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Broadcast, internet trolls, fake news and so on are an integral part of Russian Foreign policy today. We need to put this in the context of the quarter century since the end of the cold war. World war ii in europe or the great patriotic war as russians call it is integral to the experience of every living russian. The countrys National Narrative is impossible without it. In 1941, hitlers armies were stopped just outside the gates of moscow. In 1945, stalins armies entered berlin. That was russias greatest generation. Generations of russians since then have been taught that their country was at its most secure then because it was protected by a buffer, the warsaw pact and the soviet empire. In 1991 russians lost that buffer. The legacy of their greatest generation. With their country falling apart, russian leaders had no choice but to accept this loss. For as long as russia would remain weak. The 90s were a terrible decade for russia but a great decade for the west. For russian leaders, and many regular russians, the dominance of the west came at the expense of russias loss in the cold war. Russia would not remain weak indefinitely. Its economic recovery led to a return doing much more assertive posture, on the world stage. We saw it in the crushing of georgia in 2008. In the annexation of crimea in 2014. And we see it to the present day in the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine. For the west, russias return to the world stage has been nothing more than pure advantagism. For russia its restoring some balance with their relationship with the west. The narrative of restoring the balance, correcting the injustice and the distortions of the 1990s has been the essential absolutely essential to the russian propaganda since the beginning of the putin era. Those russians who disagree, are branded as foreign agents and enemies of the people. Russias capabilities should not be overestimated. Its gdp is 1. 3 trillion verses u. S. Gdp 18 trillion. Russian defense spending is 65 billion, thats a little more than President Trumps proposed increase in u. S. Defense spending. The Russian Military is stronger than its smaller and weaker neighbors. Yet the balance does not favor russia when compared to nato. A nato russia war would be an act of mutual suicide and the kremlin is not ready for it. Russian leaders have embraced a different tool kit. Information warfare, intimidation, espionage, economic tools and so on. This toolkit is meant to make up for russias conventional shortcomings, visavis the west. The kremlin has a number of advantages here. The circle of deciders is limited to a handful of Putin Associates with similar world views. They have considerably resources at their disposal, especially since most of their tools are quite cheap. A handful of cyber criminals, cost a lot less than an armored brigade but can do a lot of damage. Russian meddling is viewed by the kremlin as an unqualified success. That payoffs include, one, a major distraction for the United States. Damage to u. S. Leadership in the world. And perhaps most importantly, the demonstration effect. The kremlin can do this to the world global superpower, imagine how other countries see it. The differences between russia and the United States are profound and will not be resolved soon. This is not a crisis, not something that will pass soon. Its the new normal. We will see russia relying on this toolkit in the months and years to come. In the Upcoming Elections in france and germany this year and our own future political campaigns. Deception and active measures have long been and will remain a staple of russian dealings with the outside world for the foreseeable future. Thank you. Dr. Rumor, thank you. Mr. Watts . Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today. In april 2014, andrew wisebering and i noticed a petition on the white house website. Alaska back to russia. As a public campaign. Satirical petitions appearing on the white house website are not out of the norm. This gained 39,000 online signatures. Our examination of those signing on the petition revealed an odd pattern. The accounts very considerably from other petitions and it appeared to be the work of bots. A closer look at the bots tied in closely with other social media campaigns we had observed pushing russian propaganda months before. Hackers proliferated the networks and could be spotted amongst data breach and website defacements. Closely sirkling them were honey pot accounts. Attractive women, political partisans that were trying to social engineer other users. Above all we observed hecklers, those synchronized troling accounts you see on twitter that would attack targets using similar talking points. Those accounts promoted Russian Foreign policy positions targeting English Speaking audiences. So it soviet active measure tactics have been reborn and updated for the modern russian regime. Today, russia hopes to win the second cold war through the force of politics as opposed to the politics of force. While russia certainly seeks to promote western candidates sympathetic to their world view, and foreignpolicy objectives, winning a single election is not their end goal. Russian active measures hope to topple democracies through the pursuits of five objectives. One, undermine citizen confidence in governmentance. Two, exasperate political fissures. Three, erode trust between citizens and their institutions. Popularize russian jaends and create confusion by blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Five, very pertinent issue today in our country. From these objectives the kremlin can crumble democracies from the inside out, achieving two key milestones, one, the dissolution of the european wo, the break up of nato. This will allow russia to reassert its power globally and pursue its lines through democratic. In late 2014 and 15 we watched it on any u. S. Audience, whether it be claims of the u. S. Military declaring law or the standoff at the bundy ranch, russian news characterized as white outlets turned out false news stories and conspiracies. They lined up under a few things. One, political messages designed to tarnish Democratic Leaders and institutions. Two, financial propaganda created to weaken confidence and Financial Markets and capitalist capitalist. Three, social unrest crafted to amplify divisions among democratic populaces. Four, global calamity such as nuclear war or catastrophic climate change. From these overt russian propaganda outlets a wide range of English Speaking website s which we refer to as gray outlets some of which mysteriously operate from Eastern Europe, senationalize sensationalize these conspiracy theories. What i described earlier, working aside automated bots amplify the russian propaganda. Through the end of 2015, and start of 2016, the russian influence system began pushing themes and messages seeking to influence the outcome of the u. S. President ial election. Russias overt Media Outlets sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with views towards the kremlin. They were in full swing during the republican and democratic primary season. May have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to russian interests long before the field narrowed. Senator rubio, in my opinion, you suffered through these efforts. The final piece, has materials were strategically leaked. The disclosures of week wikileaks. They demonstrated how the influence system is built in the previous two years. Im example, on the evening of 30 july 2016, my colleagues and i watched as sputnik news simultaneously launched false stories of turkey being overrun by terrorists. Within minutes automated bots amplified this false news story. More than 4,000 tweets in the first 78 minutes after launching this false story, linked back to the active measures accounts we tracked in the previous two years. These previously identified accounts almost simultaneously appearing from different geographic locations and communities amplified the fake news story in unison. The hash tags pushed by these accounts were nuclear, media, trump, benghazi. The most common words found in englishspeaking twitter user profiles were god, military, trump, family, country, conservative, christian, america and constitution. These accounts and their messages clearly sought to convince americans a u. S. Military base was being overrun in a terrorist attack. In reality, a small protest gathered outside the gate and the increased security at the air base sought to secure the arrival of the chairman of the joint chiefs. Many accounts we watched pushed the false story focused on the elections in europe, promoting fears of immigration or false claims of refugee criminality. They have not forgotten about the u. S. This past week, we observed social media accounts discrediting speaker of the house paul ryan hoping to foment unrest inside Democratic Institutions. The implications will be twofold. The first is what the world is witnessing today. A russian challenge to democracies throughout the west. More importantly, over the horizon, russian provided hackers and disrespectful of Civil Liberties a playbook for Information Warfare. The u. S. In failing to respond to active measures will surrender its position as the worlds leader. Forego its role as defender of democracy and give up on over 70 years to preserve Civil Liberties around the world. Russias strategic motto for america in the west is divided they stand and divided they will fall. Its time the United States reminds the world despite our daytoday policy debates, some political squabbles, we stand united in defending our democratic system of government from oppressive authoritarians and suppressive humanity. I have many recommendations in my written testimony. I ask my full written statement, which includes these recommendations be submitted into the record and i hope that during the question and answer session we can further discuss how we might counter these active measures. Thank you for inviting me. Mr. Watts, thank you for your testimony and all of written testimony will be included as part of the record. The chair and vice chairman are going to exit and vote. Im going to recognize senator risch for his questions and in our absence, hell allow back and forth based on seniority. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, it always impresses me, the fact when we hear people talking about russian policy and what they want. First of all, how uniform it is. Everybody seems to agree on where theyre going, what they do and what theyre doing to get there. But after processing that over a long period of time, one has got to come to the thought process of what happens in a post putin russia. Because everyone everyone has got a shelf life. And his is his has been extended, it looks to me, well beyond what normally would happen under these circumstances. So give me your thoughts, briefly, each of you, if you would, as to what happens. Do they stand the same track theyre on, or do they come to the realization that theres bigger and Better Things in life to pursue than what theyre doing right now. Mr. Godson . Well, thank you for the question. As you know, a lot of variables here at work. One would be what we how we respond to putin and the behavior of the apparatus that they have. Do we let them continue to do this, or do we start to develop some sort of a Strategic Response to them. That would be one of the variables. Do they find that they can get away with views, active measures as they have in the past . And if so, then the elite that has taken power in russia would be inclined to continue. They found that even when they sometimes have not been as effective as they expected, that active measure still is a a capability that enables them to use the example of being able to fight above their economic and political capabilities. So unless there was a dramatic change in the regime, theres little reason to believe that they would cease active measures, policy and strategy they have, barring that we dont actually cauterize it and limit its effects. If we do not, then they will have on incentive to continue. Dr. Gore . Thank you, sir. Well, mr. Putin, i believe, is 62. A man in his prime. Hes positioned to run in 2018 again for another term. I think what we see today is going to be with us for a long time. By the looks of it, for the next two president ial terms in this country. So we should base our policy accordingly. I think it would be incorrect and counter productive to tar all russians with the same brush. But there is something there in russian traditional Security Perceptions that transcends party lines, that extra sends that transcends regimes and russian doesnt change that much over time. So i think we should be thinking about the drivers of Russian Foreign insecurity policy in terms of continuity rather than radical change. After all, we already saw radical change in 1991 and things in the end really didnt change that much. And as long as, you know, russians Russian Elites will see themselves as as long as they see themselves as being inferior and struggling against a more advanced and a more powerful western alliance, they will be relying on all tools in their tool kit. And Information Warfare this this information disInformation Warfare will be part of it. We may hope that if some day someone like the corruption rises to the leadership of the country, having been a victim of information, he may be more restrained in it. But i would say that the basic parameters of russian policy are generally set in place. Thank you, doctor. Ive only got a short time left. I want to hear from mr. Watts. Yes. Regarding mr. Putin, i would look to these two gentlemen primarily. But my thoughts are, one, hes not going away any time soon. Two, he will definitely shape some sort of a successor in his place to continue on with what hes doing right now. I think the third big thing that we cant discount is the connection with criminality. There is between these elites and their predatory capitalist practices, what we see in cyberspace with cyber crime and how they have used hackers very well as part of their active measures, we cant discount that well see a predatory elite emerge that will be something we have to deal with. And i think the fourth thing, which goes to the first point, is im not sure what our policy or stance is with regards to russia at this point in the United States. I think thats the number one thing we have to figure out, because that will shape how they interface with us. Having watched the end of the soviet union as a cadet at west point and then fast forwarding to today, im a little bit lost as to what our u. S. Interests are, or how theyre coalescing. I know what i would recommend. But i think that will have a major impact on how we will be able to interface and maybe i see opportunity in putins departure. Thank you, mr. Watts. Senator feinstein. Oh, thank you, senator risch. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. And thank you for your testimony. Im sorry, i was out to vote while i missed some of it. Ive been on this committee for 16 years. And the Intelligence Community report, which is the report of all of our major intelligence agencies, which was released on january the 6th, is among the strongest ive read. It covers the motivation and the scope of russias actions, regarding