U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in Europe

Committee will come to order. Today we continue our posture hearings with EUCOM. We meet at a critical moment. Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine continues. The U.S. military is actively degrading Iran's military capabilities and preventing the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And the Department remains laser-focused on defending the homeland and deterring China. Managing these threats simultaneously requires a stronger NATO. Fortunately, thanks to the leadership of President Trump, our allies are beginning to step up. And their commitment to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035 shows they are serious about assuming greater responsibility for their own defense. But Europe's rearmament will take time. Fixing manpower shortages and restoring readiness will take time. Building out the transatlantic defense industrial base will take time. And developing our purchasing capabilities that today only the United States can provide will also take time. Yet despite this reality, some within the Department are advocating for a premature and unwise reduction in U.S. forces in Europe and from NATO defense plans. More troubling still, those same voices have not provided a credible roadmap for how such a transition would occur. Nor have they defined what "critical but more limited" U.S. support actually means. That is not a strategy for a stronger, more credible NATO. It is a risk we should not take. That is why last year's NDAA mandates consultation with Congress before making any significant reductions in U.S. forces in Europe. Because the overwhelming bipartisan and bicameral assessment is that a premature drawdown would create a dangerous deterrence gap and invite further Russian aggression. In particular, as Europe rearms, the two rotational U.S. armored brigades in Poland remain a cornerstone of NATO's conventional defense. President Trump has been clear about the importance of maintaining that presence, even suggesting the United States could further bolster our posture there. He's right that those brigades must remain in place. And I believe it is past time that we should seriously consider permanently stationing them in Poland as well. Moreover, those in the Department advocating for a premature reduction of U.S. forces in Europe are also ignoring that our posture there is about as much as about much more than just Europe. It helps defend the homeland and forward. And it gives the President more options to project combat power in other theaters, including CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and the Arctic. Operations like Midnight Hammer and now Epic Fury make that clear. Both are enabled by our presence in Europe and by the access, basing, and overflight permissions provided by our allies. Just look at Romania. Romania is allowing the United States to use two of its bases to support operations in the Middle East. Think about that. Even after we withdrew a U.S. brigade last year, Romania continues to open its facilities to American forces. And they are not just providing access. Romania has invested over $2 billion to improve their bases and runways for American use. That's exactly the kind of ally we should be deepening our engagement with, not prematurely stepping away from. We also should not prematurely step away from Ukraine. It is in the U.S. interest that a strong, well-armed, and independent Ukraine emerges from this war. In fact, its innovative and battle-hardened forces are already degrading the threat Russia's military poses to Europe's conventional defense. Kyiv is also demonstrating that this partnership is not a one-way street. Ukraine counter-drone teams and technology are now helping to protect U.S. forces and partners in the Middle East from Iranian attacks. Russia, meanwhile, is doing the exact opposite. It is helping Iran refine its drone tactics and reportedly providing targeting intelligence to strike American troops. It is clear Putin is not only a liar and a war criminal, he is also not our friend. He is an adversary. The temporary easing of Russian energy sanctions must indeed be temporary as Secretary Bessent has pledged. And if Putin continues to refuse to negotiate with President Trump in good faith, pressure on the Russian dictator must increase, including through the additional sanctions now being considered by Congress. History has taught us this lesson again and again. Vladimir Putin interprets the lack of American resolve as an opportunity. We should not give him one. Neither should Ukraine, nor should NATO. With that, I yield to my friend the ranking member for any opening statement he may have.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is an incredibly important and timely hearing. The issues around NATO, Ukraine, and our presence in Europe that you just outlined, I think, are at a critical juncture because I believe in NATO. I believe in that partnership and alliance. I think most of this committee does, most of this Congress does, and it is being challenged right now. And upfront, I want to deal with the argument that I fear some will make that the fact that Europe hasn't responded to Trump's request for help in Iran somehow indicates some sort of weakness in Europe. And that simply doesn't make any sense. I think there are some clear reasons why our European partners have not stepped into this conflict. One of the biggest is because they didn't want it in the first place. And the argument for why they didn't want it actually was best articulated by Donald Trump when he was campaigning for office, that there had been too many forever wars in the Middle East that had drained our resources without sufficient benefit. And it's worth remembering that in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and what we used to refer to as the global war on terror, our NATO allies stood with us 100 percent. So if you question the value of the alliance from the standpoint of, you know, we've done everything for them, they've done nothing for us, I think I just inadvertently quoted a Rick Springfield song as a matter of fact. That's not what was happening. They stood by us. But in this instance, we all agreed that the wars in the Middle East were no longer a smart thing to do. They don't want to stumble into this war because they think it was a bad idea. And again, if you want to look at the arguments for why it was a bad idea, just pick any one of dozens of different speeches from Donald Trump when he was a candidate for office. So it's wrong to blame NATO for not stepping into something that they had said we shouldn't do, first of all. Second of all, we did not consult them at all about this war. We just did it and then expected them to follow. That's not how an alliance and a partnership is supposed to work. There's no plan, and that's not what NATO is going to sign up for. And this bleeds into the issue of the Strait of Hormuz. And what is it now that we are asking NATO to do? Open the Strait of Hormuz. How? No plans being presented, no ideas are being presented. I guess we just expect them to send ships down there and hope for the best. That's not how an alliance and a partnership is supposed to work. You're not going to build a strong alliance along those lines. You have to have reasonable requests. We're basically asking our NATO partners to set themselves on fire and jump off a cliff just because we asked them to and then getting mad when they don't. But the final reason is most important, and it ties into Ukraine, it ties into our presence in Europe that the Chairman outlined quite well. And that is President Trump has made it very clear he has nothing but contempt for our NATO partners. He has insulted them, belittled them, threatened them with the use of force. So, and there's a lot of different things that can come out of that. But the one that is practical is all of those partners and allies have to wonder after they set themselves on fire and jump off a cliff without explanation, is the partnership even going to still exist? I mean, why go through all of that if the person you're doing it for is going to bail on you as soon as you're done? So the rhetoric has to change. We have to make it clear that we support this alliance, or I guess we have to decide we don't and walk away from it. And both of our witnesses today, this is a really important thing, is to hear from you, what is the value of this alliance? Is the U.S. committed to it? Why? What do we expect to get out of it? And it's worth remembering that NATO has, in fact, been of a benefit to the U.S. And that gets back to my point that President Trump has a historically incorrect way of looking at NATO. He really believes as if that basically we have been suckers, we have done everything that they want, they haven't helped us at all. The NATO alliance led to the United States of America being the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world. All right, I think that was a substantial benefit to us. Yes, it also benefited Europe and NATO, but that's what a partnership is about, mutual benefit. And we got the mutual benefit out of it. I mean, originally we did this, we provided the security umbrella for Europe because we wanted Europe after a thousand years of wars to stop. All right, to figure out how to get along, and they did. And then also we wanted to protect them against the Soviet Union and protect us against the Soviet Union and be a deterrent. We didn't want Germany and France and all of the European nations to rebuild their military as they had done for so long before that. We provided the security blanket and we grew and prospered. And the final point on this is why? Well, because of values, and the values are basic: economic and political freedom and a rules-based international order instead of might makes right. Now there's all kinds of messy details in all of that, but that's the general principle. We want greater economic freedom, greater political freedom, and we want to settle our differences peacefully through a system of rules instead of by going to war. That has worked for us. Eastern Europe is, of course, the best example. You can see what Eastern Europe was under the Soviet Union and you can see what it has been since it has been part of the European Union and part of NATO, and you can see a better life for every single person living in Eastern Europe. That's what we're fighting for. And the real question is, do we still stand up for those values? Do we still believe in economic and political freedom, or do we simply believe in bullying and coercion and might makes right? And I think it's a really important question. And Ukraine stands at the center of that. Ukraine, sovereign democratic country, was invaded by a brutal autocrat who wants, you talk about free speech, my gosh, Putin has suppressed free speech in Russia beyond the point where it's even even a meaningful phrase anymore. So if we stand up for those values, we should stand up in support Ukraine. Definitely want to get an update from you on where you see that going. I want to make sure people know for all the distraction of what's going on in the Middle East, Ukraine is winning. And it is a remarkable accomplishment, another remarkable accomplishment, by the way, of NATO and our partnership and us working together to defend the basic freedoms of a country. We need to support Ukraine. If you want to end the war in Ukraine, then you have to stand up to Putin and convince him that fighting that war isn't going to accomplish his goals. I would prefer the rhetoric coming out of the White House to be supportive of Ukraine. I agree with the Chairman. President Putin is a known liar, and yet we have, you know, Mr. Witkoff when asked, you know, gosh, is Russia providing targeting information to Iran? He said, well, the Russians told me they didn't, and I have to take them at their word. That is a deeply, deeply troubling sentiment. We've heard the President say the same thing. Well, Putin said it, so it must be true. Those are not the values we should be projecting. We should be standing up for President Zelenskyy and Ukraine, not constantly rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin. That is what will get us to greater peace in Europe and get us a sovereign democratic Ukraine, which is in the best interests of the U.S. and Europe. On the European presence, I agree with the Chairman. He summed it up perfectly well, nothing more to say on that. I think the presence is important for all the reasons that he stated and want to hear more about what our plans are going forward for that. With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ...Chairman.

I thank my friend the ranking member. I'd now like to introduce our witnesses. We have the Honorable Daniel Zimmerman is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and General Alexus Grynkewich is the Commander of U.S. European Command. Thank you both for being here. Mr. Zimmerman, you're recognized for an opening statement.

I thank my friend the ranking member. And now I'd like to introduce our witnesses. We have the Honorable Daniel Zimmerman, who is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and General Alexus Grynkewich, who is the Commander of U.S. European Command. Thank you both for being here. Mr. Zimmerman, you're recognized for an opening statement.

Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about our defense approach to Europe. I'm Daniel Zimmerman, Assistant Secretary of War for International Security Affairs. I'm honored to appear before you alongside General Grynkewich, USEUCOM Commander. He has been an outstanding partner, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to say publicly how much I appreciate his leadership. Today I look forward to discussing the department's approach to Europe and how that nests within our National Defense Strategy, the NDS, specifically in the areas of homeland defense and burden sharing with our European allies and partners. Distinguished committee members, the department is continually evaluating and adapting to the key threats facing the United States. In line with the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, NDS, calls for a courageous realignment of our resources and priorities to defend the freedom and interests of everyday citizens of the United States. It is an America First approach, born out of the conviction that a government's first duty is to its citizens. The strategy outlines four succinct lines of effort, all grounded in the principle of peace through strength. First, defend the homeland. Second, deter China in the Indo-Pacific. Third, increase burden sharing with our allies and partners, especially in those areas where they have direct national security interests of their own. And finally, to supercharge the U.S. defense industrial base. This not only will equip the joint force, but it will help empower allies and partners, including those in Europe, to field combat-credible capabilities and take greater ownership of their own security needs. We call on our European allies to make a parallel effort for their own defense industrial base with a common-sense, non-exclusionary approach. While our focus today is Europe, let me offer a brief comment on events in the Middle East, and I would like first to pay tribute to the 13 fallen U.S. warfighters who have given their lives in the line of duty, and I know we'd all want to honor them and their families. Operation Epic Fury is entering its 19th day, and the U.S. remains on plan to dismantle Iran's ability to project power beyond its borders and threaten the interests of the U.S. and our allies. Many allies from the Middle East and from Europe, who like us have endured 47 years of Iranian terror and malevolence, are assisting these efforts. Operation Epic Fury has also underscored a key point in our National Defense Strategy, and a point which Under Secretary Colby recently made at the NATO Defense Ministerial last month: the need for the U.S. and our allies to be prepared for potential opponents across multiple theaters to act simultaneously. We do not consider this inevitable, but it is prudent to be ready for a worst-case scenario. With respect to Europe, we believe this reinforces the need for a reformed and revitalized NATO alliance, with European allies stepping up to lead in terms of conventional defense and deterrence. Let me be clear, the department is committed to NATO. We want to see it stronger. We believe the right way to achieve this is to return to NATO's founding purpose, to provide strong and credible defense for its members. Now it's worth noting that in 1951, General Eisenhower, as NATO's first Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said that, and this is a quote, "If in 10 years all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole NATO project will have failed." Now I share those remarks to highlight that the original vision for NATO was built on each member's commitment to make serious investments in its own security and capacity to defend itself. We might call this a NATO 1.0. But after the fall of the USSR, we believe NATO to some degree lost sight of this mandate and got distracted with out-of-area operations, continent-wide disarmament, and other activities foreign to its original charter. And we can call this NATO 2.0. But it is now clear that this shift in mission focus is not fit to deal with the world as it is today, and therefore is neither in the interests of the United States nor our allies. We believe the alliance must adapt and remember its original purpose as a defensive military alliance focused on the European continent, with European members stepping up to lead. And we in the department are referring to this as NATO 3.0. The U.S. remains committed to NATO via our extended nuclear deterrent and critical but more limited operational support. But Europe must step up to assume primary responsibility for its own conventional defense. We have worked hard to communicate this goal through open and forthright dialogue as befits allies and friends. Our allies must do more and rapidly, not as a favor to us, but for their own interests. We fundamentally believe that taking greater responsibility in this way is good for them as well as for us. Some have stepped up and are setting an example, like Poland, Germany, and Finland, to name a few. Such allies are making credible, expansive investments in their national and European defense. They are partners, not dependents. We aim to prioritize cooperation with those who share our sense of urgency to step up on defense, recognizing the threats Russia poses to our homeland and acutely to Eastern Europe. Turning to the war in Ukraine, as President Trump has stated, this war must come to an end. The administration has undertaken negotiations with both sides with the aim of securing a durable peace, built on credible security guarantees that start with a strong Ukraine and a strong Europe. The United States believes in peace through strength, and as the President has outlined through the Pearl Initiative, which he launched with NATO Secretary General Rutte last summer, it is important that allies act urgently to provide Ukraine necessary resources for credible deterrence and defense. Over 20 European nations have pledged more than $4 billion to this initiative so far. We continue to encourage allies and partners to sustain their contributions. Russia still retains deep reservoirs of military and industrial power and the national resolve to sustain protracted war. Moreover, Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal and invests in capabilities which could be used coercively just short of nuclear confrontation. Accordingly, the National Defense Strategy notes we will ensure U.S. forces can defend against these homeland threats. And we call on Europe to step up to take primary responsibility for its own conventional defense against a potential Russian threat. As the President has said, the U.S. stands with NATO. But if burden sharing becomes misaligned or thinly spread, this is not healthy for an alliance, and we want NATO to be as strong as it can be for the long term. All allies must do their part, standing with us in commitment, action, and true partnership. We will continue to address threats to Europe with a clear-eyed, peace through strength approach, standing by our commitments with our first duty to American citizens' interests and security. I'm honored to work with this committee, General Grynkewich and his USEUCOM team, and our valued allies and partners. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and may I now turn to General Grynkewich?

Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman. General, you're now recognized.

Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of this committee, thanks for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm joined by Command Sergeant Major T.J. Holland, our command senior enlisted leader, and together we represent the men and women of U.S. European Command. I'm also privileged to be here with Secretary Daniel Zimmerman, whose leadership and collaboration have been instrumental to EUCOM's success. I'd like to begin by thanking this committee and Congress for your steadfast support to the warfighters and missions of U.S. European Command. The United States faces a complex and evolving global security environment. Growing cooperation between Russia, North Korea, Iran, and the People's Republic of China has increased military risk across multiple theaters and domains. In Europe, North Korean troops and materiel, Iranian drone technology, and Chinese economic support enable Moscow to sustain its war in Ukraine. I have been privileged to be part of the negotiations working to fulfill the President's goal of a lasting peace, but in the meantime, this brutal war continues, recently starting its fifth year as both sides trade human life for time and territory. And despite significant losses in Ukraine, Russia retains the capability and the capacity to threaten U.S. interests with its large and increasingly diverse nuclear stockpile, asymmetric capabilities, and competent ground, air, and maritime forces. Given this environment, U.S. European Command is focused on three priority missions. The first of these is protecting the U.S. homeland. To do this, U.S. European Command works closely with NORAD and U.S. Northern Command to monitor and secure the strategic approaches to North America. These approaches include the Arctic, where rugged capabilities and platforms able to operate in this harsh environment allow the U.S. and our allies to monitor and disrupt Russian and Chinese activity. Together we ensure submarines and long-range bomber patrols are unable to threaten the U.S. or our interests in our hemisphere. Our second mission area is to serve as a platform for projecting U.S. combat power, both in Europe and beyond. Given the continent's strategic geography, our forces, bases, and infrastructure, including prepositioned stocks of equipment and munitions, allow the joint force to provide the President a diverse set of military options to rapidly respond to threats, move forces, and sustain operations across multiple theaters. In the past year alone, U.S. European Command has increased pressure on the shadow fleet with the seizure of MV Bella, enabled strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer, and facilitated strikes on ISIS-affiliated terror groups in Africa. This mission continues today with support to Operation Epic Fury in Iran. Our third mission area is positioning the NATO alliance to deter and defend. Given the possibility of simultaneous conflict in multiple theaters, a strong NATO allows the United States to redirect focus while still protecting our European interests. This requires allies to step up, and they're doing just that. Allies are increasing defense spending and building their readiness to assume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe. This shift requires continued investment in a robust and resilient defense industrial base that can deliver the required military capabilities at scale. One final note, as the character of war continues to evolve, U.S. European Command is working directly with NATO allies, industry, and the joint force to capture the lessons of contemporary conflicts. We are committed to ensuring NATO remains most capable military alliance in history and to protecting our interests at home and abroad. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, thanks for your unwavering support to our warfighters and our mission. It's an honor to appear before you today, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, General. I recognize myself first for questions. I would remind everybody on the committee and you that we had this conversation with Bridge Colby when he was here. This committee passes an NDAA once a year. The Congress decides the structure of the military. We understand y'all have operational control, but we decide what the structure will be. That's why we call these posture hearings so we can work with you in concert to decide what the posture should be for the next year. I'm still very upset that the department decided to unilaterally change the posture in Europe without consulting with Congress. That under NDAA law from the past we passed last year cannot happen again, but it shouldn't have happened the first time. And I just hope I want to see us work collaboratively in the future to make sure we meet our international challenges. But with that, General, I agree with the assessment you made before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that it is going to take time for NATO to get to where they need to be. How long do you assess it will take Europe to translate the additional defense spending that they've committed to into their being able to assume primary responsibility for their conventional defense?

Chairman, thanks for the question. You know, there's a couple of things at play here. For the first time in a long time, money is not the problem in Europe. European allies are spending more and more of their budget. We have five or six allies who this year are going to exceed 5 percent in core defense spending. And so that's a good news story, and several other economies are on their way through 3 to 3.5 percent. The real challenge is the production capacity in the defense industrial base and will capabilities be able to show up on time. So if I if I play this out and look forward, you know, we know what the money allies are spending today is being used to purchase and we know how long it will take for those capabilities to deliver. So there's several capabilities that will show up by the end of the decade and the the alliance, the European members of the alliance and Canada will be in a much better position to assume responsibility for some of the things that the United States has historically provided. But they won't be able to do everything. You know, there's long-lead items that'll take around a decade to procure. So the way I think about it is they'll be a lot better by 2035 than they are in 2030, and by 2035 I think they can assume most of the responsibilities, and every every day between now and then they're going to get better and better and take on more of that burden.

And that's assuming things go well, 2035.

Yes, sir, absolutely. It assumes that spending continues to remain at the levels and they execute the plans for that spending, and it assumes that the industrial base is able to get into high gear as Secretary Zimmerman mentioned.

Bringing it back to our current posture, would you recommend any additional changes to our force posture in Europe at this time?

Chairman, I am not currently recommending any additional changes to our posture in Europe.

All right. As Europe rearms, how important are those two rotational U.S. armored brigades in Poland to NATO's deterrence and defense posture?

Chairman, the the two armored brigade combat teams that we have in Europe are are essential to our current deterrence posture. I also would say they provide us a way to ensure allies are more rapidly able to assume the burden. So we can take different elements of those brigades and now deploy them as allies are bringing on their own armored capabilities to help them develop their armored capabilities, onboard them into their military, such as Romania buying M1 Abrams tanks as an example. And the faster we can get them up to speed on employing those tanks, the more they can assume that burden and the quicker. So in the short term, they're essential.

Great. There have been numerous studies that have found that permanently stationing U.S. brigades in Poland would reduce cost, improve service members' quality of life, strengthen deterrence against Russia. Moreover, Poland is willing to pay for any additional expense associated with that infrastructure. Could you tell us your best military judgment as to whether or not the United States should permanently station its two armored brigades in Poland?

Chairman, there's a lot of advantages to permanently station forces. You know, it's a signal of permanent commitment, if you will. Soldiers, of course, if you ask them, would much rather be with their families than away from their families on a deployment. And you get more experience and presence within a particular unit based on the pattern of rotation than you do with rotational forces. Having said that, there's also value to rotational forces. Those are able to move rapidly. We don't, you know, you have the luxury of not having to worry about how you employ that force given family considerations because the family's not there, they're back in the United States. So there's costs and benefits to both, but certainly I value permanently forces, recognizing it's got to be balanced against other priorities within the department.

How important is it for the Army to fully fund two prepositioned stock sets for the U.S. armored brigades?

Chairman, the thing that prepositioned stocks do for us is really contribute to deterrence and they give a diverse range of options to the president in the event of a crisis. It increases our response time. We don't have to put equipment on ships and sail it across the ocean. And so there's just much more flexibility in our response, much more rapidity in our response, and I see that as a strong pillar of our deterrence.

Thank you. I yield to the ranking member.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Following up on the European presence question, if we did not have troops in Europe, if that alliance was gone and we didn't have that presence, how would that have impacted what we've been able to do in Iran in the last two and a half weeks? Putting aside for the moment whether you support the mission or not, how did that presence in Europe help and what would it be like if we didn't have it in a similar fight?

Ranking member, the things that U.S. European Command has been able to do is leverage our network of bases and infrastructure in order to support operations in the Middle East. And so if we didn't have forces in Europe, we wouldn't have the bases that we're able to project power into the Middle East with. So it's really the access that our allies provide, the ability to overfly their countries, the ability to operate from their countries, and many of them are helping in substantial ways in this.

Yeah. So NATO is definitely helping in what we're doing here in our presence, if nothing else. I mean, basically we couldn't bring them all the way from the United States. That would be a much tougher lift.

Yeah, ranking member, the easiest way to think about it is tanker basing, right? We to fly bombers from the United States or even from locations in the theater and project power into the Middle East requires a tanker bridge. That tanker bridge is projected from U.S. EUCOM bases.

So Mr. Zimmerman, the president has a number of times mused out loud about leaving NATO and whether or not it is truly helpful to us, just yesterday as a matter of fact. So first part of the question is, do we, are we thinking about leaving NATO or are we committed to the alliance? And I guess the follow-up would be, if we are committed to the alliance, why does the president keep saying publicly that we aren't?

Ranking member, I won't speak for the president, but I will point out that the...

You do speak for the president. That's why you're here. But go ahead.

Ranking member, I'll point out that the president has many times expressed the United States' commitment to NATO, particularly coming out of the Hague summit where the NATO members stepped up to his historic challenge to reach 5 percent.

And that's fine, but I'm focused at, it's like if you were in a relationship and you're like, well just yesterday I told you I'm committed to the relationship, so what if now today I'm telling you that I'm not? That wouldn't be particularly reassuring. So I'm more focused on the times that he seems compelled to talk about how bad the alliance is for us and his desire to get out of it. But so you testifying now as whatever your title is, we are committed in your view despite what the president has said to the NATO alliance.

The president, the secretary have repeatedly said committed to NATO, committed to Article 5. That is consistent with wanting to see that alliance be the best version it can be and strong.

How does it impact the strength of that alliance for the president to keep saying he wants to walk away from it, to keep threatening and belittling our allies, threatening to make Canada the 51st state, threatening to invade Greenland and take it away from Denmark? How does that impact the strength of that alliance in your view?

The president rightly expects our NATO allies to carry their share of the load. Right now...

And if they don't, we have the right to annex them? Is that the message?

May I mention that U.S. defense spending right now is 60 percent of overall NATO defense spending.

As a percentage of GDP, do you know who U.S. defense spending is equal to? Denmark, 3.22. Thanks to Joe Courtney for providing me with that chart. So that's not really an answer. If we believe in the alliance, we should support that alliance and quit bullying and degrading it. It really undermines the ability of that alliance to be as strong as it should be. So I guess going forward again, I just want to make sure from your perspective, you think it would not be good for U.S. national security if we undermined or abandoned the NATO alliance.

Chairman, we think the increased investment that NATO allies are making into the alliance is a positive thing. And just a few years ago, no one...

That's not what I asked exactly. And I'm sorry, this shouldn't be a problem for you. Are we committed to the NATO alliance or aren't we?

Well, I already answered that question, I'll answer it again. We are. Just a few years ago, no one could imagine NATO countries going above 2 percent of spending. Thanks to the president's leadership, we now have commitments across the alliance to reach 5 percent.

I would submit that's thanks to Russia invading Ukraine and that that was really what got Europe's attention, not the bullying and belittling from the president, but we can argue that point. I just wanted to make sure that we remain committed to the NATO alliance because despite what we've heard from the White House, I think it is an incredibly beneficial thing for the United States of America. And I thank you for those answers. I yield back.

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank both of you for your service. And it's, I'm really grateful, I hope you see there's substantial bipartisanship here, particularly support of NATO and how important NATO is and has been as a defensive organization to provide for the longest period of peace and prosperity in Europe since civilization began. Keeping that in mind too, I'm so grateful for the leadership of Chairman Rogers indeed. We need to have permanent placement of American military personnel in Poland, which they will pay for in the tradition of South Korea, in the tradition of Qatar. And so over and over again, this can be important and indeed, to his chagrin all of us, most of us, in regard to how important it is to have a military presence in Romania and then to indeed back up Ukraine to win their resistance as they're facing war criminal Putin who is trying to resurrect the failed Soviet Union. It's so clear, the virtual annexation of Belarus, the subverting of the elections in the Republic of Georgia, the attempt to subvert elections in Moldova. Over and over again, it's so clear that we need to be prepared to face the challenges we have. Additionally, Secretary Zimmerman, reports are clear that Russia is providing intelligence support to Iran that can assist Tehran in targeting American forces and assets in the region, which then also provides drone technology to murder American troops as we've seen occur in the last two weeks. War criminal Putin is helping a regime that is actively threatening American service members. And actually I want to submit an article from yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Russia is sharing satellite imagery and drone technology with Iran. This is so crystal clear, the intent that war criminal Putin has to continue this war to benefit his country. With this I'd like to submit this for the record. Without objection. How is the department responding to the growing cooperation between war criminal Putin and the regime in Tehran?

Thank you, Congressman. We are aware of those reports and perhaps in the closed session I can speak more to them, but force protection for U.S. service members is an utmost priority for our department.

Well, as a grateful parent who had my oldest son Alan serve for a year in Iraq and my second son served as a Navy doctor in Baghdad, my third son served Bright Star in Egypt and my youngest a year in Afghanistan. Hey, American families are take very personally that Russian satellite technology being provided to kill American service members. And this should be a crucial priority. Additionally, you cited negotiations with war criminal Putin to end the conflict, the Putin invasion of Ukraine. Can you identify any agreement with the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, or war criminal Putin that has not been broken? And we need to know and it's clear, Putin lies as President Trump has correctly stated that he speaks lovely in the morning and bombs in the evening.

Congressman, the negotiating team is taking the approach of backing any agreement with credible security provisions, starting with a strong Ukraine, followed by a strong Europe, followed by a framework of U.S. security guarantees that General Grynkewich can speak more to. But just to underscore, we are in a trust but verify type of mode.

Well, it's going to have to be the ultimate verification. And additionally, we have Chinese, Mr. Secretary, influence in as we have the different issues to face around the world. And in particular it's frustrating that in Europe that in Hungary itself, there've been more Chinese Communist Party investments in Europe that has had an effect on the Orban regime to be supportive of war criminal Putin. There is more Chinese investments in Hungary than all of the rest of Europe combined. What are we doing to counteract the Chinese Communist Party influence in Europe?

Congressman, we certainly talk to the Europeans about this and share information with them and I think that's an interagency effort. And I think the good news is that European allies are increasingly waking up to the seriousness of the situation and are taking their steps on their own to address it.

Thank you very much. I yield back.

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Zimmerman, yeah, someday. That's a terrible thing to wish upon you. Yesterday on Truth Social, the president posted the following: We no longer need or desire NATO countries' assistance. We never did. Speaking as the president of the United States of America, by far the most powerful country in the world, we do not need the help of anyone in full. This was yesterday. Okay, so to follow up with Mr. Smith's comments, I mean, it's no wonder that our NATO allies really are wondering whether or not this country is still committed to the alliance. On February 21, we needed NATO's help. And the general probably recalls this. We had a distress signal from a U.S. submarine eight miles off the coast of Greenland, where a sailor was experiencing a medical emergency. Luckily, there was a Danish military patrol ship that was nearby and flew a Seahawk helicopter to the submarine and evacuated that sailor to Greenland, where again, received medical attention, all part of the NATO alliance. Again, the president now saying that Greenland is now part of NORTHCOM, not EUCOM. The fact of the matter is, and we all know this, that that submarine was on patrol as part of our nuclear deterrence mission, which again, the general mentioned is essential to homeland defense and is part of NATO's mission. Denmark, as Mr. Smith correctly pointed out, is now at a point where their percentage of GDP spending on defense, according to the Atlantic Council, which has a NATO defense spending tracking system, is equal to the United States. So in response to that, the White House put out on February 21 this bizarre AI-generated post that showed the USNS Mercy cruising its way to Greenland to provide help. Of course, it took basically minutes for people to figure out that the USNS Mercy was in dry dock. And again, once again, made our country either just a laughingstock or again, clearly insulting one of our neighbors. So I'm going to ask you to do something which has not happened yet, and I've been tracking this pretty closely. Can you publicly thank Denmark for the assistance they provided to a U.S. sailor experiencing a medical emergency on mission? And again, because of their assistance, which we did not have resources available, addressed that need.

Congressman, frankly, I wasn't tracking the details of that particular story, but as you outline it, I would thank any country who came to the assistance of a U.S. sailor.

And again, you know, clearly that has been the first time that's been articulated, either that I'm aware of in terms of the White House, the Department of Defense, or any of our military naval leadership. But again, it was a perfect example of NATO at work, which is because we had a NATO ally in the region and we have a defense arrangement so that people could act quickly to respond to a situation like that. There was no diplomatic gymnastics that anybody had to go through. They just did it. They just acted as a good ally would in terms of making sure that that situation was addressed. So General, again, in your remarks, you talked about the nuclear deterrence mission that NATO conducts, which again is part of our homeland defense, which again starts, I think as you know, up in Norway at the Kola Peninsula. And again, our ally Norway is our eyes and ears in terms of the North Fleet, the Russian North Fleet. They again have their nuclear stockpile 100 miles from the border. Again, it daisy chains down through the GIUK gap, Greenland-UK gap, where the UK provides assistance, Denmark provides assistance, France provides assistance, Iceland provides assistance, Canada provides assistance. And again, it is really not because they're doing it to necessarily protect their own country. The Russian North Fleet, they're coming to the Atlantic coast of the U.S. and they're in the Severodvinsk-class submarines are doing patrols there. I mean, that's how it works, right, in terms of the NATO anti-submarine warfare operations?

Congressman, we work extremely closely with all of those allies that you mentioned to monitor Russian activity in the High North, in particular as it comes down between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom and Norway. It's a critical...

Thank you. And again, just to yesterday, General Guillot identified Russia's capability in terms of this particular threat as the number one threat facing the homeland today. And without NATO, we would not be, in my opinion, able or equipped to track and respond to it. With that, I yield back.

The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Turner.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Zimmerman, first of all, I want to thank you in your opening comments for acknowledging that every administration since the inception of the Washington Treaty have called upon our European allies to contribute more. And for your acknowledging during your comments to questions that President Trump was the most successful since the Wales Summit of getting our allies to rise to the occasion to actually reach and stretch toward their voluntary commitment to go to the two percent contributions that they had committed to at the Wales Summit for the Wales Agreement, and that they have now agreed to go beyond that to the five percent contribution. These are important contributions that I think will make a huge difference for both our allies in NATO and for NATO's own functions and its defense. Now as we look to the National Defense Strategy, questioning to both of you, Mr. Zimmerman and General, looking at the National Defense Strategy, Russia is identified in the National Defense Strategy as an adversary to the United States. Correct, Mr. Zimmerman? That Russia is an adversary of the United States.

Congressman, they have the capabilities, they pose a threat that put them in...

It's pretty straightforward. Can you articulate that Russia is an adversary of the United States, Mr. Zimmerman?

Yes.

General?

Yes, sir.

As an adversary of the United States, is it in the best interest of the United States that Russia lose and is unsuccessful in the war of aggression against Ukraine, Mr. Zimmerman?

What the administration is trying to achieve is an end to that war on terms that support an enduring peace.

Is it in the best interest of the United States that Russia is unsuccessful in the aggression, in the war of aggression against Ukraine?

Congressman, I think the way you frame it, I would agree with that, if being successful means an over...

Congressman, it's not my role to determine the national interest in this way. That's definitely a policy question, so I'll defer to my policy teammate.

Okay. It seems to me that in your testimony today that both of you though did acknowledge that NATO is important in supporting the United States' interest in deterring Russian aggression against United States' interests. Mr. Zimmerman?

Yes, sir.

General?

Yes, sir, absolutely.

I want to follow on to what the ranking member was saying earlier. General, in your written testimony on page eight, you go into the importance of our presence in Europe. And the ranking member was speaking of our abilities both in the current conflict with Iran, but also in Midnight Hammer, to be able to project power and force. But I'd like you to extrapolate that a little bit further. Because our presence in Europe is really beyond that. It's part of our worldwide ability to project force. From Europe, our forces are integrated both in our communications, in our sensing capabilities, in our ability to look at all of our adversaries, in our functions in INDOPACOM, in our functions in even South America when we look at even our Venezuela operations. The integration of all of our bases and including the functions that we do day-to-day in Europe, your forces are integrated and at play. And I'd like you to articulate that because when people speak of forces not being in Europe, we would be really shields down in many respects. And could you articulate that worldwide presence, not just Middle East?

Yes, Congressman, you bet. So the infrastructure that we have in the continent of Europe and that's been built up over the decades that we've been there is critical to our global communications and our ability to command and control forces around the world. It's, as you mentioned, critical to our sensing, our intelligence apparatus around the world. Sustainment and logistics would be the other area that I'd highlight, and no one does sustainment and logistics and power projection like the United States.

So even from Europe, we can determine what, for example, even China is doing in INDOPACOM, what Russia's doing in INDOPACOM, what Russia's doing that affects South America and Venezuela, what China is doing in South America. All of this is still being conducted and is essential even with our presence in Europe.

Yes, Congressman, the way I'd say it is this is all interconnected and it requires a global approach.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank the gentleman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Garamendi.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank my colleagues for a series of I think very important questions. Getting to the heart of the matter, what is the principal threat to Europe? General?

Congressman, the principal threat to European security is the Russian Federation.

Mr. Zimmerman?

Concur with that, Congressman.

Okay. Now, Mr. Zimmerman, if that if Russia is the principal threat to Europe, is Russia also the principal threat to the United States because of its threat to Europe? Mr. Zimmerman?

Congressman, I think that is a multifaceted question. I don't know that we'd Russia is a serious threat, and our National Defense Strategy plays that out in clear terms.

Okay. Now, General?

Congressman, from my previous time on the Joint Staff with a global perspective, I think the thing that I am most concerned about is the interaction of our adversaries as they start to collaborate and work against us in their common interest and contrary to ours. And so Russia certainly contributes to that, China, North Korea, and Iran do as well. It's all interconnected.

So General, what is the best strategy to address that threat? Is it a strong presence of the United States in Europe together with NATO, or is there some other strategy that would address that threat?

Congressman, I think, you know, in the short term, nothing deters Russia like an American flag on a uniform. You know, we are the best military in the world, we're the strongest military in the world. The Russians and everyone else, every adversary on this planet knows that. So we certainly play a role in that. Over time, as the Europeans get stronger and better, that will allow us to move some of those American flags to other places. And we do need Europe to be stronger to assist with their own defense so that we can do that.

Now moving to the Ukraine situation. Is the United States presently providing direct support to Ukraine? Mr. Zimmerman?

Congressman, the Pearl Initiative, which the President announced with Secretary General Rutte, is a way that U.S. equipment, which is, you know, the best the world can offer, can be provided to Ukraine with European compensatory funds.

So the answer to the question is, is the United States providing direct support to Ukraine? And I think you just said no, it goes through the European countries. Is that correct?

Well, they provide compensatory funds. The material goes to Ukraine through the Pearl Initiative.

Okay. So why is the United States not providing direct support? Why is the United States using Europe as a front for our support?

The reason the President announced Pearl with, again, I would say the support of NATO Secretary General Rutte, was out of a recognition that Europeans ought to be at the front in providing the support to Ukraine. And so that is the concept behind the Pearl Initiative. It doesn't exclude other means the United States may choose to support, but that is the method that the President has chosen.

So the American equipment and support goes to the European countries who then transmit that support or transfer that support to Ukraine, correct?

Congressman, the logistics don't have to work that way. And if I may, maybe I'll ask General Grynkewich to weigh in here because he's intimately acquainted with the...

Please do. General?

Yeah, Congressman, the way it works is we package or create those Pearl packages at a half billion dollars apiece. We then work with U.S. NATO to shop those packages around and with the Secretary General for European nations to purchase it. Once a European nation commits the funds, those are transferred through the NATO logistics hubs to Ukraine.

Okay. Have we transferred direct military equipment out of the European theater for the Iran war, General?

Congressman, we have, and I'd be happy to provide you details on that in the classified session.

I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Wittman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our witnesses for joining us today. General Grynkewich, I want to follow up with the conversation we had last week, and that is about our NATO allies and what they're doing in burden sharing, but also what the U.S. defense industrial base is able to supply. And let's not wholeheartedly agree that our NATO allies should be contributing more and that they have to play a greater role in defending the continent. That's key. I think that's moving in the right direction, and we see countries like Germany doing more, Poland, the Baltics, all doing more, and that's absolutely necessary. The challenge is our ability to supply them with U.S. weapons and U.S. equipment in order for them to do more, because we want to be able to interoperate with them. We want them to have the equipment that we have because we know it's advanced and we know too that if the time comes, we want to make sure that interoperability is there. The challenge is, you know, I don't think it's well-advised for us to step back prematurely from what we're doing to try to back our allies there. Tell me, what are you hearing from our U.S. allies there in Europe about not being able to get the things that they need, about where the U.S. industrial base is in supplying them the things that many of them have already ordered, that are on backorder and being told, hey, the priority is elsewhere? And problem is the priority continues to get pushed to the right so that day of delivery sometimes never comes. So give me your perspective on what you're hearing from our allies.

Yeah, Congressman, it's an important question. You know, not just in this position I'm in today, but in previous positions in the Middle East and elsewhere, there was a constant refrain of our foreign military sales system, our FMS system, delivering too late to need with cost increases and just a really burdensome bureaucracy. To that end, the President, this has the President's attention, and the America First Arms Transfer Strategy, I think, is going to be a big step forward to allow more direct commercial sales that'll bypass the FMS entirely and then prioritize those allies who are contributing the most to their own defense in our system. And then I'd also say the work that the Deputy Secretary Feinberg has done with industry to supercharge the U.S. industrial base is really important. Final point I'll make is, you know, of course, as Secretary Zimmerman said in his opening statement, we do need the Europeans to invest some, and we would expect them to invest some in their industrial base. I think we need to find complementary ways to do that so that we're not in competition, and a rising industrial base on both sides of the Atlantic would be helpful to all of us.

Sure. I want to follow up on your America First Arms Transfer Strategy there that you talk about. I think that's key. We already have some European companies investing in the United States to build things like Naval Strike Missile, Joint Strike Missile. But we can't expect our NATO allies to have every capability. They can't build everything. And when we join together and use the things that they do well plus the things that we do well, then I think we can meet the challenges across the board. And that executive order is going to ensure that our European allies and partners have a streamlined access to be able to cut down, as you said, those bureaucratic impediments that unfortunately take years sometimes for them to get the weapons they need and then help them too assume that primary responsibility for defending Europe. Give me a timeframe about when you think this policy is going to have an impact. When will our European allies actually see the timeliness of them getting the weapons systems that many of them have waited for for years, some of them have even paid for and are waiting for those? Give me the real-world impact of what this strategy is going to do.

Yeah, Congressman, several of the things that are in the pipeline right now are scheduled to come out within the next couple of years. And that's part of what I was discussing with Chairman Rogers, that some of those deliveries manifesting before the end of the decade will be very helpful. Now, if we can consider the ramp-up in allied spending that's going to continue between now and the end of the decade that'll be buying the next tranche of equipment, that America First Arms Transfer Strategy will be essential to really getting bang for the buck out of that for the next five years of the next decade, so by 2035.

That's great. Let me ask a little bit too about our vigilance activities there, things like Arctic Sentry, Baltic Sentry, Eastern Sentry. And I want to thank you and Secretary Rutte and our NATO partners for standing up Eastern Sentry. Those type of exercises really assure that we know that we can operate under a very risky and challenged environment, and it's a big force multiplier, I think, for the region. Tell me a little bit about the lessons learned. What are the things that we have to work on, what are the things our European allies have to work on to make sure we have the capabilities necessary, especially as we see Russia building their defense industrial base? And that, I believe, is an emerging threat that not only threatens Ukraine but also threatens European countries sometime in the future.

Congressman, I'll give you two quick lessons. The first is for Eastern Sentry, it's been entirely manned and executed by European allies. So they have really stepped up with their air and missile defense capabilities and fighter aircraft that they've contributed to that activity. The second lesson, which won't surprise you, is that we've got work to do on our counter-drone defenses and figuring out what the right acoustic and sensor network is, active and passive, and then active and passive ways of downing those drones is essential. We're pulling a lot of those lessons from current conflicts and integrating them as we speak, doing some experimentation, and we're excited about that.

Gentleman's time's expired. I yield back.

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Norcross.

Thank you, Chairman, and certainly to our witnesses here today. Interoperability is one of the key components with any of our alliances, our partners, to make sure that when we work together, our equipment works together, our communications. What we have done with NATO over the entire period that we've worked with them has been nothing short of a positive outcome in terms of us working with those allies. But as we know, relationships is more than just dollars and cents. And we talk an incredible amount of time here today about those dollars and cents, the two percent, the three percent, now moving them five percent for the NATO allies. Our mil-to-mil relationship, I would still suggest, in spite of what's going on, is excellent. Leadership for the most part has changed, but certainly our allies are there. People to people, our countries with our NATO allies, significant changes, particularly over the last 18 months. We have NATO actually visiting us today. We'll be having lunch with many of those that we continue to work with. That anything that we do in terms of building that financial structure so they are paying, let's call their weight in what they should be doing, is incredibly important. But if our relationships from country to country, the way I've suggested, is at risk, and I'm suggesting to you it is at risk with many countries. I can't believe the number of phone calls I got from our NATO allies that we deal with on the Parliamentary Association when the President suggested taking over Greenland and the damage that did to our relationship is real as we're sitting here, is as significant of the questions we're going. So when we look at your testimony, and it was page six, the outline characterizes the countries that represent model allies, which you talked about earlier. Through the messaging the department's undertaking, we're now creating in many ways a tiered system, those who are fully with us, those are less than, and calling them dependents. Do you think this is a positive outcome for just building their financial side of what they contribute, or do you take into account the human side, the people in that country who are being negatively impacted by the words coming out of our leadership? Mr. Zimmerman, would you comment on that?

Thank you, Congressman. The relationship matters a lot, and that's a core function of my job is doing defense diplomacy. And I've had the privilege to travel extensively across Europe and think I am accurate in assessing that we have strong relationships civilian to civilian. I know they're strong mil-to-mil as well, but I'll let General Grynkewich speak to that. But we do invest in that, and part of the benefit of building those relationships is you can have hard and candid conversations with countries who we don't think are stepping up the way they should. And we have those conversations and we see results from them. But I would like to agree with your point about the value of building the relationship so that you can have honest conversations about what makes the alliance strong.

Let me just follow up. Are you married?

Very happily.

You know what goes into a relationship.

I'd like to think so.

The suggestion of the way that we are talking about our allies by our leadership, if we had that relationship talking to our wives, we probably wouldn't be married. General, I'd like to hear mil-to-mil, how are we doing?

Congressman, the mil-to-mil relationships are strong. They've sustained throughout the period that I've been in command, in constant communication with the chiefs of defense of the 31 members of the alliance and, of course, our chief of defense, General Dan Caine. So they're strong, they've been strong throughout.

Certainly that's the way that we're hearing the same thing. But relationships matter, money matters, the nuts and bolts, but at the end of the day, for any of us who've been through Europe and visited those cemeteries where our grandfathers are buried, we were fighting for values. When people lose sight of the values we share, we're on a path I think is going downhill. With that, I yield back.

Gentleman's time's expired. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. DesJarlais.

I thank the chairman and I thank our witnesses for being here today. And I feel like we're kind of beating a dead horse today. The one thing I do applaud both our chairman and ranking members, they've worked very hard to make this committee bipartisan. Don't always agree on some of the tactics that come out of the White House regardless of who the commander in chief is, but in this committee we are very much committed to our troops and making sure that they have the very best and we can agree on that and I thank them for that. But in Trump's first administration he was pretty tough on our NATO allies about meeting their assessment and he was criticized that that would break apart NATO. Once Ukraine was invaded, we saw them step up and I think what he did was pretty effective so I applaud the fact that what he laid the groundwork for did seem to work and seemed to unite our NATO allies and many of them have stepped up and have met their assessments. Now you can call it hard conversations, you can call it tough love, tough parenting, but tone matters and being tough on our adversaries absolutely agree with, being tough on our friends and allies sometimes is necessary but tone matters and I would agree with the ranking member and some of the other on the side of the aisle that maybe we've backslid a little bit in terms of relationships because of the tone and I don't profess to tell the president how to talk or how to interact but I do think it's important that we maintain strong relationships and I'd be curious General and maybe you'd be more comfortable answering this in a closed setting, but you work with your military counterparts in almost all those countries. Are you hearing any whispering or complaints from them as to what the leadership is saying, their presidents, their various leaders in terms of the way they're being talked about and talked to and talked down to?

Congress, across the alliance we have almost every single military in the alliance, I'd dare say every single one has a non-partisan, apolitical approach and so we remain focused on our job at the military level which is deterring and defending every inch of alliance territory both in Europe and North America across the entire Euro-Atlantic and so by focusing on that we avoid the ups and downs of political relationships.

Okay. I think Lindsey Graham yesterday insinuated that the Europeans felt that a nuclear-armed Iran was not their problem, that was our problem. I don't know exactly where he got that from but when President Obama in 2013 proposed Aegis Ashore in Romania and then subsequently Poland, that was clearly to defend Europe against an Iranian missile threat. So it does surprise me a little bit that they're not more engaged in helping in Iran. Would you have any comment on that, either one of you?

Congressman, I'll just say that as a commander of US European Command I've spent a lot of time talking to the chiefs of defense. We have been able to negotiate some of the access and basing that is enabling our operations in the EUCOM AOR for defensive purposes in the Eastern Med where we're defending Israel and our troops that are on the ground in the Middle East and alliance territory. So from a military perspective that relationship remains solid.

Mr. Zimmerman?

Congressman, we were pleased from the policy side to see the ABO come through eventually in some of the cases that you're tracking. We wish it could have happened sooner and we do feel that many of our European allies do have a stake in this and as the president has stated we would like to see them more engaged.

Okay. And in 49 seconds, sorry Chairman, I will stop it when my time is up. But the expansion of the illicit drug trafficking and migration of transitional criminal organization from Europe to the US is hindering our safety here at home. What are you doing to address that with the European leaders?

Sir, from the military perspective we have an interagency cell at US European Command that is working through our embassy platforms in each country to try to interdict a lot of those flows of either narcotics or money that comes out of the narcotics and also to help some of the nations that are very concerned with mass migration. So we're putting a good bit of effort and I could expand on that in the classified session.

Okay, thank you. I'll yield back.

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Carbajal.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Mr. Zimmerman, can you speak to the ways the three Baltic nations, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have been good allies to the United States?

Gladly, Congressman. These allies have blazed a trail for putting money where their mouth is and investing in their own security. And if you look at the list of countries that are, you know, spending on defense, they're of course all three of them are right near the top. And we recognize that and we hold that up as an example. In some cases, there's also I think in the case of Lithuania in particular, eagerness to put money into the hosting of US troops and things of that nature. They're leaning forward on that and we appreciate that as well.

Thank you. Well, can you tell me then what type of signal do you think zeroing out funding for the Baltic Security Initiative sends to these extraordinary allies?

Congressman, the department thought long and hard about that decision and I can tell you as the assistant secretary where those countries fall within my AOR have been engaging closely with them on that and in many ways we see it as a positive area for them to step into. And we talked with them about ways that those programs could be funded through national funds or...

But they're already doing that. They're doing it extensively. They're at the top of our NATO allies in terms of their investments. But it's okay, we're not going to reward you. If anything, we're going to penalize you.

Well, I can tell you Congressman, we did not see that in any way as a penalty to them.

Thank you. General Grynkewich, can you speak to the benefits of security cooperation between the United States and Baltic allies?

Congressman, we use the security cooperation funding that we receive in US European Command to try to meet the objectives of the National Defense Strategy and that is to accelerate the shift of the burden so that our European allies can assume primary responsibility for their conventional defense. So just using a Baltic example, with funding we would use that to do exercises with a nation that's bringing on a US capability like HIMARS in Estonia and be able to get them to integrate it more quickly. So that's how we use the funds that we receive when we receive them is to try to accelerate that burden shift as much as possible.

Thank you. Mr. Zimmerman, is Russia's ongoing war with Ukraine illegal?

Congressman, I think I will defer on that question.

It's not illegal in your eyes?

Congressman, I think that's a different department of the government that answers that. Certainly the approach the United States is taking is that war is...

Let me ask you another question. Is easing sanctions on Russia's oil beneficial to Putin in his war against Ukraine?

Congressman, as you know, the aim of that is for global economic reasons and that is the calculus behind that decision.

I think that reflects what an arsonist, a firefighter and an arsonist do. They start a problem and then they go in to try to save it is what I think President Trump is trying to do. If Russia is allowed to be successful against Ukraine, do you think Putin will stop there? Or do you think it is possible he invades other countries formerly of the Soviet Union like NATO allies Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania?

Congressman, I think it's certainly possible that Putin has broader ambitions which underscores the need to bring this war to an end and provide the credible security guarantees that will sustain a lasting peace, starting with a strong Ukraine followed by a strong Europe and then with the United States coming in as well.

Thank you. As always, I'm not usually too happy with the responses we get from this administration and I think today you've seen a lot of bipartisan questions in the interest of our troops and our national security. No politics, just trying to get some straight answers and regrettably we're not seeing that as robustly as it needs to be. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Mississippi, General Kelly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start, an alliance is much different than a friendship. A marriage is much different than being a brother or a blood family member of someone. My brother and I had some knockdown drag-outs. I won't say on the air that he won any of those. He was a big tough man. But you know what? We never doubted, not one second, that if someone else got on one of the Kelly boys, both of the Kelly boys would be on them. That's what an alliance is. It doesn't mean you get your feelings hurt and then we won't be there to help you. An alliance is a bond in blood, built in blood, built in European campaigns in World War II and I think our allies need to hear and I think our president means it. I don't care what his words, he may fuss with his brothers, but at the end of the day, if another guy jumps on one of our brothers, I promise you we will be there for the fight. And I think that any all this other stuff, I think our allies need to understand we will be there if there's a fight and we will do our duty. With that being said, the Russians, how long did it take them to establish air superiority and to take out the ability of Ukraine to strike into Russia? Because to my understanding they still have not. Is that correct?

That's correct, Congressman.

Okay. Is Europe safer today, with the exception of Turkey which borders Iran, is Europe safer today because we took out all ballistic missile capabilities and all air defenses in Iran or the majority of air defenses, is Europe safer today and does Iran have the same ability to strike Iran as it does its Arab neigh... I mean strike Europe as it does its Arab neighbors?

Congressman, Iran no longer has the same ability to strike Europe and hold it at risk with their ballistic missile force.

And Iran has struck many of its Arab neighbors, many of its surrounding states, including Turkey which is in Europe. But Türkiye, but they have struck them. Do you think what would make someone think that they would not strike Europe if they had the capability to do so right now?

Congressman, as a commander of European Command I am watching that very closely. I think they do have the intent to potentially strike Europe, particularly some of our activities in the Eastern Mediterranean.

That being said, Russia's war in Ukraine has reshaped security environment in Europe. Thanks to President Trump's leadership, NATO allies are increasing defense spending in response. The key question now is how quickly those investments can translate into real capacity. Therefore I look forward to hearing that. General, as Russia continues to expand its military presence in the Arctic and China seeks greater access to Arctic routes, the strategic importance of the High North continues to grow. The United States currently operates far fewer icebreaker than Russia while several of our NATO allies including Finland, Sweden and Canada maintain significant icebreaking capability. How can the United States better integrate allied icebreaking capacity and Arctic infrastructure into NATO's broader defense posture in the High North?

Congressman, thanks. The Arctic is incredibly important, as you highlighted. It is one of the strategic approaches to the United States and to Northern Europe. And it's an area where the alliance does focus and needs to continue focusing. On the specifics of the icebreakers, I was in Finland and Sweden recently, chose to go in the winter just so I could see some of those incredible capabilities that they bring to bear. And we are integrating them into operations such as Arctic Century as we work together in the High North. And then I'd just highlight, I think the Finns are helping us out with some of the icebreaker acquisitions that are being worked, not in the Department of Defense, but I think that's going to be a game changer for us as well. Congressman, thanks. The Arctic is incredibly important, as you highlighted. It is one of the strategic approaches to the United States and to Northern Europe. And it's an area where the alliance does focus and needs to continue focusing. On the specifics of the icebreakers, I was in Finland and Sweden recently, chose to go in the winter just so I could see some of those incredible capabilities that they bring to bear. And we are integrating them into operations such as Arctic Century as we work together in the High North. And then I'd just highlight, I think the Finns are helping us out with some of the icebreaker acquisitions that are being worked, not in the Department of Defense, but I think that's going to be a game changer for us as well.

Absolutely. I also want to talk about long-range strike and bomber task force deployments, and they're increasingly important in NATO and the defense of NATO. What do you see our current aerial refueling capacity in the European theater to include airfields or platforms to launch those refuelers from? Absolutely. I also want to talk about long-range strike and bomber task force deployments, and they're increasingly important in NATO and the defense of NATO. What do you see our current aerial refueling capacity in the European theater to include airfields or platforms to launch those refuelers from?

Congressman, I think it's well known that you can never have enough air refueling aircraft. And they're constantly in demand. They're in demand in Europe. They're clearly in demand in the Indo-Pacific as well. We do, we are fortunate to have the infrastructure to base them in Europe. But knowing that they will be a force that's needed no matter where the United States is projecting power, we can never have enough of them. Congressman, I think it's well known that you can never have enough air refueling aircraft. And they're constantly in demand. They're in demand in Europe. They're clearly in demand in the Indo-Pacific as well. We do, we are fortunate to have the infrastructure to base them in Europe. But knowing that they will be a force that's needed no matter where the United States is projecting power, we can never have enough of them.

And I just want to double tap that. Right now, we have a floor of how many fuelers, refuelers we should have. That number needs to be increased. That is the floor. That is the bare minimum without accepting unacceptable risk to our armed forces. So I would just really ask all of our commands to push up to say, we do not have the refueling capacity that is required should we get into a full-scale war, especially if we get into it with that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. And I just want to double tap that. Right now, we have a floor of how many fuelers, refuelers we should have. That number needs to be increased. That is the floor. That is the bare minimum without accepting unacceptable risk to our armed forces. So I would just really ask all of our commands to push up to say, we do not have the refueling capacity that is required should we get into a full-scale war, especially if we get into it with that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Keating. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Keating.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank the witnesses for giving us this booklet this morning on the strategy for 2026. Highlighted in that is Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and others are increasing their collaboration and cooperation as their interests align against the United States. Security interest, economic interest against the United States. So I have some questions I'd like to ask as we look at those threats of collaborating nations. Secretary Zimmerman, is Russia a key collaborator with Iran? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank the witnesses for giving us this booklet this morning on the strategy for 2026. Highlighted in that is Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and others are increasing their collaboration and cooperation as their interests align against the United States. Security interest, economic interest against the United States. So I have some questions I'd like to ask as we look at those threats of collaborating nations. Secretary Zimmerman, is Russia a key collaborator with Iran?

Congressman, they do collaborate.

And they're collaborating right now. They're targeting U.S. servicemen to be killed. They're targeting sites and they're giving intelligence to Iran today. Now, with the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, was Russia a big collaborator with that threat against the U.S.?

Congressman, as you know, Russia was deeply involved in the al-Assad regime.

How about North Korea? How about North Korea? Are they collaborating? Who are the key collaborators of North Korea giving them strategic military information and taking their soldiers and their drone warfare?

We see opportunistic collaboration there.

From who? From Russia?

Yes, sir.

And we see the work of China and Russia working together with their joint exercises, more than ever historically working together against the U.S. interest. So let's just switch to what's going on in the negotiations on Ukraine, because this puts Ukraine front and center on our interest, our interest. The negotiations are one-sided. The U.S. is sitting there saying that Ukraine should cede land that's not even conquered. They're saying Ukraine should limit their military in the future and defense capabilities, just against what we heard this morning about what European countries and Ukraine is a European country should be doing. And they denigrate the leader. Mr. Zimmerman, is President Zelenskyy a dictator?

Congressman, with respect to Ukraine...

No, no. Is President Zelenskyy a dictator?

May I answer something that you...

No, I want you to answer that one right now. My time's precious here.

I'm not aware of any evidence that he's a dictator.

No. How much did he get in his last election? Do you know? Percentage-wise?

I don't know.

Seventy-five percent. So he's not, who did call him a dictator? Do you know, Mr. Zimmerman?

May I speak to your previous point?

No, I'm questioning you. You don't know who called President Zelenskyy a dictator?

I think many people have.

Was one of them President Trump?

I'm not tracking that.

It was he. Did he say that about Zelenskyy? That he was a dictator? The commander in chief who you answer to?

I'm not aware, Congressman.

Well, let me inform you he did. I suggest you educate yourself on that. Did he say that they shouldn't be allowed at the negotiations? Did President Trump say that?

I didn't catch the question.

Whether Ukraine should be involved in the negotiations, whether they should be a party to it.

They are a party to negotiations.

They're not. They're not included in the negotiations directly, directly with the U.S. and Russia trilaterally. And by the way, Europe should be included in that too. President Trump suggested that was the case because they had no cards to play. General, does Ukraine have cards to play in the war?

Congressman, Ukraine has performed extremely well and innovated on the battlefield and even in recent weeks has taken back some territory around Zaporizhzhia.

Thank you, General. And back to Mr. Zimmerman. What's the distance in miles from where we are in Washington, D.C. to Tehran?

From here to, from here to Tehran?

In Iran, yeah.

I can, I can speculate that it's maybe over 10,000.

I'll tell you, it's 6,000 miles. Okay. Can you tell us the distance from Washington, D.C. and Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine?

I bet it's...

Let me inform you, it's 5,100. It's less than it is. Then why did the president say that the war in Ukraine does not directly affect the U.S. because it's very far away? So do you think the president was wrong in saying that as I just told you, that Kyiv is a closer distance than Tehran?

Congressman, respectfully, I think you'd have to look at every comment in its context and the aim of...

Well, that's pretty clear cut to me. But let me go on because I'd like to compliment many of the people across the aisles here in talking about the importance of NATO. And we're going to do that. I wish they would sign on to a discharge. We need one more person to sign on to that to give greater sanctions to Russia and support for the Baltic countries and Ukraine. I yield back.

Gentleman yields. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, General Bacon.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciated your opening comments, so as the ranking members and many in here today. I appreciate our two panelists coming here today. I appreciate hearing from you, so thank you. I've been very supportive of the president on Iran and some, and I think getting rid of Maduro was a good thing. But I have been appalled by this administration's tone, rhetoric, tactics, strategy when it comes to Europe. The denigrating of our allies has been terrible. The weakness communicated to Putin has caused grave damage and some of the passive-aggressive communications towards President Zelenskyy, for me, it's been embarrassing, but it's, it's hurt us. I hear from our allies all the time of the grave damage that this administration has been doing bilaterally or to the whole alliance. And it's going to take a while to recover. And I'm not blaming the military leadership here. This is the civilian leadership that is doing this. So today, Secretary Zimmerman, you know, you said it's Europe's role to support Ukraine. Well, I do think they have a big role. They should be doing more. But we have a role too. What happens if Russia prevails? It would, it would cause grave damage to us and will cost us more in the long run. Seventy percent of Americans want us to do more for, for Ukraine. Not just Europe. They want us to do more. And I think most folks also support tougher sanctions on Russia. And I wish, yes, this, this Congress should take lead on this and force that. So the president yesterday says NATO does very little for the U.S. or we can't count on them. General Grynkewich, isn't it true that NATO's only declared Article 5 one time, and that was after 9/11 in support of the United States? They deployed with us in Afghanistan. And we've had senior leadership say Denmark has been a poor ally. Is it true that Denmark served with us in the Middle East and they have had more fatalities per capita than any other ally that we had in the Middle East?

That is accurate, Congressman.

Okay, going back to, this is my, what I wanted to talk about, but I wanted to bring that up after listening to the opening comments and the discussion here. General Grynkewich, doesn't our security cooperation funding enable allies, and particularly I'm talking about the Baltic Security Initiative, is the BSI funding, does this help your mission?

Congressman, as I mentioned, we do use that security cooperation funding to, to try to push that third pillar of our mission, which is to position the alliance to deter and defend and get the Europeans more ready to assume primary responsibility for their conventional defense.

You know, I'm the Baltic Security Chairman. They love this program. They're spending nearly 5 percent of their GDP. It's a great program that helps deter Russia and help, and these folks embrace freedom, embrace us more than any other country out there. And so I've already heard Secretary Zimmerman defend why you wanted to defund the BSI. It's a terrible statement to all the East European countries doing that. And it's why this committee had to force BSI funding in the last appropriations bill because we don't trust that that money will be there because of some of the decisions already made. I had a question for Secretary Zimmerman. What happens if Russia prevails in Ukraine?

Congressman, I think there would be some very dire consequences of that, which is why the president is doing everything he can to bring the war to a conclusion.

Well, I appreciate that he's negotiating. We need that. But I don't think it helps to act like a referee in a boxing match as if you've got two equal people boxing. No, we have a victim. We have a democracy, a country being invaded. We have a dictator that is doing the invasion, murdering POWs. They've kidnapped roughly 20,000 children. They're, they're murdering POWs on the field. They're bombing cities every night. We should not act like we're neutral in this fight. This is a fight against good versus evil. And I expect more from a Republican administration to stand up to a bully, stand up to Putin. I consider myself a Reagan Republican. I believe firmly that Ronald Reagan would have known which side to stand on and be more clear about. I support negotiations, but there's a right and wrong here and we act like there isn't. We act morally blind. And it's setting just a terrible message out there. So again, I support the, the Iranian operations, Maduro, but when it comes to Europe, the message is one of weakness, it's one of appeasement, and it's hurting our country. I yield.

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Crow.

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you to both of you for coming in today. General, would you agree that Russia poses the most substantial threat to Europe, our allies, and American interests in Europe?

I would, Congressman.

Okay. Mr. Zimmerman, would you agree with that statement as well?

I would, Congressman.

And do you agree, Mr. Zimmerman, that Russia derives most of its revenue from energy exports, particularly oil?

I would, Congressman.

And that sanctions imposed by the United States and our allies are meant to specifically target those exports to undermine their ability to recapitalize their war machine?

I concur.

And General, would you say that their energy exports and their sales of energy has been the primary means by which they've been able to recapitalize their war machine and to continue the offensive operations in Ukraine?

Congressman, it's been that and also their assistance with sanctions evasion from China.

China. Okay. Earlier this week, the administration... China, okay. Earlier this week, the administration loosened sanctions, allowing Russian oil and petroleum already loaded on vessels at sea to sell them to other countries. So Vladimir Putin and Russia stands to gain an estimated $10 billion from these loosened actions by the administration, money that could directly be used, as you already stated, to fund their war machine, to fund their offensive operations against Ukraine and further destabilize Europe and to hold our troops and our interests at risks. So Mr. Zimmerman, how can you sit here and justify the loosening of those sanctions when we all agree that it's those exports and that selling of oil and energy that's directly being used to finance Russian's war machine against Ukraine and to threaten U.S. interests?

Congressman, thank you for the question. And the your initial line of questioning was focusing exclusively on, I would say, a military question. But then to look at the issue of sanctions and events that are going on globally, a statesman has to consider a full set of variables and conditions. And here in the department, we're of course looking at the military question. The interagency needs to contemplate economics, free flow of energy, things of that nature. So I won't opine on the justification for that other than to say...

It's because the war in Iran has increased gas prices, so this administration is easing sanctions to reduce those gas prices. Is that accurate?

Congressman, I think that there is a desire to ease pressure on the on crude oil, but that is a I would say that's a shared interest of many of our allies and partners.

So the administration started a war in Iran, that has jacked up energy prices. Now this administration is scrambling to figure out how to reduce those prices after the fact without thinking about it beforehand, so they have reduced sanctions on Russia, correct?

I dispute your characterization.

Well, how about the last piece of that? They have reduced sanctions on Russia. Is that accurate?

I understand that's factual.

Okay. And let me go back to where I started then. Would you agree again that Russia's primary source of revenue for its war machine in Ukraine and its ability to build a military that is holding U.S. interests and U.S. troops in Europe at threat is from oil exports?

Oil is an essential contributor, with also the comment that General Grynkewich made to refine that with the sanctions evasion support from China.

Well, I think the logic is pretty clear here. I think we have made a huge mistake by reducing sanctions on Russia at a critical time in this conflict when Ukraine is actually starting to turn the tide on the battlefield and regain momentum through extreme fortitude and grit and resiliency and the heroism of the Ukrainian people and a substantial amount of investment by Americans and by our allies over the last almost four years in this war effort. So I think this administration needs to stop being lenient on Russia and Vladimir Putin, and we need to get serious about sanctions and serious about making sure that we're setting up Ukraine to win this war. I yield back.

Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Messmer from Indiana.

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. General Grynkewich, the Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland are vital to NATO's integrated air and missile defense, and NSWC Crane in my district plays a key role in supporting these sites. And can you describe the current operational mode of these, whether they are defensive only or have any dual-capable configurations?

Congressman, thanks. I recently visited the Aegis Ashore site in Romania just a couple of months ago, and it's an impressive capability that's there, fully ready to defend alliance territory. I have not yet visited the one in Poland, but I do intend to do so. The troops that are there are excited. I was able to watch an exercise where they practiced against an inbound missile, and it's really an exquisite capability.

Okay. Thank you. Given the challenges in maintaining the readiness amid Russia's hybrid missile threats, would it make sense to configure these systems to counter both ballistic and conventional missile attacks simultaneously?

Chairman, it may. That'd be something that I would need to look at. One of the challenges with them is they are fixed sites that could be vulnerable to counterattack, so it would be something that we'd have to consider carefully and think through what the defensive mechanisms for the site themselves would be.

Very good. With Russia's increased missile activity in Ukraine, what upgrades to the Aegis Ashore radar and interceptor capabilities would you prioritize to counter the emerging hypersonic threats?

Yeah, Chairman, this is really a question of the rounds that we're able to put into the into the into the system and making sure that upgraded capabilities are able to be launched from the launchers that can handle those advanced those advanced weapons. And I could talk to you a little bit more about some of the specifics in the classified session if you'd like.

Perfect. Okay. Can you address any issues with host nations agreements, especially Romania's recent approval of U.S. use of their airbases?

I'm sorry, sir. Can you repeat that?

Any any issues with host nation agreements, especially Romania and their recent approval for the U.S. use of their airbases?

No, sir. No issues with Romania. Everything that we've asked them for, they've they've been willing to provide.

Good news. General, with the New START treaty expiring last month, how is EUCOM addressing the risk to NATO's eastern flank from Russia's unconstrained nuclear buildup?

Congressman, I don't sense an immediate increase in that risk. Obviously, over time that risk could grow depending on how Russia reacts with the treaty expiring. We are very focused on broader outlines of strategic stability as well, thinking of advanced conventional and nuclear capabilities. We work that very closely with our policy counterparts. Again, maybe a few more details I can provide in the classified session.

Perfect. What posture adjustments, such as fielding of low-yield theater nuclear weapons, are needed to maintain a credible deterrence without the treaty's verification mechanisms?

Yeah, Congressman, I'll make a general comment here. Russia does have a suite of non-strategic nuclear capabilities that they could employ at some point. I don't I don't see a risk of that right now, but they do have a range of those. And deterring the use of those is difficult with a one-size-fits-all approach from our nuclear arsenal. So the department, I know, is looking at a variety of options. We're working with U.S. Strategic Command over the coming weeks on what things we might propose to the administration and to the Congress moving forward to bring that into balance across all threats globally, not just the Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons threat.

Okay. How do you see the SLCM-N program being used within that within that?

It's an essential part of it, Congressman.

Thank you. Still got a little time. Foreign military sales reform has been prioritized by this administration via several executive orders. How can EUCOM support these reforms?

I tell you, the allies are going to support them a lot because they're going to benefit for them and they're going to spend more money buying U.S. equipment from our industrial base. And I think that's going to be the biggest win here.

Excellent. One more. Indiana's National Guard partner nation is Slovakia, and how have the Slovakian armed forces assumed greater responsibility for European conventional defense?

Sir, just just real quick since you gave me the opportunity. The State Partnership Program is one of our superpowers as the United States of America. The relationships that we build, not just in my AOR but across every geographic combatant commander's AOR because of those those state partnership programs, for very little investment we get a huge return on investment in terms of the Slovaks. I'll go and visit them again soon. I've been there once already. I know that they highly value that relationship with Indiana.

Great news. Thank you, and I yield back.

Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Elfreth from Maryland for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to our our witnesses today. I'm going to start with an easy one, General. Maryland's the home of Fort Meade and Cyber Command. Can you speak, I think there's an a greater and greater role Cyber Command plays across every theater, but can you please briefly speak to your collaboration with Cyber Command through EUCOM?

No, thanks, Congresswoman. Cyber Command is absolutely essential to our operations. As you know, the character of warfare is changing. We're in seeing increased value of both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. They're making they've made a huge difference in a number of different areas, and certainly it's no different in in my area of responsibility. So we work very closely with U.S. Cyber Command. They've sent a number of defense teams over to help allies and partners clean their network of malicious activity, and I'd be happy to talk about some of the other things they're doing for us in the classified session.

I would really appreciate that. I want to echo I think what we heard on both sides of the aisle today, which is a universal and I've heard it from you gentlemen, a universal consensus that we have to end the war in Ukraine. The greatest deterrent to Putin from furthering his ambitions in Ukraine and his ambitions throughout Europe is a a strong unified NATO. I think everybody in this room and everybody listening agrees with that. And that requires every NATO ally stepping up in defense spending, and I'll give the President a rare compliment. I think that is a wonderful thing that he has been able to negotiate. At the same time, it almost feels like, and you've heard this today, one step forward and risking two steps back when we have rhetoric that feels schizophrenic at times and actions that feel schizophrenic at times. Thinking of denigrating President Zelenskyy, thinking of pulling out of the Baltic Security Initiative despite the Baltic countries being the leaders in Europe. We have leaders and we have folks that need to step up in a greater way. Pulling the brigade out of Romania. We did a great thing in general negotiating the icebreaker deal with Finland. I too was in in Sweden and Finland and saw their capabilities. We are decades behind in icebreaker production here in this United States, and it's essential to Arctic security. But then very soon afterwards, threatening to take Greenland by force. So you're seeing we are all seeing this rather schizophrenic positioning, including lifting sanctions on Russian oil to then further, as my colleague from Colorado mentioned, further fuel Putin's war machine in Ukraine and potentially elsewhere. So I want to I want to not pretend like these things exist in silos because they do not exist in silos. Everything is intersectional, everything is related to the other. Would you both agree that really everybody reaching five percent of GDP on defense spending requires a strong thriving economy in each of the NATO countries we work with?

We did a great thing in general negotiating the icebreaker deal with Finland. I too was in in Sweden and Finland and saw their capabilities. We are decades behind in icebreaker production here in this United States, and it's essential to Arctic security. But then very soon afterwards, threatening to take Greenland by force. So you're seeing we are all seeing this rather schizophrenic positioning, including lifting sanctions on Russian oil to then further, as my colleague from Colorado mentioned, further fuel Putin's war machine in Ukraine and potentially elsewhere. So I want to I want to not pretend like these things exist in silos because they do not exist in silos. Everything is intersectional, everything is related to the other. Would you both agree that really everybody reaching five percent of GDP on defense spending requires a strong thriving economy in each of the NATO countries we work with?

Congresswoman, we want strong thriving economies across NATO.

Especially to get to that five percent. General?

Absolutely. I mean, from a selfish military perspective, the bigger their GDP is, the more military capability the alliance will have.

Exactly. And our allies have other pressures that we don't experience being 5,000 miles away, other pressures like border security in Finland, in Estonia, other pressures like some of the other NATO countries that I haven't mentioned being a little bit nervous about purchasing from American defense companies and thinking perhaps, you know, if we're going to see this type of bullying from the White House, we can just purchase in from European countries who we all know do not have the same exquisite capabilities that we have here in the United States. So I just I'm frustrated, I think you've heard it on both sides today, at the schizophrenic positioning because a strong economy in Europe equals more defense spending equals a stronger NATO equals the greatest deterrence to Putin across the board. And yet we're not seeing a tariff policy or a co-production policy or European purchasing policy that matches all of all of our goals here. And I think you'd have a lot better case to make if we had a more consistent policy across the board. That's not a question, but please, you may respond if we have 45 seconds.

Just just briefly on on the matter of co-production, we are very... Just briefly on the matter of co-production, we are very open to co-production where it makes sense. We don't want to pursue things just for maybe just for like a symbolic win or things of that nature, but we're completely open.

But sometimes symbolic is the strengthening of our economies to reach a mutual end.

Well, if it's strengthening the economies, I say it's beyond symbolic. But I concur. General.

Congresswoman, I've seen a couple of examples of co-production agreements or licensing agreements that are paying off, in particular in Germany with their industrial base. There's some Patriots that are created in Germany now. There's new 155 plants that are being made. Parts of the Leopard 2 tank are actually made here in the United States that then get shipped into Europe to be assembled there. So I think there are potential win-wins. We just have to find those complementary opportunities.

I think we can do a lot more with that. I appreciate your answers and with that I yield back.

Thank you. And the chair now recognizes myself for five minutes. As the representative from Hampton Roads, Virginia, so strong military presence, especially our United States Navy down there, certainly a privilege. And I appreciate this administration's strength, peace through strength approach that we take every term. I think it's quite different from the last administration where we saw a lot of weakness and a lot of predicaments that we are in right now with Russia and Ukraine, with the aggression of China, with what happened in Israel. I don't think we would even be in these positions if we took more of a peace through strength approach and kept the world on their toes. And I echo the sentiments of Congressman Kelly, who I certainly hope that our NATO allies especially know that we have their backs, that we will be there for them. I think we show that at every turn and that's why we again are focused on that strength piece. I want to talk a little bit about Operation Epic Fury and we've been in this operation now for two weeks in the Middle East and we're seeing our burn rate of our precision-guided munitions is staggering. And the shipbuilders, sailors, and military families in my district understand that we can't be the arsenal of democracy if our shells are empty. So are you currently being forced to prioritize Ukraine's immediate operational needs over the long-term replenishment of the U.S. European Command's own reserves, General?

Congresswoman, we are not. We are striking a balance between those requirements.

And at what point does the current burn rate of munitions across Ukraine and the Middle East begin to create unacceptable risk for EUCOM readiness?

Congresswoman, we're monitoring the situation closely, monitoring the burn down of munitions and assessing the impact on our plans. If I could defer the answer to the classified session, I think I'd be able to give you a much more fulsome response.

Sounds good. And I wanted to ask a question too about the USS Ford. I know it's been in the news, especially in Virginia. A lot of sailors on board from my district again. But recent reports indicate that there was a fire that left over 600 sailors without beds, forcing them to sleep on floors and tables. We've asked, we've reached out to Navy OLA who can't provide really good answers. So I'm just wondering if either of you can verify the current living conditions for these sailors. And furthermore, as we push these platforms towards these record-setting deployment lengths, which the Ford is looking at almost 11 months, at what point do some of these non-combat maintenance failures impact our mission success?

Congresswoman, the good news is just on the last part of your question is so far the combat capability of Gerald R. Ford has not been affected by this. Certainly there are some quality of life impacts that U.S. Central Command is working on. We're actually going to help them in U.S. European Command with some of the sustainment and repairs here in the coming weeks. So I'd defer to U.S. Central Command to give the specifics. I know there's an investigation ongoing and I wouldn't want to presume the outcome of that, but know that EUCOM is going to help take care of those sailors from your district.

Okay, great. We'll be, we'll certainly be watching. And as EUCOM infrastructure is increasingly supporting combat operations against Iran, are you seeing any strain on medical care, housing capacity, or childcare services for the service members and their families in the EUCOM region?

Congresswoman, we've currently got several thousand folks who have come from the U.S. Central Command region, dependents that we are hosting in Europe. That is causing some strain in certain areas that we're actively working cases as they come up, you know, making sure children are able to get into schools and that families have houses to live in. Most are being housed on the economy, but we do have some that are in military facilities as well. So we're working all of that. As far as medical care, we prioritized, as you know, at Landstuhl, we have a medical hospital that's second to probably only Walter Reed in the world. And that is a key medevac place where we are bringing wounded back or folks that have other injuries not related to combat operations back through there. So that has caused us, caused us for a couple of weeks to defer some elective procedures and we had some maternity care that was where we set folks up with off-base providers so that we could increase the capacity to handle what might happen from Epic Fury. Fortunately, we've been able, based on the flow rate through Landstuhl, to reinstate all of those at Landstuhl itself.

That's good news. And are there any additional resources or congressional support that would help ensure these quality of life services keep pace with the operational demands of the mission?

Congresswoman, I'll definitely get back to you on that and check to see if there's any details. None come to mind right now, but I appreciate the question and I'll confirm an answer.

Let us know. I know our quality of life, just the task force work we did last Congress, it continues to be a priority, especially in places like EUCOM. So and I yield and I now recognize Mr. Congressman Ryan from New York for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you both for being here. I know this has been a topic, but I do think it's important to hit on in that bipartisan way as we've heard over and over. So I want to take just a minute on Romania specifically and build on that and press a little bit more on that. The chairman rightly hit on this, I think both in his opening and in his questioning, but just to compound and add, we have set this target, allies meeting the target as you all have said. In Romania specifically, they're accelerating towards that 5 percent of GDP. They're set to reach or exceed 3 percent in the next one to two years. They've committed 30 percent of their defense budget to procurement, including updating their fighters, expanding missile defense capabilities. We all know and have talked about the historic and very encouraging investment at MK in terms of a $2 billion expansion, which would be a capacity for up to 10,000 plus NATO troops. And even gone so far as to sign a major deal with Rheinmetall in terms of ammunition capacity and being independent, which so as we've said, but bears repeating, they're doing everything we've asked and more. And the response to that is us pulling back. And I just, one, I think obviously that is wrong, but two, what I'm concerned about is the message that that sends to all of our allies, particularly those in your AOR, General. And I know these are delicate conversations, but can you give us a little bit more color of what the candidly the response was when whoever had to deliver that news to the Romanians that after them doing everything we've asked, we're essentially saying we're rewarding that by decreasing our presence.

Congressman, I can talk to the military response then I'll defer to Secretary Zimmerman for the political and civilian level discussion. At the military level, the chief of defense understood the decision. As you might expect, he wasn't happy with it, but he understood the decision. And between the two of us on one of my recent visits to Romania, we discussed opportunities for the United States to continue providing support in advance to help advance this burden shift to Romania that you described and they are a model ally in so many ways. And so we have plans to help them onboard the M1 Abrams tank that they're purchasing from the United States. That'll require us to rotate some of our capabilities through there so they can see how to employ that advanced capability and just make them better as quick as possible. We still have just under 1,000 troops in Romania today and with that rotational presence it'll be even higher, but we're fully committed to that relationship. The chief of defense knows it and he appreciates that.

Do you think if we went back to what we were at or even went further, that would strengthen the signal not only to Romania but to other allies in the region?

Congressman, someone mentioned this to me the other day, but you've never heard a combatant commander say they didn't want more capability. I would say...

Right. And just in the interest of time, I just wanted that general sense that obviously that would be welcomed. And I do just in the interest of time want to shift to a different topic and follow up with you, General. To your credit, you've spoken on this, General Cavoli, before you we've heard as a committee that we are in real time learning the lessons of this new nature of warfare in terms of drone warfare and what we've seen in Ukraine. And then to watch, you know, just absolutely the horrific incident in Kuwait. And I know we all and appreciate that you both acknowledged our love and respect and grief with those families of those that we lost. How can we speed up the lessons learned that especially in your AOR, General, we're seeing? And what can we learn from the Ukrainians? What can we learn from others? And is it fair to say that we just have to rapidly accelerate a very different force posture from certainly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? And what can we do? What can the committee do? Because I think we're all very worried about that after that horrific incident.

Congressman, thanks. So this is something that we've been very focused on given the drone threat as we see it in U.S. EUCOM and of course you see it in U.S. Central Command now as well. One of the things that we've done is we've taken some of the technology that has worked in Ukraine, we have pulled it out of country, purchased it ourselves, and we've done experimentation both in Poland and in Romania as well to help them thicken their drone defenses. Because of that work, we were then able to rapidly deploy some of these unique capabilities into the U.S. CENTCOM AOR. Unfortunately, it didn't prevent the situation in Kuwait, but we do have priority locations that we're working with CENTCOM on right now. And again, I can give you a little bit more on that in the classified session just for reasons of operational security, but we are working that hard. It's very important work and we're proud of it.

Thank you, sir. Yield back.

Gentleman yields back, and I recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. McGuire.

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. McGuire.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today, and to all of our military and our veterans, we wouldn't have our country without our men and women. Thank you for your service. As we mourn our veterans, excuse me, as we mourn our losses, we need to make sure we live a life worthy of their sacrifice. We got to finish the job, and we're all about teamwork. One of the big concerns for me is the quality of life for our military active duty in your AO. So I'll be asking you some questions eventually about that. But I'll start off with General Grynkewich. Given that the world has become a more volatile place, there's still a need for rapid response in the United States. I'm curious about how the combatant commands plan to respond.

So, Congressman, thanks for the question. You know, in U.S. European Command, we have a number of response forces that are on call. As I mentioned in my opening statement, I consider us a power projection platform. So those response forces are not just for our use inside of Europe, but for power projection into Africa or into the Middle East. And I'm confident that our men and women are able to respond extremely rapidly. Having those forward positioned does give us a geographical advantage. It just decreases the distance we might have to cover and gives the president much more flexible options.

Given the reduction in force in Europe, how has the requirement evolved in your AR with regard to forces like the U.S. Marine Corps?

So the requirement hasn't evolved at all. We maintain a standing requirement for Marine capabilities. I can go into precisely what that is, but I would say across European Command, AFRICOM, and CENTCOM, there's no better force than U.S. Marines for some of the immediate crisis response that could, that we might need. And we have continued to advocate for that capability in our tri-command region.

I often hear the commandant of the Marine Corps say we need more amphibious ships, so we're doing our best here in this committee to help support that effort. Secretary Zimmerman, allied burden sharing has been a great priority for this administration, and the president's efforts have rightfully spurred our NATO allies to spend more on their own militaries. What tools do you have at your disposal to further position European allies to meet NATO capability targets?

Congressman, I appreciate that question because it's not just spending, it's what you're spending Congressman, I appreciate that question because it's not just spending, it's what you're spending on and what capabilities you are developing. I'm pleased to say that EUCOM, and General Grynkewich knows this intimately, is engaged with all the NATO allies to take a close look at what their key capabilities are and to ensure that they are focused on those areas. And my team as well, in our engagements, is laser focused on the capability targets. And I'll just mention one more thing if I may, which is the issue of readiness. Because a lot of these countries may have a unit or an asset that looks good on a spreadsheet, but also needs to be combat credible as well. And so we're asking that question too.

What areas still require U.S. leadership or industrial capacity that Europe cannot yet replace?

Congressman, that analysis is very important and it is, I understand it is ongoing right now. And perhaps I could ask the general to speak to this.

Congressman, there's some things, as President Trump has said, that the U.S. makes the best in the world. So air defense capability, we make the best in the world. That's one where European capacity just simply isn't there yet. Our fighter fleet and some of our shipbuilding is absolutely essential. So there's some shared production capability, but those are a couple of the areas that I would highlight.

And this is a question for either one. How many countries have reached that five percent contribution mark?

I think, and this is a dynamic situation, I think right now we're at two, but what we really care about is the path to get there. They committed to five percent by, was it 2035? So we count it a positive thing if they are on that trajectory.

That makes sense. And just curious, out of those two, has anyone exceeded that five percent?

Yes, Lithuania and Estonia might be right on the edge. General, do you have information on that?

Yeah, this year I think that's right, Secretary Zimmerman. Next year I project it'll be five or six allies that meet that. Poland was just below the five percent as an example last year, so I anticipate they'll exceed it this year.

With regard to quality of life for our troops overseas in your AO, have you heard of any of these NATO countries actually building barracks and helping our troops with quality of life?

Yes, sir, absolutely. We've got several nations that have already started executing that, Lithuania being one of them. All of the Baltics have made offers to do some of this work and have started building, if not facilities for the troops, facilities that we can operate out of. And the Poles have indicated a willingness along with a few others.

Well, the last question is how can this committee better support your efforts?

Congressman, I'm extremely thankful for everything that the committee's done. I think, you know, there's a couple of initiatives that we're working with our policy teammates on. Some of that is related to prepositioned stocks and what the right amount is to allow rapid response and give the president more options in the event of a crisis. So those are some of the areas I'd ask for help.

Gentleman's time's expired. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Sorensen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses today. I'd first like to take a moment to honor the 13 men and women who have been killed as part of our war against Iran. The thoughts of everyone in the state of Illinois are with their loved ones, their friends, and their communities. And to the 200 service members who are healing today, we wish them a speedy and full recovery. I'm proud that my home is just one mile as the eagle flies from the historic Rock Island Arsenal, one of the nation's largest and most historic. My neighbors know the effects of war, but also know the responsibility that we have to sustain and support warfighters and peacekeepers everywhere around the world. But today things seem different. From some time now, we've been hearing that our munitions and interceptor stockpiles are no longer sufficient, while our defense industrial base is struggling to meet a wartime demand. But we also need to account for supporting our allies, like Ukraine, who is fighting for their survival today. So question number one to you, General, with missions in Venezuela, in the Caribbean, the Eastern Pacific, now Iran, is it harder to support Ukraine when there are so many moving pieces and rumors coming out of the White House about new postures and new theaters in Cuba or Greenland? What does it mean for our munitions stockpile and our support for our allies in Europe?

Congressman, thanks for the question. Obviously, every time we expend a munition, that's one less munition in the stockpile that needs to come off of a production line. But what I would say is we watch that very closely. We're monitoring it, and again, I can give you a little bit more detail in the classified session on what we think the impacts would be over time. With respect to support to Ukraine, the OSW policy has been extremely supportive of my requests for continued support to Ukraine. You know, we take Ukrainian requirements, we filter those and validate them, we farm them out to either allies to fill or put them into pearl packages, and thus far, I can say that those pearl packages continue to be built and shopped around to our allies.

So European allies now are building new munition factories themselves. To what extent, if at all, are we coordinating with our European allies with our American industrial base to make sure that we're integrating our sustainment and our munitions efforts?

Yes, sir. One of the great strengths of the NATO alliance, which is kind of a boring wonky part of it, is that we have an extremely strong NATO standards process that develops standards for equipment and how it ought to operate and what the interoperability ought to be. So I'm confident that that, again, is one of our strengths, even though it's a little bit wonky.

My neighbors in Rock Island are prepared to be part of that wonkiness, and we want to be part of the solutions. So thank you. Mr. Zimmerman, I appreciated your testimony that you mentioned learning lessons from the battlefield as it relates to Ukraine. I'm so excited about Sky Foundry and the role that the Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center at Rock Island will play in it. How are you making sure that the lessons from Ukraine are actually getting to our organic industrial base?

Congressman, it's vital that we do this. And I can tell you that since October, my team has been meeting with Ukrainians every week in partnership with our services to look at the battlefield lessons learned that they have accumulated and to make sure those can translate into real capability delivered to the warfighter. So there's many stakeholders in this, and we're actively engaged on a continual basis.

Could we work together? Because I think that we need to be doing better. I mean, we have an incredible capability of 3D printing drones at Rock Island and ramping up capacity, but time is wasted if we don't have that quick coordination. So I hope you can give me your word that we can prioritize this better. I just had General Boyd from the Illinois National Guard in my office about a half hour ago, and I appreciate that you align with him so well and that there's more that we can do together. Thank you so much, and I yield back.

I would be happy to be in touch with you about that. Let's please be engaged.

And with my remaining time, I did want to talk about, you know, Congressman Messmer had brought it up, the Illinois National Guardsmen partnered with Poland since 1993, and we look to develop new partnership with Portugal. To the general, could you talk a little bit about the importance of our partnership in Illinois with these two countries and expand on your remarks from Congressman Messmer?

Yes, sir. Maybe I'll say it this way. I graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1993. And if I was a graduate who was in your National Guard, I would have been building a relationship over those 33 years since then with Polish officers and leaders. And so you just can't replicate that. The repeated deployments, the exchanges back and forth across the Atlantic really builds deep relationships and trust that absolutely matters. And it builds readiness on both sides, right? The Polish military is better because of that relationship, and our National Guard is better because of the training and the relationships that they have.

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Guam, Mr. Moylan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Assistant Secretary and General, thank you for your presence and your statements. I really appreciate that. Regarding the drone warfare and Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, General, you mentioned some lessons that were learned, and what is our preparation now for future wars of those lessons that we learned regarding this drone warfare?

Yeah, Congressman, thanks for the question. You know, there's a ton of lessons. I think if I could summarize it in one way, it would be that affordable mass has returned to the battlefield. And you need a high quantity of lower-end capacity on the modern battlefield to generate the combat effects, whether it's in the air domain or as a substitute for artillery, these drones are making a tremendous impact. And it's not just airborne drones. We've got unmanned vehicles that are on the ground doing everything from logistics to medevac to operating as mini tanks, if you will, and doing direct fire missions. So there's a ton of things that we can learn. I would also say, though, that that doesn't obviate the need for higher-end capabilities. And those, you know, so the way I think about it is you need kind of a mix of high-end capability and lower-end capability. The more expensive, exquisite capability that can go after your most acute threats, and then a high volume of things once that acute threat or that air defense system has been shut down, bringing mass back into the battlefield. So that's how I think about it and draw the lessons.

And are we sharing this information with INDOPACOM?

Absolutely, Congressman. Absolutely. We are in constant contact with INDOPACOM through our policy teammates. Information flows to them as well, but there's direct linkages from our lessons learned enterprise into the Indo-Pacific.

And were you coordinating with CENTCOM on this issue prior to Operation Epic Fury?

Sir, the lessons are constantly flowing. So, you know, I spent a lot of time in CENTCOM when I was there just a couple of years ago. We were already watching how things were evolving in Ukraine. I'm confident that that's continued.

Thank you. And then to the Operation Epic Fury, General, and we're talking about the munitions situation as well, tell me how you see the IBCS efforts to help you control our ammunition situation.

Well, the great thing about IBCS is that it allows an integrated architecture that a variety of different capabilities can plug into, allowing you to be more efficient in your overall defensive laydown. So there absolutely is a connection to, because of that battlefield efficiency, to what your expenditure rate is and therefore what your projected requirement would be in any tactical situation. So, you know, I've been a fan of IBCS for a while. I think it is a great capability that we're bringing on board. We're going through some of that modernization now with our capabilities in US EUCOM.

Very helpful. I know Poland's using it. Can you see the significance for Guam to have it?

Sir, I'd leave that to Admiral Paparo to answer, but I would tell you it's been a great success for us in all the places that I've seen it.

Thank you very much. And also, sir, with your title as Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, if Guam would be under attack, would you see NATO invoking Article 5 to come to Guam's aid?

Yeah, Congressman, there's a specific carve-out in the Washington Treaty that prevents territories in the Pacific, it geographically constrains what the alliance is covering. So I certainly think it would be a policy and political discussion should that happen. But I know that whether Article 5 was triggered or not, many of our NATO allies would be interested in a multilateral response to assist the United States with defense of any territory, no matter where it is.

We'll work on that, and thank you very much, General, Assistant Secretary. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chairman.

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New Hampshire, Ms. Goodlander.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I'm grateful to my distinguished colleagues on this committee for having a hearing in which, in an institution that doesn't always find common ground, we have very solid common ground when it comes to the issues that have been before us today. And I want to first begin by joining my colleagues in expressing my heartbreak over the loss of 13 patriots, service members who gave their lives to our country. We are praying every day for their families, for those who have been wounded, and for those whose safety and success still on the front lines are constantly on our minds and in our hearts. I think it is worth reiterating some of the basic principles and commitments that have come out of this discussion today because our friends and our foes across the world, from Warsaw to the Kremlin, should hear loud and clear this committee's commitment to the NATO alliance, this committee's commitment to our friend and ally Ukraine, this committee's understanding that Vladimir Putin and Russia, they're an adversary to the United States. And you have both agreed with these basic propositions. They're important now more than ever to reiterate loud and clear. So do I have your agreement, General? And I thank you for your distinguished service to our country, but you would agree with these basic principles that we've talked about today.

I would, Congresswoman.

Well, I thank you for that. I want to ask you about Operation Epic Fury. And the basic question I have is, were any of our NATO allies consulted before the President unilaterally launched this operation in Iran?

Congresswoman, I would not be the one to answer that. That consultation would have happened at the political level, so I'll defer.

But on a military-to-military basis, were there any discussions or consultation in advance of the operation? Did we seek to secure any support from our NATO allies in advance of the strikes?

In military-to-military channels, we did have some broad discussions without revealing the exact contours of the operation for operational security reasons, and that allowed us to secure the access and basing that we had at the start of the conflict.

In terms of consultation with our NATO allies, was there any consultation?

Congresswoman, my answer will reflect that, that we did have some discussions, but in all instances, we will be endeavoring to preserve operational security.

Sure. Okay. But the NATO alliance, you would agree, is important for our interests and important for the United States of America right now in the midst of this war in Iran.

Congresswoman, the judgment of the importance of the alliance is ultimately a political question. I would say at the military level, we're absolutely focused on our tasks that we've been given by the North Atlantic Council and the 32 heads of state and government, which is to deter and defend every inch of territory. But ultimately, it's a policy question as to what is the value of that that we bring together.

Well, I think you've spoken compellingly about the military importance of this alliance. I want to ask you about, General, in your written testimony, you testified to Russia being an enduring regional challenger. You laid out the threats that Vladimir Putin poses to the United States homeland, to the American people. Can you speak about how his fortunes have shifted in the past two and a half weeks? What have been the operational impacts, if any, on Russia now having access to way more revenue than they did just a few short weeks ago? With the, just to be clear, with the administration's decision to loosen oil sanctions on Vladimir Putin.

Congresswoman, what I would say is, you know, the battlefield is a constant, it's affected by a number of dynamics that happen. If Vladimir Putin is getting increased funding right now, I would say that has not yet manifested on the battlefield. The Ukrainians have even been able to go on the offensive in a couple of areas. I can give you some of the reasons for that in the classified session, but the dynamics are constantly shifting. It's a complex battlespace, as you'd appreciate.

It is, but as a general matter, a windfall in revenue for Vladimir Putin is not good for the national security of the United States.

I think that ultimately that's a policy question, Congresswoman. From a military perspective, if he puts it into the Russian military, it becomes more of a military problem for any of his adversaries, and I'd just leave it at that from my level.

Well, my time's expired. Thank you. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlelady yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go to this issue of this question that she's on. I do think that removing the sanctions on Russian oil helps Vladimir Putin more than it helps America and our partners. And I don't agree with that decision. I know neither of you made it, but I want to be clear about this. It was the Biden administration that said India could buy as much oil as they wanted at any price that they wanted to from Russia. And had the Biden administration actually enforced the sanctions against the sale of Russian oil, especially the billions of dollars that in transactions with India, then I do believe that the war in Ukraine would be over. And so it was Janet Yellen that said India could buy as much oil as they wanted from Russia at any price that they wanted. That said, I do agree with the statement that has been made that lifting the sanctions, I think that has been a strategic mistake. It's widely publicized that Russia is helping Iran with targeting US troops right now. And let me tell you something, helping Russia in any way, shape, form, or fashion is not good for America. I'll leave it at that. I want to go to you, General. You had one of your predecessors, General Breedlove, is someone I have a tremendous amount of respect for, even though he is a graduate of Georgia Tech. I know that you spent some time in Athens as I did, and I'm glad cell phones weren't video cameras back in the late 80s, early 90s. But I was in the business school where you were in the history school, so maybe things were a little calmer over there. But one of the things General Breedlove has talked about with regard to NATO is the lack of a Black Sea strategy. And I don't think the world recognizes just how important that small area of water is geographically. The port of Odessa, arguably one of the most important ports in the world with regard to food supply. Could you just speak to the Black Sea and how important that is just from the standpoint of the global food supply and the port of Odessa?

Sure, Congressman. I mean, I think there's a number of things about the Black Sea that make it extremely strategic. There are, as you mentioned, the grain exports that come through the Black Sea and with a choke point in the Bosphorus that it's extremely fortunate that we've got a NATO ally that controls that and is able to help us with ensuring access to the Black Sea when appropriate. I'd also say the Black Sea has a number of energy resources within it. Several of our allies have offshore capabilities in their or offshore resources in their exclusive economic zones that they're concerned about in the Black Sea. And of course, it's a line of approach to the Caucasus and to the Middle East. So there's a number of reasons why the Black Sea is a central key terrain.

I get to this, Mr. Zimmerman, because I just do believe that any settlement when it comes needs to have discussions about the Black Sea. Obviously, that would include Turkey, who has done a pretty straight job, no pun intended, with the Montreux Accords. I think they've followed it to the letter as best anybody could. And I mean, geographically, that part of the world and the port of Odessa especially is extremely important to the global food supply. I do want to mention that the Baltic State Initiative, Secretary Zimmerman, I understand that the Department of Defense did not request funding for that. Can you speak to that issue briefly?

Congressman, my understanding is that the Congress has appropriated and authorized 200 million for the next year, and we are in the process, I believe General Grynkewich's team has put together some SSCI proposals for that, and we're in the process of reviewing.

All right. Thank you for that. I want to finish with this. I do believe the NATO alliance has been good for the world, but I do believe that in recent years that alliance has become way too dependent on the United States of America to cover their own territory. And I don't want our NATO partners to think that those of us who support the NATO alliance are not well aware of the non-tariff trade barriers that the European Union continues to put in against US industry. And the European Union needs to understand this, and those countries that make up the European Union. Their European Union deforestation regulations and the non-tariff trade barriers that they continue to put in to the detriment of the United States of America are unacceptable. And if they want to be a partner, then they need to be a good partner, not a bad partner. Thank you, gentlemen.

Gentleman yields back. As just a process announcement, we have two members that we're going to recognize, and at the conclusion of these two members, I won't recognize any more members in the public setting. So for those members in their offices and their staffs, if your members want to ask questions, you will need to direct them to the classified portion of this hearing, which will be held immediately after this in room 2212. And with that, I recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Vindman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Grynkewich, are NATO allies currently participating in support of US efforts related to Iran?

Congressman, NATO allies are providing access, basing, and overflight in support of our operations.

Are they directly participating in any of the kinetic actions?

No, sir, not to my knowledge.

And prior to US military action, were those allies consulted on a potential follow-on support requirement?

Congressman, I'll defer to policy on that. I did not have any discussions with them on that.

But you as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO didn't engage in any of those discussions with other militaries.

I did not.

Okay. And can you tell me a little bit about what is the current Russian budget, military budget?

Congressman, the current Russian military budget is, it's difficult to judge, but it's somewhere between 7 and 10 percent of Russian GDP.

And what is that in real numbers?

Sorry, I'd have to check. I don't have it off the top of my head, sorry.

Mr. Zimmerman, do you know what that number is?

I think Russian GDP is 2 trillion. And so 10 percent of that would be 200 billion, right?

200 billion. Okay. And then do you know how much additional money Russia is earning from the lifting of sanctions for its oil?

I can get back to you with that number. I don't know it.

Great. Estimates are it's about 150 million a day. And so for the 30-day time period, we're talking about into, and I'm a lawyer by training, not a math guy, so I think that's, you know, 4 and a half billion dollars. So, and how much of that military effort is actually being applied in Ukraine?

Congressman, I think the vast majority is being applied in Ukraine.

So I would say that then in my personal opinion, and probably shared by many, that the additional revenue that the Russians gain from the sanctions relief, the vast majority of that will probably go towards operations in Ukraine as well. So, Secretary Zimmerman, as Assistant Secretary responsible for International Security Affairs, was coalition building for potential contingencies like in the Strait of Hormuz incorporated into the department's planning?

Congressman, we plan for a range of scenarios. If you're specifically asking if we spoke to partners ahead, we undertook a great deal of operational security in...

Operational security, that translates from military speak into normal speak as like, no, you didn't speak to them.

We did have some conversations. Perhaps we can talk more in the next session.

All right. And did the department anticipate NATO or partner cooperation in our operations in the Middle East currently in Iran?

We thought that there would be several NATO allies who would be lending a hand in terms of the ABO that we discussed earlier and things of that nature.

But not in the kinetic sense. The department did not anticipate or want that. Is that accurate?

Perhaps we can talk more in the next session about that.

All right. Now the President seems to be asking for NATO military assistance. Is that accurate?

I think he's asked for warships to help the free flow of energy and commerce through the strait.

Okay. And do we have any of our NATO allies that have currently signed up for that?

We are in conversations with them.

Right now, as of this moment, have any of our NATO allies signed up for it?

Maybe we can talk more in the next session.

Okay. Well, I look forward to learning a lot more in the closed session because I'm not learning a tremendous amount right now. I would posit this, that if we want our NATO partners to join us, it's probably worthwhile asking them ahead of time before we engage in a conflict and on the back end say, hey, we would really like you to participate. But I look forward to learning more in the closed session and thank you. I yield back with that.

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. McCormick.

Congratulations on making it through the day with us today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a fine Georgian. Your predecessor was a great guy and by the way, shared one of the greatest titles of all time. I don't care what military you're in, what service, what branch, being the Supreme Allied Commander is just kind of a cool name. Very jealous about that, but I know you're going to do a great job, especially representing Georgia. One of the most pertinent questions I could ask when I had my first hearing with General Cavoli, and I asked him straight up, I said, is this war in Ukraine winnable? His answer was without hesitation, yes, absolutely. Would your answer be the same?

It would be.

Okay, great. And I'm going to throw out some things and I want you to add to what I'm going to say. Combined GDP of Europe and United States is about 30 trillion. As you stated before, Russia has roughly a 2 trillion dollar GDP, 2.1 approximately. Texas has a 2.7 trillion dollar GDP and they're not even the biggest economy in the United States. In other words, economically we dominate them. Militarily we put about a trillion dollars into our military and it's going to go up. They spend about 200 billion as you said, 10 percent of a 2 trillion dollar GDP. They're learning quickly. They've made huge advancements since the beginning of the war when they lost about half of their armor in the first year to a third-rate army and about 500,000 casualties in that first year and it's just accelerated from there. I think they're getting better. That's my understanding. I think Ukraine has learned tremendously, they're becoming much more savvy, but so is Russia quite frankly. The question is where are we at right now as far as how we can accelerate the conclusion of this war? Now I know we have some sanction issues, I know we have a lot of times we refuse to pay the price of war. We think that we're going to avoid public opinion by paying higher prices at the pump because it'll be a little bit less, as if the public opinion would shift. But my opinion is get it over fast, sometimes ugly, but end the war. We learn in command and staff and advanced war college when we're in the military, end a war quickly. Use the assets you have. By dragging on warfare, we usually lose public opinion and then we lose the war. I use Afghanistan as a perfect example. 2 trillion dollars, 20 years, 2,462 lives to give it back to the same people we took it from. And that's not counting all the lives and limbs, brain injuries, and the years we spent away from our families. What do we need to do to finish this war right now and what lessons have we learned from the Ukrainians on how to fight this war?

Congressman, starting with the second part of your question on the lessons that we've learned from the Ukrainians and just from observing the conflict in general and quite frankly observing the conflicts in the Middle East from the 12-day war and how Israel responded. I mean the application of affordable mass of drone technology on the battlefield is something that we're going to have to contend with. We've also learned about the importance of the electromagnetic spectrum, jamming, it's a dense electronic warfare environment where very few things are able to operate unless they've been appropriately hardened. So there's a number of lessons there. There's also some less obvious lessons like the importance of being able to do things like gain and maintain air superiority, which neither side has been able to do in Ukraine. And so I think there's a whole a very rich palette that we'll be studying for years to come as we try to bring these lessons into our formations and fully bring them into our doctrine. On things that we could do to bring the war to conclusion, I'll tell you I've been very proud to be part of the President's team and the military working groups that's looking to bring an end to the war to Ukraine. My focus has been on trying to set the conditions for a ceasefire if a ceasefire was achieved as part of that peace agreement. How would we implement it? How would we ensure the sides are separated? How would we reduce the risk of the war restarting by having the appropriate protocols in place when violations occurred? So that's been a key part of our focus at USEUCOM.

Okay, a fairly vague answer, but I get it and I understand how we're constrained by our answers. But I would say would you agree that Starlink and the denial to Russia on that front and the space technology we're starting to apply now is affecting the battlefield?

I would, Congressman, and I'd be happy to give you more detail.

Yeah, I'm excited about that and I think looking at the future I think once again don't take anything off the table. Finish this with ferocity, with domination like we can. We're the United States of America. We are the most powerful military in the world. If we want it to happen, it's going to happen. I'm not saying direct conflict, but I mean we intervene, we bring our force to bear economically, militarily through sanctions, through any means possible, we can end this war without the great compromise. Putin will not compromise unless he feels like he's at a disadvantage and right now I don't think he's feeling it to the extent he needs to. Thank you for your service. I'm excited about the future with you guys at the helm and I think we're going to work great together. With that I yield.

Gentleman yields back. This concludes the public portion of our hearing. We will reconvene in approximately 10 minutes at 12:45 in room 2212 for the classified portion. We are adjourned.