endorsements for, say, 2010 or earlier. it's hard. you basically need someone on inside and we happen to have that for this one election cycle. but we like to get. were hoping to do just to get a sense -- i don't think they endorsed nearly as widely in previous races. they didn't see as much of an urgency but in some cases they did that and we're hoping to measure that. .. >> these are mostly state legislative races, a few

congressional, but generally, you know, voters don't have a ton of familiarity with the people on that ballot. so i think for the voters it was actually a pretty typical election. there and you remind me what the other questions were? >> so the others were would you expect a similar effect in a higher visibility race, and would you expect the parties really to start weighing in this more often in primaries, primaries and higher level races such as for congress? >> so they, these endorsements were for congress as well. so we actually have a pretty broad distribution state assembly, state senate and congress. it's just a general mix. and so i would expect them to continue doing that. i think one of the key questions is how much primary competition will there be in the future, how much of what we saw in the 2012 was a function of the

redistricting which was also pretty radical in california in the basic sense that it moved the lines a lot. there's a lot of uncertainty about who with am i representing, how well do they know me and my name and so forth. and are they going to be involved in the future at higher levels, i would actually can't that it would be less likely. if you've got a legitimate race on your hands, it's the kind of thing that i i think the party in this endorsement process would probably just want to set out. you wouldn't get a consensus developing in the way that you would for these lower level races. and perhaps the endorsement wouldn't carry as much weight because it's a higher profile contest. voters have more information coming at them from other sources. so, i mean, it's going to -- the coming, the coming election cycle, 2014, is not going to be a real great test for that because jerry brown, basically,

is not going to face any competition for the renomination on the democratic styled, and on the republican side, you have abe mold mad doe who actually was the author of the top two primary, its greatest promoter, running as the main candidate. and this guy, tim donnelly who just stepped in the race, he's kind of a tea party candidate. he's a little interesting, so we'll see if -- [laughter] since we're on c-span potentially i don't want to say anything too bad, but he's, um, you know, it remains to be seen whether he'll be able to get a broader base of sport within the party. because abe moldinado is sort of persona nonyacht that because of the top two primaries. there could be a potential for a real fight there. the republican party does have its own systems similar to the democratic party system for deciding these nominations, so we'll see. >> just on that question of

party involvement in primaries more broadly, a couple of days ago the executive director of the national relin senator y'all committee said that the nrsc might start actually playing in republican senate primaries to insure that more electable candidates become the nominees, including possibly spending money in places like louisiana and georgia. and, of course, as jeff mentioned a little earlier, if the nrsc's hands-off approach led to your todd akins and richard murdochs. the problem more them is that hands-off policy started because they tried a hands-on policy which really backfired, and in 2009 they rather infamously endorsed charlie crist in florida. that sent conservative activists through the roof and had a big impact on marco rubio's rides and eventually crist not only leafing the republican party, but now becoming a democrat. i think those conservative

activists can feel pretty justified in their anger. so i think for at least on the republican side, they're really stuck between a rock and a hard place of wanting to insure electable candidates, but the more that they play in these primaries, the more today risk giving fuel to the less electable candidates. and i think if i were paul brown from georgia, i would welcome the nrsc coming in and spending money on someone like a jack kingston or a karen handle. >> i couldn't believe they announced that publicly. there's enough outside groups on the republican side with establishment money that they could have done that without having the party -- [inaudible] so i was really surprised. >> come over to this side of the room. >> i have, i'm bill that her from northeastern university. i have comments on two of the papers. one, the paper on the politics of recovery. two other names you could add to your list are harold washington who was both debarred and spent

time in prison and then got elected mayor of chicago, and the other you want to go even further back is james michael curly who had a variety of -- i know he spent some time in prison for -- >> [inaudible] enter i don't -- i think that's wrong. but he got, he did serve time in prison for a, taking a civil service exam for somebody, and then finish that was, actually, at the very beginning of his political career and was never derailed for it. and one point i would make about that is it does seem that a lot of the examples i know of people who have done this successfully are people in certain kinds of ethnic and racial subcultures where there is a certain kind of suspicion about established government, where there's an aura of ill legitimatesty

around -- illegitimacy around it. and, therefore, you know, there were a whole lot of irish this boston who didn't really think it was all that bad that somebody took a civil service exam for somebody else, because they thought the civil service exams weren't all that fair and needed anyway. the other comment that i would headache is about the jewitt paper -- that i would make is about the jewitt paper. one, it's not quite fair to say the republicans did nothing until 1996. i don't know if you know something called the delegates and organization committee that was created in 1968 with very little fan tear, and yet -- fanfare, and yet ended up making of the same changes that the mcgovern/praisier commission did -- frazier commission did. and one reason is they were able successfully is there is this faction in the relin party, goldwater being the preeminent

early examine examine -- the second thing is i disagree with your comment that the 2012 reforms didn't work. it actually did significantly defront load the process in the following sense, that the process for the republicans in 2012 begins with eight weeks in which there is only a single or two primaries. and that allows -- i mean, the classic example of the kind of thing it allows, newt gingrich unexpectedly wins south carolina primary. and for a couple of days, is in the lead nationally in all the polls and romney is able to come back pause the next primary --

because the next primary isn't for another ten days or something like that. it's interesting to note that in previous years the south carolina primary had been followed three days later by super tuesday. that calendar had been in effect in 2012, it is not unreasonable to think newt gingrich would have been the republican nominee and at least in my view would have been a complete disaster for the republican party. so i think it actually did work with. >> well, and i don't disagree with you. i think it definitely lengthened the process, it changed the calendar. i think what i was trying to highlight was i think their goals in lengthening the process in bringing her states into the ross were perhaps intentioned this year. so they did lengthen the ross. there was more time between contests. we had that lull in late february that had not previously been seen. but yet fewer states voted was more state -- because more states moved their contests back.

not all due to the republican reforms, also in part due to some states moving their contests to hatch up with their congressional or statewide primary for economic reasons. and to your first point, i do recognize -- i write in my paper a little bit about the reforms of 1968, i just think -- i classify them more as recommendations than strong reforms and requirements to the same degree that the democratic party did and just how historically they're not viewed in the same light as becoming as involved particularly when you look at the fact that the democrats changed their rules and changed them back and changed them again for years after. but perhaps i should temper that point as well. >> picking up on that point a little bit about the scandals and some of the others that take it way back, in your discussion of context, can you go a little bit further on the context of what the accusation is? you know, we're talking about money, we're talking about sex,

we're talking about drugs. are any of those contexts better ones to get caught doing? [laughter] >> when well, clearly, i mean, in a lot of the other research it does -- there's big indication that the fiscal scandals seem -- >> [inaudible] >> combined with the abuse of power, that seems to be the worst, right? but it does, but there may be, i think we're finding something different when it's about a comeback, and especially if you're running in a context in which you can present yourself as an abused, part of an abused group; abused by the system, you can really play that quite well. and whether that's the cases that jeff talked about or whether it's, you know, roy moore in alabama who, you know, used the ten commandments controversy as very effectively in terms of kind of an attack on christian conservatives, i think that's, i think that's very much the case. i think that's, in many ways,

what makes the mark sanford comeback so extraordinary, because he didn't have a lot of that other stuff of going for him. he just did it, you know, out of his skill as a candidate, somebody who just had a great ability and a lot of luck. he ended up with a runoff opponent who flailed around, didn't really -- took a while to get can his act together and then colbert bush was a weak candidate who was very much contained by her operatives in a way that didn't allow her to really fight it very much. and so i think it's a point well taken, but i think the interplay of what happened, how candidates deal with what happened and the context in which they're running all really matter more than the underlying scandal itself when it comes to these comebacks. >> what about you talk about, i mean, you headache the argument that at least for -- you make the argument that at least for some there is a second act in politics.

i'm looking north of the border at rob ford and wondered has anybody ever kept the first act going long enough that they've survived this and reformed while their in office -- while they're in office? >> one example we don't have in our paper because he never left is david vitter. you know, i don't have authority, i don't have any knowledge about whether he's still wearing diapers or what his deal is, but you pay remember him, the united states senator from louisiana who patronized the d.c. madam, and they gave graphic testimony about some of his habits. and he stayed in office, ran for re-election. the dscc b had a, you know, a had rate actually kind of like center-right congressman. they thought they could beat him. he won by 20 points. so, you know, i think that's one example. in terms of alcohol and drugs, there are, um, i think i'd have

to kind of rack my brain and be think about if anyone's kept et up as long as rob ford. but the best example is probably marion berry who has been censured by the d.c. si the council -- city council twice in the last three years, once for bribery and then a second time for also financially-related abuse of power. has talked continually about his struggles with alcohol and drugs. and comets getting elected -- continues getting elected and reelected. i think he's 78, 79 careers old. and the only election he ever lost was the one that he ran while he was literally like waiting to go to prison. [laughter] so, yeah, i think it's very possible. again, depending -- david that her, is that what you said your

name was? you make a good point. we explain in our paper about oppositional cultures that are already very skeptical of either the media or, you know, the establishment generally speaking and how advantageous those contexts can be for scandalized candidates. >> we have some questions over on that side. >> charles franklin, marquette law school. i wanted to lay off david's point on the republican senatorial committee. chairman rebus is facing all -- priebus is facing all kinds of efforts to shift the party. and in the broader context of the panel, the goal of the party is to nominate an electable, strongest candidate that unifies the party and marchs on to victory. so given the difficulty of supporting charlie crist and then seeing him crash and burn,

to what extent would you advise the chairman about things to do in this nominating process? he's proposed a number of things. so i'd like to hear your thoughts on that. >> i think it really depends on what his goals are and the goals of the party. i think the structure of the calendar is so important, which states are allowed to go early, the percent of tea party supporters, how strong the tea party is in those states at that time, can the republican party keep other states from bucking the rules and moving where they want anyways? i just really wonder if the penalty of nine delegates is going to keep florida from moving forward. if the candidates are going to campaign there, if they're going to spend millions of dollars there, florida doesn't really -- i don't think florida cares whether it has nine delegates or 99 delegates because this recent years we don't see that it matters come the convention. and so that is not penalty enough. you know, in my paper i've got

quotes from arizona governor and officials in florida saying we deserve to have these places early in the calendar, that florida deserves to have an early contest because our voter ors are a stronger test for the candidates than think other. i think until the republican party can figure out a way to enforce its rules, um, and it just really needs to consider how the calendar is structured and where the tea party's going to come into play, where the south is going to can come into play. there's historically within, you know, fights -- been, you know, fights and concern over when southern states get to vote, that romney wasn't truly going to be tested in the south until too late in the process, that it's all just unseen at in this point this they make stronger recommendations. >> yes, sir.

>> dante scala, university of new hampshire. i had a question for caitlin and for wayne. if the goal of republicans in tinkering with the rules is to try and boost turnout to primaries and is forth and if they're looking back to '08 on the democratic side as a model worthy of emulation, do you think they're taking the wrong lessons in '08 -- from '08 in this sense? some things on the democratic side could be duplicated in terms of rules and so forth, but nothing about the rules could produce two historic candidacies going head to head with one another and all the identity politics involved with that. i mean, that's not due applicable by rules. so you could have had three more months of romney, santorum and gingrich, but i don't know that that would have necessarily boosted turnout much more than it was already. and ditto mccain, huckabee, romney for three more months. what i wonder is, you know, are

they overestimating how much they can boost turnout? >> [inaudible] >> well, maybe, right? [laughter] >> um, i think when we look at the longevity of the caucuses and the primary, i mean, how much unity -- how quickly do they unify? i think that's the question we have. in the case of hillary and barack obama, i mean, that was just a drag-out fight. so if you want to elongate and get more people participating, what you these is less agreement, more intraparty fighting. wow with. find party leaders that are going to advocate for that. it's going to be tough. but, i mean, that's what we're talking about by replicating it. i don't see that necessarily happening. i do think both nominations in 2016 will be competitive. i think that's going to be the case on the republican side because there's a lot of disagreement within that party. and i say that not thinking tea

party versus establishment, but just, you know, the tea party. which is, you know, the next panel coming up. in the schedule, but the tea party couldn't really unify on which candidate in 2012 they would back. if we look at the evangelical christian ministers, the baptist ministers down in dallas, they couldn't agree on them among themselves which of the republican candidates should have been the nominee. if we look at congressional endorsements, we saw some more support for romney than any of the others, but when we look at these grassroots groups this the republican eart -- in the republican party, there was a lot of internal disagreement in 2012. and i don't think that's changing. i don't see anything that says these guys are becoming more unitied either within subsets or across subsets. on the democratic party, i do think they are a little more

unified. but going back to my argument about candidates, hillary clinton's a strong front runner. >> she runs, i think it's pretty apparent who a lot of different democratic groups are going to support. but the she doesn't run for health reasons, if her husband is no longer able to campaign, does she not run, and if that's the case, look at that race. it looks a whole lot more wide open than it might right now, and you're going to have a much more competitive primary system. that's what i would look at. so it's both. these things are so interactive. i mean, we can't just look at one thing out there. and earts are diverse. e mean, we tend to stereotype and tend to have these images, but they're really broad things. >> um, so i just want to comment on one thing that wayne brought up, is that i think it's really interesting to sit here and talk about how the republican party is less unified than the democratic party when we sort of think about this historically, i just think it's a really interesting time to be studying this because really for the first time in recent years we are seeing a republican party

that is facing many of the struggles that the democratic party more faced 20 or 30 years ago when they were tinkering with the reform ross every four years -- process every four years. so in direct response to your question about whether the republicans are taking the wrong lessons, i think in large part they are. um, when i showed the table of turnout, i had it divided up into competitive and uncompetitive. the competitive portion and the uncompetitive portion of the nomination, and turnout really doesn't fall afterwards. and that's because in 2012 i think i had 19 states were in the, voted after the race was decided, essentially. and something like 17 out of the 19 of those had statewide primaries on the same day as their presidential contest. and so it's that people are coming out for other races. and then in another paper i look more directly at the rules and how they affect turnout, and by and large, the biggest predicter, of course, is switching to a primary rather

than a caucus. there are but i actually find an interactive effect in that states holding their contests later in the nomination season within the competitive window have higher turnout to. so that it's not just the early states. going earlier doesn't necessarily mean more turnout, but going later as long as the race is still competitive, i find, has the biggest influence on turnout rather than just the straight location in the calendar. >> just a toll-up point on that -- follow up point on that, you know, we look at the date before the nomination was not effectively decided in which romney had the, enough dell gates at the convention. his vote share in the remaining primaries didn't change much either. though even after he had the delegates, he continued to limp along maybely around 65, 66% of the republican vote. and even though gingrich and santorum were off the ballot, they were still getting some

votes. ron paul vote share actually surged a bit. and so there was, there were people in the republican party expressing dissatisfaction with romney as a candidate even after he had locked up the nomination. i'm not sure what to make of that. >> you brought your own -- >> yeah, yeah, no. i borrowed it. i appreciate caitlin's paper. i didn't -- i didn't know why we had proportionally, because we always had -- i'm a republican primary voter -- i don't know why we moved from winner take all. now i understand, and they had to. or they had to move the primary. i don't think that's very productive. i'd like to hear what maher says, he knows her about this than anybody. but seems to me that proportionality just fuels confusion. we're not after turnout, we want to nominate a candidate to win the election. that's what we're trying to do. i always thought the republicans were smarter. instead of winner take all, you

get it over with. get a nominee and move on. and priebus complains about it because his complaint, it really wasn't about the calendar because he probably had something to do with it, he's complaining about all the debates. he said that was the bloodletting that caused all the trouble that these guys, every debate whoever the front runner was, the other eight -- the other seven dwarfs would jump on that person, and it just went on and on and on. and they were so damaged by the time that they got to the election day or at a point where they were -- they really had through rules and all of this stuff that they had done, they really weakened their opportunity to run a very competitive campaign because there was so much discontent because all of these accusations had been hurled by the other candidates at each other with all of these groups coming in, spending all this money. so i don't know, what would you

do or what would maher do or rewrite the rules to make this, to give republicans a better opportunity? i don't think it's a issue of the calendar, and i don't think proportion that wouldty or turnout -- proportionality or turnout adds anything to get a candidate that can win the election. >> so when preparing this paper, one thing i read by josh putnam was a short or piece in which they look at how the delegates would have been allocated in 2012 if the states had used the same rules as they did in 2008. and be, obviously, they can't account for the fact that campaigns and behavior might have changed, with but they actually find the race would have lasted longer under the old rules than the new rules. so the proportionality because of way the candidates were just splitting the vote this time around and the fact that different candidates won different states early on, that it didn't necessarily prolong the, um, nomination season this

time around. it's also, um, interesting that in my paper i talk about one of the rules that the democratic party tinkered with the most throughout the '70s and '80s was the rule first mandating proorganizational representation and then letting finish they manipulated the threshold, they allowed winner take all at the state level, they allowed states to give a bonus delegate to the candidate winning the district and so forth, and then they added in super delegates. so they really tinkered with this to achieve various goals. in part to protect president carter, to sort of help jackson and hartfield better after their race when they thought it wasn't fair to sort of insure what people thought was the fair allocation of delegates. so it really is a rule that has been tinkered with constantly. >> not in my paper, but -- not my paper, but turnout -- i don't

think turnout is important for turnout's sake, but i think the party establishment has, you know, an interest this ruing higher turnout -- producing higher turnout insofar as that reduces the possibility of electing more extreme candidates in low turnout elections where the base is disproportionately powerful. >> [inaudible] that's like the -- >> yeah. you know, i think there's research out there to corroborate that. >> other questions? i thought i saw a few ore hands up. a few other hands up. going a little bit further with this turnout question, on one hand you see earts at the most local -- parties at the most local level, at the local elections trying not to spend money, energy in the primaries and keeping -- finding one guy or one woman and letting them go. then they argue that they're really disappointed that people don't get involved and don't

vote later. it seems like a real mixed message that's being passed on. is there a way to wring those two thoughts together, that you fine knew early and yet you somehow generate interest and enthusiasm? that goes to anybody who wants to jump on it. >> so one thing the rnc chairman has proposed for 2016 is moving the convention into june which i think will be really interesting just to sort of get the general elections started earlier, and i think it would be particularly interesting to see if they decide to definitively do that how the democrats respond. and so it's somewhat in reaction to the fact that in 2008 it lasted so long and was so exciting for the democrats. >> um, i'll kind of just respond briefly as somebody who ran in a ten-way primary and then ran in a five-way primary. and i don't think there's any substitute for those kinds of primaries in terms of getting people engaged, because there's

just so many candidates with so many different perspectives that can appeal to so many different segments of the electorate. the problem for parties is, you know, you have to take the long view, and you have to say by not intervening, by allowing this to happen, we're going to be registering and mobilizing a lot of people who otherwise may not have ever engaged in the process, and it's going to help us two years from now and four years from now as long as we can keep candidates engaged in party activities. so i, you know, i totally hear your question about the trade-off, but i think parties really need to take the long view. >> um, oh, i'm sorry. >> go ahead. >> okay. i would just say that turnout a really mixed bag for party leaders. the they -- they don't necessarily want extraordinarily high turnout in primaries. they basically want to get the results they're looking for. and if they can do that with a very low turnout event, they'll do that. and if they think it'll take a lot more voters, they'll try and

motivate that. for a general election, sure, they want as many people leaning even close to them on their side to turn out and vote. but for primaries, sometimes you want to, you know, keep that as hutch in-house as only -- as much in-house as possible. of. >> all right. i believe steve brooks? >> all right. we appreciate everybody's participation, and have to, unfortunately, bring this session to a close. our break is next door and then, and then the final panel for the day will be back in this room. so thank you all. >> thank you all. >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> any woman be adequately prepared for the duties of first lady? >> yes. [laughter] if you're the wife of a governor

or the you're the wife of the vice president -- >> or if your mother-in-law's first lady, and you've watched her for four years. [laughter] >> yeah, i think you can. and i think it's a golden opportunity to do something -- i think lady bird was the one who said it's an opportunity to do something good. and if it by chance helps your husband, all the better. >> the world health organization estimates that more than 1.6 million people worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. many live in countries where the disease carries stigma and shame. be i sharing the lessons that we've -- by sharing the lessons that we've learned, americans can empower more women to detect breast cancer early which today is the closest thing we have to a cure. >> as you all know, chicago is truly a city of neighborhoods separated by parks and

boulevards. it's a city where walking just a few blocks can put you into an entirely different world of experiences. cut through a ark, and you go from english to spanish, black to white, puerto rican to lib. cross a few street, and you go from historic homes and manicured lawns to abandoned buildings and dark street corners. so the opportunity is available to -- the opportunities available to a child growing up in one neighborhood in this city might be vastly different than a child growing up just five blocks away. and that difference can shape their lives and their life prospects from the moment they're born. >> monday, our original series "first ladies: influence and image," returns with the five most recent first ladies, from nancy reagan through michelle obama. monday night at 9 eastern live on c-span and c-span3, also on c-span radio and c-span.org.

>> and thousand live a look at a survey detailing this year's global conflict prevention priorities focusing in on syria, ask and north korea -- and north korea -- afghanistan and north korea. this is taking place at the council of foreign relations this morning here on c-span2, and it's just getting underway. >> he was my senior thesis adviser a long time ago, and i am deeply indebted to him for inspiring me to this career. and i hope you've made he proud. >> yes, you have. [laughter] >> to my right is mark. schneidr who is senior vice president at the international crisis group. mark also has held numerous positions in government including deputy secretary of state in the state department, chief of the office of analysis and strategic planning at paha and director of the peace corps, most notably. mark has been at the international crisis group now

going on 11 or 12 years, i think. >> 13. >> 13, okay. so mark is quite a veteran of these issues. finally, we have paul stairs, he is the general john w. version si senior fellow for conflict prevention and the director of the center for preventive action. paul has held senior positions at the u.s. institute of peace, stanford university and the brookings institution. he has written or edited ten books on various aspects of world affairs, and he directed the production of this year's preventive priorities survey which is available on cfr.org. now, are we going to go left to right? >> left of to right. >> left to right. then, dr. gordon? >> thank you very much, jim. and it's a great pleasure to be here. this has become something of an annual event, and it's great to be able to sit down with all my friends and have a good, hard-headed discussion about what's going to happen in the

coming year. so i think that let me start with some of the themes that we're looking at at the global macro level, and then we'll work down to some more specific. i think that as we look at the world in 2014, i think the striking thing is that the set of issues that dominated global macro concerns since the financial crisis has really begun to retreat. that is, the risks of another round of really bad financial instability -- and that's really been the focus of a lot of what we've done analytically since 2008 -- that's really retreated this year. we don't see a lot of risk there either in europe, in the u.s. i think in the emerging markets there is, but it's likely to take on a different characteristic, not a financial

risk per se, but much more of a divergence and the end of emerging markets as any kind of a unified asset class. um, but at the geopolitical level, at the geopolitical level that's really where we see all sorts of uncertainty here. and our top risk for the year really has to do with america's troubled alliances. and i think that 2013 was a year that set in motion some very, very, very powerful forces that serve to weaken the perception of commitment by the united states in the eyes of american allies around the world. and i think that the two main events here -- one was really an event, the other was a slow

rolling out. but i think the first was the snowden affair and the whole set of consequences around the affair itself, but also the uncertainty with which the administration has dealt with what happened with snowden. are they backing nsa? are they not backing nsa? what's important here, what's not. the lack of a strategic response by the administration. and i think in particular this is really -- this has really put a huge risk on what had been a growing relationship between the u.s. government and high-tech firms on cybersecurity issues, on counterterrorism issues, that that was mutually beneficial,

but the, i think the trust factor there is gone in the part of the private sector. i gave a speech two weeks ago just before the holidays to a group of silicon valley ceos, and the animosity, the an moss the city towards the obama -- animosity towards the obama administration on the handling of these issues was absolutely stunning to me. second, i think, the second driver here was the vacillation around syria. and, again, it's less of an outcome. it's less of what happened p in syria and more about the process of setting up red lines, driving what looked like a runup to a military action. and, again, the lack of consultation with allies and the

lack of a strategic focus here. what was the president trying to do. and i think when allies, frankly, hear president obama talk about syria as a foreign policy success, they wince. they wince. so, you know, for a lot of relationships here these things are thorns, right? for canada, for the u.k., even for japan a little more serious. but for a lot of other allies, for, you know, particularly u.s. alliances this the middle east -- in the middle east, if for a lot of countries in asia, in the pacific they really raise questions on the reliability and the durability of security

guarantees. and where is is this all, where is this all headed? so this uncertainty about the role, what's the obama administration's strategy, what are its priorities? i think this was reinforced, frankly, on the trade side with all of the buildup around the trans-pacific partnership and closing the trans-pacific partnership. and, again, the administration sort of saying, well, it's the congress' role to get trade promotion authority which flies in the face of all of the prior experience where administrations have gone and made requests and made compelling cases. i worked on the hill when we did the u.s./canada/mexico. and, you know, president clinton set up a war room in the white house around this. that's how you get big trade

bills passed. there's been nothing of this. so i think that, that's the first. the second theme here if it's u.s. external and uncertainty, i think the second big driver is china internal. and it's really driven by the fact that the new, the new chinese leadership, the new chinese leadership is very focused on reforming domestically, getting china to a more stand bl economic -- sustainable economic policy. this is something that as a close observer of chinese economic policy for 20 year, it's stunning to me that in the last ten years for all of the talk about reform and the significance of reform be, there was less and less and less big reform. and the new leadership clear hi of the view that time is not on their side, that unless they move quickly, they will not make the series of reforms that they need. but the reform process itself

potentially very destabilizing. lots of losers. and the political strategy that the chinese leadership has chosen to undertake this is recentralization and strengthening the core leadership of the communist party and undertaking a very, very, very sharp anti-corruption campaign and setting up control mechanisms here, strengthening control mechanisms. so the irony of this is that it's undertaking a liberalizing economic policy through leninist means. and, you know, is that going to work? is we don't know. if it opportunity work, if it doesn't work, this will be a huge source of instability over the coming years. and i think president obama in his meeting with chinese

president xi jinping was absolutely correct when he said that the united states has a huge stake in china successfully enabling these reforms. third big theme globally was the reemergence of al-qaeda from its, from the series of setbacks that it suffered cull -- culminating in the killing of usama bin laden. and here again i think the core geography here was syria and, in retrospect, syria and the whole syrian conflict is looking increasingly like afghanistan in the '80s and iraq in the last decade in terms of being a magnet for jihadists and a focal point for increasing extremism. now, the new form of al-qaeda is somewhat different from

original al-qaeda, that, in fact, the defining characteristic of al-qaeda as an organization driven by usama bin laden was the focus on the far enemy. and jihaddism in al-qaeda 2.0 has gone local. the al-qaeda brand is the brand, but it's now very much a finish it's all about local power, it's all about building local alliances. in many ways al-qaeda 2.0 has more in common as an organization with hezbollah than it does with al-qaeda, original add al qaeda. and so those are the big, those are the big macro themes. i want to close by focusing on the two regions that are of big concern and drawing a contrast between them. i think you have a lot of geopolitical risk and tension both in the greater middle east and in asia and in the pacific.

.. whereas in the middle east i think it both a lack of interdependence and you have a lack of any kind of a credible security energy. i think there still is a security guarantee for the gulf, for the straits, but the saudis,

the others do not believe that, they have a whole conspiratorial view about iran and iranian relations. the middle east has not come close to hitting bottom yet. and that i think 2014, we are already seeing a refocusing of jihadists pressures into iraq. i think that will continue. lebanon is on a very, very, very fragile tilt. this also spreads out into turkey. and so i think the middle east region is one where extraordinarily concerned about. i just wanted to throw these ideas out there as a big themes we can come back and talk about a lot more specific in the key with a. thank you very, very much. >> mark, your turn.

>> thanks a lot. thanks to give me the opportunity to participate in what really is the third joint look at the dangers pressing against our living room windows. in the new year. and thank david s. always resetting the strategic framework within which i'm going to focus on countries. 2014 is going to be a very hard year for those who make or conduct foreign policy in the obama administration. also for the u.n. it will be another year, great response of those, fewer resources to meet the challenges and inevitably more criticism for failing to prevent or bring complex to an end. and in addition we shouldn't forget this. most of the people in the countries where discussing it will be another year of misery, senseless violence, anger towards the west for failing to come to their aid, particularly anger at the united states. crisis group president op-ed next years -- was published for the fourth year in a row you

want to emphasize the criteria that we used was for including some and excluding others, and it's open to dispute was that these complex are where we have the greatest concern about the magnitude of the loss of life. in 2014, if they explode. or with respect to ongoing conflicts, same concerns given the likelihood of increased intensity of this complex in the coming year, and where the capabilities or willingness of national forces, national political forces, or the international community, to mitigate those dangers is lacking. now, last year i cited some issues that i thought cut across the various countries, and i still think those are relevant. first the absence of the rule of law partially applied to protect citizens. second, the inability of the state to ensure monopoly on the use of force, to protect the borders, enforce the law or protect its citizens. third, it seems to me that we

now have, and david touched on it, we have radical islamist extremist bring tears -- [inaudible] and essentially taking advantage of those internal battles for their own hand. forth, again, applied the continuing absence of neatly packaged peace agreement in civil conflict for all the parties are at the table and all commit to the end to implementing those agreements. that simply does not exist. and, finally, effect i empathize last you that want to emphasize begin this year, none of these complex are contained within the borders of the named country. they all believe across borders, destabilize their neighbors and in many instances, their neighbors contribute to the continuation of those conflicts. now, i'm not going to limit myself to the tender juicy in this list. one, i'm going to emphasize is that afghanistan, giving the immediate short-term potential

for extends of violence innovative elections in april next year. clearly poses the threat of additional violence. and even more so if the elections replicate the election of 2005. but let me make a point that there are several which dropped off last year's list and to some degree there's positive reasons for that. kenya dropped off last year's list in part because regional and international diplomatic engagement in the run up to the recent election helped prevent the kind of ethnic cleansing that essentially cut the country apart six years ago. second, pakistan didn't make the list this year because it successfully managed its first transition from one elected civilian government to another. and also because the new military chief seems to have shown some evidence of are willing to go after the pakistani jihadists and also to allow new our charisse efforts to build engagement with india

to continue. third, turkey dropped off the list as they seem to be holding cease-fire. and forth, the drc, extremely fragile, nevertheless the diplomatic strategy that was put together by mary robinson at the u.n. plus feingold and lady ashton, in fact have managed to regional parties, put pressure on them in ways -- at very least dampen down the proxy confrontation and along with a more progressive military posture of monusco basically has taken down the in 23 and hopefully put controls on the other militias in eastern congo. there are however five new countries. that pose greater risk this year of widespread loss of life in 2014. central africa republic. a number of displaced has grown

from 180,000 in june to 400,000 in november, and a month later when i testified before the congress, 600,000 there today, a million. simply the fact that even with the intervention of the african union peacekeeping, the killing continues between christians and muslims, and the power struggle has not been handed. second, i think we also have to focus on the reality that libya in this 2014 has the potential for additional violence across the border the militias roaming the country. the islamist, liberal conservative revolutionary center periphery divide. bangladesh, the competition because back to the 1971 war of liberation. as you saw the elections on sunday, 22% turnout, substantial violence. unfortunately, that looks like it's going to continue.

honduras, murder capital of the world. transnational cartels via gangs to participate in the illicit transport of drugs. 87% of all the cocaine coming to the united states by air goes through honduras. the north caucasus, this year the olympics in sochi unfortunately more than -- are coming to sochi. and, in fact, the state security structure doesn't make much distinction between who are the real victims and who are the real threats. to the other five conflicts on our list, those are the new ones. that is, the new ones are central african republic, libya -- the continuing ones are because the intensity has, in fact, increased. south sudan and sudan. in both countries, each faces multiple points of political violence.

and, unfortunately, with unresolved issues that go back many years. and have not been resolved by the secession in south sudan. the explosions in recent week in south sudan has already been to atrocities unfortunately the troops are still aiming for juba and despite discussions, the unresolved political competition threaten the future of the country. in the north, the failed to design a comprehensive strategy to deal with the underlying separatists, autonomy concerns of region and to bring them somewhere into national government, set a new powder keg for the north itself. and then david has already indicated syria. it's internal conflict is no closer to resolution, and over the course of last year, the death toll reached 200,000.

it has virtually engulfed lebanon. it's not just syria. it's its impact in the region. lebanon's population has been swollen by 25% by syrian refugees. and that obviously has a skewed lebanon's own sectarian balance. unfortunately as well, the resolving chemical weapons issue, the one hope for any the fundamental conflict rests on the u.s.-russian accord is slimmer than ever. for those internal optimist, there's a glimmer somewhere that the iranian nuclear or limit their report might need to lead to a positive iranian role in geneva. you have to really dig deep to believe that's going to make a difference. iraq is not in a full-blown civil conflict. more than 8000 deaths in 2013, increase prospects over the coming year.

the molecule government simply did not and is now suffering the consequences of sure start exclusion of sunni leadership, from government anticipate and service. it's also grappling with the negative impact of the syrian conflict. they may appear to be quiet because nothing else push them off the front pages but the real is that mali and northern nigeria remain tinderbox. the final country on our list is central asia. it's not the country, it's a subregion. it was on last year and it's on this year. everyone other countries faces the possibility for a very violent transition to the family that the autocrats have controlled the country simply have not set in motion any institution that provide for a transition. and given the fact that they are all vulnerable to extremist cutting back from afghanistan and the other wars, the possibly of a major outbreak of violence

there is a great concern. in conclusion, deadly conflict usually -- states inability or lack of interest in providing all other citizens basic services, due process and security. instead predatory rule that benefit the elite, ethnic and sectarian divisions and denial of human rights are the future violence and every one of these countries. >> thank you very much, mark. poll, over to you. high-tech now i suppose. >> thanks, jim. and thank you all for coming out on this very chilly morn. really appreciate it. so i'm going to talk to you about the results of our latest revenge of priority survey. as many of you know we do this on an annual basis. the six-time we've done it, as jim said it's available on the website and they're also hard copies available on yorkshire.

for most of you familiar with the survey, the basic premise is that there are many conceivable sources of political instability and conflict around the world, that the u.s. has an interest in preventing or mitigating in some respects but they are equally important in terms of the challenge they pose to u.s. interests. so the purpose of the survey is ws policy makers make choices -- u.s. policymakers make choices, given the limited or finite resources and attention span as well as i think the appetite of the american public to engage in various preventive action overseas. so the gulf basically is to help u.s. policymakers pick and choose among the competing priorities. so before i get into the actual results of the survey this year, i thought i would just sort of quickly review how we do this

through the each year. so basically we begin with initial crowd sourcing, social media outlets of the principal concerns of the foreign policy community. and so we solicit the contingencies that are going to be the basis of the survey each year. and on the basis of that we select 30 contingencies that make up the actual survey. and then we send out the instrument this year to over 1200 government officials, experts and nongovernmental officials, academics. and we basically asked them to rank each contingency on the basis of how likely they think it will be in 2014, and what is the relative impact on u.s. interests according to some basic criteria that we lay out in the survey. and on the basis of the results we get back, we audit the

results into three priorities for u.s. policymakers and we do it according to this basic risk matrix, as you can see but if you want to learn more about the methodology you can read about it in the actual survey that's on page four. so let me now runs through the basic survey results, and i'm going to use this new interactive global conflict tractor that we've developed to not not only highlight the pbs but also serve as the basic resource for the community on conflict around the world that we have identified as being particularly important for 2014. as you can see, when you go on to the global conflict tracker you come up with a map. on the left, you can organize

various conflicts by relative likelihood. on the left, the moderate low as well as relative importance to u.s. interests. again, moderate, high, medium, low. you can filter them across the map. these are the q1 contingencies. secondly tier two, and tier tier three. and then he can go on any one of those, click on any one of these and each one will bring up a background conflict brief we are calling them. which lays out basic information about the conflict, date of late is used, major reports that are available on the particular conflict, and other resources that i think are very useful. i'm not aware of any other

resources this kind out there, so we are hoping this will be of use. this will be regularly updated, by the way, so that it's not sort of one shot. so with that as sort of a gentle introduction, let me go through the tier one contingencies. which were identified this year. no great surprises. many of the tier one contingencies from last year showed up in this year's list of top priorities. still obviously concerned about the threat of a major terrorist attack as was cyber attack on the united states. the situation with iran is hardly resolve, and there's still concern the interim agreement might unravel and lead to a resumption of tensions with iran. afghanistan is out there as mark

said in terms of the likelihood of increased violence as a result of the drawdown of u.s. forces and coalition forces in general, and the uncertainty about what will happen post 2014. pakistan is still considered very unstable to most experts in terms of its internal situation. the are, as mark mentioned, some encouraging signs but over all people were still unconvinced about the long-term stability of pakistan. i would say perhaps that leading focus of concern this year was series. this was last year's number one prevented priority, and we can demonstrate how, but this new tracker offers to the community. as you saw, we collect on the -- we clicked on the symbol for syria and it takes you to this conflict a brief.

you just scroll down a little bit, you got a sense of what is available. there were not only tweets, red portion on the left inside, also give you an update on the situation in syria, a crisis alert we are calling it. but if you just scroll down a little further here, you see the latest information from around the web, breaking news, primary sources on the conflict. so again, this i think shows how useful this will be in terms of a resource on each of these conflicts. getting back to the tier one contingencies again, i mentioned that somewhere the same from last year. we have a i think for new tier one contingencies that were upgraded from last year, strengthening of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, and general

instability in yemen was identified. north korea remains a major concern. not only about the erratic behavior of the leadership there, but the possibility of various military in the coming year whether nuclear or missile related. the growing civil violence in iraq, and a possibility for full-blown civil war also made it into tier one this year. and, finally, spillover from the syrian conflict into jordan was also highlighted this year. let me turn now to the tier two contingencies. see them on the map there. again, some of the concerns from last year showed up in this year's survey. continuing uncertainty about

egypt's political stability, nigeria, particularly northern nigeria, a possibility of a major crisis between india and pakistan. we have seen an uptick in violence in kashmir along the line of control, and also finally libya was mentioned as a concern, growing concern among many respondents. interestingly, east china sea, south china sea did not make it into the tier one category this year, which was somewhat surprising. it could be due to the timing of the survey, which was done in november before the recent increased tensions over the territorial disputes, particularly between china and japan but it may be because of what david said at the outset of some general confidenc competene

economic independence between countries in east asia and the u.s. security guarantee make people feel that, while a source of concern, while not actually become a major source of actual hot conflict, if you will. some new contingencies that made it into to tear this year, some of which have been mentioned by mark. somalia, a possibility as, with the war in somalia with al-shabaab plays out and we could see an uptick in violence, particularly in neighboring countries as a result of terrorist attacks by al-shabaab and, of course, th the central african republic is a source of great concern to many. again, you can find out more about chr by clicking on that and going into the get the latest information. let me just quickly turn to the tier three, the third level of

priorities identified this year. some dropped off, and mark again has mentioned some of these contingencies that did not appear this year. tenure, zimbabwe, and actually interesting saudi arabia. there was concern last year of the potential for political instability in saudi arabia. didn't show up this year. but we did get some new sources, concerns merger, increased sectarian violence between buddhist and muslim in me and mark, protected internal violence -- myanmar. inadequate in many respected interestingly, tensions between india and china appeared this year, the possibility of rising tensions over there very territorial disputes may begin. and, of course, sedan as well.

now, interestingly to contingencies showed up to internal instability in sudan and north south tensions. and it was not anticipated that there would be violence or internal instability within south sudan. as you see were already on top of it. we updated the conflict briefed to reflect the rising violence within south sudan. so that's about it for the pps. i owed you -- i urge you to not only read the survey results that use our global conflict trucker. i think you'll find it very useful, and that's it. >> thank you very much, paul. the global conflict trucker can be found at cfr's website, cfr.org. i'd like to bring the rest of you into the conversation if we

may. i would ask if people have questions to wait until your recognize can wait until we get a microphone. and if you could identify yourself, we would greatly appreciate it. go back to dr. walker. >> joshua walker. i was interested, the one major discrepancy that he heard between you and when he said turkey was off your list, a but started shaking, looking at his topless. and for all of the holiday surprises we had, it almost seems pressing. i want to pressure on the tricky question there. >> so, yeah, i'm very, very, very concerned about turkey. and i'm concerned that, me, turkey is one of a bunch of countries emerging market country that has elections this year, but i think that it's also very vulnerable to the

cross-border stop from syria, but my biggest concern in some ways is, i think we're heading back into the pkk kurdish question leading to a return of conflict and erdogan is just getting -- the more pressure there is the increasing, increasingly combative and conspiratorial and paranoid he gets. and it's really self-fulfilling, and i think that as turkey moved to this new constitutional arrangement with having more power in the presidency, you are potentially setting up a huge fight within the akp. so i'm really quite concerned about turkey. i think we are heading into

very, very nasty territory there. >> does erdogan run? >> yes. and i think he probably becomes president, but then this really uncertainty, the powers of the presidency, people try to prevent his main opponent in the akp from becoming prime minister. this gets very ugly. >> the reason that we, again, choosing which countries in the list of 10 and initially is hard. but on turkey it was again that 2014, do we think there would be massive loss of life in turkey as a result of a political conflict? the answer is no. i think -- long-term stability issues, absolutely. but again, turkey still, when you look at the institutions in turkey, they are stronger. and the politics have a tendency, particularly the election politics now, i think we'll have a contingency on

restraining erdogan and pushing both he and the pkk to maintain the cease-fire, at least in the short term. now, that gives them then the opportunity in in the midterm o deal with these issues and and much more -- let's say compromised way, that avoid the long-term crisis that david pointed is potential. so i hope that's right. my only issue here is that as things begin to get shaky in turkey, this year, erdogan veers very sharply towards his nationalist-based, and go into that basis exactly, he had to move away from a commitment he had talked about, vis-à-vis, the kurds. i'm very worried about this purchase question going absolutely in the wrong direction, david. it's a good debate. we will see who was right. >> just adding quickly.

we didn't identify turkey in particular as a great source of concern, but we didn't identify rising secessionists pressure amongst the kurds. we are a little us i think sanguine than igc on the deal between turkey and the pkk and vc concerned about unraveling, that agreement was largely reached before the creation of a kurdish enclave within syria. and is also obviously the effect of the iraq civil war on the possibility of kurdistan declaring some kind of semi-autonomous stay there, too. so it often think we do see a real uptick in instability around the kurdish issue in 2014. >> fair enough.

>> thank you. thank you very much for doing this. in my first comment is that it's quite different from last year. china as paul mentioned was big on the horizon. that china is nice, reforming cabinetry. this is deep contrast to my question is primarily to david. what i would say is you did not mention the fear of new imaging market crisis. of course, turkey is one of the countries we're worried about, indonesia, india, south africa. so i wanted to ask how concerned -- summit. >> sure. i mean, hard about has to do with the focus of this session

on civil conflict and implications for u.s. foreign policy. actually if you look at our document, what we call diverging markets is our number two risk. and it basically highlights the fact that the years between 2002-2012, 2013 were very good years for the emerging markets. they basically acted as an asset class. this was very favorable for political incumbents. lots of countries i think god unrealistic, bought into this whole narrative of emerging markets as the inevitable way of the future. in 2014 has elections and a half a of the most important countries. and the outcomes are likely to be much more divergent here. so we are most pessimistic about

turkey, but we are also i think a lot less optimistic than a lot of people are about india. there's been a lot of -- there's been a lot of enthusiasm over the possibility of ahead of government where he has followed a very market from the common investor from the policy. in india a bit like the united states, governing at the center in delhi is completely different from governing at the state level. and just like american presidents who were governors, their behavior as governors didn't, don't get their signals to what they're going to do in the white house. i think the same thing is likely to hold in india. and i'm particularly struck by the fact that you had the last five years, you had a congress

government, pretty strong with literally the world's leading economic technocrats in the driver's seat, and they failed to get real momentum behind reform. i think there's still a very, very big political challenge for india to move to the next level. i'm relatively more optimistic about some of the countries, people are concerned about. i think in south africa, we are beginning to see the fragmentation of the labor unions that could be a positive factor in terms of restoring a balance between populism and constructive economic policies. i think also that brazil, heading towards reelection would give her a chance to restart, reformulate or economic team probably do a little bit more, particularly on the energy front where the brazilians are in real

danger of falling behind the ways. colombia, i'm very bullish. i'm very bullish on mexico. but what our theme here is the emerging markets are much what difficult environment, and i think the whole narrative, even the international institution bought into of the emerging markets as the future is a much more complicated story. >> just quickly on china. i mentioned that there had been i think some general skepticism the tensions between china and japan it escalate into a hot war. quite a few respondents in the survey did mention the possibility of political instability inside china as a concerned. and for those of you who did take the survey, you are

actually passed to see if there are other issues not on the list, things you're being asked to rank of concern to you, please fill in the blood. and sure enough, quite a few actually did mention rising instability inside china. i don't think it was purely about ethnic tensions related to the weaker issue, but also general dissatisfaction -- uighur issue. corruption and the comments party and other concerns about governments in china. >> will it be significant that this year is the 25th anniversary of tiananmen square? >> i think there are people here who are probably better able to comment on the. i'm not sure it's going to get so much, you know, it's going to get more attention i think outside of china than within china. i don't see it as being sort of a focal point for public dissent. i think, i think that's very

unlikely. >> mark? >> two things. one is i think we've been writing about the potential, not so much for intentional conflict as result of china's effort to project power, but in terms of the south china sea, in terms of the creation of the pressure on japan, the potential for accidents has increased. and while there's likely both sides will backweight, nevertheless it's a matter of concern. >> mark, we've seen talk about improving, virtually nonexistent crisis communications procedures in northeast asia. how's that talk translate into any significant advances to deal with this issue of -- >> not yet. in fact, one of the things we've been arguing for is that there needs to be a series of -- not single, not one, but a series of efforts both tactical and at the strategic level for communication to avoid these kinds of crises.

>> i think the everywhere crisis coordination has improved in northeast asia is around north korea. and in particular, the dramatic improvement in 2013 in relations between china and south korea, i think really has taken a lot of broader risk out of the north korea crisis. the north korea crisis would clearly be a big challenge for south korea, but i think the fear always was that the korean peninsula could really be a focal point for a broader international crisis. and i think that's really gone way, way down. >> jack wilson.

>> hi, jack goldstone, george mason university and brookings. want to pick on something that david said. 2013 had a lot of crises, but nonetheless we saw quite a lot of resilience. despite the fact that debt ratios in europe went up for a lot of angle states, the euro crisis faded because of coordination and ecd. syria, the war got worse, but oil prices didn't spike because of the global process on fracking and the ability of the u.s. and russia to surprisingly work together. so my question is, given what you said about crises and in particular spots coming forward, what do you see about the resilience and the institutions that if an international order to function well in response to them the next year? is nader getting stronger or weaker? is the u.s. pivoted asia really going to add security to that region? is viewin the u.n. going to be o intervene effectively in africa as problems pop up or some other

agency going to step in? in other words, what do you see as the most effective global institution going forward? and are any of these threats potential risks to weaken or undermined the kind of responsibility, the response ability of these institutions be? that's a great question. i do believe, i do believe that we still have a very, very big institutional challenge. and as everybody knows, we have talked about g-0 world. and again, it's not to say that there is no multilateralism and there are no institutions, that i think that this crisis that you begin to see in u.s. alliances very much an expression of g-0 world. i do believe, as i said, i think

the region most, by far most vulnerable to this is the middle east, where i think what you're saying is an increasing role of regional action, of regional actors. and, frankly, a huge competition between the shia powers, iran and hezbollah, and the sunni powers, saudi arabia, the gulf states, turkey, again, who are very fragmented among themselves, very, very fragmented among themselves. but i think that as i look at the ability of the world to engage your -- engage your from an institutional perspective, i think that on the crisis, prevention crisis response site, i'm quite pessimistic. i much less pessimistic on the

international financial elements. but crisis response here, i think much more, much more challenging. and again, even in asia i think the sources of my optimism about security issues in asia is an institutionally driven. it's really much more structural and interest driven. so i'm a pessimist. i know some people on the panel may have some different views on this. >> mark? >> unfortunately, on that regard i don't. the concern, for example, when you look at the u.n. peacekeeping response, and a good example now is -- they are polling, they had to pull troops out of other peacekeeping missions for central african republic, now they have to pull troops from other peacekeeping missions to do with a problem in

south sudan, moving from 7000 up to 12,000 peacekeepers. simply, we don't have a good mechanism and we also don't have a good mechanism for ensuring that those troops are the right troops, trained, capable, not from the neighboring states of their own interest as we see in central african republic, chad. so that's a question there. the other is, and this is my hobby horse, the international system has failed utterly in 15 years to recognize the need to have effective law enforcement and justice sector support, and for fragile states both for support public and post-conflict reconstruction. recently don't have it. and, finally, i would say that the regional organization, they still haven't quite developed capabilities to fill the gap. and we either need to recognize that, help them do it, or understand that you're going to have to have you in in a far more -- to have the u.n. and a far more capable, extended fork

or skinny capability, it has to be done. and, finally, come of the one good piece of news is, is twofold. i think that the atrocity prevention board that the obama administration has started, finally in the case of central african republic, late, actually resulted in a far more expensive response over the course of the last month and have been would otherwise have been the case. and the u.n. has now developed something called rights forward, where they are actually going to look at this issue of how do you prevent atrocities come and hopefully get serious about it in terms of staffing, resources. >> just quickly, i agree with david. there is i think an institutional deficit in key areas on really important issues, and i agree with mark, is also a capacity deficit in many areas, the resources of the

u.n. are limited to deal with many of these conflicts. i think if there's some positive news in 2013, is that it's shown the value of the ad hoc coalition willing to actually resolve some crises. we saw that with iran, the p5+1 grouping, in at least getting this interim deal. we saw this over some extent the chemical weapons issue in syria. ..

parrot the gap between what we need to get effective multilateral cooperation and what we are doing to get effective multilateral cooperation, ineffective is an inappropriate adjective. do you have a question? >> very short. >> thank you very much, jim shearer, many thanks for the mapping of the terrain for our panel. david, a quick follow-up, on the theme of diverging economies are concrete cases to involvement in emerging economies and the global value chain as a mitigating factor overall? i ask the question because the economist, this picks up on the

theme of the anniversaries, 100 years from the anniversary of the first world war and the economist published a piece saying we ought to be a little more angst written about legacy conflict. john mccain -- and there was too much emphasis on economic independence but there is the global value change. are there specific cases you could back of to and if the panel wants to comment on the economist's concern? >> i think the whole phenomenon of supply chain integration in asia, literally tens of millions of people being lifted out of poverty, hundreds of millions of people being lifted out of poverty in china, in indonesia, in india, yes is the answer to

that. i remember doing a piece with my colleague linda lim from the university of michigan on wages in southeast asia and so-called race to the bottom hypophysis. empirically we are in exactly 180 degrees different world. it is not race to the bottom in wages at all in china, very similar, phenomenon. i think it is a fair question, i don't want to overstate the point. i don't believe that economic integration is a panacea and it doesn't always work. the term i use was a mitigated ranted clearly is. in particular as i look at the

middle east, part of the tragedy of what we used to call the arabs spring was you never really got full transitions that were able to put in place economic policies and programs to address these issues and it was that factors that was the major element behind the deterioration and i know this is something that is very hard to influence from the outside. plenty of people were working on these issues, egypt, tunisia and it was a bear if conditions and political conditions in particular in the country's weren't enabling, didn't matter what the external community wanted to do or was willing to

put money against. >> if you look at those countries, the bottom of human development index and match them with countries we talked about in terms of likelihood of additional conflict or three years, you find a pretty good overlap, particularly when you look at countries like the issue of income inequality has risen, there is again -- one of the most unequal countries in the word--the world of intimate disparity and the failure to do what occurred in southeast asia, the failure to expand opportunity with respect to education, these are underlying strategic conditions that have an impact, not totally but have a significant impact on setting the stage in the future.

>> one of the themes that cuts across all regions and the economic and political threat, grave concerns about unemployment. the population is over 7 billion people, desperation in immigration to europe, better resource nationalism because it will fail to produce employment, i wonder how vulnerable do you think a retreat from global trade alliances, wto, return to resources that it -- nationalism, a wonder how big a concern you might see this unemployment and an ability to deliver jobs to you. >> my own view is you have a real challenge, a lot of the

interest in the emerging markets in the last decade was driven by resources, particularly energy resources under the notion that we were in a world of sharp scarcity in energy resources. in fact, we are entering into a very different world in which scarcity of assumptions are being challenged if not replaced, and if you look at who is vulnerable to that, it is front years and particularly those where resources nationalism continues to have a lot of salience, nigeria, a lot of these countries are actually

going -- following what are likely to be self-defeating strategies, you are even seeing some of that in brazil, brazilians are more likely to cost correct that the end of the day, they understand the world, but there is a lot of vulnerability in the frontier markets, the emerging markets particularly in africa. and to understand if the world is changing in a way that makes contact -- competition for what looks produced a much more salient issue. >> if you look at what are the factors that relate to the increase in armed groups in many

of these countries, no one has effectively dealt with the issue, growing issue of youth unemployment and youth without skills and so you wind up, they are the ones recruited whether it is by the narcotics cartels or the militias in south sudan. if we don't figure out how to help countries deal with that problem and it is not just the question of macroeconomics either but targeted effort in terms of education, skills and in terms of engagement to feel part of the society and so far we have not done a good job helping countries see that as a priority. >> to pick up on your deck about unemployment, many people were very concerned this time last year about the levels of unemployment in southern europe. in some cases the dog that

didn't bark and a lot of people predicted that there would be mass demonstrations on the streets, 1968 all over again and much worse and it was that because of the changing demographic structure in europe to dampen that problem? was it government's support network, family support networks? probably those all played a role. as market implied in other parts of the world where there are not those sort of safety nets, the threat is very real and those countries where the demographic structure or profile is not as favorable as it is in europe that is where the concern lies. >> one little plan. democracy is an interesting driver because even in moonshiner, what we have seen is

that the level of growth needed to keep unemployment at what the chinese view as an acceptable level is coming down because of the combination of one child policy and the beginning of the transition away from rural to urban migration. demographics are highly varied around the world. alan. >> formerly with the department of state, anticipated my question when he mentioned it europe, europe is not part of the global conflict tracker. given its importance to the united states, is there any development in europe? thinking primarily of southern

europe but including france, maybe more in the economic and financial area but with possible spillover effect into the political arena that should be of concern to the united states. >> i think the main issue and it is a huge issue of concern to the united states is that i think europe is increasingly under fiscal pressures and in those fiscal pressures nato linked military issues invariably get short shrift that if you summarize european defense spending you have a big number. if you look at the capabilities that that translates into because of the national orientation of all of the european countries it is a pretty small set of capabilities and the underpinnings frankly of

the nato alliance as an active collaboration are becoming harder and harder to sustain. >> that is exactly right. our concern for the european union and nato as partners in helping to deal with these foreign policy challenges, that is where we see the greatest vulnerability. >> the biggest question about europe is its future role, certainly global security manager provider and even in the immediate region around europe and we have seen less appetite among european public for any kind of activist foreign policy role with the possible exception of the french in africa but what most european countries are

going to make this question what will europe will play in the future in managing many of these disputes. >> fred. >> thanks. the question i want to ask is as good as the school is and it gets better every year, is it adequate as a conflict prevention priority tool? does it flag the things that should be opportunities to prevent some of these things. it is a great fool the shows where things may go in 2014 or could they get worse? it seems to have the orientation that is too much the case in most think tanks which is geographic. we need to understand american threats as country by country, local dynamics that produce conflicts and horrible consequences.

it is not at all clear on this chart whether national interest is just about people killing each other in a mass number the location and importance of country. it turns into a plumbing exercise and loses all the architecture and that is what is going wrong in the world and american foreign policy. and not just the united nations. alliances are more regional and local situations. and one of the problems with the ed snowden thing is it completely exposed this double standard in the united states about the interests of american citizens versus the interests of everybody else in the world. if we lose the impression that we are out there trying to advance an architecture for the world, that is in the interest of these other people, many of the realizing we are not, talk about soft power deterioration,

we lose the influence to affect so many situations because people think we are just in it for our own era national interests. so somehow there needs to be an overlay that reflects the kinds of trends that lead to a tipping points that lead to deterioration that may not be in 2014 in terms of people killing each other in mass numbers but if you don't do certain things like the security sector capability much more effectively addressed, throughout large parts of the world, things continue to slide. i love this discussion. i love this pool. it tells me where things are going to blow in 2014 but doesn't tell me what my opportunities are to make some of them less likely. >> one response? >> you make some very important points. our exercise does tend to

desegregate the various crises and potential conflicts and particularly focused purely on geopolitical contingencies as the main focus and the result of that is you sometimes lose these complex interdependent sees between different contingencies, how one could trigger the other, the contagion effect through the system and it is difficult to captures that because they are inherently unpredictable and even these relatively discreet crises are difficult to define and assess in any rigorous fashion. the large point is definitely correct. the survey should not be seen as a substitute for an assessment of one of the opportunities these conflicts present in terms of early conflict prevention or mitigation efforts and they

don't provide precise guidance or strategies for dealing with many of these conflicts. our other products, preventive action tries to do that, we provide more explicit guidance how to manage these conflicts. they're very valuable expert briefs. we are trying to limit what this exercise can accomplish, we don't want to overload it with too many excursions and get into policy prescription. >> can i make one comment? when is that is the beginning of my discussion, i talked about some of the trends the we see that cut across these individual conflicts and didn't try to say we should do x, y and z but those of the trends and

including the question about youth unemployment you need to be thinking through as to what you do over the next 5 to 10 years in trying to help countries deal with them. the second is a reminder, we also have an interactive map. we produce this crisis watch every month, we have the mack, the distinction is when you go up those countries and will of the reports but it pulls out those actions, recommendations we think need to be taken with respect to those issues. >> can i make one comment as of former policymaker, one of the most interesting observances that i had of this process, the prevention process, we were asked in the clinton administration, to look at

opportunities as well, there was often a real disjuncture between where they appeared analytically to be opportunities to where there was political pressure, a push to engage, the latter tended to talk to the former so you would not necessarily get the greatest engagement in those crises that looked as if they had the most opportunity for effective prevention. so this is a really complicated stuff and it is not all about what makes sense analytically. the politics of this is very

substantial -- substantially driving these outcomes. >> that is why this atrocity prevention board is supposed to recognize that. even though this is not on the headlines it is coming down the road so you need to think about how to deal with that ahead of time but the bigger point is in this, 24 hours a day, those policymakers are dealing with what is on their plate that day and it is hard to come up with additional hours to focus on what may be on their plate three years from now. >> it is a great conflict. georgetown university, it is agreed conflict, and we thank you all, if i put on my susan rice hat, asking the question,

what are your criteria of importance here, and is a possibility we might use force which is implicit in europe in your matrix and more the issue of humanitarian cost, is that the number one criteria or is it a geopolitical impact in the macro global sense? how do we choose? because we have to choose, we need priorities and what is the matrix of how you -- >> i will go back to my starting commons. and that is what america's allies are looking for, how are we going to choose? and the president's speech this

year was all about iran, israel, palestine sent a very troubling message after we had this whole buildup about transition to asia and that is the question that is out there. is there a strategy, does the second obama administration have a strategic viewpoint that is driving the behavior beyond one or two things they are focused on? i give the administration high grades for iran, doing a good job. we will see if it works. beyond that, i think that you have this whole level of uncertainty even in the middle east where the saudis, other

gulf states, the israelis are uncertain what is america's vision about its role in that region, when the vice president went to tokyo a couple weeks ago, he thought he had good meetings, the people who he was meeting with didn't think so, and that is really the backdrop to the prime minister's visit and increasing efforts in asia by asians to work out their own increasing defense architecture as a hedge on what happens if the united states really isn't there for us. that is the question. >> i would say that our concern is focused on what is likely to produce mass loss of human life.

the difference from the past is we are arguing and in the united states we are beginning to accept that the united states in terms of its own national strategic interest has to be concerned about that as well. and failure to deal with that problem of atrocities will result in damage to u.s. national interests over not only the long term, the medium term. you cannot simply ignore rolando or south sudan or central african republic. you have to react and you have to try to prevent those from getting worse and the same with respect to see real where we have yet to find an acceptable answer. >> as you say the principal criteria that we use for ranking the relative priority of different contingencies and u.s. interests focus and to what

extent do these conflicts pose a direct risk to the lives of americans to the risk of u.s. military engagement that might flow from these conflicts to us. those conflicts deserve more priority than the other ones and the hard hearted about the humanitarian, and in terms of relative priority, the ones where the interest of the united states and the livelihood of america are the ones deserving the highest priority. >> time for one final question and you have the opportunity. >> global witness national defense university. i want to ask about the architecture of conflict and crisis that came out earlier.

two or three states, a lot of the power brokers in these locations have an incentive towards predatory behavior and conflict and have the disincentive to building institutions and all those things. aside from military intervention are you seeing a push towards using new tools to d incentivize those conflicts in those fragile state that keep coming up over and over again to change in that year one through teir 3 dynamics. >> you are beginning to figure out a way and at least -- we are doing more in consulting with regional entities in terms of trying not just to do it

ourselves but engage others. to back off in support of am 23 and this is not cost 40. there are consequences. would have urged them to have done that earlier. >> if you are looking at where we have enhanced statecraft and tools, i think we have been much more creative and capable on the tools to influence states and the irony, the irony of these weak state situations is the tools. we have done enormous creativity on economic tools and that is what brought us the break through on the iran

negotiations. the fact is week states our contacts in which the typical pools of statecraft don't work very well because states are so mushy and it has been very hard. i go back to the study 20 years ago, in terms of statecraft, despite the fact that we have given a lot of attention to this, it has been really hard to develop a robust tools. i am a skeptic about that. >> there is some positive news. >> we will leave the last couple moments of this discussion. you can see it in its entire rihanna web site, c-span.org. the u.s. senate is about to gavel in to continue preliminary

consideration of a bipartisan bill to extend unemployment benefits that expired dec. 28 by three months through march of this year. democrat senator jack reed and republican dean heller of nevada crafted the bill. a test vote is set for 10:30. live coverage of the u.s. senate on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. and the chaplain, retired admiral barry black. will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. out of the depths we lift our hearts to you, o god, waiting for your providence to prevail