sierra leone, it was a totalbasketcase. 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 ourselves into baby

capacity in u.s. peacekeeping forces may not be a bad thing to think about. they cost a fraction of what it costs to deploy a force we pay 26 cents on the dollar for the forces not to mention the differential between the cost of fielding a un force and the cost of fielding an american force. it's an order of magnitude at least if not more. so my question would be hell much time do we or should we spend trying to factor in institutions like the united nations into our defense posture? i guess once way of saying it is how much do we think about outsourcing. >> last question. >> it seems to me that if we are discussing the future of american defense, we might give some thought to thinking about a future of the american relationship with china.

and i'm wondering whether you see china as a potential ally with whom cooperation becomes a norm or whether you see it as a rival against whom the u.s. house to position itself in one way or another. >> i'm not going to try to comment on everything that was said in part because i simply agree with bill and what he noted and i know very little about secretary hagel's strategy. however, i just simply want to note and endorsed john negroponte's basic thrust which is look at your institutional and think of them as assets in the construction of the defense strategy especially if you are looking at the slow side of the defense strategies. but even as michelle pointed out, the notions of space into posture or much were complicated than sort of the old-fashioned

extraterritorial concepts that many people have in their head and these international institutions have many times are proving invaluable. if you don't like the united nations we can think of two or three others that are doing some good work including the organization that right now has the happy task of trying to scoop there is gas out of serious. i did want to take just a moment to comment on martin kalb's point about the stance towards china. my answer has only two's mall parts. the first is since the chinese leadership themselves do not know how their country will involve, how could i possibly know? and india, they are arguing among themselves as to what kind of country they ought to have and what kind of foreign policy they ought to have and what kind of attitude towards the outside world and that is an unsettled

argument it seems to me inside of china so that is point number one. type number two since the united states does care little bit how that argument comes out the question then for the united states is if you care how it comes out what are the policies most likely to produce a victory for the side you would find sympathetic? that seems to me to be an approach that says we want to welcome china into sharing global responsibilities, not containing or excluding them from global responsibilities. this has been the view now that i and condoleezza rice and others have articulated now for some time. therefore the argument is by giving them the chance to participate in global responsibility, by giving them a sense of being stakeholders you don't ensure that china will not become something dangerous and you have to do something that had gigantic danger but you reduce the likelihood of that outcome and promote the

likelihood and the factions that favor a different kind of approach to the relationship with the world as they themselves are struggling to come to grips with a very new world horizon than the one that they grew up with. >> i would just add i do think it is the most important strategic question that we will face in the coming decades. there are currently both cooperative and compelling competitive elements and we need to try not only to support china becoming more of a responsible stakeholder globally but also incentivize them so that whenever there is a choice between choosing a more cooperative path, they see those committees he is see it's not in their self-interest to do that whether it is their economic self-interest or the self-interest of their standing in the world and their ability to influence events beyond the border and so forth. that said i do think that we have to have some hedge in the

strategy against the possibility that china may choose to compete or use military force to you know, person of interest in the future and we need to make sure we have a military that cannot readrate effectively in the face of that. but we want to do that in a way that is not feeding or fueling the more competitive dimensions of the relationship and that is a very fine line and that is the essence of the strategy work that has to be done. i wholeheartedly share the call that the u.s. will come to the summit in 2014 with the leadership vision of where the alliance needs to go post 2014. i think that this challenge is sort of lifting from the last ten years is broad.

i think as we think about how we ensure that this is a period of innovation and strategic repositioning for the u.s. military in particular as opposed to the time of decline demands that we really sort of open and brought in and in some ways change the way that we are operating to kind of incentivize experimentation, innovation and thinking differently than the sort of very well worn path we have been on in the last decade. so, i could go on about the un but i basically agree with you so i will keep it short and stop their. >> thank you all very much. a great discussion and we are only ten minutes over so thanks. "-close-quotes peanut

on tuesday former middle east adviser to president obama dennis ross took part in a panel discussion on the foreign policy

challenges facing the president. among the topics of the recent agreement with iran on its nuclear program and efforts to begin peace negotiations in serious. hosted by the new america foundation, about one hour and 40 minutes. >> i run the national security program here. this is part of a series that we have done over the past couple of years with our partners, the center for the new america security and the american enterprise institute. it's the seventh in a series of programs we have been focusing on national security. we have an all-star team to talk about the coming challenges and opportunities for the obama administration in the next three years. they are ambassador dennis ross on your far left who is incredibly distinguished public service career focus back to the jimmy carter administration and he is the author of multiple books on the middle east.

he said a senior policy roles on the middle east and the obama administration he was a the special advisor to hillary clinton. he is a counselor for the washington institute for near east policy. to his immediate left is robert kaplan, who is about to publish his 15th book. and one of the most distinguished journalists in the country, his book is on every subject imaginable from the indian ocean to the afghan to his new book on the south china sea have been gold standards in that subject area. finally, of course anne-marie slaughter the president of the new america foundation, the director of the policy plans at the state department former dean of the woodrow wilson school and the author and coeditor of six books. on my left thomas donnelly runs a program at aei and all third

multiple books on defense, one of the countries leading experts on defense policy committee since budgeting and finally, and not least richard fontaine card to president of cnas to boast important thing taken the country come and a former adviser to senator mccain. we agree are good to start with ambassador ross and then robert kaplan and anna marie slaughter. >> -- given 15 minutes to talk about the challenges in the middle east. so i have little to talk about. [laughter] i thought that i would do that in a somewhat unconventional way way. you know, i'm doing a new book right now and it actually looks at our foreign policy in the middle east from truman through the obama administration.

if i were to say that there was a message from the saudi's and a member of arab leaders in the administration that says we have basic doubts about whether you will stand by us under great threat, the region is going the wrong way and we feel vulnerable and we don't see that the u.s. is doing about it, people here might say that's not particularly surprising. but if i were to say i just quoted from a message from the saudis to the nixon administration in the fall of 1969 maybe you would put some of what you are hearing in a somewhat different perspective. it's not particularly new to have ups and downs in terms of questions about the united states in the region. i could actually try but i won't right now. from almost every administration after the current one. there is something that separates the past from the present in terms of some of the

questioning that has existed about america's sense of purpose, are we credible from the standpoint of some of our friends in the region and particularly what's different about it today is not so much that the messages have been conveyed in the past. what's different today is that it has been more exposed publicly and that is not the norm. part of the reason for the difference is that in the past there may well have been questions about the sense of american purpose result in the credibility, and often times that is promoted when some of the countries particularly the saudis might pay for that we not be asking things up then and obviously the best defense is a good offense. today there is something that is a little bit different in that what is different today is that there is an increasing question as to whether or not our interests and their interests are exactly the same. let's take the saudis for a second as a way of trying to frame the challenges in the

region and how you look at it. the saudis look at the united states today and say on egypt and serious and iran were not necessarily in the same place. on egypt the saudis support the egyptian military and they see it as a nexus and show struggle with the muslim brotherhood and they back it completely. they look at the administration and say maybe you're not cutting all of the aid, but you don't seem to be supporting the military in the way that we do. they look at serious and they see themselves involved in a kind of basic struggle with the iranians in that what is a kind of proxy conflict producing and actually heartsick conflict in serious in terms of both its humanitarian and even strategic consequences. they look at air on and they see that we have now joined with the other members of the five plus

one if they see themselves involved in the struggle. in my remaining 11 minutes, -- [laughter] what i would like to do is to sort of suggest a way to look at each of these issues and maintain a kind of perspective and in a sense implied or suggest a direction for what we can do. on egypt again i'm focusing now only because i want to kind of frame this in a more contained way. we could be talking about what do we really share in terms of our interests? what we share fundamentally as an interest in ensuring that it doesn't become a failed state. that would be disaster for the united states and it would certainly be a disaster for saudi arabia. the question at this point is who has leverage on the egyptian military and i think the answer

is we don't have the kind of leverage that we might like to have read i saw a recent poll that was done about the stability of the united states right now it is out a stratospheric level of 4%. so to suggest that we would have a lot of leverage even though we have not cut off our assistance would be to exaggerate reality. but they actually do have leverage and we do have a common interest in egypt not becoming a failed state and we aren't going to be able to go to them and say we think that egypt should be promoting democracy and find a particularly ready response when it comes to that kind of a suggestion. but as i said, we have a common interest in it not being a failed state and of the certainly want to be in a position where they are not the banker forever. so we could be focusing on okay what could be done to restore stability in egypt? you want to see tourism reemerge

in egypt. you want to see foreign investment. one of the things that can be done is move you much more in that direction, while for example if a civilian government in egypt were in power it for in a position to act on the economy if it could do a deal with the imf and if an example they would demonstrate they are serious about going back into for example they would've pardoned those who were found guilty during the morsi period of their representatives found guilty because they were doing such perfect things as teaching people how to organize political parties, teaching those how to run elections. if in fact those people who were found guilty could be pardoned, there could be steps taken that they have an interest in seeing because it serves their interest but it also serves our interest in terms of moving egypt and more of a direction. how to do that with the saudi's?

as an example we should be having a very quiet and discreet dialogue at a very senior level where we say let's focus on the issues where we have clearly a common interest. one is how to manage egypt in a more favorable direction target number to come on the interest of syria i said there's a there is a basic difference in terms of how the saudis see what's going on in syria, and i -- the administration has declared that he has to go, but we also have a chemical weapons deal which makes the regime a partner in terms of dismantling chemical weapons. there is a call that we don't know if in fact there is a date that has been set and we don't know if they are going to participate. at this point we have a date for a conference, we don't have an agenda and we don't know who the participants are. other than that we are in good shape. but here again they've just helped to organize a common

front the members of that front are basically none of them are on our terrorism list so there was an effort on their part to take account of who we might be able to support. and we have a common interest in finding a way to end what i said is a humanitarian disaster. it's almost unthinkable. you have a population before the civil war begancivil war began in serious which began as a peaceful set of protests which were not calling for change in the regime but calling for reform. you have a population i sat with

a senior saudi member before the question emerged. the israelis were out there pretty vocally. you have not been saying too much on this possible deal that is emerging. the answer i got was, why do we

need to, the israelis are doing a good job am a better than we could do, so we are happy to let them speak out against it. again, i would say there are concerns that the israelis have raised and implicitly that the saudi's have raised. in some ways, the saudi concern is different. it is driven by a fear that deals that we do with iran are basically a precursor to doing a large d but in a sense recognizing having a role that i think is something that is a ten to ferry that at some point we will begin to deal with the iranians and treated them in the way thatbe we did aswe in a sense our nature partner in the region. i think it is fair to say that isn't something that is just around the corner. it's fair to say i have a hard time envisioning we will deal with any deals that come at the

saudi expense. so what really are the concerns that the saudis and the israelis have at the first step deal and how might they be addressed? one concern that they raise is the raise is that the sanctions regime will actually for a and the leverage that we have on iran is actually going to erode at a time that we haven't actually negotiated a final deal? and the comprehensive deal that supposedly as now we are a part of the first step approach is called for to be concluded within one year within one year's time there are ways to address the concern about the sanctions regime. one thing that can be done certainly the administration's in the very beginning work very closely with the israelis on identifying the sanctions that most matter and on identifying all of the possible ways to avoid the sanctions and how you can close the loopholes on working to ensure that the commercial activity and those who might engage in it would understand the high reputation will cost the could again engage

in that kind of work and obviously we could be doing that with the saudis as well. we could do something else because i see that i am coming up on my concluding time. we could do something else. the administration has made it very clear that no deal is preferable to a bad deal. and while i understand very well that we do not tie our hands in terms of giving up way the play the bottom line one thing we could do is make it very clear what we mean by a bad deal? we've not spelled that out and at a minimum in private with the saudis and the israelis and others who might have concerns, we could let them know what we consider a bad deal to be. a bad deal would leave the iranians in the position where the nuclear infrastructure that they retain what the one that would permit them to break out of a nuclear weapons capability in a time of their choosing and with such a relatively short pier cow time we would have a

hard time to detect and do something about it so it ain't a bad deal would be one that doesn't roll back the infrastructure in terms of centrifuges to a relatively small number from the nearly 20,000 they have now and would be one in which the iranians would have more than a bombs worth of enriched material in the country and one in which they would have a heavy water plant which by the way he has no has no utility trying to produce electricity it's about the least cost-effective and efficient way that you could pursue if you are interested in generating electricity and the deal would be one in which you wouldn't have the transparency measures that would allow you to have high competence that you could verify the restrictions that you were an opposing. my point in these formative 45 seconds i have used that is to say that there is a lot of concern across the board in the region about our staying power and moves towards increasing energy independence and does that mean that we will maintain a high level of interest in the

region, talk about the period which is a way to give you a kind of segway that suggests maybe we would be less interested. the fact we have all sorts of reasons that would explain why we don't have less interest in the region that we could be doing more in other areas and that all of these areas where there are particular concerns there are ways for us to address those concerns but we have to do it quite systematically and we should be engaging in what i would describe as for strategic discussions to identify those areas where there are concerns that some of our friends have and where we can highlight for them to clear areas of commonality that we continue to maintain. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. let me pick up exactly with iran and the asian pipit. there are ways to read the interim agreement with iran. one way might be that given the troop withdrawal of iraq of a common troop withdrawal from afghanistan this is part of a

process to set the middle east house in order to some extent which might give us more leverage to pay attention to another area. the asian pipit i'm going to talk about asia and europe over my next 15 minutes. in terms of the asian pivot it was considered anyway 24 years ago when the berlin wall fell. when the berlin wall fell, there was a lot of interest and interesting discussion at the time about emphasizing asia. what happened was a few months later, saddam hussein invaded kuwait, we liberated, then the navy and air force got tied down in a no-fly zone over iraq for the next 12 years. then 9/11, then afghanistan and iraq. now we are out of iraq and getting out of afghanistan and we are back to asia. so it is also a natural and

organic evolution. and it's also an aspiration rather than a declaration because it aspires to put more emphasis on an area. but it only aspires to do so if the middle east allows come and the middle east doesn't always allow. what we talked a little bit about what is going on in asia from a historical perspective. for the last few -- in the past decades, in the 60s, 70s, the 50s many asian states were an internal tour mario. china had the great leap forward, the cultural revolution come it was internally focused. malaysia and vietnam were involved in internal war and rebellion. japan was in a croissant estate as an aftershock after the militarism of world war ii. so nobody was focusing so much about the lions in the bluewater about who controls what because

nobody could really project the power outwards because they were focused internally. move ahead a few decades and you now have china has had three decades of tremendous economic growth. it's built a real class naval air ballistic missile cyber warfare. it's in the midst of building if you believe in linear thinking the greatest land-based navy in history. by the 2030s that probably won't happen because the linear thinking doesn't happen but if you project ahead in that sense vietnam is totally consolidated bureaucratically institutionally and the same with malaysia. they've both been investing big-time in the navy's. there is a saying now that submarines are the new bling. everybody wants one. china has 62 of the quietest electric submarines they are going to surpass us over the

next ten years and vietnam bought four new classes which is an enormous number for a country of that size. the philippines went from a world war ii navy to a 1965 navy with the acquisition of some coast guard cutters. malaysia established new submarine bases and of course we have south korea and japan which have been nothas been not so much enlarging as modernizing their militaries. japan now has four times as many major warships as the british royal navy and even though it is in the air and sea warfare it has more tanks than germany in the center of europe. south korea i can go on and on and bore you with statistics so everyone is projecting power outwards with not so much old-fashioned land armies but a

real honest-to-goodness postmodern 21st century navy and air force and low and behold, they had disagreements over who controls what in the east china sea and the south china sea etc. etc. the other thing is nationalism has been somewhat passed until recently. most of the cold war you could argue that with a post-national phase. asia is different. nationalism is alive and well and kicking and very much in 1950s american meat and potatoes since. here you have really strong ethnic nations. there isn't a nato to unite the region. it is much weaker than even that he used today with all of its troubles. so you have to nationalism, you have military power, you have consolidated internal nations and you have capitalism,

successful decade upon decade which leads to the military acquisitions because when a state is successful economically it requires interest all over the world through trade or at least in the region and it needs to defend those interests so it starts building a military. so china looks upon the east and south china sea much as the americans look upon the caribbean in the 19th and early 20th century. i had a number of chinese offices tommy why do you criticize us in the south china sea? what are we doing any differently than you did in the caribbean in the late 19th century? d. munro doctrine wasn't about kicking out the europeans. it was about freezing the status quo because the europeans already left. in fact after the doctrine was promulgated, the u.s. and that u.s. and british navies cooperated over the slave trade so it was much more nuanced than the classic comic book version of the

doctrine states. it was about not allowing the europeans to dominate the caribbean while cooperating with other europeans in every other fashion possible. that is sort of what china is trying to do in its waters. it's trying to become the dominant power while at the same time not destabilizing its relationship with the united states, and the united states has to steer between two parameters which the obama administration is trying to do. .. china's geographic centrality and demographic and economic emerging power would make them too dominant in the region, more dangerous in the region than the u.s. has been over the past few decades. at the same time, it cannot let china dominate, we cannot get

into a war or into a real fracas with china because of the philippine -- vietnamese and filipino nationalism. we have too much trade equity, global warming, this that and the other, to allow any of this to be threatened by local nationalism. we have a narrow god that we have to ride through. looking long-term, we have to accommodate chinese military power to an extent. we will not have the pacific base in an american lake, and american naval lake, the way it was following world war ii. it will be more of a nuanced multi-polar order, but the u.s. needs to be the first among equals. now i will pivot to europe. i think europe is underrated. very much underrated.

we see it as the fiscal boring debt story. it is much larger than that. if you were a pol or romanian in the mid-1990s, the world looked great to you. you had escaped history, you had a path to the eu which was robust and strong. you are in nato or joining, and they were strong as heck, and russia was conveniently week and chaotic under force yeltsin -- boris yeltsin. now fast-forward to now, if you are of polish or romanian, a minister or defense chief, the world looks bleaker. the you has had five years of sustained, deep economic crisis which has weakened its geopolitical bandwidth in central and eastern europe. nato is just coming off a decade

long involvement in afghanistan which many could argue was lost and did not perform well in and has an identity crisis. meanwhile, russia is no longer weak and chaotic but led by someone, whether you like him or not, is a serious geopolitical thinker who is expanding the boundaries of russia in terms of influence. vladimir putin knows he cannot re-create the warsaw pact. that is not his goal. the warsaw pact collapsed because it was too expensive to maintain. what he seeks now is more of a traditional, soft fear of influence in central and eastern europe that is sustainable over the long term. the russians are buying up infrastructure, they are buying up banks, they are entering oil and gas pipelines. they have direct pipeline routes to germany and the low countries so that they do not need: for that.

meanwhile, poland is dependent on russia for natural gas through another pipe. poland, bulgaria, the baltic states, they all depend on russian natural gas for 90% of their energy needs. romania is an exception because it has its own energy. it only gets 30%. we are not seeing every creation of the warsaw pact. this is a more new ones, subtle europe of differing shades where the eu is less dominant, even though these countries are members of the eu. if you were to ask me who is the most interesting leader in the world right now, you could say president rouhani of iran. let me give you an obscure one to follow. the prime minister of hungary. he is an interesting man, very capable, sharp. he is moving hungary

demonstrably in the direction of neo-authoritarianism with more restrictions on the media, more restrictions on the economy, but then you have to ask, why is he doing this if he is so smart? he is closer to brussels geographically than moscow. he is in the heart of europe. hungary had a happy transition to democracy and capitalism in the 1990s. maybe he knows something that others do not, that the kremlin is more influential and brussels is less influential and he has to protect his equity. he is planning for the future. he is like the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. an eu crisis that goes on for five years with 40% on implement rates in certain countries is one thing. a crisis that goes on for 8, 10 years is quite another thing. attrition of the same adds up to

big change. you have a real disaffected youth population in western europe, less influence of the west in central and eastern europe. you have an authoritarian russia . you have europe that does not end at the mediterranean but at the sahara, so it is affected by the instability in libya tunisia, etc. europe is not just an economic story. it is geopolitically interesting and requires greater and greater attention by the obama administration. with my last two minutes, let me talk about the caucuses. the caucuses are interesting. in the 1990s armenia was pro- russian, but was not a russian satellite. georgia was pro-western, and azerbaijan, because of its emerging energy bonanza, was able to play off various blocks,

so to speak. armenia is now a hard-core russian satellite with thousands of troops on the ground. it just became a group of the customs union, like belarus and and -- context on -- andkazakhstan. azerbaijan even despite its massive energy bonanza its ability in previous years to play the israelis against the iranians and the turks and this and that, has to pay closer and closer attention to what vladimir putin wants. there is a lot going on in the world, in other words that is not specifically focused on the

changing balance of power in the middle east, but is affected by the changing balance of power in the middle east. thank you. >> for a second i thought that we would actually agree, that you would say europe is far more important than we realized something that i have been saying for 30 years. of course, and then you said it is far more interesting because the eu is falling apart and it is the non-eu parts that are strengthening. we will differ there. i will just note i am guessing that you, as many others were saying five years ago when the euro crisis started, that the eu would not survive to today. i still think it has its problems, but is still more important as the largest economy in the world.

you left me the rest of the world, which would be africa and latin america. what i will do is instead try to talk about the whole world but from a different perspective which will cover some of those areas but also look at some of the areas you will have talked about. i should start by saying i am delighted not only to be here -- the first foreign policy panel i have done in a while -- but to be here with our partners at the center for the new america aei. in 2009, i wrote an article called "america's edge: power in the network century." this was january 2009, just after president obama was elected. for all the focus on the decline

of the u.s., we were still using an outdated geopolitical frame that looked at the world in terms of big states and smaller states, but above all, separate states. in fact, in a deeply interconnected network world what was most important to be a global power was how connected you were to all other entities, nodes, countries, companies, groups around the world. from that perspective, the united states was the most connected power in influential ways, and if it built on that, had a much brighter future than anyone was projecting. i want to now analyze the first four years of what the obama administration has tried to do from that frame and then look at five challenges from that frame if you think about the problem as being in a deeply globalized

interconnected world. how do you enhance your position as not the central node, but as one of the most important? think about being on a plane. think about pulling out that airport magazine and looking at the hubs with all of the airline routes coming away from the hub or just think of a map of the internet and those huge central nodes that are so powerful. if you look at it from that point of view, economically, what the obama administration is trying to do is to make us once again the central trading and manufacturing platform of the world, which sounds like an almost delusional idea, if you think about everytihing that we pickup that says made in china

or now increasingly made in vietnam. however, as you look at the future of manufacturing, whether it is 3d or much more automated manufacturing, the united states as you have read, you are starting to see a re- shoring, the company started to come back. what the administration is looking at is -- the united states energy self-sufficient low cost of gas much lower than certainly in europe and elsewhere, with an educated population that is completely central and particularly by the two trade pacts they are trying to conclude, ttp across the pacific and ttip across the atlantic. if you think about that, they are thinking about a huge free- trade zone. we are all members of the wto. but a new trade agreement into asia and europe, with the united

states, and more broadly, the americas, in the center with lower cost, high value manufacturing. to come back to europe, lots of european businesses now are wishing that they were exploiting their own natural gas . there is obviously a big environmental debate. but they are seeing the u.s. become more competitive because of the lower price but also because of our technological advantages in various places. that is the first thing i would say. the administration has put a lot of energy into two very big trade agreements, and also thinking of us as a manufacturing platform and as energy self-sufficient. from the political point of view thinking of us as the most central power, how we have been focusing on a vision of the

united states as the central powers in a world of regional organization. this is again something people do not pay much attention to. how much we have invested in existing regional organizations and building new ones and now coming to asia, we still have a hard time getting to the asian summits. this last time because of the government shutdown. this administration has poured a lot into the east asian summit. when president obama came in, henry kissinger said the one part of the world where he is not institutionalized at all from a strategic point of view is asia. in apec you had hong kong and taiwan, but that could not be a security situation. now with the east asian summit, it can and does address security issues in east tennessee radically imperfectly, but at least there is a form there and

we are part of it. building the african union which we have worked with more effectively, and in the middle east. the arab league and the gulf cooperation council are imperfect, but i think ambassador ross would agree they have played more of a role in certainly the libya crisis and in syria, even without direct impact yet. there is an entity to engage. the idea that what we are thinking about is a world of strong regional organizations that we are directly connected to. in the americas, oas is still a weak organization from that standpoint, but we started the summit of the americas, thinking about beginning and energy community. looking at this from the military point of view, to be a more central node, part of what we had to do was bring our troops home from afghanistan and

from iraq. again, if you think about bringing a large deployments of troops home and then investing more in the war of the 21st century and again as a central node in the groans, cyber special forces that we can send out anywhere in the world and on the more institutional side, nato as the central node of a global security network, which is again this architecture that was developed at the 50th anniversary meeting of nato. from a social side, and this is very important in a networked world, the united states is deeply connected to every other country in the world through immigration and technology. immigration we have always had. what is new, ask any washington taxi driver, when they called or skyped home, it will have been

within a week, the last time they were physically at home, 18 months. our immigrants are linking back to their home countries. immigration reform is absolutely essential there to maintain and build upon a world in which your immigrants really are connections to their countries back home. finally and perhaps most importantly -- and i will come back to this on the challenges -- technological centrality. we invented the internet and we have been absolutely the most important central node in internet governance, internet innovation and again from the obama administration, for the cause of internet freedom, to have a global open internet, to have a right to connect. in that world of a global open internet, we are well advantaged as we move more and more online.

from a more conceptual, global power point of view, from the united states as the most connected nation in the world you can look at things that the administration has tried to do on the economic side, political military, social, and technology. now let me come to the challenges. economically, the biggest challenges i see are getting the two trade deals done. that is enormous. it would be very important with respect to europe in terms of really strengthening the eu, but above all, strengthening us and the eu. together of course we are over 50% of global gdp. even as china rises, that is a big number. then integrating in services and something that is never talked about, integrating in terms of standards. the eu eats our lunch around the world in terms of global standards for obvious reasons. it is a very large entity, and

that hurts american businessmen or mislead. if you are using the eu standard unplugs rather than the american standard, that is a big problem. integrating and getting common standards is enormous. in asia, if they can accomplish ttp and then leave open the possibility of china hope in -- joining, that would ultimately be like a regional wto where we are strongly connected to all the countries in the region, and the americas. of course, mexico and various other latin american countries are a part of this transpacific trade agreement. that is an enormous challenges that we have to be able to bring home. the second is addressing the problems created by the nsa spying by prsm. this is a huge economic threat that has not been talked about

or focused on particularly in this town nearly enough as an economic threat. if we cannot address the political fallout from the nsa starting with germany, brazil, and many other countries, we are going to suffer diplomatically but also much more importantly our companies are going to be seriously disadvantaged. the germans are talking very specifically about creating a german internet so it -- intranet so that not all data from germany is not broken up into packets and sent around the world, which is how it happens now, but that it travels only to germany, so we would not have access to a lot of that information. brazil is talking about doing the same thing. if you imagine the division of the internet along geographic lines -- i recommend bob

kaplan's book on the return of geography -- that is a disaster for all of our companies that assume data global flows. china is excluded but most other countries are still a part of the global internet. for google and facebook and all of our internet companies including ge, any company doing big data storage which is a growing number, that is an enormous challenge. politically, the biggest issues that i see at the moment -- i would be interested in ambassador ross' point here -- how we lead by putting civilian power first, which is what we are doing with iran, working with regional organizations diplomatically, how do we do that without credible that of -- threat of military first? i am a believer in diplomacy first.

i do not believe that diplomacy works very well without the credible possibility of some military action. i think that is what you saw in syria with respect to the chemical weapons. the chemical weapons. the minute a look like we were serious about using force things changed quite dramatically. it is interesting that what israel is dealing up -- gearing up to do is to say to the arena and, if you are not going to take a deal, we are going to take action. the president has not found the right balance between leading through diplomacy, but still making incredible that we would use our military where our most interest -- important interests are at stake. another area where we have a huge challenge, we are no longer seen as leading on global issues. if we are thinking about the centrality of the united states in a globalized, connected world, where are we on climate change, nuclear proliferation, i

think if we get a deal with iran , that is something he strongly believes in, but right now, it is --. we were going to lead on development issues, human issues. i cannot emphasize what ambassador ross said about syria. it is going to be the role on the of our time. -- the rwanda of our time. the people who have been there say it is the worst conflict they have ever seen. you're talking about war reporters who have seen bosnia, no shortage of horror. the united states is not being perceived as doing anything that makes a difference for syrian's on the ground.

from the military point of view i think the biggest challenge is for this administration to think about rules governing the next generation of warfare. we are investing in drones and special forces, but so is everybody else. there are 80 countries that have drones already. i do not think we want a world in which other countries can imagine taking out their enemies the way we have done with our own, without some kind of global rules. on cyber, we are thinking about that. with the social challenge, getting immigration done is critical. it is a matter of domestic politics and it is critical to building on what is one of our greatest strengths as a country -- having immigrants from all over the world and remaining connected to them back home. let me end on this huge,

technological challenge. partly our hubris and the sense that everybody spies, so we do too, if we can do it, we will do it. we will collect data first and then target individuals later -- the rest of the world sees this very differently. many americans see this differently. it is real. it is not the same -- we protest, but we spy, too. the europeans are very upset. i understand that. you don't bug your friends' cell phones. it plays into a vision of the united states that is a very negative one. it has a real repercussions. if countries decide to follow china, china does control its own internet. if you imagine other countries

following suit, the whole world the democratizing power of the internet and innovation and growth that comes from new technology could be pulled back. the pulling back of globalization would happen first in ways that would make the united states much poorer and make the world very dangerous. i think i am over. that is plenty to chew on. >> thank you. everyone was very disciplined about the time. just a reminder, this is being carried live by c-span. we are going to bring in richard and tom to ask our panelists additional questions and then throw it over to our audience. >> let me turn to bob kaplan for

a minute and then the others. i am interested in the connections between what the administration is trying to do and what it is trying to do -- in the middle east, and what it is trying to do asia. you dialback iraq, you dialback afghanistan, you have more available for asia. the quality of your security commitments and diplomatic engagement will bleed over into the way you are perceived in asia. i am interested in your thoughts on that. >> if you get involved in a ground war, that is going to deplete your attention elsewhere. asia did not like beingthe iraq and afghan wars. it meant less attention on dealing with the u.s. and china.

it meant less attention on the u.s. top policymakers in terms of military deployments. if you set good examples in one region, it affects another region. it affects your world because nations can only judge you on your past actions. if your past actions are not impressive, you're going to have less respect. there something else we are missing. we are prisoners of cold war area studies. of these hard and fast divisions between the middle east, south asia, southeast asia, east asia. there is a collapse. there is a fluid organic continuum exemplified with new pipeline routes, highways that are connecting south asia with east asia. you see china more involved in afghanistan and iran in terms of

mineral exploitation, buying more hydrocarbons. you see more heart -- hydrocarbons flow from the persian gulf to east asia. the connections between regions is becoming -- is increasing little by little. because it is a gradual development, it does not make a news story. the indian ocean is the maritime organizing principle of this. you cannot deal with the middle east unless you understand russia and vladimir putin. you cannot deal with energy and asia unless you understand the persian gulf. the fact that china and india are going to need more of their hydrocarbon resources from the persian gulf while the u.s. may need less and less. there is less of a distinction. in the extreme cases of getting involved in a land war somewhere

or setting a bad example that leads people elsewhere to question your power, the assumptions of your questions are correct. >> i want to follow up on that. there is a perception that there is not another actor like the united states . if the united states is not act it is not clear who will act. if it looks like we are retrenching that does send a message elsewhere message. and the point you made about the increasing dependency upon energy from the gulf area and the understanding that thatrea historically we have been the ones that made sure the sea the unrstand lines of communication havee sure remained open. that raises questions. commun who is going to do it if thepen united states doesn't

do it that leave us? there is a desire for us to be smart about how we use our power. there is a concern that if we begin to retrench and we appear that our dependence on our end up -- it is not a source of great reoccurrence -- reassurance to those in asia. one other point i want to throw out there, it is true putin has been playing effectively on the chessboard. i would also note that if the price of oil is high, that is good for putin and russia. particularly given their economic situation. if it is low, that is bad for

putin and russia. you don't have an effective rule of law there because companies cannot know what they can repatriate him because the capacity to innovate and russia is not what it ought to be. in a time when we have increased by about 3 million barrels a day what we are adding to the global energy pool because of what we are doing with our own developments, one of the reasons the price of oil has been relatively stable at a time when there is a lot of disruption within the middle east and because with -- because of what our policy has been has been because we continue to increase. if you put iran to the side, in

terms of iraq not increasing the way we anticipated, other disruptions like nigeria, if some of those disruptions were to disappear and are continuing to increase energy from here russia will not be in a great position. i am not sure he is as well positioned as he rephrased to the rest of the world. >> he is playing a good game now. the next half decade looks good for him. after that, it gets more complicated. >> every party has to have a pooper. every conference, it is cassandra. i will be the knuckle dragger.

if you had to compare, from my perspective, one of the measures for comparing the united states and the world today to five years ago is that there is much less military power and that there will be less capacity, less capability, less modernization. we are not substituting in an adequate way more modern systems for obsolete systems. even things like the asia have it -- asia pivot there may be a larger slice of the u.s. navy in the pacific, but the overall size will be so much smaller that there will be fewer ships. in doing our tour, we have not looked at ourselves and our capacity to achieve the goals to

remain something of a guarantor or a balancer, whether it is in the middle east and if the pacific pivot is to mean anything, it should begin with establishing a more or less ad hoc set of security arrangements than currently exist. if bob is right, we have to worry about europe again. after hoping we solved that in a lasting fashion. essentially, we do not have the capacity. as we change the character of our economy at home and what we spend money on, our inability to mobilize -- our ability to mobilize will take longer.

i wish you would look at the questions of american capacity, particularly military capacity and ask -- and answer the question -- what will the middle east look like without much american power there if the pivot does not materialize. it is not like we have a lot of ships in the indian ocean in the first place. >> i think we have 11 aircraft carriers and the chinese have one. >> not even one. it is a ukrainian piece of junk. >> 11 aircraft carriers takes a long time. what do you imagine war would look like? >> whatever the capacities

allow. any student of military history would not rule out a particular kind of war. we have always thought that technology was going to change the character of war. it never does. think of the early rounds field -- rumsfeld years. they came into office saying that we will not escort balkan schoolchildren -- they ended up in a large nationbuilding -- what was the endgame in syria? the idea that we could've have launched a couple of cruise

missiles. >> the indians announced a week ago that they are going to build their third aircraft carrier. they will be doing much better than the chinese. their ambitions, or lack thereof, has any impact on what we have just discussed -- >> they are building missiles to try to destroy our carriers. they are developing means to project their own power around the region. the first order of business for them is to trump our investments. >> it is not so much surface power, it is undersea power where the chinese are surging ahead. the indians, regardless of what their position is, they help

balance against china. there is something we are missing in this discussion. we are talking about our vulnerabilities, not other vulnerabilities. look at china. if you were to ask me what the single biggest question is in the world today, i would say that the direction of the chinese economy. i think their economy is in much more dire straits that has written about. they are on a credit bubble they have ghost cities expansion is slowing down. >> you can't breathe the air. >> there may come a point when their economic slowdown causes social and political unrest that crimps the advance of their military budgets. that is why i said do not believe in linear thinking. it is interesting to know, but i do not -- to say that the

chinese are going to have the greatest land-based navy in the mid-2030's is a stretch. things will happen to intervene. it is not just our vulnerabilities. it is china's. the threat in europe is not going to be a new cold war. what is happening is the eu is different trading -- differentiating. the further away you get from germany and the low countries, the worse the economy tends to be. the threat in europe is not going to be the cold war threat. it is a much more specific new wants threat such as may be protecting poland and the baltic states and things like that. >> nobody else can project power the way we can. nobody else has the kind of

mostly because of the experience of last 12 years where we fought these wars, we have a capacity to integrate intelligence with battlefield management fuse our capabilities because of our experience the way that nobody else has. it has contributed to the point you are raising. we are not prepared to continue to spend the kind of money on the military that we have. we will have to think about what that means for our place in the world. it is not the first time we have had a. of -- not the first time we have had a period of entrenchment. some of them may come back. it is hard to imagine right now because there such a sense of

wariness and weariness with being involved in conflicts that look messy. they never quite produce an outcome that are suggested they will. it leads us being cautious about what we want to do in the rest of the world. the question becomes -- let's not focus on the current snapshot. i do not think things will remain static. i think the chinese have enormous strengths, but they have enormous vulnerabilities. one of the jobs i had was in the office of med assessment. one of the things that you focus on is how do you compete? where are the vulnerabilities of those that you are competing with? there are different measures of

power now. with you, i am not prepared to write off the role of military power because sooner or later, it has a place. does diplomacy work without the credible use of coercion to back it up? it is hard to find examples of six -- success without that. if it becomes clear that we are not capable of projecting power because we have become too hollow, it is going to have a diplomatic consequence. my larger worry is there is nobody out there who fills that vacuum. vacuums do get filled, and not by useful forces. >> we are an hour in five minutes and then we have not mentioned the world -- the word al qaeda.

that is a form of victory. we have a group of very serious people who do not mention it. >> it is, although had i had 18 minutes, i wouldn't have mentioned it in large, but i would have mentioned it in syria. it is an illusion for those who think syria is a humanitarian catastrophe, which is, i think the pitcher -- picture is much worse than anybody knows. the stories of torture being used against babies in front of their parents is so unspeakable. it is not even out there. the bigger strategic worry that we should have about syria is that the number of al qaeda that

are going to syria because bashar al-assad is a magnet and the idea that somehow they will not embed themselves, i think that is an illusion. >> what can be done, other than recognizing it as a problem? what can be done now? what is a reasonable thing for the obama administration to do? is it a waste of time? >> i will follow you up. >> to start on your al qaeda point, i think we have to continue thinking that anywhere there is a major power vacuum, it is basically we should be

thinking of it as a place where al qaeda or affiliates can set back up. it is a network and it is a network where you can suddenly have a more active node. we can never not pay attention to ungoverned spaces. i just meant in terms of the kinds of forces we need, we are going to need the forces that can fight those networks more than huge, land-based conflicts. i think our best hope in syria for humanitarian reasons as well as strategic ones, it is a disaster on both fronts, is something like geneva where we can broker a political

settlement that includes safe zones and u.n. forces to police them. i only thing that can happen if the united states and other countries make clear that if we cannot get that agreement, we are willing to use force in some way. whether it is using force to cripple the regime, i understand the dangers. i understand the dangers of doing that, but my point is, we have nowhere -- we have gotten nowhere unless we say to assad -- you have to remember from the beginning, it was not a secretary in saying -- secretary in thing. -- secretarian thing. they took bullets, people were

-- snipers, the works, before they set up their own forces. assad wanted to be a secretarian conflict from the beginning. he did everything he could to fan the flames. now it is a secretarian conflict. you will not get anything unless you make it clear to him that the other side may not win, but he will not win either. we are willing to take the measures that will stop him from doing what he is doing. then you get to a political settlement that can be enforced. if there were good answers, we would have done something. i think the alternative to that is watching this thing go for years and possibly looking at the changing borders around syria and turkey, a rock -- iraq and much worse.

>> al qaeda seems to be preoccupied with killing shiites and is less focused on larger, x essential american threat. that could change on a dime in that years to come. i cannot imagine any kind of agreement in geneva that does not involve putting large-scale troops on the ground to police it. i do not see how you get to orchestrating a peaceful settlement in a country that is war-torn, divided among dozens of groups, with 20 million people. >> i don't think -- that is why said you and troops -- u.n.

troops. i agree with that. >> i don't see how you produce a political settlement unless you change the balance of power on the ground power -- on the ground. it is shifting in the wrong direction because of iranian backing assad. the syrian's use all of their firing power from a distance. if you don't change the balance of power assad does think he is winning. he cannot put syria back together. at some point, we will have to define an objective in syria. we want a political outcome and that is the best result, but it is impossible to produce it unless the ballast -- balance of power is change in the ground. you have to ensure that it is

clear that assad cannot win that those that align with him know that he is not going to be the future, and that there can be assurances for them if they split from him. if we can do that, the war will continue to grind on. at some point, they will embed themselves in parts of syria and then we will face in syria what we face in yemen today. it is a matter of time before it gets to that point. you are looking at a war that will grind on. today, you have 600,000 syrian refugees in jordan. it has a huge effect on jordan. you have a million in lebanon. it is raising the level of

violence in iraq actually was in 2008, sharpening the divide, making it harder to come up with a lot of understandings within iraq. this is a cancer that is not going to be contained within syria. unless the objective becomes containment, which itself requires building up localized leaderships within syria. you make a decision to ensure that the reality of localized rule produces fragmentation in syria, but then you invest in localized leaderships and have them become buffers. even that because -- even that requires safe areas. >> i was struck in the reporting on the timeline aspect of the iran negotiations, it put a

different set of colored lenses on our serious strategy and arguably our strategies more broadly. if a nuclear deal with iran becomes the prime directive, how does that affect our approach to syria? does that constrain our ability our negotiating position in syria if these things are linked? we cannot afford to tick off the iranians as we are trying to lure them to their nuclear destruction. >> i am a believer in negotiations. you cannot achieve anything if you do not have leverage. if it looks like we are prepared to concede what iran might seek

in syria, i wonder, those who think -- in the arab world, i like to say that conspiracy is like oxygen and everybody breathes it. there's this big fear that we will do a deal on the nuclear issue and in turn will give the iranians what they want in the rest of the region. we make it clear that, no, we have a set of clear objectives in syria and elsewhere. we're going to do things with our friends. we will shore you up because we are committed to that. iran becoming a threshold nuclear state is not acceptable. if there is a diplomatic way to achieve that, we ought to try. iranians should understand that they can have civil nuclear power, and we are prepared to accept that, but the way we

approach that is not going to be linked to everything else. if we link it to everything else our ability to negotiate would disappear. >> with all the various conversations about the iranian deal, i have heard experts saying that syria is getting out of control, even for iran. iran supports hezbollah, has below supports -- hezbollah supports assad. this starts destabilizing other countries and it is not a prospect that iran can --. one thing that we do know is that iran wants to be recognized

as a major power. i would agree with no linkage but i imagine that if you can get a deal and it is a real deal , we can then engage iran, the prospect of them being part of negotiations on syria and on other key areas is something that seems to be leverage. that is something iran wants. that is at least think about. -- thinkable. >> as long as they are prepared to play by a set of rules. if they won a set of rules that gives them hegemony in the region, that is not an acceptable set of rules. it is one thing to have a respected place in the region. they have a set of interests. it is possible to accept that

they can have civil nuclear power, but they cannot be converted to a nuclear weapon. they can have interests respected by others, provided they are prepared to accept others' interests in the region. >> just because you open up a dialogue with a big power that you are estranged with does not mean you neglect your other allies. once you do that, you lose the leverage. right after dealing with the chinese in beijing in 1972, henry kissinger flew to moscow. even though his deal in beijing was against the russians, to reassure the russians. i would imagine in the coming months, if secretary kerry were make -- were to make a trip to tehran and then he were to fly

to tel aviv -- >> i would suggest he needs to go to those other places first. if he goes to tehran first i will put it this way -- surprise in diplomacy works if it is such a transformational surprise that everyone sees the benefit. surprise in diplomacy does not work if it is anything less than that because your friends will read the substance of what you are presenting through the lens of their suspicion. they will already have their defensive worries built a very high and what they hear is interpreted through that lens. they may not hear what you are saying. they will hear only their fears. >> we will throw it to duende to the audience -- q7&a to the audience.

we will start with this gentleman here. >> >> thank you. just some breaking news, b. 55 bombers just flew over the island in the east china sea and because of china just announced the air defense identification so could you tell us how do you think about the motivation of the u.s. action and also what is the rationality behind china's announcement, and could this lead to an escalation of the tension among the three biggest economies in the world? thank you. >> the bombers are from which country? >> the u.s. the b-52s are from

guam i would assume. >> yes, first of all, given that china's military is growing and growing at a faster rate than other countries in the region it would make sense for china to wait and the late and not start the crisis is the longer it goes on the more the balance of power shifts in china's favor and that isn't happening. so the question is why isn't it happening and why did china declared the air defense zone over this region? i would say because they have emphasized kind of a neo-mauism into the chinese economy is struggling. the tensions are more than they were before. it noteworthy how much nationalism has been dialed up in japan as well in the past few

years. if this is correct, i'm just taking your word for it, if this is correct, it is a show of force for japan meaning that the pentagon, the white house thought that it was serious enough to chinese declaration of the error security zone that merited the u.s. response in defense of japan. let me note that if in fact this happened, this shows how insecure the area is because if you have to actually go to the trouble to send the bombers over an area normally you should just signal this without actually having to do it but if you actually have to do it it shows you how much more severe the security situation is in asia in the region we've taken stability for granted for too

long. we thought for decades that asia is a business story. it's for fortune forbes magazine come is a business story but it's slowly gradually becoming much more than that. >> i would add two points. yes, to me this is the most dangerous possible crisis that we can imagine and it's like when the japanese captured the fishing captain that night i literally thought we could be looking at syria for 21st century style where if they fired into the japanese responded in the united states has to come to their defense. i would say two things, one it is possible that we are doing this aimed at japan and china and partly yes we are saying to china do not think you can do this with respect to japan and we will not be there but we are also saying to japan do not respond, we are here and that's important. in other words we do not want japan to respond in a way that

could escalate. so i would see that message as well. but the other point, and i think that with you on tv co. -- we haven't talked about domestic overtook the enough, but he announced an enormous set of reforms, the economic reforms if he can carry them out are being looked at as fundamental as some of the original reforms and he's really talking about liberalizing parts of the chinese economy that needed to be liberalized talking about going after corruption. that's going to cause all sorts of domestic trouble. so it is also the nationalism is -- >> he can do both things. >> exactly, but he has to create space for himself to be able to do this economically and that means he has a military constituency and a young nationalist constituency and he's trying to juggle those things created may not be

something he wants to die him up, but he has to area. >> another question. this lady over here. >> hello, member of the truman project. i haven't heard anyone mention the country of turkey except for ms. slaughter briefly mentioning it and how they are a major actor in the region especially with serious. recently i traveled to the area especially in the province and it would break your heart to see some of the refugee children that have traveled there but turkey is taking care of 1 million people right now refugees. one question i have is coming into the question that no one knows who the opposition would be if we were to help them get more developed lead and whatever it may be and whatever you think of turkey's position playing in that region.

>> annemarie said something earlier that was right. early on in what happened in syria, this started off peacefully. not only did it start off peacefully, the opposition was dominated by those who were nonsectarian and who wanted an inclusive serious. what's happened over time is that you've had recklessness come to dominate the opposition from the standpoint of fighting capability. in no small part because they had the money and they had the arms. the issue is whether it's too late to try to support the three syrian army in a way that would make it possible to shift the balance of power. one of the things that's happened is that there's a kind of collaboration between the serious army and some of the radicals because this is a way

there's been some fighting among them and also some collaboration and that's made it difficult to have provided arms you could really count on having higher levels where you know where they end up. it seems to me that if you really wanted to do something to change the balance of power you would have to decide that you were going to support the three syrian army. you would have to do something that we in effect always wanted the opposition to have one address. you need those providing support to have one address. you need it to all be coordinated. you need to have everything channel, you need to have training workout in one way or everything an accomplice refashioned that has not been the case and the question is whether it is too late for that. i'm not sure it's too late i still think it needs to be part of what might be an integrated strategy towards trying to affect the balance of power.

turkey has a huge stake in this. i think this is an issue of some dissidents within turkey itself. you asked a broad question, start off by asking a question about the rule of turkey and you sort of them morphed into focusing on only serious. you know, if turkey had a foreign policy that was described by a slogan that was called zero problems with neighbors, today it has only problems with neighbors. so i think that turkey itself needs to be rethinking a little bit about what its approach to the region is going to be. the fact is you may have noticed that egypt is dramatically downgraded its relations with turkey recently. what happened to the muslim brotherhood by the way not only in egypt. if you look at happening to the muslim brotherhood across the region, the muslim brotherhood was very strong in opposition

and empower its been completely ineffective everywhere that it's been and it's not a rising force right now. it's a declining force right now. for turkey the muslim brotherhood is basically these are sister parties so turkey has to think hard about what it posture in the region is going to be at a time of what it thought was going to be the rise of political islam would actually be a vehicle for playing a larger region as a whole it has to rethink that posture. turkey by definition can play a significant role in the region. it's not playing the role that it envisioned for itself and i think it has to rethink that posture right now. >> there is another point which is turkey tried to manipulate the crisis in the serious and iraq. it could be a regional player mid-level power. what happened partly is that it

became embroiled with its own problem because the southeast quadrant of turkey is heavily kurdish so when it tried to affect the events and serious or iraq its own problem got in the way, and turkey has basically rammed up against its own contradictions and serious and iraq. it is now the latest iteration. they've built this pipeline from turkestan through turkey. but whether they turn on the tap or not is very questionable because that would hurt turkey's relations with baghdad. so turkey is likely to definitely to embroiled in the region itself to project power without a lot of complication with its neighbors. >> that's right, but one thing that we have paid very little attention to is they just met with the head in iraq which is

quite extraordinary to have a side-by-side meeting. this gets him support across the country many of whom are in istanbul and in fact one turkish expert i talked to said that this would help. he's actually done more with respect to the kurds in iraq than any sort of his doric event event. >> he has been trying to use the kurdish issue within turkey as part of his effort as he looks to a change in the constitution which would empower the presidency so if he were to swap positions and become president then he would be able to be president with power as opposed to a more ceremonial. so the point is you were talking about the relationship in china between what is the internal posture and the external

posture. we tend to think about the relationship thing with the domestic and foreign policy is. this is a centerpiece of what's going on right now and it turns out we are not so unique in this respect. >> one more question for the gentle man here. >> i am sort of reminded of citizen kane. how do you find the business conditions overseas and he says with great difficulty. how would you define the relationship between the president and his peers? you have "the wall street journal" below the piece and angela merkel probably the whole nsa affair and we now have the president and mr. putin get along so that is one question. you had doctor rice here in september wrapping up a trip to afghanistan. both she and the ambassador forged their reputations.

how are they doing to claim that phrase command to the ambassador ross, how is secretary kerry during? >> that is one long questions we have to have short answers to those. >> go ahead. [laughter] >> i think both ambassador rice ambassador power are in an extraordinarily difficult situation from the point of view of having both been very active in libya and obviously outside of office, but an office of supporting the intervention in libya, and certainly i think wanting to be able to act in serious, but part of what's happened with all of this is at every turn, it looks absolutely

awful. it is profit in certainty. or you going to do this and get out of it? we are better off not acting until year later or six months later when it looks like if we had only acted six months ago, maybe we could have done something. so the question now i think if we don't act now in a year or two years we are going to be looking at a middle eastern equivalent of the 30 year war and we are going to be wishing where once again you have sectarian and borders on a sectarian conflict and borders at issue and then we have to act now. but i can understand that if i were sitting in the situation room in the white house and the president said to me please lay out what it is we are going to do and how we are going to do that, i'm not sure that i would have a great answer so that's where they are. >> i would just say secretary kerry has shown himself to be a risk taker. he rolls his reputation on the

negotiations wherenegotiations where the probability of a good outcome is probably below 50% coming and he's giving it not in one negotiation but several, not just with iran but with the palestinian and israeli one. this gives him more power than maybe he's given credit for. he's not looking to his next job so to speak. he has been underestimated. >> i would say the key to diplomacy to be effective if you are a secretary of state is to be prepared to take calculated risks, to have a very high level of energy and determination and i would even say tenacity and third, to also know how to exercise patience. the idea of calculating risk and patients may seem like those are consistent accurate tributes

there is the key to diplomacy, and i think that he has the potential is supposed as the challenges, he is issuing a readiness to stick with it and that is i think it is a necessary condition for success but it isn't sufficient for success. >> thank you to the brilliant panelists, anne-marie slaughter and thank you for coming today and to the audience for watching this. [applause] ♪

what do you think? >> i think we have to understand what is going on in health care across the country. and we have gotten ourselves into a situation where we knew we had to change. healthcare has become so expensive in the united states but it's now consuming 18% of the gdp. it's starting to eat 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. we have to harness the inflation rate and we have to control it and bring the cost down so that we can remain competitive. now we have been asked this a

long time coming and beginning to drive this is a process that started several years ago and how we have begun to try to make our health care delivery more efficient, we have, for example consolidated the services and hospitals. we have closed one hospital that was 2 miles and frankly we consolidated services, we consolidated services for obstetrics for rehabilitation, for cardiac surgery, for pediatrics and for trauma. for example when we consolidated the services from the chama centers in cleveland to three, we saw a 20% improvement in mortality rates so this has been a long process where we were trying to reform this and what's going on right now is that it's a lot of the things are things are coming to a

head that we have concentrated on taking up the cost, for example things like purchasing. in the last two years we took $180 million on the purchasing. and we've done things like eliminated the redundancies. we have put blocks so we donated some 10,000 tests that would have been redundant.

the 60s were -- the 60s were different. [laughter] there were a lot of things happening involving race, the breakdown in the structure in society. i was suddenly out of the seminary and in new england and there were no rules. things were falling apart and without a structure it's very difficult to navigate. i was extremely fortunate. i was extremely fortunate to still have had a residual of the way that i was raised by end of the structure that the seminary had given me. i was also extremely fortunate because i had already been in predominantly white schools. i was the only black kid in my high school in savanna.

so the transition to the school with very few blacks in a very difficult set of circumstances, academically and otherwise i had sort of a jumpstart. i was ahead of the game so it allowed me to continue to do well. the hudson institute recently held a discussion

looking at the micro enterprise and how that can spur job creation. micro- enterprises are small businesses with five employees or less, starting with a small amount of capital. this is an hour and a half. >> good afternoon, everyone. [inaudible] -- welcome you to this afternoon's event. and we will be discussing micro enterprise as a job creation strategy. as an economic opportunity program, we are really focused on the challenges that low to moderate income americans face today in trying to earn a livelihood in today's economy. we work with a variety of local initiatives andinitiative and institutions that are developing new strategies that are supporting the economic vulnerable trying to promote their economic success. and as part of this work we've been hosting a series of conversations that bring together diverse perspectives from policy, academia business

education and other spheres to discuss the challenge that low-income americans face today. and so new ideas that can address these challenges and help move us forward. today's conversation focuses on the potential of the micro enterprise and to address the jobs invested in today's economy and jobs on the research and policy analysis developed as part of the big ideas for java series that is supported by the amy and casey foundation and kellogg foundation. we are particularly grateful to the pc foundation for their support of today's event, and i want to acknowledge bob and patrick from the amy tc foundation who are here with us today. and to start us off, i am delighted to introduce don graves who has three jobs so i will try to get the titles right deputy assistant secretary of the small business community development [inaudible]

-- president's council on jobs and competitiveness, and in his free time, he gets to go to detroit where he is leading the government investment in detroit and working with city, state business and nonprofit stakeholders. so he is a busy guy and you have more information on him and all of the speakers in your package so i won't belabor my introductions. i'm delighted to welcome dawn to the podium and please, join me in welcoming don. [applause] [applause] >> thank you so much, maureen and aspen for inviting me. it's absolutely a pleasure to be here to join this panel and talk about something that is critical. the president believes that we need to focus full force on ways that we can make sure that all people in our communities have an opportunity to succeed, particularly those who are the

most vulnerable very low-income residents of the communities. one of the things that i doing my job, both of the treasury and not the white house is try to find ways that we can support a whole range of folks as they create jobs. as they help to grow the economy and make the country more competitive. and the work that the aspen institute has done and the field has done at the aspen institute is so important because it is hoping to show that there are mechanisms that we can support micro enterprises as they grow and ask connie says to me all the time -- you will hear from her in a little bit of -- one and three is the tagline that she talks about. so if one of three -- and i'm going to mangle this, but if one out of every 3 microamps

reprises in the country are employed, one additional person would be in full employment. it's important for us as a nation come in particularly those of us that work on policy to think about ways that we can support growth of micro- enterprises, because that will help us get to a place where we as a country are more competitive and we can get the communities more stable and growing. as you all know, the president has spent a lot of time focusing on ways to support small businesses. he has passed a lot of legislation with the help of congress. he's implemented new programs and it's because we recognize that micro-business is basically account for 26 million u.s. jobs. that's not a small figure. and with large employers in the recent years hiring less more than any of us would like it's

all the more important that the self-employed and independents take a more leading role in our economy. so there's a range of things that the president and the administration have done to support small businesses and micro businesses in particular both with direct support through loans and investments and through a range of programs across the administration. but also, indirect ways that we support the micro enterprises through regulatory improvements through supporting mechanisms like grant programs that cost the government to support of regional efforts to grow micro-enterprises. in fact, some of the things you may not have heard about including one-stop shop. we have known all along, those of us that have worked with small businesses have known it very difficult if you are an entrepreneur who wants to find out what resources there are at the government, you can go to

one of two or 300 different websites and get that information or you can call it around and maybe you will get the information that you are looking for. the president heard loud and clear and said we need a one-stop shop for businesses for an object or who wants to get a certain piece of information or learn about the range of support mechanisms. that's why the president created business.us. the way that business owners can use it to grow their business rather than wasting their time trying to track down information going to thousands of different links on a website. similarly, the president has sought to streamline regulations that are hampering small businesses. we know that this is an issue for small businesses at the local level and at the state level, while it was also a problem at the federal level. so the president signed several

executive actions to reduce the amount of regulatory burdens on small businesses and asked all of the agencies to look at those regulatory rules that were in place that were hampering the small businesses from being able to succeed. so the agencies went back and looked at the rules on the books and found in many cases that they could either wave or they could tweak the rules to make it easier for businesses to engage in the work that they need to do in creating products and providing services and not having to get hampered in the red tape. so that's just one of many different things we have been doing to help small businesses. ..