over 8,200 new jobs in my state, yet here we are is a program that if you look at what james baucus, the former chief judge on the highest international tribunal of world trade has said, a former member of congress, this program will result not just in a trade war but also a lawsuit in the -- and the u.s. will lose. not only will we lose taxpayer dollars by not having a vote on this program wasting money but we will also create an unnecessary trade barrier that could impede future trade agreements and american jobs that can be created. so i want to offer my support for this amendment and i do believe we should have a vote on this. why wouldn't we have a vote on a program that is demonstrated by nine g.a.o. reports to be wasteful wasting millions of dollars that could go to pay down our debt, that could go for programs that are

worthwhile and yet here we are, we can't even get a vote. i share my colleagues' concern. i thank senator mccain and senator shaheen for bringing this important amendment forward, and i hope we will have a vote to eliminate the wasteful money going into the usda inspection regime of catfish. how many times do we need our catfish inspected? it's absurd and time to end this waste and quit wasting taxpayer dollars. thank you mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: first a bit of housekeeping. mr. president, i have nine unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. wicker: thank you mr. president. and now with regard to the issue at hand, i understand senator

wyden has priority recognition at this time and i've been informed that he does not object to me entering into the debate at this moment. may i proceed on this amendment? the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. wicker: thank you very much. let me tell you a couple of things that this mccain amendment would do. for one thing it's been in the farm bill in 2008, it's currently -- the current move to change the inspection from f.d.a. to the department of agriculture is in the current farm bill, and it's about to take place. so it would revisit the last two farm bills. i don't think we should be doing that in a trade promotion authority piece of legislation. also, it is absolutely not duplicative. it can be said on the floor of the senate a hundred times but

the fact is that the usda catfish inspection program is not duplicative. it transfers inspection from f.d.a. to usda and usda has testified before congress that when the program is operational, as it is about to be the f.d.a. program would be eliminated. so why move it from f.d.a. to usda? and here's the reason -- it is true that there are a few of us who grow in farms under controlled situations most of the catfish produced in the united states. the state of mississippi the state of arkansas, you'll hear from my distinguished colleagues from arkansas and mississippi in a few moments, i hope. but what this is about the food safety for americans in 50 states who deserve to know that the fish they are eating, that the product they are eating is

unadulterated. here are the facts -- under the current f.d.a. program only about 2% of the billions of pounds of imported catfish are inspected. only about 2%. the other 98% of this large quantity come in uninspected. this gives me pause as a consumer. it should give directs of all 50 states pause that 98% comes in without inspection. but here's what we do know about the 2% we look at under the f.d.a. program. an alarming volume of the catfish inspected by f.d.a. already failed to meet standards. they failed to meet consumer safety standards. many overseas productions are simply not operated under the sanitary conditions that we

insist upon in the united states with our farm-raised catfish. the f.d.a. program does not ensure that trade partners have sufficient health standards nor does it inspect any overseas aquaculture operations. they don't go over to vietnam and look at the operation there and see the safety standards that cause the health risks. so what kind of health risks are we talking about mr. president? we're talking about cancer. and i have in my hand a page from a draft rule by the department of agriculture dated february 10, 2009, from the food safety and inspection service. now, it turns out -- and g.a.o. has been mentioned here, mr. president. turns out that g.a.o. got o.m.b. to ask the ffis to rework this statement and to make it a

little softer so we wouldn't go so hard on inspected -- on imported vietnamese catfish. but here's what the report that's now been buried says, and i will quote from the report of the department of agriculture. whether or not the agency used random or risk-based samplings applying the food safety inspection service program to imported catfish yielded a reduction of approximately 175,000 lifetime cancers. 175,000 lifetime cancers for americans. i want that kind of reduction in carcinogens coming into the united states and.-- acute toxicities using random sampling yielded a reduction of

91,800,000 exposures to antimicrobials and 23 million heavy metal exposures. we're talking about carcinogens, we're talking about improper antimicrobials that the usda program would catch and over 23 million exposures to heavy metals that don't need in the united states. using risk-based sampling yielded a reduction of 95 million exposures to antimicrobials. we we're talking -- so we're talking about a program that is not going to be duplicative because it's going to move, according to the last two farm bills, from f.d.a. to usda. so there will be no duplication, this excessive government waste we've heard about will not exist but we will have better safety for the

consumers of the united states of america and that's why we don't need to revisit this issue, that's why the mccain amendment should be rejected and that's why we should take every precaution that we can to protect the american consumer, whether in their home kitchens or in restaurants. i thank you and i yield the floor, perhaps other of my colleagues would like to address this issue. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. cochran: mr. president the senate has made clear the authority of the u.s. department of agriculture for imported catfish inspection. it has been debated and resolved in two previous farm bills

first in 2008, again in 2014. usda catfish inspection is about protecting the health and safety of american consumers. the 2008 and 2014 farm bills required catfish inspection responsibilities to be transferred from the food and drug administration to the usda food safety and inspection service upon publication of final regulations. need for this regulatory clarification is clear. american consumers could be exposed to dangerous chemical and unapproved drugs in the imported catfish they eat. according to the government accountability office, about half of the seafood imported into the united states comes

from farm-raised fish. fish grown in confined areas have been shown to contain bacterial inspections. f.d.a.'s oversight program to ensure the safety of imported seafood from residues of unapproved drugs is limited especially as compared with the practices of other developed countries. according to the department of agriculture, and other federal agencies the food and drug administration inexpects only 1% of all imported seafood products. this is just not acceptable. the u.s. department of agriculture, on the other hand, inexpects 100% of farm-raised meat products that enter the country, which illustrates why the department of agriculture is the appropriate agency for farm-raised catfish inspections.

following enactment of the catfish mandate in the 2008 farm bill the department of agriculture conducted risk assessments on the dangers of exposure to foreign agriculture drugs and determined that moving catfish inspection under the usda inspection system would result in a reduction of 175,000 lifetime cancers 95,000 -- 95 million exposures to antimicrobials and 23 million heavy metal exposures. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the draft rule from the department of agriculture containing this information be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cochran: the catfish inspection program will enhance consumers' safety, but it will

not result in duplication activities by u.s. government agencies. responsible issuance of final regulations, catfish inspection responsibilities will be transferred to and not shared with the department of agriculture. in order to address perceived concerns regarding duplication a provision was included in the 2014 farm bill that required the f.d.a. and usda to enter into a memorandum of understanding to establish clear jurisdictional boundaries. mr. president, we consider that this is a time to resolve this issue and put this matter at rest. international equivalence is a concept that originated with the w.t.o. it's regarded as a way to encourage the development of international food safety

standards, and that will help this issue to be balanced fairly among all members and facilitate our trade with other countries. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. i rise to speak concerning the portman-stabenow amendment but first of all would like to -- would like to say a word in support of the efforts of senator cochran and senator wicker as the partner with senator cochran in the 2014 farm bill i support their position as it relates to the catfish provision, hopefully we'll be able to maintain that. i would ask unanimous consent to add senator hirono as a cosponsor of amendment number 1299. the presiding officer: without objection.

ms. stabenow: thank you very much mr. president. i also would ask unanimous consent to submit to the record a letter dated september 23, 2013 signed by 60 united states senators that calls on the administration to include strong and enforceable currency provisions in all future trade agreements. i'd like to submit this for the record mr. president. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. stabenow: thank you very much. and before speaking specifically to our amendment i want to also indicate that there are a number of very important amendments coming before us on this open debate process i'm pleased we have a number of amendments pending that hopefully will be offered and voted on that relate to other very important topics, one of those is an amendment currently pending led by senator brown, i'm pleased to be a cosponsor of it that would clarify the process for new countries to join the trans-pacific partnership to

ensure that additional countries, including china cannot join the agreement without congressional approval. and so i hope we will get a vote on that, and that certainly is part of this whole discussion on currency manipulation when we look at asia, we look at japan now, we look at china. so this is an important amendment. i -- i also want to indicate that -- i have terrific support for -- respect i should say for our chairman of the finance committee. i want to address an amendment i believe that will be offered as a side by side to the portman-stabenow amendment and just urge colleagues to reject what is essentially nothing more than a rewrite of pretty much the same weak language that exists in the underlying bill. it changes some words around. it basically would not put us on record as 60 members of the

united states senate have said to make sure that we have enforceable currency provisions in any trade agreement moving forward. and at this point in time when we look at currency manipulation it's the most significant 21st century trade barrier there is, and to quote the vice president of international government affairs for ford motor company and "the wall street journal," currency manipulation is the mother of all trade barriers. that's it. we can compete with any car manufacturer in the world but we can't compete with the bank of japan. so we want our businesses, we want our workers to have a level playing field and a global economy. when we are giving instructions, giving up the right to amend the trans-pacific partnership through this fast-track process 40 emerson of the global

economy, we have the right and obligation mr. president to make sure we have a negotiating principle in there. we're not mandating exactly what it looks like. we're just saying a negotiating principle that addresses the number-one trade barrier right now to american businesses, which is currency manipulation. by some estimates it has cost the united states five million jobs and if we don't address it in a reasonable way, it will cost us millions more. our people, our workers our businesses are the best in the world. we know that, but they have to have a level playing field. and currency manipulation is cheating, plain and simple. a strong u.s. dollar against a weak foreign currency, particularly one that is artificially weak due to

government manipulation means that foreign products are cheaper here and u.s. products are more expensive there. one u.s. automaker estimates the weak yen gives japanese competitors anywhere from $6,000 to $11,000 advantage in the price of a car. not because of anything they're doing other than cheating by manipulating their currency. it's hard to compete with those kinds of numbers. $6,000 to $11,000 difference in the price of an automobile. now, there was at one point where it was calculated that one of the japanese company's entire profit on a vehicle was coming from currency manipulation. and frankly mr. president, this is not about competing between the u.s. going into japan. that has also been a red herring. it's about the united states and

japan competing against each other in a global economy for the business of the developing countries. for instance, we are talking about brazil having 200 million people. we are competing for that business. india has a population of 1.2 billion people. we are competing. japan and the united states for everything in between everything else. that's what this is about and whether or not they're going to continue to be able to cheat. it's also not just the auto industry. it's other manufacturers as well. if you're making washing machines if you're making all kinds of equipment and refrigerators and all of the other things that we make and create good middle-class jobs here in america. it also affects agriculture anything that impacts the distortions in the economy

affects agriculture and every other part of the economy. so what we are asking for is something very simple and straightforward, very simple, which is just as we have negotiating objectives in the t.p.a. fast-track, for the environment, for labor standards, for intellectual property rights, we should have a negotiating objective that's enforceable regarding currency manipulation. so we're not suggesting what that would look like in a trade agreement any more than we are specifying exactly what the other provisions would look like. we are saying it's important enough that if we're giving up our right to amend the trade agreement, we are giving fast-track authority it's the number-one trade distortion -- trade barrier right now in terms

of the global marketplace we should make sure that there is a negotiating principle there. and we say that it is consistent with existing international monetary fund commitments and it does not affect domestic monetary policy. i've heard this over and over again, that somehow what we do to the fed is impacted. that is not accurate and we are looking in fact at 180 countries that signed up under the international monetary fund, signing up we won't manipulate our currency. and yet even though that has happened, we have seen in fact in the case of e.p.a. that they for the last 25 years have manipulated their currency 376 times. we should say enough is enough. now, i also understand that we are hearing from the administration and by the way i

am very supportive of their efforts over this current administration's time on trade enforcement efforts. they've upon a lot of excellent cases. i want to commend them for that. i disagree with them on this one provision, because they are saying somehow, first of all japan is no longer manipulating the currency, bank of japan. okay fine. but if we put in a negotiating objective into fast-track authority, japan will walk away. why would they walk away if they're not doing it anymore? maybe they want to do it again right after we sign the t.p.p. maybe they will be back again and it will be 377 times. if they aren't doing it anymore why should they care? it makes no sense. so either we can trust them and they're no longer manipulating their currency or we can't trust

them and we need this provision. it can't be both and right now what they're talking about makes no sense. again, we are not talking about domestic policy. we're talking about direct intervention in foreign currency markets and that if there is direct intervention in foreign currency markets that we would like to see meaningful consequences that fit with the i.m.f. definitions that countries have all signed up saying we will not manipulate our currency and that it should comply with w.t.o. enforcement like we do for every other trade-distraffic reporting policy every other trade barrier. this is actually very straightforward. i'm very surprised that it has not been accepted, and frankly mr. president, i would have gone

farther in the finance committee. i had an amendment i'd love to do which says that t.p.p. doesn't get fast-track authority unless it's clear that there is strong enforceable provisions on currency in the agreement. this doesn't say that. this is a reasonable middle ground to for the first time say currency manipulation is important. it's a negotiating principle and we need flexibility in terms of how that is designed, just as we do with other provisions. we have strong bipartisan support for this amendment and i want to thank senators brown and warren and senator burr and casey and schumer and graham and shaheen and manchin klobuchar collins, baldwin hirono, franken, menendez and heitkamp for understanding and supporting this. we have other support as well. i want to thank senator graham.

he made a comment because we care deeply, we were so pleased to get the schumer-graham-brown- stabenow and others effort in the customs bill related to china and currency, which is so important and which we also need to get all the way to the president's desk. but we know that if we don't put language in the negotiating document we give to the white house, then we are not really serious. and senator graham said this amendment is the real deal. that's firing with real bullets. so if we're serious if the 60 people who signed the letter are serious -- and i hope and believe we are -- then we need to make sure that the negotiating position that we take is to ask and to direct the administration to put this in the final negotiations on t.p.p.

we have, as i mentioned before, enforceable standards language on labor and environment and intellectual property rights. this is not complicated to make sure that we're clear on currency manipulation. the i.m.f. has rules about what is and what is not direct currency manipulation. they're clear rules o 187 countries in addition to japan have already signed up saying they'll abide by that definition we just don't enforce it. and we've lost millions of jobs because of it. and again japan after signing that has intervened, the bank of japan has intervened 376 times

in the last 25 years. so we're being asked to rely on a handshake good-faith assurances that there won't be 377, but we're being told that if we even put language requiring a negotiating principle into this document, that somehow japan will walk away. mr. president, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. we have a responsibility if we're giving up our rights to amend the document, to amend a trade agreement if we're giving up our rights to require a supermajority vote in congress, if we're doing that, we have a responsibility to the people we represent to make sure that we have given the clearest possible

negotiating objectives to the administration as to what we expect to be in a trade agreement. that's what t.p.a.'s all about. and if in fact currency manipulation is the mother of all trade barriers, why in the world would we not make it clear that currency manipulation should be a clear negotiating objective for the united states of america? let me just say again we can compete with anybody and win. our workers our businesses, our innovation can compete with anybody and win but it's up to us and congress, working with the white house to make sure the rules are fair. i would hope colleagues would join us in passing the

portman-stabenow amendment to make it clear we understand in a global economy what's at stake and that we're going to vote on the side of american businesses and american workers. thank you mr. president. the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m.

>> we invite you to weigh in at facebook.com/cspan or on twitter using the handle at c-span. next look at recent wargames focus on policy and strategy by the u.s. army and air force now the lessons learned could be applied to relations with russia. this is from a recent discussion posted monday by the center for strategic and international studies.

>> good morning. welcome to csis the center for strategic and international studies. my name is andrew kuchins i am a director of the russia and eurasia program here at csis and i'm delighted to present the program in cooperation with the u.s. army war college scholars, carlisle scholar's program. to talk about the cooperation to competition, the future of u.s.-russian relations. russian aggression in 2014 cost a lot of us -- caught a lot of us off guard forcing reevaluation of u.s. policy towards russia. russian jews nonlinear approaches operating just beneath traditional threshold to take the full events of u.s. and nato policy limitations. in light of this strategic challenge members of the carlisle scholar's program at the u.s. army war college conducted a wargame last month in the middle of april. unfortunately, i was not able to

participate myself because i was in moscow at a conference organized by the russian ministry of defense. and in the wargames they revealed for key considerations for the future policy and strategy. this panel and presentation will present the findings from that wargames and also from an assessment study that the scholars program conducted in preparation for the exercise that is presented by the panelists are their own and should not be applied to be those of their sponsoring service, the u.s. army u.s. army war college. i will briefly introduce our panelists today and in your material you have a full biography but directly to my right is colonel gert-jan kooij from the royal netherlands army. he is a colonel in the royal netherlands army and is a fellow at the u.s. army war college.

lieutenant joe hilbert is just you is right and he career army field artillery officer and has experience supporting light airborne armor and special operations forces. and directly to joe's right is dr. james mcnaughton who earned his ph.d in european history from the johns hopkins university. i guess we are co-alumni, johns hopkins, or in baltimore? home campus, okay. the mother. from the mothership. and he served as staff a stripper civil army and joint headquarters. and directly to his right is lieutenant colonel christopher lay c-130s master navigator of u.s. army u.s. air force weapons school graduate commit graduate from u.s. army u.s.

air force academy, excuse me christopher. i know these mixup in services can be a little touchy. with a bs in u.s. history and earned an m.a. in diplomatic history from the university of central arkansas. and, finally, to my far right less than hardly least is lieutenant colonel karen briggman, strategic intelligence officer with military intelligence experience ranging from the tactical to the strategic level. so with that let me turn the floor over to colonel kooij to introduce the program. >> thank you very much for hosting us today here. good morning to everybody. i will explain a little bit about where we come from and why we are sitting on the table so what led to this. first of all we apply six students from u.s. army war college, the sixth students was already moving to his new assignment in europe so he couldn't hear. so we are actually five of six.

we are in the u.s. army war college but we are in special program which called the carlisle scholar program. that scholar program is the idea behind it is we do core curriculum and foremost instead of eight to nine months just a little bit. so we've got more time to do research, engagement with think tanks or state department has been there as well and to do more research. we want to do our own. we are really motivated to do so that's part of the program. so we started in october 2014 from and i won't go through all the steps in this light that we started october 14 to study into russia and the relationship we started relationship with europe -- the russian actually. the link and a broken foot is already at the u.s. army war college. and over time we had meetings

with many respected experts from think tanks, from universities from dod state department as well. those meetings were to confirm and to improve and to refine our ideas are instant of the russian system. that's what we did over time. so the wargame was actually a month ago but prior to that we had many meetings in washington with think tanks to discuss our view on what we thought the russian system was like. we used what we call operational design. it's a way to frame the environment, to reframe the problem and to refrain the approach to the system. we started with first understanding the problem so i looked into putin's strategy and try to figure that out and we used ways and means to define

the also look for tensions within the system the current russian system and fractures that are in the system as well. and for the divided we used visualization of the russian bear and the russian bear with its own dna and he is moving through a forest and he hears, control that makes a move move counter to the bare. so that's what we used to frame the environment, so to see. and then we framed some coaches and those approaches are approaches on how to influence the russian system to those approaches led to the wargame that we did in april. >> thanks. as mentioned, once we completed the process of design and collaboration with the different organizations you saw on the

chart we thought it would be good to take this designed and tested. as close as we could get to a random field experiment. in our case that would be a wargame. so what you see on this light in front of you is how we laid that out. our first problem statement when you look at the national security strategy and a lot of our other strategic documents we talked a great deal about strengthening our enduring alliance with europe. but as the question within, given that, how should the u.s. then consider its policy towards russia? how could that impact it? so the purpose of the event was to come up with policy considerations. easy some of the other objectives was final comment of a research question being what kind of insights can regain that we could then use to inform policymakers? this was the methodology. as gert-jan mentioned we met with several do doing folks along the way in building a net assessment, and we've been to

those engagements and invited people with whom we engaged in others to come to call and participate in the 20. we divided into three teams russia team a u.s. team and then we had a white cell or a control group. the way to working with worked we started with a large group session. we present our assessment of the russian system. we presented what we currently understood u.s. policy toward russia to be and it would let the russia team and the u.s. team go to the breakout rooms and they need to refine or confirm what had just been presented to build what would be the baseline for going forward. in each case we told each of the used intensities of members of the national scared counsel, advice to the president. in the same thing for the russian team consider yourselves advisors to president putin. we brought them back in to the plenary session to each site had an opportunity to brief the other and then they had a chance for clarification, questions of

clarification from one side or the other analysis will the white cell or the control group. once they have baseline that policy going into the game we been provided what we call a strategic and check or a scenario that each side would have to deal with. what we found was that was not a lot of movement from the way we have designed the russian system on the way we presented you with policy so we felt like we have a good baseline going in, and after they came into the session a pretty good refinement. so we started with the first senator, the two teams would go to the breakout rooms a russia team and the u.s. team. they would confirm a policy that they had. if it was about what changes did you need to make and then will be there strategic approach going forward given this new requirement or given this scenario? they then came back into the larger group, briefed each other and it was kind of a courtroom type setting. once i would brief, the others

have agreed and then there would be allowed to provide counter argument back and forth and then the white cell would ask questions for clarification. once that was complete, we didn't issued the next inject and the russian and u.s. teams went away. the white cell would go to a debriefing process. what did they do that was feasible not feasible how do they understand and that's how we gather that data to we repeated the project through five different injects. this is a scenario that we went through with her strategic in state at again if want to see a secure, stable and prosperous europe. that aligns with the nation is pretty strategy and aligns with what we think would be our view of europe and a russia that acts responsibly on its territorial sovereignty. these are the five different scenarios. a rapid movement towards independence and europe. if europe could be completely energy independent from russia with that look like and how

would both sides react with the second one probably more plausible and maybe even more urgent is expansion of the ukrainian conflict to include to go beyond the line of control if there was an expansion in other regions of interest, a strategic miscalculation of sorts. the third move was uncontrollable -- we characterized whose use of nationalization as weaponization but what happens when he loses control of that nationalism? we thought of him falling off the bear or the bear takes off on its own i've been to both sides react? the fourth turn you see this was not meant to be a coup of sorts but effectively the way we structure that is putin has come is the longer in power. how does the use interpreted but how do these advisors, what would you advise to know what is left and how to go forward with

it. the final turn getting the on crisis is much what does each side, what do they want to see from the other? both from the russian side and then from the u.s. side? in the end these were the considerations after distilling the data we got from both sides. these were before key considerations that we saw. the first one compete with russia to maintain international order. it sounds counterintuitive talk a lot about cooperate weekend weekend but will the delegates in each turn as of the uscybercom and look for areas of cooperation the russian cybercom and competitively. at one point we had one participant said we're in an environment where we are competitive, we should compete to compete when you must compete and cooperate when you can cooperate. so while you would think order would come through cooperation in this case the competition has got to be resolved first.

the second one was just clued articulated the position toward russia, eastern europe and the ukraine. when he was a team would come in and he briefly often found -- debriefed, we found that there was ambiguity toward each of those to the players and that was one of the other pieces that needed to come out. the policy had to be clear in regard to each. the third challenge russia and the competition of ideas and influence, that was a consistent comment from the white cell was the u.s. teams lack of a good information policy or information strategy rather. and in the last bullet you seek him somewhat a blinding flash will be obvious but with two election cycles coming about in the u.s. and with russia in 2018 clearly a timeline needs to be leveraged we felt like from president putin to maintain power. one of of the comment was when you do it for what is going to be crimea 2017. so while we don't, by no means

is it an attempt to influence u.s. national election but whatever policy is built it's going to have to survive both our own national election but in be implemented by a new administration going forward toward and stability to an cycle on the russian side. so with that i will pass up to doctor macnaughton was one of the observers of the u.s. team. >> thank you, joe. i had the opportunity to be a notetaker sitting in and listening to the u.s. teams discussions over two days of the wargame, and i just want to start with two general observations and forward to questions and discussion after our introductory remarks. and my observations will are on .1 and point to that you see on the screen. having watched a mix of people try to come up with the u.s. policy or what the policy would

be with some of these hypothetical situations, it was a very interesting to find out that really they were confronting a sea change in u.s. policy, and it was clear to them that something had changed in the international environment. the tough part was figuring out what to do about that. they realized that for the past two decades at least our relations with russia in general based on the concept that we would encourage russia to become a normal country within the european security architecture, the european community, and that russia would be encouraged to play by the rules and use could treat them as they treat any other regional power around the world. after the seizure of crimea and then when the conflict erupted in eastern ukraine it became very clear that that set of assumptions was no longer valid.

so everyone can see that sea change. the hard part among the players who were trying to formulate in this academic environment, why should u.s. policy be, was defeated out how to compete with russia. it's very difficult to jettison those set of assumptions and longer-range policies that the u.s. had worked with for many, many years. but we considered alternative futures within the wargame, and it became clear that a lease for the next several years the u.s. would have to be would have to manage strategic competition with russia rather than simply treat russia as another normal country in the environment. the second general observations i would like to start with is that it's easy to say that the training needs to articulate a more clear position toward russia and eastern europe and ukraine, but there's some severe challenges we discovered.

anjo is absolute correct that the u.s. team ended up being more reactive -- and, joe -- than proactive as it struggled to balance several major sets of considerations. the united states policy is not developed simpler and washington, d.c. we must take into account our nato allies and other partners in other countries in the region which means a great deal of consensus building and discussions before a policy can be in fact clearly stated by our leaders. a secondary we have challenges in developing the policy consensus is the lack of clarity on how rush is going to respond. as we worked through hypothetical we could do this, put troops in the baltics, we could send armaments, lethal equipment to the ukrainians, we could tighten sanctions.

at each step we just lacked an understanding of the russian system to where we felt comfortable that if we do this we're pretty sure russia will do that. so the really muddied the postwar as well, made it difficult to achieve a consensus. finally, there are other areas of england agreed on that we really we very strongly want to continue to cooperate with russia. in areas such as the discussions over the iranian nuclear program. this is something quite important for very valid reasons that we need russian cooperation to continue. so how do we change the situation where managing strategic competition while maintaining these areas of cooperation with russia? it took a lot of time and often time the result was quite messy when it came time to go into the plenary session and said okay, u.s. team now what you come up with as far as a policy?

that was one of our great challenges. i will turn to my colleague, chris latham will toggle a bit about what he saw while observing the russian team -- christopher lay -- thanks, jim. as jim fallujah i was on the directing, an analyst, observer. we must but none of this year where participants during the wargame. we facilitated, observed, we took notes which a lot is a unique vantage point i would daresay, without any sort of our predispositions since we've been doing this since october. i was just a with a couple of general comments and we can speak a little bit more fidelity or some granularity during the q&a treated. but i will say on hold to the today working rush was able to operate with quite a bit more strategic flexibility. had bid could more pashtun had a

good bit more. the russian cannot a lot more options, less constrained by international norms, laws alliances. for instance, during one of our terms rush was able to deploy armor and troops along the border. this was a defensive posture rather than what was wasn't overtly oppressive move. which leads me to my second point. rush operates with a far more robust international information operations campaign. they are i am was remarked by one of the participants as more or less weaponize propaganda. oftentimes rush was able to spin a particular noted that the west did not easily countered if they did take into account it takes a good bit of the town to gather the facts and figures. leading to the first point from the russian team could have had more flexibility.

lastly, it was an interesting a rush of no desire and pashtun they decided for the conflict over the two-day wargame that they could escalate at well. they can provide them leveraging for the west in order to argue for our reducing economic sanctions or moving troops or forces around as they wheeled. again we can speak a little more fidelity to our q&a period but without i will pass it over to, karen, you can offer some more insight. >> i was also on the red team with chris and i observed two key themes about the working. the first being the competitive attitude of russian decision-making towards u.s. and nato policies and within the region. the russia team saw strategic flexibility will, development of clear long-term policy untested integration of what they called tools.

designed to seize opportunities as they arise. the russian team saw long-term strategy as ineffective in this complex strategic environment that they're operating in why spend time developing this strategy that we may never use? let's spend our efforts on tools that allows the strategic flexible and also surprise. those tools were frozen conflicts, bilateral agreements doctor economic ills and the development of proxy forces which we've seen used recently. as one player summed it up one player summed up russia's intentions existing fleet and we use this quote quite often. he said the russia team plays to win while the u.s. played not to lose. said diplomatic posturing and little impact on the russian behavior throughout the game. as they try to determine the

best way to characterize president putin as a long-term strategist, is a tactician, what you see? they decided that putin was more of a chess player. he studies the board and improvises as needed. hence the need for tools long-term strategy. the second observation was the russian team decision-making process was driven mostly by the desire to maintain power. and second, the return of russian preeminence. and every discussion and every decision and the desire to maintain, perpetuate and reserve the system was evident. while the team was very confident that putin would be in power or as the president for years to come but always considered that position when making decisions. they didn't want to jeopardize

his upcoming elections. that came up in a discussion the we have this election cycle coming up, it's in sync with the u.s. elections let's not do anything that puts that would put president putin at risk. and then finally taking his russian propaganda to ensure that perception within the russian population was one that russian greatness was on the rise, and that the putin regime was returning russia to its rightful place on the global landscape and also of course to undermine u.s. and nato actions in the region. and with that i would a covert to gert-jan. >> thank you come again. it was during the working i was actually the facilitator 14 white so we could sit a little bit back and see both teams coming back from the small rooms and they were presenting their new policy or the reaction. and there were some part repeating what has already been said there is some tea take ways that it took from there and

my team consisted mostly of western and eastern european international fellows, so that was sometimes the european cup how do you say that? look on the situation, so to see. like part repeating previous schemes always came back and they were kind of struggling with how to deal with the situation. because they were always reacting and defensive and to want play within the international rules so they were always like waiting for the other side, what will happen. so they were struggling with their position all the time to whereas the russians could play more savvy i would say, they were always proactive and more on the offensive but it was okay, we will try something new and look what happens. so that was the big difference between the two sides. we all agree where it comes from or understand, but it's just an occupation.

the second one, second take wickham everybody talks but made all the time. we should have a united nato on this and united nato and have consensus. the question is are we ever going to get that was 28 countries on one line. that was one of the things we saw and again. maybe it's more come is wiser to just address a couple of countries within nato and create a coalition of the willing. those willing will probably become dependent on the subject 22, 24 of the 20 countries. that's maybe all you need. so that's what was one of the takeaways we got from the wargame, looking from team white. and without andy. >> well, really interesting exercise. would love to more -- to know more about genetics has become something that needs to be widely done without russia.

personally over the last three weeks i have spent more than half of my time in various scenarios exercises, four of them actually. one of them conducted by the joint force looking out to changes in human geography and engineering technology, and also world order account of the year 2035, the applications for the joint force. steve was also there for four days with me at andrews air force base two weeks ago. i've also spent a couple of exercises for the national intelligence council, global trend publication look out again to the 2035. and then last friday over at the german marshall fund in a more near-term exercise of thinking about the russia, and part of the fun for me as i always get to play russia.

and i think some of the notes that we can confront his fears of greater flexibility -- we can fear on visitors greater flexible and the means, the time in which russia can act. there is constantly the number one concern is regime preservation. start there. i think it's important to think about the ukrainian conflict to date in those terms as well. there's a big domestic political aspect to them. now, one area that a lot of disagreement about looking in the near-term is whether russia is looking to expand the conflict in ukraine. now i'm interested to hear in your game russia is not. that is also my personal conclusion, but i think it's a pretty contentious issue.

we might talk about it more. now i did have an opportunity to read through your report that's come out, and we will have a link a copy of this on our website shortly. the report about what this presentation is based upon and are a couple of things i want to raise that i'd like your a little bit more from you before we turn the floor over to the audience. ..

>> to come to an agreed european security framework. and, certainly, the contestation and competition in russia is abroad, no question. when i look in different theaters though, i think it gets a lot more complicated. and i see in some places overlapping interests a good deal of overlapping interests. and two of them, to some extent would be the arctic and asia, or at least northeast asia. and you could point to others as well. and, joe you pointed out, of course that in this exercise there was the desire to maintain a certain degree of cooperation with the russians on issues that we saw extremely important. the iranian nuclear program was one where for the most part we've been able to walk and chew gum at the same time over the past 14, 15 months or so since

the conflict began. and you could point to others. for example the decommissioning of the declared decommissioning excuse me, removal from syria a and decommissioning of the declared syrian chemical weapons in the first half of 2014. a second question i had came to the point and i struggle with this question all the time, and you raised the question does putin have a grand strategy. well, i would argue that he certainly has strategic goals. now, whether that adds up to a grand strategy or what is the relationship between a grand strategy and strategic goals, i'm not i'm not sure. does the united states have strategic goals? absolutely. do we have grand strategy? i wouldn't call what we publish to be a grand strategy.

so if you could kind of, you know elaborate a little bit on what you see as the differences. because it is often said that you know, putin is a great tactician which i absolutely agree with but he's not a great strategist. and on that, i'm not sure i do agree. and third, and kind of related to this -- or the earlier point p actually -- there's the, you know it's pointed out that the united states should seek, on page 7 to seek areas cooperation with russia on a range of regional and global issues. nonetheless the return to business as usual perhaps through another rezest with russia is not -- reset with russia, is not possible in the short term. and i guess, you know, the term "reset," of course is attached to the specific historical moment for the obama administration when they came to power in january of 2009.

but i would argue that the bill clinton administration the george w. bush administration as well maybe not from day one had a strategy for -- we don't need to call it a reset, but certainly a major effort to set the u.s./russia relationship on a constructive path and to work together on many, many issues together. and i don't necessarily exclude the possibility that when the next administration comes to power in january 2017 they're going to look at the panoply of issues and challenges to u.s. national security and foreign policy and from that they're going to make a judgment about the degree to which they want to for lack of a better term have a reset with russia. now, of course it depends an awful lot about what happens between now and january 2017.

and i would postulate that what would have to happen, i think, is that the minsk ii ceasefire accords would be judged to be not in complete violation and to still be in effect, per se. and from that i think we would already be, we would already have seen significant efforts of rapprochement between europe and moscow. i mean, if i am, if we take, if we take the point that moscow is not seeking a wider conflict in ukraine then the tactic, to me, would seem to be stay below the radar of a violation of the mince k ii ceasefire accords. there's no big to offensive any

place for that matter. and with that the pressure for relieving sanctions in europe will grow significantly. you'll see some of that probably this summer, if that condition holds. more of it, i think, at the end of the year which is sort of the timing for the minsk ii cease fire acards and then even more of it -- accords and then even more of it in 2016. in which case holding together an alliance unity may be harder as we go along. another -- let me just raise two other things quickly because i'm taking up too much time but it's a quite, it's a quite good document, the report that you produced. you state that ukraine -- this is a quote -- would likely be the best place to confront russia and to send a clear message of intent capability and will. and here i just have why?

[laughter] ukraine is not a nato member. so it's the hardest it's a much harder place to send a clear message of intent and capability and will. and i think this is at the crux of the dilemma for the obama administration as well as our european allies. because we are many kind of a gray zone with ukraine. so i guess i would ask you what do you mean, to confront russia? what does that mean exactly? and why is it the best place? are you -- it sounds like, i won't put words in your mouth that you're kind of operating under a domino theory process behind this, that with success in ukraine then the russians move elsewhere. or he looks at the chessboard and decides what's the great

cannest vulnerable. and -- greatest vulnerability. and i would submit that there is an awfully large difference between undertaking some kind of hybrid or other military action against ukraine versus a baltic state or a nato, a nato member. and i think and i hope that that is a bridge too far. but, um, let's -- i i liked, i was very interested by your point of the coalition of the willing. but gert-jan, that would require a very, well, i guess to what extent would it require kind of a different rulemaking framework within nato? and what would that mean, what would it mean for nato if we're more explicitly drawing coalitions of the will from nato e? of the willing from nato?

and i think i'll stop there and give the panel some time to respond, and then we'll open up for discussion with everybody. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> so i think we're struggling taking a lot of notes there andy. that was -- [laughter] that was very good. so your first question on -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah, right. [laughter] counting on that. right. no. in terms of inherently competitive and, you know, i think you asked the question of is it, is it really competitive in the fact that there are other areas where we can cooperate or where we should cooperate, i think the challenge is that

currently the distraction of the ukraine prevents the cooperation. and so once that crisis is solved then we can go back into a cooperate i have mode. and so that con -- cooperative mode. and so that conflict or that competition overshadows a lot of those areas where we can cooperate. look at the meeting, what was it, two weeks ago between secretary kerry and putin. nothing -- we walked away saying it was good that we talked, but there were no agreements, sub instant isive agreements that came out of that meeting. and because of this competitive environment that we're in we've got to solve this one major competitive issue before i think, we'll start to see fruits in other areas of cooperate. cooperation. >> and if i may address the u.s. side of that. the systems, it's sort of an emerging view within the context of the war game was on the u.s. side that the russian system was

fundamentally different from the u.s. system. russians, as we've already mentioned, we perceived it to have much greater freedom of action but there's a degree of cronyism and corruption that was a great worry to the u.s. players and there was a, there was a sense that, you know, we didn't want to go back to the cold war. we kind of had a historical memory of the cold war, and we were glad that we got that, beyond that. so then we thought okay if it's not cold war then we're moving to normal relations. but that didn't work either conceptually. so we're kind of stuck between the two and we keep coming back, the u.s. team kept coming back to the fact that the russian regime was operating by a different set of behaviors. so that's what we meant by inherently competitive. it wasn't that we just had a dispute over a particular issue,

but there was something fundamental in the russian system that just had, it consistently is at odds with the u.s. and the west. >> so from the russian team perspective, you mentioned that the expansion of conflict in the ukraine, it was much debate on the russian team whether or not they wanted to continue to foment opposition to western actions. of course, the narrative they spun was that ukrainian crisis and the regional maladies that were subsequent to that are all of course u.s. match nations in the area -- machinations in the area. but desire to expand the conflict, there was no appetite. the separatists pushed towards mare yoaping the russian team said they will not let the separatists fail, however, the desire to create a long strategic flank on the russian army in the ukraine wasn't a

desired outcome. and you mentioned the whether or not putin is a strategic thinker versus a tactical chess player. often we saw the russia team was able to craft this particular narrative that they had. as i had mentioned during my general comments, i would throw in one of our terms. i think it was a protest in the latvia that we had, and a small eruption of conflict there in terms of protests. russia was able to amass their armor, rush to the border and defensive posturing. so this was an opportunity that we were able to observe russia operated tactically. was there a strategic desire to amass troops there? we didn't observe there. they were reacting to a opportunity that arose. that being said, at no point did

russia ever want to, i guess enter into any sort of general conflict with the west. economic sanctions, at this point -- according to the russian team -- were livable. while the ruble has been plummeting they've found they've found ways to operate within the context of the sanctions that were there. so it was a concerted fear of increasing any opportunity for the west to impose more sanctions. so that oftentimes kind of constrained to some extent, some of russia's the russian team's actions. but often times again, it was this tactical improvisation rather than sort of a mass strategy that the team operated under for the two days. >> okay. >> i'd just add that the team chose to go that route because they felt like it helped divide nato decision making. it created this tension within

nato, and so it was the tool of choice if you will. >> i'd like to just briefly andy go to one of your last points about why ukraine. and it was a sense of -- at least on the u.s. side -- that, in fact, we were hearing from some very distressed messages from our east european nato allies in the context of the war game from the estonia latvia lithuania poland and some other nato allies. but the u.s. team didn't feel that russia was ready to cross that clear bright shining line of triggering nato's article v. so, in fact though we wanted to assure our allies particularly in the baltics and particularly to encourage them to head off any possible protests or mass

mobilization of their russian ethnic minorities that might give an entree to russia to meddle further in their domestic politics, we felt that the real challenge was happening on the front doorstep of nato. and that means ukraine. obviously, there are some other countries like moldova and georgia that we were concerned about, but we felt if the u.s. simply encouraged nato e to build a wall around current nato members and say we're not going to take any cognizance of what happens beyond that, the borders of today's nato members that that would be a big mistake. and that's why we came back to the very, very the thorny problem of how to stabilize the situation in ukraine and reinforce that new government there to where it can settle its domestic differences with no outside interference.

so at least from the perspective of the u.s. team. that's why they were interested in essentially making a stand in ukraine even a though it's not a nato member at this point. >> yes. and i think that ties a little bit into the last question about nato and we threw it out there, so i think i have to answer that a little bit. karen mentioned that putin uses the tension within nato as well. we all can see that. so as long as we stay strong i mean, there are a lot of agreements that have been broken in the past already, so the baltic states if you're going to leave there we're going to be next. and whether it's gonna happen or not, it's probably this yellow or red line that they will not never cross but it's a message that you send to the countries. and that was the most important

part of it. so we all like the united consensus within nato, but we won't think -- we didn't see it happen in the game. every time that u.s. came up with a policy and thought okay, we'll choose this approach, there were some countries say yeah, we don't agree, so we move somewhere else. and by giving that to piewnt, he can use that -- to putin u he can use that to ease the tension with nato. we can say we're going to solve it with mostly nato countries. so with that, you don't give him the opportunity to use that leverage. so that's kind of where we came from. >> well let's -- it is a bear of a policy problem. there is no question of that. i didn't mean to make a bad pun. it just happened. [laughter] and, you know for me, i think, over the last 15 months -- and turn it over for questions -- there are sort of three baskets

of policy. one area, and it's the hardest area is the one that deserves the most tension, how you help ukraine. how you help ukraine survive. and it's not just military, of course it's financial, it's governance, it's everything. and, you know, we're fighting difficult odds. ukrainian management of itself over the last 20-plus years has been suboptimal, to put it mildly. but the focus of attention in washington is often the punish russia part. in ways, it's the easier part to do at least with the economic sanctions. and the middle part where i've been surprised, the united states has been so to kind of outsource the diplomacy. and i think at some point i've written about this several times over the last six months, that we need to, i think play a larger role. but let me open it up to

questions, comments, and ask right here. yes, hank. for the panelists and the audience. >> i'm hank gaffney, longtime follower of russia, deep experience in nato and still following all this in retirement after 28 years at o to sd and 23 years -- osd and 23 years at the center for naval analyses including 15 trips to russia and 16 seminars that i ran with them. and what the discussion reveals to me right now is the real big on to session is you -yard -yard -- ukraine. and i want to come back to what putin in his paranoia saw. and remember as we've decided in some discussions here, it's all putin. i can't wait to see the

discussion of how he's going to be overthrown in the booklet. but he thinks that we want ukraine and nato so we can move u.s. forces and their nuclear weapons up on his border. um and therefore do what from that, i have no idea. but, of course, we have no intention of doing that. but he thinks so. he thinks we want a naval base and we're going to move our ships there. he thinks we're going to put nuclear weapons in crimea, etc. and how do we really overcome that in our process of trying to stabilize ukraine? >> who wants to take that first easy question? [laughter] >> for our group and our net assessment i studied putin. and before this project i was not a europe analyst nor a russian follower. putin is a hard man to

understand, first of all and i agree with you, he is a paranoid man. he's an intel analyst. he thinks everyone's watching him in some corner somewhere. i'm not sure that we have the answer to that exactly. i mean, we have -- i've struggled with this a bit, but i think putin has hit his own reset button and that reset button i'm not sure has any cooperation with the west at this point. so i'm not sure that we can get past that. and we may not be able to do that diplomatically ourselves. we might have to work with that coalition of the willing. and that, that was the recurring theme in our war game is that we have these two perceptions. we have the russian perception of the u.s. that actually sees the u.s. as this declining power, we have the u.s.

perception of russia and we see it as a power in decline, and we tend to not give russia the due it believes it deserves, and now we see putin snubbing the west more and more often because of that. i think. >> if i can add, listening to the discussions of the u.s. team during the war game everyone was very hesitant to do anything to feed russian narrative. so, you know, to what extent do we provide support to the government of ukraine? to what extent do we provide support to the nato members in the baltic? we were second guessing ourself to the point of paralysis. the consensus was over the course of two days that we had to break out of that paralysis and not sit on our hands out of a fear of feeding someone's

paranoia. we had to take concrete measures that everyone would understand. someone would perhaps misunderstand or twist them for their own purposes, but the u.s. team felt that the greater risk was to do nothing. they acknowledge that there was some risk of making it look like that the u.s. was wanted to put troops into ukraine. but i think if we could just get the message across clearly in a straightforward, objective manner that we are providing trainers to the ukrainian government that the people who really want to understand what's really going on will not misinterpret that as putting a permanent nato base on russia's borders. >> just a quick comment about that question because it's one we all, we all struggle with. but there was one moment where if i were in the white house advising our president, it would

have been on february 21st of 2014. and this is the day of course, there was the political agreement signed between european foreign ministers, mr. yanukovych and the ukrainian opposition, that would call for early elections ten months later and a number of other provisions. and i recall reading that here in my office in washington and realizing that there's no way that this agreement was going to be, was going to hold, because the people in my dong would not -- agree to it. when we heard putin talk about the chronology and his decision making -- because i had one question which i wanted to ask him, you know, i'll tell you in

a second been -- but he said when the agreement was signed president obama called, and they talked about it and everything was okay. my question to him was did you receive another phone call when the agreement fell apart? because it was the time when the agreement fell apart that it was absolutely necessary to try to reassure mr. putin that, in fact, we did not want this agreement to fall apart. that it was not measures that we were taking or supporting that led to this agreement falling apart. because when the agreement fell apart -- and mr. yanukovych fled to kiev -- to me that reflected the complete destruction of mr. putin's ukraine policy. and he had to react to that. and he did in the way, in the way that he did. whether we could have prevented that i don't know. but i think what i fear is that inside our government at the

time there was probably a little bit of a feeling of we won when yanukovych fled. rather than thinking of, you know what? we've got a big problem and we need to work together try to work together with mr. putin and our european allies to try to resolve the problem in ukraine because it's very dangerous. but i'm afraid, i have a fear that the sense of little bit, yeah, we got 'em. okay steve. >> steven blank, american foreign policy council, formerly the army war college. having just emerged from the same bunker as andy a couple of weeks ago i have a suggestion that might help alleviate some of the problems andy pointed out. first of all, with regard to the objectives we -- the united states -- tend to separate the objective of regime preservation which is the alpha of putin's

policies from the restoration of russia as a great power and one that is seen as a great power globally. i would suggest to you that those are the same objectives that the latter, the restoration of a russia that is seen at home and abroad as a global great power is a precondition for the survival of the regime. for as andy has suggested, be ukraine went west, putin would come under enormous domestic pressure if not may even be unhinged in power. so there is no difference here. the conditions of regime survival and preservation into the future is the strategic goal and the condition of that goal being met, one of the conditions, is this restoration of the great russia. the second point here is that we

can, therefore overcome the distinction between strategy and tactics. so whether putin is a tactician or a strategist because i think he is a strategist in that he has creatively taken and used all the elements of russian power -- the dime concept i think we're all familiar with as an acronym -- in order to bring about that restoration and preservation of his power. and the point of this whole operation, therefore, is not to achieve some final state but to develop these tools as you have called them, instruments of power others would say, in order to keep the game going. because that is how russia sees the world as being in any case. and second, this is the only way that it can maximize what is the condition of its great power and the regime at home; that is, a

fully independent sovereign, great power which is what it says it is and wants to be recognized at that doesn't have to -- recognized as that doesn't have to answer to anybody either at home or abroad. and i think that's the strategic objective. i think things become much more clearer to the analysts and to you and you, therefore can overcome this dilemma of whether he's a tactician or a strategist. because the fact is, the tactics do serve strategic objective, and there is no gap here. the final objective is not whether or not ukraine or some specific territory in ukraine belongs to russia but whether russia is accepted as a great power. the specific territorial parameters of ukraine are beside the point. but it's now everybody understands you have to deal with russia on its terms. [inaudible conversations]

>> yes, good morning. i'm tracy wilson. i'm a consultant here in washington d.c. thanks for your comments this morning. this this war game looks like it was very interesting, very enjoyable time, and i applaud you taking a structured look into the future and helping us understand these issues. three quick questions of clarification, if i might. you mentioned one area of cooperation that you saw iran, and you mentioned syria, of course, as well. in your discussion, in your work did the topic of threat reduction nuclear security in russia come up? obviously, that's an area that's on hold right now, and we have some concerns about that.

so just curious your thoughts on that. and then a couple of reactions, if you might. in recent days there's there have been two hay-level state department -- hay-level state department visits to sochi and moscow now. are these positive signs, indicators of a thawing of relations? if not, what should we be looking for in the future as a positive sign? and then finally, russia will hold the chair of the security council in september. is this a concern, possible areas of mischief that could be introduced into the agenda at that time? and so i welcome your thoughts. >> ctr u.n. security council and department of state trips.

joe? >> i'll start briefly -- >> james, excuse me. >> the areas of cooperation. the u.s. team was very concerned about the safety and stability of the russian nuclear enterprise. we didn't go into great details, but in some of the scenarios several team members, you know, were concerned about that. and even to the extent that we might want to provide at least reassurances directly to the russian forces that are responsible for those sort of cooperative threat reduction. we didn't go into detail, but there was some nervousness about that obviously. particularly if the russian government became less stable due to the economic crisis or regime change or something like that. so yeah, there was great concern. and this is tied also to your

next point about the how do we read these most recent contacts. during the cold war as the years went on as you know, we had developed a pretty robust series of ways to communicate and coordinate with sow yesterday union -- soviet union and also their armed forces. it was never perfect but at least there were channels. everything from incidents at sea to aircraft and air space to, yeah different kinds of signaling, the hotline. and there was a sort of a sickening realization on the part of the u.s. team that perhaps some of that has eroded or no longer exists. we've talked quite a bit as we've gone out to various think tanks, we've found that the generation of soviet experts are now in retirement and the next generation is not nearly as

extensive. they're just as eager and just as smart i'm sure but there aren't as many of them on ground as there were 25 years ago. so there's, there was a concern on the u.s. side that perhaps there's value simply in strengthening the mechanisms. and that's how i would read, just me as a citizen reading what was happening with secretary of state kerry's visit recently, for example. as a good thing in general not because of any grand agreements that may or may not have been signed at that time, but it's certainly reassuring that we can talk. and i would hope that if they're talking publicly that there's some back channel communication going on as well which i think is where the real work can get done. >> i would agree, jim. i will say from the russian team perspective looking out in the future most notably the

election cycles drove a good bit of the russian team's analysis and some of our later scenarios. it was interesting to note that it came up in conversation we'll have a new administration new u.s. administration in 2016. the russian team is looking for a political win or a win of some sort in 2017 in order for putin to be reelected in 2018. so the russian team discussed numerous times of what that political win or that international win might be. and it was notable that they surmised that it will be a new u.s. administration facing those challenges. and, again the russian team would hold those strategic cards, i guess if you will. so while there might be conversations now and, certainly, they're worthwhile, i think the most telling point -- at least from the russian team's perspective -- what's going to happen next year when it's a new administration. and russia's looking for that

win, whatever that win might be. >> [inaudible] >> all right. jack curley i teach part time at catholic university now religion and international politics. and my previous hierarchy, i was in the state department and was enabled at one time to participate in the program at the armed forces staff college. and then we did a mini version of what you all have been participating in up at carlyle having to do with the middle east. and thinking back, it strikes me very much that in all our discussions we paid very little, if any attention to the role of religion which certainly i think in recent years has proven to be much more important

certainly in our involvement in iraq and syria. but i'm kind of surprises that in looking -- surprised that in looking at the russian bear with everything else in there there's nothing about religion. and it strikes me that the certainly important role of the russian orthodox church which has kind of come back more into popularity also with mr. putin should be considered a bit here not just simply because of its relationship with western orthodoxy, if you will the christian church in the west, but also the, you know, islam. and i wonder to any extent did religion play any role in the considerations either on the u.s. or on the russian side?

>> okay. next directly right in front of steve. >> thank you very much. i am dr -- [inaudible] with the national defense university -- [inaudible] of pakistan. my question is that you mentioned that ukraine is the perfect place to -- [inaudible] but in this war game -- [inaudible] for example if the confrontation at the conclusion of the conflict, both parties don't have to agree to expand. if one expands unilaterally, then how do you deal with that? number two u.s. has got allies. [inaudible]

and number two -- three is that when you say putin do you mean the -- [inaudible] that is also another important factor. and the last but not least the china factor. do you think china and russia do have any commonly-perceived, real threat and if they have, from where they have? thank you. >>ok [inaudible] >> thank you. reporter from voice of america. a follow-up question about china factor. actually, i'm looking at the russia figure too. at the far corner of the figure, talking about the chinese assurance. so could you elaborate on that. second question is also about -- [inaudible] the growing relationship between china and russia. they're talking about so who

poses greater threat to u.s. china or russia? thank you. [laughter] >> back to the panelists. [inaudible conversations] >> so, sir, in regards to the question on religion, it did come up in the initial net assessment, mainly within relationship to the orthodox church. why you don't see it on the on the actual di1g1ñ we characterized it pretty much under the as a tool of russian nationalism frankly. we didn't see it as a as a driving factor as much as a resource that could be used to continue to push forward russian nationalism. >> yeah. on the question about russian

allies, i don't -- we didn't consider that as a major factor within the artificial construct of the war game. we know that russia has reached out to particularly to central asia and some of the countries there. but we didn't see that as those partnerships as really contributing much either to russian policy or to the russian impact in the situations we were trying to look at specifically. russia will never be able to recreate the warsaw pact, and even the warsaw pact was an alliance of unequals much more is so than nato to, i would argue. but no we didn't take those allies into account and i think that's an opportunity for the west, actually, to make a very very telling point through the international media frankly that you know, anyone who understands the world's

situation today with any degree of clarity can see that you have a group of 28 democracies at different stages of development who are cooperating and trying to create the security architecture for europe, and then you have one power that is throwing its weight around and violating some of the norms of the international environment and reaching out to, frankly, some of the countries that they have reached out to are more in line with the russians' idea of how a government and an economy should run than western europe. so i think that's something that the west could use to its advantage to make sure that that message is loud and clear. you have 28 democracies confronting countries that have bought into, are controlled by a very different system.

[laughter] >> actually i was going to kind of pile onto jim's comment on the alliances. what we didn't see was -- and i'll let the russia team kind of speak to this clearly but as they would come into each of different sessions, what we saw was a continual reaching out of bilateral relationships that facilitated a purpose. just kind of as any nation would do and that's what we kind of saw in the chinese relationship as well frankly. as far as where the assessment was that as russia would turn toward china that they really had the lower end of the bargaining relationship. china had the upper hand, and china needed -- or russia needed china, but not china needed russia. so that's why they had like i said the chinese relationship was one of, one of risk for the russians. they could, they could play to

it but they were coming into it having to negotiate less than a less than the optimal deal, if you will. >> just a quick comment. the u.s. needs to be aware of its own seams and weaknesses, and i think one of those is that we now -- at least within the defense department -- tend to view the world regionally. there are some broad threats transnational threats. we get that. we have some functional combatant commands. but in general terms, we have -- this goes back, of course, to the cold war -- one combatant command focused on europe and russia and one focused on the asia-pacific region and china. and so we tend to want to put our problems into those bins and assign a military commander to deal with it. that said there's a huge amount of cooperation that goes on with

other u.s. government agencies as well. and we're finding more and more that perhaps that regional structure for the defense commands is not as helpful in places like the arctic where you have several u.s. four-star commands that have some involvement in the arctic from north com and u-com and paycom and others. that is something we need to be aware of on the u.s. side and think about perhaps ways we can overcome that in the future. >> you would have enjoyed it last week. i proposed at a different session that there be created on the national security council a new senior directorship for eurasia but eurasia, from europe to asia, from russia to india the large continent, eurasia. so you overcome some of the stovepiping. okay. paul.

>> thanks. paul schwartz from csis. i had a question about the disparity in the way the two contestants in the ukraine crisis view how vital the interests of ukraine are respectively and how that actually played itself out in the exercise. in addition, i tend to agree with the findings on that currently the likelihood is that russia will pursue a frozen conflict in ukraine given that there's little to gain from seizing mare yoap el, for example, and much to lose. but that will hold up only unless and until russia start to see that perhaps as ukraine policy is headed for a second collapse as dr. kuchins so aptly described the first one i'm curious your thoughts on that or at least how that played out as well in the scope of the

exercise. thank you. >> [inaudible] >> thank you. kyle scott, state department fellow at the german marshall fund. i want to turn to your policy consideration, clearly articulating a position towards russia eastern europe and ukraine. i'm sure my colleagues in the state department would argue that we do, in fact have a clearly-articulated position. but i'm going to posit that you're correct and then challenge you. what, you all did all the studying, what would you articulate as what that policy should be? and after i hear that ask colonel kooji if he could state where the europeans agree with that policy. thank you. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> hi. ty to donnell. i'm actually based in berlin nowadays, energy and international affairs.

and i'm here as a fellow at the american institute of contemporary german studies to actually interview american experts and officials on their take on energy vulnerabilities in europe. so you can imagine this is, i've been talking and interviewing a hot of people about this. and it's sort of coming down to a few scenarios, and i'm not going to bore -- you know i'm not saying this is the most likely scenario, but it goes a little bit along the lines of schwartz pointed out over here and what you pointed out, mr. kuchins. i don't get so much out of this as there's something else that can happen. it's not just a matter of what the u.s. wants to do and how it reacts to what russia does, mr. putin does, it's the flow of objective circumstances that gets out of hand if people don't take ahold of the situation. a lot of people -- so a lot of people, certain people i think -- well, anyway, a lot of people have been telling me they have the clear feeling the european attitude is please, take this problem away, you know? they don't want to really face up to what's there.

and, frankly that there's a similar situation on our side. and somewhere that goes along with what you're describing and the reactive nature. so the objective things that are developing is if the ukrainian economy collapses in a couple years completely collapse, major demonstrations, another maidan, huge amounts of refugees in europe, what about that sort of situation as things basically collapse? if there's not a major program of the west to get involved and sort of help them take control of their economy and rebuild it. fine. if people don't want to send military aid fine, for whatever reasons, but take control and do something proactive, otherwise it degenerates and really both sides lose control. and then you get a situation as i think it's true what mr. kuchins said about what happened after the agreements fell apart things get out of control on both sides.

i don't know if it's a question, just a reaction. apologize if it's too -- >> [inaudible] >> if i might address the first question from the russian perspective of what the policies are or the objectives are in the ukraine. so as i previously mentioned, the russian team had no desire to escalate the conflict. they were not planning on letting the separatists fail nor were they planning on giving back crimea. in fact, one of our final turns was the demise of putin a new alternative form of government arises what are the first actions? the russia team immediately said that we will not give back crimea. it was a political wind that they do not intend to turn back on. but in terms of escalating the conflict again they had no appetite for increasing the conflict whatsoever. of course, come 2017 when they're looking for a political win, if that happens to be a

target of opportunity, certainly it was one that the russian team had addressed. likewise, to return to a previous question regarding china as we saw it play out -- although we didn't really explore a whole lot of the china/russia dynamics -- the russia team during one of the turns on economic independence of europe chose to try to undermine that as much as possible through backroom deals sweetheart deals, if you might. and primarily the reason they were so interested in doing that is to maintain an economic dependence of europe on russian energy. and that was weighed against some of the economic deals that they had most recently made with china which were not so favorable for the kremlin. so from, i guess, a minor perspective that's how i'd probably address the russia/china question as we saw it play out in the game. >> and really that was, that was

really the only time that china came up in the discussion, was with regards to economics and energy. the eurasian economic union was mentioned briefly, but that is not where they focused their, their discussions. while we, the russia team said they would turn to china, they would much rather maintain a european market that they now enjoy. >> [inaudible] reference to the policy going forward, that was probably the greatest challenge of the war game, frankly and that's part of the reason that you see that as an outcome, is that in each turn there was just a lack of clarity. at one point the discussion was we continued to say we want a europe that's whole free and at peace. but maybe this is the good, fast and cheap discussion. do we want a europe that's whole? do we want a europe that's whole and free? do we want a europe that's whole

and at peace? we looked at kind of historical examples of when that might have been the case. so i think we do want a europe that's whole, free and at peace, and i think our policy is that we do want a democratic ukraine and that we do want the respect for international borders. the challenge is how do you then clearly articulate it, and then what is the strategy linkage to the policy? so if that's the policy, what are the methods and mechanisms that we're going to use to then continue to advance that? and i think that gets to your point, sir. how do you prevent the spillover and how do we encourage a democratic ukraine that then becomes stable and a prospering member? that's probably where your answer is. and once that linkage is correct then we'd probably have a clearly articulated policy toward those three areas. >> europe. [laughter]

yeah, it's -- and that was our second consideration. it came, actually, from the western europe and the eastern european countries as well. because they need to, they need to know where the u.s. stands on a lot of things. and especially the baltic states, they were going -- it doesn't matter what path is chosen as long as it's clear. and they were kind of afraid, and everybody understands that okay, if russia takes this next step, what will be the reaction of the u.s.? so they wanted the clarity instead, and it's not so much as the content, but the clarity. that's the most important part of it. and, yeah, we had a couple of international fellows saying russia's part of europe. whether we like it or not, it is. so yeah. >> good morning. rob tim from the national war college, although i am an army war college grad. so as a strategist, a couple

things strike me which bring me to ask you a couple questions. first, if we take at face value your basic assumption that we have a long-term competitive relationship with the russians that's unavoidable we've also identified in a lot of ways that picking ukraine as a place for that to play out is a problem because of the asymmetric dominance that the russians seem to have because of the nature of the situation in ukraine. and then the third observation is how the u.s. was continually reactive. they were trying to play a prevent defense and no one always caught a move behind the russians. so the question is how do you see the initiative? if you have a strategically competitive relationship, what are the places where the advantages accrue to you, where you can force the russians to react to what you're doing rather than you react to them? is it the arctic? is it in eastern europe? is it economically in the oil and gas industry? where are the places that the advantages accrue to the united states that you can play out in the competitive environment which cause the russians to

rethink being aggressive in places where they have escalation dominance? first question. second question which is related which is that if you have a long-term competitive relationship with the russians then what are the critical capability gaps that you have? what are the capabilities that you really need to develop that you don't have? one of the reasons that you're not acting is you reach into your tool box and there's nothing in there. what are the tools that you need to develop that you don't have? thanks. >> good questions. in the back of the room. >> good afternoon. my name is lily from crimea international student. i have two questions relates to russia it relates to cry mean peninsula. the first one what do you think about annexation? was it a long-term plan or it was just tangible opportunity? and the second question the first -- [inaudible] in your slide you say about compete with russia to maintain the international order. what do you think is it possible to cut --

[inaudible] even to compete with country which so brutally break international rules? thank you. >> yes, sir. >> yes jonathan -- [inaudible] i'm also a consultant here in washington. i was curious how in preparing for this war game you looked at the evolution of russian policy over year preceding the the war game with respect to eastern ukraine. the way i looked at it, i saw a lot of russian propaganda kind of at the outset of the period that was intended and efforts that were intended to destable aize eastern ukraine. destabilize eastern ukraine. you had separatists who were active in places, donetsk lujansing. at the end of the day nothing happened in the largest

russian-speaking city in the country, nothing happened. police were able to deal with some. the, quote separatists were thrown out of shrove januariesing. they ended up with control of a piece of the -- [inaudible] a piece of the donetsk own lis b, and they would have been, you know in jail now if it hadn't been for the direct intervention of russia. so in that context, it really looks like a large russian failure because they were not able to instigate any kind of a mass uprising in eastern ukraine. and they're left with this nonviable sliver of land next to the border where russia, you know? okay that's my perspective. what's your perspective and how does that failure to ignite some kind of a mass uprising in the russian-speaking population in

the country, how does that figure into russia's calculus? thank you. >> okay. back to the panel. >> i guess the first question, i'll actually start in the reverse order here. the example you gave of russian policy toward eastern ukraine. i'm actually going to combine it with the question on crimea whether it was an opportunity or a plan. and i think going into it we saw that the crimea was an opportunity on the back end of the sochi olympics. i think eastern ukraine, frankly was another opportunity. the difference was that the geography of crimea was fairly well set and that was -- that's where that opportunity probably had a little more soldty to -- it was a little more solid than

in eastern ukraine. we saw the eastern ukraine movement going back to what we've said before, it's all about maintaining the reregime. and those were opportunities to create instability. that's probably why you didn't see attraction in other areas frankly, there wasn't a clearly identified geographically limited goal that was the aim of what we saw in eastern ukraine as opposed to what we saw with crimea. >> and on the second part of your question on the can you compete with somebody who's so brutally -- how you say that? yeah competing -- sorry? >> [inaudible] >> breaking international laws, yeah, that was the english word i was looking for sorry for that. i think it's not a question whether you can i think you must. putin is a person that sees if you don't react it's a signal of weakness. so i think it's not the question

whether you can compete in that environment we believe you have to compete in that environment. because that's the game he's playing. so yeah. >> from the national war college, appreciate your question about capabilities gaps. let me take a stab at that. one thing that the u.s. team wished they had more of is available capabilities forward deployed in europe itself. there was a sense that certainly, we need to put a floor under what's there now and perhaps move some forces back into europe simply because it's a long way from, you know, fort reilly, kansas to get to somewhere in the nato area. and so that's a capability. you know, we base those drawdown decisions on certain assumptions about the international security

environment that were made several years ago and we have to be able and willing to go back and re-examine those assumptions as far as force structure in europe. there's another capability, there's, of course a great deal of discussion about what to do and how to provide support to the government in kiev. it doesn't always have to do with weapons. it is command and control systems, communication systems. this is just on the military side let alone the economic and political support. and, of course, we have partners, osce and the e.u. and the imf. i mean, you have a real, you have, you know, a joint effort from a lot of different governments and different international organizations and regional organizations that are trying to help kiev. it's not just about how many antitank weapons we can provide them. and one key area though that the u.s. team worried about a

lot was our lack of ability to communicate with the russian people and the russian ethnic minorities in other parts of europe. it is true that there has been no mass uprising in other parts of eastern europe. even a year ago the terrible tragedy in odessa, somehow the new government in kiev has been able to keep odessa from, and the russian-speaking population in odessa from rising up and staging, you know overthrowing the ukrainian government the regional government there. so that's a good thing. i chalk that up as a success story. but in the long term, the west needs to reinforce those avenues and mechanisms that it has to communicate the open, free press is probably the best way to do it through social media through web sites, through television in particular for the russian-speaking minorities throughout europe so that at

least they have an alternative source of information to the highly politicized information that's pouring out of moscow that's very, very well funded. and it is not just u.s. instruments the it's not just the -- it's not just radio free europe. it could be the bbc. there's any number of avenues that the west can reach and communicate the truth to russian-speaking populations. >> okay. just on the very quickly on the initiative because i don't think we've -- and that was one of the larger challenges throughout the exercise. ironically, if you look at the shocks that we designed, they were all targeting the russian system. there were no shocks to the u.s. system. you know at each turn when we came back into the plenary session, the u.s. team was continually reactive. the russian team was very proactive in each of their moves. we concur andy, with your assessment that we don't think

that there will be any type of hybrid type attack, if you will, on any nato member. yeah, exactly. granted that's a fair knock on wood. but that was, that was really assessment was that that red line is so well known and so well pronounced that there would not be a provocation. and one of the other -- even as we looked at the russian minorities in the baltic states, the things they have going for them is they've got e.u. membership. life is, frankly, much better in the baltic states and across the border even if you're a russian-speaking nationalist. so where do we seize the initiative? is on some of those diplomatic fronts, frankly, on governance and other contested spaces or what could be contested spaces. we see the initiative through the strength of the nato alliance and part of that is how we deal with our own allies within nato and how we approach them on areas where we may have

disagreemented. we've got to show -- disagreements. we've got to show that the alliance is, in fact, solid even though we may disagree on other issues how we use forces or how we build and resource forces. >> relate me just make a comment on the success or failure question because it's a very interesting one. i think there's no question that the operation in crimea was a brilliant success, and it was a great head fake too. you know? you put 40 or 50,000 troops on the border, and you come in through back door into dry mia -- crimea. but to what extent should we have been expecting it? i don't claim to be nostradamus or anything, but over the weekend of february 21, 22 23, jeff man cough and i were writing a piece for csis and of course, it was about the implications of the february

31st accord -- 21st accord which then fell apart, and we had to rewrite it over the weekend. and one of the things that we inserted there was you have to think about a possible asimilar metally call reaction. and the most likely place would be in crimea. it's the least ukrainian part of ukraine. but yet we do still seem to, i mean, seemed quite surprised by it. and it's also the fact that then the ukrainian military forces in crimea completely backed down. my concern at that point was that that created an impression for mr. putin that the environment was way too permissive, that there's no reaction from the west and there would probably be not that much reaction from ukrainian military forces if there were further, you know, further incursions into ukraine which is what i was immediately afraid about on february 28th. and that was when my hair was on

fire and saying we need to mobilize the strongest reaction possible, including sending, you know, military assistance to ukraine to try to alter the calculation mr. putin set at that moment, that the next step you know, don't do it. don't do it. but, of course, it's almost impossible for our political system to manage a strong response and even more difficult for our european allies at that time. now, was it a success? well, i think he miscalculated the degree to which the russian support and insurgence would be welcomed in eastern ukraine. mr. putin came out on april 17th with the hine about -- the line about the policy which got a very tough do effete in -- defeat in odessa a few weeks later. and subsequently the aspirations modulated. to what extent how broad were the aspirations in the beginning? it's impossible for me to say.

but it's an old russian phrase, the appetite grows with eating. still believe it. will this be judged as a success or a failure? i think it's too early to tell frankly. because if we get back to steve's point which i agree with in that the foreign and domestic policy are so intertwined, then it gets back to well, how long is mr. putin going to continue enjoying 25% increase in his popular support mainly because of activities in ukraine? there are differing views about that. we had a very good presentation here at csis on april 28th, it's up on our web site. one of the things they argued is that if you look in the past, economic downturns have occurred, there's usually been some kind of time lag between the impact of the economic downturn on the support for the president. so it'll be interesting to see how to what extent the political opinion polls hold at the level

where they are and for how long. okay. we have time for one more round. i saw the gentleman in the gray shirt and then sergei. yes. >> thank you gentlemen. u.s./european command. question to you about information, the russian propaganda. we're clearly at the effort we're not winning and a lot of this is due to, one, the unified information of the russian information, state-run media but also the fact that their propaganda isn't so much convincing the average ukrainian, but making them doubt everything. even doubting the truth. besides pure capabilities, do you think our approach is countering their propaganda is working when, frankly, the populace are -- they're trying

to influence is very cynical of the truth or do you think we need a new approach? >> [inaudible] i have, i wanted to have you liberated in your exercise two options. first -- [inaudible] and, second, russian cyber tech. for example against estonia where government is totally reliant on internet and electronic government in effect. or, for example, stock exchange in warsaw that is very important in eastern europe. is it the case for article v? >> one more question or comment? going, going gone. back to the panel. and you can conclude as well. >> yeah okay. [inaudible conversations] >> yeah. i'll take the last question about the cyber attack.

yeah i wasn't -- we don't have one, we don't have consensus about everything so when we said that he will never go into the baltic states i'm not quite sure about that. he won't do that with tanks i'm pretty sure about that. so actually in our war game we -- one of the -- [inaudible] was the conflict going out of hand and what's in combination with smaller attacks, cyber attacks in other places. so yeah, we considered that. and that brought us to the idea that putin is not so much that's how i believe looking for a gain of terrain or -- he's looking for a greater russia, but he needs some sort of conflict going on to keep the momentum within the elections that we will have in 2018. so we'll think as long as the

conflict stays in ukraine, that will be his main interest. and as soon as that die cans out, he might -- dies out he might try and cyber will be one of the ways he could try that in other places as well. >> yeah. i think talking about article v and there's a big red line. everybody says in article v i agree to that, but i think it's a very thick line as well. so whether he crosses it, i think he's too smart for that a. he will stay just into the line. and with cyber, that's really hard to tell. and it's really hard to make one clear stand on this is article v and this is not. so yeah. >> yeah. just on the article v note, that's exactly -- that was the debate that happened inside the u.s. team, was what is going to constitute an article v attack

was the cyber attack in estonia an article v violation? what about bear over flights? what about other small violations? what are we going to consider article v? there was some talk of does it need to be rewritten and frankly, i think the consensus going out was no, because it's written, it's -- the way it's currently written is fine. what might need to happen is the discussion about what does it mean in a new environment. it was clearly written in the washington treaty under a different environment where some of these other challenges simply didn't didn't have a way to materialize. but now the next step is we've got to determine what does that mean. and as gert-jan said it's -- >> we're going to leave the last few minutes of this, take you back to the u.s. senate back from their weekly party lunch meetings, continuing work on trade promotion legislation.