reserves. they're a bit deep, so they're expensive to get at. much will depend on at that time what are the market outlets and what's the money, you know, calculations behind it. but i see it really in two stages. stage one is going ahead with the bidding to which many of the major oil companies of the west and the east have applied to bid. and bid round was supposed to happen last year because of the government still needed to issue a few decrees. when it resigned, it was a caretaker government, couldn't go forward. the first stage is going ahead with the bidding round, and for the first four to five to six years there will be no revenue. there will be, you know, maybe within five, six years you begin to get some energy, but to turn that into money might be seven to ten years' window. but what's important about phase one if you have major oil players from the u.s. and russia and europe and china engaged in the sector, in the eastern mediterranean alongside israel and cyprus which relates to then

turkey and the e.u. and all of that, it might create for lebanon an investment in its stability and its long-term viability because of the importance of energy. similar to what, how the gulf sort of gets its stability and security. the gulf countries are, you know, strange tribes, but they survived because they have important resources. other parking lots of the world -- parts of the world sometimes have that as well. that's very important for lebanon's geostrategic environment. if the east and west agree that this must be a peace offul zone because there are important resources here, now actually moving forward on what's the economic value of this, the first thing is to figure out how to get it to market. the market is effectively europe. the original approach was or the plan was certainly to take it over land to turkey which would mean through syria as long as the war there is raging, you cannot do that. but that is the most cost effective i way.

and i would indicate that part of the war for syria has to do with who's going to control the future of eastern mediterranean energy. the other way to do it which israel is exploring is whether to do it through lng, you know, whether cyprus and put it on ships or possibly from cyprus an undersea pipeline to turkey and then turkey gets it to market. so it gets into a lot of geopoll to tucks and relations. -- geopoll ticks and relations. if lebanon could get this to market and sell it, that would be -- well, the energy itself, the gas, if it's extracted, the first use of it is directly into the lebanese electricity production which would take the biggest build from lebanon's public finances of the records, what we pay to create electricity. that would be the first and most direct easing for the lebanese, you know, public finances. the second part is if we begin to sell, you know, on the markets the money according to the law that was passed will be

put into a sovereign wealth fund. the law for the sovereign wealth fund and the details of how that money will be spent has not yet been negotiated, but the principle of creating a sovereign wealth fund which is the proper approach in principle l has been made law, and future parliament will have to pass a law as to what the wealth fund will use the money for. will it be to draw down debt, capital investment or just insurance for the future? the norwegians are working very closely with the lebanese, they have the best model, other models as well. >> right. >> so it's geostrategic stability first and within a decade if they move ahead, beginning to move ahead on some economic benefits which would be very significant. during that whole period, there would be a benefit that companies both upstream, downstream will begin setting up in lebanon to prepare for the sector. and that in itself creates economic activity in lebanon which creates jobs and growth. all of this overshadowed by the war many syria, so it's pretty

tough going. still there is serious interest in the international community even with the war going on for the bids to go forward. the big fields are most of the gas and so on is not in the border area. there are fields -- it's not exactly clear because one has to drill to be sure -- >> right. >> it's likely that one of the main israeli fields dips into the southern part of that disputed zone. 90 percent of drilling can take place that has nothing to do with the israeli border issue. so we can go on for 20, 30 years without even touching that. it's definitely avoidable. the challenges are to get ahead with the bidding round, to begin the process, to find ways to eventually get it to market and to have some security ask stability over this decade. >> i want to thank you both for being here and for your testimony. one of the challenges of being a junior senator is i'm usually at hearings where i get to ask questions for five minutes. the ability to have two panels and have two hours where i can

ask always questions i want is a great satisfaction to the policy glutton in me. your expertise is very much appreciated. these are important -- this is a very important relationship, and i, frankly, worry that in the story of syria the effect this many jordan has been better known, as it should be, the effect in turkey is better known, as it should be. it's important that the effect in lebanon is known here in this congress. you've done that today. look forward to working together with you, and with that, the hearing is adjourned. ..

[inaudible conversations] >> and a look at washington, d.c. today. the snow canceling most events around town. on capitol hill the house decided last night to cancel their session because of the weather. the senate still planning to meet at 2:00 eastern time for general speeches. legislative work has been postponed, including work on an executive nomination for the new head of the justice department civil rights division. that has been postponed until later this week. later this week we could see a house take up a bill to delay the health care law's individual

mandate. the senate is live at 2:00 on c-span2. the house later this week on c-span. the unfolding situation in ukraine. new reports are coming out saying russia is giving ukrainian forces in the crimean peninsula to leave or face an assault. that is according to reuters, attributing one source in the ukrainian defense ministry. secretary of state john kerry, he is scheduled to go to kiev tomorrow after russian troops entered crimea over the weekend. the associated press says russia issued ultimatum for surrender of two ukraine yap warships in crimea. secretary kerry said the international community could kick russia out of the g8 holding meetings in sochi in june and they could freeze assets if russia does not withdraw the occupation. he is scheduled to make remarks shortly from the state

department after a meeting with the prime minister of moldova. we'll bring you remarks on companion network c-span. russian president vladmir putin said he sent troops to protect russian personnel in military bases in southern ukraine after the ouster of ukraine's president. secretary of state kerry will speak to the american israel public affairs committee meeting, aipac. we will have the secretary's remarks live from the conference on our companion network c-span. those remarks are scheduled to start at 5:00 eastern time. at the pentagon -- >> internet as we know it today, bears no resemblance to monopoly telephone service back in the 1930s and '40s and '50s. and what, what the courts have said and what the congress supports is if i walk in to a grocery store and i buy a gallon of milk i pay, 3.50 a gallon, if

i buy 10 gallons i pay $35 a, for all 10 gallons. well, tom wheeler's fcc wants to say you can use as much milk as you want and you only have to pay 3.50. that's just wrong. if netflix is the biggest user of the internet as people download their movies, sometimes there's as much as 30% of the total volume of the internet. obviously netflix should pay more than somebody who uses the internet once a month. i'm being very simplistic but that's the genesis and these, these companies have spent billions and billions of dollars to set up their systems and to provide the fiber-optics and all the megaspeeds that we just take for granted. on a volume metric basis at some level, they should be allowed to charge based on volume. >> net neutrality, spectrum auctions and other telecom issues, tonight on "the communicators", at 8:00 eastern on c-span2.

>> and now the pentagon recently gave a preview of its budget priorities. last week we heard from acting deputy defense secretary christine fox. she gave more details about that budget and the size of the army which would be reduced under the 2015 proposal and raises for enlisted servicemembers would be capped. this is from the american enterprise institute. it is about 50 minutes. >> so i want to thank all of you at american enterprise institute for the great work that you do and for the opportunity to be with you today. so as mackenzie said, secretary hagel recently announced a number of recommendations and proposals contained in the defense department fiscal year 2015 budget submission. it goes without saying that making spending choice that is will be portrayed as having more losers than winners due the fact

that budgets are tight and could get even tighter is no way to win a popularity contest. in many respects there was something in this package to set off about everybody's alarm bells and umbridge meter and from my perspective, and as i hope my remarks will make clear, the two categories of stakeholders most protected from these changes are people we should all feel the most accountable to. the average american fighting man and woman, and the average american taxpayer. to best take advantage of our time today as well as this informed audience i thought i would be useful, it might be useful to provide the broader context, thought processes and strategic shifts underlying the fy 2015 proposal. we are unveiling this latest budget at a time of continued transition and uncertainty for the u.s. military in terms of its role, missions and available resources. the past decade has been dominated by the protracted land wars in the middle east and central asia.

today even if the fight wind down in afghanistan the military's focus is preparing to counter a variety of security threats and embracing opportunities on all points of the compass. recognizing that america was answering this historic inflection point two years ago, president obama issued strategic guidance to the defense department that articulated our top security priorities and most important military missions. because these priorities weighed so heavily on recent budget choices it is worth revisittings them briefly. they included shifting operational focus and forces to the asia-pacific. establishing commitments to key allies in the middle east. being prepared to defeat a major adversary in one part of the world while denying victory to opportunistic adversary elsewhere. reducing the force planning

requirement to conduct large, prolonged, counterinsurgency and stability operations. aggressively pursuing terrorist networks and countering weapons proliferation that threaten the homeland. enhancing capabilities in cyberspace and missile defense. maintaining a small but, smaller but credible nuclear deterrent. and continuing a military presence in pursuing security cooperation in multiple regions, europe, africa and south america though at reduced size and frequency. okay. that list is not a short one. it reflects the president's chief objectives of protecting the american homeland and fostering stability overseas by supporting traditional allies, cultivating new partners and deterring would-be adversaries. these strategic tenets are affirmed and refreshed in the 2014 quadrennial defense review scheduled to be released to

congress with the official budget submission. all the reviews and deliberations in recent years brought into sharp focus two historic realities. first, as you can see from that list the world has gotten no less dangerous, turbulent or in need of american leadership. there is no obvious peace dividend as was the case at the end of the cold war. second, there is a strong possibility that under current law, most notably, the return of sequester in fy 2016, resources for national defense may not reach the level of envisioned to fully support the president's strategy. consider the recent fiscal history. the budget control act of 2011, even before the sequester provision was triggered, then reduced projected defense spending by $487 billion over 10 years. the next two defense budgets, submitted by the president stayed generally on this fiscal course though last year's request added another

150 billion in reductions backloaded towards the end of the bca period. as director of dod's cost assessment and program evaluation organization during this period i worked closely with the service, the joint staff and the secretary on putting these budget plans together. while no government official in or out of uniform likes having their projected funding reduced, most senior military leaders considered the 2013 and 2014 budget plans supportive of the military's mission and global obligations as defined by the defense strategic guidance much. then, of course, the department along with the rest of the executive branch got hit with sequester just under one year ago today. with military compensation which represents 1/3 of all defense spending put off limits by sequester, the operations, maintenance and investment accounts received disproportionately steep cuts.

the result was more delayed modernization and readiness short falls that are still with us today. some relief and certainty arrived in form of the bipartisan budget act designed in december, but, for 2014 and 2015, the bba still reduces defend spending by more than $75 billion relative to the budget plans submitted by the president last year. and without farsighted bipartisan action by the congress, sequestration will return in fy 2016, cutting defense by more than 50 billion annually through 2021. this brings me to the defense department's response to these fiscal challenges. with our leadership's stern warning about sequestration appearing to fall mostly on deaf ears in the congress last year, one of secretary hagel's top priorities is to prepare the department for an era when defense budgets could be

significantly lower than expected, wanted or needed. the secretary recognized to those of us charged with helping to prepare the u.s. military for the future have to deal with the world as we find it, as it is, not as we'd like it to be, either beyond our borders or within the beltway. in the current political environment we're not likely to return to levels of spending favored by the most ardent defense proponents in organizations like aei, on the hill, or frankly in the pentagon. now the budget plan announced monday would provide $115 billion more over the next five years than sequester level funding. we think it's a realistic proposal that reflects strategic imperatives as well as the resources the department might reasonably expect to receive, albeit with strong leadership and cooperation in the congress. if enacted, the changes will

help remedy some of the damage already caused by sequestration, albeit with continued training and maintenance shortfalls in the near term and mitigate the impact of potential cuts in the future. now, if the $26 billion provided by the administration's proposed opportunity growth and security fund is also approved for fy-2015, the military's near-term readiness picture improves significantly. in all, the budget plan, and associated proposals provide a sustainable path towards shaping a force able to protect the nation and fulfill the president's defense strategy, albeit with some additional risk. as the department assessed our strategic environment, budget options and risks we've drawn upon work from outside organizations. aei has made some important contributions to our understanding on all of these issues. so while i will dive into a couple of areas most frequently debated and close by stressing

one overriding concern, sequestration, on which we should all be in violent agreement. there was a recent exercise in which aei and three other think tanks presented alternatives to the department's budget and qdr. given concerns about potential near term threats the department's budget plan put more on emphasis in recovering and protecting readiness but otherwise there was a good deal of overlap with the overall thrust of your recommendations. we found that in order to insure adequate funding for new procurement, research and development, there was no choice but to also reduce force structure. now, to be sure shrinking the future military contains real risks. as the smaller force, no matter how ready or technologically advanced can go to fewer places and do fewer things. especially when confronted by multiple contingencies or scenario in which mass is required. however, attempting to retain a larger force in the space of

potential sequester level cuts would create in a effect a decade-long modernization holiday and on top of program cancellations and delays already made. while the odds of a major conflict against another tech logically advanced military power are relatively low, the consequences of being unprepared for such a contingency could be catastrophic. we also have to consider how these cuts to investment funding would impact the viability of america's private sector industrial base in national strategic asset ignored at our peril. in the recent budget decisions we were guided very much by the lessons of past major drawdowns. after world war ii, korea, vietnam, and to a lesser extent the cold war, in each case, the u.s. military kept more force structure than could be adequately, trained, maintained and equipped given defense budgets at the time. the defense department was thus forced to cut disproportionally into accounts that fund

readiness and modernization. the worst example of this phenomenon was the hollow military of the 1970s. that is why for many parts of the military, secretary hagel chose to reduce capacity, the quantity of forces available for global engagement, deterrence and crisis response. in order to insure those forces were properly trained, and clearly superior in arms and equipment. i also know mackenzie and others written about the need to pare back the department eats overhead costs, the proverbial back office. the idea being that squeezing more savings out of that back office could obviate the need to shrink the military further. during last year's skimmer we did take a hard look at the vaunted pentagon bureaucracy sir, the office of the secretary arery of defense, defense headquarters, joint staff, defense agencies and field activities and found that some reductions are necessary and some savings are possible. however, achieving savings in

the military's proverbial tale takes several years and produced significantly less in bankable savings than is commonly believed. furthermore, a skimmer analysis showed that dod's headquarters structures comprise just over 2% of its personnel and 1% of its budget. when all is said and done, an enterprise of the u.s. military size, complexity and global reach requires a substantial administrative and support operation. but these back end functions can certainly be done more efficiently with less duplication, fewer contractors and with fewer executives, generals and admirals plus their associated staff. and that is why secretary hagel announced last summer he would cut civilian and contractor personnel from all headquarters by 20%. the total savings however, are a fraction of the reductions required by either sequestration or frankly of the president's

budget over the next decade. the efficiency efforts extended to the services, their force structure and their operations and maintenance as well, the stave very, for example, is pursuing aggressive cost savings initiatives including support contracts and achieving better price initiatives to maximize the possible size of their ship inventory, however, if these efforts generate fewer savings than planned and counted on in our budget there will be little choice but to further reduce the size of the navy's fleet. finally i also know the various reviews and resulting proposals of recent years have been criticized as budget drills, math, not strategy and when confronted with major spending cuts, especially on the scale and schedule of sequestration, there's no avoiding the imperative to seek savings and fast. yet, i would suggest that the notion of crafting a strategy totally destroyed of risk and

totally disencumbered from resources is a logical fallacy and historical fiction. for startersing, a relevant strategy is not a set of goals and preferences put together on the assumption and hope that the money would just follow. in reality, strategy requires a symbiotic relationship between resources, outcomes and courses of action. in the real world, our military is provided with a certain level of funding as was the case in each of america's major conflicts and during the riskiest periods of the cold war as well. as analysts and yes, strategists, we do an assessment what this will buy and what the options are. this is it terra tiff process. these results are linked with the major defense priorities as outlined bit president. each strategic element informs one another on the path to final decisions. the result of this feedback loop is a strategy that is neither budget-driven or budget blind. remember that even the largest

defense budgets with sill have limits as our knowledge and ability to predict the future. so they always contain some measure of risk. when talking about the risk in the pentagon sense of the term, at issue is not the ability of the u.s. military to prevail against any adversary but how long it takes and at what cost. materials, financial and human. that does not mean, however that we can ignore or rationalize the strategic consequences of slashing the resources available for national defense. if we don't like the strategy that results then additional fund something required to allow for a difficult set of tradeoffs and lower levels of risk. for this budget plan we added the $115 billion above current law in order to have a reasonable opportunity to fulfill the president's strategic priorities, albeit with higher risk for certain military missions.

this brings me to this specter of sequestration slated to return in current law in fy-2016. as a result of the last few months of analysis we were able to identify with some precision what the post-sequestration military would look like over the next decade. that means significantly fewer navy ships, including at least one less aircraft carrier. dropping the army down even further to 420,000 active duty soldiers. cutting more air force squardrons, delaying or curtailing the purchase of joint strike fighters and other platforms critical to us air superiority and shorting combat units of spare parts, basic maintenance and the ability to conduct, complex, realistic training. so consider the kind of military and most significantly the kind of world that could follow several years of sequestration.

the u.s. could not respond decisively to simultaneous aggression by two states, thus inviting military adventurism by potential adversaries. our forces could not deploy quickly and in strength to respond to disasters overseas or other contingencies that require america's leadership. some allies and partners would be more likely to hedge their bets and cut side deals with their larger and more aggressive neighbors. and finally, america would remain the world's leading military power but would no longer be the guarantor of global security that it can be counted on to protect our values, interests an allies. these are the kind of scenarios we need to consider, the kinds of discussions we need to have. after looking at these issues carefully, analytically, with real data for many years and recently helping secretary hagel

through this latest budget review, i know this much. preextending that a return to sequester is not harmful is the most harmful thing that we can do. there needs to be a serious national dialogue on what a sensible, sustainable, and strategically-sound defense budget looks like. we believe that we have proposed that budget this year. if our elected officials and body politic conclude that they truly want a diminished role for the u.s. in the world, then we can start paring back missions and ratcheting corresponding military investments and force structure but as i wrote a few months ago after least leaving the pentagon the first time around let's drop the illusion by efficiency nip and managerial tuck that the u.s. military can absorb cuts of this size and this immediacy without significant consequences. as defense leaders we must prepare our institutions for leaner times and we must make sound choices of the country as a whole, including its elected

leaders to understand the strategic and human consequences of reducing drastically the resources available for national defense and in so doing, reducing america's role in the world as a global power and a force of stability. it is up to all of us in government and out to make the case and make of the choices necessary on behalf of the men and women in uniform for our country's security and credibility as a global power. so thank you again for this opportunity to speak with you and now i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you so much. i'm going to just briefly kick it off because we're still going to get miss fox out of here on time this morning with the snow. she was very generous and is a busy woman. so thank you for those remarks. very enlightening. i agree with you, i think we're in violent agreement pretty much

on everything. if you could, we spoke yesterday at the pentagon and in another enlightening conversation with the secretary and if you could clarify perhaps a little more, not just for me but i think really for the audience. there are two budgets and one coming over, is that correct? but in that budget that is coming over, that's slightly higher, 115 billion that you outlined there are basically offramps for policymakers and dod therein. some of them are in and some of them are out however but you still have a long list of options that you can pull from so it may not be clear to policymakers right away. so for example, you clarified yesterday at the pentagon that the, a consequence of sequestration is an army that dropses to 420,000 active duty soldiers. that is built into the budget. now you hope that you do to the have to do that and i understand that but there are other things like the aircraft carrier that are in the budget but you could take it out if you need to or funding does not materialize.

could you walk through a little bit more how everyone what is baked in and what is baked out of this cake? >> yeah, i think if we tried harder we couldn't have made this budget more complicated. so the it is very hard to explain. so there are actually multiple budgets embedded in this submission so maybe i can walk through the list a little more than i did yesterday if that would be okay for this audience. first of all we'll include a description of the force that just kind of touched on in my remarks what the sequester force force will look like. we had services produce them at the sequester level for the first time. that is the first time we have detail necessary to clearly show, do you like this picture? if you do, then keep going on the sequester path. and that will be not submitted at budget level detail even even though we have that at pentagon but a description that is included in the budget.

that brings me to the actual budget which has sort of two budgets in it. we did this planning, and as i said in my remarks complex force structure takes time to get out and is really hard to plan for. so bringing the army down smartly, not the smartly, not the way we have done it before, creating the swiss cheese army but an army that remains capable as you bring it down, is hard. it takes a lot of time and a lot of planning and army and marine corps both did that planning so we left that in the budget. but we know where the off-ramps are. so if we get assurance that is we're going to the president's budget level in '16 rather than sequester we'lllan that offramp and put that into the budget submission this year and next year. the aircraft carrier is another one. we have to take the carrier out at sequester. you have to plan refueling, yards and all that planning and navy did all of that planning but frankly all the planning is still in the budget.

in '15 we'll kind of hold. we won't take the people out. we won't take the air wing out. we'll put the ship in yards and start actions that you would take whether you're going to refuel it and put it back in service or take it out of service. so we have time. again, if we get some assurances that the budget's going up instead of down after, in fy-16 we'll keep the carrier. if however we go back to sequester we really have no choice. it is true. the budget is higher. it is $115 billion higher so what we tried to put in there are things we could reverse more quickly than those kind of really complicated things i just mentioned. programs, you would just cancel like global hawk block 40 or parts of our structure you would take out immediately like the kc-10s. or unfortunately readiness which we put a lot of investment in in the $115 billion that again you would just have to stop doing. it is a complicated story as i

said and i thank you for the question to give me at least a chance to walk you through what we've tried to do. >> i will just offer one comment in sympathy to you and your colleagues. you know as sequestration hit in fiscal year '13, last year and then the comptroller sent over his report and there was one other from the pentagon last summer, but you were coming off the continuing resolution and sequestering and then there was budget finally and there was sequestration or maybe i reversed order but they all three came in rapid succession and it is just to look back a year ago, it was very comply he indicated to get a -- complicated to get a clear sense the impact of last year's sequestration. i know talking about the moment and looking forward to 2015. i was looking back, if we have trouble with the think tank, i know congress struggles with this to be sure. so i would just say in great sympathy to you this is a very cloudy budget picture. and my only worry is that

because it is so complicated, again, it is hard to get capitol hill to be sympathetic, as sympathetic as we are because it is very, very confusing and i know that is not your fault. one quick question on your navy remarks. you mentioned just very specifically in the comments and i know it will be of great interest to the audience and washington, if there are not certain, i believe multiyear contracts and certain savings out of certain contracts in ship building in particular you would have to make other conditions to decisions to free up funding. could you elaborate on that very quickly. >> so it is actually a broad package of acquisition-related efficiencies that the navy has proposed this year. so, i mean, pushed on efficiencies, we've all pushed on efficiencies. . .

>> and we're excited that they did that because if the whole department could do that kind of thing, we could do even better with the money that we have which is, obviously, the goal. but i did want to mention that we're counting on those predictions. they were able to keep force structure slightly higher than what we predicted in the scmr because of those efficiencies. so it reinforces the points you've made on the value of efficiencies. obviously, a good thing. on the other hand, there's a bit of a gamble there, and i'm just excited the navy's given it their best shot.

we're going to, secretary kendall and i looked at it hard, and is we're fully in support of them and hoping their successes will migrate across the whole department. >> that's fantastic. we will be watching that closely. we're going to open it up for questions from the audience, and we'll start with george right up here, and we have about 15, 18 minutes. >> [inaudible] >> yes, please. i'm sorry, yes. please wait for a microphone, and if you could stand and let us know your name. >> hi, george -- [inaudible] counterintelligence special operations. i was on capitol hill yesterday before senator mccain put the hold on the nomination. one of questions is in your inputs into the budgets and concerns, the concern about retiring the a-10 which the senator from new hampshire is adamantly against, senator blumenthal says you will reconstitute a combat rescue helicopter program.

the issues right now with the army, big battle they're having this reducing the guard both with the air force, with hose inputs if those change, what kind of impacts are those going to have on the budget? where is the money going to come from? >> so thank you for that question. i -- this is our annual challenge and has been, frankly, since the first $487 billion reduction in budget with. we take what we -- i mean, we work very hard in the department as i know this audience appreciates to take a holistic view, and it's a tightly-crafted package where if you don't get this, something else comes out. and then it goes to the hill, and they take it piece, piece, piece, and they don't have that. and i wish i had a magic solution. all i can say is we are going to do everything in our power to explain those trade-offs. if they force, as they have every year, us to keep things that we don't want to keep, something else happens. and we are at the point even

with the $115 billion additional that there's very few places it can come out. it ends up coming out pretty much of readiness or we end up slipping and sliding and making our programs even more expensive. we are up there trying to make that case. i'm trying to do a lot of that myself because i've done a lot of the analysis behind these things. for the guard, for example, the secretary asked me to establish a tiger team with the guard and the army to put together the facts and come up with a balanced, fact-based rationale behind all of our reasons, and we're continuing to work with the tags to see if we can't come together on this and not fight ourselves and kick it to the the hill. things like that we're working as hard as we now how but, frankly, we also need your help. if anybody here could make the case if you force us to keep something we don't need, something we need -- we're at that point where there's not slop here. we have to take it out somewhere

else. thank you. >> absolutely. of great interest to aei. there's a mic. >> thank you. richard burton from the british embassy. you mentioned the upcoming qdr, and with the agree -- with the degree of budget uncertainty you just set out, there does seem to be some uncertainty of what sort of budget you could base a strategy on and, obviously, it's not done that way around, but clearly you need to have a strategy which is least resource informed. can you give some sort of indication of the thinking of how your qdr can come out given that extent of up certainty? >> absolutely. so qdr as i know audience knows is supposed to be fiscally unconstrained. it's the strategic aspirations of the to department, and we didn't do that. i mean, that's just the bottom line. we took a -- we made a choice to

make this qdr fiscally constrained. i think of qdr as the qdr that looks to achieve the defense strategic guidance slightly refreshed, but in a sort of resource-informed, more austere way. and to articulate clearly what we would do, what the geostrategic context is for that today, again, updated since the dsg came out two years ago and then looking at what the resources as i've pretty much just laid out will support and where the risks are. and then a little bit on sequester. so qdr tracks very closely with the kinds of remarks that i just made, and we did it in that iterative way because we really didn't want to put forward in this qdr a view of the world that just didn't match the reality of that we're living.

>> christine, this is great to hear. i'm myths city worth, i'm with the postgraduate school. one of the things that has struck me in the last two years is the importance of storytelling. and what i find is people who are a part of the inner circle when they write it, they can understand it. they don't test it. i mean, in many ways it's kind of like the problems we had with the health care. they didn't go out and see if it worked for those at the bottom who were going to have to use it. and i guess my suggestion is you might want to bring a random collection of people together to look at it to see what they don't understand. i just went through something like this last year with a navy admiral who was going to make it, and all of a sudden when he presented it, the audience got it. and so it makes a real difference doing those tests with people who don't understand the detail. >> it's a terrific suggestion. thank you for that. and we should do that. i'm going to take that back,

because we aren't communicating. we were not able to communicate the impact of sequester last year, because we talked about readiness, and nobody knows what readiness is. i had the opportunity to do an npr interview, and i knew, my great staff helped me. they're not going to understand what readiness is. it's not going to communicate. so i talked about, you know, having your teenager drive to ohio in a snowstorm. you want to make sure they can drive. you want to make sure they can drive in snow. you want to make sure their car works and that it's been serviced, and if it breaks down, they've got a spare tire. that's what readiness is for all our ships and airplanes and tanks and so forth. oh, so it worked. a little longer than the world, you know? [laughter] but i think those kinds of points you're making so important because we forget it because we go into pentagon speak, and i get it. so i think trying out our story on these particular parts with outside groups is a terrific idea, so thank you, mitzi.

>> to your point, as we await more questions, i was thinking about our conversation this morning and yesterday getting ready to come over here, and i was literally -- i'm so frustrated with the pentagon's ability to get to e yes with congress on so many of these decisions. kind of the first question in the audience. and it's not just, it's not just people focus on the hardware, but it really is about the national guard, it's about retiring fleets of aircrafts and ships and other priorities. and i was thinking in terms of, well, what would that be like, and i haven't given be this enough thought as you'll find out, but my 3-year-old son, i thought what if i take him to the hairdresser and say you need to cut an inch off his air, but you can't take any off the front, the back or the side, just the top. [laughter] that's basically what congress is telling the pentagon when they send the budget back to you, anywhere from half to two-thirds of this budget that you can't cut even though you've proposed cutting everywhere

except the one-third that is personnel. i sympathize. and i understand the messaging component to this, and it's something we give great thought to. do we have any more questions? >> thomas -- [inaudible] my question has to do with right now, and i think you acknowledged that our conventional forces in the near term are going to be superior to any of our adversaries, so what you're really looking at is terrorism, cyber warfare and other kinds of asymmetric tactics. and yet we talk about, you know, needing, you know, an actual aircraft carrier or other joint strike fighters, and i was wondering is there discussion there that in putting money into current weapon technologies that are probably, you know, built for an enemy that doesn't exist at point be, is that going to hurt us 20 years down the road when a conventional adversary

such as china may arise? >> so the sort of said another way, are we living in the past with our force, should we move to the future? and, boy, we debate this a lot in the pentagon, as i'm sure you can imagine. so we have to move to the future, and the budget does predict -- submarine, for example. we actually took out more air force structure than we would like to protect the new long-range bomber, and we are protecting cyber. we're protecting soft. so the aspects of the force that we see as clearly vital for the future are protected. but the things like the aircraft carrier, you know, we thought in the scmr we'd have to go down to nine or maybe even eight with sequester, and i think your study also took the carriers down more. the outcry of going to ten, i mean, i've not had any more calls on anything than that. and i am, by my own admission, an aircraft carrier analyst

myself, so i have a lot of experience with this. and i get it, it's an incredibly important capability of the force. it's a huge symbol. look at how china's announcing that they're trying to push up their aircraft carriers. so there's a precedent. we're putting him in a position where he's got to look the global community this the eye and say we're bringing carriers down at the very time china's trying to build them, okay? but the point you're making is spot on. we have to think about keeping that platform viable for the future. if we're going to keep it and we're going to have it and we think it's important, it's got to be able to play. and, you know, it's not the first time that carriers have had this problem. in the whole cold war, the soviets put enormous energy, enormous money into taking out the aircraft carriers and the strikers, and that's how i cut my teeth in this business, is figuring out ways to make it survivable. and we did. actually, we did an awful lot in those days. now, none of those things would work this today's world, but we

have to be creative again. we are so used to.com to nateing at sea and in the air, we don't spend anywhere near the money we should on enablers like electronic warfare and deception and other things like that that can make a huge difference. and in this budget environment we can actually afford things like that. so we need to be more creative, so that's point one. joint strike fighter is another program that suffers, i think, from the same challenge of how can we talk about shorter range air in a world where they're pushing us further and further out. and i think the same point comes in there. we have to make, recognize. jsf is the only jet that we've built that is built from the ground up to be survivable in a challenging ew environment, for example. that's a tremendous capability. we haven't even started to figure out what we can do with that capability, and there are phases to any conflict.

the early phases haunt be able to use your jsf. maybe you're just in your long-range bomber. but eventually you can get in there. so we have to think of it across the spectrum, but i think your point is very good, and where it's not lost on us we have to make sure that the platforms we have today can work tomorrow. and we are preferentially trying to protect those investments in our budget. >> in fact, what we did briefly at the csba exercise which last summer, as ms. fox knows, we conducted a shadow strategic choices in management review, and then we had the opportunity to discuss that with you, and then this winter it was a shadow 2015 budget flash qdr, and what we found at aei, basically, was we had to cut further than she sequester leving in the budget year you're in so that you could free up money to make investments in electronic warfare and other enablers like she talked about, combat lo

wristics was a high priority, space and satellites, etc., so you take things down even further than sequester asks for. it's really a difficult situation and all the more reason why you're looking for the additional help in funding. right here. >> thank you for saying that. that is very true, and very few people understand that. >> hi, i'm mary walsh is with cbs news. i wonder if you could expand on your remarks of drawing down the army smartly. you have a force now that is highly skilled in combat, and i was recently at some training, and when you have you have combat veterans conducting training, it's a totally different balm out there. finish different game out there. yet it's those seasoned combat veterans that are potentially the ones that will be taken out of the army or forced to retire or just leave the army. so how do you draw down the army smartly?

>> so the army is extraordinarily capable right now in counterinsurgency operations, for example. one of our challenges for all the force, not just the army, is that we have to rebalance the force toward full spectrum operations. so we actually feel that in addition to the challenge that you rightly raised, we have to actually add readiness envelopesments to the army to -- investments to help them recover their full spectrum capabilities. and, again, where you're talking about the army, this is a readiness challenge we face across the entire with force. so as we bring down the army, we want to have the money to keep the army we have at the time ready and repurposing for a globally-available force on any type of conflict. so we need to keep those seasoned combat veterans. we can't let them just leave the force. if we were to be sequestered and

we took the army down immediately, we would lose all of those people just as you suggest. and we would not have the money to rebalance in the way that i described. so that's what we mean by smartly. while we have a force, the size of that force, we want it to be capable. and then next year it'll get a little smaller. we aren't really going to have the readiness dollars in the near years to keep the whole force capable, but we have to try to manage through that. the quicker you take down the force, the more you break it and you lose the very talent that you needment the quicker you take down the money rules you keep the force large, the less ready it is. so it's a really tough set of of trade-offs. we try to make the army -- the army has done all this very hard work, and that's why we left it alone. how do you bring it down relative to the budget you expect to have, keep it as ready as possible physical you reach that end state -- until you reach that end state where the

money is enough to p keep the force that you have modern and ready for today's world. that's just going to take time. and the more time that we have, the smarter we can do it. hopefully, that answered your question. >> okay. we're going to take our last three. we'll go here, here and we'll finish here. >> hey, good morning, megan -- [inaudible] with defense tailly. you spoke about the challenges of trying to cut from the tail instead of the tooth. i wonder from dod's perspective how you've looked at things like dod schools, base operations, morale welfare type of things and from the services' perspective how they're looking at more battlefield setting type things such as logistics and signals and, you know, whether that's falling into tooth or tail where you're looking at where to cut. >> so we looked at,. everything is on the table and has been for a couple of years now. schools, schools are on the table. we looked at schools, scmr went

from very benign efficiency initiatives all the way to very aggressive that included the schools. and then we turned it over to the chiefs and the joint staff that the chairman led a process and the vice chairman, and they concluded that schools were really important to the quality of life of the military families. we move them around so much, their kids are jerked out of school all the time. some confidence that dod is going to make sure we provide for their children's education was as important to the recruit and retain, so we honor their perspective, obviously. i mean, the compensation package they have come up with is, frankly, hard enough. but we looked at it, and i just want you to know that we looked at everything. now i, you talked about the logistics, and i would put things like depots and things like that in there. so, yes, we've looked at that as well. and here's the situation. there are lots of things we could do and would actually like to do to reduce the base

infrastructure, the -- we have about 25% more bases and installations than the size of our force would require. that's why we've asked for a brac for 2017. we've been told it's dead on arrival, but we need it. to consolidate depos, you need a brac. so an awful lot of our identified efficiencies for logistics have to be part and parcel of a becomes rac. of a brac. now, we put brac in the budget. in the early years, it costs money. in the later years, it saves. so with brac starting in 2017, there's not a lot of savings, but we put the money many to pay for a brac because we feel we need it so badly for the very reasons you suggest. >> right here, up front. >> all right. my name is -- [inaudible] i am from south korea with -- [inaudible]

i ask a question from your perspective. first, how the reduced number of u.s. army troops would affect the presence in asia including on the korean we anyones that. -- peninsula. second question is secretary hagel said that he wants to substitute u2 aircraft with global hawks, and these are technical question. do you want the allies to contribute to substitute the u2 with their own global hawks? >> so the importance of our relationship with korea and the importance of our commitment to south korea and the troops on the peninsula is not affected by our plans. in fact, it was one of those strategic imperatives as an input as we sized the army and other forces, for ma matter.

so -- for that matter. so there will be no impact on our agreement or commitments to korea, and we made sure of that as we went through. the challenge for the smaller army, at 440, 450 we believe it's manageable. of course, general odierno would prefer more flexibility, but it gives him enough flexibility to meet the requirements that any korean contingency would require and sustain our commitment to the forces on the peninsula and protect the homeland and do something else. but the smaller the force, the less else he can do. it's not koreament -- korea is set and was an input. on u2 and global hawk, i think just generally speaking anytime that we can work closely with our allies and share capabilities and equipment, it's a good thing. and so we've been, i think you know, back and forth on the u2 and global hawk block 30 decision, and i would say that it has always been a close call.

when we looked at it this year, the operating and sustainment costs of the global hawk block 30 have come down. they've come down significantly, and the contractor -- i don't know, perhaps because we said last year we weren't going to keep it -- helped be very aggressive to get those costs down, and we're appreciative of that. and, of course, the air force has worked very hard themselves, so i don't want to take away any credit that' deserving to the air force for getting those costs down. with those costs down, it makes sense now to keep the global hawk block 30, and the implications to our allies is something i look forward to working with you on. >> thank you. very quickly, last question, please. >> hi -- [inaudible] japan media. similar question but more wide. security -- and you also mentioned pentagon continues

to -- [inaudible] so i wonder what kind of impact will this budget have concretely on the region, east and southeast asia. thank you. >> so if i understand the question you're asking about our strategic imperative to rebalance to the asia-pacific aor and does this budget support it, and the short answer is, yes. just as our commitment to korea and plans for korea was an input to the budget, so was the rebalance. we intend to continue to do a lot of the things that we're already doing. for example, the marine corps are deploying to australia and doing operations in australia for the first time in a very, very long time. we're continuing with putting lcs in singapore, we've got two there and two more are going. our national leaders, the president and the secretary both, are making numerous trips to the asia-pacific aor. and with regard to the kinds of

critical capabilities that we need to operate successfully in that region now and in the far term as i've already mentioned, we preferentially protected those kinds of capabilities like the submarine and bomber, so forth. 60% of our fleet is oriented towards the asia-pacific aor in the future. so i think the rebalance to asia is very real. i know it's a continuing question and concern what are you really doing, isn't this just lip service? no, not from our regard. it's a part of everything we're talking about from managing the secretary's travel plans to the inputs that we made to the budget. >> that's a great question to conclude with, and i know that i've learned so much more about the defense budget spending time with you, and i want to thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >> your willingness to take questions from everyone where this morning -- this -- from everyone this morning. let's thank secretary fox. >> thank you, guys. great pleasure to be here. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> and some news regarding ukraine, the associated press reports the e.u. is halting talks with russia and threatening sanctions if moscow can does not deescalate the situation in you crawn's crimean peninsula by thursday. france's foreign minister says the e.u. is giving russia until thursday to show a clear sign of goodwill, including withdrawing russian troops from the crimea. the e.u. will be holding an emergency summit this week. and today the snow canceling most events around town here. the senate still planning to meet in about 30 minutes, 2:00 eastern time. they've postponed legislative work including debate and a vote

on an executive nomination for the head of the justice department's civil rights division. that's postponed until later this week lt also later this week we could see in the house a measure to delay the health care law's individual mandate. we'll have the senate live right here on c-span2 just under half an hour, and the house in later this week on c-span. before the senate gavels in, take a deeper look at international topics including ukraine as well as venezuela and syria from today's "washington journal." >> host: as promised to continue our discussion on i ukraine, josh rogin of the daily beast, senior correspondent. welcome. >> guest: thank you. >> host: tell us about where the administration finds it now with what's going on in ukraine. >> guest: right. so what a crazy weekend the administration must have had. on thursday the intelligence community predicted thatnd vladimir. putin would not invade ukraine.utin on friday morning we saw signs of that invasion beginning, and by friday afternoon president obama had admitted that the invasion was underway.am over the weekend administration

officials scrambled to do two things; figure out a litany of ways they could respond iney c realtime to the burgeoninge crisis to show the russians that the u.s. and the international community was serious about its objections to its actions. secondly, there was a parallelo. process going on behind the scenes to devise mid and long-term options. a lot of this we reported this morning in the the daily beast. halt its advance and also to reverse the progress of its forces over the past few days. this basket of options includes a number of stools, most of them are sanctions the administration can impose without congress, some of them involve targeting russian business leaders, russian military leaders, russian government leaders, the separatists in crimea could also

become targets, so that's one bath basket of options. another set of options involves removing russia from diplomatic and political bilateral and multilateral interactions. there were trade mugses canceled, naval -- missions canceled, naval cooperation talks canceled. basically, the obama administration has decided to place a halt on all aspects of bilateral relations until the crisis in this crimea is further resolved. >> host: is it enough to have sanctions to try to influence what's going on in ukraine? >> guest: right. according to several senior administration officials who briefed reporters over the telephone yesterday, they believe that the economic situation if russia is framing jill -- is fragile, russia may be more vulnerable than most people think. they think the russian ruble will tumble, that investment in russia will fall and that this will have a cumulative effect of pushing vladimir putin and those who can influence him in moscow

to have a change of calculus. other analysts aren't so sure. the russian system is extremely opaque, not a lot of good data is coming out. they have the ability to manipulate that data, and clearly vladimir putin has taken the decision that whatever costs or pressures he has to suffer under while this policy of invading crimea goes forth, he's willing to take those costs because he still sees the benefits as outweighing those costs. >> host: so in your opinion, what's the point of all this from mr. putin's position? >> guest: well, there are two things going on really. one is for vladimir putin ukraine and crimea specifically are uniquely personal issues. he believes and many russians believe, as a matter of fact, that crimea is essentially russian territory, that it was ceded to the ukraine in the 50s in error, the people are russian, and, therefore, crimea should always be a part of russia. so there's a nationalistic element of this.

there's a cultural element, there's a domestic political element. second lu, vladimir putin had longstanding policy of projecting russian power abroad. some will say it's an effort to reconstitute the soviet bloc. i think that goes too far. his view is that russia still has a role to lay as a regional, not world hegemon, and deserves special liberties near and abroad in the country. they have a black sea fleet that's based in crimea that already had 15,000 troops can there, and, lastly, they do not want to set precedent that they allow the west to influence in overturning of a government on their borders. because for vladimir putin, the number -- and for any authoritarian regime really, the

number one priority i is survival. and as russia looks around the world and they see autocratic governments turning over in places like egypt, in libya and potentially syria and now ukraine, they see this as a slippery slope that could lead to a turnover of the government in moscow and that, of course, is their number one fear. >> host: were the actions for president putin to move these troops into russia, in a sense, a reflection of what mr. putin thinks of mr. obama's power or position this the world? >> guest: right, right, right. that's, of course, the charge against the obama administration. long gone are the days when politics would stop at the water's edge here many america, right? before we used to wait until the crisis was over, at least two days into it before we would start criticizing the president for being too weak and not responding forcefully enough. i mean, these events are happening really fast. and the administration response has been robust. and we can have a good faith debate over whether or not it's been strong enough. the history here or is that the

obama administration spent three and a half years reaching out to vladimir putin, it was called the reset policy started by hillary clinton. about two years ago that policy ended. so the reset has been over to. it's well over, everybody knows that, both sides know that. so this is not the end of the u.s./russia reset. this is, like, the middle of the next phase already. so we should be clear about that. as for whether or not obama's weakness emboldens those around the world, that's not 100% fair. my take on it is this: the obama administration always had a broad vision and an ideology that included bringing the u.s. out of the position of active control of all of the world's conflicts, right? they don't believe that america has the preeminent role to play in every situation in the world. they do believe america should be the world's leader, and it's a distinction, but it's an important one. so you can look at that and say

that that has left a vacuum for other powers to fill and that, i think, is fair, but weakness is sort of pejorative, and it doesn't really reflect the thoughtfulness that actually goes into the obama administration's policy which is that we should have more sharing of burdens and more sharing of power around the world. how that a's working out, i guess, is pretty debatable. >> host: so that idea of sharing of power, and you can call in, by the way, the lines will be on your screen. 585-3880 for democrats, 3881 for republicans and 3882 for independents. that sharing of power, it's the nato secretary who came to cameras yesterday to talk what's going on and the role of nato. i want you to get his take and then kind of brief us on what happens now as far as nato is concerned. here's what he had to say. >> what russia is doing now in ukraine violates the principles of the united nations charter. it threatens peace and security in europe, russia must stop its military activities and its

threats. today we will discuss their implications for european peace and security and for nato's relationship with russia. afterwards, we will meet in the nato ukraine commission. we support ukraine easter to have y'all integrity and sovereignty -- territorial integrity and sovereignty. we support the right of the people of ukraine to determine their own future without outside interference. and we emphasize the need for ukraine to continue to uphold the democratic rights of all people and insure that minority rights are protected. ukraine is our neighbor, and ukraine is a valued partner for nato. we urge all parties to urgently

continue all efforts to move away from this dangerous situation. in lahr i call on russia -- in particular i call on russia to deescalate tensions. >> host: what's the takeaway, mr. rogin? >> guest: well, there's a few. first of all, this is a reflection of the fact that this is really a five-alarm fire as far as international crises goes. it's not every day that a major world power invades a small country right on europe's border. that's a big deal. so everyone's sort of sounding the alarm and saying, okay, this is a crisis that everyone's going to have to be involved with, that everyone's going to have to respond to and talk about. it's not enough to be busy, you've got to look busy. second what we're seeing here is that this is really a bigger issue for the e.u. in some ways than it is for the united states. let's remember that as ukraine revolution began and went on through november, december and january, it really was the e.u.

that took the leading role in a lot of cases with a few exceptions that we can talk about. the e.u. has more economic skin in the game. the e.u. has more leverage here. the e.u. has more fence on the energy that flows through ukraine, and when the final deal was made between the yanukovych government and the opposition even though that only lasted a few hours before yanukovych fled, it was the e.u. that negotiated that deal. so the e.u. has got to be part of this. you know, the obama administration has the most tools, the most power, but the e.u. has the most to lose. and i think that's the second thing. and the third thing here is that, you know, we're talking about, you know, how outraged everyone is and as is said, oh, russia must stop, right? this is what obama said in the briefing room on friday. he must -- there will be costs, right? so the number one question in washington and in brussels for that matter is what are those consequences, what are those costs, and what are the enforcement mechanisms that we

have to hold russia accountable for the international laws it's clearly breaking, right? and the conventional wisdom here is that we have few levers of influence to actually enforce all of these things that we're talking about, but we can unpack that a little bit more -- >> host: so probably no drawing of red lines, as it were. >> guest: right, right, well -- yeah. the word "red lines "will never be used again by this administration for obvious reasons and, of course, there are plenty of people who will tell you that obama's drawing of red lines in the sur ya debate and then the decision not to enforce those red lines, you know, enables him to use that real threats against vladimir putin today. there's some ruth to that. but the bottom line is that we're not going to go to war in ukraine. ukraine is not a nato country, and even ukraine going to war this ukraine is really a worst case scenario. that was one of the lessons of russia's invasion of georgia in 2008, that, you know, often what

vladimir putin would love you to do is to start firing at his troops, and then that can justify a whole host of of things that he wanted to do anyway including large scale military invasion. so the idea here is to deescalate, not to escalate, to look tough but not necessarily to use all of the weapons in our arsenal just quite yet. >> host: here is karen, first call for our guest with josh rogin of the daily beast. good morning. >> caller: what i would like you to play is an intercepted telephone call from the woman in the astronaut department to our ambassador in the ukraine. and the thing was all the attention was paid to her bad vocabulary at the end, but what about their discussion on who they wanted to be the leader? the idea that we are not involved, we were involved before these things happened. the second thing i'd like to say

is the crimea was given to the ukraine when the ukrainians were the head of the soviet union. we often forget stalin was a georgian. then we had a ukrainian. it wasn't always a russian that was the head of the soviet union. so did the people of crimea ever have a chance to determine who they wanted to be? >> guest: okay, a few things. so the first thing you were talking about was a leaked phone call from assistant secretary of state for european affairs, victoria knewland. this came right at a tense moment in the crisis between the government and the opposition, and what the phone call was was, basically, victoria nuland negotiating a deal to end the standoff between the government and the opposition, and in that negotiation call she used an expletive to describe the european union.

it wasn't very nice of her. but in the end, i think the takeaways from call were twofold. one, that the u.s. was very heavily involved in trying to negotiate an end to the crisis, which is probably a good thing. and, two, that the russians are -- were taping the phone calls of our u.s. ambassador to ukraine and then leaked them in a pretty interesting intelligence trade craft event. so that, we shouldn't overexaggerate the implications of that call. that's how diplomacy works. we get sort of a view into it sometimes, but that's what our officials are supposed to be doing. they're supposed to be trying to work these things out behind the scenes, and when nobody's listening, sometimes they use curse word, so, big dealment what it did lead to was a vulnerability that allowed the russians to accuse americans of outside interference. again, this is sort of a canard. that's what we do, outside interference. the russians do it, we do it, the e.u. does it.

everyone interferes all the time, right? the idea is to, a, not get caught and, b, win the interference war. so that was sort of a interesting incidence of intelligence, counter espionage. but, again, that was overtaken by e events right away. so your other point here which is that, you know, that the u.s. and the e.u. have been overinterfering in the ukraine, i don't know. the take inside the administration is that the obama administration has been more active in ukraine than it usually is on a lot of these issues. so very much where you sit is where you stand. i think there's opinion a lot of act ti.. none of it has yet convinced vladimir putin to reverse course, but the game's not over yet. we're really in the first inning of what could be a very, very long match. >> host: alan from new york. he's on our independent line, good morning. >> caller: thank you. first, a comment and a question. stick with me, here, i'll get to

the point. george orwell wrote that real freedom's being able to say that two plus two equals four, and, of course, this was in "1984" where the government was trying to get the main character to deny math reliability. and in real life we have a schism situation where -- similar situation where the media is telling the public physics have no credibility when, in fact, they have more credibility than people in the government do. so my question is how bad do things have to get in the post-9/11 world before the media realizes it's time to stop name calling and actually do their jobs by using their platforms and write about a very real and important issue? >> guest: okay. you know, i work for finish i'm in the media, and i work for a corporation, but i can tell you that corporation doesn't influence my reporting. they really just leave me alone and let me do what i want. so i think there's a lot of sort of breathy talk about, you know,

media influence and con conspiracy with government. some of it's based in a couple of bad examples of where that's happened. the point here is that the official story of the events of 9/11 has been well hashed over over the last 12 years. there are certainly some discrepancies, but overall, you know, we're not here to litigate what happened on that tragic day. i would just say that, you know, the history books will have to tackle that one, and i encourage you to, you know, research it yourself. >> host: hillside, new jersey, michael joining us, republican line. hi. >> caller: hi, good morning. in '91 when the soviet union split apart, ukraine found itself being the owners of the third largest nuclear armaments. in '94 because of the concern of the possibilities with the

nuclear armaments, countries coerced ukraine into giving up those arms. ukraine atta point, i think, knew -- at that point, i think, knew that that was their ace to protect them against an invasion from russia. yet never the less, they gave up the nuclear armaments. but the united states, the united kingdom and russia all gap field the sovereign -- guaranteed the sovereign borders of ukraine. it seems that what they thought then has come around, that without the nuclear armaments they are very, very vulnerable to any invasion from russia. taking it a little further -- >> host: well, let's let our guest, you put a lot out there, so we'll let our guest respond. >> guest: sure. i'm really glad you brought up that point. i think it's a fascinating issue. what happened was in 1994

ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees that were negotiated between the u.s., ukraine, the u.k. and russia. it resulted in what's known as the budapest them ran dem which is the document where russia promised never to invade ukraine, the document they seem to have violated this week. so way i see it, the nuclear issue breaks both ways. on the one hand, some analysts argue that russia would not have been able to invade and, therefore, we wouldn't have the crisis today. other people argue that if ukraine had nuclear weapons and russia invaded, we could have a nuclear war on our hands because that would be the only way they would have to repel the invasion. i don't know. seems to me that ukraine with nuclear weapons is more dangerous than without. it seems to me the russians were going to have a huge influence in ukraine whether or not they had nuclear weapons. the way that this impacts the

diplomacy going forward is that russia violating the budapest memorandum is one of the main charges the international community will bring against against them. again, there are no enforcement mechanisms, so this is more of a shaming and naming than an actual punishment. >> host: how does the nationalism issue come in with especially those in crimea, those in the eastern part of the country? how does that factor in? >> guest: sure. mark twain once said god invented war so that americans would learn geography. crimea's a peninsula that has changed hands multiple times over century. there are people this of all, you know, ethnicities, there are ethnic tartars, there are crimeans, russians, ukrainians. you know, the bottom hine here is that, you know, think piece of land you'll always have more than one people claiming supreme ownership of it.

my russian friends tell me that, you know, they believe that because the people speak russian, the majority of the people speak russian and identify as russian, that they have the best claim to it. i think also the bottom line here is when the russians invaded, they met almost no resistance and that also, we should acknowledge, reflects some sort of acceptance by the create me yang people. now, whether or not that justifies limited autonomy for cry mia inside ukraine is sort of a political debate. but ethnically and culturally, its seems to be the case that the crimean people are okay with it. >> host: josh rogin joining us to talk about ukraine. gary from indiana, democrats' line. hi. >> caller: how you doing today? >> host: fine. >> caller: yeah. i think putin's just worried about his naval base there. yeah. because he just p signed a new deal with the ousted president to keep the base there, and i think he's worried about the new president's not going to honor it. and i think putin's just trying

to protect that naval base because he knows if that goes, he's this trouble. >> guest: yeah. i think the naval base is one important part of putin's calculationment the other part of putin's calculation is to make sure that russia can influence debates going forward. he wants to destabilize and delegitimize the new leadership in kiev which he views as part of a coup to oust a democratically-elected government. and so having a base in crimea is good for strategic reasons, but it's also good because it allows russia to continue to make mischief inside ukraine, to always have an ability to threaten the rest of you crawn and also to -- ukraine and also to keep them from joining nato

because as long as ukraine is sort of a divided country, they won't be able to enter into defense alliances that require them to have control over their sovereignty, territorial integrity. >> host: bill from butler, pennsylvania. good morning, republican line. >> caller: yes. i'd like to say here that i wanted to go back a little bit farther in the history. we speak about crimea and the factor here is that stall p was -- stalin was removing the tartars which were the majority of the population in crimea at that time and sending them to siberia. and many of those people never got a chance to come back. some did. some, after stalin died. but that's one part i think that should be taken into consideration here. so now that putin is, my gosh,

the thing that they sent 800 tanks supposed to be sending in at the time now, it sounds like a very, a lot more serious than what i am listening to the conversations going on. >> guest: okay. i think that's a good point. that's a fairly accurate reading of some of the crimean history. i i think takeaway here is there's not a lot of love lost between the crimeans and the kremlin. of it's not as if, you know, ukrainians or russians in crimea want to be part of russia. that seems not to be the case. they also don't want to be part of the ukraine run by the new kiev government. what they're seeking is some degree of autonomy inside the ukrainian system. so, yes, russia has committed a lot of atrocities in its history as have many other powers, but we are where we are, and the crimeans need russia now to

resist the new government in kiev. what'll be interesting is how they view this russian influence and this russian occupation once the current crisis has subsided, and will they like being under putin's thumb when there's no longer a direct threat to their security. >> host: what's the scope of the ukraine military? >> guest: the ukraine military is pretty robust. they have about 130,000 troops. you know, relatively updated armaments, but they're no match for the russian military. of and they know it. and especially in crimea where there's 15,000 russian troops, there's only about 3500 lightly-armed ukrainian armed forces, and they are surrounded in their bases by russian paramilitary, you know, navy seal kind of guys. and they're scared. and this is a standoff that's unfolding as we speak. right now they've been told to hold the lewin and to not give up their bases. that could be an untenable position in the long run.

but, again, ukrainians know that the worst thing that they can do is fall into the trap of attacking putin's army. because that would be an existential decision for that ukrainian armed forces. because they would lose that battle. that's what they're trying to avoid, they're learning the lesson of georgia in 2008. but they've called up the reserves, that's a few hundred thousand more troops -- >> host: these are loyal ukrainians, not ones that might be loyal to russia. >> guest: we assume so. it's not spirally clear. let's keep in mind that the ukrainian armed forces, the leadership has turned over three times during this revolution. the naval chief was said to have been sympathetic to the russians. he then went to crimea and had a heart attack. then they replaced him. let's remember the military has talkin' the position they shouldn't get -- taken the position they shouldn't get involved in ongoing political strife. but that could work the other way too. they could refuse to step in to

defend a new government that many ukrainians see as illegitimate. the best thing that the armed forces can do for the people of ukraine right now is stay out of the conflict. i think everybody knows that, it's not totally clear if that's going to be possible. >> host: if conflict happens in the international community who would be the first responders to help? >> guest: the ukrainians? i think that's a very open question. i do not think that there's a high likelihood that nato would respond militarily. nato military's response is operate by consensus. that means 27 countries have to agree. that's very rare. it happened in libya barely, and it's not likely to happen in this situation and especially not in today's climate. in georgia nobody came to help, andst very possible that if this escalated, we would see a large scale invasion of ukraine from its eastern board beer with russia -- border with russia, and that would have grave

consequences for the ukrainian -- >> going to leave the last about 20 minutes of this discussion. you can find the rest of it online, c-span.org. take you live now to the floor of the senate which will be meeting for general speeches on this snowy day in washington d.c. later in the week we could see the work that was of postponed today, debate and a vote on the executive nomination for the head of the justice department's civil rights division. also later week on the other side of the capitol in the house, a measure that we could see to dray the health care law's individual mandate. live now to the floor of the senate here on c-span2. miral barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. spirit of god, as the snow falls gently to the earth, descend on our hearts. we praise you for your tender