'It's Challenging But We Need To Know': King Presses Experts On Ascertaining Allies' 'Will To Fight'

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During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) spoke about how the United States determines its allies' 'will to fight'.

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Transcript

00:00I wanted to follow up on a couple of matters that we've touched on.

00:07Ms. Wilkerson, you and I talked about this, I don't want to say it's easy, but it's relatively

00:13straightforward to count the number of tanks on the ground from satellite feed or determine

00:19the flow of ammunition or materiel.

00:23What has turned out to be very hard is to have an intelligence analysis of the will

00:27to fight.

00:29And we saw this fail in two recent examples, in Afghanistan where we overestimated the

00:35will to fight of the Afghan government and the people, and Ukraine where we underestimated

00:40it.

00:41As we look at conflicts around the world involving other countries where we're going to be coming

00:46to their defense or their assistance, how we will approach this question of the will

00:51to fight, it is much harder, but it's also incredibly important.

00:56Give me some thoughts on that.

00:58So, Senator, I did appreciate very much that conversation, and I think you make a very

01:04valid point in terms of the success of a situation really hinging upon the will to fight.

01:13I feel like it's a challenging thing, though, to try to ascertain that particular aspect.

01:20It's challenging, but we need to know it.

01:23I agree with you 100 percent, and so if confirmed, it is certainly something that I would put

01:29some focus on, understanding how could we be able to ascertain on the will to fight.

01:36The DNI has done substantial work on this.

01:38I would urge you to study, do some homework on what they've already done, talk to the

01:43DNI, talk to your colleagues in the interagency, because this is a crucial factor as we're

01:48talking about Taiwan, for example.

01:51We need to know what the commitment of the Taiwanese people are to their own defense.

01:55It just seems to me that's an important bit of intelligence in determining policy.

02:01Mr. Solmeier, a couple of quick questions for you.

02:05One is attribution.

02:08If we're talking about a cyber attack, it's becoming harder and harder to determine where

02:12it comes from.

02:14Does the U.S. government have sufficient resources in a coherent structure to do attribution

02:23of cyber attacks in a timely and reasonably certain way?

02:30Senator, the tools and the experience necessary to attribute adversary cyber activity have

02:37to keep evolving with their behavior.

02:40So I believe that historically we have been able to attribute and understand with varying

02:47levels of confidence at different times who's doing what.

02:50The difference is when the government is willing and when it makes sense to say so publicly

02:55versus to be private about it.

02:58But I commit to working with the committee and, of course, my leadership on that transparency.

03:02My question is, who is we?

03:04Is there a central office somewhere in the federal government of attribution, or is some

03:09of it in the FBI, some of it in the CIA?

03:12I'm just concerned that this is such an important question, but that institutionally, structurally,

03:20we don't have a central area to do this essential function.

03:30It's a good point, Senator, that there's a lot of different organizations, a lot of cooks

03:35in the cyber kitchen.

03:36And so because different kinds of malware have different technical specifications, you

03:41want the best experts to be able to come look at any given piece of code.

03:46So I'd want to just make sure that that community of interest is clear about who they are and

03:53that they have the tools they need to work fast and then share that.

03:56I hope this is something you'll look at with your interagency colleagues.

04:00Whenever I hear the term around here, all of government, I think none of government

04:05because nobody is responsible.

04:06So think about that.

04:08Second question for you is workforce.

04:11Are you able to recruit and retain the people that you need?

04:14My sense is there's a giant shortfall of cyber-capable trained people across the country.

04:23Does that also affect what you're going to be doing?

04:26Well, Senator, for cyber operations, that is those higher-end active defense and offense

04:33type work.

04:34We find that, at least in the Army, in my experience thus far, it's been one of the

04:38most competitive fields.

04:39For example, coming out of West Point, it's one of the hardest fields to get into.

04:44So the interest in doing it is there and coming into the service is there.

04:50I think the bigger challenge that I would commit to, if confirmed, is the retention

04:54side and making sure we stay as competitive as we can, not matching but competitive as

04:59we can with industry and being flexible where possible to keep folks who want to stay and

05:06serve on the mission.

'It's Challenging But We Need To Know': King Presses Experts On Ascertaining Allies' 'Will To Fight'

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