which is that if within the government if a government machine had what was still classified material on it, then all sorts of declassification routines would have to be applied to the machines in the department. so this doesn't make sense for the graduate students who weren't allowed to read it, but for the department of transportation or whatever, it seemed like a propose lactic -- prophylactic point. ..

even the obama administration where the president is calm on all matters. it strikes me that in this realm involving executive authority and national security president obama has been just as proton to a sense of how dare you challenge my executive authority as any of his predecessors. we see that involving congress and the libyan decision. bad politics for him and bad for the country. i am suggesting a tragic likelihood that any president is going to take on this mantle when he is in office. and mr. zittrain's portrayal of 1 million parts full it strikes me that the 1 million part empty is significant because even with 1 millionth's part did

considerable damage. if you have any exposure to the american public as we all do, recognize that even a minimum of cynicism, even if the congress is as transparent as it can be there will be large numbers of people who are outraged, who kill people in authority. there will always be -- >> buoyed by the federal government. >> more than zero. the crucial thing is zero or more than zero. more than zero is likely. therefore we are in -- the week of possibly damaging information is the same category as the fact the world is full of nuclear weapons and if anyone go off we are in trouble. the world is full of bio toxins and if any goal of we are in trouble. we are vulnerable unless we have perfect protection. >> danger lies that way i think. >> can ride chime in to

reinforce -- our purely lawyer colleagues detected troubling notes of optimism. if citizens could be trained to trust the government and submit information responsibly and larry's hope which is an earnest one that people could let wiki leaks the tamed and organizations might act responsibly. there is a nuclear arms race among journalists that as long as jenna lee of the unfiltered alternative exists then all of this will go out there. latest guantanamo detainees files prove -- wiki leaks have been trying to responsibly in conjunction with the new york times and other newspapers but it was so furious when the face files were leaked to the times with julian assange. he retaliated by publishing it

all on the web. to prove he could do it he did that. that was not great for the detainees who will find it harder to be accepted by other countries now that their police files are out there. given that possibility and especially the likelihood that people will post them directly -- the hope that we believe could become more like a filtering organization. what would be the consequence? larry worked on transparency, talked about the cost of a world where everything is out there. the great novel in which the hero of the prague spring who was totally discredited when the government recorded his conversations with friends and broadcast them as a radio series and bowl country is this guy telling dirty jokes and saying outrageous things that all of us do in private relaxing in to -- totally discredited. i wonder if this world is one

that is irresistible and as it is it makes me gloomy indeed. >> i share some of your concerns particularly the invasion of privacy that may be possible without meeting big brother to do it because everything is recorded and played out. that is a problem with or without assiduously and forced espionage act but one piece of optimism is the prospect that our most precious secrets, i don't want to lump our secrets together because the minute it leaks your nuclear analogy comes in. you announce a zero tolerance policy. i understand that for nukes which is what the procedure for handling them look snow -- it would be better to do it this way. here is a manual and like that mcdonald's, you take the fries out. you don't say they should be a little browner. that guarantees they are always

good. that is significant. >> guarantees are always the same. >> you are missing out. they are just perfect when the alarm goes off. that is like the dog whistle salivating. for the nuclear weapons this is the rule. you follow rule that nuclear is is supposed to be in the hands of a handful of teachers. there's still a problem. graham allison, about nuclear proliferation keeping it under lock and key. when we generate information which we then call kryptonite and it is dangerous wearing everett it is which is doing its best, not what it has. if you announce zero tolerance you need to respect it. >> the farthest thing from richard cheney's -- i am saying

information is in the same category as nukes and bio weapons. some little quantum of it is possible and it is difficult to protect. >> let me respond to the are rated suggestion that i am being optimistic. i was surprised. [laughter] >> the question isn't whether your optimistic whether the world can be a happier place. the question is what is the way to respond to the tsunami? what is the sensible strategy to the tsunami? it is not to stick your finger in the eye of the enemy. the sensible strategy is to bring them along. you are going to fail. there will be all sorts of other people out there.

but the economy is more complicated and subtle and sophisticated and joe biden tried to suggest we should be nuking all of these opponents. i am with your bobby orr's of what we're looking at in the future. but given that there's a better way than a worse way. >> could we get the stanchion set up and get questions from the audience? i will ask one more question and we will take questions from the audience. what are the implications on the general concept of freedom of information? >> one more reminder of the timeless elements that struck the press with responsibility to the press that in general the press and the public should have a strong bias toward

publication. in favor of publication and transparency recognizing that there are exceptions. there's more to be done. the news organizations for all the public meditation that went through that they tried to strike a balance. this is the new instance of something that has been longstanding. >> i firmly agree. >> please say your name. >> bill nye from harvard university. i agree with the thrust of the panel. i wrote an op-ed for the financial times saying do not prosecute julian assange. main reason not to prosecute is it treats the cause rather than a symptom. the real cause is how to manage government data sources. like george bundy have a wonderful statement in which he

said if you treat toothpaste and diamonds the same way, you are going to lose fewer toothbrushes but a lot more diamonds. that is where we should be responding to this wiki leaks thing and we are not. are fully agree with that. i have response i want to ask jeff about in response to my column that was a legal response to your lawyers. you cannot distinguish julian assange from the new york times in terms of stolen property. you can't prosecute. that would be a terrible first amendment flaw. this lawyer said you can if you look at the espionage act, if there is an intent to harm you can prosecute. if you look at julian assange's

writings, he moves gradually to becoming more like a journalist but in his early writings he is much clearer that he wants to do harm to the u.s. government. so this lawyer said if my argument trail by based simply on the first amendment but if i base it on the espionage act, julian assange's own writings are the cause for prosecution. as a lawyer what is the answer? >> the espionage act as currently written does not clearly allow prosecution of publishers and the government never prosecuted a publisher. you could amend the espionage act to allow for the prosecution of them and julian assange's attend to harm, that would be extraordinarily dangerous because once they're vulnerable to prosecution that any case the times would be subpoenaeded and held before court. senator lieberman is not concerned about that distinction. i certainly believe wiki leaks

violated the espionage act but what about news organizations including the times that accepted and distributed it? that is why he wants to amend the espionage act to cover the times and the basic first amendment point is allowing prosecution to be brought and allowing the only dissent is no defense at all and allow publishers tremendously vulnerable. >> over here? state your name the. >> eric google. my question goes to as you pointed out the traditional media disseminated the information for wiki leaks. as jim pointed out when you put on top of that the fact that the traditional model for media for the new york times news publications is broken, are we now in a world where traditional media can no longer afford to be

independent investigators of crisis in this country? same thing for international news. is traditional media relegated to the point where we are disseminated as much like huffington opposed and we really need to if we are going to support the state to check on abuses to rely more on these organizations? >> yes. let me reassert my reputation by saying this is the problem. we went from an era where journalism could afford to be journalists because newspapers were relatively profitable and could afford public good, funding investigative journalism we all benefit from. we are past that. we don't have that anymore. the business model of journalism is increasingly skewing to the polar extreme because it is

better to be fox for msn b.c. than cnn because you get a more active audience to follow you and translated to better revenue and not into the kind of journalism we all hope could be the future of journalism. what is the alternative to that? we don't have a business model yet. if it is just the commercial business model i am not sure there is an alternative. people are thinking of nation models or nonprofit models or alternatives to fund this kind of journalism. it is strangely a product of the increasing competition in the media. 1969, one half of all american families watched one of three news shows and those news shows aimed down the middle. they spoke to the middle. that is not the incentive of

this economy of news today and will not be for a long time because there are so many sources. you have got to find your niche and we will not have the opportunity to encourage the market and support the kind of golden age of investigative journalism which was only 40 or 50 years but still it is how we think of journalism today. >> this is a huge topic. i have gone into a lot in the last couple years. it is different from the way larry does it. the business model of journalism in tremendous flux as we all know. when it comes to international reporting on what argue there is more reporting and investigation now that in the golden age. state house coverage where there is a market and local coverage and that is where we have a lot of these other models they hope to come up with. there's all this flux going on

internationally. one sentence about joan i's comparison of toothpaste and diamonds. we should have a panel on the s tsa -- that is another panel later on. >> i am steve adler of reuters. we have 3,000 journalists around the world and we invest in investigative journalism but that is not my question. >> i have never heard of you. [laughter] >> my question is this. if we had four, 25-year-olds on the stage who were active in social media with this conversation sound different? some of what is going on involves a change in the way information is shared and disseminated and thought about in the world today and establishment view points around how to do this responsibly is not in the air right now.

i wonder if you would comment on the generational cultural changes affecting how we should be thinking of this. >> this hooks up nicely -- i am doing my best here. it links up nicely with jeff's point about even president obama who has been an avatar of transparency relating to that, once he has the mantle of commander-in-chief on he has to play his role and tighten up in ways you can understand. he has a big burden to protect us and that is why he resolve things in a different way which is good. why there needs to be other people in the mix. congress doesn't have that responsibility as much and all

the way down you have 25-year-olds among the least responsible people in the world. god bless them for it that that is how they are going to be. if they were up here they would generally be talking about how great it is that stuff can go free. nobody got really hurt by wiki leaks. deal with it. is probably worth it for the establishment really digest that message before rejecting it. it is a new world in which we are being forced to confront the fact that it is harder to present one face to the world that differs too much from the face that faces inward. another corporate issue and government to issue a personal issue. you can do your best to maintain that although it is hypocrisy. that hypocrisy can be very good by acknowledging or trying to

aspire to something more refined and better than we really are. that is a personal kind of growth thing to go back and forth with but the other thing is you might have to reconcile those faces and hope the world in the process of doing it is more forgiving than it would be wind appearance was everything. >> the point we are eager to jump in on. i don't buy the claim that younger people don't care about privacy. they are just celebrating the benefits. look at the polls which show when it comes to control of information on social network young people want to share in a protected way but are upset when they lose jobs or facebook pictures and what control. they are not teenagers. they are 12 years old usually. things are getting really rough out there.

people don't care about privacy until their own privacy is affected. young people are harmed by these exposures like disclosure of sarah palin's e-mails and her innocent children on the social network. i imagine younger people will be as sensitized to the dangers as everyone else. young people may be more instinctively comfortable and optimistic about these technologies than the rest of us but this will affect people of all ages. the point we are making which is the necessity of filters should be a -- everyone should be able the -- >> one important difference. news consumption or story consumption in the 1970s-1980s, listened to the news. with your close friends you might talk about one or two subject but it wasn't about spreading news. your job was not to take a story out of the new york times and

give it to 20 best friends. the current generation, i hear a story and i will tell you my view and share with everybody on my twitter feet or facebook page and tell you my view. that is part of being a member of this community. to engage in that kind of public speaking activity. take responsibility and be supported and do something. that is fantastic. that is extraordinarily important transformation. what happens with the news media is facing how do we say things other people will want to spread for us? not how do we advertise. how do we get to take our message and share it with others. they play into this too. that produces a generation that feels more connected to being critical about stuff than i was growing up. >> this is human nature.

this new technological leverage. i will give you examples when back in the day we shared stories. [laughter] >> back to basics. the big question, back to basics. all governments lie. secretary gates admitted that. a governmental law is exposed by a leak. if the government to lie is truly exposed and showed the flawed should that be suppressed or not? >> if all that was being exposed was the governmental lie it would be less troubling. the problem as i was trying to suggest in the age of the tsunami dumps is in the process of exposing the government pool by their exposing a billion other fact which harm people in ways they should not be harmed. how do you filter out

governmental lies? >> there is a new book out side. james stewart about false statements undermining america. he doesn't like lies at all but he does change the story how the efforts to suppress the government july, bullish's claim that british intelligence discovered uranium in the middle east, led to this astonishingly complicated series of secondary and tertiary false statements and challenges about who said what to whom and dick cheney's chief of staff for lying about what he told a reporter about when he learned the identity of the husband of a classified operative who turned out not to be relevant to exposing the original why to begin with. one girl is in jail and another lost millions of dollars in legal fees. the cost of prosecuting these is overwhelming and this new

governmental preference for prosecuting false statements and connected to other wrongdoing is so basic that i am troubled by the cost of this area. >> another way of putting that question calls to mind the dialogue jeff and joe had. what should the constitutional standard be for when you could prosecute a government official, someone receiving it in cooperation with the new york times and getting it from someone when the documents in question are clearly marked classified. but they are not harming national security. the world is made better to know about it. can you still go to jail -- if you take a classified document and project it on one of these greens it turned out to be the lunch menu and is classified. i think the answer is you can't

be prosecuted under the constitution but we don't know for sure because the pentagon papers case never went to trial. the case against kelberg ended in a mistrial but the supreme court was not willing to say the fact that it was classified isn't enough to go to jail. it is enough to lose your job and never work for the government again. we don't want to protect lives or affect the flow of information a negative way. >> 15 seconds point. it is obvious to all of you that the difference between the pentagon papers and what you were talking about, the pentagon papers were digested to the coherence of activity for all the cables. very different. >> was in the public interest. >> my name is larry rand. i am on the business advisory

council. just shift the conversation slightly and steve adler may appreciate this. talk about wiki leaks as a proxy for the blogosphere there are so many rumors, hundreds of millions of dollars could be lost on a false posting. who will be the filter? steve will say his organization. who will be the filter when that news hits whatever it will hit in your terminal? >> if somebody published a rumor, the ceo of a company there would be some damaging -- >> sleeping with dogs. >> this is my leitmotif as a

huge fan of these technologies. these are new instances of old problems and the old problem is there is more leverage so if these are legally damaging actionable events there will be something in the information eco sphere which will strike a new balance. there will be responsible blotters and news organizations that will give prominence and a solution will evolve. >> have the law caught up with this? >> larry would know better than i would but my sense is it will make things worse for national security. if the corporate sector feels threatens new laws will make it more punitive to trade secrets and intellectual property will

be enlisted to crack down and ip architecture will be enlisted to make it harder. the danger of overcriminalizing might be just as great as the danger you describe. >> to push back a bit and jim's characterization of the problem with technology. this is an old problem and new technology. the problem can be much greater. in the old days use for a rumor about a chairman of the board, he won't repeat it unless there is a sense that there's a reason to be repeated. a news organization won't repeat it. will not be on the front page of the new york times or even the back page because there are layers of responsibility in the

system. it could be everywhere and people can all say i don't believe it but the character of that person's character has been affected unjustly affected. but still effective. is a significant difference. it is an old problem but a significant difference. >> one way to deal with wiki leaks is to start solving network with fake documents. hundreds of thousands of them but can't distinguish from the real one. i met with the ambassador and you get a kind of paralysis so you don't know what is true and what is not. that is what you were talking about which is different from the marketplace of ideas and magically it gets shifted. are don't know the answer to that but it is funny to link your problem with what in some ways will be a solution to corporate and other secrets going on.

for personal privacy there will be venture-capital lists here and software you can put on your machine. lots of quicken files that fake credit cards and fake transactions so when your machine gets hacked, they won't know which was the real credit card from the right one and that kind of paralysis --.. ..

>> can you give me an idea of the legal question sure, because august is international and a different situation, but certainly in your sphere, what kind of prosecution this is, possible here. >> i don't think with a clear sense of that. because the exposure, the legal exposure is going to be jurisdiction, and the jurisdictions are so diverse. i think the reality is the hacktivists are recognizing they can architect such that if they're careful they will be immune from any effective prosecution. it's interesting, some of them, anonymous continues out there stronger. others feel like they'll make their hit and retreat for fear of something.

loeb set has announced they're no longer going to do this. in a way that they'll call off the dogs or to say please don't make our life miserable. so that might be counter to what i've said. there's no effective way to do it but there's going to be an arms race. no, inevitably so. it's not clear the good guys are going to win that arms race. >> the paralysis were just talking about about so much information often generated for the purpose of misleading or hiding deals in haystacks makes you not even know what to believe anymore. there's a sort of parallel paralysis that almost any computer now can be so easily hacked to any website, so taken down, this is no way -- this is not agreeable -- great equilibrium. it is not in equilibrium. >> we had an interesting segue and morphing of optimism and pessimism to the course of our discussion.

i think a place where we would come to a harmonic mean is we recognize that our eternal issues and information and privacy and transparency, and now we will fight these out on a new technological battlefield. it will be as difficult as ever to come to a solution and we will all try. >> i don't think i could sum it up any better. you know, it's not either or. it's somewhere in the middle. i'm not sure what it is, but i think what the discussion on wikileaks this morning sort of has a library for us, these panels come is enhanced our understanding of what said issues are, some of them are new. some of them are old. but it will evolve over time. let's give these panelists a big round of applause. [applause]

>> live now to the senate floor and washington, d.c.. the group is hosting a discussion on the rebellion in libya, what it means for the region and for the nato alliance. a number of former senior white house officials participate in the discussion. you are watching c-span2. >> rather than u.s. marines. the collapse of the regime after six months of conflict is a historic development in north africa and for nato, in a pivotal moment in the arab awakening. it seems each august when policymakers the world over seek to take a break from the daily grind, the world events just won't cooperate. indeed, earthquakes and hurricanes notwithstanding, this august is no different as what was seen until recently as the stalemate in north africa has rapidly turned into the reality of a post-gadhafi a libya. as atlantis is, some of the celtic league what is unfolding in the middle east and north africa is the fourth graders challenge to translate communities since world war ii.

world war ii itself, the cold war, the cold war aftermath, the collapse of the soviet union leading to the enlargement of the nato and european union, and transformation of the middle east in middle east into north africa. it's clear that now more than ever the atlantic communities response can't be the united states of the. indeed, europe despite facing its own economic crisis has more at stake and more proximity and must be engaged. today's discussion is the nexus of the work of the atlantic council entry of our flagship programs. the international security program, and the african, africa center. at a time as dramatic change across the region this summer that led council launched a new program. the rafik hariri center for the middle east. the center focuses on the links between political and economic change in developing concrete policy for suggestions for this change in the region. name for the slain lebanese prime minister, the central

reflects his efforts to rise above the sectarianism and promote innovative policies to address economic and political liberalization, sustainable conflict resolution, and regional and promote regional greater regional international integration. the aim of the center through its analysis and projects is to more closely bind together the middle east to europe, russia and north america. furthermore the council's international security program has long been the leading center for analysis on nato, translate security. this program will evolve into the brent scowcroft center of international security next spring as we deepen our expertise in working with europe to address global security challenges including in the middle east. finally, the council africa center intel transform u.s. and european policy approaches to africa by emphasizing the a strong geopolitical partnerships with african states and strengthen economic growth.

the distinguished leaders of each of these programs at the council operatives but in our discussion today. today's discussion will be into parts. first we will consider the implications for libya itself and arab awakening more broadly, then we'll turn to our second panel for discussion of the implications for nato and the trans-atlantic community. for this first panel we've assembled a remarkably talented group of individuals with varying perspectives. doctor michele dunne, director of the rafik hariri center for the middle east will moderate this council. also the driving that is driving the arab awakening during her time at the carnegie a damn it which was editor of the arab reform lord and his co-chair of the working group on egypt, michele is recognize that transit change and implications in the region long before mubarak fell in egypt. the council and drag center for

security program will moderate our second discussion on nato and the atlantic community. berry has played roles in development of a broad range of national security defense strategies and policies across the past three administrations including serving at the white house a special assistant to the president and senior director for defense policy and strategy on the national security council staff and having senior, many senior pentagon positions. i'm also particularly delighted to welcome to our discussion today to atlantic council board directors, one american, franklin nutter, one european, and net. we are delighted to have you join us. with that let me turn to michele to talk off the conversation. >> thank you very much, and thank you to all of you for being with us this morning. in the first panel we're going to try to cover what is going on in libya, and some scenarios for how things might move forward in libya. we will look a little bit at the

regional implications in the arab and african regions of what is unfolding in libya, and we will start to also addressed some issues in terms of the international community, and what its role might be inside of libya itself going forward. we are at a really interesting moment right now in libya where the rebels made this very surprising breakthrough in tripoli over the last week. it's not so surprising if you've been watching it carefully because the military advantage turned to the rebels weeks ago. i think it just didn't sort of make the international media, so we're at the situation now where it seems that the transitional council and the rebel leadership is largely in control of tripoli, although as you've seen over the last 24 hours, even today, there's still fighting in tripoli. and there are some troubling reports emerging in terms of

casualties there, and the nature of the violence there. also now attention is turning to the south, particularly to the hometown of libyan leader gadhafi. and there may well be more fighting there because the rebels are not yet in control of another city in the south. one of the questions that i think will be interesting to discuss this morning is gadhafi himself and how important his capture is to the situation in libya, as we move ahead and as the rebels spread their control throughout the country. the issues of the release of assets on the part of the united states and others to the transitional council, and whether the plans of the transitional council had in place before the edward liddy,

the plans to secure tripoli, to establish security throughout the country and to move into a political transition, how will those kind of plans will survive contact with reality. we will also be talking about the implications in the region. we haven't seen those play out yet but i think we will be seeing them. i think that there will be a significant impact of what is happening in libya on syria. because what is happening in libya is now creating a different model for change, and more difficult model for change, but very different what happened in tunisia and in egypt, where they were peaceful uprisings, and, frankly, the military sided with the uprisings rather than with the leader. and, therefore, the leader was forced to step down with a minimum of violence. although there certainly were casualties in both of those countries, but not very, very

large-scale to in libya now we've seen a completely different model where what started as a peaceful rebellion met with a lot of resistance on the part of gadhafi, his military sort of fractured, much of it stuck with him, some of the broke away and went to the rebels. and we saw an armed rebellion and with international support. which is ultimately, which has ultimately won out. and for other countries like syria, like yemen, and perhaps others, this now creates a different way, that there's more than one way that these authoritarian leaders may go in arab countries. we will also be discussing a little bit the africa to mention because we saw a real range of positions that the various countries with whom libya had close relations in the arab world and in africa took toward

the struggle in libya and i think those will have implications for libya's foreign relations going forward. i'm joined on this panel this morning by three the english speakers. first we're going to hear from karim mezran who is a professor at johns hopkins site is here in washington. and also in bologna italy. is a senior fellow with the middle east policy council, and he is originally from tripoli. also daniel serwer who is also a professor at size and a scholar at the middle east institute, and my colleague, peter pham who is the director of the michael africa center here at the atlantic council. i'm going to start with you, karim. i'd like to hear from you about your evaluation of how close are we to the end of a military conflict inside of libya, how

important or not important is what happens to gadhafi himself and whether he is apprehended, and finally, what are your thoughts on scenarios, where might libya be away from your? [inaudible] >> i wish i could take a couple of hours. i think we are at the end. to answer your question, -- [inaudible] his troops have abandoned. what entropy is happening is a faction of important parts of his troops, have caused the rebels into the city. they defected right away. so there in the city.

catawba was caught offguard. that's what you see is the confusion, because there was no -- [inaudible] gadhafi is on the run. they will be taken care. so i think we are in the sight of a cleaner. it's important the cleanup is conducted and for the reason, taking gadhafi off means of gaining the surrender -- [inaudible] the other part of the situation is. [inaudible] we've seen incredible progress. [inaudible]

[inaudible] do you hear this? okay. once that has been obtained by the rebels we will see advances both from the mountains and out of misratah. that is true. there's a group of well disciplined, better disciplined troops. but along with them there are lots of a rogue, courageous people who left their houses, left their homes to go and fight. but they are, they are disorganized. the problem we've seen in tripoli is exactly that. there are groups from misratah, groups from the mountain, groups from tripoli as well. one of the cases for example, the council of mohammad, the person of gadhafi.

he surrendered himself. he gave himself up to the rebels. he was kept in a place by a group robbed from intel. people from these markets went to the house when he was kept pretending to be rebels from benghazi and once jeffrey m. and bring him to the headquarters. so they freaking. they didn't know each other. there was no indication. there was no hierarchy, nothing. this has also led to problems. i was watching a report this morning. i was seeing bodies all over the city, full of bodies left in the street. the doctors and hospital are receiving bodies. signs of torture all over. this may be because of the resistance. the lack of order on the parts of most of the rebels.

the problem, another issue what happened is, its hierarchy and the people who are part of the tmc are all people known, it's confused. we've always said they don't talk with one voice. that's what we have. the criticizing of the tnc, it's too easy, we shouldn't have a standard too high. it's true that they are touring europe and he's never been seen in benghazi not for a couple of days. it is true others say something and someone else is something else. the whole plan and draft for the gadhafi. is different according to the one you talk to. but that i think will be solved. also the people from tripoli will be different.

and then the legitimacy of the tnc would be increased. there is one problem regarding the tnc. everybody in libya is immediately come is quickly to dismiss this. what i find strange, everybody says that are no islamists. there are conservatives in the mosque. there are no groups, very few, very limited. but i would be very careful. myself i seem, the radicalism, the conservatism of the people increasing in libya in the last two, three, four years at a high speed we. the news are coming from other parts that talk of how well armed. the people -- so that's an issue

that we should consider. where are we now? well, this state of affairs on the ground, in my opinion, three or maybe four. first, it is present. what is going to happen once the tnc announces formation of the government and the people from misratah will fall will not be happy, or the people say i'm not represented, or the people from the guys he say we carried the burden of the fight and then we should need more than you. what will happen in that moment? what will happen when they start to disarm some of the factions and they refuse? what will happen when someone has been charged reform the army or the police force and people say not represented. and that can lead, in a normal, in the hands of people with very little experience.

that is a good retreat for what so-called the somalia affect the hopefully it won't happen but it's one possible scenario. another scenario summon mentioned, we haven't seen in this war the military commander. there is no soldier that has emerged, no figure that is, did i leave the army. i am the commander. somebody substitute. what if something happened? what if the command of the largest the tides as you know what, it's too much problems, there's too much fighting and i'll take care of the big peace in this institution. and then we are back to kind of a semi-dictatorship. different from before but is it possible scenario. something a lot of people are talking about. if you have a strong method is very present, summit talks about this opportunity for another figure belong to powerful tribes

to lead. because of the weakness and the lack of charisma, the leadership of the tnc. the third scenario is nothing of this happened and he remains stuck in the transition. gadhafi is seen around, there is no real agreement of how to minister the country and we remain with the part of the tnc in benghazi, part in tripoli, a situation. forth on having his the opportunity of a situation which the sacrifice, the definition of the overall operation will not allow for this to become a failure. people will be ready to give up their arms, ready to start over again. and that is what we hope. i want to finish just with one thing. there is a lot of talking about the western influence, and the fact issue be left to the libyans, et cetera, et cetera. there's a reason i will tell you, it is important that the

western countries remain on our site, remain and help his transitional national counts to continue. and libyans -- they do not look at the west as negative as some impressions may be. libya was formed thanks to the united nations, exist thanks to the libyan efforts, but they have on the united nations. this war has been one thanks to the support of european countries. i don't think the libyan will look better to continuation of any form in helping support the policing, administering the money and then the reconstruction. >> thanks, drama. let me just ask you a brief, two quick follow-up questions. one of them is, you know, you've talked about the bloodshed that is occurring in tripoli now.

to what extent do you see that impeding the transition and in peaking a reconciliation and an integration of tripoli fully into the post-gadhafi arrangement? because i recall when members of the transitional council were here in washington a few weeks ago and we were talking, they act as a we don't want to fight our way through tripoli because we are worried about what that will mean when we need to reconcile with triply. that's the first question. will that be a serious problem or do you feel they will be up to pacify tripoli without having done so much damage that a reconciliation becomes difficult? the other question is more of a hypothetical question but it's something i think we need to bear in mind. where do you think libya would be today had they been no international intervention? what would've happened? as difficult as the current

situation in libya is and what were the alternatives have been? what would it have been like had i not been an international intervention? >> enqueue. yes -- thank you. we have always tried to see if the west, if the united states would lead, i deal with gadhafi when he would leave triply. to deal with the tnc. and none of this budget would've happened. having said that, this has happened and it's very bad, very tragic. the city is being put down much, but i don't think they'll be funny but i think all libyans again will say okay, anyway the dictator is gone, we are free five after so many years. it has cost us many more deaths than necessary but that's it. so i think it could lead to some

more aggressive vengeance, some more problems but nothing i hope. i think your second question, had not the european put pressure on gadhafi and then the french and the british. so, therefore, i think that we are much better off and we should be thankful for the intervention and we should, everything considered, of course when one father comes as is i lost my son and his, you have a difficult time in telling, yet, but we did it for freedom. so it has cost death. death caused problems. death causes destruction. but in the end i hope the leaders understand it is worth it. it was an act of courage, and was worth it. >> thank you, karim.

dan, daniel serwer, we will turn to you now, and to discuss a little bit more the international role beyond, beyond the military intervention, but how do you see the international role in libya following, you know, following the fall of tripoli? and if you can't, then you, if you could include in that not only the western wall, the u.s. and european role, but also the arab role which has been very significant. there's been very significant support from gulf states to this rebellion. >> i think where we have to start, the international role is inside libya, with the libyan requirements. that's very difficult to do right now because where are the authoritative libyan voices? but let me imagine a bit what libyans will be feeling at the

moment they really need, recognizing full well that i will defer immediately to libyans if they say i'm wrong. i think the immediate requirement is very clear to in the resistance, to block the revenge killing to stabilize tripoli, to get the water and electricity flowing, the with humanitarian requirements, again an inclusive political process. to me these are the logical things to be worrying about at the moment. i'd be very surprised if libyans were not worrying about them. but when you design the international effort, you need to be looking at longer-term goals as well. what are those longer-term goals? well, first and foremost i admit is a safe and secure environment. the decision has essentially been made for the moment, at least that there will be no international peacekeeping force. this is a decision whose wisdom

we will know someday. i would have preferred that the europeans prepare to put paramilitary police into tripoli, to stabilize the situation, but they would've had to be landing right now and they are not. they haven't organized such an effort, and i think it's a mistake not to have organized it to be ready if needed. i would be the first to admit that it would only deploy if the libyans requested. why do i point to the europeans? i point to the europeans because they have vital interests at stake in libya, and the united states doesn't. the mediterranean is there great place. it's not one of ours. libya is connected literally by umbilical gas pipelines to europe. there are european investments

at stake. the our european oil and gas supplies at stake. there's a risk of libyan migration if things really go to hell in handbasket. there's a risk of libyan migration, which should concern the europeans and which is not as much a concern to the united states. so i do believe in all what i'm going to talk about now, i deeply that the europeans should play a leading role and that the american role is in part to get the europeans to stand up to their proper role. we did this somewhat successfully with the military effort. i haven't seen the same kind of success yet with the civilian effort. looking at the longer-term. libyans are going to want rule of law, at least in karim's center. they will want rule of law and i'm going to keep myself in his fourth relatively benign

scenario. this is a long-term project. it's not going to happen tomorrow. training and retraining of the police, the judiciary and corrections. you've got to start pretty quickly now. because it's going to take a long time. it can't wait three or four years and then begin it because then you will have, you'll have three or four years of very bad experience. on the political front, the libyans have been great. i have prepared this constitution charter and they may talk about it differently, each one, but it's great that they've done this. it's a roadmap. i think it's a roadmap that includes a time schedule. it's too fast, constitution within six months, even less than elections within a year. i won't be surprised if they have to postpone that, but people postponed elections before. i think they did it both in

tunisia and egypt. it's not a big issue if you're headed down the right path. i happen deeply that they should give municipal elections first. i think it's a big mistake to do national elections first, but i confess that there's only one case i can think of where municipal elections -- first in kosovo and is a very stabilize thing to do. why do i think that? because all politics is local, or at least good politics is local. and it's much harder to form coalitions based on secular versus islamists, at the local level. and you see, you could attest that he was emerging and who can get some local support, very direct relationship. you see citizens and local government. there's been lots of focus on getting the libyans the money

they need, but i think for the long-term, the real critical issue is not the quantity of money by the transparency and accountability of the money. and i've seen little progress in this direction. i've heard a lot of good intentions, but little progress in actually establishing a system by which they would be accountable publicly. and this has to be a system inside libya to be accountable and transparent about how the money is being spent. i've never known a post-conflict situation that would have benefited from having, having less money flashing around. and the reason for that is that less money means you have to decide what your real priorities are. more money, more corruption, more problems, let's focus on priorities. -- less focus on produce. particularly import of his once the oil and gas start flowing again that there be

accountability and transparency are that money come and that the citizens feel it's coming to them. this was discussed 1000 times and iraq, and ever done. and, frankly, i don't think iraqis have any idea where their oil money goes at this point. i think we might, i hope the libyans are able to do better. the immediate social things are really quite a cute. this doesn't make the headlines a great deal but there are people, large of a people who have been displaced by need shelter and they need food, they need water. the transitional national council has been very good about collaborating with international ngos in providing basic needs, and expect them to do that also in tripoli, but i expected to be much more difficult in tripoli, not least because of the security situation. in the long term though the social needs are larger than the

basic human needs of the vulnerable. there's going to be a really for a kind of social reconciliation, political reconciliation, whatever you want to call it in libya. this was a regime where a lot of people collaborator, and a lot of those collaborators were also collaborated with the new apparatus year i can tell you i don't know situation in which collaborators haven't tried to turn quickly to collaborate again. it's the people who resisted the old regime who will resist the new one as well. they call it out for misdeeds. it seems to me though that libyans will need a process in due course of accountability of some type for the crimes of the previous regime. and for that they need strong civil society. i mean, you know, civil society is blocking the benghazi

incident have lots of ngos. i hope the blossoms also in tripoli. it's really citizens that will prevent some of the bad scenarios as karim points out. these are longer-term goals, you know, and i believe that the should be set out clearly in a security council solution. 1973 is overtaken by events. we need a security council resolution that says there will be a united democratic libya under the rule of law that uses its natural resources to the benefit of all of its people. that to me would be a kind of vindication, not a justification but a kind of vindication. >> thank you, daniel. i wanted to ask you about a couple of questions or concerns i have about what the nature of

international involvement in a post by david libya would be like. one of them will be when we see any kind of competition for influence between frankly between the west and the arab country. some of the arab countries, they played very significant roles. and giving support to the rebels, and there is this factor that karim mention, a very significant islamist factor inside of libya. are we going to see international players kind of supporting different actors inside of libya, trying to strengthen their hands in the evolving living situation to the other question i have is are we going to see international assistance to libya being shaped or motivated by the desire to have a piece of the pie mercia late in libya afterward? are we going to see a scramble

for, you know, because after all party a once he gets through all this is going, to once again be a wealthy country. >> yes to all of the above. and libya should count itself as lucky for the. yes, there will be some competition for influence in libya and competition for oil and gas. more power to the libyans. they can manage that competition to their advantage. so far as the arab western issue is concerned, i don't really see that two tied the truth. what i see is a kind of synergy actually. the west having trouble moving money quickly to the national transitional council big after doing a little more quickly. i think that's fine from the living perspective, western frozen money will come in due course. i think libya is a case where

there was a good deal of unanimity between the arab world and the west and if that can be maintained, it would be a marvelous thing, put it that way. so far as competition among the western powers are concerned, sure, there will be. but that's a good thing, not a bad thing. it has to be managed effectively and the libyans have to create a level playing field for their oil and gas resources. >> thank you, daniel. i'm going to turn out to peter pham. peter, expanding at this question of the international role and relations with libya going forward, many of the african countries of course

backed gadhafi, almost to the in. we've seen a number of them now. that's not necessary uniform, and we've seen a number, i think 60 now have recognized the transitional council as the leadership of libya. but i'm wondering, how are libyans going to feel about africa as opposed to the arab world moving forward? dobby had become disillusioned and disappointed with the arab world and trying to reorient libya to africa i'm not do what you does every show by the living population as being their major orientation. but how to think this is going to look into new libya-also, a subquestion become one if you explain to us a little bit more the role of south africa in the current situation and why south africa has continued to resist, for example, the transfer of assets to the transition of leadership? >> thank you, michele.

in order to understand libya's relations with africa, a little bit of history we have to take a look at. and in many respects here as in many other aspects, moammar gadhafi was a little schizophrenic or showed a bit of multiple personality. there was a gadhafi the revolutionary who from the beginning of his regime spent a lot of libya money financing liberation movements across africa. and that has bearing on the current events. then there is gadhafi a hegemon who try to foment armed change in african countries, financing guerrillas to overthrow or attempt to overthrow. and that brought destruction to large plots of west africa. something in the '90s when the sanctions for terrorism began to hit the regime at home, and trying to fill the arab countries were not getting enough support, he shifted again

to be an emphasis on africans turning to the africans, many of whom were who his former victims for support. both welcoming africans to move to libya up to a point where a six of the population was actually sub-saharan african, and becoming -- the african union was born out of a summit and its foundational documents actually say it inspired by the vision of the great leader, the revolution. i'm not sure we have describing in history to change their charter to avoid that bit of embarrassment. and then there was finally the gadhafi the investor who the last decade invested billions of dollars in everything from business to infrastructure throughout africa. so all these different gadhafi's, and which one individual country dealt with will reflect in how it has been dealing with libya. so the country that probably

were least affected by libya, so the most flexible in reaching out to the transitional national council, the ones that carry a lot of baggage, south africa you mentioned, from the revolutionary and liberation period still carry that baggage without solidarity, that many of gadhafi financial support to them. and so that has affected the judgment. to the point where south africa's deputy president yesterday called for an international criminal court investigation of nato commanders for the role in assisting rebel forces during the civil conflict there. so these different interests are at play there. and also from the african side, misperceptions of what has happened in libya. the refugees are returning. the violence that unfortunate occurred in some places, again, from africans were thought to be mercenaries and more likely were economic migrants who just bore the brunt of resentment from people, that's affected some africans perceptions pics i think what we will see in africa

and libya's relations with africa is a bit of a reset. the arab league has been much more forward on this, both in the many diplomatic cover from the u.n. resolution and this week recognizing the transitional national council of as legitimate government of libya, where the african union has yet to come up with a consistent policy. so policy. so there be a reset. i expect the new government in libya will give it more towards the arab world, less to the african world. but they will still need each other. from both sides. the africans cannot stop the flow of arms from gadhafi's stockpiles that are beginning to see in markets throughout africa. the u.n. sanctioned monitoring group for somalia, for example, has recently reported man passes soviet manufactured from leading arsenals are now showing up in conflict in somalia.

rpg sevens and 29th are showing up on the open market. and that's where al qaeda is. said asking countries can't hope to stop that without collaboration with the new authorities in libya. on the other side, libya needs the cooperation of african governments to retrieve assets that the sovereign funds, we're talking about 15 or more billion dollars invested in just the last few years in everything from businesses to infrastructure that hopefully can be converted back into cash to be used in the development issues and other issues that daniel and karim spoke about. >> thank you, peter. and you know, i would note as you did about africa, that in terms of the arab countries, the position they took toward libya was not at all uniform. i mean, initially with the

question of the initial establishment of a no-fly zone and international intervention, a number of arab countries, syria, algeria opposed strongly, although they were eventually persuaded basically by saudi arabia i think to kind of, you know, step aside and the arab league did speak in favor of the international intervention. i was a really unusual step for the arab league, and a lot of it goes back to the saudi against gadhafi. >> even with a free afternoons of the u.n. security council, south africa, nigeria, all three voted for the u.n. resolution. what was interesting is how the pivot it afterwards. south africa all but this about its ambassador afterwards. nigeria took sort of a middle position, and, in fact, this week recognize the presidential council and gabon actually it's president here in the atlantic council a few months ago call

for the ouster of gadhafi last week recognize the presidency council. so there is a bit of right also in the african response. >> and i think the libyan, the living relations with some arab countries are going to need reset as well, notably algeria, which generally was supportive of gadhafi. so we will see, you know, what will happen there. we're going to open it up now to questions from the audience. if you have a question, please put your hand a. i will recognize you. we have microphones so i would like you to speaker question to the microphone. please identify yourself and please keep your questions brief and direct your question to one of the panelists. >> my name is walter from the atlantic council.

board of directors. my question would be, do you know what rebels leaders and transition council are the defectors who want to be a leader? and how people can trust them? and one time recently libyan citizens asked a question why do you think that westernization have all the answers for the middle east problems, including libya? thank you. >> okay. karim, which like to address that question regarding speak thank you very much because it allows me to talk about something i couldn't say before and i didn't have the time. i have a gut feeling that we haven't seen the emergence of the real leadership of libya yet. i do not think, but it is my personal opinion, that all those kids and young people who fought in the streets, who left their

houses, who have seen their brother and their friends killed will accept to be led by a political class as been in bed, bad terminology comes to mind, but with gadhafi for 40 years. people that has been, without names, so has been prime ministers me times with gadhafi cannot claim to be the new leader. somebody else been the ambassador of gadhafi cannot become back -- cannot come back into leader. military commanders cannot think they'll be in the new the tides it be accepted as they were before. there are new features that are probably, the second group and second line that will emerge. that our commanders of battalions of rebels who will claim the role, and they will say that i have more title to be

such and such, then this other person. people who really live in libya deep inside will emerge. it will not be people who have been abroad for supper years. again, one thing is probably, the government might need to support, and other thing is the leadership that needs charisma, need to leadership. >> let me just clear fight something, karim. i think there is a widespread assumption that the transitional council that we now see or in some form of it will actually lead to libya in some kind of the transitional period. are you saying that you don't think that's the case? or are you saying that they will but then other leaders are going to emerge? >> they have to enlarge first of all.

now, bring people from in gaza, from misratah. ones it will be large but we will see other people coming. these are the people who will put pressure. and then it will open up places for other people. and there will be a new wave of leadership. i don't believe that this is it. i don't believe that the new libya will be led by these people. i think this is an older, maybe experienced, maybe people that have done this more or less have done a good job in this moment, that i really believe the legitimacy will come from people that will appear in the next month, month and a half, two months or so. >> michele, can i edward? >> absolutely. >> there's been a lot of journalistic commentaries of the transitional national conference is a hodgepodge.

is a hodgepodge and has to become more of a hodgepodge as karim suggests. , a lot of different perspectives. when you're writing the rules, which a constitution is, distributes power among the institutions, that's what you need, is broad intent as you can possibly have. i might be afraid of islamist influence, too, but i definitely want the islamist in the tent, not outside. >> thank you. >> damon wilson here at the atlantic council. i the question that you might pick up on some of the pieces of this, michele. two pieces to this. one is the role of other arab states and was played out in libya. seen what they've done as part of this operation is quite remarkable. i think some of the training of the rebel forces in particular some of the arms. i wanted to talk a little bit about the varying roles of other

arab countries in the conflict in libya it's up there and sort of what the implications of that, how that plays a. for example, morocco and jordan also joined the uae and airports are formally becoming part of the nato council that was part of conducting the operations. interesting political decisions on the part of morocco and jordan. saudi everybody very key role in arabic still staying back in some of this. if you could sort of play that out a little bit. and second, what is the impact of what's happening right now in libya on the arab spring, on the awakening more broadly? how does this play both in syria and yemen, which are two countries in the midst of revolutions and revolt? but also went to the application in tunisia and egypt, to countries that are going through the transition already, if you can help us understand that. >> okay. maybe i'll take the first cut of the, navy some of the other panelist want to jump in, please do.

we are seeing really confused i think chaotic picture in the arab world right now as the various arab states try to cope with the amount of change in the arab world is really a little bit more than the system can bear. now, i mentioned, i thought in some ways libya was a unique case. gadhafi made a very big mistake about eight years ago by trying to assassinate the king of saudi arabia. and so because of that, saudi arabia took this unusually forward leaning position on change in libya, you know, when the uprising started. they were eager to get rid of gadhafi and that clearly has not been the saudi approach to other arab states in general. they were very unhappy to see president mubarak of egypt ago, and they gave refuge to the

president of tunisia. even in syria the saudis i think only reluctantly in recently came around to more unless giving up on withdrawing the saudi ambassador, was a very important step and i think the step that paved the way for a more vigorous u.s. and european position on what needs to happen in syria. so, and we saw that most of the arab states did pull together in favor of a change in libya. not all of them though. algeria, you know, stuck with a topic until close to the end. syria of course is very much preoccupied with its own problems and really can't play this kind of a role. lebanon had a big grudge against gadhafi, and i think was eager enough to cast its vote in the

security council. you know, against the libyan regime. now, this doesn't mean though that that predicts what the positions of arab states are going to be on other changes going forward. libya was a little bit i think of any case because gadhafi made so many enemies over the years. syria, i am certain that the opposition forces in syria and yemen are going to be very much encouraged by what happened in libya. because as i said at the beginning of this panel, it shows that there's more than one way to overturn a regime. i think there have been kind of a discourse emerging that well, gee, if it doesn't happen peacefully and pretty quickly the way it did in egypt and tunisia, then it just can't work. and then you are just mired in war forever. l.a. kings have shown that with some outside help, -- the

libyans have shown that with some outside help they were able to overcome the regime. that doesn't mean that things are going to be easy going forward and that libya will look like a perfect scenario. but it does sort of create i think another model. now, already we are seeing in yemen things evolving a bit into an armed will be an armed conflict. it's not clear yet whether things will go that route in syria. but it is a possibility. it is a possibility indeed. i think that, for example, the divisions of the syrian army would begin fighting each other. there is this fourth division that is very close, that is headed by the president's brother and very close and expected to remain loyal order largely loyal to him. but we could see the syrian conflict which has been going on

for a long time, and slowly spreading, becoming more of an armed conflict. and that i think will raise questions about international, international military assistance of some kind. i'm sure that the international community has to interest in fomenting an armed conflict in syria, but if we saw poorly armed divisions of the army siding with the protesters against a well equipped elite division, siding with us, that's going to naturally raise questions. and i think the fact that, you know, if libya is seen as presenting a successful case of international military intervention, that's going to raise a question, you know, about syria and about whether there should be some form of military assistance. and about to be clear. not at all in the present scenario. only any scenario where an armed

conflict develops, you know, inside of syria. so i think there are a lot of implications for the other rebellions in the arab world, and there are a number of countries notably algeria i think in which we haven't seen much yet, but, that has a model of leadership that is somewhat similar to the models of leadership that are being overturned successfully in a lot of other arab countries. ..

in syria for a breakdown, when violence cops, people go for protection to their own community, their own family. you have the potential for sectarian and ethnic strife in syria that would truly be catastrophic. i think if we're smart, we will be insisting over and over again now with the protesters in syria that they should not expect international military assistance of any sort. that they have to keep on the nonviolent track. i believe it has has serious potential for success but it

may take some time. >> i agree with you this is a unhappy scenario foresyria. i agree with you, chuck, that it might go that way. i'm hearing from syrians that might be a possibility. peter? >> i want to also bring up the role, highlight the role that turkey has played which has been rather extraordinary given, and as part of the overall evolution of turkish foreign policy to more assertive role, the role it played in helping rebels in libya. financing it quietly and now it has unveiled its financing. it is part of a broader role it has been playing throughout the mediterranean world and through the africa. that is something to keep in mind. the turks will be part of keeping syria from going that direction. it is one thing to finance and assist a rebel movement across the mediterranean. it is a whole another thing to have it on their own doorstep. i think they will play an important role in helping

encourage the syrian opposition to maintain discipline and despite provocations to avoid provoking a type of armed conflict. >> i agree the turks wouldn't want to do that but they also, they have had some difficulty defining their own position. i mean with libya they flipped at a certain point. they were, you know, initially supportive of gadhafi. and with syria now we saw the foreign minister make a trip there and make sort of a last-ditch effort which was utterly rebuffed by the syrians and, you know, so i think it's a very challenging situation for turkey. other questions? >> i wonder if anybody liked to speculate or about why the success stories in the

arab spring have all been in north africa? particularly since there is not much evidence of a great deal of interaction between the three. any comments? >> well i do believe there has been some contagion and some of the longest standing autocracies were in north africa by accident. so i'm not particularly puzzled by why it's happened there. >> i agree. it is a factor of -- [inaudible] i'm sorry. a factor of the limitation of any one country more than a plan or particular region. they were ripe for that even though most of didn't see it at the time. >> perhaps also there is the factor, that i can't help but think of bahrain, alan, when you raised this question. where there was an uprising that was, that was put down, i think temporarily.

i don't think we've seen the end of serious opposition in bahrain but, so the, the countries in north africa i think were not next door to a very, to a large arab country like saudi arabia that was, you know, willing to intervene in all kinds of ways including militarily in order to put down these uprisings. other questions? >> thank you. center for transatlantic security study. >> speak up a little bit. >> center for transatlantic security studies. just a question to, concerning the external influence, what you addressed before. i would like you, if it would be possible to expand on the possible role of russia and china when it comes to the influence, particularly when it comes

to the economic influence. if at all. >> well, you know, i think you can expect the chinese to want some of the oil action, no doubt about it. and that's why it is so important to establish sooner, rather than later, level playing field for oil and gas from libya. as far as the russians are concerned, i haven't seen the same kind of concern about libya from the russians that you see about syria. i mean syria is something that they are very serious about. in a certain very real sense libya is just a gas competitor to russia. in that sense maybe a little unwelcome its return to the market but that's part of the game. i think the russians will adjust to that but for

europe in particular being able to diversify by taking libyan gas has been a really important factor in the european gas market. >> one other thing, we also think most of the oil and gas of libya is already in a certain sense given or established or done. the real bounty, the real reason why there is a scramble for libya is in the money that comes from the oil. libya cashes its money and goes into contract. that is, that is what is really going around all over in europe, promising contracts right and left to everybody and everyone because of this money come from oil will be spent here and there and somewhere else. >> construction and so forth. infrastructure. >> everything. buying of weapons, buying of, everything. >> that is the real issue.

eni will get, it will be very difficult to take out from the concessions from those already relocated. they might to certain exact but i would be surprised that would happen. all the rest is under negotiation. that will be discussed. very easy for him to go around promising contracts to everybody. >> and what about china? china had a very large investment and it was a major issue for the, the chinese took large losses in libya because of the uprising. they had a big problem evacuating tens of thousands of chinese. >> 55,000. >> so what are, are the -- >> show particular efficiency. they took them out in half the time it took the americans to evacuate theirs. actually everybody was appalled by the show of efficiency of the chinese and, they got ships from greece and shipped everybody out in very, very quickly. so but they will be back.

they will be back because competition, construction, they are very, very strong. so they definitely --. >> peter? >> actually to follow up on china. china has proven it self to be remarkably flexible and pragmatic in this crisis, not only permitting the u.n. resolutions to pass but also if china was the first country to actually buy oil from the rebels, the first shipment went to china, $120 million worth. and they're already positioning themselves to, they made it very clear, in fact in recent days, very high level statements very clear they expect to go back and continue their contracts. in fact expand upon it. >> right. >> so it's very unusual that china supports a rebel movement but here's a case where national interests, in which case economic growth and steady supply of oil and contracts for chinese businesses trumps an idealogical read of the libyan conflict. >> right.

good point. any other questions from the audience? i want to raise one issue we haven't really covered in this panel and get the panelists comments about this which is this question of the return of the libyan assets. we're looking at, you know, over, well over $100 billion in libyan assets, many of which are invested but then there are significant liquid assets. we've seen now that the security council committee approved the transfer of 1.5 billion from the united states to the transitional leadership. italy is now pursuing, being able to transfer half a billion to the rebel leadership. what are your thoughts in terms of how this should be handled, how quickly money should be, the money that is liquid should be returned to

libya? how might be monitored and so forth? or whether it should be returned? daniel, you already made the point you think there's certainly a danger of too much, too much money too soon but we also hear from, you know, including from the u.s. administration their concern about getting resources quickly to the transitional leadership. so, i'd like to hear any of the panelists who would like to comment on this issue? >> they have got to have some money but they shouldn't have too much money and what they get should be handled transparently and accountably. and for that you can, you know, you can rely on them to voluntarily do that. i don't think that is so wise. i think a security council resolution that lays out some requirements is the right way to go. i don't know if this has

happened. >> are there good models for that? >> there are lousy models for it in oil-for-food and things of that sort. but they really are lousy models. but they're lousy partly because there were systems imposed on an unwilling regime. i think you could get, certainly the tnc to agree to some measures for accountability and transparency. my reading of them is that, is that they're the kind of people who would be amenable to this. >> what do you think, karim? >> yes i agree with him. i agree with daniel. it is very important that some way is designed or drafted that this money is given to the libyans with a clear budget and a lot of transparency seeing where it goes. and whether there will be commission by technocrats who decide where the money

goes, i have an idea there are more legal terms. it should not simply be given like that. also because it would put strains on the tnc which are amazing. most probably the people in charge now do not want that money right now. then they will be put pressure which are probably disrupting. >> okay. peter, did you have a comment? >> i think the important thing in addition to what karim and daniel said i think the other thing that is important to get the institutional capacity to absorb, libya certainly needs vast infrastructure, not just because of the destruction of the war but because gadhafi deprived the country for four decades. but there is an absorption and technical expertise that is lacking that has to be put in place otherwise all the money in the world will only cause hyper of inflation of the cost of services without actually delivering value for the money. so i think that has to be put in place and that's where i think the international community, the

europeans most probably since they're the closest there and also the united states and other countries can help with the technical capacity with assisting putting up the framework where the money might spend wisely. >> the italians are behaving the best. they have been promising 300, $400 million since probably february 22nd. nobody has gone to the minister of finance to ask for that money. they said yesterday there is money coming. it is not. signing contract for the italians without having any money back. but it is a promise, an iou which is interesting to see how they will deliver it. >> if, are there any other questions from the floor? one more? wait for the microphone please. thank you. >> george benitez from the atlantic council. if the panel can address the question of the libyan did i as pour a. they played active role in the revolt. what role will they play in

the post-gadhafi libya? >> you mean how good we are? i think we're all very good and very -- would love to see our country going back into democracy and freedom. but i believe one thing. all the did i as pour a, especially arab country will be relatively limited. i do not think the leadership, the political leadership, will come from the diaspora. there is one big problem. we live abroad. we do not know what it has meant to be for 40 years, 30 years, 20 years under gadhafi. the regime is undermined by the simple fact, the language is different. the feelings are different. the emotions and to lead the people you have to understand their emotions and stuff. i think that is a major factor related to --s that's what i meant before. leadership has yet to come. it can not be gebril, or the others that have been abroad or other people. it has to come from the

ground. that's why, if i may have a minute for this. me and daniel argued about the problem of the vision and in many other cases and i see the good in his point regarding this issue. having municipal elections could would be good because it would allow the beginning of a competition, the beginning of emergence within semitribal family clan or new people, become the measure. mez rought at that will cary the weight whoever it run the country. we have to fine a way. that should be debate be in the new assembly, whatever, we should find a way to reconcile this necessity the good that comes with this vision with the other big problem of libya that we have to face, which is the problem of national ident i t. libya needs to be reconstructed entirely. libya is an idea that has been killed in the last 40 years. gadhafi did everything he

could to undermine institutions undermine any sense of mission of libya that tie people together into one single vision, which is beginning of a national structure. the libyans have to be told to be allowed to express what it means to be libyan. so there must be a centralizing effort. and effort to unification. imagine what this war meant in terms of division. you have to reconstruct it. there are four, we have to make sure that this effort to reconciliation and reunification and creation of a national identity is reconciled with the good part of having on the other hand, strong effort is on the region and municipalities and in the villages to this point. >> well, i think we'll have to end there but thank you very much. thank you karim mezran, daniel serwer and peter pham for a good discussion. we'll take a break for a couple of minutes. you can stretch and we'll

bring the second panel up here promptly. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> our live coverage from the atlantic council will continue after the break. when the discussion turns to implications of the libya rebellion on nato and the transatlantic community. participants include a former bush administration national security assistant and kurt developing volker former u.s. ambassador to

nato. the "washington journal" talked to another ambassador from nato, nicolas burns about the situation in libya. we'll show you a short portion during this great. >> host: let me ask you for your sort of overarching thoughts about the role that nato took on in libya. >> guest: well, susan, as you remember, several months ago when the united nations security council gave a mandate to nato it was to protect civilians because gadhafi was threatening to overrun the major city of bin gazi. it was a real concern that libyan forces under gadhafi might engage in a bloodbath and kill a number of innocent civilians. nato came in and president obama and the united states supported that and i do think that was the right decision, and effectively took control of the skies and established a no flight zone and began flight operations not ground combat but air operations in support of the rebel army. that made the critical difference in the war.

there is no question that the rebel army fought with a great deal of courage and intensity but it was an army put together on the run. an army of lawyers and of workers and people from all over libya, not a professionally trained army. they could not have achieved the battlefield victories they have without the constant, daily air support of the united states and britain and france, canada, norway, denmark and other countries. so nato played a critical role. but again it was not a combat role on the ground but in the air. >> host: there are many problems that are or challenges that remain even in the early days ahead of us. if the transitional government is successful, declares itself in power and begins to build a government. let me just start with one of those is the weapons stockpile we know libya to have. here is a headline from "huffington post". libyan stockpile could fall

into the wrong hands. this article specifically, i will read you the paragraph. many u.s. officials question whether nato has enough people on the ground to make sure the material is secure if libyan security forces flee their posts. nato's decision to limit participation in the conflict kept the coalition's investment in blood and treasure to a minimum but that has not helped the cause of nonproliferation. >> well there is a serious problem because there are surface-to-air missiles in libya. there are man pads, portable weapons. "the new york times" reported this morning, i think the state department talked about this in their public briefing, mustard gas in the country. obviously one of the priorities that the international community has but also the new libyan government has to have is secure these weapons. nobody wants to see them proliferated inside libya or to the rest of the middle east or beyond. so it is a major priority. however, nato has made a decision not to put troops on the ground, i think in large measure that's the

right decision. we learned from iraq and afghanistan that it is very difficult, it is easy to go into a country. it is very difficult to get out once you have ground forces. president obama was very specific in agreeing only to a combat air operation that was frankly led by the european members of nato with the united states and reserve. he said he would not put american troops on the ground. most the nato militaries also said they would not put troops on the ground. i still think that's the right decision for our country given the fact we still have considerable number of forces in iraq although they will be exiting by the end of thiser kbroo. we have over 100,000 men and women on the ground in afghanistan. so we have, we are committed to major operations elsewhere. i think it's appropriate for us to keep our commitments to libya limited at this time. >> our live coverage of a panel at the atlantic council will continue after this short break. the discussion will turn to implications of the libya

rebellion on nato and the transatlantic community. participants will include a former bush administration national security assistant and kurt volker, former u.s. ambassador to nato. >> this afternoon we'll show the third in a series of hearings on the radicalization of islam in the u.s. today's hearing looks into terrorist groups recruitment in canada and how that impacts minnesota. you can see the hearing at 5:40 eastern. tonight here on c-span2, "book tv" prime time continues its focus on book fairs and festivals. from the virginia festival of the book, an author panel on the founding fathers and religion. that's at 8:00 eastern. the at 9:10. laura caldwell at the printers row festival in

chicago. the author of long way home, a young man lost in the system and the two women who found him. and at 9:55 eastern an author panel from the tucson festival of books on the history of the american west. [inaudible conversations] >> this is live coverage of the atlantic council. they're having a panel discussion called, to the shores of tripoli, what gadhafi's demise means for

libya, nato and the arab a wakening. we're waiting on the second panel to begin. it should start any minute now. that panel is called, implications for nato and the atlantic community. it is moderated by barry pa develop, of the bront joe -- brent scowcroft center on international security. also on the panel is kurt volker. [inaudible conversations]

>> ok. >> welcome back to panel two, the implications for nato and the atlantic community. the atlantic council international security program, soon to be the brent scowcroft center on international security you heard at the outset, has always made transatlantic security matters a core focus of our here. this conflict has given lots of opportunities for analysis and that will continue over the next several weeks. the fall of gadhafi is not only a monumental moment in the arab awakening in the history of the north africa and very significant event for nato in particular time for nato's history and the

transatlantic participation more broadly. some said nato hadn't produced any damage of tangible successes since the kosovo war more than 10 years ago and the libyan operation as it stands today at least stands in some contrast to the challenges that nato has encountered in afghanistan. by constituting a pretty clear success for the alliance and professor mezran i thought in the first session made that quite stark when he said the revolt would have been crushed rather quickly if it were not for western intervention an important point to keep in mind. certainly there are others on the other side of the debate. if you see the atlantic council website there is an active debate on both sides of this issue which is a healthy thing. there was a recent secretary of defense who gave a speech just prior to his departure that said behind the optimism lies some very, very worrisome trends that cast a darker cloud over the future of a military alliance that was when you

recall, that was born in the cold war to meet a very, very different set of strategic threats to our security. so here to debate these questions and others, facing the transatlantic participation in the aftermath of gadhafi's fall we have a very distinguished and transatlantic panel of expert voices who have helped shape the debate on libya and a whole host of other matters facing the united states and the nato alliance. so without further adieu, let me introduce each of them. damon wilson on the far right of the panel, not necessarily the far right of the views of the panel, is the executive vice president of the atlantic council here. before that was director of the international security program. before joining the council he served as special assistant to president george w. bush on the national security council and senior director for european affairs. his previous government positions included chief of staff and executive secretary of the united states embassy in baghdad. as well as from 2001 to 2004

he served as deputy director of the private office of nato secretary-general lord robertson. on the left of the panel, facing from my direction but also not the left necessarily of views, we have frank miller, who is principle of the scowcroft group. before that he too served as a special assistant to president george w. bush on the nsc staff. covering defense policy and arms control. mr. miller served for 31 years in the u.s. government including 22 years serving under seven secretaries of defense in a series of progressively senior positions. he also is in my view the world's foremost expert on nuclear weapons policy. and we have annette heuser, executive director of washington, d.c. office bertelsmann foundation a private, nonpartisan operations foundation that promotes and strengthens transatlantic cooperation. before launching the office she served in the corporate

sector as vice president of international relations of germany based, bertelsmann ag. she established the foundation's brussels office. served at its director. member of the world economic forum global council on future of the european union, atlantic council strategic advisory group and european council on foreign relations. she also serves as vice-chair on the council of foundations global philanthropy committee. as you can tell she provides a lot of council. we will no doubt be interested in here views on this set of issue. i will turn right now to damon and ask a couple of questions. we'll do that with each panelist and open it up to the floor. for damon, nato's leading role in enforcing u.n. security council 1973 in libya farced a fierce transatlantic debate is optimism in the alliance or exposes serious concerns about nato. just months ago, secretary

of defense robert gates warned some allies were not participating in the mission because they lacked the capability to do so and he criticized nato for dependence on the united states for important military capabilities even in operations very close to nato's borders. but at the same time, others have argued that this mission in fact demonstrates nato's enormous utility as the only multinational organization capable of quickly and efiblg tiffly organizing military action and integrating nonmember nations such as qatar and others in this operation at a time of great need so the key question i think, dam monies, where do you -- damon, where do you come down on this debate and nato's performance tells us about the state of the's most capable alliance? >> thank you, barry. i thanks for that question. it hits to the core of a lot of questions we're grappling at the council about the future of nato and future of atlantic alliance particularly headed into a nato summit here in the united states in chicago

next may. my first point, this is a success. this is a success for the alliance. it bodes well for the alliance but it doesn't mean there aren't important lessons learned to be drawn. i think that's a critical exercise, makes sense to be going through. let me begin my comments with a little bit of a caveat. that i do think this is a success but i served in baghdad. i worked in the nato headquarters in afghanistan. i understand the complexity of what comes next and i don't think anyone in libya or in the international community is out there declaring mission accomplished. i think there is responsible, sober and nuanced view where we are today recognizing the significance of gadhafi's demise. recognizing this is long-term process as we learned from the first panelists. i think that is already a healthy environment to think about the future of libya and think about what this means for the alliance. if you step back think what just happened in libya and

what the alliance role helped deliver, preventing a major humanitarian disaster, beginning with the likely civilian catastrophe that would have taken place in benghazi at the start of this. ended up driving gadhafi from power even though he is is not yet captured. has, led to the crumbling of his regime and really put libyans in control of their own destiny. and it has done so without the alliance losing a single casualty. it has done so with the europeans carrying the weight, the bulk of the weight in this operation. and it's done so in the context of one of europe's greatest crises ever. i think that's a pretty remarkable outcome and it's a pretty applaudable outcome. we have to deal with the reality we're in, not the perfect environment. i think that comes back to some of the things i take away from this. the lessons as i think about the libya operation for

alliance clearly need to be that you can never underestimate strategic surprises. at the lisbon summit in november 2010 when a new strategic concept was being adapted and nato was struggling with the mission in afghanistan this was nowhere on the radar screen and yet as the alliance was soul-searching wondering whether it manage or wind down afghanistan without inflicting too much damage on the alliance here finds itself in another military operation which was just inconceiveable at the time of lisbon i would say. second, this has shown us our european allies aren't wimps despite much of the public rhetoric out there. they can act when there is political will to do so. the corollary to that that the action here in lib -- libya was driven by national leadership, by national leaders. not the e.u., not europe as such. this was president sarkozy of france and prime minister cameron of u.k. period. their political leadership helped galvanize this at the

start. nato is relevant. it wasn't immediately apparent nato would be the organization to take this on. it had its hands full in afghanistan as i just mentioned yet the e.u. wasn't in any position to do it. there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm between a coalition of the willing led by france, for example, that turned out nato was the only instrument available and the fact was, that it took 10 days. it was a little bit messy at the beginning but it took 10 days to get a decision out of the alliance to take over command and lead not just the arms embargo, the no-fly zone but also the right to protect mission. a little messy but not so bad. the other thing that think i take away from this is how important nato's participation polly has been over the years. in the critical days of the beginning of this conflict i think there was a lot of thinking this would have to be maybe a french-led operation. there was a lot of concern that nato would be seen as western imperialist invasion

of yet another arab country in the middle east. there was a lot of rhetoric out there. it wasn't the nato allies that checked themselves. it was swedes, qatar qatar, u.a.e. we are working with the alliance. we know how to work with nato. we actually don't really know how to plug into efficiently into a national-led coalition or french-led coalition. i think that helped swing the argument and underscore the value of the participation policy. today when nato sits around the table to discuss what is happening with libya. it sits around the table with qatar, u.a.e., morocco and jordan. i think that is incredibly significant. another lesson i take out of this we're concerned about the role of many of our small allies in europe, many of the small allies stepped up to the plate and demonstrated their utility here. if you look what denmark did, norway, even belgium. danes and norwegians were conducting 25% of the trying

sorties in libya. 25%. that is remarkable for these two small allies of ours. i think it has been a healthy reminder our smaller allies can when push comes to shove and they're willing to put he will go grease into it have an impact. someone inside the government who worked very hard on the french normalization of its relationship with the alliance the other significant thing i think has happened this has been the first time when france has really been able to achieve its national objectives working directly through the alliance. and i think that's more euro wonk sort of way to think about what's happening but i think it is strategically significant for the normalization of france's relationship with the alliance the old thinking in paris it had to pursue its national glory, its national interest outside of the alliance this helped despite initial hesitancy to turn that on its head. i do think at the same time you've got to be sober about what we've seen. clearly this is underscored in just magnified the

capabilities concerns of secretary gates farewell speech in brussels underlined. there were problems of sustainment. there were problems particularly in capabilities not being able met without the united states involved. i think it has become very clear that the europeans today in terms of the trajectory they're on in terms of their defense spending wouldn't be able to conduct a libya two years from now, actually much less than two months from now. i hope that can serve as a bit of a wake-up call. that's an incredibly significant takeaway that i hope helps shift some of the debate about european defense spending. i think it also underscores the role of the united states. this was a very significant nato operation that the united states was not at the forefront but it did underscore to succeed nato had to be, the united states had to be involved, had to be involved in this operation. there is no handing off to nato. the united states is part of the alliance and i think

this operation probably could have gone more efficiently, more effectively if the united states had been a full partner throughout the operation. even what it did underscored that probably couldn't have been pulled off without the united states being in the there in the role it played. so, yes, there was a thin consensus over the operation. there were muddled objectives and strategy, particularly at the beginning. there was an ambivalent u.s. role, a sense of ambivalence going into a military operation is a difficult and dangerous thing. and there have been some particularly strong divisions in europe, particularly with germany abstention at the u.n. security council. think i there are real implications to that. the key takeaway for the alliance that gates's message, libya didn't disprove gates's message. i think libya underscored the importance of gates's message. thank god the ally wants was in the position to respond to unique circumstances arab league getting together calling for u.n. intervention in libya.

for the security council being able to muster a vote for resolution 1973. these are unique circumstances. thank god the alliance was able to respond and play the role it did play. the current path as secretary gates outlined the current path the alliance was on means the al lieance wouldn't be able to do so in the near term. libya was custom made for the alliance operation because of proximity to europe and geography. this isn't even an option thinking about yemen or syria. i think there is serious soul-searching from the alliance. with that said this is successful so far for the alliance and largely because of leadership from our european allies and i think as americans we need to recognize that. >> thanks very much, damon, a lot of fodder certainly own my behalf but i will hold. frank miller, i frank i would like to bring you in this discussion to get your thoughts what this mission

means for nato's future. i would like to get your opinion of the role of the united states in this conflict and what it might mean for u.s. leadership in the alliance. particularly as the united states faces the prospect of very significant defense budget cuts looming into the near future as do many of your nato allies. there are big questions at the grand strategy level that i would love your views on in terms of how might this operation affect how the united states thinks about its own role in the world. and lastly how might it affect the way our nato allies think about america's role in the alliance? i know after the secretary gates's speech in june, my discussion with senior nato ambassadors led me to believe that they are very concerned that the united states is abandoning europe. i would love you to address those minor questions. >> thanks, barry. let me start by using one of the classic tricks of bureaucracy. i'm going to pocket

everything damon said and agree with it and pocket it. i will talk about a different aspect. with respect to the libya, in all candor, thinking from the national security, national security point of view, for the united states and for the alliance i would not have gone there in the first place. we toppled a dictate tore but there are worse dictators in the world. with respect we really don't know who will succeed him. we don't know what outlooks and policy the regime is going to have. we can hope, hope, those policies will be constructive but we have no real assurances. the second point is that after the experiences of iraq and afghanistan, i hope, that we have a plan to insure that a transitional government will emerge without a descent into chaos that will bring calls for nato boots on the ground. although richard haas is already out there calling for nato boots on the ground. if any boots on the ground should be necessary, they should not be american and

they should not be european. but i doubt we have a plan to prevent the descent into chaos. i hope that the transitional government is able to manage that. and third i worry that the lesson that this operation has taught the world, a lesson which is particularly ironic given one of the, the flagship policies of this administration is, don't give up your wmd. give up your wmd and the united states and nato can attack you. and i worry about that. i worry about that a lot. but that's not the question you asked me. so let me try to address the question you asked me. from an american standpoint, i believe the administration made two major leadership mistakes which are haunting it now even if it's not particularly recognized in the administration and will

haunt it in the future. having decided that nato should intervene militarily, we should not have held back ourselves. i don't know whether any of you remember the movie that was made about, oh, 10, 15 years ago, about the battle of gettysburg and of course all of it is apocryphal. but there is a particular scene on the second day where lee says to longstreet, i don't want you too close to the front, general. i can't afford to lose you. longstreet looks at lee and said, general lee, you can't lead from behind. longstreet had right. you can't lead from behind and that's what this administration did with respect to this conflict. my own experience with the alliance, which spans three decades of work is that nato

function best when the united states leads and when the united states is fully involved. and in my judgment and my judgment doesn't count but the judgement of others who do count, the administration broke this golden rule. our standing among our allies has fallen as a result. and allied confidence in the united states has been reduced. the second major and fundamental mistake which i believe the administration made refers to the use of our american combat forces. there are many in this room who have shared with me the burden of 10 long years of coalition warfare which we decried the caveats which allies placed on the use of -- >> we're leaving this for just a moment to bring you live coverage of the senate meeting today in a pro-forma session.

the clerk: washington d.c., august 26, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorablebenjamin cardin, a senator from the state of maryland, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 10:00 a.m. on tuesday, august >> the senate is holding these pro-forma sessions every three days to keep the president from making recess appointments while the senate is on its august break. the next meeting is tuesday.

legislative work resumes a week later. we're back now to our live coverage of the atlantic council panel discussion on the implication of the libyan rebellion on nato. >> i'll come back to that. and this campaign did underscore, as damon has said, the paucity of stocks of highly-advanced weapons in the arsenals of our allies and thank goodness we had sufficient stocks that we were able to help them out. there were very, there were a number of positive things. and i think damon has hit those. on one hand, the inclusion of non-nato members in a nato operation. the inclusion of sweden and u.a.e. in qatar is really a huge success. and as damon pointed out,

nato's role in managing this campaign proved once again there is no substitute to nato as a military capability in the euro-atlantic sphere. nothing comes close. the e.u. does not come close. nato, again, was proved essential. and finally i would just tip my hat to the belgians and to the norwegians and even the u.k., which having made the decision to get rid of its carriers just months before, had to stretch the capabilities of its tornado force but which did so in a way which contributed meaningfully to the combat operations. i think today and in the future nato is more important than ever, and i think u.s. leadership in nato is more important than ever. we have some fairly

significant strains within the most successful alliance in history. and, i would go so far as to say, unless these strains and divisions are confronted, and resolved, then, then, the alliance is in jeopardy. we really must fix the fact that not nations who are alliance members understand that it is a one for all, all for one alliance. we have seen the emergence of policies in a nato context, not in an iraq context or afghanistan, in a nato context where nations are opting out both in a military sense and diplomatic outreach to other countries. and the tension between, i hate to use the rumsfeld phrase, i will without crediting him for it, the

difference between the outlook of the original members of the alliance and those who are now on the periphery and who are feeling more threatened is significant. and there is concern from the newer members whether the older members really understand article 5. and i think that was exacerbated in this campaign. so i think, i think you've asked a terrific final question and i don't like think i can answer it. i think the jury is out. and i think the answer depends on whether we in washington are wise enough to reassert our leadership role and whether we can work with other allied leaders in major countries to get them to remember what the alliance was all about. and actually to get them to understand what the strategic concept they signed up to only ten months ago, really means.

i will stop there. >> thank you very much, frank. a number of questions which i'm sure the audience will want to address when we turn to the discussion. but first i wanted to address annette with a few questions. strike us that the libyan intervention has some implications for european leadership within the alliance also. so would like you to address that. and in a corollary fashion, what do these events mean for the idea of a european common foreign and security policy? secondarily, germany played a significant role in the run-up to this operation. it received a lot of attention for its abstention at the united nations on resolution 1973. and certainly the absence of poland and other central and eastern european nations in the actual operation in libya also is significant as frank raised in thinking about alliance solidarity and european leadership.

so, a question would be, do you foresee germany adopting a more assertive role in assisting a post-gadhafi libya in part as a result of lack of participation in the mission itself and its abstention and might that enable the e.u. to take on a larger role to use its civilian assets which are very capable relatively in helping libya build a functional state post-gadhafi as the first panel addressed in some detail? >> thank you very much. may i start with the positive assessment first, but let me, allow me a general remark. i think this is not the first panel we are all sitting on in the last 10 years where we're addressing the future of nato. what i think the libya case is showing us that it serves as a catalyst right now to address the shortcomings within the transatlantic alliance as well as within the european union as frank

and damon rightly addressed. so we should take it as that, as a learning experience right now, to move on from that. and from my point of view it makes no sense right now to take a step back and say what went wrong and if we should have gone in there the first place. we should see the positives at the moment. and say, it was a successful operation of nato so far. nato again proved that there is no alternative on the horizon for it. and, it also, asserted its members as well as everybody else in the world that is still capable to execute such a mission, period. nothing else to be said on this end right now. when it comes to the european union, i think it has become clear that germany left a leadership vacuum in the last four years when it comes to foreign and security policy issues and, right at the moment, where the europeans were forced to together with the americans to take a

position on libya, we're all forced into this leadership vacuum, immediately, rightly so. everybody else would have taken the same thing if they would have been the french president sarkozy. so what we see right now in europe is a kind of readjustment of the powers who really can pull the trigger when it comes to foreign and security policy issues, france and great britain first and foremost. and the, other lessons that, that we have learned and that we have seen regarding the european union is that the european union as far away from replacing nato, this has not been the intention of the european union and the european security policy at the first place. the intention is more to support nato in its efforts and we saw that over the last couple of weeks with the assistance that the european union has provided to the transitional council

in benghazi. they ever already provided around 200 million u.s. dollars for the transitional council for infrastructure measures that need to be taken in the next months to come. so first and foremost the european union will always stay on the civilian side and not enter the foreign and security arena where nato has its place. that's a given right now. and when it comes to germany's role, unfortunately i have bad news. after the speech that the german minister of defense gave this morning at the security academy in beryl lynn where he was -- berlin, where he was acknowledging germany together with some of its european allies made some mistakes in assessing the situation in libya, but at the same time he also indicated that the germany is strongly against any boots on the ground in libya in the next months to come. germany is in favor of a kind of solution probably in

the direction as dancerwer indicated or first panel, new u.n. security resolution that will provide the on the ground a u.s. peace corps in libya. that might be a solution. he also said and this is one of the finer sentences of his speech that he hopes nobody will ask for german troops engaged in libya. i think that is a perfect indication where german politics is going right now. i'm not sure if you have followed the german news this week. it was a perfect coincidence that the former german chancellor helmut kohl this week came out with a remarkable interview where he was criticizing for the first time very openly the european leadership but first and foremost the leadership of his own party, the christian democratic party saying that germany has lost its for foreign

security compass in the european union as well as in the atlantic alliance. i think helmut kohl cole is spot on here. he is expressing frustrations within his own party, ruling party, the christian democrats as well as also with parts of the german public who are saying, you can't have it all, you know. with size and with economic success comes responsibility. and this is even more so the case for germany. i mean we are not an upgraded switzerland. which are part of the european union. we are part of nato. and this means you have to, to pay tribute to the responsibilities that come with such membership. and even if the majority of the german government has been against the u.n. resolution 1973, there would have been no damage, no danger at all, to work with our allies in the u.n. security council. and the damage that this decision has caused german

politics will haunt us not only for the next months but for the years to come. and we better correct this i think. but given the statement that the germans defense minister made today in berlin and really skeptical that the german foreign politics is willing and able to change its course in the next months to come. we will probably provide more assistance when it comes to the civil reconstruction, the infrastructure. we have around 10.5 million u.s. dollars of efforts as assets of libya frozen in germany to release that. to support the european union and in their efforts in benghazi and so on but that will be it. and i would say that's not enough for germany as the biggest member state of the european union and we have to align sooner or later with france and with the

u.k. in the efforts. my foundation, the battlefront foundation, has put on the table new proposal for european union how to structure efforts in the european region. we call this a transformation participation where we're saying of course every country in the region is different but our proposal is to get three countries from the european union per country in the arab world, get them to form a kind of advisory body to advise a country like libya to have france and u.k., and italy advising the transformation council. also maybe to set up a kind of a monetary body that can monitor the flow of the financial resources that we are pumping in the country in order to provide what the first panel discussed, clear transparency when it comes to the money distribution in the country. so we are discussing this right now in berlin as well as on the level of the

european union at the moment. >> great, thank you very much for those comments. again a lot of issues for us to discuss. so for now we will turn to the audience. in the first row. >> atlantic council. thanks for a really, really good panel. i would like to ask two related questions on the basis nato is always at a crossroads and nato is always dying. seems to me what is lacking so far is the overarching ghost at this particular table which is the dire economic situation. and it seems to me even if libya were to disintegrate into chaos, which it probably will, the economic realities will be much, much more powerful. i wonder first if the panel might just speculate on the gravity of those economic realities and what implications they will have for nato. including even further reductions in defense spending in europe.

you mentioned germany which is going through an extraordinary reform program which is going to be far, far less. my second question is to frank, who talks about we are going to revitalize nato. who are the we? this administration i think is bypassing the summit next year. looking to downplay it. you know very well that there's a tendency to look much further to the east. so if we are, i agree with you, frank. i think the nato alliance has been exposed rather dramatically in terms of contradictions libya has made worse, much, much worse. but who is the power that is going to be behind revitalizing? i don't see any there there. so those two questions, please . .

and the resources to undertake this operation and the context of such an egregious -- such a serious crisis we're facing right now in terms of sovereign debt crisis and the future of the euro. i think that's the premise actually that gives me a back on the back of the leadership coming out of europe despite the very dire circumstances before them. that said, this is very scary

circumstances and what's happening to european budget has the potential to truly gut the alliance. and i think secretary-general rasmussen has been able to respond to this with dissent initiatives which rightly puts an emphasis on national cooperation particularly between small militaries, the french-british defense treaty is one key example of how european allies are trying to navigate the shoals of this policy of resourcing. yet very few european governments first most are failing the bar tremendously today. you can point to astonia which is 2% of gdp funding but astonia doesn't carry the weight of this alliance in this regard. the brits at least have made an effort and thinking about their defense cuts to imagine a future in outyears where the trajectory comes back up in terms of spending to reinvest back in defense.

most of the continental european allies have not done that. they have a downward trajectory that remains downward or static. that's a recipe for neutraling the alliance ensuring that not only will we need to withdraw from afghanistan perhaps a bit more rapidly than anticipated, as we're already seeing from some decisions in paris, but certainly takes off the table the ability to do something like libya in the near term again and if libya doesn't become a catalyst for a wakeup call to think about these decisions especially in the near term outyears we're headed for even more serious crises within the alliance and not because of international events but because of national decision-making. >> thank you for putting the question on the table. i think it's very important to realize that we often have the tendency in the foreign policy arena to discuss issues in an isolated way and i would argue

very strongly when it comes to any foreign insecurity engagement take libya now as a test case, defining it is provided about the financial and economic issues in europe right now. every single cent and every single dollar that we are spending, europeans and americans, somewhere abroad is seen under the lens in the european and u.s. if you take a country like spain you see young people marching on the streets recently. the unemployment rate between 40, 45%. this is -- this is ridiculous. it's amazing. and this is defining the foreign policy arena for the leaders in europe and the foreign policy arena is narrowing by the fact we are going through these hard

economic times and the times will be tougher in the next months and years to come. so having said that, i expect even more defense cuts on the side of the european union. if you take on an average since the end of the cold war until now, all the european countries have had on their defense budget on average by 20%. germany is modernizing its army but it will be not enough in order to get ready for the security challenges of the 21st century. but overall, i would say what concerns us here in the u.s. as well as in europe is the war critique right now where we see our political leaders unable to make the argument and why we still need to get engaged in places like iraq, afghanistan or

libya right now. so whenever the next case comes up and it will be probably syria or at another place in the world, think there's no political capital left in the u.s. to make the case for any kind of military intervention anymore and that should really concern us. >> let me start by endorsing damien's endorsement of future chancellors. [laughter] >> because i think german politics is spot off and while the economic situation is indeed serious, i don't think it's the root cause of the problem we face. and, you know, we've always gone through the decade of europe, you know, we've all been there. but i think this is a particularly serious time and i

think it's a particularly serious time because i think there are some governments that are willing to openly break with the alliance and which are willing to pursue almost 19th century beggar thy neighbor politics to advance narrow internal domestic political goals at the expense of alliance solidarity. but the decision of the cdu and fdp to seek to evict nuclear weapons from germany and to bring the dutch and belgium along with them has nothing to do with economics. it had nothing to do with the security fears of the new members. it had nothing to do with the -- with really the moral obligation to allow the rest of the

alliance and the 21st century to have the same kind of protection that was extended to germany during the cold war. it has nothing to do with economics. the decision to pull german naval forces out of the mediterranean. it had nothing to do with economics. so i think we are basing really a question of two people believe in what nato is all about -- the decision to block nato c contingency planning on the periphery on the economic. it has anything to do do you believe what nato is supposed to be about? the first of the three tasks on the strategic concept sign in november was you defend the integrity territory of the united states. so i think it's a political crisis. i think you're absolutely right that the economic crisis worsens that. the economic crisis could present -- could present

actually an opportunity. you know, one of my mentors who many of you know often says that nations act as if the treaty of westphalia mandates that every nation state has to have an army, navy, a air force and a marine corps. that's clearly not true and in times of tight budgets and i never thought i would say this and dan don't hit me, i think it's time for nato army -- for a nato armed force. and the danes, for example, in giving up the submarine force have said in that regard. what does nato have to do to have territorial defense and what does nato have to do to have expeditionary capabilities. 10 or 15 years ago it was out of area or out of business. i think that's actually flipped back around. and the numbers of f-16s to a

nato state is really a waste of money because they don't want to add significantly to the fight and the states without nato it's not going to make a difference. there's an opportunity there. whether that opportunity is grasped i just don't know. and it comes back to the last question, who's the we? i don't know who the we is. i hope -- hope springs eternal that it's not a strategy. i hope that one of the lessons that is drawn from this libyan operation is that we really need to get more involved in leading this alliance and in working with our partners. leadership is not telling people what to do. that never worked. it's listening people and in forming common goals and objectives and moving in that direction. and i can only hope that in the council's of government today that the people are taking a serious look at what we've -- what we've done and what we've created here. but you're spot on. that is the question. >> if i can just add my own two

cents without repeating. nato has been at many crossroads in history. i think this is very different than the previous so-called crises of leadership and i think it will, unfortunately, lead to a situation very soon where when questions of military contingencies come up, there will be a lack of will due to war fatigue and a lack of european capabilities to do anything. and that will create a real crisis. >> next question, james joiner. [inaudible]

>> of the policies and i'll leave it at that. >> any other thoughts? >> how do you risk -- >> how do you respond when it was created is to defend the nation with an -- there's chapters written on immigration of russia and others and now we're involving other wars because there's a lot of questions why are we involving libya when it was never part of the european nation? >> any thoughts on the interests that were at stake in the libyan

nation. >> i'll take a shot at it. the treaty -- the treaty of washington, the nato treaty defines the core mission which is to protect the territorial integrity of the alliance. that's true. but the alliance is a living and breathing entity with new -- with new interests that adjusts to the times in which that exist. 2011, is not 1949. and if you look at the strategic concept which is the statement of policy and intent for the alliance that was signed in november of but on a broader l

would say libya -- it was in a way necessary for europe and the u.s. to take a step back and to think what we are standing for right now because what helmet calls of our german politics is in a way also true for the atlantic alliance that over the last years with these wars we

lost a little bit, what we are standing for. and even if the concept of democracy promotion was burned under the bush administration, it is still the case i would say that the atlantic alliance stands for democracy and free market economy around the world. and whenever we see forces in a country that wants to gain towards that and who have been undermimed in their efforts to do so, i think we as the west have a responsibility to support them. in a diplomatic way as well as if necessary in the last resort in a military way. >> yes. back there. >> dan from the department of state and former colleague to the panel. this conversation is much too

gloomy for my taste. you would think that nato had just failed in libya, all right? the problems -- i'll due to frank's gloomy arguments, accept them by a followed by a "but," of which i'm going to try to undercut them. [laughter] >> it's the oldest trick in the book. >> look, there is a serious problem of an inward-looking tendency on both sides of the atlantic. we see it in isolationism, within certain elements of the republican party. fatigue in certain parts of the democrats and in europe, across-the-board and in german policy in particular and that's been well outlined. that's a real problem. but nato just succeeded in libya. it did not fail and it succeeded despite all of the problem which

are actually well outlined by frank and damon. those problems, and they're serious. well, my conclusion is if nato can do this and succeed, given all these handicap just think how much better off it and we all would be if we fixed only a third of those problems. now, then the question -- i do think in policy in terms of where do we go from here and what do we do? and the obvious answer is, the nato summit in chicago in may is a point at which we can draw the right lessons from libya and avoid the wrong ones and i'll just finish with the historical analogy of nato's first military operation which was kosovo, which was also not with a

classic article 5 mission. every day that that operation went on, somebody on panels like this said nato is failing. this operation is failing. it's a catastrophe. that went on every single day until the day nato succeeded. now, nato's success in kosovo did not solve the kosovo problem. that was left to the next administration and the problems are still there but it's succeeded as much as nato will ever succeed in anything or as much as any policy ever succeeds in the real world. so let's not make the mistake. now looking ahead after the libyan success of pardon me, the incoming bush administration which looked at the problems at nato, the kosovo operation revealed and instead of fixing them, turned their back on nato for the first of the initial period the cost of the state and

it took that administration several years to work its way out of. it worked its way out of just to correct the work thanks of frank not because of frank he helped fixed the problem and not caused it. you see my point. let's not draw the wrong conclusions and get in the familiar, you know, panel cycle of despair. after, you know, a few days after nato has just succeeded. >> who wants a happy response to that? [laughter] >> the second classic bureaucratic trick which is to -- which was to recharacterize what i at least said and others said. i don't think anybody up here said it was a failure. i think we said it was a success. my concern had nothing to do with the operation. my concerns have to do with the structural integrity of the alliance. the future of an alliance where

significant governments have divergent views of what the core mission is and if the failure of the american government once we decide that nato should engage in military operations to engage fully. and you exemplify the leadership which the united states had a long career. the leadership that the united states has to perform in the alliance. and i think in this operation we abdicated it. it's not gloom and doom but we ought to learn from that. we shouldn't do it again because if we do it again, then i'll start the gloom and doom song but i didn't today. >> i want to add two points. a attribute to my former boss. dan, you're spot on. you think -- i worked for robertson in the wake of kosovo and as defense ministers and the u.k. played a major role in kosovo and it felt like we spent much of his term as

secretary-general trying to beat back the myths of kosovo as a failure. kosovo was war by committee and it was inefficient and wouldn't work. kosovo was nato's first military operation. there was some confusion at the very beginning of the first shots about how to do targeting. there was some political involvement. and it was fixed on the third day of a '78 operation. we also in thinking about libya today. we went through kosovo with an italian government falling, a greek government almost falling. we haven't had any of that drama in terms of handling the libya operation and yet the wrong lessons we drew out of kosovo cast a shadow over the alliance for years i would say. war by committee, which we fixed and it's not really right. and i think part of the key thing you're absolutely right -- the opportunity that chicago provides is to two things. it's wrong for all the right lessons from libya and help

cycle that through policy alliance. and second, chicago is convenient and that the united states is the host. and whether we like it or not, we are kind of owning this nato summit. it compels u.s. leadership as the host for the chicago summit. and you can't just waltz into a nato summit without a game plan and vision and without leadership and i think your reality hopefully bodes well for re-assessment or rethink of the type of leadership is going to play within the alliance and the lessons we'll draw out of libya. >> i just have a 3-point response. one, the world is a lot more messier and this will demand the united states's attention and in some cases military forces. two, the u.s. defense department is about to suffer through anywhere between the 10% and a 33% reduction in its defense budget and that leads me to 3, nato should conduct another

strategic review and scale back its strategy 'cause it won't have the resources to accomplish a broader strategy that still focuses out of area when it will have very limited capabilities to do operations of a significant scale even within its own neighborhood. >> i'm with the atlantic council. i wanted to ask you a question a little bit about more about the political side of the transatlantic side of the relationship and the military side about how we can -- what lessons we can learn about how we engage with odious dictatorships. libya is an interesting example. gadhafi was one of the interesting dictator a persona nongrata whom we bombed in 2006 and we brought back and if you're tony blair and then we help bomb him out of the power. here in the united states the presidential debates should we isolate dictatorships?

can we form effective partnerships with them on certain issues? are there any lessons we can learn from both libya or maybe other arab countries about how we can move forward as democracies with either engaging or not engaging dictatorships? >> a very good question. i think the latest events in the arab world has shown us first that every country is, of course, different. second, that military intervention should always be the last resort. and thirdly, yes, there are cases where you need to engage with a brutal dictator for a certain time. and we are facing syria right now. it's unthinkable that we can come to any kind of further development in syria without also having indirect channels and to his advisors right now and talk to him. so this is always the case. you also need to communicate that to a certain extent to your

public in order to avoid any kind of misinterpretations on this side, say. >> jeff, i think you asked a compelling and tough question. you know, when she was answering the questions on the first place if you step back nato the structures of nato what is the atlantic council's purpose here. we are a a group where and those who have to do business with odious folks in the world and i think the transformation in the middle east is helping us underscore that's often expedient. we know our long-term interests are in pursuit of our long-term values and they are served by seeing norms of democracy, free

market, the universality of these norms take root so that when we have the opportunity to play a supporting role in these transitions to play a supporting role to promote that, that's a good long-term way to think about things. it doesn't mean that we don't have to face the reality of dealing with certain governments and certain regimes on practical issues it's the reality of how we have to manage things. but i think the reliance we've had on stability in the middle east taught us it wasn't a very good national security policy for security. and i think that's one of the critical things -- if we can try to pull back the layer of politics that we've had here in the american discourse about democracy promotion and the role in the arab world, i think that's one of the most important things for the atlantic community to take away because i do think what we're facing right now in the middle east and north africa is truly a historic challenge to the atlantic community and the question

facing our community in this context of the economic community that is pointed out. do we have the political will and the resources and the capabilities to play the right supporting role to support change in a way that's going to serve our values and interests over time. >> just very quickly on what damon said right now. i think it's important to realize that we should manage expectations here when it comes to our engagement in the arab world. you know, we often discuss these cases like, one day revolution and the other day democracy. it's not working out that way. this is a long-term transformation processes and i think all of these are a good role model right now that indicates that the people who are in government have not been peace activists of the first hour. so we are always dealing with people who have a certain history which is probably questionable to say the least that we need to deal with in these transformation processes. and i do not think you said to

be a prophet to realize that what happens happened in the arab world in the last months will continue and that this entire region will be an area of extreme instability and probably civil wars outbreaks throughout the next years. and that means for us the nato partners first and foremost we have to come forward with a concept who takes care of these little, you know, fires that we will see over the next couple months and years to come in the region? what is the european role first and foremost because it was rightly said on the first panel, this is our direct neighborhood. this is our lay ground of strategic interests so we need to have a strategic plan, how we engage with the region and who will be our interlocutors for our european forces in the different countries? and i think the chicago meeting of nato will be the perfect

opportunity to address these questions with our american allies because this will be our problem area for the years to come. this can be our next afghanistan, i would say, on a broader scale for europeans and also for americans. >> i agree completely with what damon and annette have said. but i think you have to ask yourselves some other questions. are we going to engage with dictators? dictators, autocrats, you know, we're going to be engaging with a lot of them and the fundamental questions are we able to use force and didiplomacy and military force to your turn regimes which are dictatorial? and then i would say to you that that requires a national debate, you know? whether it's the