target the united states. defense intelligence and special operations officials testify about the threats posed by russia, china and other countries. >> thank you, everyone. take a seat. i have to do webx instructions. those who participate remotely must be visible on screen. they must continue to use the video unless they have technical difficulties that render them unable to participate via video. members participate regular motely must seek recognition verbally and are asked to mute microphones when not speaking. members are asked to remember to keep the video active the entire time. members -- if members depart for a short period they should leave the video doing, if they leave for a longer time or to join another meeting they should log out and log back in when they return. finally, i have designated a committee staff member to, if necessary, mute unrecognized member's microphones to cancel inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the proceeding. good morning. i call to order this first hearing of the intelligence an special operations subcommittee on disinformation in the gray zone. tuns, limitations and challenges. we're seeing unprecedented threats to our democracy and a disturbing rise of authoritarian actors. anti-democratic forces have been rapidly working to spread disinformation an misinformation and exploitfiss yours in our society. the only way to -- and exploit fissurs in our society. after two decades of war fighting terrorists in afghanistan, iraq, the middle east and africa, we have discovered a greater threat inside the wire. gone are the days when we could solely rely on the armed forces to fight wars beyond our borders. the threats an attacks are now here on american soil and at home. the 2018 national defense strategy stated that the homeland is no long aerosanctuary. our adversaries' utes of information technologies has proven that out. they feed misinformation to news outlets and social media. about the safety of veak seens and the depth of our differences. then they weaponize our own reactions to that misinformation. so we have a problem. so much so that last year, nine, i repeat, nine, combatant commanders co-signed a letter to the director of national intelligence to help combat the pervasive and damaging intelligence by china and russia. i want to hear what we're doing to help our commanders. how are we making sure information is not overclassified and how are you sign cro nicing with the state expect and with partners and allies to combat these threats. information operations is one way that the united states can protect itself and its partners against dis- and misinformation by choo in a and russia. we must develop a comprehensive strategy to protect our borders, our allies, and our interests. i look forward to hears from witness -- witnesses to support a government construct. we will hear from witnesses to tell us about that. mr. christopher mayer, acting director of defense. mr. kneel tipton, director of defense intelligence collection and special programs. mr. james sovin, defense intelligence officer. following this discussion we'll move to closed session. i understand that ranking member kelly is on his way from the airport. we'll get started and once we're done with witness statements we'll swing back to ranking member kelly for his opening statement. with that, let's start with mr. mayer. thank you. >> chairman, we're going to start with the intel brief and then shift from there. mr. gallego: go ahead. >> my name is jim sullivan, defense intelligence officer for cyber. thank you for the invitation to come down here. mr. gallegos: can you put the microphone closer to your mouth? mr. sullivan: i'm here to provide a threat landscape about our two main rivals, russia and china. i'll cover more specifics in the closed session. i'll begin with russia. russia sees the information sphere as the key domain for modern military conflict. russia prioritized the development of forces and means for information confrontation in a holistic concept for ensuring information superiority since at least the 1920's. russia wages this struggle for information dominance in peacetime and armed conflict with equal intensity using combined electronic and kinetic means an methods through information technical, information psychological, an active measures. the russian government claims nigh toe countries led by the united states created a powerful information operation system and are expanding and improving it. russia sees the information domain differently than the united states and its allies and partners. russian publications and actions indicate its government maintains a holistic concept of information con trontation, specifically information confrontation seeks to dominate the information domain through a combination of what it defines as information technical effects and seek to manipulate networks, computer and data and information psychological effects all intended to target people or a population to influents behavior or opinions. we are increasingly seeing the integrated use of cyber-enabled psychological actions distributed denial of service attacks, propaganda, disseminated through social media and strategic deception an disinformation and electromagnetic warfare to achieve strategic goals. china seeks to move public opinion to accept china's narratives an remove obstacles that prevent china attaining its goals including sustainment of the communist party regime. the chinese army has three warfares, public opinion, legal and psychological warfare as key exopets of its psychological warfare efforts. these efforts are intended to demoralize that of adversaries and affect domestic opinion. rush also takes a broad approach to include these the establishment of cultural centers, taking control of chinese language print media and the employment of cyber techniques. china views the cyber domain in particular as an ideal platform for strategic influence and deception and diinformation operation. the p.l.a. likely seeks to use digital influence activities to support its overall three warfares concept and to undermine an adversary's social cohesion economy, morale and governance. these operations are con ducted with intensity in peacetime and we anticipate they will be conducted with increased intensity during armed conflict. p.l.a. goals for social media infrunes activities fall into three broad category, promote a narrative favorable to china, undermine adversary resolve and shape foreign government's policy in favor of china's core interest that concludes my opening statement. mr. gallego: thank you, mr. sullivan. mr. mair? >> thank you, chairman. chairman gallego, ranking member kelly and distinguished committee members it's an honor to be here with you today. i'm chris mayer, acting assistant secretary of defense for low intensity conflictism serve as principal civilian advisor to the secretary of defense on special operations and low intensity conflict matters including the employment of special operations forces. i also provide oversight for information operations. building on the brief laid down on the threat you received just now from the defense intelligence agency, i'm here with my colleagues from the department of defense to discuss our approach to adversary disinformation in the gray zone and the department's efforts to gain and maintain the operational advantage in the involving threat environment. adversary use of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda poses one of today's greatest challenges to the united states. not just to the department of defense. russia and china as well as nonstate actors understand that in today's information environment they have real time access to a global audience that would first move for advantage and by flooding the information environment be deliberately manipulated information, that is mostly truthful with carefully crafted desiptive elements, these actors can gain le ram to threaten our interests. though we are here today to discuss various d.o.d. effort we recognize that we do not have a monopoly on u.s. government capabilities to combat disinformation. nor should we. the department of defense is one of a whole of government oy approach to this challenge and other civilian departments and agencies have critical roles and responsibilities which demand close interagency coordination and clear authority. coordinated interagencies affects can affect thesques of each department and agency to defend against disinformation and reach and engage global audiences. as we strive to leverage d.o.d.'s information operation capabilities in competition with malign actor we must first acknowledge as reiterated in the recently published interim national security strategic guidance, that we will actively support elevating diplomacy as our tool of first resource. d.o.d. directly supports the department of state, public diplomacy teams and global engagement center and complements the u.s. agency for global media. within d.o.d. we organize efforts to combat disinformation, misinformation and propaganda in four broad lines of effort all supported by a foundation of intelligence support, interagency collaboration and partnerships. these four areas are countering propaganda by adversaries, force protection, countering disinformation, and strategic deception brought by adversaries and deterring an disrupting adversarial ma lean influence capabilities. i'll briefly touch of each of those. countering prop began dasm propaganda, especially with a capable sponsor spreading to it suspeptable autoyes -- audiences can drown out truthful information and create barriers to fact-based messaging. public affairs is the lead in d.o.d. for countering propaganda that effects their efforts. other d.o.d. capabilities support public affairs efforts to lead pro-activly with truthful, verifiable fact-based messaging. d.o.d. efforts to engage foreign audiences everseas support the department of state's lead to inform foreign audiences. next, force protection. our soldiers, sailor, marines, air men, guardians, civilians and their families are part of the american public directly targeted by malign actors. disinformation, misinformation and propaganda. d. overple d. vie this is as a critical force protection issue. the military forces are proactive in build regular sil yens against these threats. developing digit at literacy and employing critical thinking skills are a few key measures. third, counter disinformation abroad. at d.o.d. we also draw upon operational informational capabilities such as military information support operations, often better known by its act ro nip miso, for efforts to directed against foreign awe yenses. these d.o.d. capables can amplify existing teams and messages to inform audiences that cannot be reached through traditional communications channels. at d.o.d. we pursue a comprehensive and deliberate approach, working in close consultation with states to connect with audiences globally in real time and to build communications that foreign knowledge and trust will reduce and suppress the impact of activities and timely, deterring and disrupting maligned influence capabilities. d.o.d.'s debatest strengths align fartives with actions in the domain of land, air, sea, cyber and space and weaknesses in the adversary. as we continue to seek to empower and work through part nirs, d.o.d. draws on our knowledge, skills and infrastructure to alou us to compete with maligned actors in the information environment and for the benefit of their own populations as well as our own. our partners are detering disinformation. through our ability to match words with deeds we compliment to deter maligned behaviors and incentivize and excel action. d.o.d.'s ongoing efforts to go forward to detect, assess and disrupt adversary's disinformation, misinformation and propaganda bolsters out. and intelligence support is essential to the whole of government partnerships that are key to our collective u.s. government success against adversary disinformation and misinformation and propaganda. our allies and partners are essential in reinforcing our efforts in contributing to count maligned efforts. and in sum, the department continues to invest in our capabilities and capacities so we can defeat the disinformation of our adversaries and we improve our speed, agility and effectiveness and team work across the u.s. government. we appreciate the subcommittee's attention to this issue and your ongoing support to the department's efforts in this information domain. thank you tore the opportunity to be here today. i turn it over to my colleague. we look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you for the opportunity to be here today. as previously mentioned, i'm director for defense intelligence for collection and special programs in the office of the under secretary. i'll speak to you about the support to ensure that the department maintains the challenge against the disinformation. i'll focus on my remarks in four key areas where we are priority izing support. partnerships and intelligence support and intelligence support to operations in the information environment and support to combatant commands and about the memo. i'll start with partnerships and intelligence support. underpinning is a strong commitment to a whole of government support that assesses the affects. and seeks to attribute these efforts to the responsible parties. this requires and as well as direct support from the intelligence community. the d.o.d. leverages its capabilities to gain and integrate the tools of other departments as part of a more broader approach. >> can you slow down a little, i don't have you on the clock. it may be i'm a slow lerner. >> we bring reinforcing and unique capabilities in our endeavors to their efforts and their capabilities will be recently signed defense intelligence strategy prioritizes china and russia. the strategy calls out a specific action to prioritize support through competition and influence efforts. it hill help counter campaigns and intelligence supports to special activities, influence, deception and more broadly speaking operations. we would like to highlight for the committee three specific examples of ongoing actions that is supporting through our role within d.o.d. and those are intelligence support and warfare and information environment and intelligence dissemination to support combatant messaging. and that provided some specific recommendations to the department on how we enhance these activities. amongst other things that will direct the d.i.a. to direct resources. and will help us shape and work again with the d.n.i. and national groups to drive these key concepts into the broader framework that the d.n.i. manages. and finally, i'll talk about command support. another line of support which we are providing intelligence has been through the joint d.o.d. director of national intelligence and as you mentioned in january of 2020, nine combatant commanders sent that out which asked for support for messaging as part of the competition. in sons, we partnered in an effort to streamline processes for downgrading and declassifyinging. we are looking to complete the memo by september of this year while following initiatives and to determine follow si and resourcing strategies to provide support to i.o.e. and we are working across the department to improve our training of personnel and optimize our trade craft. so the d.i.e. will continue to support these efforts and they are postured for success in this area. we appreciate your attention. this concludes my remarks and i look forward to your questions. mr. gallego: member kelly for opening statements. mr. kelly: i came off a plane. thank you for being here and thank you for being patient. thank you for your opening remarks and leadership for organizing this important hearing. we will hear from three professionals from our committees in an unclassified and classified disinformation. to highlight how we take this information, chairman has chosen it is the first official hearing of the new intelligence and special operations subcommittee. the subcommittee was briefed on the threatening activities of china last week during a full committee we heard from an admiral who described the ways the communist party is trying to ex erlt control. one of the ways that china directs this is via the perverse spread of disinformation. this is seen in china's information campaign around the coronavirus pandemic. the spread of maligned information has spread panic and distrust in the u.s. and that the navy was responsible. china is not alone. state-backed accounts in russia and iran constructed manipulative fartives about our vaccine efforts. in fact, russia has used the gray zone to spread distower. according to an article describes across multiple the state-backed sites and outline to spread misleading and false fartives to discredit the use of covid vaccines. our adversaries have used this gray zone to operate and undermine the national security interests of the united states. a memo signed last year drives home how important this issue is. recognizing the need for support from the intelligence community, malicious efforts by russia and china across the information domain. the threat is real and growing. i mentioned to our witnesses' views to train and equip our intelligence officials to counter this threat. i thank our witnesses. i look forward to continuing work with our professionals during the 117th congress. i yield back. mr. gallego: thank you, ranking member kelly. we'll go to questions and we will be limiting it to five minutes. and when you are recognized, unmute your microphone and we'll begin with me. countering misinformation is an important d.o.d. function involves how will the undersecretary work to ensure coordination efforts in this space? >> enabling activities that we have to design and implement in order to shape the outputs which for 20 years has been focused on other problems and support customers like operators in this space. mr. gallego: i appreciate the necessity of activities to mitigate and undermine. however, information operations are one small part which should be a whole approach to combat china and russian's behaviors. and the opportunities are different from ours. given the proliferation of disinformation and misinformation and propaganda would it be appropriate to call for a strategy to ensure method and efforts to our national security objectives? let's start with that. >> yes, i think it is. we endeavor to do so in a number of focused efforts. china and russia used in iran and other nonstate actors. we need to be precise as we leverage those interagency efforts and with our partners. mr. gallego: we recognize that we need to do it but try to bring it together of different agencies with different goals and different missions to be focused requires at least someone to be the coordinator of that. who is coordinating that at this point? >> we would look at the national security staff to lead those efforts. is >> we first have been directed by 922 and ndaa reinforces the role that it plays as the administrative chain of command. we have responsibilities and civilian oversight to ensure the force is equipped to do these operations and the components, navy seals, air force special operations command and on the policy side of things. >> when russia in 2016 used disinformation in a way that -- i look forward to your thoughts on that, thank you. [indiscernible] >> i would take that broadly and defer to the intell community on the specifics of this but i think it is a well recognized technique that these maligned actors are using and some of this are some of the points i made in building resilience and ensuring what is coming out of the information sources is truthful information. as to how we best counter a