africa because of the determination and commitment of that man and he was help by the president. they did a study in mozambique, written by the prime act of health. they got independent, the portuguese left. they looked at the country and there were no doctors left in that country. now that program has done so well because the our technicians. now you don't have to have a doctor sustained section. in some countries it can be part of with this.

so that is told in this book. that's one message. it's sort of a yes, we can. the message of the book is about us, people like margaret and me. we know so much. but we believe in the book that we have let our people down. the leadership which we should be showing to our political leaders, to our committees, are anyways been wanting. and they step up. african a is a different africa. the africa that i grew up in was very hopeful. africa is better again. driven by two forces.

one the applicant initiative itself. africa transformed from a used ee which is more center. and also zero-tolerance. you can't take power by force. not allowed. because of that we have more economic growth. africa is more hopeful again. so it is time for people like margaret and me, and some of the africans who are here, let's step up and show leadership. in the last point is partner from outside africa. this is what market was saying, like the situation in liberia, sierra leone and so on. the people who can lead there, the minister -- the credit partners who were there. but if there is human support to develop each and every country,

which are led by people like me and others, africa will transform. and we need your help to support africa during this more opportune time. >> the book is for sale. i want to leave enough time for q&a so we'll turn in the second but market i cut you off. i'm so sorry. >> i just wanted to say that talking about leadership, talking about the african political leaders, suddenly in this situation i think this is what happens is that it's one thing fighting an epidemic. we think -- what their own responsibility were not carried out the way they should have done in those countries. leaders should do a bit more.

it's more terms of stepping up to the challenges. i also want to say in africa, african governments have signed a so many declarations and so many policies, but it's the implementation which is the problem and that's where the leadership. we need the implementation to happen. onto example which is disturbing, traditional medicine is the conventional medicine of africa. everything else is -- when you look at page 2% of state effects veterans will go to the clinician as the first point of contact, and they will continue as they get treatment. i want to say, the african governments have agreed some time back that they disagree with traditional medicine and the national health systems they

have. south africa which is finally had has not done as well as it should. in a way you're trying to deal with an epidemic enter not engaging in the community. of course, the traditional people will not duplicate to those and try to decide, and, therefore, that alone, that's another weakness of the system. the mental health service, i'm a psychiatrist and, indeed, the safest. i come from a country of 36 million people. we have countries in africa which have only one psychiatrist or no psychiatrist. i think in these countries where this problem has, the mental health problems are just, there's a very things being done to address those problems. then you have this thing coming

in. people are going to what they know best which is traditional medicine in the police that they have. so we need to also put a bit more money into mental health in africa, make sure with more specialists but we have services for people. >> let's turn to the audience. and it do we have microphones? we have one on the side of the room and one on the other side of the room. questions from the audience for any of our palace of? yes. wait for the mic upon. >> rosemary, historical society. you said that a bowl of was again another year but is going to ask you have any sense of where people are catching the disease wrecks i was told and animal and i was wondering if you had come your idea which animal, how they would catch it and why do you think this will

happen every couple of years? >> why what? >> the return, why. >> okay. thank you. do you want to take that? >> i will start with that. it was traced they think to a that -- bat. so comes from an animal and that in some of the areas of beginning, they capture -- dini, they capture bats and id. and that's called bush meat. that's where the first source was thought to come from. not with person-to-person. it has been a lot of education around that beating bush meat. so the contagion now is more terse and the person that wants this kids under control that does exist in the environment in animals. so at some point it will come up again. >> i can elaborate briefly on that.

it's a very important question. it is a resident in the animal population but somewhere along the way, humans will eat the animal so get in contact with the animals and pick up the disease. up to now ebola has been an endemic in central african region there. uganda, south sudan, central african republic, and so on. but this is the first time we've seen a bowl in western africa. and it is going to be there now. so it's just a matter of up and down, up and down in countries like ours should be put prepared for ebola now. >> can i just say that a lot of, there are other issues like the environment in terms of people moving into where the animal are

actually in getting the animal, where they should not be living. there's a bit more than that happening in terms of getting into the forest and living more near where these animals are. i just want to say one of the recommendations that came out in terms of cutting down on this epidemic is what they call the integrated, integrating, linking animal, animal health with human health, human disease. is usually what we are hearing is that whenever kevin ebola coming up the always have animals dying first before you get people begin to die. and, therefore, the animals, you, the animal health profession, that area, get to know this before we do. so we should recommend the linking of the two in terms of

observation. >> let me take a question right in the back. >> caroline, i thought that was you that have a question. yes, over here on this site. this gentleman over here and then this woman. let's take a couple of questions and then we will respond. the gentleman in the front row first. >> i work for a company based in d.c. and we provided portable sterilization for equipment. what is the supply chain going on with the epidemic right now in terms of what happened in uganda and liberia? >> so the question for the secret here, what are some the challenges in the supply chain that are happening. let's go to our next question. let's take a couple of questio

questions. >> what i would like to know is how helpful are the traditional medical people? on this supportive? do they have authentic information to provide people census is the first person that affected people go to see? thank you. >> thank you. right here, susan. there's a question right here. >> hi. i'm doctor susan blumenthal, former united states assistant surgeon general. there's been over two dozen outbreaks of ebola. first emerged in 1976. what are the lessons we've learned? you talked about health systems and in unity outreach in terms of treating workers, but was that peaceful solution to that? how did they die out in this community and then they reemerge? what lessons have we learned? there are people been exposed but they don't develop ebola.

is their antibodies being formed by some of these people, do you think? >> very helpful. than one more question over he here. >> i have a question, dr. omaswa, you seem to say that someone can contract ebola if you sneeze on buying individual who has the virus. but dr. black, you seem to say that that's really not a concern, that you have to be thrown up on or have diarrhea on yourself to contract the disease. i hate to be very graphic here. being sneeze on a something that happened fairly frequently so that would be a major concern, and would almost make the disease airborne. >> we have a for good questions. won, what are some of the challenges and the supply chain right now. secondly, traditional medical personnel, either useful or not in this situation? the third question is what lessons have we learned?

there've been multiple outbreaks. so let's begin with you. would you like to respond to any one of those questions of? >> sure. i would love to respond to them all but i won't. i will start just quickly with the traditional killers because that is something will work with in liberia. note that the usually, the you should operate with her own traditional belief systems. they are not as well integrated into what has been known as western scientific medicine. and it speaks to what it is so important that we actually come in the communities, we're reaching out to the traditional healers. reaching out to the village chief. we are reaching out to the religious leaders in the area. because those are the people that will inform the communities. those are the people that have

the trust in the community. and that is part of what we need to do. because fear right now is driving so much of what's happening. and people are now fearful to go to the ebola treatment units because they don't understand what's going to happen to it, never if they are separated from them. and if they happen to be in monrovia, they're afraid if the family member dies, they will be incinerated to this is a very culturally, religiously table thing happened to a family member. so i think that the answer by the traditional healers, they really aren't part of the system, a part of our job is reaching out to them. >> just to elaborate on that, conditional medical health systems have been there all the time. and they are near the people and they are attracted by the people. and actually they help the

people. otherwise no one would be using them at all. particularly -- with a psychiatrist with this here. we have a way of practice which has helped the patient. and the communication is very powerful. and the other point which i think margaret was pointing out is that the african union itself has come and together with the w. h. o., have cut plans to integrate traditional african health systems into the normal health systems. it varies from country to country, the platforms that are given and the message really, one of the lessons is that this traditional former assistant

secretary-general, this is one of the lessons, to integrate the traditional health systems with western systems so that they are one system. [inaudible] >> yes, yes. >> can i give you an example of myself? we were given a report of three months of traditional medicine. that meant we sounds alongside the traditions and we try to understand. this was intended to change our own attitudes towards and so don't look at them like and a siebel people that we should get rid of. and, therefore, and that needs to happen. when you talk of integration is also integrating into the education system so health workers can actually be able to work alongside, will be able to refer to each other. >> the question she's asking is

do the traditional healers in these countries have the information they need right now? >> if you haven't got them in the system and they're out there and you're doing your thing, then you can't get to them. i think what you're saying is it's not happening yet in many countries, and there are attempts to do that in working alongside. >> it's not, and it needs to happen. >> next, what are the challenges? >> tremendous challenges with the supply chain. one is just having enough material that we need in personal protective equipment and gloves, et cetera, that we need, the regions for the blood testing. and then we started it with how do we get them out to the remote areas, and you have to remember that many of these areas during non-rainy season for us to get

from monrovia to the southeast, about 350 miles, we can make that in about seven or eight hours. in the rainy season, what happened to our colleagues just last week is they started to their truck slid off the road. they had to spend the night in the truck in the middle of nowhere. and then the next day, luckily another truck came by and help pull them out and it was a two-day journey. so that's one thing. imagine if you're sick and you need to get from one place to the next place. so the supply chain is an area that really needs to be addressed aggressively right now to getting materials out spend what would be a run recommendation for people who want to support addressing the supply chain-ish of? >> several. one is contributing to requested

supplies to go. i don't, you know, i don't because they get to come and say where this mature, why don't we go ahead and send it? find out from what is actually requested and needed. and then you go through, there are a number of very good organizations like direct relief which will then get the material over there. >> and we have a number of them listed. >> yes, thank you, thank you. the next piece is actually supporting, again, ongoing development about the infrastructure. roadbuilding, telecommunications. we need support for those areas because the bandwidth on the telecommunications righ right ns to small. so most of the calls are getting dropped. so those would be to suggestions. >> there was a question about sneezing and contagion. >> there is a difference between what we are saying. you have to get in contact with

the body fluid of the infected person at the time when the disease is active. so if i sneeze i will discharge fluids from my respiratory system, and they can contaminate and effect another person. and the cases, the description, she said more graphic, mucus from an infected person can enter your i or your mouth. but let's repeat the point that ebola is not contagion. contagious means it attacked you. i have given you ebola. go so myself have been in wards

with ebola patients dressed like this. you can see i am still here. >> let's take more questions. >> i do want to say the fact that you are still there brings them back to question about antibodies. i want to just, it made me think that. so i think the antibodies question is a very good question, and we don't have data on that right now. that is one of the things that is being looked at, in addition to right now investing in looking at are the ways, are the markers for ebola before someone becomes symptomatic? that something that would be incredibly helpful. are there better ways than somebody is in the early stages of the disease to make that diagnosis? that's another piece. but in terms of antibodies, we know that the people who have had ebola and survived and have developed antibodies, we believe

that they are resistant to the disease for about 10 years. and so i'm shifting a little bit to this stigma of this illness which is so profound. what we're going to start doing is hiring the people who have had ebola, and what better person to come help work with us and someone who has experienced the disease and has antibodies against it? and what would i do to their stature in their community that they are now and asking health care worker? i gave a long answer. >> are there other questions? >> [inaudible conversations]

>> we have a lot of things that we think are protecting people. my question is how does it stop? to people by? two people of antibodies that we don't really know? that's what i want to better understand. >> can i just say the most important thing with ebola is infection control. if you have infection control, you have -- look at this uganda situation, i will stick with this situation, the fact that somebody -- it's more than just the thing that. it's also a witness and being conscious, being known if this thing can happen and out presents itself. what tends to happen, what we have done out in yukon is that somebody come if the committee says some have something that might be ebola, immediately the people come. we have a system where we go and

compare the whole list of contacts that we have. anyone who has been in contact, and then they are seeing every single day by a certain group of workers who check on one came into the so the whole disease of the brain is are important in terms of contact tracing. it's that i wanted a job to do to make sure communities are a way. there are three things we have learned, is that prevention is much more easier, it's cheaper, and it's not sure it's cheaper and easier to do, cost effective to do the the second thing is that health workers, you need have enough of them. you need to have been skilled and you have to have them motivated. so you need that to have that but and i think that's a lesson learned. the third one is health literacy, having a community or

a population that understands, what should be done. >> lessons, there are many lessons. the ones which i see rt. every country needs to have a mechanism where the hell the system reaches households and be accurate, be able to know that it's happening in this area, come and let someone do with it. that is one. then the other lesson, in the case of ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers, son back once an outbreak takes place,

very robust action needs to take place around communication, and then around isolation and treatment, whatever, whatever that is needed next. then also connected with money. we haven't touched on this but it's a very important point. even when we know what to do, we don't always manage actually want to do we know we should be doing. so that's the ropes of leadership, management and government. very, very important indeed. again, the system needs to have standard operating procedures, which a mechanism to enforce. so get government, money, especially not takes a long time. they need that and people get exhausted. they get tired.

another key lesson, sorry speed is i just want to make sure everyone has a chance -- >> health workers. the death of health workers. that happens. it is sad, professional hazard. but the people who died, the health workers who fall ill need to know that there's someone who cares about them. and, in fact, even prepare them to accept that, you know, you're going into this area of illness, you can catch and even die from it. and likely soldiers. when we have outbreak, the political head of the district, a retired colonel, and when we were at one of the funerals, he stood up to speed. he said i'm very sorry that this health worker has died, but this

is part of job of health care workers. for us in the family, we even have a department, so we expect to die. so you people when you go to treat ebola patient, just like us. so natural and very striking to me and it's important for health workers to know that. >> there are many questions. >> we had a number of questions but i'm going to take a bunch. the gentleman in the white shirt. the woman first, please. stand up. >> hello. i am from center for science technology security and policy. my question is i heard that the our another region of ebola outbreak, which is culture in

west africa. for example, at the funeral ceremony they took the dead body and they get infected. another example related to culture, and is there any other solution upon it that goes on? thank you. >> let's take the question of the gentlemen in the white shirt and then we will go over here. did you have a question speak with yes. my name is benjamin ringo. at least 70 members of u.s. congress have openly supported a travel ban from the area. cages kind of talk on the effect a travel ban of the area would have on combating the disease of? thank you. >> and this gentleman over here. >> my question a short. before building a robust health system don't you need to address the widespread corruption first? >> and this gentleman right he

here. >> i am with npr. i was wondering what the adjacent countries are doing right now to fortify their health systems, and has ebola harmed their abilities to do so due to the reallocation of funds? >> thank you. i think i saw someone else, they had a hand up. was a someone i missed? yes, please. and wait one second the to come to the microphone and tell us who you are. >> i have some knowledge of the african health system. mine is not a question but goes to raise some of the important issues that the panel talked about. spirit you can also answer your question. >> are you from and adjacent countries because yes. i just came back from doing a

workshop for the non-affected countries to see how they are prepared to respond in the case be bold and to. one of the key thing is to deploy a team to find out what is going on and try to respond. the three countries, liberia, sierra leone and guinea have a week health system. with one week health system you cannot do good. so by the time you know there was something going on, it was too late. since 2005 we know that lots of fever, we know that disease, with spreading in that area? so health system is key, but without health system we

advocate from leah can we advocate for breast cancer. so nobody put money in the health system. so this is one of the things that needs to think about. senegal, nigeria, they responded another declared ebola free. why? because they have the human resources in place to go isolate and respond. so it can be done for a country in this region. so let's advocate and put more money in the health system. communication. once people die, we are really -- [inaudible] practices is when they transmit the disease. but you need to talk to the community so that they understand that.

because they need to get rid of the practice that they've used for ages. so communication and talking with the community together trust is what is key. >> thank you. thank you so much. i think went a couple of question and we only have a few minutes to close. the first is around handling of the dead bodies in particular as it relates to culture but the second is a travel ban, at a question about the endorsement of many in this congress around the travel ban and how that will affect. the third is about cash but i can't read my own handwriting. corruption. and the fourth is from the npr colleague about a adjacent countries. so let me askyou, would you like to respond first to anyone of those questions? >> so again, i can respond to them all but i will start at the top pick the death ritual is, i

do want to be very careful when you use terms like death ritual and not make it sound like it's crazy. i mean, this is people caring, this is how they honor their families. in our culture also we also touch a dead person is deceased, are we have touched them or we hold their hand. this is not -- someone to be very careful as we described death rituals that we're not talking about something very bizarre. it's really just care. there's a washing of the body, a ceremony, but it speaks to, i think you said it very eloquently, it's the education, it's engaging the religious leaders. people need to know that if they don't do that, their mother, father, child, loved one, brother, sister will be okay. and it's not as if they are deserting them.

so i think that's part of how i would answer that. i do want to say something about the corruption. corruption is everywhere. it's everywhere. it isn't just over there. corruption is everywhere. and i think that corruption does need to be dealt with, but the way you can deal with it is simultaneously with strengthening. you can't just get rid of corruption and then bring something else in. it's a simultaneous process. so think your question really is a good one, and many people have asked, oh, if we give money to this isn't going to just go in to corruption? and i don't think that is the case with this situation at all, but i do think your question is a good one. >> we are running out of time to i want to make sure we get to the outstanding questions, the travel ban. can anyone respond to that?

>> can i just say that a number of countries -- [inaudible] when you go and when you enter uganda, the airport, every single person has a temperature taken. i feel very comfortable about that. so i'm just saying speak so you would not endorse a travel grant? >> i think when you start these troubled and, i'm not coming from western africa. they've been banned from coming and we located -- the world is such that people move in that country. you don't know whether people have disease. they might to go to europe, cody was but by the time they coming to washington they have been to six different countries and you can't know where they started from. the other thing is because of the nature of the illness itself in that you take 21 days, so the

first three days or somewhere else and then the three-day sure somewhere else. at the time you get to washington, i think it is a false sense. the other thing is that we do need help out of there. people like him you need to be coming back, to be allowed back into the u.s. we need people to go and come out and travel and deal with this problem. can i just -- >> do it quickly because we're out of time. >> i think we do know that in low and middle income countries, 30% of the money is wasted, causing to corruption and i think, that's an area we must really -- the thing is as we talk about corruption within government, the government sector, talk about leadership and make sure that those of us who are outside the government sector can actually continue.

there are special groups needed to make sure corruption is dealt with. >> thank you. >> so this book is about your attitude. because what i say in the way you ask the question is an attitude question. please, let's start with attitude about africa. they are all corrupt, nothing will change, africa is not all corrupt. there are very many good things happening in africa. we are about strengthening everything, including addressing corruption. don't talk, don't help because thetheir crop. that is every bit. [inaudible] >> we will need to bring this to a close. i want to ask the panelists to say one thing they're hopeful about, or one thing you would ask everyone in this room and the audience on the television

to duke. beginning with you, very quickly. one hopeful thing or one thing to do. >> i am very hopeful that we will combat this able epidemic because there people like you in the audience who will do what you can and what you have learned, i hope, in situations like this that you can do to help this. and i'm very grateful for that. i am, i am really having just come back from liberia, i am so grateful for the liberians i have worked with. and if you want to hear about role models and people that will inspire you and that will just bring you to your knees with the work they are doing, that's what really gives me hope. >> thank you. margaret? >> i just wanted to just say that africa, when the epidemic does go, because it will go,

let's continue to keep our focus on these issues. because in many of the acting countries, out of every 100,000 women who are giving birth, up to 1000 women die. it's as bad as that. it's a disproportionate to the population. but also want to say i have hope that we are getting somewhere and edward is now up and awake and sing we need to do something. i think we can do a lot when we worked together. i just want to say the health professionals in countries come in countries like and countries like our cut you with only 4000 doctors and a population of 36 million people. we send more than 50 doctors to these countries in africa. we need more health workers out there to come and help. so those of you in the audience who are thinking should i or should i not? please, consider coming and

helping us in africa. because the survival of africa is the survival of the world. >> thanks spent yes. i would like to see more effort being put into modernizing communities to stop new infections on top of everything else. i'm sure something is being done. i wish more could be done. i think that is the quickest way to stop ebola. and then once we finish with all these, let's all work to create a global health system where no one is left behind. and this will take strong mobilization from civil society. and unlike the american civil society to be part of this movement. >> thank you, francis. let me turn to our deputy director, who put this panel together to give us some closing remarks come and thanks. >> thanks for holding this

conversation and helping all of us to invite these folks who. to this review, i feel so honored to have you here today. u. r. all -- you have given time to share with this ways in which we can do something. president johnson-sirleaf wrote today on allafrica.com and across the point where she's at the time for talk is over. what we need to do now is act. and so i think the most powerful thing for me coming out of this is hearing your advice and your good words, and good information that we now can act on. the most powerful thing happens actually now. so thank you. francis will be outside signing books. his book. into the whole asp and kenya, both the folks who manage to all the communication and in the folks who put this together,

thanks so much for putting this together. and thank you all for coming. really appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> bu

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>> in the verge house of commons, the defense committee holds a hearing on the uk's response to combating isis in iraq and city. live coverage from london at 9:30 a.m. eastern here on c-span2. in the afternoon on c-span, the ceo of u.s. olympic committee participates in a discussion on college athletics and the olympics. life comes from national press club at 1 p.m. eastern. >> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and key public policy events, and every weekend booktv, now for 15 years the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span to create a by the cable tv industry and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or sidelight provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on

twitter. >> up next, a conversation about u.s. efforts to promote democracy internationally. with her from state department officials and a former ambassador to the czech republic. it's hosted by the foreign policy research institute and the kennan institute. >> good morning, everyone. i think we will get started. i am matt rojansky, correct of the kennan institute. i'm very pleased to cosponsor and present this conference to you. welcome all of you this morning. is a question this is a time and an important subject. it's always been an important subject but i think never has been more timely for us in particular in the russia-ukraine, former soviet

world, the question of whether democracy, the development of democracy, democracy building and democracy promotion matters, whether it can be successful, what other tools it takes to make it. so this all questions i think we will address today, particularly compelling now. and i think questions on which many other important questions hinge, including those of security and prosperity, not only for the region that we work on at the kennan institute but for the wider world. i look forward to being the insights that our panelists have, that all of you have, and i look forward to spirited discussion. beforehand of the floor over to ambassador basora, want to thank you for organizing this entire event for many months now in which has become more and more and more compelling as we've approached the gate as well as ambassador ken yalowitz who unfortunately, due to trans-siberian syndrome against republican he just came off a to

f. we can train journey from beijing to moscow and picked up the cold that a think marianne, you remember that we all got on the train last year. please unable to join us today. i also want to thank my deputy, william pomeranz, who will moderate this next battle, melinda haring, madison brady, and many others have made this possible. ambassador basora i think will introduce the first panel of the conference. >> thanks very much, and welcome to you all. kenneth has the dual having associate with this project of a democratic transition for the last nine years since its inception, and being a global fellow here at the kennan institute. so working with him, with will

pomerantz, matt rojansky, we put it together. your very kind to give us all the credit. it would not be at all possible without the extraordinary cooperation we've had with you. so let me thank you and the wonderful team here at they can institute and the wilson center, and for these wonderful facilities that you have provided as well. it would be very hard to imagine a more appropriate venue for today's event than the woodrow wilson center. given that president wilson started it all in some sense a century ago when he called for the united states to strive to make the world safe for democracy. furthermore, the timing could not be more opportune. as matt suggested it was opportune when we started playing it last spring. even more so today. group this is the 25th anniversary, give or take a couple of weeks, of the fall of

the berlin wall and the entire change of central europe, the revolutions in central europe. but it's also a season of severe testing or threat to democracy. in many of these same countries where things look promising two decades ago, but also most notably in ukraine and hong kong today. we are extraordinarily fortunate in having as our latest because today to of the most revered or respected and revered american figures in the field of a democratic transitions, carl gershman. for over 30 years president of the national endowment for democracy, and larry diamond, who is right in the front row, second row, one of our most eminent scholars of democratization as you know base in stanford university at the hoover institute. and we are also pleased, very pleased to have as handles

outstanding younger scholars and practitioners in our two panels who have been chosen for their fresh perspectives and they're often dissenting views from the conventional wisdom of the traditional policies of the last 30 years. indeed, one of the goals of this conference -- could we have -- and our guests in the back row, could we have them move up? we don't need to use all -- the reserved seats can be used at least for this session rather than you have all be stuck in the back. if you are able to stay at the full session. as i started to say, one of the goals of this conference is to engage the younger generation in the siding what we should or should not do. what we should be system from doing -- desist. in the area of support for

democracy abroad for than decades at the now, you know bios. i have introduced only to our speakers by name. you have bio in your conference packages. you have bioinformatics on all of them. our goal today is to have a really intense focused discussion where people have a chance to escape. the panels have a chance to engage with each other. we have dissenting and different views but and then leaving plenty of time for discussion with you. so that is why we're going to dismiss a lot of the formalities. before going on, thomas melia was agreed, our fourth panelist, is stuck in traffic. he's pretty confident of being here in time to engage in the discussion, but we just wanted to point that will be hopefully part of the agenda.

here are the three central questions that we've asked our speakers, and then i ask you, the audience present here and the audience present through webcast, to think about and focus on during this entire day. three questions, three topics, three issues. first, should support for democratic transitions continue to be a major goal of u.s. foreign policy? particularly in view of the drastically changed circumstances that we face today as compared to the 1990s. what priority should give to democracy support when it conflicts with other major u.s. national interests? so that's the first cluster of issues, the macro issue. there's room in the front row. you can use the reserved seats for now. please come up.

second issue, if we should continue policies of active support for democracy abroad, what do we need to do differently to make the work more effectively? where should we focus our efforts in the coming decades, and what should future democracy assistance programs look like if we indeed continue them? third question, if we should no longer continue providing active support to democratization abroad, then what should the alternatives the two were present policies? it's not enough to say no, no, no. , we haven't done anything right, tell us what we should do differently. for example, should america's to work to support human rights and basic freedoms abroad at some level? or should we entirely instead drop this traditional deeply rooted theme of u.s. foreign policy in favor of a more cold

eyed real old teak -- realpolitik? before going any further let me underline once you definition in framing today's discussions. it's essential for proper framing of the discussions. what we do not mean by democracy support is the imposition of democracy through external intervention on the model of afghanistan, iraq, or other places. instead, our focus today is on the pros and cons of assisting and nurturing existing camps at transition, and supporting new locally driven attempts at transition when and if they occur as we did the velvet revolution, for example, or so many others, the roundtable agreements in poland come to mind powerfully as well. just a quick word about fpri,

foreign policy research institute, an art project, its project on democratic transitions. by the way, are the acoustics all right in the back row? we think of ourselves, i think we are an innovative agile think tank based in philadelphia and we specially pride ourselves in trying to maintain an independent outside the beltway perspective on global issues. this is why we dare to tackle so many issues that are debated and disagreed on in washington, and try to take them from a different perspective. i feel that we might be able to help break the new middle ground. your conference folders, and if you don't have what i think there are still some outside, on the table outside. this is tom melia. welcome. you made it to the traffic jam. looks like a. mean, you made it safely.

so you have in these folders, conference folders, you have a one page summary of fpri's activity and have your wit today with those fpri's president, alan luxenberg, right here, to introduce our luncheon speaker. so you a better chance, and there are several of us you were members, who are scholars affiliated with fpri through the program on democratic transitions. when fpri inviting almost 10 years ago now to start this program, to set up a program on post-communism, on democratic transitions, it was mostly the post time is transitions we focused on. and at that time the leaders of the orange revolution had just come to power as you all recall, and the energy and initially positive outcomes that seem to be happening in the first month and couple of years of that revolutionary movement, and more importantly, of the many

precedents of the 1990s, successful beginnings of transition of that period led many, i would say most analysts and policymakers to believe that the prospects for post-authoritarian transitions, not only in the post-communist world, but prospects for democratization in form of torturing countries were not unpromising in the former communist countries but also in other areas of the world. of course, when the russian federation, soviet federation fell apart, people were even more optimistic. today by contrast we see authoritarian regression in many of these same countries. as well as deeply disappointing results over the past three plus years in the so called arab spring countries. therefore, the background for our conference today is one of significant, i would call it

democratic disillusionment, and much questioning as of the efficacy of u.s. policies in support of democracy abroad. therefore, my hope today is that we will come away from our proceedings, this conference, with a more clear sense of whether this current pessimism or discouragement is warranted, and whether democratic retrenchments, either on the ground in countries overseas or in the u.s. policies in support of democracy abroad, whether that retrenchment is inevitable, or whether the army rationales and new approaches that might permit us to deal more effectively with these resurgent autocratic trends. ..

and have all said they will try to stay to a very short -- from a raider has kindly stepped in at the last moment because he promised to be very strict with his gavel. so presentations by our panelists and a brief round where they can respond to each other at a point or two their hearts simulated by the others's comments and then we will open it, we want to have your comments and questions to think about your questions but keep them brief. questions and comments, please keep them brief when they come.

we have a microphone for your questions. what we are seeking is a real engagement and discussions that really stimulate fresh thinking and helped to break new ground. thanks to a very large turnout. we moved sessions into this large auditorium in which no food is allowed. as the result of that after the second panel we have a very short time to move into the wilson dining room in order to permit our luncheon speaker larry diamond at the proper time, he agreed to speak as we get into the conference room it is important you grab your lunch beverage and beverage quickly, sit-down so we can get started from lee.

larry will speak for 13 minutes and then we will have 30 minutes of discussion. actors that we will go into the final panel you see on a program and the idea is to have four different members of the discussion and give you their takeaways which will be different takeaways but we view this as a starting point for further discussion and deepening of our understanding of these issues and what the way forward is on these issues. as you have noticed from cameras in back, the c-span is broadcasting all of the proceedings in this auditorium live but for technical reasons i cannot switch to the lunch session and the entire conference will be web cast and

available at the cannes and institute and foreign policy institute web site. finally we encourage you to ask questions online using the hash tag democracy matters, all one word. thank you for stepping him and i turned it over the you to strictly keep to the agenda. >> thank you, mr. ambassador and welcome to the first panel on revisiting the chase for democracy assistance. we have a group of distinguished speakers as the ambassador noted. biographies are in the panel. a distinguished group to the basic question about how to prioritize democracy promotion and where to allocate different resources as we go forward. the first speaker is carl gershman, it is a great privilege to introduce gershman

who has not only led the national endowment for democracy for decades but also was my boss for a good seven years. the floor is yours. >> appreciate it. thanks very much. a pleasure to be here. i have been given ten minutes to give you a picture of the whole world. i will speak in a shorthand so bear with me with a lot of issues you won't be able to talk about all of them. it is different than it was 25 years ago and when ed got started when the third wave of democratization crested, communism collapsed and democracy appeared to be triumphant around the world. it was a period of a lot of illusions. democracy was thought to be inevitable and all countries were thought to be like poland which would welcome the united states. the government could just step in and do the job, these issues

were no longer a terribly sensitive. there was something called the transition paradigm where democracy would regress from transitional countries that turn stages. an article by tom carothers on-in 2002. it was the period which i think was a little bit of a vacation from history and today we are a lot wiser. we understand how difficult it is to build democratic societies and especially in countries that lack strong institutions and a middle-class, resistance to democracy from the old establishment. that doesn't mean people don't want democracy. they are fighting for it. china and russia and venezuela and saudi arabia, it doesn't mean there hasn't been -- that there has been a failure of democracy promotion which in my view trivializes the problem which has five broad dimensions.

the first is that there's a growing effort by the world's autocracies to push back against the advance of democracy whose purpose is to control civil society and independent media, contain democracy to project their own version of reality into the flow of information around the world and to modify the international norm embodied in the universal declaration by elevating the principle of sovereignty above all others. the second is the dismal fate of recent efforts to achieve successful democratic transitions most notably the failure of the arabs spring uprising to produce any significant gain for democracy save the fragile transition that is underway in tunisia. these uprisings generated such hopes for democratic progress, succumbed to authoritarian backlash and the growth of extremist movements. autocrats >> reporter: power and where they had a concerted challenge they have not hesitated to use

savage violence as we know in syria. the third problem involves backsliding in countries once considered stable in newly consolidating democracies but now experiencing a surge of populism, extreme nationalism and threats to independent media and civic institutions. in thailand the trend toward liberal democracy and hungry, the growing centralization of power in turkey, in venezuela and other countries in latin america, with backsliding. the weakness of the response of the world's major democracies to the challenges posed by the new authoritarian assertiveness is the fourth problem. speaking to a conference on ukraine in the eastern part of should we organize five years ago said that, quote, politics that our politics put it above basic political values, not only

immoral but suicidal. speaking about ukraine the ukrainian flights, sacrifice that they will lose both. and today's strong your than ever in europe and the united states, speaking about the weakness of europe and the united states is at fault in the silence in latin america toward the erosion of democratic freedoms in many countries. we live in a time when the words of the poet william butler yates have special relevance, like all conviction were stuck filled with passionate intensity. the first problem is the crisis of democracy in the united states and the leading democracies. a crisis that has many dimensions, political polarization and governmental paralysis, failure to rebuild infrastructure and renewed human capital or control entitlement

spending and the financial crisis of 2008 and that undermined the standing of the u.s. and other democracies the impact of which is signed by the rise of china which claims to be an alternative model of autocratic capitalism. the situation is by no means all gloomy. i will point quickly to three factors that go in the other direction. there has been a democracy recession as larry called it, there has not been reversed waive in the electoral democracy speaking at 123 is according to freedom house at 116. that is not a reverse wage. there has been democratic resilience during the economic crisis of 2008 which surprise a lot of people. there were not massive collapses of democracy and a democracy movement today with real vigor in hong kong and other countries. we must recognize some of the fundamental problems affecting the state of democracy have little to do with the success or failure of efforts to aid

democracy. however effective or ineffective some of the might of been. first and foremost we have to commit ourselves to the restoration of american leadership in the world. this is not an expression of american arrogance for a reckless form of overreaching. rather it is the recognition of a fundamental geopolitical reality. a world without u.s. primacy, sam huntington wrote two decades ago would be a world with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth and a world where the united states continues to have more influence than any other country in shaping global affairs. president obama himself acknowledged this point in a speech to the un general assembly when he called u.s. disengagement but danger of the world and a mistake that would create a vacuum of leadership and no other nation is ready to fill it. the urgent challenge is for the u.s. to exercise leadership and a convincing manner so the vacuum is not filled by hostile

powers or chaos and violence. the problem is not overreaching as some analysts want to say or trying to impose democracy on other countries which is ridiculous, we need to return to a policy of real engagement. that doesn't mean training of resources by getting bogged down in war, but it does mean backing up our diplomacy with military power and deterrence in the absence of which we have little leverage for negotiation with countries that do not share our commitment to peace and the rule of law. why should they negotiate seriously, the option of achieving their objectives by other means including the use of force and why should we hold back from providing ukraine with the wherewithal needs to defend itself and i call your attention to the article in the washington post. the restoration of u.s. leadership will not be possible unless we have the political will and the capacity to bring

the spiraling u.s. debt under control. over the last decade the gross federal debt tripled to $17 trillion and exceeds the total u.s. gross domestic product. there are many reasons for continuing public surge and continuing surge in public that including the 2008 fiscal crisis in iraq and afghanistan. the principal packages the growth of entitlements spending which is gone from one third of the federal budget half a century ago to two thirds today. in the words of robert samuelson the welfare state is taking care of government. other priorities of being squeezed out from investment and infrastructure and human capital to international programs and defense spending which is expected to shrink 40% over the next decade. there are things that can be done to address the other problems i mentioned even though there are no quick or magic bullet solutions and i will in conclusion did a quick list of some of these things. the effort to push back against

the growing autocratic repression must be continued and expanded. a lot has been going on in this area but more needs to be done. president obama's statement on defending civil society made last month in a speech to the clinton global initiative is a step in the right direction if there is real follow-through. the effort by the house foreign affairs committee, elliott angle through reform of the governance structure of the surrogate radios and radio liberty and radio free asia, an important step to account for the information offensive being carried out by russia and other autocracies. on the difficulty of achieving successful democratic transitions it is important for civil society and protects activists to learn from past failures such as the need to prepare to engage in political action and take responsibility for governance in the event that the protest movements lead to the downfall of autocratic

regimes. the protest movement thinking strategically and maturing politically this is happening in ukraine today with a lot of protest leaders taking part in the elections that will be held next week. there are many things that need to be done to reverse or retard what i called democratic backsliding. corruption has to be fought with a real determination and in addition to conditionality and assistance programs something that larry has talked about, we need to look for new ways to integrate into development strategies, efforts to explicitly build the capacity of independent media to provide means for economic growth and accountability against corruption. we have to develop strategies to strengthen democratic culture by supporting indigenous groups committed to building tolerant societies and helping to connect these groups through the new

citizens movement in china or we had enough movement in senegal to connect these movements so they can learn from each other. obviously we also have to maintain and build up efforts to support indigenous democratic actors and remember is that democracy must come from within. can't be exported or imposed. this has worked steadily, cutting edge support over the long term tailored to each local situation. it needs to be comprehensive, involving grand support, training, networking like democracy, research and political solidarity. democracy activists need all of that and they placed special emphasis on the need for political solidarity at a time when autocratic regimes are cracking down so harshly. we must find a way to rebuild a sense of democratic convention in the u.s. and europe. from the czech republic i was struck that our friends are as

far as concerned about the growth of cynicism and illusions about the dangers they face as some of us are here. we will be celebrating the 25 food anniversary of the velvet revolution with a ceremony in the capital involving a bus -- we should remember how strongly he felt about the suicidal character of policies that could narrow economic and security interests above freedom and human rights and his concern about sacrificing values to serve interests would end up undermining both. the best way to rebuild democratic convention is to connect americans with people on the front lines of democratic struggles around the world, people who know the dangers and are prepared to sacrifice to defend their dignity, drying spirit from the them and maintaining a lifeline of support for their work is important not just for them but for the security and future of our own democracy.

>> thanks so much. thank you very much, a pleasure to be here. let me note since i am affiliated with the naval war college my comments today on my own opinion and did not reflect any official position at the college or the u.s. navy. those of us is that come from the american realist tradition accept the proposition that american national security in the long run is enhanced by the existence of other well-established stable democracies because they provide higher standards of living, they are more responsive to their citizens, generally find ways to resolve conflicts without going to work. they are transparent in how they engage their affairs. in the short term democratizing states leads usually to greater

insecurity, those that are familiar with the work of the in bremer, when you open formerly closed authoritarian societies you have drops in obama prosperity, drops in security, the work that schneider and mansfield and others have done is you open closed societies, you run the risk of greater conflict so this creates security problems for the u.s. because we generally don't like to see disorder in key parts of the world as we are seeing now in the middle east. the second reality is often times states democratize, less close partners of the u.s. and security matters. this is particularly case if the u.s. had supported an authoritarian regime that preceded it and a new regime comes in and may seek to distance itself or adopt the full panoply of the security agenda. we have had difficulties in our national security establishment

in being able to reconcile a commitment to the long term which is to have a spread of democracy and realizing the short-term impacts of democratization may not be supportive of u.s. security interests. we have seen this in parts of latin america, parts of the middle east, we have seen it in some parts of asia and across the eurasian space. then we come back to the question what about our marvel in eastern europe. is important to take a few minutes to look at how and why and what conditions american national security interests and commitment to democratization went hand in hand because we will tease out the factors to look for when we are trying to reconcile in other parts of the world some of the distinctions that are there. first thing of course is east european states had clear

security threats when they were escaping from the soviet bloc, they were always concerned -- there were concerns in the early 1990s about germany so that these states had real security issues that led them to seek partnership with the united states. this is where conditionality played a big role because the united states could make demands and requests of those governments that if they wanted closer relationship with the united states or membership in nato or wanted to be involved in the european union there were standards they would have to meet so the we could say as we could use that as a very important lever for pursuing and discouraging domestic reform. we also had a certain degree of confidence in the 1990s the we could support a process without worrying about outcomes, we did not have -- we did not look at central and eastern european

states and say few of the political parties here are pro-western or pro-american and others may be anti-american or opposed to an american agenda. allow us to focus on process rather than outcome. we did not have great worries when the polish communists came in after solidarity's term of government that all of a sudden they were going to work up everything that had been done, rivers poland's direction, the ex-communist in poland for as supportive of western immigration of membership in nato and european union as solidarity and any of the other political movements in poland. that allow our democracy promotion efforts to avoid the appearance of trying to pick winners and losers in the domestic political process that we had a breakdown in russia in 1996 where we very much had a sense that boris yeltsin's victory was an american imperative and made sure they did not wind that final round of

the presidential election so that is where we began to see deviation from that so it was not about supporting process but looking at particular political outcomes we wanted and as we have gone back and looked at that with the willingness to compromise the process or allow the democratic process to be compromised in order to ensure president yeltsin would have his second term in office. finally won critical part of the central east european experience which may not be replicated in other parts of the world was that the united states government put its full faith and credit behind the democracy process was important. local governments looked at that as part of the validation of the reform process they were doing, the fact that u.s. officials, ambassadors, government functionaries were involved and were supporting this process

where seen as a positive for the process. looking at this experience it can be tempting to say it worked in east europe and we had the idea that every country, all we have to do is take the polish model and apply it elsewhere and have the same results. i think of we misapply the east european experience in eurasia and the middle east it can lead us to a contradiction, it can lead to disappointments. why isn't it working out the way it is supposed to? why haven't we seen the emergence of political movements that support democratic process and also a line themselves with the u.s.? we can see different reasons. in the middle east, popular opinion is not particularly supportive of the u.s. national security agenda in the regions the democratization if we want to have more popular in putting to how governments are run the trade-off is to accept that there is going to the government that if they are dependent on

the will of their citizens for their legitimacy said it will constrain what they can do in terms of cooperating with the united states. sometimes political movements that are seeking internal democratic reform are not seeking security goals that favors the united states. the green movement in iran was not going to necessarily dismantle iran's nuclear program. it was not going to be a big part of very issue. we could support them or not support them as the case may be. whether or not we should do that because it supports our values is one thing but the argument that somehow supporting that movement was going to lead to a geopolitical change in the middle east, the facts don't seem to point that. we don't have the same sweeteners in terms of european union and nato expansion in other parts of the world. we can't offer that kind of conditionality to say there is a light at the end of the tunnel. this helps to keep the east

europeans on track and on the straight and narrow particularly in the balkans, the idea there was a end goal of joining the european union in 80. we don't have those schools in other parts of the world and maybe more difficult to encourage that. the rise of china allows for the possibility that we could use that as conditionality but caused a flap in the other direction which is we become so anxious to get allies for china as we did during the cold war that we will overlook a multitude of democratic sins at home if it means we are putting people into our camp. on the last question, the last 30 seconds or so we need to recognize this tension is here. we can't wish it away between our short-term security interests and long-term values. some of the things we may want to discuss in the open discussion is does this mean we need to separate some aspects of democracy promotion agenda from day to day diplomacy and

governance, do we want to have more civil society participation, less micromanagement from government, the extent to which democracy movements fear u.s. government involvement because it may lead them to be tagged as u.s. agents and finally just to end on this point we have to recognize as we move forward as democracy promotion regained its initiative as i think it will we have to live with the fact that the leaders that are produced by going to be people who come to power, they will be democratic but not necessarily going to sign up on the u.s. agenda. we had difficulties in the past with democratic leaders to are not aligned with those. we prefer -- we need to find ways to expect how we are going to interact with the future that will be emerging particularly in the middle east in asia and ultimately we hope across the

generations space. thanks very much. >> i am going to be very brief and say democracy assistance hasn't been successful. tom or others will make a strong case for it. i agree that it hasn't been successful and i will leave it at that and focus on the challenges. i should say also i am coming from the world bank and these are my own views, but knowing the bank tried to stop me there's a democratization movement going on within the bank too. i think ideas matter and how we frame problems in the world matter. if you watch 5 or 10 minutes of the news you get the sense of security crises out of control that we have got. border crisis, we have got terrorism and the long war and

drug wars and all of these problems, the ebola panic and the way we refrains the challenges we have today, there is a heavy emphasis, of the world is a dangerous place than we have to keep ourselves a can't keep these threats from abroad from wreaking havoc at home. this is not the first time we have seen world this way. this is a recurring period in history. go back to world war i and immigration crazies, close the borders or the communist threat in 1950s so in other periods in history we have been able to balance the shift as get a more balanced focus on the problems we face today but it is fair to say that we are in a period where u.s. foreign policy is heavily influenced by security concerns above all else and that matters because it determines policies, determines the types

of programs we fund war the way we act to protect our national interests. i will give you a contrast with the way we frame problems at the world bank which is the poorest of the 4 and how do we ensure inclusive growth? every time i have a project proposal i have to say this is going to benefit the poor in society, this is about economic conclusion and you can see how if we had u.s. foreign policy based on trying to spread prosperity abroad and increasing economic inclusion, a different set of policies we had today, everything is a security crisis. we have agricultural food security, water security, my favorite new problem, fishery security, in west africa, the navy is helping fishermen in west africa improve the security of their fisheries.

fishery security is one way we could talk about the issue but we could also talk about sustainability and development and might lead us to a different set of proposals rather than having the u.s. navy taking the lead in fishery development and working with fishermen in west africa to increase their economic activities and if we have frame issues in terms of security challenges and all these threats to our security we have to accept the military will take a lead and we have intelligence community and the dozen agencies, and research on what we are going to say today. it leads us to blending, we have the national security agency doing spying abroad in here. we are not quite sure leads us to accept a level of lack of

accountability on military affairs because the world is dangerous place that this is going to be. in the context of lack of faith in our own democratic institutions this creates a very serious problem. the latest pew poll had trust in government somewhere around 20% which means a large core of the obama's supporters including me don't have a lot of faith in the washington is broken, it to reality, we have five months of congress not being in power. we have this ebola crisis, meanwhile our own congress doesn't seem to feel any need to

act. this creates -- i am not predicting any coups in the united states. from the world bank there will be a coup in the united states. i am not predicting anything like that but i am saying that excessive reliance on the military in a situation where we lack confidence in our own elected officials who we can control is perhaps not a great situation and if we want to rethink about this balance between security and democracy and how to engage abroad in a more productive way to hopefully bring about a more peaceful world we might think about actions we can take on our own to perhaps restore a bit of confidence and credibility in the way we think our own government functions. so ambassador adrian asked me you are saying everything is bad

and there is nothing good weekend too, give me some actual ideas. give me a place to start, things government can realistically do. so i come up with a list of ideas that hopefully we can consider. we need to end giving surplus military equipment to police departments, giving them tanks that they don't need isn't good for police, certainly not good for us. perhaps if people brought saw what was going on in ferguson, missouri, we expect the united states, the star wars everyone else was not against their own people? more transparency in the u.s. military programs, we have our own wars going on in somalia and yemen and pakistan would be nice if we had a bit more knowledge about who is being killed and what is the source of independent intelligence and how many are we killing and not

allowing the cia to classify any one of military age, more transparency in the drone programs and more transparency in our military programs all over the world. i work mainly in africa and very familiar with u.s. military efforts in the sahara because they are vast, sprawling and not very easy to spot unless you are on the ground so it would be nice if we brought a bit more democracy to security affairs. nsa surveillance and as a's illiterate attempts to weaken the internet and improve its capacity to spy on people, that would be some things that hopefully we can get a bit of a handle on. it would be nice if we talked a bit about the way the be extended border and security to

this 100 mile barrier in the united states which includes washington d.c. because we are within a one hundred miles of the post. that gives the border patrol bit of -- how would you call it? enhanced capacity for interrogation that i think are a bit worrying. if none of these are possible and if you are going to sit here and tell me all of these ideas are far outside the realm of what is achievable given the security crises we face in the world today, it essentially what you are telling me is that efforts to perhaps reduce the problems in our own democracy are not possible and if that is the case, we have a hard time trying to to sell the idea of democracy credibly abroad. >> thanks very much.

tom. >> thanks to the invitation to join the conversation this morning. in the spirit in which ambassador badora launched as a while ago i have been thinking of making this interactive. i have been listening intently to each of the previous speakers and it may seem at some level they presented alternative schools of thought or approaches to this question so i am not sure i am allowed to say this but i agree with all of them. i agree with in particular the weight nick framed the trade off in government for potential short-term benefit or short-term versus long term. that is the world in which i live in the u.s. government as we sit around tables not usually as pretty as this, to talk about how to integrate our interests

in strengthening democratic governance and respect for human rights into our policies in various parts of the world, policies that are driven by the security imperatives. we are long past the cold war that framed the international operating environment so neatly but there is a hot war underway in this global campaign against extremism, violence and terrorism that is in the ascendancy, so that drives -- that frames a lot of discussions, about what to do about democracy or bahrain, the principal parts of our relationships with so many are driven by a national security imperative that is not theoretically abstract long-term. it gets the president of the united states lying awake staring at the ceiling in the

middle of the night. one of our embassies around the world, that has to be appreciated as we think about how to continue to build democracy, support democracy assistance. here we are 25 years after the velvet revolution there is this loss of confidence, a sense of purpose and i was at the same meeting carl was asked in prague organized by a lot of friends of democracy in eastern europe and this was a the framing art, and the czech transition of 25 years ago was framed by some pretty good art. i love the various kinds of posters that emerged in that period but last week in the forum 2,000 conference there was a lot of backdrop on the art and this is the cover of the program, the conference, this is

a tweet from democracy. i miss how that was 25 years ago. nobody thinks democracy is succeeding or doable or worth promoting and i think this cynicism, this gloominess has invested a lot of things like this. i am troubled by it that because i don't think things are going -- the immensity the we set for ourselves, the world's challenges, if they need to appreciate that it is not going to be quickly or easily done. karl talked about the illusions of the 1990s. and the collapse of apartheid and to thinking this was easy,

that the transition parent times would implement themselves and all we had to do was go along for the ride and take credit for it some time is. what we are finding is some countries have governments and military establishments and tribal leaders and others who are much more clearly opposed to this democratization we encountered in some places and periods in the past so we are against much more determined opponents that we fought in the 90s in so many parts of the world. they are doubling down on their opposition between civil society and fair elections and political pluralism and independent media. we need to regard ourselves and think more strategically and carefully and that means thinking more long term. i don't think we will affect significant transitions in any country for two reasons. one is it is not up to us.

the future of other countries will be determined by people who live in those countries and we need to the discussion of democracy, it is not so much about nestle what we do or how much money we have an bring countries into a more modern political arrangement. and a democratic arrangement, in their own time and their own way and we can help them but we can't make and do it, we can't make a bad government over throw themselves, we can't make people become democrats if they are not so inclined. house of the most unlikely places, we can help them with information and assistance, with political pressure, engaging them in the world integrating in societies and various ways, we

are doing that. we need to be doing it in a strategic, patient way that acknowledge it is not just about us, we cannot be prepared for when we have a moment to move their countries and a better direction that we will be supportive of them in the ways we have been with willing governments in various parts of the world and technical advice and political assistance and ways we continue to. usaid, in the effectiveness in wade of responsibilities. the office at the state department has a consistent budget thanks to congress to support civil society actors in a variety of countries and the endowment for democracy remains the premier institution in the world providing targeted assistance, democrats usually in tough places and they had help from the outside community, from

the international community. and let me mention a couple things as we wind up the opening scene. week in the united states need to appreciate the role congress plays, why we disparage the polarization, and inability to resolve certain major things. the congress has been a major contributor to american democracy programming and a lot of ways, the creation of my part of the state department. it was created 36 years ago at the insistence of congress over objections of the state department. and the political culture, we need to have some people minding this part of the store so we have played a role in the increasingly a prominent role inside the u.s. government and being part of the conversation how we integrate security, prosperity and our support for

freedom as well. one of the ones that is important about this discussion in an age of security consciousness is something called the way he law. senator pat leahy 10 or 12 years ago put into congressional defense department, the division says we cannot provide military equipment or training to security forces units, and human rights violations. this opens another dimension of engagement with foreign governments and society, and more law-abiding. it works to some extent. it works in keyways to provide different pressure on authoritarian governments particularly those who are allied to us, that was not democratic but friends of ours providing them since security

assistance. we do that but we have a right dimension to that discussion in many cases. i appreciate the role congress played in our systems and engagement in the world's end funding for the national endowment for democracy, and others get. but these policy discussions with the terms on which we provide security assistance. by badora wing what several people said one of the most important things we can do in the united states to strengthen democratic systems abroad is to be a better democracy. we need to be a better democracy like europe needs to be a better democracy in order for the example to carry not wider world. those who care about international profile need to take interest in domestic politics in a way we don't always do. somebody else is working on that and we will solve the rest of

the world's problems but those of us who travel a lot and are called on to explain the u.s. system, spend more of our time promoting better government in the united states. >> thanks so much. before we open the floor to questions we will give each speaker chance to give a brief response to what they heard two or three minutes. >> the first point to make, and the neighborhood problem as it were. i prefer neighborhood and i prefer a democratic india, and to tell what terry in china. and every country when they are not democratic to our business, and democracies tend to be friendlier than dictatorships but often rely upon meeting with

needs that whip up extreme nationalism, and the legitimacy problems, and i prefer south korea to north korea and south korea is not perfect and people in south korea have problems with the current government, and it is better than north korea not just that it doesn't have the gulag and murder some people, but it is friendlier to less than those at the choices we face in the world and it is not irrelevant, democracies are not perfect and 100% allies. the second point, change sometimes is difficult. we don't bring battle of that change, hosni mubarak was not going to be permanently there. the question is how to manage change, and we referred to. slobodan milosevic was considered a product of democratic change.

this was a transitional government. he was not a democrat. there is instability in the world but in the question we have to face as we think about this, what is the division of labor between non-governmental entity like the u.s. government, what do we want from the u.s. government? one thing we do want and i have said this is the people we support could use the help, diplomatic and political support of the united states and of the west. a lot of that is being done to a certain degree. they need it more. you cannot view democracy in a vacuum. you need to back it up with the political support the activists need in order to survive, in order to function. we need a strong voice on these issues. we should not call dictatorships

democratic core in the process of democratic transition as we basically referred to each of recently. we may need to work with egypt as a country that shares certain interests with the assemblies at a time when you have isis but we don't need to call than democratic and we need to speak about human rights and doesn't necessarily conflict with our interests in these countries. finally we underestimate the extent to which democracy and progress for democracy depends upon orderly international environment. much more likely to get democratic progress with a certain modicum of world orders and you are with chaos and one of the things i was arguing for is i don't think it helps to remove the polls but holds up the tent of world order and i consider that poll, we can argue about this, to the u.s. leadership, u.s. influence

because nothing is going to take its place. it is not all the answers we have but a stable world will depend on it and democracy needs that in order to -- two other quick points. we as a country and thinking about foreign policy have to find the balance between what my board member calls maximal is demand minimalism. we have these swings. sometimes very sharply. there's a possibility of a solvent, stable middle ground. we have to fight for that. which can take account of the need for deterrence and the need to to struggle for democracy and related to that something we are thinking about, something we are thinking clearly about, the relationship to security issues and democracy issues and these are complex questions and it is important bring people together

to -- it is not necessarily -- friendly tyrants are not the source of stability and friendship in the world's, we have to somehow think about how to balance the tension that exists. there will always be tension but there's a better way to balance them than we have in the past. >> certainly north korea is a worst-case than south korea and there is no disagreement there. the u.s. the example that is a preference for pakistan when it did not have the democratic government because of a belief that it was closer to security interests which is more akin to what i was trying to get at. and a clear-cut case where democracies are preferable even when they have issues. and it is critical of how we find these balances, and in

terms of security agenda. add advanced democratic agenda and willing to do so. this is the security agenda we are trying to give up but we can't do both. we have to have the debate and find where the balance is going to be, we prefer to see a democratic government and willing to see on a set of issues a recession and conversely when we have security issues where we feel transitions might be problematic in the short run and having a calculus is better than simply flailing out and saying these issues don't exist or we can do it all. one of the shoes we had in recent years, the criticisms that are out there is we don't seem able to strike this balance. we don't have to strike a balance with our diplomacy. you can't go to a government that is authoritarian that you are now asking for a whole list

of security cooperation is and say by the way we are also working to change reform of government. of the change of government is perceived as change of regime, again it is not the weekend do both or should give up one or the other but being able to have these conversations about what we are willing to accept, what solutions we are willing to have. we are glad you mentioned the leahy amendment. if we had more time we can bring a more things and that is a great example of using conditionality because a state is free to reject our security assistance if they don't want to abide by those terms and some don't. in the context of the international military education, we have an impact because when you say -- in order to get security assistance you have to meet these standards and when our diplomats go to other countries and say you have to

pass certain smell tests with the u.s. congress to get certain things, that can be effective and that is one of the ways we can search for the conditionality we need if we want to pursue these things without having it become either/or, we can pursue security or democracy but not both but the leahy amendment and other things like that are important for us and as we continue our discussions today, we look at tools and both sets of interests. >> i want to pick up on the point of instability. a fair amount of time, and all over the place, takes some molly as an example of this is a problem we have been faced with for two decades, 1994 is when the u.s. went in the first time

and still -- the security threats are real and we have to think about what is a way to work more constructively in these societies. israel has been trying to bomb hamas out of existence and more bombs they drop the more problems they create for themselves. i am not saying we need to go and bring terrorist groups in to government. i am not saying that at all. if you talk about libya, or large parts of the middle east, these are countries that going through profound and difficult challenges and it will take more than a military solution and i hope that leading a lot of efforts to bring the state department into these, more into these challenges, they require political settlements. on the positive side, i said the

u.s. democracy assistance has been very affective, taking a broad view, most of africa where i worked there are elections, vibrant elections and getting into power really means something and there are problems in almost all of these countries with corruption but i also sees that losers take steps to try to make these countries more effective so i see in that sense i see a lot of positive change and i see a lot of countries that are just -- the competitive role of politics makes people at times want to improve the rules of the game so they can increase their chances of winning or more transparency for the government to be critical so in that sense i think we have two or three decades ago no one would have

predicted that ghana would be a democracy. we should not have an undue pessimism because i think given where a lot of these countries started 30 or 40 years ago, would have predicted they have a challenging problem. and i think that we should be proud of the work we have done and learn from those lessons and apply them to challenges we are facing today. >> the united states remains the most important country in the world and is also the one that is providing the most important leadership on democracy and human rights. bar none. pick the next ten most active democracy promoters in the democratic world and they don't add up to half of what the united states is doing and that is not just in the funding but

in the diplomatic and political leadership the united states continues to provide. >> we are trying to overcome a period in which we seem to do that in an arrogant and clumsy way and so maybe sometimes too some for some. we are not as over the top in our rhetoric as we might be or might be more pleasing to some. but the united states is at the center of every important conversation on how to defend democratic governance and institutions and developing strategies in those circles. is not always public but every other government will tell you when they want to have a discussion about what to do about x country it starts here. so i am confident and comfortable that we are managing an effort. the effort as i said earlier has some strong opposition to it in

some key governments and non-government actors in the world. and we are incurring some costs in other parts of our relationships. in our advocacy for activists in places like russia becomes at some cost to our bilateral relationships in those places. ..