‘Deterrence Only Works If It’s Public’: Tim Kaine Urges More Transparency In Offensive Cyber Domain

8 months ago

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke about U.S. offensive cyber capacities.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Senator Rosen.

00:01Senator Kaine, it appears that you are finally recognized.

00:05I've been enlightened by the questions that have come before me

00:09and glad that I heard my colleagues.

00:11Ms. Sutton, in your testimony and response, I think, to a question of Senator Bud's,

00:16you talked a little bit about our allies and partners

00:18and how cybersecurity is something where there should be burden sharing.

00:23And there should be, but there's also real opportunities

00:25and work with allies and partners not just to share the burden

00:28but to take advantage of the expertise of other nations.

00:32I've been particularly involved in this committee

00:34and in the Foreign Relations Committee on the AUKUS framework.

00:38Could you talk a little bit about, you know, kind of your view about the upsides,

00:42not just in the sense of sharing the burden, but the capacities of some of our allies

00:48and how, you know, sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

00:51If we work with allies on cyber issues, we can be stronger.

00:56Senator, I appreciate that question.

00:57The United States has a strong innovative advantage with the talent that we have,

01:03but we certainly do not have a monopoly on that talent.

01:06And I think partnerships with some of our close partners and allies,

01:09particularly the Australians through the AUKUS Pillar 2,

01:12which allows us to do cooperative research and development agreements,

01:17is going to be really important so that we can ensure that we're able to share the latest

01:23and greatest technology, but also that we're able to prioritize our investments where

01:28that we're not duplicating efforts.

01:31And so working closely with all of our partners, but in particularly utilizing the AUKUS agreement

01:37will be critical in bringing the technology we need to our warfighters.

01:41I'm really glad that you brought up AUKUS Pillar 2.

01:44Pillar 1 is, you know, fairly discreet.

01:46It's about the production of Virginia-class subs,

01:49the training and the Aussies about how to operate and maintain them,

01:53and eventually working with the Aussies so that they can develop their own capacity

01:58to build nuclear subs of their own design,

02:00which would include a lot of U.S. technology.

02:02Obviously, Pillar 2 is a little more open-ended, which is good,

02:06but it also means we have to, you know, kind of define what are going to be some of the deliverables

02:11in Pillar 2, and I do think cyber cooperation is one of the areas that is probably the most fertile

02:17for Pillar 2 work, both with the Aussies and with the U.K.,

02:21and I'm encouraged to hear you bring that up.

02:24I want to follow up, too, on a discussion that Senator King and you had

02:28that I have heard many, many times in this committee,

02:31and I'm not really sure that we're as far down the road as we need to be,

02:35and that is the offensive nature of our cyber capacity.

02:39You used the phrase, we have the capacity to impose costs,

02:45but I often wonder if we are imposing costs.

02:50Your point that the defender has to be right every time,

02:54the attacker only has to be right once.

02:56We do have a good cyber defense.

03:00We're not perfect.

03:01We have a good cyber defense, and the fact that we're not perfect means

03:04a couple times a year there's a story about some cyber hacker

03:07getting into some part of the U.S. government

03:09or some critical infrastructure in the United States,

03:12and those stories are very public, and the public hears them,

03:15and the public's worried about cyber.

03:18We talk about offensive operations in other military domains,

03:21you know, the number of sorties we were flying against ISIL.

03:25We know when there's a U.S. bombing in Yemen against Houthis.

03:31We're aware of it.

03:32But we don't talk about what we do offensively in cyber very much.

03:36I think there's some reasons for that,

03:38but it ends up making the public very aware that we're under attack

03:44because the news story is a couple times a year about successful cyber attacks,

03:48but the public never hears about our use of the offensive cyber capacity

03:54to impose costs on those who are attacking us.

03:57Why can't we be a little more candid with the American public

04:02about our offensive use of cyber so that they're aware

04:05that we're not just playing defense all the time,

04:08but that we actually have an offensive capacity that we use?

04:13Senator, that's a great question.

04:15I appreciate the opportunity to address it today.

04:18As you mentioned, we have decades of experience

04:21talking about things like nuclear deterrence,

04:23and in the area of cyber, we are still going down that path of evolution,

04:29and I think there's a lot of work still to be done.

04:31A decade ago, we barely even mentioned the word offensive cyber.

04:36Today, many discussions, as you mentioned, in this area are just to start having

04:40the right discussions to ensure that we're understanding

04:49and that we set the right posture

04:50and look forward to being able to continue that dialogue.

04:54I think there's a bit of a culture change.

04:56Just as we've seen a culture change

04:58when we used to see threats in the cyberspace,

05:01we just kept them.

05:02Through establishment of things like the NSA Cyber Collaboration Center,

05:06we now work very hard to take what we see in the cyber domain

05:10and share it with industries so that they can defend.

05:13I think that same culture change needs to happen

05:15in how we discuss cyber deterrence.

05:17I look forward to working with you on this.

05:20Deterrence only works if it's public.

05:23That's part of what deters.

05:25People are aware there are going to be consequences,

05:27and they believe it.

05:28And our public needs to understand as well

05:31that we're not just the victims of cyber attacks,

05:33but that we have a well-developed capacity to impose costs.

05:36I look forward to working with you on that, and I yield back.

‘Deterrence Only Works If It’s Public’: Tim Kaine Urges More Transparency In Offensive Cyber Domain

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