Sarah Elfreth Asks DoD Official: Will Trump’s Threats To Seize Greenland Hurt Our Alliance With Denmark?

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During a House Armed Services Committee hearing held before the congressional recess, Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-MD) questioned DoD Assistant Secretary Katherine Thompson about the U.S. alliance with Denmark.

Transcript

00:00The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Maryland, Ms. Elfrith.

00:07Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:09In general, I too echo my deep condolences for the lives lost in service members and

00:14their families and echo my colleagues in congratulations and thanks.

00:17As the daughter of an entryman, he only retired as an FSC, but I greatly appreciate your 38

00:23years of commitment to this nation's security.

00:26It doesn't go unnoticed from this committee, so thank you very much.

00:29I want to correct you, ma'am, but there's no such thing as only an FSC.

00:34I think my MLA might agree with you.

00:35So I want to dig in, General.

00:38You mentioned the contributions of our allies in EU comms, such as Poland, as to the security

00:47of Europe and the subsequent security of this nation.

00:49You also mentioned Denmark as recently increasing its financial contributions here, but also

00:55critically expanding its patrol of the Arctic.

00:58Can you please just briefly expand on the importance of that particular allyship with Denmark?

01:03Sure.

01:04Yeah.

01:05Denmark, ma'am, is one of our strongest allies.

01:08The bilateral relationship from the Danish perspective is far and away their most important bilateral

01:16security relationship.

01:17I've known the prime minister of Denmark for quite a while, and she would initiate any conversation

01:27with that comment.

01:27They have been very reliable allies.

01:29They've got a high-tech military, not a big one, but it's high-tech.

01:34They have extremely competent special forces and naval special forces, and they contribute

01:39those liberally to the operations under my command as the supreme ally commander.

01:44So yeah, very strong ally.

01:46We love all our allies, but I would say that Denmark's a very strong one.

01:49You don't have favorites, but I appreciate that.

01:51Ms. Thompson, reflecting on that, wouldn't you agree that the president's threats to

01:54possibly utilize military force to seize Greenland, a territory of Denmark, could only threaten

02:00that key allyship and, again, our shared ability to address the threats, particularly from Russia

02:05in the Arctic?

02:06Ms. Thank you, Congresswoman.

02:09What I would say is I would focus on the bilateral relationship piece that General Cavoli hit on.

02:13I think that there's a lot of cooperation here, including on Greenland in particular, on the

02:18landmass, particularly we already have space capabilities there, and I think that there's

02:22opportunities and the secretary and his pull aside with the Danish minister of defense had

02:26a really positive conversation about where we could take the bilateral defense relationship.

02:30So I think there's room for growth and positivity there.

02:33Ms. Okay.

02:34Well, you've shared that Russia poses a chronic and growing threat and that they are focused

02:38on a, quote, campaign of destabilization across your command.

02:41You also spoke about the intersection of how you work with the other combatant commands,

02:45particularly around the Mediterranean.

02:46I want to switch our conversation to yet another domain, that being of cyber, and can you help

02:51us better understand the cyber wars that Russia is waging against Ukraine, our allies in

02:56NATO, your command in Europe, and can you speak to your collaboration with Cyber Command,

03:02which is headquartered just a stone's throw from my district?

03:05Yes, ma'am.

03:06I think the simplest way to get at this question is to describe roughly the two buckets into

03:16which we can consider Russian cyber operations to fall, right?

03:21Some of them are about the content.

03:22It's information operations.

03:24It's influence operations.

03:25It's the campaigns to spread their version of information around Europe and the world.

03:32Those are very, very active.

03:34Those don't necessarily involve cyber work, but can be injected through cyber vectors.

03:39But it can be as simple as a television channel.

03:42On the other hand, there's also the technical cyber work that they do, which is designed

03:48to penetrate our networks, to get into systems, to produce effects.

03:54Sometimes it's to take information, and sometimes it's to leave us problems.

04:00And they do a lot.

04:01I depend very, very heavily on U.S. Cyber Command through 16th Air Force in order to be able to

04:07combat those things and to help our allies combat them.

04:10Thank you very much.

04:11Ms. Thompson, wouldn't you agree that the continuity of leadership and expertise for

04:15any command, but particularly when it comes to combating cyber war, is essential to the

04:19security of EU comm and our national security?

04:21Just yes or no?

04:23Yes.

04:24Okay.

04:25I would contend that the recent firing of a four-star general, Commander of U.S. Cyber Command

04:29and National Security Agency Director General Timothy Howe, with no succession plan in place

04:36and no word if his replacement poses a significant threat to EU comm, Ukraine, NATO, and our homeland.

04:43Can you please speak, Ms. Thompson, briefly to the Secretary's timeline in announcing the

04:48replacement for Cyber Comm?

04:49Thank you, Congresswoman, for the question.

04:51I have to say I'm not privy to those decisions, and it's outside of my jurisdiction in international

04:56security affairs.

04:57What I would say is obviously Cyber Comm, as you've pointed out, is essential to not only

05:01the EU comm AOR, but also Homeland Defense, which is a major priority, so I would just leave

05:06it there.

05:08I would contend this is an astonishing volatility and lacking continuity.

05:11It's posing a real threat, a necessary threat to our national security.

05:15Thank you, Mr. Chair.

05:16Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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