tv.org. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> here are some programs to watch on booktv this weekend. .. >> as part of the conference of on the 50th apneas of the book

"suicide of the west" a panel discussion on u.s. foreign policy. this is about an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon my name is josh altman, the membership director of the buckley program, and it's my pleasure to introduce the moderator for our final panel, the drift of u.s. foreign policy and the challenges of western survival. professor charles hill is a diplomat in residence and lectern at international studies at yale. he was a senior adviser to george shut. henry kissinger and ronald reagan to name few. during the 2008 presidential election was the chief foreign policy adviser to candidate rudy giuliani. author of the books "grand strategies" he teaches in the brady johnson program in grand strategy that handles questions

of leadership statecraft and diplomacy, and also teaches in directed studies. blows join me in welcoming our mott rater, professor charles hill. >> thank you and good afternoon. my first job before getting to the panel is to wave this in front of you, "suicide of the west." just out available on amazon and it is for the handful of you that haven't read this, it is eary uncanny how relevant this work is to what we're talking about here today. so i recommend you go and get it online. today is the panel on the drift in u.s. foreign policy.

we have three remarkable public intellectuals of wide ranging influence on the panel today. i'll introduce them in the order in which they will speak for ten minutes or so, then leaving us time for questions. katy mcfarland with fox news as national security expert. a columnist she is the an cor for the deaf con 3 at fox. served in the nixon, ford, and reagan administrations. she aide to henry kissinger speech write are for secretary of defense weinberger. has run for office, for the

senate. and generally someone who really knows the foreign affairs business. second jamie kurchic who i have known since he was here at yale as a student. he has become the classic foreign correspondent of the kind that we don't see much of anymore. he has been most recently with the radio free europe radio liberty. his publication list is -- i have to say unmatched in its wide range. the new republic weekly standard, wall street journal, new york times daily beast, the australian it's really something. he'll be talking mostly about his views on europe at the

moment. and then in cleanup, batting position, founder of then constitute for the secularization of islamic society, and vice president of the world encounter institute. he has written on all things about the koran, about secularization of islam, about his own life, or not, as a muslim and he is a fundamentally important critique of the orientalism. you can imagine from hit work he has concerns about his personal security. i will only say that this title "the drift of u.s. foreign policy" may not be exactly on

target because of it could very well be, and perhaps it is, that the course of the american foreign policy now is exactly what president obama wants it to be. it's not drifting at all. he is not disengaged, he is not incompetent. it's going exactly as he hoped. perhaps a little slower than he hoped. but it is perhaps in his view his finest hour. this is his profile in courage as he stands up to the critics of his foreign policy. so we will begin with katy mcfarland. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> first let me ask you, how many of you watch fox news? forget all the stuff he said. i'm a brunette on fox news. [laughter]

>> okay. suicide of the west. american decline thepot american world. the majority of americans i think including the president of the united states believes our best days are over his atitude is contagious i think the president feels very strongly that leading from behind means we'll he left hind and that's okay because the world has not been a better place with american leadership. he looks at the last 10 or 15 years, the last republican administration, the war in iraq afghanistan, and i think the president honestly feels, as do his like-minded contemporary the world is a better place if america takes a step down. now, why? because then the global community, whatever that means, is somehow going to run things, and i don't think he has thought through what tends to happen when a great power steps back. instead of the global community, it tends to be dictatorships mon no, can is, authoritarian -- mon nor -- monarchies or

authoritarian governments who take charge or global choose. how many of you about in america's best carolina over our children are not going to have as good a life as we have. it's been great but like all empires america had it beginning then its rise day in the sun then decline, how many of you really think america's best days are behind. come on. okay. well, the people out of this room 75% of them think that america's best days are hundred us and they are wrong and you are right and i will tell you why. first of all d-line is nothing new in america. we have hatted since the very beginning of time. in my lifetime in the 1970s the there was the soviet union with the better economic system, they were going to take over the world. didn't work out so well. so japan in the 1980s they bought rockefeller center and

were going to run things. didn't work out well for them. in 1990s, the european union, they were me model we were looking for. didn't work out that well for them either. so now it's china. china is going to take over the world. china is the great power. we're now slipping behind, to the point where last week president obama was in beijing and was treated like a lame duck leader of a has-been nation and the chinese media was full of aurals about america's finish it's china's turn, americas days are over and they agree with some of the leaders of our country that in fact that's probably good thing. met tell you why they're all wrong. i think america is in fact just a few political decisions and a couple of years away from being the second great american century. i don't say that the way republicans who go stand up debating in the primaries of our eannual four-year elections where they say, i believe america is a great country and it's almost like you remember peter pan, where if you closed

your eyes and peter pan sprinkles fairy dust and tinker bell would come back to life. it's a great american century for specific reasons. if you look at the history of the world since the industrial revolution wars have been fought over energy. countries and regions of the world, which have had coal, natural gas are wealthy beyond imagining. the countries w.h.o. have nod had those fight to get them. world war i was who controls the coal fields in europe. hitler invaded russia to get his hands on the oil. japan attacked pearl harbor to continue its flow of oil in the pacific. we win two two wars, the iraq wars were in effect about oil. whoever has oil whoever has energy controls the economic prosperity of the world. we have a president who a few

years ago was talking about peak oil, it was in decline we now in the last several year have had a revolution in the united states, which is just starting to come into the national consciousness, because american technology engineering and innovation, our people have looked underground, developed 3-d mapping, looking underground and realize that not only do we have energy, we have oil and natural gas in such abeen dance it's probably greater than oil and natural gas areas in other parts of the world. the second thing we have done is develop the technology to bring it out of the ground safely and abundantly and securely. 3-d mapping, it's been herossal drilling, it's been fracturing all those meant that there are certain parts of the country and offshore which have the ability to get oil out of the ground at $40 or $50 a barrel. what that that mean when i say a couple of key decisions away.

i if we make the correct decisions in the united states, and the correct decisions things like keystone pipeline no brainer, allowing the energy companies to drill on federal and state lands, corporate tax reforms so that we lower the corporate tax rates to repatriate $2.1 trillion of american investment that would come back to the united states and then the ability to export all of that cheap energy. here's what i think happens. we take those decisions and here where we are starting i don't know this months from now. number one there will be jobs that are directly related to energy industry, spoil natural gas. we have already seen that. the lowest unemployment in the whole you'd is in north dakota because of fracking. connecticut, this state, you have embraced fracking. pennsylvania, even more so has embraced fracking to the point where if i live in new york state people are moving into pennsylvania because they can get jobs there and pennsylvania is embracing this and new york state because of governor cuomo

is not. so there will be a direct number of jobs in the entire country as a result of fracking. probably some estimated 2% to 3% boon in the gnp. directly related jobs to energy. then a second wave of jobs happens. at the united states manufacturing beens competitive, really competitive, our energy is going to be 25% cheaper than energy in japan probably 15% 10% cheaper then energy in europe. so that means companies which have gone overseas in the last 20 years come back. and the traditional manufacturing we haven't -- maybe not the same things, maybe a new version of things, but they're going to be made in the united states more cheaply than they can be made in our competitors which is europe and japan. then a third wave is cheap energy is going to marry up with the 2-point trillion to invest in new technology 3-d printing

row broughticking, nano technology, bileow engineering. we'll have a whole industrial revolution akin to what we had the first time and probably even better than the second time with the internet information age revolution. so, we are looking at probably a generation of economic prosperity. now, what does that mean? the next decision we make is we export -- once we get our own energy industries kick-started, then we can start exporting oil and natural gas. we're already exporting at a slow rate. what does that do to the price of oil? the price of oil is already dropping without us even export because we're using our own natural resources and own oil for our own domestic consumption. once the price of oil goes below $80 a barrel it bankrupts the bad guys. russia is predated on a budget that sis hundred a barrel oil. put put in fact -- putin drew up a budget that was predicated on

100 a barrel oil. and then he brought it into a committee and they said it's -- the russians have rainy day funds to compensate for a lower price of oil but they're not infinite and probably last 18 months, two years. they'll have to compensate for low oil prices. oil prices are note growing to go back up. they may not be at 80. may go to 90 or 70 but they're going to hover below 100. so what that does is russia if the oil doesn't get to $100 a barrel they don't make payroll, and they're two goals, putin's goals for the next five years, are infrastructure rebuilding and a defense buildup. he can't afford either of those, and as a result of that he is going to have very unhappy russians, unhappy russian military, unhappy russian retirees if he doesn't subsidize them and very unhappy russians

if he doesn't build infrastructure. the second thing that happens is other countries we don't like and don't like us they run into trouble. iran venezuela, they also need high oil prices because they, like the russians, have spent the last 15 years of the oil winfall profits not investing. they have not built infrastructures, have not built alternative industries for their people. they have just taken the money in some cases they bought military and most cases just subsidiesed their populations and once those prices of oil and natural gas go down they have nothing. and that is exactly where we were in 19 -- the late 1980s when ronald reagan helped push the price of oil down, when charlie was writing the speeches for him. the price of oil went from $40 a barrel to $18 a barrel in nine months and bankrupted the then soviet union. that's a key factor in the fall of the soviet empire. so, what is going to happy? yates is going to have a manufacturing renaissance. at the same time that the bad

guys going broke. now let's look at china. china is going to take over the world. i you look at china they're a demographic time bomb. i was in china -- in beijing in the spring and it was beautiful sunny day, and i went to the equivalent of central park, and i live in new york. when i go to central park on a beautiful day you see moms, two strollers, two identical twins because of other reasons, but anyway, you see a lot of little kids and you see dad and maybe you see granny. and they're all hover -- there's a dog too. so you go to china, their central park? you see one stroller, one little boy child who is three years old, and four, sometimes six hovering adults, mom, dad grande gramps, grande gramps. those six adults are looking at that little child -- and the chinese have a term for that, they're called little emperors because of the one child policy the chinese have a much higher percentage of male births so for

every 120 males there are 100 feel mails. i have three sons and two daughters and three boys, who don't have anything to do, and don't have the girlfriend don't have the made, they're in trouble by the time they're in anywhere mid-20s. that's where china is headed. they won't have maids for the population, for a significant percentage of the population, their economy is on the downslide for several reasons. their militarism and nationalism is on the upswing, so the chinese are looking at, i think north only a period where they're going to have demographic problems -- remember the six adults hovering over the little boy emperor who will support them all in their old age because there's no social welfare system in china. they're going to have demographic problems with the aging population. they're going to have demographic problems with the one, child policy and all boys and i think they're going to have social unrest because they can't keep the lid on social media forever and they reacted

as they have seen the arar spring they've got 'very nervous that could could to coin. so they're trying to crucial their whole exposure to the outside world. that isn't going to last forever. i think we look ahead and i think that it's going to be a lousy couple of years because i think the president is now is on his jihad and he is going to do whatever he thinks is -- it's his time, going to have immigration, going to do all the things he has been dreaming of doing. so i think a couple of really tough years but eventually change of leadership but also just the american people are not dopes. despite the fact that one of my m.i.t. colleagues thinks they're all so stupid. but anyway, -- by the way if you don't watch fox news you don't realize that m.i.t. professor said that the only reason they would sell obamacare is because the american people were stupid. so lousy couple of years but the market is going to take over, and i think the united

states is in for an absolute boom time for the rest of our days. i'm telling my five children you have jobs you're going to get more jobs and i'm going to be able to retire because you're going to be working for a man that's going to be great. so thank you very much. [applause] >> i hate to be the half empty glass to that presentation. i blame on the last three and a half years i spent living in europe probably. i would recommend as a -- in addition to suicide of the west the "how democracies perish." also verb -- in the remark

similarities that exist tonight. just got back from berlin two days ago where i was there for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. and there was a very ominous occasion although most of them people there didn't seem to understand why it was ominous, for only several hundred miles east the russians are busily militarily dividing europe once again. and something that no one in europe really thought possible that could ever happen on european territory. there's still war going on the european continent and the past several years i was living in europe working for john o'sullivan of radio free europe and our polish and baltic colleagues would warn us about russian aggression, about the spread of russian influence and

money and aggression against their neighbors and always derided as being these silly cold war era people stuck in the past-don't you understand that we have a new relationship with russia and why are you dragging us into these problems. now those people have been proven right, and i say there were some nightmares, actually gotten -- they could have said even worse things. look what putin this week has defended the hitler stalin past of 1939. this is very scary stuff. and i don't think most people in europe have come to terms with it and most people in the united states have come to term with and it how unpredictable this regime in moscow is. and the past year has shown some very discomforting fissures within the transatlantic alliance and countries we thought or expected to have been very firm supporters of nato, of

the unified western response to russian aggression have proven to be very weak links. the president of the -- the defense minister or the czech aren't and the president of slovaca, both of the them to likened the stationing of nato troupes in their -- both countries are members of nateer to -- liningens the stationing of nato troops in their territory being akin to the 1968 war saw pact invasion of czechoslovakia. leaders of countries in good standing in nato. hungary won't bench able to join the eu due to the democratic backsliding we have seen there the russians have been expert at using edward snowden however you think he got to moscow whether he was a russian agent from the beginning or ended up miraculously in moscow they have used him remarkably well in

turning european public opinion against the united states particularly in germany, where most of the most embarrassing leaks have been directed at the german public opinion. i see michael hayden here, and when i was in germany issue told my german friends, i'm sorry but chancellor merkel should not have been discussing anything other than potato soup recipes on her cell phone. it is not a safe form of communication. but that has provoked very strong anti-american sent independent germany. real unprecedented step of having our cia station chief kicked out of an allied embassy, something that doesn't happen. that happened in germany this summer. very easy to lament european pacifism since we've been doing that for decades, since the end of world war ii and start of the cold war and calling on

europeans to pay for more or their defense and take a tougher line. i think there's a lot of blame to be laid at the feet of the administration in washington. when you take a policy of leading from behind particularly in europe -- this is the first post europe president we have ever had who has no real connections to europe no real affinity to europe. every other president has had some connection to the european content. this was our asia president pivot to asia. this is what happens when you lead from behind and leave allies to do also they please and they have to make their own arrangements. and if you're a small country in the middle of europe, often times those arrange. s are going to be some form of accommodation or with the bear. i am very dish was in estonia a couple weeks ago and i'm -- i see a real possibility that you could have crimea type situation

in estonia where there's no russian soldiers going in, no russian tanks, a handful of russian special operations forces without any ininsignia taking over a government building in a town on the border. all putin would have to do to destroy nato is have thees-the estonan government -- an take on one is an attack of all and portugal says this i isn't an invasion and nato is destroyed. the most successful international security alanes the world has seen being destroyed in one simple step. in the middle east, what happens when you leave allies to your own devices and you withdraw? no one in the middle east believes president obama when he says that he'll prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon. no one believes that. certainly not after the syria red line was announced and then

promptly ignored. saudis have said openly they'll develop their own nuclear program or buy them from the pakistanis. you now have a rather remarkable alliance with israel and egypt and jordan and saudi arabia and the sunni arab status quo powers basically taking on the role of what the united states used to play which was that of the regional -- but because we have announced we have no interest in the middle east anymore, we have basically left all these countries to sort it out for themselves. two months ago egypt and the uae launched airstrikes in libya. do you remember libya? remember that country where the whole leading from behind thing started? they launched airstrikes in libya to prevent islamist mill lit ya from taking over the country. we left libya behind. this was according to the

president himself in a recent interview, with tom freedman -- he considered this the single foreign policy achievement of his administration, and says something now he would consider this to be the signal foreign policy achievement of his administration when you look at the state of the country and the egypt schappes are launching airstrikes without warning the united states before them. behavior like this would terrify never have been tolerated ten years ago. now it's just what happens. i think one of the key lesson wed tame from burnham and ravel is how vulnerable democracies for being manipulated to being coopted by authoritarian powers. it's very easy to spread disinformation propaganda, lies and i am very interested in what the russians are doing in this field and the

disinformation field. if any of you have ever seen the network rt it is a think to behold. it is -- it's horrible. it's evil, and it's sinister but brilliant television and has a huge audience, and it is not soviet style propaganda. this appeals to all political stripes from the far left to far right. it works because we have a democratic society. we don't kick out their journalists, we don't censor them as they do our side. so that a major challenge. so hate to be so pessimistic but i am very worried about the state of europe and our alliance structure there the next two years are going to be very difficult, but i do ultimately agree with kt that in the end america will most likely endure

i hope. [applause] >> like to thank the william f buckley society for a invite maybe. i am not a foreign policy expert unlike my co-panelists and professor hill. however, i will make a few comments but do keep the door open. ...

it. i should also like to thank my friends who have influenced me in what i am going to say now. robert riley, a few fitzgerald, james burnham's book "suicide of the west: an essay on the meaning and destiny of liberalism" is full of insight on american foreign policy which i find relevant to this day. in fact if only to substitute islam for communism in many of his observations to realize their continuing pertinence. i shall limit myself to one of his observations from chapter xii, quote be communists divide the world into a zone of peace and zone of war. the zone of peace means the

region already subject to communist rule and the label signifies within that region the communists will not permit any political tendency, violent or non-violent, where a purely internal or assisted from without to challenge their rule. the zone of war is a region where communist rule is not yet but in due course will be established and with in the zone of war the communists promote, assist and very possibly lead political tendencies, violent or non-violent, democratic revolutionary that operate against non-communist rule. these definitions, smash the hungarian -- smash the dell castro. you know where you are going, an end of quote. thereabout, could easily be a dictionary definition of the islamic doctrine of jihad and

its notions of islam as the zone of peace and then the zone of war. to my main deck as i have broken them down into number is, points but perhaps i can look at question time. won, we are engaged in of war of ideas with our principal and me and ideology, an ideology that will not collapse out of economic incompetence. the ideology of the terrorists is a religiously based and derived from islam, the koran and the history of the early faith. 3, one but not the only one way of knowing is because they tell us so. if you want to understand the enemy read what they say. they constantly justify their acts with accurate and

excitations from the koran. they were from other books works -- the milestone is so important for the islamists. abdallah's defense of the muslim lands the koran concept of power, and nights under the profits banner. some of the latter have doctrines from recognized islamic universities and to hear john kerry trying to tell them their ideas had nothing to do with islam is comical. islamic terrorism is not caused by lack of education, sexual declaration, psychological problems or lack of economic opportunity. western imperialism or decadence or the arab-israeli conflict. there are two kinds of jihad, terrorism and slow penetration

of western institutions subverting western laws and customs from within. six, ignorance, not even take arrogance political correctness, laziness, sentimentality and on top of that an iranian money, have led to islamist successes in penetrating western institutions from the voice of america, the pentagon, documentation to back up all that. not sure we will have time after words. the pentagon cia fbi to the universities and colleges wear islamic propaganda -- groups such as isis, al qaeda and others are non state actors they are funded by states such as qatar saudi arabia and iran. the three countries also provide the necessary islamic support

framework of propaganda that spews anti-western and anti-american hatred. they should be warned or face the consequences. it is important to point out is not something we have done that is compelling the islamists. constantly apologizing, mr. president, is not going to help at all. it is pointless. we must learn the lessons of the cold war for striking similarities between islamist ideology and that of soviet russia. this was pointed out in the 1920s by bertrand russell and in the 50s. we must speak out in support of the christians who are being persecuted and killed almost every day and islamic countries, and far from humanitarian reasons there are other reasons

which are to do with what i hope would be the secularization of islamic society. in order to succeed we need emergency to recover civilization will self-confidence. one way to fight jihadists ideology is to undermine their seventies, one can accomplish this with koran criticism in the west espinoza, especially with his theological, political or 16-17 spinoza hasten the enlightenment by his biblical criticism. jonathan kaye's three enormous magisterial volumes on the enlightenment begins with spinoza and getting the light

monroe agenda going. some more comments the obvious need to understand islamist audiology to understand the islamic terrorists this is not caused by polity and so on. it is to their ideology that motivates them and is the source of its moral legitimacy. without it, terrorism cannot exist. terrorists are produced by totalitarian ideology justifying terrorism. america had some impressive tactical successes and managed to kill osama bin laden and fails to understand their goals their ideology. the reason for this failure on any. for us there is a reluctance to address the religious inspiration of the acts of terrorism. to admit that their ideology is derived from islam in its

founding taxs coming instead the present administration exhorts us to use euphemisms such as violent extremism. to quote my friend kathleen, who did a report on this, whereas the 9/11 commission report published under the presidency of george bush in july of 2004, as a bipartisan product used the word islam 322 times, muslim 145 times, jihad 126 times, jihadists 72 times, the national intelligence strategy of the united states issued by the obama administration in august of 2009 used the term is long zero times. muslim zero times, jihad zero times. obama's policy applies to internal government documents

which can only have disastrous consequences for our understanding of political groups and events in the middle east. afghanistan, pakistan and southeast asia. how can we analyze the power and appeal of ideology the way ideas set strategy and tactics, why such a huge man is it any reference to the islamic religion and its texts or doctrines isn't permitted? perhaps it was only in 1946 win george can and wrote his classified telegram that america began to understand the nature of the soviet union, why it acted the way it did and how the kremlin fought and why the u.s. saw it as a grave threat to america. it took three decades to understand the mind of the enemy. to complicate matters further, today there are two enemies

non-european religiously informed non state terrorist groups like isis. second and equally dangerous, states that in fact fund and support them. eric is evidence that just recently the atlantic reporting june of this year two of the most successful factions battling assad's groups, the islamic state of iraq and syria and their success is due to the support they received from the two persian gulf countries qatar and saudi arabia. that was a quote from the atlantic. our ability to fight al qaeda, similar terrorist act is will depend on our capacity to communicate to our own citizens and to the world what it is we are fighting for and what it is the ideology of jihad threatens in terms of values we hold so dear.

in war is not enough to know the enemy in order to win. one must first know oneself. however at the end of the cold war america and the west understandably perhaps lost clarity about its way of life that was precious and worth fighting for. james burnham explains with exemplary clarity the reason for this loss of self-confidence and what he wrote is relevant, quote, judging a group of human beings a race, nation, class or party that he considers to possess less than their well-being and liberty, the liberal is hard put to condemn that group morally for acts he would not hesitate to condemn in his fellows. when western liberal's feeling of guilt and associated feeling of moral vulnerability before the sorrows and demands of the wretched become obsessive he

often develops a generalized hatred of western civilization and of his own country as a part of the west, you can frequently sends this hatred in journals like the nation. in order to succeed, this is my last point we need urgently to recover our civilization will self confidence. ronald reagan was able to succeed because he was supreme leader confidence of the moral and spiritual superiority of his cause. was able to state with certainty and without hesitation that the soviet empire was evil. he was not afraid to confront reality. he was able to defend our values because he believed in and totally. he told an audience at moscow state university, quote, go into any schoolroom in america and there you will see children being taught the declaration of independence, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights

among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that no government can justly deny. end of quote. reagan advocated unapologetically, quote, he worked for reagan altogether the various ideas of freedom, democracy human rights moral order and the dignity of the human person were promoted not only by the president's rhetoric and personal moral -- by the administration as a hole in numerous forms. in the voice of america editorials radio free europe radio liberty broadcasts articles in the united states information agency published magazines targeted at certain populations, on the u.s. aid billboards on site outside the u.s. embassy in moscow, in american diplomat addresses at

various international forums, the distribution of books to soviet audiences, there is a recent book that just came out on how the cia distributed dr. chicago comment and its influence and so on. to quote a some columnist from the economy is a couple weeks ago, quote, for all its flaws and missteps america represents not just economic and military might but an ideal to aspire to in a way that china does not and when american leaders appeared to give less weight to that ideal they not only diminish america's attractions, they also lend more credence to the idea of its relative economic and military decline, end of quote. the rest of the world recognizes the virtues of the west and arthur/insurer march when chinese students tried and died

for democracy in kiev and square they brought with them not representations of confucius or buddha but a model of the statue of liberty. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for these incisive commentss and insights. we have time for a few questions. if you raise your hand and wish to direct a particular member of the panel, do so. >> thank you for being here. i agree with all of you. my question goes to the characterization of islam and islamic extremism. i remember on 9/11, or 9/12 when president bush said this is not an attack, we are not enemies of islam, we are only against a

small percentage of islamic extremists, i knew for a fact that he didn't believe that because the bush administration didn't act on that mythologies. the form of diplomat it was a good tactical strategy at the very beginning of what everyone knew would be a long war. as you pointed out our current administration does believe comment and there is an enormous pressure now toward the political correctness that islam is a peaceful religion. i know something about the koran. you can find peaceful mentions, but basically as you say, islam and islamic terrorism feed on each other and all you had to do was find the world wide polls of september of 2001 that show how

many muslims around the world supported the attack on the united states. my question is given all these years of political correctness given the kinds of things the yale muslim students association were saying in their fortunate the unsuccessful attempt to squash all the's appearance at yale, how long is it going to take? what will it take to convince the american people, to understand where we are going? you mentioned it took 30 years after 1917, 40 years for americans to understand soviet communism. i don't think we can wait 40 years for americans to understand the true nature of islam and islamic extremism. what will it take?

>> i think the distinction might be a necessary fiction for political leaders but it doesn't hold out water, you are absolutely right. in fact i think the american public is better informed than it was ten years ago and i don't think they by the administration's line about islam being a religion of peace. how can we get them mobilized? how can we get success -- successive administrations to wake up to this reality? i am not certain but an assessment within the republican party, they also don't buy into this idea of islam being hijacked by a minority of islamists as michele bachman and others, all so alan west is no

longer in congress but is of former house of representatives but i have known apart from people like me continuing to write books giving talks, i have no grand strategy for it. >> i do think you have to distinguish between islam and islam extremism. i don't have the figures but there are obviously millions, hundreds of millions of people who are islamic and practice that faith peacefully. they may support terrorism but that is an important distinction to make. in tunisia and indonesia is the world's largest islamic democracy 200 million people. we can't ascribed these views to the majority of people living in that country. i think that is the case for

many islamic countries around the world and i think we have to be careful in distinguishing between those who seek to use violence against civilians who enact their political agenda, islamists, and the many if not most people who identify as muslims and joy don't support similar tactics. i don't think you can say every person who is a member of the muslim faith is a potential terrorist. >> i think if you look at the large numbers, if there are 1 billion muslims in the world and only 1% are sympathetic you are talking 1 million people. the answer to when do we wake up? my guess it will be -- 10 million, imus thinking of 1%. these math majors.

one of two ways people will wake up. one, there will be another terrorist attack which i think is likely. what kind? who knows? the other will be there's a 30 year war coming andy will be she have versus sunnis, the shiites in iran, the government in baghdad, what is left of iraq and shiite militia is there and what will be a fertile crowd, she 8 crescent will go all the way from tehran to damascus. that will be opposed by isis and sunni, various sunni groups, radical sunni groups, al qaeda on this front, isis, any moderates in the middle are squished in the middle and if there's a 30 year war it will dawn on people in the rest of the world that maybe there's something to both sides of the religion but most likely it will be another terrorist attack. that is inevitable.

>> thank you all for coming. is it on now? so i guess a more theoretical question perhaps this is unhelpful but in framing the way conservatives are split on this issue, and there seems to be a division among the practical question of only considering foreign policy in a sense of what is best for the nation. this is of more libertarian approach. also being concerned about setting the precedent of a supernational focus on human rights being the main concern versus seeing a moral obligation to carry forth the message of liberty to the world and basically in our power and opportunity to do good things for the international community,

the christians in syria, the people who are under the authoritarian regimes. is this serious attention is that needs to be confronted within conservatism these two approaches to foreign policy? how should we frame this issue? >> i would love to answer that. i think there's a civil war coming in the republican party or conservative movement. you expressed it very well intervention versus non intervention. by way of example i will be the chairman of the national security foreign policy committee. this was the conference in late february in washington and i try hard to get people from -- make a big chance of all people from the john mccain wing whose a we need to get involved, go back into iraq and we may need 20,000 troops in iraq to the rand paul wing that says not at all and everybody else in between. it is not an unusual debate.

when i was in the reagan administration we had the same debate. on one hand, do you want to get involved in the middle east and other areas with american military forces or do you not want to get involved in those areas and may use economic warfare or other forms of pressured to get the results you want? it is a division that has always been in the conservative movement. get paid for government we have no place we are fighting over but it will be a major and i think you will probably be the major region in the republican primaries because republicans agree on everything else, cut taxes, less government, maybe there is disagreement on immigration but the national security issue is the one where there will be a very wide debate because flash forward to a year from now, iran will be a nuclear state, the middle east will still be at war and who knows where we will be in the middle of that war but there will be increased conflict in europe and james is absolutely right, estonia is next so you will see

a roiling world in the sense of conflict. >> i disagree that this is going to be a big play within the party. the statements of rand paul over the past year, he has been all over the place. the is devolving. >> the is really -- >> at the end of the day the republican party is the party of -- he realized that. if you follow his public statements on isis, literally over the week the first journalist was the canada was like night and day. he had to attune his views, he did a complete 180. personally i think rand paul is similar to his father in his world outlook but lot smarter and understanding he can't lead the free flag fly all the time because he wants to be president of the united states. i think this rand paul -- he

hired a mainstream adviser like richard burt, the former head of the international republican institute but i don't think most conservative republican primary voters are going to agree with what rand paul is presenting. >> i disagree. >> time for one more question. >> i have a question, you mention a problem in china's future growth will be the aging population. do you think there is a way to prevent that problem or tackle it while keeping in mind there population growth issues? >> the democratic thing is definite but in there -- they have a fissure between a more militant militarist armed forces community and nationalism and in china the religion is gone.

communism is gone as a religion. in a late 70s, the religion has been get rich, make money digit is good to make money and that is slowing down. there is no glue holding them together except nationalism. the chip on your shoulder of we used to be great we are great again, why doesn't anybody recognize that and you are starting to see it in territorial expansion. they are heading to a place where there will be a lot of internal and domestic problems, and not just demographic but aging population but expansion is in. last time someone in that part of the world tried that, japan. the other parts of that region, southeast asia, asia, were kind of weekend couldn't challenge it but i don't think china does this without having real blow back from countries in the region who can militarize, nuclearize or challenge the chinese so my concern on the

rising china, you prevent a rise in china from being an aggressive rise in china that is more to them that it is to us. >> we think the panelists for these remarkable presentations. [applause] ♪ [applause] >> just a quick note. with those who are as vped to the dinner and reception begins at 6:30. thanks, everyone. [inaudible conversations] >> is there a nonfiction author or boat you like to see featured on booktv? send an e-mail to booktv@c-span.org. tweet us at booktv or post it on

facebook.com/booktv. >> jane harris talks about the military's use of cyberspace to wage war. discusses the involvement of private companies like google and microsoft in this fifth domain of warfare. this hour-long program starts now on booktv. .. this is harris' second book "the watchers, the rise of america's surveillance state" won the new york public library's book award for