Congressman weighs in on U.S. deception capability, and the need to arm Taiwan

I want to start by having you give me the big picture perspective. You know, you have flown in

EC-130s, you know all about disrupting command and control. What are some of the things that you

feel the U.S. military is doing well in the information battle space, and what are some of

the things that it needs to work on? Well, we just have to remember information operations is a broad

umbrella with a lot of different subparts to it. Deception is one which I studied, you know

during some of my military education courses that I took. In fact, I'm published when it comes to deception

Also strategic communications, conveying a very clear message that you want your own team to know, but also your adversary

Jamming or electronic warfare is another subpart to this. And I did that as well

I flew on an electronic warfare aircraft for 11 years with the EC-130 compass call

And so I've had different parts of the information warfare or information operations mission

And I think democracies and America can do very well at all of this

but you have to have a plan and you have to have it well coordinated at all levels

So a lot of people will think, for example, democracies are that good when it comes to deception

but yet we've had some of the best deception efforts in the history of warfare

And if you just look at World War II, with some of the major deception plans that we operated successfully there

So America can do very well at this, but it's got to be thought out. And I think you've got to train people when they're young and raise them up to think this way

And we're very capable of doing it. And we've had some highlights. We've also had some misses

So give us some examples. How do you think we did? You mentioned deception

we talked about the diversion of the bombers during the recent operation against Iran

Do you think that worked well? Do you think it could have been done Do you think it could have been better executed What are your thoughts It seems to me that the president and the defense team did a very good job with deception

in that I think they lulled Iran to be complacent. They had him look in the other direction for bombers, but also the president said he wanted

some more time to do talks. So I think it probably conveyed a message that an attack wasn't imminent

And then we hit him by surprise. And I think using the B-2 was very good because they're very hard to detect and Iran doesn't have those capabilities

I like China has a little bit better capabilities to track the B-2. But I think the president and the defense team did a good job on this when it comes to making Iran complacent before we actually struck them

So focusing on the Indo-Pacific, one of the parts of disruption is, of course, cyber warfare

So how concerned are you that actors like China or North Korea will be able to penetrate our communications technology

That's a real threat. China is right now our biggest cyber threat

I would have said two years ago that was Russia, but China has surpassed them in the cyber realm

And that doesn't mean Russia has gone away at all. They're just as dangerous as they ever were in the cyber realm

but China's has gotten that much better. In fact, they have a cyber command that is 10 times bigger than ours

And so one of the things that I would like to get done in my last year and a half of Congress

is to help push or at least acknowledge that we've got to grow our capabilities in cyber command

We've had a steady state in size for a decade now, roughly

and we're going to have to grow this capability if we want to counter China. But cyber is a real threat from China

North Korea is a little bit lesser but they've shown they do have capabilities in this area

I think one of the areas we could do better when it comes to China is more strategic communications

We should be focusing on the Uyghurs the Tibetans What happened to the freedoms for all those people living in Hong Kong We should be able to put China on the defense here if you ask me We also need to convey that we going to supply Taiwan with the weapons they need

And as hard as it's been for Russia to conquer Ukraine, it's going to be just that hard for

China to conquer Taiwan. But I think we could do a little better communications to create a stronger deterrence message when

it comes to China in relationship with Taiwan. So on that topic, China has stated that it wants to be ready to take control of Taiwan by 2027, by force if necessary, they've said

And that is during President Trump's time in office. Do you think the military is ready for a potential conflict about Taiwan

And do you believe that President Xi means it when he tells the president that China will not invade Taiwan during Trump's presidency

Yeah, I don't think we can trust what President Xi says as much as we can't trust President Putin

either. They're both dishonest leaders, and they're in charge of totalitarian governments. So they're not beholden to their people like America is or other democracies

Day one of the war with China and Taiwan is a day too late. We have to deter that now

And we do that by providing Taiwan the weapons they need. And we're way behind in providing these weapons

But Taiwan needs lots of sea mines that can interdict amphibious ships coming across the straits

They need more harpoon missiles that can sink ships. They need more long-range air defense missiles and, I would say, ballistic missile defenses as well

These are the things that Taiwan needs now. And we should provide it to them because it will prevent war

And preventing war is the cheapest way to win in this case, right

We don't want to war. It's very expensive. So it costs money now, but spending that money now on deterrence

could save us a lot more in the long run. And so do you think that China is sufficiently deterred at this point in time No I do think them watching the struggles of Russia and Ukraine probably bothers them because everybody thought Russia could win in two weeks

Now, a million casualties later for Russia alone, they've only taken 20 percent of Ukraine

In fact, they've only taken 1 percent of Ukraine in the last two years. right? And so I think if you're China, you're looking at, boy, that's a very hard fight

How hard is Taiwan going to be? Well, they got to go through 90 miles of water. That's hard

That's farther than Normandy and World War II, right? So I think China, I don't know that they're

deterred by our capabilities, but I do think it bothers them what's going on in Ukraine and how

hard this has been for Russia. But that's why we've got to send weapons now to Taiwan to bolster

that deterrence. And our spending right now is inadequate for deterrence. We're spending 2.9

of our GDP, which is the lowest since 1940. We should be spending 4% of our GDP. Now, we are this

year because of the reconciliation bill. It's a one-time $150 billion fix. But then the president

came back this year with an old budget, right? So we're going to spend $150 billion extra this year

Next year, if we did what the president wanted, we'd go back to normal, 2.9%

And most of us in Congress think that's inadequate. We should be trying to keep it at 4% GDP spending

so that we can buy B-21s faster, the new stealth bomber. We're only producing one attack submarine a year right now

That's too little to deter China. We need to be doing 2.5 attack submarines a year

So we should be spending at a level that allows us to build our defenses

That will deter China. But right now, our actions are not matching the words

And I think that China sees that