>> bill kovach, tom rosenstiel, "blur: how to know what's true in the age of information overload." >> you are watching booktv on c-span 2. here's her primetime lineup for tonight: >> robert kaplan sommer writer for the magazine and senior fellow talks about the geopolitical importance of the indian ocean reason and it spell u--l t--l u.s. security and power in the 21st century. he presents his book the u.s.

naval war college and rhode island. the program is a little over an hour. [applause] >> is a great pleasure to be back again at the naval war college, where he had so many friends and where i am so honored to speak. i'm going to talk tonight about a part of the world that should be a central focus of the united states, but still isn't yet. but as is often the case, an element of the u.s. military are ahead of the curve as to where the trend of current events are added. let me start with two things. we're all prisoners of the mercator projection, americans that is. the mercator projection is the world unfolded on a flat rectangle that shows north america and south america in the center, with the indian and

pacific oceans confined to the edges and therefore to the edges of consciousness as well. what we see in the fund to their own world. we think were at the heart of everything. after all, the united states isn't atlantic said that countries. our wars in the 21st century, and the 20th century, world war i, world war ii, korea, vietnam, all encompassed in one respect or another were either the atlantic or pacific oriented. and also, our whole outlook, you know, is in the center. but what i'm here to say tonight is we have to focus on a third ocean, the indian ocean, which has been consigned to the edges of our consciousness, but which is rising in importance.

another thing that we've all been prisoners of his we've all been prisoners of cold war area study. at the end of world war ii, america found itself a great power, a great world power. and therefore, it need experts, area experts for each part of the world. so we artificially divided eurasia into the middle east, south asia, central asia, southeast asia, east asia. universities did this. think tanks tidbits. the pentagon did this. the cia and state department all did this. and when i'm here to say tonight is that these divisions are collapsing. it's all falling together into one organic continuum, especially the southern navigable rimland of your ratio from the horn of africa through the indonesian archipelago and

north all the way to the sea of japan. now, as i said earlier, the navy and marine corps have been onto this for some time. in october 2007 -- 2007, the navy issued its maritime strategy document for the next two decades, where it said that whereas it had been a two ocean navy, the atlantic and pacific, the wood in the future is still be a two-way ocean navy, but would be oriented towards the indian ocean and the pacific. the atlantic is a great ocean, but it's no longer contested in geopolitical terms so much. the real arc of conflict is in the greater indian ocean and the pacific. the marine corps in june 2008 issued a vision statement for the next few decades, where it

indicated that the united states marine corps would be active principally in the indian and western pacific ocean. why is this? first of all, the indian ocean encompasses the entire art of islam from the sahara desert across the longitude, several thousand miles to the indonesian archipelago. americans have gotten this idea that islam is a desert base, supposedly prone to the extremities to which deserts give rise and was spread quickly based word from arabia westward across north africa into spain. but islam has also been a great seer pace. remember the voice of the sinbad the sailor. sinbad was no money to so that abbas wrote in what is today

iraq. when you read the descriptions of the voyages commodious conjured up in the bay of bengal, of the japanese coast of indonesia, borneo and the indonesian archipelago and other parts of the faraway southeast several thousand miles across the longitude. because islam was spread in the far east by sophisticated merchants and took hundreds of years to spread and was in addition layered on top of indigenous hindu and japanese and malay cultures, islam took on an entirely different task in the far east than it did in the greater middle east. last was its austere, somewhat ideological aspect. islam of the far east is not some weird tangent. they constitute almost half of the face, about 600 million

months once lived in the western part of the ocean, although he across across north africa to morocco and about 580 million muslims lived in the southern philippines, southwestern burma, the indian sub continent, indonesia, the malay. you and elsewhere. so we have the indian ocean is the entire arc of islam. what else is there about it? is also the global energy interstate, where all of the oriole and natural gas, the fossil fuels that is that come from the arabian peninsula principally and the iranian plateau are transferred, are transported by supertankers across the whole width of the indian ocean for a thousand miles across, through the narrow strait of malacca and lombok strait and norse towards the

burgeoning hot as eastern asia, the coastal cities of china, south korea and japan. so the indian ocean is a geographical tool to connect political developments in both the middle east and in china and in east asia all at the same time. and another thing, my book is entitled monsoon. and when americans hear the word month soon, they think of a storm or perhaps a catastrophe or disaster of some sort. but that's only a very narrow version of the truth. the monsoon is really a weather system. it's went to assume that agricultural prosperity, developments, the lifecycle. in india, when there's been a good monsoon and there are elections right up to where, the

party in power tends to do well because the monsoon directly affects the economy. and another thing about the monsoon, more than other wind systems and other oceans, it's pretty able. the monsoon slows steadily for six months a year in the northeast, southwestern direction. and then after six months, reverses itself by 180 degrees and flows in the other direction, northeast, south west. and because this project boat, sailing distances can be calculated in advance. so since antiquity, sailors knew when they would arrive in some place, when they should be. they got very few surprises. this is unlike other oceans, so that the indian ocean did not need to wait for the age of steamships to be united.

and because of the monsoon, the indian ocean, 4000 miles across constituted one intimate cultural community. you have malays from the far east, living in large numbers in madagascar, ran up the coast of east africa. you had yemenis from the arabian peninsula in large numbers, living 4000 miles away in the far east and the intimation archipelago. he would gujarat is from northwestern india, living all over the indian ocean. and in addition, you had all monies from southeast arabia, living in large numbers in east africa. everyone was everywhere everywhere and this ocean since antiquity because of the monsoon winds. it's why you find the remains of many, not just a few, but many

seven, eighth and ninth century mosque's of arabs and persians in coastal china. it's why you had chinese navigators from the early ming dynasty visiting yemen in southwest arabia. and those of mongol islamic descent making the pilgrimage to mecca. literally, every one was sailing around everywhere. and because of this, the indian ocean up until the arrival of the portuguese in 1498 with oscoda, sailing to india, let me put this aside here. we often read in our history books that the portuguese navigator discovered india. he didn't discover india. what he discovered or rediscovered for the european was the wind system, the monsoon winds system that would allow one to sail from what is today

kenya in east africa across the arabian sea to calicut on the western coast of india appeared wednesday, arrived in india, he instituted 500 years of western dominance over the greater indian ocean and the western pacific. after the portuguese came to touch, the french, the british and finally the american navy at the end of world war ii. but before the comma, the indian ocean constituted a relatively peaceful robust trading system, dominated by arabs, persians, hindus, chinese of several dynasties that crisscrossed each other all across the trade routes. and this trading system, i believe, will come back. will reemerge as western

dominance to the indian ocean, that 500 year period of western dominance begins to dissipate as we enter not just an economic multipolar world, but a military multipolar world word relative terms, the united states navy gets smaller in the seas. and not go into that a bit later. notice they talk about the indian ocean on the western civic as one unit. they are united in the strait of malacca, the lombok street and other indonesians. but in the 21st century, were liable to see other forms of bringing these two bodies of water together. there've been feasibility studies for building a canal in its massive cross in southern thailand, a $20 billion project that equaled the panama canal is an engineering burkle.

dubai port world is doing feasibility studies for lan bridges across the malaysian pendant to. and the malaysian government help for studying various land rich schemes. the point is they will be more connection points between the bay of bengal and the south china sea. that is from the eastern indian ocean in the southwestern part of the pacific ocean. so will be one or can it, bringing especially middle eastern hydrocarbon to asia. and why do i emphasize maritime affairs so much? it's because in this chat and information age still, 90% of all commercial goods still travel by sea. and in terms of container ships come in the indian ocean is emerging, is the center of the world. the indian ocean and the western

pacific. now in this world, what is going on in great power terms is, think of china moving vertically south towards the indian ocean and india moving horizontally east and west along the indian ocean. china is building or develop being state-of-the-art harvard facilities in court are in pakistan and southwestern baluchistan, near to the entrance of the strait of foreigners in chittagong, in the eastern part of bangladesh. ..

>> at the same time, china is building bunkering facilities where it's warships and merchant marine ships are stored, can get repaired, ect.. it's unclear what the chinese intend. if anyone tells you this is chinese grand strategy, don't believer them because the chinese themselves may not know what the grand strategy is because the chinese is an authoritarian government still has a whole wealth of think

tanks, area experts, various factions of the party that argue and debate with each other in academic journals and otherwise, so china is feeling its way towards the indian ocean why all of these ports and harbor facilities that are building are all in countries where china is also providing significant military and economic aid, so, you know, with the combination of, you know, strong diplomatic and military representation and the building of these ports, it's clear that china will be able to use these ports which will be the 21st century equivalent of 19th century british coaling stations which all along the route that chinese ships or where ships have to sail in order to bring the hydrocarbons from the greater

middle east to the cities of coastal china. china, you know, china whose territory was ravaged by the west, by japan and russia in the 19th century and early 20th century where china was split into ten parts actually. with this history and nervousness about sovereignty and territories, china does not want to leave it up to the united states of america to guard the sealines of communication forever. at some point it envisions a blue water navy to guard the sealines of communication for itself. meanwhile, while china is pushing south, and let me just go back. why is china pushing south? why does it want to have, you know, all this presence on the indian ocean? because china faces a malaka

dilemma, that is too much of its hydrocarbons are dependent on their pirate infested strait. it wants alternatives ways of getting injury to coastal china. it's building pipelines across central asia, natural gas, oil pipelines through kazakhstan to bring some of this middle east energy over to western china, and it's also, you know, it also wants to use these indian ocean ports eventually to transport natural gas and oil through pipelines across burma in the future to avoid the strait of malaka. among foreign agency

intellectuals, an historic figure came back. kerzon1 the british viceroy of india from 1899 until 1905. he is revered by today's indian policy elites even though he was a british imperialist because he looked out at the world from the same geographic call perspective as today's indian's leaders. this included today's pakistan, burma, and bangladesh. this india required shadow zones of influence. in the middle east, particularly in iran, arare ya, in central asia, and in southeast asia up to the gulf of ziam.

what's happened is that the indians' fear of influence and chinese fear of influence are overlapping. india and china don't have a difficult history. there's no long standing hatred or warfare. there was a war they fought in 1962 in the foothills of the mountains, but beyond that, the two countries have had a relatively peaceful past separated by the high walls of the himalayas. buddhism spread, but what has created this indian-chinese riferl ri? i use rival ri and not conflict. it's the shrinkage of distance caused by the advance of military technology. you have now chinese airfields in tebit with ark of operations

that include india. you have i indian warships in the south china sea. you have chinese warships in the indian ocean. because of military technology and their churning economies, these two demographics find there's spheres of influence are overlapping. as i say this, keep in mind while india's growth high nateed itself from pakistan and with china so that we know less and less and compare india with pakistan, india is still not nearly on the same level of development as china. china adds more paveed roads a year than india has in total. keep that in mind, but india will overtake china in terms of

total population in the year 2032. where you can see competition the strongest on the indian ocean is in burma. think of burma as pre-world war i belgium about to be overrun by the french abritish. what does burma have? it has natural gas, strategic minerals and metals, uranium, timber, hi hydropower. they are building roads throughout burma and threatening to turn burma into a colony, and the indians cannot stand by and just watch. one indian leader said to me that you americans from half a world away can moral moralistically cry out about this authoritarian military government, but we indians right

next door do not have the luxury to watch burma be turned into a chinese colony. democratic, prowestern india engaged burma. it's developed stronglings with the military while china develops a deep water port in the natural gas fields off the bay of bangal and 50 miles north, india is doing the same. they want pipelines going northeast into china, and india wants pipelines west the real outlines of this new geography of the 21st century that we will face in this post iraq, post afghanistan world. by the year 2035, the world will consume 50% more hydrocarbons

that it is now, and half of that consumption comes from india and china, and much of that consumption comes via the indian ocean from the greatest middle east, and this world, this, you know, this interconnected world is driven by several things. you know, the united states has a missionary foreign policy whether it's democrats or republicans ruling. the goal of our foreign policy is always to spread liberal democracy and capitalism. this former soviet union had a missionary foreign policy, spreading communism. china's foreign policy is driven by the need to acquire large stores of natural gas, oil,

strategic minerals, and strategic metals. in order to raise the living standard dramatically of one-fifth of humanity. they want to raise hundreds of thousands of chinese into the middle class. in order to do that, they need tremendous amounts of resources, and that's why it's going everywhere in search of it from africa to central asia to the middle east, from all the coast of burma bringing this oil and natural gas, you know, and coal and other things into china. this world -- this indian ocean maritime world factors in central asia even. while we americans continually ask ourselves how can we leave afghanistan? the chinese are asking themselves how can we stay in afghanistan? china is already prospecting for

copper in afghanistan protected by american troops. china has its eye on the trillion dollars worth of minerals and metals under the surface of afghanistan where the united states to semistabilize afghanistan and further stabilize pakistan, this would be a big strategic victory for the chinese, because it allows china to continue to build what it already started, a road, pipeline, and rail network from the middle east leading directly into china bringing natural resources. if you look in the 8th century bc dynasty, you see maps of china include k north eastern iran and all of central asia including afghanistan into

western china, so think of a world a few decades hence where you have roads and pipelines linking afghanistan and pakistan and iran with ports on the indian ocean that will then load on to ships crossing the indian ocean or going the other way with ships depositing oil and natural gas, moved up through roads and pipelines, and then transported across into western china. now, what are we talking about here? we're talking about the sum total effect of the iraq and afghanistan wars. whatever you think of those wars has been to fast forward the arrival of the asian century, and by asian i mean south asian and east asian both, one organic

eurasia. east asia has been rising economically since the late 1970s. there were cover stories over 30 years in "forbes" and "fortune" magazine about the rise of the tiger economies. i mean the rise of the asian economy in a military sense as well. it's not just china's military. india's navy is on its way to becoming the third largest navy in the world. japan supposedly quazi passist army has 123 warships of the highest quality. that's four times as many warships as the british royal

navy, and this was before the british government announced the steep defense cuts about three weeks ago. you have -- well, let me put it this way. at the end of world world war ii, when you looked at asia's military, they were basically unsophisticated, very large land armies to which were good for bringing in the crop, for building roads, for basically creating a sense of nationhood. you know, they were vehicles for developing a nationalistic mentality, and they were focused inward on the nation itself. the i understand knee shan military was focused on controlling politics in indonesia, not in focusing outwards towards other countries, but as the decades rolled along, and asia developed economicically and prospered

economically, you had the emergence of honest to goodness civilian military post industrial military complexes complete with cyber capabilities, sophisticated navies, military focused on each other rather than outward on nation building. then there's the chinese military. china will have more submarines in the water in the next 10-15 years than the united states navy has. china is not buying across the board, but in a very sophisticated manner emphasizing the acquisition or development of submarines, of missiles that could hit moving targets at sea, and it's cybercapabilities and the ability to hit gps satellites in space, in other

words, antiaccess capability to make it harder for the u.s. navy to go wherever it wants whenever it wants, however it wants in the future, so that at the end of world war ii through the cold war, the western pacific and indian ocean were american lakes. that is slowly starting to change. as these other navies and air forces get stronger and stronger and our navy which was about 581 warships during the reagan era went down to about 350 warships in the clinton era and now down to 286 warships, and according to the congressional budget office and other studies, may drop into the mid-200's is in relative terms getting smaller. now, i know that counting the -- as surmising the strength of

navies is an art more than a science. you can't count like i did. you have to say how many tons is it? how large is the personnel? how many aircraft are on board? what is the quality of seamenship? all these factor in, and when you put this together, the united states navy is still far and away the largest force at sea, and will probably stay so for decades to come, but the gap is narrowing, and keep something else in mind that naval and air platforms are frightfully expensive. the new ford class aircraft carrier, you know, costs about $12 billion. the newest destroyer on the drawing board can cost up to $4 billion. congress isn't going to go for this. you know, it's going to find is harder and harder to go for this, and new latest fighter

jets over $100 million, so ultimately the strength of a country's naval and air force will depend upon its perceived health of the nation's economy. if a nation's economy is wobbly for years on end, and you know, with slow growth rates, and another nation is growing its economy by 8%-10% for years on end, that gap is going to close, and you know, that's what we see now. let me -- let me take up the last part of my address with three examples of, you know, of this new world that we're entering that is beyond iraq, beyond afghanistan. let me talk for a minute about sri lanka.

this is not important for americans, at least they don't think it is. they have a 25 yearlong civil war between the buddhist government relatively in the south and the ethnic hindus in the north. the civil war ended abruptly and decisively in may 2009 and received almost no coverage in the american media, but it was very important for this new world we're entering. sri lanka sits on the major sea lines of communication where tens of thousands of major ships pass by each year. the true -- i was in sri lanka when the war ended. in fact, i was interested in sri lanka and spent the night in prison because i had trespassed on to the harbor facility that

the chinese were building, and i was caught, and what the -- [laughter] what the chinese is building is a immense. it was the most immense construction site i had ever seen in the world. literally just long lines as far as the eye can see of dump trucks transporting soil and switch back trails from the bottom of this massive pit to the top. the chinese are doing nothing less than moving the coast inland several hundred miles in this massive port complex they are building. what you probably didn't read about is that in effect, indirectly, the chinese won the sri lanka civil war. the united states and other western powers did not -- denied almost totally the sri lanka aide and military support because of human rights violations. china moved in.

china moved in with everything from knockoffs of ak-47 assault rifles for roadblocks to boats to planes to everything they could provide the sri lanka government as well as diplomatic protection at the united nations, and so when the war ended, the sri lanka's government was very beholding to china. now, of course, china as i said earlier is not going to build a naval base or have a naval base in sri lanka because that would be too provocative to india. just as the united states probably will not have a full-fledge naval base in vietnam even though we are moving closer and closer politically and militarily with vietnam because that would be too provocative to china. in this new world we're

entering, it's a matter of subtlety where every power has to be careful not to enrage the other power, and thus we'll be seeing, you know, a kind of balance of power world played out in three dimensions. you know, they'll have varying powers. china is, you know, china will play a great game of swords with india in sri lanka, in bangladesh, in napal for influence and strategic position. the united states denied aide to napal and china moved in. in a way, it's very good for the united states that india is involved in burma because that way there can be one balancing power essentially protecting indirectly protecting our

interests in burma, and so a country like sri lanka becomes incredibly important in this new world where you have india and china balancing against each other and where the united states is more indispensable than ever because we're the only asian power that doesn't have territorial pretensions on the asian mainland so that, you know, the united states, you know, essentially needs to leverage like-minded democratic others in india, in indonesia, in south korea, and japan, all the places where president obama is currently visiting in order to manage the rise of china in a peaceful way. the other place i'd like to mention is taiwan. there are 270 commercial flights a week between taiwan and mainland china. at the same time, there are many

hundreds of missiles from china focused on taiwan. china is gradually enveloping taiwan, you know, into its system so to speak. if things go the way they are, they will not need to plan an invasion on taiwan. they have to keep developing their military and they taiwan economy. there's a iran report saying by 2020 the united states even with f-22 and bases in japan will not be able to defend taiwan in a cred l manner, -- credible manner, and once it's clear there's a perception the united states cannot defend taiwan, then you would have china able to divert attention from taiwan and concentrate on

the first style and chain in the pacific, concentrate on the indian ocean, kind of a rough comparison one could make between the united states at the closing of the western frontier and the building of the panama canal. it's no coincidence the last battle of the indian war was proceeded by a short period of time, the building the panama canal and the emergence of a great american navy because the land frontier was consolidated, they can focus outward on the world. once taiwan is consolidated by china, that constructs a military world which is still largely unipolar not because of the troops in afghanistan and iraq, but because of the

preponder of the united states. let me talk about the south china sea. as i said before, vietnam that is the boundary of the south china sea is emerging as one of the surest american allies in all of eurasia because united states defeated them in a war. they have no chips on their shoulders, no grudges to bear, no face to lose by openly entering into a military alliance of sort with the united states without needing to make explanations or apologies to its neighbors, and vietnam greatly fears china. vietnam, indonesia, other countries in east asia all have china as their largest trading partner, and therefore they require the united states as a kind of hedging power, a as a balancer against china.

indonesia has only two submarines. china has many dozens. indonesia requires the presence of the united states navy to balance against china, but indonesia can't say this publicly because they don't want to alienate others in the islam uke world. remember, indonesia is 240 million people. let me just say a few words about the south china sea in which vietnam, i understand that sha and -- indonesia border. they have conflicting claims against each other because the sea is rich in oil, rich in natural gas. it's the main gateway to the indian ocean to the greater islamic world in one direction, and it's the gateway to coastal china, south korea and japan and

all the consumer goods that that is. preponderate of global consumer goods, oil, and natural gas transit the south china sea. china doesn't just have claims against the other nations in the south china sea, they feel the sea is a core interest in which it hopes to dominate. think of the south china sea as china's caribbean. it's a -- in geographical terms, this sea is a marginal sea. that is, it's partly enclosed, partly open to the ocean, same as the caribbean is. a chinese official said to me when i mentioned that china considers it a core national interest, and this is counter to what the united states and its allies and all the other countries in the area see it, the chinese official said to me,

you americans in the 19th century and in the early 20th, you recognize that the caribbean was an international waterway, but you also made it clear that you intended to dominate it. why should we chinese act any differently towards the south china sea than you americans did to the caribbean? so the south china sea is a coming issue. it's an issue that's going to be with a great future in the headlines as much as the persian gulf has had in the last few decades. let me close up with this idea that mill trair activity -- military activity is often not linnier. the vietnam war was more like the philippine war at the turn of the 20th century then it was

like korea in world war ii which proceeded it. the second gulf war bore very little relationship to the first gulf war and is more similar to vietnam in the fill fifteens -- philippines. the fact that america was preoccupied for a decade with necessariy land -- messy land wars in the middle east, doesn't mean the future of military activity is necessarily land. it could be maritime and air centric. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> okay. i'll take questions now. yes? sir?

>> [inaudible] it appears to me everything you say is wonderful to learn, some of which i know that economic nationalism will be in the near future because of the need of the raw materials and open sealines in the navy and we have to keep the oceans open for global commerce, so therefore i wanted your comment about this being a stake holder as opposed to war. >> yes. nationalism is young and veer rile in asia to the degree it's not in europe. europe is already in a post national phase, and that's connected to what secretary gates has said openly is europe is aversion to using military force. countries like china, india, other countries in the region are not ashamed of their

militaries. they are not afraid of using them, they have real national consciousness with most importantly united elites. elites may argue with each other, have debates with each other, but they are not so divided by fundamentals of foreign policy as our elites are, some, you know, at times. you know, that's why i say we're not entering a realm of peace, but entering more of a kind of 19th century european realm of strong nationalisms. this may not necessarily foreshadow war or violence. this is a very maritime centric area, and maritime centric areas tend overall to be more peaceful. you know, less volatile.

the question, you know, the question is with china becoming a great power, isn't it reasonable to assume that china would be what trade represented -- representative robert said when china needs to be a responsible stake holder in the world's system. in china wants to dominate the system, they should help protect the sealines of communication, cooperate with the united states on various things. it's been a challenge getting the chinese to see it this way because from their point of view is let the americans struggle in afghanistan. you know, if they succeed, that's good for us, and meanwhile they are diverted from concentrating on east asia, so it's a constant challenge to, you know, get these up-and-coming nations to kind of make the same sacrifices for the

global system as say the united states has had because, you know, what is the ultimate result of american power? it's to make the sealines of communication safe so that globalization can proceed and that piracy is an interesting nuance still though it, you know, it threatens to maybe get worse. yeah? >> what role do you see in the future of the indian ocean for the major american naval base? >> well -- >> it's british, but i'll call it american. >> yes, i think the lease ends in 2016 for diego if i'm not mistaken. we depend on this. it was an address from where we

sent b-52s i believe to bomb afghanistan in october of 2001. it's right astride the main sealines of communications. it's a good base to have, but we also need to be thinking not in terms of big burger king cold war style bases with troops with their families and cats and dogs, the kinds of bases that become political mill stones because the media depends on it. it's our bases in south korea and japan that we need to kind of recon figure into -- reconfigure into more sincere operating places that will be under local sovereign ri where we provide aide, but our footprint isn't as pronounced as it presently is. you know, we need to establish

better relationships with the islands of the indian ocean of other places so that when we need to be in these places for exercises for protecting the sea lanes, for doing this or that, we will be able to because we'll have a very robust public diplomacy in the region that will enable us to have good relations with these countries, that will eniable us to be able to use these bases. lee me say a word about public diplomacy. the biggest benefit thus far of having special negotiators, special envoys or israel, pakistan, is that it freed up secretary of state, hillary clinton, to make repeated trips to east asia where she is in effect competing with the chinese. you know, she, you know, in

terms of public diplomacy, the obama administration has really handled this well i think. let's see, yeah, there's a hand up in the back there. >> yes, mr. kaplan, commander of the united states navy. one thing i couldn't help but notice is the five members of the security counsel happen to the the five countries in the world that have ballistic missile submarines, and i also noticed as the indians put their finishing touches on one of their own that president obama today gave a formal endorsement of their perhaps membership of the security counsel and rated or not, what are the thoughts on those developments? >> yes, well the security counsel represents the balance of power at the end of world war ii.

it doesn't represent the balance of power today. president obama has said that the united states is in favor of india joining the security counsel. you know, that's going to raise issues with the chinese with, you know, should brazil be a member, south africa be a member? clearly, this is an issue with a lot of complications. ballistic missiles are you, you know, are now spreading to an extent. i mean, ballistic missiles and submarines are spreading to an extent where there was a great book published in 1999 by yale professor pall brakken, "fire in the east, the rise of asia in the second nuclear age," and he said there's almost a continued uninterrupted line of overlapping ballistic missile ranges from israel on the mediterranean to the sea of

japan, and, you know, that existed until sudan hussein's regime was toppled, so that in military terms, we're really seeing this movement to asia, to these countries that are not permanent members of the security counsel. clearly, something has to change that more adequately reflects the balance of power in the world. yes? >> good evening, question. what do you think about the impact of the region that for instance the development of the newest ballistic missiles from china is predicted and what's the view of the aide of the russian government, and also the

backup india will have at least to nuclear submarines which are going to be constructed by russia? russia has the technology, so how will this impact this region? >> you know, what's interesting is the russian defense industry throughout the bad years of the 1990s when the russian, you know, when russia as a state almost collapsed and economy collapsed and currency collapsed, the russian defense industry was held aloft by purchases from the outside that kept it going. india continues to purchase russian equipment, but india's grand strategy in terms of procurement is to gradually shift from purchasing russian equipment to purchasing american equipment because the quality is higher. india, you know, became dependent on russia during the

cold war because russia was closer to india. it could potentially do more damage to india, so india was a nonaligned power that tilted towards russia more than towards the united states. with the cold war over, with the opening up of the indian economy, india now finds itself tilting towards the united states in military procurement will gradually shift in that direction, and that's one the outcomes of president obama's visit to india. let me say another word about russia. president putin opened up natural gasline to china as well as inaugurating a highway connecting moscow all the way to the russian far east which is east of siberia. what's going on here?

obviously, russia wants customers for natural gas, and china wants another outlet to by energy, but this russian highway is meant to tie the russian far east closer to russia because russia is afraid of chinese corporate and deem graffing in-- demographic influence into russia. the population density in china is 62 times higher than in the russian far east, and the population in the russian far east is dropping so that russia cannot all together trust china for geographical reasons so that, you know, russia is very frag gill in -- fragile in areas even though it has a robust arms industry. yes? >> west from the foundation members.

can you address a proliferation? once iran, i gent, saudi -- egypt, saudi arabia and turkey have nuclear weapons within the next 10 years, the stability of the indian ocean is going to change dramatically. what's going to be the effect? >> well, first of all, a few tactical nuclear weapons. it's possible that saudi arabia would pay pakistan to have pakistan park some of its nuclear weapons in saudi saudi arabia as a deterrence to iran, and that would fuse together the crisis in south asia with the crisis in the middle east so that, you know, shiite iran and israel are fused together in a web work of crisis with muslim pakistan and largely hindu

india, so that's one outcome. you would have, you know, iran is building a big port on -- near to the entrance of the persian gulf. they are paying afghanistan to build roads linking it with iran so they are more dependent on iran. india wants to buy more and more hydrocarbons from iran to use that as a hedge against pakistan. once there's nuclear weapons in this area, it's more frightfully insecure, but let me say that an iran with a few tactical nuclear weapons of uncertain quality with an uncertain delivery system with an early warning system that could be penetrated at will by israel or the united states might theoretically be

containable, even a nuclear iran that is, so i'm not here advocating a strike against iran, but it will, it will further militarize this whole indian ocean system. i'll take two -- how many more questions? >> two or three. >> all right. three. there's a hand up all the way in the back corner. >> thank you, sir, colonel john from the united states army officer here at the naval war college. could you share your thoughts with regard what you see north korea's role being in all this and the changing dynamic between them and china? >> yes, north korea is evolving increasingly to standard issue military regime as the party itself becomes weaker and weaker and the military becomes the only institutional element that

can unit a country that's helvely mountainous and half the country suffering from malnutrition. china is of two minds on this. on the one hand, china would eventually like to see a more calorie authoritarian capitalist trending in north korea that is less extreme than the current regime, but on the other hand, china is afraid of pushing this too far because it fears the collapse of north korea because the bulk of north korea's population in industry is in the northern part of north korea, and were you to have a collapse of the state, you could have millions of north korean

refugees flooding across the river into china itself, and china is, you know, is very much afraid of that, so why it wants a regime that's more tolerable and more like china itself more than the kind of stalinist monstrosity, at the same time, china is very fearful of a collapse, so china is upholding the status quo in north korea, but my opinion is a regime like this is ultimately not viable in the world we live in today and that were the north korea regime were to unravel suddenly, you could have the mother of all humanitarian interventions because on one day the north korean people would be the semistarving north korean people with a population comparable to that of iraq is the responsibility of the north korean regime.

the next day it could be the responsibility of the international community which in effect means the responsibility of the u.s. mill taser, -- mail military, the south korean military, ect.. if there's one thing the united states needs strong bilateral military to military relations with china for is to discuss, you know, modalities were the north korean regime ever to collapse, but this is not likely to happen because china is afraid. first of all, we leak like seifs, and if word came out china was talking with us about a possible collapse of the north korean state, it would create tremendous problems in beijing with pyongyang. yes? >> sir, lieutenant commander, united states navy. wonder if you can comment further on the relationship

between china and india? you mentioned there was no conflict between the two nations. however, there's a currently unresolved border dispute. is that a spark to a future potential conflict? >> the border dispute, you know, in north eastern india with a border with china, you know, with part of the dynamic that caused the war between china and india in 1962, that's 48 years ago, but i think it's, you know, it's still an issue of contention, but i think it's being managed. again, china and india are very careful to keep their competition or rivaly if you will in manageable proportions. no side wants to miscalculate to cause a shooting war. okay, last question.

>> [inaudible] during the cold war, we thought of russia of having the dynamic driven by communism. you don't mention china as a context of its cch. is there a dynamic apart from its willingness to find raw materials to feed itself own people? does it have an ambition similar to the russians that embodies communism as a threat to the rest of the world, or is that dead? >> the chinese regime is nominally communist, but functionally very vigorously capitalist. it doesn't really have a motivating ideology. i think of two things when i think of china in this regard. one is that china's current borders more or less mirror

china at the apex of its imperial imambitions. in other words, present borders encompass most of previous chinese empires. yes, mongolia is independent used to be part of the dynasty, and some other areas that were part of previous dynasties are not part of china, but more or less, china is big as its ever been and is more secure on land than its ever been, and that gives china the luxury to go to sea, but at the same time, china still has in its recent memory in the early 19th and 20th century, you know the terrible experience of having their territory violated by western nations through the treaty system, the extra territory system and where chinese cities were, in fact, controlled by

western nations with the japanese taking the peninsula, made a puppet state and controlled the rail link and china is very nervous about sovereignty. at the same time, its map is very, very big, so with this adds up to me is china is motivated to kind of build out its sovereignty not necessarily in an impeeristic but, you it sees up to the first island chain, and that first island chain is the japan and half island of the korean peninsula down to taiwan, philippines, down to australia, that this is china's rightful sphere of influence given china's size and its history, and that is where

we will come into some conflict because, you know, to us inside the first island chain is almost all international waterways. all right. well, thank you very much. [applause] thank you. thank you. [applause] >> for more information about robert kaplan and read his stories visit theatlantic.com and search his name. >> a new book out by publishing, "blur, how to know what's true in the age of information overload," and the authors are mr. kovich. we've been here before, what does that mean? >> it means we've been through a dislocation by expansion of information time and again throughout history. in fact, newspapers were born at

such a time when the printing press came into being and distributed information to people who had never had information about the people and the institutions that, you know, controlled their lives, and it took decades for the public and the industry of information sharing to develop what we call newspapers to create a base sis on which -- basis on which people could find information they could trust, and we've gone through this time after time which each new major change in technology, we've gone through a period exactly like this. >> why the name blur? >> i think because information moves so fast now and there's so much of it that people feel confused. when information is in greater supply, knowledge is actually harder to create because you

have to sift through more things to make sense of it so there's a feeling that things are more of a blur and more confusing even though we have more information at our fingertips. >> so how do we cut through that blur and find what we need? >> well, we hope that the way that consumers will do it and consumers are more in charge now than they've ever been. we are in control of our own media in a way we've never been, so we hope what people will do is develop the skills to know what's reliable and what's not, and that's what the book is about. it's the path that once resided in newsrooms shared with consumers, but it's also true that when things are uncertain and confusing that a lot of people just gravitate to news that they agree with, and so part of what we're looking at in the information culture now is something of a war between

people who want to be empirical and provide evidence and show how information is gathered, and people who just want to assert what they believe, offer opinions, and amass an audience that way. >> you're also the coauthors of the elements of journalism, what's your background? >> my background is going on 60 years in print journalism. i began in a small town in tennessee and covered the civil rights movement and poverty and worked for the "new york times" for 18 years and eight years of the chief of washington bureau and then editor of the atlantic journal constitution, and spent the last ten years of my active life as curator of the neeman foundation in harvard and journalism program in harvard,

and i'm now retired working with tom off and on and running an organization that he and i created called the committee of concerned journalists trying to preserve the values of journalism that we can all trust. >> your background? >> well, i was a newspaper man also. i spent 12 years at the "l.a. times" 10 of those as a press contribute ceo for the paper. i worked briefly for "news week" and then i was approached about creating a think tank, research institute tonight press that we created in 1996 that's part of the few research centers here in washington, and we have the largest content analysis operation in the united states studying what the media actually produced on the theory that conventional press where you wag your finger at the press and say you shouldn't do that really

isn't effective anymore, but if you offer and empirical look and say, this is what you're doing, you decide whether it's want you want to do that that has more leverage. >> isn't it an advantage, though, that people can get any type of news that they want when they want rather than wait for the morning paper? >> oh, absolutely. it's marvelous and a wonderful system we have now. the only problem is people are now as tom said, they are their own editors of what they bring into our report and their own reporters of who's producing this that i'm bringing in, so people have to become much more aware of the information they're bringing in, ours produced, was it produced to inform or for propaganda? to help them understand or recruit them to a cause? this is what this