>> if you pick up the newspaper, wet ernest everett is the read on most days of the week you will find at least one if not to stories. these days is the rock and/or afghanistan on to the front page. if not both of those, maybe yemen or somalia or some other rivalry, india, pakistan, china, japan. you name it and it will be on the front page. i think it's safe to say that if you pick up your paper tomorrow morning, whether it's the local paper or new york times or street journal the headline is not going to be all quiet on the u. s-canadian border. if you pick up a newspaper in paris it's not going to be all quiet on the franco-german

boundary. and it is sort of self evident why that is the case. that is that when peace breaks out, nothing happens. when war breaks out of what happens. there is noise, there is a motion, there is color. everybody since cameras and journalists. so to some extent it is reasonable that we pay a lot of attention to war and little attention to peace. obviously people go to see movies, spend $11.50 on average is these days to see a movie about world war two, but you are not going to pay $11.50 to see a movie today about the franco-german relationship because all you would see if they have a camera at the border, some sheep grazing. and that is because that border -- sight of blood shed has lost its relevance as a geopolitical boundary line.

as we did in our cars, a 30 or accorded to nine, whenever we are done. we all had north in the big convoy getting to the u.s.-canadian border. we find a few customs agents and passport controls, but you will not find the 802nd airborne. you will not find an armored division. you will not find canadian soldiers on the other side because canadians do not lay awake at night thinking that we are about to invade. we don't lie awake at night thinking that they are going to invade. why is that? in some ways it is a much more profound observation than the fact that the taliban are fighting. the americans are going after the television, because that is what happened since the beginning of time. and so what i want to discuss

with you tonight is the other stuff, those magical all too rare moments in international history when peace breaks out, when nothing happens, when countries become so comfortable with each other that they demilitarize their relationship. they keep their borders undefended. the let down their guard. they eliminate war as a legitimate tool. that is the problem. i would like to our 23 things in the next 30 minutes or so. one is telling you how i went about examining the spousal, how and when peace breaks out, tell you the story i found. second, highlights what i think the most important conclusions of the study are. what did i find that you would want to take away tonight and ruminate about? it may affect the way that you think about the world of diplomacy moving forward.

and then i want to end by saying a few things about president obama and his engagement strategy because his readiness to talk to the enemy was, in some ways, one of the most distinguishing features of his presidential campaign and also of his time as president. reaching out to cuba, trying to negotiate with tirana, trying to reach out to syria. this is an unusual foreign-policy. and so i want to offer some thoughts on how that out reaches don and where it is likely to head in the months ahead. so, for starters, in trying to answer this question when and why peace breaks out i went back and read widely through history to find as many cases as i could where longstanding rivals found their way to peace, where they moved from anna .. and eddie.

the earliest case i looked at is the foundation of switzerland in 1291 when three cantons in what is today the alpine region, longer enemies of each other, formed what became the swiss confederation. i looked at the formation of the iroquois confederacy in upstate new york which was born in 1450 in a small town that still exists today. these five iroquois tribes came together that have been killing each other and each other, the chilly for centuries from 1450-1777, not a single tribesmen died in battle. i look at the concert of europe, 1815-1853, a system that preserved peace among the great powers and on up to the present-day. cases from latin america, the

middle east, southeast asia, north east asia, spreading the net as widely as possible to get different cultures at different times, some states, some non state actors trying to figure out how these magical moments of peace occur. let me tell you what i've found. i'm going to tell you what i found by just telling you the story of one particular case, and that is the case of the united states and great britain. a case which today we take for granted. the idea that somehow the u.s. and great britain were enemies, we have forgotten because they were partners in world war one, partners in world war two. now we talk about the special relationship. but from 1700 when we broke away from the british empire through the war of 1812 when the british kindly burned down the white house through the balance of the 19th century britain was enemy

number one. in the uk america was in a number one. we kept battleships. we did not have any at the time, but we kept our cruisers at the ready, troops on the u. s-canadian border. we almost went to war on numerous occasions in the 19th century. everything starts to change in 1895. the precipitating event is a dispute that breaks out between british guiana and venezuela over their border. you may say, well, what does that have to do with anglo-american relations? well, what happened is that the united states -- and keep in mind in the 1890's the u.s. is coming on line, selling its notes, believing that it should have as safe in the world commensurate with its growing economic power. the president dispatches a note from london which says this dispute between british guiana and venezuela is in the western

hemisphere. it is in our backyard. we believe we should have a role in this debate we recommend that you take this to neutral arbitration. lord salisbury discusses this with his cabinet, sees this as an affront to the pride of the british empire and dispatches a note back to washington that basically says forget about it. at this point there is talk of war in congress. there is a sense that the united states has been ashamed, embarrassed. there is talk of the british empire continuing to tread where it should not be trespassing on american interest. and once talk of war is sorely in washington the british cabinet reconvenes. lord salisbury calls and the admiralty, his loyal navy and says, what do we do?

are you ready to go to war against the united states? the admiralty goes away and looks at the disposition of forces. it sees a rise in america, rising germany, rising japan. getting uppity in south africa, and they go back and say, we can't do this. there is no way that we can go to war with the united states because we don't have enough battleships. we can only do this by exposing our position in the north sea, the mediterranean and the far east. we can do it. the admiralty therefore says, yes, you can. fight them. turn them into a friend. lord salisbury said, this is a very interesting idea. he wrote a note. goes back to washington. this man says, we have rethought this issue and decided that you

are right. we will take this to neutral arbitration. and the leader in the house of commons gives a speech soon thereafter in which he says the united states has legitimately articulated in monroe doctrine in the western hemisphere. we believe and recognize the legitimacy of that time. and, of course, the americans don't know what's going on. here is their arch enemy backing down and telling them that they are the hegemon of the western hemisphere. and what happened is that the american government correctly interpreted what the british were doing which was they were engaging the enemy. they were attempting to turn their relationship of an anti into a relationship of sanity. because washington understood what was being said they reciprocate.

between 1896 and 1898 the british and americans traded dialogue, this course, traded concessions over fishing rights in the barents sea, the border between alaska and canada. the panama canal, which they were forbidden from doing by a treaty with the british. the british said, fine, go ahead, fortified it. in 1998 when the united states attacked, cuba, kicks the spanish out, colonized hawaii and the philippines. the british stood up and said, hurray. the only great power in the world to bulk of america's arrival as a serious player. at that point the game switches from the realm of high politics, the rahm of diplomats, the brown of secret cable. and out come back in the second. it was deliberately secret

because the american government and british government were afraid that if they let out to be public that they were making nice to the enemy that the opposition would come after them. they had to do this quietly. but after 1898 when there is this outpouring of british support well known to americans for the rival in the pacific, then societies start to get engaged. travel picks up. there are novels, magazines, the atlantic monthly, central roads, the rhodes scholarship to nurture the next generation of anglo-saxon leaders. the anglo-american chamber of commerce are born. they hold dinners, regular dinners in london and new york and they start every dinner by singing the star spangled banner god save the queen. they fought the british flag and american flags side by side. this kind of deeper societal engagement deepens the roots of

the diplomats between 1895 and 1898. and then the final stage of the process is a change in the dialogue, a change in the discourse, a change in the way that leaders talk about the others. ec teddy roosevelt, who by this time as president calling war between britain and the united states a civil war. british counterparts similarly prefer to war between the united states and great britain as fratricide, or against a brother, or within the family. and it is that change in language, the sense that the british and the americans are up and knock them. begin to see a stable peace settlement. and in 1902 britain and removes the yeah the states from the two power standard, which is a standard they used for the and royal navy.

in 1906 the last contingent of british regulars leave the canadian border never to return. the u. s-canada border was essentially a demilitarized. so the story, an initial, bold gambit, wrapping of knuckles on the window to get the other side to pay attention to your willingness to move the relationship from conflict to cooperation, a time of dialogue and putting your problems on the table and discussing them. society's getting involved more after that, and then this change in this course, that is the basic story that i found more or less through all of the different historical cases that i looked at. let me now touch on the second set of issues, and that is what i some of the broader lessons of the story. what do i hope that you will

chew over after you have left the hall tonight? the first is, and the big debate that takes place among scholars and politicians about whether it engagement is appeasement or whether engagement is a good diplomacy, i found that engagement in most cases is good diplomacy. there are some enemies with him one should not engage. those are enemies that you know to have maximalist, ideological convictions that make their willingness to compromise with you out of the question. it was chamberlain right to appease hitler in 1938? no. why? because hitler had demonstrated year after year after year that he had a predatory ambition.

his neighbors, jews. he is not someone with whom one could say, this is a person with whom i think i can do business. should the united states engage outside today? no. why? because al-qaeda has made it crystal clear that they have a set of the extremist goals and want to do us harm. those are generally the extremes. that is the hard case. in most other cases engagement has at least a chance of working. that does not mean it always works. that does not mean that if we talk to russia or wrong or cuba or syria or burma or china that they will reciprocate. my findings to suggest that longstanding rivalries come to an end when two sides engage each other, put their dispute on the table and negotiate and not when one side coerces the other side into submission.

second take away, if there is a potion, a magic elixir, an ingredient that keeps reappearing through all of these cases, it is the practice of restraint, the willingness of the parties in question to give ground, to take two steps back, to tie hand behind the back to withhold power. and this can take many different forms. in the case of the british they were backing down over the border between british guiana and this pilot to be in the course of norway and sweden it was a willingness by both parties to dismantle their frontier. in the case of brazil and argentina it was a willingness to cooperate on the nuclear technology that both were beginning to develop. in the case of indonesia and malaysia, indonesia backed away from the policy of challenging the formation of the malaysian

federation. so, restraint takes different forms, but it is important to same as a signal of benign intent, you mean that other party no harm. another very interesting practice that i found, and this is more for groupings of countries, deconcentrating power for example, one of the magical maneuvers that helped the united states consolidate was putting the capital in the swamp, an indication that i suffer from as a resident of washington d.c. why do i live in washington d.c.? because it is the capitol, and because it is the only place northerners and southerners could agree. it might have been in philly, it might have been boston, might be new york, maybe princeton, but

it had to be somewhere right in between north and south, and other commercial more urban. what does europe have its capital split between brussels, strasbourg, and luxembourg? the same reason. why does switzerland have two capitals for many, many centuries? the product -- protestants and catholics could not agree whether the capitol should be in the pasta section of the catholic section. each got one. and the catholics could not agree on whether it should be the city or that city, so it moved. you had to capitols living around the protestant and catholics can't come to switzerland, but it worked. nobody was afraid that a stable, permanent capital would create a balance and power that would trust. strategic restraint, with holding power. third take away, and this surprised me going in.

regime type democracy does not seem to matter. i went into the project thinking that i would find liberal democracies were great partners, very good at making peace. that is partly because we are led to believe by politicians and scholars that democracies are persistent and autocracies are warlike. well, i found that autocracies can be very don't -- reliable partners. divided between a liberalizing britain and france and an autocratic russian-prussia austria who got along swimming. when brazil and argentina embarked down the path of peace in 1979 both countries were ruled by military hands. when indonesia have made peace it was governed by general saw hartack, one of the great thugs of the 20th century. a peacemaker when it came to southeast asia.

and so i think we make the mistake when we look out at the world and choose enemies and friends solely on the basis of whether they are democracies. autocracies, we may want to lecture, we may want to iran, we may want to tell the chinese to let the prisoners go, but i have found that when it comes to making peace democracies and autocracies can get along just fine. we should not make the mistake of turning our back on relationships that might make the world a safer place just because we don't like the flavor of their government. the third point, again, fourth point surprise to me because we are led to believe that economic engagement is the lubrication for good diplomatic relations. i found that it is about diplomacy. it is the diplomacy. it is the politics. it is not the economics.

and only one of the 20 cases i like tated economic integration clear the way for political reconciliation, and that was germany in the 19th century. and all the other cases political reconciliation cleared the way for economic integration. in the absence of the political reconciliation weekend trade, we can invest until we are blue in the face, but it is not going to have geopolitical consequences unless the politics are right. we can give money to serbs and bosnians and tell them to have joint ventures. won't build peace. we can give seed money to palestinians and israelis to have dairy farms together. if they disagree over borders and disagree over jerusalem the ball not compete. politics first and then the trade seals the deal. a final observation, and this will lead me into the closing

comments about obama. those of us who study the policy tend to spend a lot of time worrying about international politics and not a lot of time worrying about domestic politics. i found in studying these cases of peace breaking out that good policy requires could politics. making peace with an enemy is as difficult domestically as it is diplomatically because whenever a leader reaches out to an adversary there are always opponents at home ready to unsheathe the sharp knife and come after those who talk to the enemy. in the case is that i found china and the soviet union, senegal, syria and egypt, it almost always failed because of domestic opponents of tom who undermined the effort by

diplomats and leaders to bring off diplomatic. and that means that as the diplomacy proceeds leaders have to be very careful to make sure that they have the domestic support at home. otherwise you made it a, b striking a deal, but as soon as a or b argon there is no domestic constituencies to keep the peace, the french ship moving forward. let me conclude by saying a few things about obama, engagement, and where we go from here. first, as you might guess, someone who is in favor of engagement i support the obama's readiness to reach out to the adversary. as support is readiness to negotiate with russia.

the support his readiness even to talk to iran despite the fact that that regime is about as odious as it gets. that is because, as i have said, when peace breaks out it usually does so because the parties come together and find their way out of the impasse, not because one side forces the other to back down through coercion. i think obama is right to try to set aside, for now, questions of democracy and not democracy and take a more pragmatic approach. if russia is ready to help on iran, afghanistan, nuclear arms control, conventional arms control, we should work with them despite the fact that we don't like the way that you and and media f govern. the second observation is that i think obama has generally done active job with his strategy. it is to say it is done

incrementally. he has made the first move and now he waits for the others to reciprocate. it worked with russia. the russians are playing ball. it worked a little bit with cuba. there has been a liberalization, some political prisoners have been let go. it would be nice to see more. it has not worked with ron, and that is why i think obama is correct to create -- say the ball is now in tehran's court. let's see if they're willing to reciprocate the gestures of good will that have been put on the table. there are two aspects where i think obama has been less than successful in his strategy. one, he's got too much on his plate, too many balls up in the air. he has not done a good enough job of deciding where he wants to put his efforts, spread

himself too thin. at think that is better now than it was during the first year, and he has begun to realize that the low hanging fruit is russia and that russia, if that works, if russia anchors itself in the atlantic community, that will be a real when for a strategy of engagement that would give him when the in the sales. the other is he started off to intellectual, and not political enough giving speeches only more recently has he begun to realize that politics is 30. politics requires getting in the trenches. politics requires working the phones and cutting deals. i think diplomacy has become more realistic in the second year than the first, but nonetheless still a bit too intellectual and idealistic and not enough hard-core politics. final point, as i said, policy,

good policy requires good politics. we are now at a moment in which that reset with russia, obama's engagement with russia may well fall because the senate refuses to ratify the nuclear arms control agreement that is now before us. if that happens, if the treaty is rejected it may well be that this whole investment with the russians either stalls or starts going backwards. that says to me a couple of things. one, abominates to do a better job of making sure he has a legislative strategy. that means trying to get more republican by and. if it looks like some kind of dialogue moves forward with ron, why not get james baker or

another republican the try to make this a bipartisan and not democratic effort. finally, i think that one of the big threats to our diplomacy overall is not the daily ups and downs of engagement, but the difficulty that we now faces a country politically. and if we are going to rise to the occasion and fashion and diplomacy that suits the difficulties of engaging adversaries, sees it to the difficulties of dealing with a world in which power is diffusing to new quarters we desperately need to get our own house in order. our strength abroad depends, number one, on our economic vitality and number two on our political will. both of lacking today. both are lagging today in part because we live in a country that is more divided than it has

been for over a century. i think in the aftermath obama has no choice but to attack to the center and try to cobble together a governing coalition's of democrats and republicans. but, let's not be pollyannas about it. it is going to be bloody difficult. that is because the democratic party has just lost a good portion of its moderate constituency and has shifted to the left. the republican party just picked up a lot of folks, but there were in many cases not centrist members, but members for the to the right. the republican party has gone this way. the democratic party has gone that way, and the centrist voters have been left standing in the middle. the bama will tax, appeal to many americans who reside in the center, but he will have neither

the republican party nor the democratic party behind in because neither party establishment today lives in the center of american politics. obama therefore is in a very difficult position. and so my final thought would be in a country where the parties are as far apart as they are, perhaps it behooves us, citizens to rise up and say to our elected officials, we are going to put you in a room, locked the door, not sure we will give you food and water. we are my upset with you, but we don't want you to come out until you have a consensus, a plan to bring down the deficit, to deal with social security, to deal with our problems abroad. i think right now the political establishment is not rising to the occasion. as i said, our strength abroad, our wisdom abroad starts at

home. unless we get the home front fixed up we are certainly not going to be able to meet the challenges that the country faces abroad. thank you. [applause] >> and you. and if you have questions, thanks for coming down. so, come forward and ask her questions. >> yes, i would like to know your take on the recent wikileaks release as far as how it has affected relations throughout the world with our diplomatic relations? >> i think that the trove of

documents that i now floating around in the public demand represents a serious breach of security. they embarrassed the u.s. government because this should not be happening. they embarrassed governments around the world because we have of people magazine have diplomatic cables, who said what to ho, who doesn't like count. i don't believe that we will look back at this as a watershed, and that is because most of what we find in the cables we already knew. we have more color. we have some titillating details, but we don't have any bombshells. and so i don't see this as a time in which the american ship

of state is being knocked off course. i see it as a time when president obama, secretary of state clinton and others need to do a lot of damage repair, damage limitation, and they are doing it. they're getting out and trying to clean up the mess, but i don't see it as something that historians will look back at as a grievous blow to american diplomacy. >> is there some way that you can teach from of international relationships the same type of message is that you're giving so that peace could break out within the united states? [laughter] because about a month ago or two months ago we heard that there is a revival, perhaps, of the wig party representing the center group.

right now people in the center have no place to go. that is not just the people in this from. it is the congress people. they have no center. perhaps international relations, we need a leader, someone who can define the center as a statesman as opposed to a politician. at like your thoughts. >> of very, very good question, and i think an urgent question. i think there are two ways to come at it. one is to suggest that this might be a moment when a dark horse third-party candidate could actually survive in american politics because, as i said, and i think that you agree from the thrust of your

question, there are many americans, and i'll put myself in this bout who feel like we are more or less in the big center of american politics, but that our political system has veered to the extreme. we are sort of out there on a life raft. i'm not quite sure which direction to headed. so you could think about a third party can did it as being able to ride that wave of voters that feel that it does not have a home. i am of little skeptical that will happen simply because it is so difficult for a third party to get traction. part of the reason is that the party system has locked up the financial structure. we live in the world, like it or not, in which campaign finance is the pathway to getting elected. campaign finance system is deeply entrenched in the democratic and republican party, so it is very hard for a

third-party candidate to get his or her. the other would be to find someone from the republican party or from the democratic party who just calls it quits to the war, who rises above the bile and he says, i will make it my business to govern and to fashion a consensus because the american people deserve no less. you know, i think obama aspired to be that person as a candid. that is the message he sent when he said this is not red america, not blue america. this is the united states of america. he got into office and found it was extremely difficult to realize that potential. but i do think that we need a person of the extraordinary potential at this time because, as i said, i think that the

challenge that we face right now are every bit as severe as the were in world war ii in dealing with the soviet union or the missile gap or whenever it was, but we don't have a political system, at least now, that is capable of rising to the occasion as we did earlier. i see it as an urgent, national tasks to fix the political system. otherwise i think we are going to be in trouble. >> interested in your thoughts on the boundary between the united states and mexico, to countries which on the surface appear to be very friendly if you like it cultures that both embrace, but obviously a tremendous tensions exist between the drug issues and immigration issues. is there anything that your studies might reveal that would help untangle that situation? >> well, one of the things that i found in the research.

i did not speak that much about it, but cultural commonality and similar social orders help begin peace. and so the fact that the u.s. found a peaceful border with canada before it found a peaceful border with mexico should not be surprising because there is a greater similarity. and the same argument applies to norway and sweden and to many of the other cases like that. you can build peace across social and cultural boundaries. it's just harder to do. that underlying natural glue is harder to come by. i do think that the u.s. and mexico have succeeded in reaching a stable peace. our border between canada and mexico is guarded, but guarded because of drugs and immigration, not because they

are fearful of mexico geopolitically or vice versa. mexicans rail about the history of american intervention, but there are no mexican troops rating for an american invasion. finding some way to help mexico get control of its pain and drug ridden culture or system and the second is to back to the previous question, get democrats and republicans to come together and fashion as serious immigration bill. probably some combination of tightening the border control and dealing with immigrants who were already here, but finding that compromise is, at least for now, one of the casualties of the political system where two parties continue to move for their part.

>> as we deal with the difficult nations, could you talk of the bit about a unilateral approach verses a multinational approach? >> any particular countries and mine? >> well, i think there was criticism of us initially when we tried to do things supposedly under bush with north korea. it was a unilateral approach, and then we tried a multinational approach. neither one seems to have been very effective. i would like to know your views as to which approach would be most affected generally. >> well, i think that the united states has recovered a certain legitimacy and popularity abroad that it lost during the first bush administration but actually recovered during the second bush a ministration. i mean george w., not george h.

w. there was a significant shift between george w., first and second term on the unilateral verses multilateral. and then to some extent continued the tradition. i think that in negotiating with north korea, and ron, we need a combination of unilateral and multilateral. you need the multilateral because you need other countries to be part of the equation. for example, with ron if we are going to have a carrot and stick , the carrot being engagement and the state being isolation and sanctions we need the international community to stand with us. in general we have got them. sanctions that the u. s, russians, europeans are applying are biting and ron and a way

that they have not, but you also need a unilateral. in the end of the day to ron is scared of the united states. kang yong is scared of the net states. and so if there is going to be a deal on the nuclear issue in either country that ultimately requires an understanding between the united states and the government of iran and north korea that deals with their security issues. that can come only from washington and not from brussels or from moscow or anyone else. that is why i think you need the multilateral and unilateral to be working hand-in-hand. >> you mentioned the number, i think four or five sectors that are very important to break out. i was wondering whether you would -- whether you would comment on what is happening in

europe, which of those factors you mentioned have been in your view especially responsible for peace to break out in europe and where did you see the weaknesses, in other words, what to you expect of europe in the future in terms of immigration? >> well, i think the story of european integration and peace deepening its roots after world war ii was a product of that same kind of story at told. fundamental understanding between france and germany where they settled their disputes and began to bind one another to each other, to the european coal and steel community, concessions over border issues. restraining their power and thereby making the smaller states of europe comfortable with joining the union. and so i think in many respects

the european project is every bit as profound as with the american project, knitting together a union from previously separate states. i worry more about europe and i have at any point since i entered this profession. that is because i think the european projects have begun to stumble in a way that is, perhaps, irreversible. and it is not the era so much that i worry about. i don't think it's going to disappear. at think it's conceivable that ireland or greece or even of larger economy, italy, for example, could temporarily dropped out of the . i don't think that the euro itself will come apart. i do think that what we are seeing beneath the surface of the financial crisis is every nationalization of european politics. politics has been drifting from

brussels backed down to national capitals. the collective spirit of the european enterprise, i think, is in jeopardy. here in the united states we move from a stronger federal government back to the states and from the state to the federal government. always within a certain band. europe has not made it past the point of no return. it is not yet a union that is deep enough to withstand a serious reversal. so i will simply say that the jury is out as to whether this pause in the european project is just yet another time of second-guessing soon to be replaced by the next step toward deeper unions or whether we are actually witnessing a high water mark. and in the years ahead we will see europe began to cycle and reverse. i think that it would be a problem if that happened.

i think the united states desperately needs a collective europe as a partner, but unfortunately the united states has very little ability to affect this process every nationalization that is taking place. >> we are going to take two more questions, first from tom bank men and then the gentleman in the center. >> the process that you have been talking about typically takes a good deal of time and a lot of hard work. we seemed to be faced right now with some very serious problems that don't have that time to deal with. in particular i'm thinking of north korea. what are your suggestions? how would you handle the situation that we face now that is becoming extremely serious in that part of the world? >> i think you are spot on to refer to the timing issue. and it has two different

dimensions. one is the ability of time to work to our adversaries advantage, particularly in a country like iran which minute by minute day-by-day gets closer to being able to enrich uranium to weapons-grade. and, the time cuts against us at home in the sense that political time is to dave measured in seconds and minutes. if we are lucky day because of the 24 hour news cycle, the internet. brown, bump, bump, bump. to pull off a serious episode which an adversary takes 5-10 years. 5-10 years is a century in political time today. it wasn't in 1895 because time moves more slowly. that is why i think it's so important for a bama or whomever is leading this effort to worry

about the domestic landscape. you need to be able to carry political support for something that takes a very long time. on the substance of dealing with north korea and iran, i think we really don't have much choice but to take this two-pronged approach. the threat of containment with north korea and isolation coupled with a willingness to talk and to normalize that they are willing to get rid of their nuclear program in a verifiable way. with a ron i think the same would apply, and i think that many of you may be saying, why are we talking to this regime? this is a big mistake. the bottom line is that if we don't talk to them we know we will not get the diplomatic solution. if we don't get a diplomatic solution we know that there are

two potential outcomes. one potential outcome is and a round with nuclear weapons. that, to my mind, is an ugly and unattractive outcome. the second is an american bombing campaign against chevron that will probably last several weeks and will lead to who knows what. that, in my mind, is also a very bad outcome, and that is why i would leave the door open for dialogue until the top of the hour, and that is because the consequences of diplomatic failure are sufficiently awful to warrant the dialogue. >> i, like you, and concerned about the extremes of our two-party system. if i may, i would like to put you on a time capsule and send you back to the deliberations of the constitution. with your knowledge what changes would you have made these of the limited term limits, the english

system of limited amount of money on election campaigns. would there have been something, a change that might have avoided this? >> i think that the constitution and the structure of the american government was predicated upon the different political ethics. it was predicated upon a deliberative democracy in which there was a sense that people would as a matter of course but the interest of the nation before the interest of the party or the interest of the politician. in that sense the constitution is, today, operating in a very different political environment than the one that was envisioned by the founding fathers. i think that the -- there are

multiple causes of the erection of civility and the erosion of centers and an american politics. i will just tipped off a few of them. you alluded to the money. you know, in congress people spend an enormous amount of their time just raising money. in american politics the centrist reasonable generally nice voter does not have as much influence as the single special interest group that is funding kennett's. and so what happens is that the squeaky wheels are getting heard it and the centrist voters who want to do their jobs and go home and put a piece of fish on the grill are not getting hurt because they are not playing that same game. a game in which fund-raising has become so critical to winning

elective office. the second problem has been the congressional redistricting. districts have been drawn to be generally politically homogeneous. and so when you run for office if 90 percent of your constituency is republican you have no incentive to either government or campaign. 90% of your constituency is democrat, it's exactly the same. i think we need to redraw constituencies so that can't it's have a vested interest in running to the center because that is the only way they can be arrested. right now the opposite has happened. a third problem is the media, the quality or lack thereof. * the lack thereof of news, not even news. it is fistfights on evening

television. i mean, if you watch tonight in the united states you want to find out what's happening in the world, you really don't have many options. you can try to find the bbc and watts the newshour, but there are a lot of options on television. that, i think, as part of the problem. finally, and this is more of a hypothesis than it is anything else. i wonder whether the shift from the industrial age to the digital age is not creating regions of america that are more homogeneous than they used to be. during the industrial age we had to move to the port, river, mind. as a result if you went to new england in 1955 or 1960 and you looked at who newfoundlanders sent to congress you would probably get 60 percent

republican and 50 percent democrat. today it is all democrat. if you go out to the mountain west it is exactly the opposite, almost all republican. to some extent i think what is happening is the country is being regionally segregated and that region and party are starting to come into alignment. the last time that happened in a serious way the 18555 when the missouri compromise collapsed we know what happened in 1860. that ain't good news. so there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about where the country is heading. i will end with an upbeat note and that is, when i travel around whether it is here or the midwest or the mountain west or wherever, most of the people i talk to populate the political center. i think the united states is still generally a centrist

country. maybe as center-right country as opposed to a center left, but most people are in that sweet spot in the center. the problem is that isn't where the parties are. we need to find some way of bringing our political system back in touch with reality. if that happens then i think that we can be confident that we will see a return to centers and and bipartisan that is needed to fix a lot of problems that we have at home which in turn is needed to deal with an international and diplomatic landscape that desperately needs of focused, capable, vital america. thank you. [applause] >> this event was hosted by the national council on world affairs. for more information visit in cwa-fl got org.

>> visit booktv.org to watch any programs to see your on more -- on line. type the author title or search bar and click search. you can share anything you see easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. streaming live on line for 48 hours every weekend. booktv.org. >> we are here at sea-tac talking with ken cameramen. tell us what this is about. >> this is a war novel about the persecuted church and a rock. my narrator is an iraqi christian interpreter his work for special forces and a rock. this came out of my work as a journalist. i spend a lot of time in the north of a rock with persecuted christians. i have done many times to jordan

and lebanon to speak with iraqi christian refugees. i felt as a journalist that message was not getting out. wanted to write a novel that would give them a human side to this story. the christians and raku happen to be the indigenous people that are being forced out. >> we are there, they're people that you met who inspired some characters? >> well, yes. we are calling this a historical model. obviously characters a fictional, but i certainly meant a lot of interpreters. if you wish, a kind of a composite figure. that is, again, i wanted to tell the story of how christians have lived in a rock for generations. there is a love story, i anders syrian woman who comes to rock to find your roots and a story about st. peter's bones themselves, the relics of

st. peter and with a might be such as in a monastery in northern iraq. >> have you done any non-fiction? >> yes. and the author of ten books. the most recent is called shadow warriors, traders conservators' command the party o