My assessment today, Senator, is that Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security, so if you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I ’d have to point to Russia. - Gen. Joseph Dunford.

Joseph Dunford

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No single system is going to be able to defend against a threat like that, but a layered system of defensive capabilities would mitigate the risk of swarms of drones or other attacks that may come from Iran.

I think it's fair to say that they still have a significant presence in Iraq and Syria. They're certainly nowhere near as strong as they were in 2017 and 2018, so they have been significantly degraded, again still maintain the ability to conduct insurgent, guerrilla-style operations and that's what they see today.

Is there a possibility -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan've heard the political rhetoric -- that Turkey could move into northeast Syria ? There is that possibility. I don't believe that that would be helpful to our mutual interests, and I think that's why we're so focused on finding an acceptable way to address Turkey's concerns and at the same time maintain campaign continuity against ISIS in northeast Syria.

I think Joint Chiefs of Staff's premature, I'm not using the' withdraw' word right now, we're going to make sure our, that Afghanistan's not a sanctuary.

There's a higher degree of positive statements coming out of Islamabad about reconciliation than we have seen. There is good momentum in Doha right now with follow-on schedules for inter-Afghan dialogue.

We're engaging now with a number of countries to see if we can put together a coalition that would ensure freedom of navigation both in the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab, and so I think probably over the next couple of weeks we'll identify which nations have the political will to support that initiative and then we'll work directly with the militaries to identify the specific capabilities that'll support that.

The expectation is that the actual patrolling and escorts would b... by Joseph Dunford

The expectation is that the actual patrolling and escorts would be done by others.

This will be scaleable, right? So with a small number of contributors, we can have a small mission. And we'll expand that as the number of nations that are willing to participate identify themselves.

I think it really is very, very important that we work with others in the region to solve this problem.

Its very difficult for us to have normal relationships with a country that has not behaved normally over the last few years, there are major issues that affect our bilateral relationship that have to be addressed, to include where Russia has violated international laws, norms and standards.

Im satisfied right now with our military-to-military communication to maintain a degree of transparency that mitigates the risk of miscalculation, i think we have a framework within to manage a crisis, should one occur, at the senior military-to-military level.

We're hopeful that we can find a way through this. But it's a tou... by Joseph Dunford

We're hopeful that we can find a way through this. But it's a tough issue.

We continue to conduct detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff to address Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border. Planning to date has been productive and we have an initial concept that will be refined in the coming days. We are also conducting planning with other members of the Coalition who have indicated an intent to support the transition phase of operations into Syria.

There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President's direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence.

We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China knowing that there is that indirect benefit, frankly, 'indirect' may be not a full characterization of the way it really is, it is more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.

I had not recommended that we leave Afghanistan because, again, in my judgment, leaving Afghanistan not only would create instability in South Asia, but in my judgment would give terrorist groups the space within which to plan and conduct operations against the American people, our homeland and our allies, and that really is the problem we are trying to solve.

Without going into detail here, we do believe the Taliban know that at some point they do have to reconcile, the key to success is to combine all that pressure to incentivize the Taliban.

We used the term stalemate a year ago and, relatively speaking, i... by Joseph Dunford

We used the term stalemate a year ago and, relatively speaking, it has not changed much.

That is one of the more important tasks we face, is to prioritize and allocate resources in accordance with the strategy, and... if you look at what the combatant commanders would identity as their requirements, our inventory falls short of meeting all of what the combatant commanders would want to have, so the art for us is to have enough of our forces forward to demonstrate commitment, assure our allies, to demonstrate the ability to respond -- which enhances deterrence -- and then have the inherent flexibility in the force to get the right amount of forces in the right place, at the right time in the event deterrence fails.

We used the normal deconfliction channel to deconflict airspace,... by Joseph Dunford

We used the normal deconfliction channel to deconflict airspace, we did not coordinate targets.