00:00Thank you, Chairwoman. I want to just say that you had a statement that I want to explore a little bit. You said Russia would be a sitting duck without the United States.
00:15It makes me concerned because I hear the president publicly flirting with indulging Russia's maximalist aims, and it seems to make me really, really alarmed.
00:28Last week, a Russian deputy foreign minister said that Ukraine won't end until NATO reduces or eliminates its military footprint in Eastern Europe across NATO's eastern flank.
00:40This includes Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and so on.
00:47When I was in Estonia, their concerns for the U.S. alliance and partnership, especially under the Trump administration, had many people I talked with very alarmed.
01:00And so I'm wondering if you can expand on this line of thought and maybe impress upon this committee the dire urgency of this moment we have right now before us with Russia and with the president whose posture at times really worries me.
01:19Thank you so much, Senator Booker.
01:22It is an urgent moment, as I outlined in my written testimony, mainly because Russia is on a war footing and confrontation with NATO seems increasingly more inevitable unless the United States continues to take up a leadership position.
01:38NATO continues to deter and defend in the European theater.
01:42So Russia has, in fact, been the main obstacle to peace in Ukraine.
01:47President Putin's maximalist positions that he's not stepped away from, I think, signal a very basic truth that we've learned over many administrations, that a reset with Russia doesn't get you anywhere.
01:57I think this administration has been learning that, in fact, like other administrations have tried to reset with Russia.
02:04And I hope that they will pivot to a different strategy that means that we need to apply pressure to the Russians to come to the table, economic pressure, military pressure, and also pressure on their partners and allies that have been feeding Putin's war machine over the last several years.
02:19I hope that is the thinking that the administration is going to pursue the next several months because, obviously, the incentive model has not worked to produce results.
02:28And my staff corrected me for the record that I said Russia, but Europe would be a sitting duck.
02:33And so you said that your view of the Trump administration is that they understand the urgency for the American engagement and involvement.
02:44Am I right to assume that that's what you are implying?
02:47To be frank, I don't know if that is the coherent view of everyone in the U.S. government and in the executive branch.
02:55I do think there are some, certainly, that understand the threat. Yes.
03:00It's very diplomatic of you.
03:02I want to shift in my remaining time and talk about sort of the Arctic strategy.
03:06I was really surprised on my visit last year to Iceland to understand the extent of the urgencies and the need for America to have a greater Arctic strategy and pay close attention to really what's happening in the Arctic right now.
03:23The shortest flight path between Russia and the United States is through the Arctic.
03:27The combination of melting ice caps, as you know, critical natural resources being removed and fought over.
03:33Russia's military buildup and increasing cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic have really a lot of potential to increase tensions and expose a lot of the vulnerabilities in that area.
03:45Now, Sweden and Finland joining NATO provides to what I believe is just a great boost to the collective defense in the high north.
03:52Now, seven of the eight Arctic states are part of NATO, which is an incredible, incredible stride.
03:59I believe Russia's ghost fleets to sabotage from Russia's ghost fleets that sabotage undersea cables and critical infrastructure to protecting strategic ports.
04:09I just believe we need to expand NATO's capabilities.
04:12Now, I'll tell you, I was hearing reports when I was there that the Chinese have been doing, pun intended, fishy things in that area.
04:21And so I'm wondering from both of you, what new and emerging capabilities should NATO be considering when it comes to protecting allied interests in the Arctic?
04:30And are there gaps as you see them in NATO's current approach to challenges in the Arctic?
04:36I was hoping somebody would ask a question about the Arctic.
04:39I hope you might come with us again to the Arctic this August. I'll be in touch about that.
04:44That being said, you're absolutely right that we have a huge opportunity with the kind of strategic depth that Finland and Sweden joining the alliances provides us.
04:52Now we have a landmass connecting the Arctic Sea and the Baltic Sea, and we haven't quite understood what the opportunity there is to deter and defend.
05:02I think we have significant challenges in our logistics operations communications that are well suited for that harsh environment that we haven't quite thought through.
05:11I think there's a huge amount more that we can do to ensure that we have a defense and security hub that is closely coordinated with the Nordic Baltic aid grouping,
05:20that is closely coordinated with the NATO framework to position ourselves as the Arctic nation in the United States is, and China is not in particular.
05:29The Chinese have for years seen significant interests emerge for themselves in the Arctic and have declared themselves a near, I think a near polar or near Arctic nation,
05:40which of course they're not, and they're doing a lot through their proxies, the Russians now, to try to plant a flag and try to influence and undermine a strategic cohesion in the Arctic.
05:51But we have the upper hand there because now the seven of the eight Arctic states are NATO members, and we should take advantage of that.
05:58But I think exercise is number one, logistics and comms number two, and then we can think about maybe positioning of some additional resources and kit in the region.
06:07Mr. Rao.
06:09You are right, Senator, this is a real opportunity at the Madrid summit in 2022.
06:14The Arctic was mentioned for the first time in the NATO summit communique in 2010 at the last time, or it's not the communique,
06:21the strategic compass, strategic policy document for the alliance.
06:27The last go around, the alliance could not agree because the Norwegians wanted more NATO.
06:31The Canadians wanted to keep this a national issue.
06:33We now have more consensus in the alliance, and we've seen the Nordic powers really begin to work more with one another as well.
06:39It's the first time since the calmer union of the 16th century that all the Nordic powers are in one alliance, which is a real opportunity.
06:45And there I would just say that the Arctic Council is essentially dead, but the Arctic Seven are all in NATO, and we have capabilities that have now come on board.
06:54The Finns are world leaders in icebreaker design.
06:57They have all the Arctic powers, skills, and cold-weather operations.
07:01And I'd like to see us cooperate more also on Russian anti-submarine capabilities and exercises.
07:09The GI-UK gap is, of course, central here, where Russians from Murmansk try to break out from the Norwegian Sea into the Atlantic where they can threaten the American Atlantic seaboard.
07:18And Tony Radekin, the chief of staff of the British Armed Forces, just a few years ago, right before the outbreak of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, described the phenomenal increase in Russian submarine activity in April.
07:30General Cavoli, the SACUR, testified similarly in front of the House Armed Services Committee.
07:35These are areas ripe for more cooperation.
07:37I'd like to see us work more with the Arctic Seven within the NATO alliance and probably leave the Arctic Council, which of course includes Russia in its latent state.
07:46Thank you very much. That urgency is something I'd love the committee to focus a little bit more on.
07:51And I want to say I've never seen, Mr. Rao, I've never seen a witness throw my staff under the bus.
07:56They didn't put in my briefing document about the Arctic, the calmer treaty of 16th century.
08:03I'm going to be on my staff very upset about that lack in my briefing.
