Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) – House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations ranking member – delivered the following opening statement at a subcommittee hearing on "Disinformation in the Gray Zone: Opportunities, Limitations, and Challenges."
Remarks as prepared for delivery:
Today we will hear from three professionals in our intelligence and special operations communities for both an unclassified and classified conversation about the spread of disinformation from our adversaries. To highlight just how seriously we take disinformation, we have chosen it as the subject of the first official hearing of the new Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee.
The subcommittee was recently briefed on the threatening activities of China. Just last week, during a Full Committee Hearing, we heard from Admiral Phil Davidson, Commander INDOPACOM. He described ways the Communist Party of China uses a whole of government approach to exert control over the region.
One of the ways China conducts this external aggression and coercion is via the perverse spread of disinformation. This is most clearly seen in China's information campaigns around the Coronavirus Pandemic. The spread of malign information has sought to spread panic and distrust within the U.S. and even alleged that the United States Army was responsible for bringing the virus to China.
China is not alone in these efforts – state backed accounts in Russia and Iran have also constructed manipulative narratives about our vaccine efforts.
In fact, Russia has repeatedly used the gray zone to spread disinformation. An article in the Wall Street Journal from March 7th describes activities of Russia's Intelligence enterprise across multiple state-backed online news sites. The article outlines specific actions taken to spread misleading and false narratives to discredit the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine.
The use of disinformation is not just linked to the current pandemic, however. Our adversaries have long used this gray zone to operate, push false narratives, and undermine the national security interests of the United States.
A memo signed last year by nine Combatant Commanders drives home just how important this issue is. Recognizing the need for increased support from the Intelligence Community to combat this threat, they note malicious efforts by Russian and China across the information domain to seed discontent, weaken trust, and undermine alliances.
This threat is real and growing.
I'm interested to hear our witnesses' views on how to best train and equip our intelligence professionals to counter this threat.
I want to thank our witnesses in advance for their time today. I look forward to the continuing work with our intelligence and special operations professionals during the 117th Congress to ensure we are appropriately postured to meet and defeat the threats presented by adversaries like China and Russia.
