you strip the personal identifiers appear as the data set. >> we are actually asking those very same questions. >> but it's an excuse not to get the data. >> i'm not trying to offer excuses, congressman. i'm being as responsive as i can but we need to be careful in how we maintain the confidentiality. >> there's all sorts of protocols. i was involved in a very large project where we were doing analysis of how much mortgage fraud has happened in our communities. but just random identifiers and then we put it out and sent everyone studied what happened. it's not that hard, and if you are also using proprietary data inappropriate. you are making public decisions that affect the public billions of dollars may be for the good and maybe for the bad you use proprietary data.

i have something else i want to show quick. can we put up this slide? this is how we accumulate the data and do analysis and study things. i have a metroplex with a few million people. we have had monitoring sites and instead of putting the monitoring site where my population lives, we have chosen and there may be a rule that once it is they are over a couple of years it's hard to move because you lose the baseline data but for the fun of it in the u.s. but your predecessor on the monitoring site next to the railroad track and next to a series of dirt

roads. can you imagine what you get from the monitoring site clicks there are dozens and dozens and dozens of miles away from where the population base is. how does and does not create your underlining data to build good quality statistics particularly this is an outlier in the two other monitoring stations with the same attributes. if you are getting so much that for those of us with statistical backgrounds, we are just bouncing off the walls listed. >> i'm happy to bring some time but when we do these rules we also propose a plan and work with the states. we take public comment on those plans. >> for years we put this in a rational spot and it's been ignored. >> we should have that conversation to the obligation

is to look at the air quality across the country in a way that reflects -- >> the population bases. >> most of them are done in a population basis. some of them are not. clearly this one was not one. >> i appreciate -- this is one -- >> i think i've been there before. >> in that case i can't believe we didn't move a it the next da. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> the gentleman from texas is recognized. >> thank you ms. mccarthy for being here. the chairman in his opening comments said that the epa should answer to the american people. do you agree with that? tomac we work for the american people, yes. >> have you ever owned a business?

>> no. >> use at your comments that you were here to talk about the role that science plays. have you ever heard the statement that all scientists are only sure about one thing and that is that every scientist before them was wrong? >> i have not. >> does the science ever change? >> sure, yes it does. >> so if you are here to talk about the role that science plays in the epa deliberations, what would you say is the second thing that plays the role in the deliberations? >> if i could say three things, ththat science can't walk and transparency. >> we are off to a good start. i don't member who the exchange was with but was it with omb,

but not a science advisory board. by law it was playing the part n deliberations of the science. so by law you're supposed to submit the same rule on the same date or by that date. >> i'm not aware that that is specified in the law. but we certainly engage and have a process. >> you said you have a process of doing that but if you are set meeting at the same time are the same date, i think that is a pretty exact science. >> sometimes be consulted for them before it goes in the interagency. >> and your committee commended. so if you do not submit that at the same time as the objection was earlier than innocents, you are going around that law but you just said, right clicks so you are actually going around of the law so that science of the data when you submit the law in

the science at the same time you are circumventing. >> no sir. >> you're interpreting the law so that as long as you have the process in effect, you are good. >> no sir. >> that's not what you said? i misunderstood. i apologize. let me go on. there are researchers that have contracts to verify the data in your earlier comment. you don't recall that? while i was taking notes. you have researchers that have contracts to verify the data and my question is do you ever get biased results? >> actually our entire peer-reviewed process is designed to minimize any possibility of that and i think we do a good job. >> mr. hall mentioned parker county earlier where the epa had to retract a statement where they said that it had

contaminated the water supply. are you aware of that? they have provided the data publicly. >> when mr. sensenbrenner questioned you on the question of the standards for fuel efficiency you said you were not here to speak to manufacturers warranties and liability is. >> i can't speak to the statements about that. in essence if it affects the entire car industry it doesn't matter. >> very much so it matters and we have appropriate testing for that reason. i just -- that isn't by -- >> on the grant recipients, he said you had procedures to ensure that they are fair-mind fair-minded. let me submit to you as a business owner if we are going to put business people o businee science advisory panel can't you apply the same procedures to make sure that they are

fair-minded? >> we provide the same procedure to anybody. >> that he would be okay with having more business and industry experts on a panel as long as they are fair-minded? >> i would draw this to balance that is to make sure they are doing the job correctly. >> very quickly, i have a plant, carbon capture and sequestration in district 14. $400 million is the cost of the project. some 60% was supplied to the american reinvestment recovery act. so you said ccs had been demonstrated to be cost effective in exchange. >> i said it was a reasonable cost. >> let's go with that. i have a 4 million-dollar project, 60% of the $240 million if my high school math is holding up will have to come from the federal government. do you think it's reasonable to believe the industry can

duplicate that if 60% of the money has come from the american taxpayers? >> i think that our analysts that has been put out that we are taking comment on would indicate that this cost is reasonable for the new facilities moving forward. >> so in the congressman asks if you have a cost-benefit analysis you said no and innocents you have made judgment decision about your analyst is that it is reasonable. >> it is a little different than what we would look at as -- >> i know that you are looking at new project that rules. when do those come out? >> i do not know the exact date. it's in the middle of the process with the advisory committee. i know that the next big step in that process is for them to look at a couple of documents that are hoping to provide by the end of the year. we are past the five-year time window.

what do hazard to guess what would be before 2013 or after? >> i do not know. it needs to be both proposed and finalized, and i haven't even been briefed on it because we are still looking at the science and we like to keep the policy and legal questions aside. >> very quickly coming to did a national survey for the willingness of people to pay. >> i believe it was a national survey. >> baber also willing to pay for the epa depending on whether or not was cost effective. and also if people were willing to pay for the loss of jobs. >> i think that we are mixing it up a bit of apples and oranges.

it's time for me to clarify what the survey was doing and what rule that was applying. >> the gentleman from utah is recognized for his questions. >> thank you madam for being here today. i'm sure that you just enjoyed your morning. you've been looking forward to this. >> it is part of the process and i'm honored to be here. >> i am sincere when i say you have worked hard to serve your country that there are so many things that you and i disagree with and that ibb that the epa is working and not for actually against the best interest of the american people, and some of those, not all of them that some of them have been brought up to date in this hearing so far and let me list a few of them quickly. do interpretation of the waters and with the clean water act.

the standards, new ozone standards that my friend mr. webber mentioned very quickly. it's going to affect huge parts of the west. the clean water standards for the human cost of carbon admissions and standards that we have spent some time talking about for the coal-fired power plant generation. all these things and there are others. taken together, i think the new rules and proposals make life harder for hard-working american families. they take away economic freedom. they take away economic opportunity, and they have the effect of making washington dc more and more powerful and more and more central to american slides. and frankly they make the american people less trustful of washington dc and that the government and i'm sure you have a sense of that as well and some of the questions and concerns expressed in the hearing today indicate that to you but let me

focus on one of them if i could and it isn't a particularly partisan issue. it will beg democratic and republican districts and set democratic and republican states and i will start with a very simple question and it is not intended .. think it would be appropriate for the epa to propose a standard that would be impossible to meet? >> if it is a whole faced standard about what is healthy and impacts associated with it we need to rely on the science to say that. >> what you propose a standard that would be impossible to meet, would that be appropriate for the pa to do? >> it really depends on what the question is. if it is a health-based standards you set the standard based on the health impact. >> but again if it's impossible to meet it doesn't matter what your standard might be if it is impossible, and i think everyone would recognize that.

>> we wouldn't require the impossible. >> and that's what i would hope you would say it wouldn't be appropriate for them to set standards for example that are below the naturally occurring background levels. and if i could call your attention to a slider that i suppose you have seen this or something like this regarding the standards, the areas and read reflected the monitored counties where 60 parts per billion would be evaluated. orange indicates a monitored counties that anticipate the violation of the 60 parts per billion. that represents parts of utah. they have some of the most remote, very beautiful but some of the most unpopulated areas of the nation. you could include yellowstone national park in this map as well and yet using that example the naturally occurring ozone,

60 parts per billion which is above what some of the proposed standards are and i guess i would just ask you are you aware that some of the most remote and in some cases pristine parts of the country will be exceeding the range of this proposed standard? >> there is no proposed standard at this point. let's just make sure people are not confused by that. i would also say i know that the science advisory board is looking at this issue with the staff so that they can establish some recommendations to me moving forward and we can take a look at these issues. >> maybe there isn't a proposed standard. maybe this depends what the meaning of the word is and if we can go back to the very technical definitions there is certainly some consideration of a standard of 60 parts per million.

would you agree with that? >> i do not know if that is a part of the consideration that the science advisory board will advise me on. >> in the hearings i chaired this spring, we were told that was a standard they were considering in that they were not only considering that it's one that they were leaning towards and we expected it to be the new proposed standard. i guess i would conclude with this, my time ended and i wish i had more time to there is nothing these states can do to achieve that kind of standard. it will have great economic cost by the estimate of $90 billion by some estimates it may be ten times that amount. and i would love to talk to you another time about the sanity frankly if the epa proposing a standard that is impossible to meet that would be incredibly

expensive and once again, coming back to my opening statement on why that generates so much suspicion and so much ill will in the body politic of the american people so with that, thank you mr. chairman and i yield back my time. >> the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized for his questions. >> we will go to the gentleman from texas. >> we are kind of jumping around. i note earlier i gave my favorite tweet of the day the quote is from you that says i'm lucky enough not to have to sign up for obamacare. that's wonderful. i wish my constituents could say the same.

>> i think i was referring to i'm lucky to have access to good health care for you to. >> i still will take your quote. i wrote it down. it's really good. >> i think you sai said also inr testimony this $2 billion of new jobs in the eta. i want to point out that one facility alone in my district is the $7 billion in new construction representing 13,000 jobs and your administration is saying because of the two-week furlough that is quite take many more months to look at the permit and i would request given the circumstances of the poor economy and the fact that this needs to be done and is meeting almakingall of the pa requiremei would ask, and i will follow-up witfollow upwith you, that you s and expedite this 12,000 jobs is a lot of jobs. >> what kind of permit? >> epa. it's been your office sitting there. they followed all the rules and regulations. >> i would be happy to follow up

to be a. >> there is another plan but wants to export coal so that i will not be burned in the district. altogether we have $52 billion being held up which by the way is more than the sequester. i'm just saying there's a lot of jobs in the district dependent unfortunately by your decisions and i would like to give that information to you so that -- we can take the jobs under this president wants. i really want to help them out and doing that and this much activity in our district which texas as you know probably represents 50% of the jobs in the united states that is created and in my district we cut 30,000 people live into our districto ourdistrict and has ba million wells as you know there has been a lot of tracking and there is a general history of the united states of people independently drilling for oil and producing products that this nation relies on. we are going to produce more than saudi arabia and i think it's because the independence and the drive of the american

spirit. i just want to see a future where we have independence for the middle east. that is a great implication on the foreign policy and great implications on people's future. and i'm frustrated when i come back to my district and i have people coming to my town hall meetings saying we want the jobs and i have to tell them i'm sorry that someone from the pa isn't letting us have the jobs. please, open your heart up and get these permits done. they've done the work and they've complied with the regulations. i don't see -- for two weeks basically shut down the government. it shouldn't take months to recuperate for two weeks lost. i don't know. i even have a plan that's not in my district, but a planned now all of the lead plants are closed in the united states. they spent a million dollars upgrading and now the chinese are going to produce the lead. when they get x-rays they will be coming from china.

i am just really frustrated that we have so much opportunity in this country and again and again and again it comes back to you or administration where i hear it's locked up their end of their. i would love for you to come with me to a town hall meeting where we can share the podium and here from the people individually who are losing their jobs because we cannot get a permit. and i'm troubled that again time and time again i cannot get any satisfaction from your administration. >> indication to sing. >> go for it. if we can work together and would appreciate it and i welcome you to any town hall meeting. >> this is an issue that frankly i just haven't heard for a long time. we've been trying to do our best to expedite as much as we can knowing the economic implications. so if you do have concerns, we

should tackle them together. >> i appreciate that. >> i have one more thing i want to ask from a colleague who wanted to clarify that it places in the record if i can mr. chairman -- >> the gentleman from kentucky is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. madam administrator through the hearing you said the importance of transparency and i agree. consistent with the transparency september 30, 2013 or agency announced it would hold public listening sessions on reducing carbon images for existing power plants to consider the public concern ahead of the development of the epa rule. but i was disappointed to learn that all of the sessions are in major metropolitan areas and none of the listening sessions would be in the ten states that must rely upon the coal. in november the congressional delegation sent you a letter

informing you that kentucky already lost more than 6200 jobs in just the last two years reducing employment to the lowest level since the commonwealth began keeping statistics in 1927. unfortunately, these job losses forecast to continue to increase thosas additional epa regulatios targeting the coal. in this letter we requested that you hold a listening session for the sake of openness and transparency that you have espoused today in the eyes of the american people will you commit to us today that the pa will hold listening sessions in the commonwealth of kentucky and other similar states that south dakota where my colleague mr. cramer is from that are reliant on the coal production and coal powered electricity as you seek a public comment? >> we have received a number of requests for additional listening sessions. i would like to explain that those sites are the regional offices because it -- >> we appreciate that and that

you have held the listening sessions outside of your office is. i think that you should get outside of the office. go out and see the people that you were going to affect once in a while and certainly you realize that if you fail to hold these listening sessions on the greenhouse gas regulations in the state in the economy who must depend on the coal this will be perceived as an effort to avoid negative public opinion and ignore the adverse effect of the regulation. you realize that it's going to be perceived that way if you don't hold these hearings. >> i think people should recognize this is even before we are proposing nevermind entering into the various public -- there's opportunities for individuals -- >> i can't let you take all of my time if you want to answer the question -- smog and most other air pollution is a function of the urban concentration. in fact the epa recognized 66%

is having those are urban issues for the most part so the residents of the rural areas like myself. the fascination with regulating the one-size-fits-all rule in washington dc from the bureaucrats who've never experienced the warmth of the heat that comes from blood or maybe even the exercise of collecting it themselves aren't coal-fired to regulate our source of energy especially when they are taking away or other sources of energy. let me read the epa website on the rules that are being

proposed but this is certainly from your website. the epa is revising the new source performance standards for the residential peters. this is expected to include following the new residential heating appliances, the list goes on to give the standards would apply to the new residential wood heaters and not existing essential would heating appliances. is that your impression that they would apply to the new heaters? >> that's all that they apply to come yes. >> so you can promise us today that if americans like the wood stove they have they can keep it, period? >> this particular part of the clean air act does not address the. of the other thing -- >> one more question and only 30 seconds to ask.

>> i hope it is that is a promt you can keep. there is one other issue that affects america but just has them scratching their heads and is anybody looking at regulating? can you assure us -- >> i am not looking at that. >> thank you very much. >> i will yield back. >> the gentleman from wyoming is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman, welcome administrator. >> thank you. in your agency you recently proposed new source performance standards. based on the use of carbon capturing sequestration

technologies you did not require that same technology for gas fired power plants. by requiring the coal units only aren't you applying a standard that is higher regarding the call of duty for carbon that is emitted? it sounds like this is not all of the above energy plan it singles out cold for punitive treatment. can this really be defended as a transparent and equitable application of the clean air act? i like the administration that you testified supports opportunities in natural gas and i support them also for the new coal-fired plants and coal to liquid. all the reasons the pa gives for declining to find the technologies to be the best system as the mission reduction for the gas-fired unit applied with equal force to the

coal-fired units so why you require it. the answer to the question is to set up. the epa is under a consent decree to issue new source performance standards on greenhouse gases for the refineries in the near future but that also require implementing technologies that is unproven on a commercial scale? >> that seems to be the definition of adequately demonstrated. when the pa requires a technology for the plants that is not yet in commercial operation, what is to stop it from doing the same for other sources of carbon? >> i might add that earlier in response you said that the technology is ready according. but the doe was in front of the

committee in the summer and they couldn't give a date for the technology to be ready. then the former secretary of energy was here two weeks ago and he testified that the commercial technology currently is not available to meet the epa proposed rule. so our problem is the committee has received conflicting testimony from the former secretary at your sister agency. i find it interesting that the claims regardless of this new rule no one plans to build traditional coal plants so does this rule achieve any of the epa carbon reduction goals by its own admission it is requiring the carbon reducing technology for plants that will never be built, but at the same time it is requiring no reductions for new natural gas plants even though they are being built in greater numbers than ever

before. .. we did not have the data available to be able to propose ccs on natural gas. we went with what we need to be demonstrated technology moving forward. we do have data on the cool side addresses the requirements we have for being robust. but we will look at comments

that coming. relative to do we, i think delete employees, and staff, as was the secretary have been very supportive of the way we are looking at the data in this industry sector moving forward. >> i want to squeeze in one more question before i run out of time. >> sorry. >> that's okay. let me ask you, this is a yes or no question. easy dpac view that section 111 d. of the clean air act gives states primacy in the development and implementation of performance standards for existing power plants? >> yes. it's state implication plants that need to be developed. >> now you have three seconds to answer my previous question. >> the only other one i want it was this idea that we're not going to be making any progress moving forward because most of them in natural gas, what we're trying to do is make sure that new facilities like power plants that are around 60 or 70 years

take advantage of the technology available to them today. so that they can be part of the mix moving forward. coal is important now. it will be in the future. >> thank you very much. >> the gentleman from north carolina, mr. kramer is recognized for questions. >> i'm sorry, did you say from north dakota? >> yes. >> thank you. thank you, administrator mccarthy. spend i miss spoke if i said anything other than north dakota. >> that's fine. thank you for being here today, and i want to ask some questions about the hydraulic fracking side but before i do that i want to fall upon the invitation for you to go to kentucky and wholly missing session on your way to north dakota told a listening session on new standards. would like is that my record of -- letter of invitation for you

into the record if i could, mr. chairman. it just seems like in the spirit of transparency, that having these 11 listening sebastian's indices were you granted have regional offices, is okay as far as it goes but with the wonderful opportunity it would be to add some more listening sessions. so i would love to have you commit to considering to go to other place including bismarck, north dakota, spent i just want to take that that's not the extent of what we're doing. those are the major listening sessions but the regional offices in -- and our administers are bridging out to the individual states. >> i understand that what i understand into place place like north dakota whether 17,000 jobs, three and half billion dollars towards our economy at stake and where there's whole bunch of really wonderful, smart experts and scientists who work in this every single day to provide lots of good information to epa, a better method my bill

told a listening session there and public you for everybody to participate. i would appreciate -- i would love it -- we could work out the details later, what time and but cities and all of that. i also want to get into hydraulic fracturing study you engaged in because i have some concerns about it, specialist in the design and some of the goals of the study. because as we discussed previously with other witnesses, this idea of the ep searching for what is possible without attention to what is probable, it's problematic i think from a real scientific standpoint. one of the goals of the study stated primary goals is to answer questions like what are the possible impacts of hydraulic fracturing on new well pads and drinking water resources. and it appears, in fact, the epa's independent advisory

sideboard shares this concern as well. one expert comedy quote there's no risk assessment included in epa's research efforts. does, the reader has no sense of how risky any operation may be and ultimately impacting drinking water. this is a significant limitation of the work in the quote. the mere possibility of an event occurring sufficient to justify revelatory action and you might? >> i think this is purely a scientific research project. so we understand the potential implications. it is not a regulatory decision. >> sure, but again possible versus probable. what is the standard of probability before you continue using more resources, given the fact that hydraulic fracturing is not exactly new technology. it's been around for over half a century. i mean, and is there a line and certainly you can understand what industry and states might

be concerned that we go down this path with the mere possibility as a standard, and the uncertainty that that creates as we try to become more energy independent in this country. >> my understand is that this is a number of research projects that are looking at the potential for impact on water supplies. it is the first step speeds i understand -- >> so we can be sure we are doing things in a safe and responsible way. >> i guess part of something more comprehensive because your office of science policy director in may of last year stated the agency is doing quote a pretty conference look at all the statute determined where old may allow for additional federal oversight. so is the study part of the comprehensive look for holes and opportunities to regulate? >> my understanding is, and we

can certainly follow up, is that this is purely a research project. it is not at this point talking about what laws we might utilize or what regulations we might want to do. >> have you found any holes? do you know the new regulatory holes that might present an opportunity for further regulation by the epa? that standard is rather frightening in north dakota. >> we are purely looking at whether or not there are implications that we need to understand from hydraulic fracturing, both in this case on water quality. that is it. >> thank you. my time has expired, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman from florida is recognized for his questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, madam administrator for your testimony today, and it's been largely direct response a. i really appreciate that.

>> thank you. >> following up on some of the questions went earlier today, concerning science-based management, how many ice ages have we had on this planet, you know? >> i'm sorry, i don't. >> i've read different things. some say three, some sci-fi. do you think we have had ice ages before? >> i'm quite sure of reading about those, but i'm not a scientist and i don't want to pretend to be here we can get our scientists to respond if you want a more direct -- >> i really would like that. normally you can have different ice ages unless you have a warming period between ice ages. i was one if you happen to know what the temperature was here on earth between the last two ice age is? >> i'm sorry, i can't answer those questions.

>> if i told you the earth was 30 degrees warmer before the last age -- ice age, would that surprise you? >> it would not influence my decision in terms of listening to the science, the consensus on climate. i leave the science to the scientists. >> but don't you think the history of the earth should have some bearing on science? >> i'm sure that it does. i just don't want to pretend that i'm a scientist and have that discussion with you because i'm not. i do listen to the scientist and i look, listen to the consensus that's being drawn. >> i liste listen to the scient, too. and i don't claim to be a scientist but i don't want to put my head in the sand and ignore science. i was just wondering what impact you thought carbon emissions had on previous global warming between ice ages?

>> the information that i have available to me relates to all of the work that's done by the number of scientists looking at the climate issues. and i pay attention to that and i will apply the science and decisions moving forward. i am not -- either comfortable or qualified to have a science discussion with you on this issue. >> do you see the problem, promulgation of any rules that would enact if carbon tax in the future? >> say it again. >> do you see the promulgation of any rules that would enact a carbon tax for this country in the future? >> only if congress provides that mechanism. no. >> okay. mr. chairman, i can't get my questions and as i guess i'm pretty much finished and yield

back. >> thank you. i don't believe in any other members with questions, so, therefore, thank you for your presence today. and we may have additional questions that would be submitted to you in writing. we hope you will reply to those in the next couple of weeks. >> can i ask one favor? i know you asked me a lot of information about the subpoena issues. i want to make sure we both understood one another so if we could meet afterwards i want to make sure that they give perfectly correct answers and that our expectations are the same on what you're looking for and whether not we have complied with that and which are looking for next. i want to be very respectful of you. >> thank you. well, i am somewhat encouraged by some of your answers today and i hope you will give us the data that we would like to have and that we would like to have independently verified. i'm not sure it's true or not, but didn't you once tell us if you like it, you could haven't? [laughter] thank you for your appearance today.

we stand adjourned. >> this evening will bring you a symposium of genetics, forensics and their use in the criminal justice system. also look at the public policy and privacy issues surrounding genome sequencing and the implications of prenatal genetic testing. discussions are part of the 10th circuit bar conference and get us tonight right here on c-span2. during this things getting holiday week we're featuring encore presentations of q. and a. tonight at seven eastern doctor toby cosgrove talks about his background and the ongoing debate over the health care law. here's a preview. >> what do you think? >> i think what we have to understand is what's going on in health care across the country. and we've gotten ourselves in a situation where we knew we had to change health care.

health care has become so expensive in the united states that is now consuming 18% of the gdp. it's starting to eating into things like education and other social programs that we want to have and need to have. and we are more expensive than any other country in the world. and we have to harness that inflation rate. we have to control it and bring the costs down so that we can remain competitive. we've been at this a long time, and beginning to drive this, a process that started several years ago and how we begin to try to make our health care delivery more efficient. for example, we have consolidated services and hospitals. we have closed one hospital that was two miles from 2000 bed hospitals, and, frankly, we

consolidated services. we consolidated service for obstetrics, for rehabilitation, or cardiac surgery, for pediatrics. and for trauma. and just for example, in trauma when we consolidated the services from five centers to three, we saw 20% improvement in mortality rates. so this has been a long process where we are trying to reform this. what's going on right now is a lot of things are coming to a head. that's we have concentrated on taking out calls over the last couple of years, for example, like purchasing in the last two years we took $189 out of purchasing. and we've done things like eliminate it redundancies. we've put blocks in so you can't order redundancy lab tests. >> a portion from our queue in

the interview with doctor toby cosgrove of the cleveland clinic. you can see the entire interview tonight at 7 p.m. eastern on a companion network c-span or anytime online at c-span.org. tonight on c-span3 the clinton presidential library released more than 300 newly declassified documents. during the 1992-1995 bosnian war. that if it includes remarks from bill clinton and from bill clinton and former secretary of state madeleine albright. you can see tonight begin at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> on many campuses, young women are talked as if they live in an oppressive society where girls are shortchanged in schools, robbed other self-esteem in adolescence and then channeled into low-paying fields. once in the workplace they are cheated out of 25% of their salary. they face invisible barriers. and all sorts of forces that hold him down and give them back, keep in out of the high

echelon power. this picture, this doesn't fit reality. it's distorted. it's the false claims that support it have been repeated so many times they've been taken on this or of truth. >> her critiques of late 20th century feminism and feminism in contemporary american culture has led critics to labor as antifeminist. sunday on in depth your questions for author christina hoff sommers live for three hours begin at noon eastern and looking ahead to the new year on thank you to reader talk show host marc clifton january 5. booktv's thank you the first sunday of every month on c-spa c-span2. >> the aspen institute hosted a roundtable discussion today on defense related topics including the iranian nuclear deal, budget negotiations and congress and the upcoming afghanistan withdrawal. among the speakers was michele e flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy on the president obama and philip --

philip zelikow who served as part of george h. to be bush's national \street/{-|}street council. this is about an hour and 20 minutes.i'm sorri'm >> thank you all for coming and i'm sorry i'm not nick, but her in and i'm pulling myself together. some going to get brirefly introduce michele and philip. i see a number of people in the audience who were after and can simply better weather last summer. soth michele flournoy is the 20 senior advisor from 2009-2000 o luscious undersecretary of defense for policy. she was the principal advisor tn the secretary of o defense and foreign relations of national securityty defense policy d operations and so forth. i interviewed her a number of times. she was very cautious. we knew she knew a lot. she never told us very much.

she's also a senior fellow at harvard center for science international affair, member of defense policy board. cofounded the center for new america securities. a think tank you know. she's a member of the aspen strategy group. the dean leading the graduate school of art and sciences. he started as a child getting to arguments. i love that. [laughter] i'm going put that in my résume. i like that. soon thereafter he became a trial lawyer doing criminal justice and civil rights work. there's so much more here. he was an adviser to secretary of state condolezza rice. he's a member of the president's intelligence advisory board, he for president bush and president

obama. he's written a number of books. germany -- i read that one. that was he wrote it with con i did rice. and most importantly a member of the aspen strategy group. which she directed from 2002 to 2003. so i will start by asking both michelle and philip a few questions then open it up to the audience. we are in a transitional period for american defense strategy. are there lessons that as we're in a build down that we talked about last summer of the pentagon. are there lessons in earlier periods in american history that could help guide us now? i guess why don't you both answer that question? >> good afternoon, everybody. it's wonderful to see so many familiar faces around the table. i do think there are some

lessons to be learned from our history in terms of periods like this where we are coming out of a period of war. a decade -- more than a decade of war. and we are facing very severe budget pressures on the defense budget. and there are two lessons that come to mind. the first is a strategic lesson. and that is, when america comes out of a period of war, we typically are very templed to turn inward. to allow the sort of eyelationist impulses that have m coand gone throughout our history to assert themselves quite powerfully. yet, when i look out at the world with, you know, fundamentally fundamental changes happen with new powers rising. changes in the new blap of power from asia to the middle east, turmoil in the middle east, continued challenges of terrorism, proliferation, all kinds of changes.

very dynamic, involve volatile environment. and a set of problems for which it's difficult to imagine solution without someone cat losing an international response. to me, you know, we can't lose sight of the fact that we are a global power with global interest. that american prosperity and security depend on staying engaged in the world and on shaping events that happen far from our shores. we also have i think still a unique role to play in cat losing international action to deal with challenges that we face. so the first lesson is we need resist that temptation to turn inward and away from the world. yes, we have to focus on getting our economic house in order and pushing our domestic agenda forward. but we also have to stay engaged in the world to ensure our own prosperity and security in the

future. the second lesson is more tactical. and that is as we have come out of wars in the past, typically the defense budget goes through a draw down and we try to balance too much of the budget on the back of the horse. and end up with hollow force. we cut readiness and modernization, disproportionately. we end up with a force that looks good on paper but does not have the capability it needs. and so i look at the period we're in now particularly with the straitjacket of sequestration and the inflexibility of these across the board mandated cuts, i'm very worried that we are about to repeat that mistake. because we're not able to manage the draw down in a smart way we should inspect my view we need to putting more emphasis of

pulling resources out of an inefficient and too large defense comprise. and try to maintain and protect readiness and modernization for the future where we can. >> so my paper beginses with a paragraph that actually i would like to go over with some care because it's very historically oriented. and i start with the set of four assertions. all of which are paradox. the first assertion is despite constant headlines about troubles in the world, the country is remarkably safe and secure at the moment. assertion number two, but american levels of defense spending are nonetheless still at near historic highs. measured in constant dollars in

various ways i get in to the paper. even accounted for projected cuts including l lev level of spending and vision by sequestration. the method by which they are effective. yet third these expenditures are poorly allocated. and the inefficiency is likely to get much worse that is that is come inefficiency in the sense of expenditures that are actually not relevant to producing effects that change or affect the natural conditions we care most about in the world. therefore, fourth, high spending in a period of low threat is buying less and less meaningful defense for situations not so far in the future that could be more threatening than they are right now. so i call attention in the

paper, i offer a theory of defense. interpeak a term borrowed from classical mechanics of having to do with kind of a degenerating amount of energy that is being put to use will affect. and part of the argument here is larger and larger parts of the defense budget are actually devoted to things that are not really related very much to national defense. though of course national defense are all over the talking points that are used to defend the programs on any number of occasions. you saw this right after 9/11 where actually throughout the 1990s the defense establishment has become less and less relevant to the way the world was changing. then after 9/11, huge adjustments had to be made. these were mostly bolted on top with marginal additional increases in spending on top.

in order to develop new capabilities that were basically strapped in an ad hoc way onto the old established capabilities. that now have now in turn also become part of the big space. and are now being cut in these ought and inefficient ways but michele properly decries. so you have this phenomena that i get into in the paper. but also make a conceptual argument about how one could reorient defense strategies along the lines of past requirements and slow requirements. actually our whole defense posture is oriented almost the exact opposite way from it should be. fast requirements call for very high readiness forces, ready for extremely high temple operations. exhaustingly high tempo, round-the-clock 20 for our hyper intense operations that will probably pass their decisive moment in the first day of conflict. won't be over but it will pass

the decisive phase in the first day. the forces that need to be relevant to that conflict need to be fairly close and highly rated. though their size need not be extremely great. and then there are slow complex scenarios for which you can use forces that can be made available slowly. for instance, many of the sorts of simmering transnational conflicts in which america might offer advice and assistance in different ways. from those observations i offer a number of particular suggestions, some of them pretty radical, that idealize possible force structures that if you will be very hard for the country to move to because of the intricate phenomenon. in our history lessons abundant history lessons, and one of them which was actually also described in a paper that was written for this aspen strategy group session which will be in the book, is that some of those

fertile and creative periods in american defense planning and strategic adjustment occurred during periods of cuts and retrenchment. among the most fertile decades in history of the american armed forces with a 1920s. not the 1930s by the way. not the interwar period as a whole but the 1920s. they were not especially fertile for the american army but they were highly important and creative for the navy, the marine corps and the embryonic intercourse. another critical. is the late 1940s and the 1950s. they buried of the eisenhower administration which dominated by the need to make cuts and retrenchment after the essentially unlimited spending which seems have been unleashed by the outbreak of the korean war in 1950. eisenhower spent much of the balance of the 1950s trying to restrain the defense budget and force hard strategic choices

that basically resulted in the development of the cold war defense posture that then dominated the subsequent decades. in contrast to the error of the '20s or the late '50s, the 1990s i described in my paper as having been the decade that the locusts have eaten. in which significant adjustments were not made. and, indeed, the kind of military-industrial complex eisenhower warned about in 1961 really begin to prove its strength and attraction after the cold war ended. because that, of course, is when the real test begin, and the answer is very well indeed. and then the era of war we've had in the 2000s, as i said did not so much really reorient a lot of the foundational parts of the defense establishment but instead crafted new pieces on top of them that we are an

easily reckoning with now is that phase in our history seems to be coming to a close and a new chapter is beginning. >> okay, thank you. i'm going to move it because i think, are you confident that the obama administration and congress can agree on defense cuts that did not impair significantly the ability of the united states to bring the world's comment superpower? >> no. off mike. >> -- [laughter] no. i think there is an outline of the least a small budget deal to be had. when you talk to reasonable members of both parties in congress, and there are still some who belong in that category, you can come up with some mechanisms for increasing

revenue and some mechanisms for restraining or reducing entitlement costs that could at least get us to a small budget deal for the next two to three years. with some relief, you know, to avoid another round of sequestration and so forth. whether we can see our way through the political paralysis to get there is another question altogether. i think that, you know, i am by nature an optimist. i want to believe that rationality will prevail but so far it hasn't. time after time from the imposition of sequestration to the recent shutdown and so forth. so i am not confident at this point, but i think the conversation we need to be having is, is one of raising public awareness of some of the

very real costs of sequestration on national defense. i agree with philip that there's a lot that we could extract from the defense budget and reorient and spend in better ways. but sequestration doesn't allow you to make cuts in a smart meta. it forces you to cut the highest priorities along with the lowest priorities. and so to me we've got to help people understand the damage to readiness that's already taken place. the ways in which we are breaking modernization programs that will be fundamentally safeguarding american military superiority and ability to prevail in the future, and we've got to raise public awareness about that and congressional awareness. because the old caucus in congress that used to hold together a national secret issues is no longer. so we have to start from scratch to have this conversation and

try to build support for a larger deal, not only on our own domestic economic growth but also on national security grounds. >> i agree completely, and no one is going to lose money betting against, betting against executive-congressional cooperation. let's kind of think a little bit about, suppose you thought it could possibly be fixed. actually, the basic processes conspired to make it very difficult to fix it the way we do strategy now. one reason this works to some degree in the cold war was there was a broad degree of consensus over relatively stable objectives that we were working towards and then you have lots of arguments in the margins. that stable consensus about what it is we're trying to do in national defense is pretty badly broken. and without a clear vision to replace it, naturally then

everyone just basically defends their camps. so how our defense strategies devised now? in effect from the bottom up in both the pentagon and in the congress. in the pentagon, and requirements are generated through a process that michele understands better than i.t. i've tried -- than i do. i would say by the time the process would reach the level of michele, it's not only paid but it's pretty substantially baked. it's not impossible for a gifted bureaucrat at michele's level to intervene to move the process but it is challenging. because at that point an awful lot of bargains have been struck, a lot of things have been put in place and it gets very hard even within the pentagon leadership to fundamentally reorient the posture. meanwhile, in the congress a parallel process is happening except it originates in different congressional districts.

and with constituents and constituent enterprises and works its way up through individual congressmen. at the top level let's say we decry an absence of leadership. suppose they want to do a search leadership. i want use to see among the most highly motivated congressman and secretaries of defense or undersecretaries of defense, the system makes it extremely difficult to make agile, strategic moves or reorientation. i think by the way it is not impossible to beat this. if you had a very high degree of clarity at the top and that clarity was shared with key congressional leaders brought in any deep way through strategic compilations, which is perhaps has occurred in recent years but i have not seen it. where you were bringing in key committee chairs into the formative stage of national defense strategy, and then working back from the consensus

backwards to drive your respective processes. then maybe there's a chance. if you conclude there is not a chance, strategic adjustment will only occur by adding in further marginal spending on the top and then will be inevitably frustrated about how much a safer having to spend for so little apparent effect. >> i don't disagree with the notion that there's a lot of bureaucratic inertia that drives how the department of defense defines requirements and even a sense of strategy. but i think i have seen occasions when top down leadership and intervention has really shifted the course. and i think we saw that with the development of the strategic guidance in 2012 where once the

congress passed the budget control act of 2011 which got $487 billion out of defense department for the next 10 years, we have a fundamentally new resource constraint, and rather than just asking people who write strategy in the department to go try to figure this out, the president said this require some fundamental rethinking and we need to do this as a cripple leaders. so he asked the secretary, the chairman, all of the service secretaries, the combatant commanders to come spend three multiple our meetings in the cabinet room as a group, check your parochial have at the door to the extent that's possible. but really engaged with the leadership in an active way to re- crafted a strategy. that strategy helps articulate the rebalanced towards asia come

a continued emphasis on protecting our interests in the middle east. it talked about taking risk in areas on prolonged counterinsurgency that we're going to reduce some of our ground forces coming out of the two wars. emphasizing partner engagement, protecting investment in critical areas from cyber to intelligence surveillance, robotic systems, et cetera. there was a whole range of priorities that came out of that exercise and it was truly top down trees and. that became sort of the bible for the next round of the budget enterprise. more than any other strategy to budget exercise i've seen, and i've -- i have the scars. i've been through many qdr's and such. that strategy, strategic guidance actually drove we'll shift in the budget. maybe that's the exception that

is the rule. but it is possible senior leaders -- what i didn't see was that the intent engagement of congressional leadership. that you talked about which i do agree is necessary to really rebuild a bipartisan consensus about where we're trying to go with the defense. >> actually, i share michele's positive remarks about the defense strategic guidance, though i play no hand in crafting it. but i think it is in many ways an admiral document but it's also in some ways you can use it as a benchmark against which you can assess the actual changes that are apparent in the force posture of the united states, and the relevance of x. amount of x. billions of dollars against the nominal objectives deposited into the strategic guidance and informant essman of apparent interest. >> let me move on to some news.

i'm going to ask you both about the iran deal. it's hard to imagine when you were in the state department this would've happened when you were advising condoleezza rice. >> forgive me. i actually, the origins of it did happen when i was in the department to i mean that quite series of big the origins of this move were in the spring of 2006. >> that's true. >> a member what happened, it was highly criticized at the time by many of the same people participating in today's debate. it's worth keeping this in mind if i can strike a bipartisan note. appropriate for the setting of the aspen institute. 06 the big move was united offer to initiate with with no preconditions negotiations with the islamic republican of iran. even while iranian operatives were killing americans in iraq and so on. and they did that in a p5+1 process. because of that move, which the

iranians substantialed spurned. the united states was able to get the foundational u.n. security counsel resolutions that was the premise for everything that happened in the last seven and a half year. everyone told us we could not get in the beginning of '06 and then the building framework for the global coalition that, by the way, is an astonishing bipartisan diplomatic achievement. in '06 carried forward with great effect by the obama administration. if you think about the global colittle that crippled the iranian economy and the geopolitical cig can of that coalition, and that coalition been created and endured for seven and a half years, to the reach to the present moment. that's an extraordinary bipartisan accomplishment i think received very little notice and many of the critics

today were the critics of the national move in the spring of '06. and therefore wort while to remember how much bipartisan work and work by professional bureaucrat has been involved erecting the coalition we have today as we contemplate what diplomacy we need to sustain it and sustain the momentum behind it. >> let me ask you okay let me ask you what do you make of the criticism today from democrats in congress chuck schumer and others. i'm professor in virginia. these things in washington often befuddle me. but the from the point of the view of israeli and saudi

government, why should they say so? i don't see anything in it for them for saying so. they have both side of the deal. they can denounce the deal the united states still has an important military relationship with the state of israel that are effectively in my view, unper teshed by this public crawl that will continue. including undertaking and understandings about what the united will do to protect our common security interest that might be threatened by iran nap are unaffected by the israeli denunciation of the diplomacy. which helps them at home and hedges against things that might go wrong in that diplomacy. and then i noticed a lot of people who are concerned about and negative about iran making

at the same times that say i don't say i don't trust iran. and who does. i notice very carefully when people say they support new sanctions but the sanctions will be held and they might put an us is sense they only go in to effect after the efforts to get a final deal to fail if you study what is involved in the interim measures. you'll see how much iran's good faith is going to be tested by all the activities they're going to be put in play under the interim measures. so indian the current debate. i view it somewhat philosophically. i think the real rift goo yo politically between the united government and some others is

here. on this point. which is that the united states is currently demonstrating in syria if it's wmd concerns can be settled effectively, that the united states will take military intervention and the conflict off the table. syria is becoming a test case for that proposition watch closely by everyone in the middle east including iran. in effect the same message is being communicated on iran. if you take the wmd concern settled take them effectively off the table and do so in a trust worthy way, we're prepared actually to come back to the international community and drop sanctions confidence that your own internal handicap limit your effectivenesses in that route. in that geopolitical point, i think there may be some

disagreements with some of our friends in israel and saudi arabia. the sanks regime is extremely stable and relied upon to remain durable regardless what happened in the diplomacy. i don't share that. i believe the obama administration spurned a deal like the one they accepted it would be difficult to hold the sanctions regime together. and then as the sanction regime begins to collapse, options will narrow and find ourselves on a path which the option of war become increasingly evidence. and, by the way, i think some of

the others involved in this debate have perfectly well analyzed this dynamic. and have come to their positions accordingly. let me add what has been agreed in geneva is a first step and first step only. it's not a comprehensive deal and should not be judged of such. they're not continuing to make progress in the nuclear program. they're not, you know, charging ahead in and amassing more enriched material in building plutonium reactor and so forth. it was designed to halt and in some areas like the 20% enriched

uranium roll back the program and put some time on the clock. i think it's also, as philip said, i think taking the first step and willing to negotiate is absolutely essential to maintaining the internet the unity of the international community to uphold sagests and to keep the pressure on. if the united states appeared simply unwilling to take the diplomatic route seriously, it's a "fantasy" to think we could maintain the sanctions regime we carefully and successfully constructed. in my view whether or not we get a good deal. it's still possible but unknown. and we will see over the next six months in what i anticipate will be tough negotiations. and that those negotiations whrb helped, in my view, by the

continued threat of making the sanctions regime even more punishing if negotiations fail. and by keeping all options including military options on the table. that threat of cohearsive measures needs to be clearly in iran's mind to continue to get them to be serious at the negotiating table. the very minimal relief that has been provided. the $6 to $7 billion of access to frozen assets ask not breaking the sanctions regime. it is not the financial sanctions, the oil sageses that have brought the iranian economy to where it is today remain in place. people have to understand that.

i do think that there is concern in the region about a u.s./iron deal or p5+1 iran deal that would

does this increase the conflict of the possibly of conflict between china and japan over the islands and as i was arriving, as i was taking a taxi i saw it was just a news alert from my desk in new york saying the are two b-52 bombers just flown over the disputed islands in a show of force. i would ask you both about that. >> by understanding is the b-52 flights are part of a planned exercise by the us and made clear it was not going to comply with the new rules and regulations that china had a 30 with regard to this unilaterally declared his own. i do think it's another example of provocative behavior. my own concern is that it does risk -- raises the risk of miscalculation. to the extent we've had any real danger of miscalculation in recent years with regard to

military activities in and around china, it has been in the air. when the u.s. has been patrolling international airways, there have been times when chinese air defense fighters have scrambled, and in some cases operate in a very aggressive manner that increased the risk of accident. my worry is that if you now have chinese fighters scrambling and consistently intercepting japanese or korean or other aircraft in any kind of aggressive or a certain way that you are by definition increasing the risk of someone being too much of a hot dog, someone not being safe, someone taking a risk at a tactical level that then becomes a strategic crisis. you know, another piii incident

or something like that. i do think this is an unnecessary provocation. what needs to happen is some serious negotiations among the parties that make claims to these islands, and steps to ratchet back the tensions, not be escalating been in this manner. >> okay. let me move on to the last questions now before i open to the audience. in the defense strategy in the middle east and in asia, should the united states slowly decrease its commitments in the middle east? as people have suggested a. and then at the same time, enhance or increase its commitments in asia as part of the so-called pivot? >> i am a firm believer that, in the rebalanced, meaning as we have relatively more bandwidth available coming out of to long

aground was in the middle east and south asia, we need to pay more attention to the asia-pacific because it is the region that will most affect our prosperity and our security long-term. that does not mean we take our eye off the ball in the middle east. it does not mean that we abandon our partners and allies there. the united states has long been a power that's been able to walk and chew gum at the same time. we still have vital interests in the middle east, even as her own energy picture at home changes. we need to maintain our forces there for deterrence, for crisis response, for building capacity of our partners and friends. so the rebalanced is never cast as a pivot away from middle east to asia. it was a relative increase in our attention to asia and to the

fundamental changes that are happening there, adapting our posture to this changes, while we still stay engaged in a key region like the middle east. obviously, as we come out, as we came out of the rack we are reducing our posture in afghanistan as we, to 2014, the number of ground forces will be changing. but our air and naval presence, our engagement with a partners and allies, our commitments to those key countries should not and i don't believe -- they will not change in my expectation. >> what are the conflict scenarios in either the middle east or east asia? and then watched the relation of american defense posture to those scenarios? so in the middle east and east asia, for instance, i conclude i do not believe the united states needs to repair itself to

conquer, occupy, and hold large land areas on the eurasian landmass. that does not mean it may not need to have military capabilities, but the notion that the united states would prepare for a land invasion of china and holding large territory in china as a serious military scenario, no. nor do i believe by the way that the united states needs a plan to conquer, occupy, and hold north korea, even in the event of the korean war. therefore, that drives the kinds of force posture you begin to think about in the middle east. i do not think the united states needs to plan to be able to say, conquer, occupy and hold all or much of the country of iran even in the event of a war with iran. i know it seems scary to even talk about these contingencies, but decisions involving many billions of dollars will come from talking about

contingencies. so you have to think about what if we want to be able to do and don't want or don't need to be up to do, at least not quickly. what do we need to be able to do quickly in the middle east or in east asia? we need to have formidable military capability, principally on the sea and air, that can deter and defeat rapidly any potential opponent largely with forces on hand or a visible within hours, at most a couple of days. those are fairly demanding readiness requirements but if you examine our forces, very small fractions of our total forces are able to meet those readiness requirements either in the navy or in the air force in both the middle east and east asia. in a way we have a base structure that is overwhelming centered on the united states, when we need a base structure that is much more projected outwards. yet that can allow us to get much more a fact from a larger,

from a smaller overall force structure. when you rely on one or two bases in a whole region, you create instability and temptations to an adversary. for example, when japan was contemplating its war plans in 1941, they looked around and said, if we wanted a war against the american, british, dutch alliance, we need to hit only three spots. three. we need to hit pearl harbor, the island of luzon in the philippines, and singapore. knockout those three and you've not got effective military opposition in the asia-pacific region. now, pearl harbor was a stretch. they pulled that off but you can see that when you narrow it down to that, wendy europe overseas presence is remarkably slender, concentrate on one or two key assets, that's actually not a stable position for a conflict in which maximum readiness is evermore at a premium.

>> okay. great. put your name tag side with i guess i will start over here. guys want. >> die salon, retired u.s. army. it would appear in today's paper that we are reliving the lessons of iraq as we tried to negotiate a withdrawal and follow one force in afghanistan. some of us that participated in some of that with the maliki government are kind of seeing this happen again. what would your advice be to the administration on dealing with the karzai government as we go forward in 2014. .. this is mad. ing. but, you know, i think the important thing is to focus on what is in the u.s. strategic

interest? i think a long-term strategic partnership that supports the afghan state and afghan institutions gaining self-sufficientty, inexpense, capacity, is in our interest nor all the reason we live through on 9/11. i think it can be done at the reasonable level of investment. and, you know, i believe and i share the view that if we're going to have i think wehe

also think we heard from the afghan people that the afghan people in most of the afghan leadership including i would say just about if not every f presidential candidate that is running for election early next year once the u.s. and the international community to stay. so i would hope that even if karzai persists in his very frustrating tactic of delay in saying he isn't going to sign despite the results of his own process that we will proceed obviously you have to plan for the wors worst-case and it would withdraw that we would seek towi maintain some flexibility to work with the new government to quickly put a framework in plact to allow what's in the strategic interests of both countries, which is a modest continued presence of the assistance to allow that to happen.

>> good morning and thank you to the institute for infighting me. i understand quite well that the u.s. strategy is going to beo more focused on national and pacific and the question is [ina about nato because from the countries on the other hand -- do you think that nato needs tor beme transformed and when i say- transformed, deeply transformed and once the conflict in afghanistan is going to be back to itself?point but from your point of view the role of the united states beating nato.extrem

>> it does remain relevant for the united states it is the first place we turn to for allies and partners and everything we do not only in europe but all over the world mg biggest concern is in the declining investment within natr in the defense and national security capabilities. and so, i do think that the alliance needs to think about how well we sustain a reasonable level of investment at a time when that's not popular for many parties inside europe had we get more bang for the buck and a greater code development and sharing, pooling of resources to

develop the capabilities. if each nation, each member, you know, cuts or reshapes its defense forces under budget pressures simply along the national lines, you will sub optimize what the alliance as a whole has available and we have to have a more coherent picture of the capabilities that the alliance needs across the board and how do we invest together to ensure that we have those even though not every nation may be able to afford every capability. >> nato is a creature of its member governments. it isn't merely a vessel because it's about ads enabling capabilities and synergies beyond what any of them could do alone or without prior planning. and i agree with michelle's observation but it comes back to

what do the member governments care about? if they don't care about asia and about what is happening in a lot of these other countries, you know, meetings in brussels are not going to make them care. it has to do with the role that countries like spain and others in a tub see for themselves in the world and the way they think the world ought to organize itself for common security. so for example, we talk about -- in my paper talk about defense is fast and slow. there are some areas of high capabilities where the states may think that they can make a contribution to the defense purpose they shared and you can try to notice those and analyze those including in the european mediterranean region or in the persian gulf. but also there are capabilities

that meets together slowly. nato has been focused quite a lot on afghanistan. i think we are still very early in drawing the lessons from afghanistan that we can use in mali, in nigeria and yemen, and sali a -- somalia. countries not just by the united states but a very quite a lot. the common learning about how do we give advice and support? a lot of it in areas that involve security but not uniformed military forces. frankly i think we are very slow along in learning the lessons from the last ten years of experience in afghanistan and iraq and thinking about the kind of advise and assist capabilities that we need for the future. in some ways we may have had more headway from the experiences of latin america and places like colombia but those are not well digested.

>> this question is for michelle. it was said at the beginning of the second term that chuck hagel was selected as defense secretary and you were not in part at least because there was a view of the president and the administration that they wanted to move away from more of a military policy that was described to me at the time we wanted to demilitarize the policy and you have a forward leaning point of view as it was perceived whereas he was seen as a different view and is this assessment at all accurate and second, what happened in the ensuing months where they have gone from iran to afghanistan as we are just discussing does that reflect there is far more

diplomatic and less military approach? >> i don't have a window into the president's decision-making, but i -- your explanation doesn't ring true to my ears. i think that chuck hagel has been a close association since their time in the senate. he served on the president's intelligence advisory board. i think there was a lot of discussion the first term about finding a place in the president's cabinet, and i think that discussion was naturally renewed when there was an opportunity to bring new people into the cabinet in the second term. so i think that is the president friendship and respect is what drove the decision more than anything else at least i'm not aware of any other factors and

not. >> if i could quickly follow up does the posture of this administration in terms of the demilitarization concern you at all? >> to be clear on my own views, i'm not a big proponent of the militarization of the foreign policy. i am a proponent of having a strong military instrument to support our foreign-policy goals. i think during a period of war because you have tens of thousands of americans in harms way on the ground, the voice of the department of defense in foreign-policy decision-making naturally becomes louder relative to times of peace when you don't have many americans in uniform in harms way, and i think that is appropriate and

it's important that that voice be heard when so much is at risk and at stake and the human ter terms. but i think that even those, the senior leaders in military uniform would agree that the military voice shouldn't dominate the circles and it needs to be informing that the date. in my experience in the years i served with president obama this is a president that has no problem hearing the dissenting views. in fact, to the person that is scowling in the back row, you will be called on and asked if you have had a dissenting viewu look like you have one. so this is a president who seek out the full range of views because he beliefs she makes better decisions that way. so i think that, you know, the dod should have an important

voice in those deliberations. i don't know anyone who believes it should be the dominant voice under any circumstances including me. >> just to follow up on your point about expanding, not contracting the u.s. global basing structure, the strategic logic to that is very compelling but talk a little bit about the politics and the policy dimension of that. obviously africana doesn't have a headquarters in africa because it is heard to find a stable democratic government to host that headquarters. our policy towards bahrain is also influenced by the presence of the fifth fleet. so other than the expansion of military presence in australia, how would you work the global politics of that?

but the second question would be how do you describe the strategic environment of the next ten to 20 years? we have gone through a bipolar cold war to a unipolar moment. are we now back to my think what samuel huntington described as a un multiple or environment that would be confronting over the next current cycle of defense and national security planning quick. >> the need for the structure overseas is mainly driven by areas where you think you need powerful and very high readiness forces nearby. those are principally about middle east and east asia. so then you want to work hard on those regions.

we are kind of going sort of country by country and island by island. what i can say is what you look at is due to people in the region want your help? do they think it is in their interest to have powerful highly capable forces nearby in order to provide them with the measure of security they think they need in partnership with you? if the answer to that is yes, opportunities begin to arise for all kinds of discussions that can then evolve over time and different configurations in different ways. again, the united states is not going to be helping to provide additional security in regions where no one wants america's health. but i don't think that that's the case for the two reasons i've mentioned. now the second part of your question actually has very much to do with the concept of what does it mean when you talk about the defense slowed? i think the dominant problem,

the dominant issues in this phase of history are increasingly transnational in character rather than international. that is they are defined less by blocks of powers as they were over much of the last three and a half centuries and defined more by issues that actually cut across the societies and are not easily categorized as uniform or domestic though they present a domestic face to the people in the country. against many of these kind of problems by the way transnational crime, whether it is cross-border crime that is killing thousands in mexico, or transnational terrorism that's killing hundreds in afghanistan, those sort of transnational problems are among the problems for which you need very powerful defense capabilities that it can be generated slowly and patiently over time. that is a very different structure with different needs for overseas presence in the political relationships.

and frankly, i don't think we have given enough attention to what is the ideal force posture to achieve that? >> i think we should be careful not to equate u.s. posture forward or overseas with u.s. permanent bases. in fact most of the innovation that is happening with the dispersal of the posture in areas like asia or the rebalancing within asia from being concentrated in the northeast are now covering down through to southeast asia, it is things like a great access agreement, use of joint facilities, planned bilateral and multilateral advisers increasing the tempo of the interaction and partner capacity building and so forth. so the only measure shouldn't be permanent bases, but it's the work that we are doing and of

the rotational base of forces that are passing through the region bolstering and reassure being our allies and so forth. >> we have about ten minutes left so what i'm going to do is get everybody in and have groups of questions. so let me hear from gordon adams and sean if you could ask your questions and then we will have another group. >> thank you. >> i have a lot of questions but i think the fundamental one is being increasingly curious about the relationship attained a budget and planning and planning and budget, and i'm wondering if where we are is really taking both of these fully into account in the context of a new world. and what i mean by that is specifically to what we have been talking about, whether a

safer -- i would like you to talk about how a safer and more secure world for the united states as he described is consistent with what seems to be a relatively aggressive forward leaning posture about putting american forces even more forward. i would like to hear more about that. the second thing is i'm curious about language in terms of planning especially constrained resources. the word in particular, and i want to ask michelle to talk to this a bit is the meaning of the word shape. we use this word freely in doing defense planning and the general national security planning. it's not clear how useful it is either in providing a guide when for policy and budgets or whether it is a realistic capacity that the united states has in the regions of the world in this new world. and i the third piece is readins

for what terri i would like to hear you talk a bit about readiness for what to cause we talk about readiness but for what is the question that so slightly addresses and i would like to ask michelle to address it, too. >> yesterday i was in a meeting and one of the comments that was made was when we have a state department plan and the defense department plan, how do we get a national plan. and i want to build on what gordon said about language. i was talking to lee a retired admiral and i said how would you change the navy? he thought for a moment and a set of language matters because in the navy, we name the ship's. so you start with the ships and then you figure out what you might do with them.

i'm just passing that on. >> my question is a plea for specificity on some of the comments that you have both opened with. how do you avoid the force? with major programs you say you don't need a long-range strategic bomber were you only need two legs of the nuclear tripod or you know, how do you avoid a hollow force and make the necessary? where i come from, a reduction in the planned future increases in spending isn't a cut, but then philip, aside from reading between the lines it seems that he wants to abolish the army. could you be a little bit more specific about how you get from here to there, what changes other than that basing and the

two different types of readiness what does that mean in terms of the force structure, what role is there for the army i army int kind of a rapid response force projection scenario? >> if i can make sure that you keep your answers because we have four more people in front. >> i will organize my answer in this way. you obtain a national plan when you have both leadership and a clear vision of what you are trying to do. otherwise the agencies are on their own. i'm sitting next to brent scowcroft and i saw a never -- never saw a better model from what the different agencies do. i learned when i was just out of britches the record of what fight fires were even ten years and sometimes even one year

ahead of time nearly zero, so you have to have a certain flexibility in what you are preparing for. that said, not all regions of the world are of equal concern. and so then the reason that is consistent with the kind of budget approach but i'm talking about is i'm imagining a course that is more reassuring because it is ready though its overall structure is small. instead of having to generate, you know, ten times the force so that one tenth of it is available. i'm also imagining a world in which you invest in your strategy and structure while times are safe so that you are ready and have a more useful structure when times are not safe. now, does that mean that i'm

specifically calling for the abolition of the united states army? i'm not. indeed, myra marx or no more radical than those other by secretary of defense robert gates standing in the very throbbing beating heart of the u.s. army in the united states military academy at west point in 2011. and if you go through my paper i make some arguments about the implications. >> i would agree with the fact shaping the international environment means all things to all people. so for me the most important elements are deterring adversaries from mr. for aggression and reassuring partners and allies of our commitment to them and working with allies and partners to build their capacity to contribute to the international

security. i agree with a lot of the comments about readiness for what we can't predict the specifics but i think the missions have been fairly consistent from being able to deter and defeat aggression against the allies into the crisis response and counterterrorism and so forth. that is just a sampling, not the full list. i agree with the importance of thinking the whole of government or from the national strategic basis when we planned. i think the one practical branch i will throw in the works is when you have gross resource imbalances between the agencies and a colleague of mine used to say you have a defense department on steroids come at least it used to be, not so much anymore but the defense department on steroids and state and life support come you get -- you may have a beautifully integrated plan at conception but when it goes up to the hill to be resourced and you get a

third of the resources you've asked for on the civilian side and 110% of the resources on the military side, the plan doesn't look so integrated and coherent anymore. and then on the hollow force, i do think that there is a lot that needs to be done in the defense reform the domain reducing excess overhead taking down 20% of infrastructure that our military leaders don't think they need any more, truly overhauling our acquisition system to get more bang for the buck and addressing compensation from unsustainable compensation costs. you know, you have a force that is about 1.3 million today about the size it was in 2001. that same force because of unsustainable personal costs cost twice as much as it did ten years ago. we cannot stay on that trajectory so that is the first place i would go to battle the

hollow force. >> okay a lightning round. we have bill, and considering negroponte and marvin kolb in that order. >> i wanted to pursue your historical analogy you mentioned if the mentioned as positive elements. you can find negative ones as well in the task force in korea, the drawdown after via. -- vietnam. what you've come to is the stakes in the drawdown are higher. the budget scarcity forces choices and that of the budget scarcity is critically important to get them right. if you agree with that, i would go on the question of search and is the most important step we

can take now to get some kind of budget deal that michelle talked about at the beginning not just because we need to get rid of the sequester because there's a crazy way to do budgeting, but also we need definition in terms of budget planning not just so the dod can plan but so they can force those hard choices because without that definition, people are always going to think that relief is just over the next budget he'll and the institution will be unwilling to make those choices. >> we appreciate the comment. i think that you are absolutely right in saying look beyond the frustrations of the day and see what are the strategic interes interests.

no pressure. it is going to work. we are in it for what? been a soviet foreign minister never turned up into the soviet ambassador raises his hand and says i have an important announcement which is the soviet union no longer exists. we have always been surprised and we will continue to be surprised, and to prepare for the unexpected is of course tremendously difficult to go to the congress and parliament and ask for money when you don't know what you are asking for. in that context with regard to nato what they say there is a meeting for september, 2014. we'vwe willwe've all been just g

out from afghanistan, most of us with some troops remaining. i think it is tremendously important at that time ready to play a leadership role in trying to shape what is next. i don't think the europeans will be able to do that. so a comment on that would be interesting. and then finally, there has been much talk about the middle east and asia for very good reason. the secretary of defense made a speech about an arctic strategy the other day and it would be interesting to hear your comments on that aspect of it. thank you. >> i would like to maybe bring the united nations into this. when i was ambassador to the un and i got briefed up on the situation in sierra leone, it

was a totabasketcase. they controlled a small sanctuary in the middle of the country's capital and the criminals of all kinds control of the rest of the country. and within several years time the un peacekeeping force with the help of the british reestablished control of the entire country. there were a couple other very good examples of the united nations action, liberia among others and now recently we have heard about this intervention force being sent into the eastern congo which is a force with more than a peacekeeping mandate, but a peace enforcing. my point would be coming and i've always encountered in the bush 43 administration a certain amount of compensation to words that capabilities into the utilities, the utility of the un although i noted that mr. rumsfeld as he started thinking about how do we get out of some of this heavy stuff that we've gotten