25 Years After 9/11: Confronting the Next Generation of Threats

Select Committee on Intelligence will now come to order without objection of the committee recess at any point. The purpose of today's hearing is to receive testimony from a panel of expert witnesses to review the new and emerging threats facing the United States in the twenty-five years since the nine eleven attacks I now recognize myself for an opening statement twenty-five years since the September eleventh attacks, one thing has become abundantly clear. The post-nine eleven intelligence challenges have expanded far beyond counterterrorism coordination. While our fight against terrorism remains a high priority, we now face a broader and more complex security environment. To be sure, the nine eleven commission's core lessons of improved information sharing and coordination within the IC and the law enforcement remains as critical as ever but the threat landscape has evolved significantly over the last twenty five years. Consider technicolog technological advancements in AI, quantum computing, drones, cyber and bio-threats. Consider our country's renewed focus on competition in conflict with great powers and strategic rivals. Asymmetric and irregular warfare, foreign malign influence, economic warfare, espionage and grey zone aggression, all increasingly common threat streams. We've seen China and Russia exploit domestic security gaps and take advantage of our counter-intelligence vulnerabilities. The list of new threats could go on. Complicating matters, our adversaries often combine cyber operations, campaigns, economic pressure and military posturing into coordinated strategies. So while post-nine eleven reforms improved coordination and enhanced inf information sharing, the IC must continue adapting, especially in the counter-intelligence space. This means strengthening public-private partnerships, expanding open source and technical capabilities, and improving analysis of both immediate plots and long-term strategic risk. Modern intelligence must be integrated, adaptive, and capable of detecting threats across foreign and domestic, private, physical and digital, and military and economic domains. Furthermore, the IC must improve collaboration across jurisdictions and foster an environment in which various elements of the IC bring their expertise to the fight. The bottom line, today's threat, environment calls for the same degree of reform and improved integration that was realized in the ath- aftermath of nine eleven. At the same time, the United States must not and need not replicate the surveillance architectures employed by totalitarian and authoritarian regi regimes. Such systems run counter to the character of our nation, our constitutional tradition, and our commitment to protecting the inherent rights and liberties of its citizens. The United States' enduring advantage lies not in abandoning these principles, but in preserving them. Accordingly, reducing unnecessary barriers between intelligence collection and law enforcement must be accompanied by rigorous oversight, appropriate safeguards, and a heightened sensitivity to the inherent rights and civil liberties of Americans. This challenge was present twenty-five years ago following the attacks on nine eleven, And it remains so today. I believe this panel of witnesses will greatly assist us in addressing the national security imperatives of our time, while safeguarding our sacred liberties as citizens. I now recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Connecticut, Mister Hymes, for his opening statement.

Thank you, Chairman Crawford, and thank you to our briefers for being here with us today for the second public event as part of our bipartisan review of the nine eleven commission report recommendations led by Representative Stefanek and Godheimer. Almost twenty-five years ago, the worst terrorist attack in US history killed nearly three thousand Americans including over a hundred and sixty residents of Connecticut. I was in Lower Manhattan that day, my office was about two hundred yards from the point of impact of the two planes. Uh, I will never forget it, I will never forget the concussions, the unbreathable air, the debris, the dozens of empty ambulances and fire trucks where terrorists had murdered not just innocent people but the helpers, and those trucks sat empty just as automobiles at train stations sat empty for days afterwards. So we decided to do something about it in my own small way. In that moment I thought I'm going to do what I can to make sure that this never happens again, and so it's um particularly poignant to be here today with all of you who have uh done so much to study and to address the challenges that led to that horrible day. Make no mistake, as we look at where we are today, um the intelligence community and the armed forces have done an absolutely remarkable job keeping us and much of the rest of the world safe. It's not an accident that we haven't seen an attack of the scale of what we saw on nine eleven again. That is due to the patriotism and the competence of our intelligence community, which I will point out is regularly being attacked by this President of the United States for specious reasons. It is those patriots who have kept us and the world safe, along with their cousins in the armed forces, many of whose members, by the way, sit on this panel and in the United States Congress today. So this is personal for all of us. I would ask the question, and it's maybe just tangential to the work of this commission of how are we doing strategically? Cuz on nine eleven, Al Qaeda was a known entity, and yeah there was terrorism here and there, experience with terrorism in Europe and Northern Ireland, Germany and Italy. But if you look at the globe today, the Sahel is a nest of terrorism. In the Arabian peninsula, as far east as Indonesia, strategically are we doing better than we were doing twenty five years ago. It's hard to conclude that we're not, and it's interesting to consider what we should be doing about it. Following the nine eleven attacks, Congress established the bipartisan commission to identify why we failed to detect and stop the nine eleven plot before it occurred. The commission's report highlighted the centrality of intelligence in detecting threats but also found that the US intelligence community struggled to work together to see all the pieces of the puzzle. As we have conducted this look back on nine eleven it's clear that there can still be stovepipes and biases to overcome. One theme of the nine eleven commission's report was the failure of imagination that led the IC and policymakers to not understand how terrorists could exploit weaknesses in airline security as they did to such devastating effect. As we think through the existing and emerging threats, it's important that we think as creatively as our adversaries about our vulnerabilities so we can defend ourselves. Today we have a chance to hear from our from four national security experts about the new and emerging threats facing the US and how the IC can best be postured to detect and warn against those threats. These include strategic competition with Russia and China in multiple domains, the growth of AI, and its many applications and the expansion of unconventional and gray zone tactics including cyber warfare. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about how the IC is positioned to cover these topics and where improvements need to be made to keep America safe. And once again, I want to take this moment to thank the remarkable men and women, the patriots, the unbelievably competent people in the IC and the Department of Defense and our armed services who have done so much over these twenty-five years to keep us safe. Thank you, and I yield back.

I thank the gentlemen. It's now my my privilege to recognize the Chair of the HPSI's Nine Eleven Commission Review Task Force, the distinguished gentleman from New York, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, to give an opening statement.

Thank you Chairman Crawford, Ranking Member Himes, and my Co-Chair Josh Gottheimer for the bipartisan partnership on this Nine Eleven Commission twenty-five year review. A failure of imagination was identified by the Nine Eleven Commission report as one of key leading failures that led to Septem- the September eleventh attacks. At the time, Afghanistan seemed very distant to most Americans. Islamist terrorism, while known, was not considered an impending threat. Using aircraft as weapons seemed far-fetched at the time. But was it that far-fetched? Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups had used suicide vehicles before to wreak havoc. They used other modes of transportation as well. In the USS Cole attack, for example, Al Qaeda used a boat. So was it such a stretch of the imagination that Al Qaeda might leap to other vehicles like aircraft? In retrospect, the answer is easy, no. Using aircraft as weapons was not out of the question. The problem was a failure of imagination by policymakers, law enforcement, and in the IC. That is the core objective of today's hearing. We cannot afford another failure of imagination. the risks are simply too high. The threats that have emerged over the last twenty five years are much broader and more complex than were present at the time of nine eleven fueled by an extraordinary technological revolution some of these threats include great power competition artificial intelligence foreign malign influence campaigns drones hostile use of emerging technologies and vulnerabilities littered throughout our critical infrastructure. We need our IC and law enforcement agencies to think creatively, proactively, and seek innovative ways to get ahead of the new threats we are seeing today. We must go on offense. We need to preemptive we need to take preemptive moves to thwart our adversaries. With all the challenges we are confronted with today, we cannot allow ourselves to become complacent. To be sure, this is an immense challenge that we must tackle head-on. That is why task force on the nine eleven commission has held briefings hearings both classified and unclassified with the IC and law enforcement officials. We visited the Pentagon nine eleven memorial and we'll visit the memorials in Shanksville in New York City. The American people are counting on us to forge a path forward in an uncertain future. I look forward to continuing this important discussion with our excellent panel of witnesses on confronting the next generation of threats facing our nation. And I wanna thank all of the witnesses for participating in today's hearing. Yield back.

Gentleman yields to thank her for her statement. Now I recognize the co-chair of the HPSI nine eleven commission review task force, the gentleman from New Jersey. Uh, Mr. Gottheimer.

Thank you, Chairman Crawford. Thank you to co-chair Stefanek for your leadership, uh, as well as the ranking member, and to our witnesses for being here today. Twenty five years ago, September eleventh was the darkest day in our nation's history. Losing three thousand souls in New Jersey where I live, we lost that morning and more than eight thousand who've perished since. They were friends, neighbors and family. Thousands of Jersey and New York law enforcement, firefighters, EMT's and other heroes answered the call and rushed toward the pile as others ran out. Many have continued to rush toward danger since, as the ranking members said, heroes in the intelligence community and armed forces who've done just such a remarkable job, chasing every lead to protect our country. Many of the committee have reminders in their district pieces of steel and in their town squares so we never forget. That's part of our challenge here on the nine eleven commission is to make sure we never forget that we make sure that we stay on top of our current challenges and threats. If you ask how they were able to summon the courage then they will tell you they were simply doing their job that day. In Congress we have a solemn bipartisan duty to make sure it never happens again. Today's hearing is our second public session as part of the bipartisan review of the nine eleven commission report. The commission's findings were simple. We have the dots and we just didn't connect them. So today we're examining how its recommendations have actually been enacted, what's worked and what still needs to change, and whether our intelligence community is built to protect Americans and warn against the threats coming next. We're fortunate to hear today from some of the sharpest national security minds in the country about the threats we face today and the ones we haven't yet imagined. Terrorism hasn't gone away but the threat picture has grown far more complex. Twenty five years ago an attack took years of planning, training camps and dozens of people. The government acted, changing the way we organize to ensure Intel wouldn't get stove piped. Today with new threats we must make sure that's still the case. AI is collapsing all of that, letting a small cell or a hostile government move at machine speed. As ranking member of this committee's subcommittee on the National Security Agency in Cyber I strive to best equip our intelligence community to combat these threats of tomorrow in cyberspace while understanding our adversaries' capabilities and we must use our imaginations. so that we don't fall into the traps that we did twenty-five years ago. And as co-chair of the House Commission on AI and Innovation Economy, I've worked every day to position America to win the AI race against China, while putting common sense guardrails in place to protect America's national security and critical infrastructure. As we keep watch on terrorists and criminals, we must also defend our grid, water systems, and ports from cyber attacks, bio-attacks, counter foreign disinformation online, and make sure America, not Beijing, sets the rules for this critical technology. So today we look forward to hearing from you about what threats you see now and in the future. What's coming? What do we need to be prepared for? How do we re- need to reorganize to best position the intelligence community and the US more broadly to defend against them? Thank you again for your service and for being here today, and I yield back.

Thank you gentlemen. Other members of the committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record. I'm pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses before us today on this very important topic I ask now that our witnesses uh please rise and raise a right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before the permanent select committee on intelligence of the United States House of Representatives will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Thank you and please be seated. I want to thank all of you uh witnesses for joining us here today and it's now my distinct privilege to recognize Mister H.R. McMaster for five minutes to summarize his opening statement.

Uh, Ranking Member Himes and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the privilege of testifying before this committee. It is encouraging to see the committee invest in a bipartisan examination of emerging challenges to national security and to our prosperity. This hearing is occurring at a critical time because our nation and our intelligence community are struggling to adapt to four evolving threats to American security, prosperity and influence in the world. First, an axis of hostile aggressor states, centered on the revanchist powers of China and Russia, that have coalesced in recent years and are collaborating in an effort to tear down the existing rules of international discourse and replace them with a new set of rules that favor their authoritarian forms of government and in China's case in particular its statist predatory economic model. Second, the development and proliferation of disruptive technologies, such as those associated with artificial intelligence, quantum computing, bioengineering, hypersonics, offensive cyber, counter-satellite, and uncrewed and autonomous systems. Hostile states and non-state actors are striving to weaponize those technologies against the United States and other nations. Third, The People's Republic of China's economic aggression, including industrial espionage, the control of critical supply chains, and overcapacity, overproduction, and dumping on international markets. Fourth, political subversion and cognitive warfare that aims to erode Americans' common identity, exacerbate political polarization, and reduce confidence in democratic principles, institutions, and processes. The acts of aggressors care little about who wins our elections. What Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and other members of the axis want most is for large numbers of Americans to doubt the legitimacy of election results. The intelligence community is well aware of these threats, and I deeply appreciate this committee's call to action. In my statement for the record, I have identified some of the opportunities uh to to understand and anticipate emerging threats so that policy makers and operators can integrate all elements of national power and efforts of like-minded partners to protect our nation and our way of life. Thank you again for the opportunity to be with you and to be with my distinguished colleagues.

Thank you, Mister uh General McMaster, I now recognize Doctor Seth G. Jones.

Thank you, uh, Chairman Crawford, Ranking Member Himes and distinguished me- members of the committee, uh, for this opportunity to testify on this important topic. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September eleventh, two thousand one, the nine eleven Commission was helpful in identifying the nature of the evolving terrorist threat to the nation, US intelligence gaps and policy recommendations. later, I would argue the international landscape, the threats to the United States, and the intelligence challenges have dramatically involved in ways that we are not fully prepared to deal with. The US, uh, and its allies face a serious and growing threat at home from an authoritarian axis, as my colleague mentioned, led by China, that also includes countries such as Russia, Iran and North Korea. Uh, in my view, China and the Chinese Communist Party presents the most serious state-based threat to the United States including in the homeland. Uh there are a number of other threats, including terrorist groups that are um I identify in my uh written testimony. I think what is important to to also note is while the US's geographic position between two oceans uh was once a major source of security I think the US is now witnessing an end were largely an end to sanctuary um and US intelligence agencies need to adapt. I'm gonna focus most of my brief comments on grey zone and irregular threats. Um the the US faces a significant threat from a number of state and non-state actors in the irregular or grey zone area. These include information and influence operations, offensive cyber operations with some of my colleagues are gonna s more specifically about covert and clandestine action uh by intelligence forces from adversary states including sabotage and subversion. We've seen the Russians, particularly the main intelligence director of the GRU conduct sabotage and subversion across Europe including uh targeting US bases in countries like Germany and then economic coercion uh I just wanna talk briefly about the Chinese uh which uh present probably the most significant state-based threat to the US. China's intelligence services, uh the Ministry of State Security, but also the Ministry of Public Security are engaged in intele in in extensive intelligence collection and activity in the United States. The two thousand twenty-six uh conviction of John Rogers, a former senior advisor for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors who collaborated with Chinese intelligence. is only the most recent example of the Chinese intelligence threat to the United States. Uh, in addition, we see China expanding its uh intelligence collection overseas against the United States, including building signals intelligence or SIGINT platforms in Cuba, uh, which can monitor uh recordings of US cell phones and other activity in the southern part of the United States as well as building space-based ground uh uh locations in countries like Argentina uh in the Western Hemisphere. Also see uh cyber operations, information and disinformation operations, Beijing actively involved in pushing back against any company or organization that criticizes or potentially criticizes China. We've seen action taken against the National Basketball Association or NBA, Hollywood Studios. uh where there is uh uh a deep reluctance to to uh put out movies that criticize China. It's a it's a major difference from what we saw during the Cold War uh with the Soviets, a significant united front-work activity inside the United States, and a range of other actions by China. Uh we can certainly talk about the Russians, Iranians and terrorist activity, but I do wanna just note we do see an in an end or are s- are seeing an end of sanctuary in the United States. Uh, Russia, China, North Korea all have intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities capable of targeting the United States including mobile launch. And there's also, as we saw with Operation Spider's Web with the, uh, Ukrainian strikes in Russia, uh, a - an advance in drone capabilities. So I just want to thank the committee for holding these hearings. Uh, honored to be part of that and look forward to the questions. I yield back.

Thank you, Doctor Jones. We'll now move to Mister Frank uh, Salufo.

Chairman Crawford, Ranking Member Himes, uh, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Every opportunity to testify before Congress is an honor, but this hearing is different. It's personal. It's personal to me as it is to everyone in this room. Twenty-five years ago I testified before Congress days before nine eleven on the counterterrorism threat and again days after nine eleven on homeland security and critical infrastructure security. Then I had the privilege to to go into the White House like Miss Stephannik did, we worked in the Bush White House together and uh played a very and had the honor of playing a very small role in shaping uh the the uh response and uh where we go from there. Uh and as we remember those lost and honor those who answered our nation's call, I wanna spend most of my time looking ahead. Mister Chairman, I believe this committee has it exactly right, and I applaud Rep Stefanek and uh Gottheimer for the work that they're doing uh with their report. The homeland itself has become a contested operating environment, end stop. That's the thesis and everything around that I think will uh will then start to make some sense. The question before us then is what rea what that reality demands us to do differently. Twenty-five years ago, terrorists weaponized commercial aviation. Today, America's principal adversaries increasingly seek to weaponize the systems upon which our modern society depends. Our energy systems, communications, transportation, financial systems, our space-based and undersea infrastructure, and increasingly the artificial intelligence systems that will accelerate each of them. Cyber is the connective tissue that links them all. Cyber is no longer simply about stealing information or disrupting networks. It has become one of the principal means through which strategic competition is increasingly conducted below the threshold of armed conflict. That fundamentally changes how we think about homeland security. The strategic warning lights are blinking red. History may not repeat itself, but it tends to rhyme. There's a whole lot of rhyming going on right now. Volt typhoon, flax typhoon, salt typhoon, Russian sabotage, Iranian proxies, the extraordinary lessons emerging from Uk Ukraine about drones, autonomy, and precision strike. Viewed collectively, they reveal coordinated campaigns designed to shape the strategic environment long before the first shot was ever fired. Individually they are storms, collectively they've become the perfect storm. Too often we investigate incidents. Our adversaries conduct campaigns. Too often we look at the world through our boxes and org charts. Cyber over here, counter-intelligence over there, critical infrastructure somewhere else. Our adversaries don't organize around our bureaucracies, they organize around our vulnerabilities. Artificial intelligence will accelerate every one of these trends. It will compress decision timelines, increase the speed and scale of cyber operations, enhance autonomous systems, amplify influence campaigns and generally lower the bar to sophisticated weaponry and capabilities. AI is not simply another policy issue, it's an accelerator of strategic competition itself, which raises an important question. Had Beijing developed the world's leading AI capability first, would there have been a public debate? Would there have been a press conference? Or would we have only discovered it after we were burnt? That difference matters because it reflects fundamentally different approaches to strategic competition. Recognizing that reality fundamentally changes how we define success. Strong defenses remain indispensable, but we cannot fire wall our way out of this problem. Sophisticated adversaries will occasionally penetrate even the best defended networks. Success is no longer measured simply by preventing every intrusion. It is measured by whether our adversaries can achieve their strategic objectives once they get in. Can America still govern? Can we communicate? Can we mobilize military forces? Can we keep the lights on? Can we project power? America must be able to operate through compromise. But resilience alone is not enough. For too long our adversaries have dictated the tempo of competition while we measure success about how well we respond after the fact. That's a losing proposition. We must regain the initiative. We must shape the competitive environment before it shapes us. This is the strategic logic behind defending forward, persistent engagement, and the appropriate use of offensive cyber uh capabilities. Not because offenses in end unto itself, but because preserving freedom of action, imposing costs, and preventing adversaries from achieving strategic effects, requires more than reacting after the fact. Twenty-five years ago America confronted a fundamentally different threat. We responded by fundamentally changing how we defended the homeland. We challenged assumptions, we reorganized institutions, we forged new partnerships, most importantly we adapted. That is the enduring lesson of September eleven. Now that, not that we got everything right, but as a nation we proved we could evolve when the threat evolved. Today, today's threat has changed again. The question before us is whether we will adapt before circumstances force us to. because we can't afford to look in it look into the future marching backwards through rear-view mirrors. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. And finally, uh, Doctor Buchanan.

Thank you for having me, Chairman Crawford, Ranking Member Haims, Co-Chairs Stephane G. and Gottheimer, and members of this committee. My name is Ben Buchanan. During the Biden administration I served on the National Security Council and as the first ever White House Special Advisor for AI. I'm now a professor at Johns Hopkins University, the author of four books and an outside advisor to AI and cyber security companies, including Anthropic. As many here have noted today, the nine eleven commission famously concluded that the attacks revealed a failure of imagination, in which the government's inability to take seriously a threat that did not fit existing categories, uh and uh led to devastating strategic surprise. Twenty five years later, AI presents in its own way a similar kind of challenge. The technology is advancing faster than our institutions are adapting, and the most important data points come from outside government in private companies. Let me make three points to ground our discussion. First, AI is unlike many of the other technologies that are relevant to national security, such as satellites, nuclear weapons, and hypersonic missiles. Those technologies typically developed over decades, largely through government direction and oversight. While AI certainly has its roots, decades ago in government funding, the modern paradigm of large scale neural networks backed by giant computing power comes almost exclusively from the private sector. This renders the government far less able to understand and to shape the technology and it increases the risk of strategic surprise. Second, we should recognize how powerful AI is today and how its capabilities today already bears significantly on intelligence operations and US national security. Some of the questions that were fiercely debated just a few years ago have now clearly resolved. Some of the ideas that were once hypotheses are now clearly conclusions. For example, the nation that can best invent AI and deploy it in offensive and defensive cyber operations will enjoy a distinct advantage over nations that do not. We must continue to take actions such as denying the sale of advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China that ensure the United States enjoys a decisive and proactive lead. Again, the threat here is not hypothetical. For example, in November twenty twenty five, Anthropic reported that a Chinese state-sponsored group had used its clawed model to run a largely automated cyber espionage campaign against roughly thirty companies and government agencies across several countries, with the AI carrying out estimated eighty to ninety percent of the tactical operation on its own. Google has likewise reported that Russian military intelligence deployed malware in Ukraine, that used AI to enable its operations against Ukrainian targets. And the barrier to entry is falling for criminals too. In twenty twenty five, Anthropic exposed a cyber criminal operation that used AI to hack into and extort a wide range of targets with the AI automating reconnaissance, credential harvesting, and network penetration. Other criminals have used AI similarly to develop and distribute ransomware, including against American critical targets. Third, we should expect AI to rapidly get much better. This is one of the m most important cruxes for this committee. The most important input to AI capability is computing power, and the largest US technology companies plan roughly seven hundred billion dollars in capital spending this year, overwhelmingly on AI infrastructure. This is akin to a Manhattan project every two or three weeks. More powerful systems will follow this investment, especially at companies uh developed more efficient algorithms that use that computing power. In addition, AI systems are increasingly helping AI developers train their successors, a major step known as recursive self-improvement. For example, in early twenty twenty six, OpenAI released a model that it said was the company's first model that was quote " instrumental in creating itself", end quote. Anthropic has reported similar progress. Independent analyses by the non-profit Meter find that the length of tasks that leading AI systems can complete on their own has been doubling every few months. The best models today can now handle tasks that take a skilled software engineer several hours to achieve. Putting these three things together, government unfamiliarity, proven national security relevance, and strong reasons to expect rapid future progress in AI systems, should yield a stark sense of urgency. AI will enable a lot of good, but it will also raise new and grave concerns in areas as diverse as cyber security, bio-security, and accidental loss of control. The committee is right to focus on this technology, and I am honoured to help you however I can in this endeavour. Thank you.

Thank you, Doctor Buchanan. Um, I now recognize m myself for um five minutes for uh questioning. I wanna throw some things out here because I mean we're here to talk about, you know, kind of this retrospective on nine eleven, what did we learn, Have we employed uh what we've learned? Um how are things better? Are they worse? So on and so forth. But um I think that in the immediate aftermath of nine eleven there was an a you know, obviously a a a desire to get after the counter-terrorism fight. And I in in so doing we put so much into that fight that I think we may have taken our eye off the ball as it applies to some of these nation-state actors and um uh counter-intelligence to protecting uh the homeland and our assets here at home. So I wanna get um i if you all wanna weigh in on this some dis distinction between counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence. And I know that the lanes merge occasionally.

Thank you.

But I'll I'll start with you, General McMaster. I mean if you would comment on that where you see us uh and and I would all a ask all of you do you think our counter-intelligence posture as it is currently is adequate to meet the threat that you have laid out today.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. Uh, the counter tel- intelligence threat has has lagged way behind, and and I think you are have pointed to one of the causes, which is I think the understandable and appropriate priority uh in the area of counterterrorism after the attacks of nine eleven. But this occurred at the same time when I was I this axis of aggressors was coalescing and gaining confidence gaining more confidence. Remember when when Putin takes over in the year two thousand, He gives that New Year's Day speech and he says, hey we have to get our act together and then we go on the offensive, in his quest to restore Russia to national greatness. This is the same time as well that China is being allowed into the World Trade Organization,

Mm.

and and reaps the the windfall from that, and then applies those profits to to vastly grow its military, I think forty-six fold, uh since the year two thousand and one, but also invest quite heavily in the MSS and the United Freight uh uh United Front activities, and at the same time we're opening our economy to them and we're being infiltrated by PLA scientists and others who are there to extract intellectual property to extract know-how apply it to gain commercial advantage, but importantly to gain military advantage. Also at the same time what we were doing is actually underwriting our own demise by investing in Chinese companies. Uh one of them is called Everset, one of those is is for Paradigm. There are many other examples where US banks, US private equity firms invested in these companies, and now those two companies I mentioned do ar do all the offensive cyber tools for the PLA and do all the battlefield artificial intelligence uh for the PLA. So we were not only so f behind, I think we were extraordinarily negligent in this period of time, and I think we're racing to catch up and we have a lot of work to do, Mister Chairman. Thank you.

Doctor Jones.

Mister Chairman, uh one of the uh big challenges leading up to nine eleven was information sharing across federal, state and local agencies, which was a problem leading up to the attacks on nine eleven. So one of the one of the uh uh solutions was the creation of organizations like the National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI itself, uh as well as the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the f- and some of the fusion centers and states. Well, the unfortunate reality is that most of these organizations, none of them really are are sufficiently equipped to deal with the threat from state-based actors. So we are not sharing information, in fact I would argue that our fusion centers and our JTTFs uh, and most of our state and local entities don't even know what to look for, aren't equipped uh t uh to look for the activities of the uh uh MSS in our States, uh the United Front Work Workers' Activity, and they're often the ones with that are the sort of front-line organizations uh that may see it ideally on a on a regular basis. So I do not think we are prepared for this intelligence challenge inside of our own borders, and we don't have the infrastructure to effectively deal with it.

Thank you. Mister Silipo.

Oh, not much I can add to that, 'cause I agree a hundred percent. One thing though I will add is we've gotta move beyond information sharing toward operational collaboration in a cyber environment. So, when you look at the cyber sets of issues, who's on the front lines of this war? Industry, private sector, SLTT, state, local, tribal, territorial. They don't have the resources. None of them went into business thinking they have to defend themselves against foreign intelligence services, but that's precisely what they're doing today, that's what's being asked. So when I look at the broader counter intelligence challenge, it's not just spy versus spy. Of course our intelligence services and agencies are gonna have secrets that are always gonna be of uh top desire to our foreign intelligence adversaries. But if you're MSS today, you're looking at frontier model companies. You're not necessarily looking at what you can steal from CIA, 'cause it's a harder target, or NSA, or you name the uh alphabet soup agency. So I think we've gotta actually rethink counter-intelligence. It's not just the traditional spy versus spy, information versus information. It's who holds the keys right now is not gonna be in government alone. So how do we get our arms around that challenge? And then very briefly, pre-nine eleven, uh if if you were to ask me when I had the privilege to to work for the president uh uh after nine eleven, I would tell you the biggest and greatest breakthrough uh after nine eleven was not the creation of new bureaucracy, it was the synchronization of authorities. It was the title ten, title fifty synchronization that culminated through JSOC, joint special operations command, that ultimately had massive impact in our ability to to to prosecute the war on terrorism. That said, a lot of our infrastructure was state-based. before nine eleven, it's sorta like this fulcrum, we keep going back and forth. Now we've gotta recognize that we've gotta walk and chew gum simultaneously. You're still gonna have non-state threats, transnational criminal organizations, they're gonna have access to much more sophisticated weaponry, but you're also gonna have nation-states that can bring all source intelligence to the problem.

Thank you, and Doctor Doctor Buchanan, final thoughts.

Yeah, I think my colleagues have covered it well. I I would emphasize what Mister Salufo said about the range of counter-intelligence targets being broader now, including private companies, in a way that uh is rooted in the private company's invention of this technology. And I would note as well that I think counter-intelligence operations will change as a result of artificial intelligence. Of course cyber operations have already changed, but even if you look at things like human intelligence and detecting human intelligence operations uh it is a different technical paradigm that yields different kinds of analysis that uh AI alone can do and I America has to be prepared uh to adjust that changing technological landscape.

Thank you. Rankin, member Himes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General McMaster, I wasn't gonna go here, um but you brought up uh concerns about the election and the division that generates amongst Americans. Um and of course we all watched Thursday night as the President of the United States lied to the American people, told the American people that there was a massive Chinese interference effort, which never happened and for which there is no evidence. And he told the American people that there was a massive deep state cover-up of this effort which never happened and for which there is no evidence at all in the record. The latter troubles me intensely because it serves the purpose of our adversaries who are working very hard along with the President of the United States to develop anxieties, concerns, and skepticisms about the core function of our democracy. Not to mention the fact that it flies in the face of the thousands of analysts who go to work every single day so that the people who repeat those lies don't get turned into pink mist at the Pentagon or at the World Trade Center. So you brought it up. Um, on nine eleven, even on that day, I thought about these terrorists and I thought about their nihilistic, violent, disgusting ideology, and I had no doubt that they couldn't end the United States. And I sit here and look at the threats from Russia, Iran, China. And I actually think we win those battles too, for all the right reasons. So I'm kind of with Lincoln. Lincoln said, " If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." And I think we're headed down that road. General McMaster, I looked through your written testimony. I didn't find what you said about election doubt. Um, but you said some pretty powerful things. Give me another minute or so. What's happening? Who's behind it? And should Americans trust in their electoral process?

Yes, first of all, yes, Americans should trust in in the electoral process. Uh certainly there are improvements that can be made and I think in the face of of these kind of attacks to reduce our our confidence in the outcome of elections, we should do everything we can to make elections more transparent and more secure, while guaranteeing access to all qualified voters. I think there has to be some movement forward to make it more transparent, whether it's ID_s, whatever it is, I mean I I know that Congress is is working on this. Uh to your to your point really, um what what our adversaries want is they want Americans to doubt the legitimacy of the result. And what happens too often, whether it's the President or whether it's certain members of Congress, uh of both political parties, when they raise doubts about elections, they're actually doing the bidding of our of our our adversaries. This happened ab- about the tw- twenty sixteen election. We know what happened on on on uh on on January sixth of of uh twenty uh twenty one. Um, we see these current sta- statements by the President, but I think any time a political leader compromises confidence in our democratic uh processes to score partisan points, I think that they're actually aiding and abetting our adversaries, who wanna reduce that that confidence. So I I think i it's incumbent I think on on all of us to be more transparent and more secure with our elections, but also um you know hold one another accountable uh if somebody is trying to you know to raise doubts about the legitimacy of our elections uh it to to score partisan points or gain advantage.

General you you you you served in the highest national security roles in the first Trump administration, uh the nation respects you. Do you believe that there is any systemic or or or organized effort on the part of the intelligence community to mislead the President of the United States? Is there a deep state plot to keep Chinese interference uh from the

No, I d no, I did not.

Okay. Um, as I said, I don't think there are a lot of people that I respect more in the realm of national security, but I'm going through your statement here and, and I just think your statement is wrong. The intelligence community is engaged in protecting US citizens from cognitive warfare. The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigates foreign influence activities. No, it does not. The foreign influence task force was dismantled at the FBI. You say the cyber security and infrastructure security, like CISA, helps ensure citizens' confidence in elections. No, it does not. They've lost a thousand people, thirty percent of the staff, morale is in the toilet at CISA. You say the Department of State tracks foreign propaganda and influence campaigns abroad. No, it does not. The Global Engagement Center was eliminated. These are odd things from an administration that is doing everything they can to generate the notion that there are attacks on election. None of these statements ODNI, um, the Foreign Malign Influence Center, eliminated. So let me ask you as an expert and highly regarded, how are we doing with respect, you, your statement here suggests that we're doing the right thing. How are we doing in identifying these attempts?

Well, Carson, there there are obviously still people within the intelligence community working on these portfolios. Those offices have been uh been greatly reduced in terms of numbers, as you as you mentioned. Uh many of them gone away. I remember, you know, when the Biden administration came in, they got rid of the China uh office uh within the Department of Justice. uh yet investigation still continued uh on on uh on on a the full range of Chinese espionage and and influence activities. So I mean these are what these organizations are engaged in. I think that there has been again the self-destructive behavior in both political parties uh to to compromise our confidence in our institutions and of course, you know, this these efforts

Wait a minute, I'm sorry General. Um you said both political parties,

Yeah. Yeah.

tell me about what the Democratic Party

Well, I mean there's there's a long list, I mean, going back to twenty sixteen,