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tv   Key Capitol Hill Hearings  CSPAN  May 28, 2014 9:30am-11:31am EDT

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that there is a possibility of real harm here, to consumers and to innovationto and to economic growth in the marketplace. andc then, yeah, we can have ais great discussion about the exact methods.th in some of my law review papers i argued for specific adjudication regimes. happy to talk about that i think the first principle we can't just start with the notion anything goes. >> okay. hal, to your paper, the one that you have today, in fact for us, you look more to the cost side of the equation here. . . off 4some of the costs endeared to the system if we had more role of fcc in the near future. >> upsetting incentives of is purchases to continue to deploy and expand their networks. i also mentioned quickly what happens if now google or content provider or even a transit provider knows it has the fcc's backing when it goes into these
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negotiations. it might decide at the margin not to make certain last mile investments in its network. i guess another cost i add, i think i offered eight of them through the paper, i won't take you through eight now, but another one i'm worried about unraveling content agreements between content providers and i is sps. netflix and comcast entered into an agreement. if netflix looks out the window and sees cogent or level three by regulatory assistance can get a better deal, then you would accept a voluntary agreement. why is that upsetting? there's something efficient about those doing a deal. it was cost in place where should be and do my put downward pressure on the price broadband access. if you're telling and isp you're telling and i speedily we can raise money is on the backs of its customers a can make money off transit, can't make money off service. you're basically putting upward pricing pressure on access races for consumers. >> let me go back to you. say although more about, you are
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pretty clear and firm about your position on this. what other elements go into your thinking to case against fcc involvement in the connection is so strong, you know, based on your economic companies in your experience, based on both? >> let me mention first that for the decade from 1990-2005, the fcc said everything it could in every possible language that said we will never going to regulate the internet. that's a really stupid idea. they said on regulation, deregulation, whatever. now we seem to be changing our minds. not clear why but to say the fcc has always been there when they're denying, i think is shading things they. let me talk about why regulation generally, i know we use the word light touch regulation which in my view is sort of like the phrase jon brush went. it's kind of an oxymoron. there isn't such a thing.
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-- jumbo shrimp. every industry specific regulation we've had in the 20th century from railroads to trust to power, et cetera. airlines, what have you. there's two things that happen. once a commission interests itself in a particular area, puts a sign up that says open for business, which is basically what we did when we did the open-ended order, right? what happens? firms realize, oh, i don't get to make money looking at customers and making investments. i make money by going to the regulators. and getting them to favor me and disfavor others. the phrase economist used for this is rent seeking. that's what it does. it opens up rent seeking. for 30 years when i read any complaints about interconnecti
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interconnection. since 2010 we've had a number of complaints. wide? open for business. the second thing that happens, this is i think most dangerous part of it is even though the commissioners me just say, well, we want to limit how much we regulate, okay? that won't happen. they will be under constant pressure to expand the regulatory writ. and we've seen this happen now. level three, for example, in 2010 said let's try to leverage network neutrality into regulating interconnection. genachowski said at the time, quite wisely, no, no, no. that's not network neutrality. we're not going to touch that, okay? welcome him that appears to be changing. so looks like we are now leveraging the interests of the fcc and network neutrality into interest and interconnection. how much more to we expect? if we look at the history of regulation, it will encompass
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the whole internet eventually. camel's nose under the tent, okay? there's a backstop. regulation. doesn't happen that way, guys. just look at what regulation is done in the past. it's a disaster. if you love the bell system and title ii regulation, you will love this with the internet. was that clear enough? >> we will let the audience decide that. anna-maria, a lot of your work as you said is focused on how investors think about this broadband infrastructure. what could you tell us about how investors might respond to a more active role for the fcc in regulating interconnection? >> one of the things investors do is look at data, and whether you're looking at data from cisco or tele- geography or any number of other sources, what
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you're going to see is tremendous growth, not only in amount of traffic that runs over the internet, but as jon pointed out earlier, a tremendous amount of flexibility in the way the internet has evolved to respond to that. and what we have evolved out of the network of networks that jon talked about is really a network of innovators, millions of them around the globe. and what has made all of the possible is through tremendous flexibility of the commercial, very highly informal as someone earlier said, handshake agreements in many cases, to change rapidly. and one thing, you know, some regulation has some advantages but one thing that regulation does not offer is flexibility. once you encode something in law, you are kind of stuck with it for a very long time, for an awful lot of litigation.
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and so i think a major concern for investors and why i think investors would be very concerned to see government regulation of the internet is that that flexibility which enables the whole ecosystem, not just the network layer, but all of the application layers, service layers above that, would've suddenly become region to fight. anywhere sitting anywhere in that ecosystem is going to have to start thinking about how do i make sure that my application sitting appears not suddenly going to be subject to regulation. what keeps me from being a telecom service when so many other things out there right now could qualify? so i think what you would find is a tremendous concern about that lack of flexibility, and you would find less going up.
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>> jon, let me ask you a technical question. so part of this discussion, and i alluded to this earlier will when i talked to kevin, part of the discussion is about voice traffic. as we are completing the ip transition and moving off of the network and onto all-ip networks, one of the questions is whether or not interconnection requirement on the voice network, how and if those translate to an ip network and whether or not it's just extend that to all traffic and treating them all under different kinds of interconnection rules. if we were just talking about voice traffic, from a technical standpoint is it possible for isps to distinguish voice packets from other packets and subject, you know, just those to two interconnection rules? and if so is there a way of doing it without introducing other kinds of technologies that maybe have some downsides that we've seen in other context?
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>> so i called into question. let me divide it into two cases. there is voice over ip service that would run fo through your cable modem and would probably look to you just like a normal telephone. and those ip packets carry voice but they're never mixed together with any internet traffic. in the world today they may actually be converted back to old circuits and then back to ip again, sort of a leftover of the legacy circuit switch base. i can imagine the world where, hopefully, with that sort of artificial technology change will go away and voice well-connected voice so all the ip packets, but they will all be voiced and it won't be any different from what it is today. contrast that with something like skype where voice packets are all mixed together with all the internet traffic and now i can't tell it endlessly is something called deep packet
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inspection. interesting question. the first kind of voice over ip service will probably continue to live on for the foreseeable future. we will have interconnection that technically is ip but in terms of policy and business arrangement looks a lot like telephone. but the more we mix these together, i've actually, technically i don't know how we're going to separate them. from a policy perspective on going to get a little worried as we start to treat these different kinds of traffic differently asked why and how we are treating it differently, and if it's because of exerting market power or just normal business. >> go ahead, anna-maria and then gerry spent well, to me looking at it again from investment perspective, think about someone who is designing a game, right? i want to invest in some who is designing a game. i want that kid in his garage to think about the best possible
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game, not to think about how to design it anyway to keep the voice part of the game out of regulation, you know. look at skype. you figure out how to divide a voice from the video packets, what's skype going to look like? how are they going to sort of arbitrage the rules to stay out from underneath the regulation? that's what i meant when i said earlier that for investors, the huge concern is going to be eliminating a lot of innovation and a lot of flexibility because the energy that now goes into those is going to go into regulatory arbitrage. how do i design my product, my service, to avoid regression? >> gerry, go ahead. >> this was a very interesting point which is a transition from the old public switched telephone network, the copper wires, to eventually the ip. i want to commend.
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kevin has a great paper. the other thing i want to mention that chairman wheeler has keyed this issue up and it's an ugly issue. i'm glad he did. summaries got to look at it because telephony, wire telephony is in freefall. and we've got a lot of companies that all kinds of obligations to maintain copper wire in a situation where it's a dying market. we have to figure out how to do that. the only thing i don't want to have happen is that the death of the pstn become the tail that wags the interconnection doctor i think we have to keep our view on what we want any connection to look like. to we wanted to be title ii regulate or do we want it to continue as a free market thing. i don't want the death of pstn to really determine that outcome. i think that would be a mistake. >> i don't want to
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mischaracterize your position on this, kevin, so let me clarify. is your view that however the fcc gets involved or more involved or stays involved with interconnection, do you see a distinction between voice traffic and all of the traffic in terms of what that regime would look like, or do you see a similar set of rules, similar set of revelations applying to all of them? and if so, is a 251 and 252 of the existing active? >> there's a set of legacies. the paper that gerry is talking about is called no dial tone, and issued it is with god a set of industries that is subject to certain regulation. and the problem is the way things have evolved that regulation is all for nothing and watch traffic goes to ip as a technical that the argument isn't all those roles go away. by the end she stays the same. while you still have the existing structure of the condition industry, will we have
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no longer lay mandated monopolists but some very powerful players, and players that understand how to play the regular arbitrage game. you can't just say guess what, ip is magic am now you're in the internet and now you get a get out of jail free card because the flipside about the concern you're hearing about regular arbitrage is an arbitrage that goes the other way. so as that transition happens and i agree with gerry, it's a difficult set of issues but one that are probably the fcc is taking on an industry is taking on as well. we need to work through with the transition looks like. at the end of the day, no, it doesn't make sense is if there's a magic about voice packets that somewhat different than any other kind of package. at the end of it i think we need one interconnection regime which is again why i've been trying to argue that the cessation that we have historically made between what happens on the pstn and
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what happens to voice traffic that some it is not on the pstn, what happens for net neutrality on the network versus web for any connection off the network, all these distinctions ultimately don't make sense. in the middle there's a lot we have to do to maintain relationships and to manage a transition. i think that's appropriate, but the other end of the question is what we want to have. what i'm worried about is what gerry said at the beginning. i would hate to see the internet turned into a supermarket that's just selling us peace. that's not what the internet is today. that's not the kind of open platform that is generated so much extraordinary innovation. that's a traditional market where you got a distributed the controls what's on the shelf space, and they have the power of life and death over every purveyor of products by allocating that shelf space. it's a linear market. its distributor to customer, nothing comes back from consumer back the other way. that's not the internet that
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we've had over the past few decades, and that's not the internet we should have in the future. >> the fcc can only work with the tools the fcc has available to it by law. we've mentioned, i mentioned section 251, section 252. that deals with interconnection now on the switched telephone network. interesting enough, if that was sort of within the toolset that the fcc was going to use to get more involved here, that would also kind of ask an interesting question about the role of state regulated in the process. process. i want to ask all of you or any of you have an opinion about this, leave the legal aside for a moment, should there be an appropriate role for state regulators in managing or regulating interconnection? and if so, what should that will be assisting from the federal? who wants to take that on? gerry kelly has a very short answer. [laughter] >> good god. [laughter] let me mention one thing,
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however because we haven't talked about this at all, but generally if we have problems with terminating access to monopolists as kevin mentioned, if we have some problem in what is otherwise looks like a competitive industry where we might get into some market power, the entity that is not regulation. its antitrust. i think the same answer applies at the state level. giving the state regulars involved, if i don't even know what the feds involved, i sort of don't want the states guys, but can you do something in the antitrust arena? can state attorney generals take action if they think it's necessary? i think that's the appropriate place to have action if we have one of the problems might arise with interconnection, that's what we ought to be doing about it. not regulating them. >> anna-maria? >> i don't believe that something at the level of the state has a role in what is
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global traffic. and when you talk about 251, 252, you're talking about title ii. and as i said more perfectly earlier, i could very easily see youtube coming in under title ii. i could easily see skype coming in under title ii. i could see touch tv, all sorts of new services and applications that actually fit the definition when you start moving broadband into that arena. and i don't believe that it would be very productive, not only for those large, existing services which have well-funded owners who can actually deal with all of, you know, get large enough law firms involved. i think the real damage would be the next google that we're all trying to protect in all of this discussion that doesn't have that kind of, those kinds of resources, and would also find
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itself fighting in 50 different state of rings and a whole bunch of courts. that just doesn't make a lot of sense. >> i think inside of this debate once states involved. involved. >> i want to make sure kevin gets, goes on the record one way or the other. >> that would be a complete nightmare. i want to elaborate on something gerry said. he said would've antitrust as a backstop, if a transit provider thought it was being excluded from a deal for anti-competitive reasons. we have something else that's important and i mentioned this in the policy brief, and that is where about to get a new set of rules that are designed to protect hedge fund, namely content providers an app providers and device makers, these are going to be and to block rule is to talk about the open internet. >> it is just entirely antitrust we would be leaning on. we would be leaning on antitrust plus whatever new protections are going to come out for content providers including a
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nondiscrimination will, and no blocking grow. the real way to kind of tee up of the policy debate is what you've antitrust and once you have the rules that are aimed to protect content providers, what extra protection are you getting by overlaying an interconnection obligation? for me it's a pretty small amount of protection that you are buying. i think that the only folks you're really helping out are going to be stand-alone transit providers or content delivery networks, and it's just not obvious to me what additional protections are needed, what kind of social purpose is served by breathing life into intermediaries. enemy but in a loving sense. well, i upset someone from a level three when i called and intermediaries. i didn't mean anything georgia about that. but what are you getting pashtun pejorative. what are you getting at the margin, that's the key question. >> do you see a role for states in terms of interconnection regulation? if not how do you keep them out of?
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>> turn the question around. what could states contribute to anything in this regime or in this world of? i think there's a good argument that states will continue to have a strong role in universal service because they are closer to the ground and they are familiar with the local variations, which still exists even in a global internet interconnected world. end states perhaps have a role in consumer protection. again because they are closer to the end users and may have a better understanding and a better capacity to resolve some of those issues. i think in terms of an overall interconnection regime for the internet, or for ip-based services, there's no reason to say that that has to go through 50 state commissions. i would certainly agree that that just magnifies a regulatory problem. there are some of these issues
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that come into play where, for example, if you have a rule provider that's been blocked or traffic is not been delivered, i think as they could have some role at least as a fact-finding matter in that dispute, so we get to that have to do that. i don't think that's really core to any of these issues we are talking about. >> i've already made a comment on whether we regulate in transparency versus regulation but assume you're going to regulate, i'd just remind you that we're looking at interconnection between two big networks to each may operate in dozens of states, and they probably have interconnection points in at least half a dozen states, maybe a dozen. if you have a dozen different sets of state regulations, what does that do to interconnection agreements, not can you even find where the problem is if you're only looking at what's going on in one state? i think you need state agencies involved. >> i guess to me one reason i
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was happy to see section 706 as sort of the preferred mode in the open internet order that came out, even though title ii is also raised, it seems to me that that leaves the fcc a lot more flexibility in all of these areas in terms of what it would do to regulation and what it would exclude. it's lovely for kevin to say states have this role but not that role, but if you actually -- as i know he has done, extensively look at 251 and 252, states initiated stuff, you know? states can back and say, wait a minute, i think voice is actually under my jurisdiction. it's kind of hard to prevent that if you brought in that regime. and what that means is there's a very lengthy process during which investors have no idea what the outcome is going to be during which the attention of
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the companies that are involved is focused on the legal issues as opposed to focus on their business. so that to me is the concern. >> did you want to follow up? >> one is this nose under the camels tent, look, i was at the fcc in the 1990s. they didn't want me to have the word internet in my time because they thought it would scare people so got to be called council for new technology policy. we were dealing with all these issues. we were dealing with regulation of voip in 1990 when the fcc put out the stevens report which if you look at it very closely says, essentially phone to phone carrier voice over ip is taking occasion service. which is not going to say that right now because we want to let the market grow. if you had open internet rules from 2010-2014, and all investment didn't dry up and all the internet didn't just become
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this regulated thing that ever is afraid. so doesn't necessarily go all one way or the other. the one thing i'll say about the states, the one thing that i worry about with the transition, and this gets very technical, not the efficient way to do i.t. interconnection is with a smaller number of interconnection points. so the legacy interconnection was called tdm, the kind of interconnection went on the phone system, you basically of interconnection all around the country. there's lots of companies that interconnected in lots of different places. if you look at companies like comcast which to ip-based, third largest phone company in the u.s. companies which all the traffic and something like four or five places across the country. that's the efficient solution. that's where we're going to go to and i don't think regulation should stop that. but i think if you have a jump pod from a world where the hundreds of providers around the country that have interconnection into the network and you say, guess what, it's all gone, if you want to carrier
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traffic all the way to cleveland and interconnect with us here in this way, have at it, i think we have a transition and maybe states have a role there. but i don't think that that inevitably means we're going to 50 sets of rules and states are going to be mucking around just because there's a transition period. >> we will hold you to that. let me, i want to ask to more questions and then going to turn over to the audience. again to remind you if you're following the questions were it is hashtag fcc net rules. so let me ask to us question before turnover. a couple of you talked about netflix, and i want to sort of explore that further. beyond the actual relationship they have with comcast, we do know that they've been develop their own cdma technology now around the world, in fact for some years and the recently announced new transit agrees with the number of isps, not just comcast. there has been a lot of discussion about this that describe that as sort of a first of its kind arrangement and a
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dangerous one, but i don't know how many of you saw there was an article last week from dan rayburn that actually gave a very nice chart showing of all the main content providers, including google, apple, amazon, facebook, microsoft and all of the direct interconnection relationship they had with kind of, it wasn't complete but with many of the leading isps and some of the leading intermediaries, is there a better word that they want? >> i just know they don't like that one. >> let me just ask all of you, take in whatever order your most inspired by, are these kinds of arrangements which are much more widespread than at least some of the reporters have suggested come on these kinds of arrangements dangers? is a something the fcc should encourage, discourage or do nothing about? anna-maria, the want to go ahead? >> i would be on the side of encouraging commercial agreements, possibly by simply doing nothing about them, which is the way that evolved for a couple of decades.
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i mean, another piece of news recently was google saying they're going to be pairing -- purines with network settlement free. i think it's lovely. one set of companies reached an arrangement that works for them. netflix itself was another company reached a different arrangement. that's fine. i don't see any reason to intervene in that. and i think just one piece of data that is at least worth thinking about in this context, which comes from netflix own website, is the fact that they have this speed test that they are showing around the globe, and there is no place on any isp that they run higher than four megabits per second. that includes google's gigabit fiber and fiber all over the scandinavia, et cetera. so i think before we make a
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substance about what's going on in terms of congestion with individual isps, et cetera, we need to start to understand that perhaps netflix is making choices that work for it with a whole range of different isps. >> i think these sorts of agreements should be encouraged. they are going to happen. and i think as an economist if we see content providers, large content providers basically verticallvertically integratingd and networks into transit, they're doing it because it makes economic sense to do so. they must be getting better terms than if they were trying to go through an intermediary. and so you start to get concerned for the intermediary who gets squeezed out of the relationship, whether it's cogent or level three. but i just want to point out that there's still a lot of traffic for small and medium-size content providers that's going to continue to use these intermediaries. level three announced in its
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first quarter that netflix was not even the top 30 of its customers. so in that sense, you know, you think that these guys are going to just find without the regulator briefing life into their business models. >> this is a red herring. the rules are not to protect one set of companies or one set of companies. the rules are about protecting the openness of the internet ecosystem. so here's a data, packet clearing house which is an organization that studies things like peering, did a survey in 2011. you look at 144,000 peering agreements. the data from 86% of all of the internet providers in the world. you want to guess what percentage of them were settlement free? 99.73%. .. in this netflix/comcast arrangement. well, you might say, all right, that's because traffic would equal netflix is different because it generates so much traffic. what percentage of netflix are
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settlement free? over 99%. now, i think absolutely that deal with comcast, the deal they have with other parties may very well be spirally legitimate -- entirely legitimate. again, every indication we have suggests that this was hashed out between two parties. netflix got some benefits, and that's fine. and i think we should allow for that differentiation to exi and i think we should allow that to exist. for even the audience i an finde one far to the left on this debate but in the next neutrality debate -- okay, to the left. i'm the one here advocating for a regulatory role in the connections and i often find myself with my friends on the other side suggesting the approach the chair man suggested in the net neutrality or the open internet proposed rulemaking which would allow for the companies to do the
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agreement as long as there isn't a slow lane i think that that is a reasonable approach. if it can be done in a way that has a backstop. it doesn't mean there isn't anti-competitive behavior. we need a mechanism to get that data to have some sort of backstop. within that come absolutely go at it and i think it is reasonable to think that there would be some of these deals like the ones we are seeing that have a price charge and that's fine but if we goes apart to say that anything is allowed because we just assume the parties are doing a competitive idea that's when we have the danger of closing off the openness of the internet and the freedom for innovation that we've all benefited from and once that's gone it's going to be hard to get it back.
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>> so first it's clear that there are amendments that bring additional agreements that bring tremendous efficiencies. to pick an extreme case, there are isps in africa that not that long ago used to have to send a transit provider on a different continent and then back to africa to get to one nearby but it was a huge win. we want to encourage lots of those but there is something new going on which is interesting. a dozen years ago i wrote a paper that i called the benefits and risks of net neutrality, which i described if you have a broadband provider that had market power they are always going to be able to exert that in the market power that technology is coming around that says they could apply that separately in the video market or the voice market and if they can openly discriminate there might be some interesting new problems we have to keep our
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eyes on and i thought that had nothing to do with interconnecting. at the time it did have nothing to do with interconnection. now it is a little less clear we have them just with a video provider to still raise the questions again. is this treated differently because this is a video provider that competes with the cable service? i don't know if there is any problem there. it seems this is something we ought to be watching and we need more transparency. the issue of duties have been good if the but they have been s indeed. could we be signing contracts? possible that there is a legal recourse to things like that. we don't necessarily need a regulator. the contract is strong to cover
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them. he said to me people signed voluntary contracts, end of story. if not, bring a suit. one of the things i should point out, we are talking about disputes of interconnection and we think about the open internet or we are talking about the customers or the small innovative providers. we are not. these disputes are between big companies and many regulatory disputes are between big companies because they are fighting over the ranch. that's what this is about, it's about the contest of verizon and netflix. to pretend it's anything else you don't understand the regulation or business.
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we have been mostly well behaved talking about interconnection. we are talking about the interconnection which is the backend and obviously the elephant in the room is about the front end, and we mentioned a couple times about that issued a couple weeks ago when the open internet rules. one of the discussions that came out of that and that certainly is a part of the data collection the fcc is doing is about the applicability of the title t tos a basis for enforcing or getting involved. i just want to go down the line and come back this way. do you think this is a wise road to go down or do you think otherwise. >> for the connection or the
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open internet? >> for the customer and. >> i am not yet sure whether we can achieve what we need to. so at this point i'm going to stay with that. >> i think it would be a disaster, which is why i said earlier i was glad to see it as a more viable option. i think all of the layers of the broadband ecosystem would wind up getting sucked into the regulation whether that is intended or not it would be done through the state commission and through the individuals that feel they can negate something in that process but it's not avoidable. so, i think it is far wiser to start out in a limited way and make the plead about work rather than start out with something that is potentially 20 years of
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litigation pretty much stopping innovation. >> jerry? >> it's hard to improve on that statement. it really is. i would say this, if we have to have something i think chair man wheeler is pointing us towards non- determination and it's hard to argue that. who could be against the nondiscrimination, but i think that it is the nose of the argument and that's where you're going which is to say once it's in, it's going to expand as you mentioned. that's my concern. >> so i think using the 706 706 authority is the right way to go into the chair man's initial instinct was the correct one to go. i think that you have to tolerate some priority deal with police them on a case-by-case basis on the fact after any discrimination rears its ugly head that bringing a title ii is
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like installing a fire hydrant in the kitchen in terms of putting out a kitchen fire. it's pleasing and your kids could flood the kitchen. >> i think section 76 can get the fcc where it needs to go and the simplest way forward given where we are today, and i think it is a reasonable approach. it was a couple days ago in the tenth circuit about the universal service compensation rules which added a further legal sanction saying that 706 is a viable task force. do they have a leg to stand on in the jurisdiction once you're out of the legacy traditional public switched telephone at work and the answer is yes it does.
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so i think that is a reasonable way to go forward. that's what this means to be the public utility and i think that the proceedings will hopefully get all of that on the table. >> let me see if there are any questions in the audience. i have one on this side of the room. please, briefly introduce yourself and keep your questions brief also. >> we gave a quick history lesson of all of the disputes that we have had in the public's time. one that hasn't been mentioned is the issue you mainly where you have the two entities in the content provider distribution
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entity. on the non- success depending on how you see that up with is a largely unregulated negotiation if that could be seen as things to come or if that is sufficiently different and is not a precedent or indicator. >> that was the answer to the notion if it is a contract we should let it happen. so what has been the result when we have this problem in the retransmission for the video, you have a company doing this game where they cut off service to customers starting off the block traffic and the ultimate
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result you wonder why your bill keeps going up into the disputes in the retransmission where the fcc is hamstrung by the rules and the ways interprete way is n the congressional mandate to get involved. the easy result is the parties eventually read the deal -left-brace prices and give consumers lots of challenge they don't actually want to that's what i'm afraid of. i think that to say that interconnection happens in a private way is great and should bbe room forprivate deals but ie point of the interconnection with the tragic outcome. >> i don't know if i draw the same ones that there are some behemoths that are trying to cut off and in that kind of bilateral negotiations there is little room for the regulation to do something good.
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the content is informative. if you pull the content provider into situations that it had the licensing its content there was no way to walk away from video, that of course would affect the terms and might create more disputes then you have current currently. >> the assumption is we are still going to have no walking oblockingon the internet at thes level it's not going to be possible to block the content provider and the levels above that there is a trace of networks for netflix to reach me. so if my access provider can get to me through a web of different
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connections all over the internet, how do you get to that problem? >> first i am happy to say that we do not get to see evidence of those kind of failed negotiations on the scale. they have been a few times and that's not good but they are not happening as often as this scenario. if they started to happen more often in the thir third-party organizations, for example, or other expert government organizations perhaps playing the mediation role but we have to see if we can get there. >> something i think is relative here is coming in and regulating when we have interconnection regulationof the telephone network which worked pretty well because it was pretty easy to do but there was a period when we
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had things called us the links. we had a partially competitive, partially regulated network and everything went to hell in a handbasket. i don't remember if they were positioning themselves. they had the incoming traffic. the disaster was eventually fixed in 2004 come about of course they were the ones that created the problem to begin with because it was partially regulated. partially competitive and partially regulated. what i'm trying to avoid is making that happen on the internet, having a partially regulated and partially competitive because we know what
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happens in that case. it's a disaster. >> other questions? >> that one in the front. >> mike nelson with microsoft. is there anything we can learn by looking overseas or is the same discussion starting to happen? i'm curious if they have a different way of talking about it or approaching it or if they have seen a growing number of problems there as well. >> it responded to what gerry just said, that they buy a lot internet access was when the belbell operating carriers cameo the fcc and said that the internet traffic is adjusting the switches and we need to address permanent switches on the buy a lot internet the fcc said no. the result of which the internet marketing in the u.s. didn't
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have the charges for most subscribers unlike most of the rest of the world. the results to that was the internet exploded in the u.s. far more quickly and developed more sophisticated ways than anywhere in the world. so it was arbitrage and rent seeking. but there was also a benefit. if you see these papers on this with what they talk about is mof the rest of the world as the internet connection and a part of that is they have different market structures ere they require open access to the broadband providers where almost every developed country in the world we have been done in the u.s., so they have different sorts of issues. the only places we see things similar are a few places in france there was an issue where the competitive provider of broadband was allegedly
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degrading youtube traffic and it was a bunch of different things going on. the french regulator looked into it and eventually concluded there didn't appear to be any deliberate degradation but it wasn't a regulatory regime they looked at the data and saw what was happening and made public the information and things seem to be generally result. that's the closest case i can find the most of the rest of the world has a different structure in their broadband market that's worse in some ways than ours, but it doesn't necessarily have the kind of concentration of market power that we have here. >> they have direct government censorship as well. anyone else want to add on the international questions? okay. other questions? >> let me ask since we have a couple minutes do you have any
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closing thoughts, have you changed your mind lacks any additional thoughts from what you have heard this afternoon? >> john referred to one of the charts i have in the back of my mind on the same website i think in what happened to the transit pricing. it basically started here and here we are down here into defending. so even though we are not doing the settlement free, the pricing of the transit has declined exponentially and has done so without any intervention.
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>> we talked about competing approaches of directing the transit and they are checks on each other in terms of some extent. at the traffithe traffic is goie appearance seems to be falling faster but i don't know if that will always be the case. it raises the possibility that it's important. >> this is about the small innovative firms, and i never hear from them. has anybody talked about in the
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garage regulation? i kind of suspect they were but that is a guess. i never heard from that constituency. >> i will remind you if you have forgotten this, but we basically don't want to know that you are here. here. the basic attitude in silicon valley for years has been this trust action that every time they would wake us up, but the bottom line is if we ignore washington it's not there which i argued for years is extremely dangerous and foolhardy approach to things, but that is still unfortunately i think the prevalent view of the entrepreneurs as well as investors in the valley. >> so it is encouraging and depressing. >> as well as the reality that
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you can't get away from these issues into the behavior on all sides. i think when people say you can't trust the incumbent because they are going to behave strategically i think that's fair. that's what businesses do they try to take advantages of opportunities. they are not just in this to serve the goal. investors are in this to me, and he, not just for the progress of science. everyone based strategically. do we need to realize that these issues aren't going to go away there is no set of circumstances where we are going to turn around in ten or 20 years and say it'll work itself out, you know, we can all shut down the fcc and go home. it is a nature of any network
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industry that there's a potential for these flashpoints. >> i'm actually worried that we are learning about the debate through the netflix more and it may not be that representative of the average content provider and so, i'm concerned that the regulation is going to be spawned through the prism that might be a false one. i also want to point out that netflix has certain counter strategies in its pocket if it wanted to for example if the isp gave it a hard time they could charge the customers and to discourage people to switch to the rival. they are in the drivers seat and that's another reason we should take an approach to putting on another layer of the regulation.
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there was an isp in the irony wyoming and it is to not regulate the internet explaining from a very small isp perspective. if. i've learned a lot and i hope you have as well so please join me in thanking the panelists. [applause]
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[inaudible conversations]
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the house this week takes up a third of the 2,015th spending bills. the commerce commission is to synthesize spending. tamar hallerman covers the appropriations process for cq rollcall. she joins us from capitol hill. this is a wide-ranging bill. get an idea of how much is in it. >> they are proposing to spend $51.2 billion on the commerce justice science bill
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and the science agencies like the national science foundation it also touches issues like abortion and guantánamo so this is a wide-ranging bill. >> i want to ask about the gun issue because when it came out of the rules committee last week in the piece you wrote in cq it said the bill advances after democratic gun provisions turned aside as if that means the debate won't see any amendments? >> not at all. the majority of the time when the house appropriations committehouse appropriationscoms month because of the recent shootings at uc santa barbara in california we are expecting to see many of the same gun amendments we saw in the committee as perhaps the ones. tamar hallerman is on twitter. you say that's nifty cq chart breaks down the obama 2015 request for the agency and a link to the chart at cq rollcall
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chart showing that the notion national oceanic atmospheric administration getting a fair chunk of the money with the patent office and as well for the institute of standards and technology. you said it was less than last year. >> one last thing that they are looking to do, they want to cut about 24% from the climate research. in the atmospheric administration they want to move a lot of that funding to the satellites so an interesting shift. the democrats are opposing some of that and want to see some of the money go to the climate research and we will see what happens on the floor. >> in addition to the amendment there is also word that the issue of medical marijuana and law enforcement may come up. >> there is an interesting combination from california that are looking to back this on the
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floor. we have the states rights, conservative republicans as well as some of the most liberal members looking to include a provision that would bar the justice department from prosecuting medical marijuana users in the states where it's legal and this is a measure or a tradition that's been brought up in the previous years and it was turned down in a committee, but given the increasing poll numbers for the legalization of marijuana nationwide, the number of supporters this would get will be something we will be watching. >> one of the bills in the piece they publish online writing of some of the spending in the bill they write congress should require nasa to expand contracting to provide space transportation of rockets. they point out that the proposed budget has funds established for food items despite they have no plans for an expedition. when it looks like the heritage
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foundation to together a piece like this does it have an impact on the members? >> absolutely especially the more conservative republicans so we will see how many of them break with groups like heritage and support the measure. >> this is the last appropriations bill for the subcommittee chairman frank wolf of virginia. what will his legacy be in terms of this bill into the overall appropriations process? >> you're going to see a lot of provisions that are the legacy particularly related to violence which is something that has been an issue in the northern virginia district. he also cares deeply about science funding and is proposing the highest level for the national science foundation and the nation's history, so he's going to definitely step out and defend those programs from some of the more conservative republicans who would rather see that spent elsewhere. >> looking at the debate in the house on the appropriations spending for the cq rollcall and
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you can also follow her act twitter to tamar hallerman. thank you. >> the house is live at noon on c-span. the senate returns for legislative work and lawmakers live now to the heritage foundation where in a moment you'll be hearing from house armed services committee vice chair mac thornberry and president obama's foreign-poli foreign-policy. >> we always appreciate that. our internet viewers are welcome to send questions or comments by simply e-mailing any time to speaker@heritage.org and we will post it for your future reference following today's session. hosting the program is to code
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awards senior research fellow for defense programs and our douglas and sarah allison center for foreign and national security policy. he served the nation for two decades in the marine corps. following that, he helped organize the national integration system, the homeland security department effort. he also then worked for the center for strategic and budgetary assessments and after that, he served as a strategist for the u.s. marine corps special operations command. please join me in welcoming my colleague, dakota. [applause] >> we appreciate everybody shoving ushowing up today. and in the interest of time a lot of these are going to jump right into the next events that we have been protect america month. i do want to be on record that t we be read in protecting america to every month and they would've focused the public outreach during the month of may. it's my personal privilege to introduce mac thornberry from
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the texas panhandle. i find it interesting is a region where he continues to run a ranch in an area that his family has worked since 1881. it's a long time fifth generation texan and won an 11th term. should he win in the general election i hated to presume things but it looks promising. he's been a long-time advocate of lower taxes and limited government and maximizing opportunities for all americans. it's something that we share at the heritage foundation and we are key on the championing of the strong national security posture given the criticality and sustaining america's greatness and while it's true that congressmen is a friend of the military in his contributions in these areas i would say he's a friend who focuses his service on insuring that the whole interest in
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america is served and protected and able to promote those principles that have made america the beacon of hope and opportunity donnelly for americans but people around the world. his body of work showcases his commitment to the governmental doing those things only it can do and not on the things that can only be done by other elements of society that can be done better and probably more effectively in a way that is more responses t responsive to f people. the congressman thornberry is a leader on national security matters. he serves as a vice-chairman of the armed service committee where he leads the committee on intelligence, threats and capabilities and continues to serve on the select committee on intelligence and continues to push for the treatment of cyber security matters in no small part because of his work leading the bipartisan security task force in 2011 and the guided house legislation action on the national security economic threat.
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as we continue to look at what world war i can teach about the dangers and opportunities of the world around us the importance of strong leadership and necessity for the realistic thinking on the national, foreign and security policies we are blessed to have the congressman share his thoughts on these matters today said he will speak for about 20 minutes and then we will take questions and answers for 20 minutes afterwards. congressman? [applause] >> thanks. i appreciate the invitation to be with you all today and certainly have benefited from the heritage foundation insights on national security since i was a young staffer working on defense issues in the early 1980s. those were exciting and rather contentious times.
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i think we suffer from a bit of amnesia if we believe that the defense buildup and his fight against communism alongside margaret thatcher and john paul to wear some sort of an inevitable triumph of consistent policies. in fact ronald reagan's policies were resisted every step of the way viciously and adjust as the steps that we need today are and will be resisted. i also think that the effort too look back a century after world war i is needed to prevent this sort of admonition amnesia because there seems to be a tendency to abuse history for the current political ends even in recent history. we tend to air in one of two ways. we either shoehorned whatever the problem is into some sort of
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historical analogies and it's usually munich via, with these days iraq and thereby make the outcome and available to the inevitable forewarning by repeating the mistakes of the past. the truth is no result is inevitable. it depends on the decisions we make that if we are wise we can learn the history lessons and apply them to the circumstances of today. so if i can shortcut to my bottom line for peace through strength is one of those principles that we can and should relearn, refresh and apply over and over again.
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it's what we do today that is far too competed for the simplistic approaches of some bygone era that what we need is someone that isn't tied to the past who is nimble and smart enough to find just the right balanced approach for every single problem that we face. it's been an effort to explain the national security policy to us. according to the press reports,, we the american people don't really understand just how hitting the singles and doubles in the foreign-policy really is. the problem is us. but if we let them educate us then we would have a better appreciation of the more sophisticated nuanced approach to these issues. the united states does face a complex array of threats.
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mr. putin has reminded us that europe is not a peaceful place that many people had assumed. despite the administration's best efforts to persuade us otherwise for the terrorists have not all gone away. in fact in many ways the press today that we face is more diverse and more difficult than ever before. i noted the story in "the new york times" a few days ago in which the director of the fbi said before he was sworn in he underestimated the terrorist threat. i didn't have anywhere near the appreciation of breaking into this job and how those affiliates have become. they are stronger than i appreciated. north korea or iran are greater than they've been in afghanistan we will talk about more in a minute but we have to keep side of the point of whatever point
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that has repercussions in next door tnext doorto the nuclear sf pakistan. the reemergence of the al qaeda groups in iraq coupled with the safe haven in syria poses higher risk as europeans and others traveled there and back again. the new domains of the warfare and cyber and outerspace continue to develop and we struggle to keep up. a few weeks ago i traveled to asia with the majority leader and as we heard the same talking points from one high ranking chinese official after another, i must confess that my heart sank because they see china as a rising power. they see the united states as a declining power. they had historical grievances that they think this is the time to correct. they are aggressive and confident in all of that made me think of germany before world
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war i. now, i don't see the conflict with china as inevitable. there are as many differences as similarities with kaiser's germany but it depends on the decisions that we make and how they view those decisions. the other point that was made clear from that trip is that friends and allies and other countries who are not necessarily friends and allies are watching very carefully whether the united states keeps its commitments and means what it says. today there is reason to doubt not only in asia but europe and the middle east and africa, south asia as well. so maybe it's no surprise, but it's still a little bit unsettling to see people like richard, president of the council on foreign relations on the right, click on the american foreign policy is in a troubling disarray.
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we are witnessing an accelerated movement toward a post-american world. or david brooks in "the new york times," quote, all around the fabric of peace and order is frayed. even the got in the argument that said the world is disorganized and the superpower is not taking the lead. he went on to say he intends to argue to president obama that if he doesn't leave than fight a country that will. now these are not exactly your typical obama bashers. across the spectrum there is concern that under barack obama, america is in withdrawal mode and there's a fear that president thinks and acts like he can make things happen in the world just by giving a speech. speech. that he can protect america with his rhetoric. look, now i'm a big fan of churchill and reagan.
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i have a lot of appreciation for effective communication, but that communication has to be backed up by something i and backed up by someone who is willing to make the tough choices and defend them. what we say is important, what we do is more important. the president has taken speak softly and carry a big stick and just turned it on its head. more people are coming to realize that unfortunately, more often than not for this administration, short-term political tactics takes precedence over protecting longer-term strategic interest. david ignatius again, not a typical obama critic and as someone who admits that he has sympathies with the foreign-policy goals writes that the e-mails, quote, show the
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administration spent more time thinking about what to say and what to do. and he goes on to write under obama the united states has suffered some reputational damage. this damage has largely been a self inflicted by an administration that focuses too much on the short-term messaging. consistent with this short-term political focus is the unprecedented macro management of all aspects of national security by the white house staff. from secretary gates and other accounts, it's clear how frustrated people in the department have been in training to carry out their responsibilities. and i have heard from them firsthand about how difficult this is. but remember, the biggest scandal in the reagan administration was an operation run out of the national security council staff, and yet that happens every single day in the obama white house.
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as the president is going to educate us, and about how these critics are wrong and about how enlightened the policies truly are. what are the fruits of the obama approach? the aggressors are emboldened, friends are unsure to the neutrals are making new calculations, and according to the yearly index published by freedom house, freedom is in retreat declining for the eighth consecutive year. ..
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that's not leadership. this world does not operate in a split the difference neither this nor that sort of mode. the world wants to know as the economist cover acts, what will america fight for? what does america stand for? can't america be counted on? yesterday, the president announced that we would keep 9800 troops in afghanistan after december, cutting that number in half next year and pulling them all out by the end of 2016. i can't be the only one who suspects that we got to 9800 because it sounds a whole lot better than 10,000. and i suspect i'm not the only one who suspects that this is another example of the president
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calculating what the minimum necessary to get by is, but his heart really isn't in it. now listen, if you're a friend or ally of united states, does this decision give you more confidence in your friendship with us? here's a harder question. if you're one of those 9800, do you think the president really supports your mission? we started out talking about learning the lessons of history this morning, again the "washington post" in this morning's editorial notes that we left afghanistan once, 9/11 happened and we vowed we were never going to leave again. to make that sort of premature decision. cecum even a president with rhetorical gifts cannot finesse his way out of military weakness or a loss of credibility. power and influence in the world comes from having the capability, plus the will to use
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it. we acquire military capability with our defense budget. last week the house passed the national defense authorization act for 2015. the vote was 325-98. having bipartisan support of course the president promptly threatens to veto the bill. in part because we rejected as did the senate armed services committee, a lot of the proposals that he had made. for four years in ever the administration has sent congress a budget that had the full affect other defense cuts by including a number of proposals that they know neither the house nor the senate neither republicans nor democrats will agree to. defense spending this year is 17% of the federal budget. that's the lowest it's been since world war ii. does congress bear some of the responsibility for these declining budgets and loss of military capability? absolutely. both parties and both houses
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bear some of that responsibility, although i have to say do think mr. putin has helped enlighten some of our republican colleagues about the reasons that we always put national security first. what we see over and over again, however, is that there is never any substitute for presidential leadership on matters of national security. and when it is lacking, american security suffers. so where are we headed with the budget? if we don't find a way to replace the budget caps with something more reasonable, we are headed towards the smallest are since world war ii, the smallest navy since 1931, and the smallest air force we have ever had. we have already arrived at a place where we have a nuclear weapons complex that is falling apart, just as the challenges in dealing with those aging complex machines is mounting, and the
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reason is we have not kept the funding commitments that were made in exchange for the senate ratification of the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. we've already arrived at a place where national, our national security space program is dependent upon russian-made engines. so meanwhile, what's the rest of the world doing? according to "the economist" magazine if you look at the last 10 years of military spending, china is up 170%, russia is up 110%, even india with all of its domestic challenges is up 45%. the u.s. is up a meager 12% and some of our best friends, britain, france and italy, all went down. of course, it's not just about how much money is spent but it's also about how that money is spent, and we could have a lot of work to do to see that our defense dollars are spent more wisely, that we get more defense out of the money we spend, and we have a bipartisan like animal
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effort to work with the cape pentagon and with industry to help reduce overhead and also improve our acquisition policy. but on a bigger budget picture, the administration resorts to the lyrical plainsman ship, accusing congress of just being interested in parochial interest for not agreeing to their defense cuts. is there some of that? sure. always has been, always will be. is that the reason so many members of congress in both parties have real doubts and concerns about where this administration is taking our country's security? i don't think so. i disagree with a lot of the president's proposals really for two reasons. one is are not sure they are well thought out. last year they came to us and proposed that we keep the u2 airplane ever tire the global hawk. dishes budget proposal just reversed it and wants to retire the u2 and keep the global hawk.
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when you flip flop completely within one year it doesn't give you a lot of confidence that these proposals have been thought out. i know this, if you talk to the commanders in korea, they want to keep them both with the volatile young leader who is now in charge in the north. but the other reason i'm not willing to accept many of the administration's proposal is that i'm not willing to accept that we have to have a smaller military or a smaller role in the world. most republicans and many democrats are not willing to throw up our hands in retreat and resign ourselves to a smaller military and that smaller role because we know that as the united states retreats, others will fill that void. and those others will not move the world toward greater freedom and greater prosperity. the united states is exceptional and its exceptional in a way that no other country in the world is.
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president also accused republicans of wanting to use military force in every situation. well, i don't. i think that's another of the president's strawman arguments. i do believe in smart power. i served on the smart power commission that issued its report in 2007. we talked about having the full range of tools of national power and influence so that you could use the right tool for the right situation. some of those tools, however, need to be big hammers, and everyone other tools are more effective if they are backed up by credible military power. but see, that's the rub your we have to have the military power. and it has to be credible, and we have to be credible about its use. david ignatius wrote that the intangible factors of strength and credibility are, in fact, the glue of a rules-based
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international system. see, that's what is fraying, our strength and our credibility. and that's the reason for the disarray. cutting through it all was former prime mr. tony blair who's advised to us is, don't worry so much about being loved. just be strong. what the world needs now is for you to be strong. of course no one could say better than president reagan, memorial day 1986 over at arlington, quote, and we owe them something, these boys. we owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and perhaps a resigned toughness knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges, and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong. that, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson
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learned in the sedate and land, a poet, in hungary, in czechoslovakia, in cambodia. if we really care about peace we must stay stronger if we really care about peace, we must through our strength demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. we must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. the theme of this month. heritage is protect america your the only way to do that, the only way for us to have peace, the only way for the world to have peace is for america to be strong, and for america to be credible. peace through strength applies as much now as it ever has. thank you. [applause] >> about 10 minutes or so for questions. if anybody might have one.
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>> use the microphone. >> if the military budget -- [inaudible] twenty, 25% of republican conference has really tied to the tea party, seems to be almost as isolationist as this president. >> i don't think that's true. i think as a mention, i think mr. putin and others are helping remind everyone that the world is dangerous and that our defense, the first job of the federal government is to defend the country. i think the actual number of isolationist and the republican party is very small, and so i have seen a change even in the last year or two towards a greater willingness to look at increased defense spending.
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at the same time i think it's really important that we continue to make the kinds of reform efforts that i mentioned to get more out of the money we spend. because the pentagon can be a big bureaucracy just like any other big bureaucracy. one way we help shore up support for pentagon spending, not just among republicans but among everybody, is to make the reforms necessary so that each dollar is spent as wisely as possible, and fewer dollars are spent on overhead and unnecessary things. >> if you could wait for the microphone and identify yourself and who you are with. >> i was one if you could elaborate on your trip to china and if there's any issued you might like to address? >> obviously a lot of issues came up. i think i've mentioned the top to the. not only countries like china,
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friends like japan and korea are watching very closely right now to see whether the united states is a reliable ally or not. and part of what the watch again is not what we say but what we do. so we were in japan and got aboard the uss george washington, which as you will recall, the administration had no money in its budget to refuel the washington, meaning a ship that is supposed to last 50 years would only last 25. meanwhile, even to washington now has to be in dock for some months every year, as part of maintenance and so forth. so the point is it's not just what we say, it's what we do. do we refuel the washington? how many ships do we have? do we have the sort of presence that can reassure not only traditional allies like japan and korea, but other countries vietnam who are wondering who's going to be there to counterbalance this chinese
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aggressiveness. i think that's the dominant come was the dominant theme of the true. it has repercussions to our defense budget and other issues, but the big question is, can the united states be counted on? >> in the back. >> i'm a senior at episcopal high school. regarding ukraine it seems there are two reasons to act. one would be that we have a mantle of worldly come and number two, it affects us in so many ways. if we put the world please aspect aside, how does entertaining or not, intervening in ukraine affect the united states directly? it deathly affects europe but how would it affect the united states? >> well, when you see into the and there are lots of ways to play a role in the world. short of sending troops and
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trying to do something with military force. i think that to repercussions from ukraine. one is that it reminds us all that russia is not necessarily a benevolent power content with its current status in the world. it's an expansionist power, looking to reform world, international rules set towards its benefits. but i think even bigger, the people as i mentioned not just in europe but in asia and elsewhere are looking to see what we, what nato does. and sidenote, this is a real test for nato, what is the purpose of this alliance, does it have meeting today, or does it not? so having sanctions on a handful of individuals, which causes mr. putin and others to kind of
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laughed it off, has not been a very effective response. now, it doesn't mean that any effective sanctions or complete military invasion are the only options. and that's were i think the president loves to make these strawmen argued, it's either one extreme or the other. that's not the case. but make no mistake, it's not just germany, france, countries in europe that are watching a response but it's not just allies like japan and korea that are watching our response to its countries like iran and north korea are watching our response. and china, and trying to figure out what they can get away with. >> we do have a question from an online viewer. he wants to thank you for your service for the country. and then addressing rules of engagement, says there's a bunch of us at war when he was at
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school was attacked. you different, u.s. army ranger, brother in arms who just returned from afghanistan, and this ranges opinion is all they get to do is look through a scope on arrival and say the word bank. our folks equipped to engage enemy forces? >> i think all of us in congress have heard from relatives of service members who have been frustrated at the rules of engagement. certainly in afghanistan and even before that in the iraq. i think we have to be careful about second-guessing military commanders on the ground and the rules of engagement that they put for their troops, particularly given the mission that they have. and remember, a lot of what we are doing in afghanistan is helping to stand up the afghan security forces so that they can be in a better position to defend themselves. that means exercising some
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restraint sometimes, and when restraint is appropriate and when it is overboard, i think is hard for us in washington to second-guess. what i agree though with the question is that a town comes from the top. so it's really clear that the president doesn't really like being there, secretary gates points out he never felt like his heart was in the nation, and so what comes to those commanders is this anything that the president wants a minimalist approach, and we learned yesterday to get out as quick as possible. so does that leave the rules of engagement to be more restrictive than they might otherwise because you know with the president's approach to this is? yeah, that's what i'm afraid of. now, that doesn't mean that everyone of these rules is inappropriate. but what does mean is the tone comes from the top, and my
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biggest fear as a midget is that we're going to have not only for 30,000 who are there now, 9800 it will be there after that and have a better will be there in 2015, and the president doesn't was supported mission to teach is looking to get out with minimum damage so he can say at the end of his term i ended both of these wars. and walk away from the consequences and just look at iraq now. not only what's happening internally but the threat that is posed to the rest of the world from terrorists, and that's where that policy is. >> one last question in the back. is identify yourself and who you are with. >> thank you very much. my question concerns secretary of state kerry's announcement of a $5 billion investment into an antiterrorism fund for the world. i was wondering what your thoughts are on that if you see that as a way of america can
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restate its asserted capabilities for other countries? >> i haven't seen the details of really what he means by that. as i mentioned, i am a fan of having a full range of tools at our disposal. i chair the subcommittee that oversees special operations, so i am a big fan of working by, with and through others. i think that's what makes a lot of sense. the more capability we can develop in other countries, the less we have to go to ourselves. unfortunately in a lot of cases we die our own hands with restrictions that make it hard to work with others. two or three years ago i was in nigeria, for example, talking with him about what might be possible as far as u.s. military training of the nigerian military, because of the restraints we put on ourselves. very little as possible and so that's why when these girls are
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kidnapped we've got to basically start from scratch because we don't have that ongoing relationship. so is the president, secretary kerry can cut through all of that, or by the way the state department has been one of the biggest impediments in some of these issues, if we can cut through all that, then i think it's a good and useful thing. however, like i say, we can have this full array of tools, but if we don't have our own credible military threat, the nobody is going to take those tools very scarcely. so it comes back to our military strength and our credibility. everything depends on that, even efforts such as training others. >> i think we are at time for the congressman and he is another apartment to get to but we certainly appreciate compuserve's our country and addressing these issues. >> thank you. [applause]
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[inaudible conversations] >> we will go ahead and shifted to the second part of this program. we have to noted speakers. we will be starting with the doctor to your right, my far left, and then follow it up by mr. roberts iraqi, to my immediate left. i will start with biographical background for doctor holmes contesting the shelter at the heritage foundation what he is leading the work of defense, the defense and foreign policy team for more than two decades. heritage vice president for foreign and defense policy studies and director of the davis institute for international studies from 1991-2012. with a bit of service, interlude
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as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs during the first term of the george w. bush administration. he previously directed heritage team of foreign and defense policy experts, including the center for foreign policy studies, asian studies center, center for international trade economics and the margaret thatcher center for freedom. joint -- joining heritage in 1985, was a founding editor of the annual index of economic freedom which has become a signature heritage publication and assures a sober is 20 anniversaanniversa ry. he's let the think tank's efforts to convince the united states to withdraw from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, launched heritage one respected homeland secure the program after 9/11 and as well as its program on international trade and to suspend the missile defense program to what it is today. is recognized around the globe as one of washington's foremost foreign and defense policy experts are dr. holmes as a
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member of the council for relations with poorly served under the washingtwashingt on advisory committee and previous appointment included the defense policy board which the secretary of defense primary resource for expert outside advice, the board of directors, center for international private enterprise and the public number of u.s. delegation to the or position for security and cooperation in your. dr. holmes artist doctoral masters degree from georgetown university and we are fortunate to have them on this thing. so if you like to finish your marks. >> thank you very much, dakota. good morning, welcome to heritage. i thought it was a really good speech he gave. it's the kind of leadership that we would like to see more of, least i would like to see more of coming out of members of congress. what i'd like to do today is to take advantage of the fact that this is a centennial of course, the beginning of world war i, and in august you'll be seeing lots of articles about the guns of august and the origins of that were. i wanted to take an opportunity
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to go to my historical have to. s. dakota mentioned i have two degrees from georgetown, in european history. so i studied this period many, many years ago, ma and there's a lot of talk, a lot of books being published about the origins of water one. i thought i would take advantage of that and talk about some of the lessons that i see from that war and apply it to today. as an historian i mindful that history never repeats itself exactly. there are always differences and historical analogies. we have to be mindful of that. that history does echo. there are some trends and themes that tend to manifest themselves in time and time again in the course it is those themes that as historic we tried to understand. so before i get into where i see some of the specific lessons, i want to say a word about historiography of world war i.
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there are basically two schools of thought that existed over now for decades. really particularly since world war ii. one was founded by the german historian, basically it was the thesis that jeremy started the war. it was germany pushing inside europe and his famous study, germany pushing for world power. and he has lots of followers but i have to admit that my professor at georgetown pretty much followed him in fisher's footsteps. then there's the opposing school to vote by historians, all of them in britain by the way, some in germany, who take the view that world war i was started not by germany alone what it was mainly a tragedy of miscalculations. this is the phrase that turner uses. and is more or less an accident that could've been avoided, too many moving parts, people make mistakes and we need to learn
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from that. and from that you get essentially not only from that but also from historiography of world war ii you get to politicize the views of what causes wars, what sorts worse. one of them from world war i and certainly from one in world war ii. not just about these wars but causing wars in general. picking up on these sort of stumbling into war areas committee believe that the real cause is not only world war i but of wars in general were things like militarism, reverting back to the rigid timetables for example, of the military's prior to world war i, bellicose diplomacy looking at the chief of the german staff, egging on the australians and the australian chief of staff, to back up the serbians. shortsighted diplomacy, for example, germany overreacts in a
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crisis in 1905. big power, a responsibility backing up a responsible smaller powers like germany did with austria against serbia. and then, of course, the toxic influences of nationalism and ethnic rivalries, german nationalism. all of this and lexi of all these causes you see how they wrote in world war i but they get generalized into causes of war in general. so this sort of stumbling into war by being overly aggressive lead into one of the main streams of the ideology of liberal internationalism is that you need some candid international oversight to restrain the appetites of the overaggressive national powers. overly aggressive national powers. out of this led to the rise of league of nations, the end of corporate and, of course, the united nations, and you see this idea still with us today.
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of course, the lessons of world war ii were quite different, the exact opposite. the culprit there was at the appeasement of hitler, among others to was exact opposite of the world war i narrative. we ended up in the war because we were too weak and we lacked resolve. it was the mirror image of the world war i lesson. and because of that after world war ii we remain engaged in europe's security, unlike we have done at the world war i period, and we also develop very robust ideas military deterrence in making use security policy as a result of that experience of the opposite lesson, if you will, of world war i after world war ii. you see these narratives today in our debate. should we be more worried about the appeasement? that's what ronald reagan and george w. bush worried about, or should we be worried about provoking a war by being overly aggressive and not having sufficient international oversight? president obama, such a state john kerry. all of that came out of our trying to interpret the causes of both of these wars. that's the backdrop.
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i'd indulge in my historiography and to have to get to what i was asked to come here. what are the lessons that can be applied to today from world war i? the first one to the congress been referred to, the most obvious one, be aware of the large rising power whose main aim is to revise the international status quo. this is exactly west germans role prior to world war i. wants this mark left the scene, the balancing act of an expensive german inside europe, which was to unite germany and maintain peace at the same time, which had been bismarck's goal, that was dropped by the kaiser and his officials. germany had a huge naval building program which provoked a britain. it aggressively back to austria which changed the status quo in the balkans which threatened russia and turkey.
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its military buildup threatens france directly, and its claim to have little interest in africa particularly in morocco in the 1905 crisis, that challenge both france and britain in the colonial interest. said germany was an expansionist power. it was a big power and it was threatening upset of the balance of power in europe. so what's the relevance today? the congressman from china, that is the most obvious analysis. china is a rising power who also wants to change the international rule of order but it is terror proclaims against practically every neighbor. it does not accept taiwan independence which we back. it sees the united states as an interloper against east asia it is unresolved historical grievances against japan and others neighbors, as france did against germany and as jeremy did against practically every neighbor prior to world war i. germany, by 1913, it was a german military plan. it was developed by a german
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staff to do with to front rows -- wars because to go because germany felt encircled. that was the phrase that he used in the military planning. china feels encircled, too. they feel that we are a long with our allies trying to contain china. so there is similarity here though is that germany prior to world war i develop a very insular way of looking at affairs because they felt so threatened that he was the difficult for them to have a reasonable understanding what they actually faced. they became very overconfident as a result. the chinese leadership including the pla also had a very highly insular view of the world. they see the world their own way, and even when we try to reassure them, they often do not believe us and they see that not only as a sign of weakness but as i try to trick them. so this insularity that comes from fear, self-imposed fear in the case of china, i was even in the case of germany but since germany -- they felt faction is
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a may be stopped and so that's where they got their way of looking at the world. roche is also a revisionist power. putin believes the collapse of the soviet union was a terrible tragedy. it's not at this point try to reestablish soviet global dominance but it certainly is resurrecting the old russian empire. so both china and russia are revisionist powers. just as germany was prior to world war i, i think that is an important analogy. the second point is, the second lesson is beware of risk very. the ad was event of the german navy prior to world war i. he was the driving force behind the german naval buildup which basically more a list if it didn't guarantee its are decorated a collision course with britain because britain was a primary naval power at the time. what the risk very was that he
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knew that the german navy could not possibly be as powerful as the british navy. but he convinced the kaiser and the german general staff that it didn't have to be as big as the british navy to go have to be big enough to ensure that britain did not have what he called naval supremacy. well, it turned out that this overconfidence in the german navy was one of the reasons why german diplomacy was so aggressive prior to world war i. it turned out to be completely wrong. the german navy was a complete disappointment, not only to the bismarck, it sunk, but also at the end of the war, during the end of the war they could not even stop the british naval embargo that practically starve to germany to death. but it was a powerful delusion that gave germany way too much confidence that it could actually start of the war. the relevance today could be
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that china is developing just enough naval capability not to challenge the united states navies globally but to challenge our supremacy in the east and south eastern china sea. that's all they have to do is make it into the confidence that they could chose japan or the islands are perhaps make some move against us bradleys because they prevent just enough power to deter us from responding in that region. and this could give them way too much confidence to resolve any documents which could end in a war. the last lesson is the one also that the congressman refer to comment is beware of too much war weariness. it cannot cause wars, but it could make the wars that they devote much wars than they should have been. after world war i, obviously europe and the united states were extremely traumatized by all the terrible slaughter. we couldn't believe how it had gotten so out of hand, and how it became such a catastrophe.
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and so, therefore, our instincts were led in the opposite extreme. we started looking at world war i as the one that would end all wars, and it was out of this fear and this mentality that not only the league of nations was born, that treaties to of all wars and to control arms races were born. much of the program of international liberalism was invented in these years as a way of compensated psychologically diplomatic politically for what they thought had been a mistake that led to world war i. while of course it didn't end that way. it ended up with hitler taking over much of europe. in fact it was as a result of this mindset that the war and world war ii ended up being wars. the relevance today is that we are obviously in a similar period of war weariness and we may be making some of the same mistakes that were made after world war i. we are not any period of abject isolationism but we are any
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period of retrenchment and withdrawing american power is a pop are not on the president but with the american people. as i said on the concepts of international -- that were created in those interwar years to sort of give us sophisticated veneer to the retreat are now front and center in american policy. yesterday, the president announced a timetable what he called ending the war in afghanistan. he announced a time when all but a few u.s. troops would be left in afghanistan. but you will notice that his strategy which was absent also in the strategy of the end of the war. is the most obvious question, what happens when you walk away from afghanistan and the return of the taliban a curse? what will we do then? in other words, what's the condition for us, what's the condition for being there in the first place? after all that was the war aim. you leave when you achieve your aim. you don't leave everton there was no war to begin with.
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that failed to answer that question honor strategy in afghanistan is part of this same shortsightedness that led americans the '20s and '30s to think that world war i was truly over. it wasn't over. world war ii was by the second out of a problem that had been remained unresolved from the first world war. in other words, world war ii was rounded to of world war i. i fear if we walk away from afghanistan to send as we walked away from europe we may have to someday return once again to finish the job. after all, we have already left afghanistan once, the 19 -- after the 1980s. there could be the same kind of tragedies that occurred in afghanistan that occurred at the end of war period. it seems to me given what the president said yesterday about afghanistan, the same kind of mentality is prevalent. he said yesterday that afghanistan is quote enhanced of the afghans. obviously, that's true to a hard
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degree but that should not be an excuse to think that we can just wash our hands and just come home as if we had nothing to do with it and if we had no interest in the meta. we tried that once. not only in afghanistan. we tried in the end of the war period in europe and we paid a terrible, terrible price. thank you. >> now to rober try one to my l. policy director at the foreign policy initiative that education and engages his decision makers, journalists and the public on imports of u.s. global leadership and matters of security diplomacy and international creature rights and democracy. prior to joining us, he worked in the house of representatives primarily in congressman from nebraska refocused on for a affairs, national defense including nonproliferation issue but also as a legislative and house foreign affairs committee,
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nonproliferation treaty before the hill he worked as a research fellow at the nonproliferation policy education center as an independent consultant on nuclear issues for a few years, you've been everywhere, reporting on the intersection of ashes to become technology, politics, and also as a policy analyst at steptoe and johnson in washington where he focused on e-commerce and international export import use of encryption and other dual use items. some years earlier co-authored a publication on selected writin writings, avon rep deeply insightful writing on war and peace and nuclear age by two of america's most controversial anything of consequence strategists. very pleased to have you on our panel and looking for your thoughts on world war i adolescence. >> thank you, dakota, for that kind introduction. it's a pleasure to be on stage, and also it's a pleasure to also follow an honor to follow was chairman thornberry, given x. of
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speech and also as an aside, he's got a great reading list on its website. not many members have that but he has one, so check it out. and mandate here today was to talk about the 100 year anniversary of the start of world war i, what lessons the united states learned from it in terms of its defense budget, national city planning and the like, and what we should do, take from it today and go forward. dr. holmes pointed out that history doesn't repeat itself but it certainly rises come as a source often says. but where is the day is i see a lot of rhyming out their -- but what worries me today. if any of you spend time looking at world war i, i'm sure some of you have, too big lessons i sort of take away from this make my overarching point. world war i and history writ large but certainly world war i council to build a. dr. holmes talk about all the
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wide ranging debate about what caused world war i and at the end of the day in many cents is the confluence of many factors but you can't point to one single thing. but every single line, one of the most instructive conference in history, and the second point is that world war i also counsels the united states in particular to prudently plan against a potential for hostile street but also be prepared if it's returned this but it really boils down to the. how i'm going to proceed, i will go over, offer a quick overview to some aspects of the conflict or a discussion of immediately learned lessons that u.s. policymakers and lawmakers learned immediately after world war i. in retrospect you could say they learned the wrong lessons. and in our circle today, the circle today to learn the right lessons from this history. a month, so a month from today, it's going to mark the 100th year anniversary of the
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assassination of the archduke of austria, a backwater part of the austria-hungary empire, sarajevo. his assassin was a 20 year-old bosnian serb, a yugoslavian. i've returned to this idea of pan nationalism. that assassination did not cause world war i itself but its as a spark, a spark that lit the tender and soon the continent was ensued in flames. within a couple months, but by july and august we saw what they called the great war, the world war. what h.g. wells and later woodrow wilson called the war to end all wars. 1940-1918, and to give you a sense of the scope of this war and the scope of this conflict would only be eclipsed by world
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war ii i should have. 65, nearly 70 million mobilized forces. united states was run to the late in 1970 due to strong isolationism, non-interventionism itself mobilized over 4 million troops. the conflict itself, it was a paradigm changing conflict because it showed how you could bring in science, technology, industry and applied on a massive scale. and we saw new forms of warfare, trench warfare, they sit take warfare, aerial warfare. the use of chemical weapons which again look no further than three to the united states remains non-interventionist and basically isolationist until the final year and half of the war. what actually support our involvement wasn't the bombing of the lusitania in may 1915 where 130 americans die. it was a bridge. actually the zimmerman telegram,
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that the uk intercepted in which that humans are basically offered mexico, hey, you go to war with the united states we will help split the spoils. it was that telegram and subsequent attack which led to the u.s. congress to i should declare war on germany and enter world war i in april 1917. quick note about just the scale of the death and suffering. as many as 11 million people died. obviously there's a lot of debate about precise numbers can party together 8 million 8 million-11 million combatants died. october the about 7 million noncombatant civilians died. crossfire, war crime, disease, not attrition. for the united states the war itself was such that even though we were involved or wrote in a short period of time. if you were to just for inflation for today the united states spent about 500 billion for the short involvement in world war i.

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