The Senate Armed Services Committee hears testimony from Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. (Tal Axelrod/MNS)
WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain used a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday to criticize President Barack Obama’s State of the Union claim that the “shadow of crisis has passed.”
“That news came as quite a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to what has been happening around the world,” said McCain, the chairman of the influential committee.
McCain, R-Ariz., said defense budget cuts are on the way while Pentagon officials and military commanders warn of advances by China, Russia and the Islamic State.
At the hearing, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft focused on the shift in recent decades away from the Westphalia system in which nation states had only limited interconnectivity. Scowcroft, who served under President George H.W. Bush, said modern communications’ power to connect places at opposite ends of the globe is the new reality.
Scowcroft argued that there is no clear strategy to tackle worrisome international developments. “The Cold War had one advantage,” he said. “We knew what the strategy was. We knew what we had to do.”
The hearing focused on Russia and recent developments in Crimea and Ukraine, as well as speculation that President Vladimir Putin may make good on his threat to use force in other parts of Eastern Europe.
“In Europe, Putin is planning a fire,” said Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor during the Jimmy Carter presidency. “Deterrence has to mean something. It has to have some teeth.”
In the troubled Middle East, Brzezinski said world powers have to take a balanced approach to intervention. “There will be no peace in the Middle east if the groups on the ground come mainly from the outside,” he said.
Cybersecurity was also on the senators’ minds.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, highlighted the recent attack on Sony as a warning of the threat of cyberattacks.
“I’ve never seen an issue where we’ve had so many warnings and we’re doing nothing,” he said.
Brzezinski agreed, singling out cyber threats from Russia and China. “The cyber issue may pose the possibility of…paralyzing an opponent entirely without killing anybody.”
Looking forward, King pressed for legislation to protect America’s Internet access and provide the authority to retaliate if it is hacked. “You mess with our cyber system, yours is going to go down.”
