prediction now. what's going to happen in the middle east? is the muslim brotherhood going to rise to power? will more extremist islamist groups takeover hijacking these revolutions? or will they move smoothly to a space outcome? my answer is none of the above. what we've seen, however, that should give us hope is that in the last 30 years there has been a major global shift in what happens in the popular revolutions, such as those that took place in egypt and tunisia. up through the 1980's, there were many revolutions against dictators. overthrew in mexico, john in china, cuba, there are many others. with the prevailing vision that intellectuals held was the view of virtually dictator, the way to achieve freedom was to form a

revolutionary party, arm of that party and overthrow the forces of the old regime. unfortunately none of those are the resistance movements as the doctor said led to freedom. the strains of the military campaign, the ruthlessness required to take power to read over and created a ruthless of authoritarian one-party states. since 1986 and the people power revolution of the philippines, we've seen something different happened. the prevailing models, the model of communism in china, cuba or the soviet union, even a model of an islamic republic in iran had lost their appeal. people who want freedom, who want to be free of an intrusive state that mismanage as their economy seizes national wealth and strips away their dignity. people who are striving to

reclaim what they call the normal free life, the last thing they want is to enter a society that looks like iran or the soviet union, and they are aware of that. global communications, the internet, al jazeera, network tv and radio have separate divisions of different societies and the iranian model, the soviet model, the chinese model do not look equally good. the chinese model of the free markets with a firm hand has some appeal especially in parts of the third world struggling to catch up economically. but for people who have just struggled to rid themselves of repressive government, the attractive model is for democracy. is this move will functioning consolidated democracy? at first, no. this time. dr. ackerman spoke of patients. after a revolution that takes five to ten years to be

consolidated and stable what we've seen in georgia and serbia that after dictators have been driven from the scene, the impetus to struggle for work and find a way to maintain democracy to make it work remains strong. dictators in the last 30 years, not in indonesia, not in the case as i've mentioned has led to an ideological extremist authoritarian regime. it doesn't mean that can't ever happen again. but the odds of history suggest that the people of egypt and tunisia will continue struggling towards democracy. there may be backslides to the authoritarianism. there may be episodes of instability. there may be concerns about a rule of law. but it takes time.

even our american and united states struggled under the articles of confederation for a dozen years trying to figure out how to make democracy work. now that we have the constitution in many languages, we have a model when front of us but we shouldn't assume it's a model that translates in all respects. so i'm optimistic but called for patience and seeing what will happen. and i watch like the rest of the world with a society about what might happen in libya or to mention yemen or syria. i am, however, glad to see the tide of democracy finally washing ashore north africa and the middle east. [applause] >> thank you, jack. let me know if there are those of you that can to see the film we have another film that we are showing friday of next week april 29. it's a sneak preview of a pbs documentary that updates mulken

friedman's free to choose with my colleague, johanna nordenberg, hosting and traveling to some of the places friedman did. so look on the web site for that event. now that the open up to questions. be sure to wait until you are called on and a microphone gets to do so that everyone can hear the questions. yes, right here. >> regarding the the military situation in libya, it seems to me that this isn't that difficult. i understood that they perhaps have only 10,000 men under arms and that he already has. does that also mean that a substantial number of the rank-and-file and 7,000 supposedly the rebels have about a thousand people which doesn't seem like much. but that seems like something nato can handle. perhaps the italian army can be

involved, perhaps the foreign legion. what are the chances, the possibilities, the consequences of the sort of thing? >> i wish it were that easy. you're correct that in military terms if we were not concerned about the civilian damage, if we were not concerned about the image among the billion muslims in the world of the western armies invading another muslim country, it was just a matter destroying gadhafi's defensive capability, that could be accomplished. the problem is the boundary between somehow trying to do that, while not creating a massive disruption and resentment of the kind that took place in iraq. we don't -- we want to end the civil war might and libya as soon as possible. we don't want to plunge the country to the greater civil war. as to what is to be done, the good news is that the

scholarship on the civil war suggests they in the either with a victory by one side or another, or a hurting stalemate and which both sides are persuaded that they can't defeat the other and therefore the only way to resolve the situation is through some type of a third party negotiation. i think at this point what nato is trying to do is not become an object of hatred by anyone in libya. they want to be a key player people turn to to settle things one way or the other. they want to create a situation where gadhafi cannot impose his will for what the country, and by treating that type of stalemate i think they hope to open the way for turkey or the gulf cooperation council or someone else to negotiate a solution. there are already kind of rumors of such discussions going on.

gadhafi said they would fight till the last bullet but they will run out of bullets and they will run out of targets as long as nato is able to keep their military forces limited to one half of the country. so i think that is the strategy right now. limited force, minimal civilian casualties, stop the civil war, create a stalemate that leads to negotiations. >> in the back. >> thank you. i'm with the u.s. africa 2017 task force and i am the lead for the special operations division at the carnegie endowment, there was a panel with a british minister for the international development and marina and the former deputy of libya, not deputy come after they finished

talking, i made a statement. i said with all that you have said, do you see an eminent popular uprising against the political class in those countries and in africa? and before i finished i said listen, from what we know, there's going to be an uprising in which the political class. i said what you need to do, what america needs to do is support free and fair elections. [inaudible] get out of libya, don't mess with libya, don't mess with gadhafi, because you are in for a big surprise if you continue with what you're doing. >> i don't think either of our panelists is doing that. [laughter] but if anybody wants to respond, you can. >> let's take another question. >> yes, in the front row there.

>> you mentioned that 27% of the violent revolutions have succeeded, and we now have violent uprisings in libya and yemen. can you distinguish what it was above the 27% exceeded the differentiated them from the remainder that did not? and are there any parallels to yemen or libya crux that is what support other than the fact that the one can be distinguished from the ones that lost? >> we haven't done that study. the purpose of the study if you look at the pamphlet on the international non-violent conflict the study is in there and by the way it is turning into a book called weiss of resistance works which i commend it to all of you. it is a seminal work that is the

debt-ridden. but our purpose was to show that the dynamics create lower probabilities of success than the corresponding on violence. we are forcing -- we didn't do the study to determine why the other 73% were more successful or less successful than the 27. if i may, the reason that there are several reasons why the doubling of probabilities for successful nonviolent resistance exists, it mainly has to do with the staying power. if you are in the process of losing a violent insurrection, you lose my basically having the insurrection small group of people detached from the population be destroyed. and the author terry and has the dilemma not being able to destroy the opposition it seeks obedience from so the civil resistance movement a great deal of staying power because it is limitations on what the authoritarian can do. some commanders and the the

vantage of the civil resistance over armed insurrection, but what about the armed insurrection, the database is pretty small. >> we had 323 conflict and two-thirds were violent, i'm sorry, we didn't do that study. perhaps we should have read in fact i would suggest we maybe should in the future because it might create some interesting conclusions and in fact we had to gain the civil resistance where we inject into the civil resistance movement violent tactics to see with the amex are, and i guess if we are better schooled into what tactics and more successful than others, we might have a more credible way of integrating the to to see how that plays out. so, it is an omission, sorry but it is an omission. >> i'm happy to try to respond to that since i've studied revolutions per my career. i think the answer is the

regime's the fall to both violent resistance and nonviolent resistance are regimes having difficulty holding elite support from a financial or personal reasons to begin with. if you attack a strong unified regime, you generally fail. now the lot of people historic kleeb, revolutionary leaders have believed that power comes from the barrel of a gun. they've chosen military options, they have attacked a strong and unified government and the field. that is unfortunate. and if the use of violence, they are more easily identified and that makes them easier to crash if they are isolated from the population in general. violent groups cannot cause a revolution acting by themselves. the need to be strongly integrated with and supported by the general public.

this is something we learn from the warfare and the don't do the organizational work and they don't do the political work, they won't succeed. now that's also true of nonviolent resistance. nonviolent resistance has simply gained much greater awareness as a tactic that can succeed. in recent years, people have chosen to attack the former rebel government's less often with rifles, recognizing that makes them more visible, more vulnerable and often repel the popular support. but using nonviolent means allows them to gain favorable media attention control the popular support more readily. but the basic conditions need to organize come and get popular support coming you need to attack a government where the connection is between the leader and the supporting pillars that holds in both types of resistance. >> we have a question in the back. go ahead and bring the microphone down here to be ready. >> todd palmer from cato and the

network. i would like to ask the discuss sense to describe what happens after the resistance, mubarak is also pretty much all of the same guy is the first win power but they changed the faces of the top. does their need to be a deep look at the political institutions, and i will address the question to the executive as weekend of the constitution. we had george washington which is one reason why ours has worked pretty well. he stepped down after two terms. most places the chief executive when he's commander-in-chief decides stepping down is not a good idea [inaudible] he said the problem is the system for africa and he supports that it's less likely to lead to 20 years later the same thing is to happen because [inaudible] tire rent in power. do you have any thoughts on whether there should be a

follow-up move to prevent the west minister style space institutions as opposed to the exit of systems in which the president is also the commander in chief for the military? >> may i start? >> for some the conflict in egypt particularly isn't over. many of the participants in the group don't feel it's over. they feel that things are not necessarily going the way that they had hoped. and they've asked us what they should do about that and what i said to them is go back to thinking about the ingredients that led to success in the first place when they are all in place. and that's what i said in my opening remark is if you want to know what happened in egypt in the future, you have to understand the dynamics of how they get to this point. so, in every single nonviolent resistance movement success

depends on three things. the first is the capacity to unify around a vision and organizational structure that would see the leadership to a group of people to respond to. that probably wasn't completed before events overtook and surprised everybody in resistance, so that still needs to be done. there still needs to be a more sharply rendered vision of what the future needs to be. to get by many more groups of diversified by gender, by geography, by whatever is required to get that and i think the tactics that got them their protests have to be diversified and other tactics that are destabilizing so that you can continue pressure on the military elements that might be considered in recalcitrant. of course like keep telling them is that they have to plan every day for the next day and the day

after. they have to come together with a thought about how they're going to mobilize, how they are going to push back, how you're going to integrate their tactics with a larger vision. so these elements of unity and modify what discipline planning, which is the key ingredients at the start are still the key ingredients at this point. i don't know at the end of the day with the final structural solution would be, but i think they are far from that right now. right now the battle was still there. >> there are two keys to resistance turning into a successful regime. one is transforming a social movement into an effective political party. that's not easy to do. a lot of people think the work is done when the social movement has achieved immediate goals. but there's a lot of work that remains in building a party structure that can consolidate those gains. sometimes revolutionary leaders get outflanked by people who are better organizers so we may see

that happen. the critical factor for the long run is the one you point to. whoever becomes the first president of the new egypt whether it is someone else, will say at the end of the constitutionally mandated term-limits step down and peacefully hand over power to whoever succeeded him? this is the george washington nelson mandela moment. it doesn't need to be cared as much a leader who does this but it needs to be a leader that accepts the rule of law and is willing to elevate leaving a democracy behind us more important than his own political power. do we always find that? no. if we don't find it, what happens? two options, one it may degenerate back to the amount of authoritarian and some, or it may require another round of popular protests. my belief is that younger people who have seen the power and learn the method of organizing are not going to go away.

they will be allergic to this risk and if they keep organizing and keep communicating there will be an effective check on the system. >> we have a question right here. >> i'm going to be a little bit critical but while agreeing with the analysis that's gone on in most of the council. first of all, tunisia had the best demographic picture in the muslim world, and fertility has been dropping in every country but palestine for example for decades now because of the reason you felt as the mortality rates drop twice as fast as fertility rates, and then use element of tunisian has to do with the population, not the numbers. they don't have the numbers and tunisia. in terms of the protests there was no -- the most important

protest is for anybody that has run, i doubt anybody remembers that come october 18th, thunderstrike. the tunisian opposition was badly organized as the libyan one so there wasn't the labor movement. a significant was in the south -- >> get to the question. >> what we are seeing is to countries that have had a successful oppression and change of regime. one country in the civil war, defending the chaos. major protests going on and seven with minor but importance. we have 19 countries, all of whom would be on the front page of the news relative to the normal political such region. so i would like the panelists beyond the sort of ingredient for the revolution approach and beyond the sort of tactic for the regime change approach to think about this world

historical moment, this wave of change and you were just getting at it right now. and how looking at we should be on the right side of history. >> welcome you point to a very happy trend i'm glad to discuss and that is the number of countries in the world that have some form of space government has been rising steadily. it's a strong global trend as the fall and mortality in the fall when fertility. the only exception was during the period of the great depression in the thirties we had a rise of fascism. but since then we've seen an uninterrupted expansion of democracy and in a sense, you could say north africa and the middle east, middle-income countries, growing educated youths way behind the rest of the world even behind sub-saharan africa, and it was overdue for there to be some type of the space movement and reform. i think that's right but the other factors i mentioned help

explain why it can together now. i will say this about to nisha. tunisia the fertility dropped 20 years ago and so the number of under 20 is the lowest of any arab country that actually gives them good prospects for democracy because they have not quite as much volatility but the engine number of youth and to nisha, 20 to 24 is about two or 3% lower than the other countries, may be 10% lower than yemen but still relatively high. this is a youthful region. >> okay. we have time for to more questions. we are going to take one there and one here. >> yes. i think using the terminology dictator and popular movement is a bit misleading. according to caroline dhaka, there's a number of ships that were unexpected and then they went to sierra and not long after there were missile attacks. also in the mediterranean is the shortest route from the east

coast of the united states. you have to go out of the suez canal. there's no other way and that is near yemen, and also the supertankers. the oil tankers to the suez canal and the somali pirates according to have about c fair hostage. can you talk about the impact on the national issues such as shipping, oil, u.s. support of the military and the defense of israel? >> i'd like to just step back with this question and leave that to you. >> the work we do is not about tactics. it's about linking tactics into a strategy and the importance of developing a strategic theory. as a skill based activity that might occur under any set of conditions, and that in fact you can take two steps of conditions and get different results and the difference is based on the fact one group is working with greater skill than another so i

just want to add that clarification, but i will leave that question if i can to you. .. in the world as a whole has changed. we are going to find out whether, in fact, a democracy can take root in the middle east and that's going to church implications from saudi arabia and iran to oman and barackdec although it will take a decadeke or two to play out. are i think the questions you raise are very important, but even the the issues of trade through the canal, where the pirates will bi controlled, all of this is parte of the bigger question of whatu

type of governance structure is going to replace the monarchiess and dictatorships that havemidda prevailed in thes middle east fr year the last 30 just. are we goinge to see popular movements? if so, are they going to align with the east? west? independent? and how well will they control their borders? all of those are questions we can't answer yet. >> all right. last question right here. >> my major question is who gives a damn? it seems to me what you have been talking about is changing the political structure of nation. if you leave power in a centralized format, which neither of you have addressed, if you are a military dictatorship, use the existing structure, coup d'etat model, and civil society, you want to remain in power.

after it's over, who cares? market economies and other forces can disperse power, all democracy does is disperse political power. political power is the danger, not whether it's exercised by the mob or dictator. at least that's what i believed in at cato. >> i think to you want to talk about, fred, the prospect of property rights, i think as a result of the civil resistance, the advancement of property rights which is something i know is a concern in my opinion will be much, much higher than it was on mubarak. nobody had admit they had in property. you couldn't get contracts. there was no mortgage market. let's see what happens when we play out what a secular government looks like and open to the rule of law and property rights. then we can see whether we give a damn or not. i personally do give a damn. i'll see what the professor says. >> let me give you two anecdotes of people who are care and

directly affected by this. i teach a course on democratic. i had a student from lebanon. the key point i tell my students, it's a mistake to think of democracy simply as electoral competition for power. if all it is in people choosing which nastier, corrupt party steals from them, it's not a serious choice. what democracy is about is really a way of holding government's accountable and protect human rights and market choices that allow people to realize their control. the student from lebanon said, you know, i never understand that democracy was about human rights and freedom. it's that thought that was penetrating into the middle now. i see this in the second anecdote. which is a person in syria who was interviewed just in the last week who said we went out in the streets to shout. that's all we felt we could do. as more and more people joined us and as you start shouting, i

started to feel for the first time like a real syrian who matters. a citizen of my country who had a voice. those are messages of democracy that are very different than, you know, your concern. now there's always a risk that democracy can be taken over. but the people who are making these revolts and organizing and taking the risks, they have vision of freedom, self- realization, government, and citizen accountability. that's what their target is. that's what they are shooting for. >> thank you, jack goldstone, thank you peter ackerman, we should probably do the event in a few months. i suspect there will be more to say. now let's go upstairs and have a glass of wine. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> live picture from the u.s. institute of peace this morning. they are hosting a discussion on pakistan's security forces. "the associated press" reported recently the presidents administration is negotiating a possible reduction in u.s. intelligence operatives and special operations officers in pakistan as the two countries are trying to mend relations that were badly strained. [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> we're waiting for the start of this discussion on a look at pakistan's security forces that is taking place this one at the u.s. institute of peace. we are just a couple of minutes away from this getting under way. live coverage when it starts you on c-span2. president obama this morning would be kicking off a series of town hall meetings on the deficit. you'll be in northern virginia

at 10:15 a.m. eastern. he will later talk at the white house about immigration reform. former california governor arnold schwarzenegger, the mayors of new york and san antonio and philadelphia police commissioners are among those expected. live coverage of the starting at 10:15 a.m. eastern on c-span. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everybody. we're going to get started. thank you all very much for coming. my name is bob perito, i'm the director of the center for security sector governance here at usip. this is a big event for us.

this is the first meeting of the security governance working group at our new headquarters building here. we've been in the building for about a month now, and this is an amazing place to work. it's also a difficult place to work because there is that you out of every window and it's somewhat hard to concentrate. you know, when you look out -- there is. anyway, the building was designed by a canadian architect. it was built by a combination of public and private funds. when you go out you will notice the building has multiple functions. the ground level in the basement level will soon be functioning as a public exhibit on peacemaking. and the public will be able to come in, to are the building much like a museum. the floor we are on now is a conference center and the upper floors are for the institutes offices.

there is a publication on the table outside, which talks a little more about the building itself and about the institute. so if you want to learn more you can pick up that publication. this morning's conference is one of a series of public forums which the security sector government center has been running on this topic. too often i think the focus is on the operational forces, on the military, on the police, what is the army doing, what are the cops up to? little attention is paid to the governance structures, the ministries of defense and interior that supervise those forces, provide for them and look after them. in the past, the center has looked at the issue of security sector governance in iraq and afghanistan. later, this spring we will host a major international conference on the role of the ministry of defense and interior in the transition states of north africa and the middle east. this is also one of a number of

events that the u.s. institute of peace has run on pakistan. since january this is our fifth public forum on the critical foreign policy and national security issues that are opposed by the u.s. and pakistan relationship. i think this level of attention is justified because the importance of the u.s.-pakistan relationship really cannot be overstated. as part of the institutes continued effort to increase u.s. understanding of pakistan, this morning we will examine the topic of security sector governance and we will look at the roles of the defense and interior ministries in pakistan and the issue of civilian oversight in control of pakistan's military and police forces and its nuclear arsenal. usip has a number of programs that are ongoing in pakistan in the publication on the table outside again, pakistan and if you want to read more about what the united states institute of

peace is doing in that country, you can pick up this publication. today's program is also time to because it comes only a few days after a successful visit to afghanistan, pakistan's prime minister and army chief of staff. the statements made by prime minister and president karzai with that visit marked a significant change in tone and signaled the possibility that a reproach between those countries might be possible. cooperation between pakistan and afghanistan india with their common security challenges really again cannot be overstated. the train is going to accomplish its own objectives in the region. now, to discuss the role of the security sector in pakistan we have brought together a group of very distinguished experts this morning. you have their biographies and handouts so i won't take time for introductions. i would only express my sincere

appreciation that they are with us this morning, and i'll introduce them in which the order they speak. our first speaker this morning will be shuja nawaz, the director of the south asian center at "the atlantic" council. he will be followed by hassan abbas, the quaid-i-azam professor, i do that, didn't i? [laughter] the quaid-i-azam professor at the south asian institute at columbia university. we rehearsed this over coffee this morning, and i knew i was going to blow it, and i apologize. but there's a long-standing, there's a lot of columbia university types here and i have to that, i'm an alumni of columbia university so it's nice to be present among former and later classmates. and, finally, the resident of south asia adviser of the united states institute of peace, moeed yusuf, who is with us and will speak last, our cleanup hitter.

and i want to thank them personally for all of the support that he has given to make this program possible. so without further introductions, let's get started. >> thank you, bob. thank you very much, bob. it's a pleasure and an honor to be your. this is the first public event i've been to add the new building, and i must say it's quite spectacular, and i can understand why you are distracted from your daily work with this magnificent light coming in all the time. well, i was asked to shed some light on this topic, and let me start off with a little bit of a downer by saying pakistan today

has a very dysfunctional policy. it is an accumulation of decades of action and inaction that has led to a very sharp division between the military and the civil in the various areas of influence and interest. and a lack of public participation in formulating national policy. i say this because pakistan today also has a tremendous outgrowth of media, and emerging civil society that has shown its strength in exercising its rights as well as expressing its views. most recently in the theater of present no share in the waning days when he took some missteps in dealing with the chief justice and removed him summarily. it was a civil society movement

that forced his government to change course and to reinstate the chief justice of the supreme court. first time that something like this had happened in pakistan without there being a coup. and so it was a very different from previous situations in the country's history. the dysfunctional policy that i referred to means that the civil and the military are essentially on parallel tracks on many issues. and this is largely an inheritance of pakistan's history. where we have had three fairly extensive use of military rule, as well as civilian autocratic rule, which basically inherit all the autocratic powers and centralize controls other preceding military rulers, and then failed to establish the

kind of political base that they need in order to continue civilian government in pakistan. so we have this kind of yo-yo effect were a military government comes, stays and promises to be there, to hold elections and to exit, fails to do so, stays for a decade, then the civilians come in and because the military will have stunted everything, including the civil administration, the bureaucracy over time, there is no superstructure to hold up the rule. and it becomes only and a segway to the next military rule. now, interestingly, since 2008, the current army chief has publicly declared that he wants to keep the military out of politics. and i have to remind everyone that previous army chiefs have said exactly the same thing. and then conditions change and the public basically clambers

for some kind of order and stability in the name of order and stability, the military does quote unquote its duty. so that possibility remains, but until now at least there has been a clear-cut statement, and until now decision taken by the army chief where he has taken up kind of a public backseat as it were and has not come out in the public with many views, except on chosen occasions to achieve certain specific results. the constitutional arrangements also are worth remembering. pakistan's 1973 constitution actually has a section dealing with the function of the armed forces. this is article ii 45. under article ii 45, the civilian government has covered

all across the world, has the right to call in the military in eight of civil authority. and when it does that, then that article refers to another article of the constitution which is article 199. which basically says that anything and everything that military does cannot be challenged in the high court of the land. and so this is kind of a blanket immunity from all legal actions, resulting from any action that the military would take in pursuit of assisting civil. now periodically there has been debate and discussion within pakistan on this issue. a very loud public debate ensued in the 1990s when the general was the army chief and was requested by the government of

the prime minister to mount an operation in the province. and he said that he would not proceed until and unless he was given cover under article 245. and as result, that action was postponed and then when the army did act, it acted on being requisitioned by the government. interestingly, the current situation is interesting because 245 has never been mentioned, has not been mentioned by the newspapers, it's not been mentioned by the government. it's not been mentioned by the military. however, moving into the fight against the military especially in the northwest of pakistan, the pakistan army sought and received a requisitioned from the provincial government. and this indicates to me a

desire to allow the civilians to lead and to call the shots, as far as the actual orders are given to the military. to contrast that with the attempt at reaching some kind of a national consensus on the fight against militancy in pakistan today. you may recall that the early days of this current government, there was an attempt made to get a joint resolution of the parliament to fight terrorism inside pakistan. and it took a lot of cajoling and arm twisting, particularly on the part of the military authorities behind the scenes from all reports the isi played a role in convincing people that it was important for them to sign up to this, even if they disagreed politically with the government of today. and in the event all the parties managed to sort out their

differences and they produce a joint resolution, but when the follow-up occurred they basically ceded all powers to the army chief, the site and what to do and how to do it in the area in spite of the fact that martial law had not been declared in the northwest frontier province, nor in fontenot at the time. said at a kind of interesting legal situation with the military was in civil part, also in aid of u.s. efforts, but there was no martial law declared and the civilian government continued to muddle through on the side, sidelines, but did not have controlling hand on the tiller. it was only much later and in the last few years that an emergence of the political

representative of the president, the governor, the civilian government of the province which is led by the army national authority, and the co-commander based where they have what they call the meetings of the apex group, regulate try to sort out their plans and ideas and differences. but this is not something that was plan. this is something that emerged over time. and, indeed, the recent counterinsurgency, conflict, call it what you will, operations -- operation show the widening gap between the civil and military on decision-making. the military now has in my view a much wider songs -- stance on pakistan. it was understood particularly after the general was in power in pakistan, that the military

had a very direct influence and control over certain aspects of policy. one was india slashed kashmir. the other was a policy because at that time pakistan was assisting in the war against the soviet occupation. the third emerged during the period which was new care policy. and eventually control of the nuclear efforts, and then, of course, throughout pakistan's history the relationship with the united states because the united states has been a partner on and off of the pakistan military ever since the 1950s. so the army, particularly being the largest of the three military services, has had a very powerful relationship with the united states, wants to continue to influence government policy on that relationship. that continues, so the army has that wide stance on these

policies. increasingly though, from recent trips to pakistan, my understanding is that now the army is also becoming extremely interested in economic management. there are two very good reasons for that. one is the failure of civilian administration to be able to muster the political support for very critical economic reforms that would sustain pakistan's economy on a stable development and growth model. their failure to come up with measures that would stick, and their failure to muster support, even within their own party, let alone bring in other parties, the opposition, to resolve some of the structural problems of the economy has created a situation which is going to put pakistan on the part -- the path of economic destruction and things are not changed in the

near future. so, the army now has started taking cognizance of this for the simple reason that the army will suffer in the economic, by the rule of the army and its operations that its costs have increased, and it cannot function unless there is support for it within pakistan to the economy. it cannot rely entirely on foreign assistance, and given the debate going on in the united states, i think the debate -- the days of unfettered u.s. budget assistance or even the coalition support are likely to be numbered. secondly, the army itself is a very major economic actor in pakistan. over time, the military has in order to support its own people as well as look out for its retirees, has created a fairly

large impression on pakistan's economic landscape. it is involved in different activities such as real estate, banking, human conflicts, and in addition the army has a very large military production complex which has been following a policy of import substitution. now, for those of us who have had encounters with economics import substitution, is normally followed by countries when they will lose their ability to produce for their own selves, because imports will become prohibitive or they will be sanctions, imposed on them at some point which will prevent them from rely on foreign suppliers, particularly for the military. so as a substitute for imports,

use are producing things yourself. well, pakistan has over time in involved in imports on a fairly large scale. in order to be able to resist the pressures from overseas, when it differs with particularly with major suppliers, and there are some good reasons for pakistan to be paranoid about this because, over time they have had a number of allies renege on promises of giving them technology. there was a famous case during the presidency days with france will and the plug on the transfer of nuclear technology, under pressure from the u.s. and other western authorities. so that kind of narrative runs deep in pakistan and we. and as a result, they have a very expensive import substitution defense sector. and that is going to add to their costs.

just one example given by a former head of the factories, was give you an indication of how these costs can be enormous. he told me that one washer for the g3 which is a standard rifle for the pakistan army, costs five rupees to import from malaysia your yet it costs 25 rupees to produce inside pakistan. but because they want to be independent, they produce it domestically. i don't think that all the other orders of magnitude are of this nature, but these are all enormous cost here and if the economy starts to tank, the government as well as foreign assistance will not be able to sustain the military at its current level, nor be able to support its wider activities throughout the country. so, the question was raised what is the relationship?

who controls the security? at the moment it's the military that controls the security apparatus and even the ministry of defense has been ceded to the military, because the secretary of the military of defense, ministry of defense is a retired general. many retired officers populate the ministry of defense. this was in some ways a surrender by the civilian authorities to the military at the very outset of civilian rule. and they basically lost the high ground where they could actually try to reestablish civilian supremacy, and failed to do so. despite the fact that general kayani had asked for all of the officers that are being inducted into the civilian government positions by president musharraf to either resign or return to the military. now, what to expect for the future? i think for the near term, and near-term i mean the next three

to five years perhaps, there will be increasing military influence. and that is because of the conditions inside the country, the economy is not going to be improving very rapidly very soon. the political system i is in kid of a stalemate. there will be elections in a couple of years, maybe sooner. it's not likely the election is not likely to produce a very powerful civilian government with a strong mandate. so the strongest political, economic institution in the country will remain the military in pakistan. but i also see much penetration of the military in this administration, given the current policies of the current army chief who now has another three years in his tenure. and if that continues i think it offers a great opportunity for the civilian establishment, whether it is this government or

the successor to start to take back some of those responsibilities. something that my conversations with senior military people indicate military would favor, they are almost dying for somebody to step up and take responsibility so that they can go back to being soldiers. that is the normal tendency of most militaries. however, if nobody steps up to the plate, then we will continue to see a very powerful military influence and we will continue to be discussing this five years from now. thank you. >> thank you very much. it's a great pleasure and an honor to be here. if i'm asked the very basic question, who controls pakistan's security forces, my

short answer will be i don't know exactly who, but there are so many forces and perhaps everyone wants to control it. internally, and i would argue also extremely. there aren't many exemptions. assumption. when we talk with reference to pakistan, our first idea that comes to our mind is pakistan military. the armed forces. the history of military coups. we know how much influence pakistan military and pakistani intelligence perhaps also has on decision-making processes even with democracy. but often in this analysis, we forget about international norms. just look at about the influence of a democracy of defense and the united states. thinking about the influence of military, these other countries in terms of their impact, their

feedback, and there in chechens to what the defense policy should be. yes, the big issue is who has the final. and in any democracy of course it should be a civilian leadership. but i just want to also write in the beginning, challenge some of the very basic perceptions and assumptions that we have. that by definition and by some structural reasons that security forces including police and law enforcement and the military lies outside the control of pakistan's mainstream political process. in my assessment that is not true. how and why, i'm going to go into some details in the next 10, 15 minutes, first i think as the focus of this panel is on some of the structural issues. u..

>> by that we mean prison, by that we -- police, by that we mean rangers deployed in karachi, by that we mean federal informations agency -- investigations agency in biggest parts of the country. by that we mean security force, by that we mean frontier constabulary. there is a set of civilian law enforcement institutions, so that is one structure. that primarily comes under the control and command of ministry

of interior if you want any more details, there was recently my report published by usaid which talks about all these different elements of civilian law enforcement infrastructure, so that is one component of infrastructure. the second component which in some ways is a part, a subsect of this first, but also separate which is paramilitary forces. so in the first structure i talk about the four large civilian police institutions in four provinces because in pakistan police and law enforcement and law and order is a provincial subject which means it is ultimately inspector general of police in a province, punjab or baluchistan. he's not responsible to the frontier in the center. the chief of police of a province responds to the chief executive, elected chief

executive of a province, so that is one. the second is in between police and, on the other side, armed forces. in between the paramilitary forces, frontier rangers. here, yes, they respond according to the constitution directly, they respond and are responsible and accountable to ministry of interior. but, in effect, they are led by senior serving army officers, major generals. though they technically, legally respond to the minister for interior or to respective chief executives in certain circumstances, but the in terms of the job requirements, in terms of their carriers prospects, in terms of their decorum, in terms of the rules of enagement they respond in many ways to the army chief or the military leadership because, after all, their postings as score commanders are dependent on the military chief.

so this is paramilitary force which is somewhere in between civilian police structure on one side and the military on the other side. who controls all these three segments is a long discussion. of course, the police one is, in some ways, very clearly it works under the executive chief of a province. and in some ways the prime minister as well. more so -- this is the police/civilian law enforcement structure works under any elected political government in islamabad or in provincial headquarters. for the frontier corps and rangers, it's a mixed control which creates problems also. and the third, the pakistan military. yes, pakistan has ministers for defense. they are normally -- i don't want to use good for nothing, but they're normally those senior politicians who have very little say in defense policy, or i doubt -- and i can't think of

any time where the chief of army or the chief of navy or the chief of air force ever visited ministry of defense because that's partly not in the cultural context, partly, also, because the military coups had established the role of army. it's the ministry of defense in reality is just a post office where whenever there's budget issues, whenever there's training issues, whenever there's visas, clearances that need to go out, they just call for aid between the civilian government and the military. but you see that the armed forces are completely -- to say that the armed forces are completely independent in any way and they just decide on their own many of these central issues that that'll be -- that is not true. yes, they have a certain influence. the military commanders take over the country through martial law, that is, altogether, a different ball game.

it creates a new institutional framework. but whenever a democracy which is the case presently, on many issues -- maybe, yes, not on afghanistan, maybe not on process on india -- but by and large for training reasons, budget reasons, pakistan navy and air force, they work absolutely, they function under the ministry of defense. yes, minister for defense, as i mentioned, may not be very powerful, but the prime minister and president to a great extent are. but i want to jump from here to do a different question. and the question is, if this control is lacking -- and we know it is, it's, after all, well coordinated. i mean, these things that i mentioned keeping those in sight for a second, we very well know there's absolutely poor coordination. no cohesion. what is or what are the primary reasons for that lack of

cohesion in the security forces in the country? after all, why, for example, armed forces have a separate -- [inaudible] they have an excellent web site. i think they are very professional. but why one pillar of the state or one important institution of the country will have a different, independent view. that's an organizal issue. i -- organizational issue. i doubt the ministry of defense has ever dealt with this issue in any, in any detail whether this issue was taken up between the prime minister, the president and even the army chief. but this explains something because in many cases you would see ministry of information which is responsible as spokesperson for the state which represents all the three armed forces institutions that their policy or their assessment on a certain thing differs. and this is very clear an issue

of lack of cohesion. so why is there that lack of cohesion? i think two very basic reasons, and i'm sure all of you know if you think you know that very well. number one, of course, these constitutional interruptions. and my argument, of course, is if political process would have continued, things would have been much more in order in their place. and pakistan in its 60 years of history has shown that whenever the democratic process continued, yes, military once in a while will have its independent position, but by and large you see that the whole system, the military, the defense department or the pakistani political leadership ultimately two, three, four years they started to work more closely together. this visit by the prime minister of pakistan to kabul along with army chief and the isi chief is one example of that. i think increasingly -- it took

them two or three years -- but increasingly the political and military leadership of pakistan is coming to one larger position. one hopes that will also be the case when it comes to the policy towards india. my argument is, the way i'm developing my case, i am saying this will happen. don't expect that it will happen on the first day. two examples are very relevant here. one is in 2008 when this return to democracy was happening in pakistan, and i know this from having listened from the topmost political leaders of the country, the understanding was, yes, democracy's returning to the country, but for territory issues, for security issues. it should be a new department of sorts, maybe something like homeland security. but that will be led by pakistan army chief. i heard it at that time, and this was -- now, i'm not sure it

was on record, so let me reframe it. [laughter] the view in the political leadership of the country was that the war on terror should be led by pakistan military, and if there is even a civilian institution in the name, whatever new name they would have given which has police, frontier and military, that should be led by the military. when purely as a political scientist i would argue in any democracy that should not be the case, the leadership for any counterterrorism issue, for any defense issue should always be -- [inaudible] but in this case pakistan leadership also realized that the kind of challenges they're facing in terms of urgency, in terms of religious freedom and militancy in the tribal areas, it was only military who could do that. that was not an ideal situation, that was not an ideal thing, but that was the plan.

somehow i think it fizzled out. the second example is about initially after 2008 when pakistan's political government decided that they, the isi, the interservices intelligence -- famous or infamous -- that they wanted to bring it under civilian control. the problem was the way they did it was highly ill-advised. you just cannot do it overnight by just one stroke of pen giving one deck declaration or decision that from tomorrow onwards the isi will function under the ministry of interior. army was offended, and they made the point within 24 hours that decision was averted. the reason i mention is the allies in the washington, d.c. were also aware of this. whosoever advised this to the president at that time what was

very, was not aware of the current real estates. -- realities. things move in pakistan especially when it comes to distribution of power and in terms of these institutional rivalries. it takes time. continuation of democracy and more accountability for any intelligence service in a longish process where you bring the intelligence officials in front of committees in the parliament where people are also becoming more open to respond to how intelligence agencies operate. that would have been the best way. so coming back to this, these are the kind of challenges we are facing. that basic question, why these security forces apparently and in reality also to a great extent work in different ways at times. it will see in different directions as well primarily because of constitutional

interruptions. and secondly, because of the lack of rule of law. it is very instructive, it is very insightful that the chief justice of the supreme court of pakistan just yesterday while talking to senior army officers said it categorically, army has absolutely nothing to do with the policy of the state and whether that will be listened to or not, but it brings more pressure on the military government. i think i have a couple of minuteses or i've run out of time? >> that's fine. >> just to conclude, to try to make sense of these four or five larger issues. as i had mentioned, as you said there are tracks for this police, for this paramilitary force and for pakistan military. but what will be the way forward? how will these three different pillars of the state will act in more harmony? again, based on what i have said

at my argument except constitutionalism and rule of law there's no way out. even if we acknowledge and recognize that on issues, for example -- [inaudible] the general reality and general perception is that it's pakistan military which is putting it foot down. we are not going to go into north waziristan. we will go there at the time of our choosing, the argument is because we don't want everyone -- we don't want to open every conflict theater. the other ideas about this issues are pakistan, of course, has some favorites whether haqqani or other groups in that area who are kept in the loop from a long-term perspective. but what i know and based on my interviews i feel that in pakistan the president and the prime minister and the political government apparently also is not only fully, not only fully agree to this position by the

military because they know it is only military which is there. and the military-civil relationship will be dependent on financial issues, on budget issues. so military, ultimately, is dependent on two things. irrespective of how much independent they want to be, irrespective of the fact that other than even the territorial boundaries they claim that they have a right to have, to defend the ideological boundaries as well which is a very, very problematic concept. and one would have thought that the whole idea, the whole concept was buried with -- [inaudible] apparently, it is not. although the present leadership of pakistan military is quite progressive and, second in many ways at least a couple of times probably mistakenly, probably because that was in the mindset but even from the senior most military leaders that we are also responsible for the

ideological boundaries of pakistan. the statement was given, perhaps i would argue mistakenly, but coming back to the main team. civilian and military leadership will automatically come closer to each other with the continuation of the democratic process. and that has already started happening. because, ultimately, military is hugely dependent on budget. yes, at this point it may not be openly discussed in the parliament how much budget a certain sector of pakistan military or defense will get, but increasingly this is being talked about. open, the media is open. just look at the, how the whole issue of raymond davis controversy was covered in pakistan. every mainstream media very openly, strongly hinted at the role of the military. and they said whenever, ultimately, the army decided that raymond davis has to be released. it was their decision, they had to manage it. it was an open critique.

army now has more adjusted to this open criticism among the public. so there are these kind of pressures, political pressure in terms of budget, public pressure and the statements from judiciary. i'm convinced that general haqqani and his top commanders have absolutely no intention of running the state or conducting a military coup. they have no such design, i'm pretty clear on this. but let's say for the sake of argument if any general has, it is now much, much more difficult to do that. so i would say this is because of continuation of democracy and the additional fact or of -- factor of rule of law. just very briefly, so what is the way forward? i believe there should be no culture of extensions. i think that is a very bad precedent. i don't know who came up with the idea, who agreed to it, who proposed it, but that even from a very professional point of view within the armed forces, that is a problematic thing to

create this precedent of extensions. just two more points. about this need for a new civilian institution to take care of the civilian law enforcement side. and that i'm not going into any detail because i've dealt with that in one of my recent papers. if pakistani police, the fia, the other local investigation agencies will all be under one umbrella, it will help them coordinate their work with military on one side and with the civilian political leadership on the other. and last but not least i think this is worth emphasizing, all of this might come into play. we should not look at history and say that just because it happened previously that military put it foot down and enforced it decisions on the policy about india, afghanistan, that that is going to happen again. pakistan is a much different country in 2011 than even 2005

or 2006. but even in this context without the continuation of democracy these things, these institutions, these security forces, none of them will be able to manage pakistan. the continuation of democracy is the only way forward to bring a certain harmony into this institutional framework. thank you very much. >> thanks very much. moeed? >> [inaudible] >> yes, please. >> thank you. thank you, bob. and thank you for putting this together. let me, also, dispel any ideas that i had anything to do with this. he's the man who should get all the credit. he was kind enough to mention my name. let me follow up from what has been said already. agree with some of it and, perhaps, add a little bit more to what has been said.

but i want to start with a disclaimer. and the disclaimer is that if we want to look at pakistan's civil-military dynamic and control of the security sector from a u.s. benchmark or from this ideal, normative benchmark, i would argue pakistan would fail on pretty much every count. and it would be a fairly useless exercise. so what we have to do is really get into the pakistani context and then understand how things are operating and what direction things are moving in at present. and that's what i'll try to do in the time that i have. it's critical, i think, to understand that peculiar nature of the pakistani policy in some ways. the civilian and the military dimensions as has been mentioned often run parallel to each other rather than in tandem with each

other. the disconnect between the civil and the military is well known, and the fact that there's an anomalous relationship, you know, tons has been written about this. the reasons are deep, they go back to pakistan's independence and how things moved in the first decade of pakistan's history. i won't go into that. but suffice it to say that there is a major civil-military disconnect. which continues to persist in pakistan. if you look at how literature on this issue is presented, you'll always find this civil versus military. very, very rarely do you find the two mentioned as partners. now, i think that's an exaggeration, but it does tell you the mindset of the pakistani writer or analyst when they're writing. that's how they see the policy

develop. the second thing i think we have to understand is the pakistan army's mindset if you want to see how things in the security sector function in pakistan. and the mindset, i would argue, resembles the turkish military in a lot of ways. if any of you are more familiar with that. it's an early which sees its ultimate task as defense of its borders, but also sees itself as the ultimate arbiter of national interest. again, there are a number of deep-rooted reasons for that; how pakistan developed, what the situation was, how the civilians acted, what the military saw its role and, not least, the environment pakistan existed in. and here i would, of course, point to the external dimension which is india. if there's one element which has driven pakistani minds over the past 63 years, it is the

external threat that emanates from india. and that's varied over time, but that certainly has remained consistent in terms of the pakistani thinking as a nation. because india is the connection here and that is why the military, you know, has taken up this position that it has, it has had a major say in foreign policy on india and regionally in general. now, again, from a u.s. benchmark or from any international benchmark that's probably not optimal. but if you get into how the pakistani military's operated, how the civilians have operated, the environment and the fact that pakistan has seen 30 years of military rule, it's not difficult to understand how and why the pakistani military exercises influence over the country's foreign policy.

and, again, india remains the moniker here. now, let me also make a point here that military and military dictators are not the same thing. too often we seem to look at pakistani military rulers as the institution of the military. not so. interestingly, the institution of the military in all three periods of military rule is as upset as the fact that the military is being put into a political position as anybody else in pakistan is. so an average military soldier certainlies has nothing to do -- certainly has nothing to do with the fact that the president of the country at that time happens to be a military ruler. so i think that distinction is important. but that said, i think it's

fairly obvious that in the security realm in terms of military defense decisions, the military has had much more influence than you would have in an average country. and the civilians, perhaps, have been on the back foot. as has been mentioned by the other two speakers, the ministry of defense is largely irrelevant to the way the security apparatus functions. i would challenge you to raise hands in how many of you actually know the name of the pakistani defense min -- minister. say something. and, again, you know, this is not about finger pointing, but to make the fact that the ministry of defense necessarily does not play the role that dod would in this country. the services are more important in be pakistan's case. -- in pakistan's case. now, let me also give you the other side of the army's thinking. which is, and i'm making up this word. you won't find it in the

dictionary, but it's a constitutionalized army. unlike many other armies, it's not a fractionalized army, it is not an army that would willingly go out of its way and make a point to undermine the constitution and law of the land. now, the exceptions are, of course, there, and there's a military coup that happens. but in general the army, actually, from my understanding takes pride in the fact that it will still remain part of the legal framework of pakistan and work within that. so it has a very civilized dimension to this. you won't find an army chief get up, make a public statement and say i don't care what experts are saying, i'll do what i feel like. that would never happen. the institution of the army if you look at how they're brought up, the law, the framework of law is very much part of their -- [inaudible] and this comes directly from, i

would argue, british india and the tradition that the british left. and i think that's also one of the reasons that the army has remained as coherent, as professional and as organized as it has. because it truly from an army, from a military perspective truly believes that it is the ultimate savior of pakistan against external and internal threats. in their mind while i think i completely agree that the military has now, you know, has a major economic interest in the country, for a military mind if you talk to them, they would sincerely convince you even today, i think, that they're really here to defend this country and save it from all others. this is not about making money. unlike many other militaries which i could point to which did this. and so there's an interesting dichotomy here. the military remains the most influential and very important in a number of ways, and yet it

works through the system. so traditionally, pakistan has not had any debate on the defense budget. but pressure did come on the military, and now there is some start. it used to be a one-liner, and i think for the last two years there's been a debate on the defense budget in the parliament. the military, interestingly, goes through the ministry of finance to get its budget approved every year, and almost every time there are hidden negotiations, and they get left in what they ask for. now, classic military in this country and everywhere else, perhaps, you ask much more than you need, and you get what you want. perhaps. but the point is, it works through the legal mechanism. i've not heard of any instance of the military going to the ministry of finance and saying this is the amount we need, and we need it tomorrow. in fact, very interestingly, the military has only received a share of what was intended for the military through the aid

that has come in to pakistan post-9/11. it has received less than what it quote-unquote was supposed to. now, let me make one exception here to this idea of working through the law. even there i would argue they worked through the law, and it's a constitutionalized army even in that outlook, but perhaps the patience level is lowest when it comes to one question. and that is foreign policy dealing with india. there the military has extended and tried to have more influence than usual. that is not to say that the civilians still don't have the say, or it doesn't work through the civilians. but there was one exception which i think to my mind was the low point in terms of civil-military relations in pakistan, and that was the cargill episode when there was a major rupture in some ways, and the legacy still continues where

the army chief has one perspective on why pakistan went into cargill, the prime minister has a very different perspective, and it was brought out in the open and became ugly which is unlike pakistan in its history. now, let me adhere that the civilians have done themselves absolutely no favors if idea is to balance the civil-military equation. number one, there is no expertise to speak of in the political parties of the civilians on security matters. and i speak as a political scientist here. but if you have a status quo power, let's just term it that for the sake of argument, the military, how do you usurp some of the space that the military has? you do it by informed analysis, arguments, opinions. there's absolutely nothing of ha in the civilian -- of that in the civilian sector. to the point that i have a

conversation with them, after five minutes they say do whatever you say, i have no idea what you're talking about. and that is one fundamental problem. this topic was part of my dissertation, and what i found was when civilians did challenge the military on specific issues, foreign affairs or politicians, the military did back off. so, again, it's a constitutionalized military in that sense, if i may use that term again. then, of course, traditionally there has been absolutely no consensus on democracy as the only mechanism to rule pakistan through. even the politicians, very interestingly, in the '90 this happened very frequently, went to the military and asked the military to help them kick out their opponents from be power so that they could have a fresh election and come into power. so there's tremendous security even on the part of civilians in the past. and thus, you know, if there is

status quo power that you want to take away some space from, this is hardly the way you're going to achieve it. bob asked us specifically to talk about some of the ministries, so very quickly let me go over them. and i think hassan is right on this, it's a civil and a military and that's it, military does everything, is fairly exaggerated. on the civilian-law enforcement side i think the military has very little to do with that except the paramilitary forces. the police, the fia, the airport security force, etc., the military basically has nothing to do with it. and interior ministry, i would argue, is the envy of civilian institutions because it's probably the strongest in terms of the space and the power it has. let me also say a word about the isi. again, the narrative is isi rogue element, does whatever it feels like. i have never really bought this

argument, and i've written quite a bit about this, you know, in my work, but the isi basically took orders from the military chief of the time. now, it may have done a number of things like the jihad which the cia and others were involved in, like the policy in kashmir, like the policy of the taliban in the '90s, but the fact is that was all pakistan's state policy. so when you appoint a particular chief of your spy organization who has a particular leaning, you already know what work he's going to do and what you want him to do. so in the '90s the direction was ideological. you got a number of isi chiefs who believed in that right-wing ideology. and now since -- [inaudible] this is the third isi chief which i think has a particular mandate to pull back the isi from that and bring it back from that ideological bend. and i think they've done fairly

well. now, it's going to take a long time, you know, there are a number of complications here. but this argument that, well, the isi does what it wants, and the pakistani state has no control, i'm not sure. even isi's political meddling which was formerly a part of what had been done in the past was really sanctioned by somebody. the isi chief never got up and decided, okay, let's figure out what to do. and so i think that narrative partly has to change. yes, a number of things the isi does we may not like because it may not be in the interests of somebody, but that does not amount to saying that this is an organization that lives on mars. quickly, on -- how much time do i have, bob? okay, good. and that's the benefit of being a resident scholar, huh? [laughter] on the nuclear issue, that's another one that bob had asked. again, i personally think that,

you know, nuclear issue is interesting because here is a question of how do you convince somebody? the nuclear issue is one that i've probably worked most on out of these, and it turns out they've got a fairly organized decision, a fairly well-functioning organization although definitely more military sort of presence than in an average country perhaps. but pakistan has something called the nca which is the overarching national command authority. which is headed by, first, it was the president, and now it's the prime minister. right? and you have all civilian members and then, of course, military presence in that. now, this is exactly the structure that any other country has. four nuclear -- for nuclear and decision making, right? >> so when i talk to somebody in the nuclear establishment, they would tell me, yes, this is the structure. the prime minister will finally decide what to do. the problem is nobody believes

that because there's an internal civil-military disconnect, and this anomalous relationship then leads many to believe that, no, no, ultimately, it will be the military. well, there's no falsification possible here. there is a structure there that said it's the prime minister, you know, that's what anybody would say. that's how it will be decided. whether it will be decided that way or not, you know, time will tell. hopefully, we'll never have to see the day when any pakistani ruler has to make that decision. also here, interestingly, the prime ministers have in the past had a say, major share on what to do on the nuclear, nuclear program. classic example, 1998 nuclear tests. it was the prime minister of the time and the foreign office which was more protesting than the army chief of the time. and so the very interesting

dynamic here, the military perhaps pulling back a bit and the prime minister going ahead with it. so i think it's much more nuanced and complicated than we often hear. let me now quickly turn to the final part which is the trends at the moment. and i think overall i would argue the trends are looking up in terms of looking in the right direction. the trend is very gradual, but i think the direction is the correct one. there is much more debate now on the role of the military in pakistan itself. people write, people criticize and, again, constitutionalized military so you will see that debate continue, continue as time goes on. i think the civilians also need to be given credit for having decided that they're not going to do what they did in the '90s. thai not going to -- they're not going to go to an army chief and say, can you, please, help me out? the there was a document signed between the two major parties in pakistan which clearly spelled

out this need for them to back off and not try to use the military. i think that's a positive as well. debate on the defense budget, some of that i've mentioned already. and i also find in my experience in interviews that the military -- and this is a major change -- mentally, i think, conceptually the military now realizes that a strong pakistani economy is critical for pakistan and for the military. so this idea of overstretch of the defense spending is also bothering the military. this idea that pakistan cannot keep up, you know, with india in terms of it arms procurement, arms buildup is very clearly understood, i think, by the military as well. so that, also, is positive. judicially, i think, hassan perhaps touched upon that. it's a big deterrent now to any adventurism by anybody which is not within the constitutional framework. so i think this judicial

activism is also something, and you see very clearly institutions trying to stay away from confronting any other major institution in pakistan. i think that's also a major, positive sign. now, where is the disappointment? the disappointment is something that mr. nawaz touched on, and to my mind it has surprised me quite a bit. which is this time around, post-2008, it's not about the military trying to keep space, it's about the civilians voluntarily abdicating that space to the military. you know, one heard of in the initial day after 2008 that this is the best chance. the military chief was trying to pull back openly saying we don't want to do anything with politics. musharraf was very unpopular. there was the death of pakistan's most famous, most popular political leader which had given a lot of sympathy to the politicians. the political parties were in a

coalition government. and yet the very first one or two briefings where the military apprised the civilian leadership of the position on the ground, basically, received a response from the civilian principal saying, good luck. do whatever you think is right. now, again, if you're talking of a status quo power and if you're talking of rebalancing and if civilians are themselves willing to abdicate that responsibility, then, you know, there's hardly any excuse that one needs to provide for what is happening in pakistan. let me end by saying how we may move forward, and this is where i actually become with unpopular in pakistan a lot of times, but so be it. there are two opinions. one opinion is the military has no business in anything apart from defending the territory, and so they need to back off and let the civilians do what they're doing. my answer is, great, that's idealistic. i started by saying remain in the pakistani context when you think of pakistan. pleasure the other alternative

is that the civilians create the space for themselves to be able to tackle this issue effectively. because if civilians don't have this capacity, i think even an average pakistani is going to say i don't care who deals with it, i don't want more problems here. so if you can't deal with it, then let the military do it. but three or four specific things, and i'll end with this. one, the consensus not to use the military for political reasons needs to, needs to be maintained. second, i think learning much more about security, building the expertise, getting the right people on the civilian political parties who understand this business and are not idealogues either for or against the military. activating current structures like the defense cabinet committee on defense which has traditionally not been able to play the role that it was

envisioned, and most importantly -- and i repeat this is most important -- the civilians have to perform in their own governance tasks much better to the point where there's a philosophical commitment to democracy in pakistan. the average man and woman on the street in pakistan still do not see democracy as the only option. there is restlessness, there is impatience every time civilian governments fail. and while i completely agree with hassan that the political process has to continue, i think the civilians have the major role in insuring that that happens by performing in terms of general governance to the point where people genuinely start trusting in the state and see them as the only real alternative to work on. and lastly, i think there needs to also be a discussion on how the pakistani military and the civilians can come together in

decision-making processes. the national security council idea is out there, etc. but we need to study literature from other countries and see how things moved. there was no overnight change, this was no idealism that worked, and there are three points that came out of the turkey study which told me on why the turkish military moved from being what it was to what it is now. number one, zero conflict in the region. so anything we can do to ameliorate pakistan/india conflict is critical. second, there's an external impetus in turkey's case. so regionalism is something that needs to be promoted. and finally, there was a constitutional mechanism for the military to have a say in security sector decision making which was a constitutional quote in turkey, but something around the nsc or the cabinet committee

where the two sides have a means to sit down and talk to each other rather than at each other, perhaps a better solution than looking for this idealism which keeps sending pakistan in the cycle of civil and military rule. thank you. >> thank you. >> i'd like to thank the members of the panel for three very informative presentations. i'd like to now move to the question and answer part of our program this morning and, also, i'd like to welcome c-span who's broadcasting live and voa television is with us this morning. now, the way we're going to do this in order to capture people's questions on, for the television audience is to ask you to move to one of the two stationary microphones that are in the room. one's back here, another's over

here. so if you have a question, please, move to one of those microphones. that's the first, that's the first request. the second request is when you ask a question, if you would state your name and the organization that you're affiliated with. and, thirdly, that you really do ask a question. we will try to get through everybody here. so, all right, we have a number -- i was going to ask a question, but i think i won't. i will just start, and i'll ask our panelists, also, to be brief so that we get through everyone. all right. let's start with this microphone here, please. name -- >> i write for the pakistani spectator. since i heard only moeed, i want to ask you a question. you said that pakistani military is not about making money, making dollars. can you tell me a single example of a general who was prosecuted except general monsud, and he was prosecuted for corruption

because there was another general who hated him. that was the only reason. pakistani military is the most corrupt, most incompetent institution on earth. they are -- [inaudible] 10% only because military is corrupt. 99% of pakistani politicians are corrupt to their core. why are they? because the pakistani military make the politician and break the politician. >> can we have questions rather than speeches? please. >> no, i want to get your rebuttal, because this is propaganda, so i'm beginning step by step. pakistani government made millions of dollars in drugs. no american generals are making millions of dollars because they are the ones who are controlling afghanistan. okay, about your discipline, military is disciplined because their main job is to give their life for integrity of their country. america and any third world

country. so this logic is wrong that, oh -- >> could i, please, ask you to get to the question? the really, we have so many people here, and we have so little time. >> okay. let me give you the other example. i think pakistani military is -- [inaudible] they spent, my friend, you compare the size of your gdp what percentage they use for defense. pakistan is the highest on the top. they use israel as the second, but israel has controlled all of country. okay. the other thing, i see i have many points. >> no, no. please, please, please. >> pakistani military would do anything -- [inaudible] willing to give access to a.q. khan because she wanted to be in power. same thing about musharraf. i asked musharraf this question in the presence of thousands of people, that why would he send this shameless, consciousless haqqani to washington? he said, oh, i didn't send him.

who sent him? he was president. so it meant he can do anything against the people, but he cannot stand against america. this is shameless. so to me pakistani journalists have no sense of shame, unfortunately. >> okay. come on. can we have the next question, please? and, please, make it a question. >> with good morning. thank you very much for the presentations. i'm elaine, i'm a fellow at the u.s. department of state. i have a question with regard to what's just taken place in pakistan. i understand there was a detonation of a nuclear device, warhead today. it's a small warhead that's only capable of going 60 kilometers, but the mobility of it -- and this was just announced today in the news. and given the dynamics between the pakistan military and the civilian government and our

present military, i believe admiral mullen is in the region, what does this speak to the issues of pakistan's military in the area, the intent, the intent of the civilian government, the intent to the region and, indeed, india to detonate this particular thing? anyone answer that. >> thanks very much. >> i don't turn on the, don't turn these mics on, just speak into the other ones. i think this is a small room, everybody can hear. so i want to start -- >> correct factually, there's no -- god forbid, if there was a nuclear detonation, we probably wouldn't be here. it was a missile. yeah, this is a missile test. they're fairly regular, and these are fairly regular exercises by pakistan, india, all countries which actually have missile technology.

nothing more than pakistanis upgrading their missile program as are other countries. there wasn't any nuclear element to this exercise. this is a regular exercise and, actually, pakistan and india have a -- i don't know if it's an mou, but they have an understanding where they pre-notify each other before any such tests. >> i just had one -- >> go ahead. >> about, i'm not aware of this latest test, but the in the last few years pakistan has developed a new nuclear command and control system. the only issue with that is historically when the atomic energy commission and pakistan atomic energy commission and laboratories were developing the nuclear weapons, there was always a civilian component in the decision-making process which was involved. lately it seems that all the major decisions about pakistan's nuclear policy in which, in terms of which tests have to be

conducted, how many nuclear weapons do you have, what about the reactors which are important, these are important things for pakistan's security interests. but my issue with that is that increasingly there's only -- all of that decision making has come completely under the military system. despite the command and control system which has senior civilian leaders sitting in it, for all technical reasons it is entirely now within the control of the military. my argument is that that with more continuation of democracy, hopefully, the civilian military interaction about pakistan's nuclear policy will, hopefully, also increase. >> okay, thank you. what i'd like to do is take two questions, and then we'll have our panel respond. here and here quickly, and then we'll have a response. please. >> [inaudible] with the pakistani-american leadership center. first of all, thank you for a brilliant panel. all three of you are my favorite experts on pakistan.

yesterday general haqqani made the statement that there will never be a military operation the baa liewch stand, but what was interesting, and, in fact, the last time he was there i think he was inaugurating a marble quarry plant. so this question moeed raises, you know, i think is, you know, as political scientists we'd all like to be in charge of the development. but is the army right now actually the best institution within pakistan to be doing some of these things, to be helping with marble, you know, development and is it really just the most effective organization? and my second question, briefly, i was surprised because the opinion was that in the united

states there's not complete civilian control of the cia and there's this cia running amok in pakistan, and the u.s. doesn't have complete control of that which i didn't think was true, but is that a perception that's very prominent in pakistan or not? >> thank you. okay. >> yeah, i'd like the take of all three panel is on this question about -- panelists on this question about continuing tensions between the civil leadership and pakistani security forces which, again, bruce reidel has written in terms of the use of strategic assets like -- [inaudible] the fact that this has also been brought up by general petraeus and testimony in congress. and the fact that this, in a way, is inevitable because of past mistakes by the u.s. in terms of the withdrawal from afghanistan. my question in a sense is, is this strategic depth still necessary because moeed, for instance, and others have also spoken about the deterrence factor that fact stand has in

terms of its nuclear capability vis-a-vis india. so why is it that still this perception that india is the existential threat continues to manifest itself despite the fact that these strategic assets like any terror group may be necessary in a place like afghanistan when that nuclear deterrence is, indeed, there? >> okay, thank you very much. >> [inaudible] sorry, i just want to -- >> no, the strategic depth they talk about vis-a-vis afghan taliban in pakistan. when you made the strong case that nuclear deterrence has held. >> okay, fine. those are two very good questions. shall we go down the panel, or do you want to start? >> no, no, please. in reference to the first question about military's role or responsibilities of capacity for kind of, basically, counterinsurgency where they also have to build, i think, yes, military has, organized

institution has that capacity. but we have seen that from 1960s onwords whenever military -- onwards whenever military's invited, even if that is constructive to building roads or something like that, that creates problems ultimately because military starts thinking if they're running the show, and if they're the only ones who are going to do that development sector work, then why not -- and there's more public demand, why should they not come and take over pakistan? my issue, also, related to this is that, yes, this is a positive thing. they should do it in tribal areas. where they're in complete, not control, but they're the only ones operating in that area. military has to focus only on what is its focus, security-related issues. and relating to the discussion today, who controls security issues, i would say irrespective of who controls if the pakistani

security forces would have been really doing their primary job, the police, the law enforcement, the military of counterterrorism or securing the country, i would give all these pakistani organizations a failing grade in that primary responsibility. so all other aspects come second. the primary task is to secure the country, enforce law and order, and that's a big challenge. both military and police are sacrificing a lot. but the overall strategy of counterterrorism, that's the real test. everyone will be ready in pakistan to forgive if there's military-civil disconnect. be the primary responsibility of these -- if primary responsibility of these security forces are fulfilled and completed and that, unfortunately, at this time i would argue is not happening in the real sense. >> anybody else want to -- >> let me add on this. i think very briefly the army or the military doesn't have the

comparative advantage of running economic enterprises. this is something that resides in the civil and should reside in the civil. but very interestingly, the events in beliewch stand have some background that are worth highlighting that the army intended to build a -- [inaudible] and, in fact, the effort that is now being publicized was the army moving away from creating that kind of a containment and handing over all the buildings for civilian enterprises. and so some of the events that are being publicized now are part of that handing over to the civilians for civilian activities, the buildings and the infrastructure that the military was reported to have set up for its own location of troops in baa -- the point without the provinces' approval

is the one that i was referring to, that the military now seeks and will only move once it gets the provincial government's requisition for the military to come in aid of civil power. if this policy is continued, i think this is a good thing for pakistan to develop. regarding the whole issue of strategic depth, i think these -- you're mixing up a defunct idea of strategic depth with -- [inaudible] the issue and the role of these insurgent groups that are not operating against the state in pakistan but are operating against neighboring states is one that needs to be discussed much more openly in pakistan for there to be a very clear understanding of how pakistan needs to move away from these activities. the previous government of president musharraf had created

distance between itself and these groups, but the reality is that the groups are now becoming fairly -- [inaudible] they have independent finances, and they have regional links and ties. and even though there may be people in the intelligence agencies in pakistan who feel that they have control over them, i think over time we have learned that those controls are fictional. >> we're experiencing a few technical problems this morning, so we -- >> [inaudible] >> we will stay with the microphone situation that we have. >> let me -- >> go ahead. >> let me just make a couple of points. on the cia/isi, i don't know. i mean, cia would know. but i think by definition no intelligence agency is completely under anybody's control, even under the control of their own chief.

otherwise much of, much of what happens probably wouldn't happen. one certainly hopes that whatever mr. davis was up to was not, you know, being monitored. so i think these -- intelligence agencies have funny ways of working. so i'm not sure. but i think the perception in pakistan is, perhaps, just like the perception here. and there needs to be some conversation on that to figure out just exactly what the truth is. on this strategic depth, i'll just make one point to add to what has been said. i think part of the problem in pakistan and india is that both sides are complacent and think that they know the other side perfectly well. and then they create their own attitudes about that, and that keeps on selling over and over. so strategic depth in pakistan as it existed in the '90s is dead, but it's well alive and kicking in be india. ..

>> where the u.s. ambassador was referring to as reality. >> we want to take two more questions. and then we'll have a response. please, go ahead. >> thank you. fred simpson here in washington. great panel. and my question is for any other panelists who wish to address. what has been the impact of the

floods and the relief operations following the floods and i guess the prospect of another round of floods on the relative civilian military balance in the country, our relationships with the outside world, the respect, prestige of the military and so forth, have the floods have a significant impact on these issues? >> thanks very much. >> you mentioned the military is concerned about the economy and pakistan. from the pakistan military given presentation talk of how much revenue the military contributes. the question is, we've seen the army has decided to go ahead with building a new headquarters, that's been increased by 18%. so the question is, i mean, how both if you notice any significant changes the military has taken towards addressing the problem? have there been more cooperation on the economy issue? are they pressing the civilian government to press for reform? >> thanks very much.

if you have to leave as we will all understand. >> thank you. in terms of the first question, i think civilian military and coordination improved in the reconstruction after the floods. the military came to the rescue, and the coordination, especially this new institution, i'm forgetting the name, which is led by an army officer, but this is under the civilian control. so floods in terms of -- thank you. national disaster management agency. so the civil military response in comparison to previous such natural disasters for example, in 2005, this time the civil military combination or coordination was much better than before. that's my comment on that.

>> anybody else want to -- >> on the economy, this was -- i detect a much greater interest on the part of the economy for the reason that he mentioned in my opening remarks. i don't think that the army is going ahead with plans to make a new general headquarters in islamabad. that plan was shelved last year after the costs of that came out into the open. so the army chief made that decision. they are, in fact, going to renovate and stay in the army headquarters that has been there since before independence. on the floods, i think it's worth pointing out that this is one of those constitutional areas where the military comes in, and they're always the first, one of the first

responders. and yes, it did help them a great deal, but it is also hindered their ability to conduct counterinsurgency operations. because with the employment off forces that were in the flood areas, particularly forces closer to the india border, it has slowed down the rotation cycle of troops in fatah. so some of them are going to be as long as two years. and this does have an effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the forces and on the morale of the individuals, some of whom have now gone to gone -- on through to its recycled so that does have an effect. >> what i'd like to do now is i'd like to take the three remaining questions on, in responding, i'll ask all the members of the panel to respond so we get their concluding remarks in their answers to the questions.

then we will wrap up a bit early because of the panels you have also made commitments to let's start here and then go over here for the last few. >> resident, indian offshore association in the u.s.a. my question is very simple. could you please elaborate, what is the interaction between the army and isi? is isi and extraconstitutional power body? it has its effect on an internal and external operations. there's a case going on in u.s.a. involving isi chief. also, the drone attacks, which

crystallized the internal policy, internal policy, and defense. also, in connection with isi. >> thank you. >> hi. i'm susan cornwell with reuters. and my question, it's especially to mr. nawaz since he touched on this at one point and that is about the u.s.a. to pakistan since 9/11, 2002, most of which has been military aid and there's been billions of it. i'm just wondering if you see this continuing in the foreseeable future. does pakistan need and expect this aid? and to u.s. interests still continue in such a way that the u.s. needs to do this?

and the recent tensions, say over the reggae this case and the drones, have any impact on that lex thank you spent our final question. >> i would like to ask, you talked about military but you didn't talk -- we on the military is controlling just the whole security forces and pakistan. but tell me who is controlling military. they're having a lot of work done. to assist benefiting, not on political, socially politically, from the military. i mean, there is a book as well here, and the second thing, you didn't talk about the rule of pakistani politics. that is very important because we have in pakistan. there are a lot of instances. we don't have time so i'll go with the next question, and you say that the military is working

within the constitution, within the system. but when the civilian government, there was no constitution. where was the constitution? and also there is no single government, civilian government that finished its term in office. because of the military intervention. okay, because people wanted, but they removed, just illegal, i mean, there are many instances. and also i don't see -- one comment. i don't find many perspectives. last time it was on -- this time is on military. it looks like all of you talk the same. i mean -- >> thank you very much. let's let our panel respond to these questions and make their

closing remarks. >> certainly, thank you. and with your permission i will respond to one of the questions. i'd like to make my final comments so that i can leave and be in time in new york to teach today. in terms of -- i think isi is not -- the chief of isi, according to the constitution, response to the privacy. there have been issues and you all know about the history, but currently the isi and its chief are absolutely accountable to the army chief. so the isi is not a body which is different or exclusive or based independently. then the military. and i think we also admit this point about this close interaction between the isi and the army. just one brief comment about the last question. if we are saying the same thing with different institutions, different backgrounds, different

viewpoints, it means we are all right. [laughter] fine, but i will just make one comment, very brief one minute comment. in one case i do defer, and there were actually i think you like your friend, there were some interesting and deep differences between three narratives going in slightly different ways. but my one point i want to differ with my very dear friend, is that one of the points that pakistani political leadership apparently lacks the capacity to make important decisions about defense issues. my response to that is, the first person, effect the political leader in pakistan who really has great insights on all hands, a very good understanding about defense issues was thrown out of government twice, and isi has made an important role. finally, the security agencies

and the civilian agencies wouldn't save him from assassination also. despite his weaknesses and some people in pakistan depict him as a goofy character, which is partly true at least, but in case of pakistan's relationship with india, i think he had taken a very bold step and 1998. so political leaders when they are able to get a chance they have policy, peace process with india or some of the other important issues. the political there's have been making the case. we need to cut down on expanding conventional forces. pakistan has a nuclear deterrent capacity, this is very good for pakistan. that means you may not require a very large provincial army to pursue pakistan's develop the sector today, they cannot afford pakistan air force, navy and army the way they are doing now. and this is a case very clearly political leadership is making. they are not making it effectively. they need to do a better job.

they need more attraction become civil military leadership so army may not -- that someone setting and the presidency our prime minister is talking to someone in washington, d.c., and everyone is in pakistan army to dismantle it. no one wants that at all. the only thing is that i think political leadership in pakistan is mature. yes, they will be in the process of decision-making, better decision-making, effective interaction will happen. but the basic point about the capacity i would also slightly disagree. the problem is i don't have time, because i will miss my train. thank you. >> before you leave the room, i will say something so we're clear on this. i think everything you said i had we with so you didn't misunderstand what i said. >> thank you. >> i don't think i'm going to

add to what hassan said about the relationship between the isi and the government. i think the question of drone attacks was mentioned also by the colonel your i don't know if this was in relation to the first question or not because i missed that connection. but certainly they don't attacks do create a difficulty within pakistan, because the government has been speaking against drone attacks in the past, even while they were aware that the military and intelligence services work a whopping, at least initially with the united states. with intelligence that led to some of the drone attacks. so that public, the dichotomy between the public and private stance has now sort of come out into the open, somewhat. regarding the question about u.s. aid to pakistan, i should say one thing first, which is

when you look at the content of aid, you have to remove from it the coalition support funds which is the largest single component. because that's the real embarrassment. that's not a. that's to compensate pakistan for what it has spent, because it hasn't incurred in moving troops in response to the request from the united states to assist them in that border region. and when you remove that, then the total content of aid over this extensive data becomes much smaller. and the relative proportion of military to economic and also changes dramatically. in truth, the amount of systems that pakistan needed was not provided, and that was not just in the financial side, but on the equipment that pakistan needed in order to prosecute the war in the western border

region. the very simple reference to the lack of helicopters, and these data are available. i would be glad to share with you full details of all the equipment that has been provided since 9/11 so you can reach your own conclusions. on the last one, who controls the military, question, i think it should be the civilians. civilian supremacy is something the military accepts, but the reality on the ground is that there hasn't been the preparation that i would feel is necessary on the part of the civilian authorities run government. when they are out of power, that's a time when they should be acquiring the skills and preparing so when they do come into power they can then run government. in pakistan it's a question of governance. and because of lack of

governance, the public tends to shift to the military because they see it as a discipline institution. but then once the military comes in, they realize that this is not the military's job. this is not what they're trained for, and then the cycle repeats itself. so you've got to break out of that cycle. >> just a few quick comments. on the services, i think i covered this when i spoke and said the isi basically falls very much within the framework of the pakistani security establishment. they may have done things and do things others don't like but it's part of the pakistanis state operated but i've never seen it as a rogue -- i don't find any evidence for that at least. in terms of who can -- who controls the military, i think the military controls the military. it's as simple as that. the civilian supremacy in the international norm does not exist in pakistan at this point. now, let me just combined a couple of other comments one

person had mentioned. [inaudible] >> the army chief i think decide. army chief is probably the main certain -- central person in pakistan. [inaudible] >> the chief of the army. >> benefit from military. >> the army chief is the one decision-maker here that's all i can tell you. which families, you decide that. in terms of the civil military, and i think is a part of what i was saying that the civil military disconnected so much, you've almost got of a polarized view of this. rather than what i think is the item of salvation for pakistan, which is the civilians and the military have to work together. whatever the differences is, they have to overcome otherwise this state will keep his parallel tracks. i'm not sure what gave this impression that i said the military is never, you know,

violated the constitution. i said very clearly that the cost of the inception and will use the term constitutionalize, it only means that they don't come out clearly and said with everything we are the masters. so even in the '90s what you refer to, they use constitution mechanism to sabotage the government. that's all i'm saying. it's a different kind of military, then you see in many other countries where they basically declare that they are the final, the other ones that nobody -- and that i think comes from the british tradition. they want to do things which are not done when something supremacy holds, but they do in certain ways which are sort of hiding behind the scenes. of except of course they are the exception. and final point is that i completely agree with the other speakers, and i think i said this, too. that if you want pakistan to get out of this, the only way is to let the political process function. the mistakes will be made.

it will be messy. washington will not like it. many in pakistan will not like it. but if you keep disrupting the system, ultimately it will never mature. i still maintain that i don't think the civilians so far have that kind of capacity in defense issues and security as they should. to push back a status quo power. and i realize this is an unpopular view, but quite frankly as a political scientist i have studied enough militaries and enough literature of political power that unless the other side challenges them, through either performance or whatever, they don't pull back. so it has to be a political process, only out of this with the civilians become stronger and you will see some stability in the civil military. >> thank you very much. i'd like to express my appreciation to our panel, and ask you to join me in doing the same. [applause] >> this has been an extremely

lively session, often our sessions are lovely but this was unusually slow. so i want to thank the audience for being here and staying with us. for some really interesting and challenging questions. and we have a table full of publications outside, so i will direct your attention there actually. thank you for coming. we hope to see you with us again soon. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> we do have more live coverage coming up for you today on the c-span networks in about half an hour. >> former defense secretary donald rumsfeld on his new book, detailing his role at the ford and george w. bush administrations.

spirit we talk about what are all the things that can go back. and one of them was we may not find weapons of mass disruption. i mean, it was right there, sent around to the members, sent to the president. we thought about those things. i was on a program with all right not to long ago and he can't say why didn't you tell us? why didn't you tell us the things that might go wrong? and i said a wonderful idea. let's tell the enemy every conceivable thing we think we might have a problem with so that they can get about doing it. no. that's not the kind of thing that you tell the press, or talk about publicly. but there's a list of, i don't know, page after page of things that doug and other people in the government thought about and we talked about. and that was circulated and people who are worried about. >> watch this discussion from the hudson institute tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. tonight on c-span to a

discussion on race in america. you hear from hip-hop on demand and chairman and ceo will griffin and film director spike lee as they join a panel of journalists who talk about media coverage of minority's. >> you tell me you can't go to 10 tea party express stops and get enough footage to make the case this is a racist organization? you think there is a time among those under thousand people that they say i don't care whether the birth of thing is true or not? you don't think you can capture that on tape? like they don't care whether it is true or not come and i think the news me on the birther issue should say that's a dead issue. anyone who brings it up is ridiculous. if you get a phone call and they say hey, do you support donald trump, your answer should be no, he's and 80. he's trying to sell me something. he's trying to hustle me out of my boat with a dead issue. no, i don't support him. >> watch this discussion from the aspen institute tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2.

remarks and "wall street journal" columnist john looking at the recent change in the nation's debt rating by standard poor's.inues. >> host: we are back from new york. a columnist with "the wall street journal." let's begin with what s&p said yesterday. begin with what s&p sd yesterday. the lower the u.s. debt from stable set negative. they said there's a one in three chance the u.s. could lose its aaa rating in two years. they expressed little confidence washington could come together on some sort of agreement before the 2012 election. what does this mean? can you explain that to begin

with? guest: it is a wake-up call and if we do not heed the warning, we will sink into deep trouble. the kind of debt trap that was described earlier in the program. what s&p said was a political statement after president obama's speech last week. the concluded there's very little chance on an agreement towards fiscal sanity between congress and the white house before the 2012 election. in a sense, the president began his reelection campaign. i do not think we have the luxury of debating this issue for the next year and half. i think we'll have to tackle this. s&p is saying political paralysis in washington for the next 18 months can do serious damage to the economy, of course this recovery, and plunges into

a kind of debt spiral that we've seen in europe. greece, portugal, ireland. this is not a prospect we should not welcome. host: there also pointing to republicans, looking to the budget proposal by paul ryan -- that there will be no new revenues coming in from taxes, no tax increases, and say that the two sides are too are part because one does not want to address spending and the other does not want to address tax increases. guest: in december, the president and congress came to agreement on taxes. they extended the tax cuts. both sides privately agreed -- and i talked to both sides -- if you raise taxes in a recession, you are going to hurt the economy. there's no school of economic thought. i do not care if it is marxism, tenzing as some, or vegetarianism.

it will only hurt job creation. that's what the american people are worried about. host: do republicans need to take responsibility for this morning from s&p for the tenure of the bush administration? the tax increases than that many say were not paid for and then the medicare prescription drug part d program that many say is not paid for. do republicans need to take responsibility for this morning that s&p put out yesterday? guest: we had a horrible decade of public policy in many respects in the last 10 years. the bush administration had a horrible mistake in trying to expand the entitlements with prescription drug benefits that were not paid for. the wars were certainly a drain on our fiscal future. obviously, president obama and here today very bad situation

and the economy was very weak. the bush administration made many mistakes. since then, president obama has had two and half years, and i think he has only compounded the mistakes. the debt has gone from $7.9 trillion to over $14 trillion. the stimulus spending has been universally acknowledged to not have accomplished its goals. it raised the stakes dramatically by trying to extend coverage for health insurance. it is a laudable goal, but we cannot afford it. half of the people will be dumped into our medicaid program, which is substandard medicine. i think the president has taken a bad hand that he was dealt and made it much worse for all americans. host: how did wall street reacts

yesterday to this news from s&p? caller: -- guest: it dropped 140 points. i think it recognized that this was a signal that the economic recovery can be aborted because of political paralysis and the refusal to try to change our policies to make us more competitive with the world. a lot of people say we have shifted jobs overseas. a lot of people say we have a weak manufacturing sector. i'm not here to debate that. the way to solve that is for us to become more competitive. we have, for example, the second highest corporate tax rate of any nation world, other than japan. japan is not doing so well, frankly, even before the horrible tsunami of last month. s&p downgraded japan's bond rating in january. i think we need to make some changes that can increase the chances of an economic recovery taking hold and we start to create jobs. we have not done that. i think both parties need to

come to the table and we need to figure out in a bipartisan way what are the few things that the two parties can agree on that will make this recovery better and not wait to simply have bickering for the next 18 months? host: our tax increases on the table in your opinion? guest: i'm sure that will be part of the negotiation. in december, both parties agreed that tax increases in a weak economy does not help the economy. if you can bring me the school of economic thought that says you raise taxes in a weak economy and that will improve things, i will send you a check to your favorite charity. such a school of economics does not exist. host: paul krugman wrote yesterday on his blog.

guest: markets respond to signals. the fact that it looks as if the president and the congress will be in a stalemate for the next 18 months, that cost s&p to do the downgrade. because the market to drop. the dollar continues to weaken. i disagree with that. i think waiting for another 18 months only makes matters worse. i do not think we have that much time. greece, portugal, and ireland but they have all the time in the world. when they lost credibility in the markets and people with ninth -- and people would not buy their bonds, we was out very quickly. we are not immune to these pressures.

even though we are the greatest nation via world, laws of economics apply to us. host: some said the market was comforted that washington could come together on some sort of an agreement. guest: of course, you do not look at any one-day or two-day or three-day fluctuation in the market and try to override what that means. clearly, the markets are nervous. some have said that s&p could be followed by moody's. the international monetary fund, which is the institution that normally jumps in to try to help troubled economies, they reported just a couple of months ago that since the u.s. deficit is likely to hit a 11% of our total gross national product, that this was a real warning signal. s&p is a lagging indicator. all of the serious economic observers are looking at this and saying we're in real

trouble. s&p is late to the game. host: let's go to our first phone call for john fund. ruth is a democrat in memph, >> caller: i am so profoundly disappointed in c-span this morning to introduce this man as a journalist. >> host: i said he's a columnist. >> caller: well, okay, a -- no,: the headline said journalist, and it was washington -- he's being called a journalist, he'se been a spokesperson for theican republican party for years. most people as bipartisan and neutral which is not true. second, this whole thing is exactly what the starve-the-beast philosophyea wanted to accomplish. the starve beast strategy wanted to accomplish. it is just crazy. everybody remembers -- deficits do not matter. host: let's get a response to

that, john fund. guest: if the caller was listening, they heard me criticize the bush administration on its management of the economy and spending that went out of control. secondly, i spent 25 years observing washington politicians. i can never sure you -- i can assure you i've looked at both democrats and republicans. it is just that republicans might feel a little more guilty about it. i think republicans have often abandoned their principles. i've been critical of republicans. i forced a couple out of office because of corruption and malfeasance and other issues. if the caller listened carefully, she might have heard some very stern criticism of the bush administration. host: let's go to st. joseph, missouri. maggie, a republican, go ahead.

caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: in this country, we have far too many people that are not educated enough to understand the way the economy slows and the deficits and taxes. what we have is we have been democrats using scare tactics in order to keep their big agenda going. we have a president who shamelessly intends to crash our economy. everywhere you look from oil drilling to epa regulations, all he does is throw roadblocks and undermines our economy, our growth. he has escalated any kind of problems that he had when he came into office three he has far exhilarated us down the road -- he has accelerated us down the road to destruction. host: kent, go ahead.

caller: good morning. i'm glad for the job c-span does this morning and every morning. what i would like to ask your guest is, where were these red- flag raising agencies when the mortgage crisis was heating up and all the money was pouring in to make places like aig too big to fail? why don't guest: first of all, the caller before this one, it is unfair to say that obama wants to crash the economy. i think there's a fundamental disagreement as to whether or not what he is doing is working. as to your current caller, the reason why we should worry about

what the s and p adjusted its that -- the bond rating agencies are often wearing the gas mask. when it kills over, you know you are really in trouble. if you look at all of the state's municipal debt disasters, often the bond rating agencies went way too long to warn about the dangers of public pension obligations that for going out of control. the reason the warning is very appropriate from the s&p is they are the people to make this call first. many have been warning about this for a long time. that is why the rating agencies have a finally woken up. host: what will happen

throughout the day? guest: i think the markets will continue with a narrow band of gains into losses. there is a lack of confidence in this economy. there is a couple of trillion dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines that is not being invested in jobs, because of the uncertainty of the economic conditions that we now have. these are real. so much uncertainty about what the tax policy will be, new regulations that will be heaped onto the economy. the democratic congress chose not to do that. i think we have to be worried. if right now, the former budget director that has become a liberal on many policies, he was on c-span last night.

if right now we had $2 trillion in capital sitting there, not being invested in jobs, it would be invested overseas. places like that, where they have economic policies that are much more stable. our competitors are not waiting for our -- not waiting for us to get our house in order. they are building new factories. the face that we are so stagnant in this country should tell us that we have to take steps to improve our competitiveness as fast as possible. we cannot stand still. host: what is your reaction to this line? what do you think? guest: the other nations do not

want to see a debt crisis. i think it is rallying around the flag. there is not in immediate short- term crisis. this is a warning sign that we do not have a 18 months to wait. the consensus from the economic experts that i spoke to is that we could be two or three years away from a debt crisis like the one we saw in portugal and greece. we should not wait to take serious steps to try to improve our competitive position and tried to get some of that trillions of dollars in capital waiting on the sideline into productive jobs. i think unemployment is still almost as 9% because of this. host: if the s&p says we will down grade the aaa rating of the u.s. in six months, what will happen? guest: it will be a signal to

the rest of the world that we are not serious about dealing with our debt crisis. i was in japan in january. it was a couple of months before the tsunami. they have had two lost a decade of economic growth. visit to japan, it is a normal society. there are many things in the shops. life goes on. there is a growing sense among young people that japan's future has slipped away from it. this was an economy that was supposed to be the world's preeminent, and it slipped into the second, third, fourth slot of economic growth. i do not want that to happen to us. i think we are the most growth oriented and optimistic country in the world. i want that to remain so. just because we will not slip into a depression, does not mean that we do not have something to worry about.

our optimism, our strength, and a person born in america for many decades has a better chance of entering the middle class, even if they came from modest circumstances. all of those things are in jeopardy if we do not return to economic growth and economic opportunity policies that made this country great. host:here is a tweet. guest: i will just say that we had the slowest economic recovery that i can remember in my lifetime. probably the slowest since world war ii. we are almost two years in the economic recovery. before we would have seen

unemployment at 6%. we have not the last -- lost as much money from the highs of 2007, but the average person is not in the stock market. they need a job. they want to work 40 hours a week, but their employer will only give them 30 hours a week. for the average american, it is whether or not they have a job and have to worry about losing it. it is about having work been made available to them. host: that go to the democrat line. caller: it is like nobody understands what happened to america's economy. president eisenhower said there is a secret organization in the industrial field, which is trying to bring us down. nobody listened. kennedy and reagan sounded out. even george bush, when he tried

to do his thing, paying for the war with iraq and the oil, and all of the money that they found over there -- where did it go? if they use that money and put it to the economy, we would not be in this trouble. guest: i remember president eisenhower's farewell address very well. he talked about the military industrial complex and it was a concern. he never said it was a secret. i do not know what the caller is saying about what kennedy learned and reagan learned about the military industrial complex. both were fighting a cold war and put an enormous amount of resources into our military. i am sure there was waste. we won the cold war without

firing a shot. what they did a ultimately prevailed. host: republican line. caller: i want to ask you a question. would you say that if we were to raise taxes on the wealthy, say 90%, would that into the government create jobs, rather than waiting on the super rich people to create jobs, which we know they have not done over the past 8-10 years, would you say that would help the economy? guest: we ran an editorial in yesterday's. -- yesterday.

if you tax them 100%, it would bring in 1.9 trillion dollars a year -- $1.90 trillion a year. it would not pay for anything that the government spends money on. it would barely cover the cost of medicare and medicaid and social security. those costs are going up so much that all of the money collected from them, it would not pay the bill for those three programs by 2016. the sad part is that even though the top 1% top income earners pay 30% and moderate income people pay lot in other taxes -- the sad part is that there are not enough rich people out there. we cannot pay our bills with them. if anyone says they want to tax the rich, they are talking

about taxing the middle class as well. host:mike, go ahead. caller: i want to take it a little bit different. i want to say that when you have kids -- when we were kids, the adults say, shut up in the station a child plays. when we become an adult, everyone says, let's not talk about it and hope it goes away. the real problem is that there is no right accountability. the republicans and the rich, they take advantage of people. obama came in there being a humble man. they broke his hamas, took him from the church. himrokenhumbleness and took

from the church. he cannot do anything when people around him say he is the wrong color to fix things. then you have other people screaming, we would rather vote for rich people who are our color and they will do a bad job, even though obama has tried to [inaudible] we went through everything and tried our best, but it seems like everybody looks past that. host: any thoughts and reactions to his comments? guest: one of the things that the election of obama proved is that while we still have a long ways to go, we have still made progress in this country. millions of americans of all colors voted for obama. they voted for change. i have relatives that voted for

him. ultimately, we judge people by the content of their character and their policies as president, not their color. his approval rating is 41%. his approval rating among hispanics has fallen. this is a report card not based on his race, but his performance. after about 2.5 years in office, you have to be judged by your own policies and not blame your predecessors, even though there is much to blame their. host: here is a comment to an earlier tweet. do you agree with that? guest: several people have left the federal reserve board of governors and express their

public distain for this qualitative easing, which is basically printing money. a lot of this economic recovery that we see may have been sustained from just printing money. we are seeing inflation -- not just in gasoline. go to your local supermarket. you see how much food is going up. the economic stability at the price of long-term inflation -- if we continue with these policies, we suffer a danger that we may see what we saw in the 1970's. we had stagnation in the economy, low job creation, and inflation. rising prices destroys people's savings. that was one of the worst things that ever happened. i do not want to have that happen. the fed policies are miss kate

-- misguided. host: some republicans and comment tea party members of congress say they will not vote for it unless it includes a long-term fiscal plan to address the debt and deficit. should that be part of the condition before republicans agreed to vote yes? guest: something has to be attached to the debt limit. this is not the time to negotiate dramatic budget cuts. there are a few things we should certainly do. we should into this game but if you fail to raise the debt limit, it will hurt the credit worthiness of the united states. if the dead sea's -- ceiling is

not race, the money thief -- raised, the money that the federal government takes in will go to covering the bonds. the states are putting pressure on the federal government to bail them out or their financial mistakes. i think the federal government, which [inaudible] we should demand a full transparency from the state. there are all kinds of reforms. some think we should look to a two year budget. many states have that. the first year they decide where to spend the money. the second year is oversight. figuring out how the taxpayers' money is spent and if it is spent wisely. there is transparency.

obama teamed up with coburn for the transparency bill when he was a senator. they put the records in budgets on the web, so people could find out where the money is being spent. that bill dropped off of the radar screen when obama ran for president. i think that was a great idea, and we should bring that back. i would think bill -- obama would feel compelled to sign it, since it was his bill. host: there is debate on whether or not to vote for a bill that would raise the debt ceiling. here is what they said.

guest: i agree with the first part of his analysis. i think there has been way too much uncertainty. everyone has frozen of that capital on the sidelines and has not been invested into job creation. not having the debt ceiling raised would have some bad signals. i think it is a game of chicken, similar to what we saw with the lame duck session. i do not think that wall street for anyone else is going to allow the debt ceiling not to be

raised. should we take prudent steps to attach realistic reforms that most people can't agree on such as transparency -- can agree on, such as transparency? the answer is yes. should it be a showdown over future spending? i do not think so. there will be political, a round of the debt ceiling. -- around the debt ceiling. both sides i think are playing this for all political worth. host:nick in michigan. caller: did the president know

and it congress know when they spent the money that it was. to require an increase in the debt ceiling now? did we know that -- that it was going to require an increase in the debt ceiling now? did we know that? guest: the debt ceiling has been raised something like 18 times in the past few years. it has happened on a bickering basis. barack obama -- on a recurring basis. many have used the debt ceiling as a political football. the stimulus package was a down payment on what we ran up spending the last few years. they knew what they patrolling. they probably should have done something different. we have to deal with the hand that has been dealt us. host: independent mind, ed.

-- line, ed. caller: i am tired of the infighting going on. we have to stop this class war. we have to save our country. i am 62 years old. i would hate to see us going down this road. host: i want to ask you about cover debt and how much we spend on defense, since he said you were in the military and an expert on airplanes. the money that we spent on military and equipment is part of the debate. should there be spending cuts for the pentagon?

caller: a lot of the money goes towards retirement and people hurt overseas. a lot of the money goes to research and development. we have tankers that cost billions of dollars. maybe we have too many carriers. a lot of our money goes toward paying retirement, disability, and a host of other things. i do not want to see the military pay the price for cuts. guest: a, from a military family. there is waste -- i come from a military family. certainly, there is waste. my father was stationed in germany. we still have a 50,000 troops in germany. we may be able to