the first question, what i try to do is introduce a national security filter or lens to a lot of these decisions that are too often seen in the silo. whether it is education or something like tax policy and all that, my argument is simply were not going to be able to be strong for long and mostly put this economy on a sustainable trajectory that we reduce our vulnerability to potential costs of flores of dollars or what have you, and that among more than anything is going to mean in the long run fixing entitlements. there are sensible things that can be done on social security, and even more on medicare, which is the bulk of it, tax expenditures, areas we may want to put some ceilings on limits on, deductions that people can take or means testing certain aspects of our policy. i think again, what i'm kind of

say is we don't have the luxury of seeing these things somehow divorced from our national security. i want to be more integrated debate in this country because i think are too often too many people on the hill have basically said i'm all in favor of america's national security, but then when they turned economic issues or quote unquote social issues they haven't approached him thinking about what the consequences are for national security. what i want to do is increasingly integrate how we spend because then people can think more systematically about the trade-offs. >> the lady weight in the back. thank you. >> on katherine schinasi i'm a reporter. i was just wondering in your section looking at restoration within the country, how you selected the area of focus you decided to focus on? first of all how you select the subject, and secondly are there any others you didn't include in the book perhaps since they didn't work on their own but

where you suggest the u.s. played -- plays its focus in terms of solving its domestic problem? >> i chose infrastructure, immigration, schools, the budget and so forth, tax policy just because i thought they were the most important. and i read a lot of literature and as e.j. suggested i' i've nt been reading for a while, and one of, one of for me the interesting parts was to explore more fully, debates outside the traditional foreign policy national security landscape. it increasingly became clear before the principal drivers. so if you're going to make a list of what was driving things, this is where i came out. i think ultimately you can have almost an unlimited list. if you look at the budget, every category of things were spending on them you could look at all sorts of political arrangements. and i chose the ones i did

simply based on what i thought explained most where we were. i'm not saying a message on the right. you know, look, whenever you write a book you never expect to have -- i would love for that debate to happen. i would love to have more people look at more aspects of our society or economy, and basically say, hey, we've got to do this differently because here's the connection, here's the repercussions are implications for u.s. on national security. one thing i write about in the book was beyond education we'll have in this country a very good capacity to think about lifelong education, just to give him one minute conversation about it, most of the education in this country is frontloaded. whether high school, college, no matter how you slice and i said, and leisure kid is on the 15 year plan, you're going to be done with your formal education

somewhere in the early to mid '20s. given that life expectancy and given jobs than the rest, that probably means you for five decades at least of work after that. the idea of that this initial tank of intellectual gas is going to get you through the next 40 or 50 years, inconceivable. you can see that technology is changing too fast, so what are we as a society going to do? to put into place mechanisms for true lifelong learning? lots of stuff is happening now online. maybe that's part of the answer. it mine meet -- it might mean tax benefits are different types of support so people at the age of 45 can get retrained. otherwise i worry about a society where people, they are trained, they do several jobs, suddenly in their mid '40s they are no longer, if you will,

their skill set is no longer adequate. we can't afford as a society long-term unemployment which is part of the problem we're facing a. what do we do about a? that to me is a useful debate we really haven't had. >> moving right up the line, that gentleman in the aisle, and then david. >> paul, department of state. you mentioned that having a doctrine is very important as we approach foreign policy gnashes good policy. and lady commented that inconsistency can be a virtue. on the face of it the teasing contradictory. how do you in scriber circle? >> excellent question. inconsistency is a doctrine i suppose last nigh -- [laughter] >> a doctrine gives your first order way of thinking two things. it may be a particular cases

you've got to make exceptions, fair enough. then and make sure we're just that, of the trade-offs but accuse you -- i would say we want to do less in the middle east, more in asia, more north america, more domestically. okay, so then they come up against syria and then it enforcement said okay, i probably want to put a limit on what it is we can do their for all these reasons based upon my doctrine. my knowledge or what experts done is the reality reinforces that. a doctrine is not, we had a doctrine of containment during the cold war. it doesn't provide 26 answers to every challenge but a doctrine is a 36,000 peace, intellectual and political. it's a very good way for again approaching subjects, a very good way for explaining things. when you have to make exceptions, with the local realities point you towards if you will inconsistency, then

that's okay but then you know you've got to deal with that, whether it's in your public explanation we've got to count for as a potential cost. >> right up there. you guys can stay sort of up front. >> there's a young lady just in front. >> retired state department. richard, first of all, you used the terms weapons of mass destruction. couldn't we retire that from the vocabulary? because it embraces everything from nuclear to chemical. and you know better than anyone what abusive use was made of it in the run up to the iraq war. my question is, you said it may take a crisis to get us to get our act together. we've just been through a very serious economic crisis, and why is it that so little has

changed? why was this not an alerting moment? was a lack of leadership on the part of the administration? was at the political gridlock? >> good point. the question of weapons of mass destruction i take your point. i was recently criticized. and consistency among my christmas also be a virtue but i was recently criticized, i think was this weekend for trying to do what you just suggested, for suggesting that not all quote unquote weapons of mass destruction ought to be captured under the same and to chemical weapons out to be considered as something different. i got chastised for that. look, you're right, we have a crisis on many issues over the years. most recently 2008 and that wasn't enough. which is interesting. is one of the reasons that those who say that it's going to take a crisis to shake things up, well, medium-size crises don't seem to do it. so what that suggests to me the crisis might have to be a truly

draconian proportions which again reinforces my argument that's the worst possible way to undertake reforms but we seem to have considerable ability to avoid taking tough decisions come or go back to business as usual. look, we had the situation in newtown, connecticut. we had a terrible incident, 90% of them are good people wanted action on gun control on we can't even get a piece of legislation with fairly basic background checks past. so that was the recent example of a crises that so far lease has not led to political action. so the ability to translate from crisis to action, particularly legislative action is obviously not one for one. which again suggests to me that it may take extremely severe outcomes exactly what we don't want to wait for. it makes the case for leadership before a crisis forces our hand

under truly awful circumstances. >> that young lady there that richard called on. go ahead. >> rebecca chamberlain. i'm a fellow with the council. currently at the world bank. and so my question is, i like what you're saying and it reminds me very much of a paper i write when i was at the wilson center called the mr. whip paper. and it was resting very much with what you're saying about national security beginning and no. so i'm just wondering how you see a book may be intersecting with our differing from this mr. why paper. >> alas, i do not know mr. why. look, by the way, the title was used before by james warburg. >> which richard notes in the book. >> i would hope this idea is one that resonates. enough for me with what you just alluded to.

there's been something, there's a intellectual workplace can people even putting out ideas for we should and shouldn't be doing abroad and at home. i would hope there's other people putting out similar ideas. i would welcome the competition if people are putting out alternative ideas. so you know, as a former president said in a different context, ring it on. i think would be healthy, a healthy debate for the american body of politics spent the outcome of that wasn't ideal, however. [laughter] >> good point. >> won't use that line again. >> priscilla, also with foreign service. i agree with much of what you're saying. it's not everything, richard. and when i think about the solutions you are suggesting, i

keep coming back to our congress. i haven't read your book gets i don't know what you say about them, but i'm just so distraught about the state of our political system, particularly and the congress the way it's chosen, the fact that people have to spend all their time raising money rather than thinking about the country's problems. is there anyway to fix that? >> i write about congressional dysfunctionality which is part of, look, i think there are problems with the money operates internet in politics. people spend way too much time doing it. i think the situation is going to get worse not better. i think narrowcasting of me has made it more difficult it everybody now can find his own cable or internet site or whatever. so we have an almost proliferation of many constituencies that makes it much harder to build community. political parties have gotten a

much weaker, much less significant. so there's that. there's some things you can do. you can have open primaries that we people can't just go to one side or the other. having it done by nonpolitical commission threatened by legislatures they don't get districts formed just rent one or another set of demographics. but i think these approaches have their limits. i just don't think out there. i'm, i'm not a political scientist. e.j. is. profits over people in this room or. but i don't think even political scientist can devise a mechanical quote unquote solution to what ails us politically. i think that is going to depend more on restructure politics more grandly, about appealing either to get one or the other of the major party more towards the center or the different ideas. try to animate the political

center. or just taken extraordinary intervention but it may simply take an individual who can articulate a set of goals that enjoys rod support and he or she then gets elected and is able to have a working majority at the end of the day when not to going to be the old parliamentary system. we're not going to have the baggage of political efficiency. that was the idea here. when the founders built the system from the idea was to make it somewhat inefficient. we succeeded, and so the question is how do we preserve what is integral for the american system which is checks and balances and the rest, but without this degree come at what point does inefficiency become dysfunctional? we have clearly tipped over on the. i think going back an on that te answers are not so much mechanical as they are if you more on the realm of politics to. >> that you. i think there are no mechanical

solutions are the gentlemen here. i think we are about out of time and there is one other, we're supposed to end at 7:30, correct? is also a gentleman back there. if we could bring into questions at once i think that would be good. >> you can't evade the hard one. >> i'm robert, i'm turning to the priorities just for a change but i'm intrigued by the and this is you get to north america. i had the impression that north america was doing pretty well, especially since nafta. >> there was a second question. >> and two, at dhs. i'm interested in how optimistic you are, given the state of the body politics, the worst i've seen in 29 years in washington. how optimistic you are that any of this has a chance to succeed. >> this gives you the opportunity for hope.

and, therefore, -- >> you're going to get me into a lot of trouble here. on north america, we are now a market of 450 million people, probably another two decades, three decades will be a market of 500 million people. we are not energy self sufficient. put aside the notion of energy independence. that's not a terribly useful idea because the world is too interconnected. but we are energy self sufficient. we have extraordinary economic possibility. actually think if there's what i would call a nafta 2.0, a more integrated north america, particularly if we figure out ways of combining canada, mexico with united states as we enter the potential in new trade agreements. one across the land, one across the pacific. that we figure out new ways of wiring together our

infrastructure, approved immigration system. i ask or think the potential of north america to be the world's economic engine israel. i actually come when people ask me why i'm somewhat optimistic, this is one of the reasons. the energy transformation which is much of anything is north american phenomenon. the potential for economic growth. take a step back. it is one of our great advantages but it's one of the endowments of the united states, and the fact on our borders with good relations with both canada and mexico. and mexico's reality is far, far more diverse and far better than the very real problem of guns and drugs. you've got a leadership there in place that is in many ways likely and economically reforming. event several rotations of power. mexico is a real success and again the potential for north america gets more tightly woven together and i think it will be.

it's a question of how much and how fast. potential to be good for america's 300 plus million americans but as was for the world. i think this could be one of the great stories of the early 21st, on the 21st century. i think the president was just there but it really was deserving of considerable bilevel attention. why am optimistic? the reason to be optimistic is several fold. one is technology. three or four years ago none of us would've foreseen what's happening energy. really quite remarkable. so it shows you the capacity of innovation. this country still has the world's best universities. we've got land, we've got water, we got a stable political system. we've got the most open -- even without immigration reform whereby far the most open country in the world to

immigration, with comprehensive immigration reform we really do ourselves a favor. a surprising number of percentage of our successful businesses have their roots in people who have come to this country with some fairly modest changes to our laws. i ask what you think we could get economic growth back to what should be, above 3%. we've got a very balanced tomography compared to some other countries who have enormous numbers of young people and old people. reverie better proportionality. i can go on and on. it's another reason why the declinists are wrong. this country has enormous potential so the real question again is whether politics will get out of the way. i'm optimistic. i somehow think it will in part because it's easy to think about your candidate but is not that hard. will really need to be doing is, who is a, b. australian foreign

minister, america's one budget deal away from being a great power again or something to that effect. something to that. a budget deal, what are two other things to get economic growth above 3%. that would duplicate a lot of the ills and i do think some of what i'm suggesting here is beginning to get more ingrained. i think there is something of a positive reaction on the foreign policy front. i think there has been to making go too far but at the moment i think it's quite healthy, a certain reticence to repeat injury what we did in iraq and afghanistan and the. i think that's healthy. the greater emphasis on asia i think is healthy. this recognition of the unique possibly for north america i think again is healthy. i see correct is going on in the foreign policy that a welcome and i see an eight strengths and great potential domestically, so yeah, i think of it all that it

would be hard not to be optimistic. but it's not inevitable we get it right and that's again can why did i buy this book? is to put out the argument, look, like most people i work in the ideas business. and i believe that ideas matter. and what is hoping is that by putting out ideas like this like i tried to in this book, it could help kind of influence or contribute to the debate in this country about where we're going and how we get there at and that if people are sympathetic to this sort of a just about we should and shouldn't be doing in the world and here at home, there's a reason that optimism won't become reality. >> richard, thank you very much. i've got to say i am really happy you wrote this book. because i think there are a lot of us that are interesting, and by the way, this is interesting, and richard will be signing the book after this session. but there are also books that

are interesting and constructive. and i think this book pushes us towards the debate we need as a country. and whenever have agreed with richard over the years, it's always meant he gets into some kind of trouble. but in this case i hope it only means that a lot of people read this book and pick about it. restoration as u.s. foreign policy doctrine is about restoring the internal sources of american power and restoring balance to what the united states institute in the world and how it does. sounds like common sense to me. thank you, richard. [applause] >> thank you. >> tonight on c-span2's booktv, books on the u.s. military. starting at eight eastern.

booktv all this week in primetime on c-span2. >> the public's fascination really extend circles and she was a real fashion icon. women in military has done, her clothing to shape popular to everything that she had ended. this is a dress from the second administration, and in a way this is the most prized piece of all because this is the inaugural gown. this was her inaugural gown from 1893 an estate in her family and became a family wedding dress. and this is used by her granddaughters. even frances cleveland's everyday clothes were very stylish. a lot of them look like something you could wear now. this is a jacket, wonderful

jacket, black with beautiful purple blue velvet. this is a more evening appropriate peace. would've had a matching skirt beautiful waste and sequins netting, slightly more ornate daytime this. this would have a matching collar. again you can wear this with a shirt waist and skirt. >> our conversation on frances cleveland is now up on our website, c-span.org/first ladies and two money for knows -- next program. >> next, former special representative for afghanistan and pakistan in the obama administration, talks about his book "the dispensable nation: american foreign policy in retreat." vali nasr is critical of u.s. foreign policy pursued by president obama and argues that it has diminished america's leadership role in the world.

he spoke with judith yaphe of the national defense university on c-span's "after words." >> host: welcome to "after words," and welcome especially vali nasr. it's a treat for me to see after a long time away. it's great to have you here, and i have to tell you i did enjoy your book for very different reasons, but i will go to that but it wanted to thank you very much for coming in today. vali nasr is with us. is the dean of the school of advanced international studies at johns hopkins and author of the book "the dispensable nation" which i have here. vali nasr is an iranian american public will commentary, scholar of contemporary islam in the middle east. he has breached president, congress, many influential and non-influential people.

he was born in tehran in 1960 and his family came to the united states having left iran after the revolution. he has a bachelors from tufts university, a masters degree from a fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tufts and earned his ph.d in political science from mit. 100 i will go through your long list of accomplishments. they are special but i would especially to attention to a great part of your book which is the time you spend working under richard holbrooke in 2009-2011. as part of the special office, special advisor on pakistan and afghanistan. now special advisor to the secretary of state. there are always other offices one discovers. part of the problem is you lay out in your book which i found fascinating, other work you've done, she revival -- how

conflicts were in islam, forces of fortune, the rise of the new middle class and what it will mean for our world, and you detail certain great events, the rise of sectarianism although i didn't always agree with the war but i have to say i think he woke a lot of people up to what was clearly coming. and also the potential for the arab spring. although i have to say i think that we've all been surprised about not that has happened but how fast it happened, where it happened and certainly where it's going. so i also want to say before we get started, i guess it's a confession in weight but i have almost a fatal attraction to reading your books. it's a type of fatalism if you'd been around and watched, and i have observed many of the interest rate goals.

for me this was a revelation, one of the revelations of your book, the struggles that go on in the making of policy. most people like to -- the best minds come together, the great leaders. and after careful talking and analysis, come to decisions on policy and to think you and i know that it's not quite that simple but it's certainly not that easy at process. sometimes some of my students, you know the old saying, if you're interested in policy, you really don't want to know too much about the behind the scenes. but, you know, what i think back to the past 10 years in particular, regardless of administration we've been watching how sausage is being made so much has been brought out into the open that it's been, i think it's made the art of -- negotiation within government let alone before policy much more difficult than

maybe it used to be. it's hard to see that it could've been worse. but i think the point is it's not always pretty or as tasteful bars thoughtfu stoffel as we wo. and it's not always about principle. sometimes it's about something which i think you lay out very interesting, very close. it's about power. it's about influence. it's that with the arab world calls -- it so much what you know and what you can do. basically getting your way. so what i'd like to do in the time we have together is to go through some of these things. i have a long list of questions of course that come to mind. and i think they're sort of a two-part in a way, because much of the book and i think the greatest value and the greatest contribution is on the time you spent as participant were you able to observe in your works with holbrooke and how he would,

then had a reputation for larger than life. and with a very forceful actor on the scene, watching someone like that, and i think his influence. it reminds me that, you know, when you watch a policy is made, i don't mean to talk too much on this but it just want to start here, that the diplomatic corps, you don't have generals who are professionals, diplomats and to operate in that environment. and you like to think that the goal is conflict resolution and peace without war. how to negotiate. and it's not. there's so much in terms of personal satisfaction, the ethos of the players involved in their vision and their view is the most important. sometimes