leadintoward a credential or a degree or certificate that has value in the labor market or has academic value. it's not clear yet how well the business communities adopting, serving to adopting it. when they do it. when theprovided iernally but it is not clear how it is being institutions of higher education and by the business community. so that's my first half of my steel. . .

>> if people don't have the support of services and the literacy that they need in order to take vantage of online learning, it's not going to be a great deal of value. so as we're moving forward, we need to be thinking about how we link online learning and traditional learning to the certain kind of supportive services and remedial services that are critical to the success of lower and middle skilled workers. so there's a range of services that we know are nessary that need to go along with his. obviously this is not something that you guys can necessarily addressed thrgh the broadband policy, but it is something to keep in mi. we know that for people with

very significant detachment from the labor market and with significant barriers to employ, one service we need is recruitment and outreach. it is great to have on line thg available but you need to have the ability to reach out to these underserved communities, rural communities, and high poverty committs. and actually bring people to the training. if they aren't aware of it and they don't knowow to use it and it's not going to be as effective as you want it to be. assessment programs. we need to be able to assess peoples skill levels in order to figure what kind of training is appropriate for them so they can move into the jobs and careers that they want. i know for example that a lot of states have adopted the work key system that acp has. that's one example of where i think jan on line program that is working within the public workforce system to help people sort of assess their skill levels and help decide what training is necessary. but you need to ve those services alongside on my drink and we also need services to promote persistence and completion and support of systems.

as heather mentioned run childcare and transportation to kind of a point on that, you know, on line training does reduce a lot of geographic barriers and it does reduce some of the sort of spatial barriers. but it doesn't reduce them online training does reduce a lot of geographic barriers but does reduce some of the sort of special barriers but it doesn't reduce tm all. you still in order to do online training need computerand chair to sit in, you know,r a laptop what have you. but that means the online training has to take place somewhere and has to take place somewhere in time. so that's something you need to be thinking about. you can talk about, the question whether or not is if they come little skilled workers don't have a personal computer at home so we need to be thinking and where online training is going to take place. a couple of areas, kind of the

obvious suspects the is the work force system under the investment act and of course community colleges or another area you could be doing onlin aining but a couple points on that -- hate to sound negative -- the work force investment system and community college system in this country are substantially overwhelmed at this point. the work force investment system under the work force investment act in the 12-month period ending in march of 09 served 31 million people, which was up from the year before by about 12 million people. it's a substantial increase, and this comes at a time the already had eighto ten years of budget cuts and staff cuts so there's not as much capacity in the system as there was maybe two or three years ago. same thing with community colleges. they are also facing state budget crises and substantially increased enrollment, so in some cases your seeking community colleges are thinking about limiting admission for the first time in the fall of 2009. so something to keep in mind, people need to be liable to

access online trading. we need to be thinking about where they are going to access online training and we need to decoling expansion to expanded access to facilities in computers and also be thinking about career counseling. you can tell someone -- you can tell someone to look at a set of job lispings or take an assessment test ban you need sometimes to be able to help them connect to what training they need, what skills they need, what jobs are out there, we also need lab technicians. if there are of people that can show how to use a computer because those that lack basic literacy of of digital literacy and need help accessing computers and on-line learning. last but not least i want to talk briefly about connectivity. we have a disconnected and discombobulated workorce system in this country for example we have job praining, federal job-traini services administered by depament of labour under title one of the workforce at, adult basic education is administered by

departmntf education under title two of the work force act. it is different funding streams, agencies, local agencies, different performance measures so when you look at adult education and job training in this country, the rate between adult education and of training is less than 1%, which when you think about the number of people we talked about who lac basic literacy is pretty daunting, you need to be thinking about as we think about how do we expand access to online training and support services how can broadband also sort of bridge the gaps between these systems and services to make easier for low skilled workers to have access. expanding accessed online training to create seamless career pathways between the systems so that a low or middle school worker doesn't try to have to figure out where do i go from here? will this be accepted at the next place?

we also need to think about whether online training is connected to business needs in the community. it's wonderful to get online training but if it doesn't result in a job and it's not as effective for the low and middle skilled worker so one innovation being carried out in the state level to help increase business involvement in job training or what we call sector partnerships where you bring together multiple stakeholders in an investor, multiple employers, labor grps, community organizations, work-force training providers. i suggest that's one innovation we are seeing on the state level in terms of work force development that might determine what are the best on-line models available and best way to integrate online learning into cal and regional industry development. so, i think that's it. sorry if i went over time. >> no, thank you so much. our next panelist is christopher etesse, vice president of a technology company that implements education management systems for higher education institutions. chris?

>> thank you, janet and the panelists for having me today. if we could go to a slight number three. am i background is intesting i was one of the employees of another panelist and spent time at monster government solutions, and yet another panelist in the online educational wor pretty much since netscape early browsers. salles the growth of blackboard and other e-learning providers and the phenomenal adoption by colleges and universities and for prits t last ten to 15 years. presidium is a platform for education. we got our slide -- next slide please. thank you. we got our start six years ago supporting all quarters of the i.t. site with questions routt the learning management systems. we then branched out to microsoft office to data tell

people soft oracle. we have a a rural southeast kentucky. that's up fromround 60 employees three years ago. so we are the fourthargest employer in pulaski county down there and continue to bng jobs to their region that has been hit byhe current economic environment. the swer questions related to i.t. enrolent, financially this we have number of clients that will call our personnel and ask about the financially package, ask for a transcript, find out where the mail a check. we have over 800 clients we are supporting across the united states. everything from highe education, community college, for profit as well as que 12th and continuing education programs. we have a consulting organization that helps deploys services across th organizations and help them maximize customer service for the workers as both heatr and

kermit mentioned. these are folks that are also working. ey have child care responsibilities and wat to be able to get on line and learn as quickly as possible with few interruptions. then we offerystems that assist in that. one of the common challenges we see across education -- next slide please -- is the seasonality and a rival patterns when our folks are in answering the phone, chaffetz or e-mails to help these on line workers. 50% of our volume is january, august and september each year as folks are going back to school. during the week 50% of the volume is mondays, tuesdays and sundays, and especially so days continue to increase. but during the day 50% of the volume occurs between 2 p.m. and midnight. at we are seeing as we are talking to folks continuing theieducation there may be putting their kids to bed and

logging on at 9:00, technical, 11:00 at night. and we provide a service if they arhaving trouble logging on or understanding they can call and get a live operator 24/7, 365 days in here. what is most important about that and some of you may have seen t front page of usa today's mauney section yesterday looking at broadband speeds across the united states. if you look at the western states they maxed out of around twoegabits per second, which is one-tenth of the average speed and south korea for exampl again, the workers we are dealing with, their needs at home need to be able to get on, comple their activity and then get off and continue with their lives and so forth. some of just -- consistently through all the communities in the united states.

what i would like to do now is go through examples - next slide, please -- of some clients, potential clients. western governors university was formed by the 19 state governors. it's all online. the offer is one of thr programs teacher accreditation and 49 states. so if you're a public school teacher and need to be accredited and need to do so every two to five years, whatever the state your department of education and the a's, you can attend their program was a public program $6,000 a year for the program versus 20,000 for some traditional programs and its competency based learning so if you've already learned something in the classroom the don't force you to retake the credi you just have to prove through testing all the you have learned that. teachers are nontraditional students. they have different hours, different responsibilities, again, many our parents as well, and rural high-speed broadband at home is key for maintaining

their jobs and educating to mauro's -- tamara's leaders as well. anotr example, a lge for-profit k-12 institution runs charter schools, next slide, please come throughout the 50 states. the student stays a home. at home to taktheir course work. they receive district credit for the diploma. there are expansion capabilities and also for students that ve the need whether it is for that type of learning or there may be disability involved and they can't attend school. i don't think we want to limit today's workers and future leaders to what i would classify as 1980's style of speed because of the location. we havenother for for-profit k-12 institution that does to during to low-income at need students and some of the key

metropolitan areas throughout the country. for the last three to five years that's been filed for those students. the partnered with a large provider and our actually rolling out a wireless 3g cards, which is allowing students to complete these sessions. somemes three timesaste five times faster still getting the educaonal content they are looking for, but again, getting on line, doing when you need and continuing with your lif next slide, please. you know, as a number of you have mentioned as it relates to a continuing education, job training, community colleges, you know, we are seeing that seasonality and peak usage, monthly daily and hourly. and as kermit said, campus admissions for on campus community colleges seem to be flat to slightly declining but community colleges their oline programs are increasing quite rapidly, andgain, those are

the students that need the broadband, doesn't matter where they liv the need to be educated and we need to be able to provide that to them. we have another client that does offer transcribing and coding for the medical profession. again, al lot of -- 90 of their stents are mothers, stay at home, and they are doing that program at night on line and need access toigh-speed an wit. next slide, please. the emergency preparedness, swine flu, natural disasters. these students being able to access presidium personnel to be able to ctinue to learn on line in the event of an emergency when the physical school, the library etc. are not accessible as rural broadband for the students and adequate broadband for them but it's also, next slide, please, as an educational provider we need to have dual redundant broadband so

we are in a row earlier million southeastern kentucky. we have a voice lines thacome in on one carrier. we have internet that comes, second and then every daunted the third carrier f the internet a i think as we go through it is iortant to think about that dual redundancy that we can bring their rural broadband and get it out to all of these locations across the country but when they become dependent and learning is dependent and nicoe was down what do they do so let's not offer something that could go away or may not be stable. >> and my final thoughts -- next slide, please -- it's a math problem really. it comes down to who doesn't have adequate broadband, two megabits per second or above. wherere they groped and how do we achieve the 90% penetration with existing technology such as 4g, lt etc., and then also avoid

the misconceptions we have to dig up the entire country to achieve basic broadband infrastbucture that the students both of today and tomorrow are dependent on. thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. hink after the panel's presentation we want to go back and asked ogle redundancy and have you elaborate on that. our next panelist is from monster worldwide, mr. eric winegardner, vice president of client adoption and we all know that monster is an online employment solution for job seekers and employers. >> it's exciting to join this dialogue, pleased it's happening and i look forward to the answer and question. i applaud you for the

conversation facilitating adel broadband over the internet so i will address this to most of you watching atz this point. the context of t conversation around job training but also how to find jobs today and find jobs tomorow. the idea is i agoing to do something for this job training which is have a job and how is that going to happen? what i am going to talk about today is hopefully with ubiquitous access to broadband you will be able to see thomas in the private sector could help you figure out where you should be doing job training, what can you do with skills you have today but what would you like to do and dare we say love doing? those are the kind of things i think access to affordable reliable access to broadband, the possibilities are limitless. in our business and being the

dot com space is taken for granted every one has high-speed access like i would imagine the panelists here in this exercise and dialogue it is alarming how many people do not have internet access let alone broadband access because companies like mine build intricate applicions that require fast processing of data, billions of data points to provide meaningful experience for you that you do something with s it's this individual empowerment of happening if you don't have something as simple as broad and access. so i think that toree and this bares some assumptions we should be able to make reliably in this day and age and first this knowledge is powerful. we have heard it several times here. information is free and at our fingertips. is it? and that education takes many forms. traditional, nontraditional, in

classroom, online and the dividing israel. i think one of the assumptio i would like us to look at is broadband access equals opportunity and growth. for further context in my presentation to make sure people don't see this as a monster commercial because that isn't what it's about all is we are not the only player in this space and this is what is exciting about ubiquitous access is there will be more competition competition leads to improvement but i also want to make sure people understd there are many players in the online space. i am representing reference tools and technologies we employee and things we believe to the corend iovate and around but is also important to know we were the 454th mmercial internet site so we have been around a longime when you think of the access. and, you know, in the last 15 years we have been meaningful presence in over 60 countries in this all-purpose of online

career management. ,hp)e passionatebout and wewhat great life so when we are in tough:rr economic times and seen the employment rates the way they are if i don't have meaningful job that has trickled discuss.fs in 2008.g americans. the three largest;y of in unique, this is an accounting them once they've used one ofwxx us, 17 million- or 11.8% of u.. one technology,monster there are over 5.2 million job openings advertise across all major ongoing job boards. those may be duplicate. there are not saying our 5.2 million jobs. but to .2 million of those postingsre in august. so the concept that there are no jobs out there is false. there are jobs. it's finding them, being able to

compete with them in standout in something that you have broadband access you ow you can get to those jobs. if you don't, you are further at a disadvantage because you don't even know where to look. maseratis he knows where the jobs are and where the trends are. we track and report monthly via the monster implement index, which many of your family with that comes out every thursday. thursday of every statistics in his early /pc @&p! around career exploratign and management tools, which are available today. in theeauty of these tools are they are effective and they are free to job seekers. they are free to anyone who is looking to better themselves. so i want people understand

that that is there. and that there are sites, i think mine are the best, but obviously there is competition around those. i want to make sure that so we are talking about. so if we go back into the first slider slide there, that was my setup. back, back. arrigo. for me, what i will talk more about at this point is that from an individual's perspective, effective access to broadband access should allow you an individual to allow all of these things that they should be up to exmoor navigate, learn and compare. who am i., was killed when have what i want to be when i grow up. i may ask myself that today. u know, my retiring father may ask that when he grows up, right? but learning and comparing it to what opportunities are out there and which ones, how do they stack up side-by-side? and didn't want to know all of that and once i complete my job-training now, how do i find opportunities that are availabl and could be to get them? this is really important and i think what we've seen already around social mediums, some of

the cool technologies that those of us to take broadband for granted are doing is we're looking at community in the sense of how broad we are and how connected we are and how we help each other. this is pretty powerful with people who are looking for self-improvement can help other people who are doing the same thing. inedible to lose sight of the fact that whether his indivual improvement improvement and equal access around jobs, this also drives down the cost and employment cost for employers. so we look at small medium sized businesses and have a can more effeively hire at lower cost, this is the icing on the cake of surrounding people with a good expense. next slide, please. the first thing is exploring a nagging. i want to go on three tools that exist on my site that are free to job seekers that are built around this tremendous data that we have as an organization of resumes. so 80 million resumes, plus we have in our database in each of those were resumes represent a career path of an individual.

when you throw all of those things together, it's quite compelling. these are real career pathsf real people. how do we leverage that? we have too that are available today, that allow a person to map their own career. so where am i today are where do i want to be and how did i get here or how do i get there? so if you go to the next slide. this is looking through the real resumes real people. so a lot of this, many of us don't know, there are 2600 occupational profiles that we track at monster. i couldn't ne them all. i also know there are 2600 unique skills. to all of these things mashed up together, and for me to look at what opportunities are there, it can be simple as doing interfaces with people click and explore. so ts is one treated here we what you actually go in and you can figure out either where do i desire to be or where am i, and desire to be or where am i, and how do i get there or ere do you can figure outul+ where do i desire to be or where am i and go from here?

if we go tohe next slide it can be simple as someone who says i am a forklift operator. o;%:j to? we@ñhis percentage went on into this area, this percentage point1çn over here but there waa small interesting group that went and did something else and i zsfñ don't know what else is next, career snapshot is a process, helps people understand what all those 2600 different occupational profiles mean. and then the pce that i think is most out of this is what do i haveo do to get there. so when we look at the snapshot piece, it would go to the next slide here, this help to understand what is the textbook definition of this job. but then there are hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of

people who do that job today. let's see what they say about it. so i bring some of that social media, web 2.0 component of let me share my experience with you. d it can be other people who are forkft operator or other people who are auditors who are either trying to convince you to do it or trying to convince you not to get the idea is that the exchange of information can be very meaningful for you. also have to understand what is the projectn of his career over the next decade. how many jobs are the now. what are the jobs pay? one of the projection of what you'll pay? what training do you need to do in order to get there. that's really what is most important about this, is going back to the concept of information should be at my finger tips and should be free. it would go to the next lit-year. you can see that from a learning and comparing the concept of the reality check. so this is something that we really want to be able to say from a career benchmarking standpoint, where is the

population that also has the skill sets that you have, or the desires that you have, a where does this careers back up with your aspiratio. so understanding that if you are a high income person now and this is a dream for you to go into these things, here is the average salary. take stock. or the cost of my education combined with income i had today i'm going to be in a loss situation. however we look at these things. what is the quality of life, what are people looking at, all of the areas that are here. these tools are simply not possible without high speed internet access. i would imagine as is or even referenced here, you know, over dial-u it would be a very short exploration. let's say that. so i think this is someing that is incredibly important for people. if you look at these tools and you put this on the front end of job training, this is someone who has done that, self-guided diligence of what it is they are interested in so they can come

in and say these are the kinds of training programs that i'm interested in. and i think that is something that all of us are very receptive to. give me the tools to help me. help me help me. it is going to be able to do for us. less reliant on the career coach can't do. absolutely you wan that, but where is the scale? wears a skill that every single person that doesn't hav internet access today would ultimately need some sort of career coach? empower me to be my own. i think if we go to the next slide, whawe look at this point is outside of learng about what they are and comparing, now i have to find it in today's environment i have to compete. so it's not just a matter of i have all the skills, guess wt, do other people. so how do i now stand out from the crowd? and i think this is something that is germane to his. we been doing this for years around hping you do and can get a job of your dreams. we're preparing yourself for one thing thing i want to walk through with this, in the

future, not today but certainly how all this should work as all h/"/ urban areas, that have monster profiles, and billings montana, 11.1% of the workforce in billings montana had monster.com job ofile.

contrast that with boston, where 29.7%. so not only is it a much larger area, so from a number standpoint, but the percentage is nearly -- it is over three times. nearly four times that of a rural area. you have to dig in and ask herself why. do just make week job-search stempler, there are also jobs in those rural areas and. you know, i did this exercise yesterday where we put a map on the wall. a few days ago. would put a map on the wall and we did a darville because we wanted to try to test ourselves, not stack the deck, where do we go. we came up with pikesville, kentucky. so you are probably familiar. it's a little bit to the east but it is definitely a rural area and did you go to the next shide here you will see that in this rural area of the pikesville, kentucky, you know, when you do a job search on monster you are going find four or 500 jobs in that commutable distance of pico, many of them in pikesville. but what you'll see here is that

you don't have near the choices. you don't have near the saturation of jobs in that area and you also have to say why is that? do employers even have access to be able to do this on line? and what i find, that i find it very interesting, is that you will find in these areas that are more rural, companies that have large locations, or are domiciled in metropolitan areas, are recruiting in more world areas the same way they are recruiting in metropolitan areas. i don't live in pikesville. i am recruiting out of d.c. i sitn a centralized operation center and i put aob on a job board or on my own corporate careers site and i say pikesville and expect you to find it. ght? those of you, because there are those who do or there wouldn' be that widespread adoption that we talked about,ith these organizations, those who do are at a very clear advantage over those who don't have something so simple as the ability to do a search for what they want to do, where they want to do it. so i think, you know, you should

look at those things. it is not if there is no broadband access then there is no opportunity the opportunity is there. it is if there is no broadband access for me, i don't have opportunity. and i think that is somethi that merits further exploration. one of the -- next slide, please -- one of the pces that we're most proud of as an organization, because this is there are hundreds and thousands of pages of content around career advice. next slide, please. in the career advice areas you can learn not only about how to build your resume. you would be surprised that is a question we hear all the time, have to do that now and respond to whatever recruiters are looking for in the internet age. how to interview. these are all off-line intercounty connect with people. how to network better. all those all happened together in one on my destination that people canpend hours in. they dig in at the sink and interface with a can ask other people that are there. all of these thingsappen in a way that we talk about the power of our off-line networks, but

how many of us actually a those kinds of questions were off-line networks. it's not appropriate all the time, yet defined and there are lots of other people looking and i'm in the same situation, it is a very meaningful and powerful exchange of information. so just do, i hope, i what was in my 10 minutesecause i try really. people, you know when you talk to the people component of that, when you build this infrastructure, it is impossible for us to predict all of the value that comes out of this investment. it is impossible. but this alone, job training, job creation, in my mind, far exceed the $7 billion investme investmnt, if you want the two system taxpayer. so when you look at the employer benefits that i mentioned at the end, when you look at getting my job seekers, the audience that i'm looking for, access, this is where we talk about the open market place their faces were

look at if i am on line to acquire candidate, or i am on my to build my business or to work, preboarding or however i am doing that, there is all sorts of benefits. obviously the mo expensive opening is the ne that goes unfilled for companies. so when you look at the cost versus putting an add on the internet versus in your newspaper or putting a help wanted sign or everything else that we have in there, i think the driving down the cost of lost productivity, and making it more efficient for employers is absolutely their with much more ubiquitous job search -- excuse me, notob-search. broadband access. so in closing, i will say that opens that monster is to provide our users and anyone who is out there looking for career exploration, and next to manage their caree, not just actively try to find the next job. in these tough economic times that we are in, being able to easily find a job is incredibly important.

however, i think it's important that we take a longer view on this, and understand that if i subscribe to what i said earlier, that great jobs equals great life, you, these times will pass. and will want toake sure that we're ing is giving people the opportunity to explore and find, dear they go for their true calling, and i think that is wh the future of the approach we've taken that monster is all about the job seeker. it is all about the long term view of your career and it is wide ubiquitous access to broadband is so important for us that's it. >> great, thank you so much, eric. it would be so interesting to continue a dialogue following up on what kermit was talking about before on career mapping and matching low skill and mittal steel workers to their careers

that are actually available to eric's presentation about the technologies that are available to help workers and jobseekers and allies what kind of skills they have and mapped into a career that they are seeking, o perhaps displaced workers who are outside of the job force, workforce who are seeking retraining and getting back into the workforce. it would be interesting to make that connection to see if there is technologies that can, you know, bring job-training candidates together with career mapping and job placement opportunities. our next panelist is from blackboard, the new learning software copy. mr. tim hill is the president of professional learning at blackboard. blackboard. cambric. >> think he. and air, there's nothing wrong with a short commercial about your company because the viewers and people in the audience need to know what we'd do in whye

are some level of some subject matter extra. at the problem is people at webex have logged off and are loing for jobs on their website. most o the palace panels, let's be honest, we will get back to our office in did on monster and check out what is open in our field. can you please jump tohe next slide. i'm going to do a quick background on blackboard so you understand what our company is all about, some of our values and some of the date line is we have, worldwide a in education. and if you want to learn more, you go to blackboard.com and thee is plenty of content there so i don't have to share it with you here. but please don't blog off of webex and go to checkout our website until we're done. so everyday over 5200 institutions in over 20 million people use blackboard has an on line learning platform. so leading universities, community colleges, career

colleges, k-12 school systems, as well as adult learners learning on the job in government, well as as well as around department of defense. the reason becse our platform is easy to use. we are not alone. but we do have competitors. but what our industry has done is really revolutionize education so it could be accessible and affordable. the parts that are missing are what we are here to talk about, which is how can we get broadband, make it a portal, make it accessib and how can we get content that goes on and on line platform like a blackboard to be constructed so it impacts people where they work and where they live thei lives. jump ahead to slide five. i'mating jumping ahead on slide. so just to ge you an example. people from all walks of life and over 65 countries use blackboard as their ongoing content delivery platform. it wasuilt for teachers, proven by students, and proven by millions each and every day.

so from the war fighter to the admiral or the gejeral, to k-12 students through a college professor, people are using blackboard each and every d. now whaall those people have in common is they have access through their university, through their organization. they have access to broadband. they have a computer and what i want to talk about in this presentation is what about the rest of us, most of the people on this webex are on the wex because they are either at home using broadband on your computer or perhaps the libra, perhaps a school. but there are others who whether they are in the ada, five oh secant wther they are unemployed, under skilled, who are just looking for the opportunity to learn more to be re- skilled if they are out of work to get new skills with a can get back in the workforce and that is where broadband can really dramatically impact access to education, access to training, access to the

deployment certifications that will change people's lives on a daily basis. sonata bantu slide seven. so my group that i'm over at blackboard is about adult learners. so most of the people on webex d the audience have probably blackboard or one of our competitors in your k-12 or high school experience with your ildren. in your undergrad, and your graduate school. but there's a lot of people who uld love to use it if they had access to it. and that is where broadband can make a huge difference. without broadband, without h speed access, the access to education to training whether it is education or training is very, very limited. we know that is the biggest challenge. the cost of delivering content on a platform like blackboard, the cost of building the content from most unirsities, colleges, community colleges, is not the golden scw. in other words, that is not the part that is not accessible for there are pell grants. there e other government granteas financial a tget people the education they need. whats missing is if they don't

have the tools to do it on line, if it's not convenient r them because of a child issue for a working mom, or somebody who is actively employed and can only do a education in eating, then how do you get it to them. and that is wheren line can make a big difference. so i thi we skilling is a big work today because of our unappointed issue. there are jobs available. but many of them need some level of professional experience, certificatn certification, diploma or degree. and other people that need the rescaling are those of who are out of work from manual labor jobs, manual job. there are jobs out there that they don't have the skills or the educatio or the certification or dipma to get into a he disadntage so it is kind of what com first, the chicken or the egg. in this case they both set to be there at the same time and have to be affordable and accessible. so i will give you some real-life examples. we are members of the career college association, which i headquartered in d.c.

as well as imagine america foundation, which is a nonprofit arm of cca, their foundation. and that my neck at the numbers exactly right into a kind of get the scale of what i'm talking about. and these have been presented by harris miller, the ceo of cca at different conferences. in t u.s., if youre an hca or heating and air-conditioning worker, you are still the only through on the job. your average salaries going to be about $20000 a year, probably paid hourly. if you get an hca certification, your average income will jump to $54000. that is pretty dramatic. so how do you make that accessible to somebody, whether it's o the job, on line or through a vo-tech school? you've got to give them the opportunity do it, and about the schools are half on line, half in person as you mention what it is a blended learning environment.

another example. there is a lot of out of work auto technicians, auto mechanics because alers have closed-end, factories have closed. there is one company, uti, that trained mechanics and autobody workers both on line and in person on the premium cars as well as nascar and formula one racing. now, any downturn economics, it seems like those are prey high-end things. luxury cars, racing cars, racing circuits, etc. but there graduates average closed $100,000 a year. so they get the investment. they understand it. and it is made accessible to them it can dramatically change their life. go to the next light, please. sober talk about some of the demographics in the u.s., and at is beming ubiquitous, and we all know that handheld devices that televisions, that computers are becoming pretty much ubiquitous, but not for everyone.

those who have access to them will usually pick and choose one device over a@@@@@@ the broadband in the.s. so look at the trend towards a dolorous. this is a bit oan older slide, but today there is a huge influx

of adult learners into the educatnal marketplace. so community colleges might not be handled, be able to handle thenflux but there are other alternatives. that everybody can go to college, maybe community colleges are heard by budget so they have to limit and role in. but you can do it on line. there are a vo-tech and career colleges that offer excellent education, excellent degree options, and you can do it either on line or a blended learning environment where you do have hands-on and you do go to school. but this is growing dramatically because of displaced workers. because of people who have to have two incomes to survive. so they are looking for the educational outlets, and many times they can get the opportunities through government ants to pay for the tuition. they can get to the campus or they can take it on line around their schedule. but what they can't afford my times are the equipment and high speed access to the ctent, which is critical. here are two good quotes. one from education dynamics

people are turning to on line education in record numbers because of the flexibility. so those who are working, but they're looking to improve their life, those who have a family are taking care of extended families, those who volunte on the side and they just don't work. they need to be delivered education and convenient modes based on their lifestyle each and every day. and then cnn money, i think is what earlier this year thi go, 2 himself more marketable, 26% of workers plan to go back to school to obtain a degree, certification or other training. which is pretty impressive. that is from career builder which has a local major office here. so let's go to the next light and you can look at some of the stats from imagine america foundation and career colleges foundation. this is an alternative, so blackboard is better to round 80% of colleges and universities in north america. but we're also worng with her vo-tech, universities and

colleges because of their massive growth and the fact that they offer access to pple who can go to the traditional four-year college. so about 2700 institutions a growing dramatically to there are a lot who are now starting up bausehere is dand in nontraditional forms of work, like biotech, like power, and theyre starting schools to build workers for the next industry growth. to .4 million students attended accredited career colleges in 2007. that is 10% of the market of higher education students in the u.s. this is a great stat here. and one that i think support for all those. six of the 10 fastest-growing u.s. occupational categoes between 2004 and 2014 will require ss than a four year degree. now, traditional knowledge is the son, daughter, you have got to get a four year degree. you've got to go to graduate school. the truth of the matter is there

are job out there, right? itoes take skills and some level of education to get them however. so a lot of jobs that manufacture asian manufacturers are throwing overseas may be jobs that our workers don't want to do, right? so they are manual labor. a lot of the jobs that they do have, however, are the skilled labor part. so if you can make that education and that certifications available to workers, it can dramatically change their lives without a doubt. over 20% and roman growth at 100% on my schools. though schools are really providing a high quality education, high quality instruction because mo of themthe instruction given by adjunct professors who teach at our colleges and universities and community colleges. and in the final slide, heather took a little bit of my thunder, but i actually put the quote in here because i think it is important for people to seek from "the new york times," august0 addition. on average students and online learning conditions before better than those receiving

face-to-face instruction. blackboard is really a facilitative platforms we believe in blended learning, en though we have a lot of clients that he wand to present on line. and there are things you have to learn with han-on and there are alternative learnes, disadvantage, disabled workers learners who also hav to have that hands on experience because of the way they learn or because of their disability. and in the final quote from that same article, the real promise of on line education, which are expenses are more tailored to individual students than is possible in the clash appeared to you can get a lot of personalization with it on my program wherein a classroom in person you have to sve evil of different backgrounds, demographics. so that's my spiel. if you want to learn more about the company it is a blackboard.com. and, tha you. >>hanks souch, jim. i think your presentation, and also your statistics that you mention in your presentation really highlighted the

importance for digital literacy in this country as kdrmit mentioned, i think 92 million americans lack the skills to pursue a post secondar education began as tim just mentioned, those are some of the people who left post secondary degrees or certificates, not for your college degrees, actually enjoy job growth over the next few years. so that's an area that we would definitely focus on. our next panelist is from communications workers of america, ms. yvette herrera. >> thanks all for the invitation to be here today. i would agree with him that affordability is certainly an issue for workers in on line training, but we also want to remember that there are still a lot of people in this country that don't even he access to high speed, which also is a big

issue. communication workers of america is a labor union. we represent 700,000 workers in this country, and canada. and what i'm going to talk to you about is on line programs that our union have embraced and that we have worked with for the last 10 or so years. our union has always considered ourselves as an education driven union. and we take great pride in the pathbreaking education and training benefits that we have negotiated. mostly without larger employers, specifically at&t, verizon, and qwest. our long-standing commitment to education and learning ongoing learning for workers really has been strategic. in an effort to help our members maintain job security, awell as be able to move up into

higher paying jobs. in the telecommunication industry, which is an industry whermost of our members are, there is constant change in constant technological change. and in order to have any degree of employient security, you really do have two be a lifelong learner at this point. and you really do have to maintain your skills. but despite these pathbreaking education benits that we have negotiated without larger employers, we were sll finding that large segment of our members were just not taking advantage of them. for any number of reasons. and also, our smaller employers where we not able to negotiate these kind of benefits, members there were not able to do ongoing training. so about 10 years ago we decided

to embrace on line training as another vehicle to reach more of our members, and to provide education and training to more of our members. and we were particularly interested in some panel members have ari talked about this, and making training available to our members to a difficulty, whether it be because they were women and they were caring for children or old parent at home, or whether it was workers who were working late shifts, or whether it was workers who we had in rural settings where it would take them two hours to drive to the nearest community college. so we thought again on line might providus with a vehicle to expand the number of our members who are taking advanta of maintaining their skill. so what i want to talk about briefly is the two programs that we started 10 years ago, and they're both a little bit different. celeb and just first give you an overview. the first one is called

macdowell and it is a neat telecom industry partnership. and it was designed and delivered on line, education. the members inclu two unions, cwa and ibew. and at&t, verizon, qwest and frontier citizen. the courses are developed with extensive industry and union input and what is important about that obvious is the courses are relevant and up-to-date which in the telecom industry is a little bit of a challenge. our education partner for this program is pace university. and they have been really exceptional providing outstanding top quality on my curriculum instructors and student services. and i would say, and i can talk a little more about this later, that for on line training to be successful there really are

additional contacts that are required if you're going to have the completion rate that you want. many more contacts than the traditional classroom requires. mac-tel offers a bachelor degree in telecommunications, and an associate degree in applied information technology. some quick statistics. since 2007, 2500 students have participated. we have had 200 graduate with degrees. we have students from all 50 states. we have a 95 percent course completion rate, which if you know about on line course completion rates is really off the chart. we are very, very proud of that. 40% of our students are women. the average age is 38. and we have on average 300 students enrolled per semester. so that's mac-tel. or other on line program, that is a union sponsored and run on

line training program. and although cwa net does offer an associates degree, really the major focus is much more to provide technical courses that lead to recognize industry certificatiothe majority of our members who come to cwa-net come for one of three reasons. e is to get this industry recognized cerfication, which will eitheread to advancement for them. oregon, just provide job security for themo stayn the job they have now. a second reason they come is to acquire a necessary skill set, some urgent need that has arisen either bause of new technology or because of trends where they need a skill set that they don't have. and that may be just one or two courses. and then the third motivator that we findmong our members for coming is a need to obtain

an understanding, a knowledge of a technology. which will make them more comfortable and the work they are doi and will help them. the kinds of courses that cwa-net offers include fiber optic, a+, which is the basic pc course, net plus, and the cisco curriculum, ccn day, and a series of that curriculum. statistics for this program, 50% are women and 40% are minorities. again, these are our members, so we were particularly interested in targeting members who were not as represented in th other programs that our students come from all across the country to average aga also very similar, 38. we have about 600 enrollments a year hit our course completion rate is 80% again, very, very high for on line, and areertification rate

student who actually get to certification, pass the test because the certification tests are third parties, we don do that ourselves or else our completion rate would be much higher. the certification rate is 30%. . .

taking these courses with a dial up. not very many of them. most of them start in dial-up and then realized they can do it and so they will either phsh ooks,

cassettes, i have forgotten about that. and that wasn't that long ago. so we don't do that anymore. occasionally we do have to send it dvd to a stunt that lives in a place where they just do not have the speed they need for streaming video. but obviously now we are able to put those kind of videos, which >> most of the students are able to download it without any problem, depending on how long. we tried to keep the video come of this is still a speed issue in this country. and so we need to keep the video short. so we often are often better off having many shorter ones than one long one because again, people do not have the speed in this country that you would find in other countries. and we are still behind and other panelists have talked about that. another change that we have bn able to make, again, because

things have gotten better, not where we want to but have gotten better with high speed access, is tt many of our cwa net courses require at least 20 hours of lab work. and this is coming, physical lab work or so when we first started, we build labs across the country anour local union hall or so it actually installed routers and servers and pcs across the country. but we can only do smany of those. so our students, as a requirement to finish these courses, they had to do these 20 hours of labs. sometimes it's 25 hours. so they would drive to these labs. and of course, these are full-time working folks. so aost always want to go on the weekend. and then they drive 1, 400 miles to get to this lab, and then of course they want to do it on the weekend. they would have to spend the night at a motel in order to finish all that coursework in

what we can. the logistics of that, both for us, we would have to get an instructor there for the week and it would oiously want to have as many students as possible doing the lab that we can to make that instructor ct effective for us. the fact that the student had to leave their family, spend night away, the whole thing. it was quite logistically complicated, and believe it or not hundreds and hundreds of workers did it because it was one of the only ways they had to gethese skills. now all of our labs are done remotely. so that students no longer have those physical labs. and now students can access routers remotely from wherever they are doing their coursework, their homes or usually their home. and instructor, it can either be a live, they can access the router's life and they can

configured the router. and in the instructors can actually see step-by-step what they have done. so there's no requirement for them to go anywhere else. so this has been -- actually huge. very, very helpful to students and us. the video i have talked about. that's also been important. the last thing i will say about the beauty is that we also do video chatting, where i call it video chatting with instrctor has the time a he speaks, he can speak to a cohort, group of students, his class, and they can speak back. again, because of speed, what we really like is to be able to do an interactive video, but our rveys show that our students, again, who are workers, just do not have by and large the speed necessary for that kind of high

definition interactive video. most of them can download high speed. not all of them, but most of them can downld high speed video, but we are still not quite there. we don't have enough speed for the two-way, but we hope wh the work of the fcc and a policy for this country to be there ortly. some things that we have learne and wou be the next slide, the bottom there. speed matters. and i think christopher mentioned a speed test that was in the u.s.a. today. and that actually is a test that cwa did tt shows the different speed and the different states andhat the different states fall. speed does matter for instruction. so not only do you have to be able to afford internet, but you have to have fast internet or else these courses are very,

very tedious and frustrating and the learning is not as good. instructors better pick you can't just take a classroom instructor and say well that you are going to do an online course. it doesn't work that way. it's different. some classroom instrucrs make the transition very well, other don't like it and aren't very good at it. there's actually, and this is something people don'tften understand, there is actually more instructor student interaction oftentimes online then there isn the classroom. educational partners matter. you need to have a partner who actually understands online training. and who is committed to it. we have to ask what partners in pace university and family community college. content matters. i think somebody mentioned that it's not just about having a correspondence course online. it's not just about xeroxing chapters in a textbook and putting it online. having people read a chapter at a time and then giving them a

test. but it's really about using the technology to have the learning be rich and in many cases, and people have mentioned this, actually can be better than classroo learning. online training is not for everyone. so it just isn't. some people just cannot learn through this technology. it's not for them. and that's fine. and we've also learned that courses have to have a start and end time. we like to say that our courses are anywhere,nytime. but there is a start and an end time today. and that's important for the structuref the training. and then lastly all in education and training really canake a diffence in people's lives. we see it every day. we get e-mails, phone calls, letters, testimonials telling us what a different it is made, just if you examples that i can

share with you. we get quite a few testimonials from women. this has been mentioned by heather and others who have children, or who are caring for parents. they work full-time. because remember, the popation we're turning our full-time workers. so these are folks that need to increase their skills or get a new skill set or get certification. they want to advance or really just keep the job they have. so for reasons that they are caring for someone else at night, they can't go out three nights a week to the college. thenline program that they can do at two in the morning, you, whenever they want, five in the morning, really ings access to them that they would normally not have a. we also hear that people in some parts of the country, in some places, don't feel comfortable driving at nighto go to

committee called, parking, going three times a night and they love the online option and they wouldn't have gone otherwise. we have lots of members who work unusual hours, and it's not possible for them to go monday, wednesday and thursday to a community college from seven to 9:00. they work weekends. they work nights. their shift changes to their ships are unpredictable, unfortunately, are they just cannot do the traditional classroom. we get lots of e-mails that i would've never been able to get this degree. i would never haveen able to get this certification had not been for online training. we also have older membersand by older, i mean xounger than me. but we have members who have n been in the classrm for 20 years. and this is an interesting one. this was an interesting one for , but we get this affair affair on a pig is a certain intimidation about going back into the classroom. and what we hear from them is that they thought it would be

safer to get bac into education through an online venue. we hear that, younow, they weren't sure, they did want to make a fool of themselves. they weren't sure they were up to a. perhaps they hadn't done that well in school. previously. and so they thought in an online setting, it would be, if i can say, more private. their failure would be more private or thr experience would be more private and they wouldn't feel as foolish. of course, they tend to do very well. they underestimate themselves. but then they get hot and they continue on. but that is a driver for a number of people. suggest doing, i would say that anywhere, anytime, anywhere flexibility of online courses really have allowed a lot of our meers to do training and to get the skillsnd degrees that they would not have been able to do if they had to go to a

traditional institution. but i would say that we continue to bump into the problem that a lot of our members either are in a place where they cannot get high-speed internet, or even the high-speed internet that's called high-speed internet is really not fast enough for the kinds of things that you need to do online to be really effective. >> thank you, ebay, for telling us about the two very impressive and fascinating programs that c. diff u.k. runs. this concludes our panelists presentation. we have about 15 minutes allocated to questions from the audience, from callers on webex, and questions that have been submitted through twitter. and also by the fcc panel here.

>> do you want me to start off? >> endlessly of questions that have already been submitted. >> i will go ahead and ask a question while we are checking on the. each of you has argued compellingly in different ways for the government to really focus on access and access at high spes that you can actually do somethingith. so we hear that loud and clear. the question for you is from your perspective, i you were charged with writing a strategy for the country that focused on the way broadband couldurther workforce development drop untrimmed job-training, what specifically would you recommend the federal government to do, whether it's addressing market failures, putting incentives in place for suppliers of job-training, or employers who takes years of the programs offered online, whether it's some of the barriers that you,

kermit, mentioned regarding the policy issues about the 50% rule, what other polic areas are out there. any specific recommendations that you would likfor us to consider in our proposals. took congress. >> i can start with a. i think that one of the specific areas that i would think is very important is bridging the digital divide by the issue of access, which is not only having affordable broadband iernet access, but also having as kermit, this beat up or you do your job training, where you do it hopefully in your home. and the best way to do that that i have found through our research is by providing a laptop in someone's home so that they can take a laptop to home if they are able to do the job training at work. if their employer says it's okay, they can do it in a small room, even if there takes we have done a program with inmates who are going into halfway

houseq and having a laptop allows those inmates in a halfy house where they'll have a bunk bed, possibly a chair and desk to do their work. soap providing the access, making it available through the workforce system to provide computers and laptops. >> i would say two things. one is again, parking back to tell the. the was a time in this country where very few people had a telephone and then they got to have more and more telephones. and then there was a policy in the country for universal access to dial tone, right? which then pushed telephone access to 90%, if not more, in a number of ars. so wha we would like to see is the same kind of policy. now they did that through subsidies so that there would be rural access and these kinds of things. but in areas, there was aublic

policy to get as many americans as possible via phone and telephone, and in any number of years that was accomplished. so we would like to see the same ing with high speed internet access. d we think it is the telephone of our generation of this era. the second thing i would say is we would like the definition for high speed to be looked at again. >> that is definitely being considered right now. >> do have a sense of how quickly, what's reasonable? how hard would you push the federal government in terms of setting benchmarks like that? >> i think has come in, it's an economic competitive issue. so i would push them hard, as hard as i could push them. five years? five years a what, 90% coverage. >> i want to jump in there as well. i do belie it's open access so that there are no, you know, state or local regulations that

are hindering multiple competitors going in these rural marketers. marketers. and also setting a mandate of five megabits per second. if i look across the e-learning industry, the various tools that are out there, what people are trying to utilize, it's kind of a give-and-take you need that to just even begin to start to allow people not to get frustrated and i go back to the statement, no one wants to use the 1980s dialup 30 years ago. >> bible jump in as well because i think the true value of the infrastructure that would be the high speed broadband internet access actually comes from the private sector and the applications that we built to utilize a. i think it is important that you keep that in mind and also loo at it may seem odd to call them incentives, but i think don't believe the private sector out

of this as being someone who can contribu to the actual overall goal of putting people to work or helping them understand what possibilities they have. i think another component of this is more integration or collaboration with other agencies in other areas of th government to be able to align some of your goals strategically around is to be able to -- did i make some friends dataquest in the department of labor might have a lot to say on this. [laughter] >> you know,ut i think we look at those things we have to remind ourselves that whenever we decided to build roads and we decided to build electricity into homes, we didn't really get it down to the level of law, the hairdryer is really going to have compelling impact on the workforce, right, but you got to really think about what the tools are that are going to benefit from this. >> and i will jump in on that. i also think, i'm a researcher. demographics really matter. antony sings really had to be

built to a given the unique needs of those different learners and how they learn. and where they learn. i also think that there's also a difference for at least in the community that i deal with him around the issue of labor force participation. when you look at the disparities in labor force participation rates with people with disabilities, it's like 78% aren't even showing a. so they're not even getting these on my. how do we begin to show as a workforce developme strategy ways to market this and get it out reach to these underserved communities. especially those who are low income, will find it very difficult to access, and who i think you really need to consider that as you think about more long-term proposal in congress. >> i think that as you a have explained today, we ha heard of aut cost being a barrier or access in one way or another, and in usability. this is the first i think if you have really mentioned sort of

the relevant point that there isn't a lot ofeople who are not using broadband right now because they don't see the point a. and particularly given all the benefits that you all talked about him a job training and education perspective. i wanted to hear yr thoughts on, you, what we can do and what you are doing on your own to do outreach and make people understand the benefits of this to incree adoption that they understand the relevance of it. >> i think, you know, given the experience, somebody hasn't experienced something, whether they are a displaced worker with low skills and a rural area where there is, you know, high vel poverty, etc., given them the expense to the community, through libraries, through community activism, etc., their eyes will light up when they see what's possible when they expects the technology. and in the next up is how do you make educational park accessible

to them? you do, so we have a lot displaced workers because of off shoring jobs for example. they want to improve their life. they wanto go to a skilled labor job as we become a knowledge economy, etc. etc. they are willing to go with the trends are happy with our economy whether they understand it or not. but only if they understand how to use the technology. you can't always expect the government to pay for it at a kb lets get a subsidy for all libraries and all community centers can have high speed internet. that would be great, right? the providers have to make money as well. so maybe we try to form some consortia with business, with municipaties, younow, try to show them here's where you can shift some of your budget to add value to your constituents, as well as federal, state lel. >> i think a workforce development system perspective, again, it's a syste that is very b overwhelmed as you all knew, acowledged earlier. the extent to which we are, we

at labor a partner with her other federal agencies can create within the state virtual one stn. could greatly reduce cost. when you look at the typical cost of operating a one stop fiscal common know, kindf a center, and i don't think we've done a lot to really test that concept of how do we provide workforce development services including vocational rehabilitation, one stops, that are virtual. and i would be interesting to see some kind of a partnership pilot between the fcc and labor on that would be really cool. >> from our perspective, to answer that question, is that there's also this compelling instance or the circumstance that i find myself in an there is nothing ago states is more than the job loss with an. i had no other reason when i was workg, what is gainfully employed, when i was one of the billioof peoples who worked a year ago that isn't working today, i had no real reason to go out there and do a job search or to do a career map.

but now that i'm one of the billions that is out of work, that maybe my compelling reason to ask to go online. you know, when i there it's actually, i am behind out to figure out what's my path, what i going to have to do to get there. now i have to go through six month or year or two years or four years of job retooling and training and education. it would be really good if we don't find ourselves in this situation again. it wld take us a little more proactive approach. so you look at as they had we do outreach. its road to look at, no, for us our cheapest most effective way of connecting with people is through the internet. that doesn't help you very much if i can't connect with them to the internet. so when you look at what we're doing is is incredibly creative around that, but the other w we get people in and how you reach people is through the compelling need that they actually finally have. and you will see more and more and more. you want tknow where the jobs are. they are online. they are with company's. there with the company's. there with a government that they have sites tha no one says

jobs are not online. so therefore i must go like to find the jobs. >> i think that it is a piece of the revance and showing people the relevance is adding conte available that works for them and served there neater and as kermit wasalking about earlier, there are 42% of americans don't have the workforce skills, literacy skills they need to compete in the workforce togetr needs to be programming out there that provides them with that. and in many cases there are university progrs, there are things that serve the other americans, but not people who needhe workplace literacy skills and that's one of the reasons why the center for work has been working to gratis free website online cald building skills for work which is going to serve those academic skill needs. it in its infancy now but i hope we're not the only ones who are developing tools like is that people are going to look to serve all of the populations that are out there and insert themn a way that looks specifically at how adult learners learn and isn't geared towards children at a bottom

work is geared towards children and it's not useful for adults really. >> one other thing, we touch on the concept of career path was earlr. one thing that i think is very, very difficult particularly for low skilled workers is in order, you really do have too to one institution and get one kind of training and then go to another institution again another kind of training, and may the first nd o adult education basic skills you thatoesn't translate tthe job-training world or doesn't translate to higher education or secondary education. to the extent that you can use, we can develop an online educational and workforce strategy that makes that process more seamless, that helps bridge, and this is a cross agency, cross system problem. if you are an individual learner trying to find the skills, it's not obvious to you. the y we can do that for you when i canind of figure out what i need to learn and what

credentials i'm going t need to get there, i mean, we make it veryifficult for a lot of other authors to get the skills they need. so to the extent we can use high speed internet and online learning to sort of bridge the gaps, i think that would be an immense value to a lot of others in this country and help a lot of people get the skills ty need to help businesses be competitive. >> i just want to add on that. based on the last 12 to 15 years, online learning copies like blackboard being started, monster, t rapid change that we've gone through and that we will continue to go through, time to market is key for levanc sothing that we can get to market, get rural broadband into the hands of the communities that are underserved today and be able to iterate on some of those programs, do some extra mentation and so forth. let's not wait any longer. let's get it out there and see what works, doesn't work. and then tweak it over time.

>> final company because i processed slower. i think we also, i would encourage you or i would like to see that this dgesn't, rural doesn't equal low-skilled. i think what we look at the focus and the conversation seems to be about low skilled workers people who need a lot of assistance, but ihink the one thing as americans, we work more than we do anything else to giv you think about that, i work more than i spend time with my family, more than wesley. work is so critil to me that i would challenge that all of us can improve, no, our lot in life or just work in a different way. so i think broadband allows us to add die to every worker, right? or a the future workers. and i think that's a component of this that i would like to see not just focused on low-skilled. >> i think one of the biggest challenges, just kind of the

elephant in the middle of the room, those of us who are on the webex and in the audience we probably have high-speed internet, right, we are gainfully employed. we can afford it. we don't always love the cost of it per month, but it gives us education, enttainment, access to others. what do we do to keep the integrity and investment ofhe vendors,he suppliers of broadband and high speed and keep their margins in there without having the govnment subsidize everything? sohat's the biggest challenge. i mean, the providers to invest in the technology, they can't give it away, right? they maybe could reduce their margins on what and make it more affordable in certain areas. was the biggest challenge is how do we do that without expecting our government to pay for all of it. but still make it accessible. it's tough. and maybe we have tconvince our population that it's more

important of broadband and cable tv, or something else. i don't kno we ll want everything. we want the entertainment. we want to broadband, but we also want profitable companies like your members who can gainfully employed, people to build it. so i don't know what the answer is. that might be a good question to throw out your spirit may be too controrsial. >> final pick is controversial. i think it's important to understand whether partnerships within the private sector and between the private sector and the public sector were, whether they exist. i am sure they exist, but what is working at what more partners are necessary and in transeventy presentation earlier he did talk about relevant online training programs rlly need to happen wi her partnships across

agencies, across the various orgazations that touch upon this particular topic. as well as the employers who are going to be creating jobs in the industry. so thank you for the input. we have a questiofrom calle on webex. this is about e-learning, so i'm going to ask him to answer it first. what is the bigger problem in terms of serving e-learning platforms, lack of technological access, low-speed internet, or lack of dealers in what is the best way to address this gap. th's a tough one to answer because i think it is a little bit of erything. again, millions of people use e-lening in some form. it might not be an education that are pgmatically twigged government website to get my be going to googling something so you can learn a skill and it is free online. so i think first is the letter

see, the digital literacy, if you want the masses to have it. and indusy, private, public sector, everybody is responsible for trying to induce trial so people can get out there and have exposure to it because if you are not exposed to something you don't know any better i think that's the first part. the second part is content, it doesake time to build effort to build meaningful learning content. so you just can't throw a bunch of videos and text online. it's got to be organized in a thoughtful manr aroun how people learn, where people are. every organization has to think about that, whether you are a corporation training your employees, you are university faculty, delivering the course. because how people interact with the content, and if it' designed so they can learn from it and you can assess what they have learned and thecan use in their life or the job, that's the other critical component.

>> tonight texas republican john culberson shows how members of congress used technology to sta in touch with thr constients. on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> tell personal stories about treating patients and offer their views on health care legslation currently before congress. you'll hear from doctor stephanie, the mac so the charges anywhere from 1800 to $2000. the payment is usually a medicare reimbursement for a

mastectomy is usually between 650 and $750. >> also interns talks about issues surrounding patient care. >> patients have a tendency when they have a symptom to go to the internet. and try to figure out what's wrong with them. now, what out the medical background and grounding and experience that we have, the are always get it wrong. and usually think that they have some horrible disease. so if there's anything i would say is, patients should we try to make their diagnoses on the intern. >> join us tonight and watch all three doctors from virginia hospital center in arlington virginia share their personal stories about tatin patients and their views on health care legislation. that begins at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> more now from a recen conference on the future of the russian military. analyst examines the nation's efforts to restructure its defense. this is just about 90 minutes

hosted by the hudson institute. >> okay. and everybody please take your seats and make sure that all your communication devices are turned off? thank you. my pleasure to look into the second panel where we're going to talk abo russian military and russian governmental perceptions of europe, and in northeast asia our first speaker is professor joshua spero, pittsburg state university in massachusetts or cable talk about russian military challenges of the central and eastern europe. josh is an associate professor of political science and a coordinator of international studies program at pittsburg state. and also the regional economic government institute director acknowledged that previous it, he was u.s. at the assistant for europe and u.s. czar in the office of the secretary of defense a foreign military studies office based out of fort leavenworth. he was also a senior civilian strategic pn and the new division in the joint chiefs of

staff for. it's my pleasure to introduce josh teater and the floor is now open. >> thank you, steve. and richard. and i grateful for all of you to come out this morning. and also, like my colleagues, just to say a brief word about mary fitzgerald, who i had thd honor to work with in the late 1980s as well as the 1990s when i was in washington. and certainly her research and analysis played a great role in how we collided around the pentagon within secretary of defense's policy planning offices as well as the joint staff's strategic planning and operating. so it is an honor to be here on behalf of merry's work. and i appreciate the institute

holding this eventnd to be reunited with my colleague and many of you whom i know. i'm going to try to bui a little bit on what you heard on the first panel, but certainly focus my comments regionally. and a look at russia's military strategy for central and eastern europe as posing several challenges, not only for europe, and also for russian national security. since the post-9/11 rise in internationaterrorism, and i know intnational terrorism was downplayed in the first bd in terms of the russian national security document, as it is currently published. nonetheless, international terrorism now makes afghanistan the global security as u.s.

military involvement decreases in iraq, and rousseau european relations appe linked more to developments in southwest asian security. so that'll be the basis of how i'm going to look at the russian military toward central and eastern europe are starting iraq's uncertainty increased u.s. military intervtion in afghanistan and growing focus on pakistan impact, common ground potentially lies with closer cooperative security along between russia, europe, america and afghanistan. yet as you start to hear from the first panel, our regional securityensions over russi military strategy on russia's western periphery possibly threaten longer-term cooperation between the u.s. andurope.

while likely determining our rousseau european ties that might divert from american interests. while traditional military planning and even potential confrontation influenced post-9/11 european demmas in eurasia. more concern arises about eusian energy challenges. affecting rousseau european linkages that might be realized. such international security concerns may well determine russian mitary challenges towards central europe as a geopolitical battles for eurasian influence on western ern periphery amounts. given the 21st century's energy ominous and military conduct in southwestsia and the middle east, russia's military and europe's political leadership continually focus on independent ukraine and georg.

hower, this focus on regiol eastean and euro-asia concerned in ukraine and georgia respectively, may reveal more about energy security for russo-european dies, as well as for how russian military strategy towards central eastern, central and eastern europe develops. for europeasecurity calculations, ukraine and georgia factor more politically and economically and militarily. be russo georgian war in august 2008 and the russian ukrainiapipeline confrontation was temporary shutdown energy supplies to europe through ukraine in january 2009 enabled russia to reassert itself somewhat over its western neighbors. consequently, territorial war in georgia may also relate to vital

piline routes to europe. and a gas pipeline in ukraine and certainly antagonized and u.s. relationships, and may even divide western european leaders from these european and european counterparts again in more ways than we might realize in the months and years ahead. more than tritional military battlefield strategy in europe, russian military objectives as iss may have advanced through political and economically focused pipeline routes. and ironically russian strategy towards central and eastern europe seems consumed more with russia's western periphery as we have been hinting at this morning. the periphery being eastern europe and euro-asian. but it's a strategy ultimately

might limit its military imct on central and western europe. russian military intervention are pressuring appear to drive overall european political considerations, and economic necessities more than military concerns. and agonizing eastern europe greatly, and unsettling some european leaderships over all. does, ukraine and georgia remain what i would call geopolitical pivo to hearken to make enders stands on important conntal issues f russian military strategy. but russo-european security dilemmas may actually focus much less on military issues than on euro russian energy challenges

as well as how the european union continues to integrate not only new members, but alsoeach out to its eastern periphery, which is increasing late euro-asia. and also how an uncertain north atlantic treaty organization impacts on euro-asian security. and those are the basic argumdnts that i have made in this initial draft. i think what's important is that as the first decade of the 21st century emerged, you look at countries like germany and other western european leaders as more clearly formulating their international security concerns toward russia in terms of energy and geopolitical priorities. and the geopolitical disputes that have emerged as well as the

cooperative efforts that have advanced. because of the economic impact of the russian oil and natural gas supplies to europe weighing so heavily in european capitals, russian national securities positioning appears concentrated on pipeline politics. and as a result, but from what you are this morning the russian military and it's a great challenges to field operations capable forces beyond russian territory, and as you loo at the military intervention, the wars that have occurred involving the russian military, as well as the military pressuring that might be used if we really read betweenhe 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 towardsentral eastern europe awe have known it for at least the last two decades with the cold war's collapse may not be as traditional as we think. and e military planning may be more focused on russia's national security priorities that a political and economically driven. but as a result, central and eastern european leaderships remain caught in a developing security dilemma in the second decade of the 21st century. central and eastern european security depends on european inteation, especially these days on the european union. and as we have seeon how

central and eastern europeans resentembers of nato and european union over the past decade believed their security is reinforced by u.s. security commitments primarily through nato, and that's banng on nato's existence the way we've 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 here nato has gone out of area into afghanistan with its international security sistance force southwest asian security seemingly as driving out the russian military is trying to focus on its western periphery. and again, i focused on ukraine an georgia.

and i boiled that down more so to pipelined priorities because of europe's dependency on natural gas and oil from russia. whatou start to see happening over the last decade are any number of pipelines that exist from russia through eastern eupe and euro-asia into europe proper, competing. some are russian pipelines specifically. others are now emerging to be non-russian. and bunching together a conglomeration of countries that for a variety of reasons especially in the east european, south east european and euro-asia regions, are trying to cut out russia from the process

of transferring oil or natural gas. you see the russians trying to build pipelines that go around central and eastern europe. these pipelines have huge costs, but it is striking to me that they are weighing so heavily in russian national security prioritizing, and it will be quite fascinating to see how key countries in the pipeline, the geopolitical pipeline battles such as ukraine and georgia factor into russian military strategy. as it emerges in the doctrine. but also as it attempts to emerge pragmatically in terms of what the russian military would do to protect such pipeline

roes. energy security has gotten a good deal of attention throughout washington. it certainly attracts great attention in european capitals, and of course, out of moscow. this is crucial. how it weighs on the european union and nato will be quite important because, for the russian military, as i wind down my comments, 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 russian and cuts it off from itself in the enclave.

eastern europe's eastern partnerships politically and mitarily are reay focused on energy, and they are extending their outreach to euro-asia, which expands from basically northeastern europe to southeast europe and then into the caucuses or euro-asia. how this is seen as threatening i believe is really being driven today by how the politics and economics weigh more heavily on the military planning then we might recognize. whether pipelines become feasible in transported over the next five to seven years, let's say, those pipelines that haven't even been built yet will really i thinkrive the issue of how rus-european relations 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 provocations or when planning which leads to provocations do erupt as in the russo-georgian war a year ago, you can se how that has impact and then followed by the gnu at 2009 russian-ukrainian pipeline competition. you can see how these issues really matter to the institutions that are driving european security and still driving russia bit nutty. meaning nato and the e.u.

how these institutions will grapple with energy security, since both institutions to prioritize energy issues, more seriously than they did a couple of years ago, will really be fascinatg to seeow that plays out. it does bring in central asia through the caucuses, and that certainly relates to how afghanistan's mission will take shape and affect its region. and how that will impact economically, not only southwest asian security, but euro-asia security. and 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 very much time on that this morning because i think those are secondary. i think that you've just heard from the first panel, and i would agree with this, that a trade ofon missile defense in poland and the czech republic, the systems, that is, could be made if there is an iranian card to play. u.s. interests which drive missile defense within nato may backtrack, and russia may be able to even assert itself politically and economically on questions within the nato russia council which is revived. and you may see the european union factoring in more on nato decisi-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 fold gap. and i think euro-asian security and eastern security, being those geopolitical pivots will weigh more heavily anrussian militaryculations towards central and eastern europe. thank you. spec that you, josh. will now turn to richard weitz from the hudson institute who will talk about russian chinese security relatns. richard is a senior llow and director at the center for political and military analysis here at hudson. he has published mythically on regional security developed across euro-asia. on homeland security, he has also published and edited several books donograph including global security watch

over russia which is due out shortly, a volume of national security case studies for the project on national security refo, which came out in 2008. a study called china russia security relations. last year as well. it is available on our website for free. you can get a bargain like that ywhere. and another major book called as extent of the new international politics of eurasia for the central asia. richard said i am prolific but even i can write three books in a year. richard, you have me beat. and the florida shore sixpack thank you so much, steve. for your kind words an introduction or i'm speaking about china russia security, and copy to point out is a disher was actually the 60th anniversary of the establishment and diplomatic relations between moscow, since a change from the soviet relations, but mcow.

and china. and there was a series of celebrations and events to mark the casion. the most important perhaps the president whmade a visit to russia and moscow in particular but in the context of this, the chinese television interview the president and he said that he thought given he would be basically what happened, all the high level exchanges and meetings turkey that this is probably the highest level of dice in the history of china russia, russian chinese relations. and i think this is correct. i think that if y put anything in context, it probably is, they're probably have never been so close and so many across the entire relationship. but it's important to consider what metrics you are looking at. and what you've seen in the pas is especially high hurdle. for the most part the relations they have ignored each other, or they have engaged in wars, and various other unpleasant episode

in the past. it has really only been about the past 20 years where you got this odd equipoise in which russian federatn and the soviet heritage, the core element of the soviet union, somewhat weaker, particularly economic grounds. and china as we know has been, thanks to the reforms and other factors, the economy has been improving. and it has been able to move that over two military pontial. so you are getting an interesting balance in which china's economy is superr and that will continue if the president will continue. but russia still retains probably military forces, particularly in the nuclear realm. russian defense analyst when you tire of how to talk about china, it is theay many american

analysts think about it as he china as a near-term threat. perhaps they are looking at the next decade out. is not seen as a major security problem. perhaps beyond that they are concerned as are other people. but for the most part they think they're argued domestic problems. the cooperation manifests itsf in many dimensions. particularly to the joint statements they make when they meet at the presidential or other level. the contents of these are such that they can do advocate, meaning united states falls somewh and relative influence in china, russia, and perhaps any, europe. depends on what country you're looking at. what they call democratization of international relations. when they used the word democratization, they don't mean into the. they mean externally in terms of

balance. the statements also stressed the importance of the united nations, which makes sense since china and russia have you indeed is and eager to counsel insofar as the united states is carrying out the resolution. they can veto that. and they can also use that veto potential to modify resolutions without their friends and allies and in the third world with all the countries. the statements often, and a statement that often tend to agree on what they don'tike about american foreign policy although they typically don't name the united states. so there is criticism of democracy promotion efforts or efforts to promote one political system on a different political syst, culture. established missile defenses and son. they settled their major, one major point of contention last year. if i demarcatetheir joint border. there are actually two borders.

they now finally settled that, and that will not become contested for at least a while. even any energy realm, if u consider energy security. there actually has been a major turnaround in the past year. after many years of frustrated deals, fighting over whether it was russia's pipeline, what prices they would get for the oil and gas russia might deliver, they finally seem to be out a forla that would work at least in the near-term which is that china land russian companies billions ofolla. and in return the russian companies use this money to build a pipeline and didn't deliver oil to china. and they are thinking out at extending that oil for loans deal to a natural gas and perhaps other realms. but i think that the energy deal like some of the other manifestations relationships are

perhs a little,hey are more tense and more potentially conflictual that is portrayed by the two countries. for example, and stephen has written extensively. on the energy dimension, the russians have sortf, they have been forced into this deal. for the longest time they try to resist committing to the chinese market. they were discourage chinese investment that would compete perhaps with theompany's in central asia and elsewhere. they have agreed recently because prices have hur russian oil and gas and weaknesses, some of their energy companies, but it's not sure if the prices bounce back that they may be doing how long this deal is sustainable. other dimensions, the russians have been pushing to have to weaken the role, the dollaror example, the world economy. the chinese have beenuch more reluctant to do so primarily because they hav so many dollar and so large dollar holdg reserves.

in central asia, there is still a bit of common interest but also conflicting interest in some areas. notably, the chinese government like most governments have refused to recognize independence of the two separatist regions of the russian military carveout of georgia about a little over a year ago. and at the societal level, the relationship is not very close at all. they then try toush it along through various cultural exchanges, promoting each other's land use and so on. that does appear to have made much progress. and you get a lot of, if you look at the media about what's gog on. the chinese nationals cplain about the way chinese citizens are treated in russia. there is lots of stories of mistreatment. the russians complain about illegal chinese immigrations although some of the past years about the chinese moving in and basically the factor, taking

over large parts of siberia and, sort of faded on the scene. there still some concern at some point the demograpc and balance. there is also some words about water pollution and so on. . .

the bilateral trade relationship so major russian deficit of about $13 million last year. russia has turned into a commoditprovider for china, oil, gas, timber, oth commodities and they buy a lot of chinese aonsumer goods. they've been trying to reverse and go back to the high technology but haven't beenble to do so in the nuclear energy realm where thamight occur. during the 1990's especially early 2000's the street was substantial about one-four to one-half of exports went to china from 1illion to as much as 2.5 billion a year every year would go from russia to china. russian firms derived revenue from this.

it was helpful ithe 1990's when their russian complex was straining to sustain itself in the collapse of the of russian mitary procureme the chinese ke i they managed to pick ua lot of good soviet technology at low pres and are ae to incorporate them to make up gaps in their own forces. but you've seen as i said a sharp decline starting in about 2007 as well as in contract orders. i think this is due for several reasons. complaints about the quality of the ods d sales and so on but the major reason is the chinese defense industry itself has been able -- its improved the last three years and has produced goods that previsly they would have to buy from russ so now the russians have a major trace their struggling with. do they accepthe loss of t market or agree to start selling other weapons top-of-the-line

that they sell not given to the chinese and they go back and forth and at the moment they a deciding not to sell the advanced material. they're doing quite well in the hartness market and sales. they have got a large backlog order and don't need chinese orders at the moment. so they've been very concerned a lot of goods they get to china theye been able to copy and now are competing with chinese ports and third world marts and this has manifest itself recently brenau the iranians appear to be telling the russians you have to give or we are going to by the chinese copy of the s300. it's not qte copy but borrow from the technology but it is a good system so there's a lot of pressure on the russians to decide how much they want to sell to china risk transferring. the other key of the relationship which has somewt

replaced the arms relationship has been the large-scale mitary exercises. they have a lot of general security exchanges and the defense ministers mt annually and set up a telephone hot line between t defense communities, general staff get togethe and they have about 25 smaller exercises for example scheduled this year but the china 2005 had a new phenomenon these large sce exercises. every other year, 2005, 2007, 2009. they've been a bit different, 2005 was focused very much on -- it was about 10,000 troops a of strategic bombers and the russian side a lot of warships donner on the coast as well as chinese coast. some looked li it was preparing for asian taiwan, another possible but it could be a joint occupation in north korea if that country fell apart and they wanted to force american troops up north.

the one in 2007 was different with the allies of russia. it w a somewhat smaller in that china and included relation countries and into those in mind the most recent was a bit different again. it was smaller and it was mostly in china. it was one day meeting in northeast asia they try to do both countries a day of consultations but involved averitt terrestrial of exercises, and i think if you look a piece these exercises serve several purposes. in our original purpose appears to have been one of them was to promote russian arms sales so the russians would highlight some of the stems they were hoping the chinese would body in the 2005 exercise and it worked in one or the chinese decided to buy a tanr aircraft the russians showed off to them and by that with arms relationship in general seems to fall off.

another one is to improve tactical efficiency. the cnese are able to alert with military tactics procedures getting a sense how to conduct these military operations which they have not been engaged in majorombat since the vietnam 79 and for example 2009 the opportunity the east german military did major exercise since world war ii. also, it could be rehearsal as you might argue to some of the promise both countries for example if there was a popular uprising in a region, something like tradmark a men in 1989 or uzbeckistan, some kind of joint military operation might be conceivable or they want to become conducting these

operations. another goal i would think is to underscore to reaffirm their cooperation. they don't actually have a bilateral military alliance the way they might have done it nominally during the cd war. ere i agreement to consult but there's no commitment from oncountry to defend the other from attack but the exercise is to confirm to support each other's security. you also can interpret these as a means of confidence building. they have a series of agreements, steve mentioned on, they target nuclear weapons for exame against each other formally. they've got demilitarization agreemts along the joint borders and so on but a lot of these you can't enforce such as the been on tgeting because to the course of enforcing. countries want to withdraw,

reduce troops along the joint border at the end of the cold war's of these agreements recognize that fact that the joint exercises for additional information what each of the country's is doing in the military realm allowing them to keep an eye on ch other. finally there is the standard function of the exercises which is po reassure friends and adversaries. in terms of france they're showing central asian allies that ussia and china have the potential to intervene militarily if you get in trouble on your behalf and this is centrally seem as the foreign military threat has more again in ter of people they would want to call on russian and chinese troops to help put down. that's an unlikely scenario but some think they may want to allow to .... and they want to extend extra messages to other parties particularly the united states countries this whole area ofther

eurasia is a primary concern for the countries and they have the capacity to enforce and there was actually a quote frothe chief of the russian staff duri the last exercise that one of the reasons for the exercise was to show the community russia and china have necessary resources to ensure stability and security in the region but again, it would be difficult in actual practice for them to operate as a joint tervention. they operate limited much less in the nato context so we probably have these parallel operations rusan troops coming from the north, chinese from the west in which they would carve out sones. so in conclusion the relationship is very broad. they have security dimensions and it's become more normalized unless you are in the cold war in the sense that you have kind of a fairly good relationship in the sense of interaction at the elite level and not a current

your coming into t shooting any time soon but it is very allow. there isn't much to limit tener burba witty. arms sales are falling in importance. joint exercises are important symbols but pretty much a standout for the unusual nature and althoughhere is nothing in the futur that will cause them to go back to the cold war tensions as you saw during the 1960's, there is enough inherent competition i'm happy to go into and the question and answer session in trd-party areas and others that reassure all side you are not going to see a cold war alliancer something that could cause problems for the united states. thank you. >> thank you, richard. we will not open up to questions. if you have a question please raise your hand and the people with the microphones will come

to you. when you are asking the question please identify yourself and specify to whom you are asking the question. >> also, television audiences if you want to e-mail me at hudson.org we can either transferred your answer later. >> the gentleman right here. >> question four for josh and possibly steve. the discussion earlier concerning russian start to build up a mobile capability is regarded by some as increasing potential teat for russia's neighbors, given russia's desire to reassert its influence and border regions also steady to weak protect the minority in the georgia and ukraine and estonia or possibly even it could have

impact because of the situation so i would like your comnts on that because some people to perceive this as an enhanced threat. second the reported russian inte to develop a major military installation in o abkhazia getting back to the discussion about pipelines and of causey and the black sea, norway expressed concerns aut the arctic and i wld like your general comments on that. >> as i stressed in my analysis, i think primarily economic considerations dr. how of rusa increasing looks up the western periphery, and that also drives political considerations that could be tackled potentially tackled by 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 build up potential headquarters forrd deployed if you will as you are indicating in the breakaway region such as of abkhazia which most of the world doesn't recognize as an independent from georgia. to protect russian minorities i think that premier li if you will political and socia issue is always part of planning but i think it is much lower on the

scale 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 moved westward from russia d he ratio into europe. so i can't say just how the russian military would be used to protect russian populations on its western periphery and its southwestern periphery to great extent from what i see in the planning documentation that's

available unclassified. i wod though turning to your point about taking advantage at least operaonally of oprtunities to create makeshift headquarters planning elements beyond russian borders or territory that russia sees more a part of it than let's say was the case one or two years ago for contingencies, the military contingencies that if the political command is given and there isn't overwhelming dispute between minister of defense and chief of general

staff that it really i believe is driven by making sure money continues to get made ensuring that oil and gas continues to go through pipelines and even having the military used to help the contractors and the businesses build a future pipelines. you may find that the russian military is in default and that kind of reinforcement as opposed to actual military operations whic finally is one of the reasons why i believe europeans at least western europeans have deemphasized russian military threats over the last decade even 15 yea but those closest to lonely the history but geographically today the central

and eastern europeans have not forgotten about the russian military planners that even central and east europeans realized that the pipelines are crucial especially if they are going to start to be built in earnest around them and that is why they are getting on the bandwagon with other europeans to help build them without attachments geographically to russia. so these are if you will monitoring an assessment outpost militarily but they have great political and economic impdications. >> let me just add to that from the political point view the building of the positive is negative development as it is on a limited to earlier that would allow russia to conduct operations outside of russia in defense of russians who are

threatened pitically or culturally and without having to go to ratification. the airborne forces in that context serve as keep ability for instrument lysing for making the threat real because those might be the most reliable or the rst wave of forces that go in such a place. what bothers me about thithe most is the fact that it seems to have registered on policy conscience of a lot of government as far as russia is concerned, and i have a holder of comments, the cis governments and for that tter east european governments are formerly of the war so badre not truly sovereign states. that is a very dangerous doctrine and else i said i have lots of evidence to support this and mad at's call -- medvedev's

called a press conference last year about this and so on in the kit is distilled the belief in moscow these are not truly sovereign states and statements coming from people that the cold war never really ended and if russia is a visionary state and we will be succeeded by religious the state of these are utterly irresponsible and dangerous threa in that context these kind of policies he believed to are extremely negative. next question, back here. the gentleman standing all the y in the back. >> toby russell, oxford university. >> mic isn't on. >> hold it on until the light is 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 russian military and despite a rash of's desperation to continue demonstrati itself to be a small power look to to the west, europe and the united states. my quespion is given that russia hasemonstrated a willingness tout off energy supply to western europe as a proxy a few well for the lack of military power. does rational manner of energy relations with china and ability to rely o chinese economic support enhanced rush us strength coming off western european supplies of energy as a proxy for lacking and military strength. >> ricrd? >> there is actually a question that came on line that relate how sick the can shift some the

global energy picture support to the eckert word supply constrais ma strategic and unlikely. the relationship is very interesting andteve has written about this because in one way it is a natural partnership between russia and ina, russia has a lot of energy resources near china. china as we know has become a major energy consumer in recent decades so it's natural for china to purchase from china and not have to get it from distant persiagulf war african nations which are more politically unstable and which you have to be considered a conflict you are going to have those intercede by americans or in the ins. but they have been arguing over a variety of factors one of whicis the chinese are suspicious of russians because they are aware of not only cut offs the practice of going to the europeans and sing you have to give a higher pre and then they come to the chinese and it's like we are going to

give it to jap. not always so explicitly but it's understood. and that's why you've got this recent deal the chinese say give the money t then you have to build pipelines because the russians of the longest time have n wanted to bui the pipelines because that commits and shows the europeans. it probably gives the russians some leverage. maybe i will you talk about the europeans but from the chinese the chinese have made clear they will get energy wherever the need it. if they can get it from russia, but they are not going to make concessions and have been somewhat successful getting energy from the central asian countries, the soviet union so ng they have pretty much dominant influence with the inese now are of a bidding the russians so thehave had to offer more to keep fat coming or yield some of the resources to the chinese and as we know they

are very active in the middl east and africa d elsewhere s as far as the russian chinese tang and it is concerned, it' not been the source close relationship you would anticipate and even if the flow was to increase following the new models we have seen i think the chinese are willing to sacrifice that relationship if necessary to pursue other goals. >> it will likely take some time to see what type of significant revenue would accrue from an energy cooperation where russia for its national security purposes could leverage if the

financing from its siberian foothold into its eurasian region, which leads me to the ss men that in many ways the russia leadership did not want to cut off those energy supplies to europe but the ukrainian version confrontation over the pipeline, and this was a continuation of such disputes over the pas several years, but really it came to the head last january as the question certainly indicated that for a good two weeks i believe those engy supplies to europe were cut off because of a number of

ukrainian issues but primaly because of financial reasons once you start looking at how that played out. i uould 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 the military doctrine i have watched to see how this northwest pipeline that supposed to take its shape under the

baltic and throughout germany and around poland in the north develop significantly to see how that revenue stream could amount to an alternative from the main ssian ots that go through the belarus as well as ukrainian roots, but there is investment however much it may swirly be needed just in the russian proper that's being used to consider the north stream alternative especially when you have got dputes emerging as richard mentioned and also planning on what steve said which is central asia even though there has been great dependency on russia for

security issues oil and gas pipelines that run from central asia through eurasia, e ones th exist, and into europe do bring in a ukrainian and georgian issues, wch i think coorate -- pivotal. if we see the central relationips pivotal as they are either move away from the russian orbit and you start to see -- remember thessouthern and eastern pipelines emerging in fascinating ways with europeans, ctral western and asian i will be curious as im sure many of you will be to see ho the russians play their pipeline politics north and south if alternatives to those

supplies emerged that are non-russian supplied in southern here asia and we will see how that plays out in the yea ahead. over here. gentlemen back there. on the side, yes. >> [inaudible] -- embassy georgia. it seems to me the pipeline policy driven issuefor the russian foreign policy in the neighboring countries, so could you tell what is your understanding of what some say what is your entrance lesion of the non-acceptance from the western countries -- >> the knott acceptance of what? >> [inaudible] and the second qstion to me richard.

recently china signed an agreement for $1 billion so this is unexpected activity of china and bordering countries. how could you explain this? thank you. >> perhaps i could get a quick clarificion. when you s western countries either recognizing or not recoizing a half russian, caucasian region just want to make sure i understand. are you talking european or european and american? >> inaudible] transatlantic -- >> i guess the reality check that i am using as a gauge in my

analysis is garate as the oil, where does the natural gas actually flow through the pipelineshat 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 gaway for several pipelines. some existent, others emerging, some wheat to russia, some not. sphere of influence is still in critical important phrase. it is used as steve just

referenced as not oy russia's western periphery but there are leadership's in ceral and eastern europe integted into the union and nato who are still quite concerned, and from their standpoints that could be justifiable. whether there will be russian military intervention into formal central and east european territories, and i am speaking about countries already integrated into the european union and nato i highly doubt that. however, when you see the european unions i touched upon briefly in my presentation,

increasing this easter a partnership or outreach to the eurasia and ostensibly energy assistance and development which includes countries such as georgia if i am not mistaken. countries which may never become european union members in the next five to ten years but i couldn't say for sure how that will evolves. i have to believe it is less a matter of sphere of influence in military terms as it is in speaking out in the absolute requirement for energy supplies because don't see alternative energy from oil and gas emerging as rapidly as a lot of europeans would like. i also just want to say that the

united states and its transatlantic allies, those which have committed forces in afghanistan have their hands so full operationally in a northern and southeastern ahanistan and certainly the u.s. priority for pakistan is part of that afghanistan strategy is really significant development over the last six to eight months, and i believe that it reduces the d'huez impact on how the europeans will view their non-military priities on their eastern per every as being absolutely ctical and i and at

least annciating you have to look at how the russian military would at least begin to be considered part of the russian security strategy to protect energy interests and it's already proving dhat perhaps it can get involved with the pipelines could shut down and how they get protected but this is not part of training and doctrine just yet but i wonder where this would go and who's sphere of influence would be carved out i am not sure if that is the best phrase as opposed to integration one of integrating ms effectively. >> with respect to the question about the development i think th you've seen a very interesting phenomenon of raid

earlier in the discussion about how the russians as we see in the military force in the case of georgia if they prefer not to and energy is often seen as there was a joke in the times when ased what were the two main allies of russiahe response was the army and the navy well,uring the cold war it was at least in the latter called for it was nuclear forces or the rest of the el terrie. now people say they are energy superpower it is all in the gas. but the chinese may have found their own means to have a great influence without engaging in dire conict with russia or anyone else for that matter which is they are immense natural resources. but even during the sumt of the cooperation before the meeting took place the chinese offered $10 billion to the central asian countries to help

them stabiliza their economy and there have been other instances. and we mentioned the loan for the gas in russia. now the chinese of course don't get these freely. they are sometimes tied. they get concessions out of it but it gives them a lot of influence in the world in a way that doesn't threaten necessarily other countries directly through other means, so it is an interesting phenomena of the russians are interpreting this because of the one hand you want them to see stabilization if you are in russia, stabilization in russia and moldova so if they're willing to help incurrethat economically that is terrific but we have made the same argument in the ca of the nato expansion of you want stable ckuntries on the border one way that could contribute is closer ties with the e.u. and nato and the russians have decided that isn't good for them and potentially a me point they are going to think tt having the chinese gain so much influence through

direct investments through commerce, through loans and the former soviet union is something they are going to become comfortable with as well. >> okay. the gentleman right here. yes? >> thank you. [inaudible] the chinese are influencing -- [inaudible] why isn't there more signs of the russians doing the same to chin the russians have more advanced weapons, also ty have sold advanced weapons to malaysia.

they had a deeper problem with japan because the northern territories [inaudible] but nevertheless, to see the relationship with china on their assets available to the russians t increase the leverage with regard to the chinese? >> the russians have been trying to exercise those. they understand that so for example the aretas relationship was something of tensions became worse the russians could do as the united states and europe did afr tannin and which is cut that off as we mentioned the chinese have got in the position they can develop the stuff indigenously and they don't need the russians so the leverage is declined. something the russians have been trying to us to threaten or common not threated but bargain china and japan and

other countries to get them to pay higher prices to get constraints in the influencend the chinese for a while still on their terms and the russians for their own economic and commercial reasons are yielding to china in these concessions. longer term there is as i mentioned this concern that generally globally we have gotten a rising china and at best stagnant russia and how that is meant to play out polically but they don't have the leverage of influence of they would hope to have. the cold war to would think they could use communist connections or other mechanism and they are searching for this. at the moment they don'teel threatened by china's rise militarily. so they are not thinking as you would say a od politicn in allawi with japan versus china war with indiaersus china if also for good reason. these countrie particularly would want toet involved in the alliance against china and

in part with russia. so they are struggling to come with this. e chinese haven't directly confront russi in areas leader in central asia for the russis to become more comfortable with chinese prisons because they see it as stabilizing because the chinese on like americans share a lot of goals with russia and central asia particularly in ters of regime stability and maintaining dealing with quote on quote terrorists or other groups they feel are threatening the death some point it is going to become a problem. bhatia is as the question implies correctly doesn't have mu influence over china the way for example even the united states does thankso the commercial relationship. it's maybeonsidered a destruction relationship but it can't allow the economy to collapse or will take them down with them but it gives some leverage over beijing for the dollar and by currency but the

ruians really don't have that and they are struggling to come to terms with that. >> if i mayxercise the chairman's prerogative. the question you asked points to an important strategic trend. the fact of the matter is as a result of the failure of the russian government to delir on its far eastern policies at home which have been a complete failure and has invested a lot of time and effort as medvedev in this and they have gone out ther and tred in good fashion to keep the bureaucrats into acting and spent a lot of money they had very well to show in the r east and not only is the recent deal with china a sign of this but may 31st medvedev got up and said we welcome chinese investment in siberia and regional cooperation with russia which meant that there's no alternative but to turn to china to help develop the far east. what that means is essentially russia is accepting the russian far east ll be part of the

security order and the investment in the long term and the investments that go and from china wille the cement that holds it together. and three wee later deputy minister said we welcome chinese investment -- we welcome chinese investment in asia which is utterly unprecedented given the penalty at out interest in central asia. as far as weapons we haven't discussed it tay but the general that affect the defense industry manifested weapons sales yes malaysia has bought weapons, the imam, indonesia, but look at the examples what happened in algeria and india. in algeria the russians and sold them 29 and had to take him back because they were defective and then they gave them to their own forces. [laughter] the next time you fly, and you have been aboard. [laughter]

and indigent if you follow the indian discussion, i mean, this incredible story of the admiral is a fiasco of cosmic proportions and the russians are embarrassed. it turns out a lot of the 29 states sold also were defective in some respects or others and people in the indian government has en complaining several years now the russians are selling them junk. the rubber is going to meet the road when the iian government puts up 126th fighter planes. fighter planes are what made the russian defenseonnection to indy 500. if they lose the contract they are in a dangerous position economically. so, yes they are selling weapons to the southeast asians and they obviously want to diversify for an exposure for reaso obvious to everybody but the fact of the matter is russia cannot compete and it is their own fault as we

discussed earlier. next question over here. >> second row right here. >> i should add the malaysians' also had trouble with the 29 fed did not take the second charge of them on toilet of the problems had been solved. the energy question for europe is extremely complicated. and any of us who have heard alexander talk about moved gas if we don't get paid and we are utterly dependent on that. we also have a nice quote from the food and we do not attack pipelines with rumors that may be they fired missiles in the dtc line. there is also the point the russians are saying we want market price at which point they get the market price the

leverage is ge. and last of course is wild corruption invved in all of those pipelines. so i am very confused why you aren't ting to connect this to russian military contingency planning. do you have y clue as to whether they do this kind of planning, any evidence whatsoever? i know the teresa sadr not having nothing else to do especially when they can't exercise and have no food draw when all kind of battle plans. this is a problem in the u.s.. [laughter] but do you have evidence they do this kind of planning? >> i am looking at more of the mid to longer-te trends. i don't have specific evidence as i think i have said that the russian military is specifically planning its military

contingencies on its western periphery specifically for oil and gas priorities that the russian political leaders and its businesses teathe lead codeine crucial. especially this supply routes to europe. when i lookt russian military objectives in places like ukraine and after the russo georgian poor from idea rego i don't have planning documents but if i were looking at russian military strategies in the small russian regio that used to be soviet republi and which our panelists today with which i agree have said the

independent countries today are still seen in russian military planning terms as very much part of, talking abouthe soviet republics of o priorities for influence i see much less in terms ofow military is, military capabilities from russia would take those or again but i am also looking at the broad e of how pipeline politics is playing in russian military security strategy for europe throughout eurasia and i am looking at ways for have the russian military, which youave heard today is so incapable in many ways could possibly be

used, and i am looking at protection of pipelines to follow-up on what you have said so that flows through those pipelines, and i agree with you, gets russia what it wants even if there is a manipulation of prices if that can be manipulated on supply and demand. i see it as a national security priority which i see waiting more heavily in the years ahead on ergy priority. so, no, i don't have specific evidce but these are the trend is all i am looking at. >> those are your objectives? >> basedn documents on have been loong at again, publicly available and meetings between russian and european union leadership's, and even pressure

and by russian officials through nato because that is still happening in the retreats i see happening within the nato alliance on issues such as pursuit of enlargement for ukraine and georgia, the potential dropping of missile defense systems into poland and the czech republic about what the russian military will do in those gions and more to do with the u.s. beg focused on southwest asia and the europeans being focused on energy supplies. >> let me quickly give three case 31, 2006 defense minister said the military would be tasked with defending energy installations. specifically referring to the baltic.

second, balk tech, north street -- in the baltic. second, last week major exercise combined arms exercise and ground forces also but defending explosively defense of energy installations in the baltic th was the exercise. >> the baltic sea. >> the national security strategy again says the future war they are protecting our most likely to occur with regard to the competition for sources of energy a outlines specifically the arctic, the middle east, central asia, areas around russia. this is clear evidence and controversial evidce they see their missions as being connected with defense of energy installations and sources in and around russia and future missions to some degree would be organized. >> we do the same thing.

>> but so what i don't see this as an illegitimate and but tt is going to be a mission. on their part. yes, over here. >> [inaudible] on in the former adviser and remember how in the 90's russian military quickly became pro chinese instead of just a few daysefore that and they spent counseling. the chinese comrades are the only hope now and opposing the united states. the understand they have to conceal it but we are hoping very much for th and actually you know that three years ago putin yielded china strategically important piece of land near the city so on the one

hand russians are not afraid of china but afraid of nato which has no intention to invade russia. russia can do it russians are not afraid. secondly the -- [inaudible] how dangerous for the united states could be the military and intelligence rapprochement between china and russia now? >> right now i don't see much of a problem because for every instance you can show cooperation we share as asia and democratization versus the focus there are limits often because th are pursuing parallel policies towards feared a areas like iran or north korea n directly in conjunction with each other but policies overlap

d you see areas of tension between them which has allowed the united states influence to georgia or economically making china stronger with united states. you mentioned intelligence cooperation. i know a gd handle on that because it is classified but for the instances where you think they are cooperating as case officers or sharing intelligence the threat we have joint meetings with military people and exange threat assessments you also have these publicized instances of the russian counterintelligence service is resting for deferring military technology to china. they have several instances of that from space propulsion which could be ballistic missiles and so on. so, there is an element of tension, and the -- would be

fortunate if they would become close allies as was theoretically deposited in the cold war countervailing for obvious reasons that would make the cause problems in various areas but of course we don't actually want them to go back to the relationship we saw the 1960's in which there was speculation onow the actual fighting on the border could escalate and there is the soviet proposals asking henry kissinger well, what if the soviet union decides to destroy china's's and emerging ki blease? how would in response? you don't want to get in that kind of scenario because the consequences. so, it would perhaps make them like differently but it's not a direct security threat at present. china itself is going to present

security problems as it continues to evolve economically and militarily. how the russians plan that will be a factor but it's not the main factor. the main factor is the chinese-americans -- i still think have different visions where they nt to see the world evolves and you e that now over sovereignty and the south china sea. again the chi have the united states often worked out and it's not clear the chinese will become a major security threat to the united states but insofar as the econo to strengthen and dhat gives military potential it is a latent potential that could become a problem and how russia plays into that will be a factor but not a major factor. >> we have time for one more question. sir, right here. >> joe, i think this is for

richard. following up othat question, to what extent is china a russ tnified as the u.s. seeks to gain more influence in central asia? are we competing primarily with russia or is russia and china woing together jointly and our influence and increased military prence spdcifically in that region and you menoned compliance if you have comments on that as well. islamic it is mplex and think the ssians are more concerned about the american presence than the chinese. this became free much an issue in005 as you will recall khan of cooperation organization most americans have never heard of before which includes russia and china and central asian countries. the issue is part of theengthy summit communique they have recalls sayin well, we would like -- it is not time for the western forces to give a time line when they plan to remove

their forces in the region now that the campaign in afghanistan seems to be dissolved. at the timet looked worrisome and we had i think it was chief of staff, u.s. chief of staff made a comment aboutig countries bullying small countriesut of theegion but i retrospect it was probably resulted from certain temporary overlapping and the uzbeks clearly won the south. they were dissatisfied with the way they would criticize for the military crackdown. but they signed on because it helped them get leverage to get more money from the base and we have seen this phenomena now. russia and china, russians seemed to want to constrain the military presence leader but even they said we are talking about a couple of years, not as rapid. and they haven't made that dearation since. they have been very careful

about that. again there was recent speculation ruston's were trying toet the united states to give up or be expelled from the kurdistan but it didn't pan out that way and so isn't clear what extent who is leaving that and so on. but in general i think the russians are less comfortable about american presence there in the chinese. it just because they still consider that as a mean as owner of influence and would prefer at the moment they are the dominant military player. china doesn't have the potential and i should have made that clear when i was speaking earlier. it doesn merely have the tential to make a military operation in central asia though that is changing. they don't have foreign military bases for a sple whereas russians have basis. the military presence is secure. they have another alliance treaty organation which includes