During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) questioned former Lieutenant General John D. Caine, the nominee to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about his experiences working with United States' allies.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Senator Kramer, Senator Kaine. Thank you, General. Good to see you. I enjoyed our visit. I would encourage my colleagues not to hold your last name against you. I share comments that some of my colleagues have made about the unfortunate circumstance with General Brown, but you didn't have anything to do with that. And I know from our conversations and my own due diligence, VMI is very proud of you. And folks who've worked with you in the past, who I hold in high regard, are very proud of you.
00:29And a lot of the questions that have been asked, kind of trying to really drill into your ability to give the best candid advice, I think your career has demonstrated to my satisfaction that you will do so.
00:43One of the things that I really like about your background, and I think Senator Ernst and others have commented on it, is, you know, active and guard, DOD and private sector, at the Pentagon, at the White House, at the CIA.
00:57You've seen pretty deep interaction with allies. You've really seen the breadth of our military mission in a way that I think is the kind of experience that would inform that judgment that you need to provide.
01:15And in fact, in a way, the role of the head of the Joint Chiefs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, as Senator Cotton was walking you through, the work that you did at the CIA was a little bit the same role.
01:27Why don't you describe in a little more detail that posting to the CIA and what your job was in that?
01:34Because I think it's almost analogous. The advice you were providing to the CIA director, best military advice, is pretty analogous to the advice you'd be providing to the SEC-DEF and the commander-in-chief.
01:45Well, Senator, thank you for that question. You know, and I do agree. The ADMA, the Associate Director for Military Affairs, was actually established by the Congress to detail a three-star military officer over to the CIA under Title 50 authorities
02:02in order to provide best military advice to the Director, the Deputy Director, and to work daily with the Secretary, the Chairman, the Combatant Commanders, and the Service Chiefs
02:16in order to globally integrate, same functions that the Chairman has, in order to globally integrate CIA and DOD activities.
02:25And if confirmed, I'll continue to do that, working with the best of the Title 10 forces, the best of Title 50, what the State Department can bring to the table,
02:36what the rest of the interagency can bring to the table, along with our allies and partners.
02:41And so I, well, I'm mindful that I've not led at the four-star level. This is not a command job that I'm being considered for.
02:48It's an advisory job. And there's very similar traits to the last job in this one, potentially.
02:52And the posting that you had to the CIA for this important role, was that a, were you delegated by the SECDEF to do that,
03:00or did you, like, interview with the CIA to get that post?
03:04Sir, I was, I was nominated by the department and interviewed by the CIA, and as far as I understand it, the CIA made the selection.
03:14But you were, you were the nominee of the department. So I do think that the role is an important one.
03:21And the one thing I don't see in your, your resume, but I suspect it's probably there, and I just, your resume is too long,
03:29is interaction that you had with the State Department over the course of your career. Could you talk about that a little bit?
03:34Yes, sir. My first real substantive interaction with the State Department was actually when I was a White House fellow at USDA,
03:41and we were charged with working on the global pandemic plan surrounded in avian influenza, H5N1.
03:50During the, during the Bush administration?
03:52Yes, sir. During the Bush administration. And, you know, that really began my substantive appreciation for what the diplomatic element of power can do.
04:01And that continued through my time in the military overseas and have deep regard and appreciation for what the State Department can do for us.
04:10I think all of us at times have been frustrated with silos. You know, that the State's in their silo, Intel in theirs, DOD, Pentagon in their own silo.
04:22And sometimes having the different perspectives is great. If everybody's just singing, you know, the exact same note, you sometimes wonder whether it's groupthink.
04:30So getting some different perspectives can be helpful. The fact that you've been in all parts of the, the, the kind of broad national security family gives me some real confidence in your judgment coming into this position.
04:43Last thing I'll just ask is, what, what would you say has been your signature achieve or experience over the course of your career in terms of interacting with our allies?
04:53Probably, sir, the scud hunt in 2003, where I had the opportunity to work very closely with our British, UK, and Australian allies, which is absolutely a coalition effort from day one.
05:11And we went to war alongside them. And I've thankfully sustained all of those relationships.
05:18Now, I have deep relationships with our closest allies, and if confirmed, look forward to continuing those.
05:23I'm a strong promoter of the AUKUS framework and the fact that you've had those relationships in the past and maintain them. That's a, that's a positive. I yield back. Thank you.
05:31Thank you, sir.
05:33Where were you exactly during that scud operation, sir?
05:38Well, sir, the, the location that we flew out of, I think, is still classified.
05:44I'm happy to talk about that in a closed session.
05:49Okay. Thank you very much.