classroom. so the textbook used to be the only set of information, it has become less and less of the dominance of a source of information. a good example we have, fascinating group of faculty in the history department, the best in the country that worked for history and new media and what they do is they are changing the way history is taught because now, we all went to school, we had a history book, now they have access to the internet, and history, and the smithsonian, they have access to the library of congress and everything. we are changing for our center of history and new media the way history is taught in college but more importantly we're changing the way history is taught in k-12. >> host: you have a ph.d. in computer science from stanford. >> guest: master's in computer science from stanford, ph.d. from wisconsin.

>> host: how is your education, your ph.d. relative -- relevant to today? >> guest: i think the way i make decisions are based on a scientific method. on one level, as a scientist, when i have to make decisions, when i have a position where we do it at the university, i also think my background in science, there are very few university presidents who have a degree in computer science. it makes me relevant to what is going on in the university, but makes me relative and able to deal with the technology community around us, around here in the greater washington area and far beyond. >> host: alan merten is president of george mason university, jill aitoto is with nextguv. >> thank you for having me. >> the communicators airs in prime time each monday night at

8:00 eastern, 5:00 pacific. if you missed any of this morning's broadcast with george mason university president aitoto -- alan merten on educating information technology work force, you can see it again on c-span2. >> coming up the main new report on the economic effects of rising health-care costs. an economist with the rand corporation will at how labor costs, deployment and productivity of being affected by employer sponsored health-care plans. coverage begins at not -- 1:00

eastern on c-span. now a news conference on health care with a group of anti-abortion activists who give their views on the legislation now making its way through congress. speaking first is albedo king, the niece of mark licking jr. the african-american now. director on priests for life from the national press club. this is about half an hour. >> we are here today while congress is on break because we as african american leaders and pro-life worriers could not take a break while america is in such desperate need of health care. we support health-care for all americans. indeed, we want to make sure that they have the best, that each of us has the best health-care possible, and that includes our tiniest, our weakest, our in firm and our elderly. therefore, you will hear from

several of us today, not raising argumentative voices, but raising voices of hope. my uncle, dr. martin luther king jr. once said that he had a dream, that all americans would serve the beloved community. he wanted protestants and catholics and gentiles and jews to join together in an age old spiritual, free at last. we are here today to inside republicans and democrats alike to joined the choir. let's surf america, from the youngest to the most mature with good health care. we have some speakers who are going to speak to you briefly today because we thank you for coming and we know your time is very important, so we have dr. donna harrison, mrs. garden and faster dean nelson, they will come to you first.

dr. harrison. and pastor nelson and i will come back to you and we believe we will be joined by bishop harry jackson. we are a group of people who have different political views, different vocations, different ethnic groups, but we all care about the health care of america. thank you for coming. >> thank you very much. i am dr. donna harrison, president of the american association of pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists, of the largest special interest groups in the american college of gynecology. i am here to talk to you about it kranick madison, madison according to the hypocritical oath and how that is involved with the health-care debate that the nation is undergoing right now. the hippocras says i won't kill you and i won't feel your unborn

baby and i won't to your grandmother. when i took that oath, i vowed to protect and not destroy human life. but as an object in doctor, under the proposed health-care bill, i could lose my job for refusing to kill your unborn child. the doctor who vows not to harm you or your child is protected by three narrow laws, all of which could be wiped out under the proposed health-care reform. the american association of pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists joins in calling on president obama to keep his promise to protect the rights of conscience of all health professionals, not just doctors but nurses, midwives, pharmacists and p.a.s who vowed not to hurt you or your unborn child or your family. we call on the president to change the reform bill to exclusively include real, and not deceptive, conscience protections for all health-care professionals who worked to

protect, and not to destroy, human life. abortion destroys life. it not only kills the unborn child but increases the mother's risk cover risks of suicide, depression, substance abuse and other adverse mental health outcomes. abortion increases for risk of preterm births answer regrow palsy in the next pregnancy. it increases her risk of death from infection and massive average -- hemorrhage. these and other health risks are well documented in the literature. abortion destroys life, abortion in this country is targeted at black women. 1 third of abortions done in this country are done on black women even though black women make up 1/6 of the population. tax money is used to fund abortion providers who already expand operations disproportionately to black americans. this means more black children aborted. we call on president obama to exclusively exclude any tax

funding of abortion from any proposed health-care reform bills, even guys under the terms of reproductive health. we call on the president to stop all current government subsidies to those organizations who, in their roots and actions, target the black community for genocide. healthcare's about life and health care reform must be about making life better for all people, not destroying the lives of people to someone else doesn't want. thank you. >> hello, thank you for joining us today. i want to join dr. king also in thanking our honorary sponsors. congressmen from arizona trend frank and governor from louisiana, congressman gow. thank you for being our honorary sponsors. i am president of the national black pro-life union. in a time when america is spiraling down into an abyss of debt, joblessness and economic

turmoil, president obama has been putting a great deal of his time into a big push to kill as many children as possible. in less than 29 months he turned the mexican city policy which means american tax dollars will be used to pay for abortions. he has been working tirelessly to force physicians to either kill unwanted children or refer their patients to other baby killers. he has also worked to ensure more children are killed by removing the ban from the embryonic stem cell experiments. since 1973 when roe vs. wade was decided abortion has killed fifty million american children, seventeen million of them were black. to day, for every black baby born, another black babies killed by abortion. plan heritage is the nation's largest abortion chain, it has planted its clinic strategically in our urban and minority areas.

this is no accident. the blue marker institute and center for disease control and prevention show that a huge majority, more than 75 for send of abortion clinics are located in minority neighborhoods. abortion has become the number-1 killer of black people in this country, killing more african-americans than accidents, heart disease, stroke, crimes, hiv/aids, and all other deaths combined. we must realize that abortion is big business in america. planned parenthood raked in $1 billion last year including $350 million from you and from me. the american taxpayer. just think about that. thousands of americans lost their homes due to foreclosed loans, many of which could have been saved with $350 million. we have men, women and children, entire families living on the street. i have seen them, you have seen

them, fellow americans destitute and homeless, $350 million could have provided housing and shelter for many of them. inner-city schools are in shambles, $350 million could have paid for more teachers, books and computers. president obama's most recent effort to put a health care bill that will mandate taxpayer funded abortions is next. let's not mince words. abortion is no picnic. it is a horrible and gruesome procedure that kills babies by suffocation, decapitation, and dismemberment. in spite of all this, the president is relentless in his determination to continue his support to the abortion industry and he wants to force you and me to pay for it. why would anyone be so bent on helping to grow industries that

include the gruesome and file butchering and dismembering of helpless human beings, if we are truly the america that holds life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness so dear, we must obliterate the surge of abortion from our midst, otherwise we are no better than those who perpetrate the conflict in darfur, rwanda or any other country where human beings are in slave, butchered or denied their rights just because they are now eager or weaker. i am here to say no, mr. president, abortion is not health-care, but rather death care and i don't want to pay for it. it is that simple. >> good afternoon. my name is gene nelson. thank you for the opportunity to be here today. i served as executive director for the network of politically active christians. it serves as an organization to

teach, train and activate social conservatives, particularly in the african-american minority communities, to be more politically involved. this issue regarding health care is an important one for our nation, it is particularly important for me. about five years ago, i could no longer afford the health care plan my family and i had. but it required me to do a little research and i found something that now is called health savings accounts. this particular card is an example of golden rule, a face based health savings account that i found five years ago. the important thing i want to emphasize today is that five years ago when i first found that plan, over the course of that time period, i now actually have more health care and it is cheaper for me. i want to state that again because most people don't believe that. i actually have greater value in my health care by choosing a

health savings account and it is cheaper than it was in the beginning primarily because of competition. there is a lot to be concerned about with this 1,000 plus page health-care bill which our elected officials change daily and refuse to read all the way through. it will seek to cut costs not by common-sense members -- measures like tort reform or allowing health insurance companies to compete across state lines, but would rather pay doctors less and slowly depriving the elderly of life providing care. yet perhaps the most tragic of all the provisions have nothing to do with health care at all, but rather designed to persuade the most vulnerable among us, particularly mothers, and not to have their children. the caps amendment, which has 30-28 despite bipartisan opposition from republicans and

pro-life democrats would make federal funding for elective abortions, title v subtitle be would allow planned parenthood, the nation's largest provider, to be involved with school based health clinic provisions. our president who, as a candidate, publicly pledged his devotion to all of planned parenthood's legislative goals in 2007, in my opinion, is trying to fulfill his promises under the radar. he is absolutely determined that the provisions in this bill to fund and encourage abortion among the poor, brown and vulnerable, i love our president and pray for him continually as a minister, but when it comes to the issue of life, particularly

in the african-american community we find ourselves almost below replacement levels and it is important for our president who publicly has stated during the election that he wanted to see abortions reduced, to actually own up to the policies that undermine what he says he wants to accomplish. i am not the first to wonder if our president himself would have been born had there been a strong public option available for his mother who bore him out of wedlock when she was still a teenager. i have spoken with many adults who in my lifetime would not be here had it not been for the mother's in ability to procure that $300 needed to abort them. the price of a medical hit man may not be the most admirable reason to bear a child but it has saved many lives by the grace of god. raising children will always be more work than killing them but it is also far more rewarding. make abortion free and we will

see where the administration intends to do its promised cost cutting, in the slow, silent extermination of the people it views the least desirable, thank you. >> we also have members of the pregnancy care center community because the question is often asked, you say don't aboard your babies, what are you going to do with all of the babies who come who are unwanted and not desired? i asked a member of the pregnancy care community to come up and join us? she was not expecting to speak but i would like her to introduce herself and share two minutes. do we care the on the abortion? as dr. harrison has said, the word abortion may not appear in the health care bill, the word euthanasia may not appear, but death with dignity, leads to

assisted suicide, women's reproductive health, the package very often includes abortion. america deserves better and we want to help that happen. >> hello. my name is laurie carter. i am the director of underserved out reach with care. careand that is an organization that represents over 1100 pregnancy centers across the united states. pregnancy centers are in your community to offer compassionate care to women who find themselves featuring unplanned pregnancy. the services they provide are free, they are there to meet a woman at her point of need. it is a holistic approach to meeting her in need. it addresses her not just from her physical situation, her physical problem, but also with the motions, the spiritual, the

intellectual, relational issues she is also facing. these pregnancy centers are there to meet her at that point of need. as i am reaching out to african-american pastors as well as community leaders, that one of the things that is very important for us as a movement to discuss with our young women is the fact that reproductive rights, it is not necessary for you to have the right to abort, for you to have full reproductive rights. reproductive right for our generation and generations to come, simply means something that is going to validate the health of a mother. having an abortion, it is not necessary for you to have an abortion to pursue your goals. if a young woman today realized that it is not like it was when

our grandmothers or great-grandmother's who felt that the only way to have a career, to have education, dreams fulfilled, was to have the option to abort in the event of an unplanned pregnancy, that is old thinking, it is not the way it is today. young women should take heart and realized that if they put a specific exclusion in this bill that says abortion is excluded, that will in no way deny our reproductive rights. we will still be able to pursue all of our dreams. i encourage young women to make your voice is be heard and clarify that it is not necessary to do that. thank you. >> as we invite bishop harry jackson to come up and give his statement as a close out for your question, i want to point out we brought for you two open letters today, president obama which is the first document in your packet and the last document in your packet is from

a group of african-american leaders and other pro-life leaders have, from every political party and every ethnic group, we all agree that has has been so eloquently stated, women's reproductive rights should not include abortions, but procreative reproductive rights to ensure that the woman is very healthy all her life should she ever decide to be a mother. the ship jackson, would you please give a statement and then we will of an up for questions. >> i want to thank our the year king for leadership and dave gardner, dean nelson and others, i believe these health care plan has been presented is grisly immoral.

is absolutely on godly. there is a sense that we're going to have to open this health-care system and lower or denigrate the level of care that people will get in america today. three years ago i was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. the doctor said i had a 15% chance of living. if i had been denied or delayed service for as short as three months i would not be standing here today. there is something wrong with a system that says this, that the least of these has to be served, we don't care what happens to others sick people. the last time i checked, matthew 25 said that you visit the sick and the 4 and poor and it is no

the rich, if i have to lessen the people, people don't get served, we have a major problem. my life is not worth less because i am worth more financially. you have to fixes that. you need to come of with the details. this assumption that if you live in a certain zip code you can have other options, if you live in a certain zip code, you have money to take care of whatever health needs you have, that simply isn't true. there is a problem. there is a reverse classism in this issue. we deal specifically with the issue of abortion, it is absolutely immoral to say that you are going to pay for an abortion, 41% of all the pregnancies that are happening in this city are terminated by

abortion. if what the statisticians say is correct and abortion that is paid for by the government increases the number of abortions, what it would come down to is one out of every two pregnancies in this city would be terminated by abortion. count it off. you aboard, you don't, you abort, you don't, you abort, you don't, you abort, you don't. that would be the situation in this city that you are living in. let me add a racial dimension about abortion. in this city, 75% of the people aboard their babies are black. therefore, it is absolutely racist as well. think of it this way. three out of four babies, black, black, black, white, black, black, black, black, hispanic, black, black, black, white, black, black, black, asian, that

is the way this is going to go down. don't tell me that this is moral or this is fair, it is genocidal in its impact and it will have a decimating effect on the whole nation and this city. last but not least, we will turn it back over to alveda king, the third thing that is immoral doesn't have to do with euthanasia or other things, it has to do with the issue of abortion. i have a staff of 50 people or so who work for us. we provide health care. under this particular system, although we have 200 kids, great things happening, i would have to pay out of the ties and offerings of church people who do not believe that taking the baby's life is right, i will have to pay for someone else's abortion. we are going to be forced to absolutely participate in a system that none of us on our

staff or church think is right. i believe that this particular health care plan as it stands is absolutely patently on godly and evil and i resent the fact that in recent days there has been an attempt to get, quote, progressive ministers to come out and say it is okay, this thing should be supported. that is politics at its worst. on this one, we hope that everything to do with this health care program grinds to a slow halt and we sit down, take stock of our morality, look realistically at our problems and make moral, godly and life oriented decisions in jesus's name. thank you for your time. >> we would be happy to take your questions at this time.

>> could you identify the camera with itt news, the question of abortion were to be resolved your satisfaction, would you then escort the health care bill, seeking to expand coverage the way it is worked out? >> we would like to ensure that abortion is never paid for in any program in america, neither euthanasia. there are some parts of the bill that can certainly be supported and we are going to continue to examine those but before we can answer that question, we are going to have to get abortion and euthanasia out of it. my colleagues want to help to answer that. >> dean nelson, based on what i

share earlier, that there are options currently that exist, i am not in favor of the current health care plan, particularly for the issues of abortion but even beyond that, there are faith based options currently, currently the one that i have that i stated before that gave me, over the course of five years, better coverage and my premiums went down, there are people particularly in the administration who want to push us quickly towards a government provided health care system, don't want that message to get out. it is an extremely important one. by information i have a family of five, we live in the washington d.c. area, combined income of less than $60,000. are fall into the category we are talking about. health savings account and other face based programs that incentive good behavior, particularly in the black community.

the newer option i have heard a little about with regard to become a lots, that may be a more acceptable way. i would like to see the way that would be ruled out. as long as we look at programs -- >> if i could follow up, a lot of the administrations, putting back, saying we are providing funding for a consultation so -- keeping alive with everything as much as possible, why are you using the euthanasia argument? >> death with dignity is what it is often called but to suggest that people over a certain age every year would have to have

consultation, perhaps understanding their duty to die, to get out of the way. if you have a legislation that does not specifically say we will not provide funding for euthanasia, then interpretation can be very broad or very limited. >> you said it very well. i was going to say the details have to be put forth. we have had a team of people looking at what was written down in 1,000 pages. it is slim on details. i am with her to followed her for those reasons. >> does anyone else have questions? >> if you would like to speak to what a lot of people meant about the euthanasia argument is the issue of rationing and what that actually means, people are focusing on whether or not

there's actually a death paddle or not, but when you get into comparative effectiveness research which is in the bill and you start deciding who can have it based on age or quality of life and how much longer they might have to live, does that in your mind equal euthanasia as well? >> please identify yourself. >> connie hair with human events. >> if things are not spelled out and clearly defined, it doesn't matter what is in my mind as an individual because my at -- i may interpreted as very generous to the elderly but suppose someone else has a different mind-set and is allowed to interpret accordingly, that is the problem. one of my favorite thing that i say, please forgive me, i am a star trek fan, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, wore the one. collectively, we have to take care of all of our people. that is the community of dr. martin luther king jr..

it is not what alveda king thinks but america believes life should have dignity from the womb to natural death, that is playing with those places. many people say the voice is not in the bill, euthanasia is not in the bill, we are okay. if it is not clearly stated that euthanasia will not occur by any definition, or abortion will not occur by any definition, it can be too broadly interpreted and any of us as individuals can perhaps say my grandmother just died recently and i would never have dreamed of euthanasia for her. that is a wonderful thing to hear, but what about all the millions who could come under a plan that would cause them every year to have to think about their duty to die. >> a question for dr. harrison.

as far as -- from my perspective, would hate -- this bill is going to go through one way or the other and it probably won't with the extreme provisions that the black community doesn't like but it will go for a defect physicians around the country and the physicians will then have to make decisions, are they going to be protected from that, to protect themselves from being put in a position where they might have to agree to certain circumstances? >> that is a big question. let me break it up. there is no doubt that we need to have health care for everybody in the country. there is no doubt. we need a new system. but the system can't come at the price of killing our children and telling our old people. that is not the way to bring in health care. that is not the godly thing to do. that is not the life giving thing to do for our community.

the physicians that are involved both with the american association of pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists and christian medical dental facility and catholic medical organizations were polled as to what they would do if they were put in a situation where they were forced to euthanize of asian tour aboard them or lose their job and they said 89% of them will quit. that is taking out the physicians who are in the catholic health care system, 6 of the health care in the country, that is taking out the physicians that are in rural areas, most of the physicians, majority of the physicians in our group are in underserved areas. we are going to take away the care from the most needy people, not just the unborn and the elderly but the most needy people by forcing ethical physicians, physicians who have taken the hippocratic oath and will not violate that oath, they will not kill their patients, we are going to take about the health care system and what will we be left with? the bill that we have is not the

way to fix the health care problem. >> thank you very much for coming. we are very glad to see you today, goodbye. >> thank you, alveda king. [applause] >> if anyone would like, we have a magazine with a good article if you want to pick up on the way out. [inaudible conversations] and..

>> as the debate over health care continues, c-span's health carry hub is the latest resource.

>> george mason university and how the obama add strayed should proceed -- administration should proceed toward a new

policy. this is expected to start shortly on c-span two. snod h [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

>> again, live from the hudson institute as the panel has assembled for the discussion on the future of the russian military, its future capability. this is from the hudson ins suit, is expected to last all day. when it gets underway here, we'll have it for you on c-span two.

[inaudible conversations] on the future of the russian military.

-- it appears we're tell a minute or two away from the day long conference on the future of the russian military. should get under way. in a few minutes. very quickly, a couple of news stories for you. president obama and his family are away on a week long vacation on martha's vineyard this week, staying at the estate belonging to a wealthy republican donor. he'll also apparently continue working on health care legislation during his stay. president might take time to visit cape cod and see senator ted kennedy, who is suffering brain cancer. the president and his family will return to washington next sunday. the president also is moving to abandon bush interrogation policies on the war on terror. >> god morning. i'd like to welcome a longtime

student, i'm director of the center for political analysis at hudson and a longtime student of the soviet-russian military. i want to thank you so much for coming. we're truly amazed at the turnout, in late august, we have a record number of people here for hudson event, partly a tribute to our speakers, partly a tribute to the person holding the conference in honor of, and partly of course because the topics that we all understand are very important, russian defense reform, perceptions of international security trends, russian views of national security and visions of future war among other topics. i would request that everybody now please turn off or turn to silent any of your communication devices that you might have. we have very pleased that c-span and other tv networks are

covering the event, and that to make thing as easy as possible for our c-span viewers, we want to eliminate as much as possible distracting noises. just to review the procedures for today's conference, we will have four separate panels, and they'll be short -- there will be short breaks if between, about 10 minutes long, we'll break for an hour for lunch tween 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. the way the panels will work, the panels will first deliver their presentations, will then allow for the commentator or the speakers to ask questions of themselves and then we'll be glad to open up for audience discussion and commentary. we have people with microphones, they will come to you, please, wait for the microphone comes, it will be pick up by the tv recording and then just identify yourself and your affiliation, courtesy to the speaker if you're able to do so. i will introduce people in the

order -- when they give their presentations for each panel at the beginning of that. i want to begin however by saying it's my great pleasure to introduce senior vice-president for international programs and policy at hudson institute. he will put today's events in their proper context. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, richard. this is indeed an impressive audience and i'm sure that this is going to be an impressive occasion. today's events are a tribute to a remarkable individual, mary c. fitzgerald, a hudson expert for more than 20 years. and a good friend and a colleague. i'm particularly grateful to richard white and my own friend and colleague, steve blank, from the army war college, for putting this event together and making it possible, so thanks to

the two of you. let me say a work about mary. from 1989 to 2009, mary fitzgerald served as a research fellow in russian military affairs at the hudson institute. they was fluent in russian and analyzed russian and military writings for the department of defense. on their impact and -- their revolutionary impact with respect to emerging technologies, military doctrine, strategy, operational concepts, organizational structures, and defense industry imperatives. mary served as a consultant to the white house office of signs and technology policy, the defense science board, the u.s.-china economic security review commission, the emt commission and many, many others.

honing in on soviet military doctrine, that few in the west could access, mary was one of the first to discover the critical soviet concept of the revolution in military affairs, or the rma, as we know it today. a focus on the new high tech way of war then emerging. mary soon became a favorite of mr. andrew marshal, the director of the office of net assessment, the office of the secretary of defense, widely considered to be one of the world's preeminent military strategists and andy marshal worked to ensure that parry's discoveries and subsequent research obtained the broadest possible audience among defense intellectuals in the united states and western europe. the pioneering impact of mary's work can still be seen today. the concept of the rma in many

facets transformed american defense strategy. the rma, with its strong emphasis on network centered warfare, precision strike, dominant battle space awareness, became a central u.s. defense doctrine shaping the contours of how our military understands and pursues a future understanding of the way warfare could take place. but highlighting the critical importance of the rma was just one of mary's significant contributions to national security. her interviews with former and current russian military officers uncovered much that would otherwise have been missed by western analysts. her examination of the impact of new technologies and how national defense is understood drawing on her earlier work on the rma along with an analysis

of the concomitant impact of strategy operations, military organization, force structure and defense industries led to other critical research on emerging fields of electronic and space warfare. later, mary was one of the first in the west, to uncover the people's republic of china's focus on what has been termed the space theater for global warfare. years, years before china stunned the world in january 2007 with a very public display of its anti-satellite capability, they presciently warned of this danger. at the time of her death, mary was well into her latest research, broadly titled chinese and russian asymmetrical strategies for space dominance and as usual, her insights were unique.

mary fitzgerald completed cutting edge studies for the d.o.d. which included russian views on electronic and information warfare, the impact of the rma on russian military affairs, russia-china convergent and divergence on 21st century warfare and many, many other salient seminole studies. they contributed to many books, and was the author of three particularly important monographs, the first being soviet views on sdi, the second, the changing soviet doctrine of nuclear warfare in 1989, and the third, the new revolution in russian military affairs in 1994. she contributed a pivotal chapter to the hudson -- to hudson's 2005 book, china's new great leap forward, high technology and military power in

the next half century. and that title was -- that chapter was entitled china's evolving military juggernaut. she published just about every place that was important. in the strategic review, in comparative strategy, in defense analysis, in the international defense review, the naval war college review, air power journal, the air force magazine, the armed forces journal, defense news, the "wall street journal," the christian science monitor and many, many more and from 1994 to 1995, she served as adjunct professor at the air command and staff college, where she lectured extensively on russian aerospace theory and practice. in 2007ing, she submitted testimony on china's military strategy for space at the u.s.-china economic and security review commission.

but what made mary unique. was her workman-like focus on analyzing military trends. she was a pioneer as one of the first female analysts in her field. though she was always modest about her work, her discoveries both shaped u.s. policies and launched the careers of numerous other analysts, many in this room today, and many, many other areas of inquiry. others with far less knowledge, no language skills, or any real expertise might have sought the limelight, but parry never did. when the chinese conduct their anti-satellite test in january of 2007, "time" magazine tracked down mary, who quite right think

should have a place as a talking head on every network on defense issues in this time -- in this town, but parry very kindly and patiently demured. she was modest to the heart, and she always wanted to let her analytical work speak for her. she did get one major public recognition. in 1993, after the gulf war, she was awarded a civilian medal by the chief of army intelligence, for her unique contributions to understanding russia's reaction to operation desert storm. mary fitzgerald broadened our understanding of significant national security challenges and she helped america prepare for the warfare of the 21s 21st century. many of us knew mary for her deep devotion to her family and friends, and her immense

compassion and mother extraordinarily witty, sharp sense of humor. my colleague at hudson, ken weinstein, said it best in his tribute to mary. as american citizens, ken said, we all owe her a debt of gratitude. her many contributions will live on in the decades to come through the research field she pioneered and the changes she brought about by her work. i want to thank you on behalf of hudson and our board of trustees, for joining us in honoring mary, with this auspicious and we know the results are going to be exciting and provocative and we know that mary, modest as she was, would hartley approve. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you very much. the first panelist will be steven blank, who will speak about russian military war doctrine. dr. blank served as the regional security expert at the u.s. army war college, strategic studies institute since 1989. he has written many books, articles, conference papers, probably one of the most prolific scholars in the field. some of his latest works include editor of imperial define, soviet military in the future and th and. [inaudible] steve played an instrumental role in helping us organize today's conference, helping recruit speakers and he will be helping produce and edit the volume of the conference paper through the day beings which will be available at the web site for down loading. he also personally -- he's been

an excellent mentor in the field, to many younger scholars, including myself. we have some people who will be speaking who are employed by the government, and that web site is set up as well. i will be talking about the new national strategy that the russian government published may 12. on its face, this is an extremely self-confident document. it starts out by saying, it's mostly in my view, but russia has overcome the political crisis of the past and is on its way to further development. if you look at the debate that goes into this document, what you see is instead, a growing feeling, anxiety and medical struggle within the russian

military-political elite and an unresolved struggle at best, that has its roots in russian history, those of how have gone back and studied russian history in any depth, know that there's a perennial con flick in russian history called -- security policy between those people who think that the government and the policy it follows ought to have a primarily defense oriented or militarily oriented perspective, whereas those responsible for the economic development of the country, invariablely say that we can't afford it and are constantly say security policy has to be tailored to what russia can afford. this is a debate that goes back to the 19th century, it is still the case now and in this concept or strategy we find it. now this strategy was supposed to come out in 2004. as a matter of fact, putin first called for a new national

security strategy to replace the one published nine years ago in 2002. this was supposed to come out if 2004, but h's bring 2005, prominent officials started saying, we don't have the means, the resources to write strategy, or a defense doctrine. at the end of 2007, a prominent defense official actively said that russia doesn't have the resources to write a defense doctrine, even though they said it was coming out then. i don't know what changed in the 18 months after that that they suddenly got the resources to do so, but what he was rerule alluding to is the fact that there was a tremendous and unresolved political struggle that has held up publication until now and the struggle comes down between those two polls that i just described. one group of people taking a primarily defense oriented, military oriented point of view and others arguing on behalf of a policy not that it's pro west, but that is more based on the economic realities of russian

situations as they perceived them. this concept of a defense oriented or militarized and political scientists called securitized concept, that is more and more subjects are labeled subjects of national security, for example, the possibility of avian flu, or the promulgation of russian orthodox christianity, what has become a national church, are matters of national security, thus they have been securitized. they have become an issue that has been reserved not for public debate, but for the governmental elite to supervise the society. and of course, we know that's a very long-standing tradition in russia. as a result, the people who have that kind of military and securitization summer -- perspective have postulated in this doctrine and in the debate going from 2004 to 2009, an

extensive, all encompassing threat perception of russia. russia is being threatened practically on all fronts by the west. what are those threats? nato enlargement, the concentration of troop groupings and increased military forces around russia and the c.i.a. given what is actually going on in nato, the evidence for this is rather shaky. nonetheless, has not deter evidence people from saying we are confronting a greater military threat. as part of this process, the second threat is encroachment by the west upon the cis. russia believes that it is entitled to a sphere of influence in the cis, it also believes that that sphere of influence is at risk from western, particularly american encroachment. third, there is a tendency in the world, most point is expressed by the u.s. invasion of iraq, for the unilateral use of force, without going through

the united nations and this is a threat to russia, because what they are saying is that the united states can decide to use force against russia or russian interests or allies, without anybody stopping and that therefore, the united states is something of a rogue element in world affairs. and this is a very deeply held point in moscow. furthermore, they see a development not just of nuclear proliferation, although, the assessment of that varies with various people, but also a growing tendency on the part of the u.s. to think of nuclear weapons as instruments of war and for that matter, we look at russian nuke letter doctrines, the russians think of nuclear doctrines in the same terms, as war-fighting weapons. as a matter of fact, they just announced that they're going to carry tactical nuclear weapons as cruise missiles and submarines and the doctrine in 2000, talked about the possibility of first strike of use being nuclear weapons if russia's vital interests are at

risk. furthermore, they see a growing resort to war as an instrument of policy around the world and that these wars are coming close to russia. once again, we are the main purveyor of this threat. lastly and by no means least, russia sees itself as being threatened by a comprehensive information war strategy on the part of the west. an information war failure is not just taking time cyber networks. it is using information to undermine the structure and society of government and to unhinge a society from within, making it vulnerable to political penetration or even overtake. therefore, the military or general staff response is essentially calling for something that looks rather neosoviet. there is an attempt to bring back elements of the mobilization system that characterizes soviet union. general staff point of view

calls for having the minister of defense being perpetually the deputy commander of chief, in peacetime as well as war and in war, having the capability to mobilize its country. more, they've even talked about the use of the military against not just foreign threats, but against domestic threats due to this information and political warfare that they discern. putin -- it had been circulating since 2004. by 2006 and 2007, if you read mr. putin's speeches very carefully, he accepts almost point by point every single one of these threats. however, the problem that the general staff faces is that the government refuses to buy its answers as to how to respond to these threats and the national security strategy is a document that not only assesses the threat, it is more importantly perhaps a document that calls for responses on the part of the government. the other side of the debate is

that russia simply can't afford that type of policy, it's what led the soviet union to ruin, it causes russia's isolation that we have beings nobody we can rely on in the world. it's based on a presupposition of conflict with everybody and his neighbor, and russia therefore must pursue an overall foreign and defense policy that is primarily based on enhancing it's economic capability and its policies must be cut to that capable. they must not exceed russia's capability to act in the world. now beings there are consequences of this debate and in the security strategy beings we see on the one hand that the threat assessment was bought by the government. thus the government talks about the fact in the security strategy that the likelihood of war in the next decade or so is primarily connected with the scramble for energy and will probably take place in areas around russia's strategic perimeter, that is the arctic, the middle east, central asia.

this presupposes a view that comments in the west as well, that energy disputes are going to lead to armed conflicts amongst states and energy is russia's main foreign policy weapon in the basis of its economic prosperity. the west is after its energy hand this is going to lead to war. now, the kind of wars that they are talking about are not described in any detail here. they should be described in what's going to be the forth coming defense doctrine, but we need to talk about the fact that the russian military is being reformed at present, so that the army and to some degree, the air force and the helicopter force will be able to project power to the cis and dominate the cis in the event of any kind of conflict. but that the war that they expect, the general dtv expects with nato is going to be primarily an air, naval and maybe even nuclear and

electronic warfare which requires long range strike capabilities. the problem is that the defense industry can't produce either in numbers or in quality, the required conventional capabilities, they're even having trouble doing that with the nuclear capabilities and therefore the only reliable weapon system that is coming out these days is the land-based icbm. which they can produce six to eight a year. now, the fact that that means that the doctrine is calling for one kind of war and russian defense policy is calling for another. and this is not an uncommon trend in russia's history, but it is one that causes a lot of problem, because even in the 1980's, we pointed out that is true military political doctrine on one end was at variance to what they called the military technical doctrine and it caused a lot of pressure on russia to reform, which they did. furthermore, the government by having bought the general staff's threat assessment, and s

also essentially seen the fact that the government today as it is constituted in moscow, doesn't work. it is adipis functional state, -- a dysfunctional state. we had one conference last year where it was pointed out that 30% to 50% of the defense budget is stolen as a matter of course. that's why we have an anti-corruption campaign in the government as a whole, and in the defense ministry as a whole as well. but this doctrine, apart from its post tuesday laying of foreign threats, is -- postulation of foreign threats forces to end policy disputes and to set up this russian ideal of the power vertical, although that's what putin calls it. it is a czarist ideal of a government that functions like the machine where everybody is spiritually and politically united, the ideal of the czars inherited from the police state of the 18th and 19th century

and the position that bewitched czars in what they call systemic government without fully realizing if you attempt to impose a system on the russian government you undercut the autocrat principle which is at the heart of the system, that is the autocrat i can power of czar or putin. what you end up with is a government that in a sense is chasing its own at a, but this doctrine is not only a doctrine aimed at west, it is a doctrine aimed at the russian bureaucracy, giving to the security council the right to upon tore, control, regulate. the system, and to create what is understood if this confidential sense as a police state, not just what we think of as a police state and say the latin american or third world variant but a place where the state play a moral and regulating role in creating good citizens, public spirited behavior, patriotic behavior, and an end to corruption and so

forth. therefore, this document for the first time actually maps out indices by sending if reports as to how russia is progressing along this line. ultimately, this is another one of those documents that attempts to impose systems and is going to fail, but nonetheless, it is a blueprint for a police state, and a centralized bureaucracy controlled from the top, in the sense of russian history. as such, it incarrates this militaristic trend and at the same time, it creates tendencies in russian governance that are leading to even more curtailment of democracy. just let me give you three before i conclude. recently, ministry of communications promulgated order number 65. order number 65 allows the ministry of communications to read the mail of anybody in russia. private or electronic.

the next defense doctrine sections on the legal employment of the russian forces and on nuclear use will be classified. mr. mcdevitt has called for curtailing or weakening the possibility of jury trials to terrorists and not only terrorists, who would be caught in that drag net. furthermore, he has essentially sent the duma a letter saying i want to change the defense laws that would allow the rush i can't be armies to operate outside the russian borders without having to go to you for con send. not only is this a retrospective alternative that the russian war last year with georgia was illegal, but this is a call for allowing the russian army to go abroad without any legal restrictions in the future. when we add to this, the growing takeover of more and more sectors of the industry, the continuing repressions against

disdepths, the -- dissidents, the murder of u.s. activists and so on and we look at the civil-military relationships we see that this national security strategy, although it breeds hostility towards the west and a sense of threat, also sees threats primarily from within russia. it is a society that sees it's of self at risk. in other words, it is a continuation, albeit in non-self yet terms of a leninist mentality as seeing the enemy abroad and at home ridged. russian social dempsey used to say that lenin introduced a state of siege into social dempsey and when he introduce introduced -- unfortunately, for russia, it still is laboring in that state of siege. thank you. >> thank you so much. our next speaker will be -- by the way, we have a couple of

seats up front. sit down. please help yourself. the next speaker will be dale herstspring who will speak about defense reform in contemporary russia. he is a university distinguished professor at kansas state university and a member of the council on foreign relations. he is also retired u.s. diplomat and navy captain. he is also a very, very well known in the field, the author of a dozen books an more than 80 articles on civil-military relations in the states, germany and russia. thank you. >> thank you. let me begin by saying, mary was a student of mine at georgetown when she was doing her dissertation and she got me to recognize the civil-military affairs, so i want to give her credit, because she goosed me into doing it. i also want to make it clear, i sent this paper, it was read by

a senior russian official in moscow, who's asked to be nameless, and basically, his argument was he's right unfortunately. that was what i got back. what i'm going to try to do is to give a view from that of the russian military. i spent 40 years with working being around russian military and what's happening to them and where do they see things coming and i started -- i changed the title of the paper to sort of military form in russia is for -- reform in russia is for real and i'll go through the book after i talk about what they've done. there are two reasons, my thesis is russian reform is real, that serious problems with implementation and what is driving russian military reform and i think two factors. the battle against corruption, on the one hand and the war in georgia on the other. first demonstrated the impossibility of rat faithizing the military where the money was

going. the figure i got was 40% of the military budget was being ripped off. second was red georgia, if nothing else demonstrated how really poorly the russian army was prepared or any kind of military confrontation. i can go into details but i'm going to try to avoid going into great detail for the sake of time. now when the new minister came in, it was a joke. he came from the tax service, and before that he had run a furniture store p and they started calling him the word for accountant, but a very derise i have one, what does this idiot know about military things. he did two years as a reserve lieutenant and in moscow, there are jokes going all over the place and we also say something people don't realize. having spent more than 40 years studying the russian and soviet military, the russian military press is more open than the u.s. military press in discussing problems, going into detail

about problems, why things aren't work and it's not only just retired officers, there's analysts, there are certainly officers, one who i will go into later 0 who has been very brutal about criticizing. he said at one point if the idiots in this country cannot provide the stuff i have need, the simulators, i will go buy them abroad and that would be before the whole thing started. so what sudokov did, he said i have to take a point, so he went to st. petersburg and while he was there, he went to an officers training school and what he did, he went in the back door, not the front door. he found mold, unsanitary conditions. the place was a mess. so what happened? within a week, the admiral in charge was both kicked out and retired. people began to say, well, gee whiz, maybe this guy, you have to take him seriously. his task was to bring the russian military into the modern age.

and this is nothing that is actually critical to understand what the russians are doing and they won't admit in a sense that they're copying the west, but in a sense they are. first, moving from a structure based on -- forward based troops in 1941. that was the message they took after world war ii. we're not going to have that again. if nato is coming and attacking us, we're going to have troops deployed and have three different groups, the ones who stop the offensive. what they said, they decided though, after georgia, was we screwed it up, we want a much smaller, highly maneuverable, flexible and lethal military force. this is the idea that that using military force during pacetime and they -- peacetime and they talked about that openly. iraq is not a war in terms of a world war, but you have to use military force on your periphery and in the future. now, how to do it. first of all, in the economic

structure, what he did, before he was defense minimum -- while he was still the defense minister, he moved the military back from being in a pro security process. the military comes up when we want x, y and z, it deals with the factories. the idea is, this way we can have fewer uniforms involved in the corruption process, so they try to cut back on some of the corruption and there's a war going on in the military now we'll get to later. first was bringing in new blood. get rid of what the russians call the warehouse army and these are officers who are sitting in places where the weapons are stored, more mobilization in case a war comes, they spent their whole career going from one warehouse to another. when it came to the war in georgia, they had to -- they admitted openly, they had to go around and find lieutenant counselors, majors and captains, who had any post-war experience, it was a nightmare, trying to

find officers who were qualified to go lead troops into battle. so the major surgery, they had ads up last december, they had 355,000 officers on active-duty. they authorized 400,000. they only had 355. but i understand of this -- end of this year, they'll be at 350,000. if you're in a uniform, that's a hell of a change. the logic in the past, they had 3-1 officer ratio. they're now going to 315-1. 350 troops, 150 officers. as sudokov said, that's what nato does and that's the average we'll have. they're going to duplicate that. massive cut backs in areas like the medical, being turned upside down, legal, being ripped apart, and the media. they're keeping 20 officers on active-duty who deal with media

and they're all ones that work cross-net. the general staff, the mod is also being cut. they're going from 27,000 to 8,500 total for both organizations. educational institutions, they had 65, and they're going to three medical education centers, six academies and one military university, being the general staff academy. general staff academy is being thrown apart. they're going from 11 chairs to two. and they're going from 120 students to this year they have 16. they're all working trying to -- they're supposed to go to division command as they finish. first year of course is all military stuff. the second year of course involves civilian material. p legal problems, accounting problems, logistical problems, all that kind of stuff, they're bringing in civilian professors to teach it, which in the russian military system is unheard of. russian military has always been much more isolated from society

than the american military. i have an officer living down the street from me who was at fort riley. that doesn't happen. in the past, that never happened in the military. to give you how far it's going in the air force, they went 4340 units to 160. a total of 35,000 officer slots are being cut. in the navy, they tried to of no things from st. petersburg, it was just massive logistics, it reminds me of something that was said to me in moscow about the budget andy looked at me with a smile and said have you ever seen a picture of the high command and i said yes and like an idiot he said, how many blue suits do you see there and i said one, he said well, it's all about approach. that's its answer. there's one, you have to be there. get something. the navy now is getting 40% of the military budget. so tier going to have to cut most of them.

40, 50 years old. ground forces, number of units reduced by 11 times. they've taken the old military district army, regiment, that comes apart and now they have army, brigade, a big free for all, the argument is that the brigade is much more operation operational. if you read the american military subsidies act, it's its same thing. deploy an independent brigade, that brigade is beaten up, put foreone in. you put a division in that's beaten up, it's a mess, so frankly, if you go out to fort riley, it's almost like somebody in moscow was sitting at fort riley and taking notes exactly how they're doing and what they're doing. tanks, we'll hear about russian tanks, 23,000 tanks, they're going to 2,000. maybe that openly clear. and they're also going to have all t-90's. they say the nightmare, t-72's,

t-90's. replacements of parts, mechanics that work on its t-90 can't work on the t-72. furthermore, when they went into georgia, half the thanks didn't peak it. they broke down and they said we're going to go back to a size we can make something with. they're creating a unified command structure. district commander, they're giving command of all the units in their district. the airborne force is the only ones left untouched. they're staying at a division later and a lot of that has to do with the general, who i see is the future chief of general staff. a man in chechnya, civilianized. and if you want somebody who eats nails and spits temperature back off, it's him. where was this guy coming from? somebody brought him back on active-duty and put him in charge of the training director. as i said, he's the first one we can't find in russia, we'll go find one and buy it.

i need simulators to train people. the rear services logistics, were the hardest hit. 40% of all officers have been dropped. control is centralized in the district depots, also civilians like the food, like the administering a lot of the bases have been civilianized. military is out of that. railroad troops, even cuts here and what it really sort of shows is one size fits all the railroad troops, same size cut as everybody else had to take. chaplains, long battles, political officers were taken out of the military, there was a real problem. you talk to a lot of the russian officers, some of the political officers said were very good, some were bad, but at least they were there, so if there was a morale problem, it was their problem to take care of it. they took them out, had educational officers, they didn't do anything, so finally they put chaplains in, the major resistance was not religious, it was worrying about radical eye

ma'ams, because they have 20% of the military is muslims, because they worry about bringing them in but now they're going to bring them in and they'll be paid as deputy commanders. but the first time now that they're having the four groups, buddhists, jewish, orthodox, and muslim chaplains will be in service. that reminds me, in 1989, when i talked to the two star admiral, who was in charge of the new england fleet political fares, i remember his comment to me. he said in 1917, we destroyed the old gods and came in with the new ones. the new ones collapsed and now we don't have anything. we need something to control the troops because there's no system tanned that's what they've basically come up with. the military's responsibility, no surprise, strong opposition. second time he sent it in, sudokov said i have no objection to releasing him and putin

talked to him and said stay. the man is over 60, which means he has special permission to stay in uniform and he had it, can serve another three years, could intentionally quit. as far as i can tell, maybe somebody who does it more systematically than i do, all three or four stars in moscow are gone. in charge of the air force, army, navy, in charge of logistics, medical, league, they've all been replaced, and the arguments you hear, you get very clearly from the russians, if they're not going to play the game, they're gone, and that game is the new military. in fact, it was so strong, the general staff -- head of the general staff now, september out a thing beings silencing the officers, they couldn't say anything and it turned into a joke, because they can't say anything, but -- they tried to rationalize the process. anybody who serves from zero to 10 years, gets a subsidy, gets a

bonus, if you serve from 10, 20 years, you get a bonus plus an apartment. if you serve for more than 20 years, you get a bonus, an apartment and a retirement. there's also something that i sort of laughed about, because we used to think when we went into russia, you could tell how many stars a again had by his girth. now they've introduced p.t. first year, 26% of all younger officers failed it and the argument now is same if american military, you don't pass p.t. test, you're gone and i can see some of the generals i used to know, had some problem. but nowhere comes the other part of the problem, the other half of the problem they're having. create an nco corps. they decided they're not going to have officers, i remember going to missile mount and we had a third class petty officer and they asked what did you do, he said i manned the missile and i can prepare the missile. and he said translation. he did. the russian analyst said to me, two officers, he was a young kid from detroit.

who had been -- god knows how long in the navy beings two, three years, he was doing the missile and they said that's absolutely nonsense. maintenance problems the problems have and absolutely critical sense, delegating authority. they haval very hard time doing that, the way that -- if you had a marine captain and the guys above him are lost, you expect him to figure out what the hell to do and get out of there. that's what they're trained to do. russians will sit there and wait for somebody to give them an order. that's an exaggeration, but makes it a difficult be problem. inability to attract top flight talent. we need 250,000nco's. they started a program in february, 10-month program at several of the universities, where they would take people and really train them in what they were doing and you know, in mechanics or in transportation, whatever. they found -- they had to postpone it. they couldn't find enough officers -- enough candidates

who could pass the test to do basic matt, so testify a serious problem with that -- so they have a serious problem with that. those who sign a contract t to e with the military for several years, it has major problems. first of all, russian officers openly said that it attracts the dregs of society. anybody -- rule of 8,000 for a guy who joins, versus 20 some thousand for an average bus driver in moscow. they have a real problem going on. crime problems are rampant. not only the harassment going on, but they're involved in crimes, they talked about rape, they talked about -- an they published the statistics, exactly how many crimes occurred. so it's not hard to find it there. many leave as soon as they can. and 24 is the -- the idea was contract nicki would build the nco corps, but anybody here who has ever been in the military, any colonel or b.g. thinks he runs the military, he's a damn

fool. who runs the military are senior sergeants or senior petty officers, they run the military and make you look good or bad, as the case may be. officers, morale is not surprising, it's at rock bottom. crime, corruption in the officer corps has been blasted now for having the highest rate of corruption increase in the entire military. technological, present moscow was way behind. 10 years was basically lost. from 1990 to 2000, it was gone. nothing happened at that time. the navy got only pour new ships. most ships are 40, 50 years old. some of these -- some fear, there was an article last week, too far behind to catch up. the bullet or missile, case in point, the fave gets 40% of the weapons budget and it's going from the -- they have the convertor one submarine and they've also had several other submarines and in fact, it's not working, it's failing all its tests. the army, russian experts say

things like tanks and bp p's are inferior to all nato systems. communication systems are bad. they're probably going to have to buy a golsak system because that's failed if georgia. who knows what else. the great sniper rifles, they said yeah they're great. defense industry has stuck with old soviet equipment. most of the staff are old timers, very hard to try to get that to go again. my conclusion, based on a budgetary breakdown of where they're putting their military budget, priority be given to reforming the military, structural change, personnel issues. they'll continue to modernize things, weapons, the navy, but don't expect major weapons modernization for several years. the real question is whether russians can overcome the psychological barriers, the nco's, the contract nicki and

their officer corps. >> do you have any minutes or would you like to go straight to question? >> questions. >> if you would like to make a short comment or have a question, please raise your hand and wait for the mic to come and give your identification and affiliation, courtesy of the speaker. >> thank you richard. i would like to address a question to professor blank. i've worked with the soviets over many years myself -- i

didn't identify myself. tom graham, i'm currently with guardian power, chairman of the board at that company, but i spent many years in u.s. government, working on nuclear issues, arms control issues, international agreements and so forth. many years negotiating with the soviets. mime -- my question is, professor blank, you presented russia's threat perception, it seems entirely -- or not entirely, but largely american oriented. over the years, i had the impression that the soviets also considered as part of the threat out there, the -- for lack of some other way to characterize it, the afghan-al qaeda-pakistan type threats. is that no longer part of their threat assessment or has it been

submerged? i remember many years ago, shevardnadze said to baker, the west and east have to stand together from the threat from the south. i would be interested in your comment on that subject. >> thank you. the national security strategy has nothing to say about terrorism. and this is striking. when you think first of all, what's going on in the north caucuses, because the north caucuses has been out of control for about at least five years, if not more. there are a quarter of a million russian troops, regular army, minister of interior, forces down there and they're getting absolutely nowhere. all you have to do is just read our headlines, let alone theirs. but the doctrine says, there is

nothing about terrorism. as a matter of fact, the chairman of the security council, which is the organization that is tasked with being the monitoring agency for the government that is making progress on all these indices, said actually in 2007 and 2008 that the terrorist threat was receding. now, i don't know if he believes that. i hope not. but it's certainly good for political consumption at home, because it plays to this image of the putin government as being strong on terrorism and having eradicated the threat, even though the threat is as we know, alive and well. now, with regard to al qaeda and afghanistan, pakistan, obviously they're recognized as a threat, but in this document beings there's not a word said about it. furthermore, they see pakistan as the great proliferation threat. on north korea.

mcdevitt says he sees north korea as a bigger problem, because north korea has broken free of any kind of international threat but north korea is still connected to the iaea and we have some leverage on iran. that said, they don't see proliferation as much of a threat as the u.s. does. i did a whole paper on this last year, where we had a conference with the russians, and like i said, they came out and said the same thing, russians don't see proliferation anywhere being a threat to the extent the u.s. does and there are people around putin who would publicly given that kind of statement recently to the press, basically saying you know, you people are obsessed with iran for no good reason. it's your problem. not ours. that said, the proliferation threat is real. privately they've acknowledged to secretary gates that they are worried about iran's

capabilities, but they don't -- won't say so publicly. the really interesting omission though in this document, and i suspect you'll find it in the defense doctrine with it comes out, is china. because they are as aware as we are about the chinese military buildup. now we're going to talk about that i think to some degree on the next panel but the china threat is the threat that dare not speak its name. recently, many people in the government said that china's nuclear weapons are not a threat because they're not aimed at russia. you know, they've also studied the -- those who have studied the issue knows how long it takes to retarget a nuke letter weapon it's not long at all and the chinese weapons that are coming on stream deal with the russian threat, so there's a sort of whistling by the grave yard about china and again, they're never going to say publicly that china poses any kind of threat, except maybe economically. so i hope that answer your

question... >> i reconciled in the following way. in the paper, which i didn't have time to read, i go through and talk about the social issue that they have securitized education, health care, they have done this for religion, they talk about this state needs to have a fertility policy encouraging people to have

children, to improve russian public health and so on. all of those issues are addressed in the paper which will be coming out with for reasons of time i couldn't go into the details. i look at it in this way. the threat perception is a political one that on the one hand, try to get the government to give more resources to the military and reflected as i alluded to in the delivery of my presentation, a problem we have come across in the past, in the soviet military, we have a military political aspect that says one thing but the army or military technical aspects of defense policy which points in a contradictory direction. my sense is the ground forces and to some degree the helicopter forces, the air assault capability, are being

configured for the french of wars in and around the cis including scenarios like georgia or if you have another chechnya or something like the israeli/gaza operations of the past few years. but they believe these kinds of wars could easily expand into the big one, and the big one is a war that has fought by long-range pressures -- precision strike capabilities, air, naval, the idea that nato ground force is going to invade russia is not very likely and i don't think it is the scenario that keeps them up in their literature, it is a kosovo scenario which is an ethnic problem breaks out somewhere in the cis or in the russian federation itself, this becomes

an international cause for concern and leads nato to the military pressure or to act on behalf of the opposing side, and that would mainly be air strikes, long-range naval strikes, iw in one way or another. the enemy is not going to come in tanks but in planes. i don't think the scenario that energizes them is a large-scale ground invasion even though a lot of people are still obsessed with 1941. they're not exist with the idea of 190 divisions coming across the plains, they're looking at a more modernized conventional threat. for that, the navy and air the funds and god forbid the nuclear forces are the ones they're going to bear the brunt of that responsibility. the army will have to be able to defend borders. it is being optimized to use the russian -- they're trying to

optimize. to fight these boards to prevent them from going to ohio state as well. it is the russian belief that due to its possession of nuclear weapons, it is able to defer the west from intervening on behalf of georgia last year. it is not an unfounded belief either. that would be the answer. >> for the media, we have a separate room where you are welcome to interview people if you want to. that said, are there any people who need to leave and can't stay and would like to ask the question now? we will proceed, anyone who wants to ask questions, please raise your hand. the gentleman in the back? >> david connisky, for mr. blank

and mr. holstein, what do you attribute to that attempt to end the regional mandate which established in russia's are forces? >> you are talking about the switch from the division levels? >> the russian military is the most conservative in the world. they put the new ones in, their brigades, the same reason we have them, they're more deployable, we have all the assets with them, they don't have to bring in the old division, they have their medical corps, they have all that stuff with the brigade. they are more flexible and faster to deploy. that makes a lot of people redundant. >> a quick follow-up. >> we need the mike or in won't

record properly. >> when they discontinued because of the reforms in the military -- >> which part of the reform? >> they don't have a systematic plan. tells what they're doing and why they're doing it. dukhov has done this or that in moscow or the military, he sold them to put in the infrastructure, what you don't see coming out of moscow is a great plan. they're going through changing this or this, toward a smaller military. i don't have a great plan that you do. >> they have studied contemporary warfare. georgia was the icing on the cake. normally in russian history, when the russian army when the victory there's a great celebration, the army is great,

it is wonderful, nothing changes. this is unprecedented because two or three weeks after the shooting stopped instituted these reforms that released in the paper, that he and other people like roger mcdermott and others in the profession have catalogued, the chief of staff gets up and said the russian army is not ready for contemporary warfare. this is a shocking announcement under the circumstances. it has been followed by other shocks. the idea that they're going to israel to buy new 80s, the scandal given their past record of relationships, the israelis mauamakvmake excellents and win sell them for political purposes, they cut out two levels of command, control and communications by instituting this reform and getting rid of a whole bunch of people, warehouse generals who are sitting around

pushing paper all day. they understand they need an army that can move quickly, fight and be commanded in an efficient and effective way and they didn't have it. they beat the georgians by their own incompetence, not by any special virtue that resides in the russian army and they know it. these reforms which started in 2006, that is when it really starts, it changes when dukhov comes in. they began these reforms to have an army more effective and more attuned to the requirements of what they understand contemporary warfare to be. they have learned from our experience and the israelis's experience and other people's experience as to what is required. >> one of the most famous quote saw came out of that from the russian officer, we went to war in georgia not with a modern military but with a soviet military and won by masse.

certain people in the air force, that has been blasted in the press, four airplanes shot down, georgia had no airplanes, they shot down three mig-23s and a reconnaissance plane which is basically an intelligence plane, how did they do that? the one thing that is clear to me is the russians were not ready for that war. i can give you the exact reason for it. when that war took place, the chief of operations director, general staff, was not there. the general staff was in the process of moving one building to another, the old warsaw pact, they didn't even know about it later on television. that is why it was all handled and the president's office. they had no -- communications system. >> there are some people this past month, passed the mike to -- for people watching on

television, you are welcome to e-mail me questions. we can't answer them now but i would be happy to pass them along to the speakers later. >> i am from george tan university. i am sure this paper has a few pages of that campaign -- and like to hear about the people who served in his military, the little bit i have seen, the health of the people coming and has deteriorated even further, the military wants its own doctrine to be the only one that is determined. not clear if that is a better system or to make sure everyone gets paid for lending people

out. >> less than 40% of the people to the surface, in the next eight years, the number of 18-year-olds is going to pass and be documented. >> i didn't say anything about the spring draft campaign in the paper. we or going to talk about manpower papers. it is clear that as part of the reform, they want to move to the professional army. their concept in russian armies are very different. from the general staff, the idea of the professional army -- mercenaries. which is not the case. the problem you have is there is not enough money to compensate people adequately for their service if you do that. secondly, you would have to institute some sort of uniform

code of military justice that is applicable. i don't want to say they don't have it, the office is accountable to their behavior. the figures on officer crime are through the roof. bribery, the office putting them to work for you on conditions that are served like, throughout the army -- >> to keep themselves on active duty. >> i have seen that. the health problems which you alluded to are also -- the health problems, we are talking about 18-year-olds, these are kids, young men who have been born with 1991/1992, grew up in the worst public health disaster in russian history. it is not surprising that when they eat -- reach maturity there systems are compromised. >> let me say one of thing about the conscription which was cut

to one year, recently, serving two years, 1-1/2 years throughout, that was a compromise to the general staff. the big style army and the new group, these guys are going for year, they are not confident when they go out, they don't know what they are doing. the graphics are going to get to them and they are going to drop these people. the problem is some of the units, the readiness units, which is what they wanted, are 50% conscript because they cannot attract and ceos or g.i. joe to serve in the military, 8,000 rules in moscow, they go into a war zone, lose their salary, who wants to go in if you're going to be paid that? they are finally making the decision to focus primarily on the personnel system. what good is it to get modern weapons? the conscript are going away because the 40% that they can

get, to the navy and things like that, it is a bad scene. you have been around russian military as i have, the training is brutal. that disappeared -- i don't know if you're watching pictures, they went aboard that ship, got in the way of anybody who was in the way. i have seen what they do. >> to add to this, the issue gets down to the question, should our defense policy be oriented on what the military believes on what russia can afford? we have heard this number of but million man army for 10 years. we have seen these articles. next year we will have an army of 1 million men and so forth. that raja keeps receding every year. it is supposed to be the case

now, but under the terms of the economic crisis, i doubt that they can afford to do everything they want. what they want to do is constructive. the social structure, national health care has to support that system. 18-year-old class coming and are victims of the lost decade. >> gentlemen in the first row, please. >> i am from safe foundation. question to mr. blank and mr. herspring, you analyze the russian strategy which is in the document, there is no reason for us to believe that that is not a misinformation document because much of the good strategy is classified even in the united

states. to analyze that, i you bringing services to them to talk about the problems? that is one question. the misinformation is put out by both sides, when we declared saddam hussein the biggest threat to the united states which was not true. misinformation is used by all sides. the russians are not incapable of using that. what do you think of this analysis that is very useful to us? >> i hate to disappoint you but i don't think the national security strategy of the russian federation is a misinformation document because there's so much in it which is geared towards compelling bureaucracy to perform that if it was a disinformation documents they would file 13 with it. this reminds me of a case, tim thomas is going to speak later, in 1996, spoke at the defense

intelligence agency on russian military, 96, the russian military was at the bottom. we finished our presentation and one fellow said don't you think this is a misinformation ploy to lull us into believing they are weak? i don't know if you like the memo but the soviet union disappeared 5 years ago. the united states did not conduct a misinformation campaign that saddam hussein was a threat, it misinformed itself. there is that point. this is not -- everybody has classified numbers. you don't say we are going to attack on this access and so on. this is a political document that came out of a tough political struggle and is intended to give concrete guidance to the russian state administration.

this took five years. >> napoleon and hitler both tried and finally got their lunches. >> i never had the idea of invading russia as an enemy of the people. >> let me say one thing about this information. i spent my life falling -- when i was in russia, trying to figure out what they were talking about, if you read every day about 25 turtles everyday, this is not misinformation. they're open and talking about problems. easy enough in different places, put them together, you can figure out there hurting and they are saying they are hurting. it reminds me of dick cheney two years after the soviet union collapsed, the fact is it has collapsed, from the 90s to 2000, people selling things in the

street, we went to chechnya the first time, the hats were given to them by the bank and their shoes were given to them by another company. if you look at russian soldiers, you find all kinds of different uniforms on them, one complaining about the invasion of georgia, he looked like a militia, people from georgia clothing are supposed to distributed, the russian soldiers and the ascensions, little white things around there armed, the russian soldier did not very good team uniforms being complained about. this is not management, this is a lot of incompetence and corruption. they found out they were no longer a superpower. it is hard for a country to justify that. >> thank you very much.

my question is actually using your experience, can you tell us what was going on with the document? knowing russians, the way they do business, i can't see this. >> their feeling is that they need to have the doctrine and national security strategy. first of all, they have been subjected to a lot of international pressure over the years as other governments do as well. we need a document like this and we do it. we have congressional in mandated national defense strategies that every administration puts up. in forming the government what the administration's goals are and what strategies and what we are doing here.

this particular document, primarily intended to give strategic guidance of a particularly strategist nature to the -- >> what kind of training things are going into, the problem the russians have had, the piecemeal things, they have defense doctrine that gives them the guidance -- in the sense that it is focused much more on smaller highly lethal military. one of the problems, they don't know what the doctrine is, they are much more along, the russian military is based -- the structure is based on it and they want to have a general staff, they know what they can

do. >> giving examples of the struggle in the general staff, the argument was made publicly that the general staff wanted to publish a defense doctrine before the national defense strategy comes out which gives quite a place in defining not only the threat assessment but the response, being able to capture state resources towards their response. they shot that down clearly. there's a tremendous struggle. this is not just a document written because somebody had nothing better to do on sunday afternoon. this is a major political statement on behalf of the government, how we're going to organize the pursuit of what we define as national security. this is a national security state. this is taken over by the state.

from 18 the nineteenth century term, to create a society by the state in order to achieve societal and state goals. >> on this corner here, the guy next to you, boy back there. >> dan gibbons. i am getting the message from mr. blank primarily that the russians are concerned about regional protection that they are concerned about the united states, primarily, encroachment is the word you used, and the

united states is feeling that they are trying to establish a sphere of influence in the region -- are we trying -- is our aim to make russia into a marginal power? russia wants to feel it is a major power purportedly. i am just wondering, there is a middle ground, when you talk about this sphere, their strategy is focused on, is there an intermediary doctrine that will integrate the united states's interests with the

soviet interests in this region that they are concerned with? >> thank you. >> i doubt very much that the obama administration is trying to marginalize russia. i believe no one can marginalize russia accept russia. let me give you an example. one of the really best russian analysts who i know very well just recently wrote an article where he said in the last 30 years, china is weak, backward, state administration is in chaos, they concentrated on economic development and internal border, they did not conduct a vocal and aggressive foreign policy except for a vital chinese interests were at stake. they followed the famous advice

to lay low norm and so on and today, china's economy is the wonder of the world, it is growing, 7% this year, it is a major power and is consulting on all kinds of issues, russia, on the other hand, was in decline throughout the 80s and spends its time screaming that it is a great power, everyone takes it seriously, they are threatening, intimidating, but did not develop the country and as a result you see what the russian system looks like today. >> far too much has been made of the fact of the bombers around, kicking the submarines off the coast and going to venezuela. they're saying we are back. i have been on a lot of those ships and they're not the most modern things in the world.

it is a way to say we are back and when they send a nuclear attack submarine off the post, they have potential cruise missiles. they can ruin the whole day of you are in the right spot when you are hit but it is not the kind of deterrence, what they're doing is they say very clearly the heart of their military is nuclear force. nuclear force means we will be careful what we do. they really blew it and we thought we would pick up his marbles. the u.s. will not move into an airy and take a chance on nuclear war. we played that game in the 60s and 50s, we were very careful. what they're worried about is what happens if something goes crazy in armenia and the united states sends troops in and they want them faster. if you look at georgia, i spent a lot of time on the georgia campaign, that is one of the classic cases of total ineptness. they fired whoever was in

charge. it was a joke in the way they did things. the only reason they got through the rocky tunnel was because the troops occupied it, they never would have gotten there if georgia had not had explosives to use. >> we are not trying to marginalize russia. you have to understand the russians government, they bought the military because it serve their political purposes which is also a justification for their power and policy. they are certainly not planning an offensive war against anybody at the moment except maybe georgia. this idea that we are trying to marginalize russia is essentially a russian believe projected on to the united states. the longer we read russian newspapers, the more you come to the conclusion, i think, that in point of fact, whenever our

crimes or follies are, they don't understand this at all. they project on to us their worst fears and paranoias that is a system based on institutional is asian of paranoia. this enemy is out there, this idea that we're in a state of siege is deeply rooted even if you strip away the marxist socialist aspects of it but this idea that somebody is doing something to somebody else all the time, that is their policy. >> since we only have six minutes left, why don't i collect all the questions? everybody raised their hand and we will collect them all and allow the speakers to answer those questions they feel are most appropriate or most want answered and you can request freely to pursue the question during the 15 minute break we have in between sessions which will start in five minutes. please raise your hand and we will come back to you and get on

this recording. >> my question is for both of you. i am a little bit confused as to the focus on the ineptitude of the russian military, whether comes to georgia or these older, mid 90s caricatures of health problems, none of these things seem to prevent the russian military from effectively, in 72 hours, eliminating george's military capability or their ability to ward where -- wage war or achieving military objectives. i don't understand how you can -- you talk about things like construction and air power as a solution of problems but what about the threat of having achieved the number of things in

the 90s, increasing funding, all those things are ignoring your presentation. i would like to have some more balance and elaboration. >> sorry. ahead and ask. raise your hand, keep your hand up. >> question over here. >> i have a question that is really a follow-up of gaffney's. the russians had a war with georgia, they spent months preparing. those preparations cannot have completely concealed the failings and ineptitudes that were so shocking in the execution. my question is this. has that experience in the last

year, more direct confrontation with the decrepitude of the russian armed forces, has that induced any kind of restraint in russian foreign policy? when i look at the pugnacity with which dmitry medvedev address is ukraine, you look at russian behavior these folks are spoiling for a fight. aren't there some voices for trouble avoidance given the sorry condition of the russian military and the enormous resources and time it is going to require to record act them? >> you said the russians view nuclear weapons as for some of

our russian allies--nato allies are concerned by what they see as the possibility of russian nuclear coercion. i was hoping you could say more about the role of nuclear weapons in the new national security strategy? >> we have a panel on that this afternoon. go-ahead. any other questions? if you want to make some concluding remarks, whatever you want to say for a few minutes and we will break until 11:00. >> to the first question, i don't think we denied that they made progress since 1994. we are not making up this argument about the decrepitude of the russian army. this is the chief of staff and russian military press getting up and waiting out in exquisite detail all of the failings of the russian army. when the staff gets up in public and says this army is not ready for prime time, that is a pretty damning indictment. it is much worse than anything i

could have said. we are not out to bash the russians, this is reporting what they say themselves about their own situation. and the corruption and criminality, which i have read as well, russian figures, not cia or american figures. this is the way it is from their standpoint, not mine. as far as the audacity of foreign policy, they have not learned to become more circumspect in their rhetoric and policy even though there is a financial in the economic crisis. i am concerned this crisis might lead them to do something rash. there's a famous line by estates men and in the nineteenth century who talks about something erotic in the periphery, that essentially empire gave russian state a kind of sexual thrill. i think power over the cis, as

far as foreign policy, they are determined to push this, according to training, they think the reset button made us think we react knowledge their influence, why we sent vice-president biden there and so on. the russians do not know the limits to their own power or understand it is their own policy that makes their enemies of so many of their would-be partners. >> to begin with, there are hopeful signs, we will not give their state to iran and politically holding that back strictly because we can work with the russians. the question about do they want to do something? it reminds me of a report i saw at the start of afghanistan.

they said this is not a war we are going to win. the military asked the ukraine to look at it and say are you nuts? we are not in a position to go into ukraine. we don't have facilities. the only way they got planes up in the air is they used test pilots and training officers. they did not have regular front line pilots. they're getting 8 hours a year of training. one russian colonel said that is great. if you can take out half of the officers and have the same amount of fuel available you get more training time. i would expect, go ahead blustering, they're always blustering, go ahead -- we are in no position to go out and do it. what are you going to use? you have the airborne units, you

have others in position. the reason georgia finally worked is they brought in some airborne units. they manage to do something right but the army is not very well trained. tenacity, they haven't learned that. more hopeful u.s./russia relations, things we have done have been silly. i am looking for a trade-off. will you do this on iran? we will do this in terms of the missiles in poland. they're trying to make that part of the nuclear agreement but washington wanted to in a heartbeat, to take at trail and we won't put this in and say will you support us in iran but the military basically, coming back in 5 years, we have already shown you what kind of a mess we are in. >> thank you very much. got a question by a c-span viewer in florida to enter at

your convenience. we will now conclude the first session and we will resume at 11:00 sharp. please join me in thanking the panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> wrapping up the first panel in our day long coverage of a

panel on the russian military, when this discussion continues, russian military challenges for central east europe and russia/chinese security relations. live coverage from the hudson institute begins at 11:00 eastern. this will be a 15 minute break. eleven:00, we will have it live on c-span2. a new study links rapid growth and health care costs to negative economic recovery for several u.s. industries today at one:00 eastern, rand economist explain those study results, that is live on c-span. tonight on both tv prime time, justin fox of the myth of the rational market, a history of risk, reward on wall street.

howard dean will talk about health care legislation. they will be in virginia which is right outside washington d.c. tomorrow. we will have live coverage of that at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> as the debate over health care continues, c-span's health-care hub is a key resource. go online, follow the latest weeks, video and links including town hall meetings and share your thoughts on the issue with your own citizens video including video from any town hall you have gone through and there's more on c-span.org/healthcare. >> george mason university president alan martin on a roll of higher education, training information technology professionals tonight on the communicators on c-span2. go inside the supreme court to see the public places and those

rarely seen spaces, hear from the justices as they provide insight about the court and the building. the supreme court, home to america's highest court. the first sunday and october on c-span. >> a live picture from the hudson institute for discussion on the future of the russian military that will resume at 11:00 eastern. the budget deficit in the u.s. talk to the person who keeps watch on the federal deficit. [no audio]

[no audio] [inaudible conversations] >> having some technical difficulty with washington journal segment this morning on the budget deficit, we are live once again from the hudson institute for just a couple minutes. we will resume the discussion on the future of the russian military. from the associated press this morning, the garage door comes down on a cash for clunkers program tonight with the finish line coming two we fairly.

many dealers emptied of vehicles, half a million vehicles were sold during that program. more on the cash for clunkers program from this morning's washington journal. [no audio] >> it appears we are having problems with our audio on that from this morning's washington journal. once again, standing by for resumption of live coverage in a discussion on the future of the russian military, this is taking place this morning from the hudson institute. it will get underway shortly on

c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> standing by live in the hudson institute waiting for the next portion of the discussion on the future of the russian military. that should get underway in just a couple minutes on c-span2. while we wait, a new study links rapid growth and health care costs to negative economic performance for several u.s. industries today at one:00 eastern, randy, explain the study results. you will see that live on c-span. tonight on book tv prime-time --

former democratic national committee chair and medical doctor howard dean will join virginia congressman james brand to discuss health care legislation just outside washington d.c.. that is tomorrow. live coverage at 7:00 eastern on c-span. from the associated press this morning, the president is a band in the terror suspect interrogation policy implemented by the bush administration. senior administration official said today the president has approved setting up a special white house unit for questioning terror suspects. the cia welcome this change. it will not be all work and play, it will not be all play and no work. president obama's family are spending their first full day of vacation on martha's's vineyard.

a number of senior midlevel advisers on the island in case many issues from health care reform to the war in afghanistan need to be addressed. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> today is the last chance to get a cash reward for trading in the clunker for a more fuel efficient cars. over the weekends, crowded rushed in to take advantage of the program that ends this evening. although the government official has recommended this attorney general reopen the cia prison abuse cases, it would reverse the policy of the bush administration that had closed the cases. the ethics recommend comes to disclose a 2004 report by the inspector general detailing prison abuse allegations.

[inaudible conversations] >> okay. good. everybody please take their sheets and make sure that all your communications devices are turned off. thank you. >> my pleasure to welcome you to the second panel where we are going to talk about russia military and government perceptions of europe and northeast asia. our first speaker is joshua spar row.

we will talk about russia military challenges. he is a social professor at pittsburgh state. and he's also the regional economic development institute director at that college. previously he was in the office of the secretary defense and military studied office. he was also a teacher in the nato division. it's my pleasure to introduce josh to you, and the floor is now open. >> thank you. thank you, steve, richard. i'm grateful for all of you to come out this morning. i'd also like my colleagues to say a brief word about mary fitzgerald who had i the honor to work with in the late 1980s as well as the 1990s when i was in washington. certainly her research and

analysis played a great role in how we collided around the pentagon within the secretary of defense's policy planning offices as well as the joint staff strategic planning and operating. so it's an honor to be here on behalf of mary's work. and i appreciate the institute holding this event. and to be reunited with my colleagues and many of you whom i know. i'm going to try to build a little bit on what you heard on the first panel. my focus regionally and to look at military strategy for eastern europe. probably several challenges not only for europe but also for russian national security. since the post 9/11 rise of

international terrorism, and i know international terrorism was down played in the first panel in terms of the russian national security document that is currently published. nonetheless, international terrorism now makes afghanistan the focus of global security as u.s. military involvement decreases in iraq and the european relations appear more linked to developments in southeast asian security. and so that's going to be the basis of how i'm going to look at the russian military's tour in central and eastern europe. certainly iraq's uncertainly, increased u.s. military, and growing focus on pakistan impact with the european relations. the common ground potentially

lies with closer cooperative security among russia, europe, and america and afghanistan. yet as you start to hear from the first panel, regional security tensions over russian military strategy on russia's western line possibly will threaten the cooperation between the u.s. and europe, while likely determining ruso-european ties. while traditional military planning and even potential confrontation introduceed in euroasia. more concern about euroasian energy challenges that might be realized. such international security concerns may well determine russian military challenges

towards central europe as a geopolitical bandageds for euroasian influence. given the 21th century energy dominance by and military conflict in southeast asia and the middle east, russia's military and europe's political leadership continually focus on independent ukraine and georgia. however, this focus on researchal east european military concerns in ukraine and georgia may relieve more about emergency security for russo-european tied. it's for how russian military strategy towards central and eastern europe develops. for european security calculations, ukraine and georgia factor more politically and economically than militarily. the russo-georgia war in august

2008 and russian ukrainian and temporary shut down of russian energy supply to europe through ukraine, the naval to reassert itself somewhat other the neighbors. consequently, territorial war in georgia may also relate to vital pipeline roots to europe, and the gas pipeline con frontlation in you're crane certainly antagonized the european/u.s. relationships and may divide west europe from east european in more ways than we right realize. russian military objectives, may have advanced through political

and economically focused pipeline routes. and ironically russian military strategy towards central and eastern europe seems to consume more with russian western as we've been hinting at this morning. the area between eu rasia. but the impact might limit it. the pleasuring appearing to drive the european political consideration and economic necessities more than military concerns. antagonizing eastern europe and unsettling some european leaderships over all. thus ukraine and georgia remain what i call geopolitical pivots

to harkin on important confidential issues on strategy. but the security dilemmas may actually focus much less on military issues than on eur russia energy challenges as well as how the union continues to integrate new members, but also reach out to its eastern periphery. and also how a certain concern concern -- impacts on asian security. those are the basis arguments that i've made in this initial draft. i think what's important as the

first decade of the 21th century emerged, you look at countries like germany and other western leaders as more clearly informing their international security concerns towards russia in terms of energy and geopolitical priorities. and the disputes that have emerged as well as the cooperatives efforts that have advanced. because of the oil and natural gas supplies to europe weighs so heavily in european capitol, russian's positioning appeared concentrated on pipeline politics. as a result from what you heard about the russian military and its great challenges to field operation capable forces beyond russian territory, and as you look at the military

interventions of wars that have occurred involving the russian military, as well as the military pressuring that might be used if we really read between the lines for how these important political and economic questions for security are rising for europeans. western, central, as well as eastern europeans, you can start to see that a traditional russian military strategy towards central, eastern europe as we've known it for at least the last two decades with the cold wars collapse, may not be as traditional as we think. and the military planning maybe more focused on russian national security priorities that are political and economically

driven. but as a result, central and east european leaderships remain caught in developing security dilemma in the second sec did as they emerges. central and east european security depends on european integration, especially these days on european unions integration, and as we see on how central and east europeans recent members of nato and the european union over the past decade believe their security is reinforced by u.s. security commitments primarily through nato. and that banking on nato's existence the way we understood how nato is functioning. and when we look at not only the u.s. priority for its international security to be focused on afghanistan and pakistan, and we look at where

nato has gone out of area into afghanistan with its international security assistance force, southeast asian security seemingly is driving how the russian military is trying to focus on its western periphery. again i focused on ukraine and georgia, and i've boiled that down more so to pipeline priorities because of europe's dependency on natural gas and oil from russia. what you start to see happening over the last decade are any number of pipelines that exist from russia through eastern europe and eurasia, properly competing. some are russian pipelines

specificically, others are now emerging to be nonrussian. and bunching together a come glom ration of countries that for a variety of reasons especially in the east european, southeast european and eurasian regions are trying to cut out russia from the process of transferring oil for natural gas. you see the russians trying to build pipelines that go around central and eastern europe. these pipelines have huge costs. but it's striking to me that they are weighs so heavily in russian national security prioritizing, and it will be quite fascinating to see how the increase in the pipelinelineline

-- the geopolitical pipeline battle such as ukraine and georgia factor into russian military strategy as it emerges in the doctrine. but also has it attempts to emerge pragmatically in terms of what the russian military would do to protect such pipeline routes. energy security has gotten a good deal of attention throughout washington. it's certainly atracks great attention in european capitols and of course out of moscow. how it weighs on the european union and nato. for the russian military as i wind down my comment, and

certainly i will be happy to discuss and debate this, the russian military certainly still sees nato as a threat because nato membership has extended to former soviet republic territories. nato membership encircles russia and cuts it off from itself. eastern europe eastern partnerships politically and militarily are really focused on energy. and they're extending their outreach to eurasia which plans from basically northeast europe down to southeast europe, and then into the caucasuss are eurasia. how it is seen today is being driven by how the politics and economic weigh more heavily on

the military planning that we might recognize. whether pipelines become feasible in transporting over the next five to seven years, let's say opinion those pipelines that haven't even been built yet, will really drive the issue of how russo-european issues take shape. i think the russian military is caught in the security dilemma of how it tries to plan any kind of military mission as you've heard on the first panel on its western periphery, and yet we have seen that when problems or plans that leaves to provocation s do erupt in the russo-georgia war a year ago, you can see how that has impact, and then

followed by the january 2009 russian-ukrainian pipeline con frontation. you can see how the issues matter to the issue that are driving europe security and still driving russian a bit nutty, meaning nato and the eu. how these institutions will trap the with energy security since those institutions do prioritize energy issues more seriously than they did a couple of years ago, we'll really be fascinating to see how that plays out. it does bring in central asia through the caucasuss and that certainly relates to how afghanistan's mission will take shape and effect its region. and how that will impact

economically not only in southeast asian but eurasian security. so i just would conclude by looking at the priorities where american and european allies within nato, for example, may diverge on issues such as nato enlargement, missile defense, i haven't spent much time on that this morning because i think those are secondary. i think you heard from the first panel, and i agree, a tradeoff on missile defense in the poland and the czech republic on the systems that could be made if there's an iranian card to play. u.s. interest which drives missile defense within nato may

back backtrack and russia maybe able to assert themselves within the russia nato council. and you may see the european union factoring in more on nato decision making when it comes to energy and protection of pipeline routes more than one might have imagined when we looked at how major militaries faced off against one another when i first came into government in the late '80s along the folded gap. and i think eurasian security and east european security georgia and ukraine being those pivots will weigh more heavily in russian military calculations in central and eastern europe. >> thank you, josh. we will now turn to talk about

russian-chinese security. richard is a senior fellow and director here at hudson. he has published on regional security developments across euasia on homeland security. he has also published and edited several books on russian. a volume of national security case studies for the project on national security reform which came out in 2008. a study called russian security relations last year as well. it's available on our web site for free. you can't get a bargain like that anyway. and another major book called " kazakhstan in 2008."

even i can't write three books in a year. the floor is yours. >> thank you for your kind words. i'm speaking about the russian relations. in year was the 60th anniversary of the establish and diplomatic relations between moscow and the people's republic of china. and there was a series of celebrations and events to mark the occasion. the most important where the president made a visit to the state and moscow. the chinese television interviewed the president of russia. he said given the review, he thought this was probably the highest level in ties in the history of chinese/russia relations. i think that was connect.

i think there probably is -- they've probably never been so close in so many -- across the entire relationship. but it's important to consider what metrics you are looking at. again what you see in the past, it's not especially high hurdle. for the most part, they have ignored each other or engaged in wars, and very other unpleasant episodes in the past. it's really only been about the past 20 years where you have this odd relations in which russians have inherited and retaining the core elements of the soviet union. and the weaker economic rounds. and china, you know, has been scheduled to the metric forms and other factors. the economy has been improving. they have been able to convert some of that into military potential. you are getting an interesting

balance in which china's economy continues. but russia still retapes the military forces in the nuclear rounds. the russian defense analyst when you talk about how they think about china, most of them, some of them many americans think about it. they don't see china as a near term threat. it's not seen as a major security problem. perhaps beyond that they're concerned as are other people. but for the most part they think it is domestic developed and military and economic potential. the cooperation in many dimensions. they make joint statements when they meet at the presidential or other level. they direct the contact of these as such they kind of agitate

them, even -- meaning the united states falling into the influence of russia, india, europe, and form a basic balance of what they call democracyization, they mean externally in the terms of the balance. the segments also -- china and russia has the u.n. vetoes and insofar as the united states are giving up the resolution, they can veto that. they can use that veto power to modify resolutions about their friends and allies in the third world developing countries. they -- the segments often in their segment they often tend to agree on what they don't like about american policy, although

they don't name the united states. there's our criticism of democracy efforts or efforts from one political system on a different political system or culture. there is the attempts to militarize and so on. they settled one major point of contention. they finally made their joint border, they now finally settled that. and now that will become contested for a while. even in the energy realm if you consider energy security and dimension security, there has been a major turn around in the past year. after many years of frustrated deals by being over the pipeline, what kind of prices you can get from the oil and gas russia might deliver, they finally seem to be on formula which will work in the near

form. china lends the company billions of dollars. in returns the russian companies use this money to sell the pipeline and deliver oil. they are thinking now depending on the oil and natural gas and other realms. and -- but i think that the energy deal like some of the other relationships are pressed a little -- they are more tense than con tech chewable than as portrayed by the two countries. the russians have sort of been forced into this deal. for the longest time they tried to resist the chinese market and chinese investment that would compete with their companies. they recently because of the world prices for russian oil and gas and the weaknesses behind

that, they are not sure if prices bounce become back if they maybe doing or how long the deal is sustainable. other dimensions? the russians are pushing to weaken the role of the dollar, for example, the chinese has been much more reluctant to do so because they have such large dollar holding reserves. in central asia there's a common interest and conflicting interest in some areas. chinese government refuses to recognize the independent of the two separate entities of the georgia that russian military carved out. at societal level, it's not close at all. they've been trying to push us along to various cultural exchanging, promoting each other

languaging and so on. but that doesn't appear to have made my progress. you get a lot -- if you look at the media, chinese have complained about how they are treated in russia. although some of the past years at the chinese moving in and de facto taking over large parts of the faded from the scene, there are still the concern that demographic imbalances are going to create a problem. :

>> the effect of this has been really compounded by the foreign world oil crisis to shirt what previously had been long-term russian surpluses to a really major deficit, about $13 billion last year. russia's basically turned into a commodity provider for china. oil, gas, timber, other commodities. and they buy now a lot of chinese consumer goods, machinery, appliances. they've been trying to reverse this, go back to high-tech technology, but they haven't been able to do so in the nuclear energy realm which is the other area aside from the arms rem m that -- realm that

that might occur. during the late '90s and early 2000s about one-fourth to one-half of russians weapons exports went to china. every year they would go from russia into china. russian firms derived substantial revenue from this, it was very helpful particularly many the 1990s when the russian industrial complex was straining to sustain itself, and then the chinese liked it. they managed to pick up a lot of good soviet technology at fairly low prices and were able to incorporate them to make up some of the gaps in their own forces. but you see, as i said, a sharp decline starting about 2007 deliveries as well as new contract orders. i think this is due for several reasons. complaints about the quality of the goods and sales and so on, but the major reason is the chinese defense industry itself

has been able to, has really improved over the last few years. it's been effective at producing goods that previously they would have to buy from russia, and now the russians have a choice: do they accept the loss of this market, or do they agree to start selling the kind of weapons that are really top of the line which they have not given to the chinese? and they go a bit back and forth. at the moment they're deciding not to sell some of the most advanced material because they're actually doing quite well in the international arms market in sales. they got a large backlog of orders, and they don't really need chinese orders at the moment. also they've been very concerned that a lot of the goods they give to china they've been able to reverse engineer, and they're now competing with chinese exports on the world markets, and this is going to manifest itself. recently the ukrainians told the

russians, look, you have to give us the s-300 or we're going to buy the chinese version. it's not quite a copy, but it's a good system, so it's putting a lot of pressure on the russians to decide how much they want the sell china, risk transferring. the other key to mention in the relationship which has somewhat replaced the arms relationship as that's falling hand these large-scale military exercises. they have a lot of general security exchanges. i mean, they meet, the defense ministers meet annually, they've set up telephone hotlines, general staff get together, and they have about 25 smaller exercises, for example, scheduled this year. but during 2005 you had this new phenomenon, these large-scale joint exercises. they occur every year, 2005, 2007, 2009. they've been a bit different. 2005 it was focused very much on large -- it was very large, about 10,000 troops involved, strategic bombers on the russian

side, a lot of warships, it was done on the russian coast as well as on the chinese coast. and that was, some of it looked like it was an invasion to taiwan, another option could be a joint occupation of north korea if they wanted to occupy the country and force the american troops to move up north. the one in 2007 was a bit different, it involved the shanghai cooperation organization of allies of russia, so it was somewhat smaller, but it included the central asian countries. and then 2009 the most recent was is a bit different again. it was smaller and mostly in china. only one short day of meeting in russia. it was almost pro forma, a day of consultations, but it involved a very rigorous drill of exercises. and i think if you look at these, these exercises serve several purposes, and it's been changing over time.

an original purpose appears to have been, one of them, was to promote russian arms sales. so the russians would highlight some of the systems they were hoping the chinese would buy in the 2005 exercise, and it worked in one instance where the chinese decided to buy a tanker aircraft that the russians showed off to them. but with the arms relationship, otherwise, seems to have fallen offer. another one is to improve their tactical efficiency. the chinese are eager to perform with their militaries, working with them, getting a better sense of how to conduct these complex military operations which, as you know, they've not been engaged in major combat action since vietnam. this gave them an opportunity to do a major exercise since world war ii. also it's going to be rehearsal, you might argue, to some of the problems that have preoccupied

both countries. for example, if there was a popular uprising in a region. something like tiananmen in 1989 or am by january in 2005 in uzbekistan. some type of joint operation might be conceivable, or at least they want to become efficient in conducting these operations. another goal i would think is just to underscore that, to reaffirm their defense cooperation. they don't actually have a bilateral military alliance the way, say for example they might have done nominally during the cold war there's no commitment from one country to defend the other from attack, but the exercises do confirm their commitment to support each other's security. you can also interpret these as a means of confidence building. they have a series of agreements, steve mentioned one.

they don't target their nuclear weapons, for example, against each other formally. they've got demille tarrization agreements, but a lot of these you can't enforce them or they're sort of self-enforcing. both countries wanted to reduce the troops along their joint border at thend of the cold war, so these agreements just recognize that fact. but these, the joint exercises write additional information about what each of the countries is doing in the military realm, allowing them to keep an eye on each other. finally, there's the standard adjustment of these exercises. in terms of friends, they're showing the central asian allies at russia and china at least have the potential to intervene militarily if you get in trouble on your behalf. this is not really seen as a forbe military threat, it's more, again, an internal

upheaval that they would want to call in russian and chinese troops to help put down. now, it's an unlikely scenario but something they, perhaps, want to allow these nations to exist. and, of course, they want to show messages to other parties. particularly the united states. and this, in a way, sort of shows to other countries that this whole area of eurasia is really a primary concern for the two countries, and they have the capacity to enforce that. and there was actually a coat from the chief of the russian -- quote from the chief of the russian general staff, one of the reasons he gave for the exercise was to show the national community that russia and china have the necessary resources to insure stability in the region. but again, i mean, difficult in actual practice for them to operatallize a joint interaction. so you probably have sort of parallel operations. you know, russian troops coming from the north, chinese from the

west or something like this. so in conclusion, the relationship is, it's very broad. they have security dimensions, and it's become more organized in the sense that you have kind of a very good relationship in the sense of a lot of interaction at the elite level and not a current fear ofoming into a shooting war anytime soon, but it's very shallow. there's not much depth, a limited amount of interoperability, the arms sales are falling in importance, the joint exercises are important symbols, but they pretty much stand out to the unusual nature. and although there's nothing in the future that's going to cause them to go back to the cold war tensions we saw during the 1960s, there's, there's enough inherent competition -- and i'm happy to go into this in the question and answer session in third party areas and other

areas which reassures you're not going to see a sigh know- sino-russian cold war alliance or something that really caused problems for the united states. thank you. >> thank you, richard. we'll now open up the panel to questions. as before, if you have a question, please, raise your hand, and the people with the mics will come to you. when you're asking the question, please identify yourself and specify to whom you're asking the question. >> also television audiences if you want to e-mail me a question, it's weitz at hudson.org, and we can try and answer it here or we'll answer it later. >> yes man right here. gentleman right here. >> bill, csis. question more for josh and possibly steve. the reported discussion earlier concerning the russian desire to build up more of an air mobile type capability is regarded as

some by at least potential threat for russia's neighbors given russia's stated desire to reacert its influence -- reassert its nuance and its ability to protect russian minorities in georgia, in ukraine, in estonia or possibly even could have some impact because of the situation in leningrad. so i'd like to have your comments on that because some people do perceive this as an enhanced threat. and secondly, the reported russian intent to develop a military installation getting back to your discussion of pipelines and energy access and the black sea. norway's expressed some concerns about russia and the arctic. just like your general comments on that. >> as i, as i stressed in my analysis, i think primarily

economic considerations drive how russia increasingly looks at its western periphery. and that also drives political considerations that could be tackled, potentially tackled by russian, small russian military operation to at least on the surface protect russian minorities to the extent that moscow would use a russian military maneuvering including to bill up potential headquarters, forward deployed, if you will, as you're indicating in a breakaway region such as abkhazia which most of the world doesn't recognize as a

independent from georgia. to protect russian minorities, i think that primarily if you will political and social issue is always part of planning, but i think it's, it's much lower on the scale of how you actually plan to do this without provoking not only opposition including military opposition within that region, but how that plays with your financial and economic priorities which move westward from russia and eurasia into europe. so i, i can't say just how the russian military would be used

to protect russian populations on its western periphery at least and its southwestern periphery to a great extent from what i see in planning documentation. that's available unclassified. i would, though, in turning to your point about taking advantage, at least operationally, of opportunities to create even makeshift headquarters' planning elements beyond russian borders or in territory that russia sees more a part of it than, let's say, was the case one or two years ago for contingencies, military

contingencies that if the political command is given and there's not overwhelming dispute between secretary -- minister of defense and chief of general staff that it really, i believe, is driven more by making sure that money continues to get made by insuring that oil and gas continues to go through pipelines. and even having the military used to help the contractors and the businesses build future pipelines. you may find that the russian military is involved, and that kind of reinforcement as opposed to actual military operations which, finally, is one of the reasons why i believe europeans at least western europeans have

de-emphasized russian military threats over the last decade, even 15 years. but those closest to not only the history, but geographically today the central and eastern europeans have not forgotten about the russian military planners. but even the central and east europeans realize that the pipelines are crucial, especially if they're going to start to be built in earnest around them. and that's why they're getting on the bandwagon with other europeans to help build them without attachments geographicically to russia. so these are, if you will, monitoring an assessment outposts militarily, but they have great political and

economic implications. >> let me just add to that. om a political point of view, the building of the base in abkhazia is an extremely negative development as is the new law that i alluded to early that would allow russian military outside of russia in defense of russians who are threatened culturally and without having to go through duma for radification. for instrumentallizing, for making that threat real, those might be the most reliable or first wave of forces that go in in such a place. what bothers me about this the most is the fact that it does not seem to have registered on the policy consciousness of a lot of governments that as far as russia is concerned -- and i have a whole folder of comments from russians -- the cis

governments and even for that matter the east european governments that were formerly members of the warsaw pack are not truly sovereign states. that's a very dangerous doctrine. and, as i said, i have lots of evidence to support this. and medvedev's call for this law, his earlier statements a year ago, august 31st press conference last year about this and so on indicate this is still the belief in moscow, these are not truly sovereign states, statements coming from people that the cold war never really ended and that if we, the russians are a revisionist state, and if we don't grant russia what it wants, we will be seceded by other states. so in that context these kinds of policies that you alluded to in your question are extremely negative. next question back here. gentleman standing all the way in the back.

>> toby russell, oxford university. >> light's not on. >> make sure the light is on. hold it down until the light goes on. >> toby russell, oxford university. question about the interplay between military and energy policy leverage, specifically the first panel did an excellent job laying out the limitations of russia's military, and despite russia's aspiration to continue working or demonstrating itselfo be a strong power relative to the west, europe and the united states. my question is given that russia's demonstrated the willingness to cut off energy supplies to western europe as a proxy, if you will, for the lack of military power does russian development of energy relations with china and the ability to rely on chinese economic support

enhance russia's strength in cutting off western european supplies of energy as a proxy for the lacking military strength? >> richard? >> it's, i'm going to -- there's actually a question that came in online that i'll read because it's related, how might significant shifts in the global energy picture alter your summary that the russian bloc remains strategic and unlikely. the relationship is very interesting, and steven's written about this. in one way it's a natural partnership between russia and china in the energy realm. russia's got a lot of energy resources near china. china, as we know, has become a major energy consumer in recent decades, so it would be a natural relationship for china to purchase the energy from russia and not have to get it from distant regions that are more unstable, and you've got to be concerned you're going to have those supply lines

interseeded by the americans or indians or someone. but they've been arguing over factors, one is which the chinese are very suspicious of the russians. this russian practice of going to the europeans and saying, look, you have to give us a higher price or we're going to sell to china. i mean, they aren't always so explicit, but it's understood. and that's why you've got this recent deal in which the chinese say, okay, we'll give you the money, but then you have to build the pipelines because the russians for the longest time have not wanted to build these pipelines because that commits them and shows the europeans. it probably gives the russians some leverage. i'll let you talk about the europeans in the european case, but the chinese have made clear that they will go get energy wherever they need it. if they can get it from russia, fine, but they're not going to make a lot of concessions to get

it. and they've been trying to get energy from the former central asian countries. for the longest time, the russians have the influence there. but yield some of the energy resources to the chinese. and as we know, they're very active in the middle east and africa and elsewhere. so as far as the russian/chinese dynamic is concerned, it's not beenhe source of the close relationship you would anticipate. and even if the flows do increase following the new models we've seen, i think the chinese are willing to sacrifice that supply relationship if necessary to pursue other goals. >> i'd add that it will likely take quite some time to see what type of significant revenue would really accrue from a

russo-sino energy cooperation where russia for its national security purposes could leverage with the financing from its siberian foothold into its, its eurasian region which leads me to the assessment that in many ways the russian leadership did not want to cut off those energy supplies to europe, but the ukrainian/russian confrontation over the pipeline -- and this was a continuation of such disputes over the past several

years -- but really it came to a head last january as your question certainly indicated. nor a good two weeks, i believe, that those energy supplies to europe were cut off because of a number of ukrainian issues, but primarily because of financial reasons when you start looking at how that played out. i would see that the russian military however it could be used to reinforce business interests is a very important way to look at national security strategy in ways perhaps the russian military is not entirely aware just yet. but a lot of this is driven by just how much control the russian politicians have over

the shaping not only of national security strategy, but how it flows into military doctrine. i've watched to see how this north stream pipeline that's supposed to really take its shape under the baltic and through germany and around poland in the north really develops significantly to see how that revenue stream could amount to an alternative from the main russian routes that go through belarus and poland as well as the traditional ukrainian routes. but there is investment, however much it may sorely be needed just in russia proper that's being used to consider that north stream alternative. especially when you've got sock

disputes emerging as richard just mentioned and also playing on what steve just said which is that central asia even though there's been a great dependency on russia for security issues, oil and gas pipelines that run from central asia through eurasia -- the ones that exist -- and into europe do bring in ukrainian and georgian issues which i think are pivotal. if we see central asian leaderships repressive as they are actually moving away from the russian orbit, and you start to see a number of these southern and eastern pipelines emerging in some fascinating ways with europeans, western,

central, and eastern europeans, i'll be really curious as i'm sure many of you will be to see how the russians play their pipeline politics north and south if alternatives to those supplies truly emerge that are nonrussian supplied in southern eurasia. and we'll see how that plays out in the years ahead. >> over here. gentleman back there. you, yeah. on the side there, yes. >> embassy of georgia. seems for me that pipeline policy are driven issue for russian foreign policy.

so could you tell us what's your understanding of let's say what's your translation of the nonacceptance of influence from western countries? >> the nonacceptance of what? >> experimental view points? and this is one question. the second question to richard, just recently china signed an agreement on a loan for $1 billion, so this is, i think, expected activities of china in the bordering countries of russian federation. how could you explain this? thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> perhaps i could just get a quick clarification. when you say western countries either recognizing or not recognizing a russian atmosphere of influence -- sphere of influence in the trans-caucasian region. i just want to understand are you talking european or european and american?

>> [inaudible] >> transatlantic. >> how could you translate, what does it mean in real life? nonacceptance of influence? >> i guess the reality check that i'm using as a gauge in my analysis is where does the oil, where does the natural gas actually flow through the pipelines that exist? how is the cooperative relationship existing between not only countries that work together, but even countries with hostility toward one another? georgia is certainly a critical gateway for several