you and they went to douglas. the dc-8 almost sold as many airplanes as the 707. the 707 you remember because boeing is still doing great things today, but there were other planes at the time. and then my quick second story is about convair. it used to be an independent company, but by that time it was a part general dynamics. they were branded in congressional hearings of trying to become the general motors of defense. in a way they embodied the military industrial complex because they were a big and powerful company involved in a lot of lobbying. they tried to make a commercial aircraft, the 880. and it failed substantially. when it got canceled in the early 1960s, convair took the biggest corporate loss at that time of any company that didn't

delay bankruptcy. they lost more money in an ford lot on the edsel. it was a complete blood bath for convair. and the problem was they were a military company and they didn't understand how different commercial markets worked. so they tried treat it like a commercial market. how do you succeed in the military? you promise to be very responsive. whatever you say, even if the task is impossible, you want a plane that can fly 10,000 mile do, a round trip in ten minutes, we're on it, right? so convair took that to american airlines and twa and especially howard hughes who some of you may know was an eccentric ceo of twa and tried to follow his every twist and turn. and in the military when it drives up the costs, the military pays because they really needs the product. in commercial markets when the

cost goes up because you're doing all kinds of crazy stuff, you should pay me twice as much as you offered, there's a contract. twa and american airlines said what are you talking about. and convair lost all their money. but they said it will be really fast, but twa and american said it burns fuel like -- i don't know. whatever burns a lot of fuel. it was terrible. they couldn't fly this airplane and make any money. it would have been great for the military, but the fact that convair walk seeking military market, it crowded them out of commercial market. but boeing stopped making military airplanes. the b-52 was the last that boeing delivered until now when they're back in the -- well, now they're -- well, when they took over mcdonnell douglas in the late 1990s, they got some

mcdonnell military aircraft. but for many, many years, boeing made commercial airplanes. they knew their market, they understood it. and so the companies that tried to make military aircraft and get in the commercial markets, general dynamic, lockheed martin, they struggled. it was the dedicated companies that did it. and so that's the distinction. it is in fact an enclave economy. as long as you have people who are willing to -- you have political leaders who understand the enclave can't grow too big because it would crowd out and you hold a check on that, then you actually can have the benefit of a highly responsive defense industry to protect america without crushing the commercial of the united states and that's the important legacy.

it's what i want to focus on in the economic side of the farewell address. eisenhower demonstrated the ability to do what he said we needed in handling the american military industrial complex. thank you. >> well, it's good to be home. for those of you who know me, i left washington this 2006 and i'd like to thank ted and chris and cato for a good reason to come home and see many of you, a little bit older and hopefully a little bit wirz. but i'm going to focus on something different from the last speaker. i'm going to talk about mind sets which is something that i know a little bit about. when i left washington, i was a made man, a member of the -- life member of the council on foreign relations, senior research fellow at the heritage foundation, a rather young guy,

and i fell out with the kind of foreign policy establishment over nation building and the iraq war. so that's where i'm coming from. returning to talk to you about this lovely topic. we talked about eisenhower in-sain incein in-says auntly. he said the thing that's different has to do with mind set. we can talk all we want about the things that i hope the other panel lists talk about, the lobby i go and the nuts and bolt, with ybolt but there's a mind set that underlies this.lists talk abouty i go and the nuts and bolt but there's a mind set that underlies this.ists talk about, i go and the nuts and bolt but there's a mind set that underlies this.s but there's a mind set that underlies this.

well meaning people make mistakes, but they're based on things that might make sense in the council but not necessarily the medical hand process. well intentioned people do dire things and are often wrong. one of the things that i loved about eisenhower and that we talked about was a very different mind set that you see in either party and that's a totally nonpartisan comment. and that in fact is my lament, that both parties grow only a couple things, one is a way overly expansive foreign poll that i has absolutely nothing to do with geopolitical realities of the world that we live in today. and they wonder like charlie brown when lucy moves the football away what went wrong and let's just do it again. and if we do it enough time, we're bound to hit something. as i live in europe, it's very odd to watch. but i like to start by talking

about another eisenhower moment that implies the mind set. i see the farewell address which i agree is fantastic as really just a culmination of the way the man ran the presidency au. and i think it's sad that it sounds rather odd now because i think he was right. and the story i'm going to tell is in 1954, the french are in agony and there's tremendous pressure on eisenhower to intervene including from some of the joint chiefs. so eisenhower realizes that general ridgeway is against intervening and he says cost what it would -- cost it, what would it cost to go in and intervene in in-dough china.

i was in the room when he said it will be a neutral cost. i thought i misheard. and i hasn't. that's not a small mistake. and now i say do you want your trillion dollars back. and there's no doubt we do. we simply don't know what will happen and we might need the trillion down the road and these a totally different way to look at the world. anyway, the number comes back from ridgeway $3.5 billion. i don't know what a that is now, but it's a large number. i'm confident it's a big number and so then what does he do? does he daulhe call in a knee o conservative? no, he calls in the secretary of the treasury. he says i made three campaign promises in 1952.

what would it mean for the promises and he says it will mean a deficit, mr. president. and eisenhower says, well, that's the end of it. boy, do i miss this. when i'm reading this, i'm getting teary. i remember at the time. what happened? and indeed what did happen. because the thing that eisenhower got right in terms of mind set beyond keeping his promises, which is great, is the notion that economic strength really is the load star of national power. that's what's missing. and he did this institutionally, the national security council at the time included the treasury secretary and the budget director at every meeting so they would say it costs too much, it costs too little, that was intricately done in the bureaucracy because he did not divorce the two things. as the '50s went on, particularly after "sputnik," he was asked why he was not raising

defense spending and he said without fiscal soundsoundness, is no defense. again, words that i don't hear at my council meetings very often. i'm coming in to give you three numbers that i repeat all the time to my clients. to give you an idea when they say how bad are things in america economically, and these numbers are kept simple for me. one-third of americans today have no retirement. private retirement of any kind before zero. one-quarter of americans live in houses where their mortgages are underwater. and one-fifth of all wealth has been wiped off with the great crash because of the value of houses going down. one-third of americans have no retirement of any kind and a quarter of the houses are under water.

we're not going through a little difficulty as both main parties continue to say. and part of the problem is that there has been a decline for a long time. the end of the story is the wolf does show up and eats the boy, but nobody believes him. and i feel for that boy as you can tell. because that's it, you could always say we thought the japanese were going to take us over and that didn't happen. this is almost unimaginable suffering in the last few years. and, yes, the spending continues. let me give you one more number. according to president obama's own ridiculously optimistic numbers assuming growth of 4% a year until 2020, which is true it if you're brazil, but probably less true if you're an established power like the united states, assuming these numbers are correct, # 0% of the budget about be for a i have things in 2020, medicare, medicaid, social security, interest on the debt and defense

spending. will in the words of the great coal porter, something's got to give. you can't cut the interest on the debt. you have to pay the bankers. we've seen the efforts of medicaid and medicare. social security we'll have to deal with, but nobody wants to. and the reality is that means whatever do you, you are going on have to cut defense spending on have to cut defense spending. frankly, we're fiddling while rome burns. that's not a discussion that i hear from either party, okay? i hear it from democrats who i've known since my think tank day, it's all george w. bush's fault. i'm not a big fan of george w. bush as you can guess, however, to blame the hapless ex-president is a bit much. and our secretary of state says once we get over these little

local difficulties, it will go back to the way things were in the 19 '90s. that's a curiously reactionary comment for a supposedly progressive person. are we supposed to get in our time machine and go back? think about what it means. it's before 9/11. it's before iraq. it's before afghanistan. it's before the great crash p. its be of course they wants to go back. could you you could do any of. you had give. you lose vietnam in the by pl lar world, doesn't matter.amount of room for makes mistakes was huge. in a multipolar world, the margin of error is very, very small. and you can't do everything that you want to do. and that's the world that nobody in washington seems to be able to fathom. of course she wants to go back. utterly understandable and

poisonous to think that you can, that these things will go away, that the rise of the rest -- it's not just china. this is shorthand for india, south africa, gulf states, turkey grew at 11% year on year. this is a change of 500 year change in power in the world. and staring us in the face and nobody's doing anything here. republicans, it's take taking the american view of the power of positive thinking it a ridiculous extreme. john, if you talk about decline, we're in decline. so it's me talking about decline that's the problem. well, if we don't talk about decline, won't our decline speed along? isn't that what happens to people this will decline? no, no, it's positive thinking that we need. no, what we immediate mee need thinking. and we need to say -- i said to mr. kay again, what's the bitter tears. the british were in decline and london was the best place in the world.he british were in declin

london was the best place in the world.ears. the british were in decline and london was the best place in the world. but you can't manage it if you don't go back and say there are limits to what we can do and prior size. the prioritize. the foreign policy of both parties is impossible. in the end knee owe conservative will fail n. you we're out of money. if you consult the micut the mi, which you're going to have to

do, we have to set up a foreign policy that is tailered to that limited military spending. those two go together or we will continue to wonder why things aren't working.military spendin. those two go together or we will continue to wonder why things aren't working. he's arrogant, he's corrupt, but that's not the problem. the problem is the american mind set and the problem is the spending and we simply don't have the give that we used to have. so to conclude, what should we do? take our ball and go home sf how would the new world work? first, we have to live within our means. the dos are the indian ocean rim in china is where it's at. it's where all the future growth of the world is. look at the ten year numbers. it's compelling that this is where it's coming from. but almost every problem in the world emanates from this region, too.

what shouldn't we do? asian building. it's eloquently silent about darfur from the left because there's simply no money. who is going to do what on what terms. they will tack with the wind not because they like it, because they is no options. this is a change. no, it's a distraction. i think the war on terror, which isn't the key to the 500 year change, has gone from a second order problem that was incredibly understudied to a second order problem that's incredibly overstudied. this will not destroy our way of life and i lived here on september 11th and i'm acutely aware of my friends who are not with me. but when i come home to america and i see the chance if militarization here and i stand in an endless line and i hear

please bring alone someone to check my pass port and bring him to the command center, this is not a place i necessarily want to do much business with and the other people in line tended to agree with me. let's not give terrorists what they want, which is our overreaction. nobody wants to live in a cave like them. the reason that people still admire us around the world has to do with freedom. has to do with what we're trying to defend. and i think that's what knowing the distraction is. the last thing is to get our house if order economically. we have until 2020. if you look at the cbo numbers, we're looking at 90% debt to gdp, but that's an enron number. that doesn't include state and local government debt. and we know they are not doing

real well. we're greece in 2020 if things go along as they are and trust me, markets in europe are moi g i noticing this even if we don't talk about it here. so i would end by saying let's look at what we're trying to protect, let's use the genius, let's look this thing square in the face as eisenhower did so often and realize the wonderful things about the country, but for goodness sake, let's realize that we live in a different time. >> i appreciate the invitation from cato to speak today. politics makes strange bedfellows. i'm not a libertarian in the normal sense and although eisenhower does look a lot better to me today than many who followed him, i vividly remember being one of only three kids in

my fourth grade class who voted for stevenson in our 1956 straw poll. and in the cold cold war, i was usually considered a moderate hawk. back then i probably seemed part of the problem, not the solution. yet when the cold war ended, i naively thought that total victory over the only great power and ideology that could compete on the world scale meant that the united states could stand down. so today on matters of national security policy, i don't have any trouble identifying as much with cato types as with the mainstreams of either major party. a dwight eisenhower, too, is something of a strange bed fellow. he came to power as the international alternative to senator robert taft and while he may have been a states man, he wasn't really a dove. he simply believed that the cold

war would be long and best won by endurance running rather than exhausting sprint. in his farewell address remembered by so many in the sense of even general eisenhower warned us about the military spril c industrial complex was an argument about thousand maintain military power over the long haul. and this was in the context of his assumption forgot ten in later years that as nato allies regained their footing, u.s. forces could be withdrawn from europe. eisenhower's cautionary pair well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today.fpair well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today.apair well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today.repair well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today.air well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today.ir well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today.r well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today. well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today.well address seems a beacon to the forces of frugality and restraint today. the united states remains intensely engaged militarily around the world fighting twice as many wars, though smaller

one, in the two decades since the berlin wall fell than it did in more than four decades of cold war. the wave of ambition to reshape the world has crested since set backs in iraq and afghanistan, but the sources have a been resilient and i think are in constant need of the reminder about costs that was so well emphasized in eisenhower's farewell address and in the an effect dote just mentioned. u.s. policy has gone beyond what eisenhower expected, but i think not so much because of the warning about the military industrial complex that's most remember remembered, true corporate interests and to a smaller degree the direct influence of the professional military has something to do with it, but i think the more important reasons have been a perverse convergence of pail i don't liberals and knee owe conservatives promoting intervention abroad, the evap

igs of con statistic encities, victory disease after the surprisingly liberation of gate kuwait, and the institutionalization of empire and government organizations and habits of operation which have become second nature over the course of the half century since eisenhower reflected on what was then the new permanence of peace time mobilization. first point, the paradox cal consensus. the main reason for ambitious american behavior lies less in the mill area complex than political developments beyond it. at the time eisenhower said good-bye, huntington pointed out that military contractors then competed and lobbied over which programs would be funded within a set defense budget ceiling. they couldn't compel an increase

in the aggregate level of spending. what changed after it eisenhower was it that presidents stopped imposing formal and, frankly, arbitrary limits on the defense budget. truman and eisenhower had forced the services to bargain and log roll rather than simply ratchet up programs. p what changed as well was the further evolution of what eisenhower had wanted to call the complex in the original draft of his speech that was changed before delivery and that was the military industrial congressional complex. eisenhower could get away with setting an arbitrary cap on military spending because his credentials as a warrior were bulletproof. subsequent presidents had to claim that they'd spend whatever security required and the formula for trying to measure that became a hopeless political football. and the decade of retrenchment

after the tet offensive, it took a dive. but after reagan took ownership of the national security issue, the constituencies in both parties evaporated. 1950s, fiscally conservative republicans had restrained democrats who aimed to spend more on defense and this in the 1970s, it was the only way around. but 1990s, however, no check remained on either side of the aisle on capitol hill or even constitution avenue. this happened for two reasons. republicans abandoned fiscal conservatism in practice while pretending to honor it in principal, and democrats an ban conned skepticism about the use of high defense spending in reaction to repeated punishment for wimpiness on national security.

reagan wanted balanced budget, but he never once submitted a budget that asked for a deficit. lower than what resulted. the bushes were no less hypocritical. since the financial crisis of 2008, republican legislators are once again talking the talk, proceed claiming the wisdom of milton friedman, but for decades after eisenhower, in action, they validated richard nixon's famt famous line that all containians now. there is no evidence that they're pi more willing to start walking the walk. today we hear plans to slash the deficit, but exempt not only domestic entitlement programs where most of the money is, but defense spending as if that, too, has become an entitlement.

the democrats presided over the only significant budget surpluses since eisenhower left office, but they didn't match that success with restraint abroad. as a morally impaired draft evader, clinton dared not challenge military needs. and in fact he wound up with defense budgets higher than his republican predecessor had proce provide jekted. desperate for popular credit ability, the democrats nominated a war hero for president in 2004 and john kerry's criticism of the bush policy in iraq ended feebbly. now, critics remained but only on the fringes rather than the mainstreams of either party. but it's taken a decade of bleeding in this iraq and

afghanistan to make argument for restraint beginning to being politically potent again. while american politics became more polarizeded on domestic issue, elite attitudes on foreign policy did not. for all the sound and fury during the years after the cold war, i think there was much less difference between mainstream republican and democratic foreign policy positions than met the eye. neocoms have been liberals in wolf's clothing. liberals decried bush the younger's un lat alism, yet wanted as much as he did to exert american power to set the world right. clinton's aim was multilateral about we can, unilaterally if we must and the junior bush's was the reversion but they both wanted to come out in the same place. using american power and

leadership to force the world into proper shape. second point. nothing pail fails like sus sc. saddam hussein was cut down to size quickly and as wars go, cleanly. in victory, the coalition did not overreach. operation desert storm was truly a model for take steestrategic. as a war, it was just right. the problem was that it was too easy. and subsequent leaders applied the model where it didn't belong. american military seemed invincible. americans tend to like using force when it works effectively, quickly and cheaply. all too many forgot what the old

soldier eisenhower knew well, force is rarely more than a blunt instrument. kosovo initially opposed a reminder, but it ended if a victory at low cost. not a single casualty on the american side. the first venture into afghanistan after september 11th also appeared to end in decisive victory. from the korld wworld war cold states was on a roll p about unlike eisenhower who had ended the korean war as bush the elder did without demanding unconditional surrender and destruction of the enemy regime and on destruction of the energy regime, and it would hold back industry in indochina, they wound up with bloody noses.

third point: public detachment. the second war in iraq became very unpopular before u.s. forces disengaged and the war in afghanistan is becoming so. but have you noticed, there is no real anti-war movement? at least for anyone who remembers the turmoil, bitterness, general asianal conflict, shrillness, sometimes violent disorder in the vietnam era, the public silence today is deafening. in part this is because the wars now are smaller, but it's also because part of what worried eisenhower in his farewell address has ghana wone away, an that's the extent of the peace in society. as eisenhower said goodbye, the united states had been operating with a decade and a half of conscription unprecedented in peace time and the draft

continued for little more than a dozen years and was in no small part a reason for the anti-war movement in the 1960s when graduate school defermentes were ended. in korea and vietnam, they had to pay the piper not just with treasure but with their own blood. it has cost most citizens nothing extra in neither blood or treasure. combat is taken care of by volunteers, and funding isn't demanded of taxpayers. passing the tin cup to allies paid for virtually all of the war over kuwait. no tax increase was asked for the fight over kosovo, and taxes were even cut, probably a first in wartime history, as american forces have fought harder and harder in iraq. as fewer civilians share the sacrifices of war making, they naturally become more grateful and differential to the soldiers

who do the dirty work. at the same time, they lose the skepticism that comes with war and often military service. veterans used to be overrepresented in congress compared to their percentage of the population at large, but since the cold war, they are underrepresented, and data indicate that legislators without military experience tend to be more faisvorable toward t use of force than are veterans. fourth point, finally the habit of empire. the national mobilization of our era has ghana wonuantanamone aw military movement has not. the cold war has been down sized but it's been pursued by w

warmongers but secured for global formism. it is reflected in how government came to organize defense capabilities and plans almost completely in terms of operation far from home rather than at our own borders. the national security council and department of defense, which were created in the 1947 national security act, have come to concern themselves exclusively with defense lines far forward. on other continents and the protection of allies, not direct defense of u.s. territory. military forces were organized for combat in terms of a worldwide set of unified commands, each one with a huge headquarters and bureaucracy overseeing a bitter region. scent .come for the middle ooels

and now for africa. each with a pro-star military council overshadoweing attacks since the soil since the war of 1812, brand new organizations were created to handle the threat. homeland security council. as if the security of the the united states for the nec. and a new department of homeland security, as if protection of the homeland wasn't the responsibility of the department of defense. no other country in the world that i know of, not even the former european imperial powers, have military structures organized so thoroughly in terms of functions so far from home. in sponsoring the system of worldwide military command

organizations that was legisl e legislated in 1958, eisenhower is in large part responsible for spawning the institutionization of the american empire in that sense, maybe some uneasiness about everything associated with that had something to do with the farewell address, but there is no indication that he saw this as anything but a temporary necessity, however long it might be, for waging the cold war. the changes in society and the are pretty much beyond the rimplt of that struggle was not unamerican optimism to control war at low cost, to make modest conceptio conceptions, pretty viable options, again, but at least we

shouldn't let policymakers of the. and costs that eisenhower saw so long ago. [ applause ] >> at risk of going forth on a panel with three other eloquent speakers, fearing that they would steal my thunder, which they did, i'll go on as best i can. during the first 150 or so years of our existence, the united states maintained a small standing army, mobilized additional personnel to fight the few wars declared by congress and then sent most of the men home when the war was won. in the latter half of the 20th century, however, they went through a new interventionist foreign policy.

critics charged that state of affairs had made a permanent imbalance between the branches of government and many believed it threatened individual liberty. no leader worried more about this fundamental shift in the nation's character than dwight david eisenhower. as has been repeated many times this morning, the departed president warned its country to be on guard against a military complex with unwarranted influence in the halls of power. thus, one of the most important lines in the speech also become the most famous. snerds, it is easier to contribute to that it. >> i would like to place it in a conference. why this industry has persisted so he much longer than the

soviet union, the establishment it was temporarily connected to, has ceased to exist. and i'll close with a few helpful suggestions for what we can do about it. so scholars have studied this connection, the workings of this loose alliance between industry and military. and they on trace it to back to world war i. as well as billions of dollars for the war effort. the image of the wib is a band of well-meaning industrialists who sacrificed for the country and was shattered by the interim engineer old pete. he commented with a frujt assaultly olt. wilson claims that u.s.

intervention advanced waynedog security. critics such as nye said it will sit in the merchant of death vpt -- wasted countless lives on a pointless and unnecessary war. but his critique was far more so fist cade than nye's, and he approached it from a very different philosophical position. the title of the book is "unwarranted influence" and eisenhower was deeply concerned about prebting private property rights. he treds this notion in eisenhower's thinking back in tt 1930s, he had worked for a commission created by congress to explore the relationship profit and war.

nye, senator nye, proposed to solve the problem of the industrial complex from moving the positive motive to the military industry. i recognized this would be a horrible idea, first from perspective of efficiency, but also inconsistent with american traditions and values. the. it is the forced expiration of the material assets and label by the government was an anatha. it was un. in short, eisenhower's critique, bt r not just in the final speech. -- when we return, conservative. he wanted the needs, especially

the trade-offs inherent from private government to the federal government. he also worried, correctly in my view, that educational institutions and even individual researchers were becoming too dependent upon the largesse of the federal government, and this would discourage them from scrutinizing growing state power too closely. to put it most crudely, you don't bite the hand that feeds you. and the end result, in part, is where we are today. lots of push on the part of people who benefit from massive federal spending and relatively little push-back from all the rest of us who pay. political scientists and public choice economists call this the problem of concentrated benefits and diffused costs. this is yet another theme that

typically resonates with right of center audiences. but the problem, and one of the great tragedies, i would argue, of the speech, of the farewell address, is that the fundamental conservatism of eisenhower's critique was lost almost immediately after the speech was delivered because the concept of industrial military complex was picked up, and the anti vietnam war was left and turned into an assault on are the paft of the. the effects are far more subtle, i would argue, and perhaps more insidious than this leftish critique would have you believe. it's an outspoken.

they were liberal economies. men such as paul toeb in, paul samuelson. hence the concept not always of mill temporarily. the pentagon's budget has become just another pot of money and a lae vrnl as well, from when kohl tigsz could flow uneasily to september gee grachblg money to their and punish those who do not. these political realities would persist even if the government somehow managed to remove the profit motive from the process, the process. you can call it business if you like, but i think eugene makes a pretty good case for why it's not business. it's a process whereby material and equipment and food and

everything else that the military needs is provided to the military. you can call that business if you like, but i think it's a fundamental misconception. so combatting this alliance, this very loose alliance tweens t between the military and the business community, either directly or indirectly by the military is, as we have seen, resistance to reform. and it is likely to be as resistant to reform in the next two, thee, four decades as it has been in the past fooi. defense spending servings as a thinly veiled job

it's even easie to here's where professor bess really stole my thunder. thinabout ththis for a minute, everyone. after 9/11, washington didn't merely spend more money to fight terrorism. it c treated an entirely newdn department, obsessively dedicated to the defense of the homeland ignoring the inconvenient truth that the department of defense is supposed to do the things. depa sentenostens ostense -- os tentensibly ignor things. they put the increase in the budget synonymous with strength

and national security. eisenhower saw things differently. i could quote you from many, many different places in the course of his life. my personal favorite is from the state of the union address in february 1953, his first day of the union address. our problem, he explained, is to achieve adequate military strength within the limits of the endurable strain upon our economy. to a mass military power without regard to our economic capacity would be to defend ourselves against one kind of disaster by inviting another. such sentiments may strike many of you today as timeless principles that need not be dusted off during momentous anniversaries, but i would argue that they seem especially significant in the state of affairs that was documented so eloquently a few minutes ago. and yeah, we must not forget

that 50 years ago, liberal democrats, men like henry jackson, missouri stewart simonton, and a young senator from massachusetts, john f. kennedy, knocked eisenhower for con straining the military's budget and allowing fiscal considerations to shape the nation's strategic objections. the charge that eisenhower was forcing the nation to fight the war with one hand tied behind its back. especially limited the nation's flexibility to engage in land wars in asia. again, we didn't organize this. how appropriate he references the food decision in 1954. he said he had no desire to recreate the nuclear war and he thought there was enough to make descend ants.

they are equally dismiss sieve of deter rents, but i would also say they are dismissive of american geography. the democracy in north america depends on democracy in southeast and south central asia. they call for us to drain the swamp where terrorists could poke out in their heads, seems poized. there is a continuum here. an intellectual continuum, and there are people who are fighting just as hard as they were 50 years ago. let me conclude. i'm not crude. neither was eisenhower. he said the institute over politics would be difficult to break. he hoped that the engaged and

the knowledgeable citizenry are noted. but, as i can see, americans do hope to benefit handsomely. but that might be changing. the depths of our physical crisis have created warner such -- in inflation dollars since 1998 is one of the few administrations in the future, but as more americans come to understand the high cost and dubious benefits, a bad clash is all but inevitable. at this point in time, we wish we had another eisenhower or someone like him. articulate, knowledgeable, whose credentials on national security would be unasailable, for mass security that does not depend on

a. struggles to bring the costs of our enormous military under control, washington, the city of washington, should embrace strategic restraint and characterized by the minimum use of force skpen gaugement around the world. that is a foreign policy befitting of a. it is consistent with the model set 50 years ago by dwight eisenhower. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. we now have time for about 20 minutes of questions from the audience. let me outline a few ground rules. first of all, would you raise your hand if you have a question. wait for me to call on you. also wait for the microphone so

that we can hear your question, and then there is the jeopardy rule. please make sure that it is in the form of a question, not a speech. and we try to gep this as brief as possible. and also please indicate if your question is directed to just one panel member, or if it is a general question for the entire panel. so with those ruined lu-- fine words, we're ready to begin. >> there we go. this is only a sentence, so i hope i don't get sent out to the hall for one sentence. what a fabulous set of presentations today, period. now, here's my question. chris, you raised a very interesting notion that the concept of military industrial

complex, and actually maybe even the speech itself, became hijacked, if that's a fair word, by forces other than -- by unexpected forces, the liberal forces in america. to what extent do you think the change in the republican party might have had something to do with this, too? in other words, the republican party of 1964 no longer had many eisenhower republicans at the forefront. >> well, that's a good question. i mean -- i'm going to answer a different question, but hoselly we'll get to your choice. in fact, i think we're -- we

would much rather quote thomas jefferson and they don't want conservatives to even know anything about this man. they failed, not just because of this meeting, but a lot of people are talking about the speech now. i understand there is something like 14 books about eisenhower due out in 2011? something like that. so, anyway, they failed. but the budget keeps going up and the debate between -- you know, the natural string does have a troubling pournt part from them rkt the other things that john noted in others, the entitlement over hahang and is true breaking point. i don't think that makes or breaks the defense, but they do have a point, and it makes it

hard to argue what eisenhower did, and yes, it's a major achievement and we wish we could come back to something even close to that. we're a long ways from that. yes, in the back on the left side. ashley. >> for the panel, if you have your way and there was this significant change, how, then, would you set up or address the question that confronted us at the start of world war ii when we were completely unprepared? >> who wants to start? richard? >> i think the solution is not to go back to 1939 when we spent, i believe, 1.4% of gnp on defense. we learned our lesson. that was too low. i think the solution is to have

a robust mobilization strategy whereby defense policy aims to maintain the critical ingredients from which a much stronger, all-out effort can be generated quickly if the need arises. and this would mean at the margins more emphasis on cadre's training, professional development, more organization on faces and being. it would be essentially a strategy that rested on willingness to get ready. i, frankly, have said this over recent years and have detected no interest or like-minded thinking among anybody who count. i don't see this as yet a politically salable alternative. but that's the weigh station between the unpreparedness

before world war ii and the excessive preparedness after the cold war. >> can i just briefly add to that the level of imbalance or outside spending now is so great, you could cut the american defense budget and effort in half and still be far more prepared than 1939. so, you know, realistic scale of cuts, i think dick is right, this is not how people talk if you talk to people in the building in which i work, and i'm not representing, it's all about delivering things to the warfighter today. the way they talk is all about, we're right on the brink, we need to focus on the current fight. there is no discussion of, gee, shouldn't we think about balancing that with a mobilization strategy?

this would be a very productive discussion to have. >> yeah, just briefly, i think in terms of the shift, we're so far from there that i don't worry about it. i think mobilization strategy would be great but i do think there is room for opty mission to hear me say that word. we're in the era which most of us were in before the cold war came upon us. this has this very odd point of view of a pick-up and that's how you have to pay different for defense and have it mobilized and lift and have a navy and have it go together, but you certainly don't have to spend what you do. then there's the disconnect

between policy people and the real. one of those things i learned in washingt washington, it's almost impossible to lose your job in a think tank. i worked hard at it on a policy difference. but it's really hard to lose your job. in the real world, it's really easy to lose your job. if you look at the few pun opposites in year and what avrnl people do. it the second more popular ways to cut the budget. 73% says cut defense spending. the 36 ers, and i think that's really, really healthy. >> one thing i would point out, in 1939, the united states had an army that was smaller than that. today we spend five times as

much as the country with the next large military investments on that, so that does, as jane suggests, leave a lot of room for potential cuts. >> in the left on the front section. >> hi, pat span representing myself. i wonder if the panel could .. explain what happened after the '50s and '60s that both parties became interventionalists? what happened? >> the explanation that i think works best is the structural explanation. it's not so much the '60s and '70s, it's the '90s. so someone here, even in the previous panel, pointed out there were more interventions in

the 15 years after the end of the cold war than in the 45 years of the cold war. why? because even a small-scale -- a brush fire war could result in a, you know, confrontation between the two superpowers, so they danced around, trying to, you know, not be directly confronting one another. and there is a structural explanation, or to put it even more crudely, we, the united states, did more stuff, invaded more countries because we could. and, again, the selective reading of the histories of the war, the first gulf war, the war in kuwait, allowed for, i think, a fairly pro mimiscuous use of force that is only recently beginning to be corrected by our wars in afghanistan and iraq. >> one of the things that

happened positiliticallpolitica disappointed. they saw the serious hippy movement around mcgovern, hence writing him out of history. suddenly you have the chastening among one state, and the government is saying, me, too, me, too. well, we have to be tough on this, because this is an issue that the country owns. you have truly, you have kennedy. and that really changes the balance, but both parties from. it no longer scoop jackson who challenged carter. you go from that to supporting reagan as part of the very broad tent that supported reagan being

one of the elements that did that. in the '9 ons, as chris said, you get open warfare. all of us eisenhowers. i'm against that in america and i think that's where that battle comes from. >> i think it had a locality to do with the end of the vietnam war and the end of a cold war. there was no, and the perception that the left had let the country down. any enter p ventalists, were not present, especially after the cold war, and eventually the democrats felt chastened with

identification and about foreign policy and became more meat on it. but also at the end of the cold war, liberated kohl sake yann war with informants personally. so there was a con jungz of hoom thought that the military. >> yes, the woman on the far left there. >> i would add to that last discussion is the brilliant lobbying that the defense industry has done, so when you see robert gates today trying to make very modest kulcuts in the military, you immediately see congresspeople, both republican and democrat, coming back and saying, we can't cut that weapon

stm. given the public media wants to attack the military. how can we work together from different sides of the idealogical spectrum, and what would be the thing to focus on? that that's not a very consistent smds for? is it the wafds the american public no longer wants to fight. >> i do think it going to be a menu of those option so they don't have local constituencies. it's easier to cut weapons, alternative bases. they can do something besides build a chip. that's a difficult thing. but i also think, somewhat naively, that strategy should drive for structure, not the

other way around. as it is today, we have a four-year structure and every four years the defense department comes up with a rationale why sef. leet start with a strategy first and then build the floor structure to meet the, but thaet the way it supposed to work. it doesn't work that noi. mack the case for a smaller, well restrained ground strategy on purely strategic ground. then show the that would go to down with that that's what i think is an opportunity given the other things we've talked about today for fundamental shift. >> i would just jump in and

says, i'm the last bun tie that were in terrible trouble force cally which is what we should do, anyway, about nrg. but if he with do, you're playing with my children and grandchildren's patry money. as i said, the new pugh numbers are compelling, that people want this change. as chris pointed out, they're not represented. i think paskagula has a big naval base, so guess what in they were funded whether it needed to be funded or not. that's the way it works. so there's always going to be this broad constituency that would agree with us that the consistent people who do well at it are far more motivated than broadly. the key to that is talking about

the money because it affects everyone, their children, their grand business. they'll come bang and say, you don't care about the country. absolutely the reverse. i care intensely about the country, and the reason is because if we take our fiscal help out of the equation, we're not doing our chin children on the berchl made. >> i think a lot of the other things were, unfortunately from my sper tech active americans don't to want knowing as how many dollars do we need for the bare minimum to protect ourselves from being captured by the enslaved martians? think of the opportunity and they want a vision of the world. i think chris wants us to have a

strategy-derived defense budget and spending, and that's good. that kind of analysis sounds good to me, but there is actually a whole raft of people who have strategies on the shelf and offer them to the administration and they think they have -- it's transformational diplomacy. there are all these words that come in. they think there is a strategy, it's just not the one that we prefer, there is the one that says, there is a tremendous balance on the world, let's go, and it's hard to tell people just in the abstract strategic sense, well, there are some costs to that, and actually your. it's very hard to control this without --.

t this is the appeal we might have made earlier, but part of what allowed president eisenhower to have that appeal was, oh, we need to keep powder dry for the long haul, we need to have an endurance race. there is a real threat out there, and unless people perceive -- well, there is money gns the feature. i just think the intellectual argument responding to that is it pessimistic. since that happening by, jat gee is not to be the rescue. >> unfortunately, i think we have come to the end of our allotted time. >> on that? >> i would ask all of you, i

think, to focus on the last question that was asked, because i think that is the most pertinent one. is dwight eisenhower a prophet and one that is a guide to a much better policy, or is he cassan dra, someone who gets a warning that no one lichbsz to. i tried to remainty mystic. concentrated benefits diffuse costs. to change the system that has developed and return to eisenhower's vision of a society with far more balanced priorities. but that is the task awaiting all of us, and i think people across the political spectrum have an interest in seeing some

constructive fundamental changes. please join me in thanking the members of our panel for their excellent participation. [ applause ] >> you're all invited to a reception up

former minnesota governor tom pawlenty was in washington to promote his new book called courage to stand. he has been mentioned as a possible republican presidential candidate in 2012 and said that he will announce his decision in the spring. he spoke of the national press club for an hour. >> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. my name is alan, reporter for bloomberg news and the president

of the national press club. one of the world's leading professional organizations for journalists committed to our professional future so our programming and by fostering a free press worldwide. for more reformation about the press club, please visit our website at www.press.org to read to do it to our programs please visit www.press.org/library. on behalf of our members worldwide, like to welcome our speaker and attendees of today's event which includes guest of the speakers as well as working journalists. i'd also like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. after the speech concludes i will ask as many had audience questions as time permits. i'd now like to introduce our head table guests. from your right, tom rice and, freelance political reporter, emily, as a seat editor for the hill. associate dean of georgetown university. the honorable bill o'brien speak

of the house for new hampshire. bob finton, senior elections analyst and congressional quarterly politics editor for six election cycles. david buckley, ceo of electronics and a guest speaker. melissa of news look media and the chair of the national press club's speakers' committee. excusing the speaker for a moment from angela king, bloomberg news reporter and speakers' committee member who organized today's luncheon. senior advisor for freedom first act in the guest of the speaker. a onetime washington correspondent for the st. paul press, the hill's founding editor and editor-at-large to this day. derek, washington correspondent. and pamela stevens, playing an editorial producer for msnbc's last words with lawrence o'donnell. [applause]

>> the state of minnesota may have its greatest profile in the national politics about 40 years ago and in the era when democrats hubert humphrey and then walter mondale served in the white house and then supreme court justices harry blackmun and warren burger both republican appointees in formerly called the minnesota twins also heal from the north star state. our guest today may look to bring back national prominence to the land of 10,000 links although he insists he is officially undecided about whether to run for president. now, fell a minnesota republican and tea party favorite michelle bachmann is insinuating she may steal mr. pawlenty's hundred and seek the nomination. mr. pawlenty just finished serving two terms as minnesota governor, serving as the state struggled through a national recession in which the state's budget shortfalls persisted. minnesota's chief of the governor, democratic mark dayton, inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit.

now, mr. pawlenty is launching his book tour, a step that's become a common preludin to presidential quests. he said he will announce by the end of march with a key will run for the republican nomination. other stops on the book tour include new hampshire and iowa. [laughter] we will let you draw your own conclusions. he will tell us today about his book "courage to stand," in which he recounts his trial could in a blue state minnesota and through 20 years in city and state government and his time in the governor's office. mr. pawlenty presided over the state when the interstate 35w bridge collapsed of the mississippi river shipping a nationwide spotlight on infrastructure. he also hosted the republican national convention during his tenure and spoke year before in 2008 when he was considered to be on the short list for john mccain's beside vice presidential mont. only to be passed up for someone who is not minnesota and the only kind of sounds like one, you know. to talk about what he has done

and what he plans to do next please visit and will come governor tim pawlenty at the national press club. [applause] >> thank you very much or as president obama would say you're welcome. i'm delighted to be here. thank you, alan for that kind introduction and we are going to miss you as you go on to your next assignment, but as the president of the national press club, we are honored that you're from minnesota, that you have done such a diligent job of keeping the tradition of making sure that this institution plays the role of better informing our citizenry so we can have a debtor nation and a better democracy. and you have presided over the city very important time for our country. let's give alan a round of applause for his service. [applause]

we all know we live in a free and most prosperous nation in the history of the world, the united states of america. we are blessed to live in this great nation but as i travel around and you travel around this country and respective states, you get the clear sense as you talk to people and listen to the dialogue and the debate that something is amiss, that the american confidence, the american optimism, the american sense of hope for the future is diminished. there is worry in the air. people are wondering if the american dream still rings true and is still a guarantee and an opportunity for them and for their families. there is a lot of discussion faugh in these recent hours and days about the incident in arizona and the instant aftermath of that event. there is instant judgment on incomplete facts brough and other sorts of condemnation that seeped into the discussion.

alan mentioned one of the things that presided over during my term as governor was the 35w bridge collapse. it was a terrible tragedy. there were 13 from minnesota who lost their lives in that tragedy. there were 145 others who were injured and hurt. but in number of lessons can out of that terrible tragedy. number one, as americans always do and as minnesota always do, when there is a time of crisis, when there is a tragedy, people in minnesota just everyday people who happen to be nearby ran not the way, but ran towards the danger. they wanted to help others. they wanted to do with the can to make the situation better, to rescue and helped in the recovery, and there are astounding stories of heroism as there was in tucson just some days ago, as a nation as we come together in this moment of reflection and condolence and

concern and empathy, listen to emerge, and in the book that i'm here to launch today, the courage to stand in this book not just about lessons learned in my opinion does my time of governor, but the lessons learned in leadership, crisis and service, and one of those lessons is in times of crisis, people in responsible positions need to step forward and make sure that we make good statements, but the need to be accurate statement. the need to be based on good information. we can't have a functioning democracy unless we have an informed citizenry and we can have an informed citizenry unless they have good and accurate information. so the national press club and its members elevate and continue that tradition and it plays a vital role in the fabric of our democracy, the well-being, the health of our democracy, and i take that sentiment i expressed a very seriously and very sincerely.

thank you for the work that you do. but we also know that in those instances where reality and fact give way to condemnation based on fact or allegation or judgment based not on fact it becomes corrosive not just to the debate but to our democracy more broadly. and in my experience with the 35w bridge collapse, we have individuals and others making very severe judgments the early moments and hours of the crisis that turned out to be flat wrong. an hour later, excuse me, a year later in the national transportation safety board determined that the primary cause for the bridge falling was a design flaw dating back to the 1960's really quite unrelated to much of the concern and allegation that was expressed, and we saw some of those same reactions in the tragedy of a few days ago. so i come today in the spirit of

great discourse and accurate and fair discourse in the way that we can help ensure that is to question each other, for each other accountable and engage in these kind of dialogue so that you for being here together as friends, guests from interested citizens and stakeholders in that process. but i would like to talk to you about today is that sentiment that i talked about earlier, this sense for many in our country that the american dream somehow slipping away, and feeding the grasp of our citizens at a level that is troubling, perhaps more troubling than most of us can remember at least in our lifetimes. and i want you talk to you today about restoring the american dream by eight restoring american common sense. we all learned about this concept of common sense through various channels or experiences in our life or during a dispute with the room that may be different, but the ingredients include a work of bringing, it includes our values system, our

life experiences, kind of a world view and philosophy and a variety of other things. but for me, these early common sense benchmarks and lessons were formed in my home town of st. paul. this book is written with good attention to this piece of the crowd, but it is a small first range suburb of st. paul minnesota back in the 60's when i grew up it was the home to some of the world's largest stockyards and meat packing plants, and it was an enormous part of the community and culture and economy of my home town. so many of the families of and down my street and across the city were connected economically and culturally to the huge engines of the economy in our town, and of course has things change and evolve the economically, those plans summarily and dramatically shut down, and the economic pillars of my community, the economic

foundation of my childhood and my neighborhood began to unravel in pretty severe ways. and the trauma that puts on people and families on their livelihoods are question to and the civilized debate could destabilize and called into doubt is almost unimaginable unless you have experienced that yourself and i know that many and most in the room have. it's not unlike the worry that we see in the country today, and a mix of that when i was 16 my mom passed away pretty quickly if cancer, and not too many years after that, my dad who was a truck driver for much of his life lost his job for awhile. i'm the only one in my family was able to go to college, not because my brothers and sisters didn't have the capacity or the ability they really didn't have the opportunity. and so, in in their american dream, they were able to get by and prosper and raise a family, they did things like work oil

refineries, and my older brother recently retired after working 40 plus years as a produce clerk and a produce store, and my sister works as a one-on-one special aid in a school district and my other city to the two sister has worked many decades as a secretary or executive assistant in the same company. i share that with you because as some of you are old enough to remember, the reagan and democrat or i have now relabeled them sam's club republicans, there's an experience or perspective that comes with having those kind of life experiences. back in the day, certainly my mom or dad's generation or my grandma or grandpa's generation and i'm sure it is true for you as well, if you miss the educational wrong for whatever reason, you were disadvantaged. you were disconnected, you were disenfranchised, you work

disrespected. as long as you are not disabled and connaughton go get what my dad called the strong back job so you could go down to the meatpacking plants and you could load or unload freight, you could drive the forklift, you could do the hard work of what existed in the stockyards or the plant's work related industries in towns like that all over america. there was really the fallback or the safety net for the american dream, for those who couldn't grab on to the educational or the skill necessary to access the economy of that day and that time. but as we all painfully know, things have changed. and so those strong that jobs that were the fullback or the backbone of the american middle class had migrated away, had disappeared for various reasons, and now we are at a point where our fellow citizens in the

generation that is to come behind us has to have the education were the skill to access the economy of today and tomorrow because if you don't, you are marginalized in our society and economy in ways that are extremely difficult and extremely hard to overcome in this hyper competitive global economy that we live. i want to talk to you today about that, but also the important role the government can play but should play in recognizing a limited pool and more responsible and effective role in the lives of our citizens in the context of what are those american common sense values that will help get us back on track. i won't go through them all by the to share five of them with you. the first one is not very complex and its common sense and we've all seen it and experienced it, but if you ask minnesota, if you ask americans

what matters most to you, they will most oftentimes say on the in a person of faith and that matters a lot, or right behind that they will say i love my family and that matters most to me. and then after that, they will describe a series of other things that bring them julie and meaning that have them positively motivated and they might say you know, i want to get my basement finished or i'm worried about when going to pay my health care or have a concern or a dream i can get my children to college and pay for it or they might say i want to go watch the minnesota vikings in the metrodome and next week when the super bowl or liver the new quarterback is going to become what i would like to go dhaka hunting and i would get great joy doing that with my son or my daughter or a variety of other things. the point of all of that is you can't do any of that, you can't have a pathway to most of that unless you have money, and for most americans, the pathway to

opportunity and money is having a job. it is a great debate in this nation now as there should be about what are those things that we can do to make it more likely, not less likely jobs are going to start here and stay here and grow here, and as all the politicians from all over the country and say there are the jobs politicians, the jobs leader, let's make sure that we ask and answer the question by giving to the people who actually provide the jobs, who actually have done the work of taking the risk, having the dream, having an invention, having an innovation willing to invest, willing to build buildings, willing to add the role, to buy capital equipment, willing to do research, willing to commercialize it here in the united states of america, and when you ask people who do that to actually provide the jobs who do those things that will keep a private sector economy growing, there are clear and consistent answers that come back to policy makers. and those answers do not best

reside in the mind of the politician's most of whom haven't worked in the private sector or haven't done by am describing. when you listen to these entrepreneurs and listen to these dreamers, when you listen to these designers, the folks who are going to make our opportunity unfold in the future and in our economy, they see first and foremost, governor, or member of congress or legislator , you've got to keep costs competitive. this is a hyper competitive national and global market. and as measured by texas, as measured by the cost and burden associated with regulation, as measured by the cost and burden associated with the time it takes to get a permit, as measured by workers' compensation costs, unemployment insurance costs, energy costs and all the other costs that come with that a basket of burdens or cost that add up to doing business in a city, county, state, nation, how does it compare to the arrest of the

market not as measured by the rhetoric of a politician, but as measured by the object - board you can put up and say how was my state, nation doing against the rest of the world in those activities we know most matter to job growth. when you conduct that exercise for minnesota, and for america, we have got work to do. and so this first lesson that i want to share with you is life is pretty tough if you don't have a job. and we've got to do those things with strategic position that are going to stimulate and a night job growth in this country, not in the public sector, but in the private sector if we are going to have success. member to come and by the way in minnesota, our unemployment rate as i left the governorship was about 7% which is significantly lower than the national average. our job growth rate since the crash was approaching three times the national average.

our income growth in 2010 was double the national average, and hour per capita personal lamb come in our state are among the highest in the country and there are many of the measures of that kind of growth in my state. the second principal of common sense to return america stream and america's promise is we've got to be responsible and is this principle we can't spend more than we have. you can't do it as an individual, you can't do it as a family, you can't do it as a business, you can't do it as a state by law in 49 states, and we certainly can't do it as a federal government. we have a government now in the washington, d.c. headquarters here that took about $2.2 trillion last year and they spent $3.7 trillion with 2 trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. this is not a matter of right

versus left. this is a matter of common sense. it is a matter of eighth grade mathematics. it isn't going to work. it is irresponsible, and unsustainable, it is reckless and will certainly take us down the path of that we are seeing unfolding in parts of europe just because we followed greece into democracy does not mean we need to follow it into bankruptcy. [applause] and of course the push comes governor how do you do that? it's difficult, the politics of difficult, the rhetoric is difficult, this is difficult, that is difficult. i will tell you about difficult. as alan mentioned, and from the state of mccarthy, hollandale, a ventura, of trenton. if we can shrink government in minnesota as frank sinatra would sing about new york, if we can do there, we can do it anywhere.

[laughter] so what are the measurements? i was born in the year 1960. yes, that makes me 50-years-old this year. i got a er p carvin the mail not long ago. i didn't keep it. [laughter] yet. 1960 until the became governor 42 years ago, up to 20 o2, the average to year increase in the spending of my state was 21% for 40 years. there is no way you can sustain that. during my time as governor now we have it down to about 1% a year. it is a transformation, but it was a difficult transformation. there are powerful forces that want to just say we cannot reduce our spending patterns. we have to get back to the way

it was. we must not reduce the government footprint. we cannot prioritize. we have to raise taxes. i drew a line in the sand and i said no we are going to live in our means just what families, a dislike businesses, just like a devotee of spirit in the economy is growing at all two or 3% a year you cannot have government growing in multiple of that. again not a matter of political rhetoric but as a matter of math and basic economics. so in my state, that principle remains. i talk a lot about the sam's club republicans and what i mean by that is when you go look into the faces of people who shot at sam's club or wal-mart or kosko for kmart or if you've got a little extra change in your pocket you may go up market, but places like that, what you see is people don't have a lot of money but they are looking for the very best value for the money they do spend. and they are also investing in many cases and their families as upc their cards overflowing with

huge volume these purchases of toilet paper and aretas and all of the staples of life really trying to minimize or reduce the burden they're putting on their family with their shopping experience so that their children and their loved ones can have more opportunities and the needs of their life that. the first thing i want to mention to you is common sense principle people spend money differently if at least some of it is their own money. if you've got time in your busy life to read white papers and go to seminars and stayed up all night and watch cable tv or read all kind of journals i hope you do. those are valuable experiences. but if you need a short cut and all you need to know about government reform and accountability, just do this. on a given week and go to weddings. go to one where there is an open bar where the refreshments are free and and less.

go to one where there is a cash bar where people have to pay for the refreshments to some degree. you will see very different behavior. laughter, said this in new york not long ago and people said who the heck has a cash bar any more [laughter] i didn't have the heart to tell them that in minnesota we still have the dollar dance to raise money for the bride and groom as we send them off into the new let venture. the point of the story is if you have a system where people get to consume stuff without knowledge or responsibility about making wise choices about price and quality, and the provider has the incentive of two than to provide more volume of whatever it is that is being consumed or given, and the myth is the bill goes someone else and it's all free, that is a system that i assure you is doomed to fail. that unfortunately is most of government.

it is particularly most of or health care system as i have described that phenomena. i won't go through it all but let me just camp on that as one example of many. if you look at what is driving much of the government spending for the cities, for school districts, for the counties, states, the federal government, it is indeed the healthcare issue driving budgets at a rate and pace that exceeds almost everything else. and if we don't solve this problem, really solve this problem, it will take down the country or at least in spirit from within. president obama stood in on your butt and said he was going to do health care reform with an emphasis on cost containment on a bipartisan basis and we were going to tackle this issue with particular emphasis on the part of health care the challenges and worries most americans which is in my going to be doubled to afford it and he broke that promise. that is not what he delivered to

the country and is not going to work so what is the future vision with this cash bar open bar imagery in the background of this discussion? we need to have systems where consumers are not least purchasers are in charge, the of user-friendly information about price and quality that the providers of the service have incentive to do more than just provide volumes that they have to be held accountable for better results and that the money is an alignment to those goals and it is in least partial control of the purchaser and the consumer and that the year transaction with the provider. that is not what our health care system currently is in minnesota. what does that look like on the ground? i will give you one quick example. resettling about what our state employees and there was struggling with the health care cost, we were too as thervant lawyers said why want a new system where if you choose, you can go wherever you want if you choose to go somewhere that is

how your cost and lower in quality or efficiency, your guinn to pay more and if you go somewhere that is better not come and lower and cost or how your and efficiency, you will pay less. 90% of our state employees, now that they had some even in generalized financial scam in the game noticed and they migrated to more efficient and your quality providers in the premium increases in that program in an astounding they have now been 0% for three or four of the last six or seven years and the other years approaching 0% almost unheard of in the health care market. why? because consumers now are in charge. the of information and accountability are not price and quality measures and we've begun the process of being providers not just on volume but a better outcomes and better health. the next principle is this.

as a nation, if we are not win to be the biggest place and we are not, we cannot 300 million people, and if we are not going to be the cheapest place are going to be marketed if it's true we are not going to be the cheapest place. you're not going to be the biggest and we are not going to be the cheapest and we darn well better be the smartest. the comparative advantage for the united states of america is that our people are educated. they are skilled, they are innovative, they are invented, the our collaborative, they have the ability to see and create and invent in ways that much of the world have not yet known but they are working on it, and we need to not just keep pace. we need to be ahead of that. this goes right to the issue of our educational system in this nation. you cannot have a successful country with one third of our future citizens been relatively unskilled or essentially unskilled and uneducated and expect that to work.

it's not going to work more oblique, it doesn't work socially. it's not going to work economically, it's not going to work strategically, and presents a moral and educational and economic imperative for the nation. as the time magazine not long ago pointed out, we are now having one third of our children in the united states of america not completing high school. if you don't complete high school and maintain some education or skill level beyond that you cannot access the economy of today and tomorrow you become as i mentioned earlier that marginalized citizen were fellow citizen in our country and with the strong back jobs being gone there is nowhere for you to go. you become trapped in a vicious cycle of either a bunch of part-time service jobs or you become a ward of the state in whole or in part and then the call comes for more government. more government housing, more government transportation, more government health care, more government everything at a rate and a time we can't afford it,

the reason that they can't afford it is because they can't pay for it themselves. the reason they can't pay for it themselves unless they are disabled understandably is because they don't have the kind of job or skills or the education to access the economy of today and it becomes a vicious cycle and it needs to be broken. and the link in the chain that is going to have to be severed so that we can move on to the next level of performance here is this. the number one determining factor of how a child is going to do in school is the degree and level and intensity and frequency of the parents engagement in their lives and their squall lives in particular. the second most important determinant factor of how a child is when to do in school is the prepare readiness and effectiveness of their teachers. there is an entire agenda that needs to now occur around who is going into teaching whether we are recruiting the best and brightest to come into teaching, whether we have rigorous entrance requirements before we allow them to come into our

colleges of education, whether those colleges of education are properly requiring subject matter mastery and not just teaching methodology as part of their curriculum and focus, but there before we let them out of the colleges of education they can demonstrate minimal and hopefully beyond that competency once they enter the profession where the and measuring the effectiveness not as measured by how everybody feels about it but whether students are learning how fast they are learning, what they are learning and the have to have mechanisms in place for those teachers if they are not doing the job to defend them professionally and if need be move them out. in the teacher unions in this nation and what teachers and educators. the work hard and they don't get paid too much. but the work in a system that isn't build and envisioned in the 1950's. it looks nothing like the kind of system and accountability that we have now and will not in the future it needs to fundamentally change. as we were waiting for superman, as the movie unfolds it in front of the nation she was in this

district, in this kind of agenda in the most troubled most high spending district in the nation she was essentially dismissed because of her views while we were waiting for superman, super woman was pushed aside. her name was michele reeves, she was a democrat who told the troops she was bold, courageous, spoke truth to power and they kicked her out. [applause] one last thing. in minnesota we've got great test scores and the highest act scores in the country and some of the best naep scores but if you pull back the onion, this is to come from an area of advantage of it least reasonable functionality, if you come from a background of socioeconomic and rattling, numbers even in a

place like minnesota to a different story. we've got new standards, the first state in the nation to offer performance statewide and to one of the things i was talking about. this issue is so important to the future of our country we cannot let a labor organization put the interest of adults in front of the strategic and moral interest of our children in the country any longer. by the way, when people say what can we do about it? they come to town like this and say we are for the poor, the disadvantaged and one of the first things they do is to eliminate the scholarship under this administration and former democratic controlled congress for scholarships for poor children in washington, d.c. to go to a school of their choice, shame on them. the critics and school choice, you know, governor, you're going to just take the wealthy, you're going to take a healthy, you're going to take the advantage, give them chances to flee the public school, you're going to leave behind a more challenged population its plan to get worse.

we are going to have less money to serve and even more challenged population how can you defend that? how can you even suggest that? what i say to those critics, and i look them right in the audience say that b.c. will give you an alternative proposal here. but if we gave that riss? what if we gave that scholarship, that freedom only to the poor for starters, only to the disabled, only to those who were already feeling, when the room is against getting another chance to feeling or a disabled child or disadvantaged child? please come stand up and show your face, raise your hand because i would like to see you defend that. they can't on the terms. and then last, this lesson. you may have learned that. as sandlot, you may have learned it in sports, you may have learned in business, you may have learned in an alley or a bar but it's always true. bullies respect strength, not weakness. so when the united states of america project its national security interest here and around the world, we need to do

it with the laces and capacity of strength. we need to make sure that there is not liquification and uncertainty in daylight between us and our allies and friends around the world. there is a troubling trend and developing on this front under the leadership of this had been attrition. a couple of examples. president bush negotiated anti-missile defense systems with two of our best allies in the world the czech republic and poland. president obama kim and reversed the decision and pulled the rug out from underneath them after the cattle ready extended their neck out and the politics of europe to host the systems at our request to the point where quote in a publication saying you can't trust the united states anymore. no them for themselves. you had not long ago the leaders of israel for questioning whether we really did stand shoulder to shoulder with them

and whether the question was creating uncertainty and equivocation in terms of their enemies or other threats being enhanced because of the question raised about where the united states stood. we've got to be strong. i will close and look for what your questions but none of this is going to be easy. but this is united states of america. we are the american people. we have seen difficulties before coming and we always overcome. but we need to do it with a clarion call towards what made us great and make sure we don't lose sight of that and why it to the challenges of our time. if prosperity were easy everybody around the world would be prosperous. if freedom were easy everybody around the world would be free. secure degrees seat everybody around the world would be secure. they are not. it takes an extraordinary effort. it takes extraordinary commitment. it takes extraordinary strength to stand up to the forces that are on the other side of these principles.

but we can do it. valley forge wasn't easy. settling the west wasn't easy. going to the moon wasn't easy. the terrorism and the commitment of the people on the flight 93 was not easy so this isn't about ec or about going home and just kicking back in our respective tv venues. this is about rolling up our sleeves and we might have some differences but as americans put in your head down and plowing forward and getting it done. think you for listening this morning. i appreciate it and i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you, governor. we have no shortage of questions from the audience as well as several that can online to starting with current events, what the duty and of president obama's speech on the tucson shootings? >> i flew back from new york to hear last night so i wasn't able

to watch the speech live with its entirety. the only thing i can comment on is the excerpts that i saw on the news, and from my standpoint, the president, leader of the nation at this moment needs to make sure and contain empathy, condolences, expressing the sentiment and the emotion of the country and from what i could see from those excerpts he did a fine job. >> would be your opinion of speaker banner to attend an rnc instead of the tucson memorial? >> there was suggestion i don't know if this is accurate played here this morning that the invitation to attend the memorial came very, very late after he had already made commitments, so i cannot speak to what all of the mechanics and the uncertainties but i can't tell you i know john boehner and he's a person of conviction and character and i support him strongly so i don't know all the reasons were for all of that but i did here this morning that the invitation to speaker boehner kinver recovery lead after he

already made other arrangements and it is difficult for him to change. >> in your book, you mention a socialism that's been a rising out of the democrats. why in your opinion to the concerns of the federal power rise greatly in 2009 in ways it didn't win the bush administration also expanded government power? >> it's kind of the date i had with john stuart less might actually. well, there is a continuum between liberty and tierney, and as government and whatever level, local, state or federal pushes into areas the were previously the province of family or neighborhood or community or charity or private markets for entrepreneurial activities every time the government pushes into one of those areas and nudges us a little bit back, it basically says don't you take the initiative, we will do it, you don't have to worry about the response of the, we will do it. you don't have to have the

activities necessary to put together that safety net for that program because we will do it and sometimes it happens in big ways like you saw and sold with health care. other times it happens in incremental ways you hardly ever notice but it pushes itself and out individual response become an industrialist, accountability , charity, neighborhood, family and the like. we moved on the continuum. and as it relates to republicans use it in the 90's? i think clinton was president in the 90's, but in any event, you have issues where republicans are think in the 2000 cannot last night on john stewart was an issue of the 90's. many conservatives said we don't want federal government telling us what to do in education. some republicans said we want to make sure we've got accountability for how it's spent by don't think that it's fair to say republicans entirely

did not express concerns about federalism in the 1990's. >> i think that there is also a reference during the bush administration and the patriot act and stuff like that. when there had been republicans, republican increase is in the scope of the federal government under the republican administration do you think there is a different dynamic at play then when you see a cut in the other we are not? >> if the question is is the hypocrisy between conservatives and republicans taking swings of president obama and what was it the pelosi congress on federal overreach and principles of federalism compared to those voices four years ago, eight years ago, 20 years ago probably but i think it's also true now that the republican party, the conservative movement in its current form and its current voices have that clearly in focus and i think the you are going to see a consistent and clear message, not just this six month period but for the

foreseeable future. >> you mentioned in your speech, president obama did initial a call for bipartisan health care reform at the same time the health care debate was going on you also have republican leaders say the strategy was to say no to everything the administration put forth. as president obama to blame for lack of bipartisanship in washington? >> no reef [laughter] >> there's been many signature by partisan accomplishments in washington, several came under the at ministration of president ronald reagan and the reagan mantle has always been attractive for presidential hopefuls and republicans in general. how do you see yourself as a republican in the ronald reagan mold and how were the challenges for the republicans different today than they were in the 1980's? >> well, ronald reagan was many things but among those is the fact he was i believe one of the best president in the history of the country. so a number of questions arise what can we learn from reagan

stylistically. substantively ronald reagan understood that while with the government played a certain limited import controls the government also has and when it overreaches it becomes inefficient, bureaucratic and all of the limitations the government ads as an efficient and effective the government should be limited and the real genius and power of america was the american spirit, the entrepreneurial spirit, and he wanted to retrench government and unleash more of that americans did it. so i think substantively that is the ronald reagan wisdom and legacy and heat successful at advancing it. we could also learn stylistically from ronald reagan. he was a strong, strong conservative. he had strong views, strong convictions. he had the confidence of knowing who he paused. at his feet were planted in the right place, that his compass was set true north. so he was definitely a movement

conservative. but you didn't see him very often demeaning or judge or get angry. he certainly expressed his views in strong ways. but ronald reagan was hopeful optimistic can do, civil, fought a person interpersonally, and i think at the end of the day, americans are looking not just for an indictment of the problem, a bill of particulars about what's all wrong things, they want to know okay, we got that, now show us the way out. what is the better way for what? ronald reagan was able to do that substantively to and stylistically in the country needs that right now. >> do you know where ronald reagan was when he announced his first presidential candidacy? >> no, but based on you and the tone of the question, i suspect it was your mabey. i don't know. [laughter] >> jimmy carter announced here as well but i didn't think you'd find that as convincing. [laughter]

>> another question dealing with the campaign. how would america be different today had you been chosen as john mccain's running mate in 2008 rather than sarah palin? >> well, with all due respect to my friend john mccain, i don't think it was going to matter who he picked as his vice presidential running mate. i believe that once the economy cratered in the late summer or early fall of 2008 that he or whoever the republican candidate turn out to be was likely to lose the election, so i think we are going to end up in the same spot at least for that moment in time. >> the sarah palin for a presidential candidacy certainly provide her for national exposure continued to the present day. i guess another way of asking the question is what has sarah palin's influence than on america? >> large. [laughter] i think a number of things about sarah palin, and i don't know her well, but she is an acquaintance and it had the chance to spend some time with her when we were both governors of various meetings and

conferences. a couple of things come several things: one, and she's a remarkable leader, and as to this notion that somehow she is not worthy of consideration for national office, she had more executive experience before being selected as vice president than president obama had before he became president. that included being a mayor, included being the chief executive of the pipeline or energy commission, and it included being a governor. and there's also a little bit i think of a double standard of play here, because if you had a different kind of experience of not that much, but, you know, you went to, say, a certain more prominent school in a different part of the country or you were the law review editor of some journal or something, then all of a sudden, you know, that's more valuable than the discussion than it to, you know, or in a place like alaska or, you know, minnesota because there is a little bit of the sense that maybe that's not quite up to our standards in

some people's eyes. i don't buy that. i don't agree with that. and last i would say as it relates to arizona, setting aside all of the debate back and forth about the tone, in those early hours in the early days, she was falsely accused. i mean, her people can flatten out and blame her in part for that incident and the facts as we know them today didn't bear that out. .. and a bunch of other places on trade missions and doing a number of other things but as it relates to china in particular,

they are obviously a large and rising power. we want our relationship with them to be positive and good but let's not be pollyannaish. this is a competition. and we need to open our eyes a little bit as it relates to china's intentions relative to the interests of the united states of america. i am for free trade. i am a strong free trader. i think president obama should be pushing and advancing the panamanian free trade agreement, the colombian free trade agreement and more. i am for free trade but i'm not for being a chump. and we have some individuals and entities around the world who don't play by the rules and so as that happens, the answer can't be we are afraid to call that out. we are afraid to hold them to account under the system and rules and frameworks that have been established for such violations. it is hard though to do that

plan china owns and controls one of the linchpins to our economy namely we are so unable to control our own finances that we have to mortgage part of our future to places like china and when that happens to give up control, not just of your, a portion of your economy. you give up control of a portion of your moral authority and your influence around the world. it is really hard to tell if your banker, and so you will notice in the discussions with government officials and business officials and others one of the reports back in their interactions with chinese leaders as compared to five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago is there is a new degree of assertiveness in tone and in substance in those discussions, not unrelated to america's inability and perceived weakness to control our own finances and be fiscally

responsible and stop being a beggar nation when it comes to borrowing money from places like china. >> stockyards and talking plants rely heavily on immigrant labor. how do more more restrictive immigration policies affect those industries which through hormel cargo and other meatpackers are very important to minnesota and the midwest? >> minnesota and many other states have huge economic sectors of food and food processing and of course the immigration issue related just to those but many others as well. i start with the core values, core principles in mind and that is one of the cornerstone tenets one of the pillars of our country is that we are a nation based on the rule of law. and so you cannot have open and flagrant and sustained and significant violations of law, not just because we are legalistic that because when you have large numbers of people in

the country ignoring, looking the other way, taking a path, ducking the law as written, it is corrosive to our culture and our society because then people begin to disrespect violations and the law in new ways and in different ways, which we have seen many times throughout history but one example is in new york city. if you allow people back in the day pre-giuliani to be p. on the sidewalk date t on the sidewalks. if you allow that to happen too long then you get people snatching purses and pretty soon if you allow that to happen you have not just purchased being snatched but you have nice being wheeled and if you allow broken windows that don't get prepared pretty soon you have got a lot of other problems including crackhouses and the like. i share all of that with you not because it is directly related to the point but the point is we cannot have a nation based on the rule of law and have this much behavior he in violation of the law. so those two things have to be

conformed. how to do that? if you look at the -- my record in minnesota i have done a number of things to help the effort to take a more aggressive enforcement posture as it relates to a legal immigration and in the interest of time i won't go through all of that. i think it is appropriate to increase significantly the efforts to enforce the border. we need to have a secure and safe country. we need to have order integrity and it can be done. it can be improved significantly and there is a variety of techniques for that including technology and person power and reinforcing the capabilities that we have there. i was one of the few governors that voluntarily send troops to the arizona border as part of operation jumpstart a network. we need to do that first. we need to sequence the discussion without first mind to get not only country security but the people in the debate confidence that we have got that taken care. there are lots of other aspects to this but a couple of other quick once. if you want to be serious about

reducing in moving towards the elimination of illegal immigration you have to address it in large measure at the core of the reason why they are coming. they are coming for jobs and the screening process relating to immigration status at the point of higher now is old, outdated and filled with fraud. so you get an i-9 form out, melissa comes and she gives me her guatemalan gift certificate or honduran passport whatever it may be, i checked that she gave it to me, staple them put it in the file. we can expect small business owners to conduct an international investigation as to whether those papers are authentic or not. would be burdensome and unreasonable to that person but it is filled with fraud. so we need to move employers to a system like e-verify where people can quickly, easily electronically established at the point of higher whether the person is or isn't here it legally. and there is lots of other collateral issues related to h-1b visas and what you do with

the 10 to 14 million people here illegally and much else but those two things i think our first prerequisite to the larger discussion. otherwise you are not going to have confidence in people that the other stuff is really going to stick. >> a question from the audience. governor if you have been present one month ago which you have signed or vetoed the don't ask don't tell repeal bill? why. >> i publicly support maintaining the "don't ask don't tell" policy and still do. one of the main rationales for repealing it is how does the military feel about it broadly? they took some surveys. the leaders of the civilian leadership of the military came back with a majority of small geordie but a small majority of those surveyed saying they didn't think it would make much difference of a reported repeal but an interesting other thing came out of that. when you looked at that survey or similar surveys for combat units and you asked how they felt come and when you heard the testimony on capitol hill, not of the military most broadly but at the combat unit leaders, and

the representations from the military on that front they weren't in support of it and they had serious concerns about it as it related to unit cohesiveness and in many cases the testimony reflected a concern about the safety of the men and women and in this case men in combat. so i think we need to pay deference to that amongst other concerns and that is why i supported maintaining it. >> we are almost out of time but before asking the last two questions we have a couple of important matters to take care of. first to remind our members and guests of future speakers. on january 26, this is in the lunch but we do invite you all to our evening event, night of solidarity with haitian journalist which will be held here at the national press club. proceeds from this fund-raiser hope to buy a haitian press advocacy group will raise much-needed funds to assist haitian journalists and their families. for those of you watching watching yesterday yesterdays lunching you remember yesterday was the one year anniversary of

the haiti earthquake. on february 3, 2011 we have chairman ben bernanke of the federal reserve speaking at a luncheon on april 5. we have douglas shulman the commissioner of the iris who will be addressing a luncheon. secondly, i would like to present our guest and this will be as matching set by circling hope you and your wife will have lovely mornings looking over the frozen tundra of minnesota. we love it all. with your national press club mug. >> that is great, thanks. >> tank you. thank you. you can applause. [applause] to final questions as we were speaking earlier before this luncheon i myself am a minnesota native. i'm here to tell you got governor being president is great. [laughter] i had the honor ding inaugurated

last january the keynote speaker with senator klobuchar so it was a bipartisan bookend here and my alma mater for undergrad degree from the university of minnesota undergrad was concordia college who presented me with their brett favre jersey in which i was to wear to my inaugural. given brett favre's year with the vikings would you like to take it back with you? >> we appreciate brett favre's performance last year. [laughter] >> and then a final question. you have said you are contemplating a presidential bid. you have been very open about it and talked about springtime you'd make your decision. i think given that you don't seem to want to announce it right here, right now although we would be happy to have you back when you do, if you do. what factors would keep you at this point from deciding to run for the white house? >> i should mention again thank you synthesis last question. by the way he grew up in the

motley staples area. i spent a fair amount of time because we had a place where one of his relatives owned a 10 high bar there. hopefully there's no video remaining but nonetheless as it relates to running for president seriously considering it. ida made a final decision on it yet. i'm going to sometime in the next couple of months and it really comes down to two main considerations. one is the needs of the country and what i can bring to the table and leadership and experience and perspective that i believe would move the country forward and then two it is obviously deeply personally impactful decisions. i have a family of course and my wife and two daughters i love very much and a dog and they need love and care and attention and i want to make sure that as they make this decision that will also be burdensome to them that they are equipped and prepared for what it's come if i do that as well so those are the kinds of things i'm thinking about. thank you again for listening and being here today. i appreciated very much. [applause]

>> thank you governor pawlenty. i would also like to think of the national press club step in putting our executive director bill mccarron, our organizers staff liaison melinda cook the broadcast epperson center led by by -- in the entire national press club staff for all the great work they have done this year. for more information about joining the national press club and how to acquire a copy of today's program please go to our web site at www.press.org and that is the luncheon from lake wobegon. [applause] where the club is always at its best. thank you so much for being here today. thank you for this national press club and we are looking for mark great years to come. thank you. this meeting of the national press club is adjourned. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> middle and high school students is time to upload your videos for c-span students cam documentary. get your five to eight minute video on this year's topics washington d.c. through my lens, two c-span by january 20 for your chance to win the grand prize of $5000. there is $50,000 in total prizes. c-span studentcam video competition is open to students grades six through 12. for complete details go on line to studentcam.org. >> next, discussion on the u.s. russian nuclear cooperation efforts. we will hear from the chief u.s. negotiator on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty and other arms control analyst. from the council on foreign relations, this is 55 minutes. >> we will get started, please. my name is cliff kupchan and

director for europe and eurasia at eurasia group. i would like to welcome everyone today to the foreign relations meeting. first if you housekeeping items. please completely turn off, not just put on vibrate, your cell phones, black areas and any wireless devices. to avoid interference with our sound system here. as a reminder this meeting is on the record. let me then proceed to introduce our guests, our speakers. first, rose gottemoeller. rose is the assistant secretary of state for the bureau for arms control, verification and compliance. she recently served as most of you know as chief negotiator of the new strategic arms reduction treaty or new start. prior to her current position, she has been with the carnegie endowment for international peace where she worked on u.s. russian relations, and nuclear

security and stability. stephen pifer, a senior fellow at working center on the united states and europe and director of the brookings arms-control. initiative. he focuses on russia and ukraine and arms-control more broadly. steve retired foreign servicefie officer from more than 25 years with the state department focused on u.s. relations with russia and eurasia as well agais on arms control and security issues. and finally, micah zenko. micah is -- prevention and the center for preventive action for the council on foreign relations. previously he worked at harvard university's kennedy school offn government and a number of research capacities and in washington, at brookings, congressional research service

and policy planning office at the state department.in let me then begin our discussiob and let me begin with you, rosew what in your view are the lessons new s.t.a.r.t. for the future of u.s./russian arms control negotiations? and i have really two an ts -- angles in mind here. what insights could you offer from what you've experienced on russian views on key issues and, secondly, what lessons does new s.t.a.r.t. offer on how any, any u.s. administration should handle the congress on an arms control treaty? >> excellent, excellent questions, cliff. and can by the way, may i just say how impressed i am that there are so many people interested in nuclear arms control at this hour of the morning. [laughter] i think it's absolutely terrific. but that was actually the first point, and i'd like to turn to your congressional point to begin with, actually, because the significant lesson of the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty both

negotiation and ratification process, in my view, for the congressional rich is that -- relationship is that it brought this issue front and center again in our relationship with the u.s. congress and particularly with the senate. i was very impressed as the negotiator, i must say sometimes pressed as the negotiator because the senate was very, very interested through the course of the negotiations. we briefed them repeatedly, five times we briefed the national security working group starting back in the spring of 2009 as the negotiations were barely getting started and proceeding, then, through the summer and the rest of 2009-2010. shot only briefing -- not only briefing the national security working group which is chaired by at that time senator kyl, senator kyl and senator byrd, but also then chairing, the chairman of the foreign relations committee and the ranking member, senator kerry, senator lugar, of course, we

were very involved with them throughout, but the armed services committee and the intelligence committees as well. so we had this kind of regular dialogue going on. and then the ratification process came, and you all know what the ratification process was like. it was a very, very lively debate, lively discussion. but the core conclusion that i take away from it is that nuclear arms control is back as an issue of interest on the hill and one where a number of senators -- not all by any means, but a number of senators are willing and ready to engage. so as far as the future is concerned, i would just say, you know, continue what we've been doing which is to try to stay in very, very close contact as we proceed in new directions. but also to, to be aware that the interest level is going to be very high. and ined too, i yo -- indeed, you saw that. the you look closely at ratification, it calls for briefings, consultations, let's get in there and talk to them

before, after and in the middle of nuclear arms controls issues. i think that's healthy, and i, frankly, welcome the fact there is such a big interest on capitol hill. but it is a big lesson for the future that we also need to continue that and make sure that that due diligence is done. now as to the lessons we learned working with the russians, i would say, frankly, there were two lessons for me. first, the first lesson is that the cold war is, indeed, over. there were many cold war issues that we continue to grapple with, i'll get to that in a home, but the way -- moment, but the way the negotiations were conducted was, it was much different from when i was last at the negotiating table in geneva in 1990 and 1991 working on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. at that point we still had a very kind of, you know, set-piece way of of interacting with the russians. in the intervening period, 15 years of implementation of the s.t.a.r.t. treaty made a huge difference in how we interact with the russians on these

issues, and particularly the fact that we had a great cadre of experienced inspectors and weapons systems operators who came and participated in our delegation in geneva. and the russians did the same. that meant we had this very experienced team on both sides of the negotiating table who were used to interacting with each other at bases of strategic operating bases in the inspection process. it just made for a much more, i would say, rich dialogue and prepared dialogue. we really, i think, knew what we needed to do in the course of these negotiations to get through them and get a treaty that suited the present, the present stage. so that was the first lesson i'd like to underscore, the cold war really is over, and we've had a lot of experience, now, particularly on on-site inspection that's made a big different in how i we interact with the russians -- in how we interact with the russians on these issues. but the second point is, i would say, a realistic point but

perhaps one that, you know, is a little more negative and that is that there are some cold war issues that continue to return to the front of the agenda. and missile defenses and how we interact on missile defenses is, i would say, at the top of that list. it was a very important part of the ratification debate on capitol hill, but it's a longstanding issue. and it's an issue that we are now going to try to work very hard with cooperation with the russians not only in our bilateral context, but also in the nato/russia cop text. context. and that was such an enormous, enormous success of the lisbon summit back before the holidays that in those two contexts -- the bilateral and nato/russia complex -- we agreed on missile defense. ronald reagan back in 1983 when he launched the star wores initiative spoke about negotiation with the soviets, but now we really want to get

off the dime on this, and i think it's going to be very, very important to scoping the future. so -- >> thank you. sort of next tens in the order. steve pifer, what are the prospects for talks on tactical nuclear weapons in and in your view what might an agreement look like? >> okay. well, first of all, with the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty taking each side down to 15150 strategic warheads, i think we really are at the point where it's hard to envisage further without talking about these numbers that are not constrained. but if we get into another round of negotiations with the russians on tactical weapons, there are going to be some difficult issues. there's a large disparity between the numbers in the u.s. arsenal and the russian arsenal. the russians have anywhere from three to eight times as many tactical l nuclear weapons, and

when you have that kind of numerical disparity, it makes the negotiation more dliflt. a second issue is over the last 10 to 15 years the russians have come to place hutch more weight on tactical nuclear forces because they see it as necessary to offset what they regard as conventional disadvantages vis-a-vis nato and perhaps more importantly, china. and this is nothing new. they've taken this page from they toe's book for most of the cold war when nato chose not to match the soviet union tank for tank but instead relied on tactical nuclear weapons. and the third issue which is going to make this complicated is verification. when you're talking about limits on and verification of limits on tactical weapons, you probably will not be talking about the delivery systems. because i don't think the american air force or the russian air force is going to want to limit f-16s and their counterparts whose primary missions are conventional.

so you're talking about limiting actual warheads and, perhaps, even designing schemes where inspectors might have to go into storage bunkers and count weapons. that's shot an insurmountable program, but it's going to pose a set of verification challenges that the united states and russia have not had to grapple with previously. so there's some difficult questions. i don't think they're insurmountable and, you know, one way to approach this is the question is going to be is given this large russian advantage, how do you persuade them, basically, to negotiate away all or part of that? and i think here the way to do this will be the united states under the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty will end up with a numerical advantage in nondeployed strategic warheads. under the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty, the russians are going to reach their reductions primarily by retiring and can taking out of service missiles, but most of the remaining missiles are going to have full warhead sets. the united states is going to take a different approach and would have the ability in the

event that the treaty broke down to put a lot of those warheads back on the missiles. and the russians won't have any kind of matching capability. so perhaps we've designed an approach that allowed you to trade an american willingness to accept p limits on nondeployed strategic warheads for russians might give rose or whoever is out there some negotiating leverage. and it may be actually, now, i think the time in terms of the next round really to move to an approach that talks about a limit on all nuclear weapons that would cover strategic, nonstrategic, tactical, deployed and nondeployed. and if you put them all into a single limit, that might allow some of these trade-offs, and you could have that kind of approach that would apply to deployed strategic warheads of the 1550 limit in the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. >> before we move to bmd, would anyone else like to cover --

[inaudible] okay. micah, turning to ballistic missile defense then, i mean, several issues. this interview, you know, one of the main issues that separate russia and the u.s./nato on bmd given that the u.s. is very unlikely to accept formal limits on ballistic missile defense and if anything came screaming out of the senate -- >> yeah. >> no formal limits. what types of understandings might moscow accept, and as an overall judgment in your view how likely is missile defense to disrupt u.s./russian nuclear cooperation? >> well, let me take the last one first. i mean, there are a buffet of further steps in u.s./russian nuclear and conventional force reductions and agreements that could be reached in 2011, 2012 and after the presidential elections in both countries. but if there's not a formal agreement or understanding on the future way forward on missile defense, none of these will likely happen. medvedev said recently either we come to an agreement on missile

defense, or there will be a resumption of the arms race, and it's a very threat ping position, but this is a primary concern for a lot of russian official and strategic thinkers that comes up over and over again. the primary russian concern is not the system which currently protects the united states from limited numbers of ballistic missile launches. the united states has roughly 24 interceptors in this alaska, six in california, these are intended to cover the entirety of the continental united states from a rogue launch from north korea, say, or an unauthorized launch from russia. but in the summer or the fall of 2009, the obama administration introduced what's called the european-phased adaptive approach policy which is a policy to create a missile defense shield over all of of europe in four stages, 2011, 2015, 2018 and 2020. there are some russians who with perceive that that system will put at risk its icbm force so could not have a reliable second

strike against the united states. the administration, to be fair, has done a lot, a very good job through the presidential bilateral working group and the nato/russia council to explain that these systems will not threaten russia's icbm force. technical experts in russia get this, but whether the policymakers get and receive it, that's another question. there's still more the united states can do internally to provide some transparency about what the out phases, specifically the 2018 and to 020 stages of this missile defense for europe will look like. we don't know what this looks like yet. the missile that will be in place in 2018 and 2020 is still in the design stages. even the earlier missiles which will be based upon ships in the mediterranean, that has not been tested yet. so we're still at the early stages for this, and the perception that this could threaten its force in the future scares russia. and then the final issue is, as rose hinted at, to quote secretary gates or to paraphrase

him in june, the russians hate missile defense. they hate it. they've hated it since the late '60s, and as is secretary said, there can be no meeting of the minds on missile defense. i don't think that's the case. in light of the nato/russia council meetings in the november, president medvedev came out with an early proposal for what joint missile defense could look like which i would call sincere but not serious. the, they, it has these three principles, one is russia wants to be a full-fledged partner in missile defense, second, they want to have shared early warning data, not shared -- shared early warning data, shared radar, shared sensors with two buttons, a two-button principle. one would be covering russia, one would be covering nato. and the third is what they call sector-based defense, assigning zones of responsibility for protection against ballistic missile defense. you talk to military planners in the united states, this is not going to fly. the poles did not come into nato

to be protected from ballistic missiles from the persian gulf on behalf of russians. russia does not have a missile defense system presently covering its territory. there is a new air defense system called the x-500 which they claim will be operational for missile defense by 2020, but i think there can be an agreement, and this is being worked in these groups, the working groups and the nato/russia council about joint threat assessments, what does the threat look like, and that's being done right now. there can also with a shared early warning of all ballistic missile launches. there was, for people in history, remember the jedc which was this joint data exchange center in moscow which was gown to be a place where russians and u.s. officials watched ballistic missile launches from various parts of the world, and they could both agree they came from these countries and not from each other. so i think there can be cooperation on shared early

warning, threat assessments and potentially-shared radars which includes integrating russian capabilities in the u.s. adaptive approach missile defense system for europe. >> i'd like to add on this missile defense cooperation point, some of you may have seen the minister of foreign affairs gave a press conference in moscow today, a very extensive press conference, and he commented that the pace at which we're getting off the ground on our discussions in the working groups, the presidential commission working group that deals with cooperation on nuclear security/missile defense matters chaired by my boss, undersecretary tauscher, and also some military to military discussions as well. so there's a very, very fast pace of activity, and i do think that both moscow and washington are really intent, as are our nato allies, in getting off the ground quickly and completing

these joint threat assessments and moving on to looking at joint concepts and really trying to figure out how to put all these pieces together. >> >> i think that's actually really good news because i think if you look at the next negotiation can, if russians are insis tent on something on missile defense and we've seen the senate reaction to limitations on missile defense, there's something of a trap there, and cooperation may be the way to get out of that box which otherwise could be a major obstacle in the next round of offensive arms reductions. >> rose, let me turn to a different type of issue. we now have the one, two, three agreement, the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. what, in your view s in it for both sides, and how can the u.s. government and the u.s. private sector best pursue avenues opened by this new and really rather major agreement. >> uh-huh. yes, a lot of people have been focused on the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty and the missile defense

cooperation, those aspects. but there was really a major, major step forward in moscow this week when am bad door buyerly exchanged the paperwork to wring in the so-called one, two, three agreement, the agreement for nuclear cooperation. this happened on tuesday the 13th, day before -- 11th day before yesterday. when i was an assistant secretary of energy back in the late 1990s, we were working on a one, two, three agreement and trying to, you know, move that forward. so it's really been a longstanding initiative, one that both sides have been very intent on bringing to force, and it has finally happened. and there are really, i think, three areas of enormous benefit for both countries. first of all, the area i am most familiar with is the non-proliferation cooperation, having in place an agreement for nuclear cooperation of this kind really helps us to advance our nuclear non-proliferation cooperation. it helps for our technical

cooperation when our scientists get together and work on very detailed, technical projects, for example, on new sensor systems and that type of thing. there's been a history of very, very successful u.s./russian cooperation. but a one, two, three agreement will facilitate and ease that cooperation in the future. also will help with some very, very nitty-gritty counternuclear terrorism issues like nuclear forensics. when we have, you know, some fissile material that is acquired and we're concerned about it, you know, being part of a possible terrorist not or something like that, the nuclear forensic process will be facilitated through the one, two, three agreement. so it's very, very significant. second area is civil nuclear cooperation. again, that's on a government of-to-government basis where our two countries are working together and cooperating, and deputy secretary of energy is the chairman of the commission, bilateral commission with the

head on the other side. there's a bilateral commission looking at ways to advance civil nuclear cooperation, that means advanced reactors, advanced fuel cycles, a number of arenas of that kind. so that's very, very important. and then the third area is on the commercial front. it will facilitate cooperation between u.s. companies and russian companies that are engaged in nuclear energy projects. again, for the development of new reactors, new fuel cycles, new fuels and, overall, does address the issue of consent rights. that is, when the united states has a deal with another country for, for nuclear fuel purchase, the united states has consent rights over the final disposition of that fuel. so having a one, two, three agreement in place addresses that issue and facilitates commercial cooperation as well. so three very, very important areas where this one, two, three

agreement will make a big difference and, really, i think, will allow us to advance nuclear energy cooperation on the u.s./russian front overall. but i welcome it, as i said, because of the advantages i see forthcoming in our non-proliferation cooperation. you know, i wanted to underscore for this audience i didn't really know it, i was looking back through dan's recent materials from his trip to moscow this year. the united states and russia have worked to repatriate 760 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium back to the russian federation to be disposed of. that's quite a few nuclear bomb withs' worth of highly-enriched uranium. and that, again, has not required the one, two, three agreement. that's pursuant to this international partnership that president obama launched last april at the nuclear securities summit here in washington to get highly-enriched uranium, blew i

tone yum, fissile materials that could be used in nuclear weapons into programs to dissuppose of them or to better protect them. so russia's been a great partner in this regard, and i think it's really, really worthwhile underscoring the way this partnership can now be enhanced and further developed because of the one, two, three agreement being in place. >> with one final question from me for micah. as -- it's a political/economic one, sort of moving the space a little bit. russia faces presidential elections in 2012 and a worrisomely tightening fiscal landscape involving large deficits. how could these political/economic factors effect russian policy on the nuclear front? >> well, the -- if you want -- a very interesting perspective on russian policy making, look at the president's speech to the nation, the state of the union address that the russian president gives november 30th of

last year. and he goes through the litany of problems russia faces, familial, societal, government and the environment, and there's just a long, long list of problems that russia faces, and the solution to all of them are greater political tension and money. you throw money at these problems, the final issue president medvedev discusses is foreign affairs, defense/national security. and he lays out this agenda to over the next ten years spend $700 billion on improving defense systems including conventional weapons, missile defense, nuclear weapons, and it ain't all going to happen. they just don't have the money to do it. you know, if oil stays around $100 a barrel, they get closer, but they still don't have the capability to do the modernization that they want. so based upon both the need to restructure its conventional weapons forces, to bring some sort of rationalization, some -- for example, russia recently created what the unite' version of daughter 35 pa is which is how to do better research.

they consolidate their air defense and and missile defense into one sort of strategic command. they're trying to rationalize the process while also sort of of making incremental improvements on nod earnization. so -- modernization. so based upon the need to come down to the levels that steve mentioned just by retiring old systems and not building nuclear weapons, russia wants for power purposes and the respect that nuclear weapons have garnered them over the last 50-60 years, they want an additional agreement that provides transparency and predictability on u.s. and russian nuclear weapons at lower levels for both those reasons. >> thanks to all of you. we now invite audience members to join in on the discussion. and, again, a few procedural comments. please, wait for the microphone, speak directly into it. please stand, state your name and affiliation, and, please, maybe most importantly, keep questions and and comments really on point and concise so

allow as many be members as possible to speak. so the floor is now open. yes, sir, please. >> i'm hank gaffney from cna, and i worked 13 years on nato nuclear weapons. and i carefully read all the russian statements of doctrine as they've been coming out. i never see the word "tactical." this notion that they're relying on tactical, they're relying on strategic which is what nato relied on. i think a lot of you really know that the sigh op was involved in nato responses very early on after two days of conventional battle, but that's a concept of deterrence they're advancing, not a war-fighting. and it includes strategic weapons, and we shouldn't forget that. and i just wondered, does anybody up there know of their

statements where they use the word "tactical"? >> hank, that's a good point. i would just note two things. first of all, we've tried to be very careful and precise and, indeed, if you look at the resolution of ratification that came out of the senate, it refers to nonstrategic nuclear weapon withs. and i think it's a good point to be considering, you know, because the use of the word "tactical" does have a number of imprecise aspects to it. so that's a very important point. i do see the russians refer to "tactical" nuclear weapons, but it's in comments on what we have to say, it's not in their own doctrinal writings, so i would agree in that regard. >> might actually suggest that one thing that could perhaps be done between now and the next round of negotiations is maybe some in these working groups actually beginning to talk to the russians, what would be a common theme for cat guiding

nuclear weapons? i suspect when we talk about strategic, nonstrategic, tactical, we may have a different way of classifying than the russians do, and having a common language on that, i think, would facilitate another round of talks. >> and the council years before the sort of warmer feelings that sprung out of lisbon's summit, they do have these joint definitions which the russians presented their definitions of what tactical means, and the u.s. presented its definitions of what tactical means, and those could be a starting point for how both sides conceive of what tactical nuclear weapons are. >> yes, ma'am. please. you, yes. the microphone here. thanks. >> hi. sally horn, independent consultant. i have a question for all of the panelists. i was struck by what you said, cliff, about what are the lessons that could be learned from the debate on the hill and the actual negotiations. i'd like to ask if you could

take that a little bit further in terms of what are the lessons that could be learned in terms of the perceptions, you know, for example, some recent russian public writings have suggested one of their key concerns is not today, but what might happen in the future which is suggestive of of a policy concern about what direction might we go and how might that impact their concept of their deterrence? when you look at some of the writings of the senators on the hill, what you also take away from that is some concern about policy concerns. not the numbers, not, not even their tactical or questions about the technical aspects of verification, but underpinning it all is a broader policy concern about direction. i'm bond withering if you might -- wondering if you might speak to the question of what lessons might be learned about what you perceive as this

underpinning of perceptions and views, and how do we deal with that moving forward in the era of further cooperation with the russians? .. that may have something of an opposite but unintendede aspectm in the next round of negotiations for some kind of limits on u.s. missile defense.i my guess in the end was that the

russians finally accepted new start because she shins nations that they would not be a need for missile defense finally acc during the new start negotiations that it was a very effective tone, they looked at the new s.t.a.r.t. period and said we would announce ten years to 20242021 and when we look at the approach that described a very good indication, with defensive forces. but if you are talking about a follow-on agreement of 20205 to 2030 or 2035 the russians have a lot less clarity about where missile defense is going to be and there is concern on the russian side. one way to counter that is to extend their offensive force. one of the issues that will come up in the next round will be the

russians perhaps even harder for constrained on missile defense and that is why i hope very much this pact with nato russian cooperation can be developed because that may be the way to get out of that. >> part of the question gets to how robust are you on relations overall and indeed over the last several decades there have been many peaks and valleys in the relationship. we go through difficult times in any bilateral relationship but it seems we have been on quite a roller-coaster ride with regards to the relationship with russia. one of the core reason the obama administration has been so intent on its new policy has been to try to in short that we have a robust relationship across a number of policies.

we are here to talk about the s.t.a.r.t. treaty and where to go another nuclear arms control but i would like to wonderscore that if we notice our relationship with russia has undergone great strengthening in the last couple years, the 123 agreement, little notice that something like the afghanistan transport agreement. that was reached at the same time that we were doing our first joint understanding with the russians in support of the new s.t.a.r.t. negotiations in july when president obama went to moscow. little recognized but in fact now we are transporting an enormous amount of material for combat operations in afghanistan through russia. that is a great change in how we

did business in the past and a great amount of money because of shortening up the transport lines. those very robust cooperative projects that in this end will help to get us through the tough times. i want to bring that to your attention and say that i believe we have come a long way in strengthening and adding some robust elements to our bilateral relationship. >> the issue of other countries i believe there's another agreement between the united states and russia on strategic and tactical that can be reached before you address other countries. the specific country that you need to talk about is china. we know china, based upon they don't have much transparency in their nuclear system. secretary gates was invited and visited the second artillery corps of few days ago which was

an unprecedented visit for someone in the pentagon but there is so much little transparency on behalf of china and weather nuclear system looks like and the conception of their nuclear doctrine and what they think of nuclear weapons control and yet years of that to happen. wild repercussions in this dialogue build momentum in the united states and russia with other agreements. >> looking back. please, ma'am. >> thank you. mary beth sheridan from the washington post. a question for rose gottemoeller. is there any timetable or tentative timetable of when follow-on negotiations might begin or is it going to depend on other factors like progress on missile defense? >> we have already gotten underway, i would say first of

all i want to give an advertisement for what i have done. i am not endorsing them but -- >> bill ahead. >> very interesting papers on the future of where we go from here. i am not endorsing anything specifically but there's a lot of good discussion going on both here and in moscow. it is enormously interesting, the kinds of writing we are seeing being done in moscow, and also there has been beneficial discussion of this when the chairman of the defense to committee came to worse off for an interim parliamentary meeting. in his remarks for that conference, there is a lot of work going on in moscow to try to study what the options might be for future non-strategic

negotiations. in and out of government in moscow and washington, a lot of work is going on but is one more phase and we are not ready to go to the point of setting any scheduling place for out right negotiation. there are lots of consultations and back and forth about where we go from here. >> toby please. >> congratulations. i have two questions. the first is talking about amendments. not about negotiations, many arms control agreement going

through the senate. >> you may have noticed all of you in december, a lively debate in the senate, the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty and ratification. during that period our russian colleagues not commenting on the debate. and not commenting on there debate for the federation council. and the next several weeks, we are not going to speak about it. the second thing i would say is i take a different lesson away from the ratification debate. and interest and discussion with the new s.t.a.r.t. debate in the senate proved it to me.

not only a debate around ratification perce but a long series of discussions we have throughout the negotiations process. i do think we have sparked a new interest so i am looking forward to continuing that debate and discussion and frankly it has laid the foundation for the ratification debate. i can't predict what will be next. great store of substantive knowledge, a store of interest. that is natural. it is part of a healthy debate as well. we have in place good conditions for future work on topics

overall. >> let me comment on the russian resolution, there should be a number of russian understandings that will probably -- just as i think if you go through the u.s. senate's ratification and read the russian discussion there is an implication the russians are cheaters on arms control. you will see that language. the most important thing will be do the russians in this end will not require the treaty. the important thing, hyperventilating over the language with ratification, question is at the end of the day is the treaty ratified? >> please. microphone. >> to what degree does the complexity of destroying and

inspecting warheads slowdown the process of reducing numbers? >> that is a very good question. for those of you who have tackled these issues over the years you realize up to this point arms control treaties have dealt with delivery vehicles and launchers, large items, missiles, bombers that we can see with our satellites and also therefore count more easily. future negotiations and president obama has already clearly laid out this path, weather he signed the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty in april of 2010, he said next we will be tackling non-strategic nuclear warheads and non deployed nuclear warheads. this is part and parcel of the nuclear posture. it is part of a consistent

policy development going on in this administration. you are quite right. the next phase is going to be a complicated one because we will be grappling with smaller objects that are more difficult to address in terms of monitoring and verification, elimination, the entire range of activities. i will say in my view the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty puts in place some important innovations with regard to the entry vehicle on-site inspection. they are pursuing more interest of reentry vehicle on-site inspections implementing this treaty that will push open the door in my view to more intrusive measures that involve warheads. we are beginning to take some steps in that direction certainly in terms of the research study work that has to be done on the activity inside and outside government that are referred to a moment ago.

>> in the first row. >> hunts benedict, congratulations. i want to go to the non-strategic tactical question and put it in the european context a bit more. two questions. first, what we do with a small number of u.s. nuclear bombs deeply in five european countries. the question is is it important to keep that small number still in europe as a bargaining chip for the future? v nato strategic concept didn't settle the issue. the second question is given the fact that as steve said, looking forward to negotiation