of new security assistance tools, specifically through the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, to support Taiwan and reinforce strategic posture.
• 07:00 - 07:30: Economic Relationships in Asia The chapter titled 'Economic Relationships in Asia' discusses the Indo-Pacific Campaigning Initiative, which aims to enhance support and training for Taiwan and increase freedom of navigation operations in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act. However, resources have been diverted to prolonged operations in the Middle East, impacting the ability to carry out these missions. The chapter seeks an assessment of Indopacom's readiness and the broader strategy of the United States in the region.
• 07:30 - 08:00: US Fighter Units Deployment The chapter titled 'US Fighter Units Deployment' discusses the strategic importance of the deployment of US forces in South Korea for America's success in the Indo-Pacific region. It highlights recent positive developments in the trilateral relationship between South Korea, Japan, and the United States, which could lead to increased engagement with other regional partners. The ongoing threat from North Korea, especially with Kim Jong-un's focus on nuclear weapons as a significant deterrence, necessitates careful management.
• 08:00 - 08:30: Joint Activities of Adversaries The chapter titled 'Joint Activities of Adversaries' discusses the growing relationship between North Korea and Russia. North Korea aims to gain international acceptance as a nuclear-armed state while opposing foreign intervention. The relationship with Russia has strengthened notably with North Korea's involvement in supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine by sending troops and weapons. Additionally, it is likely that North Korea is receiving technical assistance from Russia to develop its missile and nuclear capabilities. The chapter seeks the views of military generals on the current threat posed by North Korea and how military forces are ensuring readiness in response to these developments.
• 08:30 - 09:00: Medical Readiness and Logistics The chapter discusses the readiness and logistical coordination in medical settings, specifically focusing on joint training and exercises with South Korean military counterparts.
• 09:00 - 09:30: Digital Infrastructure Vulnerabilities The chapter discusses the hearing of a commander of the United States Forces Korea, Combined Forces Command, and United Nations Command before a committee. The commander expresses gratitude for the opportunity to appear before the committee and thanks the chairman, ranking member, and members for their leadership, friendship, and support.
• 09:30 - 10:00: North Korea and Russia's Alliance The chapter details the alliance between North Korea and Russia, with specific gratitude extended towards the Republic of Korea, particularly acknowledging the soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardians, and marines serving on the Korean peninsula. The narrative emphasizes the resilience and dedication of the Korean people in maintaining this alliance amidst various challenges.
• 10:00 - 10:30: SLBM and Hypersonic Weapons The chapter focuses on the strategic importance and challenges of maintaining readiness with regards to Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) and hypersonic weapons. It highlights the importance of collaboration with allies and partners in the region to strengthen ties and ensure security, freedom, and prosperity. The speaker reflects on the honor and privilege of serving in the military and acknowledges the long-standing investment of national resources in building and sustaining this readiness.
• 10:30 - 11:00: Submarine Capability Concerns The chapter titled 'Submarine Capability Concerns' discusses the strategic value and implications of the US military presence in Korea. It emphasizes that the benefits of this presence go beyond financial investment to include strategic advantages like access, forward-basing, lasting partnerships, and deterrence. Furthermore, the chapter notes the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) efforts in advancing their military technology, including cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles, with 47 launches recorded in 2024.
• 11:00 - 11:30: Panama Canal and Strategic Movement The chapter discusses the strategic movement and developments surrounding the Panama Canal and its military implications.
• 11:30 - 12:00: Airlift and Sealift Limitations The chapter, titled 'Airlift and Sealift Limitations', highlights the strategic shift in North Korea's leadership under Kim Jong-un, as observed during the eighth party Congress. The focus has transitioned from reunification to asserting sovereignty. This change is evident through the strengthening of the DPRK's southern border, the dismissal of discussions regarding reunification, and the demolition of structures symbolizing unification. Concurrently, the DPRK is advancing its nuclear weapons program and its military prowess, now boasting a modernized force, augmented with Russian equipment, comprising over 1.3 million personnel.
• 12:00 - 12:30: Partnership with Allies for Ship Maintenance The chapter titled 'Partnership with Allies for Ship Maintenance' discusses the increasing sophistication of DPRK's cyber threats, evidenced by the recent theft of approximately $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency. In contrast, it highlights the collaborative efforts between Iraq, the US, and Japan, which are yielding positive results particularly in the areas of ballistic missile defense, as well as training and readiness development on the peninsula.
• 12:30 - 13:00: Joint Fire Networks and PDI General Admiral Paparo expressed gratitude for the opportunity to appear before the committee, introducing Fleet Master Chief Special Operations Dave Ism, who is attending his last hearing before retiring after 38 years of service.
• 13:00 - 13:30: Arctic and ADAC Base Importance The chapter discusses the unique advantages held by the NCO Corps of the United States, particularly highlighting the exceptional leadership and service of a fleet leader named Isam. His role has been vital not only to the speaker's transition as the commander of US Indopaccom but also to the broader operational effectiveness in a region that encompasses over half of the earth's surface and joint forces. Additionally, the chapter touches upon the challenges faced by Indopaccom, especially concerning China.
• 13:30 - 14:00: Carriers and Submarines Vulnerability The chapter "Carriers and Submarines Vulnerability" discusses the escalating military threat posed by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as of 2024. It highlights the unprecedented aggression and significant modernization of the PLA's capabilities, which now pose a serious threat to the homeland, allies, and partners. Specifically, military pressure against Taiwan has increased by 300%, indicating a significant rise in aggressive actions. These maneuvers are not merely exercises but resemble rehearsals, signifying a strategic move to intimidate and potentially dominate.
• 14:00 - 14:30: Military Alliances and Partnerships The chapter discusses the geopolitical tensions and military alliances involving Taiwan, North Korea, Russia, and China. It highlights Taiwan's efforts to strengthen its defenses in response to perceived threats and the global attention this situation attracts.

US Senate Hearing LIVE | China To Attack Taiwan? US Commander Makes SHOCKING Revelation | Xi Jinping Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 capable of denying the the US air superiority in the first island chain we'll certainly want to ask about that gentlemen its missile force can saturate our theater defenses china has been expanding its nuclear arsenal at a pace that far outstrips our own multiple Stratcom commanders have called China's growth breathtaking in just a few short years Beijing has built more intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States meanwhile our own modernization programs
• 00:30 - 01:00 languish from past neglect but China is not the only urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific the Biden administration chose to ignore North Korea it allowed Kim Jong-un to increase his nuclear arsenal and project his military into European theater to aid Vladimir Putin in Russia's war against Ukraine kim Jong-un has abandoned the goal of unification of the Korean Peninsula and
• 01:00 - 01:30 again we'll want to talk about that and has declared South Korea to be the principal enemy the North Korean nuclear and missile arsenal continues to grow and diversify with the rogue nation adopting a strategic doctrine that embraces nuclear first use kim will surely seek remuneration for his support to Moscow the Russian technology transfers and military assistance Kim receives will help him to
• 01:30 - 02:00 further strengthen his strategic military forces missile forces the continued demonstrations of Russia China and North Korea aligning and cooperating should be of great concern to all the West this concern should then lead to action if we are to maintain global peace and stability we must continue taking steps now to rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence as I noted in
• 02:00 - 02:30 um my peace through strength report last May it's time to make a generational investment in our national security i do believe that uh view is bipartisan we must be able not only to deter and defeat the People's Liberation Army but also to maintain deterrence in other theaters our adversaries led by Beijing are playing a global game we must be smarter and more agile than they are across the board last year Endop's
• 02:30 - 03:00 unfunded requirements list totaled $3.5 billion this year's unfunded requirement list was $11 billion and virtually none of that was funded under the fullear CR this is unacceptable and also I hope we're we're going to get from everyone an accurate and full um assessment uh of the the various unfunded requirements we need real growth in the FY26 budget request in
• 03:00 - 03:30 addition to a historic defense reconciliation package we need more survivable long-range munitions more assured US command and control systems and an improved ability to counter China's increasingly capable cyber and space systems we need a wholesale overhaul of our logistics infrastructure and a rapid deployment of unmanned systems we need a renaissance in our camouflage and deception programs and we need a drastic improvement in our ship
• 03:30 - 04:00 building the risk is simply too high for us to avoid making these changes so I look forward to hearing from our distinguished um and well-informed witnesses and um having a candid conversation about what this committee and this Senate and this Congress can do this year to address these challenges senator Reid thank you very much Mr chairman and Admalaro General Brunson welcome uh thank you for appearing today and please convey our thanks to the men
• 04:00 - 04:30 and women serving under your commands and defending us this is a challenging time for our forces in the Indo-acific china is deploying a wide range of military economic and political pressures against its neighbors while aggressively challenging America's leadership in the region the United States does not seek conflict with China but we have deep economic and security interests in the Indoacific that must continue to be protected through strong deterrence and smart competition several months ago I traveled to Guam South
• 04:30 - 05:00 Korea and the Philippines to assess our posture in the region i observed a number of joint military exercises met with allied leaders spoke with foreign business leaders and inspected our military infrastructure overall I was impressed with our progress particularly the development of our partnership with the Philippines and the remarkable emerging partnership between Korea and Japan these relationships should inspire us to redouble the development of networks like the Quad AUS and ASEAN as
• 05:00 - 05:30 we bring other nations into our security cooperation efforts indeed as countless US military leaders and diplomats have told me the key asymmetric advantage our nation has over China is our network of allies and partners with that in mind I'm concerned that the Trump administration is unraveling much of the progress we've made many observers fear that President Trump may shrink the US troop presence in Korea and Japan reduce our military exercises with both nations
• 05:30 - 06:00 and scale back plans for our joint force headquarters in Japan despite the fact that Korea and Japan contribute significantly to burden sharing and hosting our forces although the president has temporarily suspended tariffs against our closest allies and partners the last few days have undoubtedly sewn seeds of doubt about America's stability and trustworthiness feelings that would be amplified if the president decides to reinstate the sanctions after 90 days in addition to dismantling America's soft power tools
• 06:00 - 06:30 like the US Agency for International Development President Trump's actions serve only to push our friends away from us and that is not appropriate admiral Baro General Brunson you engage with our foreign partners every day both as a matter of diplomatic leadership and military necessity i am interested in your views on how tensions with our allies would disadvantage your forces and America's interests in the region admiral Pavaro Taiwan remains the most
• 06:30 - 07:00 dangerous flash point in our competition with China we have seen a recent surge of aggressive Chinese military exizers around Taiwan's airspace and territorial waters and the world has a right to be concerned in several consecutive National Defense Authorization Acts this committee has provided new security assistance tools to help develop Taiwan's capabilities and strengthen our own posture in particular the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative and the
• 07:00 - 07:30 Indo-Pacific Campaigning Initiative should enable greater support and training for Taiwan and facilitate Indopag's increased exercises and freedom of navigation operations consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act however your command has once again had to divert ships and aircraft for prolonged and intensive operations in the Middle East admaro I would like to know your assessment of Indopaccom's readiness to carry out your missions as well as United States broader strategy
• 07:30 - 08:00 in the region key to America's success in the Indopacific is the posture of our forces in South Korea as I mentioned I'm encouraged by the recent progress we have seen in the trilateral relationship among South Korea Japan and the United States and I hope that developments like these will provide more opportunities to engage other regional partners as we do so we must continue to manage the threat posed by North Korea we know that Kim Jong-un continues to view nuclear weapons as quote the ultimate deterrence
• 08:00 - 08:30 against foreign intervention and he intends to gain international acceptance as a nuclear armed state north Korea's relationships with Russia also continues to grow especially in light of North Korea sending troops and weapons to support Putin's invasion of Ukraine and Kim Jong-un is likely receiving technical assistance from Russia for missile and nuclear capabilities general I would appreciate your view on the current threat from North Korea and how your forces are maintaining readiness
• 08:30 - 09:00 through training and exercises with their South Korean counterparts again thank you to our witnesses i look forward to testimonies thank you Mr chairman thank you uh we'll now recognize um each of of our panelists for opening statements and General Brunson you went first in the close session would you like to do that again my boss says yes so I do thank you for giving me at least the illusion of choice
• 09:00 - 09:30 chairman Wicker Ranking Member Reid and distinguished members of this committee thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today i'm honored to appear before you for my first posture uh hearing in front of this committee as a commander of United States Forces Korea Combined Forces Command and United Nations Command i'd like to take a moment just to simply thank you all for your steadfast leadership your friendship and your critical support to
• 09:30 - 10:00 our service members their families our civilians and the contractors who support us around the globe but I especially want to thank you for your continued time and attention to the people of the Republic of Korea and the soldiers sailors airmen guardian and marines who serve there on the peninsula i'd also like to thank the Korean people right now for their continued resilience through challenges and hard times i'd like to thank them for their dedication to our alliance and I'd also like to thank them
• 10:00 - 10:30 for their continued provision of an environment that allows us to build sustain and retain the readiness that we develop on the peninsula in my career every opportunity that I've had to lead our nation's men and women has been an honor it's a privilege to serve alongside Admiral Paparro our friends our partners and allies in the region working to strengthen our ties to further security freedom and prosperity amongst the nations for over 75 years we've invested our national treasure in
• 10:30 - 11:00 the Republic of Korea and remain the last US fighting force on the continent of Asia the return on investment of US forces being stationed in Korea is not measured only in dollars but in terms of access forward-basing enduring partnerships and deterrence in 2024 the DPRK focused on advancing their cruise missile and hypersonic glide vehicle research and development programs launching 47
• 11:00 - 11:30 ballistic missiles with one failed satellite launch attempt kim Jong-un also has two highly publicized visits to nuclear sites and over the past year and a half DPRK has exported munitions and troops to support Russia demonstrating the ability to provide external support while simultaneously advancing domestic capabilities in the coming year we expect the DPRK to further develop hypersonic and multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle MV capabilities to complete his
• 11:30 - 12:00 eighth party Congress goals kim Jong-un's leadership has shifted focus from re reunification to declaring sovereignty this change is evidenced by the hardening of DPRK's southern border the rejection of reunification discussions and the destruction of unification monuments and buildings the DPRK continues to build its nuclear weapons program and boasts a Russian equipped augmented modernized military force of over 1.3 million personnel
• 12:00 - 12:30 lastly DPRK's cyber threat is increasingly sophisticated as demonstrated by the recent theft of approximately $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency in contrast to that I would speak to the Iraq US Japan trilateral efforts which are bearing much fruit not only in ballistic missile defense but in training and readiness developed on the peninsula i thank you all for allowing me again to appear before you i look
• 12:30 - 13:00 forward to your questions and thank you thank you General Admiral Paparo Chairman Wicker Ranking Member Reid and distinguished members of the committee thanks very much for the opportunity to appear with me over my right shoulder is United States Indopaccom's Senior Enlisted Leader Fleet Master Chief Special Operations Dave Ism he is this is his last hearing he's retiring after 38 years of selfless service as a SEAL and special operator speaking of
• 13:00 - 13:30 asymmetric advantages the NCO Corps of the United States of America is the one of the joint forces absolute asymmetric advantages fleet Isam's leadership in this critical duty has been exemplary it has been indispensable to my own transition as the commander of US Indopaccom he's been indispensable to me personally i honor his service in a region that's home to over half the earth's surface and half the operational joint force Indopaccom faces a confluence of challenges china's
• 13:30 - 14:00 unprecedented aggression and military modernization poses a serious threat to the homeland our allies and our partners in 2024 the People's Liberation Army demonstrated growing capabilities through persistent pressure operations with military pressure against Taiwan increasing by 300% china's increasingly aggressive actions near Taiwan are not just exercises they are rehearsals and while the PLA attempts to intimidate the
• 14:00 - 14:30 people of Taiwan and demonstrate coercive capabilities these actions are backfiring drawing increased global attention and accelerating Taiwan's own defense preparations as General Brunson said North Korea's development of advanced nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles pose a direct threat to our homeland and our allies and are executing a deepening cooperation with Russia russia's growing military cooperation with China adds
• 14:30 - 15:00 another layer of complexity creating a compounded challenge with the deepening cooperation among China Russia and North Korea and China and Russia's Pacific fleet is a growth enterprise us Indopaccom deters these challenges to regional stability and competition and crisis while maintaining the the availability to prevail but that margin is eroding as chairman and and ranking member have discussed in 2024 we've conducted 120 joint exercises among them
• 15:00 - 15:30 20 major joint exercises including not just the US joint force but allies and partners we continue to strengthen the relationship with Japan South Korea Australia the Philippines India Taiwan the Azon nations Pacific Island countries and in fact European partners are active in the in the theater as the first priorities we must be dominant in space and across the information environment leveraging capabilities to counter their the uh counter the PRC's
• 15:30 - 16:00 command control intelligence surveillance reconnaissance and targeting complex this will enable us to gain a nonlinear advantage over potential adversaries in fact to maintain and increase that nonlinear advantage to maintain credible deterrence Indopaccom requires additional sustained investment in long range survivable fires in integrated air and missile defense in force sustainment with an emphasis on autonomy and
• 16:00 - 16:30 AIdriven systems uh China's outproducing the United States in air missile maritime and space capability and accelerating these i remain confident in our deterrence posture but the trajectory must change the Pacific Deterrent Initiative should counter the China threat by investing in key readiness and capability which would in fact uh if funded uh advance the
• 16:30 - 17:00 intent of this initiative and deliver major posture improvement deterrence remains our highest duty however that must be backed up by the real capability to prevail in combat the joint force remains confident resolute and determined to prevail thank you for your attention thank you i look forward to the questions thank you well thank you both for your testimony for your service let's let's start with General Brunson um
• 17:00 - 17:30 just quickly yes or no korea North Korea continues to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal correct yes sir and they continue to um expand their delivery systems of nuclear weapons is that correct yes sir okay you know you never know uh what uh whether to believe what you read in the newspapers and see on the media but there are reports that some mid-level officials in the Pentagon are considering reducing our military
• 17:30 - 18:00 presence on the Korean Peninsula to focus instead on the China threat and defense of the US homeland uh if our strategy in Korea is to deter war and win it if we have to uh would that be a good or bad idea Senator to uh chairman to to reduce the force becomes problematic and I won't speak to policy but what we do provide
• 18:00 - 18:30 there sir is the potential to impose cost in the east sea to Russia the potential to impose cost in the west sea to China and to continue to deter against North Korea as it currently stands i'm trying to focus right now on the capabilities necessary to do all those things that we might participate routinely in the campaign that my boss is fighting which is to prepare deter and then prevail in conflict should it come but the forces in Korea play an
• 18:30 - 19:00 important role and over 75 years they've done the same uh Admiral a significant reduction of um of our military presence on the Korean Peninsula good or bad oh inherently it would reduce our ability to prevail in conflict and and uh for both of you would a conflict on the Korean Peninsula likely in uh involve China um my belief is that uh it would there would be a risk that it would
• 19:00 - 19:30 involve China and would have to be conducted carefully uh if it were so and uh and so that risk has got to drive our calculus and General Brunson so our preparedness would prevent them from entering in any conflict because of the potential to take them off their own party goals okay who wants to take the question about the um air superiority of um of the PRC over hours in that theater chairman uh the People's
• 19:30 - 20:00 Republic of China are have a order of battle of 2,100 fighters uh an order of battle of over 200 H6 bombers and they are producing uh fighters at a rate of 1.2 to one over the United States furthermore their advanced air-to-air missile long-range air-to-air missiles also present a tremendous threat uh if you don't hold the high ground along the first island
• 20:00 - 20:30 chain you are vastly limited in your ability to operate uh I think everybody knows the importance of the high ground so seeding air superiority um is a not is a uh is not an option if we intend to maintain uh capability against our adversaries and the ability to support our allies admiral uh is it a fact that China is now capable of denying US air superiority in the first island chain
• 20:30 - 21:00 uh I you know I give them high marks in their ability to do that uh I have some game too and air superiority you know air supremacy is the complete mastery of the air neither side will enjoy that but it'll be my job to contest air superiority to protect those forces that are on the first island chain such as third uh three meth third marine expeditionary force and also to provide windows of air superiority in order to achieve our
• 21:00 - 21:30 effects u Admiral um Kim Jong-un is not um motivated by um charity in helping Russia in Ukraine what does he expect back what's he likely to get back chairman he he expects concessions he's doing it in order to gain concessions and those concessions would be uh modernization of their air defenses uh specifically the MiG 29 the SU27
• 21:30 - 22:00 uh advanced help for their surfaceto-air missiles quieting technology for their submarines uh additional help in order to instantiate a ballistic missile uh submarine uh as well and then um likely uh propulsion uh help and potentially even help with the re-entry vehicles for their uh burgeoning nuclear program okay thank you we'll take another round let me just make sure that people understand general Brunson you are USA Commander
• 22:00 - 22:30 United Nations Command Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea you you do not answer at all to the United Nations headquartered in New York City do you no sir those authorities go through the chairman to the secretary of defense and then on to the president okay totally different um organization thank you very much and um the distinguished ranking members recognized thank you very much Mr chairman first let me begin by thanking the command master chief for his dedicated service
• 22:30 - 23:00 to the nation thank you Chief and uh let me associate myself with honorable Parl's comment that our asymmetric advantage one of the keys is our non-commissioned officers uh General Brunson uh you uh have indicated the importance of our forces on the Korean Peninsula can you also elaborate on the support and the magnitude of the burden sharing that the South Koreans contribute to us yes Senator Reid um so so first I would
• 23:00 - 23:30 like to say that forward presence provides unmatched access uh unmatched deterrence at minimal cost comparatively speaking by other forces that are stationed forward we recently received help from the department of defense with our tour normalization which brings tours in Korea on par with other okonus locations which changes our exposure to the region and our understanding of the adversaries therein i would also say
• 23:30 - 24:00 that uh 2100 US companies have ties to the Republic of Korea that's 450,000 jobs that are a part of that that's a piece that I think that's critical to know and understand now I would also say that we receive about half a billion dollars a year in Korean related construction that builds the brand new school on uh on Pyongtech at Camp Humphre that builds additional towers to house our families in quality
• 24:00 - 24:30 housing that also builds skiffs for us right now in the Republic of Korea that we might be able to do the important work to stay tied to Indopaccom i would also like to say that in kind the overall contribution in the past uh fiscal year was about 1.4 trillion Juan which works out to be close to a billion dollars worth of support that we receive in kind i also mentioned the continued and growing uh maintenance repair and overhaul facilities that exist on the
• 24:30 - 25:00 east sea and the west sea uh that we've utilized most recently to bring the wall-ally shar back out of out of uh that overhaul and looking better than ever the Cesar Chavez also visited recently um but there is a lot that we get some of it is is fiscal and monetary others of it is material that's irreplaceable uh John Brunson again uh in previous national defense authorization acts we have established a manpower floor of 28,500 troops
• 25:00 - 25:30 uh as a demonstration of our unwavering commitment to the US Republic of Korea alliance and also the strategic reasons you said would you uh suggest we include such language again yes sir thank you admiral Parro can you give us your perception as the overall commander of the uh value of the South Korean forces uh to us and the presence of our troops on the peninsula together with the contributions they're making the South Koreans frank member uh in
• 25:30 - 26:00 addition to the uh elements laid out by General Brunson um Korea makes significant contributions outside the uh the Korean uh peninsula and that is uh in their uh in their participation in multilateral exercises uh including Pacific Partnership among many others and so uh in the ability of that force to deter conflict the ability of that force to avoid from having two
• 26:00 - 26:30 conflicts at once at by dent of the strength of the of the capability and by what they're doing in the trilateral relationship with Japan that growing trilateral relationship with Japan and on their path to become a global pivotal state they are a key partner in the in the Western Pacific with a purview that goes far beyond just the Korean Peninsula thank you very much sir uh I mentioned in my opening statement that
• 26:30 - 27:00 currently you have forces that have been transferred into uh sentcom the convention carrier group open sources suggest 6B2 bombers at Diego Garcia with supplementary tankers what effect does these have on your capabilities well presently uh for for Carl Vincson um we do have George Washington coming out of Yakosa very shortly and Nimits is at sea and um but um you
• 27:00 - 27:30 know we have to maintain a high state of indications and warning uh so that we can get those forces back if there is a crisis with greater exigence than there is one in the sencom a and I owe the secretary and the president constant vigilance on this and with constant awareness of that force's ability to flet which is a sign to us Indopaccom it's Carl Vincson strike group and a Patriot Battalion uh if need be they
• 27:30 - 28:00 return to the Indopaccom theater for a higher priority threat thank you very much gentlemen thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator Reid senator Cotton gentlemen welcome back um Admiral let's take a step back to first principles we've talked a lot here about the threat that China poses to Taiwan and what you're doing to try to address that threat um I'd like you to explain why that threat is so severe you know some people might look at the map and say "Well Taiwan is a small island and it's really
• 28:00 - 28:30 far from us it was really close to them and China has marched into Tibet in the past and they've marched into Hong Kong in the past and that was bad and they shouldn't have done those things but it didn't lead to world war and it didn't lead to great depression." Um on the other side you've got one of your ancestors so to speak Douglas MacArthur who said at the dawn of the Korean War that the domination of Taiwan by an unfriendly power would be a disaster of
• 28:30 - 29:00 utmost importance to the United States he was speaking then as we do today of communist China um Ian Eastston a Naval War College professor and one of the military's leading experts on Taiwan says that it's possible that the Chinese invasion of Taiwan would cause a 21st century version of the Great Depression and the famed investor Ken Griffin put it more bluntly it's an immediate Great Depression so so why is it that Taiwan is different why why is Taiwan such a hot flash point why could it lead not only to a catastrophic war but also
• 29:00 - 29:30 global Great Depression why should Americans care about an island on the other side of the world senator Cotton that last point is quite salient uh many a research organization postulate that conflict in the Western Pacific uh over the Taiwan question would result in a 25% GDP contraction in Asia and a knock-on effect of 10 to 12% GDP reduction uh in the United States of America with uh unemployment spiking 7
• 29:30 - 30:00 to 10 points above base and likely 500,000 excess deaths of despair above base as Well and uh this is just the importance of the regional stability to the world economy and its effect on people's lives and this is uh this is you as a function of freedom of navigation it's a function of the uh world dependency on semiconductors uh in the longer term uh for the United States
• 30:00 - 30:30 our strategic center of gravity is our as our network of alliances and partners the sum total of 350 million people's talent 130 million Japanese 130 million Philippines 25 million Australians uh not to mention 500 million in Europe as well as partners in across the globe uh the knock-on effect of the brittleleness of that network of alliances and partners partnerships means that some of
• 30:30 - 31:00 the states could confer and be and submit to the PRC's mode of exploitation and route to their long range goal of setting the ro setting the rules of the world and reaping the benefits of that uh and then finally some nations in the area of responsibility will submit but others it would never happen just because of the historic tensions and in that case the proliferation question
• 31:00 - 31:30 comes to mind with nuclear armed states that are treaty allies with the United States and minimal warning for launch among those nuclear states uh it is a vital interest for the United States my job is to have a force ready to make those choices you know I don't make the choices on whether or not it's important or not i'm explicating how it is and my job is to present those options to the commander-in-chief to be ready to fight and win and to be clear a lot if not all
• 31:30 - 32:00 of those consequences would follow whatever the outcome of a conflict over Taiwan whether China succeeds in going for the jugular or fails or there's some kind of indecisive outcome simply having the conflict over Taiwan which is such a center of gravity in the modern economy could lead to many of the consequences you just outlined yes sir um yeah I can't quote the source i will later but um uh most of the things I've studied indicate that uh
• 32:00 - 32:30 American intervention would have that impact a successful American intervention would potentially do so so um uh still a grave result but um half as grave with this with savings of a lot of human misery um so the key then is to prevent the war from happening in the first place we don't want to be in a situation where we have to win a war over Taiwan we want to stop it from
• 32:30 - 33:00 happening and the way to do that is through strong military and resolute competent leadership what do you need most that you don't have right now to deter that conflict from happening in the first place senator um counter C5 ISR capabilities in cyber space counterpace to ensure that the United States can see understand decide act assess learn faster than the PRC is can
• 33:00 - 33:30 uh to enhance our ability to blind to deceive and to destroy the adversar's ability to see and sense and then in addition uh the requirement to effect those long range fires and effects that make the joint force effective in attacking centers of gravity the platforms that they ride on the sustainment that sustains them absolutely key and critical foundation and then the critical infrastructure across the theater that enables the
• 33:30 - 34:00 force to reach the principles of expanded maneuver and puts geography on our side which it is thank you thank you Senator Cotton senator Herono you are recognized thank you welcome Admiral Paparo it's always good to
• 34:00 - 34:30 or Taiwan would be would have massive negative effects uh is some of this 11 billion having to do with the the deterrence that you talked about regarding Taiwan yes Senator Herono thank you um absolutely right deterrence
• 34:30 - 35:00 must be backed up by the real capability to fight and win the United States of America enjoys key advantages in space counterpace command and control between the Karman line and the surface and undersea dominance uh but uh that margin is shrinking and we must regain the margin and increase the margin and that ability to fight and win is what will make sure that uh our adversaries do not uh execute any aggression to do so what
• 35:00 - 35:30 would happen if this very large funding gap is not addressed in this year's NDAA uh the joint force the the trajectory that I'm discussing uh continues the joint force has an eroded capability to prevail it manifests itself in lost people in lost capability in lost money and in lost time and it confers to the confidence of the PRC and inherently
• 35:30 - 36:00 erodess deterrence as they see more and more they see the potential of their prevailing in the conflict themselves and achieving their goals by aggression admiral Pavar by the way thank you for explaining um uh to this committee the the importance of of the Taiwan situation because often I get asked why should we our country care about Taiwan so thank you for that uh regarding the the dismantling of USA ID and the impact
• 36:00 - 36:30 um on us whenever the United States creates a void such as by ending foreign aid uh such as through USA ID it has an impact on our asymmetric advantage which also in include our uh partners and alliances how does ending foreign assistance programs and other regional aid efforts impact Indoaccom's security cooperation missions and the command's relationship with partners in the region
• 36:30 - 37:00 senator uh those other those other instruments of national power uh are very important and they're critical to our ability to fight and win my understanding is is that uh that uh that US aid is under review and I continue to advocate for it uh the loss of that the PRC would would uh see the opportunity and they would seize it and they frequently do uh wherever they see a void they fill it in in order to uh confer more influence um to uh to to
• 37:00 - 37:30 their own national power so indeed if China is our pacing threat we know uh that every time we create a void in any part of particularly in the in the PCOM area including by the way providing assistance to our compact nation friends that China just steps right in and fills that void general Bronson you raised um an important point in your opening statement regarding North Korea hackers
• 37:30 - 38:00 North stealing 1.5 billion probably more in crypto currency to fund their uh military and at the same time the Justice Department has disbanded a team of prosecutors targeting crypto crimes does that concern you good morning Madam Senator first that that does not bother me at all what I'm thinking about is all the instruments of military power that have to be brought to bear to stop illicit activity that is
• 38:00 - 38:30 only one of the illegal things they're doing we've talked a lot about what is North Korea getting from Russia one of the things they're getting is the ability to circumvent sanctions and that theft is a piece of that ma'am I'm also encouraged by the fact that we can see what's going on do you have a do you have an awareness of the Department of Justice's uh team that targeted and basically was able to prosecute uh to the tune of billions of dollars crypto
• 38:30 - 39:00 crimes are you aware of that team highly successful team that is being disbanded yes ma'am i am aware of that team disbanding any uh efforts that we have in in that space
• 39:00 - 39:30 thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator Herono senator Ernst you are recognized thank you Madam Chair and gentlemen thank you for being here Admiral Paparo and and General Brunson chief good luck to you in your retirement thank you so much for your service um I'll go ahead and start with Indo Paycom admiral thank you so much as as you've clearly laid out for the committee today the Endopacific is is growing very uh dangerous it is extremely complex uh our
• 39:30 - 40:00 deterrence deterrence depends not just on our warf fighting capability but also on the ability to sustain our operations um I started my career as an engineer became a transporter and ended my career as a logistician not a big sexy topic here in this committee but it is absolutely necessary that we talk about it um if we wish to win the fight we've got to sustain the fight so uh Admiral
• 40:00 - 40:30 what gaps still exist in our theater logistics network that put our forward posture at risk morning Senator uh significant gaps in seal lift uh first the combat logistics force in total is about 60% of the actual requirement we account for that by hiring console tankers and by and by contracting other capabilities but when the unforgiving hour comes the only ships that we'll be able to commit to uh areas to put into
• 40:30 - 41:00 harm's way will be gray ships and as I utter these words 17 of those combat logistics force ships are laid up for lack of manpower uh in addition uh I I I discussed in the previous committee we have to have uh many millions of pounds of fuel of of jet fuel in the air for every uh capability and so our tanker fleet is uh is uh below what we need we
• 41:00 - 41:30 account for that for some contract air services as well but once again those same factors obtain or you have to have a uh you have to have a gray tail and uh and then finally just cargo lift and the number of short tons of C17 lift like for instance uh just having moved a Patriot uh battalion into the Sencom AO it took 73 C17 loads to move that Patriot
• 41:30 - 42:00 battalion 73 what's that 73 uh of one battalion of a force element so our lift requirements are must be paid attention to and um I share your passion for sustainment that's what won World War II absolutely so um those logisticians the the maintenance uh dudes and dud dudetss that are out there uh working every day to make sure that our our warriors are
• 42:00 - 42:30 able to uh fight the good fight um so with that we you talked about contractors and we use them extensively uh but how can Congress help accelerate the improvements necessary in Indoaccom when that that hour comes well I think we've got to get at the problems of why our why we don't have enough combat logistics force and that's ship building why we don't have enough labor and those are looking hard at pay
• 42:30 - 43:00 and incentives in order to recruit and retain uh retain those people um rates of production and uh diversifying the tanker fleet is key and then um and then uh you know continuing on to find uh alternatives of lift capability that we can order into harm's way and then over top of all of this uh we're incorporating artificial intelligence tools with command and control to tools
• 43:00 - 43:30 so that it's not an ondemand system but so that uh we are executing that absolutely indispensable joint function as effectively as we possibly can you you know we are an AI enabled headquarters and that's important too but um you can't AI your way out of a material deficiency right I agree completely and we need to spend more time on this topic but I just very briefly General Brunson I apologize I've
• 43:30 - 44:00 got 30 seconds um we rely heavily on allies neighbors friends or force multipliers but so do our adversaries we've heard that there are North Koreans now that are fighting the fight over in uh um in Ukraine can you tell us what are the North Koreans learning from this experience and what will they take back to your region ma'am I I've I've said uh several times now in several hearings that we can't confuse the tactical lessons that they're learning with strategic benefit what we've got to
• 44:00 - 44:30 understand is that they've gone over they've done some things there's been strategic movement there's been operational maneuver that they're learning some things but it's the technology that's coming back in that is of threat to the Republic of Korea and the world wonderful thank you gentlemen very much thank you Senator Ern senator Kaine you are recognized thank you Madam Chair um General Brunson without our presence on the on the microphone without our presence on the Korean Peninsula would uh Kim invade the South
• 44:30 - 45:00 sir I I would tell you that I don't believe he would um but what I would tell you is he would take advantage of other weapons and systems that he has conventional to limit the Republic of Korea's great growth that's taken place over the past 75 years i think that if we look at the hardening that's occurred on his border at the present time the fences have been raised mines have been seated in the demilitarized zone uh I
• 45:00 - 45:30 think that what we see is that why is he why is he doing that is there any threat that the South Koreans are going to invade North Korea sir I think it's as much about uh the things that he's broadcast in open source that he is a sovereign nation he's not looking to work at reunification he's blown up all the means of industry in the DMZ i thought you said in your opening testimony he's not talking about reunification he's talking about one whole country is doesn't that imply an invasion of the South no sir he considers himself sovereign north of the
• 45:30 - 46:00 MDL sir so he which he claims is his southern boundary now so he's accepted the the boundary in which case if if you testified he wouldn't invade then why are we there um I think it's Senator I don't think it's a matter of whether he'll invade or not i think that that these intentions to cordon off North Korea could very well be temporary and so to say will he
• 46:00 - 46:30 invade or won't he invade you know we're talking about probabilities with the loss of the force on the Korean peninsula there's a higher probability that he would invade well that was my expectation when I asked that question i I would assume that if we weren't there it would encourage him to Yeah to take steps to to try to uh the South i think it's essential we have a treaty ally it's the number 10 economy in the world our economies are very much intertwined uh KJU's intentions could shift with the wind and uh he's built a
• 46:30 - 47:00 military that is designed to impose tremendous costs directly on South Korea it's very important we maintain that deterrent i agree and to the extent that the Korean South Korean economy is somehow affected or or diminished that would be that would be against our interest because of the relationship that we have yes Senator and I I misheard you so please forgive me but as I mentioned previously 2100 US countries tied to the Republic of South Korea u 450,000 jobs as well thank you um this
• 47:00 - 47:30 is sort of an intelligence question General Brunson but I know you have intelligence do the North I didn't mean that at the way it sounded i know you have access to intelligence assets how's that better yeah uh do the North Koreans know the extent to which they're being screwed by the regime and we've all seen the famous picture of no lights in North Korea and South Korea is full of energy and and and prosperity do the North
• 47:30 - 48:00 Koreans have any inkling of the of the the way that they're being uh their opportunities in life are being diminished by this regime senator I I would uh I would answer that having fully listened to the question that I might answer it correctly this time i would fully answer that by looking at the forces that they sent to Ukraine to that fight absolutely died in the wool ideologues who are tied to and believe in that regime that exists there
• 48:00 - 48:30 i think a great many of the people are are not witting to what's going on there but the elites as long as he maintains control of the elites there was a recent article that talked about the things that he's doing to circumvent sanctions and other things to continue to bring u luxury goods into his country and as long as those luxury goods don't go to the people no no sir the point I'm making is is that as long as he can sort of provide a paliotative to the elites the other folks won't there's no way
• 48:30 - 49:00 that they get communications in or out one of the things that was coming from the NOS's going to the north was radios and those things then begat you know feces balloons and garbage balloons back to the south so I would say that the rank and file everyday people other than those within his special operations units are not witting to anything outside of their country that certainly is is is my impression admiral uh final question if if we pulled back in terms
• 49:00 - 49:30 of our support for Ukraine would that incentivize Japan South Korea to develop their own uh capacity including a nuclear capacity senator I'm ignorant of the policy i don't know the policy that's going on it's another theater but I'll say that Russian failure I'm sorry did I say Ukraine i I meant Taiwan okay if if we if we withdrew our support from Taiwan would that uh incentivize Japan and South Korea to develop independent
• 49:30 - 50:00 capacity including the possibility of nuclear weapons my assessment is yes thank you thank you Admiral go ahead and answer that question with regard to Ukraine um so without without you know I'm in the Indoacific so I don't have perfect knowledge of the ongoing um but my assessment and it's it's to an very deep extent backed in the intel record is that Russian failure andor Russian
• 50:00 - 50:30 success has the effect of deterring or embolding emboldening the People's Republic of China and they've already taken notice of the tremendous costs that uh Russia has endured mr chairman thank you mr chairman thank you for that because that's that's a question I would have asked if I'd had another 10 seconds thank you and it only took us 59 seconds thank you very much uh Senator Scott you are recognized thank you Chairman thank both of you for what you do uh thank you
• 50:30 - 51:00 for the men and women you uh you uh you serve with um so Admiral Kaparo how much of your time do you spend uh trying to anticipate or counter actions by uh communist China senator Scott um uh that consumes my my duties which is a constant stare uh the constant uh analysis of intelligence sources of open source sources and then the physical movement on the ground to be able to see
• 51:00 - 51:30 and understand to anticipate and to be able to pace their actions uh that look to coers uh Taiwan and to bring uh to uh demonstrate the uh prospect of settling the matter by force and number two their encroachment on treaty allies in the Philippines as well encroachment on partners in the South China Sea with their uh excessive and illogical claims in their n-line claim and their uh their continued ability to
• 51:30 - 52:00 um you know build ships airplanes weapons all these things does that cause cause you to spend more time and money yes yes sir absolutely they built combatants at the rate of six to 1.8 to the United States um and I could go through every force element that we're talking about yeah before they joined the World Trade Or organization and before we allowed them to uh basically sell whatever they wanted to this country did they have a
• 52:00 - 52:30 military that you had to spend a lot of time worrying about just by dent of the weight of the uh civilization we worried about it um you know we've had we we've had to worry about this now for uh since uh you know 1949 but uh it's step level change in the last uh 20 years they've increased their military 10 to 15fold right so if they didn't have the economy they have which is completely created by selling
• 52:30 - 53:00 uh goods and services to the um American citizens they would not have the resources that you would have to spend your time and money to try to counteract the society has grown greatly that was a matter of design for the international community but unanticipated was the aggression and the buildup that followed so your life would be better if that if American no American bought any Chinese product or use any service and no American dollar went to communist China uh I'll say that China's inability to pump resources into its national defense
• 53:00 - 53:30 enterprise which is bolstered by its trade position uh is a direct correlary to the success of their business model so would you recommend American citizens stop buying Chinese products and stop using Chinese services i'd recommend that we build greater resilience and that we beat them on market principles and um and so I don't want to go beyond my remit as a as a military officer all right let's talk
• 53:30 - 54:00 about naval readiness and specifically the C130s the Marine Corps and Air Force are 100% recapitalized on the C130s the Navy needs over 30 C130s and yet to program for this critical tactical air airlift platform the NA the Navy now I think only has one under contract does that concern you uh and should we be doing something about it as discussed with Senator Ernst uh sustainment is in fact what won the Second World War that's what our wouldbe adversaries believe and have studied and everything that confers to our ability to execute
• 54:00 - 54:30 lift and C130 is one of a kind with its short field operations with its capacity uh it remains absolutely relevant and indispensable today and uh that we we we can't neglect it it's a key priority for Indopaccom do you think there is a role for dual use uncrrewed uh air airlift capabilities in a contested logistics environment uh I think uh you know the precepts of unmanned is never send a human being to do something that a machine can do and
• 54:30 - 55:00 uh and so uh so you know inherently we're moving in that direction and I'd welcome the ability to uh execute that lift and it would also give me the ability to diversify the places that we do bringing smaller payloads into uh simultaneously smaller maneuvering units and would enhance our ability to sustain by the speed it would confer general Mahoney testified before the readiness subcommittee that 13 only 13 of 32 amphib amphibious ships are ready
• 55:00 - 55:30 how does the state of the amphibious fleet impact your ability to do your job uh the amphibious fleet is is uh is indispensable uh that you know the whole principle of sustaining and moving a force ships exist to move people mass and energy from one place to the other place efficiently and uh our amphibious force is underresourced and not ready enough
• 55:30 - 56:00 thank you uh thank you very much Senator Shaheen thank you Mr chairman and thank you both for your service and for being here today um Admiral Paparo I think I understood you to say in your opening statement that we must be active across the information environment so one of the things that's happened in the last month is that we have um
• 56:00 - 56:30 stopped we've pulled the plug on Voice of America and Radio Free Asia um we had a hearing in the foreign relations committee earlier this year where it was pointed out to us that China is spending over a billion dollars a year billion with a B on information um systems and efforts to provide miss and disinformation across the region and across the world so what are we doing to counter that and how does the loss of um
• 56:30 - 57:00 something like RadioFree Asia affect our ability to counter what the PRC is doing china and its um its u political works division and uh its united front is incredibly active effective and untruthful in the information space and the delivery of uh of truthful information uh really bolstered by free speech having respect for everybody and everybody's ability to discern truth
• 57:00 - 57:30 from lies is absolutely vital uh we do have a uh an effort uh that is uh companion that is uh where uh special operations command is nested within this unit with their capabilities uh to execute information operations but it's focused in the military space as it should be uh given the fact that we're in the uh in the military but uh in my opinion we must work hard uh to counter uh PRC misinformation and disinformation
• 57:30 - 58:00 information and our own principles of free speech um greatly enable us to have faith in in people to be able to sus out truth from lies and can you talk about why that matters when we're talking about military conflict it matters because uh in order for us to achieve the effects of of uh expanded maneuver our network of alliances and partnerships is the strategic center of gravity of the United States of America
• 58:00 - 58:30 and so inherently because governments are accountable to the people they serve that public opinion will have a great bearing on whether or not those allies and partners are a party uh to you know to enable a coalition because the the the bigger the coalition the greater legitimacy the greater capability the greater access spacing and overflight thank you um clearly we need to do better General Brunson
• 58:30 - 59:00 um South Korea and Japan recently renewed negotiations with the PRC toward free trade talks that have been stalled since 2012 um I'm concerned that the tariffs that have been announced then withdrawn then announced and withdrawn um are pushing our allies toward closer trade and integration with countries like China and that that poses security risks um so from an integration and
• 59:00 - 59:30 cooperation perspective do you see any challenges that would be posed by renewed economic talks between China and our closest allies in Asia ma'am I'll I'll answer by what I'm seeing on the peninsula right now my concerns would be um my hackles would raise if you will and I'll allow my boss to answer for the wider region but if we were not continuing to move along the pathway for the bilaterally agreed upon OPCON transfer if we weren't able to
• 59:30 - 60:00 move on that path by way of economic challenges facing the nation that would bother me if we had impacts that led to lessening human and procedural interoperability coupled with technological interoperability being lost that would concern me and I think Admiral Paparo made a very good case on the economic um circumstances earlier in response to Senator Cotton's question but I I want to ask a followup on this with respect
• 60:00 - 60:30 to um the political dynamics in uh the Republic of Korea which you referred to in your opening testimony and um the democratic process is playing out but we expect an election and are there concerns that depending on the outcome of that election it will affect our relationship with ROK ma'am the realities of the region where Korea sits the adversaries which they can uh impose cost upon is going to keep
• 60:30 - 61:00 us in goodstead going forward thank you thank you both thank you very much Senator Bud thank you Chairman and again thank you all both for being here good to see you again so last weekend a fresh rotation of fighter units arrived at Gadina Air Base including the 336 fighter squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base can you speak to their mission while deployed and how they fit into the
• 61:00 - 61:30 larger strategy admiral Senator Bud good morning uh Kadina air Kadina Air Force Base um and the wing there um is a you know a critical mobile dynamic capability uh that is just not fixed in Kadina but has the ability to move throughout the a the area of responsibility under the principles of agile combat employment and so um this is our onpoint contact layer uh
• 61:30 - 62:00 immediate ability to impose costs immediate ability to achieve u ephemeral air superiority in the AO and it's a foundation on which the larger uh the larger forces that would flow in in the event of a conflict uh rests and the fifth air force uh fifth air force of course is the headquarters in Yakakota uh with the wing in in uh Masawa and the
• 62:00 - 62:30 wing in Kadina so it's absolutely crucial Thank you for that and heaven forbid I mean we hope this never happens but should deterrence fail in the region does the Strike Eagle have a Strike Eagle have a role to play that can't be accomplished by other fighters at Yes sir it does and I mean with F-15 EX coming on board and with what that portends uh with its dominant electronic warfare capability in addition to the already dominant elements of range speed
• 62:30 - 63:00 sensors and payload of the mighty Eagle former Eagle pilot myself on exchange um but uh without being a homer for it uh indispensable thank you for that switch gears a little bit can you both elaborate on the demand for special operations forces and how you're currently resourced to meet those demands and General we'll start with you in Korea sir Special Operations Command Korea is
• 63:00 - 63:30 uh augmented within our headquarters by some um very particular intelligence assets I would I would call them uh that help us to best see sense and understand on the peninsula itself uh SOCK core is commanded presently by a uh a one-star national guard officer uh very capable formation in terms of ensuring that our partners around the region not just uh the Koreans but uh all forces that come to the peninsula to train maintain great
• 63:30 - 64:00 awareness of not only the region but the discreet activities that might occur should they need to happen most recently in the West Sea uh were able to during Freedom Shield conduct an air assault while being in the daytime it allowed us to take the Korean forces and bring them to a higher state of readiness than they'd achieved previously thank you General Admiral you've talked about uh previously being underinvested in soft do you care to expand on that
• 64:00 - 64:30 yeah Senator um currently we we have a counter we have a counterterror operation that's ongoing in the in the uh South Philippine Islands Operation Pacific Eagle uh in addition uh the special operations forces are a critical contributor to our counter command control information surveillance reconnaissance and targeting effort uh in addition uh special operations forces uh are uh actively augment and are a part of our intelligence collection and
• 64:30 - 65:00 this is all notwithstanding uh the immediate ability to do some of the more traditional roles as direct action and so I've been working closely with General Fenton on this uh to to able be able to define uh to to define to him exactly how much special operations forces that we have but I I I believe that we want and well I know I want and we need more and I can gain a lot of early leverage and a lot of deterrent
• 65:00 - 65:30 capability with more soft thank you Admiral General does the increased military cooperation between DPRK Russia and China concern you as it relates to containing escalation on the Korean Peninsula and if so what does that mean for the role of SAF in prevention well it it does worry me it worries me by virtue of the fact of the things that I'm seeing that soft helps us to see whether that be with them operating
• 65:30 - 66:00 their own UAS or whether that's them doing operations in the in the region uh most recently during Freedom Shield we saw Chinese ships violate and come across the northern limit line in the West Sea and in the East Sea we had violation of the the Korean air defense identification zone by the Russians and seeing them work together along with the information what was going on in the information environment soft helps me to counter some of those things because
• 66:00 - 66:30 what happened was North Korea said hey they need to stop these illegal exercises working together with the US and Iraq coming together and then you had these two other adversaries take actions in the region which have to be countered and I don't mean countered in a uh kinetic fashion but there are non-kinetic things that that sock core allows us to do that we might counter in the information space and other domains to continue on with our mission thank you both thank you Senator Bud uh
• 66:30 - 67:00 Senator Kaine thank you Mr chair and thanks to our witnesses um Admiral Parr I'd like to direct this question to you the discussion has had an awful lot as it should about North Korea about China i want to ask you about the cooperation that we're seeing some of our adversaries engage in in the Indoaccom talk about joint activities between Russia China and North Korea and the growing closeness of the
• 67:00 - 67:30 relationship and the threats that pose to the work that we do with our allies morning Senator Kaine uh it's a transactional symbiosis where each state fulfills the other state's weakness to mutual benefit of each state uh you know for instance is that uh China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the legacy chips that's enabled Russia to rebuild its war machine and then coming back to China is potentially
• 67:30 - 68:00 submarine quieting help as well as other help in some of the areas where Russia is strong uh in addition you've got the North Korea that are sending uh thousands maybe hundred hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and thousands of KN24 short-range missiles to Russia with as General Brunson said the expectations of concessions coming back uh in the form of air defense surfaceto-air missile help quieting terror to help
• 68:00 - 68:30 with their kilo submarine fleet uh and so forth and then finally in the physical space this last summer um I saw the uh the longest range joint patrol of of uh PLA Navy and Russian Pacific Fleet uh formation in the Bearing Sea and so uh they're deepening their ability to operate together and they're demonstrating that by going further a field and in and in and in bigger form formations uh quickly I just would like
• 68:30 - 69:00 to ask for your uh impression of the importance of the AUS framework in the Indoacific aus is a it's a gener it's going to confer a generational advantage on both countries uh but I cherish the advantage it confers on the United States of America and so you know I'll say first of all uh the ability to operate out of Sterling in uh in submarine rotational force west in Sterling gives the
• 69:00 - 69:30 American submarine force an Indian Ocean port it gives us the ability to range the Indian Ocean without limitation in the Straits of Malaca the Lumbok or the Sundrait it's a straight shot to the South China Sea closer and faster than Hawaii San Diego Banger Maine uh and then and then uh Australia's contribution of uh into the defense industrial base $3 billion
• 69:30 - 70:00 investment in the in the submarine defense industrial base yeah imagine Congress having that debate about whether we would invest $3 billion in the Australian workforce it would be a very tough discussion here the fact that the it'd be worth it but the fact that the Australian Parliament made that investment in the US workforce demonstrates the degree to which they're concerned about China let me just do one last thing here um I have filed a resolution with a number of my colleagues to turn off the tariff the
• 70:00 - 70:30 global tariffs imposed by the president last week which are now somewhat on pause there's still a 10% tariff i'm not going to ask you about the policy but I just want to point out one of the reasons I filed the motion primarily it's because it's a tax increase on American consumers but I don't think I don't think we should treat allies badly use Australia as an example you've talked about how AUS is very important the president has imposed a tariff on Australia we have a trade surplus with Australia not a deficit we have a trade
• 70:30 - 71:00 surplus with Australia so why put a tariff on their products um how about other allies japan 25% tariff on Japan why 25% the measure of the tariff was not Chinese trade barriers it was the trade deficit that we have with Japan measured by deficit in goods it did not include the full trade picture goods and services if you add in services all these trade deficits actually get narrow
• 71:00 - 71:30 because the US is such a great exporter of services but but even if there's a trade deficit in goods with Japan of course there is the trade deficit is we buy more of their stuff than they buy of our stuff our population's three times the size of the Japanese population so yes we buy more Japanese goods with 340 million people than 120 million people buy of American goods and so we're going
• 71:30 - 72:00 to punish him for that it makes no sense the the primary reason I'm filed the challenge is because I don't want to tax American consumers with a big national sales tax but the tariff strategy that punishes allies is no way to be strong in an international world where the US has built allies over decades that provide some of our greatest edge qualitative edge against our adversaries
• 72:00 - 72:30 so that's just an editorial comment but thank you for your appearance i It surely is um and uh under the First Amendment you are entitled to that but I didn't hear a question so uh we'll move along to Senator Duckworth thank you Mr chairman although I do endorse my uh colleague from Virginia's uh uh editorial statement um Admiral Paparo General Brunson thank you for being here today and for sharing your assessment of our posture capabilities and readiness in
• 72:30 - 73:00 Indoacific one of my major priorities everyone knows I am Transcom's biggest advocate so I can't go through a posture hearing like this without asking questions about the logistical environment um that we will face if our nation's darkest days comes and we must fight a war in the Pacific preparing for the logistical realities of large-scale conflict is not only critical for the fight tonight scenario but it is also key uh uh to deterrence uh we must demonstrate to our adversaries that we
• 73:00 - 73:30 have the capability to sustain a fight um if necessary even as they seek to contest that to make it clear that such a war would be costly for all of us and I applaud both your efforts to improve the logistical readiness of the force and with our allies and partners but I do think there's more to do and I just start off with medical readiness um we must improve our ability to provide life-saving care to wounded service members including the regional hospital access and effective aeromedical evacuation we have partners in the ROK
• 73:30 - 74:00 in Thailand in the Philippines that have medical facilities that meet US hospital certification standards those are opportunities for us uh to develop those relationship the Indo Pacific's vast distances logistical challenges and maritime environment present a much less permissive environment than for the medical mission than the global war on terror did and as I've said before long gone is the golden hour and we must do comprehensive planning um to ensure that our war fighters have foreign medical facility access in the Indoacific this
• 74:00 - 74:30 is why I secured a provision in the fiscal year 25 NDAA to establish an Indoacific medical readiness program admiral Paparo General Brunson as you implement this program what are the primary barriers that hindered the necessary medical cooperation and how can this committee help as you begin that effort morning Senator Duckworth um I strongly endorse your viewpoint and also too I I strongly endorse uh what's essentially a concept of operation within what you're what you're saying which is put the medical expertise of
• 74:30 - 75:00 our allies and partners to ensure that that can augment what our own medical providers can execute and so um one is uh is medevac capability in order to get to the location agreements to do so the ability to practice and exercise so it's not the first time that we do it if the unforgiving hour comes and so I think some of the barriers are physical and that is lift medical lift uh medevac lift and then some of the barriers are
• 75:00 - 75:30 uh are um I should say authorities and we'd hope for more authorities to be able to broaden our ability to plan for this for uh bringing to bear the cap the medical capability ities of our allies to uh to care for the wounded in conflict u so thank you thank you General Brunson ma'am uh one of the things that uh that you know and I know you're you're full well aware of this is our health care
• 75:30 - 76:00 comes from the community you have the only agreement in in Yep yes ma'am so we get tremendous amounts of care there what we're trying to do at uh at all good hospital at the present time is have greater access to profus doctors routinely i need them to be on the peninsula in times other than crisis or conflict in competition we want to bring them to the peninsula so that they better understand the medical landscape and what might be required of them we're
• 76:00 - 76:30 also looking to UN command there are several nations that provided hospitals during the Korean conflict we want the Italians to come back with their hospitals again we want the Dutch to come back with their hospitals again as well and those things we think we then provide to the greater Indopaccom family that we might be another resource used in time of conflict thank you i want to pivot to the critical platforms we need to project and sustain forces in a congested uh contested logistical environment especially our seal lift
• 76:30 - 77:00 fleet um Admiral Paparo do you agree that Indopaccom would benefit from the ability to surge replacements of naval auxiliary vessels or to conduct battle damage maintenance of these v vessels within the region closer to the point of need strongly I I urge for that Senator yeah because I I am concerned that um in a war naval auxiliary vessels would be easy targets i mean we're going to have to fight our way in and fight our way out and and what can we do to help you with that effort well as we enhance our protection capability we enhance our
• 77:00 - 77:30 ability to see understand the operational environment to build windows of opportunity to execute sustainment capability you know nine classes of supply medical and so forth uh in in those in those areas and so um first is just the quantities the quantities of TAKES AOS the quantity of Grey Tales C17s tankers um that's that's critical and um and then the ability to exercise it so what about co- sustainment with our allies like Japan or the ROK of
• 77:30 - 78:00 those vessels because they certainly have the capabilities especially the auxiliary vessels and when we gain this we frequently rely on one another uh to do this and then while operating at sea sometimes actually the necessity of having one leads us to use a Japanese oiler or for an American oiler to refuel a coalition ship and so uh we we have to be able to sum all of the sustainment capability among us have the authorities
• 78:00 - 78:30 to do so so we can turn to it with elacrity um but u I would be more comfortable with our own ability in to to contribute to that effort with us capability thank you thank you Mr chairman the momentary substitute chair recognizes Senator Rosen well thank you momentary substitute chair thank you actual chair Senator Wicker and of course ranking member Reid holding of course really important hearing i want to thank Admiral Paparo General Brunson uh for your service uh
• 78:30 - 79:00 for your support and your care and everything that you do thank you thank you so I want to talk a little bit about attacks on digital infrastructure by the PRC so Admiral our growing concern about the vulnerability of Taiwan's digital infrastructure is highlighted by the frequent attempted sabotage of undersea internet cables these events are part of a larger trend of grayzone operations where actions short of war often involving non-military forces or proxies
• 79:00 - 79:30 are used to exert pressure or destabilize regions the PRC's reckless coercive and aggressive activities pose a threat to democracies around the globe and its sabotage of those undersea cables has emerged as a particularly alarming tactic these cables are essential for our global communications transmitting around 95% of global internet traffic they facilitate financial transactions bolster our security the security of our partners
• 79:30 - 80:00 and allies oh Admiral while some experts view incidents like the damage to Taiwan's undersea cables as merely a test or low-level enhancement others warn they could be part of a broader Chinese strategy to prepare for future coercion or even invasion of Taiwan so given this what do you see as the actual threat um uh these incidents pose to US national security and what steps is the US taking to uh effectively counter these digital
• 80:00 - 80:30 threats senator Rosen um you know as ever you're quite astute in identifying this threat most certainly that's that's an element of the intention and an element of the design uh they would do so likely with People's Armed Forces Maritime Militia which enables them to uh execute this operation without potentially signaling an intent to go to war but by weakening uh the information uh enterprise of uh of their of the states over whom they're uh executing
• 80:30 - 81:00 aggression and um I think u a greater well one I think the first is is that the ability to uh penetrate from an intelligence standpoint point and to be there in the locations where they would be otherwise cutting those cables in order to deter that activity uh second of all is uh the resilience to have other redundant networks that enable uh those states and their partners including the United States Guam Hawaii and so forth uh to achieve the you know what we need to do uh in the uh in in
• 81:00 - 81:30 the information environment and that's um proliferation in low earth orbit uh and not just one single constellation but multiple constellations talk about how we can help Taiwan booster uh bolster its digital infrastructure what what do you think we can do to help them be be sure yeah I think um I think um enabling training them to be able to you know I shouldn't say training them but enabling them to uh build that
• 81:30 - 82:00 resiliency uh that's required that uh if we're unsuccessful in our efforts to thwart their cable cutting that uh there are other spectra and other means for information technology so they have the proper bandwidth to to prioritize those functions that they have to within that bandwidth and latency that you get out of low earth orbit middle Earth orbit among the many commercial constellations that are going into orbit thank you um I'm going to talk a little bit about North Korean support to Russia because we see a
• 82:00 - 82:30 growing alliance between North Korea and Russia particularly in the context of the ongoing war uh in Ukraine it presents new challenges for uh us in the United States and of course for our allies so we know North Korea providing troops and munitions to Russia and the partnership has potential to fuel the conflict and challenge the global order it raises concerns about the effectiveness of existing diplomatic strategies and economic sanctions so to both of you um the partnership between
• 82:30 - 83:00 North Korea and Russia poses a serious threat to global stability so in each of your views how should the US respond to North Korea's military assistance to Russia and what diplomatic or military strategies should we pursue to prevent further destabilization not just u there but within the international community so General we'll we'll start with you right Senator one of the things that we have to do is what we're doing presently we've got forces there on the peninsula
• 83:00 - 83:30 that uh can impose cost on them uh we also maintain lines to continue communication so that we might not have miscalculation in the region with at large whether that be on the MDL or across the northern limit line in the West Sea i think that we have to continue to try to communicate out but make sure that we're always prepared in the event of a miscalculation thank you Senator hundreds of thousands of
• 83:30 - 84:00 artillery shells thousands of KN24 missiles you know and manpower is going is uh is is leaving North Korea with the with the intent of gaining concession back and so first um exposure in the international community uh is is one which is to not be shy about exposing uh this naked aggression using all instruments of national power to impose costs on individuals to to to find uh you know to build the uh deterrent uh
• 84:00 - 84:30 from this uh from this activity and then um as General Brunson has talked about early and earlier being wary of what is coming back and to be able to uh uh to be able to uh be in generations of overmatch with what's coming back if it's submarine quieting if it's air defense if it's missile technology and so uh you know it's an area we need to work really hard thank you appreciate it yield back thank you very much Senator Banks thank
• 84:30 - 85:00 you Mr chairman admiral great to see you again i enjoyed our visit in my office last week and we talked about slickum n quite a bit but I wanted to ask you in this setting um slick men uh as we talked about will be one of the best tools to deter China in the Pacific but can you talk a little bit about the capability gaps that it fills why why it's so important in nocom morning senator um first I'm a strong advocate of slick amen at the soonest possibility just because of the
• 85:00 - 85:30 doubt that it imposes uh the potential to execute tactically you know presently there is a gap between low tonnage and high tonnage which on which the United States uh that gap is a critical vulnerability between from 400 kilotons and below and it gives us a choice of either suicide or surrender when we have to when we have to default straight to
• 85:30 - 86:00 strategic weapons so it gives us the ability to close that asymmetry um it also imposes doubt on doubt throughout the force and would change the calculus of aggression inherently just because of the nature of those weapons we use nuclear weapons every single day because they deter And it's by and and we use them by not using them by having them be a uh you know a potential deterrent and
• 86:00 - 86:30 I'm I'm uh quoting Dr brad Roberts on that who's quite expert c can you talk for a minute how does that affect the Chinese mindset their decision-making how how does it deter them it raises the costs and the implications of attacking any unit because uh it raises the stakes and so inherently it it inherently uh it provides more stability on each side because there's not an asymmetry to exploit
• 86:30 - 87:00 um as you know last year's NDAA director the NA the Navy and the NNSA to deploy slick slickcommen no later than 2034 that's nine years from now part of that delay came from the Biden administration saying that slick amend wasn't needed do you agree that there needs to be stability and a commitment from Congress the DoD and the Navy to slick them in to speed up that process and get it here before the 2034 deadline i agree 2034 is too late sooner please
• 87:00 - 87:30 good um I agree with that as well uh Admiral the Army says that it will field a long range hypersonic weapon with the US Army Pacific forces this fall that would be the first US hypersonic weapon that we put into the field h how will this new hyperssonic capability help you deter China as well senator uh the nature of a hypersonic weapon is to close uh in time uh any actor's kill chain and if your adversary
• 87:30 - 88:00 can strike you five times faster than you can strike strike your enemy uh then it incentivizes first strikes with this capability and so uh you know the the coin of the realm in the 21st century is speed who does things faster wins and so the ability to close distance and execute before counterfire can come the ability to execute and then move in order to in order to thwart counter fire
• 88:00 - 88:30 and uh your ability to act on ephemeral intelligence uh for a target to be able to reduce that cycle time from uh from find target track to engage uh hypersonics is critical to that and it's an asymmetry that exists right now and uh we must close it soonest with both uh the army's uh land-based convent with with all the with all elements of hypersonics including the Navy's
• 88:30 - 89:00 conventional prompt strike which is also not moving fast enough for my liking but talk about that for a minute how much more will it help you when the Navy deploys its hypersonic weapon too uh I mean I think it's uh it's step level change uh in our ability to gain early leverage in any engagement and really any conflict very good thank you i yield back thank you i think Senator Kelly is next
• 89:00 - 89:30 thank you Mr chairman admiral uh you were just discussing uh Sickum and and I do understand the need and desire for uh a tactical option in theater uh certainly provides a certain level of deterrence i get that one concern I have with upgrading Virginia class submarines with this capability is how it impacts the conventional
• 89:30 - 90:00 uh kinetic effect of that submarine um Admiral would you agree one of our areas of overmatch with the Chinese and is in our submarine attack force strongly agree center do you do you have any concerns about the magazine depth for conventional torpedoes if we were to add a tactical nuclear capability to
• 90:00 - 90:30 Virginia class submarines uh inherently it would occupy some of the vertical launch system tubes that would be in a Virginia class subcl class submarine so there would be a cost would be a cost involved and and and do you do you agree that the likelihood of using a tactical nuclear weapon is significantly less than the likelihood of using a conventional torpedo most
• 90:30 - 91:00 certainly uh there'd be a a um I mean um there'd be a um a very high threshold to employ it and are you concerned with having to take Virginia class submarines temporarily out of the fleet and out of the AO in order to refit this capability my assessment is that um there are ways where we can do it quickly however uh
• 91:00 - 91:30 you know uh I'd rather not lose the availability of the platform and how about the uh the amount of security that would have to be put on the ship and how that affects the overall operation of the conventional attack role for the Virginia class subs my assessment is we've done it before you and I lived in that Navy and uh you know and I'm in favor of executing it and moving fast on the security requirement all right well thank you i uh I I do understand the need and the deterrence factor i am
• 91:30 - 92:00 concerned that we might go down a path and we find out especially in a conflict that boy I wish we had the full that each of these V Virginia class subs were full of conventional round so thank you for that Admiral and General Brunson there's recent reporting that the United States is considering withdrawing as many as 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe which would signal to Putin our commitment um to our allies and partners in the
• 92:00 - 92:30 that theater is waning additionally Yukon handed control of a key logistics hub in southeast Poland over to other NATO forces again highlighting this idea of wavering US commitment to our allies and to underpin all of this there are rumors within the DoD that the department will direct a reduction of US presence in South Korea or retask these forces to focus on the threat from China so General Brunson I acknowledge you
• 92:30 - 93:00 cannot comment on the policy i understand that but from a strategic lens what impact would a force reduction or a retasking of forces have on your ability to deter North Korean aggression uh Senator uh Kelly uh the 28,500 troops that we have on in the Republic of Korea are responsible wholly for preserving peace on the peninsula in the region in Northeast Asia they are a
• 93:00 - 93:30 critical component to ballistic missile defense in the region they are a critical portion of helping the Indopaccom command se and understand in the north and to deter uh a great many adversaries the MDT that we share with the Republic of Korea does not mention an adversary that's always been the way it is should an adversary arise the troops that are there are prepared well along with our Korean allies to meet any
• 93:30 - 94:00 mission and do you feel your force is the right size for the missions as given yes Senator and and what do you assess the impact would be to our relationship with South Korea and partners in the region if we downsize the force on the peninsula what what I think we ought to do uh senator is remember that there's diplomacy and defense on the peninsula currently we share the unique uh focus
• 94:00 - 94:30 of being able to look at our partners eye to eye uh recently uh received instructions to move assets we were able to talk through those things so we've got to make sure that we we uh use strategic clarity to explain what uh is being asked of our forces all right thank you General thank you Mr chairman that would be me right now so I will recognize myself um Admiral Paparo it's great to see you um always appreciate your testimonies very
• 94:30 - 95:00 cleareyed uh to the point so I've long been very concerned about the the Chinese president's presence uh the Panama Canal uh and what they might be able to do with that if heaven forbid something were to happen could you just elaborate a little bit on um how the closure of that let's just assume that that would happen the closure of that or a or a um um an interruption in its availability how
• 95:00 - 95:30 that would affect the flow of both combatants and support vessels to the region morning Senator i mean inherently the geography you know that the alternative being all the way south around the Horn uh that's about a twoe transit uh think about how critical it is to get forces on on front when the PRC's intention is a short sharp war that provides a feticmple to the international community and so inherently anything that slows us down
• 95:30 - 96:00 over time and distance is bad for us now consider that all of the ship building in the United States of America is east of the Pan Panama Canal but the preponderance of the threat is in the Pacific and that just shows the inherent logic of the requirement for the P Panama Canal as ever yeah and I think yes the concerns that u that we had when it was I think mistakenly sort of given away are uh even more concerning now as our orientation I think shifts shifts to
• 96:00 - 96:30 the Indoacific in a more meaningful way um General Brunson it's good to see you i wanted to ask you and I know that Admiral Paparo got a question somewhat related to this but um concerns about airlift capabilities and um and we don't have enough uh aircraft and many of our our C130s don't have the survivability in a contested environment could you speak a little bit to the current limitations u we would have supporting forces in the Korean Peninsula given our
• 96:30 - 97:00 current inventory it's just the the amount of as we look at tip fit flows sustainment and those things that are required to prosecute in the KTO uh it's why we've begun to move it's a recognition of that is why we've begun to move with a combined logistics command it's why we've begun to look at how can we set the theater now looking at the stores of munitions some of which will expire soon how do we get those replaced in a quick fashion so that we
• 97:00 - 97:30 don't provide drain uh for sustainment things in order to prosecute the campaign i'm I'm readily aware of the fact that I'm fighting until help comes that's what we're expected to do there uh myself and the Republic of Korean forces as well as the forces a portion to UN command uh we're fighting until they get there so a great many of the exercises that we do Senator are all aimed at understanding what magazine depth needs to be resident on the peninsula so that we don't have to count
• 97:30 - 98:00 on external support coming too and so that we might not drain from the overall effort but it's fair to say that a lot of those plans that are being drawn to account for that uh are are meant to address the fact that we probably don't have the inventory that we that we need right now is that fair to say it would be accurate we're challenging those assumptions every day Senator right okay um Admiral Paparo I wanted to go back to you um I think with the it's related as far as maintenance um and availability and execution in um in the Indoacific
• 98:00 - 98:30 there was recently um I think a big win for the US and our allies with the uh the the tanker um mission in in South Korea and then we're also seeing this obviously with submarine maintenance in Australia um what to you what's the next big step because you've articulated I think rightly that speed is going to matter but the logistical hurdles and the vast expanse of the Pacific is I think it's hard for people to really actually put their their mind around it until you put a map up you know and you
• 98:30 - 99:00 just and you see just the expanse so what's the next big step to to to address those logistical challenges for us Senator first um enrich the kind of work that we're doing in our partnership yards So beyond the standard voyage repairs is to do uh deeper deeper repairs for our forward deployed naval force is one step and then if we can get into the space of uh of production of that capability of enhancing uh the
• 99:00 - 99:30 Korean uh worldwide ship capacity which is uh I think 23% of global total is sh is is built in Korea japan is 15% of global ship building the United States of America is 1% of ship building this confers immediately to speed so more uh maintenance being executed at these uh at these partner yards where it makes sense and then the next step and uh and uh you know I've heard a lot of talk
• 99:30 - 100:00 about this from uh from you know all throughout government which is uh which is to avail ourselves of our partners' unique ship building expertise and then while re we while we regain our own ship building expertise in the United States thank you um Senator Peters thank you gentlemen thank you uh for being here today and certainly thank you for your service to to our country admiral uh Paparo as you know exercise
• 100:00 - 100:30 northern strike in Michigan uh brings over 6,300 participants from all across the United States as well as our international partners to to Michigan's National All Domain War Fighting Center it's the largest training area east of the Mississippi uh in past briefings before this committee you discussed the the importance of exercise northern strike to Indopaccom and and particularly uh our ability to cooperate with uh with our partners uh in the
• 100:30 - 101:00 region uh could you elaborate on your prior comments and discuss the importance of Northern Strike to supporting Indoaccom's mission uh Senator without giving more of the details of what's executed on Northern Strike it is uh it is a key point of leverage and I have this um even in my from my interlocutors who report that um those personnel that returned from Northern Strike are changed uh and uh so I treasure it and I want
• 101:00 - 101:30 more of it and I want to expand it and um you know I thank the state of Michigan for their diligence in it well that's great to hear Emerald and uh happy to hear that and uh you will know that I'm actually co-sponsoring a proposal for the NDAA with Senator Slotkin to make Northern Strike permanent uh and funding permanent uh and I certainly look forward to working with members of this committee to do that and your words of encouragement uh I hope we'll help that process move along general Brunson as you know Russia
• 101:30 - 102:00 is strengthening military ties with North Korea through a mutual defense pack troop deployments to the Ukraine uh and efforts to modernize North Korea's conventional forces meanwhile China is mounting a pressure campaign on South Korea through political interference economic pressure maritime disputes cyber operations targeting critical infrastructure and the list goes on so my question for you sir is how is USFK
• 102:00 - 102:30 adapting its force posture or training to counter the hybrid nature of threats including military cyber uh and disinformation that's now posed by both Russia and China uh in this region yes Senator so one of the things that I believe in the future whether it's in competition conflict or crisis we've got to be able to do is we've got to be able to protect we've got to be able to sustain and we've got to recognize that
• 102:30 - 103:00 our posture uh which entails our organization and a host of capabilities all got to be in the right place part of doing that is by utilizing the assets at our disposable and the authorities inherent in other nations that come to join us on the peninsula so uh to to sort of keep this clean if you will we're able to leverage the special operations forces within the Republic of Korea we're able to leverage our own uh forces whether that be a uh military
• 103:00 - 103:30 information support team that operates inside embassy spaces or whether it's us uh along with our J39 to ensure that we're not only hardening access to ports but we're also testing all our lines as you know Senator we fight off of the Centrics K network it's important that we stay on that network with cyber defense teams and then encourage our partners to do the same thing which is what we're doing right now to ensure that we limit access to our networks protect our information properly and
• 103:30 - 104:00 look at those whole host of threats and how we might counter them on the peninsula very good uh uh from your perspective is there a risk that China and Russia could coordinate actions on the peninsula to distract or perhaps divide US attention from other strategic t challenges including Taiwan uh or Ukraine how concerned are you about that i I'm concerned about that from the perspective of how they might uh enlist the DPRK to aid in some form of
• 104:00 - 104:30 subtifuge nefarious activity or anything else that might happen in the region to keep us from focusing wholeheartedly on the mission of Indopaccom in uh maintaining a free and open Indoacific thank you uh uh General Papara Congress created the Pacific Deterrence Initiative in fiscal year 2021 national Defense Authorization Act to strengthen our military capabilities and partnerships uh in Indoacific region the PDI is aimed to boost deterrence against
• 104:30 - 105:00 China by investing in force posture in logistics missile defense allied cooperation uh sir could you could you share some specific examples of how PDI funding has improved the US force posture or our readiness and what steps can we take to enhance or or fully operationalize uh PDI senator um uh an example is the joint fires network and our ability to move fast in order to execute uh the fires function of the among joint joint fires
• 105:00 - 105:30 uh faster uh our material improvements throughout the uh throughout the theater um uh has enabled us to move faster uh and enhancing Pacific deterrence initiative uh US Indo-Pacific command is an advisor to the process the services choose which elements that they do is Pacific deterrent initiative and as the AO is 53% of the world almost any joint
• 105:30 - 106:00 force element that is acquired is applicable to the Pacific Pacific so more agency for United States Indopaccom enable to close the seams throughout the services would enhance the already good effect of Pacific Deterrent Initiative great thank you thank you again thank you Senator Sullivan thank you Mr chairman uh gentlemen Admiral General I want to first begin by thanking you for your decades of service both of you you're uh you do you both do a great job
• 106:00 - 106:30 i think sometimes we don't always say that same with your staffs um I have uh shown this chart to many many many uh folks here in the last few months this is the action that's happening in the North Pacific Admiral as you know up in the Arctic very very aggressive Russian Chinese actions into our aid is into our EEZ and the unprecedented element of this is the joint task force nature
• 106:30 - 107:00 uh Russian Chinese joint strategic bomber task forces last summer in our aids uh every summer now last three years we have joint Russian Chinese naval task forces in our EEZ very aggressive pushing out you know Alaska fishermen from their grounds so we need more everybody's testified we need more uh infrastructure up there um Admiral you in a classified hearing said we need to reopen this very strategic port Navy
• 107:00 - 107:30 base ADAC by the way I did a little geography test it's over a thousand miles west of Hawaii most people have no clue about that it's also the gateway to the Arctic northcom commander has testified we need to reopen ADAK the CNO has testified why do you think ADAC's so important admiral Senator uh it is a further e it is a further western point which would enable
• 107:30 - 108:00 uh which would enable and along with Ericson uh in order to gain time and distance on any force capability that's looking to penetrate uh Russia's Pacific Fleet uh in uh in Russia frequently takes that great circle route through Alaska yeah and uh it would enable up to uh 10x the maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft coverage of that key and increasingly effective or increasingly contested space so you you
• 108:00 - 108:30 testified in a classified hearing you think that we should reopen that just now that we're in an unclass hearing do you want to say that in a uncclass setting too we should reopen ADAC and we should enhance the ability to operate out of Ericson so um thank you on that it has three peers uh two 8,000 foot runways a big hanger 22 million gallons of fuel storage one of the biggest fuel storage depots anywhere on the planet Earth the CNO just sent a team up there
• 108:30 - 109:00 uh Navy State of Alaska the Alute Corporation and um the Northcom commander just uh reached out to me two days ago saying they're going to have a final report completed in the next two weeks on a low medium to high reopening uh scenario can you work commit to this committee to work with the Northcom Commander to get that report out in the next two weeks i commit and then you also have plans with regard to Northern
• 109:00 - 109:30 Edge in terms of that really important exercise using ADAT can you talk a little bit about that to the extent you can in a unclassified setting united States Air Force's concept of agile combat employment is the means by which we achieve more dynamism among the force and so the 11th Air Force is based in in Alaska that is an assigned force to United States Indoaccom 11 air force with over a 100 fifth generation fighters up there the preponderance of
• 109:30 - 110:00 Indopaccom's fifth generation fighters is in is in Alaska and so uh we will be exercising the agile combat employment concept in this summer's northern edge exercise in ADAC's going to be part of that they shall they will operate out of ADAC great um let me mention one thing you know that when the president um after he his election he actually put a statement out saying we will ensure Alaska gets uh increased defense
• 110:00 - 110:30 investments as we fully rebuild our mil military especially as Russia and China are making menacing moves in the uh North Pacific so that's a quote from the commander-in-chief i know I've raised this with you but it's a little bit of an issue and and uh just in terms of the urgency as I mentioned state of Alaska the Aliute Corporation that is the great Alaskan Native Corporation that owns the land there and the US Navy we're in ADAC couple weeks ago doing a site assessment
• 110:30 - 111:00 they're going to get that to us soon the Alude Corporation I've talked to these are great patriotic Americans alaskan natives serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country they would love to do a deal with the Navy 90 99 year lease or something like that but you know who um checks in with them once a year Admiral on ADAK about leasing ADAC uh I would guess it's not a friendly power it's not it's a Chinese shipping company that is
• 111:00 - 111:30 certainly in my view a front company for the PLA so how embarrassing would it be to the Pentagon or the Navy these guys would never do it the Ali Corporation is all patriotic but if some let's assume they weren't and somehow they signed a hundred-year lease with a quote Chinese shipping company that always is out there looking at ADAC you think that would be embarrassing for the US Navy and Pentagon on substance i think it would be bad because this is the modus operandi uh in the belt and road initiative imagine having the belt and
• 111:30 - 112:00 road initiative include Alaska one of the most strategic ports in the world amen so we we have a sense of urgency on this and I I look forward to working with you and the committee Mr chairman on this important issue thank you i sense a sense of urgency uh yes sir senator Blumenthal thanks Mr chairman uh thank you both for your service uh Admiral um I want to ask you uh some questions based on your
• 112:00 - 112:30 extraordinarily impressive experience as a aviator um as well as combatant commander um we're building new aircraft carriers at huge expense are you concerned about their vulnerability in light of the increased Chinese capabilities that you mentioned in your testimony AI cyber hypersonic missiles my guess is the everyday
• 112:30 - 113:00 American sees an aircraft carrier as a huge sitting duck out there in the middle of the Pacific uh are you concerned it's a moving duck with the ability to defend itself uh unique among airfields as a mobile capability uh it is not uniquely vulnerable but it is uniquely valuable and the PRC seeing that valuable value have made it a it a
• 113:00 - 113:30 focus because they have every other fixed landbased targeting complete its its value lay in the enormous variety and the enormous mass of fires and so uh it is not more uniquely vulnerable to the PRC it is more uniquely threatening to the PRC which is why they're working so hard uh to strike
• 113:30 - 114:00 it and I hear people say "Well in war games we lose these aircraft carriers the war games must have a terrible paraparro simulator because I'm going to put them into harm's way judiciously and when they can strike and it will be my job to return those aircraft carriers to their home bases after they have done their duty so I am no more concerned about aircraft carriers than I am about destroyers submarines squadrons wings battalions regiments uh but those fires
• 114:00 - 114:30 are the mass of fires that they bring are absolutely unique step level change uh above any other particular single unit and you pay me to find ways to protect those aircraft carriers along with everything else that's in the joint force for every one air-to-s surface missile there are for every one uh you know maritime oriented missile there are
• 114:30 - 115:00 eight others that are designed to strike land targets uh and so uh you know I I I note that uh you know this topic comes up frequently uh but you have my opinion on it is that uh instead of you know instead of waxing uh into a into a culture of well we should give up on this capability no we should do something about it and we are doing something about it and that and that is well included in my integrated
• 115:00 - 115:30 priorities list that I that I've presented to the committee I think that answer is uh extremely compelling comping and thank you for it uh turning to submarines and asking the same question in a different form are submarines more vulnerable today than say 3 years ago 5 years ago because of those advanced detection and counter measures that the
• 115:30 - 116:00 Chinese or other adversaries could mount the PRC is growing in their capability on anti-ubmarine warfare um which I would expect them to do i respect them for doing it uh they are more vulnerable than they've been before and that equally confers the responsibility for the command to take the steps that gain more margin i mean the the United States has a generational lead on submarine on undersea warfare and it remains critical
• 116:00 - 116:30 absolutely one of my highest priorities uh the introduction of uh quantum computing could well enhance the PRC's ability to flood the zone and to target submarines and to take that away they're pushing sensors into the sea to find them they're working very hard to find them and they're working very hard to counter them i have an equal duty to protect those and to preserve the unusual the outsiz combat capability of
• 116:30 - 117:00 those submarines and I take a similar view of refusing to quit on a on a unique capability and on that front if I leave this the the space between the surface and the Karman line our adversaries are going to flood that space with capability and become even more effective against our submarine force well I thank you for both of those answers which again I find very persuasive we can't quit on those weapons platforms we just need to make
• 117:00 - 117:30 them more capable and uh stronger and u I look forward to working with you on on that mission thank you very much Admiral thank you both for your service to our nation thank you all senator Slacken will be in in just a moment let me ask you um in responal's line of questioning on submarines we we still need um a lot more submarines do we not strongly agree we have to increase our
• 117:30 - 118:00 production rates we have to invest in the submarine industrial base we have to increase the rates of of uh the number of submarines and we have got to increase the availability of our submarines and and um you had a valuable exchange with Senator Banks about nuclear weapons and and uh I I understood you to say they are useful to us every day because of their deterrent effect is that correct yes sir and also
• 118:00 - 118:30 uh just because um we don't often hear about this uh the doctrine of of the United States uh for years has been not to rule out a first strike is that correct i affirm that okay thank you very much uh Senator Slotkin thank you apologies for being late welcome glad to have you here um I would just like to talk about
• 118:30 - 119:00 strategy visav China and Taiwan and I'm sure you've gotten a lot of questions on this um I'm trying as the the co-chair of the bipartisan Taiwan caucus um to understand what our approach is um given that we talk about the Chinese threat right to Taiwan we talk about um that we're in a period of vulnerability right we want to make sure to um uh be particularly watchful about what's going on in Chinese military intentions but at
• 119:00 - 119:30 the same time we're calling into question the commitments by allies and partners um who we would need I think in any Taiwan contingency scenario right i think even the Trump administration's your national interim national defense strategy talks about the importance of allies and partners and I've seen public reports from CSIS and others that say that actually if there was a war with China over Taiwan if they tried to take
• 119:30 - 120:00 over Taiwan um we could not um manage that situation to satisfaction if allies and partners weren't with us in that fight just there we're so far away the tyranny of geography what we always talk about um um and I'm just concerned that our approach to allies and partners is threatening the very thing that I think we believe in in a bipartisan basis on this committee that we need to have a muscular deterrent approach so can you
• 120:00 - 120:30 tell me about the value of allies and partners to whatever you need to do in that region understanding we're in an unclassified space um and um uh the dependence we have on other nations hosting our forces allowing operations from their from their land can you walk me through it please senator good morning um uh allies and partners have an outsized effect it is
• 120:30 - 121:00 the strategic center of gravity of the United States of America and by having access basing and overflight with our allied partners we have the we have the ability to achieve the principles of expanded maneuver and that is to have multiple attack vectors across multiple domains where our adversary would potentially just be putting would be focused onto one point there'd be threats coming from multiple points it would confer it confers legitimacy on
• 121:00 - 121:30 the force it confers greater access basing overflight freedom of movement of the force and then to the extent that allies and partners are participating in the in the uh operation it enhances your fires capability as well so all across those fronts allies and partners are are critical you do pay me to build a plan that does not fall on the loss of a partner but the cost the bill comes in the form of people capability money and
• 121:30 - 122:00 time the more partners and allies that we have the less it will be will be the bill across those four domains so I I guess my my confusion comes with my view again my my view as a a senator here that this administration is is implementing a strategy of cozing up to our adversaries and kicking our allies
• 122:00 - 122:30 in the teeth um and I say that as someone who's a border state and lives right next to Canada you know we we can go to a concert in Canada i mean it's a it the the idea that we need partners to make deterring China affordable and approachable but that we're going to attack our allies put significant tariffs on again off again on these allies we're going to humiliate them in public speak badly and
• 122:30 - 123:00 speak ill of them including countries we share intelligence with is to me the most a strategic thing I have seen in a national security approach to China so for all someone claims they care about deterring a military threat from China if your approach is and thank you for your incredibly articulate description of how our allies and partners are the center of gravity your words um I
• 123:00 - 123:30 believe it to my core um I cannot for the life of me say with a straight face that for all the huff and puff this administration puts on about China that they actually give a crap about deterring them because then you wouldn't be alienating all the allies and partners who live around China and I'm watching the the Chinese put in a base in Cambodia right sounds like a terrible vulnerability for us that other allies and partners are are coing up to China
• 123:30 - 124:00 so I I deeply appreciate the work that you do we depend on you we need you all to do your work well but for the life of me I think whatever bravado this administration has about China the play is actually being undermined every day by the way that they kick our allies in the teeth i yield back thank you Senator Slotkin that concludes the hearing we appreciate the testimony both in the closed session and in this open session and um with that this hearing is
• 124:00 - 124:30 adjourned thank you [Music]
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• 129:00 - 129:30 a classified part of the hearing um
• 129:30 - 130:00 beginning at um 8 a.m but uh at this
• 130:00 - 130:30 point we held a hearing on the US
• 130:30 - 131:00 Indo-Pacific Command and the US Force Korea at the outset I want to thank Admiral Paparro and General Brunson for their distinguished service to our country last year at this hearing I said that the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific was shifting in China's favor since then the Chinese Communist Party has significantly increased its coercive activity toward Taiwan and the
• 131:00 - 131:30 Philippines last week the Chinese conducted an exercise called Straight Thunder 2025A this exercise demonstrated the extent to which the People's Liberation Army could execute a maritime blockade of Taiwan and pummel it with missile strikes as China conducts more exercises with Taiwan in mind it also escalates the rhetoric against the island last week Chinese military officials called uh Taiwan's democratically elected
• 131:30 - 132:00 president a parasite the Chinese have also substantially increased their harassment of our Filipino allies china's vast maritime militia backed by the PLA Navy and Chinese Coast Guard is using increasingly aggressive tactics to advance its expansive claims in the South China Sea the second Thomas Schaw remains a major flash point chinese maritime militias have tried to keep the grounded Filipino Navy ship the Sierra
• 132:00 - 132:30 Madre from being resupplied secretary Hexith recently visited the region i was pleased to see that he reaffirmed our mutual defense treaty with the Philippines reminding the world that the treaty applies to attacks on the Filipino armed forces anywhere in the South China Sea even so it is clear that the Chinese have been emboldened by four years of weakness during uh the past administration there is another reason
• 132:30 - 133:00 China has become so confident in its malign schemes xiinping has steadily modernized his military and that hardware has made him more brazen china boasts the world's largest navy and also has an air force that is capable of denying the the US air superiority in the first island chain we'll certainly want to ask about that gentlemen its missile force can saturate our theater defenses china has been expanding its
• 133:00 - 133:30 nuclear arsenal at a pace that far outstrips our own multiple Stratcom commanders have called China's growth breathtaking in just a few short years Beijing has built more intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States meanwhile our own modernization programs languish from past neglect but China is not the only urgent threat in the Indoacific the Biden administration chose to ignore North Korea it allowed Kim Jong-un to
• 133:30 - 134:00 increase his nuclear arsenal and project his military into European theater to aid Vladimir Putin in Russia's war against Ukraine kim Jong-un has abandoned the goal of unification of the Korean Peninsula and again we'll want to talk about that and has declared South Korea to be the principal enemy the North Korean nuclear and missile arsenal continues to grow and diversify with the rogue nation adopting a strategic doctrine that
• 134:00 - 134:30 embraces nuclear first use kim will surely seek remuneration for his support to Moscow the Russian technology transfers and military assistance Kim receives will help him to further strengthen his strategic military forces missile forces the continued demonstrations of Russia China and North Korea aligning and cooperating should be of great concern
• 134:30 - 135:00 to all the West this concern should then lead to action if we are to maintain global peace and stability we must continue taking steps now to rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence as I noted in um my peace through strength report last May it's time to make a generational investment in our national security i do believe that uh view is bipartisan we must be able not only to
• 135:00 - 135:30 deter and defeat the People's Liberation Army but also to maintain deterrence in other theaters our adversaries led by Beijing are playing a global game we must be smarter and more agile than they are across the board last year Indopaccom's unfunded requirements list totaled $3.5 billion this year's unfunded requirement list was $11 billion and virtually none of that was funded under the fullear CR this is
• 135:30 - 136:00 unacceptable and also I hope we're we're going to get from everyone an accurate and full um assessment uh of the the various unfunded requirements we need real growth in the FY26 budget request in addition to a historic defense reconciliation package we need more survivable long-range munitions more assured US command and control systems and an improved ability to counter China's increasingly capable cyber and
• 136:00 - 136:30 space systems we need a wholesale overhaul of our logistics infrastructure and a rapid deployment of unmanned systems we need a renaissance in our camouflage and deception programs and we need a drastic improvement in our ship building the risk is simply too high for us to avoid making these changes so I look forward to hearing from our distinguished um and well-informed witnesses and um having a candid conversation about what this committee
• 136:30 - 137:00 and this Senate and this Congress can do this year to address these challenges senator Reid thank you very much Mr chairman and Admiral Parro General Brunson welcome uh thank you for appearing today and please convey our thanks to the men and women serving under your commands and defending us this is a challenging time for our forces in the Indo-acific china is deploying a wide range of military economic and political pressures against its neighbors while aggressively
• 137:00 - 137:30 challenging America's leadership in the region the United States does not seek conflict with China but we have deep economic and security interests in the Indoacific that must continue to be protected through strong deterrence and smart competition several months ago I traveled to Guam South Korea and the Philippines to assess our posture in the region i observed a number of joint military exercises met with allied leaders spoke with foreign business leaders and inspected our military infrastructure overall I was impressed
• 137:30 - 138:00 with our progress particularly the development of our partnership with the Philippines and the remarkable emerging partnership between Korea and Japan these relationships should inspire us to redouble the development of networks like the Quad Bus and ASEAN as we bring other nations into our security cooperation efforts indeed as countless US military leaders and diplomats have told me the key asymmetric advantage our nation has over China is our network of
• 138:00 - 138:30 allies and partners with that in mind I'm concerned that the Trump administration is unraveling much of the progress we've made many observers fear that President Trump may shrink the US troop presence in Korea and Japan reduce our military exercises with both nations and scale back plans for our joint force headquarters in Japan despite the fact that Korea and Japan contribute significantly to burden sharing and hosting our forces although the president has temporarily suspended tariffs against our closest allies and
• 138:30 - 139:00 partners the last few days have undoubtedly sewn seeds of doubt about America's stability and trustworthiness feelings that would be amplified if the president decides to reinstate the sanctions after 90 days in addition to dismantling America's soft power tools like the US Agency for International Development President Trump's actions serve only to push our friends away from us and that is not appropriate admiral Paparo General Brunson you engage with
• 139:00 - 139:30 our foreign partners every day both as a matter of diplomatic leadership and military necessity i am interested in your views on how tensions with our allies would disadvantage your forces and America's interests in the region admiral Pavaro Taiwan remains the most dangerous flash point in our competition with China we have seen a recent surge of aggressive Chinese military exizers around Taiwan's airspace and territorial waters and the world has a right to be
• 139:30 - 140:00 concerned in several consecutive National Defense Authorization Acts this committee has provided new security assistance tools to help develop Taiwan's capabilities and strengthen our own posture in particular the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative and the Indopacific Campaigning Initiative should enable greater support and training for Taiwan and facilitate Indopagon's increased exercises and freedom of navigation operations consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act
• 140:00 - 140:30 however your command has once again had to divert ships and aircraft for prolonged and intensive operations in the Middle East admaro I would like to know your assessment of Indopaccom's readiness to carry out your missions as well as United States broader strategy in the region key to America's success in the Indoacific is the posture of our forces in South Korea as I mentioned I'm encouraged by the recent progress we have seen in the trilateral relationship among South Korea Japan and the United
• 140:30 - 141:00 States and I hope that developments like these will provide more opportunities to engage other regional partners as we do so we must continue to manage the threat posed by North Korea we know that Kim Jong-un continues to view nuclear weapons as quote the ultimate deterrence against foreign intervention and he intends to gain international acceptance as a nuclear armed state north Korea's relationships with Russia also continues to grow especially in light of North Korea sending troops and weapons to
• 141:00 - 141:30 support Putin's invasion of Ukraine and Kim Jong-un is likely receiving tactical assistance from Russia for missile and nuclear capabilities general I would appreciate your view on the current threat from North Korea and how your forces are maintaining readiness through training and exercises with their South Korean counterparts again thank you to our witnesses i look forward to testimonies thank you Mr chairman thank you uh we'll now recognize um each of of
• 141:30 - 142:00 our panelists for opening statements and General Brunson you went first in the close session would you like to do that again my boss says yes so I do thank you for giving me at least the illusion of choice chairman Wicker Ranking Member Reid and distinguished members of this committee thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today i'm honored to appear before you for my first posture uh hearing in front of this committee as a
• 142:00 - 142:30 commander of United States Forces Korea Combined Forces Command and United Nations Command i'd like to take a moment just to simply thank you all for your steadfast leadership your friendship and your critical support to our service members their families our civilians and the contractors who support us around the globe but I especially want to thank you for your continued time and attention to the people of the Republic of Korea and the soldiers sailors airmen guardian and
• 142:30 - 143:00 marines who serve there on the peninsula i'd also like to thank the Korean people right now for their continued resilience through challenges and hard times i'd like to thank them for their dedication to our alliance and I'd also like to thank them for their continued provision of an environment that allows us to build sustain and retain the readiness that we develop on the peninsula in my career every opportunity that I've had to lead our nation's men and women has been an
• 143:00 - 143:30 honor it's a privilege to serve alongside Admiral Paparro our friends our partners and allies in the region working to strengthen our ties to further security freedom and prosperity amongst the nations for over 75 years we've invested our national treasure in the Republic of Korea and remain the last US fighting force on the continent of Asia the return on investment of US forces being stationed in Korea is not measured only in dollars but in terms of access
• 143:30 - 144:00 forward-basing enduring partnerships and deterrence in 2024 the DPRK focused on advancing their cruise missile and hypersonic glide vehicle research and development programs launching 47 ballistic missiles with one failed satellite launch attempt kim Jong-un also has two highly publicized visits to nuclear sites and over the past year and a half DPRK has exported munitions and troops to support Russia demonstrating
• 144:00 - 144:30 the ability to provide external support while simultaneously advancing domestic capabilities in the coming year we expect the DPRK to further develop hypersonic and multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle MV capabilities to complete his eighth party Congress goals kim Jong-un's leadership has shifted focus from re reunification to declaring sovereignty this change is evidenced by the hardening of DPRK's southern border
• 144:30 - 145:00 the rejection of reunification discussions and the destruction of unification monuments and buildings the DPRK continues to build its nuclear weapons program and boasts a Russian equipped augmented modernized military force of over 1.3 million personnel lastly DPRK's cyber threat is increasingly sophisticated as demonstrated by the recent theft of approximately $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency in contrast to that I would speak to the
• 145:00 - 145:30 rock US Japan trilateral efforts which are bearing much fruit not only in ballistic missile defense but in training and readiness developed on the peninsula i thank you all for allowing me again to appear before you i look forward to your questions and thank you thank you General Admiral Paparo Chairman Wicker Ranking Member Reid and distinguished members of the committee thanks very much for the opportunity to appear with me over my right shoulder is
• 145:30 - 146:00 United States Indopaccom's Senior Enlisted Leader Fleet Master Chief Special Operations Dave Ism he is this is his last hearing he's retiring after 38 years of selfless service as a SEAL and special operator speaking of asymmetric advantages the NCO Corps of the United States of America is the one of the joint forces absolute asymmetric advantages fleet Isam's leadership in this critical duty has been exemplary it has been indispensable to my own
• 146:00 - 146:30 transition as the commander of US Indopaccom he's been indispensable to me personally i honor his service in a region that's home to over half the Earth's surface and half the operational joint force Indopaccom faces a confluence of challenges china's unprecedented aggression and military modernization poses a serious threat to the homeland our allies and our partners in 2024 the People's Liberation Army demonstrated growing capabilities
• 146:30 - 147:00 through persistent pressure operations with military pressure against Taiwan increasing by 300% china's increasingly aggressive actions near Taiwan are not just exercises they are rehearsals and while the PLA attempts to intimidate the people of Taiwan and demonstrate coercive capabilities these actions are backfiring drawing increased global attention and accelerating Taiwan's own defense
• 147:00 - 147:30 preparations as General Brunson said North Korea's development of advanced nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles pose a direct threat to our homeland and our allies and are executing a deepening cooperation with Russia russia's growing military cooperation with China adds another layer of complexity creating a compounded challenge with the deepening cooperation among China Russia and North Korea and China and Russia's Pacific fleet is a growth enterprise us Indopaccom deters these challenges to
• 147:30 - 148:00 regional stability and competition and crisis while maintaining the the availability to prevail but that margin is eroding as chairman and and ranking member have discussed in 2024 we've conducted 120 joint exercises among them 20 major joint exercises including not just the US joint force but allies and partners we continue to strengthen the relationship with Japan South Korea Australia the Philippines India Taiwan
• 148:00 - 148:30 the Azion nations Pacific Island countries and in fact European partners are active in the in the theater as the first priorities we must be dominant in space and across the information environment leveraging capabilities to counter their the uh counter the PRC's command control intelligence surveillance reconnaissance and targeting complex this will enable us to gain a nonlinear advantage over potential adversaries in fact to maintain and increase that nonlinear
• 148:30 - 149:00 advantage to maintain credible deterrence Indopaccom requires additional sustained investment in long range survivable fires in integrated air and missile defense in force sustainment with an emphasis on autonomy and AIdriven systems uh China's outproducing the United States in air missile maritime and space capability and accelerating these i remain confident in our deterrence posture but the
• 149:00 - 149:30 trajectory must change the Pacific Deterrent Initiative should counter the China threat by investing in key readiness and capability which would in fact uh if funded uh advance the intent of this initiative and deliver major posture improvement deterrence remains our highest duty however that must be backed up by the real capability to prevail in combat the joint force
• 149:30 - 150:00 remains confident resolute and determined to prevail thank you for your attention thank you i look forward to the questions thank you well thank you both for your testimony your service let's let's start with General Brunson um just quickly yes or no korea North Korea continues to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal correct yes sir and they continue to um expand their delivery
• 150:00 - 150:30 systems of nuclear weapons is that correct yes sir okay you know you never know uh what uh whether to believe what you read in the newspapers and see on the media but there are reports that some mid-level officials in the Pentagon are considering reducing our military presence on the Korean Peninsula to focus instead on the China threat and defense of the US homeland uh if our strategy in Korea is to deter war and win it if we have to uh
• 150:30 - 151:00 would that be a good or bad idea senator to uh chairman to to reduce the force becomes problematic and I won't speak to policy but what we do provide there sir is the potential to impose cost in the east sea to Russia the potential to impose cost in the west sea to China and to continue to deter against North Korea as it currently stands i'm trying to focus right now on
• 151:00 - 151:30 the capabilities necessary to do all those things that we might participate routinely in the campaign that my boss is fighting which is to prepare deter and then prevail in conflict should it come but the forces in Korea play an important role and over 75 years they've done the same uh Admiral a significant reduction of um of our military presence on the Korean Peninsula good or bad oh
• 151:30 - 152:00 inherently it would reduce our ability to prevail in conflict and and uh for both of you would a conflict on the Korean Peninsula likely in uh involve China um my belief is that uh it would there would be a risk that it would involve China and would have to be conducted carefully uh if it were so and uh and so that risk has got to drive our calculus and General Brunson so our preparedness would prevent them from entering in any conflict because of
• 152:00 - 152:30 the potential to take them off their own party goals okay who wants to take the question about the um air superiority of um of the PRC over hours in that theater chairman uh the People's Republic of China are have a order of battle of 2,100 fighters uh an order of battle of over 200 H6 bombers and they are producing uh fighters at a rate of 1.2 to one over
• 152:30 - 153:00 the United States furthermore their advanced air-to-air missile long range air-to-air missiles also present a tremendous threat uh if you don't hold the high ground along the first island chain you are vastly limited in your ability to operate uh I think everybody knows the importance of the high ground so seeding air superiority um is a not is a uh is not an option if we intend to
• 153:00 - 153:30 maintain uh capability against our adversaries and the ability to support our allies admiral uh is it a fact that China is now capable of denying US air superiority in the first island chain uh I you know I give them high marks in their ability to do that uh I have some game too and air superiority you know air supremacy is the complete mastery of the air neither side will enjoy that but it'll be my job
• 153:30 - 154:00 to contest air superiority to protect those forces that are on the first island chain such as third uh three meth third marine expeditionary force and also to provide windows of air superiority in order to achieve our effects u Admiral um Kim Jong-un is not um motivated by um charity in helping
• 154:00 - 154:30 Russia in Ukraine what does he expect back what's he likely to get back chairman he he expects concessions he's doing it in order to gain concessions and those concessions would be uh modernization of their air defenses specifically the MiG 29 the SU27 uh advanced help for their surfaceto-air missiles quieting technology for their submarines uh additional help in order to instantiate a ballistic missile uh submarine uh as well and then likely uh
• 154:30 - 155:00 propulsion help and potentially even help with the re-entry vehicle icles for their uh burgeoning nuclear program okay thank you we'll take another round let me just make sure that people understand general Brunson you are USA Commander United Nations Command Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea you you do not answer at all to the United Nations headquartered in New York City do you no sir those authorities go
• 155:00 - 155:30 through the chairman to the Secretary of Defense and then on to the president okay totally different um organization thank you very much and um the distinguished ranking member is recognized thank you very much Mr chairman first let me begin by thanking the command master chief for his dedicated service to the nation thank you Chief and uh let me associate myself with honorable Parl's comment that our asymmetric advantage one of the keys is our non-commissioned officers uh General Brunson uh you uh have indicated the importance
• 155:30 - 156:00 of our forces on the Korean Peninsula can you also elaborate on the support and the magnitude of the burden sharing that the South Koreans contribute to us yes Senator Reid um so so first I would like to say that forward presence provides unmatched access uh unmatched deterrence at minimal cost comparatively speaking by other forces that are
• 156:00 - 156:30 stationed forward we recently received help from the department of defense with our tour normalization which brings tours in Korea on par with other OKONUS locations which changes our exposure to the region and our understanding of the adversaries therein i would also say that uh 2100 US companies have ties to the Republic of Korea that's 450,000 jobs that are a part of that that's a piece that I think that's critical to know and understand now I
• 156:30 - 157:00 would also say that we receive about half a billion dollars a year in Korean related construction that builds the brand new school on uh on Pyongtech at Camp Humphre that builds additional towers to house our families in quality housing that also build skiffs for us right now in the Republic of Korea that we might be able to do the important work to stay tied to Indopaccom i would also like to say that in kind the overall contribution in the past uh
• 157:00 - 157:30 fiscal year was about 1.4 4 trillion Juan which works out to be close to a billion dollars worth of support that we receive in kind i also mentioned the continued and growing uh maintenance repair and overhaul facilities that exist on the east sea and the west sea uh that we've utilized most recently to bring the Wally Shira back out of out of uh that overhaul and looking better than ever the Cesar Chavez also visited recently um but there is a lot that we
• 157:30 - 158:00 get some of it is is fiscal and monetary others of it is material that's irreplaceable uh General Brunson again uh in previous national defense authorization attacks we have established a manpower floor of 28,500 troops uh as a demonstration of our unwavering commitment to the US Republic of Korea alliance and also the strategic reasons you said would you uh suggest we include such language again
• 158:00 - 158:30 yes sir thank you admiral Parro can you give us your perception as the overall commander of the uh value of the South Korean forces uh to us and the presence of our troops on the peninsula together with the contributions they're making the South Koreans frank member uh in addition to the uh elements laid out by General Brunson um Korea makes significant contributions outside the uh the Korean uh Peninsula and that is uh
• 158:30 - 159:00 in their uh in their participation in multilateral exercises uh including Pacific Partnership among many others and so uh in the ability of that force to deter conflict the ability of that force to avoid from having two conflicts at once that by dent of the strength of the of the capability and by what they're doing in the trilateral relationship with Japan that growing trilateral relationship with Japan and
• 159:00 - 159:30 on their path to become a global pivotal state uh they are a key partner in the in the western Pacific with a purview that goes far beyond just the Korean peninsula thank you very much sir uh I mentioned in my open statement that currently you have forces that have been transferred into uh sentcom the confidence and carrier group open sources suggest 6B2 bombers at Diego Garcia with supplementary tankers what
• 159:30 - 160:00 effect does these have on your capabilities well presently uh for for Carl Vincson um we do have George Washington coming out of Yukosa very shortly and Nimttz is at sea and um but um you know we have to maintain a high state of indications and warning uh so that we can get those forces back if there is a crisis with greater exigence than there is one in the Sencom AO and I owe the
• 160:00 - 160:30 secretary and the president constant vigilance on this and a constant awareness of that force's ability to flet which is assigned to US Indoaccom it's Carl Vincent strike group and a Patriot Battalion uh if need be they return to the Indopaccom theater for a higher priority threat thank you very much gentlemen thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator Reid Senator Cotton gentlemen welcome back um Admiral let's take a step back to first principles we've talked a lot here about the threat
• 160:30 - 161:00 that China poses to Taiwan and what you're doing to try to address that threat um I'd like you to explain why that threat is so severe you know some people might look at the map and say "Well Taiwan is a small island and it's really far from us and it's really close to them." And China has marched into Tibet in the past and they've marched into Hong Kong in the past and that was bad and they shouldn't have done those things but it
• 161:00 - 161:30 didn't lead to world war and it didn't lead to great depression um on the other side you've got one of your ancestors so to speak Douglas MacArthur who said at the dawn of the Korean War that the domination of Taiwan by an unfriendly power would be a disaster of utmost importance to the United States he was speaking then as we do today of communist China um Ian Eastston a Naval War College professor and one of the military's leading experts on Taiwan says that it's possible that the Chinese
• 161:30 - 162:00 invasion of Taiwan would cause a 21st century version of the Great Depression and the famed investor Ken Griffin put it more bluntly it's an immediate Great Depression so so why is it that Taiwan is different why why is Taiwan such a hot flash point why could it lead not only to a catastrophic war but also global Great Depression why should Americans care about an island on the other side of the world senator Cotton and that last point is quite salient uh many a research organization postulate that conflict in the Western Pacific uh
• 162:00 - 162:30 over the Taiwan question would result in a 25% GDP contraction in Asia and a knock-on effect of 10 to 12% GDP reduction uh in the United States of America with uh unemployment spiking 7 to 10 points above base and likely 500,000 excess deaths of despair above base as as well and uh this is just the importance of the regional stability to
• 162:30 - 163:00 the world economy and its effect on people's lives and this is uh this is you as a function of freedom of navigation it's a function of the uh world dependency on semiconductors uh in the longer term uh for the United States our strategic center of gravity is our as our network of alliances and partners the sum total of 350 million people's talent 130 million Japanese 130 million
• 163:00 - 163:30 Philippines 25 million Australians not to mention 500 million in Europe as well as partners in across the globe uh the knock-on effect of the brittleleness of that network of alliances and partners partnerships means that some of the states could confer and be and submit to the PRC's mode of exploitation and route to their long range goal of setting the ro setting the rules of the world and
• 163:30 - 164:00 reaping the benefits of that uh and then finally some nations in the area of responsibility will submit but others it would never happen just because of the historic tensions and in that case the proliferation question comes to mind with nuclear armed states that are treaty allies with the United States and minimal warning for launch among those nuclear states uh it is a vital interest
• 164:00 - 164:30 for the United States my job is to have a force ready to make those choices you know I don't make the choices on whether or not it's important or not i'm explicating how it is and my job is to present those options to the commander-in-chief to be ready to fight and win and to be clear a lot if not all of those consequences would follow whatever the outcome of a conflict over Taiwan whether China succeeds in going for the jugular or fails or there's some kind of indecisive outcome simply having the conflict over
• 164:30 - 165:00 Taiwan which is such a center of gravity in the modern economy could lead to many of the consequences you just outlined yes sir um yeah I can't quote the source i will later but um uh most of the things I've studied indicate that uh American intervention would have that impact a successful American intervention would potentially do so so um uh still a grave result but um half
• 165:00 - 165:30 as grave with this with savings of a lot of human misery um so the key then is to prevent the war from happening in the first place we don't want to be in a situation where we have to win a war over Taiwan we want to stop it from happening and the way to do that is through strong military and resolute competent leadership what do you need most that you don't have right now to
• 165:30 - 166:00 deter that conflict from happening in the first place senator um counter C5 ISR capabilities in cyber space counterpace to ensure that the United States can see understand decide act assess learn faster than the PRC is can uh to enhance our ability to blind to deceive and to destroy the adversar's ability to see and sense and then in addition uh the requirement to effect
• 166:00 - 166:30 those long range fires and effects uh that make the joint force effective in attacking centers of gravity the platforms that they ride on the sustainment that sustains them absolutely key and critical foundation and then the critical infrastructure across the theater that enables the force to reach the principles of expanded maneuver and puts geography on our side which it is thank you thank you Senator Cotton senator Herona you are recognized thank you
• 166:30 - 167:00 welcome Admiral Paparo it's always good to
• 167:00 - 167:30 Taiwan would be would have massive negative effect effects uh is some of this 11 billion having to do with the the deterrence that you talked about regarding Taiwan yes Senator Herono thank you um absolutely right deterrence must be backed up by the real capability to fight and win the United States of America enjoys key advantages in space counterpace command and control between the Karman line and the surface and undersea dominance uh but uh that margin
• 167:30 - 168:00 is shrinking and we must regain the margin and increase the margin and that ability to fight and win is what will make sure that uh our adversaries do not uh execute any aggression to do so what would happen if this very large funding gap is not addressed in this year's NDAA uh the joint force the the trajectory that I'm discussing uh continues the
• 168:00 - 168:30 joint force has an eroded capability to prevail it manifests itself in lost people in lost capability in lost money and in lost time and it confers to the confidence of the PRC and inherently erodess deterrence as they see more and more they see the potential of their prevailing in the conflict themselves and achieving their goals by aggression emma Pavar by the way thank you for
• 168:30 - 169:00 explaining um uh to this committee the the importance of of the Taiwan situation because often I get asked why should we our country care about Taiwan so thank you for that uh regarding the the dismantling of USA ID and the impacts um on us whenever the United States creates a void such as by ending foreign aid uh such as through USA ID it has an impact on our asymmetric advantage which also in include our uh
• 169:00 - 169:30 partners and alliances how does ending foreign assistant programs and other regional aid efforts impact Indoaccom security cooperation missions and the commands relationship with partners in the region senator uh those other those other instruments of national power uh are very important and they're critical to our ability to fight and win my understanding is is that uh that uh that US aid is under review and I continue to
• 169:30 - 170:00 advocate for it uh the loss of that the PRC would would uh see the opportunity and they would seize it and they frequently do uh wherever they see a void they fill it in in order to uh confer more influence um to um uh to to their own national power so indeed if China is our pacing threat we know uh that every time we create a void in any part of particularly in the in the PCOM area including by the way providing
• 170:00 - 170:30 assistance to our compact nation friends that China just steps right in and fills that void general Bronson you raised um an important point in your opening statement regarding North Korea hackers north stealing 1.5 billion probably more in crypto currency to fund their uh military and at the same time the Justice Department has disbanded a team
• 170:30 - 171:00 of prosecutors targeting crypto crimes does that concern you good morning Madam Senator first that that does not bother me at all what I'm thinking about is all the instruments of military power that have to be brought to bear to stop illicit activity that is only one of the illegal things they're doing we've talked a lot about what is North Korea getting from Russia one of the things they're getting is the ability to circumvent sanctions and that
• 171:00 - 171:30 theft is a piece of that ma'am I'm also encouraged by the fact that we can see what's going on do you have a do you have an awareness of the Department of Justice's uh team that targeted and basically was able to prosecute uh to the tune of billions of dollars crypto crimes are you aware of that team highly successful team that is being disbanded yes ma'am i am aware of that team
• 171:30 - 172:00 disbanding any uh efforts that we have in in that space thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator Herono senator Ernst you are recognized thank you Madam Chair and gentlemen thank you for being here admiral Paparo and and General Brunson chief good luck
• 172:00 - 172:30 to you in your retirement thank you so much for your service um I'll go ahead and start with Indo Payom admiral thank you so much as as you've clearly laid out for the committee today the Endopacific is is growing very uh dangerous it is extremely complex uh our deterrence deterrence depends not just on our warf fighting capability but also on the ability to sustain our operations um I started my career as an engineer
• 172:30 - 173:00 became a transporter and ended my career as a logistician not a big sexy topic here in this committee but it is absolutely necessary that we talk about it um if we wish to win the fight we've got to sustain the fight so uh Admiral what gaps still exist in our theater logistics network that put our forward posture at risk morning Senator uh significant gaps in seal lift uh first the combat logistics force in total is
• 173:00 - 173:30 about 60% of the actual requirement we account for that by hiring console tankers and by and by contracting other capabilities but when the unforgiving hour comes the only ships that will be able to commit to uh areas to put into harm's way will be gray ships and as I utter these words 17 of those combat logistics force ships are laid up for lack of manpower uh in addition uh I I
• 173:30 - 174:00 discussed in the previous committee we have to have uh many millions of pounds of fuel of of jet fuel in the air for every uh capability and so our tanker fleet is uh is uh below what we need we account for that for some contract air services as well but once again those same factors obtain for you have to have a uh you have to have a gray tail and uh and then finally just cargo lift and the number of short tons of C17 lift like
• 174:00 - 174:30 for instance uh just having moved a Patriot uh battalion into the Sencom AO it took 73 C7 loads to move that Patriot battalion 73 what's that 73 uh of one battalion of a force element so our lift requirements are must be
• 174:30 - 175:00 paid attention to and um I share your passion for sustainment that's what won World War II absolutely so um those logisticians the the maintenance uh dudes and dud dudetss that are out there uh working every day to make sure that our our warriors are able to uh fight the good fight um so with that we you talked about contractors and we use them extensively uh but how can Congress help accelerate the improvements necessary in
• 175:00 - 175:30 Indoaccom when that that hour comes well I think we've got to get at the problems of why our why we don't have enough combat logistics force and that's ship building why we don't have enough labor and those are looking hard at pay and incentives in order to recruit and retain uh retain those people um rates of production and uh diversifying the tanker fleet is key and then um and then
• 175:30 - 176:00 uh you know continuing on to find uh alternatives of lift capability that we can order into harm's way and then over top of all of this uh we're incorporating artificial intelligence tools with command and control to tools so that it's not an ondemand system but so that uh we are executing that absolutely indispensable joint function as effectively as we possibly can you
• 176:00 - 176:30 you know we are an AI enabled headquarters and that's important too but um you can't AI your way out of a material deficiency right uh I agree completely and we need to spend more time on this topic but I just very briefly General Brunson I apologize i've got 30 seconds um we rely heavily on allies neighbors friends or force multipliers but so do our adversaries we've heard that there are North Koreans now that are fighting the fight over in um in Ukraine can you tell us what are
• 176:30 - 177:00 the North Koreans learning from this experience and what will they take back to your region ma'am I I've I've said uh several times now in several hearings that we can't confuse the tactical lessons that they're learning with strategic benefit what we've got to understand is that they've gone over they've done some things there's been strategic movement there's been operational maneuver that they're learning some things but it's the technology that's coming back in that is of threat to the Republic of Korea and
• 177:00 - 177:30 the world wonderful thank you gentlemen very much thank you Senator Ern senator Kane you are recognized thank you Madam Chair um General Brunson without our presence on the on the microphone without our presence on the Korean Peninsula would uh Kim invade the South sir I I would tell you that I don't believe he would um but what I would tell you is he would take advantage of other weapons and systems that he has
• 177:30 - 178:00 conventional to limit the Republic of Korea's great growth that's taken place over the past 75 years i think that if we look at the hardening that's occurred on his border at the present time the fences have been raised mines have been seated in the demilitarized zone uh I think that what we see is why is he why is he doing that is there any threat that the South Koreans are going to invade North Korea sir I think it's as much about uh the things that he's broadcast in open source that he is a sovereign nation he's not looking to
• 178:00 - 178:30 work at reunification he's blown up all the means of industry in the DMZ i thought you said in your opening testimony he's not talking about reunification he's talking about one whole country is doesn't that imply an invasion of the south no sir he considers himself sovereign north of the MDL sir so he which he claims is his southern boundary now so he's accepted the the boundary in which case if if you testified he wouldn't invade then why are we
• 178:30 - 179:00 there um I think it's Senator I don't think it's a matter of whether he'll invade or not i think that that these intentions to cordon off North Korea could very well be temporary and so to say will he invade or won't he invade you know we're talking about probabilities with the loss of the force on the Korean Peninsula there's a higher probability that he would invade well that was my expectation when I asked that question i I would assume that if we weren't there it would encourage him
• 179:00 - 179:30 to take steps to to try to uh the South i think it's essential we have a treaty ally it's the number 10 economy in the world our economies are very much intertwined uh KJU's intentions could shift with the wind and uh he's built a military that is designed to impose tremendous cost directly on South Korea it's very important we maintain that deterrent i agree and to the extent that the Korean South Korean economy is somehow affected or or diminished that would be that
• 179:30 - 180:00 would be against our interest because of the relationship that we have yes Senator and I I misheard you so please forgive me but as I mentioned previously 2100 US countries tied to the Republic of South Korea uh 450,000 jobs as well thank you um this is sort of an intelligence question General Brunson but I know you have intelligence do the North I didn't mean that the way it sounded i know you have access to intelligence assets how's
• 180:00 - 180:30 that better yeah uh do the North Koreans know the extent to which they're being screwed by the regime and we've all seen the famous picture of no lights in North Korea and South Korea is full of energy and and and prosperity do the North Koreans have any inkling of the of the the way that they're being uh their opportunities in life are being diminished by this regime senator I I would uh I would answer that
• 180:30 - 181:00 having fully listened to the question that I might answer it correctly this time i would fully answer that by looking at the forces that they sent to Ukraine to that fight absolutely died in the wool ideologues who are tied to and believe in that regime that exists there i think a great many of the people are are not witting to what's going on there but the elites as long as he maintains control of the elites there was a recent article that talked about the things that he's doing to circumvent sanctions
• 181:00 - 181:30 and other things to continue to bring uh luxury goods into his country and as long as those luxury goods don't go to the people no no sir the point I'm making is is that as long as he can sort of provide a paliotative to the elites the other folks won't there's no way that they get communications in or out one of the things that was coming from the NOS's going to the north was radios and those things then begat you know feces balloons and garbage balloons back
• 181:30 - 182:00 to the south so I would say that the rank and file everyday people other than those within his special operations units are not witting to anything outside of their country that certainly is is is my impression admiral u final question if if we pulled back in terms of our support for Ukraine would that incentivize Japan South Korea to develop their own uh capacity including a nuclear capacity senator I'm ignorant of the policy i
• 182:00 - 182:30 don't know the policy that's going on it's another theater but I'll say that Russian failure I'm sorry did I say Ukraine i I meant Taiwan okay if if we if we withdrew our support from Taiwan would that uh incentivize Japan and South Korea to develop independent capacity including the possibility of nuclear weapons my assessment is yes thank you thank you Admiral go ahead and answer that question with regard to Ukraine um so without uh without you know I'm in
• 182:30 - 183:00 the Indoacific so I don't have a perfect knowledge of the ongoing um but my assessment and it's it's to an very deep extent backed in the intel record is that Russian failure andor Russian success has the effect of deterring or embolding emboldening the People's Republic of China and they've already taken notice of the tremendous costs that uh Russia has endured mr chairman
• 183:00 - 183:30 thank you mr chairman thank you for that because that's that's a question I would have asked if I'd had another 10 seconds thank you and it only took us 59 seconds thank you very much uh Senator Scott you are recognized thank you Chairman thank both of you for what you do uh thank you for the men and women you uh you uh you serve with um so Admiral Kaparo how much of your time do you spend uh trying to anticipate or counter actions by uh Communist China senator Scott
• 183:30 - 184:00 um uh that consumes my my duties which is a constant stare uh the constant uh analysis of intelligence sources of open source sources and then the physical movement on the ground to be able to see and understand to anticipate and to be able to pace their actions uh that look to coers uh Taiwan and to bring uh to uh demonstrate the uh prospect of settling the matter by force
• 184:00 - 184:30 and number two their encroachment on treaty allies in the Philippines as well encroachment on partners in the South China Sea with their uh excessive and illogical claims in their nine- line claim and their uh their continuing ability to um you know build ships airplanes weapons all these things does that cause cause you to spend more time and money yes yes sir absolutely they built combatants at the rate of six to 1.8 to the United States um and I
• 184:30 - 185:00 could go through every force element that we're talking about you know before they joined the World Trade Or organization and before we allowed them to uh basically sell whatever they wanted to this country did they have a military that you had to spend a lot of time worrying about just by dent of the weight of the uh civilization we worried about it um you know we've had we we've had to worry about this now for uh since uh you know
• 185:00 - 185:30 1949 but uh it's step level change in the last uh 20 years they've increased their military 10 to 15fold right so if they didn't have the economy they have which is completely created by selling uh goods and services to the um American citizens they would not have the resources that you would have to spend your time and money to try to counteract the society has grown greatly that was a matter of design for the international community but unanticipated was the
• 185:30 - 186:00 aggression and the buildup that followed so your life would be better if that if American no American bought any Chinese product or use any service and no American dollar went to communist China uh I'll say that China's inability to pump resources into its national defense enterprise which is bolstered by its trade position uh is a direct correlary to the success of their business model so would you recommend American citizens stop buying Chinese products and stop uh
• 186:00 - 186:30 using Chinese services i'd recommend that we build greater resilience and that we beat them on market principles and um and so I don't want to go beyond my remit as a as a military officer all right let's talk about naval readiness and specifically the C130s the Marine Corps and Air Force are 100% recapitalized on the C130s the Navy needs over 30 C130s and yet to program for this critical tactical air airlift platform the N the Navy now I
• 186:30 - 187:00 think only has one under contract does that concern you uh and should we be doing something about it as discussed with Senator Ernst uh is sustainment is in fact what won the Second World War that's what our wouldbe adversaries believe and have studied and everything that confers to our ability to execute lift and C130 is one of a kind with its short field operations with its capacity uh it remains absolutely relevant and indispensable today and uh that we we can't neglect it it's a key priority for
• 187:00 - 187:30 Indoaccom do you think there is a role for dual use uncrrewed uh air airlift capabilities in a contested logistics environment uh I think uh you know the precepts of unmanned is never send a human being to do something that a machine can do and uh and so uh so you know inherently we're moving in that direction and I'd welcome the ability to uh execute that lift and it would also give me the ability to diversify the places that we do bringing smaller payloads into uh
• 187:30 - 188:00 simultaneously smaller maneuvering units and would enhance our ability to sustain by the speed it would confer general Mahoney testified before the readiness subcommittee that 13 only 13 of 32 amphib amphibious ships are ready how does the state of the amphibious fleet impact your ability to do your job uh the amphibious fleet is is uh is indispensable uh that you know the whole
• 188:00 - 188:30 principle of sustaining and moving a force ships exist to move people mass and energy from one place to the other place efficiently and uh our amphibious force is underresourced and not ready enough thank you uh thank you very much Senator Shaheen thank you Mr chairman and thank you both for your service and for being here today um Admiral Paparo I think I understood
• 188:30 - 189:00 you to say in your opening statement that we must be active across the information environment so one of the things that's happened in the last month is that we have um stopped we've pulled the plug on Voice of America and Radio Free Asia um we had a hearing in the foreign relations committee earlier this year where it was pointed out to us that China is spending over a billion dollars a year billion with a B on information
• 189:00 - 189:30 um systems and efforts to provide miss and disinformation across the region and across the world so what are we doing to counter that and how does the loss of um something like RadioFree Asia affect our ability to counter what the PRC is doing china and its um its u political works division and uh its united front is
• 189:30 - 190:00 incredibly active effective and untruthful in the information space and the delivery of uh of truthful information uh really bolstered by free speech having respect for everybody and everybody's ability to discern truth from lies is absolutely vital uh we do have a uh an effort uh that is uh companion that is uh where uh special operations command is nested within this unit with their capabilities uh to
• 190:00 - 190:30 execute information operations but it's focused in the military space as it should be uh given the fact that we're in the uh in the military but uh in my opinion we must work hard uh to counter uh PRC misinformation and disinformation information and our own principles of free speech um greatly enable us to have faith in in people to be able to sus out truth from lies and can you talk about
• 190:30 - 191:00 why that matters when we're talking about military conflict it matters because uh in order for us to achieve the effects of of uh expanded maneuver our network of alliances and partnerships is the strategic center of gravity of the United States of America and so inherently because governments are accountable to the people they serve that public opinion will have a great bearing on whether or not those allies and partners are a party uh to you know
• 191:00 - 191:30 to enable a coalition because the the the bigger the coalition the greater legitimacy the greater capability the greater access spacing and overflight thank you um clearly we need to do better General Brunson um South Korea and Japan recently renewed negotiations with the PRC toward free trade talks that have been stalled since 2012 um I'm concerned that the tariffs that have been announced then
• 191:30 - 192:00 withdrawn then announced and withdrawn um are pushing our allies toward closer trade and integration with countries like China and that that poses security risks um so from an integration and cooperation perspective do you see any challenges that would be posed by renewed economic talks between China and our closest allies in Asia ma'am I'll I'll answer by what I'm seeing on the peninsula right now my
• 192:00 - 192:30 concerns would be um my hackles would raise if you will and I'll allow my boss to answer for the wider region but if we were not continuing to move along the pathway for the bilaterally agreed upon opcon transfer if we weren't able to move on that path by way of economic challenges facing the nation that would bother me if we had impacts that led to lessening human and procedural interoperability coupled with
• 192:30 - 193:00 technological interoperability being lost that would concern me and I think Admiral Paparo made a very good case on the economic um circumstances earlier in response to Senator Cotton's question but I I want to ask a followup on this with respect to um the political dynamics in uh the Republic of Korea which you referred to in your opening testimony and um the democratic process is playing out but we expect an election and our
• 193:00 - 193:30 will affect our relationship with ROK ma'am the realities of the region where Korea sits the adversaries which they can uh impose cost upon is going to keep us in goodstead going forward thank you thank you both thank you very much Senator Bud thank you Chairman and again thank you all both for being here good to see you
• 193:30 - 194:00 again so last weekend a fresh rotation of fighter units arrived at Gadina Air Base including the 336 fighter squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base can you speak to their mission while deployed and how they fit into the larger strategy admiral Senator Bud good morning uh Kadina Air Cadina Air Force Base um and the wing there um is a you know a critical mobile dynamic capability uh that is just not fixed in
• 194:00 - 194:30 Kadina but has the ability to move throughout the a responsibility under the principles of agile combat employment and so um this is our onpoint contact layer uh immediate ability to impose costs immediate ability to achieve u ephemeral air superiority in the AO and it's a foundation on which the larger uh the larger forces that
• 194:30 - 195:00 would flow in in the event of a conflict uh rests and the fifth air force uh fifth air force of course is the headquarters in Yakakota uh with the wing in in uh Masawa and the wing in Kadina so it's absolutely crucial Thank you for that and heaven forbid I mean we hope this never happens but should deterrence fail in the region does the Strike Eagle have a Strike Eagle have a role to play that can't be
• 195:00 - 195:30 accomplished by other fighters at yes sir it does and I mean with F-15 EX coming on board and with what that portends uh with its dominant electronic warfare capability in addition to the already dominant elements of range speed sensors and payload of the mighty Eagle former Eagle pilot myself on exchange um but uh without being a homer for it uh indispensable
• 195:30 - 196:00 thank you for that switch gears a little bit can you both elaborate on the demand for special operations forces and how you're currently resourced to meet those demands and General we'll start with you in Korea sir Special Operations Command Korea is uh augmented within our headquarters by some um very particular intelligence assets I would I would call them uh that help us to best see sense and understand on the peninsula itself uh SOCK core is
• 196:00 - 196:30 commanded presently by a uh a one-star national guard officer uh very capable formation in terms of ensuring that our partners around the region not just uh the Koreans but uh all forces that come to the peninsula to train maintain great awareness of not only the region but the discrete activities that might occur should they need to happen most recently in the West Sea uh were able to during Freedom Shield conduct an air assault
• 196:30 - 197:00 while being in the daytime it allowed us to take the Korean forces and bring them to a higher state of readiness than they'd achieved previously thank you General Admiral you've talked about uh previously being underinvested in soft do you care to expand on that yeah Senator um currently we we have a counter we have a counterterror operation that's ongoing in the in the uh South Philippine Islands Operation Pacific Eagle uh in addition uh the special operations forces are a critical
• 197:00 - 197:30 contributor to our counter command control information surveillance reconnaissance and targeting efforts uh in addition uh special operations forces uh are actively augment and are a part of our intelligence collection and this is all notwithstanding uh the immediate ability to do some of the more traditional roles as direct action and so I've been working closely with General Fenton on this uh to to able be able to define uh to to define to him
• 197:30 - 198:00 exactly how much special operations forces that we have but I I I believe that we want and well I know I want and we need more and I can gain a lot of early leverage and a lot of deterrent capability with more soft thank you Admiral General does the increased military cooperation between DPRK Russia and China concern you as it relates to
• 198:00 - 198:30 containing escalation on the Korean Peninsula and if so what does that mean for the role of SAF in prevention well it it does worry me it worries me by virtue of the fact of the things that I'm seeing that SOFT helps us to see whether that be with uh them operating their own UAS or whether that's them doing operations in the in the region uh most recently during Freedom Shield we saw Chinese ships violate and come across the Northern Limit line in the
• 198:30 - 199:00 West Sea and in the EC we had violation of the the Korean air defense identification zone by the Russians and seeing them work together along with the information what was going on in the information environment soft helps me to counter some of those things because what happened was North Korea said "Hey they need to stop these illegal exercises working together with the US and Iraq coming together." And then you had these two other adversaries take actions in the region which have to be
• 199:00 - 199:30 countered and I don't mean countered in a uh kinetic fashion but there are non-kinetic things that that sock core allows us to do that we might counter in the information space and other domains to continue on with our mission thank you both thank you Senator Bud uh Senator Kaine thank you Mr chair and thanks to our witnesses um Admiral Parr I'd like to direct this question to you the discussion has had an awful lot as it should about North Korea about China
• 199:30 - 200:00 i want to ask you about the cooperation that we're seeing some of our adversaries engage in so in the endopaccom talk about joint activities between Russia China and North Korea and the growing closeness of the relationship and the threats that pose to the work that we do with our allies morning Senator Kaine uh it's a transactional symbiosis where each state fulfills the other state's weakness to
• 200:00 - 200:30 mutual benefit of each state uh you know for instance is that uh China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the leg legacy chips that's enabled Russia to rebuild its war machine and then coming back to China is potentially submarine quieting help as well as other help in some of the areas where Russia is strong uh in addition you've got the North Korea that are sending uh thousands maybe hundred hundreds of thousands of artillery
• 200:30 - 201:00 shells and thousands of KN24 short-range missiles to Russia with as General Brunson said the expectations of concessions coming back uh in the form of air defense surfaceto-air missile help quieting terror to help with their Kilo submarine fleet uh and so forth in the physical space this last summer um I saw the uh the longest range joint patrol of of uh PLA Navy and
• 201:00 - 201:30 Russian Pacific Fleet uh formation in the Bearing Sea and so uh they're deepening their ability to operate together and they're demonstrating that by going further a field and in and in and in bigger form formations uh quickly I just would like to ask for your uh impression of the importance of the AUS framework in the Indoacific aus is a it's a gener it's going to confer a generational advantage on both
• 201:30 - 202:00 countries uh but I cherish the advantage it confers on the United States of America and so you know I'll say first of all uh the ability to operate out of Sterling in uh in submarine rotational force west in Sterling gives the American submarine force an Indian Ocean port it gives us the ability to range the Indian Ocean without limitation in the Straits of Malaca the Lumbok or the Sundrait
• 202:00 - 202:30 it's a straight shot to the South China Sea closer and faster than Hawaii San Diego Banger Maine uh and then and then uh Australia's contribution of uh into the defense industrial base $3 billion investment in the in the submarine defense industrial base yeah imagine Congress having that debate about whether we would invest $3 billion in the Australian workforce it would be a very tough discussion here the fact that the it'd be worth it but the fact that
• 202:30 - 203:00 the Australian Parliament made that investment in the US workforce demonstrates the degree to which they're concerned about China let me just do one last thing here um I have filed a resolution with a number of my colleagues to turn off the tariff the global tariffs imposed by the president last week which are now somewhat on pause there's still a 10% tariff not going to ask you about the policy but I just want to point out one of the reasons I filed the motion primarily because it's a tax increase on American
• 203:00 - 203:30 consumers but I don't think I don't think we should treat allies badly use Australia as an example you've talked about how AUS is very important the president has imposed a tariff on Australia we have a trade surplus with Australia not a deficit we have a trade surplus with Australia so why put a tariff on their products um how about other allies japan 25% tariff on Japan why 25% the measure of the tariff was
• 203:30 - 204:00 not Chinese trade barriers it was the trade deficit that we have with Japan measured by deficit in goods it did not include the full trade picture goods and services if you add in services all these trade deficits actually get narrow because the US is such a great exporter of services but but even if there's a trade deficit in goods with Japan of course there is the trade deficit is we buy more of their stuff than they
• 204:00 - 204:30 buy of our stuff our population is three times the size of the Japanese population so yes we buy more Japanese goods with 340 million people than 120 million people buy of American goods and so we're going to punish him for that it makes no sense the the primary reason I'm filed the challenge is because I don't want to tax American consumers with a big national sales tax but the tariff strategy that
• 204:30 - 205:00 punishes allies is no way to be strong in an international world where the US has built allies over decades that provide some of our greatest edge qualitative edge against our adversaries so that's just an editorial comment but thank you for your appearance i It surely is um and uh under the first amendment you are entitled to that but I didn't hear a question so uh we'll move along to
• 205:00 - 205:30 Senator Duckworth thank you Mr chairman although I do endorse my uh colleague from Virginia's uh uh editorial statement um Admiral Paparo General Brunson thank you for being here today and for sharing your assessment of our posture capabilities and readiness in the Indoacific one of my major priorities everyone knows I am Transcom's biggest advocate so I can't go through a posture hearing like this without asking questions about the logistical environment um that we will
• 205:30 - 206:00 face if our nation's darkest days comes and we must fight a war in the Pacific preparing for the logistical realities of large-scale conflict is not only critical for the fight tonight scenario but it is also key uh uh to deterrence uh we must demonstrate to our adversaries that we have the capability to sustain a fight um if necessary even as they seek to contest that to make it clear that such a war would be costly for all of us and I applaud both your efforts to improve the logistical readiness of the force and with our
• 206:00 - 206:30 allies and partners but I do think there's more to do and I just start off with medical readiness um we must improve our ability to provide life-saving care to wounded service members including through regional hospital access and effective aeromedical evacuation we have partners in the ROK in Thailand in the Philippines that have medical facilities that meet US hospital certification standards those are opportunities for us uh to develop those relationship the Indoacific's vast distances logistical challenges and maritime environment
• 206:30 - 207:00 present a much less permissive environment than for the medical mission than the global war on terror did and as I've said before long gone is the golden hour and we must do comprehensive planning um to ensure that our war fighters have foreign medical facility access in the Indoacific this is why I secured a provision in the fiscal year 25 NDAA to establish an Indoacific medical readiness program admiral Paparo General Brunson as you implement this program what are the primary barriers that hinder the necessary medical cooperation and how can this committee
• 207:00 - 207:30 help as you begin that effort morning Senator Duckworth um I strongly endorse your viewpoint and also too I I strongly endorse uh what's essentially a concept of operation within what you're what you're saying which is put the medical expertise of our allies and partners to ensure that that can augment what our own medical providers can execute and so um one is uh is medevac capability in order to get to the location agreements
• 207:30 - 208:00 to do so the ability to practice and exercise so it's not the first time that we do it if the unforgiving hour comes and so I think some of the barriers are physical and that is lift medical lift uh medevac lift and then some of the barriers are uh are um I should say authorities and we'd hope for more authorities to be able to broaden our ability to plan for this for uh bringing to bear the cap the medical capability
• 208:00 - 208:30 ilities of our allies to uh to care for the wounded in conflict u so thank you thank you Jonah Brunson ma'am uh one of the things that uh that you know and I know you're you're full well aware of this is our health care comes from the community special operator speaking of asymmetric
• 208:30 - 209:00 advantages the NCO corps of the United States of America is the one of the joint forces absolute asymmetric advantages fleet is leadership in this critical duty has been exemplary it has been indispensable to my own transition as the commander of US Indopaccom he's been indispensable to me personally i honor his service uh in a region that's home to over half the earth's surface and half the operational joint force Indopaccom faces a confluence of
• 209:00 - 209:30 challenges china's unprecedented aggression and military modernization poses a serious threat to the homeland our allies and our partners in 2024 the People's Liberation Army demonstrated growing capabilities through persistent pressure operations with military pressure against Taiwan increasing by 300% china's increasingly aggressive actions near Taiwan are not just exercises they are rehearsals and while the PLA
• 209:30 - 210:00 attempts to intimidate the people of Taiwan and demonstrate coercive capabilities these actions are backfiring drawing increased global attention and accelerating Taiwan's own defense preparations as General Brunson said North Korea's development of advanced nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles pose a direct threat to our homeland and our allies and are executing a deepening cooperation with Russia russia's growing military cooperation with China adds
• 210:00 - 210:30 another layer of complexity creating a compounded challenge with the deepening cooperation among China Russia and North Korea and China and Russia's Pacific fleet is a growth enterprise us Indopaccom deters these challenges to regional stability in competition and crisis while maintaining the the availability to prevail but that margin is eroding as chairman and and ranking member have discussed in 2024 we've
• 210:30 - 211:00 conducted 120 joint exercises among them 20 major joint exercises including not just the US joint force but allies and partners we continue to strengthen the relationship with Japan South Korea Australia the Philippines India Taiwan the Azion nations Pacific Island countries and in fact European partners are active in the in the theater as the first priorities we must be dominant in space and across the information environment leveraging capabilities to
• 211:00 - 211:30 counter their the uh counter the PRC's command control intelligence surveillance reconnaissance and targeting complex this will enable us to gain a nonlinear advantage over potential adversaries in fact to maintain and increase that nonlinear advantage to maintain credible deterrence Indopaccom requires additional sustained investment in long range survivable fires in integrated air and missile defense in force sustainment
• 211:30 - 212:00 with an emphasis on autonomy and AIdriven systems uh China's outproducing the United States in air missile maritime and space capability and accelerating these i remain confident in our deterrence posture but the trajectory must change the Pacific Deterrent Initiative should counter the China threat by investing in key readiness and capability which would in fact uh if funded uh advance the intent
• 212:00 - 212:30 of this initiative and deliver major posture improvement deterrence remains our highest duty however that must be backed up by the real capability to prevail in combat the joint force remains confident resolute and determined to prevail thank you for your attention thank you i look forward to the questions thank you well thank you both for your testimony for your service let's let's start with General Brunson
• 212:30 - 213:00 um just quickly yes or no korea North Korea continues to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal correct yes sir and they continue to um expand their delivery systems of nuclear weapons is that correct yes sir okay you know you never know uh what uh whether to believe what you read in the newspapers and see on the media but there are reports that some mid-level officials in the Pentagon
• 213:00 - 213:30 are considering reducing our military presence on the Korean Peninsula to focus instead on the China threat and defense of the US homeland uh if our strategy in Korea is to deter war and win it if we have to uh would that be a good or bad idea senator to uh chairman to to reduce the force becomes problematic and I won't speak to policy but what we do provide
• 213:30 - 214:00 there sir is the potential to impose cost in the east sea to Russia the potential to impose cost in the west sea to China and to continue to deter against North Korea as it currently stands i'm trying to focus right now on the capabilities necessary to do all those things that we might participate routinely in the campaign that my boss is fighting which is to prepare deter and then prevail in conflict should it come but the forces in Korea play an
• 214:00 - 214:30 important role and over 75 years they've done the same uh Admiral a significant reduction of um of our military presence on the Korean Peninsula good or bad well inherently it would reduce our ability to prevail in conflict and and uh for both of you would a conflict on the Korean Peninsula likely in uh involve China um my belief is that uh it would there would be a risk that it would
• 214:30 - 215:00 involve China and would have to be conducted carefully uh if it were so and uh and so that risk has got to drive our calculus and General Brunson so our preparedness would prevent them from entering in any conflict because of the potential to take them off their own party goals okay who wants to take the question about the um air superiority of um of the PRC over hours in that theater chairman uh the People's
• 215:00 - 215:30 Republic of China are have a order of battle of 2,100 fighters uh an order of battle of over 200 H6 bombers and they are producing uh fighters at a rate of 1.2 to one over the United States furthermore their advanced air-to-air missile long range air-to-air missiles also present a tremendous threat uh if you don't hold the high ground along the first island
• 215:30 - 216:00 chain you are vastly limited in your ability to operate uh I think everybody knows the importance of the high ground so seeding air superiority um is a not is a uh is not an option if we intend to maintain uh capability against our adversaries and the ability to support our allies admiral U is it a fact that China is now capable of denying US air superiority in the first island chain
• 216:00 - 216:30 uh I you know I give them high marks in their ability to do that uh I have some game too and air superiority you know air supremacy is the complete mastery of the air neither side will enjoy that but it'll be my job to contest air superiority to protect those forces that are on the first island chain such as third uh three meth third marine expeditionary force and also to provide windows of air
• 216:30 - 217:00 superiority in order to achieve our effects um admiral um Kim Jong-un is not um motivated by um charity in helping Russia in Ukraine what does he expect back what's he likely to get back chairman he he expects concessions he's doing it in order to gain concessions and those concessions would be uh modernization of their air defenses uh specifically the MiG 29 the SU27
• 217:00 - 217:30 uh advanced help for their surfaceto-air missiles quieting technology for their submarines uh additional help in order to instantiate a ballistic missile uh submarine uh as well and then likely uh propulsion help and potentially even help with the re-entry vehicle for their burgeoning nuclear program okay thank you we'll take another round let me just make sure that people understand general Brunson you are USA Commander United
• 217:30 - 218:00 Nations Command Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea you You do not answer at all to the United Nations headquartered in New York City do you no sir those authorities go through the chairman to the Secretary of Defense and then on to the president okay totally different um organization thank you very much and um the distinguished ranking member is recognized thank you very much Mr chairman first let me begin by thanking the command master chief for his
• 218:00 - 218:30 dedicated service to the nation thank you Chief and uh let me associate myself with honorable Parl's comment that our asymmetric advantage one of the keys is our non-commissioned officers uh General Brunson uh you uh have indicated the importance of our forces on the Korean Peninsula can you also elaborate on the support and the magnitude of the burden sharing that the South Koreans contribute to us
• 218:30 - 219:00 yes Senator Reid um so so first I would like to say that forward presence provides unmatched access uh unmatched deterrence at minimal cost comparatively speaking by other forces that are stationed forward we recently received help from the department of defense with our tour normalization which brings tours in Korea on par with other okonis locations which changes our exposure to the region and our understanding of the adversaries therein i would also say
• 219:00 - 219:30 that uh 2100 US companies have ties to the Republic of Korea that's 450,000 jobs that are a part of that that's a piece that I think that's critical to know and understand now I would also say that we receive about half a billion dollars a year in Korean related construction that builds the brand new school on uh on Pyongtech at Camp Humphre that builds additional towers to house our families in quality housing
• 219:30 - 220:00 that also build skiffs for us right now in the Republic of Korea that we might be able to do the important work to stay tied to Indo Paycom i would also like to say that in kind the overall contribution in the past uh fiscal year was about 1.4 4 trillion Juan which works out to be close to a billion dollars worth of support that we receive in kind i also mentioned the continued and growing uh maintenance repair and overhaul facilities that exist on the
• 220:00 - 220:30 east sea and the west sea uh that we've utilized most recently to bring the wall shar back out of out of uh that overhaul and looking better than ever the Cesar Chavez also visited recently um but there is a lot that we get some of it is is fiscal and monetary others of it is material that's irreplaceable uh General Brunson again uh in previous national defense authorization acts we have established a manpower floor of
• 220:30 - 221:00 28,500 troops uh as a demonstration of our unwavering commitment to the US Republic of Korea alliance and also the strategic reasons you said would you uh suggest we include such language again yes sir thank you admiral Parro can you give us your perception as the overall commander of the uh value of the South Korean forces uh to us and the presence of our troops on the peninsula together with the contributions they're making
• 221:00 - 221:30 the South Koreans rank member uh in addition to the uh elements laid out by General Brunson um Korea makes significant contributions outside the uh the Korean uh peninsula and that is uh in their uh in their participation in multilateral exercises uh including Pacific Partnership among many others and so uh in the ability of that force to deter conflict the ability of that
• 221:30 - 222:00 force to avoid from having two conflicts at once that by dent of the strength of the of the capability and by what they're doing in the trilateral relationship with Japan that growing trilateral relationship with Japan and on their path to become a global pivotal state uh they are a key partner in the in the western Pacific with a purview that goes far beyond just the Korean peninsula thank you very much sir uh I
• 222:00 - 222:30 mentioned in my open statement that currently you have forces that have been transferred into uh sentcom the convent carrier group open sources suggest 6B2 bombers at Diego Garcia with supplementary tankers what effect does these have on your capabilities well presently uh for for Carl Vincson um we do have George Washington coming out of Yakosa very shortly and Nimttz is at sea and um but um you
• 222:30 - 223:00 know we have to maintain a high state of indications and warning uh so that we can get those forces back if there is a crisis with greater exigence than there is one in the Sencom AO and I owe the secretary and the president constant vigilance on this and with constant awareness of that force's ability to flet which is assigned to US Indoaccom it's Carl Vincson strike group and a Patriot Battalion uh if need be they
• 223:00 - 223:30 return to the Indopaccom theater for a higher priority threat thank you very much gentlemen thank you Mr thank you Senator Reid senator Cotton gentlemen welcome back um Admiral let's take a step back to first principles we've talked a lot here about the threat that China poses to Taiwan and what you're doing to try to address that threat um I'd like you to explain why that threat is so severe you know some people might look at the map and say "Well Taiwan is a small island and it's really
• 223:30 - 224:00 far from us and it's really close to them." And China has marched into Tibet in the past and they've marched into Hong Kong in the past and that was bad and they shouldn't have done those things but it didn't lead to world war and it didn't lead to great depression um on the other side you've got one of your ancestors so to speak Douglas MacArthur who said at the dawn of the Korean War that the domination of Taiwan by an unfriendly
• 224:00 - 224:30 power would be a disaster of utmost importance to the United States he was speaking then as we do today of communist China um Ian Eastston a Naval War College professor and one of the military's leading experts on Taiwan says that it's possible that the Chinese invasion of Taiwan would cause a 21st century version of the Great Depression and the famed investor Ken Griffin put it more bluntly it's an immediate Great Depression so so why is it that Taiwan is different why why is Taiwan such a hot flash point why could it lead not
• 224:30 - 225:00 only to a catastrophic war but also global Great Depression why should Americans care about an island on the other side of the world senator Cotton that last point is quite salient uh many a research organization postulate that conflict in the Western Pacific uh over the Taiwan question would result in a 25% GDP contraction in Asia and a knock-on effect of 10 to 12% GDP reduction uh in the United States of
• 225:00 - 225:30 America with uh unemployment spiking 7 to 10 points above base and likely 500,000 excess deaths of despair above base as as well and uh this is just the importance of the regional stability to the world economy and its effect on people's lives and this is uh this is you as a function of freedom of navigation it's a function of the uh world dependency on semiconductors uh in the longer term uh for the United
• 225:30 - 226:00 States our strategic center of gravity is our is our network of alliances and partners the sum total of 350 million people's talent 130 million Japanese 130 million Philippines 25 million Australians not to mention 500 million in Europe as well as partners in across the globe uh the knock-on effect of the brittleleness of that network of alliances and partners
• 226:00 - 226:30 partnerships means that some of the states could confer and be and submit to the PRC's mode of exploitation and route to their long range goal of setting the ro setting the rules of the world and reaping the benefits of that uh and then finally some nations in the area of responsibility will submit but others it would never happen just because of the historic tensions and in that case the
• 226:30 - 227:00 proliferation question comes to mind with nuclear armed states that are treaty allies with the United States and minimal warning for launch among those nuclear states uh it is a vital interest for the United States my job is to have a force ready to make those choices you know I don't make the choices on whether or not it's important or not i'm explicating how it is and my job is to present those options to the commander-in-chief to be ready to fight and win and and to be clear a lot if not
• 227:00 - 227:30 all of those consequences would follow whatever the outcome of a conflict over Taiwan whether China succeeds in going for the jugular or fails or there's some kind of indecisive outcome simply having the conflict over Taiwan which is such a center of gravity in the modern economy could lead to many of the consequences you just outlined yes sir um yeah I can't quote the source i will later but um uh most of the
• 227:30 - 228:00 things I've studied indicate that uh American intervention would have that impact a successful American intervention would potentially do so so um uh still a grave result but um half as grave with this with savings of a lot of human misery um so the key then is to prevent the war from happening in the first place we don't want to be in a situation where we have to win a war
• 228:00 - 228:30 over Taiwan we want to stop it from happening and the way to do that is through strong military and resolute competent leadership what do you need most that you don't have right now to deter that conflict from happening in the first place senator um counter C5 ISR capabilities in cyber space counterpace to ensure that the United States can see understand decide act assess learn faster than the PRC is can
• 228:30 - 229:00 uh to enhance our ability to blind to deceive and to destroy the adversar's ability to see and sense and then in addition uh the requirement to effect those long range fires and effects uh that make the joint force effective in attacking centers of gravity the platforms that they ride on the sustainment that sustains them absolutely key and critical foundation and then the critical infrastructure
• 229:00 - 229:30 across the theater that enables the force to reach the principles of expanded maneuver and puts geography on our side which it is thank you thank you Senator Cotton senator Herona you are recognized thank you welcome Paparo it's always good to
• 229:30 - 230:00 or Taiwan would be would have massive negative effects uh is some of this 11 billion having to do with the the deterrence that you talked about regarding Taiwan yes Senator Herono
• 230:00 - 230:30 thank you um absolutely right deterrence must be backed up by the real capability to fight and win the United States of America enjoys key advantages in space counterpace command and control between the Karman line and the surface and undersea dominance uh but uh that margin is shrinking and we must regain the margin and increase the margin and that ability to fight and win is what will make sure that uh our adversaries do not
• 230:30 - 231:00 uh execute any aggression to do so what would happen if this very large funding gap is not addressed in this year's NDAA uh the joint force the the trajectory that I'm discussing uh continues the joint force has an eroded capability to prevail it manifests itself in lost people in lost capability in lost money and in lost time and it confers to the confidence of the PRC and inherently
• 231:00 - 231:30 erodess deterrence as they see more and more they see the potential of their prevailing in the conflict themselves and achieving their goals by aggression admiral Papar by the way thank you for explaining um uh to this committee the the importance of of the Taiwan situation because often I get asked why should we our country care about Taiwan so thank you for that uh regarding the the dismantling of USA ID and the
• 231:30 - 232:00 impacts um on us whenever the United States creates a void such as by ending foreign aid uh such as through USA ID it has an impact on our asymmetric advantage which also in include our uh partners and alliances how does ending foreign assistant programs and other regional aid efforts impact Indoaccom security cooperation missions and the commands relationship with partners in the region senator uh those other those
• 232:00 - 232:30 other instruments of national power uh are very important and they're critical to our ability to fight and win my understanding is is that uh that uh that US aid is under review and I continue to advocate for it uh the loss of that the PRC would would uh see the opportunity and they would seize it and they frequently do uh wherever they see a void they fill it in in order to uh
• 232:30 - 233:00 confer more influence um to um uh to to their own national power so indeed if China is our pacing threat we know uh that every time we create a void in any part of particularly in the in the PCOM area including by the way providing assistance to our compact nation friends that China just steps right in and fills that void general Bronson you raised um an important point in your opening statement regarding North Korea hackers
• 233:00 - 233:30 North stealing 1.5 billion probably more in crypto currency to fund their uh military and at the same time the Justice Department has disbanded a team of prosecutors targeting crypto crimes does that concern you good morning Madam Senator first that that does not bother me at all what I'm thinking about is all the instruments of military power that have to be brought
• 233:30 - 234:00 to bear to stop illicit activity that is only one of the illegal things they're doing we've talked a lot about what is North Korea getting from Russia one of the things they're getting is the ability to circumvent sanctions and that theft is a piece of that ma'am I'm also encouraged by the fact that we can see what's going on do you have a do you have an awareness of the Department of Justice's uh team that targeted and basically was able to prosecute uh to the tune of billions of dollars crypto
• 234:00 - 234:30 crimes are you aware of that team highly successful team that is being disbanded yes ma'am i am aware of that team disbanding any uh efforts that we have in in that space
• 234:30 - 235:00 thank you Mr chairman thank you Senator Herono senator Ernst you are recognized thank you Madam Chair and gentlemen thank you for being here admiral Paparo and and General Brunson chief good luck to you in your retirement thank you so much for your service um I'll go ahead and start with Indo Paycom admiral thank you so much as as you've clearly laid out for the committee today the Endopacific is is growing very uh dangerous it is extremely complex uh our
• 235:00 - 235:30 deterrence deterrence depends not just on our warf fighting capability but also on the ability to sustain our operations um I started my career as an engineer became a transporter and ended my career as a logistician not a big sexy topic here in this committee but it is absolutely necessary that we talk about it um if we wish to win the fight we've got to sustain the fight so uh Admiral
• 235:30 - 236:00 what gaps still exist in our theater logistics network that put our forward posture at risk morning Senator uh significant gaps in seal lift uh first the combat logistics force in total is about 60% of the actual requirement we account for that by hiring console tankers and by and by contracting other capabilities but when the unforgiving hour comes the only ships that will be able to commit to uh areas to put into
• 236:00 - 236:30 harm's way will be gray ships and as I utter these words 17 of those combat logistics force ships are laid up for lack of manpower uh in addition uh I I discussed in the previous committee we have to have uh many millions of pounds of fuel of of jet fuel in the air for every uh capability and so our tanker fleet is uh is uh below what we need we
• 236:30 - 237:00 account for that for some contract air services as well but once again those same factors obtain or you have to have a uh you have to have a gray tail and uh and then finally just cargo lift and the number of short tons of C17 lift like for instance uh just having moved a Patriot uh battalion into the Sencom AO it took 73 C17 loads to move that Patriot
• 237:00 - 237:30 battalion 73 what's that 73 uh of one battalion of a force element so our lift requirements are must be paid attention to and um I share your passion for sustainment that's what won World War II absolutely so um those logisticians the the maintenance uh dudes and dud dudetss that are out there uh working every day
• 237:30 - 238:00 to make sure that our our warriors are able to uh fight the good fight um so with that we you talked about contractors and we use them extensively uh but how can Congress help accelerate the improvements necessary in Indoaccom when that that hour comes well I think we've got to get at the problems of why our why we don't have enough combat logistics force and that's ship building why we don't have enough
• 238:00 - 238:30 labor and those are looking hard at pay and incentives in order to recruit and retain uh retain those people um rates of production and uh diversifying the tanker fleet is key and then um and then uh you know continuing on to find uh alternatives of lift capability that we can order into harm's way and then over top of all of this uh we're incorporating artificial intelligence
• 238:30 - 239:00 tools with command and control to tools so that it's not an ondemand system but so that uh we are executing that absolutely indispensable joint function as effectively as we possibly can you you know we are an AI enabled headquarters and that's important too but um you can't AI your way out of a material deficiency right uh I agree completely and we need to spend more time on this topic but I just very briefly General Brunson I apologize I've
• 239:00 - 239:30 got 30 seconds um we rely heavily on allies neighbors friends or force multipliers but so do our adversaries we've heard that there are North Koreans now that are fighting the fight over in um in Ukraine can you tell us what are the North Koreans learning from this experience and what will they take back to your region ma'am I I've I've said uh several times now in several hearings that we can't confuse the tactical lessons that they're learning with
• 239:30 - 240:00 strategic benefit what we've got to understand is that they've gone over they've done some things there's been strategic movement there's been operational maneuver that they're learning some things but it's the technology that's coming back in that is of threat to the Republic of Korea and the world wonderful thank you gentlemen very much thank you Senator Erns senator King you are recognized thank you Madam Chair um General Brunson without our presence on the on the microphone without our presence on the Korean Peninsula would uh Kim invade the South
• 240:00 - 240:30 sir I I would tell you that I don't believe he would um but what I would tell you is he would take advantage of other weapons and systems that he has conventional to limit the Republic of Korea's great growth that's taken place over the past 75 years i think that if we look at the hardening that's occurred on his border at the present time the fences have been raised mines have been seated in the demilitarized zone uh I
• 240:30 - 241:00 think that what we see is why is he why is he doing that is there any threat that the South Koreans are going to invade North Korea sir I think it's as much about uh the things that he's broadcast in open source that he is a sovereign nation he's not looking to work at reunification he's blown up all the means of industry in the DMZ i thought you said in your opening testimony he's not talking about reunification he's talking about one whole country is doesn't that imply an invasion of the South no sir he considers himself sovereign north of the
• 241:00 - 241:30 MDL sir so he which he claims is his southern boundary now so he's accepted the the boundary in which case if if you testified he wouldn't invade then why are we there um I think it's Senator I don't think it's a matter of whether he'll invade or not i think that that these intentions to cordon off North Korea could very well be temporary and so to say will he
• 241:30 - 242:00 invade or won't he invade you know we're talking about probabilities with the loss of the force on the Korean peninsula there's a higher probability that he would invade well that was my expectation when I asked that question i I would assume that if we weren't there it would encourage him to Yeah to take steps to to try to uh the South i think it's essential we have a treaty ally it's the number 10 economy in the world our economies are very much intertwined uh KJU's intentions could shift with the wind and uh he's built a
• 242:00 - 242:30 military that is designed to impose tremendous costs directly on South Korea it's very important we maintain that deterrent cost i agree and to the extent that the Korean South Korean economy is somehow affected or or diminished that would be that would be against our interest because of the relationship that we have yes Senator and I I misheard you so please forgive me but as I mentioned previously 2100 US countries tied to the Republic of South Korea uh 450,000 jobs as well thank you um this
• 242:30 - 243:00 is sort of an intelligence question General Brunson but I know you have intelligence do the North I didn't mean that the way it sounded i know you have access to intelligence assets how's that better yeah uh do the North Koreans know the extent to which they're being screwed by the regime and we've all seen the famous picture of no lights in North Korea and South Korea is full of energy
• 243:00 - 243:30 and and and prosperity do the North Koreans have any inkling of the of the the way that they're being uh their opportunities in life are being diminished by this regime senator I I would uh I would answer that having fully listened to the question that I might answer it correctly this time i would fully answer that by looking at the forces that they sent to Ukraine to that fight absolutely died in the wool ideologues who are tied to and
• 243:30 - 244:00 believe in that regime that exists there i think a great many of the people are are not witting to what's going on there but the elites as long as he maintains control of the elites there was a recent article that talked about the things that he's doing to circumvent sanctions and other things to continue to bring u luxury goods into his country and as long as those luxury goods don't go to the people no no sir the point I'm making is is that as long as he can sort of provide a paliotative to the elites the other folks won't there's no way
• 244:00 - 244:30 that they get communications in or out one of the things that was coming from the NOS's going to the north was radios and those things then begat you know feces balloons and garbage balloons back to the south so I would say that the rank and file everyday people other than those within his special operations units are not witting to anything outside of their country that certainly is is is my impression admiral U final question if if we pulled back in terms
• 244:30 - 245:00 of our support for Ukraine would that incentivize Japan South Korea to develop their own uh capacity including a nuclear capacity senator I'm ignorant of the policy i don't know the policy that's going on it's another theater but I'll say that Russian failure i'm sorry did I say Ukraine i I meant Taiwan okay if if we if we withdrew our support from Taiwan would that uh incentivize Japan and
• 245:00 - 245:30 South Korea to develop independent capacity including the possibility of nuclear weapons my assessment is yes thank you thank you Admiral go ahead and answer that question with regard to Ukraine um so without you know I'm in the Indoacific so I don't have perfect knowledge of the ongoing um but my assessment and it's it's to an extent backed in the intel record is that
• 245:30 - 246:00 Russian failure andor Russian success has the effect of deterring or embolding emboldening the People's Republic of China and they've already taken notice of the tremendous costs that uh Russia has endured mr chairman Mr chairman thank you for that because that's that's a question I would have asked if I'd had another 10 seconds thank you and it only took us 59 seconds thank you very much uh Senator Scott you are recognized thank you Chairman thank both of you for
• 246:00 - 246:30 what you do uh thank you for the men and women you uh you uh you serve with um so Admiral Kaparo how much of your time do you spend uh trying to anticipate or counter actions by uh Communist China senator Scott um uh that consumes my my duties which is a constant stare uh the constant uh analysis of intelligence sources of open source sources and then the physical movement on the ground to be able to see
• 246:30 - 247:00 and understand to anticipate and to be able to pace their actions uh that look to coers uh Taiwan and to bring uh to uh demonstrate the uh prospect of settling the matter by force and number two their encroachment on treaty allies in the Philippines as well encroachment on partners in the South China Sea with their uh excessive and illogical claims in their nine- line claim and their uh their continuing
• 247:00 - 247:30 ability to um you know build ships you know airplanes weapons all these things does that cause cause you to spend more time and money yes yes sir absolutely they built combatants at the rate of six to 1.8 to the United States um and I could go through every force element that we're talking about you know before they joined the World Trade Or organization and before we allowed them to uh basically sell whatever they
• 247:30 - 248:00 wanted to this country did they have a military that you had to spend a lot of time worrying about just by dent of the weight of the uh civilization we worried about it um you know we've had we we've had to worry about this now for uh since uh you know 1949 but uh it's step level change in the last uh 20 years they've increased their military 10 to 15fold right so if they didn't have the economy they have which is completely created by selling
• 248:00 - 248:30 uh goods and services to the um American citizens they would not have the resources that you would have to spend your time and money to try to counteract the society has grown greatly that was a matter of design for the international community but unanticipated was the aggression and the buildup that followed so your life would be better if that if American no American bought any Chinese product or use any service and no American dollar went to communist China uh I'll say that China's inability to
• 248:30 - 249:00 pump resources into its national defense enterprise which is bolstered by its trade position uh is a direct correlary to the success of their business model so would you recommend American citizens stop buying Chinese products and stop using Chinese services i'd recommend that we build greater resilience and that we beat them on market principles and um and so I don't want to go beyond my remit as a as a military officer all right let's talk
• 249:00 - 249:30 about naval readiness and specifically the C130s the Marine Corps and Air Force are 100% recapitalized on the C130s the Navy needs over 30 C130s and yet to program for this critical tactical air airlift platform the N the Navy now I think only has one under contract does that concern you uh should we be doing something about it as discussed with Senator Ernst uh is sustainment is in fact what won the Second World War that's what our wouldbe adversaries believe and have studied and everything
• 249:30 - 250:00 that confers to our ability to execute lift and C130 is one of a kind with its short field operations with its capacity uh it remains absolutely relevant and indispensable today and uh we we we can't neglect it it's a key priority for Indoaccom do you think there is a role for dual use uncrrewed uh air airlift capabilities in a contested logistics environment uh I think uh you know the precepts of unmanned is never send a human being to do something that a machine can do and
• 250:00 - 250:30 uh and so uh so you know inherently we're moving in that direction and I'd welcome the ability to uh execute that lift and it would also give me the ability to diversify the places that we do bringing smaller payloads into uh simultaneously smaller maneuvering units and would enhance our ability to sustain by the speed it would confer general Mahoney testified before the readiness subcommittee that 13 only 13
• 250:30 - 251:00 of 32 amphib amphibious ships are ready how does the state of the amphibious fleet impact your ability to do your job uh the amphibious fleet is is uh is indispensable uh that you know the whole principle of sustaining and moving a force ships exist to move people mass and energy from one place to the other place efficiently and uh our amphibious force is underresourced and not ready enough
• 251:00 - 251:30 thank you uh thank you very much Senator Shaheen thank you Mr chairman and thank you both for your service and for being here today um Admiral Paparo I think I understood you to say in your opening statement that we must be active across the information environment so one of the things that's happened in the last month is that we have um
• 251:30 - 252:00 stopped we've pulled the plug on Voice of America and Radio Free Asia um we had a hearing in the foreign relations committee earlier this year where it was pointed out to us that China is spending over a billion dollars a year billion with a B on information um systems and efforts to provide miss and disinformation across the region and across the world so what are we doing to counter that and how does the loss of um
• 252:00 - 252:30 something like RadioFree Asia affect our ability to counter what the PRC is doing china and its um its u political works division and uh its united front is incredibly active effective and untruthful in the information space and the delivery of uh of truthful information uh really bolstered by free speech having respect for everybody and
• 252:30 - 253:00 everybody's ability to discern truth from lies is absolutely vital uh we do have a uh an effort uh that is uh companion that is uh where uh special operations command is nested within this unit with their capabilities uh to execute information operations but it's focused in the military space as it should be uh given the fact that we're in the uh in the military but uh in my opinion we must work hard uh to counter
• 253:00 - 253:30 uh PRC misinformation and disinformation information and our own principles of free speech um greatly enable us to have faith in in people to be able to sus out truth from lies and can you talk about why that matters when we're talking about military conflict it matters because uh in order for us to achieve the effects of of uh expanded maneuver our network of alliances and partnerships is the strategic center of
• 253:30 - 254:00 gravity of the United States of America and so inherently because governments are accountable to the people they serve that public opinion will have a great bearing on whether or not those allies and partners are a party uh to you know to enable a coalition because the the the bigger the coalition the greater legitimacy the greater capability the greater access spacing and overflight thank you um clearly we need to do
• 254:00 - 254:30 better General Brunson um South Korea and Japan recently renewed negotiations with the PRC toward free trade talks that have been stalled since 2012 um I'm concerned that the tariffs that have been announced then withdrawn then announced and withdrawn um are pushing our allies toward closer trade and integration with countries like China and that that poses security risks um so from an integration and
• 254:30 - 255:00 cooperation perspective do you see any challenges that would be posed by renewed economic talks between China and our closest allies in Asia ma'am I'll I'll answer by what I'm seeing on the peninsula right now my concerns would be um my hackles would raise if you will and I'll allow my boss to answer for the wider region but if we were not continuing to move along the pathway for the bilaterally agreed upon
• 255:00 - 255:30 OPCON transfer if we weren't able to move on that path by way of economic challenges facing the nation that would bother me if we had impacts that led to lessening human and procedural interoperability coupled with technological interoperability being lost that would concern me and I think Admiral Paparo made a very good case on the economic um circumstances earlier in response to Senator Cotton's question but I I want
• 255:30 - 256:00 to ask a followup on this with respect to um the political dynamics in uh the Republic of Korea which you referred to in your opening testimony and um the democratic process is playing out but we expect an election and are there concerns that depending on the outcome of that election it will affect our relationship with RoK ma'am the realities of the region where Korea sits the adversaries which they
• 256:00 - 256:30 can uh impose cost upon is going to keep us in goodstead going forward thank you thank you both thank you very much Senator Bud thank you Chairman and again thank you all both for being here good to see you again so last weekend a fresh rotation of fighter units arrived at Gadina Air Base including the 336 fighter squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base can you speak to their mission while deployed and how they fit into the
• 256:30 - 257:00 larger strategy admiral Senator Bud good morning uh Kadina Air Cadina Air Force Base um and the wing there um is a you know a critical mobile dynamic capability uh that is just not fixed in Kadina but has the ability to move throughout the a the area of responsibility under the principles of agile combat employment and so um this is our onpoint contact layer uh
• 257:00 - 257:30 immediate ability to impose costs immediate immediate ability to achieve uh ephemeral air superiority in the AO and it's a foundation on which the larger uh the larger forces that would flow in in the event of a conflict uh rests and the fifth air force uh fifth air force of course is the headquarters in Yakakota uh with the wing in in uh
• 257:30 - 258:00 Masawa and the wing in Kadina so it's absolutely crucial Thank you for that and heaven forbid I mean we hope this never happens but should deterrence fail in the region does the Strike Eagle have a Strike Eagle have a role to play that can't be accomplished by other fighters at Yes sir it does and I mean with F-15 EX coming on board and with what that portends uh with its dominant electronic warfare capability in addition to the already dominant elements of range speed
• 258:00 - 258:30 sensors and payload of the mighty Eagle former Eagle pilot myself on exchange um but uh without being a homer for it uh indispensable thank you for that switch gears a little bit can you both elaborate on the demand for special operations forces and how you're currently resourced to meet those demands and General we'll start with you in Korea sir special operations command Korea is
• 258:30 - 259:00 uh augmented within our headquarters by some um very particular intelligence assets I would I would call them uh that help us to best see sense and understand on the peninsula itself uh Sock Corps is commanded presently by a uh a one-star National Guard officer uh very capable formation in terms of ensuring that our partners around the region not just uh the Koreans but uh all forces that come
• 259:00 - 259:30 to the peninsula to train maintain great awareness of not only the region but the discreet activities that might occur should they need to happen most recently in the West Sea uh were able to during Freedom Shield conduct an air assault while being in the daytime it allowed us to take the Korean forces and bring them to a higher state of readiness than they'd achieved previously thank you General Admiral you've talked about uh previously being underinvested in soft do you care to expand on that
• 259:30 - 260:00 yeah Senator um currently we we have a counter we have a counterterror operation that's ongoing in the in the uh South Philippine Islands Operation Pacific Eagle uh in addition uh the special operations forces are a critical contributor to our counter command control information surveillance reconnaissance and targeting efforts uh in addition uh special operations forces uh are uh actively augment and are a
• 260:00 - 260:30 part of our intelligence collection and this is all notwithstanding uh the immediate ability to do some of the more traditional roles as direct action and so I've been working closely with General Fenton on this uh to to able be able to define uh to to define to him exactly how much special operations forces that we have but I I I believe that we want and well I know I want and we need more and I can gain a lot of
• 260:30 - 261:00 early leverage and a lot of deterrent capability with more soft thank you Admiral General does the increased military cooperation between DPRK Russia and China concern you as it relates to containing escalation on the Korean Peninsula and if so what does that mean for the role of SAF in prevention well it it does worry me it worries me by virtue of the fact of the things that I'm seeing that soft helps us to see
• 261:00 - 261:30 whether that be with uh them operating their own UAS or whether that's them doing operations in the in the region uh most recently during Freedom Shield we saw Chinese ships violate and come across the northern limit line in the West Sea and in the East Sea we had violation of the the Korean air defense identification zone by the Russians and seeing them work together along with the information what was going on in the information environment soft helps me to
• 261:30 - 262:00 counter some of those things because what happened was North Korea said hey they need to stop these illegal exercises working together with the US and Iraq coming together and then you had these two other adversaries take actions in the region which have to be countered and I don't mean countered in a uh kinetic fashion but there are non-kinetic things that that sock core allows us to do that we might counter in the information space and other domains to continue on with our mission thank you both thank you Senator Bud uh
• 262:00 - 262:30 Senator Kaine thank you Mr chair and thanks to our witnesses um Admiral Parr I'd like to direct this question to you the discussion has had an awful lot as it should about North Korea about China i want to ask you about the cooperation that we're seeing some of our adversaries engage in in the Indoaccom talk about joint activities between Russia China and North Korea and the growing closeness of the
• 262:30 - 263:00 relationship and the threats that pose to the work that we do with our allies morning Senator Kaine uh it's a transactional symbiosis where each state fulfills the other state's weakness to mutual benefit of each state uh you know for instance is that uh China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the leg legacy chips that's enabled Russia to rebuild its war machine and then coming back to China is
• 263:00 - 263:30 potentially submarine quieting help as well as other help in some of the areas where Russia is strong uh in addition you've got the North Korea that are sending uh thousands maybe hundred hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and thousands of KN24 short-range missiles to Russia with as General Brunson said the expectations of concessions coming back uh in the form of air defense surfaceto-air missile help quieting terror to help
• 263:30 - 264:00 with their kilo submarine fleet uh and so forth and then finally in the physical space this last summer um I saw the uh the longest range joint patrol of of uh PLA Navy and Russian Pacific Fleet uh formation in the Bearing Sea and so uh they're deepening their ability to operate together and they're demonstrating that by going further a field and in and in and in bigger form
• 264:00 - 264:30 formations uh quickly I just would like to ask for your uh impression of the importance of the AUS framework in the Indoacific aus is a it's a gener it's going to confer a generational advantage on both countries uh but I cherish the advantage it confers on the United States of America and so you know I'll say first of all uh the ability to operate out of Sterling in uh in submarine rotational
• 264:30 - 265:00 force west in Sterling gives the American submarine force an Indian Ocean port it gives us the ability to range the Indian Ocean without limitation in the Straits of Malaca the Lumbok or the Sundrait it's a straight shot to the South China Sea closer and faster than Hawaii San Diego Banger Maine uh and then and then uh Australia's contribution of uh into the defense industrial base $3 billion
• 265:00 - 265:30 investment in the in the submarine defense industrial base yeah imagine Congress having that debate about whether we would invest $3 billion in the Australian workforce it would be a very tough discussion here the fact that the it'd be worth it but the fact that the Australian Parliament made that investment in the US workforce demonstrates the degree to which they're concerned about China let me just do one last thing here um I have filed a resolution with a number of my colleagues to turn off the tariff the
• 265:30 - 266:00 global tariffs imposed by the president last week which are now somewhat on pause there's still a 10% tariff i'm not going to ask you about the policy but I just want to point out one of the reasons I filed the motion primarily it's because it's a tax increase on American consumers but I don't think I don't think we should treat allies badly use Australia as an example you've talked about how AUS is very important the president has imposed a tariff on Australia we have a trade surplus with Australia not a deficit we have a trade
• 266:00 - 266:30 surplus with Australia so why put a tariff on their products um how about other allies japan 25% tariff on Japan why 25% the measure of the tariff was not Chinese trade barriers it was the trade deficit that we have with Japan measured by deficit in goods it did not include the full trade picture goods and services if you add in services all these trade deficits actually get narrow
• 266:30 - 267:00 because the US is such a great exporter of services but but even if there's a trade deficit in goods with Japan of course there is the trade deficit is we buy more of their stuff than they buy of our stuff our population is three times the size of the Japanese population so yes we buy more Japanese goods with 340 million people than 120 million people
• 267:00 - 267:30 buy of American goods and so we're going to punish him for that it makes no sense the the primary reason I'm filed the challenge is because I don't want to tax American consumers with a big national sales tax but the tariff strategy that punishes allies is no way to be strong in an international world where the US has built allies over decades that provide some of our greatest edge
• 267:30 - 268:00 qualitative edge against our adversaries so that's just an editorial comment but thank you for your appearance i feel like it surely is um and uh under the first amendment you are entitled to that but I didn't hear a question so uh we'll move along to Senator Duckworth thank you Mr chairman although I do endorse my uh colleague from Virginia's uh uh editorial statement um Admiral Paparo General Brunson thank you for being here today and for sharing your assessment of our
• 268:00 - 268:30 posture capabilities and readiness in the Indoacific one of my major priorities everyone knows I am Transcom's biggest advocate so I can't go through a posture hearing like this without asking questions about the logistical environment um that we will face if our nation's darkest days comes and we must fight a war in the Pacific preparing for the logistical realities of large-scale conflict is not only critical for the fight tonight scenario but it is also key uh uh to deterrence uh we must demonstrate to our
• 268:30 - 269:00 adversaries that we have the capability to sustain a fight um if necessary even as they seek to contest that to make it clear that such a war would be costly for all of us and I applaud both your efforts to improve the logistical readiness of the force and with our allies and partners but I do think there's more to do and I just start off with medical readiness um we must improve our ability to provide life-saving care to wounded service members including the regional hospital access and effective aeromedical evacuation we have partners in the ROK
• 269:00 - 269:30 in Thailand in the Philippines that have medical facilities that meet US hospital certification standards those are opportunities for us uh to develop those relationship the Indo Pacific's vast distances logistical challenges and maritime environment present a much less permissive environment than for the medical mission than the global war on terror did and as I've said before long gone is the golden hour and we must do comprehensive planning um to ensure that our war fighters have foreign medical facility access in the Indoacific this
• 269:30 - 270:00 is why I secured a provision in the fiscal year 25 NDAA to establish an Indoacific medical readiness program admiral Paparo General Brunson as you implement this program what are the primary barriers that hindered the necessary medical cooperation and how can this committee help as you begin that effort morning Senator Duckworth um I strongly endorse your viewpoint and also too I I strongly endorse uh what's essentially a concept of operation within what you're what you're saying
• 270:00 - 270:30 which is put the medical expertise of our allies and partners to ensure that that can augment what our own medical providers can execute and so um one is uh is medevac capability in order to get to the location agreements to do so the ability to practice and exercise so it's not the first time that we do it if the unforgiving hour comes and so I think some of the barriers are physical and that is lift medical lift uh medevac lift and then some of the barriers are
• 270:30 - 271:00 uh are um I should say authorities and we'd hope for more authorities to be able to broaden our ability to plan for this for uh bringing to bear the cap the medical capability ities of our allies to uh to care for the wounded in conflict u so thank you thank you General Brunson ma'am uh one of the things that uh that you know and I know you're you're full well aware of this is our health care
• 271:00 - 271:30 comes from the community you have the only agreement in in Yep yes ma'am so we get tremendous amounts of care there what we're trying to do at uh at all good hospital at the present time is have greater access to profus doctors routinely i need them to be on the peninsula in times other than crisis or conflict in competition we want to bring them to the peninsula so that they better understand the medical landscape and what might be required of them we're
• 271:30 - 272:00 also looking to UN command there are several nations that provided hospitals during the Korean conflict we want the Italians to come back with their hospitals again we want the Dutch to come back with their hospitals again as well and those things we think we then provide to the greater Indopaccom family that we might be another resource used in time of conflict thank you i want to pivot to the critical platforms we need to project and sustain forces in a congested uh contested logistical environment especially our seal lift
• 272:00 - 272:30 fleet um Paparo do you agree that Indopaccom would benefit from the ability to surge replacements of naval auxiliary vessels or to conduct battle damage maintenance of these vessels within the region closer to the point of need strongly I I urge for that Senator yeah because I I am concerned that um in a war naval auxiliary vessels would be easy targets and we're going to have to fight our way in and fight our way out and and what can we do to help you with that effort well as we enhance our protection capability we enhance our
• 272:30 - 273:00 ability to see understand the operational environment to build windows of opportunity to execute sustainment capability you know nine classes of supply medical and so forth uh in in those in those areas and so um first is just the quantities the quantities of TAKES AOS the quantity of grey tales C17s tankers um that's that's critical and um and then the ability to exercise it so what about co- sustainment with
• 273:00 - 273:30 our allies like Japan or the ROK of those vessels because they certainly have the capabilities especially the auxiliary vessels and when we game this we frequently rely on one another uh to do this and then while operating at sea sometimes actually the necessity of having one leads us to use a Japanese oiler or for an American oiler to refuel a coalition ship and so uh we we have to be able to sum all of the sustainment capability among us have the authorities
• 273:30 - 274:00 to do so so we can turn to it with elacrity um but u I would be more comfortable with our own ability in to to contribute to that effort with US capability thank you thank you Mr chairman the momentary substitute chair recognizes Senator Rosen well thank you momentary substitute chair thank you actual chair Senator Wicker and of course ranking member Reid holding of course really important hearing i want to thank Admiral Poparo General Brunson uh for your service uh
• 274:00 - 274:30 for your support and your care and everything that you do thank you thank you so I want to talk a little bit about attacks on digital infrastructure by the PRC so Admiral our growing concern about the vulnerability of Taiwan's digital infrastructure is highlighted by the frequent attempted sabotage of undersea internet cables these events are part of a larger trend of grayzone operations where actions short of war often
• 274:30 - 275:00 involving non-military forces or proxies are used to exert pressure or destabilize regions the PRC's reckless coercive and aggressive activities pose a threat to democracies around the globe and its sabotage of those undersea cables has emerged as a particularly alarming tactic these cables are essential for our global communications transmitting around 95% of global internet traffic they facilitate financial transactions bolster our
• 275:00 - 275:30 security the security of our partners and allies oh Admiral while some experts view incidents like the damage to Taiwan's undersea cables as merely a test or low-level enhancement others warn they could be part of a broader Chinese strategy to prepare for future coercion or even invasion of Taiwan so given this what do you see as the actual threat um uh these incidents pose to US national security and what steps is the US taking to uh effectively counter these digital
• 275:30 - 276:00 threats senator Rosen um you know as ever you're quite astute in identifying this threat most certainly that's that's an element of the intention and an element of the design uh they would do so likely with People armed forces maritime militia which enables them to uh execute this operation without potentially signaling an intent to go to war but by weakening uh the information uh enterprise of uh of their of of the states over whom
• 276:00 - 276:30 they're uh executing aggression and um I think u a greater well one I think the first is is that uh the ability to uh penetrate from an intelligence standpoint point and to be there in the locations where they would be otherwise cutting those cables in order to deter that activity uh second of all is uh the resilience to have other redundant networks that enable uh those states and their partners including the United States Guam Hawaii and so forth uh to achieve the you know what we need to do
• 276:30 - 277:00 uh in the uh in in the information environment and that's um proliferation in low earth orbit uh and not just one single constellation but multiple constellations talk about how we can help Taiwan booster uh bolster its digital infrastructure what what do you think we can do to help them be be sure yeah I think um I think um enabling training them to be able to you know I shouldn't say training them but enabling them to uh build that
• 277:00 - 277:30 resiliency uh that's required that uh if we're unsuccessful in our efforts to thwart their cable cutting that uh there are other spectra and other means for information technology so they have the proper bandwidth to to prioritize those functions that they have to within that bandwidth and latency that you get out of low earth orbit middle Earth orbit among the many commercial constellations that are going into orbit thank you um I'm going to talk a little bit about North Korean
• 277:30 - 278:00 support to Russia because we see a growing alliance between North Korea and Russia particularly in the context of the ongoing war uh in Ukraine it presents new challenges for uh us in the United States and of course for our allies so we know North Korea providing troops and munitions to Russia and the partnership has potential to fuel the conflict and challenge the global order it raises concerns about the effectiveness of existing diplomatic strategies and economic san sanctions so
• 278:00 - 278:30 to both of you um the partnership between North Korea and Russia poses a serious threat to global stability so in each of your views how should the US respond to North Korea's military assistance to Russia and what diplomatic or military strategies should we pursue to prevent further destabilization not just u there but within the international community so General we'll we'll start with you right Senator one of the things that we have to do is what we're doing presently
• 278:30 - 279:00 we've got forces there on the peninsula that uh can impose cost on them uh we also maintain lines to continue communication so that we might not have miscalculation in the region with at large whether that be on the MDL or across the northern limit line in the West Sea i think that we have to continue to try to communicate out but make sure that we're always prepared in the event of a miscalculation thank you senator hundreds of thousands of
• 279:00 - 279:30 artillery shells thousands of KN24 missiles you know and manpower is going is uh is is leaving North Korea with the with the intent of gaining concession back and so first um exposure in the international community uh is a is one which is to not be shy about exposing uh this naked aggression using all instruments of national power to impose costs on individuals to to to find uh you know to build the uh deterrent from
• 279:30 - 280:00 this uh from this activity and then um as General Brunson has talked about early and earlier being wary of what is coming back and to be able to uh uh to be able to uh be in generations of overmatch with what's coming back if it's submarine quieting if it's air defense if it's missile technology and so uh you know it's an area we need to work really hard thank you appreciate it yield back thank you very much Senator Banks thank
• 280:00 - 280:30 you Mr chairman admiral great to see you again and I enjoyed our visit in my office last week and we talked about slickum in quite a bit but I wanted to ask you in this setting um slick men uh as we talked about will be one of the best tools to deter China in the Pacific but can you talk a little bit about the capability gaps that it fills why why it's so important in nocom morning senator um first I'm a strong advocate of slick amen at the soonest possibility just because of the
• 280:30 - 281:00 doubt that it uh imposes uh the potential to execute uh tactically you know presently there is a gap between um low tonnage and high tonnage which on which the United States uh that gap is a critical vulnerability between from 400 kilotons and below and it gives us a choice of either suicide or surrender when we have to when we have to default
• 281:00 - 281:30 straight to strategic weapons so it gives us the ability to close that asymmetry um it also imposes doubt on doubt throughout the force and would change the calculus of aggression inherently just because of the nature of those weapons we use nuclear weapons every single day because they deter And it's by and we use them by not using them by having them be a uh you know a
• 281:30 - 282:00 potential deterrent and I'm I'm uh quoting Dr brad Roberts on that who's quite expert c can you talk for a minute how does that affect the Chinese mindset their decision-making how how does it deter them it raises the cost and the implications of attacking any unit because uh it raises the stakes and so inherently it it inherently uh it provides more stability on each side because there's not an asymmetry to exploit
• 282:00 - 282:30 um as you know last year's NDAA direct the NA the Navy and the NNSA to deploy slick slickcommen no later than 2034 that's nine years from now part of that delay came from the Biden administration saying that slick amend wasn't needed do you agree that there needs to be stability and a commitment from Congress the DoD and the Navy to slick amend to speed up that process and get it here before the 2034 deadline i agree 2034 is too late sooner please
• 282:30 - 283:00 good um I agree with that as well admiral the Army says that it will field a long range hypersonic weapon with the US Army Pacific forces this fall that would be the first US hypersonic weapon that we put into the field h how will this new hyperssonic capability help you deter China as well senator uh the nature of a hypersonic weapon is to close uh in time uh any
• 283:00 - 283:30 actor's kill chain and if your adversary can strike you five times faster than you can strike strike your enemy uh then it incentivizes first strikes with this capability and so uh you know the the coin of the realm in the 21st century is speed who does things faster wins and so the ability to close distance and execute before counterfire can come the ability to execute and then move in
• 283:30 - 284:00 order to in order to thwart counter fire and uh your ability to act on ephemeral intelligence uh for a target to be able to reduce that cycle time from uh from find target track to engage uh hypersonics is critical to that and it's an asymmetry that exists right now and uh we must close it soonest with both uh the army's uh land-based convent with with all the with all elements of
• 284:00 - 284:30 hypersonics including the Navy's conventional prompt strike which is also not moving fast enough for my liking talk about that for a minute how much more will it help you when the Navy deploys its hypersonic weapon too uh I mean I think it's uh it's step level change uh in our ability to gain early leverage in any engagement and really any conflict very good thank you i yield back thank you i think Senator Kelly is next
• 284:30 - 285:00 thank you Mr chairman admiral uh you were just discussing uh Sickum and and I do understand the need and desire for uh a tactical option in theater uh certainly provides a certain level of deterrence i get that one concern I have with upgrading Virginia class submarines with this capability is how it impacts
• 285:00 - 285:30 the conventional uh kinetic effect of that submarine um Admiral would you agree one of our areas of overmatch with the Chinese and is in our submarine uh attack force strongly agree center do you do you have any concerns about the magazine depth for conventional torpedoes if we were to add a tactical
• 285:30 - 286:00 nuclear capability to Virginia class submarines uh inherently it would occupy some of the vertical launch system tubes that would be in a Virginia class subcl class submarine so there would be a cost would be a cost involved and and and do you do you agree that the likelihood of using a tactical nuclear weapon is significantly less than the likelihood of using a conventional torpedo most
• 286:00 - 286:30 certainly uh there'd be a a um I mean um there'd be a um a very high threshold to employ it and are you concerned with having to take Virginia class submarines temporarily out of the fleet and out of the AO in order to refit this capability my assessment is that um there are ways where we can do it quickly however uh
• 286:30 - 287:00 you know uh I'd rather not lose the availability of the platform and how about the uh the amount of security that would have to be put on the ship and how that affects the overall operation of the conventional attack role for the Virginia class subs my assessment is we've done it before you and I lived in that Navy and uh you know and I'm in favor of executing it and moving fast on the security requirement all right well thank you i uh I I do understand the
• 287:00 - 287:30 need and the deterrence factor i am concerned that we might go down a path and we find out especially in a conflict that boy I wish we had the full that each of these Virginia class subs were full of conventional round so thank you for that Admiral and General Brunson there's recent reporting that the United States is considering withdrawing as many as 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe which would signal to Putin our commitment um to our allies and partners in the
• 287:30 - 288:00 that theater is waning additionally Yukon handed control of a key logistics hub in southeast Poland over to other NATO forces again highlighting this idea of wavering US commitment to our allies and to underpin all of this there are rumors within the DoD that the department will direct a reduction of US presence in South Korea or retask these forces to focus on the threat from China so General Brunson I acknowledge you
• 288:00 - 288:30 cannot comment on the policy i understand that but from a strategic lens what impact would a force reduction or a retasking of forces have on your ability to deter North Korean aggression uh Senator uh Kelly uh the 28,500 troops that we have on in the Republic of Korea are responsible wholly for preserving peace on the peninsula in
• 288:30 - 289:00 the region in Northeast Asia they are a critical component to ballistic missile defense in the region they are a critical portion of helping the Indopaccom command see sense and understand in the north and to deter uh a great many adversaries the MDT that we share with Republic of Korea does not mention an adversary that's always been the way it is should an adversary arise the troops that are there are prepared well along with our Korean allies to
• 289:00 - 289:30 meet any mission and do you feel your force is the right size for the missions as given yes Senator and and what do you assess the impact would be to our relationship with South Korea and partners in the region if we downsize the force on the peninsula what what I think we ought to do uh senator is remember that there's diplomacy and defense on the peninsula currently we share the unique uh focus
• 289:30 - 290:00 of being able to look at our partners eye to eye uh recently uh received instructions to move assets we were able to talk through those things so we've got to make sure that we we uh use strategic clarity to explain what uh is being asked of our forces right thank you General thank you Mr chairman that would be me right now so I will recognize myself um Admiral Paparo it's great to see you um
• 290:00 - 290:30 always appreciate your testimonies very cleareyed uh to the point so I've long been very concerned about the the Chinese president's presence uh the Panama Canal uh and what they might be able to do with that if heaven forbid something were to happen could you just elaborate a little bit on um how the closure of that let's just assume that that would happen the closure of that or a or a um um an interruption in its availability how
• 290:30 - 291:00 that would affect the flow of both combatants and support vessels to the region horny Senator i mean inherently the geography you know the the alternative being all the way south around the horn uh that's about a two-week transit uh think about how critical it is to get forces on on front when the PRC's intention is a short sharp war that provides a feticmple to the international community and so inherently anything that slows us down
• 291:00 - 291:30 over time and distance is bad for us now consider that all of the ship building in the United States of America is east of the Pan Panama Canal but the preponderance of the threat is in the Pacific and that just shows the inherent logic of the requirement for the P Panama Canal as ever yeah and I think yes the concerns that u that we had when it was I think mistakenly sort of given away are uh even more concerning now as our orientation I think shifts shifts to
• 291:30 - 292:00 the Indoacific in a more meaningful way um General Brunson it's good to see you i wanted to ask you and I know that Admiral Paparo got a question somewhat related to this but um concerns about airlift capabilities and um and we don't have enough uh aircraft and many of our our C130s don't have the survivability in a contested environment could you speak a little bit to the current limitations u we would have supporting forces in the Korean Peninsula given our
• 292:00 - 292:30 current inventory it's just the the amount of as we look at tip fit flows sustainment and those things that are required to prosecute in the KTO uh it's why we've begun to move it's a recognition of that is why we've begun to move with a combined logistics command it's why we've begun to look at how can we set the theater now looking at the stores of munitions some of which will expire soon how do we get those replaced in a quick fashion so that we
• 292:30 - 293:00 don't provide drain uh for sustainment things in order to prosecute the campaign i'm I'm readily aware of the fact that I'm fighting until help comes that's what we're expected to do there uh myself and the Republic of Korean forces as well as the forces a portion to UN command uh we're fighting until they get there so a great many of the exercises that we do Senator are all aimed at understanding what magazine depth needs to be resident on the peninsula so that we don't have to count
• 293:00 - 293:30 on external support coming too and so that we might not drain from the overall effort but it's fair to say that a lot of those plans that are being drawn to account for that uh are are meant to address the fact that we probably don't have the inventory that we that we need right now is that fair to say that would be accurate we're challenging those assumptions every day Senator right okay um Admiral Paparo I wanted to go back to you um I think with the it's related as far as maintenance um and availability
• 293:30 - 294:00 and execution in um in the Indoacific there was recently um I think a big win for the US and our allies with the uh the the tanker um mission in in South Korea and then we're also seeing this obviously with submarine maintenance in Australia um what to you what's the next big step because you've articulated I think rightly that speed is going to matter but the logistical hurdles and the vast expanse of the Pacific is I think it's hard for people to really actually put their their mind around it until you put
• 294:00 - 294:30 a map up you know and you just and you see just the expanse so what's the next big step to to to address those logistical challenges for us Senator first um enrich the kind of work that we're doing in our partnership yards So beyond the standard voyage repairs is to do uh deeper deeper repairs for our forward deployed naval force is one step and then if we can get into the space of uh of production of that capability of
• 294:30 - 295:00 enhancing uh the Korean uh worldwide ship capacity which is uh I think 23% of global total is sh is is built in Korea japan is 15% of global ship building the United States of America is 1% of ship building this confers immediately to speed so more uh maintenance being executed at these uh at these partner yards where it makes sense and then the next step and uh and uh you know I've
• 295:00 - 295:30 heard a lot of talk about this from uh from you know all throughout government which is uh which is to avail ourselves of our partners' unique ship building expertise and then while we we while we regain our own ship building expertise in the United States thank you um Senator Peters thank you gentlemen thank you uh for being here today and certainly thank you for your service to to our country admiral uh Paparo as you know exercise
• 295:30 - 296:00 northern strike in Michigan uh brings over 6,300 participants from all across the United States as well as our international partners to to Michigan's national all domain war fighting center it's the largest training area east of the Mississippi uh in past briefings before this committee you discussed the the importance of exercise northern strike to Indoaccom and and particularly uh our ability to cooperate with uh with
• 296:00 - 296:30 our partners uh in the region uh could you elaborate on your prior comments and discuss the importance of Northern Strike to supporting Indoaccom's mission please uh senator without giving more of the details of what's executed on northern strike it is uh it is a key point of leverage and I have this um even in my from my interlocutors who report that um those personnel that have returned from Northern Strike are changed
• 296:30 - 297:00 uh and uh so I treasure it and I want more of it and I want to expand it and um you know I thank the state of Michigan for their diligence in it well that's great to hear Admiral and uh happy to hear that and uh you will know that I'm actually co-sponsoring a proposal for the NDAA with Senator Slotkin to make Northern Strike permanent uh and funding permanent uh and I certainly look forward to working with members of this committee to do that and your words of encouragement uh I hope we'll help that process move move along general Brunson as you know Russia
• 297:00 - 297:30 is strengthening military ties with North Korea through a mutual defense pack troop deployments to the Ukraine uh and efforts to modernize North Korea's conventional forces meanwhile China is mounting a pressure campaign on South Korea through political interference economic pressure maritime disputes cyber operations targeting critical infrastructure and the list goes on so my question for you sir is how is USFK
• 297:30 - 298:00 adapting its force posture or training to counter the hybrid nature of threats including military cyber uh and disinformation that's now posed by both Russia and China uh in this region yes Senator so one of the things that I believe in the future whether it's in competition conflict or crisis we've got to be able to do is we've got to be able to protect we've got to be able to
• 298:00 - 298:30 sustain and we've got to recognize that our posture uh which entails our organization and a host of capabilities all got to be in the right place part of doing that is by utilizing the assets at our disposable and the authorities inherent in other nations that come to join us on the peninsula so uh to to sort of keep this clean if you will we're able to leverage the special operations forces within the Republic of Korea we're able to leverage our own uh forces whether that be a uh military
• 298:30 - 299:00 information support team that operates inside embassy spaces or whether it's us uh along with our J39 to ensure that we're not only hardening access to ports but we're also testing all our lines as you know Senator we fight off of the Centrics K network it's important that we stay on that network with cyber defense teams and then encourage our partners to do the same thing which is what we're doing right now to ensure that we limit access to our networks protect our information properly and
• 299:00 - 299:30 look at those whole host of threats and how we might counter them on the peninsula very good uh uh from your perspective is there a risk that China and Russia could coordinate actions on the peninsula to distract or perhaps divide US attention from other strategic challenges including Taiwan uh or Ukraine how concerned are you about that i I'm concerned about that from the perspective of how they might uh enlist the DPRK to aid in some form of
• 299:30 - 300:00 subtifuge nefarious activity or anything else that might happen in the region to keep us from focusing wholeheartedly on the mission of Indopaccom in uh maintaining a free and open IndoPacific thank you uh uh General Papara Congress created the Pacific Deterrence Initiative uh in fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act uh to strengthen our military capabilities and partnerships uh in uh Indoacific region
• 300:00 - 300:30 the PDI is aimed to boost deterrence against China by investing in force posture in logistics missile defense allied cooperation uh sir could you could you share some specific examples of how PDI funding has improved the US force posture or our readiness and what steps can we take to enhance or or fully operationalize uh PDI senator um uh an example is the joint fires network and our ability to move fast in order to execute uh the fires
• 300:30 - 301:00 function of the among joint joint fires uh faster uh our material improvements throughout the uh throughout the theater um uh has enabled us to move faster uh and enhancing Pacific deterrence initiative uh US Indo-Pacific command is an advisor to the process the services choose which elements that they do is Pacific deterrent initiative and as the AO is 53% of the world almost any joint
• 301:00 - 301:30 force element that is acquired is applicable to the Pacific Pacific so more agency for United States Indopaccom enable to close the seams throughout the services would enhance the already good effect of Pacific Deterrent Initiative great thank you thank you again thank you Senator Sullivan thank you Mr chairman uh gentlemen Admiral General I want to first begin by thanking you for your decades of service both of you
• 301:30 - 302:00 you're uh you do you both do a great job i think sometimes we don't always say that same with your staffs um I have uh shown this chart to many many many uh folks here in the last few months this is the action that's happening in the North Pacific Admiral as you know up in the Arctic very very aggressive Russian Chinese actions into our aid is into our EES and the unprecedented element of this is the joint task force
• 302:00 - 302:30 nature uh Russian Chinese joint strategic bomber task forces last summer in our aids uh every summer now last three years we have joint Russian Chinese naval task forces in our EEZ very aggressive pushing out you know Alaska fishermen from their grounds so we need more everybody's testified we need more uh infrastructure up there um Admiral you in a classified hearing said we need to reopen this very strategic port Navy
• 302:30 - 303:00 base ADAC by the way I did a little geography test it's over a thousand miles west of Hawaii most people have no clue about that it's also the gateway to the Arctic northcom commander has testified we need to reopen ADAC the CNO has testified why do you think ADEX so important admiral Senator uh it is a further east it is a further western point which would enable
• 303:00 - 303:30 uh which would enable and along with Ericson uh in order to gain time and distance on any force capability that's looking to penetrate uh Russia's Pacific fleet uh in uh in Russia frequently takes that great circle route through Alaska yeah and uh it would enable up to uh 10x the maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft coverage of that key and increasingly effective or
• 303:30 - 304:00 increasingly contested space so you you testified in a classified hearing you think that we should reopen that just now that we're in an unclass hearing you want to say that in a uncclass setting too we should reopen ADAK and we should enhance the ability to operate out of Ericson so um thank you on that it has three peers uh two 8,000 ft runways a big hanger 22 million gallons of fuel storage one of the biggest fuel storage depots anywhere on the planet Earth the
• 304:00 - 304:30 CNO just sent a team up there uh Navy State of Alaska the Alude Corporation and um the Northcom Commander just uh reached out to me two days ago saying they're going to have a final report completed in the next two weeks on a low medium to high reopening uh scenario can you work commit to this committee to work with the Northcom Commander to get that report out in the next two weeks i commit and then you also have plans with
• 304:30 - 305:00 regard to Northern Edge in terms of that really important exercise using ADAT can you talk a little bit about that to the extent you can in a unclassified setting united States Air Force's concept of agile combat employment is the means by which we achieve more dynamism among the force and so the 11th Air Force is based in in Alaska that is an assigned force to United States Indoaccom 11 air force with over a 100 fifth generation fighters up there the preponderance of
• 305:00 - 305:30 Indopaccom's fifth generation fighters is in is in Alaska and so uh we will be exercising the agile combat employment concept in this summer's northern edge exercise in ADAC's going to be part of that they shall they will operate out of ADAC great um let me mention one thing you know when the president um after he his election he actually put a statement out saying we will ensure Alaska gets uh
• 305:30 - 306:00 increased defense investments as we fully rebuild our mil military especially as Russia and China are making menacing moves in the uh North Pacific so that's a quote from the commander-in-chief i know I've raised this with you but it's a little bit of an issue and and uh just in terms of the urgency as I mentioned state of Alaska the Ali Corporation that is the great Alaskan Native Corporation that owns the land there and the US Navy we're in ADAK couple weeks ago doing a site assessment
• 306:00 - 306:30 they're going to get that to us soon the Alude Corporation I've talked to these are great patriotic Americans alaskan natives serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country they would love to do a deal with the Navy 90 99 year lease or something like that but you know who um checks in with them once a year Admiral on ADAC about leasing ADAC uh I would guess it's not a friendly power it's not it's a Chinese shipping company that is
• 306:30 - 307:00 certainly in my view a front company for the PLA so how embarrassing would it be to the Pentagon or the Navy these guys would never do it the Ali Corporation is all patriotic but if some let's assume they weren't and somehow they signed a hundred-year lease with a quote Chinese shipping company that always is out there looking at ADAC you think that would be embarrassing for the US Navy and Pentagon on substance i think it would be bad because this is the modus operandi uh in the belt and road
• 307:00 - 307:30 initiative imagine having the belt and road initiative include Alaska one of the most strategic ports in the world amen so we we have a sense of urgency on this and I I look forward to working with you and the committee Mr chairman on this important issue thank you i sense a sense of urgency uh yes sir senator Blumenthal thanks Mr chairman uh thank you both for your service uh Admiral um I want to ask you uh some questions based on your
• 307:30 - 308:00 extraordinarily impressive experience as a aviator um as well as combatant commander um we're building new aircraft carriers at huge expense are you concerned about their vulnerability in light of the increased Chinese capabilities that you mentioned in your testimony AI cyber hypersonic
• 308:00 - 308:30 missiles my guess is the everyday American sees an aircraft carrier as a huge sitting duck out there in the middle of the Pacific uh are you concerned it's a moving duck with the ability to defend itself uh unique among airfields as a mobile capability uh it is not uniquely vulnerable but it is uniquely valuable and the PRC seeing that valuable value have made it a it a
• 308:30 - 309:00 focus because they have every other fixed landbased targeting complete its its value lay in the enormous variety and the enormous mass of fires and so uh it is not more uniquely vulnerable to the PRC it is more uniquely threatening to the PRC which is why they're working so hard uh to strike
• 309:00 - 309:30 it and I hear people say "Well in war games we lose these aircraft carriers the war games must have a terrible paparro simulator because I'm going to put them into harm's way judiciously and when they can strike and it will be my job to return those aircraft carriers to their home bases after they have done their duty so I am no more concerned about aircraft carriers than I am about destroyers submarines squadrons wings battalions regiments uh but those fires
• 309:30 - 310:00 are the mass of fires that they bring are absolutely unique step level change uh above any other particular single unit and you pay me to find ways to protect those aircraft carriers along with everything else that's in the joint force for every one air-to-s surface missile there are for every one uh you
• 310:00 - 310:30 know maritime oriented missile there are eight others that are designed to strike land targets uh and so uh you know I I I note that uh you know this topic comes up frequently uh but you have my opinion on it is that uh instead of you know instead of waxing uh into a into a culture of well we should give up on this capability no we should do something about it and we are doing something about it and that and that is well included in my integrated
• 310:30 - 311:00 priorities list that I that I presented to the committee i think that answer is uh extremely compelling and thank you for it uh turning to submarines and asking the same question in a different form are submarines more vulnerable today than say three years ago five years ago because of those advanced detection and counter measures
• 311:00 - 311:30 that the Chinese or other adversaries could mount the PRC is growing in their capability on anti-ubmarine warfare um which I would expect them to do i respect them for doing it uh they are more vulnerable than they've been before and that equally confers the responsibility for the command to take the steps that gain more margin i mean the the United States has a generational lead on submarine on undersea warfare and it remains critical absolutely one
• 311:30 - 312:00 of my highest priorities uh the introduction of uh quantum computing could well enhance the PRC's ability to flood the zone and to target submarines and to take that away they're pushing sensors into the sea to find them they're working very hard to find them and they're working very hard to counter them i have an equal duty to protect those and to preserve the unusual the
• 312:00 - 312:30 outsiz combat capability of those submarines and I take a similar view of refusing to quit on a on a unique capability and on that front if I leave this the the space between the surface and the Karman line our adversaries are going to flood that space with capability and become even more effective against our submarine force well I thank you for both of those answers which again I find very persuasive we can't quit on those
• 312:30 - 313:00 weapons platforms we just need to make them more capable and uh stronger and u I look forward to working with you on on that mission thank you very much Admiral thank you both for your service to our nation thank you all senator Slacken will be in in just a moment let me ask you um in in a followup to Senator Blumenthal's line of questioning on submarines we we still need um a lot more submarines do we not
• 313:00 - 313:30 strongly agree we have to increase our production rates we have to invest in the submarine industrial base we have to increase the rates of of uh the number of submarines and we have got to increase the availability of our submarines and and um you had a valuable exchange with Senator Banks about nuclear weapons and and uh I understood you to say they are useful to us every day because of their deterrent effect is
• 313:30 - 314:00 that correct yes sir and also uh just because um we don't often hear about this uh the doctrine of of the United States uh for years has been not to rule out a first strike is that correct i affirm that okay thank you very much uh Senator Slotkin thank you apologies for being late welcome glad to have you here um I would just like to talk about
• 314:00 - 314:30 strategy visav China and Taiwan and I'm sure you've gotten a lot of questions on this um I'm trying as the the co-chair of the bipartisan Taiwan caucus um to understand what our approach is um given that we talk about the Chinese threat right to Taiwan we talk about um that we're in a period of vulnerability right we want to make sure to um uh be particularly watchful about what's going
• 314:30 - 315:00 on in Chinese military intentions but at the same time we're calling into question the commitments by allies and partners um who we would need I think in any Taiwan contingency scenario right i think even the Trump administration's your national interim national defense strategy talks about the importance of allies and partners and I've seen public reports from CSIS and others that say that actually if there was a war with China over Taiwan if they tried to take
• 315:00 - 315:30 over Taiwan um we could not um manage that situation to satisfaction if allies and partners weren't with us in that fight just there we're so far away the tyranny of geography what we always talk about um um and I'm just concerned that our approach to allies and partners is threatening the very thing that I think we believe in in a bipartisan basis on this committee that we need to have a muscular deterrent approach so can you
• 315:30 - 316:00 tell me about the value of allies and partners to whatever you need to do in that region understanding we're in an unclassified space um and um uh the dependence we have on other nations hosting our forces allowing operations from their from their land can you walk me through it please senator good morning um uh allies and partners have an outsized effect it is
• 316:00 - 316:30 the strategic center of gravity of the United States of America and by having access basing and overflight with our allied partners we have the we have the ability to achieve the principles of expanded maneuver and that is to have multiple attack vectors across multiple domains where our adversary would potentially just be putting would be focused on one point there'd be threats coming from multiple points it would confer it confers legitimacy on the
• 316:30 - 317:00 force it confers greater access basing overflight freedom of movement of the force and then to the extent that allies and partners are participating in the in the uh operation it enhances your fires capability as well so all across those fronts allies and partners are are critical you do pay me to build a plan that does not fall on the loss of a partner but the cost the bill comes in
• 317:00 - 317:30 the form of people capability money and time the more partners and allies that we have the less it will be will be the bill across those four domains so I I guess my my confusion comes with my view again my my view as a a senator here that this administration is is implementing a strategy of cozing up to
• 317:30 - 318:00 our adversaries and kicking our allies in the teeth um and I say that as someone who's a border state and lives right next to Canada you know we we can go to a concert in Canada i mean it's a it the the idea that we need partners to make deterring China affordable and approachable but that we're going to attack our allies put significant tariffs on again off again on these allies we're going to humiliate them in public speak badly and
• 318:00 - 318:30 speak ill of them including countries we share intelligence with is to me the most a strategic thing I have seen in a national security approach to China so for all someone claims they care about deterring a military threat from China if your approach is and thank you for your incredibly articulate description of how our allies and partners are the center of gravity your words um I
• 318:30 - 319:00 believe it to my core um I cannot for the life of me say with a straight face that for all the huff and puff this administration puts on about China that they actually give a crap about deterring them because then you wouldn't be alienating all the allies and partners who live around China and I'm watching the the Chinese put in a base in Cambodia right sounds like a terrible vulnerability for us that other allies and partners are are coing up to China
• 319:00 - 319:30 so I I deeply appreciate the work that you do we depend on you we need you all to do your work well but for the life of me I think whatever bravado this administration has about China the play is actually being undermined every day by the way that they kick our allies in the teeth i yield back thank you Senator Slotkin that concludes the hearing we appreciate the testimony both in the closed session and in this open session and um with that this hearing is
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• 325:30 - 326:00 a classified part of the hearing um
• 326:00 - 326:30 beginning at um 8:00 a.m but uh at this point we held a hearing on the US Indoacific Command and the US Force Korea at the outset I want to thank Admiral Paparro and General Brunson for their distinguished service to our country last year at this hearing I said that the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific was shifting in China's favor since then the Chinese Communist Party has significantly increased its
• 326:30 - 327:00 coercive activity toward Taiwan and the Philippines last week the Chinese conducted an exercise called Straight Thunder 2025A this exercise demonstrated the extent to which the People's Liberation Army could execute a maritime blockade of Taiwan and pummel it with missile strikes as China conducts more exercises with Taiwan in mind it also escalates the rhetoric against the island last week Chinese military officials called uh Taiwan's democratically elected
• 327:00 - 327:30 president a parasite the Chinese have also substantially increased their harassment of our Filipino allies china's vast maritime militia backed by the PLA Navy and Chinese Coast Guard is using increasingly aggressive tactics to advance its expansive claims in the South China Sea the second Thomas Schaw remains a major flash point chinese maritime militias have tried to keep the grounded Filipino Navy ship the Sierra
• 327:30 - 328:00 Madre from being resupplied secretary Hexith recently visited the region i was pleased to see that he reaffirmed our mutual defense treaty with the Philippines reminding the world that the treaty applies to attacks on the Filipino armed forces anywhere in the South China Sea even so it is clear that the Chinese have been emboldened by four years of weakness during uh the past administration there is another reason
• 328:00 - 328:30 China has become so confident in its malign schemes xiinping has steadily modernized his military and that hardware has made him more brazen china boasts the world's largest navy it also has an air force that is capable of denying the the US air superiority in the first island chain we'll certainly want to ask about that gentlemen its missile force can saturate our theater defenses china has been expanding its
• 328:30 - 329:00 nuclear arsenal at a pace that far outstrips our own multiple Stratcom commanders have called China's growth breathtaking in just a few short years Beijing has built more intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States meanwhile our own modernization programs languish from past neglect but China is not the only urgent threat in the Indoacific the Biden administration chose to ignore North Korea it allowed Kim Jong-un to
• 329:00 - 329:30 increase his nuclear arsenal and project his military into European theater to aid Vladimir Putin in Russia's war against Ukraine kim Jong-un has abandoned the goal of unification of the Korean Peninsula and again we'll want to talk about that and has declared South Korea to be the principal enemy the North Korean nuclear and missile arsenal continues to grow and diversify with the rogue nation
• 329:30 - 330:00 adopting a strategic doctrine that embraces nuclear first use kim will surely seek remuneration for his support to Moscow the Russian technology transfers and military assistance Kim receives will help him to further strengthen his strategic military forces missile forces the continued demonstrations of Russia China and North Korea aligning and cooperating
• 330:00 - 330:30 should be of great concern to all the West this concern should then lead to action if we are to maintain global peace and stability we must continue taking steps now to rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence as I noted in um my peace through strength report last May it's time to make a generational investment in our national security i do believe that uh view is bipartisan we must be able not only to deter and
• 330:30 - 331:00 defeat the People's Liberation Army but also to maintain deterrence in other theaters our adversaries led by Beijing are playing a global game we must be smarter and more agile than they are across the board last year Endop's unfunded requirements list totaled $3.5 billion this year's unfunded requirement list was $11 billion and virtually none of that was funded under the fullear CR
• 331:00 - 331:30 this is unacceptable and also I hope we're we're going to get from everyone an accurate and full um assessment uh of the the various unfunded requirements we need real growth in the FY26 budget request