>> hi. thank you all. i'm from the national bureau of research. i'm wondering what the obligations are both on capitol hill and also in terms of permitting process for other transporter energy projects? not specifically natural gas,

but coal which is under a lot of debate in the pacific northwest at the moment. do you have any comments or insight on those other energy issues? >> i don't know what, are you talking about export, the export debate? yeah, i think that most likely would be considered a separate matter. i know this is not necessarily with the spectacle, but certainly with crude, crude exports, and i think the debate there is being handled, it is probably a separate matter. i'm not sure the keystone decisions woodway one way or another on that. >> this fits into the larger context of energy infrastructure. it does not raise the cross-border question, but it does raise the larger question of the bureaucratic hurdles that applied to just about any form

of energy infrastructure. >> the last panel talked about rail. someone brought up about what would happen if you sort of pipeline to the border, rail to cross and pipelined it beyond. that's kind of playing around the intent there, but could you address rail versus pipeline and why things are different, or have we just never thought of that before? >> i made this comment before in other forums. we've kind of stumbled in a way into making choices about energy infrastructure because of the fortuity for which entities were regulated in which particular ways. and just as i pointed out gas pipelines are regulated differently from oil pipelines because a different statute. railroads are also regulated under a different set of statutes. the railroad infrastructure already exists.

the railroads have their crossing permits. so when a lot of this oil, when oil becomes backed up were blockaded because there's not a pipeline capacity, no one has to go and get permission to put the rail, put oil on the rail car. it has been some controversy about the rail cars itself, but the actual movement by the rural road of the oil is something that just happens. there's a disparity, a big disparity between how long it takes to get a pipeline project up and running compared to how long it takes to build a rail terminal, find the rail cars and start moving. we have seen this in north dakota with the bakken shale deposits in north dakota. five or six years ago there was probably no oil moving high oil in north dakota. had a dark 7000 barrels a day moving by rail in north dakota. until there's more hype line

infrastructure but that will continue possible even go. >> what we are talking about with the review is for the approval of a facility at the border, not importation of the oil. is the infrastructure exists to move it then you don't have a problem under these executive orders. >> in terms of pipeline versus rail or rather other means, our committee is neutral. what we are essentially saying is a decision should be made by putting him on the scale by making it much, much harder for one form of infrastructure to be built. that's what we would like to address. >> it's an issue of timing as well. i know this as a process you want to get done but canadian critics have said were stretching the time after this, we are adding more processes, we are taking too long. it should be a no-brainer as we

heard on the earlier panel. any comments on timing on that? is it anyone's guess how long a permit to take? >> it's less guesswork on the pipeline side because the ferc has been pretty a small job of trying to control the scheduled and become more consistent of the time friends. they don't always hit the mark but they're reasonably good on that. the problem from the presidential permit standpoint is that each time someone has gone and it's gotten longer. i'm told, i wasn't around back and 60 to do this but i was told we had a presidential permit by writing a letter to the state department saying i want to cross the border, here's what i'm planning to do and what you back later and said here's your presidential permit. that serpent doesn't happen today. each top pipeline has gone through this process it has tended to be more difficult, more time-consuming.

hopefully that's not always going to be true for all pipelines. keystone seems to be a special case, but it would be, i think a very helpful from a pipeline industries pointed you in terms of commercial planning and from the oil industry's point of view window be able to rely on those pipelines to have a more consistent time frame. >> one area where the u.s. is fairly unique is there are these open-ended processes, and one of the things that we would be looking at in terms of process reforms is to put the process on a shot clock which most other countries do, a time certain where a yes or no answer would be required. >> you put out the id of their due process forecast, and oil as others. may be that you can jump in. how does politics affect this process? i mean, one would think there's

a process that is set out in you can do it. for public input yes, but does the process get interfered with politically, and how? >> this is a good time as any to give you a little caveat. certainly it is fair to say that it does, but my job requirement says i must remain impartial. >> each type of energy i think, just have a log rose for it independently, it comes about haphazardly. there is a political process and a row for each one. for whatever reason, natural gas is treated different than oil is traded. we have not gotten to the question of electric oil. politics plays, and oil but there's no concerted effort to treat the way each thing

develops. >> the ferc process for gas pipelines, they give commentary to that is public input, and you should see that to lesser or greater degree depending on the project. what we've seen more and more of on the domestic oil pipeline front as well as cross-border oil pipeline front is that states were used to be a pretty pro forma process has now become a very combative process of environmental organizations, land owner groups and others show up now and are more assertive about their views, and a some cases the process there is starting to stretch out. somebody mentioned earlier that nebraska projected a six to eight month process for the permit there. we've seen states that had that timeframe now become or longer and longer as the process gets more politically charged.

>> government alberta. upstream issues, greenhouse gases have been a key part of the debate. have you seen an evolution in the way either the federal government or states are considering those issues? >> that's a hard one. at the state level you don't see as much of the debate as we've seen in keystone about, it clearly is a factor that gets brought up but it's not so much part of the debate. a lot of it is about local issues. your any particular state like nebraska, the issues are going to be very particular. are you going over the oligarch or aquifer. is going to go to a schoolyard? all politics is local. it seems to be locally focused.

i think the attention to the broader climate change type issues tends to occur more at the federal level especially if it's state, or even at the ferc. >> that certainly is the effort on the part of the environmental organizations, include upstream considerations and downstream considerations in all of these infrastructure prospects. of course, if you do so and these projects carry fossil fuels, that's not good news. but this wasn't formally part of the process. greenhouse gases were not mentioned in that one page executive order. so exactly what counts and what doesn't count is something that never was spelled out. >> d.c. significant changes in the process? you mentioned legislation that might be coming up next term. how significantly do think you can change, the process can be

changed without, i don't know, everyone going crazy? >> i don't know what the prospects for that legislation would be, but it will be an effort. as i mentioned we had a cross-border bill that, but essentially treated these cross-border projects very little differently than if they were in truck u.s. projects. i don't know if the prospects for that kind of approach would be. but i would help at some point they would be a bipartisan attempt to really tackle these -- this infrastructure challenge. >> we have looked at six years of keystone politics process but anything else you want to say? i think is been a good discussion. i've learned a lot. i think it puts in context. so please join me in thanking our great, second panel and our first one.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the british house of commons is in recess so there will be no prime minister's questions this week. they will be back next week and you can see our live coverage every wednesday they're in session starting at 7 a.m. eastern here on c-span2.

>> this morning the atlantic council host a discussion about online voting. the technology behind it and its potential effect on future elections. you can watch it live at 9 a.m. eastern on c-span2 and c-span.org. >> here are just a few of the comments we have received from our viewers. >> you don't have to be an einstein to know the only way to keep a bowl from coming in the united states is to have the president stepped in and demand that no one from africa be allowed to come into this country for at least the next 10 years or more, until this evil is completely eradicated. i can't comprehend how people are no -- are so nonchalant about ebola getting into the united states. i'm so glad c-span put up this number for viewers to call in and help all the people who feel

outside you will call in and state the outrage as to have this problem is being handled and demand the president to take the action i have suggested. >> what do these people expect about ebola outbreak? they said it would never reach the united states after. now look, look what's happened. and for 3000 of the people over the? are you kidding me? do you think -- we're falling for a bunch of this bold that doctors are giving us that they're smiling up there. we've got this under control. it will never spread, blah, blah, blah. it wasn't supposed to get over your either, blah, blah, blah,. >> there's a wonderful discussion going on right now, panel discussion on the ebola virus. and it has been revealed over the news this morning that a person left liberia and came from west africa over here.

he got out, went to his kin folks house in northeast. his family members contracted the ebola virus from him. it could be construed that was a reckless disregard to the americans when this guy was allowed to leave the place that's plagued with the ebola virus with that somebody having checked him out before he boarded the plane, or then after boarding the plane, he come over here, nobody checked him out. he goes right on into the dallas community, and now as a result of that, there are people in quarantine. he's in the hospital. i haven't checked the news, the local news yet because i have it on c-span right now, to see whether he's going to live or die. >> continue to let us do what

you think about the programs you're watching. all set to zero to 663400. e-mail us at comments@c-span.org or send us a tweet at c-span hashtag comments. 20 c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> c-span's 2015 studentcam competition is underway. this nationwide competition for middle and high school students will award 150 prizes totaling $100,000. create a five to seven minute documentary on the topic the three branches and you. videos need to include c-span programming, show varying points of view and must be submitted by january 20, 2015. go to studentcam.org for more information. grab a camera and get started today. >> louisiana governor bobby jindal recently gave a speech about national security where he criticized the obama administration's defense and

foreign policies. they governor made his remarks at the american enterprise institute in washington, d.c. this is one hour. >> good morning, everybody. thank you for joining us here today. i'm danielle pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies here at the american enterprise institute. we are very pleased and honored to welcome governor bobby jindal her to the american enterprise institute to give a talk on rebuilding american defense. governor jindal has an enormously impressive bio, so impressive in fact that i'm not going to go through all of it with you here today. quickly, he's in his second term

as governor of louisiana. he represented louisiana's first district in the house of representatives with its freshman class president in the house. welcome the rest of his bio is available on our website, as will be the text of his talk here today. after the governor's speech people sit down for a chat with the codirector of aei's maryland and for security studies tom donilon and take questions from the audience. you all may ask why is the governor of louisiana giving a talk on defense here at aei? setting aside the american servicemen and women who are based in or are from louisiana, i want to point to our larger reasons. the world is falling apart, just in case you hadn't noticed. from hong kong to crimea to south china sea to libya, syria, iraq, yemen, iran, mali, somalia, liberia. i could go on.

this maelstrom of war, terror, death and disease has implications for every american, not just for white house political strategists. as we at aei have been sounding the alarm on this issue for some time now, i'm delighted that this is an issue that more americans are beginning to think about. because the fallout from these crises, if they continue unmanaged, if we fail to lead, if we cannot afford to lead, will affect every one of us. over to you, governor. [applause] >> thank you all very much. thank you for that generous gens introduction to padua to thank our host here at aei, also thanks for the terrific work you do not only on issue will talk about today by several other topics as will become want to recognize and thank senator jim

count who co-authored me today the paper we are releasing to america next that goes into greater detail on the topic would be talking about today. jim, thank you for your friendship and leadership on these important issues. as we talk to a close of the politically relevant portion of the obama presidency, the years in which the president had the power to get anything done, and the and just in doing it, we are at a point where we can assess the nation and the world that president obama is leading us. much of the recent media coverage of the obama presidency has focused on the frustrations of the present with the political process. time and again he turned to the third person to explain the ineffectiveness of his leadership. it is always they who stand against his noble aim to help the people. they who botched obamacare. they you underestimated the threats of isis. this president there's always somebody else to blame. for all that's been written about president obama's negative

impact on american businesses, i will give him this. no president has done so much for the strawman industry. every day he sets one on fire. whatever you want to say about his golf game, this guy knows how to use a flamethrower. but i would argue that this blending of the third person is actually wrong. because for the most part we actually live in the america that president obama wanted to create. we live in the country in the world that progressives wanted. where we are didn't happen by accident. it didn't happen because the president obama's frustrated by the political process. it happened because as richard weaver told us, ideas have consequences. what is an american governed under those ideas look like? on the domestic front we are a nation faltering slowly for a lackluster recovery. one that is been marked by profits capital by the powerful and well-connected common stag

wages and dim prospects for those of us who are not. it is a nation which effectually cradle-to-grave welfare state. worth a federal comment that broadens the states and taxpayer dollars, barred from china that our kids lead to pay. to growing on the programs which i was able bodied adults its traps in a lifetime of disincentives for success. it is a nation marked by exhaustion and discouragement and fear. where wealth and power are centralized in an immense and out of control federal government. it is a nation where people feel they no longer have a voice. with a massive and cronies administered state seeks to control almost every aspect of our lives. it is a nation of backroom deals where regulators run the show and those who play ball get bailouts. on the international front things are arguably even worse. here president obama's ideas have had even less restrictions so the consequences are clear. i am the first conservative to

criticize president obama for his lack of commitment to idea of american exceptionalism. it is a real critique and i want to explain for a moment what it means. when president obama rejects american exceptionalism, what he's doing is embracing the idea, long held by progressives going back a century. that we're simply members of the global village. all of us insurance principles and cultures of equal merit. no country is principles that are better than others. there is no nation, no system of government or understanding of rights that is exceptional. i wish president obama had watched the incredible something he would note that when everybody is special, actually nobody is. the danger of this idea that it ignores the unique and distinct role that united states is called to play in the world because of our strength, our resources and our historical commitment to freedom and human

dignity. ideas do have consequences. it is only when you conclude that we are all just citizens of the world with ideas that are just as viable as anybody else's. you would come to the conclusion the united states should lead from behind which really means of course not leaving at all. it would take too much of your valuable time for me to list a bill of particulars of all of the consequences of president obama's failure on the international stage. today we see a world in which the obama administration has neglected or abandoned america's long-standing allies. our special relationship with britain is gone. nato is adrift into eastern europe is disaffected and israel has been purposely alienated from the united states. considered a consequence of just the past year that is brought us the rise of isis and the capture of most of their crushes

expansion, new heights of crisis in middle east and israel, genocide and destruction of religious minorities in iraq. more chinese in the south china sea, more bombing and libya. more saber rattling from north korea. a dangerous friend of anti-semitism at a refugee crisis on our own border. for anyone with a degree of intersection, is th be time to consider whether the ramifications of your ideas were leaving the world to expect more chaos and less clarity. that is not what president obama has done. he has not we can say whether his approach to leadership is perhaps a part of the reason that the world seems to be spinning off of his actions. instead he once again views himself as a noble, delivered a thinker who takes the time and gets it right. peter baker recent wrote an interesting piece in "the new york times" about a series of off the record dinners president obama has held with foreign policy members. of course, as it always is in

washington that even the president can really go off the record. the attendees recalled the president sarcastically imitating his adversaries saying quote, it's a shame when you have a diffident professional present with no foreign policy other than don't do stupid things. i do not make apologies for being careful in these areas, even if it doesn't make for good theater. i don't get invited to the white house much. i wasn't at that dinner. but if i had been, i can tell you what i would have said when he rolled out that straw man and set it aflame. respectfully, mr. president, this isn't about good theater. this is about life and death, freedom and despotism, order and chaos.

this is about the role of the united states of america as the leader of the free world. this is about nothing less than whether we will squander america's ability to continue in that role, or whether we will pass on to our children a nation that is secure, well-armed, and confident in its ability to sustain a just peace in the world. as walter russell mead wrote in response to that anecdote, "the real criticism of the president isn't that his foreign policy is too deliberative, it is that his deliberations don't seem to end with policies that, well, work"" the truth is that none of us would care how long president obama takes to make a decision if it were the right decision. as the great military strategist colonel john boyd once said, decisions without actions are pointless. actions without decisions are

reckless. time and again, this president has managed to do both. the problem with the "smart diplomacy" that was supposed to make everything better isn't that it doesn't make for "good theater." it's that it isn't very smart. this isn't about disliking how long it takes him to come up with an idea. it's about the ideas and what follows from them. the russian reset. iraq. afghanistan. israel. egypt. iran. libya. europe. china. in each of these areas, it's not just that the president took too long to come up with an answer. it's that the answer was wrong. if only he'd had the help of a wise steady hand, a policy expert in dealing with foreign affairs, he'd have come up with better answers. but instead he just had hillary clinton.

how did we get to this point? just ask the people who can be honest about what happened. ask former defense secretary leon panetta, who says he and others advised the president to negotiate a status of forces agreement with iraq that could've forestalled the rise of isis. but says the white house refused to lead. ask former ambassador to iraq christopher hill, who says he was abandoned and ignored by secretary clinton. or ask the outgoing chief of the defense intelligence agency, michael flynn, who says the world today is more chaotic than any time since the 1930s. today, we are living with the consequences of the obama-clinton ideas when it comes to foreign, domestic, and defense policy. and those ideas have set america on a path that will create more chaos, more conflict, and more wars. secretary rumsfeld, ambassador bolton, and others understand that weakness is provocative.

and what we see time and again from this president is a projection of weakness. peace through strength costs infinitely less in american blood and treasure than does war precipitated by weakness. president obama has misused the tools of soft power. he had to be dragged into imposing sanctions on iran for its nuclear program. he has yet to use the full force of sanctions or other soft power steps against russia. when the crowds were applauding him overseas at the beginning of his administration, he never effectively used america's moral authority to challenge the human rights records of our adversaries and now he is no longer someone with the global stature to do so. worse still, he leaves for the next president tools of hard power that have fallen into disrepair. military strength should not be the primary means by which the united states executes its foreign policy. but it is the indispensable element that underpins the other

tools. of all the mistakes president obama has made, this strikes me as the most dangerous. the same progressive motivations that led to foolish levels of disarmament in the 1930s are now once again leading us down the road toward a military that cannot do what we need it to do when we need to do it. it is all the more frustrating that we are pursuing this course at a time of multiplying threats, when the technology of asymmetric weaponry is spreading, and the ability of non-state actors to inflict terrible destruction on innocent citizens is only increasing. since the cold war, we have seen the decay of our defense capabilities and a growing gap between missions and resources. in the wake of the humanitarian efforts and smaller conflicts of the 1990s, president george w. bush understood the need to modernize the armed forces. he and others anticipated that in the absence of the existential threat of the soviet

union, we would be able to invest heavily in leap-ahead technologies, yielding a smaller, leaner, and more lethal force. but the september 11th attacks brought that modernization to a halt. instead of a transformation of the force, we found ourselves in wars which our planners had assumed would never occur again conflicts with large numbers of boots on the ground for long periods of time. the defense budget was increased substantially. but it's important to understand what that money didn't do. it did not rebuild the military as was needed. instead, it was eaten up by the costs of the wars by the greater maintenance needs of an aging inventory, higher operating costs, and higher personnel costs. it is an illusion to think that after the war spending increases we have seen over the past decade and more that we as a nation are better positioned when it comes to our national defense. in fact, the reverse is true. by the time president obama took

office, the american military was in an increasingly fragile condition. the navy had fewer ships than at any time since before world war one; the air force inventory was smaller, and older, than at any time since the inception of the service. and while the size of the army and the marine corps was increased in 2007 to support the surge in iraq, over most of the war both services lacked the personnel they needed, forcing far too many units to serve multiple tours of duty in iraq and afghanistan and increasing the human cost borne by our warfighters. in 2009, secretary gates identified $400 billion in cost reductions beginning in 2009 and an additional $78 billion if realized, beginning in fiscal year 2012. the effect was to cancel the remaining modernization programs, including the c-17 transport and the f-22 fighter, which will harm our military's capabilities for years to come. the bipartisan national defense

panel, created by congress the same year, issued a unanimous report in the spring of 2010 in which it recommended heading in the opposite direction. they supported substantial additional funding for the military, primarily to increase the size of the navy. they warned this, the aging of the inventories and equipment used by the services, the decline in the size of the navy, escalating personnel entitlements, overhead and procurement costs, and the growing stress on the force means that a train wreck is coming in the areas of personnel, acquisition and force structure. in the spring of 2011, secretary gates responded to these recommendations by offering a ten-year proposed budget with modest increases in funding. they didn't go as far as the panel had recommended, but it was a step in their direction. but two months later, president

obama threw it all out. he announced his intention to reduce the gates' proposed budget, his own administration's defense budget, by approximately $40 billion per year. the president essentially junked his own defense budget in a speech and pulled a new number for defense spending out of thin air. there wasn't even an analysis of the impact of the new funding levels on the armed forces or american national security. the president's proposal was codified in the 2011 budget control act. that was followed by the sequestration law, which had the effect of cutting another half a trillion dollars from the defense budget over the next ten years. think about how ridiculous this is as an approach to governance. in the course of less than one year, the budget priorities produced by an analytical process and proposed by a highly respected secretary of defense was completely jettisoned in favor of an ad hoc and entirely politically driven budget reduction process.

the consequences of this foolish nearly trillion-dollar cut over the coming decade are unacceptable. under these cuts, america will not have a global navy any more. we will be almost 100 ships smaller than the chinese navy. the army and air force will shrink dramatically. we have just seen the release of a second bipartisan panel report, which further documents the declining condition of the military. so in the past five years, congress created two national defense panels to review the condition of the armed forces. both panels were bipartisan, and both panel reports were unanimous in making the case for restoring the strength of our national defense. and yet the president has gone in the opposite direction. you've all seen the footage of the tomahawk missiles our navy is firing at isis. those tomahawks are on track to be phased out under president

obama's plan, even without a replacement ready. we're supposed to buy just 100 next year and zero the year after that. investors business daily did the math and found that in just one night, president obama used up 47% of next year's planned purchases. if we had to sustain that, we could only fire at that level for 85 days before we were out of missiles. we must take steps to rebuild america's military. at the very least, as we argue in the paper america next is releasing today, we must return to the 2011 budget proposed by secretary gates, the last time there was any real analysis or threat assessment undertaken to determine what ought to be spent. we must also take steps to shorten the design and build cycle for procurement. and we must engage in immediate reforms to support our force's readiness. as experts at aei and others

have suggested, i share the belief that we should set as a guideline spending approximately 4% of america's gdp on defense. the reality is that there this is less need to use the military when it is feared and respected. and the best approach to reducing the level of global risk would be to move decisively to rebuild the tools of military power. this force should be used carefully, not to nation-build overseas, not as a police force or a keynesian jobs program, but as a deterrent to our adversaries, and as a tool to eradicate threats to american lives and interests. by allowing global threats to fester in a leadership vacuum, by allowing our material to rust and decay, it only delays the day of reckoning when the united states will have to address these threats and increases the costs, in both time and treasure, of doing so. inaction in this regard will put america in an increasingly

weaker position, put our fighting men and women at greater risk, and decrease our ability to respond to the very real and increased threats president obama leaves behind. i am a fiscal conservative. as calvin coolidge said, "i want the people of america to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves." but within the arena of national defense, the need now is for more funding, not less. that funding must be smarter not motivated by domestic political priorities, but by what real threats america faces around the world. the same problems which cause wasteful domestic spending behavior can also motivate wasteful defense spending the worst kind of waste, as it leaves our forces unprepared and ill-equipped for the missions we give them. that's why i support the bipartisan efforts of senators tom coburn, joe manchin, and others to demand that the pentagon provide what every

other department and agency does, an audit of its books. originally the bureaucrats there were supposed to be ready for an audit this year. now they say they will be ready in 2017. if we are going to spend more taxpayer dollars on defense, we taxpayer dollars be spent wisely, that we know where the money goes and what it does, and we should know that now, not later. the defense of our country is too important to tolerate waste and irresponsible spending in this arena. but we should not think this waste means that overall cuts are justified. on the contrary, it means that we must spend what is needed based on the threats we face even as we fix our procurement process. to do any less would stretch us even more thin in the years to come. politicians like to talk about waste and fraud, but waste and fraud alone will not make up the funding gap which prevents us from having the modernized force we need.

so because i am a fiscal conservative, i believe that we need to shrink the costs of our government in other ways. in the debate over how to deal with ever-expanding entitlements, some of my fellow conservatives have pushed for plans with costly subsidies as a method for replacing obamacare. i believe that we need a health reform focused on the cost burden for the consumer and the taxpayer. so my health care plan would rely on reforms which lower costs and save taxpayers billions while fixing the existing inequity in the tax code. as we seek to bolster our military force, we also need to be willing to use the economic weapons at our disposal. while we all understand the disincentive of losing the ability to trade with us, we have another powerful weapon at our disposal now, one which the rest of the world wants and needs. our energy supply. the energy resources america has unleashed have enormous benefits

for our economy and job creation, but they also represent a tool in our arsenal to help offset the ability of russia and other nations to effectively blackmail our allies. as i've laid out in my energy plan, the more government removes the barriers to a thriving energy sector, the more we will be able to balance against our adversaries without ever firing a shot. it is no accident that the threats to america are now growing. they are growing because the obama administration has repudiated all the operating principles of an effective global strategy, by leading from behind, abandoning our long-time allies, failing to effectively use the tools of soft power, and capabilities of our armed forces. they are growing because ideas

have consequences. and we must be prepared to face them. without a strong defense, our allies will not trust our promises, and our adversaries will not believe our threats. the most important task of our government is to defend our homeland from attack, to defend the freedom of access to the common areas of the world for our people to travel and trade, and to preserve stability and peace, with a watchful eye on those who would do us harm. all nations have vital interests. the difference between the united states, and other great powers throughout history, is that america defines her vital interests in a defensive and benign way. a all america seeks is to live in peace, secure in her homeland, enjoying rights common to all nations, in a world where to the extent feasible, relations between nations are determined less by power and coercion than

by agreed upon rules and a commitment to resolve disputes peacefully. carl von clausewitz wrote, what is the object of defense? to preserve. to preserve is easier than to acquire. preserving peace is difficult. the founders understood that peace is not an entitlement. it is not automatically bequeathed to future generations. it has to be won, in its own way, in each generation. and we must be willing to pay the price for peace. we must undo the president's harmful spending cuts, and ensure that our fighting men and women always have the tools they need to succeed. just as important, we would also send a powerful message to both our allies and our enemies overseas that america will not shirk her leadership role in the world, and will remain actively engaged in promoting and

defending her vital national interests. in his epistle to the corinthians, st. paul asked a question applicable to our country today, for if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? for far too long, our country has given that uncertain sound, hoping to avoid conflict, only to find that america's enemies, sensing weakness, have taken the battle directly to us. it is time for politicians once again to embrace the postwar consensus of the need for a strong national defense, having learned the lesson that the best way to avoid battle is to prepare for it. thank you all ver very much for

linemate to come speak to you all today. [applause] >> -- allowing me to come speak to you all today. >> thanks. >> i like your socks. >> if you have to wear a blue suit you might as well take a little risk. >> are we ready to go? >> well, governor, i would like to exercise the host prerogative and asked a couple of follow-up questions before we open it up to everybody else. that was an extraordinarily

strong and start speech. and i was would like to pick our way to a couple of issues if i make. first of all to talk about american leadership. second of all to sort of think about what rebuilding of america's military would look like. and then we have to talk a little bit about the politics of the issue. i would like to do this sort of by casting our minds a couple of years from now. you gave a very chilling assessment of where we are today. that it's easy to see things like that are, in fact, likely to be worse for the next president. both an international agreement if the budget cuts and the withdrawal of our forces from various regions continue, and then, of course, in the context of what looks like a hard-fought election campaign. so why don't we start with the

question of leadership, and again imagine where we will be in two years and ask ourselves what the path for a president might be in january 2017. it could be even a steeper uphill climb than one you describe in your speech. >> i think you are right. we will have two more years of this president dangerous policies. not just rhetoric but policies. two more years of disengagement, america's disengagement from the world. two more years of america leading from behind. i think that the next administration, the first task will be to rebuild, and i want to emphasize it was a bipartisan post-cold war consensus. i am a conservative republican but this shouldn't only be a republican imperative. this is an american imperative to rebuild a strategic consensus that understands america cannot lead from behind. america cannot disengage from the world. america is the indispensable nation. to restore that believe in

american exceptionalism. i believe this is the first president that i can remember, the first president does not believe in american exceptionalism. even before the budget changes and the defense buildup, there needs to be change in our strategic positioning, vis-à-vis our allies and enemies but it has to be a new strategy -- without the investment in the military will ring hollow. i think the new administration supported hopefully by bipartisan congress will take steps to increase investment in the military for things like modernization. i say we should get to 4% of gdp. i think needs to be informed by threat analysis. i don't think we simply give the pentagon a blank check, but at the very least we can start by going back to the secretary gates baseline, the last time there was a comprehensive and consistent threat analysis done with a realistic number to

undergird the defense military establishment, the pentagon's needs. we owe our men and women in uniform the tools, readiness and training they need. one of the growing realization's and hopefully this is a bipartisan realization is our oceans don't keep us safe. we face asymmetric threats. we face threats from transnational terrorist groups. we face threats from cyberwarfare, biological warfare and, therefore, we're going to have to have the commitment over the long-term to deter and defeat these threats. i do think the world is hungary for american leadership. our allies are hungary for that leadership. it will take time to rebuild our credibility sort in his euros and allies trust us but i think it new administration supported by bipartisan majority in congress can take some decisive steps fairly quickly to begin rebuilding that role. the reality is know what the country can fill the vacuum we have now left on the world sta

stage. >> to take it one step further. the vacuum is really enormous in scope. a couple of years ago nobody could imagine a piece of your being at risk. people have underestimated, people under estimating isis capability and willpower. we have consistently underestimated chinese ambitions and its capabilities. then to return to the middle east, which is not in a happy place, but even if we compare it to where we were in 2009, pretty easy to see it's worse than it was then. you may or the next president may inherit a war with isis that's incomplete and not heading in a positive direction. how do we, is it even possible to prioritize among these interests or is it just simply necessary to take the steps that would get us back on the path to

success? >> i do think we need to take a comprehensive approach but i would identify three challenges that i think our particular concern. short term, we are in a war with isis. they declared war on us. was able -- we need to win the. we need to exterminate isis. it's not about expelling them. it's about hunting them and killing them. we have to complete that effort. one of the things i say in my longer paper is that america must prepare our defense forces not just to win wars but decisively win wars, act as a deterrent against future conflict. secondly the thing that concerns me the most, the greatest concern on the short-term, medium-term horizon is the lessons that iran must be taken from america's failure to lead the last figures. the world cannot accept a

nuclear-armed iran. that is not only an existential threat with israel after of allies in the region, that's a threat to the united states as well. i worry. almost a year ago now the united states announced this week create with iran. we've seen no meaningful follow-through, no action since that time. they are only strengthening their abilities. they are only hastening the day to which they will become a nuclear power and the time for us to take decisive actions are running out. so the second concerned i've got is what are the lessons iran is taking away for america's lack of decisiveness. america's weakness under this administration. the third inch imagine this animation is also in the paper i think the president david towards asian was at least a shell of a good policy but the president was right to announce our intention. unfortunately, it wasn't followed up by the actual resources to do anything about it. when you look at the growing strength of china i think that is any medium-term a rising threat. you china now who wants to

exercise more influence in its region. many countries including allies like south korea and japan looking to american leadership. you have countries that were not aligned like into. of the countries like vietnam and looking to american leadership and willing to join with america, under america's leadership. but, unfortunately, rhetoric is not good enough. president did a great job giving a speech about putting more resources there. without investment, without resources to call it up it will ring hollow and those countries will not follow unless we follow through. you talked to europe, an example of that is when you look at russia -- those are the three if you had to prioritize but i think our comprehensive -- this is a situation where america is serious about investing in our military, serious about backing up our rhetoric with resources, you will see a safer world. the opposite is true to the more would withdraw from the world the more chaos all over the world and unpredictable

challenges. europe, you're right, it is hard to believe how quickly europe has gone from where it was post-cold war to where it is today. it's no coincidence that putin is in the crimea, he is threatening. he looked back to the xmas reset with russia come a look at your ladder with a drawl of the interceptor. you look at what happened, our treatment of george and their desire to quickly join nato and he said no of this president weakness. we still could secure europe. we could still deter i think russia if we were willing to put brigades in an allied countries in eastern europe, if we were willing to work within. if we don't have the resources to do that, if we don't have the manpower, the resources to effectively deter russian aggression i think you becomes more dangerous, less stable rather than the other way. the chaos worsening is not

inevitable. >> you mentioned the gap between the strategic needs, our traditional posture in the world and the resources available. that's another whole we have dug that hasn't bottomed out yet, if i can extend the analogy. you mentioned cutting the f-22. that's just the tip of the iceberg. part of the problem is there's very little, few modernization programs left to invest in. there's been a big enthusiasm for inventing new things but that proton has made me into the laboratory yet, let alone to the field. can you imagine another sort of reagan like build up the necessary in the next

administration? >> absolutely. two things. we are not calling for getting to 4% of gdp overnight. for example, to do that in 2012 numbers you be looking a proximate $80 billion increase. i don't think the pentagon is capable of spending that money. even if were to give them that money today. i think wrapping this up over the short-term, over a number of years, we also one of the things we also called for is changing our procurement process. we've got to develop and deploy technology much more quickly. our goal should be a seven-year window, otherwise with the f-22, with some of the modernization programs at the been suspended or even canceled, by the time it is taken so long to develop and deploy technology, by the time it is deployed its obsolete or i'm calling for more investment in the pentagon come in our forces and technology and also talk about changing the procurement process.

get projects approved what does ago to 100 different views. we need more accountability. i'm calling for multi-sourcing components of programs and again speeding up the delivery and holding folks accountable for delivering on time on budget. i want to be clear. it is waste and abuse that we have to root it out because that waste and abuse is leaving our forces less prepared and leaving our forces without the readiness, without training and equipment they need. waste and abuse is not enough. that should be an excuse for disinvestment in the pentagon come in our military forces. yes let's root out the waste and abuse, let's go to the acquisition process but that's not an excuse for not investing in a military an leaving men and women without the training and resources they need. we have to increase the investment. we do point to the reagan buildup as as an example, a

successful example that what the buildup of military hardware but also investment in our forces that have the same time also deployed the soft power tools available to you and administration. under the reagan administration and its support for democracy, freedom units in these junior and other countries. you saw great things happen not only for our national troops but for world stability and peace. he won the cold war without ever firing a shot. we had a hollowed out military post-vietnam. we are getting a hollowed out military again thanks to this administration's neglect and disinvestment in our military. >> my last question, i promise and then we'll open it up, but since you're a practicing politician i would be remiss to let this go by. we been told for the past six or seven years that we as a nation are weary of war, and what, under any circumstances we would

never ever deploy ground forces. i was struck last week and nbc poll, not exactly, you know, well, you know, take it for what it was. any rate, in that poll the question friend was, if recommended by the military would you agree to the deployment of ground forces in the war against isis? 45%, to americans said yes. 63% of republicans said yes. 66% of people identified as key party members said yes. -- tea party. close to 32% of democrats said yes. do you think within the conservatives universe the politics of these issues are shifting? >> one, i don't think there's any american that ever wants to go to war as a first choice. i don't think there's any american in either political movement or party that wants to

use ground troops as a first choice of military as a first choice. ironically, the point we make is a stronger military, the best way to avoid war is to prepare for war. have a stronger defense, have the tools. peace through strength is better than war through weakness. secondly, i think it's foolish for this president to unilaterally announce that we're not going to do. ..