Richard Blumenthal

Do you agree that North Korea must pay a steeper price for its cyberattacks?

North Korea's cyberattacks are estimated to provide the regime with as much as $1 billion per year--a staggering figure equivalent to one-third of the country's exports.

As I understand that no replacement ships have been sent to the Pacific, how has this impacted the operational tempo of those ships and sailors required to fill the gaps?

How has the loss of two U.S. destroyers equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system impacted PACOM's ability to carry out its mission?

What steps have you taken to improve operations?

No country can match our ability to operate under the sea, but if we don't continue to resource undersea warfare capabilities, China and Russia will close that gap.

Potential adversary submarine activity has tripled from 2008 levels, requiring an increase of U.S. activity to maintain undersea superiority.

The FY18 NDAA required the President to produce a North Korea strategy within 90 days

The top United States diplomatic post on the Korean Peninsula has remained vacant for some time

We must strengthen our diplomatic arm of our efforts to address North Korea's nuclear ambitions

Does that not reflect an absence of leadership in the Department of State?

In order to have some effect, the intensity of whatever we are doing diplomatically and politically has to be heightened, or there need to be some kind of military responses to protect people in that area from the war crimes that are being…

Their inability to enforce it, to enforce standards on this really means one of two things: one, they lack the ability to do that, or they are choosing not to do that.

War crimes are occurring in Syria with the support and apparent encouragement of Russia. Correct?

JC18 was an overwhelming success and enabled our forces to practice integration into the Israeli air defense architecture.

The United States must continue to strengthen its relationship with Israel through ongoing security cooperation.

What do you assess Russia's intentions to be with their activity near undersea cables? How concerned should the United States be?

The increased presence of Russian submarines in the Greenland, Iceland, and UK (GIUK) gap requires the full attention of the United States and our allies.

EUCOM greatly appreciates the continued strong Congressional support for the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI).

The fiscal year 2019 budget request includes increases for the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

Corruption remains a challenge in Ukraine.

The provision of enhanced defensive assistance is an important signal of United States support to Ukraine

I assume--I hope that you would agree these investments in our defensive capability are important in Ukraine.

We're making progress, do you think, in countering the endemic corruption that has existed?

If we're not progressing, we, meaning we and Ukraine, are losing.