weeks ago by the government german government to have it based on the key strong allies is that those allies may not be willing to pool and share their capabilities. so if i have a national industry in the way we have, if we have sovereignty views in the way we have, i see a bleak future on this unless something changes. it's a future that frankly hurts the united. it's not in america's interest to have a weak europe. it's fundamentally -- to have the strongest and most capable we can. we need to find way, ultimately, for this alliance to prosper by having more resources devoted to defense. that means as economies rebound, there is a need to increase spending on defense. that means that as economies

rebound, more of the spending needs to go to investment. that mean that there needs to be the extent question find a way to more increases deference cooperation. let me wednesday perhaps -- anybody that knows me know that believed are spending on nuclear weapons. probably isn't the smartest spending we can think about when it comes to the future of this alliance. these are weapons that are not likely to have any role in anything we do in 99.999% of the time or perhaps even 100% of the time.

i'm happy to take your questions. [applause] >> thank you very much. that was just fantastic. if it remains focus on collective dissent for irrelevant for the future. you laid out the stark numbers about defense capabilities on defense and laid out the importance there's a lot to get in to here. i want to pick up a couple. i know, there's a lot of interested in the audience. let me start where you ended on the nuclear point. our next conversation on

cartwright and others, former undersecretary, will in to nuclear missile defense alliance for the alliance. correct me if i'm wrong if you say it might be as important commitment for the alliance and the future. while you served as ambassador at nato, you went through the deterrence and defense posture review. or within the alliance. you have the commitment about that put constraint on what the alliance, perhaps might do with it own. and the nuclear weapons and the absence on russia's part. what is the way forward here given it was a strong message you ended on? >> well, i would argue that i spent a lot of time on this. >> first, let me -- anybody who knows me, i've been

arguing about this since 1988 including to the need to get rid of nuclear weapons in europe. it's not a surprise it's my view. nor was it to anybody in the administration even though not everybody agreed with them. we work very hard in the deterrence and defense posture review. frankly we work hard in the commitment. to make clear that it is possible under the right circumstances not only to produce our alliance but eliminate our alliance on nuclear weapons in europe. there's nothing in these documents that prohibits the possibility of getting there. we do talk about russian reciprocity. it doesn't talk about russian agreements. we talk about the need to work together within the alliance. but it doesn't talk about the fact that russia can have a have a tone what we do. i will argue over the last four

years we have substantially addressed the key deterrence issues of our time. we have found ways to bolster deterrence. across the board, and i know this will be an issue discussed in the next panel but the deployment of missile deafens is not just a promise. it's a real fip exists today. it's part of a commitment that the administration has made to nato to take the u.s. deployment of u.s. missile defenses to defend the u.s. from europe in to deployment of nato missile defense to nato to defend nato. that was the fundamental shift that occurred in september of 2009. to take system that was able deploy against possibly ten incoming missiles and put in place a nato system under nato command and control put the deference of nato countries.

that is the kind of commitment to deterrence that we put in place. we put in place contingency plan to make sure that every nation that is a member of nato has a plan to be defended. that was an important contribution to deterrence. we just completed this month -- this week, last week. the first major article r5 last exercise. the alliance was conducted in the last ten years. many of the country nas participated in the exercise had never participated in an article five exercise and we just completed that. those are the kinds of steps that matter for collective desks. far more than the nuclear weapons you have. particularly when the cost of modernizing the nuclear weapons runs in to ten plus billion. when the cost of modernizing

your aircraft to be able to carry those nuclear weapons run to the many hundreds of millions of dollars. it is those kinds of strengthening of deterrence i think ought to be the focus of our effort and using arms control disarmament and cooperative security more broadly as a means to enhance nato's deterrence and defense posture. it lead to a lot of concern, ask debate, discussion, certainly among nato it doesn't seem to have the impact or help turn the tide on some of these issues

given the reality of the politics in the country's -- what is the path forward to knock the natural con continuation of the decline you outlined so articulately in the defense spending? >> thing is the message i'm here to repeat. i don't think this is a time for agonizing reappraisals. frankly, there wasn't a time in 18954 forking a -- this isn't one either. the message we need europe. europe is our most important strategic partner. and the mess thaj says, frankly, if you can't be on our side

because you'll act the capability, then that's bad for us but certainly not good for you. is the message i heard secretary gates, secretary panetta, secretary clinton deliver over and over again. the reality is it means we have will have to make choices. it when it comes to when and how to intervene and what place and purposes whether he make choices. libya was a choice. we could have taken on the entire libya campaign by ourselves. we decided the interest most at stake were not ours. they were countries in the mediterranean earlier talking about the importance of the threat from the south. and the understanding that these are threats to to the entire alliance. libya was a response to that. but it shouldn't be surprising. in fact, it should be welcomed nap countries in the mediterranean that were nato members took on the responsibility for taking on

libya. and that's how it should be. it is right that the basis we flew our planes from were italy and greece rather than poll land. not only because it takes longer to get from poll land and libya than from italy. because our interests are at stake. it means there are other conflicts that come down the pike. our interests are not as much directly as they are from other countries. the question comes are those question -- countries as they were in libya able to do what is necessary or lost the capability to do so? that's when we really will see what is important and what matters. and those are the kinds of decisions that, frankly, i don't see countries in europe debating. i hope i'm wrong. i hope that the european counsel meeting at the end in december the first one in many years to talk about defense will take a very serious look about what it

means to be serious about defense. because, frankly, right now it doesn't look like europe is sufficiently serious about the defense that it needs to have not only to serve its own interest, but frankly, those of the alliance at home. >> you put a lot of issues on the table. i want to bring in the audience in that is knowledgeable about nato issues. i'll call on you. wait for a mic. i'll remind you, we're on the record. the #is futurenato. you'll see the ambassador's handle on the agenda as well. ilet me start in the front here. if we have a mic here and come back here. >> the atlantic counsel. thank you for your comments. will nato be around when we need or need ?its as you know one of the things nato has not done well is provide a strong message to the domestic public as to why

it's important. perhaps we won't have the same christmas that he may have when he said the reason was to keep the russians out and the germans down. why do you think nato had a tough time coming up with a good e message for the domestic public? what would you put as the core of the message realizing i think definitely spending almost every circumstanced will go down substantially not up? >>ic it's a fair and important good question. i think we have gone through a period, frankly, since the end of the cold war. where we believe that we're in sort of a new nirvana. a place in which conflict doesn't occur. if it occurs it's economic. not military.

it's not enough to be economically strong. over the last five years doesn't look that good. to have civic power. that's important. but you also need good old fashioned hard military power. how far it has penetrated at the elite level isn't clear to me. certainly hasn't penetrated enough in the parliament tear level. we need to do a better job explaining why it is important that nations who like to be taken seriously in the world require military capabilities to

be partners in the larger endeavors that confront us. let's be clear. it's not clear in this country it is definitely clare there's no support or knowledge for nato . much of the parliament -- the congressman and senators don't know much about nato. most would be surprised it continues to run the mission but between a third and half of the troops there being from european countries. we have done not a particularly good job of explaining the importance of nato to our own security to our own -- what it is that europe and nato contributes to what we do day in and day out. we, before we start lecturing our european friends about how important it is they go out and

tell their parliament how central nato is and defense spending is. we have a job to do here ourselves. >> the common message we're taking to heart here to think about how effectively to engage on capitol hill to capture the narrative. let me have two more questions. the woman here and the gentleman in the back. >> thank you. i'm from the -- [inaudible] i wish had been said by the program or defense -- posture review what is going on. there was little said to push the europeans in the direction

you outlined. i can say this. i'm a european. i think without the americans taking the lead lecturing the europeans on issue like this. there's not going to be a movement on the nuclear front. there are so many holy cows buried in the nuclear issue that will prevent the alliance from taking that, i think, is necessary. and using euphemisms -- [inaudible] those listens start talking

clearly to what is would be good for the to be able to move forward. thank you. >> everything you have said is true times 10%. very important -- perhaps none has been more important to the success of the alliance than the u.s.-german relationship. which today seems to be undergoing a few stresses and challenges. i wonder if you would comment on how we get this relationship back on track.

how badly off track you think it is. and what the implications might for the future of the alliance. >> thank you. on the nuclear issue, i would say that it's much easier to have an individual than a collective opinion. more importantly when you are daling in an alliance you need the agreement of 28 countries. and let me assure you that nothing i said today will become of news to any of colleagues in brussels or in the u.s. government. there were many times when the kinds of arguments you heard today were right -- being mentioned and pushed inside. but ultimately a nato document and a document that gets signed off by 28 countries. and if one country says no, it doesn't get done. i learned a lot about consensus

building in my four years. it means sometimes you don't get all that you want. i would argue with the deterrence and defense review, we got a lot. and i think it's important document that needs to be read not only for what is in it, but much more importantly for what is not in it. if you compare this to any other statement on the nuclear weapons in the past, you'll see what i mean. scott, on -- >> if you want to comment on the point particular, fred? first, i hope you agree with me 110% when you say times 10 percent. [laughter] that means you disagree with 90% of i had to say. soily take this as -- full agreement with what i said, which i appreciate much of whey learned about industry i learned from you. when it comes to europe. that's good.

i think the understoodment tal relationship we within nato must be with germany and germany being a strong and critical player. that makes the last few weeks, last few months a very difficult time nor all the reasons that we know. germany's disagreic interest life as germt any has decided since 1949, really since it became a member in 1952 of nato to be at the center of nato. it has gone through difficult issues i.t. at least in the decisions with respect to libya. it is now going through some difficult issues with regard to the relationship between the united states. i think the administration and the cube to be new government will work out on the issue.

increasingly on the strategic and political side. within europe and indeed, within nato. i think that the united states needs that strong leadership from germany a willingness to stand up and be part of not only a collective but indeed a leader of that collective. within nato and within the european union and broadly.

speaking in order to ensure that the united states will have this partner. not only in we are lib -- berlin but indeed europe we need. germany is the big kid on the block. it is militarily the big kid on the block. it doesn't have the expenditure on nuclear weapons that others have. it is transforming its military in to a force that is quite able to conduct the military operations. it's efforts in afghanistan are underappreciated. they are -- they have been a leader in the north. a true leader. they are the first and only countries so far to have stepped up and said they will be there not only other countries but the first country to say they will be there post 2014. that's the kind of leadership we want broadly speaking throughout germany throughout our operations in nato.

>> if i could, quick. the praise you had for the smaller allies. the red flags you put up related to the united nations with particular to france and germany. a little bit of a different take. what is happening within the alliance. how do you see through the core ally of the u.s. important defense and bilateral relationship we've had with france, united nations, germany. are you saying the u.k. is stepping back and germany might step forward? how does the french reintergracious affect this? >> i think it has been extraordinarily important. it has made france given it a sense of responsibility for what happens in the alliance. and made the alliance stronger. no, our relationship with the strong allies. and those that are willing and able to provide military capability is going to be key. a strong u.s.-est stone began

alliance is great. it's important to the estonian and the united states. it's not going to -- can't be the be all and end all. our relationship with the u.k. our relationship with france, our relationship with germany. our relationship with italy, which has stood up every time when we rang the bell they opened the door. which is always welcome. and step through it with real capabilities. those are important relationships. and those countries will have to take the lead in providing the capabilities that are necessary for nato to be partners. it's not going to be done by the smaller allies even though those -- there are small in number, even those that are willing and able to step up to the plate. it will have to rely on the u.k. it will have to rely on france. it will have to rely on germany. my point on germany is that it is under performing on the

strategic level in a way that isn't good for the united. i'll leave it up to the europeans and germany whether it's good for germany. >> terrific. let me come to a last round and take couple of questions for fred. >> thank you for doing this. at the chicago -- during the chicago summit, one of the more significant moments aside from your rendition of "take me out to the ball game" during the seventh inning stretch of the cub/white sox game was the 13 global partner. now it doesn't seem if moved ahead too far. is it time when you talk about political capability something much more dramatic with the global partner. i'm not sure what it is. what should be done. if you can give your view on turkey and where is turkey going within the alliance?

terrific. good question.. right here. conflicting rule of engagement and caveated forces. i think that's a complex issue that i don't get to hear enough about. >> just on that, i mean, every operation has -- every country that operates within a coalition perspective will have its own specific issues of concern. we have a caveat. the issue is whether they affect the operational force. at least i was involved in this operation since 2009 answer is no. that most of the caveat that really did have an operational

impact were removed. or dropped one way or another. it is -- it's a nate somehow there's some countries that caveats and others don't. it's not quite how it works. the issue is can these forces cooperate in a way and fulfill the mission in the best possible way without causing problems from country to the next. and the answer today is absolutely. i'm now a cub fan, by the way. so it allows me to be -- but nobody remembers the fact i sang. which is good idea. >> i think it's on youtube.

[laughter] if anything is on youtube it's not it. there are pictures. [laughter] ting a great question. on the 13 global partners. that was supposed to be the big thing. it's something that the president personally felt strongly about. that it's important for the 28 members of the alliance to recognize the contributions being made with a wide variety of countries that are not members. some will want to become members. others won't. or can't. and yet in the 21st century it's not enough to think that 28 countries can do everything. in every single operation that we are involved in. we have nonmember countries centrally involved in what we're

trying to do. and these 13 countries in particular were recognized for that reality. and it is unfortunate that this view that is not necessarily shared by every member. there is not just the turkey issue. this is an issue about the european union. it's an issue that goes across the alliance in one way or another. our view of nato as a central hub for security around the globe is one not shared by every country. and we will continue to work. this issue as best we can. we strongly believe i believe the president believes it. i think our entire administration believed it. and there were a couple of key other allies who believe that

having nato that the core and bringing in these other partners from as far away from australia to as close by of sweden is critical for the success of the our operations and the success of our ability to conduct operations that go beyond article five. just what was the difference between libya and syria? it remains the fact that the arab league not only acted to ask for intervention, which allowed thetown move. but then key members participated in the operation. as they do in afghanistan. that provides a legitimacy twhab provides a capacity to act that the 28 members of nato themselves provide in the lesser extent. so for us it's critical. it's not an issue that people agree on. >> thank you very much. i think that you couldn't have

been clearer if saying the alliance is focus order the defense. it's headed for an irrelevant future. with frank crammer and others. much work to be done? >> just to underscore, i'm not saying the collective defense is unimportant. i just -- collective defense is the core. but it can't be the sole core. you need to have the cooperative security element to it. i think that's what the new nato is all about. >> absolutely. thank you very much for your time. thank you for coming to give your -- after stepping down as ambassador out there. thank you for the sft to our country. please join me in thanking him. [applause]

we're going to take a quick transition to the next panel and move straight to the final lineup.

partners in crime here at the nor -- it's been a great relationship and the sponsorship they provided for the conference in the series. we started this morning with a focus on threats. our panel in the morning talked about cyberterrorism, energy, and space. they talked about a post -- world. and over lunch they were drifted back to the contemporary operations and provocative at the same time -- statement on a more traditional long standing tradition. that, of course, will be one of the focus of the panel. i would argue nonetheless relevance set of deterrence challenges. i have 0 to remind myself it looks so new but actually dates back to the 1950 when we started, you know, first testing and deploying missile defense

intercepters. these capabilities have been in the past, and many argue been the backbone of the deterrence capacity. indeed the alliance on statements stated ally confidence in the element is critical to alliance cohesion. so it's only prudent particularly in a dynamic environment, a dynamic strategic environment to check the stools -- tools and update them. the posture and doctrine. it concluded, quote, the ashrines existing mix of capability and the plan for the development are sound.

these reviews may actually be needed to done more frequently. many changing dynamic we are facing. increasing change. there are four that capture my mind. one, evil talked a lot about which is europe's declining military capability. a process ongoing. second, is a wrawl from the capability over the last several years. third, is a rising instability. we talked about this along the -- most notably the crisis in syria underscores threat that are immediate to some.

compare that to 2013, which took place in october. that involved 70,000 troops strategic bombers, maritime landings,. it's larger. i'm not say it signals a new con reason confrontation. but it give credence to those given out of consideration to those contingency on the eastern frontier that -- fast breaking crisis that can precipitate a limited by russia.

current and form policy makers and commanders. that capacity she in the office oversee policy development weapons of mass destruction, u.s. nuclear forces, and missile defense but also the department of defense activity in cyber and space. she also might add share the high level group nato high level group on nuclear issues. what i like best as a former hill staffer she bringing ten years of experience in which must was de facto staff director of the subcommittee on strategic forces. welcome to. to my immediate right. secretary of atlantic counsel.

but day job is senior counsel for kaplan law firm. he served as undersecretary of defense of policy under president clinton. since then he's been involved in many numerous senior commissions. including the commission on intelligence capability united states regarding weapons of mass destruction. he recently sat on the congregation nayly mandated making since of missile defense. to his right general james cartwright. you look so young. but a four-decade career in the marine. he was an aviator in the marine corps. which is unique in his marine career, i believe is the only marine who served as a commander at the u.s. strategic command.

noted for the innovation in the at the end we have kurt volcker. he's the executive directer at the mccain substitute for international leadership. i had brings 23 years of service to our country in the foreign service with a number of senior nato positions. nato-related positions on the last and his career was u.s. criminal representative to nato or ambassador to nato. also served as undernational security staff. senior director for europe. you served in the nato headquarter as deputy chief of staff.

on both sides of the atlantic. he is not just brawn but a lot of brains. he taught -- he's a senior degree in physic, taught physic at the united military academy. and missile defense realm. he lead the programs that have produced -- energy programs that patriot pack three, gbi. the ground base and mid course program. the experience in missile deference. we're welcome to have you here. i'm going to start off with -- and work through our panelists and then we'll have a moderated discussion. madeline. last june in berlin. the president rolled out --

delivered a major speech. dramatic reductions in u.s. and russian tactical nuclear weapons. it's now time further the process -- further involve the nuclear posture? if so, how should the evolution be related to effort to manage other more acementic threats? >> well, -- [inaudible] reflect on a lot of work that is certainly going on in parallel between nato and also the u.s. so in june the culmination of the so much longer 90 day study is resulted in the issuance of new presidential decision guidens on nuclear deployment policy. and that guidance really was the

result of a very long and exhaustive process that allowed the u.s. to come to the conclusion that we could safely in conjunction with russia go to a few nuclear systems. at the same time, since nato put out the ddpr. nato and specifically the hlg which mentioned i have the privilege of chairing. and having done a lot of work with my colleague from norway in the front row. but the hlg has done a tremendous amount of the hlg provided a new political guidance for nato which was then recently followed some

implementing guidance for both military staff and shape. set the place and strategy for what are more the 21st century threat. the evolving threat. the ballistic missile threat from the shorter and medium range system. looking how you maintain a strong deterrent. incredible deterrent at the same time setting the condition for future reduction. all is going on in both nato and the u.s. so it's important to have russia as part of this -- part of this effort on both sides. neither will be successful without. to be frank, we're not making much progress on the front. we continue to try.

>> do you see a more radical change. a need for link between the posture and conventional deterrence? i think it's important the united states modernize the strategic force. on what pace it needs to be. it's also true of the british and french forces. both of which are committed to be modernized.

there will be debates at least in britain on the scale. if we got to a -- which the alliance wanted to use nuclear weapons. given a choice between invisual submarine with an essential or other systems within the essentially 1% assurance of reaching the target and very high precision would we reject them in favor of dropping gravity bomb. on the assumption that the russians or somebody else -- it's hard imagine, targets other

than the russians is irrelevant in the context. the russians would be pass fied by the fact the airplane came from european basis and not from american british and french platform. woe never forget the horrible consequences of the nuclear weapons on any scale. but for some europeans, the commitment of american nuclear weapons in europe for reasons that you can argue whether they

ever made since. you can argue whether they make sense now. definitely are seen as a fundamental symbol of american commitment. there are a lot of europe,s in the room. i apologize for saying this. the europeans tend to operate in two modes and they can -- like angels, can move from one the other in time without passing through the intervening space. one is that the americans are about to embroil them in stupid conflict which is they have no interest. and the other is that the americans are about to abandon them and leave them open to the enemy. to some degree, things like the presence of u.s. nuclear weapons in europe help with that.

i have come to the conclusion -- it's no secret that the united states air force wanted to get rid of these things for years and years. they have stayed. so i think that is a fight about the issue is not worth it.

i think, however, there are thing we should be doing to prepare -- neighbor to prepare for an eventual reduction. if russians were willing to agree. there was -- the politic of the issue change. it's a form in military terms is more relevant. it's not the existing arrangement today, we should ask seriously why not. second, i'm glad that madelyn is the chair of the hlg. i'm sure it's a very important

instrument at the kind of -- i was always pleased that level was called the working level. [laughter] implied there are other kinds level of the alliance. the nato planning group; however, which was very important at one point. at least in my experience it was late in the meeting. everybody wanted lunch or europeans a cigarette. the briefing went up. it was warmly received as a sign of how much the americans were consulting the europeans. i think one of the things which ought to be done to educate at least the nato community about some of the realities of nuclear weapons is to revive and make more serious the nuclear planning group. and really to involve europeans.

let's hope we'll stop lecturing the europeans about how lazy their security is. you can't tell them things you can get out of the newspapers. much more openness about some of the realities of nuclear weapons. i think the core issue for nuclear -- it's up understood and broadly understood understand the alliance. i'm not sure that despite all the excellent work being done by specialized people that is, in fact, the case. as far as linking nato's nuclear forces to conventional forces. i'm not sure i understand the question. but one of the real divisions within the alliance on nuclear policy is do we regard them as almost if not exclusively almost exclusively if not exclusively

for the deterrence of nuclear attack. is there some connection to conventional forces. i have to say inspite of the problems about declining capabilities, it is hard for my to imagine a situation? which nato as a whole would no have the conventional capability that deal with any circumstance would arise for article 5 deference and therefore the question of using nuclear weapons in the response of conventional aggression. if you torp make a formal --

-- those nuclear weapons. what are the contingency regarding conventional threat. how do you link them to nuclear deterrence and the deternes of these new threats we discussed earlier this morning and this afternoon? >> i find myself on an uncomfortable position in that i so strongly agree withive vow and maaed lynn. i'm having a hard time coming up with a good argument of why they are wrong. [laughter] the one thing i would point out, and we don't need to get no to russia bashing here. but it is very clear in the correct the russians are far

ahead of us in the compliance. and so while we're saying we're not going to do something without consultation, et. cetera. russians are far ahead of us in compliance with the current treaties. it i had invested in the united states. i want to make that, you know, known. the question from this morning of should we rename deterrence? there a lot of terms that have baggage in the definition definitional genre that leave us having a difficult conversation and talking past each other. extended deternes, deterrence, strategic. all of these have with them a set of meetings that you immediately -- and the question is in the

reality the world we live in. i know we want to kind of like all normal humans live in denial to some extent. what is really being said in the u.s. and in nato and europe and other places in the world it's not matched up. we can't afford, as the united states, the standing army that we currently have to keep them standing forever. we have to come to an understanding collectively about what thes aspirations are and what they are realizable. and that's been a difficult discussion. there's another piece here that from a conventional stand point

we in the united have been a global power forward-based, forward operating. more and more countries mostly all countries do not want large american armies on their soil. that is a reality. the cost to have those forces replaced in the world on mobile platform is unaffordable. we have a disqengt in aspiration and in the reality of the resources that we have. that is just, you know, we can live in denial of that. but we're also living in the reality of it day-to-day. when you look at the redubs and forces going on. the good news if you go back to the world wars note nato but europe, we fought those as armies. we put together armies and we fought against our foes. if you come forward to the cold war, we fought as divisions.

that's how we fought about the cold war. that's how we constructed forces, et. cetera. you come forward to the current conflict. we are fighting them as brigade. the mobility, the capabilities of the forces today are substantially better than they have been in the past. ..

is is >> what is the aspiration we have for the vexes problems, and the thought process and the first thing we'll do is i'll use my conventional forces, and if that fails, use strategic forces. i tell you, it's going to turn around. don't think about it in a nuclear sense, but think strategic first, coming from great distance or no distance, to solve a problem. last, think about the conventional forces and moving and huge costs of standing armies and moving them to the problem. it's just the reality we have to deal with, and how we're going to do that, how are we going to afford it, those are the the

questions, i think, that we're going to, as an alliance, come to grips with and understand how to do that; ours, we're not matching resources and capabilities with the security that we desire to have. >> thank you. >> other than that i'm in a good place. >> that leaves a good place. the leading expert brings a dose of reality, make it a concern, particularly such with europe. when you hear those speakers, particularly john cartwright's point about, you know, we have to be ability to exercise and leverage increasing speed and deploy our forces. do you see this happening in nato? is nato leveraging deemployability of the forces to provide adequate deterrent against threats from both near and far? >> straight up the alley, soft

pitch, so here's the way to answer that, if i can, and i want to shake it up. deterrents is when someone who is your potential adversary decides not to bother because they know it's not going to work, so we are detouring two things successfully, the u.s. nuclear deterrent is deterring anyone from even contesting u.s. nuclear knowledge. it's off the table. that's good. we should be happy about that, that there's no nuclear challenger out there. that extends to nato and u.s. guaranteed nato, but it's only credible if we have the linkage to nato allies bearing newark lar burden of the policy. he's right operationally, but the burden of the politics of

nuclear strategy has to be there or else it's not credible that europe is part of the strategy and that raises the question, does the u.s. nuclear deterrent extend? the other thing we're deterring is a conventional attack on european members. there, i think, what are the components? the components are capability, will, both individual and collective, your track record, and your method. these are all lined up perfectly on an attack against nato territory by conventional means. everybody knows nato can and will respond to that. now, flip side is we're not deterring anything else, not the taliban from attacking us in afghanistan or overthrowing the government or assad from killing his people or nuclear weapons or deterring north korea from

pursuing the nuclear weapon or deterring terrorists from attacking us wherever they can. those things, deterrents are not working, and what do we see on the horizon now? this is where you have to bring in the planning question. we are all cutting our defense budgets. we are withdrawing u.s. forces from europe. we are not talking about, in serious ways what to do with crisis outside european territory where it's libya, egypt, or what to do about iran. we talk about missile defense, but not against whom and what the issue is there, so we are in the process of eroding a lot of the capacity, and what we are prompting to the rest of the world, we are projecting an erosion of will. this has serious implications for our ability to keep this deterrent up.

the u.s. strategic nuclear deterrents i'm not worried about as long as we have the small linkage with europe, but i am worried about nato's credibility as for the sake of conventional deterrents. will we continue to convince people that if there is any thought of attack on nato member territory, that that there be immediately met and dealt with? i think we risk, as we cut our own capabilities and talk about not being able willing to do things that project power, that that question can start to creep up in people's minds, and since my friend and former ambassador to the u.s. just walked into the door, i'll mention an example of this. we had a discussion at nato after russia invaded georgia, and a comment from a larger ally was, thank goodness we didn't invite jazz --

georgia to join nato because then we wouldn't have shown article 5 is real because, of course, we wouldn't have defended them. that's the dipped of backwards logic that's dangerous if nato thinks that way. if i point a way forward, we have to do the things, and we have to do things necessary to keep the conventional deterrent credible. >> have military forces that are actually available? >> land for when they might be used, exercise that use, and i slightly disagree with some of the comments earlier today about the expedition their roles. you can't agree in advance. kind of like in bosnia, we never talked about going into bosnia, but if you do the homework on article 5 field capabilities, they are there when you need them. that's the way we have to think about it.

>> okay, thank you. general o'reilly, talk to us a little bit how missile defense fits into both deternlts of the nuclear threats and conventional threats from an alliance perspective. >> well, i think it's very hard to make a distinction between the two because the missile defense systems are set up to counter missiles unknowing what's in the payload whether it's a weapon of mass destruction, we don't know. the threat is, obviously, intent to do harm or the missile was not launched in the first place so i believe there's an ambiguity that is going to stay when a missile launches whether or not to put them in a nuclear strategic sense or a conventional attack. probably the greatest indicator would be the range of the missiles that you're looking in. unfortunately, as we've been talking about today about the relevancy of the nato missions for the future, in the area of

missile defense, the proliferation and the threat of ballistic missiles is not stacked, and a lot of reviews were done four years ago, architecture was developed with nato and the united states. i believe if you look since then, the greater concerns or growing concerns is the emergence of a user friendly, if i may say, ballistic missiles available to notary public state actors. number two is the emergence of the antiship ballistic missiles in the possession of countries around the world where you can actually effect commerce from a great distance, and third would be along the mines of your questions, continuing to develop a long range missiles by iran with potential capabilities hitting the united states. when you look at that mission or those threats as was just said, we have to have a capability,

some way to respond to protect the interests, and those are long term commitments in developments. i honestly believe that the answer to your question is you have to be prepared to engage missiles without knowing ahead of time of what the threat actually is. >> let moe through you a question that's another softball as you wrote about it. what are ways the europeans can contribute more to u.s. homeland defense when it comes to missile, protecting homeland, u.s. homeland against ballistic missile threats? >> in the case of u.s. homeland defense, about 60-70% of the trajectory of the missile we are concerned about coming from the middle east towards the united states is over european territory or non-u.s. nato territory, so in the 70% of that flight, there's a tremendous amount of day that we would

greatly be able to leverage with our own homeland defense system that we currently do not have access to, yet there are sensors in europe today that can make tremendous contributions to u.s. missile defense. >> [inaudible] >> several countries have space odyssey tracking sensors, very precise. when you attempt an intercept of missiles coming in, a lot of those sensors are in a location that would be able to give you very access assessments of whether you were successful or not much earlier than just relying on u.s. sensors where they are located, and then there's a growing emergence of mobile sensors that are in nato, especially on board the ships, l band, s band, a whole ray of frequencies out there that number one make it more difficult to counter when you

face a network like that, and, two, adds a lot of robustness so there's not a single vulnerable node, and so i believe there's tremendous amount of contribution that can be made, and in the period of austerity that we're looking at right now, these are not expensive jowrpt taking to link sensors to a u.s.-nato system and would greatly enhance the whole network. >> yes, a question from kerry's visit to poe land because it following missile defense. when he was in poe land, he said the u.s. commitment to bill would be epaa site in 2018 is ironclad. does that mean the obama speech in prague 2009, an agreement with iran over nuclear weapons program, if that were to be achieved robustly, a rethinking

of epaa, are they now locked in, and they are no longer valid? >> so we've made a substantial commitment to homeland missile defense and the deterrent so when the department went through the choices, management review, those were among the three capabilities highlighted, and protected, and preserved, and part and parcel of that, and as we go through various budget deliberations, it's hard to protect the things you want to protect, and epa is one of those things we really want to protect, and so we've done, so far, a pretty good job protecting phases two, phase one, phase two, and phase three. obviously, we canceled phase

four, but that's really where there is a connection between your question and iran. okay. we saw a rapidly emerging north korean threat and moves resources and assets to go after that more emergence, more near term threat, the long term threat from north korea to put additional 14pbis in alaska and then also begin to look at how to improve the ekz. the long range threat was not emerging on the timetable we thought it would emerge, and so we are taking some of the phase four con cements and move that to alaska. that said, we know pause they test them all the time, and they have a lot of them. there's a threat from iran in the area of the short and the

medium and they are there and they are real, and that's where the resources are, sco the phase two ground breaking, which we just had in romania and then the upcoming commitment to poland completed in 18 that worked and committed to that and are ironclad. i think the bigger question really becomes, and it's not just for epa, but it's really for all of theater defenses, and it's how many defense systems do you buy to offset how many incoming systems, and that's the question, ultimately, we have to have because as many look at this, this is the losing end of the opposing proposition so, you know, how often, how far do you want to go one for one or two

for two or however many it is you need, but that's the question. it's not where is iran going? it's where is anybody going that has missile capabilities, and how do we think about defending them if we can't always afford that one-on-one, or two-on-one capability. that's the bigger question than iran. >> regardless, we have iran, we're still needing missile defense capability, and, therefore, the sites in eastern europe that the united states is building are always going to be there. >> define -- define that agreement with iran. define what it looks like. you know, we no longer treat russia as an enemy, but they possess nuclear weapons, and so we still have nuclear weapons, so define that box and we'll define our capabilities vis-a-vis that particular box of capabilities. >> let me turn to missile defense because you were part of that commission that looked at

missile defense. there's defenses, but it's not against russia. why is it impossible to reach out to russia on missile defense cooperation and simultaneously develop capabilities against ballistic missiles? in fact, that's happening in nato today. they are buying nato defense systems not design against iran, but russia. why shouldn't nato contribute to the effort and why would that undermind the relationship with the alliance, particularly in line with the fact russia emphasizes nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology? >> well, it's not that you can't develop a missile which will shoot down a target with writing on it. russians have the capability for exactly the republican that was just mentioned to overrealm the

plausible defense. the most to expect if they want to do it, so missile defense, particularly what the poles are building, if i understand it, which is to defend specific targets and some protection for the country as a whole is to raise the cost of engine, is to make it clear that there is some defense that may or may not be vulnerable and you rely on other majors to deal with the broader question of conflict. i think one of the issues we tend to fly over is that most of the people in this room know it, but most other people don't. nato actually has nato as an institution distinct from its members, remarkably few military capabilities. there used to be a pipeline given how expensive it was, i

hope it still doesn't exist. i'm pleased to know it is going to happen someday. they are national systems designed almost invariably with a national mission and collective mission, and as you know, the principle that everything is a national responsibility means that they usually get paid for by the nations and that, therefore, the national mission, not an absolute priority, not to the exclusion of others, but it's very important. now, i'm a say, and this is the advantage of being entirely out of the government, i'm not a hundred percent clear that if there were -- and this is right, but, you know, tell me what the agreement with the iranians is, and i'll tell you what kind of an impact it has on the defense programs. i find it hard to believe that if the really was a fundamental change in iranian policy, the

united states congress would be quite so keen on providing the funding for a system which is quite rightly a heavily oriented towards the defense of europe, and there's another question about the relationship, the role of missile defenses that's been addressed indirectly but not explicitly, and you asked regime o'ryely about the relationship between missile defense and conventional deterrence. i believe that the most serious element of the threat from countries like iran is not that they will decide that they are going to fire off a mission for the hell of it and wipe out the infidels or at least a lot of them, but it is that they will embark on some regional aggression which is very much not in our interest, very much in the interest to prevent it, and they will hope that their

nuclear capability, even if a relatively limited one, is enough to discourage us and to discourage other countries from coming to the assistance to whoever they attack. i think, in that sense, missile defense because it offers prospect of frustrating that strategy to making it much harder to rely on, i think missile defense makes a major contribution to conventional deterrence which has nothing to do with actually shooting anything down, but reducing the capacity to believe that, to quote my good friend, the chief barbarian handler in the chinese military, that you won't trade los angeles for taipei. that, i think, in many ways is the central role of limited missile defenses that are practice call. as to why -- i don't know how many reames of good will and

paper have been spent on trying to convince the russians that we would like nothing better than to do things which really no kidding, cross our hearts, hope to die, will demonstrate the unsurprisingly, maybe a few hundred intercepter missiles, will not defeat thousands of russian ones, and you usually get a variation on no or no follow-up by colorful adjectives. >> maybe they'll change. >> general cartwright, follow on the point about demonstrating capacity and political will of the alliance to deal with the directs challenges of today and tomorrow. you talked about mobility, increased mobility of allied forces. i have the sense that increased mobility could be dmop straited for expedition their operations, but i really wonder if the alliance is properly

configuredded today and positioned today to deal with fast breaking constituencies on nato' border be did the baltics, poe land, or turkey. am i underestimating nato's capacity, or is this something to address, and, if so, how do you build up the capacity and demonstrate it? >> you know, i think first in the construct that we've been discussing here of nuclear weapons and missile defense, today, if somebody attacks and nobody's around, but it's in the interest of our country or other countries, you know, and perceived as an existential threat, then the only response that we have that can get someplace on the other side of the earth quickly is a nuclear weapon. that has prune to be a short fall in the credibility of our capability to address it so then you fall to conventional forces,

okay? the beauty in some perverse sense, at least for me, missile defense is that it has significant ability to bridge where extended deterrence failed us. it has the ability to bridge both strategic long range and strategic short range capabilities of an adversary and to introduce at least doubt into the mind of whether that adversary, of whether they are going to be successful, okay? where i agree with madelyn is we build an intercepter for every missile you have. that's unreasonable. we have to have short of nuclear, conventional, nonconnectic capabilities with the capability to reach great distances and short distances very quickly, to augment what missile defense can do and to fill in gaps of threat missile

defense will never address. the second thing without missile defense, to me, that is very important in this context is that it was eluded to earlier, no one country has the geography to have all of the sensors that they need to see missiles coming. you have to rely on the coalition, and that binds politically and mission wise, objective wise, multiple countries together, and that has a conventional deterrent to it, nuclear at tribute, and an a symmetric attribute so what you see there is a defensive capability that can address strategic to asymmetric, a political binding attribute to it, but you have to bound it with a capability that says, if you shoot these at it us, one,

you are sure whether they get through, and, number two, something's coming back your way quickly, and we don't start at the nuclear level to do it. that's the forced construct that starts to play here. >> could i add a little bit on that problem? >> one of the problems that any alliance has is that some people are on the front line and some people are more in the rear. that was the decoupling issue in the cold war, but it's very much the issue in nato today. the country's in eastern europe, turkey, conceively in the nor kick countries, that are closest to the potential threat leaving missiles aside, the potential threat of conventional invasion, are relying on the support, but other more distant countries. the problem is, and one of the

reasons interest in fact, the countries are not keen on being liberated after six months of heavy fighting. they're interested in the attack not happening or at least being stopped. i think one of the issues that the alliance needs to face is one that we face in connection with korea, that there are two models of how you would address an invasion. one is the kind of, at some point you will decide that war is inevitable, and you mobilize, and you start flowing stuff, and everything goes, and it -- you talk about we used to fight in divisions. the idea was we would move ten divisions to europe in ten days. ha-ha, it's a measure of the way

it was planned that the first day was spent filling out paperwork. [laughter] that was how we were going to do it, dammit. bear in mind to think realistically about the scenario is this is extremely unlikely to be a bolt from the blue. there's a lot of history of tactical surprise. to my knowledge, there's no history in the last couple hundred years at least of strategic surprise that is of aan attack you had no reason could believe could possibly happen, and i think it will be difficult politically, but critical operationally that nato will have a plan for reacting to strategic warnings in ways that are not move everything forward, mobilize everybody, and so on. we developed for the korean case, and it's a matter of public record, we developed a

much more sophisticatedded con seventh, which is the classic example of cao ya a long, long away, america far, enemy close, bad people, how you deal with it, and it's a graduated set of responses, and we have the luxury in the korean case of having essentially only two and a half players on our side of the south koreans and japanese whereas you have 28-plus many others in the european case, and people will make the argument, oh, you musten do anything because that will make it worse, and it's not crazy, but what has to be worked on is for the up likely contingency for an invasion. how do you take advantage of strategic warning and make effective responses? i like to recommend articles i

read that are interesting because there's not ma many. there's one with a brilliant article on all things the french operation in mali in tour vial, and one of the things he pointed out is the french operated with lightning speed. literally, in a couple days, they managed to turn the military situation in the country around. a reason for this is they had small but very effective, very skilled, very ready for thes deployed already not too far away. now, they needed help to get the big forces from the united states, britain, and they needed -- that took a while, but they were able to get meaningful capability on the ground very quickly which had a big impact, and they set the answer of everything, but sets principle that you need to figure out ways to be ready to respond quickly

and not to wait, as the french did in this case, for reasons of the circumstance, but not to wait until it's inevitable before you get ready. >> before i turn the floor over to ask a question. it strikes me that the most likely contingencies in which nato's deterrent capacity is challenged is not a massive invasion by an eastern party. i think those days are gone. it's more lightning unexpected strike by a radical regime or in the case of up stable russia, a limited territorial incuring's. go back to the quoting emphasizing the word "punishment," and effective deterrent requires the aggressor

to believe that there's going to be an immediate reprisal, punishing reprisal. does nato have the capacity to do such a reprisal to punish? i understand nato responding to a major incuring's because that's politically unambiguous, but a limited incursion, do they have the political will to really strike back and demonstrate it from happening? >> right. well, you put your finger on the question. do we have the capacity? yes. do we have the will? no. do we have the track record? no. have we messaged that this is what will happen if you do this? no. that's where we kind of fall down. again, just kind of laying it out. nuclear deterrents, not worried about at the moment. conventional aterrence of an attack like you talked bow, no worries there.

conventional attack on nato territories, but the other things, i'm concerned we are not in a position to deter them, and that's eroding. the trend line is the wrong way. i would love for us to be in a position to detour syria from doing what it's doing, warn them because they know what we'll do if they don't do what we warned them about, but that's not just the case today. if it's a terrorist group as well, the capacity to go and identify intelligence means and have ammunition to land on a training base or government that provided support, yeah, we could do that, but it's more likely the u.s. that would do it, and i don't think nato has the will to agree to such a thing. it takes a consensus of nato among the allies, define the operation, and i just don't see that, i think that means that as nato, we really don't have that deterrent capability. if i could have one other point

because i listened and thought about this. i don't see, and maybe it's just me and i'm thick here, i don't see missile defense detouring the capability other than making sure we are not detoured in efforts to deal with a regional challenge. for example, if iran is off doing something in the middle east, and they have a missile capacity, the fact we could launch that missile capacity means we're not detoured from dealing with that challenge for that reason. there's a dozen other reasons we might be detoured from dealing with that, how complicated, how long it is, what we got into, and i think that's what we see with iran and syria today, but i don't think that missile defense gives us an ability to deter someone else like iran from doing it. it just means we're not deterred from intervening for that reason. >> i'm going to open it up. i just ask you question the questions -- well, first, identify yourself, your

affiliation, keep questions and points brief. thank you. starting with barry. >> >> thanks to the pammists for a good discussion so far. you raised the right issues. there's a question of will. i hear a lot from the administration officials off the record as well as in some cases on that we are war weary, which is true, and parts of the country are war weary, but, you know, there is a question of military force is off the table. that sends the wrong signals as said, but i wonder how true that is. i mean, can -- i would love the panel to talk about the american public, are they convinced for certain contingencies and not others or completely off the table forever or just the middle

east. what's the dynamics that play that make the american public now different from other times in our recent history? >> want to take a shot at that? >> okay. i think you have to balance what the american public is tired of. and not what the will to do if it arose. there are two things. i think the, you know, we see it, the american public is just very tired of intervening in places where they don't see a definite threat from the u.s.. i don't see there's definite threats to the u.s. or there was a definite threat to a close allies the u.s. wouldn't be there. very different things. certainly the way we train, everything we're doing at dod is

certainly supportive of the fact that, yeah, we would respond if there were definite threats to the u.s. or close allies. >> you have yet to go. >> i have to go in a few minutes. i think one's attitude -- the demonstration of this problem is supposed to be syria. that depends an awful lot on whether you think it was, in fact, a good idea or is still a good idea to intervene in the syria civil war. if you think intervening in the syria civil war is a good idea for a variety of reasons you find compelling, then the fact that the united states is not going to do it diminishes credibility. i believe there's not a goo argument for the united states intervening in the syria civil war, the fact that the american public and congress and the administration are pretty reluctant to do it is a good thing, and, indeed, i i would argue that what the public is

convinced of is what was just said. when it is in our interest to do something because there is a serious interest in world stability and so on, then the american public is capability of being convinceed. it takes leadership, effort, not a hundred percent of the people will be convinced. you will get the scenario in kosovo around the same day the republican controlled house of representatives voted against expanding our intervention and tie on whether we should continue to do what we were doing. it's not going to be easy to get congress to agent if they have to act or get political support, but i think the demonstrated restraint in not rushing in

another middle eastern adventure helps the credibility of future administration in a situation in which there was a clear cut challenge. >> with that, since i don't think the airplane -- the days have passed when airplanes waited for me. >> you can't deter your departure. [laughter] [applause] i think i owe kurt the curtesy of rebuttal. >> that's okay. we had the red line saying we would be responding to the use of the chemical weapons, the president said so, we didn't do so, and we got off in different directions. there's an impact on u.s. credibility, but the point i made earlier was not about the u.s., but about nato, as in what is nato's credibility in having the will to respond to any of

these number of scenarios, and that's why we have the problem. i don't see nato today willing to contemplate a new expedition their mission to contemplate increases in defense spending even when we talk about exercising and what scenarios are you exercising? no one wants to talk about what the scenarios are. i think there's just a real concern of the situation that it needs to respond to it unless it is that attack on the conventional normal attack on a nato member, i i would see it very, very difficult to get an agreement with nato on that. >> do you want to? >> just quick. i'm not sure that nato responding always has to be in the context of nato responding in the military way. because of the situation

evolving, one argues that's been or will be much more successful in getting rid of the chemical weapons in syria that if we initiated several air strikes, so you have right now as a result of the efforts, our efforts in syria, i mean, you've seen quite a bit of response from both nato and nato countries wanting to know what can they do to help? what offers can be made of assistance to ensure that syria gets the weapons or gets the chemical capabilities outside, outside of syria, that they meet the deadlines under the agreed frame work. i mean, they really are responding. i mean, almost to the point that you can't use everybody, so, i mean, i think there's nato responding in many, many ways with a will to respond, not just militarily.

>> >> thanks to the panel. this question is for general cartwright. jim, you opened up the intellectual equivalent of a fine bottle of wine. i want a bigger taste. how do you deal with really compelled by the fact that sometime before the ends of 2020 and probably much sooner, defining power defense is half of what it is right now. how do you answer your own question what we ought to be doing in crisp sentences it give us that taste? >> i would offer an alternative triad which would be a triad of strategic capabilities, general purpose force capabilities, and to get at the issue of the nexus of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction special operations capabilities, and the special operations capabilities are the

ones that would be deployed and out and about, and they would be the intermediary between border and police and general purpose forces, and as an example that walt used, they would be there in areas where we had worry about being -- having strategic surprise or tactical surprise. at that end of the capability, that's counterproliferation, nonproliferation, movement around, understanding what's going on at the high en, on the strategic side, it is the missile defenses. it is the last resort of nuclear, but last resort, incredible capabilities of far reaching effects, not all necessarily connectic or military in nature that allow us to have the time to what appears to be one of the good -- hate to use that word -- things that

happened in syria, which is the ridding of the region, particularly syria, of those chemical weapons and all the surrounding nations that have lived under that threat. i do disagree on the missile defense side of it, but i believe that very clearly and very passionately that missile defense, is, in fact, a deterrent. when you move, whether your adversary is rational thinking nation state or person or whether it's totally european territoryrational, you can deter people removing objectives. if you remove the objective of a cheap quick strike like that taking in the middle of the night, what we worried about over the pole, is now scuds or whatever, if you put that threat in question, you are, in fact, adding a deterrent capability, i believe, to the equation. i don't think we disagree on how it would be used, but i call that a deterrent. it is that triad and rebalancing

of your strategic forces, general purpose forces, and your special operations. >> thank you. >> that's app interesting point you make about the third leg of the triad using special operation forces, and i wonder if there's a way for the alliance could bind its chemical nuclear and buy logical weapons brigade with the nato response force creating an almost anti-wmd to seize and secure wmd when necessary. >> well, the likelihood, i think, the most important thing is to bring your border and interpret police into close coordination and understanding, common picture with your special operators and have special operators, no kidding, train and equipped to handle non proliferation, wmd type scenarios. that, for each nation state is

critical, but then for the region and alliance becomes a critical activity. >> okay. >> my question would be a small general question, an issue, what triggered it was the remark about iran, what we could expect from iran is not from iran nuclear capability or aggression of nato, but a regional crisis. we see a number of -- we have been confronted recently, as they start, they do not affect security, but say syria, say

libya, but they create situations that become a threat to our own security. do we have the -- my question is do we have the tools, the mind set really, to deter or at least prevent or continue the crisis before they -- [inaudible] >> kurt? >> obviously, this question, too, cannot be in this truth, have to be wiser than just training. >> well, again, i think that's a good point. not all responses have to be military responses. it's hard to find one not done that does not involve military

response. what i can think of with syria is to reassure turkey that any attack on turkey would be met with military response. i have a hard time thinking of other things done with respect to syria. when you talk about this, european allies prevented nato from developing that set of tools. i remember in afghanistan, fighting very hard just to try to get police training because the e.u. said it was going to do police training, but they didn't really do much police training, some, but not much, the dutch were o standout in this. the only think nato is

successful at is disaster relief and negotiation where general robertson was involved in negotiation to try to politically dissolve a crisis, but largely again because of the way nations thought about nato for so long is we never really developed kind of robust crisis management capacity sprit from the military -- separate from the military life. >> how far do you want nato to go beyond core military missions, beyond collective defense? at a certain point, you sap up a number of political will, getting into realms that are not nato strong points. i'm struck by general cartwright's idea of leveraging soft as an interface to facilitate other institutions participation and ensure integration with their efforts in nonmilitary realms. >> well, i think that we have a good formula for this which was you do your planning and

exercising for a credible collective defense, and then as crisis arrive, if there's a consensus among nato we have to do something about this as there was in bosnia or kosovo, you have the capacity there to do it. you can't, in advance, preagree within nato, we're going to be ready to go to afghanistan. can you imagine in 2000 if anyone brought that up at nato? that's nonsense. of course we're not going to afghanistan. you got to have the capacity that then as events arise you choose to deal with. what we said in 2002, we have to address challenges from wherever they may arise, threats where they arise op the territory of the nato countries. i don't think that nato would say that, again, today and mean it. i do think that is something we have to think about because it

is gullible, challenges exist from anywhere, but i don't think we are thinking much about that, but the core is to restore the credibility, strengthen the credibility, strengthen the credibility of our basic ability to do our basic job of collective defense, which is expedition their of getting where they are needed, and then you have capacity on a case by case basis to respond to crisis as they arrive. >> great. a question in the back. >> from the strategic defense studies. first question is instead of concerning the presence of the u.s. nuclear weapons in europe, and the future of the debate within the nato, within hld and npg and talking about the need to keep europeans involved and educate them in the sort of

youths and aspects of nuclear weapons, yet it's on record that the japanese are envious of the europeans because of the weapons. the second question is this, general cartwright, and special forces, there's a lot of attention in europe that we draw on the combat teams, but there is little attention to the fact that the u.s. is boosting its special forces presence in europe. i'll be seeing a more relevant u.s. presence in europe rather than just the smaller one. thank you. >> on the second, on the special operations, i mean, i don't know exactly the intent, and you can address that better, but from a

stand point of relevance, the special operations versus heavy brigade today for the reality we live in is going to be a lot more relevant to the defense capability of nato and europe. >> i'll dodge that one and go after the other one. >> okay. [laughter] >> i mean, i think the nato dpr clearly put forth nato with respect to nato being a nuke already alliance. , and the fact there's a nuclear weapon is something that both the npg, the knack, all the other bodies they look at, and with a good deal of seriousness. on the one hand, particularly over the last six months, is a creation of the new arms control to the adnc as well as with the

hlg when the beginnings of, okay, what is it that we need to do to look at this, and confidence building measures, transparency measures in a way that inspires some reciprocal actions on the part of russia to begin to have this discussion about what would a foundation look like for reduction? that's out there. part of the allies, part of this, it has -- it's been strong, a commitment that's really respected in the notion of burden sharing. the -- at least in the context of the hlg, burden sharing has been a very important element of this, and we see good strong consensus on that, so, and, also in the context of the whole, you know, u.s. nuclear commitment to get to nato, there really is sharing. it is obvious on its face, but

it is. nato has funding, individual nations, the u.s., i mean, then, of course, you have the individuals, you know, independent deterrent of the u.k. which is also provided to nato. it is good. it is a strong alliance. that said, the ppd that was just issued also made it clear that the u.s. really is committed to extend deterrence, and that was not only the reassurance to nato, but the reassurance in the middle east and also, frankly, most importantly, in the context of japan and korea. to that extent, deterrence is there. although there are not weapons there anymore, we've taken actions like the recent flyover with the b2 to make it clear we are committed to the extended deterrence. >> if we went down to zero in terms of tactical nuclear weapons in europe, would we have to change our forestructure anyway? >> very interesting question.

[laughter] i have to say that, you know, i mean, i live in my world of strategic deterrence, and i don't venture out much into the conventional side. that would probably be a conversation for a larger group, but it depends on how strong one would believe the deterrence is in the essence of those. in other words, would the extended deterrence be strong enough if everything were pulled back to the u.s., that that would be equivalent? if it were not seen as equivalent of the forward deployed deterrent, that probably would have to do something on the traditional side. if it was seen, then probably no. >> my sense is that it's in the eyes of the beholder so it may be true one in one country and different in another, but from a purely military standpoint, my opinion, and i said this multiple time as well as evo is

that any capability that is on the soil in europe today can be duplicated in time and in availability from a standoff distance. that's really not a problem, and it's crbl, probably more credible because it's safe, it's guarded, and it can be calmed forward when needed and substituted with something strategic and gets there fast. from that standpoint, it's true. there is a value, though, to something you can go pet, you know, and say it's here and people practice it, ect., and that's the political side of this equation which is very important. in the pacific we've done it differently as a nation for the united states to what we've done in europe. it can work either way. it really is in the eyes of the beholder and when our allies feel they need to be convinced that we, in fact, will honor our

extended deterrence commitments. >> kurt? >> just a time comment, sorry to keep talking. i think this raises a broader political problem with nato again which is we have gotten ourselves comfortable with the idea that allies can agree to a mission and assume it doesn't mean that, so we agree that, yeah, nato will take on this thing, but does it mean that i'm beginning to commit military forces to carry this out? libya's a great example where germany pulls its forces away from the coast of libya when the rest of us go to do something in libya. i think that's a dangerous direction for nato to go in because i think it creates this assumption that it's someone else's problem, and in many cases it's the u.s.' problem, and i don't think nato works that way, so one of the reasons why i have a different reaction to the question from the guy from the nor wee januaries is that if he didn't have the

nuclear weapons in europe, i think a lot of allies say it's not our issue anymore. it's those guys' issue. >> one more question. >> thank you. good to be here. i have one comment regarding the deterrence or preventative power of nato, and i think the last history of the nato in the soviet union convinced that the enlargement policy was one was strongest deterrent factor in many crisis. ..

[inaudible] security initiative. but then they tried to be a little bit more smart under the economy -- so what should be the nato of position toward this type of [inaudible] from the soviet union, thank you. >> ting falls more to kurt. >> first of all, i think you are right. it was a large great deterrent. when dpe clareed we -- declared we were serious about the aspect of it. i think it was a tremendous success and reassurance,

especially with country like the states. and also i think the reverse is true. we stumbled over georgia. kind of gave a green light saying they're not serious about georgia. so i think you're absolutely right to weigh it that way. and the third that i would make, i guess i would add on to what you were saying contradicting it. both in the u.s. and acknowledge european allies kind of run out of steam. so that talking further, talking more about enlargement today is going to actually raise questions about your commitment. are we really committed to extending our defense guarantee to more country and territories when our public were cutting our military forces really pulling back from operations. is that incredible? we have a lot of, i think, homework to do as nato itself to

rebuild some of the credibility so that we can be in the position move forward on ironclad on what the nato membership mean. i would like to see us start i are building that and talk about the importance of completing a -- start talking about a desire to get countries that are interested in that. but i think we have to be realistic. we have to build that back up. let my close our session by posing to the panelist. s a framework. we have closing remarking to the audience. if you are sitting in the white house today, what would you see like that see come to the nato summit that would fundamentally realign or reinforce the alliance endures capacity?