with policy makers and generally how to make sure that we are making these issues real. >> i was in new york several months ago and you will know when i show you. we loved animals and we vote and this was the humane society having an impact on the race in new york and they did. ..

women are aware of what the possibilities are. that's not to say that it should be to the advantage of one party or the other. because we are there to get the job done. so if the impact of your activism of women and men on these issues relate to family is that it changes the thinking or reshuffles the priorities, for republicans, then that's a success. it's more important to pass the legislation than it is to win the election. of course they don't want to pass the legislation, but the fact is that they have to hear the -- you know, the report is a wonderful work, thank you for it, but they have to know that people are aware that these are possibilities. they have to also, and this is

my life, they have to know we are not going away. this is not going meeting. this is a way of life. [applause] until this changes, otherwise people think i will just get through this me, check the box. we are not going away. in the '70s there was a bill on president nixon's desk for child care. people thought he might find it. this was long before i was in congress. but people tell me at the time, or in congress at the time, but he didn't for cultural reasons. the conservatives came in and said no, we can't have other people taking care of the children, all that. just imagine. [laughter] the fact is the heightened awareness and the fact that we are not going away, it's similar to like immigration. we are not going away. at ground checks, we are not going away. these women's issues, we are not

going away. that will have -- elections have ramifications but, frankly, we would rather have a change in the law that improves the law -- the lives of people if have a choice of winning an election winning a vote on the floor of the house is going to have a positive impact on the lives of america's families. that's what the political debate is about, it's about the govern institutes -- government has to choose in favor of these issues. i recently had a visit from a head of state. well, i'll take him it was the president of colombia. not university. [laughter] spent i was thinking columbia pictures. >> that, too. [laughter] he was telling me all these plans yet for the growth of his economy, his country. and i said, do tell. what is this, what is, what are

you basing this success on? he said i'm basing it on increased involvement of women in our economy. and i said, we have a slogan, when women succeed, america succeeds. we fully subscribe to that. and that's what our country needs, the full infusion of women's energy, entrepreneurship, intuitiveness, sense of balance of what is important in all of this debate. i know this can happen. they have to know two things. how important it is to everybody's family, men and women, everybody in the family. and we aren't going to wait until this happens. 165 years, 90 some years since the right to vote on 50 years from the fair pay act signed by the president of the united states, and some of the same issues are still out there.

so we have a golden opportunity. "the shriver report" list of this toy higher level of awareness. it's fabulous. let's thank maria for all the -- [applause] >> let's thank nancy pelosi for all the work she has done. [applause] >> that was part one of our tonight series on "the shriver report" focusing on women and poverty. we will show you the conclusion later tonight on our companion network c-span2. here's a preview. >> we are desperate to talk about. i think we're dying to talk about these sorts of things. at every single income level men say they want to be better fathers, they want to be more involved in their families. they get no support for that. they get no support not only --

totally support, no support is additionally but they also often don't get support from other men. so when guys say they want to take a leave come with a city want, i have to be home with their families, as we heard this morning from nancy pelosi that they want to be home with her older parents, sick parents, they get no support. i guess you're not committed to your career, they get, well, we will put you on the daddy track because you'll never make partner. but i'm saying they also get it from men. so breaking or interrupting are beginning to figure out ways that men can support other men, taking these opportunities. this is what they say they want, both women and men say they want pretty much the same thing. >> a brief portion from a program on women and poverty. you can see the entire event tonight at nine eastern on c-span.

join us in just under one hour for everything with chuck hagel and his french counterpart scheduled at 3 p.m. eastern. live coverage on c-span. >> some of you have been marching for over 40 years, and have endured many setbacks, including the recent expansion of abortion coverage in obamacare. but it is important more now than ever that we remain strong and stand together. we cannot allow the opponent of life to continually we can the moral fabric of our country. they need to know, that they need to understand that we will continue to march. we will continue to educate. we will continue to advocate, and we will continue to fight for the unborn. [cheers and applause]

>> despite the fact that president obama is using self-deception and the coercive power of the state to promote abortion violence, the pro-life movement is alive and well and making serious, significant and sustained progress. >> this week in the annual march for life rally from the national mall in washington, d.c. saturday morning at 10 eastern. on c-span2's booktv what's the secret to life of happiness? saturday night at eight. on c-span3's american history tv, from 1964-2004 the issues and concerns from five decades of state of the union speeches. sunday afternoon at three. >> no matter what party they belong to, i bet most americans are thinking the same thing right about now.

nothing will get done in washington this year. or next year. or maybe even the year after that. because washington is broken. can you blame them for being a little cynical? the greatest vote to our confidence in our economy last year didn't come from events beyond our control. it came from a debate in washington over whether the united states would pay its bills or not. who benefited from that fiasco? i talked tonight about the dumbest of trust between main street and wall street but the divide between the city and the rest of the country is at least as bad. it seems to get worse every ye year. >> watch president obama delivered this year's address. our preview program starts live tuesday night at eight eastern with a president at nine. followed by the response from republican conference chair,

angel reaction iphone, facebook and twitter. the state of the union tuesday night live on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> the brookings institution released its foreign policy recommendations for 2014 yesterday. david sanger moderated the panel of foreign policy experts focusing on iran, afghanistan, russia and asia. the groups report is called big bets and black swans. a series of memos for president obama suggested to-do list suggesting no significant foreign policy challenges for this year. this is just under 90 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to brookings. i'm ted piccone, the acting director vice president of foreign policy programs here. welcome to today's event on big

bets and black swans, foreign policy recommendations for the president in 2014. in five days president obama will stand before the u.s. congress and the amount of people and deliver his sixth state of the union address. as in recent years, he is likely to focus man on domestic, ma political and economic issues. this reflects the rising concern in president obama's phrase for nation building at home. and the declining interest among the american public in getting involved in other nations is this. president obama came to office in 2009 on a wave of optimism about his transformational presidency. five years later it's fair to say that the mood have soured and hopes have dimmed. no doubt that deep economic recession of 2008 dealt this white house a we can't. more profound political and social changes, however, have

also conspired against him, growing polarization, gridlock and dysfunction in our political system being high on the list. despite these challenges at home, the president has set forth an ambitious list of priorities when it comes to foreign policy and national security. drawing down troops in iraq and afghanistan, refocusing the fight against terrorism, reducing nuclear weapons, negotiating with iran. watching trade talks with the most important partners in europe and the pacific, and restarting direct negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians. he also faces enormous challenges posed by the uprising in the arab world, the prolonged economic downturn in europe, the continued rise of china, and unpredictable north korea and to reassert russia. today, the foreign policy program after brookings is releasing its own assessment of these questions, and the steps

to enforce administration should take to make the most of his remaining three years in office. we are excited to present our flagship publication, big bets and black swans, as we did last year we've identified big bets the president should make to advance u.s. security interest in the world. we also set forth by various were the white house should double down on its previous bets to move the agenda forward on iran, syria, cuba and asia. we've also pointed out a number of black swans, low probability but i impact events that could derail the president's plan. and added a new category of nightmare scenarios that look more likely to unfold than previously. finally, we pointed out several areas where the president should hold his cards and stay the course. before you introduce the panel let me flag one or two overarching points of obtaining and i made in the introductory

memo on u.s. leadership of a liberal global order. in our view over the last year, a global situation has deteriorated. and america's role looks more uncertain. americans are disillusioned about our traditional leadership role and cuts in defense and foreign aid spending are raising questions about our commitments to a rules-based international system your the revelations about u.s. intelligence collection in our own country and around the world reinforces the sense of doubt about the underbelly of u.s. predominance in the world. to restore u.s. leadership, president obama should reinvest in the global order in which norms are not on articulated and endorsed, but protected wherever possible. this means doubling down on big bets like higher standards in the trade arena, rolling back in

nuclear weaponsdevelopment in iran and north korea, and protecting civilians from the ravages of civil conflict and authoritarian violence. it also means making new bets on rules for governing the internet that protect our profound interest in an open information system that is under increasing pressure and threat. we should also make the most of regional and international peacekeeping efforts, and after, the protector long investment in a more stable afghanistan. while pursuing these opportunities, the administration must also mitigate the potential damage posed by the turmoil in the arab world, fraying alliances with germany, korea and japan, and provocations russia and china. we believe that with dedicated presidential leadership, properly resourced by the congress, these threats can be

managed and the united states can remain the leader of the liberal global order. let me now introduce our panelists and then i'll turn the floor to our moderator, david sanger. david is currently the national security correspondent for "the new york times," most previously the chief washington correspondent. he has reported from new york, tokyo and washington on a wide variety of issues on foreign policy, globalization, nuclear proliferation and asian affairs. he's also been part of to reporting team that won the pulitzer prize. he is particularly known for his work in tokyo, japan but also south east asia, north korea and secret nuclear weapons program and got his start working in the economics arena and the business pages of "the new york times." david will moderate from the podium and will pose a set of questions to our panelists, and let me just quickly introduce

them. in no particular order, maybe the order in which they are sitting starting with bruce riedel, who is a senior fellow director at our center for 21st century security and intelligence. we also have vanda felbab-brown, a senior fellow also in the center for 21st century security and intelligence, focusing in particular on afghanistan today but also on illicit networks around the world. steven pifer is senior fellow with our center for euros and europe but also drugs arms control and nonproliferation projects are tamara wittes is the director of the saban center for middle eastern policy and also a senior fellow who will cover all the first things going on in that part of the world. suzanne maloney is a senior fellow at the saban center, runs are iran -- among other things

and will speak on iran. and jonathan pollard was just off the plane from korea will be our expert focusing on asia, china, the koreas, japan, et cetera. jonathan is the director of the john l. thornton the john l. thornton china center, senior fellow here. thank you very much for your attention and onto david. >> thank you. thanks very much. great to be a and also a wonderful to see such a big crowd. this is one of my favorite events after brookings every year because i think this book really sort of, one i keep on my desk all through the year, both so that i can refer to it on deadline, which i've done on many occasions, and so when i talked so when i talk to my many friends up here i can remind them in december what they wrote in january. sometimes that's welcome and sometimes it's not. but it's always -- i have two

observations from reading through these years, and it's quite excellent. the first is that it's about half as thick as last years was. the explanation i received, the official explanation here is that last year was the beginning of the second turn. the unofficial one is that this group to solve so many of the world's problems in the past year that brookings saw fit to actually narrow the scope of the book. the second thing that struck me was that if you read through this grammatically, what really jumpejumps out at you is the abe of american leverage in so many different conflicts around the world. the are a few exceptions to that, and i would say iran, which we will discuss with suzanne, might be one of them, but through so many of the others there are recommendations for the president should do, and

then the frustration that the united states right now, despite its status as not on the world's largest military and economic power, but its biggest diplomatic convener, seems to have a hard time convincing other nations that what is in the world's enters or america's interest is also their own. i wanted, as i ask questions, to each of our authors and scholars here, to ask them, sort of focus in on the question of where the american leverage is, or if it's gone, where it went. so tamara, i thought i would start with you. you have written a really fascinating short paper here on egypt, and you write that the u.s. cannot prevent the radicalization of the muslim brotherhood, but we can seek to mitigate the effects of this

radicalization. now, a year ago, of course we all thought that since the muslim brotherhood appeared to be in command of the country with president morsi still there before the july 2, the question was could we moderate them? now the question is can you moderate them from basically breaking into a war against the military that unseated them? it was interesting to note that she wrote that the foreign aid cut that the u.s. finally put into effect, not all the military a but some of the foreign aid basically had no effect on the military leadership. that's the one thing that we had, the one guy we could turn, turned out not to be connected to anything. so tell us why that was, and then tell us what it is you think we could do to create some leverage over the egyptians in the coming weeks and months. >> sure. on the narrow question of u.s.

foreign assistance to egypt, i think one reason why that decision which was finally made in october of last year didn't have much impact is because it took so long. in fact, according to news reports chuck hagel, the secretary of defense, had warned the agency military prior to the takeover of that our aid would be at risk if they took that step. they were not dissuaded. and in response to the coup, the u.s. did not be neatly cut off assistance even though there's a provision that strongly suggested that was what they should do. so having failed to exercise leverage -- at least having failed to establish the credibility of the threat that it did make him the administration when it finally made the decision to suspend certain forms of assistance in october really was just trying to draw a line under the

problem. and i don't think anyone either here or in cairo expected it would have an effect. but the broader problem that you identified, david, of reduced american leverage is not about the choices that are made here in washington. it's about what's going in the region and what's happening in egypt. the decisions made by the egyptian general bashir, the decisions made by the brotherhood, first to govern in a very troubling exclusionary and ham-handed manner, then to fail to compromise when presented with a mass uprising against us to of governance, those choices are driven by the political competition taking place in egypt. and at this point the brotherhood and the military feel that they are engaged in an existential struggle. the military believes they had no choice but to carry out the coup, to protect their own interest and what they view as

the stability of egypt. that's what they see at stake him and the brotherhood of course is now facing the wrath of the military in a full on crack down and believe they are fighting for their organization survival. so i think in the context of existential threat on both sides there's very little that any outside active, even the united states, could do to affect things. given that, what can the u.s. do to protect its own interests? because radicalization of even a small percentage of brotherhood supporters or members would present a significant upswing in the problem of violent extremism in egypt and in the region. and i think what the united states can seek to do in this case to mitigate used to set limits on its own involvement and culpability in what is a very far-reaching campaign of

repression and suppression in egypt, which has extended not only to the brotherhood, not only to the violent extremist that exist and are a real problem to the united states as was to egypt and the region, but has extended as well to all kinds of peaceful political dissenters. so the united states i think at this point needs to correct its fundamental error in the three years since the egyptian revolution where it has consistently sequentially overinvested in each leadership, the military council immediately after the revolution, president morsi after his election, and general cc, let them now not repeat that mistake and instead clarify u.s. interest in counterterrorism extend to threats against the united states and u.s. interest and that we are are not going to engage in the wholesale investment in an egyptian war on

terror that is defined to include all of its political opponents. >> thanks, tamara. so, bruce, we heard from tamara that our chances for influencing egyptians are a, relatively low and secondly that we shouldn't overinvest into leadership. fortunately, we have huge influence and haven't overinvested in the saudis, whom you've written about here. what john out at me in your essay was that the saudis have spent $25 billion the past year and will probably spend 30 this year in jordan, bahrain, in yemen, in pakistan, amounts that really dwarf anything that we are spending in that region. they have done this sometimes with things in contrast to america's interest. they were in full support of the

coup in egypt that we were just discussing. so tell us a little bit about where president obama is in influencing the saudis, and tell us all of it as well about what your concern is if the saudis become convinced that the negotiations with iran won't work. >> sure. the saudis are deeply disappointed with president obama, as ted noted in the beginning there they were very optimistic, like everyone else about obama in the beginning. riyadh is actually the first arab country that president obama went to, even before his speech in cairo. but the saudis have become very disillusioned. they have demonstrated that disillusionment this year in a number of ways. they refused to take their seats at the u.n. security council. they argued that was somehow a spike to the united states. i'm not sure most americans feel that way, but that was the saudi

argument. they promised to give the government of lebanon $3 billion worth of arms, and to buy them from the french. that is also somewhat supposed to be a spike to the united states that we won't get the arms from the united states. and the media is filled with saudi anger and disappointment for the united states. but at the end of the day the united states-saudi relationship is not broken. this is our oldest alliance in the middle east that dates back to 1945. they continued to function in many ways despite public irritation. the reason it does and the reason we don't have that much leverage is we need each other. saudi arabia not only is important global energy supplies, it may not provide very many americans with their oil anymore but it's critical to the functioning of the global economy. and without saudi oil being distributed at a reasonable price, they would be severe financial energy disruptions. secondly, their soft power in

the islamic world remains a very important. they are the home of the two holiest mosques in islam. third, they are very important to us in the fight against al qaeda. the last two attempts to restore the by saudi intelligence. they need us, too. at the end of the day saudi arabia's defense against external aggression is from the united states. no one else can provide them with that kind of shield, that especially applies to the iranians. so we have a relationship in which we both need each other and, therefore, can't push too hard the other way. what the arab awakening did was expose their fundamental values at the bottom of this relationship are not shared at all, that we don't have anything really in common with the house of sod. own views about gender equality which are diametrically at the other end of the spectrum from

us. we support democracy. they make no pretense support democracy and we saw that vividly this year in egypt. the saudis were critical to the coup, to helping the coup take place. they were the first within minutes to recognize the new government and the orchestrated a multi-billion dollars aid package to the sisi government as in effect the statement saying, don't worry what the americans do, we will outbid them. the americans give you a billion dollars, we will make sure you get $6 billion. that gets to the other, it's hard have a lot of leverage on the country that has this much money. what i'm going to say, we're not going to sell you $70 billion worth of american military assistance? when it comes to iran my own view at the end of the day is if the united states and the p5+1 process succeeds in getting a deal with the iranians, which

the six negotiating parties except, the saudis will accept it as well. the saudis do not want to be the odd man out rejecting the deal between, that would be in effect roman of five members of the security council and the iranians but they also don't want to be in a position where they are the odd man out standing next to bibi netanyahu. there's nothing the saudi state less more than being associated at the end of the day with israel and especially bibi netanyahu on some global issue. and they are very uncomfortable today that they are being put into that camp. they don't want to be partners with the be netanyahu. i think at the end of the day they will accept the deal. they will criticize it along the way but at the end of the day they will come along and be part of the process. >> and if there is no deal? >> then it's up to the americans to fix it. i think the saudi position will be, you tried, it didn't work, now use force. and we will be happy to hold your coat. [laughter] >> with the also be happy to go

by a bomb from the pakistanis? >> one of the great unknowns is whether they have already got a deal with the pakistanis for a bomb, but that's one of the mysteries of the contemporary middle east and south asia. why does pakistan have these fastest-growing new scooter arsenal in the world? why are they producing more bombs than the indians a double or triple? is there some external partner is a have a commitment to? on this issue there's a lot of smoke, very little fire that anyone is saying, but if you ask my bottom line i think they're probably have been discussions between the saudis and pakistanis, and the saudis have a pakistani commitment to provide a bomb. and you can take the pakistani commitment to buy a bomb to the bank and cash it for probably nothing. >> okay. let me turn now to steve.

steve, we don't have a whole lot of leverage in egypt. we don't have a lot with the saudis. shortly with president putin we are awash -- surely. so you've written a couple of different essays in here, but the two areas where we are of most concern apart from the immediate question, the olympics of course, is the ukraine and whether or not putin will play or will foil the presidents larger objective to begin with when he came to office 2009 of truly bring down the number of nuclear weapons around the world, and you do seem terribly optimistic in the papers about the chances of going beyond the deal. talk to us about those two elements. >> in the paper that we wrote about the possibility russia might go rogue, this was the

question of vladimir putin's concern that the european union is intruding on his turf. with the association agreements that were initially and moldova anand in georgia last november, the russians were pleased that the ukraine is basically froze their process. but as we look at this, the concern was sometime in the spring the russians might take care to actions against georgia and moldova and ukraine somehow get back on your contract you think at all fight itself in mr. putin's target site. and the problem that we have is there is not a lot of leverage that the united states has now to exercise over the russians on it and reflect a couple of things. one is the deterioration the u.s.-russian relationship from two and half years ago. if they can relationship. we don't have much leverage to say, if you do a, the we might have to undercut you on b. the second is a huge imbalance

in interest. for russia and for blow to putin, building russian influence is the number one priority. it's important to his vision of russia is a great power, it's important to his domestic views. being tough enemy but, having that influence is important with a constituency that he looks to for support at home. and he looks at the european union and says, the european union is challenging my projects i'm going to push back. on the case of ukraine, there is an area where we may have some leverage there. it's leverage that's going to be maximized. it wouldn't deleverage is with the russians. the u.s. government seems be moving u.s. government seems be moving and destruction alluded to yesterday they announced that some ukrainian visas had been revoked because the visa holders had connections to use of force. they are i think is more to be played here in terms of threatening sanctions, both visa sanctions and also financial

sanctions against a group of people around president yanukovych. if they begin to where they can travel to the west, here's what is important to bring in the european union, these are folks a vacation in europe, their kids go to school in europe, they have luxury residence in your. they want to be able to travel to europe. and did some a washington and europe can get together and put that pressure, you may begin to have an impact on events on the ground in ukraine that could discourage use of violence and also, i think this would be very hard to do, but prod mr. yanukovych into a good faith effort to negotiate a settlement with the opposition. that's what leverage we may have with ukraine that sadly i don't think the americans have much with russia. on the arms control question, i think barack obama would like to further reduce u.s. and russian nuclear weapons. a dilemma he has is to make that negotiation work, yet have a partner who is prepared to play.

right now putin is not prepared to engage in further reductions. what the russians have done is come if you want to do nuclear reductions you've got to solve missile-defense. you've got to solve profitable strike. the russians have tightened up the nod, but they aren't solving those issues. so any case of nuclear weapons, there may be an opportunity to move forward on this, if the russians change their mind. but until they do that there's not much that president obama can do. he should not get into a negotiation with himself, although they may be a couple of small steps we might take. one would be to go ahead and accelerate the implications of the new s.t.a.r.t. the united states -- the treaty requires that the comments by 2018. that could be accomplished this year and it would be something the president could use to say look, i've talked about reducing the number of weapons, we're going ahead and move it on this. he would do that with a vision of towards affecting the view in

moscow, going back to what the president said and positioned the united states have some demonstrated deliverables at the conference, the nonproliferation treaty review conference in 2015. >> any possible at the present could just unilaterally go down significantly below the new s.t.a.r.t. numbers? he's got plenty of studies on his desk that suggests 1000 weapons or even fewer would be perfectly sufficient, that you could rotate some of these in and out, they don't all have to be on call at the same time which is a good news to do in a force for having hard time passing their exams, on anything. maybe having fewer might help that process. but what's the downside to acting unilaterally? >> i think at this point the joint chiefs of staff validate the present proposal last summer to reduce the 1550 number by about a third which would bring

down to about 1100 strategic deployed warheads but i think there are some any diminished nation to begin to ask if that's number of u.s. military says, suffices for deterrence requirements and for americorps plans if you refuse these things, why should we let russian recalcitrance keep us at the higher level? my guess is that the minority view. i think there's probably going to be a stay i is in the admin section that lets you for your personal or the russians prepare to engage. when you get into 2015 or so, at the point if it's clear the russians are stuck, then there might be that discussion in the administration about do we see something. but doing so i think has two consequences. one is a potentially undermines leverage you might need in negotiating with the russians, but also to work republicans are in congress, that potentially provokes a very big fight with congress.

>> vanda, on afghanistan the big news in the past couple days has been the pentagon saying, well, if we're going to keep a force in afghanistan after 2014, the biggest issue be as 10,000 that includes other nato allies. but we are prepared to live with zero if we simply can't get president karzai to operate with us. two questions for you. first of all, does it make any difference, can 10,000 have any significant effect in afghanistan from either a security or a development viewpoint? and secondly, if you go back to last year's report or other reports like this, you'll find discussion about negotiations with the taliban. so far the only one who seems interested in that right now is karzai himself. have we lost interest in that issue? >> david, the troop number is

linked as well as to leverage. importantly, the troop number is anchored within a critical triangle of the bilateral security agreement, the elections that are coming up this year in afghanistan, as well as negotiations with the taliban. i was a the tragedy of u.s. policy in afghanistan is that this is one place that we have had significant amount of leverage, and often chose not to exercise it. ending progressively -- both governance in afghanistan as well as u.s. relationship in afghanistan. and, indeed, they are seeing collapse of our leverage, not the least in the bilateral security agreement which is the deal that would allow u.s. forces to stay in afghanistan

after 2014. our consumption heading into the negotiations was that it would be obvious that we extend, we are kind enough to devote any tips to stay. they would jump on that and not miss the do. we have found ourselves shocked and perplexed by the fact that president karzai has refused to sign the deal, is making up a variety of conditions, some of it perhaps cannot be satisfied, and is himself turning by loss of the security argument into what he believes is leverage on his part. to go back to your question, does 10,000 troops make a difference, i would say yes. let's see what our industry situation in afghanistan. the afghan security forces have made great strides. they are far more robust, far more competent than they were a year ago. they are now providing security in afghanistan on their own for

about half a year. the taliban over the past several months launched a very intense campaign, a campaign that it will struggle to sustain at the current level. afghans you could of course have not much. they have not ceded territory, additional cells at the tactical level to perform probably better than many of us would have thought. but that said, the taliban is still entrenched. the afghan security forces are nowhere close to defeating it. the insurgency has strayed military as both political capacity to come back. and the advanced security forces are critically suffering from a host of key deficiency. these deficiencies are not surprising, our effort to stand up the afghan security forces knew that these deficiencies would be here in 2014, and since '09, of -- 2009-2010. we will provide a neighbors

which will be embedded in the 10,000 force numbered. now we are telling them maybe not. you are on your own. your logistics are deeply troubled. well, too bad. you have to cope. or intelligence capacity and strategic planning troubles, well, today. we have been promising we will help but now maybe we are not. and so i think we are really risking both overestimating the troubles and difficulties that afghanistan is facing, and jeopardizing the potential to strengthen the real accomplishments that have taken place by premature pulling the plug on afghanistan. let me come back to the zero number. i actually agree with the pentagon's assessment you're either we have a meaningful commitment that can help the afghans a duty forces tackle the taliban insurgency and other associated insurgents and there is groups.

or we go out to get the number is somewhere in between, simply for the show or because the only hope to use the forces left to strike targets, but to find his target such as al qaeda targets in pakistan, we are only turning our troops into sitting ducks. we're provoking in relationship between afghanistan and pakistan, and we are further justifying the taliban insurgency. so either we recognize that we can still contribute and then make the contribution meaningful that protects our interests in the country, in the stability of pakistan into the regional cooperation, or we decide that these interests are no longer worth any more blood and treasure, and we go out. let me come back to the elections. afghanistan is at the moment of

profound uncertainty. as i mentioned, lott has been accomplished but the future is deeply troubling and uncertain. and afghans are watching what the united states will do. the past hundred of afghans with the exception of the taliban are hoping that the united states will stay with the military assistance in afghanistan force after 2014 but they're also watching the elections. the elections are a moment, an opportunity to renew the deficiencies that have plagued the country for the past several years. the moment of opportunity to resurrect both the confidence and legislation, but elections can also a disastrously wrong. said to be the violence or extended political crisis, and even if they do not overtly go wrong the process is likely going to be dragged out well into the fall of 2014, into october, perhaps november 2014,

even without a major crisis associated with the election. but if in the case we do not have a bladder -- a bilateral security agreement and we are waiting for the next, to sign a bilateral security agreement we might find ourselves in december 2014 with little bilateral agreement. and the zero option will, in fact, emerge de facto as opposed as a result of a strategic decision on our part. my last point, however, is that the u.s. probably should get away from constantly badgering president karzai. unfortunately, it only makes him believe that his intransigent is an extremely smart play that gives him leverage. we should reduce the overt pressure and we should lay our cards out. if this is a dsa, this is what our commitment would look like. our commitment would not be simply about selfish interests

such as al qaeda targets in pakistan. it would also meaningful the contribution something to afghanistan and if it's up to the afghan, signed. as long as we continue in tit-for-tatitfor tat negotiatioh president karzai, he continues to believe that he is leverage and that he can milk more out of that leverage. he discounts the very real zero option because he is persuaded because history to get perspective is fundamentally different than the u.s. washington, the united states government is increasingly, asking themselves, do we have an interest, to have a stake in afghanistan? is this balancing the east, to china? is this a key threat to foreign policy? president karzai believes that

afghanistan is the fulcrum, the center of u.s. foreign policy, that u.s. main preoccupation be the great game in central asia. consequently has persuaded that the u.s. can never walk away from afghanistan and forever needs afghanistan as a strategic platform for engaging with russia and for engaging with china. there is a profound misconception that leads to paralysis of global politics. >> thank you, vanda. let me turn to jonathan pollack, what president karzai hasn't, with the cannes film is they, too, believe that the center of u.s. policy has always been about the country. we've had this discussion when kim il-sung was a lie. read this discussion when kim jong-il was a lie. and that we have it about kim jong-un. to questions about the north koreans. first, did we get kim jong-un wrong two years ago, the

intelligence estimates that you're hearing about were that is awkwardly going to be running the country, that the military wouldn't put up with what they viewed as a spoiled untested leader. and second, did we get the chinese wrong? that while we understood that they want to stability more than anything else on the korean peninsula, did we believe that they have the capability, the desire to rein in the north koreans in a way that was made clear during the bush administration and the obama administration that they said we can't do? >> very good questions. i think what the latest events in north korea, that they can demonstrate is just how thin our knowledge is about the north. even though frankly it's a little geekier than it used to be. for example, in the case of the purge and execution of turn six, the south korean intelligence,

anticipated this and disclosed it a few days in advance. it's not as if there's no information coming through. but i think that there was a misreading in many circles of the way power is structured in the north, the capacity for a member of the kim family to dominate because it is a dynasty. and the fact that me being a young impetuous kid, at the end of the day didn't seem to matter. even as he seemed and a lot of his actions to take on various kinds of deeply entrenched interests. so in a very short period of time, he has moved against, that is to say, figures, he's moved against all of those core leaders who supported his father, including a number of people in uniform. he has had his uncle executed, which is extraordinary. and he has defied the chinese repeatedly. so there's something going on here that we still don't fully

grasp. the counter argument may be about mr. kim is that the very fact that these extraordinary cleavages within the north korean system have not been disclosed, that in effect here was someone appointed by kim jong-il as this close aide and he was a traitor in our midst to our family, but it's a signal to the people of north korea that maybe they are not all wise and all seemed about what goes on within their own borders. whether that has a lasting effect or not we don't know. some people say that it will but for the moment, and i think probably for the foreseeable future, we seek kim jong-un having consolidated his power and going his own way. tilting a ski slope, inviting his dennis rodman to all kinds of unusual gestures. >> that worked out really well, did not? >> as for china, the irony in the situation that the chinese have long insisted to us and to others that they did not have

the influence that we believed they could have or should have on the peninsula. and in this case it may well have been true. there's very little to suggest that china had advanced awareness of what was going on. the eminence of the purge and execution. the irony here being that the chinese over the last four or five years have invested hugely in north korea in terms of a much high and economic role, and much significant, significantly enhanced presence. the presumption being in china that when kim jong-il had turned pale, had a stroke, that this was an opportunity at a moment in time that they could in effect make their influence felt, and maybe this time somehow convince the north to look at politics differently, to look at their future differently. >> or be prepared for the collapse. >> any of the above. but what i think it does

illustrate is that the failures of with respect to korea over north korea come with respect to intelligence and with respect to policy, our collective failures. no one has been able to get this place right or to understand whether indeed there is our levers that can be turned in any kind of the meaningful way. and for now we are stuck but as i am trying to argue in the peace that richard bush and i wrote, the question is whether, over time, the chinese see enough of a risk and a danger in north korea that they can be nudged towards higher level of cooperation with us and the south koreans. >> one last question and then we will turn to suzanne. on iran. you are just back from the region. the other interesting assessment that the u.s. had last year was that the chinese and the xi jinping in his first year would really be consolidating his power by focusing on the

domestic economy, worrying about the slow down of growth and so forth. and instead, we've got the uncertainties thatcome out of their declaration of the air defense identification zone, continued tensions with the japanese come and to some degree the south koreans on territory and the philippines. is it surprising to you that the chinese are pouring all of that effort into, this early in xi jinping stun? >> i think what xi is trying to do is to reinforce his authority both at home and abroad. he is a different kind of leader, and he seems much less hesitant about demonstrating that. the chinese are juggling a very, very competent agenda, but he and those around him don't want to make any suggestion that there is weakness and vulnerability on china's part that others can take advantage of. the other aspect of this though

the really warrants notice is that this is a phenomenon not just in china, it's all across northeast asia. if the intent of our policy, the rebounds that would wrote about, but i wrote about, if the intent here was the united states could find a way to deal credibly not only with china but all the other states in east asia, in an effective way and give them kind of share incentives for cooperation, hasn't turned out that way. the palpable tensions between japan and south korea, of course the issues between china and japan, the fact that you have more assertive leaders in all the critical capitals here is probably not exactly what the administration had bargained on, to say the least. >> suzanne, one area that i think it's fairly clear that leverage has worked is iran. the sanctions got ramped up. the sabotage of the iranian program got ramped up.

and that combined with the election of a new leader brought about a negotiation that a year ago i don't think many of us would've gotten this far. so my question to you is, how much time do we have to actually strike a real deal here before rouhani runs out of running room with the iranian revolution come with clerics come before president obama runs out of running room with congress? >> thanks, david. i think you're exactly right. what we've seen is the success of strategy that was built on the assemblage of real and powerful american leverage. it was what we would like to see in american foreign policy i think both a can of long-term investment not just in sanctions, not just in the covert programs that you've written about so widely, and also in the assembling of a worldwide consensus for isolating iran and for eliminating the trade and iran

access to the international financial system that was so incredibly powerful and change the leadership priorities there. there was also i think and it should be credit to the obama evisceration not just long-term investment but really enable exportation of an opportunity that was presented to it. what we now know is the message was, in fact, pursuing diplomacy attempting to get engaged with the iranians even at a time when the pressure was wrapping up to its highest level but even at a time without public image was of a strategy that was almost entirely pressuring very little engagement. and the fact that those efforts and engagement continued even when i think expectations were lowest common enable the strategy pay off once the opportunity of the rouhani the election came through. i tend to think in terms of the time come in terms of the opportunity today that the balance of opportunities on the iranians side to rouhani was not an accident. he was elected as part of a

shift within the iranian leadership to put forward a more moderate leadership with the explicit objective of getting a nuclear do. everything that has transpired since the early days of june, and it was clear on the night that he was elected that this is going to be his primary mission t.everything that he has done since that time, the team he put in place, the speeches he is made, the trade-offs that is made in terms of his own domestic priorities where he has moved much more slowly and much less i think progressively and many of those who came out on the streets to support them and came to the ballot box had hoped. his investment is in this program, leadership is giving him a mandate to get some sort of a nuclear deal. ..

although it's nowhere near what we are going to be looking for in the final agreement. >> that actually takes me to my follow-on question. if you view this as an agreement with a tiny bit of slack, the final agreement mostly has to be about rollback, about expanding the amount of the warning time that you would have. tell us about how that will play out inside of the iranian political sphere. >> we saw how difficult it was

to move from the high level agreement to the implementation plan. it took two months and several attempts by the iranians and it has quite a bit of a backlash in washington that if in fact of the iraqi sar signed on at this time and have little in terms of sanctions relief, a couple billion dollars and some temporary openings in some important but certainly not existential areas of their economy that will not overcome the painting are experiencing in that exports over the course of now several years. they need that final deal on the expectations they said they needed to be able to deliver to the supreme leader because he's given a certain amount of room. there is a debate in tehran that's not meaningless or fictional but it's a stage that's likely to the undercover

rouhani that will not prevent him from making a deal on the domestic agenda which is why she has been so cautious. i don't mean to understand the technical and logistical constraints ahead of us. if you read the piece by an experienced u.s. negotiator and the author of a blockbuster book on containing iran, you will see a nightmare scenario where the talks break down outside of the realm of possibility. but i think at this point, the iranians are in it for the long haul because that's where it is to get on the fourth side the difficulty is going to be in washington because the administration has a fight on its hands with congress that is nowhere near over despite the fact the sanctions bill has taken a little bit longer to get to the floor of the senate than it was anticipated and also a fight with some of our key allies in the region and i don't think any of those disputes or obstacles to the administration

are likely to get easier, in the short term they are likely to get tougher. >> before i turn to the audience the one word we haven't brought it in the discussion is syria. so i want to ask steve to sort of step in on this for a moment. talk on the question of given the incredibly warm and collegial atmosphere at yesterday's opening in geneva what you expect to come out of this, and steve, on the question of how putin is going to fight this. >> i'm very curious to hear steves answer because i think a lot of the american diplomacy pushing forward to this so-called geneva ii conference that is taking place has been premised on the notion that u.s. russian consulate could create leverage over the actor's fighting in syria that otherwise

could perhaps produce a negotiated end to this fighting and that otherwise there wouldn't be a near-term in this fighting. i've question that premise for a long time and i've been skeptical. and second even if they change their view they would be able to exercise any significant leverage i think at the end of the day the reason that the conference is happening is because assad is feeling confident that the threat of the sunni extremism and syria is sufficient and he himself is not necessarily the greatest threat to stability. and i think that he is feeling confident militarily in the

balance on the ground. thus ury and opposition, meanwhile, has the power going into the conference, the power to say no and to refuse to show up. reportedly they all decided to come because they were threatened with a withdraw of western assistance. this doesn't go well for any concrete outcome and as the conference has gotten closer and closer to the bar for success designed by those that it has gotten lower and lower fuel yet in my own view of the history of the civil war has backed us up sadly. the outcomes are going to be driven by the military ground and not by the negotiators in europe. >> i would like to have been a fly on the wall between the conversation with president obama and president putin on the phone, but how do you think that

went clacks >> i think it applies to syria you had a period of cream months where there has been a degree of cooperation with some success in terms of starting the process to give the chemical weapons out of syria and move them towards the elimination. but that cooperation on that one part should not disguise the fact that we are talking about the broad future of syria. there is a difference between the way the united states has the future and the russians don't want to see assad tossed out. they see him as a degree of stability because in their point of view, the west cannot answer the question which is what happens if assad leaves and they can imagine scenarios that from their perspective are much worse. and with the military success, assad seems to be having the last couple months they feel more confident so my guess is we

are not going to see a lot of convergence between washington and moscow as to what should come out of the geneva conference and operating successfully on the narrow piece of how do you get the chemical weapons out. >> we are going to turn to all of you. are there microphones are around that we can pass around or are their microphones about? raise your hand when you get the microphone. please tell us who you are and please actually put a question at the end. we will start with this gentleman right here. the microphone is coming. >> i have a question for jonathan triet can you talk about the u.s. sharing to reduce ten jim can you elaborate what it would be and the other is what do you think would be the

new approach look like in the new year and obviously the criticism about too much emphasis on the military component and in the book that you wrote about it is very optimistic about the rebalancing strategy received. but at the competing organizations, was it like a 37% that said it was a well-designed pulling and 39% said was poorly designed, so obviously very different from what you described. so if they could look to be concluded as somewhat expected. your thoughts? >> i think it is fair to say that in retrospect of the early years of the policy it was significantly over sold by the proponents that advocated.

as we tried to argue in the paper it makes sense because it is a free markets political, economic and security that the united states would wish to operate in this most dynamic region. the problems of course car, number one, internal dynamics in the region that have undermined the overall context in which the states interact and of course many of the u.s. problems in terms of that is functioning of the government process and the occupations among other things constrained president obama from traveling to the region not so long ago also now he has rescheduled the trip for asia. the issue at the end of the day is whether a policy can be based on the kind of broad principles or whether you need a sense of

ongoing sustained engagement and movement to get where you want to go. i don't think it's all bad even if you take something like the transpacific partnership, the targets that were laid out were overly ambitious in terms of fulfilling the agreement. on the other hand, china's government looks at this in a more measured way. the initial instinct was if you will antichina but i don't think that is what it was intended to do. and so, really the longer term proof of the policy wouldn't be a one-shot deal. it has to be something more fundamental that will be revealed in time rather than some kind of bold and dramatic gesture. either you find a framework within the states to both compete but also cooperate or

you have a messy region and with all kinds of dangerous risks i don't think anyone seriously would wish to contemplate. this puts the united states in a very complicated position as it tries to move ahead with all relevant actors. but we can see a lot of the changes are much more manifest now and that it has to be demonstrated not true words and speeches, but through the capacity to solve the critical problems and on matt, the verdict is still out. >> the microphone is coming back to you. >> i'm for the austrian paper. there is nothing about your up in that and i was wondering if that is because there is no success and it's rather boring

as usual for? we could have for the first time a majority of right-wing and left-wing and the parliament would turn into an even more dysfunctional organization than it already is which would bring the american ambition to the trade negotiations and more generally speaking, why do you think the president used the opportunity of engaging with europe if it was that popular the first time and he's very unpopular now in europe. if we could have some short comment on that. >> who wants to handle -- >> when it you look at the question for europe, the sort of issues you talk about on things like that, they are not easy for the american presidency even if

you were to say that yes i want to try to improve the space election. there was nothing that you could write that would fit into the context. it does appear in a number of cases where we talk it out how to deal with russia. the success is going to be greatly increased to be on the same page. >> let me build on that question and media term -- it struck me that the biggest outflow of the snowden revelations have been more economic and diplomatic. >> they are happy with the obama

administration and the bush administration for very different reasons. but it strikes me that all this discussion of segmenting the internet, watching whether you want to buy american products because the intelligence agencies may build and back doors and that could have a long-term impact than what ever the diplomatic outflow. >> of the affair illustrates something very important about the presidencies. you don't control the world. in this case, president obama found in the first year of the second term and may be the entire four years of the term have been to a certain degree hijacked bible a very yanna contract employee who decided to spill the beans on american espionage activities around the

world, and there's not much the president can do to pull it back and more of it is coming out all the time. he can try to present his point of view that he is a fee for -- thief and trader and you made the point at the beginning that the limits of power not just the united states but the presidency in general. we may come back and look at the second obama administration and say that it was undermined by an even by an individual entirely which reminds us of the second bush administration which was in many ways destroyed by a hurricane that the president had no control over. the response was an act but he didn't control the hurricane. you're absolutely right it is in

the economic field. it's the perception in europe with the national security agency is listening to every phone conversation and is watching everything and reading every new text message. all of that is ridiculous. the nsa would have to have two or 3 million employees to read all of that stuff and i would be a monumental waste of american tax dollars and it's hard to push the production bac and creates the perception in politics which is now working against us. >> the high-tech american companies cooperate over the last several years to oversee countries who say maybe we don't want to deal with those -- >> some of them have.

>> that is what one of the big steps was can the president get out in front of this to manage the damage from snowden and protect american companies by working to preserve the debt that is successful for american economic interest. >> can you imagine a situation in which he comes to the conclusion that he's no longer in his deep interest and he's got and what he wants out of this and tell him his plane is ready? >> he spent his formative years in the service and if for whatever reason the russians turn him back to boot him out, what is the message sent to any potential that they might hope to welcome in the future.

if they give snowden back maybe they give me back and that would be the issue he may not want to take to make a life more complicated for his intelligence folks. >> right back here. related to afghanistan and al qaeda i think americans are very perplexed not only by iraq and syria and yemen but they see what is the real interest in afghanistan with respect to these other problems. >> you touched on this a little before. >> the last force that we are talking about is like 10,000 so if we are not talking about maintaining the force, we can

debate what is not a large force it is in terms of security and political process cheese and the chance is substantial this will enable the return in two ways. one, first is the physical possibility of the safe havens for the terrorist groups in the global reach and ambitions. you have asked me and i didn't answer about the negotiations and one of the key questions on the negotiations is to what extent the taliban separable from al qaeda is it domestically oriented or is it inevitably linked to al qaeda and my view if it is domestically oriented

including the survival debt to include the relationship would be difficult and at the same time they realize that because of the senior taliban leaders they said that al qaeda brought on to the rule and so they would try to play the game of providing support for al qaeda but it doesn't mean that they would really let engagement. one issue of the security but the other is the imagery, the psychological boost that this would give to other groups around the world. this would be the second time when they were portrayed in afghanistan and they may have given cooperation, that there

might still be the sense that the sufficient violence towards people pays off and tuesday in the support groups neither of which is desirable it doesn't mean that we should fight every terrorist group in the world and certainly doesn't mean that we should import drones everywhere in the world but we should calculate very carefully when they are dangerously creating commitments that we have because at the end, the leverage would be critically about being very selective about taking the commitments but also then delivering on the commitments holding of threats and promises that we have made. >> to expand the question because i think some of the issues raised with respect to al qaeda and the taliban in afghanistan have parallels in the broad middle east.

in your question you noted that b.c. al qaeda putting it in yemen and syria and certainly there are affiliate's and localized violent extremists who for one reason or another may see an advantage in embracing the al qaeda brand but whose concerns and sources and targets are primarily localized and it's important that the united states as it pushes these threats continue to carefully make the distinction and the differentiation. as i look at where the trajectory of the policy is headed in the middle east across africa, egypt, syria and iraq and down into yemen where we do

not have an orientation towards the door of a transformation that is occurring, but we have a lot of worry about specific things we see them putting the violent extremism. there is a danger that in responding day-by-day we end up recreating the paradigm that president obama came into office wanting to dismantle of the sort of a broad scale more on terrorism that drives our policy and the way that we are perceived in the region and the way that we structure our relationships a undergoing tremendous change so while there are threats it's important for us to distinguish what is local and transnational and what is targeting us and what is not and i would love to hear your views on that as well.

>> i want to come back to the metamorphosis of al qaeda. we have seen as a result of the arab awakening and what has gone on that al qaeda got a rebirth and came at the exact moment that the administration's policy produced its greatest success. i am in agreement with everything said about the importance of keeping the american presence in afghanistan if the administration is not able to make the case to the american people which is the reason we need the 10,000 troops in afghanistan is to continue the war in pakistan. that is the national security interest of the united states. we don't want to see al qaeda kallur in pakistan rebuild likely saw al qaeda rebuild iraq

the drones are not the answer to the problem that they are a very good within to have in your hand when you deal with al qaeda. my concern is that the united states gives out that within an afghanistan by having no basis for the operation after 2014. we will see al qaeda and pakistan rebuild and regenerate as fast as we saw an iraqi. >> is there an alternative? let's say we did lose the main base in afghanistan. is there an alternative from elsewhere in the region given the extended weech now that you wouldn't necessarily need to launch them from afghanistan? >> the technology isn't there and the geography doesn't change. you can have the strong operations over the northern part of pakistan where al qaeda operates from afghanistan and

iran, india, and i don't think so. if you launch them from the arabian sea they are likely to be unsuccessful as desert number one. the irony is that it is a covert operation that everyone talks about that you can go to web sites and sea every attack played out but because it is a covert operation, the administration has their hands tied but they come back out in public and say the reason we want 10,000 is too black al qaeda and pakistan. >> right here in front. >> charlie from brookings. since we have the experts here this relates to the geopolitical posture in the gulf and elsewhere do you feel that the

state's in the gulf for those of you middle east specialists have dealt with what is implied by the fact that increasingly the overwhelming demand for oil and gas is going to be in asia and not in europe and have they begun to think about how that is going to change their strategic posture with the nation's that will be the bulk of the revenue? and likewise do you think that south korea, japan, india and others have come to terms that as they become more important from the gulf that they have to assume a strategic posture to protect access and that they cannot kill and i would just add this is why i do not necessarily agree with the kind of continuation of american policy in the region because our strategic interests.

>> i will kick off partly because i just came back from the gulf and so i had a chance to hear from folks about this directly. i would say a couple of things. number one, some of the disputes over the talks with iran and so on in that peace in the relationship, there is an underlying anxiety in the gulf, which is about exactly the point that you're making. what the u.s. interest in our region where we are used to having you as the security guarantor in the area where you don't need our energy anymore. and the rest of the world is riding on the american investment in the gulf security. so that is coming from the recognition of this broad shift

and the recognition that they don't actually have the mechanism for maintaining regional order themselves without an external great power. they've never done it. they don't have the capacity themselves. we have tried to help build up that capacity that it is nowhere near their yet and i think they acknowledge all so that from their perspective, the chinese or the indians or other rising powers are not the stuff couple decades away from having the capability to take on any kind of a role like that even if they are interested in doing so. so they feel a deep seated anxiety that maybe the u.s. is turning away and there is no alternative. my own view is i don't think we are turning away and in many ways because the crisis in the region but also because of our interests we are kind of mail to the ground in the middle east right now. but the trends that you are

describing i think is going to continue to raise questions in these relationships and disputes in the years to come. >> one of the concerns you here in the region is it there is a deal with the iranians, then kuran is free to go off and become the kind of power in the region that it imagines itself to be. >> let me make a couple points quickly because i know there are a lot of folks that want to jump in on this. the gulf states are insecure and reflect both their sort of capacity but it also reflects the sort of world view that is just ingrained from centuries of relationships with outside powers so this sort of discourse is always listed and the free ride issue is we have never been more dependent on oil and roast become most of our economic

allies and partners. we had a major security commitment and at the time when europe was far more dependent on the golf experts than we were i believe it is in trouble to the american vision of itself as a superpower to maintain an investment in the free and reasonable and reliable flow of energy from the major producers of energy around the world and i think that will go along as we maintain our commitment to be the world's superpower. in terms of the question i think it's an important issue because the i iran negotiations ultimately there is not come to the nuclear negotiations that will lead to the revival as either regional strategic power or economic power because the nuclear negotiations themselves are unlikely. it's almost impossible to see

any scenario under which the nuclear negotiation leads to the comprehensive u.s. embargo on iran which is the major hit on investment particularly for the energy sector. the fact that iran has not been able to access is why iran today is almost as a net importer despite having some of the largest reserves in the world and despite being one of the early adopters to the trans regional gas trade back in the 1960's and 70's. so you have a situation in which they lost as a result of the sanctions and the country and they are under today will remain in place for the foreseeable future despite some prospect if there is a final deal on the nuclear issue and they will begin to come back to iran. >> it does seem to me in varying ways of the states are mindful

of how to use a mixed metaphor of the ground shifting that the very fact of diminished u.s. dependence raises questions about whether the united states over the long haul despite its interest in having that sense of there being a global order and the state that the u.s. has on the global comments that over time we would see kind of ammunition of american involvement or that others would have to in some measure pick up the slack but the problem is i don't think even among those who were the most aware about their energy security, and i would put china very high on the list recognize that it's going to be a jury long-term process before they could really be ready to take on this role. but if we look in that longer-term sense that has been he alluded to, i think that is very likely where we are headed. the chinese are now making a commitment to a carrier program.

it's not going to be massive necessarily that any carrier program entails huge commitments of money and the ability to conceptualize a larger sense of strategy and involvement that not only the chinese interest that the interest of others may be involved as well. the other side of course are looking for other alternatives that are land-based. you see this in northeast asia, the russians to find some kind of means by which with japan, korea and with china, they can be a much more substantial supplier they are to some extent already. if i were sitting in the shoes of a regional leader on would be looking for as many alternatives as i could, but i certainly wouldn't be promising my policy on the expectation that over the long run the united states would be prepared or able to do this in itself. >> we have time for one quick question and one quick answer.

the lady right there in the black. the microphone is coming to you. >> thank you for giving me the opportunity. i would like to first focus on ukraine. how can we avoid the nightmare scenario in ukraine? and many say that the u.s. response has been negligent or minimal. what should this administration do? thank you. >> the first point to be understood is that this is going to be resulting first and foremost by ukrainians in ukraine. i think that the united states and europe could be and should be doing now is trying to apply some levels of pressure and should they avoid use of force. but to go beyond that yesterday the u.s. government said that the pieces of those that they identified as having been connected would be invoked but i would recommend going beyond that and say also target some of the potential sanctions to say

we are trying to encourage the government to get into a good-faith negotiation that includes compromise to address some of the opposition's concerns here. you have seen the president say several times that he's prepared to have a dialogue. he said so on sunday and yesterday not much came out of that. - even as we speak again. so the question is are there ways that they make up pressure and i think by targeting with visa and financial sanctions people would say look i want to be able to travel in europe. i have money in the bank in london and unless you start doing things we are going to lose that sort of access. and i think the united states can have an impact here. it gets a lot of play in ukraine but it's going to be important that the europeans come along because if they are to do have leverage the united states doesn't and it doesn't appear

that the europeans have been able within the union to come up with a stance on this question. >> i want to thank all of you for coming and the panel for both of their excellent papers if you haven't had a chance to read it is being distributed yesterday and today, and i look forward to seeing at the end of the year how many of these turned out and reminding you all each -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> thanks again. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> it remains a chilly day here in washington and across much of the east coast areas we have confirmed several events including meeting of families usa and we will have the entire program scheduled later or you can watch any time on the web site. go to c-span.org. here are a brief remark by the kentucky senator. >> today we changed the course of history. i wasn't really being dramatic. i was being truthful. kentucky is a state whose collective health has been

horrendous. we rank among the worst if not the worst and almost every major health category from smoking to cancer, preventable hospitalizations, preventable premature death, cardiac disease, heart disease. you name the condition, we don't look very good. and those didn't just come about last week or last year. we have ranked like that ever since they started keeping rankings of these. >> we have made progress over the years on health care, but these incremental improvements are not enough. i knew that to make fundamental change and a transformational change in our health status i needed a big solution, and along came the affordable care act and gave that solution to me. and now because of the maloney

team and, for the first time in history, kentucky is making affordable coverage available to every single one in the commonwealth of kentucky. [applause] and it's not just any old insurance. it is darn good coverage, comprehensive coverage, and it is desperately needed. >> some of you have been marching for over 40 years and have had many setbacks including the recent expansion of abortion coverage in obamacare. but it's important now more than ever that we remain strong and stand together. we cannot allow the opponent to continually sweeten the moral fabric of our country. they need to know and understand

that we will continue to march. we will continue to educate. we will continue to advocate and we will continue to fight for the unborn. despite the fact president obama is using deception and the coercive power of the state to promote abortion violence, the pro-life movement is alive and well and making serious, significant and sustained progress.

the matter what party they belong to, i bet most americans are thinking the same thing right about now. or next year or maybe even the year after that, because washington is broken. can you blame them for feeling a little cynical? the greatest blow to the confidence in the economy of last year didn't come from the events beyond our control. it came from a debate in washington over whether the united states would pay its bills or not who benefited from that i talked about the deficit of trust between main street and wall street but the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad and it seems to get worse

every year. the center for strategic and international studies hosted a discussion tuesday on the u.s. and south korea military relations once. they discuss the latest move and the december 2015 deadline for handing over control to the south koreans. more than 28,000 troops remain in south korea six decades after. this is about ten -- one hour

and ten minutes. >> [inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen, good morning. thank you for making it despite of the weather. [inaudible] [inaudible] -- openings today. so, this event is probably one of the only ones going on in washington this morning and it just goes to show that korea watchers are really die-hard

people. a very special event and this is something we wanted to do for quite some time to bring together some of the former commander santeria to help us think about the security situation in the region. korea in the region more broadly and planning for an event like this, we were looking for in addition to the commanders, someone from both the policy world with a strong academic background who could talk about this policy issues and strategy issues and there was no better person than dr. hicks. i will start buy formally introducing our purchase events and they will have a discussion and then we will open up to the audience for questions. i apologize both to the audience and panelists not that you are

chopped liver, but i think many people are watching this on the csis web site to avoid the difficult weather. let me start with general john tilelli who served as commander in chief in the united nations command republic of korea u.s. cfc in u.s. que from july of '96 until december of 1999. his command positions include commander sutphen par me combatant training camp commander first calvary division during operation desert shield and desert storm, vice chief of the stuff of the army and commander army forces command. he served two tours in vietnam and in virginia, staff assignments included tours of the pentagon, office of the deputy chief of staff for

acquisition, assistant deputy chief of staff for the office of the chief of staff in the army and the deputy chief of staff for the department of the army. after retirement he was appointed as president and ceo of the worldwide operations and currently is the chairman and ceo of cypress international. he graduated from pennsylvania military college university where he received a degree in economics and was commissioned as an officer. he was a master's in the information and graduated from the u.s. army war college. general shark served as commander in chief over u.s. see from june of 2008 to july 14th 2011. his command positions included division commander, third infantry division in georgia, assistant division commander for the maneuver and second infantry division in south korea. the regimental commander in fort

louisianan, the squadron commander first squadron 70 was calgary, first calvary division in fort hood texas and army company commander first battalion sixth and seventh armored division in fort hood texas. he commanded the troops in desert shield and desert storm to uphold democracy and the stabilization force for the multinational division in bosnia. he is now consulting for several u.s. firms so on the board of directors on the society it and the involvement strategy and policy discussions with several think tanks and putting csis. he graduated from west point in 1974 and was commissioned as an officer and earned a master's of science degree in operations research and systems analysis from the polytechnic institute. general james thurman serve as commander in chief from july 14,

2011 to october 2nd, 2013. general thurman command included the fifth corps of germany, fourth infantry texas and baghdad iraq, commanding general national trading operations and centers second brigade third infantry division fort stewart georgia and the regimen infantry division second squadron and second armory and 11th regiment. he has extensive army joint staff experience including deputy chief of staff had ordered the department of the army, director of the aviation task force office of the deputy chiefs of staff, the chief operations coalition forces commander, director of training office at the deputy chiefs of staff department of the army. he also served as the chief of the policy division for the allied forces in europe and the battalion executive officer of the calvary division during

desert shield and desert storm. general thurman heard the rotc in oklahoma university and is a graduate of command and general staff college and the army war college and he holds a b.a. in history from east central oklahoma university and a master's from webster university dr. kathleen hicks as the senior vice president henry kissinger care chair. she previously served as the principal deputy undersecretary defense for policy and the deputy undersecretary defense for strategy plans and forces. as the deputy undersecretary for policy, she was responsible for advising the under secretary defense policy and secretary defense on issues pertaining to the development and execution of the national defense policy and strategy. as the undersecretary, the plans and forces she led the development of the 2012 defense

strategic guidance and 2010 quadrennial defense review and reverse of the strategic guidance development review of plans for the day-to-day activities of the combatant commanders. prior to her service at the defense department, she was a senior fellow where she could directed the task force on the nontraditional security assistance and let strategy planning and process assessments on the project for national security reform and assessed the national security and improving global health. dr. hicks heard say -- will say ph.d. and va from mount college pity and i think part of the purpose of the long and extended introductions isn't because i like to hear myself talk that i just wanted you to all have a sense of the experience that we have on the stage today so on

behalf of csis, dr. hicks and i are happy to begin and i will turn it over to you now. >> thank you very much. i'm reminded the last time i had and he event this season it was hosting the canadian chief defense forces and i have a similar feeling today. here we are going to have the generals who survived the winter. so i appreciate you showing just how we are in washington. gentlemen, let me begin very broadly. i'm going to ask each of you, beginning with the general a pretty open-ended question. the u.s. and public of korea recently signed a renewal essentially the special measures agreement to provide extensive support to u.s. forces in korea and reinforce the presidential statement made last may.

and i'm interested based on your own history and experiences each of you have a different time in the u.s. relationship cal you think about and what characterize the state of the relationship between the u.s. and the public of korea right now and maybe to refine that a little if you can think of anything in particular that gives you the greatest degree of hope for that alliance and what causes you the greatest concern to the alliance i would be interested in hearing that over to you from you. general tilelli, we can start with you. >> thank you for allowing me to be here and for inviting me. i've always said and i still believe to this day that the iraq and the u.s. alliance is the model of any alliance that the u.s. were to engage in and it's a very strong alliance that has been born in blood and carried through multiple the

activities and a sense of when you think of iraq and the u.s. alliance, i think that one of the terms all of us have used in the public of korea we do together and truly that is the sense and spirit of the alliance over many years. you look for a positive indication and i think the indication is the close working relationship between the leadership of not only the armed forces but also the administration's over time. i think second, and in my personal view, when you think of the friendships that have been over 60 years of working together it's not only an

alliance of people and countries and military but it's an alliance of friends and families that have been brought over relationships and spread over time. you look at one positive activity and i think a positive activity that we need to think about is in each and every time that the united states has been engaged overseas where we have lost the public of korea government to assist the united states, you can look of vietnam, you can look at iraq, afghanistan, you can look at the many places that we have then and iraq has always contributed forces. so when you think about it in the context of the other alliances and when you think in my mind as i what is the biggest threat, i think the biggest

threat of course is not a function of differences of opinion because each has its own vital interest, but i think it's how you work those interests over time for example the united states defense department has been under the constraints so what does that mean towards the alliance? how the alliance is strong but it's too how we execute things so that's my view. i think it is the best alliance in the world and i've always thought that and after serving their for four years and being very close to the forces i still believe that. >> i think the general said it very well. i believe that the public of korea u.s. alliance is the strongest bar none and that's

not just from the military perspective but it's from a diplomatic and economic perspective and a social perspective. we worked together very closely to try to deal to maintain peace and stability and security around the world and to promote the values of democracy, freedom and human rights around the world we have historically been doing that for 60 years now as we go through. i think that strength and understanding of having the same basic core values enable us to work through some of the difficult issues that face us now and that will face us in the future and continue to face us in the future of course the biggest one is to be able to maintain stability with kim jung un and this alliance will be able to work together to maintain that strength and that

is needed for anything that comes to the future. >> thanks and first of it is an honor for me to be here this morning with two great general officers and dr. hicks. i would tell you the alliance is very strong and i am probably three months removed. i never served in korea but it was the best military partnership that i was ever a part of the and we were talking about contributions to us in iraq. i had an opportunity to serve with the previous two types removed who ended up being my deputy. he and i were in iraq at the same time, and five strength of the alliance right now i believe is felt not only from the sacrifice of the terrie in a more, but on the mutual trust

that you seek everyday particularly inside of the combined forces command which i think is one of the key linchpins of the alliance with all combined the forces command works and i've spent a majority of my time with the three heads ipad on the force command. but i would agree with both the general officers about their perspectives and i think the budgetary constraints that we see out there today can cause some issues for the future. but i think the alliance does two things it provides a strong deterrence and it also provides insurance not only to the region, but to the public.

.. when you came back here about what people across the country about the north korean threat and what it did american most need to understand that maybe they doubt? >> okay, thank you very much. right after i took over, of