>> well, one of the whole aims of the changes we're making to the nhs must be to better link up the national health service and social service provision and local authorities in how we look after the elderly and all of us have seen too many cases in hospital where people who should be in either residential or nursing care all being looked after at home are stuck in either large district general hospitals or indeed in community hospitals when they should be getting alternative pathways of care. that's what the whole change should be about. as i'm finding when i go around the country listening to doctors, nurses and clinicians we must make sure we take this opportunity to get this absolutely right. that's what the reforms should be about. >> in last year's general election in essex, 49% of the votes cast went to the conservatives but 95% of the seats went to conservative mp's.

it was an outcome that embarrassed robert mcgarby. other than the essex is now a labor-freezon. -- labour-free zone. does the prime minister think that result was fair. >> my honorable friend -- the point i would make everyone had one vote and everyone counted once and he won and i congratulate and other he is ex-and many of my honorable friends won for all he brings to this house what perhaps they lack in number he makes up in stature as a member of parliament in essex. >> order. i have to inform the house that i have received the following letter from -- >> here on c-span2, we'll leave

the british house of commons now as they move on to other legislative business. you've been watching prime minister's question time aired live wednesdays at 7:00 am eastern while parliament is in session. >> now a discussion on russian foreign policy. foreign policy experts discuss russia's national identity and the relationship it has with other countries, in particular, china and japan. this was part of a conference hosted by george washington university. it's an hour.

>> all right. well, we're very pleased to have these panelists with us this afternoon to discuss the russia paper. we did hold one of our regional seminars as you recall from our announcements this morning in moscow in november of last year. we had some spirited discussions at that conference under the direction of igor who's with us and andy. i want to say a special thanks to jim hoglyn who is chairing this system. i don't really need to discuss jim. he's known to everyone in this town and well beyond this town for all of the years of reporting and foreign policy analysis that he has done and he remains very active in that area. and we are also very grateful to tom graham, who is here with us as a discussant. again, the resumes are in your

folder and i don't need to go over them in any detail but, tom, we're very grateful for your being here and managing the problems of getting out of new york this morning. so with that let me turn it over to jim and the panel discussion on russia. >> henry, thank you. it's a real pleasure to be here on this beautiful sunny day. it's a real testament to all of you that you're here inside rather than strolling along the boulevards. so we're going to talk today about the world view of rising powers, or more precisely the foreign schools, the foreign policy schools of thought which builds on a concept in which i strongly believe and that is the concept of national character. the concept that shared history,

geography, and culture join to establish certain dominant traits in the people contained within nation state borders. we capture the diversity indeed at times the rivalry that exists within national character. as people from roughly the same geograp geography, the same economic groupings, the same intellectual backgrounds come to totally different conclusions about the place their nation does and should occupy in the world. how best to protect or advance that place. and what political bases must be mobilized or maintained to accomplish those goals. the diversity and competition of world views held by russia's political and economic elite and i consciously use elite in a

singular term there for the state of the politics and the economic conditions of russia today, i think we can use the singular there but that competition is a compelling theme of the paper we will discuss next. russia's contested national identity and foreign policy. we'll have a discussion now by one of the authors of the paper for about 8 to at the point minutes and then we'll proceed to having tom graham to tell us at least what's going or at least tom graham sees it in his imitatable in addition and the people, as you had a chance to read, i hope, it's a very good paper -- it examines -- it gives us is useful examination of the roots of the professed dichotomy of views on russia's place in the world of the two men who occupy the top positions in

russia today. dimitry medvedev and vladimir putin. in the event, wherever you come down on that, you hear echoes in this very valuable paper and what the authors identify as the conflict -- the age-old conflict really in europe the slab ofiles and the workers and they have it more in a subtle picture at times overlapping even of how the main schools of foreign policy thought in russia today that are really -- they do not see great contradictions between the various schools that are in

competition to present their views and to make those views count in policy terms. in his introduction to the book that will build on today's conference, henry now asks the so what question. so what question is a journalistic device. every story has to have a so what paragraph. a paragraph that explains clearly to the reader why the reader should take into account this article today. and the so what question here very much is are there common points in the domestic debates in the five rising powers about their foreign policy that will enable us to glimpse or perhaps fashion a framework for studying the global power shift that seems to be underway. that's the challenge to you as an audience to help identify

those points of view. the other question that the title and the inclusion of russia in this paper bring to my mind, perhaps mischiefless, that's what journalists are to some extent to inflict the comfortable -- the other question given its demographic crisis, and the misshapened nature of its undimensional economy built on a few natural sources should we include russia as a rising power for the purposes of this conversation? is it, in fact, a dwindling power given that its population is on the decrease and that its economy has not been able to move from a primary resources economy into a more developed economy. the important thing here is the russians themselves debate that

question. and it's part -- it's an intigreat deal part in their own place in the world and how they view it and it's important to raise that and our presenters will have a go at that question as well as the others that are presented. andrew, whom i've come to know through watching him in the meeting in russia year after year where he poses some of the toughest questions to vladimir putin and medvedev will have to answer. igor will be here to field your questions. andy? [laughter] >> thanks very much, jim, for the kind introduction and clarifying the division of labor, all the hard questions go to the smarter half of the team,

igor. when i was approached by this project, wow, someone is asking me to do something that i was trained to do. i was trained to be a sovietologist back in the 1980s. and the job of myself and my mentors was to look at these different so-called schools of thought in the soviet union and try to understand who's up and who's down and why that movement takes place. of course, when i got my dissertation in 1992 the country no longer existed so 18 years later you're making me feel useful. thank you. i want to express my gratitude to my co-author. everything that is good about this paper is due to igor and all the deficiencies are to my own. this is one where the soliloquies are two plus two equal five.

okay. maybe. somebody google that right now. but where the sum of the -- you put together the two pieces if it's greater -- the whole is the greater than the sum of all its parts and i feel that way and jim has alluded russia is a rising power. i mean, certainly you've got china clearly a rising power, india, a rising power for sure. japan, a rising power? what is it about 20 years ago the real estate value of the imperial palace in tokyo was eqilength to the entire state of california that is a bubble but it's been kind of slightly downward ever since. the russia case has been quite remarkable for its nonlinearity, in the 1990s you had this steep drop and then even more unexpected that the steep drop, i think, was the rapid rise of russia's fortunes after the financial crisis of 1998 and the

rapid economic growth they experienced. let's see. down is up. okay. walter, i'm doing better than you in this technology thing. [laughter] >> right as jim pointed out, i think that we've put these -- we've separated out of the three schools of thought into some extent is really does come down to the old russia than the westerners. there's a linkage between how they think about the domestic economic political model development of the country and it's tied to its foreign policy interest and there's a real linkage between external foreign policy and domestic. the same on the -- on the national side essentially.

well, there's all different kinds of nationalism in the russian spectrum from fascists to isolationists to a number of others but i think one thing they tend to have in common is that the -- one, the liberal economic democratic model of development is appropriate for russia. and that the west should be regarded as the empire. whereas, your liberal prowestern liberals especially in the early 1990s, you look at the yeltsin administration, and others et cetera not only did they say it was the western democratic economic model that was appropriate for them but in order to achieve that, it had to be through integration with the west so it was transformation of the country through integration. now, in the middle what we call the great power balances but they are more realists which is more focused on military power

but there's not such a linkage between how they view the development of the country versus the foreign policy orientation. and it's -- you know, it's a bit more like dung shau ping is not whether the cat is black but that it catches mice. whether it's pragmatic and flexible. spagration with the west is desired but not on terms that are simply dictated by the west and that is simply by the first school and one of their weaknesses back in the early 1990s. now, we go through this brief periodization for the last 20 years and again, the -- i think there may be -- there may be more fluctuations in the russian case than some of the others because of the very tumultuous times that russia has gone through over this period. but there was a brief period in

1991, 1992 where the prowestern liberalizers were dominant. they were quickly that dominance was lost for two reasons, one, the economic fallout, the collapse of the economy, which had a tremendous negative impact on their political popularity and i think also a sense of maybe disappointment with the west or maybe there were illusions that were held about both the speed and the transformation and the degree to which the west would be supportive of it. subsequently, for about nine years we look to 1993 and 1993 there's a melanguage in the power balances. the foreign minister and prime minister a realist kind of

kissingeresque. now, some of the -- and some of the folks that were in the prowestern liberal school initially they moved as well because of the disappointment you see someone like in one party who claimed that, in fact, the mission of reform in russia has been hurt by u.s. foreign policy measures, et cetera. so this period kind of goes through much of the yeltsin period and into the first vladimir putin power who, of course, came into power at the beginning of 2000. 2003 to 2008 we see another shift. and this -- this shift also finds its roots, i think, in both domestic developments and external factors. and the shift is more in the

direction of not just power balancers but increasingly russian nationalist position, a readiness to contest and try to block particularly u.s. foreign policy initiatives. now, the confidence was driven to a great part by the rapid growth of the rest of the russian economy which really companion to take off in a very, very significant way about that time. 2005/2006 is when russia paid off its paris club debt, it's imf debt. it effectively became sovereign, financial sovereignty that meant political sovereignty. very, very important thing for vladimir putin. and the rapid economic development continued to accelerate and so sort of the watershed moment became february 2007 where mr. putin gave his famous speech in munich and see, look, the balance of power in the world is changing.

the unipole world is gone. it's a multipolar world and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. now, the other aspect that was sort of driving this ship, we argue had to do a lot with u.s. policy and with the bush administration policies whether it would be missile defense depreliminaries, democracy promotion, native expansion was portrayed as efforts to weaken russia. to attack their -- directly attack they're interests. this period reached its peak in 2008 that was the nadir of u.s. relations and we see one last ship where back in the direction of the great power, more of a more centrist position which is where things appear to be today. one was the outcome of the

georgia war that suddenly the russia/u.s. relationship was in its worst condition in 20 years and perhaps this was not in washington's interest and it wasn't in moscow's interest more. much more significant, though, for, i think, the russian political lead was the impact of the global economic crisis because coming into the summer of 2008 there was a sense of really dizziness and everything is going our way. we are the island of stability and we are not affected by these problems in the united states but, wham, they got hit upside of the head and, you know, the negative impact of the crisis was greater than any other g20 country. so that -- the second realization coming of that is that this changing balance of power in the world was accelerated. and it was accelerated in the favor of mainly beijing.

and i think there's been increasing questions about to what extent does this very, very rapid growth of chinese principally economic power applied politically -- how does that -- to what extent is that really in russia's interest and i think led to some sense that maybe we ought to, you know, balance and hedge our position with the u.s. and the other factor, of course, has been the obama administration's policies. the shift on the policies of the missile defense, the effective tabling of the question of nato expansion. i think there was a growing realization over time that these sets of policies were not being designed -- they were designed to accommodate russia to some extent if not at least accommodate than not directly attack their interest. now, the impact of this 2009 shift on selected -- on a few selected countries, usa, well,

we have had quite a significant rapprochement in the so-called reset that has been in relations. china, there is an increased sense of economic vulnerability but no significant policy course change we see. and the russia policy towards china has been pretty steady and consistent for a long time. india is similar. no significant policy shift from moscow, iran, the other case in this study, relations have certainly worsened. the position taken on the resolution in 1929 and the u.s. security council and perhaps even more so the decision of the russians to back out of the sale of the s-300 antiaircraft system which, in fact, led the russians to actually have to pay the money back which doesn't happen very often. now, the real anomaly to me is japan. and that russia has been in the past year or so the most

anti-japanese set of policies in at least the last 20 years. and if, you know, part of the rationale for reset or improvement of relations with the united states first and foremost europe also is some sense if you want to cut strategically balance if you want to take some that are so tough washington's closest ally in asia if you're increasingly concerned about china. but since we're short on time i won't go into it. i'm happy to take any questions, though. [laughter] >> following jim's instructions. all right. a couple of key variables to the future. well, you know, one, is what -- how -- what are the variables that could affect a shift in, you know, which school of thought seeming to be dominant and the policies being pursued?

you know, one for a long time has been the oil price. this is not to say russia is a petrostate and in all explanatory variable. there's no such thing but there is a relatively strong correlation over the last few decades between a more assertive, more aggressive foreign policy in a higher oil price environment where they're feeling their economically in a stronger position. the second most -- i've got in the third position here. the other most important variable really is our u.s. policies. and i think this is the key thing to take away from the last 10 years. you can play the counterfactual. did russian policy toward the united states, 2009 on change because demetry medvedev was present? i don't think so? vladimir putin had his own reset with george bush going back to

2000, 2002 but things changed. putin evolved and part of it was the sense of economic growth and the increasing influence they had but also in response to what the united states did. so i think -- our conclusion is that as we look into the future -- i mean, who actually is the president of russia in 2012 may be less important than what -- than external factors be they be oil price, what u.s. policy is, possibly what china policy is, et cetera. so let me stop there. and now you can hear what's really going on from my good friend, tom. >> thank you. i mention that i'd come to know andy as a tough questioner. i now introduce tom graham whom i came to know as a man who could usually answer very tough

questions which frequently came from presidents on russia -- on russian policy. tom's foresight and vision on russia is virtually unparalleled in my experience and now we'll hear tom's view. >> thank you very much, jim, for that kind introduction. what you forgot to mention is that i worked for two administrations, each of which took the u.s./russian relationship and drove it to the lowest point. [laughter] >> the clinton administration and then the bush administration. and created the groundwork for the reset that the current administration is doing. let me say that i perhaps would have been benefited from this type of paper if i had read it 20 years ago and 10 years ago. i think it does it, as you see, give an excellent overview of the schools of thought in russian foreign policy. now, i want to make just three

very, very brief comments. the first starts with something that this paper addresses right up front. and that is that there is a broad consensus in russia about certain principles that should guide russian foreign policy, russia's role in the world. you mentioned the idea that russia should be a great power across all three schools, the idea that international affairs is really a hobbsian darwinian type world for each of his open and a war of all against words in some ways. that russia has always been historically in a position of having to catch up to the leading powers particularly in europe and the united states over the past 300 years. and this eternal debate about russia and the west, whether russia really is part of the west or something distinct from the west. i just want to add two others that i think is important for

understanding russia, and russian identity. the first is a central role in the state. many commentators have noticed that russia became an empire before it became a nation and at the core of that empire was really the russian state which over the century gave shape and form not only to the state but to russian society to the extent that it existed as an independent factor. and this creates a certain link between russian national identity and the role of the state, most russians think first of all of their own country as an actor in world affairs. the state precedes the nation. and this creates some problems with the current period in part because we have a russian state now and territorial experience that bears very little evidence towards the russian state at least for the past 2 or 300 years. and one of the core questions that they're discussing today and they have for the past 20

years is what is the central identity of this russian state? what is going to be the fundamental principle behind russian national identity? there's been a lot of talk about russian ethnicity as the foundation for that national identity. and, of course, this creates problems in russia today, something that this paper does discuss peripherally. if it's russian national, ethnicity that is a foundation for the nation, what do you do with those 17 million russians who lie beyond the borders of russia in the former soviet space? if you try to do this a specific identity, the question still is, why these borders? and how do you justify a identity with russia within these borders when historically really russia has been a much bigger country in eurasia and this leads to the second point.

i think again a common element in all russian thinking about foreign policy. which we should remember which is the former imperial russian space. this is the territory that has given russia historically it's geopolitical heft. it's a part of the world where all russian elites belief to all of russian policy and security. ..

>> so the former soviet space is a critical element in russian thinking and a question that divides only to a limited extent is how you go about reasserting that dominates. and a domination. the second point i'd like to make is following along what i've are reset about there being a broad consensus in russian foreign policy. the paper is absolutely right that there are three broad schools, but if you look at russia today, what a striking is there's really only one major

school, pro-western liberals, and the nationalists tend to be marginal within the russian political spectrum today. the only question i think is each of those schools is more marginal. the pro-liberal west, or the nationalist. and that has as andy and igor pointed out has buried over time it would've been interesting in the paper is you devote equal time to the three schools. and what i would urge is if you take a look at this again, is to focus much more on the great power balancers and try to look at the variations within that school of thought and how they might play themselves out. over the next several years. there's a lot of questions you need to ask. start with the obvious one of the west. what is the west today? if you're in russia and you are

thinking about this you do not see a unifying west so you need to begin to deconstruct the west. you have seen people like putin can even yeltsin before, who tried to use the germans and the french as a counterweight to the united states in world affairs, sorely during the iraq war, this is a principle of the the way putin thought about russian foreign policy. if you look at the world today, particularly after the financial crisis, and the deep crisis in europe itself, both physical but i would argue even more profoundly, one of identity, of what your teen union is, what europe is going for. short self how did he see it as a power in the world today. can use europe as a balance in any real sense, given that teach unity in europe your also if you

look at the way the russians have conducted their foreign policy i would over the past 20 years, despite the fact that they've tried to use europe to a certain extent to balance the united states. they've never been in favor of the european union be -- unity. the policy has been and i think this is across the spectrum has been built around bilateral relations with key european countries, germany first of all, france in the second place, italy to a lesser extent. they tried to do what they can to undermine a more cohesive european unity. look at the gas policy or energy policies that putin pursued when he was president. clearly aimed at isolating eastern europeans, the poles, the bolts, from germany. so i think what you see is

russia trying to counter the united states, but at the same time trying to undermine european unity which seems to be counterintuitive if you want use some ways to counter the united states. now, of course, the russians and russian elite has always looked in the past decade if not more to china as a counterbalance or. think of the formation, the shanghai cooperation organization. clearly constructed with the intent of trying to limit or constrain u.s. activities in central asia. particularly after the united states got involved in the afghanistan operation, began to build military bases in central asia. now, as andy pointed out, someone thinking of china under way right now, particularly after the financial collapse, in

part because the chinese are acting in a much more assertive fashion. for all the concerns the russians had about the united states over the past decade, trying to build pipelines out of central asia, the caspian base, and undermining russia's monopoly over the export routes of energy from central asian states, it turns out that the chinese have built an oil and gas pipeline at the caspian region across central asia into china, effectively ending the russian monopoly of export routes. if you look at the way the chinese deal with the russians commercially, it's clear they don't cut them any slack. the oil deal that was signed between china a few years ago. i think an effective price per barrel about 21, $22. that was at the time when the global price was somewhere over 100, 120.

so the chinese certainly are not making an effort to build up a russia as a major power, don't see any reason, as i said, to make concessions to their russian allies. rather, they have pushed very hard their commercial and geopolitical advantage. and this i think has finally led many in russia to begin to reconsider the role that china is going to play, and what the russian relationship with china should be. now, at the senior levels, clearly understand the need to have good relations with china, an important neighbor. but beginning more to think about how you begin to balance against china. and part of the recent policy is, in fact, i think motivated by a desire for closer relations with the united states as a way

of beginning to create an effective balance to the chinese in central asia and in northeast asia. then one final point. i'd like to make about more or less the context in which russia is formulating its foreign policy now. and what we need to understand is that this russia, the past 20 years, has been facing a novel geopolitical context. for 300 years from the time that russia merged as a european great power at the time of peter the great, up until the breakup of the soviet union in 1991, russia, soviet union, was the dynamic core of eurasia. and it spread its power out from the russian heartland around

moscow in all direction, east, west and south, for almost 300 years. that ended in 1991. and we got 20 years and now where that has not been reversed. if you look at russia now for the first time in the modern theory, it is surrounded by regions that all more dynamic than russia is. economically, demographically, and politically. clearly, china in the east, obvious but economically, and increasingly militarily, you see the energy of the muslim world to russia's south, growing populations and ideology that is penetrating into central asia, the caucuses and into russia proper. and even europe, despite its current difficulties, still acts as an attractive power, places

like ukraine, certain places in russia. and it also is providing a form of regulatory imperialism as russia tries to build its trade relations. and so one of the debates and one of the challenges that russia faces over the next generation i would argue it is how can it re-create itself as a dynamic of eurasia, and how does it do it as jim pointed out with a declining population? and certainly this will be the case for the next 20 years. this is what the debate inside russia is about today as they prepare for the presidential selection in 2012. and you see various camps beginning to form, or various ways we can think about this. it is state capitalism the way to go, building national

champions here is this going to provide russia the power that it needs over the next generation, or does russia really need to do a much better job of building free markets, of attracting small and medium-sized investors into russia, in creating the type of dynamic economy that you see, particularly in the united states or europe. when you think about innovation, could innovation be focused on really rebuilding the russian industrial ways. the automotive sector, aviation, even on and gas, and using those sectors as a way of innovating in the russian economy. court do you take the approach which is focused much more on i.t., the gadgets that we all have and are seen in many ways cutting edge of high technology

to make a temporary world. clearly debate going on over that. and this is related to the debate over the political system. i don't think there's anybody at the senior levels that really believe they should open up the political system, unfettered access onto the political process. but there really is a debate over how you open this up, how much over the next generation. with a putin on the one side sterile very much in favor of control democracy, people like him being at the head guiding his country forward. any president medvedev would like to open up this more to encourage the type of debate both political and economicallycome he believes the country needs to move forward. so i think this is one of the things that we need to focus on going forward, and what the

paper might do in a future draft, to see if there's a coalition between his domestic program and the type of foreign policy that russia might follow. within the great balancers which i would argue is likely to remain the central one in russia, for at least the next 10, 15, 20 years, and probably longer than that. let me stop there. >> thank you. we have a few minutes now for some quick questions. if you would. and please identify yourself briefly. start right here. there's a microphone coming. >> dave sanders from mit. andy those i'm going to asking this question because andy can you invited. why are the russian beaten so badly -- behaving so badly? >> because they can. [laughter]

>> well, you know, the explanations are not mutually exclusive. one is that take a dog while it is down. the russians are extremely sensitive about china because they see it as the rising power. that's why they signed the agreement with the chinese in 2004. they don't see japan as a rising power, but i think they really underestimate the strategic significance of japan for sure, but that's why you will not see the border agreement. two, there's some domestic political mileage to be had by adhering to be the nationalist, medvedev going to the territories, et cetera. but i think the more interesting aspect is when i see them talking about the military

deployments, deploy the french all the stores -- destroyers, the anti-air systems in the islands, you know, i think in that way and perhaps the russians may be using japan as sort of a trojan horse. there's certainly no strategic threat emerging to them from japan. where it might emerge from someplace else. >> let me add just a few words to that they are there may be yet another explanation. just bad policy planning. i do not rule out all the hypotheses suggested by andy, but at the same time russian school seriously underestimate reaction of the japanese government, so on and so forth.

just bad policy. >> they're also i think is real frustration in moscow what they see as total -- about the islands. there's no willingness to compromise. but medvedev did make some overtures trying to build on what putin had done five or six years ago, but maybe this is, it may be a way of the russians to say i love you, i want you, a prickly embrace from the bear. that might be, that explanation could be mutually exclusive of at least one of the others. >> go ahead act year.

[inaudible] the reserves position on oil that russia has come it's higher than the u.s., but nowhere close to the middle eastern producers. on the other hand, they have the largest reserves of natural gas. they have considerable amount of the european market. the natural gas is really the clean fuel, the choice you of the future -- the choice fuel of the future. a have growing market in china and south korea, japan in particular is going to be a customer it looks like. so why not natural gas, considering all those elements that i talked about instead of oil? thank you. >> i didn't mean to exclude natural gas. to some extent the correlation

doing the oil price natural gas prices but not a direct correlation. if you look at the revenue succumbing to the russian economy from oil exports versus gas exports, the oil number is larger than gas. but point is well taken but i don't mean to exclude. >> walter? >> the word ukraine was a really major to come and it does seem to me that one of the big changes coincide with the fact that ukraine no longer seems to be so slithering out of its grasp as much is slipping and sliding back downhill a little bit. and i wonder, given russian sensibilities and so on, if the state of the ukrainian question

doesn't loom much larger in russian minds than it often does in hours when the ss where they are and what they need to do? >> well, first of all ukraine is an important country for self perception in russia, and for russian nationality. and it is indeed very difficult in the minds of many russians a separate russia from the ukrainian spirit there is no fear held by many russians where russia ends and ukraine starts, so to say. and i agree with tom who talked about the former soviet state, the critical element in russia foreign policy. having said all that, i would argue, however, the credibility of this issue is in decline.

it's more and more sort of an elite thing. it's less important -- is a less important issue in public minds, especially for the youth. ukraine is just, well, a neighbor, but it's another country. that's it. for younger generations. so, the strategic and this ideal asian, in the coming years. at the same time for foreign policy planners to once again, ukraine is essential, not only because ukraine itself, but because of the relationship between russia and europe, russia and the west.

it's very difficult to accept russian foreign policy measures that ukraine will be accepted so to say as far over larger europe and russia will not. so, thank you for your question. it's very important and we should probably pay more attention to that. >> i wonder if tom graham come you could expand on your view that there are different types of great power of balancers and how that plays out with regard to russia awakening about china's assertiveness, particularly as china became much more assertive last year not just regard to some of the east asian countries with regard to united states but other issues that should be of interest to russia in particular. do you sense that there are

schools of great power balancers with china at the center of attention? >> you know, i think they are beginning to develop perhaps a school of thought that does have china as the center of attention going forward. the united states has been the center of attention in the past 20 years in this russia, before that 40 years or more. but, you know, what's interesting in conversation you here some very senior russians begin to articulate concerns about where china is going. and some others will be surprised because it's not necessary to people that you would think about. i don't rule out the possibility that over the next decade you'll find someone like putin beginning to identify china as a

longer-term strategic threat to russia. now, part of this, as part of the reason i think the russians have been so hesitant in these conversations is, china clearly is a rising power along its border. it becomes a bit more difficult to do because the russians also believe the united states is a declining power. certainly in relative terms is not absolute terms. and if you want to balance against china, outlined herself more closely with the united states may not buy you a lot long-term. so i think that's a problem. but again, you know, i was in moscow about a month ago, and what a lot of foreign policy thinkers, experts stress was, we russian foreign policy, there's

a much greater hesitation on the east and that was just a few years ago. factoring much more heavily in their own thinking, and clearly behind this is how are you going to balance this rising power, how are you going to protect or rebuild your own sovereignty over siberia, far east and demographics. and so, i think you see that and it will be people like putin you will be thinking on that. there will be others, i think pro-western will focus more on building their relationship with the united states, with china in the background, back of the mind but not something up front as a clear and articulate reasons for why they're rebuilding that relationship with the west. >> so, igor and andy get the last word on the subject of a great power balancers.

>> i just wanted to add a few words to the previous question, and i would like to try, the real shift in russian foreign policy, which is a occurring right now, the debate becomes more and more about real issues of the global arena. because as you look at our key main groups, what are the differences? primarily it is about russia. it's not about international relations. it's not what is russia. this is a striking difference between foreign policy and debate in russia and in china because my understanding from the project is foreign policy debate in china, it may seem it is about the nature of international relations systems. and in russia it is about what is russia. this is first question.

but it started changing and my point is that one of the driving forces of this change is china. this is a real issue. what is russia, they've been a part of the question about the relationship between russia and the west. the rest of the world does not exist for 200 years. you know, russia and europe, and then russia and the west. and the emergence of china brings russia foreign policy debate to where it should be. it is about external walls because what is going on out there, and then what should be. thank you. >> just a quick comment to your question, and i respond to tom's

excellent remarks. i think at this point the russian concern is is seen sort of mercantilist economic policy in china. it is extending in the countries around it. the best anecdote the russians have to address that is to clean up their own system and make their own investment environment more attractive so this greater competition amongst a number of players, including japan, south korea, especially with the eastern siberia, portions of the country. so you could find a somewhat similar response in some of the asean countries in feeling this in developing or expansive overwhelming growth of chinese

power. time, i think you're absolutely right, the emphasis on consensus, the consensus around great power, great power balancers. you know, if we just took putin for right now, there's no question at least on a rhetorical level that had different visions of modernization of what it means for russia, and i would put mr. medvedev kind of more indie -- they are both sort of, keeping the great power balancers meaning pro-west, unlike vladimir putin is more straight up great power balancers, occasionally leaning the other direction. but very sort of responsive to what is happening, we've seen the evolution over the past 10 years.

>> we will now take a minute to change name places, name cards, but before we do i know you want to join me in getting a hand. [applause] [applause]

>> in the aftermath of the recent earthquake in japan and the tornadoes in u.s., the senate commerce committee held a hearing yesterday on natural disaster preparedness. this hearing focuses on response plans. senator jay rockefeller shared

this senate commerce committee hearing. it's an hour and a half. >> i'm going to put my absolutely brilliant on the record which pains me greatly. but we have a vote at 3:20. and the whole idea of doing statements and then going to you and then going to vote and then coming back doesn't make much sense and what does make sense is to have all of you say what you're going to say and then we'll probably at the end of that time to go vote and then we'll question you when we go

back when we put up with that situation. dr. william hook, we welcome you, senior policy fellow, bob ryan, senior meteorologist, abc, wjla covering 5 west virginia counties. and you do warn us. and dr. ann, who's professor of the department of civil and environmental engineering at stanford university. and dr. clinton dawson, professor computational services at austin. and you all are extraordinary in what you know. and without getting into it, let's get into you. so dr. hook, why don't we start

with you. give your testimony, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. today we grieve for those who suffered loss because of violent weather in recent weeks and we can best honor their loss and suffering by working together to reduce the risks of further tragedy in coming years so thank you for convening this conversation on this topic and thank you for letting us take part. now, because of its size and location, the united states bears a unique degree of risk from natural hazards. we suffer from as many winter storms from russia and china. we have as many hurricanes as china or japan and our coasts are exposed not just to these storms but also to earthquakes and tsunamis, dust bowls and wildfires have shaped our history. and as we know too well, 70% of the world's tornadoes and some 90% of the truly damaging ones occur on our soil.

also, because of our global reach, disasters a world way call for a u.s. response so if you think of the earthquakes in haiti and chile, the tsunamis. our current disaster preparedness although good and improving remains far from ideal. warnings are more accurate and timely but in that last mile where they struggle to reach those who are actually in harm's way, they are all too often lost or garbled or misunderstood. compromises and land use and building codes means that our homes aren't always as safe as we might hope. 85% of the small businesses that close their doors because of disaster never re-open. and the dollar loss from property -- the dollar amount of property loss and business disruption is growing faster than gdp, virtually every

disaster quickly becomes a public health emergency. we can do better if we take the following steps. number 1, we must maintain our essential warning systems. that means funding for the day-to-day operations of those systems but also funding for modernization and that it also means funding continuity from year to year. these are programs that cannot be shut down for a year and then restarted. the biggest gap right now is the noaa's gps satellite system chmdz an additional $800 million this fiscal year to avoid an unsettled gap in satellite coverage no later than 2015. that gap will throw back our warning capability to what we had 20 years ago. it's not just to bring meteorology to the problem. pushing that warning the last mile we need to hear from those who study communication in a disciplined way.

we need to hear from sociologists. another example of the title of this hearing ask the question, are investments paying off? and the answer is, we think so but we don't know how much. if they were really investments, we would have a much better idea of the return on those investments. that requires that we invest a little bit in economic analysis that we're not doing. when it comes to natural disasters, we should little do better at learning from experience. we do this in aviation when the wing falls off the airplane, we noodle around the wreckage site we see what happens and we go and we fix it. we lack an agency like the ntsb to perform that function for natural hazards and the result is we rebuild as before. because we do that, we condemn future generations to a great deal of unnecessary pain and suffering. all of this requires the

government and the private sector work in partnership. they work collaboratively and effectively at all levels. noaa with the aerospace firms that build those satellites at ground systems, the weather service with the broadcasters. i actually think that one is going quite well. at the local level, the private sector and local government need to work together to prepare communities. the academy just issued a report on that subject which is in your notes. we need to bring in the insurance industry to provide incentives for better land use and building codes and finally we need to support wonderful private sector efforts like the business civic leadership council of the chamber of commerce in their work in hazard mitigation and disaster relief. as we're blowing up levees in the midwest we need to explore no adverse impact policies for flood and other hazards and we also need to track our progress and keep score. i've got three concluding points and then i'm done.

first, the department of commerce is a suitable agency home for many of these notions. second, we shouldn't look at this just domestically. these measures can piled international good will and international markets for u.s. products and services. and finally we should not forget the impact of these measures on jobs. protecting jobs that americans already hold, protecting their communities and their homes in the face of natural hazards and creating new jobs to serve those emerging international markets. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, senators. >> thank you very much. mr. ryan, we welcome you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, for the opportunity. there we go. >> thank you, it's done for me. [laughter] >> but this is a nonunion shop. thank you, mr. chairman, for the to present some views on the federal disasters and i'm

speaking first of all only for myself and not my employer auburn communications. i served as president of the american meteorological society as well as on two national research council committees which wrote two reports to noaa and the fair weather reports which has advanced quite a bit of the entire enterprise as well as the recent report completing the forecast communicating uncertainty for better decision-making using weather and climate forecast. the short answer, i believe, is most definitely yes, federal investments and disaster preparedness are paying off. and as we had so recently seen -- the united states and as bill mentioned has more severe weather and more weather-related disasters than any other country. an example, 90% of the strong and life-threatening tornadoes in the world occur in the united states. the science of meet olli has made remarkable advances in the

last 50 years thanks in large part due to the federal investment in knowing that better forecasts and advanced warning, before weather emergencies, are of tremendous public and economic benefit to all of us. and indeed, i would argue that if we all agree that one of the fundamental purposes of government is protection of the life and property of its citizens, few organizations do that each and every day more than our nation's weather services, both public noaa and the local practiceserses. many ask many of the investments that we have made we have made in advancements assistants, doppler radars, super computers, how could so many lives be lost in the terrible tornado outbreak of last week? more than 90% of last week's tornadoes were warned on with an average lead time of 25 minutes. something impossible years ago.

but more than -- we had more than eleven ef4 tornadoes and two ef5 tornadoes in a single day, more than any day in history. and without proper protection in storm cellars, reinforced safe rooms or protected basements, it was impossible to survive tornadoes with winds of 160 to more than 200 miles an hour. jeff masters, who is at the university of michigan who has written a blog estimated if we had the same outbreak 50 years ago before doppler and before all the investments, the loss of life would have been in the thousands from that event. the current weather forecasting warning communication system is a shared enterprise. sometimes the entire mix, federal, public, private, nongovernmental organizations, emergency management, the community and the media -- they're called the weather enterprise sometimes some of us refer to. and indeed, there is such early

warnings and communication of these warnings and alerts to the public through every means from noaa radio, new digital media and especially local news broadcasts which were on the air continuously last week tracking with both national weather service and local tv station daurpz -- dopplers that allowed many people to survive in a once in a 100 year natural disaster. the system worked. and the shared partnership of federal employees at the national weather service, local government officials and emergency managers and critically to broadcast community and local broadcast meteorologists helped more than 99% of our fellow citizens in the path of killer tornadoes survive, what everyone hopes is certainly a once in a lifetime experience. today's forecasts are really an end to end process that the ever more accurate weather forecast and climate forecast, the

communication of the forecast information to the public than other users and finally, the decision-making using that information by the public and users. if we have a 100% accurate weather forecast, which may not be effectively communicated and then results in a poor or bad decision, we have failed. the 100% correct forecast is of little use if the wrong weather or climate-related decision is made. effective communication as essential as a correct weather forecast and in the case of weather emergencies, the media and over the air broadcasters play a vital role in communication of weather forecasts and warnings. my fellow broadcasters, in mississippi, georgia, texas, west virginia, alabama -- in the last few weeks were on the air continuously to keep the public form. communicating the warnings from our colleagues at the national weather service, helping the community watching, listening to make the best lifesaving decisions. the last -- however, the last

stop on our end to end weather forecast is the decision by the public end user in weather emergencies and that's what i do. the local broadcaster, the local broadcast meteorologists known in the community -- they serve and still using traditional methods of communing via over the air, television broadcasts during television newscasts and continuously as we saw last week during weather disasters is the trusted source. and just to wrap up my colleague james span in alabama during this terrible, terrible outbreak was on the air using all his assets from the public radar to spotters and over the air continuously. and i thank him in those efforts in pinpointing the terrible outbreak of tornadoes, helping people make the proper decision that save their lives. and that is where we are all

heading. yes, the system is working the way we communicate weather information and forecasts is expanding every day. the federal investment in our weather enterprise is vital. efforts to stop funding, the new joint polar satellite system as we just heard will degrade our ability to adequately forecast and warn of the next potential weather disaster. certainly we do need to bring social science expertise into our shared enterprise. and learn how to better -- how we can better use these expertise in every new and old media to better communicate what we know and what action should be taken and better help the public make the best lifesaving decision rather than life-risking decision in the face of the next weather emergency. with continuing federal support for the core structure of this country's great weather enterprise, what we have accomplished together in the advance of the service of the science i love to the public, the country and the world will continue, and continue to be a

shining example of how government meets its key role of the production of the lives and property of its citizens. thank you very much, mr. chairman. i'd be happy to answer questions later. >> absolutely. dr. ann. >> thank you. mr. chairman, members of the committee, it is an honor for me to be here today and represent the new american society of civil years. my research has been in earthquake hazards and risk analysis and development of wireless monitoring systems. therefore, my comments will be focused primarily on earthquakes but they easily apply to many of the other hazards. the question that you had put in front of us is whether our investment in earthquake hazards and other natural disasters have been paying off. the short answer, just like

mr. ryan said is yes, the public a lot safer today because of all the opportunities because of the national earthquake hazard introduction program has been involved in. we have made great strides in understanding the geosouth loop -- geosciences when subbed to earthquakes how people and economys are affected by earthquakes. and how we should mitigate and upgrade our structures to prevent and minimize future disasters. however, we're not there yet. not even close. the reason being that with every earthquake, we see and learn how much we don't know. to continue -- we continue to be humbled with every single earthquake event and we have had something new and different that we didn't know before. the last earthquake in japan,

the japan of march 11 of this year has indeed shown us what a truly devastating event can do to a very large community. our laboratory tests are sophisticated numerical models cannot replicate, cannot produce and cannot teach us what such a large earthquake can do. what we can do, however, we can prepare to take measurements and study these events which enable us to greatly improve and enhance our models and technologies in order to apply them in systemic way to prevent future losses. it has played an important role in mitigation activities. i happen to be involved in a study in 2005 where we looked at the effect of mitigation and how

our -- each dollar that we spend is paying off. the study was conducted of the institute of building sciences. there were several conclusions but the key one, probably the most important one was that for every dollar spent in litigation we are saving $4 in loss in future loss. with recent budget cuts and states getting deeper in debt we have seen major reduction and settling up in many places, i out right elimination of mitigation programs. the result will be devastating. if future -- if we reduce our research mitigation budget, we will not be benefiting from the current advances and we will be putting our communities at even greater risk. moreover, we need to invest funds specifically to study the great earthquake of march 11th.

this is the first time that a magnitude 9 earthquake has hit a country that has a building and infrastructure that's very similar to ours, that has design practices that are very similar to ours, that have a general, social and economic environment similar to ours. and where we're seeing for the first time and have evidences and measurements from the largest tsunami we have observed. some of the tsunami waves were as high as 37.8 meters, close almost to 100 feet if not higher. the lessons to be learned are enormous, unprecedented. i should mention that after the 1995 kobe, japan, earthquake, japan invested more than a billion dollars in all kinds of instrumentation. the data has been gathered waiting to be analyzed. it is our duty to participate in

these activities. we are fortunate to have excellent alliances with our japanese colleagues. and this gives us an opportunity to really study and test and prove our models, our mitigation practices and understand what we need to do to prevent future disasters. you might ask after spending all this money over the years why are our structures and our communities still at high risk? there are at least two answers and i will bring the two most important answers why. the first one is our infrastructure -- all of our structures, the majority of them, probably about 80% of them were built prior to current design practices. moreover, we have allowed our

infrastructures to greatly deteriorate, making the problem even worse. the second problem is that earthquake engineering and earthquake-related sciences is relatively young. we have been working on this problem for the last 30 years but with every earthquake, we have learned more and more. in order for us to start addressing some of the questions, we need to continue in a systemic manner. let me give you one example. after the 1994 earthquake, what we observed was that particularly businesses required their facilities to continue functioning in a manner where their business will not be interrupted. our design practices up until then had been to design strictly for life safety. we didn't worry how much damage there was to the structure as long as the structure didn't collapse and kill people and indeed we have done very well in that respect. looking at the number of casualties. what we have done -- what we

understand now is that in order to have economic viability we need to have business continuation and our critical infrastructure needs to function immediately after an earthquake. asc has been at the center in the design and development of all of these mitigation activities. i see that i'm out of time. i will just conclude by saying something that we have said over and over again. we cannot prevent earthquakes from happening. however, what we can do through our research, through our mitigation activities we can great reduce the consequences from such events and prevent them from becoming a disaster. thank you very much, chairman, and senators. >> thank you, i call on senator hutchison. >> yes, i just wanted to introduce the witness that i invited. dr. dawson is a professor for the institute for computational

engineering and sciences at my alma mater the university of texas at austin and if i might say we are also the alma mater of the vice admiral who led the assault on osama bin laden. he is a university of texas graduate. we have two proud longhorns in the room and i would just point that out and i would just like to introduce dr. dawson and glad you're here. >> thank you, senator hutchison. thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. my research efforts are focused primarily on modeling and simulation of processes in the coastal ocean. the primary sources of federal funding for this work are the national science foundation the department of defense and department of homeland security and my group collabrates with a number of researchers at other universities, government laboratories, and state agencies. we utilize the computational resources with the national science foundation terror friday and tack at the university of

austin. and we use noaa data extensively in our research. one of the main applications of this research is the predictive surges due to hurricanes and tropical storms by predictive simulation i'm referring to the development of computer models which can be used in real time to forecast storm surges as hurricanes approach land, to study the impacts of hurricanes and to preproduce actual measurements which were taken during the storm and to study future scenarios for reasons which i will discuss below. the computer model that we have developed is an advanced circulation model. this model takes inputs from various services and compuce water models and currents driven by hurricane force and waves. it was used extensively in forensic studies of katrina as part of the interagency

evaluation task force. as i mentioned predictive simulation of storm surge can fall into three categories, forecast, forensic studies and forecast mode. >> they use the rangerer computer at ut aujz austin to generate a high resolution forecast typically within an hour. for a strop approaching texas or louisiana this data is transmitted to the state operations center and the texas governors division of emergency management which is responsible for emergency response evacuation, search and rescue and other operations. in forensic modes the model is used to study forensic outcomes we tend to look at the output model as with meshed data as was done in hurricane katrina. they validate the predictive capability of model and help to build understanding of the complex physical process which occur during hurricanes, help to quantify of the vulnerability of the storm surge and can be used to understand the successes or

failures of various protection systems. hurricane ike is an interesting example where new sight called hind casting. there was a forewarner up along the upper texas code 24 hours before the landfall. it was documented of the galveston hurricanes of 1900 and 1915. ike was very similar in track and intensity to these hurricanes. our forecast model was able to reproduce this surge and now that it's discovered, future forecasts to similar storms will be able to predict this surge and to alert the public to the possible danger. finally, they have run under various hypothetical scenarios of future and design of protection systems and to help quantify risk in low-lying areas. future protection systems include soft options such as wetland resoriation on land use processes and hard land such as the construction of sea walls,

levees and storm gates. our federal investment is paying off. government funding of funnel research and coastal ocean modeling can reach tremendous benefit by promoting healthy coast and environments and promoting the well-being of coastal land. there's several future research directions which are critical to advancing the science and government funding of the computational infrastructure available, for example, through the nsf terror grid and basic research and computational engineering has paved a path towards revolutionalize of the storm surge and we are reaping benefits in this area. as i mentioned we are now able to do high resolution predictions within the time frame required by emergency managers. this would have been impossible five years ago. federal funding for coastal ocean model research has been piece immediately and focus more on the short term rather than

the long term. i would welcome any efforts to promote longer term focus sustained funding of research in this area. with respect to the storm surge forecast it's my opinion that future forecast models should be at the highest fidelity again the computational available. there's still basic research to be have our wind, waves and currents and their interaction with coastal features and structures. the ability of natural and manmade systems to withstand and possibly mitigate surge is not well understood nor is a long-term impact of hurricanes on ecosystems and communication and transportation infrastructure. all of these challenges are best met through knowledge and experience gained by theoretical research, experience and computation in collaboration that involves multidimensional teams and connections with government laboratories, state and federal industries and private industry.