from around the world, thank you. nice to see all of you and to all of those who were active ambassadors at one time, thank you. i'm really here because my wife of gave me a waiver and a visa tonight and said that you can come. [laughter] under one condition, that you not embarrass me. [laughter] and i, i could not comply with that, of course. [laughter] i would tell you. but as stuart noted, my wife has been on the board here and has been an active member, and i'm very proud of her work and leadership and efforts on behalf of this organization. i might note, walter, i don't know if i've ever mentioned this or not, but i first became acquainted -- mr. ambassador,

welcome -- first became acquainted with meridian in the early 1980s when the president was ambassador hova, and john became a good friend and enlisted me into some projects. little did i realize that a few years from 1982-'83 i would be spending a lot of time here. and so i have some connection with this institution that goes back some time and have always admired the mission, the objective and what it does. i believe that this institution is as relevant and important today as it's ever been and maybe more so. stuart was very generous in his summary and review of my book which being the unabashed,

gratuitous politician that i am -- [laughter] i'm not at all bashful about hawking it. but those of you who have written books, and many of you have -- and this is the first book, probably the only book i'll ever write -- i was not aware and still am not of how it all works. but i do know that you do not get rich on books unless you go into paperback rights and a number of other things. so we will not be e retiring soon -- retiring soon -- [laughter] from the book. let me begin where stuart left off, and if you would give me just a couple of minutes to frame up the book and talk a little bit about why i wrote it, and then we'll just open it up and talk about whatever you want to talk about. i am particularly grateful that you would all give up your bowling nights for --

[laughter] i know there are a lot of bowlers here, and you've given that up here for this evening. my brother tom who is two years younger than me, served with me in vietnam in 1968 and now a law school professor at the university of dayton, once told me when i was thinking about writing an article on something that before you ever write about anything -- and certainly a book would be well beyond my capacity, and he said that which i've always appreciated his honesty, and he was helping me at the time -- you should have something to say. [laughter] and being the envious younger brother that he is and was, i took that as part of just the normal sibling rivalry.

but i've never forgotten what he said because i think it is the responsibility of all of us but especially those who are in public service and have the public trust. and if we are to trespass on people's time, asking them to consider realizing what we -- reading what we put down, then we owe it to the readers, to the audience, to our constituents, to the country to, as my brother tom noted, have something to say. and i didn't ever really thought i had enough to say, maybe a chapter's worth, but i never thought a book. i've written a number of op eds over the years, a lot of articles, given a lot of speeches, but never a book. and until about a year and a half ago, and as i get around the world and listen and try to

keep my receivers tuned on as much as my transmitter -- i think the world would be far better off if we had more receivers on than transmitters -- it struck me that with all the great issues and challenges that face our country in the world today, i'd never seen a summary that would connect these issues in a cogent way, that would frame the world and within the framing of the world and the issues and the challenges and the solutions, in a way that would interconnect, that would weave all of the issues together in the same fabric. and as an example i would note,

as i do in the book, energy. we can't talk about energy in america or the world without that connecting to the environment. and you can't talk about the environment without talking about energy. and you can't talk about energy and the environment without talking about the economy. because it's job withs, it's growth -- it's jobs, it's growth, a nation's competitive position in the world. and so these issues are interrelated. and as my friends who are here representing their country, their people in america's capital tonight, they understand this, and they understand that the great global issues facing us all -- all 6.5 billion people on the face of the earth today -- are, in fact, global. we live in a global community. that global community is underpinned by a global economy.

and so whatever framework of challenges you think we face, they are international. proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the environment, energy, terrorism, extremism and maybe the most insidious of all, despair. and within the framework of despair comes hunger and poverty and when man is without dignity, not much else matters. we know that. and there'll be a consequence. the human condition always drives the e events of history. the human condition will always dictate in the end how the world will respond to a challenge. i quote at the beginning of the book an individual that many of you are familiar with, arnold doing by, who i think was the

greatest chronicler of history ever. he wrote many, many books. i don't profess to be literate enough to claim tonight that i read all of his books. i haven't. his, i think, greatest work was the history of civilization. it's a large book. many of you are aware of it. i was able o get through a good -- i was able to get through a great deal of it because there were many pictures and maps. [laughter] pictures and maps i can respond to, and i identify with. but he makes some observations that i think are particularly relevant about today that connect to why i wrote the book, and i note a couple at the beginning of my book because i do think we are living at one of the most defining, transformational times in the history of man. these times come, history shows us, maybe twice every 100 years.

the last such time, in my opinion, was right after world war ii, and we think what happened after world war ii. ten years after world war ii the great leaders of our time -- truman, eisenhower, marshall, vandenberg, many, many others -- those great leaders with our allies framed, structured the world order. and i think that world order held up amazingly well. impermit, flawed -- imperfect, flawed. all people of the world did not benefit from the great strides for mankind that were achieved during that time, but when you think of what was achieved, the biggest, most senate his to have -- most significant historic advances in every universe, everything, medicine, technology, science, space exploration, technology of every kind, no world war iii. no nuclear exchange.

so something worked pretty well. as flawed as that was. and they did something else that was particularly important in that they built coalitions of common interest. and i'm going to come back to that as i wind up my remarks. coalitions of common interest. because what they recognized if we were to, the world, avert another 50 years like the world had been through the first 50 years of the 20th century, then we were going to have to define relationships not by our differences, but by our common interests. and only then could we build foundations of mutual trust or mutual common interests in order to deal with the differences. you can't start with the differences. it took us a long time to figure that out. these leaders did have that figured out, and i'm going to come back to that point, because i think it's particularly relevant today.

but what toi nby said about civilizations was very instructive. and he said that civilizations are movements. they are not conditions. they are journeys, not harbors. he said that civilizations die, and he chronicles 24 civilizations that have died. civilizations die from suicide, not from murder. and we think of the world today, the threats of mankind today. we are certainly capable of committing suicide whether it's nuclear weapons, the environment. those are suicidal challenges. and so toinby was very, very smart in how he framed the world. and then he said something that

has stayed with me for many, many years. and that was that every civilization has had to deal with the one true dynamic in life for all of us. the dynamic of challenge response, challenge response. civilizations that have dealt with the challenges in the right way, responded in the right way have succeeded and been successful. just as all of us as individuals each day in our lives we are challenged with something. how we respond to those challenges be they large or small or most of them are in the middle somewhere. but nonetheless, they all count. they all add up. and those responses then, of course, shape relationships, corporations, countries, policies, everything, how we respond.

and this book as stewart noted, i get into a number of areas because i think we are such a complicated world, we live at a complicated time, as combustible a time i believe there ever has been where there's little margin of error. let's take weapons of mass destruction. it takes, it takes less time to get into more trouble than ever in the history of man. we don't have the time to adjust. we live in this immediate world that everything is immediate; telecommunications. we can move billions of dollars in assets in a second.

the internet, text messaging -- which if any of you have teenagers, you are very familiar with that. but the immediacy of the world that we live in now has given us a world, has brought us a world with as many advantages and options as we have, more than any generation in the history of man. but at the same time it's presented new challenges. now, challenges are not new. every generation of man kind has had to deal with challenges. every generation of americans has dealt with its set of challenges whether it was a world war ii generation that probably dealt with more challenges and more successfully than any generation in the history of our country. but no generation gets out without a set of significant challenges. and as much as any one thing i've always believed that has

given the united states of america such a tremendous position in the world to do good and to form alliances of common consensus is the fact that every generation of americans has left the country stronger, they have left the world better than hay found it. it's given each successive generation of americans more choices, more options, more education, more opportunities. i think we are faced with the prospect today of the generation of my wife and my two teenage children having the real prospect of having a life not with as many opportunities. in fact, a lower standard of living. that has ever been in the united states. i don't want predict that, i

don't project that. i think we're dangerously close to that. and so i cover a lot of different areas in the book. i have 15 chapters, i talk about, as stuart noted, energy, the environment, education, politics. i have two chapters on iraq. i don't think i could write a book about where i think we are in the world today without reflecting to some extempt on iraq because -- to some extented on iraq because it has been the center of gravity in this country for five years. regardless where you come down on iraq, right, left, somewhere in the middle is not the point. i couldn't write a book without talking about iraq. i have a chapter on the middle east, i have a chapter on afghanistan and on china, i talk about russia. india. i talk about america's competitive position in the world, where we are, what the challenges are for us, but also the world. i talk about alliances.

i talk about the need to reconnect with public service. i have always believed that there is no nobler profession than public service. we havety myished that -- diminished that over a generation in a sense how many politicians have you heard make fun of government employees or diminish many some way -- in some way or make offhanded comments about washington is the bane of our existence, nothing good happens in washington. only the good, smart people are in nebraska or california or ohio. [laughter] you say that for political advantage occasionally, but unfortunately, that has permeated a society of young people who have been conditioned in many ways. and i think of what we are going to need and what joseph nye

first wrote about from harvard in 1990. and he was, joseph nye was before our foreign relations committee along with richard armitage, and they were co-chair of a commission sponsored by csis called soft power. soft power is a term that joseph nye first invented in 1990 and wrote a book about it. and all it is about is how great nations and societies use all their instruments of power, not just military. military isn't going to solve the problem. petraeus, before our committee in september, said that the answer to iraq, the answer to afghanistan is not going to be found at the end of a gun. there is no military solution in iraq and afghanistan. and incidentally, i have found over my 12 years in the senate that some of our military leaders are the most impressive and smartest of all our foreign

policy thinkers. and so i made that comment not too long ago, and someone said how could that be? why would the military guys be smarter? i said, well, if for no other reason, the same reason secretary gates gave the speech that he gave out in kansas on a lecture or series two months ago when he devoted his speech to the congress and the united states putting more resources in the state department, more resources in diplomacy, more resources in soft power. because he understands as secretary of defense or anyone who wears the uniform is burden is now on our soldiers. and we have overloaded the circuits. of we've asked our military to damn near do everything. well, we should never, ever put the military in that position. not only are they not capable of doing everything, they can't. they're human. and so consequently, we're seeing a great deterioration in the quality of our army and the marines, we're doing great

damage to our fort structure. and i talk about that in the book. but soft power, how do we use all the instruments of our government, of our country, of our reputation? i talk about the first, in the first part, first section reintroducing mesh to the world. i -- america to the world. i think for the next president in his or her administration and the new congress, that's going to be as critical a component and urgent focus that the new president is going to have. this new president is going to have to reconnect america with the world. the world does not know who we are, and that should not come as any great surprise when you look at those 6.5 billion people on the face of the earth. about 40% are under the age of 9 years ld o. 19 years old. those great populations of younger people reside in the most troubled regions of the

world. and these are the regions where we're going to have to apply a tremendous amount of work and focus and resources. because it is those areas that we must deal with to get under and get down into the roots of what causes extreme itch. extremism. when people are locked in these cycles of despair, i don't necessarily equate that with terrorism. but we know that there will be b a consequence. we know these people are preyed upon by those who would use religion and philosophies about government to do great damage to the world. this is a tough challenge. and we talked about this issue for four hours in the foreign relations committee this morning. so i spend some time on this issue. i talk about our young people. i don't know in the 12 years i've been in the senate if i've ever turned a college or a high school or a grade school down on

a speech or anything other than if i just couldn't do it or i had votes. that's our first responsibility, any of us who hold public office, is to connect with this next generation. it is to reverse the optics with them as well as reverse the optics with the rest of the world. and it doesn't matter whether americans think we're treated unfairly or not. latest gallup poll, latest poll coming out of the middle east last week -- some of you may have seen this -- more than 8 out of 10 residents of the middle east, countries, by the way, where we have strong relationships with leadership and the governments, jordan, saudi arabia, united arab emirates, egypt, more than 8 out to of 10 have a very unfavorable opinion of the united states.

so we can say, well, that's unfair. they don't understand what we do. they don't understand how much we do for the world. that's true. but it doesn't make any difference what you think. that is the opinion of those people. that is their optic. and we have got to turn that around because if we lose the next generation of the world, truly next generation of man kind, then the problems will be so deep and so wide we'll have no hope of ever fixing them. it'll be just too much. food, water, oil, resources. 6.5 billion people on the face of the earth today, we're going to get to 9 billion one of these years. what do we think is going to happen? if we're not framing a 21st century world like eisenhower and truman and marshall and others, we have, as i noted,

overloaded our circuits to the point where there's a breakdown. then i talk about entitlement programs. we have got to pay attention to the big issues right here that we've deferred. we haven't done anything on health care over the years. we've done nothing on entitlements, we've done nothing, certainly, on our budget. we've run up a third of the national debt, a third of the national debt has been run up in this town in the last seven years. it's astounding. astounding. and i'm a republican. and that all occurred under a republican president and be a republican congress other than the last year and a half. so no wonder i have a lot of republican friends around the country, well, what is the republican party today? well, what the republican party is today, what the democratic party is today is yet to be defined, because politics just mirrors society. politics reflects what's going on in the world.

it doesn't dictate to it, it doesn't change it, it responds to it. it reacts to it. so we have of this uncertain time that we are working our way through in this country today about a presidential election process. unless you're, you've been comatose, you do know we have a presidential election. [laughter] and what that is doing, it is defining the next generation of politics. and i think it is so uncertain, probably as uncertain as we've seen in modern times, that you could see a third party evolve taking pieces of the democratic republican party, building around a consensus of foreign policy, of international outreach, a couple of other things. you could see in four years a truly effective, legitimate independent candidacy for president. i think mayor bloomberg was very

close to that. he would have an a -- rewould have an effective candidate for president. so we're seeing our politics define themselves in an uncertain way, and that'll play out in the next four years. that's what's going on in this country today, the currents are running swiftly and deeply and unpredictably, more so than at any time in my memory. that's okay. we shouldn't, we shouldn't be afraid of that. we shouldn't fear that. we should embrace that. that's who we are. that's a society that's vital, that is reaching out, that's searching. and we will, we will put demands on our process, and it's only then through that tension will we find answers and solutions. there isn't an issue out there today -- and i inventory a lot of them, but i also inventory what i think are the solutions,

what i think is the appropriate way or at least i give a way out -- there isn't a problem out will that we can't fix, that we can't solve. this country is a country that possesses the most significant assets a nation could ever possess starting with a society, a culture, a people, a fabric that essentially knows who we are, essentially knows what you believe. we have a constitution. that enshrines rights. we work off of that. people invest in this country because they know that their rights will be guaranteed in a court of law. we are not a nation of men, we are a nation of laws. we have assets in this country, tremendous assets. we have structure. our economy is by far the largest in the world, the second largest economy is not even half of the size of our economy.

our economy is the most flexible in the world. and i believe as you define this down with all the challenges that are there the american people want to follow a president, leaders who they believe are honest, competent and accountable. those three issues. i believe the world wants america to help lead. not dominate, not impose, not dictate, not invade, not occupy, but go back to the time when dwight eisenhower, for example, went to denver, colorado, in 1953, gave a speech about atomic powerful. power. and he was very concerned about atomic weapons. where was this going to go? and he said, which manifested itself in the speech, why can't we harness atomic power for the good of society? why does atomic power have to be

a weapon only? now, that genie had already been set free. and from that speech came, with the soviet union, by the way, seven countries went to the united nations and set up the first structures for non-proliferation. from that speech came atoms for peace. from that speech came the international atomic energy agency, the iaea. that's the kind of thinking we require today. that's the kind of framework we're going to need today, and we're capable of doing that. and i believe just like so many things in many our lives that if you define anything in one way, an election is about self-correction. and democracies have a wonderful way of self-correcting.

sometimes it takes a little while. two years ago, a year and a half ago the american people didn't like the direction of this country. what was their first self-correction mechanism they had to make a change? the congressional elections. 2006, they threw the republicans out. same thing happened to the democrats in 1994. the american people threw the democrats out, put the republicans in. i don't know what's going to happen in november, but whoever the two candidates are -- i assume we know one -- [laughter] but as i said, it's unpredictable. [laughter] so whoever they are, they are frame up -- they will frame up for america, for the world. it'll be iraq, it'll be everything. they'll have to. the american people will demand it. and i hope that we will eventually get out of -- if we've got any of my media friends here tonight, you'll have to forgive me for a moment, but i do talk about you, too, in

the book, the media. laugh will have and in sometimes not flattering ways, by the way. but get through this nonsense about why don't you put an american flag in your lapel. i think we have bigger problems than that, and i think the american people would like to hear something more substantive than why i don't put an american flag lapel in my coat. .. chapter talking about leadership and try to bring everything back together. a good summary chapter does.

in the process, i try to have little fun with it as i do throughout the book, talk about personal anecdotes from my life, what led to me to lead the way, who influenced me, how i came to judge things, we are all products of our environment and our experiences. each is a composite of those things. we carry with this prejudices and all kinds of things. that is who we are. all those influences shaped us. in this last chapter i present if in fact we were building a new mount rushmore or adding on to mount rushmore who would be on mount rushmore? maybe nobody is worthy of it in your opinion. i don't mean politicians only. if you had an opportunity to put three or four five people on mount rushmore would they be and why? i put three new people on mount

rushmore. i kick the four out of there. i know you are pleased about that. i add three and i explain why i had the three that i do. i use those three people to make some points about our society, our history, who we are as a people. and just those that you are aware i am totally balanced in this book, i have a chapter on politicians and include myself in that of course and i call that chapter crabs' and prairie dogs. where i come from we don't know a lot about crabs but we have seen baskets of them. i make a point about -- i use the analogy of crabs and prairie dogs. where i come from people know about prairie dogs. if you ever watched prairie dogs

they dart around and jump down the whole, they pop their heads out and look around and see if there is any danger. anything moving on they popped down the hole and they never go through the next hole unless they feel pretty safe. that is the way too many politicians are. we keep our heads down and don't take any risks. we jump around and consequently what do we do? nothing. except self preservation. i acknowledge self preservation is a helluva motivator. for any of us but especially politics. last point to give you one flavor of some personal vignettes. i didn't want to write an autobiography. i am not sure my life is that interesting. one individual told me many many years ago that every person has one good book out and i believe

that. everyone in this room, some of you have written books, everyone in this room has one good book because every life is interesting. everybody's story is interesting. you may not think it is but it is, how you got to where you walk, all the influences. if you sit down and start writing something about yourself or your story you would have a helluva story. you really would. my final point here. i review basic training at fort bliss, tex. in the summer of 1967. fort bliss, texas, outside el paso, texas. i don't know how many of you are familiar with that area. not exactly the garden of eden especially in the summertime when it is 120, 125 degrees in the desert with snakes and that is where i took my basic

training and i never looked upon that time until last few years as an educational experience. i guess i just wasn't tuned in. i thought it was one of the more miserable experiences of my life. didn't quite understand the intellectual powers of basic training but i recount in the story, in my book, a few episodes i had with my drill sergeant. what i learned, how-to fire m-60 machine guns. learned all those. so much that that basic training

taught me, one of the things i recount in this story, it is about preparing. we can replace you if you are killed, remember the draft. what it is about is reliance. all through your life people are going to rely on you now matter what your job is. your family, associates, friends and that is what you must not fail. in the army in combat, you are just as safe and good as the guys next to you. if there is one guy in the line who breaks there should be some people killed. this is the way it is.

taking us through what we went through, circling back around to try to make us understand the bigger dynamic of what he was saying is never too far from my mind. you all have more experience with what ever, same thing. so i try to be personal a little bit. don't like to be too personal. i am not writing an autobiography but i wanted to say something more than just about my life. i thought it would be more fun and more interesting if i connected a lot of my personal life to the story. there is still something to read. i haven't told you all about it. i appreciate it very much. [talking over each other] >> by the book. >> thank you. glad to respond to any

questions. [applause] >> i would like to acknowledge the ambassador, the president of millennium challenge corporation. one of the great stories of the last several years, lifting people out of poverty. senator, you talked about six billion people and the institutions that were created in the first great period of change in the international structure, the united nations, the world bank, the world is much more complicated. what kind of new institutions or structures or approaches to the old institutions need to take to be able to do their jobs and take care of their obligations and also be able to encourage those who are in the private

sector and have the wealth and capacity to work alongside the old institutions? >> like all institutions, like and -- each individual, like every living organism, structure, they must remain relevant and if an organization or institution is not relevant, it will wither and die. there will be no point, there will be no purpose. purpose is a powerful word, i think. america has lost some of its purpose and we must regain that. i think the world is not seen in many ways, the same kind of purposeful world eisenhower made can be made, ronald reagan, others. to answer your question i am not sure we need more alliances

institutions. i think we have a lot of structure in place if we enhance it. for example, the security council of the united nations and i am one who believes the united nations may be more relevant today than it has ever been. it is flawed and has problems of course, we are constantly in a state of trying to reform it and make it better but think for a moment if we did not. if the world did not have the united nations the united nations does a tremendous amount of good in ways that some many citizens of the world have no idea but you need a forum, you need a structure, you need a system because if you don't have something there, then just like nature, society is core values and something will fill the vacuum. you can't throw into a vacuum just any structure.

i think if you enrich and strengthen these and empower these institutions we have and in some cases we may need more but there has to be some restructuring, more relevant to 20th-century -- twenty-first century issues. i will give you an example. the security council of the united nations. they work on consensus like nato. nato now has 26, 27 members. is a totally different thing. those are areas i am not so sure the security council of the un wouldn't be better off doing large things or have some variations. nato is always seeing significant cracks, afghanistan is not the only test, but quite

frankly half of the soviet union imploded in 1989. we asked, nato members asked each other, asked the institution if there was still a requirement for nato because the soviet tanks were no longer a threat rolling across the boulder gap in germany so it could be -- why do we need it? i think what it is about is the next president should work with our friends and allies in trying to restructure some of these institutions to make the relevant to the twenty-first century, make the relevant to these new challenges, give you another example, foreign aid. bob gates's speaking kansas state, what bob gates was talking about was not just foreign aid, wasn't just talking about aid programs, sacks of

sugar. what he was talking about, this is twenty-first century thinking, investment in stability and security, investment in america's future. the russians, the chinese, all are developing these programs. it is stability, security, relationships, friendships. i mentioned the human condition. when you change the human condition for good or not so good, there will be response and reaction and that is what we have to focus on with these alliances and institutions. one last point. non-governmental organizations, you talked about so many people here are part of meridian over the years, giving some much, i mentioned in my comments, that exchange, that relation

building, that out reach brings students in and others, i don't think i ever turned meridian's request down, asking me to see groups that they bring in from all over the world because i know how important this is, not because i'm important. [talking over each other] >> that is true. it is those kinds of things we need to do, use ngos more. we could be doing so much more if for no other reason they are more trusted than governments. >> time for questions. yes? if you could please -- >> university of maryland world bank. my family gave exports from the library, have a look at it. and won't embarrass you by asking you who could we support in the next election? a tax and spend democrat or a

war and spend liberal. what about the item? is it complete the dead? the supreme court said it can't be unilaterally done but can it be bilateral begun because we have to shift from expenditure on defense to expenditure on domestic affairs. the line-item veto was useful. >> quick answer to your question is we will see, but first, if the new president makes this a priority, the congressman will respond to that. something the new president thinks is important. there becomes article 1 article 2 issue in the constitution as you all know. the prerogatives of congress -- that is always the rub and the

tension in this. most governors have a line-item veto power and they use it effectively but this is a different ball game. i have never been completely sold on the line-item veto, partly because wood is so critical about our government and has worked so well and so astounding and so brilliant, 50 years ago, to figure this all-out, i don't think you ever want to give a president so much power or so much authority no matter who the president was. if the president was st. francis i wouldn't care. too much power in the hands of one person i don't think is good for the citizenry. you have to have a president who has enough power absolutely, but you look at the debt we have run

up the last seven years hasn't just been congress. this president didn't veto one bill, historic in his first administration. i would say where was the white house when complaining about spending? they didn't beat the one bill. the president does have authority. i am not opposed to it but i don't think it is necessarily the answer that some people think it is. it will be up to the new congress or the next president whether you get it or not. is there a possibility yet? let's go over here. >> you touched on a number of things that have to do with the exercise of power. i am a psychologist. i work with children and their families and a lot of what played out in that microcosm is the exercise of power that

parents have with their children. when i think about the data, 40% of world's population being young people, it strikes me that in our country there is such an emphasis we are number one, we have to stay number one, we act in the national interest, those kind of things which seem efforts to maintain power the way it sits now opposed to a look to the future to empower the future and collaborate with those kinds of things and competition and we have to stay number one. i wonder if you have any thoughts on that? >> your observations are very wise, you are absolutely correct, how we are shaping and moving society. the push to be no. one in

everything. a couple teenage children, we see, teenage grandchildren see it and they're always must be a balance, your points are very important. and -- the center of gravity that we insist on in this country. and in his or her class, being counted on the football team, how were you defined, success, it is not the kids fault, it is our fault because we disconnected from a higher purpose things that i think they would like to get back to.

grade school and high school, this is not a group of young people i have come across yet that would not want to -- not every one of them but a lot of them and most of them would not want to be part of in some way something greater than their own self-interest and we fail when we don't build a bridges to give options, we have things -- we have got to do better than that, we have to do more than that. i talk about it in the book. there should be a national debate on your point. the national debate includes mandatory service for every young man and woman in this country after they graduate high school for a year. [applause] >> think of all the things these young people could be doing at senior citizen homes or whatever, things we could be

doing in this country that would give these young people pride in themselves, their country, doing something important, they would learn, see a humbling dynamic they might not otherwise see, conditions them, and i am not saying that is necessarily what we need but something like that needs to be brought up and i hope the next president brings that up on the top of his or her agenda. >> we only have time for a couple more questions. let's go here. go for it. >> bill courtney, retired from the state department. you emphasized -- when our country was founded a lot of americans thought diplomacy in europe caused wars rather than prevented them and the american revolution, we are still in a situation where americans are willing to support defense spending but for a long time we underinvested diplomacy and

cultural and education. why do you think that is? >> there are a couple reasons, subscribe to your service, we have a mentality and have had in this country the last 50 or 60 years since world war ii but before world war ii we were very much an isolationist country, we went through which draw on as you all know the tariffs really lead to a lot of conflict in world war ii to a great extent. we were very much an isolationist country after world war i and wilson couldn't get past through the league of nations and so on.

that costs us very high cost and to your point, in responding to you there is some cultural history that americans have come to see so-called soft power and all of those with that as kind of a gratuitous handout, as welfare, as foreign welfare. why are we -- why are we spending money in africana and other countries when we have schools in need of remodeling here and roads. what are we doing? what is the point behind this? there has been the mentality, a mindsets that international welfare rather than as much as anything else that i noted in my

comments, an investment in stability, the less back end expense we have to make. the same as in versing medicare and medicaid in the 60s. when medicare was invented, promulgated, passed into law, there was never any focus on life style for example, preventative medicine. drink as much as you want, smoke as much as you want, don't exercise, we will take care of you. everybody dies anyway. we will make you burden your family. now we have changed that. would come back and inverted that. let's put the front end emphasis on prevention. let's be smart. be wise. smart investors in the country and most people believe in smart investment, money, you want smart, why is investments for

the future. why aren't we doing that with foreign aid, why aren't we doing that with a lot of things. is a mindset and the other part of that is as our country grows and ages and ages, more and more demand should be placed on the federal budget and don't have to go much beyond entitlement. we are going to crush the entitlement system, that my generation, i am at the front of this generation we will load seventy seven million baby boomers on medicare, social security over the last week in years and necessarily as you know, just age -- we don't have the resources to pay for it. the system can't take it. what you are going to find is going to be more reaching out. of we don't get this fixed from the senior population, to short circuit the younger generation,

i earned that social security, earned medicare, i know we need more roads and been need more for the 20-year-olds but wait a minute. i paid my price. that is the conflict that will erupt and we will see in this country if we don't get a hold of it. the same mentality on foreign aid. we have to change the dynamics and reverse the optics just as we do internationally not on how we see the world, that is important too but how the world sees us and why. we have never done that. that is a huge change. we are getting there. we will get there. it takes leadership. it takes a lot of people. those are the main reasons. i mentioned earlier, when the soviet union imploded in 1989 if you look at our budget, the federal budget of the united states would happen in that budget? i assume you were at the state department at the time.

the first things we cut in the federal budget were military, intelligence, and the state department. as many of you know in the audience we didn't even have foreign service exams for a couple years. why do we need so many diplomats? why do we need embassies? what is the threat? the soviet union is gone. we downsize force structure, took a lot of money out of research, decimated our intelligence capabilities. that is the median answer. >> i am very sorry -- [talking over each other] >> i will do both of you really quick. >> take you first and -- >> as a fellow vietnam veteran we met before. but how do you see general david petraeus -- performance to the fourth in iraq, sort of making

the war in iraq better or worse? >> you have a couple question there. i will give you a very brief answer. i don't have enough time to get you out of iraq tonight. we are going to come out of iraq. we have to come out responsibly and honorably, we will do that. the next president will get that done. i told john mccain about this last week. he is a very dear friend. if you are elected president and he could be, you will not be able to govern this country until you deal with iraq, start unwinding this and getting us out. it is so bitter and so deep and so dividing our country won't be able to govern. won't get a democratic congress -- will there be less democrats in congress come november? i doubt it. he accepted that.