declined to provide any service that violate your religious belief. so if you're a counselor, and a turn, if you say no, i'm sorry, i don't throw that type of clientele, whatever the issue is because of your religious beliefs, you have the right to decline that service. it also protects religious organizations and contractual matters. i would encourage you to look at this bill. our governor just signed and we've had issues in arizona but i'm a licensed attorney with the state of arizona. two different times of state are a verizon has tried to enact provisions that would prohibit me from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. obviously, that type of provision would violate my religious belief. so if i would have been able to defeat those efforts within the state bar then we need a state law to say sorry, state bar, you'd cannot go forward and the type of very. we have a situation where an individual had been appointed, i

guess applied for a state commission, independent redistricting commission and during a public hearing one of the commissioners actually said i think this person is to religious. so this same law says you cannot deny, there's not a religious test for serving on a state commission. so we had to clarify that in state law to make sure, hey, people, remember you cannot do this. so that it is a key test. of the rights of conscious every kobe on the health industry, this is what we're trying to do with this legislation. for doctors in the abortion arena has been fairly well established but it's not gone beyond the health care field in many ways, but that's the intent of this legislation, to move into a number of different professional areas and licensed type of issues. we also had issued of course, you a lot about hhs mandate today. she led the charge in arizona to change our law.

arizona had for 10 years, in 10 years have a law that said if a business provides health insurance, you had to have family planning. the exemption was the one you hear all about all the time. if you only serve people of the same fate and hire people of the same day. as we all know, how many faith-based institutions only serve people of the same faith? we tried before to get a broad and and we had a prior governor would not agree to it. so with the opportunity this year to change it, and by the arizona exemption now says is that if you are religiously affiliated employer, you are exempted from this mandate have to provide any type of medication to violate your religious belief. so how we define religiously affiliate employers briefly is that the articles of incorporation state that your religiously motivated organization and your religiously or central to organizations operating principles. so we defined religious affiliate employers in the law. we had all the slack you see

that the country. we had a number of us who do not have a religious belief. for example, on contraception, and over and over again the government simply cannot compel anyone to act against the religious police, that this was never an issue of access. it was who's going to pay for. it was quite the debate. you probably saw some of the national news at times on this bill in arizona. the other bill it didn't get a lot of attention but sailed through our legislature did she was to protect university professors religious liberty and to say that a university professor could not be denied tenure, could not be not hired because of their religious or political beliefs. and that has significant bipartisan support in our state legislature. so to some of the lessons from arizona are what we have seen is that in arizona we work very closely but when outside organizations and legislators. guarded together. we see what other issues, what are the needs.

we provide the research, the drafting. especially in the area of british liberties. i don't think any of the bills we have worked on have been introduced without having some input from the alliance defense fund if you want to see what's going on, simply look at the list of cases that they have and use it over and over again the threats. sometimes we look at what's going on in their litigation efforts, so what can we do in our state. to either prevent that from happening in a state or to address it because we do have a situation in our state. so make sure you have the legal insight, a legal beagle call him on the national level who know these issues inside and out and what needs to happen on the statutory level. our legal counsel was trained by 80 f. has a huge boost to our efforts. when you're going to allege their process, personal testimonies, honesty the best at anything of a personal testimony, that is your ticket to get something through as you all will know. i know you all know this as well. the aclu one of be your ally in

this area. we certainly have a not had that experience in arizona. and then, of course, we worked closely with our governors staffs we don't get a surprise. and then, of course, once these laws are passed, we've got a real job ahead of us to make sure that they're and limited and followed properly so you can't lose sight just because they're passed and signed into law. [applause] >> thank you. so, in looking around at the activism that's already existing in the state with respect to religious freedom, i noticed something is been said today by two different legislature. one, what representative kinzer just a. if you were to make an all-star team, state legislators on religious freedom issues, representative kinzer would be on the first team. debbie, sitting right up there, of arizona already been

mentioned would be on the first team, too. but it does have something pretty and was the representative ken just said i need help essentially. institutionally one of my bills passed, the other one didn't and the difference very well may have been i didn't have the institutional infrastructure to get the second one across the bench like it and you may have heard, you were here earlier today, even though she was very successful, she still said essentially i need help. these are the all stars, these are the very best of the best and 99.9% state legislatures on these issues and they're still saying, i need some help. that is acknowledging the fact that there are lots of great groups out there doing work. many of them have been mentioned at the podium. we have mentioned them from the podium. you helped us put this conference but there's a lot of great work being done, but we think we need to do more. and particularly in the states with respect to legislation as a nine closed by saying.

the theory is great and there he is a necessary condition for success, but it is not even close to a sufficient can -- condition or success. we will have to have a durable architecture that allows us to succeed. that's what i want to talk about state legislature talk is strategy that bill bryan and the governor alluded to earlier. kind of what our thinking is that has created this. the first thing is that serving the national landscape, there is only been in this 2012 legislative session, work being done on religious freedom in about eight states, any significant degree. have been little pockets of bills introduced, but in terms of sustained engagement only about eight states have done anything of significance in the 2012 legislature. that's legislative calendar. so we have seen pockets of excellence. many of you are here today with

us, and thank you, but in general excellence along this issue has not been the norm. that's understandable. the issue has kind of been in its infancy at the national level until only resort come into national consciousness because of some the things that happen. and so the state the kind of lacking in terms of knowing what to do. and i think, as i travel now to about nine states, just the last few months, in state capitals and talk to legislators, what i found is that there's a real interest in working on religious freedom issues. but a real candor that in general people don't know what you're doing right now, for the most part. and if they don't feel very surefooted, stepping forward, with some exceptions. they are something that going to end those bills are not going to go anywhere. we don't have a lance kinzer, we don't have a debbie wesco in every legislature and we don't have, let alone what we need is about 12 of each of them in every legislature.

the technology for cloning is not fully here yet. so we have to do something else. we have also seen the success of various types of national organizations that bring legislators together, sometimes incompetence can sometimes in other ways. and choose men account for their trying to account for information sharing among and across the state legislature to legislatures in one state see bill they think will be a good idea. they pick it up in a passive based upon the recommendation of one of the legislators in their sister states. they learn lessons. currently nothing like that really exists. work for religious freedom, that's what we're trying to do. the idea of state caucuses is hardly in itself a novel idea. probably all of you here that our legislators have some kind of formal or informal state caucus in your legislature of something. the idea that's not leaders would want to build sate caucuses that have to do with

religious freedoms, and we want to connect what we find similar earlier panels the outpouring of the faith community and their interest in engaging on these issues. we want to connect that to the legislators who want to work on these issues. i also want to say i think that there is the argument for direct engagement, legislation, is as high on religious freedom as it is for any public policy issue. and i think that one of the path for those of us in this room who share our broad view of religious freedom is going to be to get the big command activated, not just in speaking but an actual doing. in some cases than direct lobbying, because across the different days we saw on an earlier panel, the direct engagement on this legislative is really a strong as any public policy issue in existence. i also want to say, we said it several times today at the podium, but we are planning on working together with the

existing resources that already exist in many states. recently, this is been an issue of high priority for catholic conferences, and they are doing excellent work. an issue of family policy councils, like debbie's, unser, like cafés, they're doing excellent work. and lots of other organizations. public affairs committee said, et cetera et cetera, doing some great work after that we really are going to join the fight with personnel and other resources. i guess i want to close and then we'll move to the comments, by saying again, i think representative kinzer had it right. this is in the and a lot of theory really important, but this is also going to be a political fight. it's going to be great sometimes. there's going to be resistance, and something that we're going to have to go to the mat to protect. as governor leveson dashed as

governor leavitt said, one of the things i'd appreciate about the catholic bishops upcoming fortnight for freedom is it's obvious that they understand the need to create a social movement surrounding religious freedom. but this just can't be the issue of the week. we all kind of me, we have a good time, we go back home, okay, it's been the issue of the week. it has to be something we can engage in, sustained, and thoughtful action. we believe the state caucuses will be a repository of that bunning social movement, especially in the states that while lost not just talk but in the end to win and to protect religious freedom. and to keep what we think what we have always had. thanks. [applause] >> i want to thank our panel members. and go to invite him to remain here during a break, or after. if you have questions you could direct them, but to keep

ourselves on track, we will thank them all very much and look forward to a robust and on religious freedom in the military. thank you. [applause] spent if i could add them to the state legislature, our meeting is right across the hall. [inaudible conversations] >> coming up live this afternoon on c-span, president obama host the presidential medal of freedom ceremony at the white house. notable honorees this year include former secretary of state madeleine albright, former astronaut john glenn, as was decision bob dylan. for the recipients of the israeli president shimon peres. john paul stevens and former university of tennessee women's basketball coach, pat summitt. we'll have that live for you at

3:25 p.m. eastern on our companion network, c-span. les..1xhhhhhhhhhhh

>> a live picture from the new america foundation. we're just a couple of minutes away from hearing from the lead author of the report on the osama bin laden documents that were recovered from that raid in pakistan. we'll get that underway in just a couple of minutes.

the senate out this week on a recess. the house comes back tomorrow and we had a chance earlier today tore speak with a capitol hill reporter about what is going on in the house of representatives. heading into the memorial day weekend house majority leader eric cantor released a memo to republican members detailing the house agenda. bernie becker on the hill, what is purpose of laying out the schedule in detail so far in advance? >> it essentially an election year. if you look at what mr. cantor laid out, it dovetails very nicely with the themes they're trying to push right now which is continuing taxes where they are now. easing regulations. opening up lands for more oil and gas, that sort of thing. they're just trying to get out there what they will be wanting to do over the next, you know, few weeks and then, you know, into the election season. >> in terms of the timing of this schedule release does

this have anything to do with the house being out for the next week or so? >> i don't know if that's true. it is sort of a curious choice to really hit the friday of a holiday weekend. i think perhaps they're trying to build a little momentum for when they do come back next week when the senate will be out but i don't know exactly why they chose this day. >> the coming week alone we'll see a significant amount of work. what will top the house agenda next week? >> they do have a lot going on. so in the senate this week they passed an fda bill and the house will move toward their own version of that next week. there is also a defense bill going and they're also going to start appropriations bills, spending bills for the up coming year. so yeah, they have got, they are only in, you know, tuesday night i believe they have come back but they're filling it up pretty quickly. >> the majority leader's memo set as timetable for voting on the bush-era tax cuts before the august recess. why then? >> i think they want to do

it sooner rather than later. i think they want to up the pressure on the senate though everyone realizes the senate will not act quickly to extend for all the rates. but this was, we saw the house speaker last week saying that you know, this was a main a big deal for them and they're going to want to make this a center piece of their election-year pitch. i think they want to make sure they do it quick and they can sort of, it is going to be part of their message throughout the rest of the year. >> how do house democrats want to deal with those expiring tax cuts? >> yeah. we saw the minority leader nancy pelosi say she wants a quick vote on all the tax cuts under one million dollars. so, you know, it is almost, it is the same talk all over again. republicans want to extend these tax cuts for everybody. democrats want to do them for not the wealthy. they don't know exactly how they want to defined the wealthy quite yet.

>> bernie becker from "the hill" and a preview what is ahead for the house. you can read his reporting at the hill.com. read the memo from leader cantor. a full slate of legislative agenda next week including the military construction. veterans' affairs spending bill and he will intelligence authorization with live coverage of the house next week on c-span. back live at the new america foundation here on c-span2 with a discussion on the report on those documents recovered from the raid in pakistan that killed osama bin laden. live coverage now on c-span2. >> -- thinking there would be some command center with flat-screen tvs all over the place and flash think information. what you find a group of smart, dedicated researchers and academics that spend their way the dedicated

research academics do all over the world which is trying to understand hard problems through hard work. and i think that nelly is a great representative of that organization and what it tries to achieve. so it's really nice to have her here today. nelly is a senior associate at ctc. she teaches in the department of social sciences at west point. she is also, i will point this out and talk about this a little bit later the author of a great book called jihadi path of self-destruction. i liked it so much that i assigned it to my class at columbia i taught this past semester. i would encourage you to take a look at it. without further adieu i will turn it over to nelly. she will talk for 15 or 20 minutes. we will have have a q&a i hope you will engage in that. one rule about q&as at new america, stand up, state your name, explain your affiliation and ask a great question and be part of the conversation.

so, nelly, please. >> thank you, brian. first, many thanks for all of you who are interested in and came here today and particular thanks to the new america foundation and particularly to brian on behalf of the ctc and the authors of this report. i would like to note that the findings of the report represent the analyses of its authors. they don't represent west point, the army or the department of defense. and responses during the q&a are my own views solely. i'm going to start my presentation with an important qualification followed by a sound bite if you like about the most compelling story of the documents and proceed to give an overview of some of the main findings of the report. in the overview i shall focus on al qaeda under the leadership of bin laden and its relationship with regional jihadi groups.

and on al qaeda's relationship with iran and pakistan, what the documents tell us about this. of course i would be happy to delve into more details during the q&a about other aspects of the documents. the important qualifications has to do with the fact that the report is a study of only 17 documents captured from osama bin laden's compound in abbottabad. they consider of electronic letters or draft letterses totaling 175 page in the original arabic. in view of the thin volume of documents it would be irresponsible to claim they reveal conclusive information about al qaeda. nevertheless the documents are highly valuable and at the very least they demand a reassessment what has been dubbed as al qaeda central and its relationship with the so-called affiliates. this brings me to the sound bite which is bin laden's frustration with regional

jihadi groups and is seeming inability to exercise control over their actions and public statements is the most compelling story to be told on the basis of the 17 declassified documents. why is this a compelling story? well that's because it has been assumed that al qaeda was able to rebuild across pakistan's northwest frontier following the losses it suffered in the immediate aftermath of the u.s.-led military campaign in afghanistan in 2001 and it also has been able to act as an organization. the intelligence community labeled this revived entity as al qaeda central based in reference to the geographical reference of core senior leaders who were set to report to bin laden and seek his approval for each of the major decisions and to indicate there was at least a symbiotic relationship between this al qaeda central and regional jihadi groups. that has been be didded among other names as affiliates. according to this argument al qaeda central gives

strategic guidance to its regional affiliates and it is assumed that the affiliates are largely in compliance with al qaeda central. well the documents show the framing of an al qaeda central as an organization in control of regional affiliates reflect a conceptual construction by outsiders rather than the messy reality of insiders. some of the affiliates sought bin laden's symbolic blessing when it came to matters that are symbolic such as declaring an islamic state and wanted a formal union to acquire the al qaeda brand. on the operational front however the tone of several letters authored by bin laden makes it clear he was struggling to exercise even a minimal influence over them. he is burdened by their mistakes, committed by them and he disaproves of their operations especially those operations that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of muslim civilians. their mistakes he worried distorted the image of the

jihad i dids in eyes of the public, separating them from their popular bases. the documents do not shobin bin to be in charge of the jihadi landscape. rather than in 2010, bin laden is seeking to find waying to centralize and oversee after fairs of regional groups. there is something called al qaeda central became as news to bin laden and i'm not joking. in his blueprint for centralization is in fact inspired by what he read about al qaeda central in the media and i'm quoting him. the expression al qaeda central he wrote out here is a technical term used in the media to distinguish between al qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan and al qaeda in the rest of the regions. i do not object to using it initially to clarify the objective of the centralization endeavor. end of quotation. as to those who have been called the affiliates they have not just been a problem

for al qaeda in terms of harming its image but they have also caused internal debates among the senior leadership. three different positions within al qaeda can be discerned on the subject. the one may term the principled representatived by adam gadd dan, urging seniors leaders to associate themselves from leaders who do not consult with al qaeda and felt still act in its name. there are others representatived by anonymous author urging the opposite. believing that the inclusion of regional jihadi groups in the fold contributes to al qaeda's growth and expansion. bin laden seems to have represent ad third position. he wanted to maintain communication through his own opinion with brothers everywhere, to urge restraint and provide advice even if it fell on deaf ears but without franchising the brand. the groups for which there is enough substantive content in the documents to gain some kind of meaningful

understanding of al qaeda's relationship, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula aqap. pakistani taliban, what we call pt. about and al shabaab. with respect to the islamic state of iraq, the documents confirm what we knew before, namely admission by al qaeda proved to be liability not an asset to al qaeda. anonymous author describes the leaders of the islamic state of iraq to be extremist and speeches to be repulsive and lacking wisdom. somewhat reveal something bin laden's concern with aqap which has been considered by many to be al qaeda's success story yet bin laden comes across as critical of both their words and operations in particular the groups attacks in yemen, its lack of acumen to win the yemeni people's support and i'll advised public statements of its leaders. he was anxious that aqap was attempting to accomplish more ambitious actions than

it was capable of sustaining. it appears that its leader, had sent a letter to either bin laden to which he wrote, if you ever wanted today is the day. by which he meant aqap was ready to declare an islamic state in yemen and possibly seeking blessing from bin laden for his takeover plan. it also seems that basir requested that a senior leader be dispatched to yemen to help in the operational work. well that's not what bin laden had in mind for yemen. before responding to basir bin laden had written at length about yemen and told him in his mind such an islamic state is prematurely declared beveling a firm foundation if doomed to fail and likely to lead to awarding work of jihad. instead bin laden thought yemen should serve as reserve and support base for jihadis engaged on war front

in the open fronts, in other words countries that are occupied like iraq and afghanistan. so the letter addressed to abu baseer is unambiguous and somewhat con today send dmg its tone. declaring a the state author is bin laden or almost mockingly, of course we want islamic state which woe establish god's law but only if we're capable of holding onto it. if aqap does not follow the news he remindedded abu bs. ir unable to hold afghanistan as islamic state in the face of u.s.-led invasion in two this one the chance of holding onto yemen are even slimmer. as bsair's ask senior leader to be dispatched to yemen for operational work this was politely denied citing security related reasons even though bin laden was planning to dispatch someone to the region the fact that

aqap continues to attack the yemeni police the that leader of aqap did not relief the letter or if he did it displeased him and he decided to ignore its directives. my personal favorite is the ttp, the pakistani taliban. the few scattered references in which bin laden mentioned the group are far from flattering. he was not informed by the way of the group's planned bombing of times square by shahzad in may 2010 and was al paul by shahzad's conduct in his trial which bin laden was following in the news. i beg your indulgence because this is a very new quotation from the letter which i will relay to you. this is a letter from bin laden. he says perhaps you have followed the media trial of brother, fasi shahzad. may god release him which the brother was asked to explain his attack in the united states in view of taking oath not to harm it when he was awarded his american citizenship. he responded that he lied when he took the oath.

that shahzad's lie amount to betrayal and does not fall under permissible lying if the enemy during times of war. please request that pakistani taliban brothers to address this matter. also draw their attention to the fact that brother faisal shahzad appeared in photograph alongside commander f masoud. leader of attp. when he acquires american citizenship this requires taking an oath to not to harm america if he is unaware of this matter he should be informed of it. we must act swiftly to remove the suspicion that he engaged in the betrayal. the times square attempted attack was not only one that had the al qaeda no hand in pakistan. it is clear from the letters that the group's indiscriminate attacks, pakistani taliban's indiscrimenant attacks against muslims were of major concern to al qaeda. this led them to write a letter to respected brother

massoud, the leader of the ttp. the authors explicitly stated that the satisfaction with the group's ideology, methods and behavior and threatened that unless we see from you serious and immediate practical and clear steps towards reforming your ways and associating yourself and disassociating yourself from the these vial mistakes that violate islamic law we shall be forced to take public and firm legal steps from our side. end of quotation. al shabaab in somalia did not fair that well either. bin laden was concerned over the group's mode of governance, neglect to build a vital economy and worried about the group's rigid approach to islamic law. seems that the leader of al shabaab had sent a letter to bin laden requested formal unat this time with al qaeda and consulted with him on question of declaring islamic state in or informing him he was about to klee claire one.

on the question of formal unity with al qaeda, bin laden politely declined citing two reasons. first, he indicated that it would give the enemy the excuse to mobilize its forces against somalia. further, without formal unity it would remain feasible for foreign aid to reach muslims in need in somalia. the second reason bin laden cited is the extreme poverty in somalia and he wanted to promote economic development and construction there. so he told him, i'm determined, to urge merchants in the gulf states in one of my public statements to invest in a effective and important developmental projects. that's the absence of public affiliation he explained between the jihadies in somalia with al qaeda with position of merchants to desire to help their muslim brothers in somalia. on the question of declaring a state bin laden advised against it yet, but he said that if you believe it is necessary why don't you declare it and.

what is intriguing about al shabaab and this complaining to al shabaab that though bin laden denied them public union with al qaeda as he granted their wishes after bin laden's death in february this year. this has to say something about some tension to say the least amongst senior al qaeda leaders. so in light of the abbottabad documents one has to really reassess what al qaeda is today in its relationship with regional jihadi groups. next i'm going to talk about iran and pakistan. now relations between al qaeda and iran appear it have been highly antagonistic and the documents provide evidence for the first time of al qaeda's covert campaign against iran. this battle appears to have been an attempt to influence the indirect and unpleasant negotiations over the release of jihadis and their families including members of bin laden's family detained by iran. the documents provide

insight on al qaeda in iran starting in 2009 and of course not from iran's side. this was after iran we are told released a group of brothers in several batches. the list included a number of legacy al qaeda members described as midlevel brothers who's ties to the group stretch back to the 1990s. based on the letter authored by altia the iranians were not releasing jihadi prisoners to forge a bond or strengthen an existing one with al qaeda. it is significant to note iranians have not appeared to made direct contact will a died at least not in the initial stage. his frustration could not be clear and quoting him but the criminals, referring to the iranians but the criminals did not send us any letter. they do not wish to appear negotiating with us or responding to our pressures as if to suggest their actions are purely one-sided and based on their own initiatives, end of quotation. so the documents are clear about al qaeda, where

al qaeda stands in its relationship with iran but of course we don't know, we don't have, you know anything on iran's perspective on the matter and reasons why iran detained many jihadis and their families without due process for years. unlike the explicit and relatively somebody stand tiff references to iranian regime the documents do not have that many references about pakistan. although there are notes about trusted pakistani brothers there are no explicit references to any institutional pakistani support. another reference was highlighting in this regard is that bin laden did not appear to enjoy freedom of movement with his family. his long list of security measures to be followed by his brothers to evade the eyes of the authorities he wrote out here that it is most important not to allow children to leave the house except in emergency situations. for nine years prior to his death bin laden proudly told altia that he and his family

endured such strict measures precluding his children from playing outdoors without the supervision of an adult who could keep their voices down. so bin laden it was said could run but he could not hide. well he seems to have done very little running and quite a lot of hiding. to conclude, in comparison to regional jihadi groups bin laden comes across as a outmoded jihadi. in contrast to their indiscriminate attacks and indrills crimenant skree haud he was more interested in carefully planned methods and operations the regional groups igerness to declare islamic states in their regions was moderated by bin laden urging patience, first to secure public support and while they aimed to win the short-term battles his eyes were on the larger prize. he wanted to defeat the united states, to undo to

undo what he believes, to undo its support for the corrupt muslim regimes and liberated all muslims. bin laden knew well how to articulate publicly the grievances that he believed muslims suffer at the hands of their regimes in western countries but his private letters show that saving his fellow muslims from the indiscriminate attacks of his jihadi brothers weighed more heavily on his mind. thank you. [applause] >> this one working? can you hear me? good. so i'm going to ask a couple of questions first, nelly. i had some written down and i kept writing more down as you were talking. i guess the, let me ask you first about this notion that bin laden was not in control right? because some of conversation, the policy conversation here in washington after the letters were released

emphasized something different. that bin laden was in fact in communication at least with elements of the al qaeda empire around the world, right? various affiliate organizations and these sorts of groups and there was the assumption among some that kind of communication didn't occur. so, how do we understand his ability to communicate and place it, sort of in the appropriate context, and in reference to his ability to control events at various places right? because he was in contact and that wasn't a foregone conclusion. >> well, there is a clear difference between communicating and being in control. the documents are clearly showing that he is not in control. at the very least it is important to note that bin laden appears to us in the documents in late 2010. we don't see him before then

in these documents. in 2010 we don't see bin laden to be in control. if anything the documents are showing that, yes he is, yes he is communicating with them but in many instances he is very concerned about their own operations about their own ideology, about their own public states. so, so, being in communication is completely different from being in control and so the world, if bin laden was in charge of the jihadi world throughout this time we would clearly be seeing completely different kinds of operations and, that's not the world that he was in charge of. >> what would we have seen? we would have seen larger, larger attacks, more directed at the united states? >> so let me be, let me be a little bit kind of, i don't want to spare bin laden now. >> sure. >> so on one level you see

bin laden in these letters calling on the regional jihadi groups to focus their attacks on the united states. at the same time you can see that he doesn't trust them. so there is something intriguing about one of his letters, the longest letters that he, that he wrote which is the most reflective one. this is the letter in which he proposes centralized jihadi activities. and this is really, the centralization, his attempt to centralize comes to us in 2010. this is when he discovers al qaeda central in the media and thinks it is a good idea. and so what we seem to have in this is that, he is he wants to centralize efforts. we don't know what it was like before then. and we see him, the plan for this centralization seems to refer to this kind of special operation force that he would have liked to

create based on the letter from a certain chief. carefully written and very strategically intelligent letter about how we need to police the regional jihadi groups so that we would act ourselves. so my own interpretation is that i don't think that bin laden would have wanted to trust them on the operational front but he wanted them to be there for. whether he had the capability of to create this special operation force or not is very difficult to say. having said that, and this is where i think, you know, if i were abu basir in yemen it would have surprised me receiving this letter, the letters from bin laden because you know, some of his statements prior to that he would call on muslims to, you know rebel against their leaders and so on. so all of a sudden he is saying, hold.

don't act. so there is a change in bin laden's mode of thinking between his public statements and what he is saying starting from 2010. it is possible that he thought, well, you know, they can't be trusted and they're not going to be able to mount the quality of operations that he would like. for instance in one, in his letter to abu zubayda in somalia, he is very clear, just don't worry about it. unless you can really mount quality big attacks, don't even mount them. so he is way more interested in quality than he is in quantity. and he seems to be somebody who is very patient and would prepare to, to wait until the right moment. >> bin laden's concern about killing muslims was not really that much of a surprise. we've seen concern from al qaeda, from senior

leaders in al qaeda really going back to, most famously to 2005 with the to zarqawi and letters to ahman and to folks in iraq. and then in some other declassified documents that have been since released in 2008 also in he have are ends -- reference to iraq. this is amajor theme of your book, right? this notion built into al qaeda's ideology is sort of this spinning out of control where individuals and affiliates will take up their own initiative and ultimately do things that are not in the strategic interests of the jihadi enterprise at large. so that's got to feel good because you got one right. >> [inaudible]. >> but i'm wondering, you know, when you look at these documents, 17 documents out of, according to my colleague peter bergin, more than 6,000 of various types and captured and pulled off

the target, what did you expect? you know, what was confirmed in these documents? and what from these documents surprised you where you didn't really think that al qaeda would be thinking about, x, y or z? >> so, i had been working, as you know on an autobiography by a leading al qaeda operative and it is 1156 pages. it has been my, really education of al qaeda and frankly you know, when we were received the documents that, my report on it had been completed. and it was reviewed by external leaders but, external readers so i had to put it aside. i think it is much more insightful than the 17 documents. so i had this, it didn't, the documents did not surprise me because i had heard them before. the report will be published,

hopefully next week. so i, i was very familiar with these dynamics from an insider's perspective about the fact that these indiscriminate attacks against civilians are not really al qaeda's mode of thinking and it is actually not just indiscriminate attacks against muslim civilians. there are also concern about other civilians, civilians full stop. you know, al qaeda sees itself as targeting military, economic, and political targets. it doesn't see itself targeting civilians and that's why i think we need to be looking especially after these documents have been released, we need to reassess where al qaeda stands. what is really al qaeda and what does it really mean in terms of the rest of the regional jihadi groups. so that didn't surprise me but i'm somebody who has had the privilege of reading somebody like fadel's work

and i tell you what. what surprised me, i, i had thought that bin laden, you know, through a number about of primary sources, that bin laden was actually a very decent al qaeda leader and i can see why. i thought it was exaggerated in terms of the people who followed him. what really surprised me is no ego. i was expecting to see somebody with an ego in these documents. >> but that stand somewhat in contrast to the famous video now of him watching himself on tv. it was also picked up in abbottabad, yeah? >> yeah. this was selective and of course he is on the news. i didn't see much about the him watching himself is snippet of selective -- he in the letters, i was expecting somebody who is you know, thinking, i'm

always right and i'm always --, what comes across is somebody who is, very consultive with the people around him. he doesn't say this is what you need to do. he offers a suggestion. he asks for people's views, for consideration and to get back to him. in fact one of the three items that he wants to be part of the covenant is for people to be obligated to give advice to their senior leaders. so all this brouhaha about we need, that they needed to pledge, members of al qaeda need to pledge allegiance to bin laden's persona or bow to bin laden that is not there. we have other primary resources on al qaeda from the ctc it doesn't require an oath to bin laden. it requires a commitment to carry out al qaeda's work, it doesn't in his own letters the three items that need to be there is the oath

for to carry out the work and the third one on the item, members duty to advise, to give advice to their senior leaders some there is no ego. there is no arrogance. i didn't see it in these letters anyway. so that was, that and in addition to that he shows, he is highly concerned about the safety of his men. he's willing for the work to go slow. so long as their security is intact. those who die he inquires about their families. tell me more about their families. so i can see now, it came closer to me in terms of, in terms of this sort of leader why people around him. >> followed him. >> respected him and fought and that he was principled. >> i think it is obvious question which is is now that he is gone we have

al-zawahiri who am of these qualities you're ascribing to bin laden are not subscribed to al-zawahiri. he is guy throughout his career as a militant got in fights with supposed allies. he is somebody that is generally not speaking considered charismatic and somebody that the affiliate organizations of al qaeda have recognized as the new leader of the organization. where do you see al qaeda going and, and again as we were discussing beforehand, you know, rather think about al-zawahiri whether he is better or worse leader than bin laden, how he is going to be different? where are the personal organizational differences and what are the strategic differences? and particularly this relationship with affiliate groups and the, the pledge of allegiance by shabaab and being welcomed by al-zawahiri when bin laden didn't want to bring them into the fold?

>> right. so, as just a qualifier i don't know enough from, you know, from primary sources as to how members say of the jihad group which he led, all members of al qaeda how they view him on the basis of the autobiography that i worked on, doesn't seem to be popular but i can't really say whether he is the arrogant person or not. i can't say. but to his credit, to his credit, he, you know, bin laden sacrificed his fortune for the cause that he believed in. now al-zawahiri didn't start with a fortune, the fortune that bin laden did but he was a successful doctor in egypt and he could have a different career if he wanted to. so in that respect he continues to enjoy that kind of what jihadis refer to as precedence in jihad. he has sacrificed something for the cause. arrogant i'm not going to speak about this because i don't know.

however what is interesting about al-zawahiri unfortunately the documents do not tell us much about bin laden's relationship with him. he is referred to as a mohammed in a number of letters so we know that bin laden is in contact with him but it is difficult to say whether, you know, he was rebuking him in his letters or he was supporting him and so on. what, what does seem to be interesting about this is that bin laden only accepted al qaeda in iraq into the fold. that was at the end of 2004. and it seems for all intents and purposes this was a mistake and it proved to be a liability. that we knew before but we know also from the document that is the al qaeda in iraq is certainly not an asset and that's, and i wonder whether bin laden knew this is a mistake and he stopped doing -- but all the other

regional jihadi groups that have come into the fold in al qaeda have been admitted into the fold of al qaeda have come through al-zawahiri not bin laden. what makes it more intriguing this 2010 letter from bin laden to zubaydah, the leader of al-shabab in somalia that bin win was reluctant to franchise al qaeda. he made a mistake once. he will not do it again. so if that is the case, why did al-zawahiri accept the group? why did he bring them into the fold? now there is, there is sort of a letter, one of the letters which is open to several interpretations and it could be addressed to bin laden but it could be addressed to somebody else. and it seems to be about bin laden's refusal to admit al-shabab into the fold and this author, or this

anonymous author of this letter is critical of the fact that why aren't we including them into the fold. and the more we include in the fold, you know, this is a sign of god that we are expanding and so on and so forth. i have a suspicion it may be al-zawahiri. and my suspicion also is that it was not addressed to bin laden but i could be wrong about it and it could be some criticism behind his back. >> before i turn it over to the audience for questions i want to ask you one more which is, about this process, right. this is 17 documents. reportedly several thousand were captured. you know you made, i think the appropriate provisos about, you know, how do you understand 17 documents and placing them into the context of the rest of this stuff that wasn't released and even then what do you not see. there is a lot of context that goes missing but what

is the value of declassifying and releasing this information to all of us? this has come up. there are folks that criticize this process. i tend to be very much a supporter of this kind of disclosure. it allows us to have in a public conversation have a more informed debate but do you think that we can do are in of this in the future? this is something ctc has done in the past. how do we facilitate a process where we can understand these kind of documents in the future? >> well, to start with the ctc does not have anything to do with the declassification of the documents. i'm not an american citizen and i don't have clearance. we are a, we are an academic outfit. this has been a scholarly, it is an academic process. it is not a political process and i think the findings of the report make it more that clear that this is not a political process. the issue of declassifying

more or not, we don't know if they have got more and they may well have, you know, books by legal scholars that could count as many thousands of documents but it's very difficult for us to make it, to make it, to be clear on what they have or what they don't have. now we have two options. you could say either you give us everything or we're not touching it, or you could work on what you have. and i don't deal with this part of the captured battlefield documents but from my own personal opinion i have studied my own academic studies have been with mid evilists and we work sometimes on one text and we know this text is refering to several other texts. the best thing you can do to do justice to the documents

you are reading of the it is very possible that the report gets al qaeda wrong but the report, i very much hope gets the documents right. so we did what we think we need to do from an academic perspective which is to analyze the documents and let the documents speak for themselves and what happens in the future is really in the hands of the agencies that either have or do not have documents from our perspective, and here, you know, for those of us who, for those who don't know much about the ctc, we are, we are purely, you know, we just teach and research. though we are part of the department of defense, if you look through our publications, you know, we all publish with a disclaimer that this represents the author's views, not anybody's views. and frankly, you know, firstly, i am going to say that my, my superiors, i was

the lead person on this project and, at no point throughout the process did any of my superiors, lieutenant colonel collins. we know him as liam. at no point did he come to me to say anything other than, what is it that you want me to do? colonel judge who is also our superior, the only thing that i have heard throughout the process is, what is it that we need to do? but you know, in terms of researchwise. i didn't have to deal with any, any bureaucracies. it was purely a textual process and what the government has in mind is something i can't speak about. why they declassified them. and what is, what we did do and, and we didn't have the documents for long and we made the decision that we wanted to release the report and release the documents on the anniversary. we thought that it was, that it was fitting but that was our decision.

nobody put pressure on us in any way, shape or form. my, my director simply asked me do you think it is feasible? i said that it was. and, and we met the deadline but that is really, largely because i was determined that we would meet the deadline but this was our decision and we made the promise that unless we are pleased with the content of the report we would not release, we would not release them just for the sake of meeting the anniversary. this was really our own decision, not a political decision whatsoever. >> okay. with that, jen, do you have a mic? why don't we start in the back. please state your name and your affiliation. . .

>> i didn't read that report this morning, but bin laden is very aware of what, you know, is called in technical terms the off set or operational security measures. in fact, my boss had an article in this month's sentinel about bin laden's opsec measures. and the main highlight, the main, important thing for him was the aerial, the aerial aspect of monitoring areas of waziristan, and he was super careful about the movements of his men. he doesn't talk about targeting

killing specifically, or at least i don't think so, but you can see that there's a whole form of security measures that needed to be taken to insure the safety of his men. they were very much on his mind. >> um, andrea snowe with huffington post. could you talk about adamgy can and the american jihadi or jihadties plural? now that awlaki is out of the picture, and is he, now, adam, number one target can you tell from any of the documents? >> well, adam gadahn was an interesting surprise in the documents. he has an over 20-page letter, and i was highly impressed by

his arabic. this is somebody who is, you know, with the exception of two, um, mistakes that nonnative arabists might make, his arabic is very, it's really spot on. and he is giving advice, ideological advice, not just media advice. he's somebody with political views and, frankly, he comes across as highly principled in terms of what al-qaeda stands for and how the actions of region algae hadty groups are undermining the ideals of al-qaeda. and we find him highly critical of both the islamic state of iraq as well as the pakistani taliban. and he comes across seeking complete dissociation from the islamic state of iraq, and he numerates about all these attacks that the ttp, the

pakistani taliban, have actually mounted. so adam gadahn comes across as somebody who is critical to al-qaeda, to its sort of the media, um, outfit that he's at, but be he also translates some english books to bin laden, it seems. because in one of the letters bin laden is asking that he translate a book, a recent book that was published by robert fisk. with respect to other american jihadis, anwar al-awlaki does not seem to have been, to have made a great impression on osama bin laden. in one of the lessons, it seems that the leader of aqap in yemen seems to have suggested to replace himself with anwar al-awlaki. and, you know, bin laden's response is that, no, no, no, you're very qualified to do

this. yourself. we don't know enough about him. i would ask you the give me some sort of a bio of him, and also he doesn't just leave it at that. he says why don't you, all of you, the leaders, write me each one of you separate sort of your own conceptualization of this situation. it's as if he really wants to take his rest and grade these papers separately. but he seems to be reluctant to embrace al-awlaki, and he also makes it known that al-awlaki is not present on the battlefield. and this, for him, is really where true leadership emerges. and al-awlaki was not that in his mind. >> yes. why don't you come up here to the front. >> thank you very much. i work to the broad region

service. we have nine hours of live broadcast in afghanistan/pakistan border region. i also come from that area. and be as a schoolboy i also spend two years just a mile away which was built later. you know, both as a journalist and just as a pashtun in the region living on those outskirts, this is a very beautiful area. so i have this question if mind, does the document say how he got to abbottabad? any trek from those mountains or whatever way he adopted to, or somebody who brought him there. and the second question is while he was in pakistan, do the documents have any communication with the pakistan taliban and not only pakistan, but also those based in re here. any communication or any targeted things on that. thank you very much. >> sure.

with respect to how he got to abbottabad, he doesn't mention it. but it seems it would have been a very, very cautious -- because he's, he's very careful about his movement and the movement of his, of his men. i would have expected him to have done his homework before he made the move. and he does seem to have, as i said in my presentation, the support of some trusted pakistani brothers in the area. how he got there, he says that he for the past nine years he was being very careful at times with his movements. um, based on reports that i've heard on the media, not on the documents, is that his wife gave birth -- one of his wifes at least -- gave birth in a hospital x he does they only in emergency situations that you should leave the homes.

so he doesn't specify in the documents, and i have -- and i'm not going to pretend as if i know. but i would say he would have done his homework. he wouldn't have taken high risks about this. um, the documents that we have, shy yield is not mentioned. so these are the ones that have been declassified. we know that he's been communicating with the pakistani taliban. but that doesn't mean that he is in charge of them. so we know that he's, you know, frustrated. al-libi is chastising the leader of the pakistani taliban. you know, i don't want to be him reading that letter. it's like somebody, he is failing islam 101 in their eyes. it's just, you know, they're at the bottom with respect from the

perspective of atie ya. so having contact to go back to the earlier question doesn't mean they're releasing control. do they, do they seek to build rem with others -- relationship with others? it wouldn't surprise me. but it doesn't mean that this is being in control. so these are two different things. >> nelly, i mean, there is -- this is interesting to me, right? the criticism of the pakistani taliban both, if the i remember correctly, for their behavior inside pakistan, but also for the support of faisal shahzad and the take in new york. i mean b, there is some hypocrisy there on the part of the al-qaeda leadership because bin laden, they all supported attacks on the pakistani state over the past five years or so, since 2007, with the red mosque incident.

and bin laden, obviously, organized an attack that perhaps he didn't justify against civilians with the 9/11 attack most obviously, but certainly killed a lot of what we would consider civilians. and so i'm wondering whether and how much the,

. >> bin laden gives the age between 15 and 25 as an ideal age because you don't have respondent and so on. responsibility and so on. so you can't be calling on the young people to act on their own without the benefit, the discipline be that you are educating your members of al-qaeda. and the members of al-qaeda, you know, when you read -- or the ones that i have read -- when you read the way they think in terms of their operational measures, they're really much more interested in varied, special type qualities of operations.

you can see their own maturity in terms of the ideological thinking. that ideology is really always in the strategic objectives. so they know what they're doing. but you can't call on people and especially on the youth to go and act on their own and then come back and tell me later on that, you know, why are things happening the way they are. well, of course, what else did you expect? um, so it's as if these, these kind of leaders whether it's bin laden, atiyah, it's as if they're expecting these young men to be philosopher jihadis, as if they really need to -- they are in charge of the intellect and the operations and so on. so this is where i find their irresponsibility. and now this is a blowback. this is really a blowback for al-qaeda when they have inspired all these people, um, in their public statements.

and now these people, they are doing it the way they see fit. um, but when al-qaeda had its organizational basis, its organization based in afghanistan and it had, and it had its guest houses and so on, you could see at times through the primary sources that they are interested in discipline, they are interested in how you mount lawful jihad. they want to invest in their peoplement -- people. and they did. but once they lost that base, um, and there's been a vacuum, you've got all these people rising up around the world, and all of a sudden we have these groups that are calling themselves al-qaeda. by inspiration. and when other governments around the world start calling them al-qaeda, they are

unwittingly empowering them because these kids, these groups cannot, really cannot, can never aspire to become members after al-qaeda. they don't have what it takes to be. al-qaeda would not admit them into their own as members of al-qaeda if they had the organizational luxury to be based. >> kill a lot of people on the way. >> oh, absolutely. >> cause a lot of trouble. >> absolutely, absolutely. but that's not what we see bin laden and al-qaeda want, just killing for killing's sake. they don't -- it's not a question of they don't want, they don't mind killing, but only if it is, if it is qualitatively so. so with respect to, um, to 9/11 they would justify it as an economic target. now, you want to quibble where does economic and where

civilian, and i think there is a good reason. if you say that this is an economic target, why is it a marketplace -- why is a market place not an economic target? so you can certainly go into a legal discussion with them on that basis, and no doubt you'll have plenty to criticize about al-qaeda's conceptualization of what an economic target. having said that, um, you are forced to discern between 9/11 and, say, 7/7, right? these are different. so they're not interested in attacking or sucker matches and so on. this is what makes you kind of wonder or push you to kind of say is this the quality of attack that al-qaeda would want? would bin laden be smiling or not? >> let me just drill down on a question that i already asked. i'm sorry, how can i not ask the

question? is the, do you see differences between bin be laden and sa whatly ri on this specific issue? both of them are more pragmatic about the need to limit the killing of civilians and focus on what you're calling qualitative attacks. i mean, is that right? that at least in terms of that strategic perspective they're similar even be the they disagree a little bit on how they should relate to the potential affiliates? >> zawahiri has come out in the past denouncing attacks against civilians. >> yeah. >> is so he's not somebody who is blood thirsty for civilians for for the sake of killing them. having said that,al swa her ri, it seems to me, is more trusting of regional groups and is willing to partner with them, i think, for the namesake whereas bin laden is way more cautious about the kinds of groups that he wishes to partner with.

>> okay. jen, how about up here in the front. >> this is -- jim moody. this is a parallel question, maybe redundant to what you just answered, but i'm trying to zero in on this. the word jihad, of course, means struggle. and, of course, killing someone is against the quran. how would you justify any of the killing, be it 9/11 or any later, how do you -- what struggle is it, and who are we struggling against? and how is the cause so powerful that you break with the prohibition of killing innocent people, including children? >> great. you're absolutely correct that the term "jihad" means struggle. and in the quran it means a struggle in terms of the spiritual struggle and, also, as -- there is a technical term for fighting, but that's -- the muslims used jihad because i'm

talking about medieval muslims when they developed the legal literature on warfare, they developed the term "jihad" because they thought that, you know, when you fight, when you fight to steal, it's different than when you fight for god. that's why struggle for something more noble is a struggle for god just as christians call just war. because war is a problem. as when you talk about just war, it's very equivalent to jihad. this is the equivalent of jihad from the islamic tradition. from the perspective of al-qaeda, um, you know, when they are fighting, they don't believe themselves to be fighting to kill for the sake of killing. it's not as if, you know, they need to have their fix every day, wake up and kill a few people to have a fix. al-qaeda sees itself to be fighting for a greater cause. the cause is to make god's word reign supreme. that would be, that would be their language. and they see the world to be a very imperfect world in terms of

their own leaders. they believe that their own leaders have been corrupt, have been oppressive and so on, and unfortunately, the politics of the world have been on their side more so than, you know, they didn't need to make a lot of convincing. that's why they think, they call on jihad to get people to embrace something that is bigger than themselves. so that's why they use jihad, and they don't say, you know, get up and fight just because for the sake of, for the sake of fighting. they do see themselves as fighting for something noble. but from their own, within their own world and perspective. now, of course, you will have other muslims who will tell you that this is not the sort of lawful jihad that we would consider, that this is not what jihad is about. and these are interesting internal debates. but this is, you know, from their own perspective they don't believe they are killing for the sake of killing. and that's why, you know, bin laden is very careful in terms

of his, you know, we the jihadis, he says, we don't violate our oath. so he was very -- even though he doesn't mind attacking the united states -- he says, well, shahzad took an oath not to harm the united states, and we don't want the jihadis to be appearing as those who violate their oath. and in this he is making a distinction between, um, acquired zship -- acquired citizenship and between having a visa. if you are born as an american citizen, you've not taken an oath not to harm the united states. if you require a visa to the united states, you're not taking an oath not to harm the united states. but if you have an acquired citizenship, you do take an oath. and this is where he wants to make it known that visas and born citizenship are different. once you take an oath, you are

bound to comply with that oath. so he does have these kind of, sort of understandings of legal jihad from the classical tradition, from the medieval tradition that he would like to comply with. >> it's interesting because other folks, you know, the most traumatic and deadly attack by an american citizen in al-qaeda's name was that by major nidal hue san who took an oath when he became an officer, swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution. >> yeah. >> and it would be interesting to know whether bin laden felt like that fell in the same category. >> right. >> jen, let's go here, and we're just going to work our way back. >> al richmond, former state department. peter berg also says many files have not been released, not been declassified. fist question, will there be more intention to do so, to

declassify them, and whether or not that's the case do you have a sense in conversation with people who are involved in classification or not what the criteria may have been for the release of these 17 files? but not others? >> um, so if you read our report, there is a section called from abbot todd to the tt -- abbottabad to the, ttp, ad this section really kind of describes the process of how the ttp receives battlefield documents. we only receive them at the end of a very long process, when everything has been exploited for security, intelligence by the goth and only when they're done with them and they want to reclassify them, that's when we see them. we have no say. as i said earlier, i don't have a security clearance. i don't -- so we research and we teach. so we are the typical academic outfit in a liberal arts school. we don't do more than -- so i

wish, i wish i could have a better answer for you. from our perspective we have no clue whether they have, you know, whether they have the 6,000 documents or whether these 6,000 documents include something of substance. now, i can tell you on the basis of the 17 documents that we have read, um, these documents suggest that there were other communications during that period that were not declassified. now, are they available to the government? i don't know. but it could have been that bin laden destroyed them. so, you know, it's very, it's from our perspective, i think, we have no knowledge whatsoever. but since you are in the state department, and if you are closer to this, you might want to ask the dni's office because we receive these documents from the dni's office. and they would be in a better position to give you advice, but

i have no clue whatsoever as to what's out there. >> [inaudible] >> oh, okay. sorry. use your connections and let me know. [laughter] >> sam from safe foundation. you mentioned to that, you had very limited documents. those of us who are familiar with how the u.s. attorney and their deposition information is given, they fabricate a lot of stuff. do you suspect any fabrication in these documents by the u.s. government? because that's not very surprising. and another question i'd like to add to it since you've said whether osama bin laden was bloodthirsty or zawahiri, can you compare them with our leaders like george bush, dick cheney, barack obama? how bloodthirsty they are? and because -- and, finally, auto citizenship, i'm a, you know, what do you call it, matchallized citizen --

naturalized citizen, i had to take oath, but i did take my oath subject to our leaders behaving like civilized -- if they behave like adolf hitler, we have the right to abrogate it. i hope so. >> so on the question of fabrication, i don't know how delicate i need to be about this. so if they wanted to fabricate the evidence, i would have expected them to know how to translate them better. the translation that we received is very weak, and the documents, the report is based on my own reading of the arabic documents. so i would have expected them to have better translation. so this would be my response. but the other thing is if they really wanted to fabricate them, and one, one guy in london who kind of said, you know, some of -- he believed, and he's

sympathetic with the jihadis. he's not a member of al-qaeda, but he's an intellectual kind of thinker. and he says, you know, i suspect that some of them were true, but there is, you know, i can also see they may have introduced certain sentences here and there. well, you know, if they want to fabricate them, why should they put that bin laden is concerned about muslim civilians? why should they -- there are certain, you know, there are certain aspects of the documents that are not in the interests of any government, frankly, to portray osama bin laden as somebody who is appalled by indiscriminate attacks against civilians. for example, adam gadahn is furious with the united states of iraq targeting christians in their churches. is in the sort of, is this what you expect governments to be introducing to be fabricating? so that's my answer about the fabrication. personally, i did not, and, you know, i don't want to claim to

be, to be smart, but on the basis of what i read, it doesn't -- fabrication and forgery does not strike me as a possibility. um, comparing, um, to u.s. leaders this is, these are completely different worlds. one, you know, u.s. leaders or other leaders, they're working within the -- they're working within the paradigm of the nation state. the leaders of the jihadis, they're working on their own as ngos. and here's where i think on one level you can say that jihadi leaders have sacrificed more than other leaders. and that's why they have more credit in the minds of the general public, they have more credentials. because here they are, they're not benefiting from anything.

but there is something, also, to be said that you could be a strong critic when you don't have the responsibility to govern. and that's why the jihadis, not just al-qaeda, are highly -- in my own mind, they are some of the best critics of injustice. they are the best critics of government. but unfortunately whenever some jihadis, you know, have their own small emirates and declare this, they don't have much to offer on governance. so when they are being tested, they are not being -- they are not living up to the sort of justice that they promised that islamic teaching's social justice delivers. they're all motivated by social justice, and i can see that very strong theme, but when you put them to the test of governance, they fail miserably. as critics, i'm on their side for about 90% of what they say.

so there is nothing, you know, there is nothing that you want to condemn them in terms of their critique of global governance and so on. they've got a letter of legitimate grievances that they ash tick late. put them to the test, and they fail. there is a difference between criticizing from a distance and governing. was there a third section to your -- >> let's jump on. we've got a lot of questions. >> sorry. >> tim, let's go here and then back here. >> hi. john, intern at the institute for the study of war. from these 17 documents, is there anything in them that you would see that, um, could change the tactics and strategies of u.s. counterterrorism efforts, or do you think there's anything that's going to change these efforts? >> i, i'm not somebody who -- i see myself as somebody who studies the jihadis, not

combating them. i know that i am part of the combating terrorism center, and i can assure you that the united states doesn't, doesn't want my help to combat them. i just study them and analyze them for my own, for my own academic curiosity. so as an academic i can tell you that -- and can as a personal opinion -- i could say the following that all i just, all i would do is just to make sure that is some of these region algae hadty groups have got internet access to download these documents. i wouldn't want to be abu basir and read the fact that somehow he's such an undergraduate or below an undergraduate in terms of his, in terms of the way aqap is leading in yemen.

and would you want to be the leader of the ttp when you read all these documents? so, frankly, the documents being apolitical about the documents is a political asset, if you like. so from my perspective as a personal opinion, don't do it. i don't know about what governments but, frankly, the documents are, they speak for themselves. and they are way more powerful just to put them -- without doing anything to them. just to put them out there. >> let's go over here. >> tom parker with george washington university. you've mentioned that the 17 documents showed that there's been criticism of operations that were either aimed at civilians in the case of iraq or resulted in major civilian casualties. can you elaborate, though, with respect to any reference about criticism or approval of

operations that aimed at western civilians or that resulted in major western civilian casualties? you mentioned the new york city incident, he criticizes the attacker for breaking his oath, but was there any reference about, um, the operation itself which targeted civilians? um, and secondly, um, the quality of the arabic -- i'm just curious about it in bin laden's writings. >> so with respect to is civilians and with bin laden, for instance -- >> [inaudible] >> sure, sure, sure. bin laden, he talks n one section he refers when he's putting the centralization effort in 2010, he says that when mistakes happen, we would apologize even if, even if the

victims are sinners. so he would be prepared to talk about sinners. adam gadahn is alarmed by the attacks against christian churches in iraq. so that tells me also that this is not just about muslim civilians, that that language against civilians -- um, and you also find noncombatants also being part of, part of this. my reading of primary sources other than the documents, al-qaeda primary sources suggest to me that, um, sufl yangs -- civilians whether muslims or nonmuslims are also, they would be concerned about. this isn't to say that they don't want to kill muslim civilians or nonmuslim civilians. they know that sometimes these occur, and they occur as collateral damage. but they are not their primary target. they like, you know, i don't -- when i emphasize about bin

laden and his concern over indiscriminate attacks, please, don't go and thom mate him for a peace -- nominate him for a peace award. it's more about the fact that he's more interested in quality of attack. and these qualitative attacks need to have their own, you know, their own proper, lawful target in his mind. and that target is not, the primary target is not civilian. and he does say in the process in one of his public statements, you know, sometimes civilians die, and we have to answer to god about this. we've got a responsibility to this. so there is, there is what you would consider a sort of a lawful, some kind of conduct that they comply with. with the arabic in some instances he disappointed me about certain arabic, but he's very, his arabic is very strong.

and i don't want to pretend that my arabic is better than bin laden, but there were instances here and there. he doesn't read punctuation very much which made me reread certain paragraphs. he's very economical on sort of -- but the other thing is, i mean, he was writing for private communications, so he wouldn't have needed to, um, to work on this. however, however, there is one publicly-available letter which is one of the statements el zawahiri released after the arab supreme to the people of egypt, and this has been edited by somebody. i don't know whether it's bin laden who edited it. and if this is, this if this was bin laden who edited this, his grammar is very good, you'll be pleased to know. he's also very modest, he doesn't want to come across as arrogant, he wallets to be more

un-- he wants to be more unassuming in terms of his comments he was making. so that letter, when it was released by zawahiri, it doesn't incorporate the changes. frankly, if i were zawahiri, i would have incorporated the changes because many of them are grammatical and so on, but it may not have reached him in time. >> jen, let's go in the back, and we'll come back to him. oh, no, right there. yeah. >> embassy of pakistan. would you think that some of these documents were intentionally left that way, obviously, to mislead everybody? you know? wasn't that sort of sympathetic person to those causes, but just for a legacy? >> uh, i seriously doubt it. there are so many things this these documents that would not be in the interest of bin laden to mislead. i can, i can see that he would

have destroyed many documents. he is, his operational security measures are very, um, are very sharp. i can, i can understand that he would have deleted as many as he could have. that would have been a possibility. but, you know, at the end of the day bin laden was trying, was trying to be as involved as his situation permitted him. he wasn't trying to, you know, just to busy himself with this, you know, with creating a conspiracy for the rest of us. he's more, you know, you know, he's very detailed about certain matters. so based on my own close reading of these documents, i don't think that it's a possibility. >> in back? >> thank you. christine, and i'm from the sunday times of london.

i wanted to ask you on the authenticity question what form you got the documents in, were they all computer files, or were there any handwritten letters? and what it was like to actually read a letter by bin laden? i know we've seen plenty of public statements, videos and audio, but to actually have that in your hand. and the other thing was whether there was any mention of the afghan taliban and what his views seemed to be of them. >> right. um, so i read in the news that there were some handwritten letters. we didn't receive any. the 17 documents that we received are all electronic documents, and i'm inclined to think that there were electronic in the original. the reason i say, and i could be proven wrong, but the reason my own textual analysis shows it's not a standardized formatting

for all the letters. so some of the letters have different format from others which tells me that if they were writing them in the government, they would have just used one standard formatting. but also more importantly, in the content of these letters they do discuss that they are actually, um, sending these letters through either thumb drives or this one instance memory cards which i suspect has to do with phone numbers. don't ask me how this happens because i'm terrible with technology. but the content of these letters suggest that they were communicating via electronic letters. so, um, that's one aspect. how to describe working on bin laden's private letters. i was telling brian earlier, i had my sleep, normally somebody

who doesn't go on for a few weeks on three to four hours of sleep every day. but i was able, it was kind of, sort of a, an excite being project and -- exciting project and for the rest of the center as well, to be able to, um, to be working on this project. from my own selfish interests, it was interesting to be part of shaping a new discourse. and i think a new discourse needs to be shaped about what al-qaeda stands for. and we need to be driven more by primary sources when you discuss al-qaeda. than we have in the past. >> jen, right up here. >> oh, yes, of course. i'm sorry. there was in one reference where

in one letter when osama bin laden is telling ati yarks -- atiyah of people coming to iran, the safe location you need to provide for them, and some of them, they may not have necessarily been al-qaeda, but, you know, you need to look at sort of those with special talents, you know, try to work on them here. and others you may want to send to fight alongside the, um, the taliban brothers. so there is one reference which suggests to me it could be, it could be not the afghan taliban, but i suspect that this would be in reference to the afghan taliban. >> jen, right here. >> hello. my name is dan starkman, i'm a student. my question is regarding, um, how bin laden thought about

civilians versus legitimate targets, specifically with regard to the world trade center attack. um, do you think that the workers in the towers were considered to be collateral damage of a symbolic attack or, rather, essentially legitimate targets as part of economic ap pat us the of domination of the -- apparatus of domination of the united states? >> from their perspective, that was a legitimate economic target. now, this is what i was saying earlier. this is where it becomes problematic for al-qaeda to include -- i can understand military and political targets. i can see what they -- how they could really, um, have a clearer distinction about these from civilian targets. but economic targets is problematic. why if i'm somebody who is not disciplined in al-qaeda and not -- why would no one attack

the store next door, the grocery store? now, in their own mind i can see the spirit be, that he's driving their own kind of writings that said they would prefer these sort of highly-symbolic economic targets, and the 9/11 really remits that. represents that. it's sort of, you know, where if i were to have around -- if i were to have a legal conversation, even if i were to agree with them, what about the people on the planes? this is where, where you would want, you know, these are how did you really come to the terms to get those people on the planes who are, obviously, not, um, you know, they are civilians. they may not necessarily all be civilians, but this is -- there

is something problematic about the legal discussion that you would want to have with an al-qaeda person on the legal committee that sort of legitimated the 9/11 attacks. >> jen, here? >> hi. i'm with the csis. or i just read the executive summary of your report and learned that bin laden had very positive view towards arab spring. but on the other hand, some in the media says that the thought of al-qaeda was discredited because it was the arab spring. so i'm wondering how i can understand the difference. >> right. >> so bin laden released a public statement before this letter, and some of it actually is from that letter, passages of it, from his private letter

which tells me that he himself, um, was genuinely pleased with the arab spring. at the end of the day, what the arab spring proved is that the political story that led many members of the jihadis to take up jihad was actually being settled through nonviolence, or in some areas. i think we could now, you know, talk differently about this. but initially at the time when bin laden was writing, it caused him, he was genuinely pleased with this. and he thought of it as being the most important event, formidable event in the modern history of muslims. and he, the program that he put together in that letter which was written within a week or so before he was killed was that he was not interested in jihad in those regions. he wanted jihad to continue to be important for afghanistan, but in this region he wanted to

direct the attention towards, you know, more preaching and as sort of an intellectual role for al-qaeda from that respect. now, so what you've said earlier is very true and wrong with respect to whether the arab spring killed al-qaeda or not. so they were, they were pleased with the arab spring, but at the same time the jihadis and the initial phase of the arab spring, they were spectators. and there is something very powerful about what happened during the raich spring that undermines -- arab spring that undermines al-qaeda. it's based on the articles of faith. the first one is that our rulers are corrupt, they would say, and oppressive, and they don't govern according to the social justice that islam preaches.

second, um, let's not talk about democracy. the western world is very interested in supporting these dictators in power. and third, the only solution is jihad. so these three articles of faith -- and this is my, my terminology -- have been undermined by the arab spring. firstly, the rulers are falling. the western countries seem to be supporting the people, are siding with the people, not with the dictators, and the third, they're falling not because of violence, but they're falling because of nonviolence. these are really important many be terms of how -- in terms of how the narrative was faced when the arab spring started. now, there have been discourses on jihadi web sites in terms of, you know, initially they were taken by surprise. especially that -- what did it really mean? can we be non-jihadi jihadi?

you know, what does it really mean to be, to have this jihadi identity in this age? and you have those who kind of come out and said, well, these were the exceptions, not the norms. libya was not a nonviolent that, you know, gadhafi did not fall because of nonviolence. and you have, also, a presence in syria. brian wrote an excellent article in the sentinel about the complexities of the situation in syria. who, you know, that there are some kind of jihadi groups that are appearing. and there are separate from the opposition groups. but, you know, it's looking murkier, much murkier, the events of the arab spring are. they're no longer the tahrir square. they're all having -- the tahrir square is not being replicated everywhere. and so there is, you know, the jihadis have got plenty of time

to go between, between when the world looks -- well, if ever the world would look the same way they envisage it. so if things fail, they could easily come back and say, we told you so. and jihad is a solution. so it's both, it's both right and wrong with respect to the arab spring. there is something very powerful about the arab spring. and yes, indeed, it undermines the jihadi narrative. but on the operational level, on the level of what is happening in various parts of countries that are undergoing arab spring to the, it's more complicated than the tahrir square. >> are we have time for one more question. yes, ma'am. >> i'm a journalist with afp, the french news agency.

and i would like to know if he mentioned ksm in his documents? >> no, he doesn't mention ksm, but, you know, it's not something -- because the documents really are, that bin laden, that we see aren't really 2010. so no doubt his 2003 letters, if they exist, there would be a mention of khalid sheikh mohammed in them. but it doesn't, it's not really, it's not really unusual. i didn't expect to find khalid sheikh mohammed in letters that are also in 2010 -- that are authored in 2010. so the absence of ksm is, to my mind, is not -- because these are private communications related to the situation at the time he was writing, or within months of writing them. so his absence doesn't say, doesn't say anything to me. >> all right. i think we've got to wrap it up there.

nelly, when is your new piece coming out? >> i believe next week. >> next week? okay. um, on a -- >> it's called beware imitators. >> beware imitators. okay. and that'll be on the ctc web site? okay. well, nelly, thank you very much for coming in. thank you very much to the entire team who helped put together this report and sort of process these things at the ctc. to everybody who dealt with these documents before they got to you, please, release more of them. and with that, thank you very much for coming. >> thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] finish [inaudible conversations] >> coming up this afternoon live on c-span, president obama hosts the presidential medal of freedom ceremony at the white house. notable honorees include former secretary of state madeleine albright, john glenn and musician bob dylan. former supreme court justice john paul stevens and former university of tennessee women's basketball coach, pat summit.

we'll have that live at 3:25 eastern on c-span. also, mitt romney campaign anything two western battleground states today. he's holding two events in las vegas including a campaign rally which we'll have live on c-span.org at 6:45 eastern. he's also scheduled to hold a fundraiser with donald trump and newt gingrich. and today is primary day in texas where it's widely expected that romney will win tonight's election in the lone star state. and if he does, he goes over the top for the required number of delegates. mr. romney starting the day with 1,084, and he needs 1,144. a texas win would provide 152 delegates. check out our web site, c-span.org/campaign2012 for the latest primary results. >> spend the weekend in wichita, kansas, with booktv and american history tv.

saturday at noon eastern, literary life with booktv on c-span2. robert weems on american presidents and black entrepreneurs from "business in black and white." and dennis fanny on the warmstormer and the lady. also browse water mark west's rare books, and sunday at 5 p.m. eastern on american history tv experience early plains life. the early days of flight at the kansas iowauation museum. also two participants in the civil rights movement. they sat down for service at the dockham drugstore. once a month c-span's local content vehicle explore the history and literary life of cities across america. this weekend from wichita, kansas, on c-span2 and 3. a brookings institution recently hosted a forum on the european union's fiscal challenges. the keynote speaker was assistant secretary of state for european affairs, phillip

gordon. he discussed europe's financial and economic challenges and america's strong ties toss the e.u.. this is just over an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everybody. i'm strobe talbott, and it's my great pleasure to welcome you here this afternoon to a conversation with phil gordon. and i do welcome all of you. and, phil, in your case i'm going to say, welcome back and welcome home. i think all of you know that phil was a very distinguished member of the brookings community here for quite some time. even more to the point, he was the found being director -- founding director of the center for the united states and europe. and i might add, it's also a great pleasure to see the ambassador here this afternoon.

francois, thank you for the support that you've given to brookings. and your predecessors gave to phil, and you are giving to fiona hill who is the current director of the center on the united states and europe. and she would be addressing you from this lectern had the date of this conference not changed to a time when she was locked into a commitment to be in beijing. but i want to assure you on behalf of brookings and the center on united states and europe that this does not represent a strategic pivot on the part of the institution or the center to east asia. it has been our pleasure, and i hope of some contribution to the policy community, in partnership with the lowell foundation to bring this conference to you on an annual basis. and i think it is particularly appropriate that we should have phil with us today.

he is, as you know, in his capacity as assistant secretary of state for european affairs responsible for u.s. policy towards about 50 countries as well as three key -- and i would add to that currently somewhat challenged -- international institutions. the north atlantic treaty organization, the european union and the organization for security and cooperation in europe. phil is just recently back from the nato summit. he is going to talk to us this afternoon a bit about president obama and his relationship with our european friends ask allies -- and allies. the record so far, and i'm sure he will be looking ahead a bit as well. after phil finishes his opening remarks, there will be a discussion involving as many of you as possible moderated by justin vaisse who is the director of research at the center. so, phil, over to you.

[applause] >> strobe, thanks very much, indeed, for that warm welcome. it is, indeed, nice to be back home, so to speak. always glad to be back here at brookings, and i see a lot of old friends and colleagues in the room, some distinguished ambassador colleagues and many others that i'm really delighted to see again. strobe, i continue to feel somewhat guilty about the degree to which the obama administration raided the ranks of brookings when we took office just over three years ago. i say just somewhat guilty because i think u.s. foreign policy has benefited from the brookings' scholars that are serving in the obama administration. we've given a few of them back in the meantime. and in any case, brookings is clearly continuing to thrive as the serious, independent

research institution that it has been for so long. i'm also very pleased to see how much the center on the united states and europe continues to thrive under the leadership of fiona hill and justin vaisse. obviously, i'm biased, but it seems to me that the original logic we had when we founded the center of a place where we could follow dynamic developments across the atlantic and within europe, the case for having such an institution is as strong now as it was when the center was founded six or seven years ago. indeed, i think it's fire say that today -- fair to say that today's annual conference is occurring at a time of incredible activity in europe. strobe mentioned the g8 and nato summits that president obama participated in, hoisted in camp david and chicago just last week. and then, of course, literally as i speak european union

leaders are sitting down for what will be a very interesting dinner confronting the challenges of the eurozone and the question of how to generate jobs and growth. i will return to the implication of, to the implications of these recent events later in my remarks. but where i'd like to begin is to take a step back and just recall how the world looked when president obama took office three and a half years ago. and so before i talk about what we think we've accomplished in that period, the topic for this session is the record so far, i think it's worth recalling the basic thinking that we had about europe at the very start. and i think it's pretty simple to say. i think it's fair to say that what president obama inherited was one of the most daunting global set of challenges that any administration had faced for some time. if you think about the ongoing war in iraq, the ongoing war in

the afghanistan, the growing nuclear challenge from iran, the scourge of global terrorism and, of course, the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. strains in transatlantic unity come pounded the difficulty of handling these complicated issues. think about the really unprecedented divisions across the atlantic we had over iraq, but also questions about european engagement in afghanistan, a disagreement about how to handle iran's nuclear program and the relationship with russia that was probably at the worst point since the end of the cold war. ..

by working together with partners. and he was convinced that we had no more importance out of partners in dealing with the set of challenges than those in the democratic countries in europe. the thinking that is alliances are a qualititively different set of relationships. they produce habits of cooperation, they involve standing constitutions and procedures, and they provide operational capabilities that can be called upon at the moment's notice as we demonstrated in using nato in libya just last year. but when president obama took office, these alliances had frayed and were in need of repair. already in that summer of 2007,

then obama -- global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common

with it has been for a from routine instead it has been driven by the profound belief that successful alliances require investment and that such investment pays real dividends. we think it has. i believe that one of the most important and lasting legacies of this secretary of state will be her revitalizing of america's alliances and first and

foremost, our alliance with europe. a direct result of this investment is the following thesis, i would assert that the united states and europe have never been more strategic aligned. this is not to say this are differences between us. just as there are gaits within the united states or the european union. we have developed a common trance atlantic agenda that enable to us to join forces to neatth meet the demands of the world. to a degree that was not paralegal in recent times in the previous administration, but the one before that or the several that proceeded that. and this unity of purpose, i think is now recognized on both sides of the atlantic. the german marshall fund poll they cited earlier saying that 36% of europeans had faith in the president handling their in the u.s. leadership in the world, is now at 75% and is

consistently been in the upper 70s and lower 80s since president obama took office. this is an asset that serves well when we call on the european democratic to follow the global international leadership which we do all the time. rather than asserting that we are more strategic aligned than ever. let me give you a few camps what i illustrate i i mean. i mention president obama is hosting the g8 and nato summits this past weekend. i think these embody american leadership on the president put it in chicago one of the top torn policy priority was to strengthen our alliancing including nato and that is exactly what we have done. the center piece of the nato summit, i think it's fair to say was afghanistan. nearly 40,000 european troops fighting alongside american troops for pretty much the past decade.

we have sustained nato's largest ever overseas deployment. from the beginning, notwithstanding serious financial pressures, and domestic political pressures, the alliance has held firmly to the principle of in together, out together. at the nato summit in lisbon 18 months ago. allies partners and the afghan government gree upon a strategy that would result in them assuming full responsibility across afghanistan by the end of 2014. the strategy is on track. it was reaffirmed in chicago. and today, approximately 50% of the afghan population lives in areas where the afghan national security forces have taking the lead. this summer, that proportion will rise to 75% of the country as we implement the third faze of transition. in chicago, nato leaders, leaders established a milestone in mid 2013 next summer.

when the mission will shift to a primarily train advise and assist in afghan forces will be responsible their own security. we have illusions about the difficulties why in affiliation now or in the years ahead. we also believe it is worth recalling the tremendous progress that made in the past decade. the country's gdp has tripled since 2000. 60% of afghans now have basic hb access to health care facility which is is nearly six times the number of 2002, the number of afghans in schools to continues to rise now to more than 8 million and perhaps most importantly, recent polls in afghanistan underscore that the number of afghans who say they think sympathize with the insurgents is at record lows. in order to maintain a secure environment that enable afghanistan's political and economic development, the

alliance also agreed on a plan for future sustainment of afghan forces. and while the chicago summit was in no way of pledging conference, we did want to demonstrate to afghans to the taliban, and to our own societies, that we were prepared to support afghan national security forces after the end of the 2014 in the way that will be necessary, and the international community came together and made political commitments of more than a $1 billion more that project after 2014. more than billion dollars per year after 2014. further more, the alliance reaffirmed the enduring commitment to the afghan people beyond the end of the combat commission. in chicago leaders defined a new faze of corporation that will focus on training advising and assisting afghan troops. all of this together, demonstratings the ongoing commitment to working toward our shared goal of building a safer and prosperous afghanistan why al qaeda has no role.

beyond afghanistan the summit highlighted alliance continued commitment to defense capabilities. i'll mention a few. we announced the interim capability for missile defense. that will sit for the first time protect european populations terrors and forces from the growing threat of ballistic missiles potentially nuclear weapons as well. united states will provide critical asset fur the system. but it's hardly a u.s. effort alone. turkey will be hosting a radar, that will be placed under nato command, are main a ya and poland will host a land-based interceptive. spain will import the capability ship, the neither land will -- deployment patriot system. germany is contributing that as well. frarns is planning to contribute a space-based early warning radar nato as a whole will

provide commonly funded infrastructure and allied chicago to explore addition their voluntary contributions. be clear about that united the making a major contribution. it is once again, an alliance wide effort with europe implaying a major role. very conscious of the budgets that we face across the alliance, we announced progress under the rubric of what nato secretary general calls smart defense. for example, the commonly funded ally ground surveillance system that will give the alliance for the first time the fleet of remotely piloted drones that will provide intelligence surveillance, and -- also the agreement to extend nato air police football the baltic states so they can devote their resources to other projects. we also announced completion of the alliance deterrence and processture review. it nuclear conventional and

missile defense capabilities that the alliance needs. we're well aware that the measures such as these did not the need for continued defense investments that will be rerequired. if they want to remain the successful as possible. in chicago president obama made that clear to the european counter parts. but with we also know that the difficult financial circumstances, we should pool our efforts to the maximum extent possible. this is what the smart defense initiatives and the concept of the alliance itself allow us all to do. finally, the nato summit recognizes the crucial role played by partners in nato operation. remember, the libya operation brought 28 allies together with five partner nations while i sat in afghanistan involved 22 partner countries. they're playing an role in the miss and the successful

partnerships demonstrate the alliance to which it has become a global hub for our collect i have action. president obama's request north atlantic cancel to what is further enhance the partnerships not across europe in the middle east, north africa, and asia as well. allies did not take decisions on further enlargement in chicago. they sent a positive mess and georgia in support of their membership goals. at the moling in chicago of the 28 allies in those four nato secretary clinton made clear that nato's door must remain open to european democracies that will willing and able to assume the responsibilities. within the nato context let me say a few words about libya. it is easy to take for a granted the role that nato played in giving the people of libya a chance for a better future. it was no not a given that nato

would play the significant role indeed any role at all. it was a conscious decision. it was in response to the all too real threats against the people of benghazi that president obama lead the way to establish the u.n. security counsel no-fly zone wells a authorization for member states to take necessary measures to protect civilians. it a conscious effort -- around the world but the aknow alliance itself. during the first ten days during the operation, the united states used unique assets to eliminate the air defenses, and lay the ground work "issue" if are hand over to nato. washington then passed command and control of the commission to nato while continuing to provide the bulk of the intelligence, surveillance in a refueling jamming and other capabilities. every ally contributed through nato's command structure 1

allies provided the necessary naval and fair air forces. united states flew 25% of all -- france and the u.n. together accounted for 40 percent. i want to underscore the jen, genuinely important role that allays played in this. -- and sustained them over many months. think about a comparison in the koa sew vow conflict nato undertook in center line. center1999 and around 85% of the strike. in libya those or proportions the ore way around. we continue to work closely the european international partners to help them build a more inclusive and democratic society. beyond these joint efforts in

nato, the united states is working closely with european to address a range of other global challenges that i think also fit under this thesis i'mvances about more closer partnership and more strategic alignment than ever and to take maybe the best example think about iran. timely topic is the negotiate ores as we speak are in baghdad meeting with the iranians, i think it's fair to say on this one, the united states has coordinated with our european partners more closely than ever before. we have enjoyed unprecedented unity with the european unit i know in our desyl track approach of putting pressure on the yiern began regime to meet at the international obligations. but also being ready to undertake a diplomatic path to ensure there are nuclear program

remains civil. with the european we have together agreed on u.s. security counsel 199 several iea board of governors resolution. we have seen the e.u. decision to ban imreports of iranian crude oil and freeze the assets of the iranian central bank. those have been working on the issues for some time i think would have to appreciate the unprecedented nature of this cooperation on sanctions and oil embargo which i think probably couldn't have been predicted a couple of years ago or even six months ago. as i said today, as we speak, the e3 plus 3 is in baghdad do engage in serious negotiations regarding the international community concerns. and the united states in the european allies have not only never been more united on iran i think that the pressure on iran to abide by the international

obligations is also never been greater. those two things are linked. it is the common psh reputing on the iranians we thought brought them back to the table. on syria we have worked close whrit european partners to rajt up pressure on ate sad regimes through various avenue including cabses. we have engaged engaged in act sieve dipty -- behind the unarmed plan. responded to a growing humanitariantarian opposition. secretary lynn counter parts and other leaders to coordinator our approach to the goals and clear signal that despite min million success the broader international community will continue to pursue all available measures to secure a peaceful resolution of the crisis in syria. i've been talking about our cooperation with europeans around the world, and obviously

think that is worth stressing but in no way should i suggest that our agenda within europe is somehow diminished or has gone away. beyond the global challenges that i'm talk abouting there is what sometimes called unfinished business in europe. namely the integration of the country's of these countries into the euro atlantic community of dmims. we've been working side by side with our european partners to address remaining political and economic issues across the continent. in the western, it is clear that the regions stability and prosperity will depend on the country's pursuing reforms necessary it for their event yule integration in europe. we said clearly from the start europe will not be complete until all of the bull cans are integrated into the euro atlantic institutions. significant milestones have been featured in recent months, ceo yaisha succession of the european -- that admittedly

difficult reforms bring genuine progress. we're encouraged by the new boss knee began efforts to meet the new requirements including the passage of laws on census and state aid as well as the political agreement to solve the defense and state property issue. we hope to see bosnia fully implement the agreements in order to make progress towards joining the institutions. we are also employeesed that closet -- and the agreed to coast vow road maps for -- feasibility study for the association agreement. once again, the united states worked very closely with the e.u. partners in this case the osce to ensure during the recent elections in serve ya that serve began citizens are dual nationality include those lives

in coast vow would be able to exercise their right to vote. the e understanding facilitied diagnose is provided a mean for the two countries to address issues that complicate daily life for ordinary citizens. only to the extent that the parties implement the resulting agreements. although we are still assessing what thomas election serbia's president means in the broader region we welcome to the serbia european future and encourager him to work with the new government achieve the goal. in that spirit, the united states and the european partners need to work together with readers across the region on new ideas to resolve the challenges challenges in northern in line with the stoarch tip. in particular, we need to help develop a frame work that permits a normal decision of practical -- freeze up both countries to move on the path to european integration and avoid selling the seeds of

confrontation in the region. finally, we're working with the e.u. and the members states to help the people of ukraine, we fully support the efforts to deepen the integration with europe including steps taken this for a to -- unfortunately the process has been hindered by limited progress on the political and economic reforms on needed to move forward and by what appeared to us to be politically motivated prosecution selective prosecution of opposition leaders. we closely working with the european union continue to call on the government of ukraine to release the individuals and ensure that the october parking lot tear elections are free and fair. the president issue election in march opens the door for reform

we're also seeing encouraging signs on the international efforts to produce the settlement. it rains an outlier in europe following the december 2010 president issue election when hundreds of political activists were arrested without cause. we and our european partners don't call on the government to release political prisoners and allow opposition parties civil society, and independent media to operate freely. let me say a few words about a another very important part of president obama's record which is the progress we've made in going more productive relations with russia. president's approach to russia has been divided by the conviction we could cooperate on areas of mutual interest and dig agreement. maintain support for our friends and holding firmly to the principles. want development of a more

effective working relationship, we believe, has in fact lead to an impressive list of mutually beneficial foreign licy achievements. including to mention a few. the new start agreement. the 123 agreement on civil nuclear energy. military transit arrangements in the common efforts in afghanistan. a visa agreement to promote by lateral business ties. a major trade deals and cooperation with russia on the iran sanctions. it includes the conclusion of negotiations to welcome russia into the world trade organization, goal that had been objective u.s. and russian administrations for nearly twenty years. we're working with congress to terminate the application of the jackson amendment for russia. lifting jackson, extending permit and normal trade relations with russia are not

gifts to russia. rather they are in the fundamental interest of the united states to create jobs as well as ensure that u.s. firms will benefit from russia's wto market access commitments. we fail to graduate it we would be disadvantaging american companies relative to their competitors and other wto member states. we should not forget that in vice president's biden 2009 speech, first articulated the strategy that come to be known as the reset. there were three important corollaries. vice president said the united states will not recognize the -- he said the united states does not recognize influence with europe and said the united states maintains that corner states have the right to choose their alliances. and despite some initial questioning among some of russia's neighbors.

we have not given an inch. indeed our improved relationships with russia have not come at the expense of the allies orvilles. we continue to speak about the differences. i know, so vitamin asked whether the progress with russia we made in the past three years will continue under president piewt tin. all i can say, we are certainly ready to pursue that goal. i would point out that mr. putin was the head of russia's government for all of the past three years. when all of these positives were accomplished. we obviously have to be realistic. we know that achievements going forward will be result of hard work on both sides and we'll require continued focus on mutual interest. we know there are ongoing issues of disagreement such as over missile defense in georgia. there are issues that have arisen including our defenses how to respond to the crisis in syria. even as we discuss the difficult

issues we are going to continue to operate on assumption we have many common interests in russia we can pursue those while being clear about the things we differ on and without sacrificing our principles or friends. all of the common transatlantic chee.s that i have outliked are fairly impressive in the own right. even more notable when you consider the context in which they have come about obviously i'm referring to the great economic challenges that we face on both sides of the atlantic. as president obama has said many times, the united states has enormous stake in the resolution of the eurozone crisis. the european union is the largest trade investment part. member. they account for 58%. when you combine that with u.s. spending we together combine 80% of the world. we clearly need strong and

prosperous european allies. same is true on common defense. i undercored our message to european allies about the importance of sustaining defense spending only possible when the european's economies economies are succeeded. despite our stake in the outcome of the economic steps taken in europe, we recognize these are european issues require european solutions. we have urged european governments to act to resolve the debt crisis, offered or perspective about the risks that the europe's crisis pose for the global recovery we share lessons of our own financial crisis about the importance of respond and focusing on job creation and growth. we're encouraged by the progress they have made in recent months including significant actions that have seemed out of reach a few years ago and ireland,

portugal, and spain. these countries have reduced their structurial budget deficit by 5% points in 2009 increased by nearly 12 ponts in -- sweeping economic reforms including pension reforms and dfnses of measures to free the markets and streamline the briewrk sei in a matter of months. the steps to put in place a 800 billion europe owe firewall for what we think is a good reason. secretary geithner said reforms will take time. we've acknowledged there is no silver bullet. if even if all of measures will take time and will not work without financial support that enables governments to borrow and keeps the overall rate of interest at levels that won't slow growth. the member states have come together in record time to endorse the fiscal impact treaty

that provides oversight and coordination at the ciewrpen level in unprecedented ways and roadway assures populations across europe that new lending will be accompanied. we have also said that fiscal reforms are only part of the solution. the harder schaij in europe and globally is to boost competitiveness and growth. much of this is for europeans on their own to do but there is a u.s. component as well. and president obama has undertaken discussions with the european counter parts about how we can free up the transatlantic economy. notably through the high level working group on jobs and growth. which is reviewing all options for cooperation including the possibility of a expensive free trade agreement. united states welcomes the evolving gait in europe about opportunities for creating jobs

and growth. in the summit this past weekend, president obama lead a discussion of leaders about the expensive approach to managing the crisis and getting a on a path the sustainable path to recovery. he reaffirmed that america is not only confidence in the ability to meet the challenges. we are supportive of the efforts. president obama and the european court parts agreed on the shared efforts of keeping in intake and remaining engaged on the world's dispaij despite budget con trains on both sides of the atlantic. i have covered a lot of ground, let me conclude. i will in close, i would like to return to the thesis which i began. which is the united states and europe have never been more strategically aligned. and this, is as i have said, is not an accident. or the temporary alignment of tech tonic plates. it is the result of deliberate and conscious strategy to invest

in the partnership with the world's advanced military capability and democratic people who share our values and ideals. history will determine whether this approach and this investment was a wise one. we believe as i have argued it is already paid off. and that will continue to pay off for years to come. thank you very much. i look forward to your questions. [applause] thank you very much, phil. coming here and getting [inaudible] just indicated we have about a half an hour of questions before the beginning of the next panel. and i will use an abuse the privilege of the chair to ask a few questions to feel first before going to you and i would add in the tradition of the

respectful the tradition of respectful debate we have had at brooke iings. i would like to push on a number of points. the issue of the coalition of the willing and also the risk of seeing the alliance -- [inaudible] the military capabilities. so you started the presentation using point that tom national security adviser use chd is that standing alliances was an important goal of the administration since these alliances provided much more support for the u.s. national interest than coalitions of the willing meaning presumably what had been done before. however, in some of the examples that mention included syria, it's precisely the coalition of the willing. you mention yourself between

march 19 and early april last year the operation in libya, the nato was not involved as such. it was an ad hoc coalition between basically the u.s. france, and the u.k. and afterwards when nato got involved. there was a contact group at the political level involving the other partners so it seems to me, that the borders between coalition of the willing and the alliance itself is blurred. of course, the difference with other intervention is the presence of a strong mandate from the security counsel. in terms of the shape of the group that intervened it's certainly a coalition of the willing on syria, we've seen because of the obstacles that the u.n. security counsel sort of contract group created called friends of sir why. a here again, it's more sort of a -- [inaudible] of the type of the coalition of the willing. of course, iran the obama

administration has been continuing the efforts thatas started by the bush administration, which is also done by the group. so i could give other champs and you mentioned yourself that nato exited the global [inaudible] to which other partners. it seems to me that it's probably inevitable to sort of recent the policy of the administration as relying primarily on standing alliancing rather than coalition of the willing as the borders of the two seem -- [inaudible conversations] >> thanks. there are a lot of interesting points. i would never, i'll make a couple of points. ly never make the claim that standing alliancing are nato in particular is the single response to every international crisis that we face. clearly, as you look at different range of challenges that we face, many of which i mentioned whether in europe, or as you say in syria, libya,

afghanistan, iran. you need to be flexible, and adaptn't. there are some cases for which a standing alliance like nato might be appropriate. it there are others where it doesn't work. in the cases that i mentioned are appropriate for nato, afghanistan and libya, i would stress the benefits of doing it within the formal organization. we did a conscious choice in libya. it would have been just as easy to almost easier in a way to say let's do this among the handful of countries that want to do it. and not worry about doing it within nato. we made a conscious decision to do it that's. to show leadership and get countries to follow along and use the alliance. we think it paid off. i think i mentioned in my speech, it's easy to take nato for granted. without the investment in the

alliance and the personal connection that come from working together, and the interoperate interoperability of military forces you can't whip up military operation. and so, even for some of the activities that not using a standing alliance for. the very fact it exists has positive spill over effect. so let's be clear, of course there's a place for ad hoc corporation and for many different subject and challenges you'll be pulling together different groups with different type of leaderships. but it doesn't take away from the reality that investing in standing institutions and alliances remains hugely valuable. we have been acting in a way to make it flexibility and adaptable to the question at hand. that's why i emphasis the partnership question in chicago. nato and afghanistan has been

never been the alliance. we had partners all along in addition to the 28 you have 22 partners working within the alliance. we have taken steps over the years to make it more adaptable so that countries who aren't in the alliance can work with it in the case of libya, you actually had that extended. not just the european partners such as sweden for countries countries from the arab world and middle east. you're right it's a nuisance spectrum rather than a choice to use the alliance or just use ad hoc groupings? but it's still a very large it's a long way from just saying well let's, you know, see how to goes and put together coalition. >> a second challenge to the alliance, of course, is the massive reality of budget cuts here but even more so budget cuts in europe indeed calculated by some experts that budgets could go down in europe from

2006, to 2013 2014 by about a third of what we that were. certainly inside nato, the balance between what the u.s. is doing and spending on the one handing with and what europe is europe, members are doing and spending is changing rapidly in favor of the u.s. so what we see, and you mentioned the importance of having spending alliance with procedures with happy working together with the interoperability, how confident are you that we're not witnessing the sort of hallowing out of the alliance because of the budget cuts and the that five years from now, we can pull off the libya? >> again, let me make a couple of points. first is that this is a real concern. and i won't sugar coat it in the least. we have concerns about declining defense budgets and continued

investment in defense across the alliance. the threand you describe are reality. and they are of great concern. this is an old issue, and people have been worried about nato and particular european defense spending along has the alliance has existed. things a qualititively new dimension to it following the financial crisis and the very severe cuts. as you suggest, it would be a sad irony it libya turned out to be the demonstration that european really can provide important resources and assets for military operation that you haven't planned for. which they did, i pointed out in the remarks not france and britain, norway, dell denmark, bell gym make -- it would be ironic if libya demonstrated that but within a few years, we permitted the cape abilities to

attribute to the point it was no longer the case. that's why as i mentioned president obama raised the, the counter parts and undercored that good snows we are sympathetic to the need get countries fiscal health in order. we are going some significant defense cuts ourselves. and no one doubts the need to to cut budget deficits and exam very carefully defense budgets. but we do have to be careful, lest we the alliance as the whole not being able to perform necessary defense tasks inspect is not a substitute for the deserves spending. statement this is why we put the emphasis on the smart defense initiatives within nato. if ever there was a case for more pooling in share and intergracious. it's now. the libya operation did was show both the benefits of commonly

funded assets but also the gap that remains to have a commonly funded pool of -- as nato does enables all of a lies to -- buy their own plane. and that's why with e canned to the at the summit this time, to collectively purchase drones for one of the thing that was clear we didn't have enough intelligence and so you have a couple of choice. you can expect the united states to do everything which i don't think is a viable option. or you can expect every country that wants intense for such and operation to buy the advanced drone which are very intensive not a good option. or you can collectively buy some. i get back to the first question about investing. collectively buy them so it costs less for everybody. everyone can benefit. that is what what was done with the decision to commonly procure

ground surveillance. once those uav are procured. every ally will have access to advance intelligence information without having to spend the necessary money and let alone the drones the infrastructure, the technicians who can read the data that comes from the drone. it is cost effective. and there is a number of other examples examples with we pursue in chicago and we need to continue to pursue. the batteddic air polices. it doesn't make sense to expect the baltic states to spend money on advanced fighter planes when others can do the job and they can invest in other things. that's where we're focused more efficient spending. more pooling and sharing. that's why the alliance itself is valuable. it doesn't replace the need for continued defense spending. but it is necessary in any case. >> thanks. i have a list of other questions. but i should now be quiet and

let you ask questions and give answers. i'm going to group questions by three. so please make sure you identify yourself when you ask the question. and you disguise the statement as a question. yes, sir, neither front. wake for the mike, place. >> documentary film maker. publish opinion polls in the united states don't give a lot of support to the administration's position on afghanistan much less the multibillion dollar commitment take even after the troops have left. my question to you is, all we've heard is the reason we're there is to deny al qaeda safe haven. and the real reason is because in my mind, at least, a radical slammic regime in -- would relations impossible. if you agree with that, my

question is, why does the administration shape a more coherent and more believable position to convince the american public on the issue? >> thanks. second question? yes, sir. >>. >> jeffrey from the senator of transatlantic relations. the state department late last year and i spent some time not working directly under you but in the bureau that worked a lot with you. i have two questions. one personal diplomatic, one more strategic. the first, when we began in early 2009 to meet with the european counter parts. i recall a very interesting dynamic. it was strange that when i began meeting european counter parts, experience sort of cold shoulder. i noticed overs were too. it was sort as if, to use the med four. we were back to the table. but we weren't allowed to speak up right away.

we were supposed to sit there awhile and do the pen innocence and not lead askses. you track it. nine months and we had persuade people. i think most levels of government of our renewed commitment and trust and we had to do it in personal terms and with actions and not just words. i wonder if you can look back and had a similar experience yourself. the other strategic question takes off from the record that you just outlined. which i think, is vailed in terms of the claims and the record really does speak for itself. but there's an interesting element to this, it is also alarming nap is, how much more dependent the u.s. is you use quite a number of times. i would add the u.s. has been more dpefnt on europe both in economic terms. that's more clear. i think strategicically.

and the question is to you, libya the high walk mash or going forward with the u.s. doing our own fair amount of cutting and not necessarily pivoting or relining. what are the europeans going to do? handling some of the burden themes with the defense bending spu possibly even a single europe military capability that is modest but expeditionary. >> one last question here then we go in the back. >> thank you. [inaudible] originally from the cener of european reform. the authorizations have mentioned the possibility of invoking article five instability from syria would to spill over the board. [inaudible] what would be the best response the nato. >> thanks.

>> all important topics. on afghanistan, i think we've been clear about what our objectives are and how we are seeking to accomplish them. the objective hasn't been very different than they were at the start. it is ib deed to deny al qaeda base from which it could operate globally the united states was attacked from afghanistan, and we set out and not just to get rid of the taliban regime to make sure that afghanistan could never become the place the place from which united states and other places could be attacked by the terrorist organization. to do that, not just we, but we and our allies around the world, determined it would be necessary to give support democratic elected afghan government which needed outside help. we have invested an incredible amount of resources over the

past decade to give them a chance at doing that. i started with what president obama inherented. i can't speak to decisions that were made before that. his view was clear that we had a chance to succeed many this way to denying al qaeda the opportunity to reestablish a haven in afghanistan. and so he increased our military effort in the short term and in order to enable us to get out of afghanistan in the longer term. that's exactly what he'd been doing. so the sergeant that the united states undertook to reverse the taliban's gains has taken place. and we're no the process of turning over responsibility for afghanistan to the afghans. it's been a long and expensive investment. i think the president's view was that after all of that investment to simply say, this is too costly and it's not our problem. we're going to leave. it would be irresponsibility. now again, to the with the

partners under what i argue has been real american leadership, these fifty plus countries are working as hard as they can to put afghans in a position to be able to provide for their own security so we can responsibly and the war and bring our combat troops home. that's what we're on track to do. that's what more than fifty countries came together in chicago to recommitment recommit to. we are determined to success. i think we are succeeding. on the what you describe as the relationship with europeans started in 2009, and, you know, my experience, i have to the admit. i don't remember the nine months perking story that you refer to. i think we were warmly received and welcomed and enthusiasm for the obama administration was very high. perhaps excessively high.

ic there were maybe expectations that we created that would been hard to live up to in terms of the glorious new chapter in transatlantic relations in which we would disagree about nothing and march together as in some past actually existed. so i think that we were warmly welcomed in the start. and we -- the message i conveyed just now, we try to convey to the partners from the start. we were sincere about wanted to work together in mutually beneficial way and we would listen. and we would share leadership because we have the same interest and values. and so i guess it was pushing on an open door trying to ash tick late the message. i think it's been reacceptuated by -- reacceptuated with the european unions. it goes hand and hand about the

dependent. i wouldn't use that word. i think it has been demonstrated that to deal with the tremendous challenges that we face, we do need these strong democratic like-minded and yes, military capability partners top think about some of the examples gave and imagine doing it without the partnership with europe. you don't have to mablg it, it's been tried before. iran. it's been the united states' policy for more than fifteen years to apply sanctions, pressure, the united states hasn't traded with iran or bought any oil for decades. we tried the financial pressure diplomatic pressure approach on our own. it didn't get us anywhere. i think it's fair to say when it became an international effort and first and foremost the europeans it they started to

sink with the yiern begans they had better concerns about the nuclear program. imagine doing that without partnership for europe. afghanistan. could we do do what we're doing without european partners? i suppose it would be a lot more costly to us. i don't know where we could get the nearly 40 u.s. troops that enter fight alongside american ones for mostly a decade. frankly, they're not from other regions. they're from the most part nato allies or european allies. the dependent we could pursue some of these same policies but i wouldn't want to imagine doing it without the maximum partnership with europe. would we like more support from europe and more resources and support in yes. and we have the pressure on the european all the time. but on none of them, would i want to -- that was part of my point i sided with the president

not being able to tackle the challenges alone. list ya, he an interest in protecting civilians in libyan and stopping gadhafi, could we have done it alone? i think so. but we certainly didn't want to for a whole range of reasons raining from the military aspect to the legacy to the aftermath and funding that would be necessary. so you know, you debate whether you want to call it dependent. but i would say that we have gone all about all of these things with a full appreciation to what europe can bring to the table. i think we're stronger because of it . i think we're more successful in dealing with the problems because it. collar are a asked about article five in turkey. just to be clear, turkish leaders have eluded to article five. they haven't invoke it. they haven't invoked article

four. they have briefed nato on the humanitarian situation in serve ya in syria. they briefed nato and g8 on what's going on in the region, but they haven't asked for formal nato consultation. i don't think that's on the agenda. the general rule, the united states and we interrated this in chicago, is that absolutely committed to a credible article five. it needs to be something that some countries sovereign tie or interterritorial integrity is threatened. we van obligation over the north atlantic treaty to treat that as an i i ak ton on -- we take it seriously. that's what the leaders have suggested when they have even referred to article five as simply the underscore that their sovereignty is say cried.

were it to be attacked in any way that would be a very grave matter. thanks. two more questions. you here in the middle. wait for the mike. thank you steven hill. question on china. china occupies the rather unique niche in being one world power but also a developing nation. and in many things about china. when you look beneath the surface. it's quite changey. the idea of china as failed state is too terrible to contemplate. it seems to me that the administration's policies toward china don't recognize this complexity. i'll give you a few examples. one is on currentty and exchange. the policy is a social program to create jobs in china. without that policy, replacing

with something else it has much point sei. china would be in trouble. the administration's policies of pushing the china on the current exchange that gives members of congress ample opportunities to bash china and not recognizing the real reasons behind it. the second one is marines in australia. it seems to me, this just feeds into a narrative in china in which they are suspicious of the west and we acknowledge the history there for good reasons. and perpetuates a relationship that one of cooperation, and it seems to be one more of confrontation when really the relationship with china seems to be the opportunity to create more about cooperation and mutual recognition of each other's needs. i would love to hear your comments. thank you. >> and we get question in the back.

thank you for the opportunity. my name is [inaudible] i'm from frommal al-jazeera. it was the last -- assignment. what does it mean for [inaudible] zone sedona and cro yaisha can help the countries. become sooner nato members. and second, serbia president that was the [inaudible] hard nationality. you know that. how to deal with him especially talking about . >> thank you. >> well, china takes a little bit farther away from my presentation on biewm's europe record than i would like to go. but i would say, i mean, it's not unrelated in that people

shouldn't think about the challenges we face in china as some alternative to what we're trying to do with europe. and when i present a record of engagement with europe in dealing with the rest of the world, it is a recognition of the reality that it is precisely because we face such tremendous challenges in other parts of the world included those you mention about china we need this partnership. now the realy is, i think i gave you a large number of examples how we are working with european union on the global agenda. and i think, i would be the first to acknowledge if there's a region where it is underdeveloped it might be well in asia, and specifically on china. that is something we would like to change because we think with we vitamin interesten partner with european and asia just like in -- in africa.

so you know, for a from excepting this. it's just the reality. we invite and i think have launched diagnose with the european partners so we're together tackling this type of challenge. once again, we are just better off if we're going it to the with our strong and knick european partners. you asked about secretary of clinton's comments on the ball kins. ..

the european path, and we

believe that requires coming to terms with kozyrev. we will continue to support the dialogue between the two countries. >> thanks. we need to move to the of the panel. please thank me -- join me in thanking -- [applause] the great discussion we had. thank you, again, phil. what we're going to do is we're going to move seamlessly to the next battle. if you want to take a one or two minute pause we will start the next panel, and i will call on tuesday woman to join me here. thanks. >> more now from this forum on the european union fiscal challenges. representatives from french and german newspapers discuss the division between the two countries on the best way to restore growth. analysts also covered greece and spain's debt problems.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> , said that i have my work as a moderator of that panel cut out for me because of all the news we have and have been having over the past few days, indeed i feel it -- as though reminded us, right now as we speak the extraordinary dinner or the extraordinary european council meeting in brussels is nearing its end. leaders are discussing the eurozone crisis and greece in particular.

in greece, as you know, we have seen in the recent days, starting last week and not only the very indecisive elections of may, but also a sort of slow run under way as many newspapers have noted to get home saves and padlocks to keep the euros in kind, the bank notes and the actual currency sort of underlying the severity of the fears that there could be a switch back to the drachma. yesterday, as you may have heard , the oecd warned that the 17 countries that use the euro risk falling into a severe recession. indeed more than ten of them already are in a recession. the oecd called on government and the european central bank to take decisive action to avoid having a situation in which the europeans drag down the global

economy. yesterday, as you know, the german government reiterated its opposition to the creation of eurobonds, although it is supported by most european governments and brussels and the imf and the oecd, underscoring the crucial nature of the talks tonight to in brussels and the negotiation which would be under way not only on a new growth package to complement that treaty, but also, of course, the more fundamental question of whether to create eurobonds or whether to let the ecb intervene more decisively to help with the sovereign debt crisis. in other words, how to put a sort of backstop so that the markets would cease doubting the determination of the europeans.

but all's -- of course, and our discussion this afternoon we don't want to limit ourselves to the very short-term, to yesterday's headlines, and we don't want to focus exclusively on economic issues even if they are, of course, central to the current crisis. we want to start from the current situation to try to take in medium and long-term looked at the -- how i would say politics and economics interactive europe to shape a new situation and but, of course, the implications for the united states may be. to discuss the issues we have sort of a dream team of journalists and editorialists with us, and i would introduce them in the order in which they will speak. and i only provide brief introductions, and you can read more about them in the program. john p. will start. the current european editor of the economist. he started his career as a civil

servant working for the british treasury and the far office for ten years before joining the economist in 1986 where he has held a number of positions, either from london or from brussels, washington, and other places that included health correspondent and business editor before getting his current position of being a european editor. , the editorial director of the french leading daily newspaper. joined a year after it john p. joined the economist. they both have long careers in their respective newspapers. after working with the ispafp agency in the various locations. just as john p. did, she held positions as foreign correspondent in various places including moscow, the u.s., both in new york and washington and southeast asia. she also held executive

functions including executive director of the newspaper in 2010 and 2011. the washington bureau chief of germany's leading national weekly newspaper. before joining he worked as a journalist in other places, including. [inaudible] and the north german broadcasting corporation. he has reported from various countries and on a broad range of subjects including the balkan wars and the israel palestine conflict and is also a good expert on germany and german law, in particular having had various teaching experiences, including harvard center for european cities where he lectured on various aspects of germany's reform. so without further ado i will leave the floor and ask him to kind of job for us the crisis where we are at now. >> right.

well, thank you very much for inviting me. it's nice to be back in washington. it's best to be back in brookings as well. i am going to speak for about ten minutes, if i can. i will try and press everything into tenements, and i will make about ten points. roughly one minute per point. i will pick up from where you started. the euro crisis is sweeping everything else aside in europe. it has become, in my view, an eccentric crisis. an existential crisis, i think, not just for the euro, but possibly the european union as a whole. almost everything else that is sometimes has been pushed. and i include, for example, foreign policy which uni talked about in the past, the efforts to form a common foreign policy, enlargement. i think the fact of the euro crisis has made further talk of

a large in the european union, even things like the single market, trans-atlantic relations. everything is being pushed to one side by the year of crisis. this is a really important moment for the future of europe. to pick up on the oecd, insisted it has also become critically, the board for the world economy. if anything can hit barack obama's reelection hopes, i think the euro crisis would have to be very high on the list. if it does turn into something that generates a deep recession in europe and possibly in the world economy, then i think the implications on this side of the atlantic are also quite serious. so this is really a big -- a big problem. the immediate focus today and for the last few weeks as i just said is greece. i would say that the election on june the 17th is still not a foregone conclusion.

the election on may the sixth was very unhelpful. it was not actually an enormous surprise. i would blame -- i would put a lot of the blame for that on the new democracy leader. it would have been better if greece had continued with what it was doing, but every now and then democracy rears its head, and you have to put up the results. that is where we are. i do think that in greece itself and even more in the rest of europe we are seeing over the last week, two weeks, a gradual shift toward the acknowledgement that a greek exit has become quite likely. as we journalists like to call it. the implications of that still have not team worked out, but i think across europe and increasingly in greece itself there was recognition that a greek exit is quite high and the cards. i would not. but i think it is much, much more likely now than it was a month or two ago.

and obviously when you start talking about a greek exit from the euro moving on to my third point, the rest of the eurozone immediately starts to worry. if greece were somehow or other to fall out of the euro that is a cataclysmic event for something that was supposed to be an air vocable currency union . and it will forever cast a shadow over the euro, even if the euro last another hundred years with out losing anybody else. the fact that a country might have been able to fallout of it will cause a serious problem for the currency and for some of the particular countries that are on the edge in it, and i include in that group especially portugal. portugal is very much in the firing line if greece falls out, but i also includes spain and italy in that group. i happen to think that ireland

has just about escaped from being another, as it were a potential victim of the euro crisis, although its referendum at the end of may is something that is worth watching. if the irish do decide to vote no which i don't expect it will, but if they do i think the implications could be quite serious. it is entirely possible that ireland will need another bailout. if they vote no in getting another bailout will be very hard for them. in general the irish economy looks in much better than portugal, spain, greece, obviously, and italy. i would put a lot of faith on portugal because the portuguese economy has been very sick for quite a long time and it needs to do a great deal more to escape being marketed in the crease. the government of portugal is a much stronger government and the greek government. likely to emerge from the election, but the country remains fresh job. 1/4 point to continuing from my

point on portugal to the focus a bit more specifically on spain and italy, neither of them, as you know, either of them have yet applied for a bailout from the bailout fund for the eurozone. but it is increasingly clear that the spanish banks will need some help. i think some of the numbers that were tossed around for how much of the spanish banks might want maybe exaggerated, but the fact is that spain had an almighty property bust. those in spain who tell people like me that spaniards traditionally always go on paying their mortgages, i think they're going to be tested over the next six months, particularly of the recession intensifies. spanish unemployment, as i'm sure you know is already at 24%. gang spaniards a 50%, that is pretty terrific. although spain has learned to tolerate high unemployment, those numbers are pretty bad, and i think the risk that some of the spanish banks will need more support than spain can

supply is definitely growing. the worry about spain and italy is that the eurozone bailout fund might just about be able to meet the needs of spain on its own, but it is quite clear that the euros on bailout fund could not meet the needs of spain and italy together. so if those two countries get into deeper trouble the rest that the euro could start to fall apart and the rest of the eurozone can support them becomes very much greater. italy is not in quite such bad shape as spain because actually contrary to some popular belief italy's finances are not actually terrible. it did not have a property bubble, but the italian economy has been in trouble for a very long time now. gdp in italy is more or less back to where it was ten years ago. that is an astonishing failure of modern westernized countries.

it indicates that italy needs to make serious changes if it is going to prosper and grow in the future. as i'm sure you can imagine all of us think that he is a marvelous man, but he is not an elected prime minister. he is not going to be there forever. probably going to go before next april, and there are already signs that the high popularity is beginning to fade as she starts to push through measures that actually are increasingly unpopular. so watch the yield, bond yield in spain and italy over the next week so. how are we going to get out of the euro crisis having just on the brief points on different countries and it? obviously we do need in europe and a bigger growth agenda. it has been quite clear that putting too much emphasis on austerity and fiscal tightening alone is aggravating the euro sound economic problems and not helping to cure them, even if it

is necessary for the repair of public finances. also we have done to a position where it has become important ties live greece one way or the other, even if somehow it is kept as a passenger. we need more europe to solve this problem. that means that germany does have to at some point accept more euro wide measures that will include some system that is euro wide for dealing with bank recapitalization, insurance. i think it does imply an implicit transfer from the more successful parts of the eurozone to poor parts, the kind of thing that happens automatically in the united states. i think it does mean some partial regionalization of debt. without moves in those directions i don't think the euro is going to survive. that is my diagnosis of what needs to be done. how do we get that done, the answer to that is in the politics of doing it,

exceptionally difficult. there are obviously most difficult in germany. i went -- i won't go until late on germany begins and a marginal some more. but getting a sense from the german people, and it isn't just the german chancellor. the german people who need to have -- and need to% to changes like this, it's going to be extremely hard, but the perception in germany is that the country's doing very well. an implied is the lowest is been for 20 years, growing successfully, exports continue. there are even wage rises and living standards are rising. german public opinion does not see why germany should now help to pay for what they see as the sands of the other eurozone countries. they tend to say, we in germany, we were in trouble ten years ago. we may painful reforms. you did not make painful reforms

now it's your turn to make painful reforms. this mentality in germany, i think, is quite deep in the psyche. we see that many times over history. creditor countries believe -- this goes back all the way. they believe that when they're is a problem it is the debtor countries to adjust. they cause the trouble. they need to adjust to be the truth for germany, and this is where the german chancellor needs to do more to explain things, for germany the break above the euro would be a complete catastrophe. it is worth paying almost any conceivable price to stop that happening. and i think that is the dynamic of the -- dynamic that we are in right now. of course the change in france is also going to make a difference. rather dangerous man clearly has arrived in office determined not just to press the case up things

like eurobonds and a europe wide bank recapitalization, your blood bank revolution system, but also to get rid of austerity , to supplement it with a growth agenda, very commendable. this is why we consider him to be dangerous. he is fiercely against the liberalization of structural reform agenda that we and other covers it is believed to be essential for the future health of your. i heard him say twice that those who preselected of liberalization and social reforms are preaching the things that got us into the mess, not the things that would get us out of the mass. i happen to think he is completely wrong in that position, but clearly the position of france is not going to be helpful to pursuing a reform agenda. i finish with three points about the implications of where we go from here.

the first is, i do think that wall way or another the eurozone does -- it will implement reforms, structural change. it has to. if it does not it is going to condemn its citizens and possibly its own currency to a very bad future. in ssi see that as the essential logic. i wrote a survey, and my essential argument was that the benefit, the potential benefits of a single currency which i saw as a very risky venture -- venture, it would force structure reform. fortunately did not. in fact, it worked the other way around. many countries to the lower interest rates and felts and construction reform. the logic that single currency require structural reform is still there, and i expected to happen over the years. second implication, rather more

awkward, mentioned some of the things that i think need to happen, including some kind of eurobond, a tighter fiscal union i think getting them to accept the deeper level of integration that i now see as an essential part of resolving the euro crisis is going to be quite difficult. in a way i see the economics of solving the euro crisis, hard as they are, as rather easier to and the politics of solving the euro crisis. i thi already you're beginning to see across europe people asking why should they be telling us what to do. even the belgians and the dutch were asking this question recently. and i think europe does need to do more to lend to its increasingly tight union that it is going to be in a necessary part of the euro crisis. i won't go into detail, what we're talking about things like to the need more powers,

alleging the european commission and without doing something to increase the legitimacy of the european union, the risk of a backlash against it is great. and i cannot stop the that mincing one kutcher which i have country. my country is in rather an interesting and difficult position in all this. it is not the only european union country not to be in the euro. seventeen and to much in doubt. as we are all very much affected, clearly very much in the interest to be solved. as the eurozone develops tighter rules of its own the implication by the u.k. is going to be very painful. when i raise this subject i am always told, well, you can solve all these problems if you join the euro. the problem is that britain is

clearly not going to join the euro. at of things we will either. i'm not even sure whether denmark well. it will be some out countries for quite a long time sitting alongside a club which considers the drug to be an essential part of what they are dng and the rest to be somehow more peripheral. developing this into a two-tiered europe with the of countries feel they're left out could be extremely painful. for the u.k. if it went badly wrong i think it is conceivable that it could ultimately lead to the u.k. leaving the european union altogether. >> not at all. not only. as we said, now of would like to turn and astor to continue on that team and also, perhaps, and lightness and who she thinks -- a dangerous man or do you see him as not that dangerous. where in particular the

franco-german engine is heading if indeed it still exists. >> thank you. thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to be back here. it is a very, very nice to be back at brookings. i must congratulate you. european union leaders are meeting in brussels for this very crucial meeting. now we have -- we, the media, have presented this meeting tonight in brussels, very dramatic. it is dramatic duel but not for the reasons we usually say. it is not that dramatic because in the sense that i don't think anything is going to happen tonight or is happening, it is

27 people around the table. it is rather difficult. it is more an opportunity to meet his new partners put everything on the table. so that is what they're going to do. there will be a long cycle until the end of june. it is a problem. the cycle is indeed long. there is urgency. just describe the situation in greece and spain. in the eurozone is really at this time germanic. so it is going to be a few very, very difficult weeks ahead. elections everywhere. we have parliament elections in france on june 10th and 17th

gen 17th new elections in greece. may 31 the referendum in ireland probably forget a few polls, but it is -- it is going to be a very busy june month. so what is important now regarding this meeting in brussels and the next meeting, the next round of negotiations. at least the terms of the debate now are very clear. it is a good thing. i must say, it is probably, i'm not a spokesperson. i don't want to sound like a supporter. he has been very good, i must say, and staying on message since his election. he has been surprisingly farm, i

think. his message, of course, is gross . i think has been doing a very good job of taking advantage of this extraordinary coincidence between the french election in the end of april who an early may we had the situation in spain and the newly, political crisis in the netherlands which showed that countries which had been doing things by the book, starting gentleman reforms in a very painful way

he said that you think he is totally hostile to reforms. i don't think he is. i think he had to say a few things or hide a few things during the campaign. there is no way he is going to be able to avoid some reform, some very important reform, and that will be his job, to sell it to the voters and to the french people. one thing we learned during the campaign is that he looks unassuming, but he should not be underestimated. when -- that is part of his appeal apparently, but, you know, he can be also.

[inaudible] whenever you would call it. for instance, from the very day of his inauguration he praised the elements and the rain and the thunder to go and meet the german chancellor in berlin. snc landed and berlin dimension the eurobond.

hallways this kind of sickness about whatever growth means. we can talk about this later. but for voters it is a kind of magic word. they will have to all agree on what it means. so i don't think there is going to be a real showdown as the media presented. it is not growth, but austerity. it has to be -- and some movement, it has to be both together. there have been signs of flexibility, i think, coming

from the germans on higher wages , the level of inflation, may be able hear more about this but i don't think the situation is so impossible to solve the moment. the foreign minister said yesterday that there was no fundamental disagreement that differences can be reduced. so this is, you know, room for compromise. this is what they're going to have to do in the coming weeks. maybe a compromise, the terms of the compromise will be the name of the eurozone, awful. maybe we can do some kind of eurobond. they can be, you know, starting with project bonds. i think their is a whole area,

array of tools that the german foreign minister had a piece today where he offered growth. but the growth pact which would not imply more debt. so this expellers, six examples of measures that could be -- by what -- i will spare you the details, but just go to the website and you will find it. there is movement again. so i am personally even though i agree this is an a sense of crisis, an extremely serious crisis and pushing everything aside, their is a lot of sense of urgency. maybe because of this i am optimistic. we have covered a lot of ground for the past two years. we have gone to links that we would not have thought him as

simple some years ago. i think we can find the tools. now, i agree totally the problem is political. how these leaders going to the sell those measures to the public opinion? that is where we have a big problem. not only political representation. it is true that most european citizens don't feel they are properly represented at the european level. we have the problem of legitimacy. the hang people feel they don't have a voice in the process. europe has been billed for them and they don't really understand they have been -- they have not been through the process as we have. they were born europeans. they don't really understand why it is so important to be european and what it brings to them. so this is -- politically we all, not only the political

leaders but also the media, we all have to do a lot -- we have a lot of efforts. and now, we -- i spoke about urgency. there is also urgency on the political field. we see every single election brings a rise of extremism, of pauperism. i mean we have greece, we have the national farms. we have all this movement. it is a problem which will get worse if we don't confront it, if we don't face it really squirrely. there is a problem of confidence i think this is crucial at all levels, financial levels, the economic level, and political level. we have to manage to build confidence. it is a problem of vision. it is a problem of what is a

suppressing the euro, what we -- what are we having to. it is a problem of leaders. very briefly, because i think my time is up, if the german chancellor is against the eurozone, it is understandable from a political or moral point of view may be. i agree again with john, i think the case must be made to set her own people that what -- about what you're brings to the german people. what does it -- what are the benefits of the german people. i mean, the number of young graduates from spain, from portugal, from greece, who are flocking to germany to fill the job and that is extremely useful

for the german economy. i mean, all this is a story which has to be told to the german people, i think. the same goes for of course the benefits of trade, the economy, and including the benefits of transfers. pop -- properly implemented. and the same goes for france. i was struck by the president. i don't think it has anything to do just with him. that is very french. i hope this will manage to get chased, but sarkozy used to get to meetings, to brussels. this is what france is going to say. and then he would come back. what france had offered, you know, somehow, every country had its position. then we had the european. he would never come back saying this is what europe has decided. and it is very simple.

in the political discourse i think leaders really have to do a big effort in the coming european also. this is a huge issue. i don't think we're going to sell the today, but europe does exist in everyday life. it is amazing that the number of things we have in common and that we, you know, internal migrations to medication. the number of things which have changed of the past decade that are really inextricably part of our lives, i will just finish by quoting the polish leader who used to say communism, you know, i know when the country was exiting communism. i know how to make fish food from an aquarium, but i don't know how to make an aquarium out

of fish. it is a little bit the same with europe. there is no way we can and do europe. and now we're all talking about -- and maybe greece will. i don't know. and of the consequences will be terrible if it happens. but there is no way we can and do europe. we have to be much more positive about why europe exists. >> thank you very much. and now turning to you. i am, of course, we would love you to explain to us the thinking of the german chancellor and the question that comes to mind, you know, that plane. >> there is. i will come to that. thank you. giving me the opportunity even though i am not a spokesperson of the german government. explain a little bit to yield the philosophy behind it.

but let me first say, talking to the americans and to my fellow brits about the european union and the euro and to try to convince them of the value is sometimes like someone who tries to convince the salvation army of drinking a glass of red wine. but i think the european union will survive and the euro will survive. maybe -- and this is my optimistic note, at the end of the day when we have gone through all the margin we will be stronger and even more prosperous. may be an example for some other states, even the united states about what reforms can do at the end of the day. i always meet people here telling me, wow, you know, germany, people are flocking to jerry now from spain, from

greece. but that is good for germany, but bad for others. was in this country, the united states, based on the idea of attracting others have flocked to the united states because it is a country of opportunity? and didn't the united states always tell the others, try also to reform yourself and then you keep the people. so i think there is some truth to it. this leads me to also to the core of the debate. first of all, let me say, we are somehow, we are in a very dramatic situation. i will talk -- i will not deny the gravity of the conflict. there is something like a schizophrenic situation. greece is the problem, and it is not the problem. actually, economically it is a very weak country. 2 percent of the european gdp. no one from an economic point of view would really bother and all

of europe too much if greece one date does not belong to the eurozone anymore. but as john has pointed out, and he is certainly right, there is something like a trickle-down effect, a ripple effect, a domino effect, however you would like to call it, but there is also a political consequence to that. this is probably also the core of the problem. the european union is based on the idea of integration. until today we have seen constant steps of further integration. increase -- if greece has to leave the euro it will be the first time that a severe step of disintegration is taking place. i think the consequences, the political consequences of these cannot be underestimated.

therefore, what happens on june june 17th, again, go to the ballot box, the 17th of june will be a referendum on the euro and the european union. the german chancellor said this. again, it was not very smart to say so openly, but i think she is totally right. and the schizophrenic situation in greece is that 80 percent of the people want to stay inside the eurozone, desperately want to stay inside the eurozone. but i am not to -- first of all, not very willing to take all the necessary steps to reform their countries, but we must also see that the votes they give are also in opposition to the ruling parties that have led to this

crisis. so i think what you see is also the result of dissatisfaction, despair with the ruling system in greece. so i cannot say if greece is going to opt out or if it has to opt out of the euro. at think it is manageable. it is manageable now. it would not have been manageable a year or two years ago. it all depends on the fire wall that will be established and the sincere will of them helping all the others remaining in the eurozone without letting anyone else go. nevertheless, there is this strong well and still a strong will also in the german government to keep increase in the euro because of the political consequences.

the european union has also a strong interest not sought only keep greece inside the european union, but also inside the euro because it believes the euro it will have political consequences on the european union. greece is a nato member. it has a border to turkey. it has a gateway, and entrance gate for many refugees pouring into the european union. greece is an important country outside the european union. so there is interest in keeping greece inside. what will be the consequence if greece stays inside and for all the other countries that will stay inside the eurozone, i think what is clear is that we see further integration, the

federalist leap, less natural -- national sobriety. interestingly, we have seen that and sylmar of who was pretty skeptical of the european union, she was brought up and raced in east germany, did not have much contact with the european union and had to learn what that all meant to. and i was predestined to what that body actually means. she has become a strong advocate for further integration and for the federalist leap. which -- but on which basis will this federalist league take place, what is the economic, the philosophical and political foundation of this? austerity or growth. i think this is a false antagonism. sure.

the germans and angela merkle as chancellor have still not live through it but now that germany is still very much afraid of hyperinflation due to what happened before world war ii. germany is not against. germany has used stimuluses of through a history. after second world war many, many times. even recently when the financial collapse on wall street, there is -- everyone says in good times, spend in dire times. this is a true sentence, but they're is a precondition which leads to my think, to the core of german thinking. you can't say that's if you talk basically about sound and it same economies. but what happens if those economies are not sound and

safe, if they have deep structural problems that need die reforms. what do you do when you create another growth package without knowing what happens in the consequence to those countries stick to their promise or do they think, okay, now the money pours in. we might, you know, step back and down to reform our system as much as we have to. we have seen, for example, would bring less money in italy who has promised to do things and then just stepped back and said sorry after he got support. so i think in cystine in the -- and saying that this compact has to be carried up to is a

necessity. and interestingly enough when the fiscal pact was signed by the european union and there were only two countries that opted not to, the united kingdom and the czech republic. so i think at the end of the day , and merkle is a realist, a pragmatist. she is also farm, and she is very normal. and i think at the end of the day she will agree in some kind of stimulus. and that think we will see that in the upcoming summit. there is nothing like a german french divide. i would also say that there are

not interpose. actually, i think there would probably get better along than sarkozy and marco. because as far as i have observed, he is a very, very sober person and sticks to what he says and not a flip-flop. [laughter] so far. and so i think germany and france, they could be a power couple. an indispensable nation for the european union and its success. and maybe what one does not know here because sometimes the perception of europe and the euro suffers a little bit on a very anglo-american pointed you, i think what is written in german papers or in french

papers, it does not really -- is not really transferred to the general public in the united states. all this just one angle of the whole problem. but germany does not stand alone in the european union. what you see at the moment is a more northern and southern divide, but there are a lot of countries, northern countries that support the german point of view. not long ago the polish foreign minister said in berlin he is not afraid of german leaders, but a lack thereof, which was very new to germany and heartwarming that a neighbor

that germany occupied and has done a lot of harm to 60 years after world war two comes to germany and says that. so i will conclude with an optimistic note. i think a lot has happened in the last few years. more fiscal discipline. we have a fiscal pact. we have what one probably does not know here, a crazy word. it is called the european semester. that means that budgets and reforms will be sent to to brussels for oversight, which is very new and is not very easy for the germans because our

constitutional court has ruled that the budget right is the primary rate of any and every national parliament. so this is always a very tricky issue. this safety umbrella is there. first of july with about $800 billion. in that think the stimulus will happen. maybe not with more debt, but there are other possibilities. the european central bank has poured money to stabilize the euro women even though they are not there to bail out countries and cannot give a directly to a country, but they have poured billions of dollars into the eurozone by stabilizing the currency. the european investment bank would probably get more money to

finance certain projects that generate growth. and then there is the talk of the eurobond. i do agree that we probably have to find a new word for that. something like that will come. maybe not, and i think that is very tricky for the germans. there will not agree in the joint liability for all that, but what is this now? the german proposal finding more and more friends among the arab countries. to partly mutualize the debts and the liability for a. so part of the money before a country goes into default everyone will help. but the principle will be everyone has to pay his own debt. at the end of the day if you cannot do it then everyone

should give you a helping hand. so i think those are some perspectives tell you that europe and the euro is not at the end of the dead. we have to go through major discussions. i agree. we have to go through major referendum and elections and that the end of the day the people will have to decide whether they agree on what happens are not. but as i said at the beginning, i don't think that in 100 years the euro will be -- as you say to my irrevocably cast a shadow. >> wonderful. thank you very much. so to pick up where marcan --

martin left and ask a question to the three of you. it seems to me there are two narratives. one is the one you get when you said the last summit, the market, except. basically take out a process. no one is really ignoring where this is going. there are tensions all around. an accident can happen easily. precisely there is no real logic to it. the other narrative, which i think barn implicitly referred to and if i heard correctly, it's more that -- of day of -- sort of what can be called the new eurozone, meaning that things that were not doable in the 1990's when the eurozone was created, when the rules were set, are now, that is now possible because of the crisis.

in that narrative easy something that was alluded to, the european semester college you mentioned as well, a lot of ground has been covered in the past two years and is going to continue. in this narrative at least their is a logic which is that the founding fathers, if not of europe, at least of the euro, had in mind the idea that at some point it would be necessary to get to this sort of eurozone 2.0 which would be precipitated by a crisis. so that is what we are seeing right now. ann martin alluded to a federal asleep. so based on these two narratives i have three questions for the panelists. i would like task how likely you think this second narrative is? would you subscribe to the view that what is happening now might actually be precisely the sort

of hit the construction of a different and more robust eurozone giving credence. to sylvia, i would ask, the question of the federalist leap. obviously marne refers to the vision for europe. still not have that in her dna. probably, very long wait. however, it is not clear that france is done the same, has covered the same ground. now the question of the next five years might be whether france is ready for that because of federal asleep would be unimaginable in france and germany cannot agree. and lastly, based on mr. narratives, do you think -- so the impression is that marco is using the crisis, putting all our cards on the table so to

speak in order to avoid moral hazard, in order to avoid the political neil constraint or at least to overcome the political constraints that she has at home , as she needs something in return for the eurobond that you say you thought were likely to exist. of course the question is, don't you think their is a risk that the first narrative prevails and that she might miscalculate and that, for example, in greece the idea is to keep a very strong constraint on greece. greece actually does the reforms that it needs to do, but by fine-tuning, by finding that pressure things might get out of hand. i will -- perhaps john. >> just a couple of remarks in response. i think the second narrative is indeed the one to focus on. people should get beyond the

immediate noise of the spanish bond yields. and actually, they should say of the past two years, the consensus is beginning to form that the only way forward is to construct a titan that federation. they have not actually -- this is how the european union in a sense works. you make use of the crisis to move forward. so i think that is the thing to focus on, and that think it is going to happen. it is messy, and it does entail a number of risks. the most obvious which goes back to the german chancellor and the point about braless connie which is absolutely right. very interesting in the way it affected german thinking about things, if you are playing a game, that's fine. it can often produce other good results. ..

>> that's why i put the emphasis in my remarks on the politics rather than the economics of solving the euro crisis. the first is that if you go back to the '50s and, indeed, everything that's followed, this is essentially a project that ice -- that's been driven by france and germany. and that's always been accepted and understood. the problem that we're in now, and i accept that, actually, we're betting on rather than the

previous duo, but this is an extremely unbalanced pairing. france, actually, is much closer to being one of the problem countries of the eurozone, and i think that is going to make this move into this federalist direction much more difficult to handle. it is this nation, a franco-german driver is a way of describing french and german weakness,, and it makes handling that rather hard. and the second reason i see is this one of legitimacy. the reason why the german project has worked, i think, is because to the ordinary people of europe, it seems to have produced benefit, the single market. it was interesting in the french referendum in 2005 that one or two people started to pick up the treaties and say what's all this about the formation of competition? we don't like that. that had been since the 1950s,

it was nothing based upon the constitution they based it against. but i think it was generally accepted because it was producing good growth in the early years, low air fares, moving around the continent, the problem that we're now in is we're making a federalist leap not as a result of success, but as a result of failure. there is a perception that the euro hasn't actually worked, and it certainly hasn't worked in the south. and now people are being asked to go on another leap as a consequence of what is seen as a failed policy, not a successful policy. and i think that raises much more difficult issues of legitimacy of the system. and it's going to be very difficult to handle. and and it's particularly difficult to handle when to some extent the last four or five years we've seen a crisis of divergence and not convergence in europe. >> it's a very good, very important question, this issue of federalism, and it's a question that hollande has been

very much silent about, so it's interesting. you know, i was wondering when these last couple of weeks with all this talk about the euro bonds, um, why didn't the germans raise the issue of political integration which i agree angela merkel has been extremely eloquent about and quite clear if putting forward or the -- in putting forward the very concrete propositions. so hollande, to my knowledge, hasn't said a thing about this during the campaign. i think he personally is in favor of this. he's the son of the law. in fact, actually much more than -- [inaudible] who even though she's the daughter, but he intellectually and politically, i think, is closer to the ideal.

and even, of course, of mitterand's view of europe. now, he has partners in his party and now in his government who don't see eye to eye with this conception. he has a foreign minister who led the campaign to the referendum in 2005, and so when it was rumored that -- [inaudible] would be the foreign minister, i asked one of the advisers, how are you going to deal with this, you know, if he has this baggage of no, the referendum, and he said, oh, you know, things have changed, we have come a long ways since then, and hollande will be the president. and, you know, in france, of course, foreign policy is led from the adc, so his view was, you know, it wouldn't be too much of a problem.

well, i don't think it would be that easy. he's a very strong personality, he's very experienced. i think you've seen this in america in these last few days. apparently, he was, you know, quite happy to be there and showing his expertise. and then it's not -- [inaudible] who is a minister for, it's a new denomination of a ministry -- [speaking french] yeah? i don't know how you say that in english. >> nor do we. [laughter] >> recovery. >> we call it industrial recovery. >> so it's really extremely vocal against europe, i mean, against close integration, at least. he's a sovereignist, as we say. he's not in the government, but we'll see how many seats he gets

in parliament. so politically it's going to be a tough sell. and we'll see. but i think this would be -- it should be part of the negotiation between the germans and the french, you know? ah, you want euro wondz? bonds? okay -- >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> it wasn't something on the political integration. now, just one thing about the german/french engine or couple or -- um, remember a year ago or so it was dead. i mean, france was, had disappeared, it was weak, it had lost aaa, you know, and germany was just, was the only leader in europe. and europe had to start to speak german and all this. for some reason hollande's election seems to have changed this, and, of course, it's too

easy. it's not that simple. i mean, the image of before was excessive, and the image of today is excessive. i don't think france had disappeared from the radar screen, but it shows that this engine, this double engine is really indispensable, that both have to be in the driving seat, and they are complimentary. you know, politically germany, because of it history, because of -- because of its history, we saw that in libya, you know? france was in the driving seat with, i mean, of course, with the u.s., with the u.k., and germany didn't want to take part in this operation. so it's not only economic power, as you know, is not the only thing which matters. there are other attributes of

power, and i think that's where hollande has been quite good. he's showed that france and other countries in europe, even those which are economically weak at the moment, have, must have a voice and are important. and that changes the equation a little bit for the germans, i think. >> thanks. >> yeah. i do very much agree. but, and i very much hope that both will sit in the driver's seat. i think no one really can carry the burden alone, and it's always good to have a double. and i'm a very, i'm a traditionalist in this sense. you know, when i look back at european history and especially the history of the european union, i think it went always well when germany and france had common ground. and it did not work well when there was disagreement. and i think some will depend, actually, on how france is going

to perform economically. so my little worries about that, you know, it's a lot of hope in europe also, you know, regarding hollande. and especially by the countries that are suffering at the moment. and they hope that the idea of having more growth will help and that they find support in hollande. but his, his weight will very much in the long run depend on how france is performing economically. and if he is willing also to carry out reforms. so i was a bit worried when he says he's going back to the pension age of 60 which i think he said it once in the election, and i don't know if it was part of his program. but, so i think those reforms have to be carried out, and i think as i know france quite well as my parents have lived

there for almost 20 years, i think also the public service needs desperate reforms. and as many european countries. and i think this is one of the very, very big, big problems. especially when you look at greece. a greek economist told me that even in greece they say that about 90% -- 95% of their public service is absolutely useless and could be fired today without any consequence. so even though that might be exaggerated, but there's some truth to it. and i think one has to think about that. so, um, john, i also agree with what you said. one more word to hollande and merkle -- merkel. when i look back at the recent german history, also merkle's

predecessor was a europe skeptic but while being in office he became partly an advocate, and, you know, that poland could join the european union is also thanks to him. and so, and he was the chancellor -- and when he came into office, he came also with big promises and what he would do, you know, even to further strengthen the welfare system. and everyone thought, okay, we get more money. at the end of the day, he reformed the welfare system, and germany went through also very bitter times. but nowadays you see that it worked. and we still need to reform a lot. it's not at the end of the day, but i think what we have experienced shows that reforms can help. and i think that is to understand the german position is that they are very much afraid that others will not go

this path and one's money is pouring -- more money's pouring into the system. we say, okay, we're fine, let's just postpone our reforms. john, i also think, you know, you're totally right in saying that the leap, the federallest leap is the consequence of failure. sure, there is a structural failure of the euro, you know? there's this symmetry between a strong monetary pillar and the weakness of the institutional foundation of which the currency is based. so, but we have the debate between new and old federalists. the old federalists were the visionaries, the ones that said, okay, we need more integration and at the same time with pushing integration, we also have to fund democratic

institutions that represent people's will. the problem of the new federalists, the more pragmatists that say, okay, federalism or the leap to federalism is the consequence of failure is the only pragmatic view than to say, oh, we have to muddle through, we have to get this done because that is the only solution we can have, and it's the only thing that makes any sense. but they, what they don't see is at the same time a growing dissatisfaction among the public. because democratic reforms don't come along. and i think this is probably also one of the big problems that european union has to face once the actual problems might be solved. >> thanks, martin. so i'm now going to turn to you, and since we'll have only time for one round of questions, we'll take more than three

questions, so i encourage my fellow panelists to take note, and they can choose the question that they want as well. we start from the back over there, the gentleman here. >> [inaudible] johns hopkins institute. i am italian, by the way, so you are not alone here. [laughter] my question is this, you're describing the european problem as a french/german and whatever vertical problems between countries. my impression is that if we don't put the horizontal question, the generational problem in the context, we don't get out in any way. it means as a baby boomer, if we don't decide together that in europe we have the same rules, we will never let the new generation to grow. we will have to support them and to seal their future. that, i think, is the only way

to come out. in greece like in germany like in italy and especially, i agree with the german colleague, in france. >> thanks. next to him over there in the back. please. >> stanley kober. i'm looking at an article that says france has the highest public spending rate in the eurozone. 56% of gdp. how can that be supported? can you work that down? according to this article, the imf says paris will need to impose 18 billion euros of cuts. is that possible? if not, have we passed a point of no return? >> thanks. the gentleman here in the front. >> [speaking french] i believe that the current

exposure to the greek debt is somewhere around 70%, so i suppose the question really is in regard to whether we have to move back from 2011 arrangement to a more realistic one. and i'm referring to what was 50% of the cut or losses which the private sector incurred doing enough with germany on 82.5% of debt to gdp. in france at 83. the average would be, perhaps, 82.5, if you wish. so i suppose greece cannot, unless it's a farce, rise from the ashes. we will need an additional cut and then recapitalize the banks which is one of the proposals

that -- [inaudible] has made. i suppose it's the piece that years ago very much in reference to france and germany indicates that you've captured the most stupid mountain climbers. and if we're lucky enough this question of why the german elite has yet to sell the idea that the e. u. works. well, during a speech given on november the 22nd, the speech was very much, well, the discussion was on the budget. but it's costing the benefit of the e.u -- [inaudible] thank you. >> thanks. here in the very front. hold on to the mic, please. lore. lower. there you go. >> all right. i'm norman burn balm from georgetown, and i'll permit myself a personal remark as a

power of the professor at a french university, i don't mind the state expenditure at all. [laughter] but, look, i want to ask, i want to ask our eminent panelists to step back for a minute and deal with an interesting question. if we take the entire spectrum of the european left beginning with the trot skyites, post-communists including the green, left socialists, social democrats, christian socialists, even social christians which accounts, by the way, for monty's affinities, if we look at the entire group, do you see any indication apart from they're rushing in with ideas and notions to the present difficulty, any idea of new solutions to the enduring problems of the transformations

that we've undergone in the past years? i'm aware that the question marks mean more like theologian looking at the early years of the gospel, but still it's worth examining. >> thanks. here. >> thanks. garrett mitchell, and i write "the mitchell report." i want to pose a question that's sort of, i suppose you could argue it's a thought experiment. and it is, um, if the u.k. had been a member of the eurozone and had, you know, dealt in the euro, would today's, would that change in any way the nature and extent of the crisis today positively or negatively in and going forward, um, can the euro

and the eurozone be sustainable without them, and what is the likelihood that that might actually happen? >> thanks. i can just take one last question, and then we'll go to the panel for conclusions. sir? here. >> hello, i'm basil scarlet, i used to work in the european bureau of the state department under assistant secretary gordon. i have just a brief question because i'm not sure whether ms. kaufmann accept the view that a greek exit would lead to a contagion that at this point doesn't look like it can be con taind and would -- contained and would likely result in a world financial crisis comparable to that visited upon us after lehman brothers' collapse. >> thanks. so now be i suggest we turn to our panelists perhaps in reverse order and starting with you, martin, and then sylvie and then

john. i'll just add a word pause that's something -- because that's something i've looked into about public spending, the 56%. the problem is largely a problem of figures. the oecd calculates public spending whenever any spending is mediated by the state which is pretty much the case for everything in french like pensions or health care goes completely through the state. so it's included. but in other countries the same expenses would not go through the state. so it's not really the same meaning or the same parameter of spending as in other countries, and that accounts for at least part of the answer. so i now leave the concluding answers and remarks by the panelists. martin? >> yeah. i will make it very brief. i'm not an expert on great britain even though i have many relatives there, but a very good friend of mine who heard that i'm speaking here today and who's working for the huge bank

in the financial district in london e-mailed to me yesterday and said, oh, martin, be happy you don't have us in the euro, you would have another problem. [laughter] we'll ask john -- >> or ask john. >> um, the public spending of gdp, actually, one has to be very careful because it does not tell you very much. we have countries in europe that have high public spending and high taxing and have very productive and effective economies. sometimes this is misunderstood because when you, for example, add your private spending for what is done publicly in other countries, you sometimes come to similar sums. so when you think about pensions, health cares, schools,

etc. the question is the, how effective the public sector is and how lean it is and what kind of services it provides. um, yes, well, generational problems. i totally agree. i think this is a pivotal question, and this is why, for example, the german government and angela merkel says reforms and fiscal discipline is needed because otherwise we're just transporting our problems. and i think even though i hope that if many a few weeks, a month we will see a compromise also on the growth question -- and i think it's going to happen because there is no other way -- but i still hope that one bears

in mind that those debts have to be repaid and that it only can happen if, you know, you really stick to a reform program. but this is going to need a lot of persuasion, and at the end of the day you always have to persuade your own electorate. and germany has the next general parliamentary election in the fall of 2013. and who knows what happens til then. >> thanks, martin. sylvie? >> yeah, i agree. i mean, this public spending rate is, anyway, whatever the figures are, it's too high in france, that's for sure. and this is one of the hidden secrets of the campaign, i think. none of the campaigns in the presidential campaign, maybe the

centrist ones by a little bit, but the other ones, neither sarkozy, nor hollonde, nor the others dared to tell the truth to the friend be. people. and i think that was a disgrease because i think the french voters are ready to hear that, you know, we've been living beyond our means, and we have to put this in order. it's, it's not so complicated. but it takes some political guts and will, and none of them had it. now, i don't see how hollande can avoid this now. he has to go through this. so as you say, it will take a lot of persuasion, it will be very difficult. the left, i don't think, has put forward many ideas, many new

ideas nor in france, nor in other countries. i read what this young greek leader who is very charming -- [laughter] had to say, but nothing new in my, in my view. you know, he says we want, basically, he was in paris and berlin these past few days, and his position was we want to stay in the euro, but we don't want austerity. okay. how do you do that? i don't know. but it's nothing new that we can use. and then that contagion about the risk of contagion, i really have a hard time imagining to be, i mean, to tell you what i personally think. i have a very hard time imagining that the greeks can leave the euro because, um,

first politically it's going to be very complicated. i think the vote in june will be, it will be a kind of referendum, in fact, and they will stay that they want to stay in the euro. but they don't want -- you know, i think there will be a clear message that they want to stay in the euro. the european union leaders all say they want greece to stay in the cure row. okay. so if that's what everybody wants, then something has to be done. and maybe this election will have served a purpose in greece, that to make people understand better what is at stake and what they have of to do. you know? but the other problem is that we don't have the legal provisions for greece to leave the euro. so, you know, john has spoken about the financial consequences for everybody that would be really tough including for germany and for all the others,

but even without talking about the financial and economic consequences how do we do this? it's unheard of. we've never been through this. there's no, you know, there are no legal provisions in the treaty for a member to leave the eurozone, especially if greeks have voted to stay inside. how do you organize this? you know, i really, i don't see this happening. i hope i'm right. >> thanks, sylvie. john, i'll ask you to conclude in just two minutes. >> okay. in two minutes, very quickly. public spending, yes, i mean, i think this issue in france, we had a cover which we called france in denial, the west's most frivolous election, and i think it's astonishing that the right in france has been in power so long and did nothing about the state. the state is a serious problem in france. it doesn't mean you can't have high public spending or lower than france, sweden, interestingly enough, but it

needs to be spent well. and i do think the evidence is it isn't being spent well in france. i think tackling the state is going to be a huge issue that nobody was ready to tackle. a couple of things on greece, and i'm going to be very crisp on this. yes, i think that greece is insolvent which wasn't recognized from an early stage. i think, yes, it needed a haircut for private creditors, and i think it is going to need a haircut for official creditors as well. that is one reason, also, why i think actually in germany -- and i think possibly even in france, i'm not sure i agree with sylvie about this. i think the notion that greece could fall out is becoming more widely thought of. in germany in particular, i find many people who say greece should never have been let into the euro, it never met the criteria, it is a different case, it is unique, it is not the same as any other country. and be we could find some way, legally very difficult,

contagion risk is very high, but we could find some way of saying that was a mistake, we want to wash our hands of it. and and the greek exit, i think, could help the germans make the move towards things like euro bonds. that are necessary. um, yes, on the u.k., i didn't think the u.k. was ever likely to join the cure row. had it, i think it would have made the problems worse, not better. it's weird that the u.k. and italy drew different conclusions from what happened in the 1990s when the u.k. drew the conclusion we should steer very clear of any of these european schemes, and many people said the euro would never come into effect. the italians, being more european, drew the conclusion that they had to be in at the table and in a single currency. the trouble now, i think, is that many people on both sides of the political spectrum are

saying we told you so, we knew the euro was a bad idea, and we told you so. and i think the mood now has become much more hostile to joining the euro than it was before for that very reason. and a leap towards a more federal structure is going to make it harder, not easier, for the u.k. to join. and then a final word on the left and on the next generation. um, i think it's been striking that the left in europe has been so weak since the financial crisis broke, very striking. you would have thought that they could have said, look, this was a kind of right-wing crisis. this was a con flay grabs of the market, some of the stuff that actually alarmed us. but they haven't, they haven't discovered a good response to it. we may just be beginning to see that changing. the arrival of hollande could make that. we have a danish and belgian left prime minister the social democrats may do well in germany next year. i think it's possible the pendulum is swinging, but i think the left is still a bit short of ideas, and the next

generation, we have to do more. youth unemployment in europe is a disgrace. europe has demographic problems as well. and i think the risk that the next general rice's going to feel we stole it is very great, and that could lead to a strong reaction against the european project. >> thank you very much. please, don't thank me, thank the panelists for this great, great discussion. [laughter] [applause] in about 10, 15 minutes, it will be the last panel on republicans versus democrats' views on diplomatic relations. thank you. >> earlier this year federal reserve chairman ben bernanke taught a series of classes at the george washington university school of business. all this week at 6:45 p.m. eastern on c-span2 you can watch his lectures. coming up later today, chairman bernanke's first lecture where he talks about the origins of the federal reserve and why the u.s. abandoned the gold standard. that's coming up at 6:45

eastern. and with the senate on break this week, we're featuring booktv in prime time here on c-span2. tonight a look at several influential world leaders beginning at 8 p.m. eastern. ezra vogel talks about china under sa ping. at 10 martha guessen on the man without a says. and at 10:05, peter popham talks about the influence of auction san sue key in requested the lady and the peacock." booktv in prime time all week here on c-span2. more now from the brookings' institution forum on u.s./europe relations. up next, remarks from state department missile defense envoy ellen tauscher who says it's a crisis that the state department's budget is being cut. the former house member was joined by a former u.s. ambassador to nato, kurt volker, during this panel discussion that runs about an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations]

>> i'd like to welcome you to the second and final panel of the annual conference put on by the center on u.s. and europe. my name is jonathan laurence, my name is jonathan laurence, i'm a nonresident senior fellow here at brookings and an associate professor of political science at boston college. i'd like to provide a very brief introduction to this panel and introduce our distinguished guests. we've gathered here several foreign policy experts from different perspectives to talk through the role of foreign policy issues in the u.s. elections this year, viewed, of course, through the prism of transatlantic relations. now, president obama took office just over three years ago with unprecedented personal popularity in western europe, something that assistant secretary gordon mentioned this afternoon. this led many, i think, to expect a new beginning where

america would reap the benefits from the popularity of the president. early encouragement, of course, came in the form of a peace prize, and yet here we are several years later, and republicans and democrats seem to disagree on two fundamental dimensions, vis-a-vis our current relationship with europe. first, how to help solve the debt crisis and emerge from recession and, second, how to spur europeans to increase contributions to common military dependence. on -- defense. on the first point, the economic crisis, the administration can legitimately claim to have encouragerd growth and job creation measures at least verbally in europe over austerity budgets since 2009 in pittsburgh, advise -- advice which until recently perhaps fell on largely deaf ears. now, the term "growth measures" is often translated in the

american context as, quote-unquote, more government and higher taxes. so that is one area where we might expect a republican administration to take the opposite tack and, perhaps, encourage austerity programs this europe in line -- in europe in line with current german policy which we just discussed on the principle that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. bill kristol recently dubbed it as the hollande/obama alternative. well, will this stick? would the romney administration be willing to endorse the german model? on defense issues the obama administration can point to its success in shepherding nato partners closer to missile defense cooperation. the national security adviser wrote recently that the administration has a different qualitative relationship than the coalitions of the willing, and we heard secretary gordon

make a case for that. but while the recent nato summit in chicago had its share of successes, european partners did not yet agree to new financial commitments to afghan security force bees, although -- forces, although secretary gordon did mention a political commitment. and of course, nato did not press forward on enlargement, although secretary clinton did meet with the four aspiring applicants and endorsed an open-door policy. now, on the face of it this does not reflect enormous progress compared to december 2009 when europeans announced only a modest increase of forces to match the last american surge. in afghanistan. the european contribution to nato spending is down from a half to a third in the last decade. what lessons can this panel draw from the president's difficulty in extracting more resources from european partners? is there a structural reticence

because everyone's hands are tied by the economic crisis? or is this because europe has been put on a back burner, as heather argued in a recent op-ed? or if we accept that nato is, quote-unquote, running out of gas as kurt has written this week, what can we conclude about why europe is less willing to take political or security risks for the united states? now, candidate romney gave an answer in a recent op-ed column in "the chicago tribune", he blamed the president's hollowing out of the american military which has discouraged europeans from are contributing more. now, romney was, of course, referring to the hundreds of billions in defense cuts which are politically rather risky to defend. this may explain why republicans were joined by house democrats in passing the national defense authorization act rejecting cuts to the pentagon, but it also may be the kernel of one of the few genuine partisan disagreements.

ultimately, of course, a focus on foreign policy in the election campaign is not especially rewarding. the president noted that it can lead to summititis or worse. according to a recent abc/washington post poll, moreover, voters are most concerned about the economy by a factor of 50 to 1. we are going to brave those topics with this panel. the first speaker is ambassador kurt volker who served as the u.s. permanent representative to nato from july 2008 to may 2009. prior to that he was deputy assistant secretary of state for european and eurasian affairs for four years. second to speak will be heather conley who is senior fellow and director of the europe program at the center for strategic and international studies. prior to joining csis,

ms. conley was an adviser at the center for european policy analysis. she was the executive director of the office of the chairman of the board at the red cross and earlier served also as deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau for european and eurasian affairs. and the third panelist to speak will be ellen tauscher who, in addition to serving as the vice chair of the scowcroft center, is special envoy for strategic stability and missile defense with the state department since february. and from june 2009 until february 2012 she served as undersecretary of state for arms control in international security affairs. of she was a member of the house from january of '97 to june of 2009. thank you all for being here and i turn now to ambassador volker to start us off. >> okay. thanks very much. i think i have to start out by debating just a little bit the

whole characterization of the discussion because i don't think it's a big debate in foreign policy and national security right now is really between republicans and democrats. i think it's really between, um, those who would favor a robust u.s. international leadership role in the world, across the board, and those who are more concerned that we can't afford that anymore, and we need to pull back in order to fix our economy, get out of wars that are public are tired of and focus more domestically. i think that's really the debate. i wouldn't go so far as to call the latter one isolationism, but there's certainly some of that emotional element of why are we spending so much and doing so much abroad when we have so many problems here at home that we need to fix? so that, i think, is the real division there. and i think to talk about where we are and where we go whether it's a president obama in his second term or whether it's a president romney, it's going to

be the same set of problems. and it's going to be a challenge to deliver in foreign policy and national security no matter who's the president given the world that we're in. the world is very difficult whether it's our european allies' ability to contribute to common operations, defense spending that our european allies are able to do, the nature of some of the tough regimes that we're dealing with whether it's iran and the nuclear issue, whether it's a putin-free russia or whether it's china and so on. i think that's just the nature. so if i was then going to look at what would i like to see, if i want to project ahead to where we are in january and what would i hope to find in a u.s. government foreign policy. one of the things i'd like to see is a renewed commitment to supporting freedom, democracy, human rights, rule of law, market economy, all the core values that we believe in as americans, all the core values

that underline our own society and that really are the aspirations of people around the world. i think that that is tough because this is a very ambitious commitment to say we're going to support these things in the world. and yet i think it's important that for those who are struggling for these whether it's in syria or in libya or in russia or in china, they know that we're on their side. how we manifest that, that's the second thing that i think we need to look at. we need to be creative and smart about how we use u.s. power. i think it is not the case to say that the u.s. is in decline, that we can't afford to be engaged in the world, that we can't afford to launch military operations if it's the right thing to do, that we can't afford to use foreign assistance to leverage outcomes. we can. we can do all of that. we can't do it everywhere, open-ended, massive, long-term commitments. but we are still by far the most powerful country in the world, the wealthiest country in the

world, the one that has the most projective capability in the world to influence events. so we can still do a lot. and so i think we need to work hard at using our imagination at what we can do as opposed to finding the reasons for things that we can't do. the third thing i would say i'd like to see looking ahead to foreign policy is some toughness in dealing with some tough characters. take, for example, putin in russia although that's not the only one. i think that for, you know, right or wrong i think that the russians have tended to view the u.s. now as not willing to stand up for some things. and i think they have behaved more assertively and aggressively as a result of that, and that's just increased the scale of the difficulties that we have to face. i would say the same thing about iran, for example. with all the efforts going into negotiating with iran, i think iran still feels as though it has a steam valve that it can

use, and whenever we get together for negotiations such as we're having right now in istanbul, if they make some kind of small statement or concession such as they just did with the iaea thing, well, we're going to have some new agreement on inspectors coming up, just wait, that lets the steam out of the international build-up of pressure for a while, and then we have to work very hard to build that back up again. so i think a little bit more of dealing with, basically, nondemocracies that are willing to exercise power for a very cleary-defined national -- clearly-defined national purpose. we do need to push back on that a little bit. that relates to the point about knowing our own strengths and capacities and trying to use that as best we can. and then the fourth one of these that i would mention, and it underwrites quite literally all of this, is we've got to get our own finances in order. none of this is possible if we are in a budget meltdown which

is very well where we could be in january if we don't get a handle on it. so i think that it means responsible and very difficult decisions at the top on the overall structure of the budget, and within that doing enough to preserve defense capabilities and u.s. foreign engagement capabilities as part of a budget be. because no matter what we do with our own budget, the world's not going to go away, the challenges to our interests and to our values are not going to go away. so we've got to make sure that we preserve our capability to engage as literally no one else in the world can. and since you said to look at this through the prism of transatlantic relations, just add one final point to all of this on the transatlantic agenda. i think that we are going through a very bad time, very difficult time. and as you pulled out of my op-ed that i wrote, you know, in some ways nato is running out of gas. our european allies are not

contributing budgetarily, finding it hard to sustain the military operations that we're in, public support is not there, any further nato enlargement is not on the table right now. so all the things that nato has tone to transform since 1989 -- take on military operations, build partnerships, transform capabilities -- of these, three of them are on the rocks right now. capabilities are under deep stress, the enlargement agenda's off the table, we're shutting down operations, partnership has turned out to be quite a success, but it's a bitter success because partners are making up for what some of our other allies won't do. and that, i think, doesn't speak well of the alliance as a whole. so it's a very difficult time for the alliance largely driven by budgets and public support and imagination of what we can achieve. so i think against that backdrop we have a little bit of work to do looking ahead. how do we define, again, what the interests and values of a

transatlantic community really are in the world, what are the common challenges we feel we need to address, and how do we work together to do that in a credible, reliable and effective way? i think nato does stuffer from a credibility -- suffer from a credibility gap, and i think one of the things on the agenda should be to try to restore that credibility. >> thank you very much, ambassador volker. now to you, ms. heather conley. >> thank you to justin and brookings, it's a great privilege to be here. grabbing the 4:30-6:00 slot is an extra challenge. i hope everyone's had that coffee after a wonderful afternoon of conversation. what i thought i'd do, spend a few moments a bit reflecting on the last three and a half years of transatlantic relations but very much, to kurt's point, looking towards the future. and, again, i couldn't agree with you more, kurt. really what we're talking about

is the nature of american leadership moving forward. and, um, before coming here i got a question from a reporter. secretary clinton and secretary ma net that and -- panetta and chairman dempsey were on the hill today testifying, and is quite a tough hearing. very skeptical. and the reporter asked me what this was all about, what do we need to care about, and i said, you know what? it's not about the united nations although there are many that will say this is about the loss of american sovereignty to the united nations. this is about american leadership in the 21st century and are we going to lead and step forward, or are we going to step back and stay out of that and not ratify that treaty? and that's what the future is about, so i want to reflect on that in the transatlantic context in just a moment. you know, i think looking back at 2009 for the administration there was truly not a problem to

solve in europe. europe was about helping us solve some very challenging global problems. the president, and i believe -- and i'm sorry for not being here early to understand some were reflecting on the fact that, you know, president obama, extremely popular in europe, more popular than many european leaders. so there was that room and that flexibility for the president and the administration to do many things. but i think and, initially, at least in the first year, i think the administration was willing to move forward to solve problems without europe. and i think that was represented at the copenhagen climate change conference. throughout 2009 i saw a stream of european leaders, angela merkel and many others, go straight to congress, talk about climate change. this was a national security imperative for europe. that dynamism that was required. and then at copenhagen to europe's great surprise, to be

left out of the room of the select leaders that were really part of solving some of the challenges related to climate change. and i think that was just, that was a great jolt to europe. what do you mean? we've put money to this, leadership to this. this is, actually, very important to us. and be not to be at the table. i think it tells us that, you know, we're in this fluid moment of international relations, and there's a fluidity -- some could call it the geometry whether that's g2, g8, g20, what combination do we need to solve the problems, and where does the transatlantic relationship fit into this moving pattern? i think it was a very critical challenge. and where does alliance and partnership fit into that? and i think in some ways that wasn't answered for quite some time. and then i think, you know, fatally this was a challenge of managing unrealistic

expectations on both sides of the atlantic. when president obama was first inauguratedded. europe had unrealistic expectations of what the president could and could not do, certainly within a domestic context here. i think the administration, to kurt's point, was very eager to see europe making huge contributions that it wasn't making, and that didn't turn out exactly to be the case. so it was managing, managing through these unrealist realistic expectations. for a moment to be a little critical, and i say this having served at the state department knowing how incredibly difficult this job is. i think in some ways there were some self-inflicted wounds that the administration committed, and in part -- focusing on two. the u.s./russia reset. the reset itself in creating a positive u.s./rusan relationship was critical to

helping europe and particularly our central european friends create a positive environment. i look at polish reconciliation, this was an important thing. but many some ways that reset was a little oversold. and it caused anxiety with our baltic friends, our central european friends because at the moment we're resetting. we need to be redoubling our consultation and our transparency for those states that have the most both direct knowledge and most direct impact on our policy changes. and, you know, clearly -- and secretary tauscher, welcome your thoughts on this as well. you know, again, the rollout of the adaptive approach, a really important and strong policy, but how it was communicated on the day it was communicated, it just left a huge challenge for the region. and i think the administration has worked extremely hard to

overcome that initial challenge. and i think we're seeing a stronger u.s./central european relationship, but i think we can do more. again, it's a self-inflicted problem. i think another example would be the pivot to asia. i think in some ways the selection of the word is a loaded word, what is the physical manifestation of pivot? some well, you turn your back. who did we turn our back to if we're moving to asia? was that europe? did that cause concern to our european friends? and how do we message that to europe? the interesting part is europe is pivoting to asia. they're pivoting in trade, investment, their economic relationships. so how are we managing this together? right now it feels as if we're managing it separately, but i think we need to do more. so, again, sometimes it is that word use, it is sometimes communicating such a new policy direction so that it actually causes some confusion or some

uncertainty about what that all means. but moving forward, i think -- and i'm going to steal something that kurt volker told me a couple of months ago that i thought was really important. when president obama made his nine-day tour through asia, he gave a very important speech in australia, and it really encapsulated our strategy towards the asia-pacific region. and kurt said, you know what? if you just took out the word asia in that strategy and put europe in that strategy, that would be a really forward-looking strategy for the transatlantic relationship. it had a security component, an economic component, a cultural/social, you know, a futuristic look. i would argue it's time for us to create a 21st century transatlantic european strategy. we're a lit traps in some very old talking points that no longer match the reality on the ground.

it's different now, and, in fact, in a bipartisan way we're guilty of this. we need to reflect the new and challenging circumstances that are facing europe. but, ultimately, even if we have the most perfect strategy, we have to make the decision whether this relationship, this alliance is worth the time and the energy and the enthusiasm it takes to sustain it. i look at my other colleagues at csis, our asia program, for example, our japan chair. i look at them, you have one country. i'm so envious. you concentrate on one country. i concentrate on 30 countries plus institutions. it's a -- i do it poorly. it's a daunting, it's a daunting task. it takes an enormous amount of energy and a commitment that you're going to spend the time toes invest in leaders, to get to know those leaders. and the bureaucracies and everything and listen to them and understand them.

we have to see that that's, that's worth it. and i've never heard the term "summititis but, yes,s that is part of europe. that is part of how we communicate with europe, through nato dialogue. and, yes, that can be very tiresome on a very busy schedule. but, number one, we have to agree that it's worth the investment, and then we have to see it through. i think that's the decision again about american leadership. we have to make that decision whether that investment is worth it. finally, i'll end on what i think are some future challenges, and many of these you've discussed this afternoon. but i look at europe for the next 20-25 years, and my apologies for people who have heard me say this before, i see three fundamental challenges. younumber one, it's the profound transformation that europe is undergoing due to the debt crisis. it is a political transformation that we're seeing, certainly an

economic translation and a cultural and social transition that will be a general asianal impact. when you see the numbers of youth and unemployment in spain, in greet, going outside of europe. what are they taking from this crisis? what in 20 years when they become the future ladies of europe, how will they internalize this crisis? this is we have to have and get into the challenges of the political dimension of the crisis. the second fundamental challenge to europe, to the transatlantic relationship is managing the rise of turkey as a regional power whose reach and stretch goes to the western balkans, the caw -- caucuses, north africa, the middle east. and recognizing that the turkish/e.u. process has fundamentally stalled for the last 18 months,