white house, in the congress, in the debates so that the public can see who is better qualified to be president. we have to have those debates now because as ted said, something that can happen anytime. something bad can happen to more and if we don't have that debate come if we really believed, and i do, that security and liberty are not a zero-sum game, if we don't have that debate we can repeat some of the mistakes. ..

[inaudible conversations] >> on c-span to be alive at the center for strategic and international studies in washington, d.c. where national intelligence council chairman will be talking about the challenges of combating terrorism, u.s. intelligence priority is and its connection to u.s. policy. the council itself was established in 1979 to support the director of national intelligence and provide a long-term strategic analysis.

the event about to get underway, live here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> in the center of the screen, gregory treverton here at the center for strategic and international studies he is going he's going to lay out some of the priorities for the year on this friday afternoon the house and senate are out. the house for the next week for its district work period and the senate back to work next week on the heroine and opioid addiction bill they've been working on for the past week or so. meanwhile, coverage continues on c-span on the conservative political action conference, cpac as it is known, coverage beginning 10:30 eastern. the chairman will get underway and later today, john kasich also ted cruz will be speaking and then then parsing is expected to talk about his political future that's part of the coverage today and heading into the weekend on c-span at the conservative political action conference.

[inaudible conversations] good morning folks if everyone could take their seats and get started. i'd like to welcome everyone to csis. a beautiful drive coming in today but i think everything will be cleaned up before we get out of here. before we get out of here let me point out the emergency exits. many of you came out the staircase up to the right is the main staircase to the right of the elevators is the second

staircase and into the back is the third staircase so just follow me or my deputy. you can raise your hand so everyone sees caleb and and headed there if there happens to be an emergency. my name is tom sanderson, i direct the program here at csis. we conduct independent research around the world on terrorism and counterterrorism with a purpose of helping policymakers and counterterrorism practitioners, more fighters, the media get a better understanding of threats for charles al qaeda and isis. we are conducting to field-based projects, one is working at upwards of 40,000 or the world from over 100 countries that have sent him on the battlefields in iraq, and libya and other places into the second project we are looking at is the third phase of the instability study where we look at militancy trends and file extremism

stretching to bangladesh and we completed south asia and we are now coming up towards the close of our study on militancy. i would also like before i start to point out alexander, thank you for making the introduction, very much appreciate that. judge webster is the chairman of the senior steering committee and be director. very excited to welcome to the speaker series doctor greg treverton chairman of the national intelligence council. doctor treverton became chairman of the nic as it is known in september, 2014 the director of national intelligence james clapper notated that the combination of world-class analytical skills, broad substantive expertise on the passion for the protection and

deep understanding of the nic's unique role makes him the right person for this mission at exactly the right time prior to the selection committee held leadership positions at grand including director of the center for global risk and security, director of the international defense defense policy center and associate dean of the party graduate school. his work has examined terrorism and law enforcement as well as new forms of public-private partnerships. doctor treverton also served on the committee for intelligence and helped serve on the jimmy carter administration european national security council which he told me included three people and they cover to vancouver which was remarkable, really amazing. and vice chair of the intelligence council from 1993 to 1995 and also a pivotal time as we were coming out of the war and at that time overseeing the

national intelligence estimates and we will learn about the national intelligence estimate officers. the publications on intelligence include reorganizing the domestic intelligence and assessing the options, assessing the trade craft of intelligence analysis and the next step is reshaping intelligence into books and reshaping national intelligence for the age of information. he graduated from princeton university and holds a phd in economics and politics from harvard university. it's a treat having you here. i know there's many in the audience who are interested in the role in policymaking and intelligence and certainly there are probably quite a few people here who are interested in jobs in the intelligence committee and want some advice. [laughter] we feel that question constantly

and i think that he will get a few questions like that so with that, the floor is yours. >> it is a pleasure to be here and i'm overwhelmed by the number of folks that turned out. it's great to be here. i thought i would start with a few words about how it fits in the policy process and i assumed everyone should know about the nic but that's probably not true true so let me say a word about that and then i thought i could turn to the preview of what has become a signature nic publication or unclassified global trend which we do every four years that will be held in the next december safely after the election to give you a little bit of a preview of how we are thinking about the future in the 20 year future. the council has relieved the national intelligence interagency arms for analysis.

you can bet it's a cia organization. before we worked for the director of central intelligence of the capacity to oversee the community as the director of the cia so brd dni committee can be interagency arms for intelligence analysis and we are about 100 analysts strong organized like the state department regionally and functional severe officers for economics, russia, eurasia, both functional and regional. everything we do it on and avon and in her agency basis so they come from the agencies as well as outside government. there are deputies that almost all come from a wide variety of intelligence agencies. i've got to deputy national

intelligence officers from the nypd and the fbi, secret service so it is an interagency operation. the big change that i was asked as the vice chair years ago shows how slow i am to rise but the big change those days we get almost exclusively strategic intelligence. now with the national intelligence estimates those tended to be rather exhaustive and sometimes exhausting often to take a strategic view to set issues in the context and show connections among the issues and that dell is the paramount mission that i care most about the big change now is that we are very much involved in the current intelligence support. we provide the intelligence support for deputies and the

principals committee meeting in the mean for main foreign policymaking body and u.s. government so if they want to know what they think about a particular issue they can ask the cia directly but most of the time they want to know what the community, the intelligence agencies consider together to think about an issue where they agree or disagree and then it comes to us so if that comes as a question from susan rice, then they will put together the community of analysts built by who is going to write the answer and they will argue about the answer and put it through the process of arguing about it and reaching a great conclusion or agreeing to disagree. so everything that we do is on that interagency basis and to give you some sense of the numbers, we did in the range of

700 pieces of paper last year about half of those, more than half were signed memorandums from the national intelligence officer to susan rice and the national security adviser, or another senior person. so, the challenge for me is to try to help us be strategic, help us not only answer the current mail but answer the policy counterparts and think more broadly to see the context around the corner and it is in the context that it's purely tactical, we do get interesting questions from the process as well so we ask the question like if we do, how will putin respond and that is the kind of question that they should be reacting over but it is a challenge every hour of every day to find space

come opportunity coming and come and particularly the manpower to be able to do more strategic work to lift the sights from the current crisis for more contact. and the global trend process is very much an adjunct to be more strategic. this is the first volume i will do but i had some role dreaming up the idea of when i was there before and there are two good things about it. one is if you are trying to look at even five years, nothing much on the secret computer helps you. you need to be out there talking to people, talking to experts, doing research, so it induces us to be very much engaged with places like this with academia, wall street, experts and lots of different rounds. by the time we do this version

of the global trend probably 35 countries who are trying hard this time around to broaden the view from the usual officials and foreign-policy thinkers we've done things like have focus groups with students in mexico city and met with a bunch of entrepreneurs and women's groups to get the social underpinnings of the development of the world come could come to have national security implications. another insight i have, i realized it had to be unclassified because if we were going to have any chance of the counterparts reading it, the only way they would take a look at it is if we handed them the documents they would say thank you. we look forward to it and they would never get to it so if they see a press account of it than they would say what are they up to, what is this so we can get

some attention and this administration has found previous global trends. it should be global trends 2035 but i think i'm going to take the year off it's becoming increasingly fictitious so if anybody has an idea it will be global trend something, so if you have an idea of a global trend, i would welcome your that this administration has founded the backdrop as it began to think about the strategy. let me just take two quick bites and give you sort of what i think that if i -- the five-year look is taking us into the major things that will run through the luck. if we are looking at five years you know the basic thing that list is pretty easy and at the top of the list for me is china that seems to be uncertain.

next on the list would be the united states which seems to be pretty uncertain. i can't say much about that. i'm not supposed to do an analysis on the united states but it's important looking forward barely do have to recognize if we care about the longer-term future especially with the united states role is going to be critical in that longer-term future. second on the list would be the united states. third would be russia, europe, migration. that will be the continuing stream of migrants. the continued backlash and politics against those against that migration, a kind of wild-card. i worry putin is so isolated

there's a chance he might do something rash. that's the top of my list. next would be the collapse and commodity prices which will have a bad effect on a lot of places. brazil did a wonderful job of pulling people out of poverty but now people will fall back into into poverty so it means if we think about the next few years places like latin america it means that the politics seems to be running in a pro- american direction and economically it's going to be straight but it won't be much of a partner for us and finally on the list is to continuing turmoil stability conflict in the middle east. if you look there, all of the trend lines are bad from demographics to economics to

weaponry so we know that conflict is going to continue. i should say i was doing an after dinner speech about a week after i took this job and i said was true i said i had avoided the middle east my entire career. [laughter] that's over. that's so over. [laughter] sometimes i feel a device this all the time. i have to keep reminding when i have the opportunity to further concern, and i understand it, still the number killed by terrorism in the united states is a small number. a lot of people are killed by lightning or falling in their houses, you name it but they go to the top of the list

politically. bremmer used to say that know if she went from zero to 60 faster in american politics than terrorism and that's right. so the middle east, terrorism does go to the top of the list politically even in the broad national interest i probably wouldn't put it there in the u.s. interest of the world. notice that after san bernardino, people were almost as concerned about terrorism and kicker missed a tax as they were after nine elevenths so they would think that is orders of magnitude exaggerated but it is a political reality. even in the five-year time perspective you have to take into account it will be permutations of things we know. isis will be contained or it

won't. the chinese will be successful getting through this or they won't. but there are possible wildcards even in five years imagine entire genomic attack we have and be seen to be at code seen before with a nuclear use in anger or the collapse of an important state. i try to remind myself that history moves pretty slowly and in many respects, it does but if you think about the intra- gold between president ronald reagan's evil empire speech and the fall of communism one decade , lots can happen a lot can happen in a fairly short period of time. let me close with a few words about the longer-term trends and mention five of those in the 20 year perspective.

first is the end power meant meant of the meant of the groups the plaintiff in the last trend to the shift of power towards asia continues to slide in terms of power but this time we will emphasize the end power meant of groups and individuals and those range from the terrorism we know so well to the george soros and bill gates in between but we know that individuals and small groups are exerting an increasing weight of international affairs. second, the backdrop in the beginning starting point for analysis would be the sense of when i share the changes in shared the changes in the economy mean we are going to be say period of slower growth than we have been used to and we are already in that but it seems likely to continue and that means all sorts of problems are harder to handle and the

convergence of the countries are poorer and slower and both within the countries and across them means there will be kind of a global competition for middle-class jobs. one of the things that strikes is as hard as it was to pull people out of poverty to the middle class satisfying their expectations once they are there is even harder and that will fail in number of countries around the world. third would be the competition all values and the one that struck me most recently we've been doing a lot of thinking about subconscience bias and one of the things that struck me is what i've called the prosperity presumption that runs very deeply particularly we assume if people are prosperous, good things happen. they are happier, less likely to go to war with each other and

it's a very deeply held presumption and then we come up against something like isis who doesn't care at it about prosperity and in that sense that's the clash of the values that we will also talk about particularly china and its attitudes towards international institutions and the strong sense as you know the institutions that were not made in washington were at least made in the west and they want to read shape understandably in some respects we shape the way that i find this more congenial. fourth on the list would be technology as a powerful driver especially over 20 years and here i think we will focus on two. one will be artificial intelligence. i thought for a long time that it was like but it was like the old line about brazil that was thought to be the country of the future that always would be. i used to think that artificial

intelligence was the technology of the future that always would be that now it seems to me that's coming true. we have all those kinds of things and dare i think it is real this time around. we've seen the numbers when they suggest half of american jobs could be automated in part and those included jobs we think of as more professional accounting and lawyering. it's easier to teach a computer can do accounting than to give a good massage. so i think the effect that we will see is significant disruption in job markets around the world including the united states and the other one on the list is biotech. my headline is bio is today where it was 25 years ago poised for weeks forward and obviously

the possibilities are both good and bad. it will get consumed by people in the countries. if you imagine tailoring the weapons to only attack people of one ethnic group or even a single individual on the negative side as well and finally putting all these together another theme will be that handling the collective action it will be harder and harder to.

in the pandemics that are truly shared but beyond that it will be harder to see the great success on climate change on the other hand following through on those kind of commitments it will be increasingly hard. to organize the collective action to deal with problems. to affect the rich countries. you know the classic line when they smell flowers -- [laughter] >> that was fantastic. we will start off with a couple questions and then open up to

the audience. i want to make sure that we have sufficient time for all the questions. since 9/11 we have seen a tremendous amount of covert operations against bond state actors the covert action in the post-world war and a scene that your conclusions of the spec in 1978. i think that there are two things. one is that most of the covert actions that we've done our very covert and discrete but there

was nothing very covert about it particularly if wasn't succeeded and the success in this town and they operate in interesting combinations. if you look at the case of the campaign to bring down peacefully most of the change serbia 20 years ago if you read the after action report of that talking about the german party foundations on the national and on average democracy's all things the cia might have done in another era so that is the presumption to do things open my still the right one and there's

obviously times when it is important that two things i would stress is to write openly if you can and many of the operations that we've done in the paramilitary realm have been discrete. >> the nic is unique in its engagement i think maybe the state's intelligence research does not reach as well but it's designed to bring in ideas and you explained in the committees you've met with who have you not been able to meet with that you would like to? >> that's a good question. nothing really strikes me. i don't see big categories of people, we would take the global trend drafting china and russia so i feel pretty good about the

occasional difficulties it's harder to interact with the iranians van i would like that in general in the course of the global trend we would probably have touched with one another or had a conference several thousand from around the world. it's so essential to the work in general and this year trying to do the five yearbook and 20 year luck to try to pull it back to the time when there will be more direct interest to their policy counterparts. now of course this town it's measured in days, not years to try to pull it back from 20 years to five and some bullets back further as part of the

task. >> last question for me the great pleasure of working with you and many of us here are engaged in virginia as well as downtown and they are fantastic. do you find that those that make it to that position often have more experience outside that they have an academic background or work for the ngo or private sector that would bring the kind of perspective that you find valuable. they are terrific at it and others come from another agency in academia as a think tank world. i wish i had somewhat more from the outside that come directly from the academy academy or think tank. i would like to have more of

those because they tend to come with a different set of perspectives and instincts in economics for example was a first rate academic particularly in her account there's a lot of intelligence information and out there in the world having that kind of background is perfect. >> let me start with the first one who introduced me to the work 15 years. >> that was either good or bad. >> let me ask you selfish questions about two weeks from now i will be sailing through the islands and i'm curious what you think are the chinese intentions?

they seem to be aggressive and we seem to be willing to send an aircraft carrier. what's happening? >> not a highly armed cruise ship [inaudible] i'm surprised it seems particularly to me to be not strategic come a little risk for little gain but it is plain that they've decided that the combination of reasons in the road of economic failure in their terms to be more nationalistic and assertive and they've decided they can take a tougher tone that i am surprised and it seems to me to little strategic game for little risk

but it does speak quite different. it's different than what we got use to which is all of the economy and by all means, don't do anything to imitate the united states created by god, that's changed and how big of a change i think we are still trying to measure and it will depend a lot on what happens inside of china very i've always been skeptical to say turn more nationalistic when they are looking for legitimacy but i think that in this case some of it is in fact a party looking for another source of legitimacy now that they are but they are not doing as well as they would like. >> you may have heard today they announced the defense budget would only grow a 7.2 or 7.8% which is a decrease in the recent years and the third row here. wait for a microphone, please.

>> thank you for a very interesting presentation. one thing or two things you didn't mention was alliances and partnerships that has been a sort of important part of american power you could say the u.s. has been good at developing and maintaining those and china hasn't been that good so are there any predictions on how things will develop in that area and then another thing that is also important as energy. a couple of years ago we thought that the price would be $100 per barrel and now it is close to 30 so any views on how it will work in the future? >> let me start with energy. i would be a fool to try to predict the price but i think that we are among those that

imagine the prices will continue for the foreseeable future given the slow economic growth and given what is happening in china and particularly the rise of american production, so that seems like it would be rash to call it permanent in the five yearbook i feel confident we would continue to have oil prices. you can imagine the production getting taken off by other things and other surprises. we are in a pretty low oil world. there is good news and bad. in many respects, the europeans are still the most important partners but they are increasingly preoccupied and less and less capable in many respects the military is

targeting smaller and bigger on the whole so that means that some of the traditional allies are less important looking for new ones and i spend chunks of the last six years in sweden and they were much more interested in working with us even in some of the traditional allies and i think that will continue into there will be other opportunities for the partnerships mostly in economics with some of the rising countries in the security ally but it will be an important economic partner. >> let me offer a provocative footnote to that and that is with regards to alliances, the former employee or released the results of the exercises that showed nato wouldn't be able to manage any incursion into europe

so that is certainly something to consider. >> good morning and thank you both for doing this. i wanted to follow-up on what you listed as the top of the list. you mentioned to ten and the fact that he is so isolated he might do something rash. i wonder if you can speak about the intelligence collection effort you are always trying to anticipate what the regime will do whether it is a crime media and that's difficult to do when it is unfolding in the head of one man. >> absolutely. i was distinguishing between puzzles and mysteries and those things that are contingent and so how putin will behave is presumably a mystery. it's going to depend on how the

circumstances play out, so that does make a predicting for seeing what he's going to do next which is difficult and i take him it came to be strategic and therefore risk adverse but i do worry about the possibility of wandering across the article five boundary by accident or miscalculation and that's why i put it sort of on the top of the list of things i worry about. fourth row here, this gentleman. >> i am from johns hopkins and i do wish that you had added to the list of things of the congressionally mandated sanctions. >> apologies. [laughter] >> the question i wanted to ask follows on the swedish question and it basically -- i understand

that you deal with the analysis and you want to talk about being asked a question on how far we can be proactive to the fact some of these underlining trends. i mean we are not going to change the demography of the world. that's not going to happen. but there may be for example you said that the power is still on the way down and it's crucial to american security. is there something we can do for example to influence because it would be against our interest and it wouldn't antagonize more people in britain than it would embolden. is there something of the congress could ever get its act together and teach which is even more important are there small areas at least in the overall trend is that you mentioned where american policy might have a measurable impact? >> i think so and we are better at doing positive things.

those are important and will happen because i think they are critical so we are doing things like trying to persuade the british one way or another and it's likely to backfire. a lot of things with respect to china may not have much effect it will have an effect on the allies and the region and some of the things we are doing in europe to try to reassure the article five covered and would be there. those are important and those are things that we can do. >> in the front row here. >> i'm with the naval postgraduate school and i want to ask beyond the war fighting and governance who in the

government thinks about what happens if you get rid of the leader and there isn't somebody to follow-up watch like what happens in dismissing the army in iraq and there is nobody to take over and we are so into winning i hope people think about what happens next. >> i hope that we think about what happens next. it's going to be short and preoccupied in current things so the next step and the next step. i was one of those was pretty enthusiastic and i thought some good things would ensue. if i had to play that over again i think i wouldn't be so enthusiastic. it turns out that the stability is a pretty scarce commodity is often in the world and bad guys

can produce some stability that would be useful and that has been a great blessing personally as it has turned out so badly with the single exception of tanisha said that's been a loss bonilla said that the supply about iraq. and if you are going to break something you have to ask what is going to come next. that should be essential before you make a decision on something. >> instead, i would ask you to make an estimate you talk about the instability in the middle east. looking five years to 2034 are we going to see a serious

reduction in the level of extremist violence for the non- state actors or are we talking about something that will be a sustained problem enough time for a? >> i'm inclined that it will be sustained and have ups and downs but there is a civil war going on inside of islam that's not going to be solved soon i don't think so i guess i'm pessimistic on that on the ups and downs. they've already sown the seeds of its demise. so i imagine that's the kind of instability given the trends that terrorism will continue to have ups and downs and the big

question is how contained it will be with europe and i. we advertised to all qaeda that they could have a couple snipers like the washington snipers and that would do an awful lot of damage but they never got it they were so attached to the spectaculars and my concern is they get it. they understand. you can do a lot of trouble with just plain old weapons. >> let me point out to the discussion we had last night on the topic but the demographics are one of the main contributors in which violent extremism feeds on other factors and we have a world of 7.2 billion people and we are going to 9.5 that's adding china to the planet and

all the systemic pressures that contribute to the violent extremism are going to grow and it's safe to say. >> jonathan with reuters. going back to how terrorism is basically eliminated the list because of the domestic politics and to what extent has that been open a trap for the united states or whoever is in charge to implement policies that will actually aggravate some of the trends that you are talking about and we have seen that happen. and how do you get to the point where you can put terrorism in perspective that it isn't the threat that it's made out to be on the political level, the existential threat?

>> i take people's fear as real. i don't think we've done a good job as a society however to put it into perspective. it is difficult every president and senior official in the next attack. so that means it seems to me we don't have a lot of perspective and that we do -- just after 9/11 i had a great number sticker -- bumper sticker that said take the terror out of terrorism and it seems that we are doing is putting it into rigorous on to do their work. i don't think it has much to teach us because it is so different but one thing i do admire them.

>> thank you for your remarks. a lot of changes have taken place in the community since the deeply flawed. i think it is pretty evident that there've been significant improvements and i would cite the 2007 as very important intelligence that was shared with the american people. it seems in recent years the public is getting less information.

they are very sensitive and a main body estimate. the worldwide threat assessment hearings on the congress. the congress acts on that information. >> that is a good question. i ended the argument that the community shouldn't look for opportunities to show the american people what it does. i was going to drive that home

with a story when i send a book through the publications review before the publications they wouldn't let me tell the story so the irony of that is a continuing challenge and the instinct of the community has always been we can't do that, we can't say that. it would have a somewhat chilling effect in the wrong direction from my perspective. i'm with you, it is important to try to find opportunities to get as much information out and that is why i relish the area and you can rest assured that it was very deeply involved in the preparation of the annual threat assessment. >> the gentle man here.

>> another 30 minutes and then we will get to everyone's questions. >> this country has been, not the whole country but basically the country has been at war for 15 years now and there seems to be an inclination to look at problems from military solutions there's been some evidence in the last couple of years under the secretary of a more robust diplomacy but do you see that we can take more back from looking at the military solutions and have a greater effect by expansion in the development and cooperation, a lions cooperation and diplomacy?

>> this is a very personal view. i tend to share your sense because we are good at things military and there is a relatively quick offer we do tend to turn to that instrument. in principle that's been less developed in our arsenal of things to do so i think you are right i share your sense we are to be looking towards diplomacy and other measures. the problem with economic assistance long-term again it comes back to the official they feel that they are getting something done and also increases the temptation to look for military assistance, but i do share your sense thinking about these issues but we

haven't quite got that balance right. but we are so much better at those things then we aren't other things so it is tempting to turn to those instruments. >> in the front row? >> thank you. i was wondering if you have any comments on the presence of china and russia and latin america and those regimes that are on the brink of collapse and when everyone is talking about the revival of the cold war. thank you. >> mostly i don't worry about the presence of china, more about russia that not as much about latin america and i think that if they are expecting it to be a let off they are going to be disappointed so most of the

things that i look at the chinese actions we are kind of in the period where it looks like it's sinister. i think it is a result of them being bigger and richer than they used to be if i look at the actions by judgment would be a waste of money and in either case do i care much about it so given the history it is a little different about i don't worry much about the presence in latin america. they had less wherewithal to do it and so does china. they are looking for china to be a major player they are going to be disappointed. >> if your budget could expand and you had more freedom to move in other directions, what would you establish and would you break them up so that you could

spend more time on those issues? >> the first thing i would do is have a unit in the group i would like to have about ten people that are strategic analysts that would end do this but they would have the wherewithal for doing them and they would give -- i would like to have some people freed from the support and that's where i'd go first. i think i would do that before i create more and i nio so instead i would rather have a strategic reserve that would give us the ability to be more strategic to go that direction.

>> yes-man -- if there were three tools to improve the analytics generally and academically, what would they be because i have strong feelings about this. >> there are so many tools out there. there is this intelligence community prediction market you've probably seen. they've been writing about these for long time and it's the main personality outside running the good judgment project and we are now taking all that over and it's been developed by the intelligence community version of darpa but it's been taken over by nic coming and i'm

pretty excited about it. the good news is just like athletics, some people were better at predicting the ban others and even better than that, a little training helps. even a couple hours of training will make people better predictors and it's to keep it open minded one second longer. what i want to do is to things, make it kind of an internal zone so if they say the market the major economic decline in the country is x. and they say that's not right, then we could have the conversation. then we could extend some of the questions to the strategic long-term. the other thing that we are doing, the big data is out there

and one of the other things that i am treated by in the account, the sentence is a presumption against a lot of data so i have a data scientist basically looking for the data set that you can use and it will help you foresee things like disease or famine and the next step is can we get good enough attitude. why don't you take a look at this connection so those are the things personally that i'm excited about by the way of tools. >> second row here. >> i would like to throw to

softball questions. number one, do they have different strategic views or assumptions of putin because we have two different strategies, so again if you have any thinking on us being different than his end of a gamble and the gamble that follows, and maybe more critically, what can we do to incentivize the sunni arabs to go with us and dump isil because it seems like we are having a hard time getting traction with them. ..

all the things he had done to reduce the pressure on him to commit ground forces. yes, sir. second row. >> thank you good irv chapman, limburg. you mention the other classification, the intelligence agent these indulgent writ large has been accused of classifying documents to avoid embarrassing government does takes. could you it might not sound all as to how the state department

documents became classified before politics reared its ugly head? you're probably better at answering that question than i am. >> you are certainly right. it's not that people are trying to protect the guilty by classification. there maybe some of that. mostly all the questions in the system you never get paid for over classifying. you can get something that is over classified so while the pressures in the system push for overclassification. that keeps getting worse and worse it seems to me. so about 50,000 documents, you're probably as well-informed about that as i am. >> the middle year, red tie gentleman. >> thank you. i am from the university of

kosovo and we have seen over the past few years russia's influence has been increasing. how do you see the strain of the next few years and do you think the sections are much more ethical than strategic? thank you. >> admin, i take good and seriously when he wants to a russian grandeur and wants to restore russia's role. i take it as areas. the challenge with russia is in almost everything putin has done from my our russia's downfall. but that is years away. and the long run we're all dead. pruden seems completely oblivious to the horror he is the horror he's doing in the

longer run. the assertion target of opportunity he will continue. he didn't want to huge risks i hope, but i imagine they'll continue to get a seat at the table, to try and assert his weight with respect to the former soviet. so if you type to the chinese about central asia, they just laugh at russia. russia has no capacity. central asia not the russians. back row, please. >> thank you. kevin barrett with the sense one. talk more about the use of covert ops on the rise, the overclassification with a lot of officials over the last few years say the intelligence community needs to a better job telling the story.

they want more information in the american public to understand more, yet we are finding makeover for when it comes to isis, terrorism and the middle east. how cannot be reconciled? what's happening with the whatever else you're hearing and what changes could or should be made to open up any of this? >> was in gym, i wouldn't say our actions against isis are covert. some of them are discrete and small unit. i wouldn't say there's much secret about them. in general, you are right. we do a terrible job helping the american people under an the work and how we do it. my favorite example is the 215 program, you know, if you could've imagined telogen scanning on the back, saying the whole purpose of the program is to limit the number of phone

calls we listen to. that's the whole point. but once it gets out, it is mass surveillance, but if it were possible to imagine intelligence getting far enough out in front to talk about the 215 program, finally got the numbers out, and they are pretty small. that is the challenge. unfortunately it's hard to imagine could be that her lack to. people say if you do that, it will be how we do our work. it is the cost you have to pay in the world we live in, particularly the inhabitants. >> gentleman in the middle, or grow, read thai.

>> thank you, greg, for a really fun presentation. i enjoyed it. and tim tyler, former defense person and i use to follow greg's research back in the day. the >> will you do it again? [laughter] you've got enough now. i've noted it had a question about the massive politics. we have observed that isis is not an existential threat to the united states. yet all of these things play into the domestic politics and back in the late 70s, the u.s. mission to nato fit with osd over the fact that america needed to take into account domestic politics among our nato

allies if we hope to, you know, deploy cruise missiles. you know, hence the dual track where we had a peacekeeping deployment track. do you find that today we have any focus in appreciation on domestic politics to look at our broader intelligence issues and if your counterpart anywhere in western europe any of the debt the united states today and it domestic political situation, wouldn't you be spinning in her grave almost? >> yes is the answer. we obviously pay a lot of attention to domestic politics because we and we would like to think that intelligence is real important that determining policy. but we recognize there's one fact there among many in

domestic politics, personal ambition, lots of other things will trump and not as true as our own. my counterpart and i tacked to my british counterpart quite a lot, i would be spinning in my grave. >> lady in the back on the side. >> thank you. land rover ting, sputnik international news. i would just like to get your thoughts first of all of north korea and the fact that in the past 24 hours they put nuclear weapons on high alert. a second question on russia because there are more and more new areas regionally where american and russian interests are intersect dean in the middle east and europe and so forth, what do you see as the

consequences of engagement between russia and the united states and the consequences of confrontation or as you said isolation. >> north korea as we all know is a real puzzle as a state that's essentially failed in every respect, but joe has nuclear weapons, sophisticated weapon systems were. we don't know how sophisticated. but it is a puzzle and it is in some ways the only thing that god. though it's probably not surprising they brandished them from time to time with anything that gives stature and they reckon it has the only thing that deters regime change in north korea. this latest probably not a surprising as it may seem. we have seen it before and exactly what's happening.

it is not clear. so far it's mostly talk so far as we can tell. but we will see. there again as i said earlier, one of the things i worry about would be a nuclear weapon going off and obviously a place where that might come. on russia i don't know that i have much more to add. if you are this know that the u.s.-russian relations have gotten pretty bad despite the effort to restart and there's a lot of concern about putin personally. when you convince your best friend in europe, angela merkel that you are a liar, that is not helpful. and putin managed to do that. i see opportunities for us to engage the russians in some sense the cessation of hostility and it's not a bad start.

the russian hand is pretty weak hand. >> gentleman in the second row. >> thanks very much. i wonder if you could reflect on how your job for the next job has changed in the two decades between your tenure. in particular how you relate to your customers and the impact you have with policymakers. obviously global trains analytical products. but you also mentioned 700 pieces of paper that fly out of building. in those two decades, what types of analytical changes have you

seen that gain traction with your customers? what types of product presentation gain traction with your customers? how has it changed and what have you found in the most effective changes? >> the two big changes probably don't buy the products did they go martyr process. the big change for me is the involvement in the current intelligence report and that is good and bad. it is good and before we asked ourselves, are we relevant? we don't have that anymore. the challenge is being strategic. that's the most obvious are my biggest change. the other one i notice is how much more embedded intelligence is in the process than 20 years ago. i suspect that is largely the result of the fact we've been fighting war in the last 15

years that they sometimes say. for better or worse it's hard to fight a war without intelligence. that i think is probably i think is probably the main thing response above for embedding. technology also helps when i look at the e-mail traffic back and forth between an i/o and nsc staffers, it is continuing. i'm not sure the products should have changed more than a half. what is striking still his senior officials still live in an oral and paper world. none of them have time to be out there in the computer looking at anything. that is going to change. the president gets an ipad. so do i., which is nice. it's only a little worse than paid her. as far as i can tell, they spent an equal amount of money so we

can't do anything. sort of a reader basically. it's the first step in at some point sooner rather than later they will want to have a 24/7 conversation with their intelligence support people on their ipad talking to my stride in counterpart the other day. this urge is angry that he can't do it now. what he does first thing is the morning is get on his ipad for every type to others. his frustrated he can't do that with intelligence analysts as well. >> thank you. brien brown of cnn. i want to piggyback on the question about the future trend for extremist violence in the least. in terms of the study was going

to be sustained for the foreseeable future and you also talked about the empowerment of small groups. in terms of capabilities, i know you said isis had breached their own destruction. in terms of other capabilities advance over the next five years and also whether or not their ability to attack europe in the united states will advance as well. >> the ones i worry about are the ones we've seen. the ones we are inspired, not necessarily was on floor operationally and control. the capacity to do that is growing, but i worry most about the lone wolves are small groups and people that radicalize are inspired but not necessarily controlled. that i think progress is the most significant. in terms of capability, so far

isil, nothing has surprised us much about the tools they used another things quite effectively in the communication and recruiting. no great innovation there, but pretty effect of use. as you look forward, all of the things you have friend drove to miniaturization opponents are going to acquire as well. the >> translator: in the wrong direction or games to me greater availability of lethal dangerous to knowledge it to our adversaries and empirical groups. >> family all the way in the back. >> stanley coker. your comment that we do the military stuff while.

the continuation of politics by other means. what political results have we achieved by our use of military power? we are very good at blowing stuff up. no one can stop us if we want to destroy a target. take a look at libya. we got rid of gadhafi. what has followed? what political results are we achieving by the use of our military force? >> that's absolutely the right question. what i meant is we are good at doing military operations. whether they achieve the result is not the question. you put it very well. that is the big question and i think you are exactly right. we are better at doing the operation than we are putting them in the context that actually achieves the outcome we care about. >> natalie.

[inaudible] >> microphone. >> natalie from cfi. regarding the government counterparts on the ground in areas of isis control, how do you see that affecting recruitment of human operation -- resources for human operation. >> i didn't quite hear. >> in areas controlled by isis, how do you see that affecting recruitment services for human operation? >> i am not an expert. that's a difficult and dangerous operation. somebody asked earlier about getting the sunnis on our side. there is this problem of tipping point. if you want to go against isil come you've got to be convinced to have enough company to protect you otherwise you're going to lose your own head. obviously, information gathering and the serpent and this is very difficult indeed. i'm not sure my analysts will agree with me, but one of the liabilities of isil is their

determination to take territory. governing territories not as easy as it looks. you see some good stories from their point of view and bad stories as well. in some ways it's almost ideologically caught. on the one hand talking about caliphate. on the other hand talking about the apocalypse. i do think that trying to hold and governed territory as a liability. >> this gentleman here. >> thank you very much for your comments. i have two questions for you. one, how do you account for the repeated failures on the part of the u.s. intelligence community to anticipate the contingencies such as, such as, you know, russia's annexation of crimea for him since or even more recently russia's decision to

involve itself militarily in the area. that is the first question. the second question has to do, you mentioned central asia. and you're both five-year and twenty-year outlooks, you never mentioned the initiative by china which is actually transforming the region as we speak. i was wondering to hear about that. thank you very much. >> i mentioned before sort of in passing, obviously china regards central asia as important. so far it is more talk than action. over time it will turn into something. that part of the world is bound to grow assuming their autonomy stays in decent shape. i think that is true. i'm a first question, there's only two outcomes. policy successes and

intelligence failures. i think i would resist a little bit the issue that we always fail. i think our record is not that. if you look at some of the studies that even projections, i don't think even that is what that predictions that are batting average is not bad. something like arab spring, there is a challenge. i don't think intelligent did much better, much worse than the academic community. they are the challenges we all knew these places were stable. but that was on every last to worry about. policy makers say okay, that is great. what is going to happen? predict the map spark, the thing that is going to touch off during latent instability into political turmoil. that is very hard.

the other thing i guess i would say as lots of aspects of russian behavior i think exactly when putin decided to do this or that, it's obviously very opportunistic. so predict to you when someone sees an opportunity, d.c. that is harder. the third thing more in line with the tone of your question i think is the challenge we face in intelligence is illustrated by peter bowler the political community has a story about a bowl. the story was that it would rise in rural areas and extinguish it up well, the problem was that story was valid so long as there wasn't much urban migration. that is similar to our challenge. we also have a story and then

circumstances change to make the story no longer help all, no longer relevant. in the case of, for instance, the washington movement to syria, we anticipated and renewed rush of was going to do any of the area. that was no surprise. that would be the same old thing or weapons or training not on the ground. >> you've had your hand up for a while. >> please make questions brief. >> peter sharpton. >> we seem to have taken those

of those mass distraction. what is the process for technological change in the future, making each year and therefore more wide spread to develop weapons that kill a lot of people at once. >> i worry most about biological weapons. you know, so far that is kind of dog that hasn't much art. biotech captain and the possibilities of killing a lot of people, but also targeting and killing fewer people. that is one of the things that is not hopeful, but interesting about the development of tea. such different weapons by which we never called them weapons of mass destruction but they are still different. it is interesting there is a development that are some ways making them more usable, less lethal but more usable.

targeted bio weapons by a tribe or a group of massive interest in quite low yield nuclear weapons. they talk rather openly about vb using nuclear weapons on their own territory to send a conventional attack. the russians have lately been talking about the cost of nuclear weapons in de-escalation so those are the kinds of trends we are watching going both directions i think you're the ones that interest me and worry me the most are trained to make these weapons more usable. >> cerner. -- sarah. >> two quick questions. one relates to russia, germany and the issue of energy and dependent or deep end and.

we seem to not have any discussion about taking the opportunity to help, from our point of view, to achieve more independent with our exporting perhaps. but it's germany doing? they turned their back a nuclear their back on nuclear, making them more dependent for at least the short term. what is going on on that front? secondly, north korea. i was struck by a factor in all the discussion of short-term strategic where north korea has not come up. where does that stand in short-term long term?

>> energy. this is mostly a european issue. i think we should be exporting now. that's a policy issue, not intelligence one. or my intelligence perspective i am surprised. this is a wonderful time for europeans to finally get together on energy. they had to be dictated by russia and mississippi a great time to do it though they still continue not to be organized and let the russians pick a country. this is primarily more of a movement in this. to do something by way of organizing that they are price takers another price setters. north korea, obviously the intelligence community spent in the darkness amount of time in

north korea. we talk about the big four. russia, china, iran and north korea. we actually have an officer for korea. we certainly spend an awful lot of time worrying about it. but it is a worry. it is a strange kind of worried that the failure in every respect except military. awkward. i confess sometimes i have trouble taking it entirely seriously but i realize they need to. >> megyn, you get the last question. >> sir, my question for you is a regional one gators are part of last week a group of special operation forces were deployed to nigeria to have a mission against local iran. to what extent does the proliferation of terrorist network across africa of concern

and is the sufficient knowledge of data as it pertains to africa concern this might be concerned of a blind spot? >> we are obviously worrying a lot. that is something we pay a lot of attention to. i would say our focus understandably on counterterrorism does have somewhat of a reforming affect more generally. there's not much nigeria on it. even when we look, there's not a lot of analysis either. it is mostly about networks in targeting and finding understandably and in some ways we understand and we are able to identify networks and target better than we are at understanding where these people are coming from, where they are

going come of those kinds of questions i would like us to be better at. we are concerned. the absence of a lot of intelligence is a problem, but it's obviously one was been a lot of effort on to the terrorist groups. it's been a great treated way you cover so much ground today. i'm very happy to talk to you and i would like everyone to offer a round of applause. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. you can find out about future events by going to our site on twitter at csi is and to demand page and i hope you join us for the next event here. thank you match. -- thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> this discussion with the head of the national intelligence council will be available later today. related to intelligence, the hill with this story earlier today. the san bernardino district attorney yesterday told the federal judge that the locked iphone used by one of the shooters in last december's terror attack making gain a doormat either weapon. the iphone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the san bernardino county computer network.

he is the san bernardino county district attorney in the court filing. apple so far has refused to assist the fbi are doing the compliance would endanger all of their iphones and set a dangerous precedent that allows the government to force companies to hack secure devices. the rest of the story in the hill today. live picture now from the conservative political action conference taking place outside of the nation's capitol. today featured an american presidential candidate, governor john kasich and ted cruz. also ben carson one of the speakers. the conference runs in two to 5:00 p.m. hour. c-span will have live coverage throughout the day. former presidential candidate carly fiorina will be there as well. also, tomorrow donald trump will be addressing the meeting early in the morning. we'll have that ready for you at 10:00 a.m. eastern.

senator marco rubio is scheduled to speak at 11:35 a.m. c-span will have live coverage and all before it is his of speeches available on our website, c-span.org. >> so many of my former books were horizontals daddies. many countries across global region. covering a minimum of six countries. here i look at one country and i use it to explore great games. the holocaust, the challenge of vladimir putin. remember, remain in speaking moldova have a longer border with ukraine and even poland has. to study romania is to study the legacy of empires.

>> romania was intimately a corrupt country, extremely corrupt because of the debacle he had weak institutions that were -- everything was based on reitman doubledealing and what they showed if this is nothing new. what is happening is the romanian population has grown up and become far more sophisticated and is demanding clean government. it is its number one demand. >> national intelligence director james clapper, cia director john brennan and fbi director james called me to testify before the house intelligence committee about the national security threats posed by nations including russia, china iran and north korea as

those terror groups isis and al qaeda. director comey commented about his first court case against apple over access to the iphone data of one of the san bernardino attackers. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> committee will come to order. today the committee will examine worldwide threats. i'd like to welcome our witnesses. director of national intelligence and james clapper, director of central intelligence agency, john breaded senator richter of the investigation james comey and security agency richard leggett. director of the defense intelligence date, then stuart and director of national counterterrorism center, nick rasmussen. thank you all for being here today. i recognize the challenges associated discussing sensitive security issues in public i hope you agree that this open forum is critical to explain to the american people the serious threats we face and also to highlight the efforts of the brave men and women of the intelligence community to keep us safe. i speak for the entire community when i thank you for your service, sacrifice and dedication. director clapper, this is your last worldwide threats hearing

that this committee. would like to specially thank you for 55 years of service to this great nation. director clapper, i recall from last year's testimony you are concerned about vast array of threats from a remarkably the number seems to have grown since then. generally i share your assessment of the current threat environment. the truth is the united states faces the highest threat level since the 9/11 attacks. the american people don't need a security clearance to understand the threats now facing the western world your daily needs to read the headlines out of san bernardino and boston. al qaeda, isis and other terror groups are rapidly expanding. with more access to safe havens for recruits and than ever before, that good leadership amid the trend will continue. we have discussed syria and iraq with you at length and close and open sessions. i believe the u.s. response to those conflicts is among the most mismanaged foreign policy blunders in recent history. after consistently and failing

to black isis expansion, we have to accept a new reality. isis is now in dozens of countries and has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to reach our homeland. instead of focusing on isis as if it were confined to iraq and syria, we urgently need an aggressive comprehensive anti-terror strategy that stretches from morocco to southeast asia. at the same time adversaries are becoming more diverse picked up the next decade they must be prepared to check chinese ambition in asia, counter resurgent russia, defend against cyberthreats and manage geopolitical forces in the middle east including the growing schism between sunni and shia muslims. how does the president respond to this enormous challenges? his hallmark policy has been distracted nuclear deal with iran that greatly relieves pressure on the iranian regime. the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism. he also failed to prevent russia from propping up syrian dictator

bishara assad, a man who himself is to surrender power. meanwhile some of our closest allies fighting terrorism. kurds, israelis and egyptians often find themselves -- their concerns downplayed or dismissed within the administration. our partners around the world want to work with us, but they can't rally behind american leadership if they don't understand what our foreign policy is trying to accomplish. although i disagree with the president's policies, the committee will continue to thrive the intelligence community with the resources it needs to protect the nation with particular emphasis on preserving capabilities for the next president. because the intelligence community is stretched thin and is overwhelmed by a complex threat matrix, we must prioritize investment throughout the entire intelligence community. our committee's mission is clear, to help the intelligence community protect the american

people by providing oversight, direction and resources to enable effective, efficient and constitutional intelligence activities. additionally, amid the growing threats we face, it is critically important that we ensure the intelligence community to act as careful stewards of the taxpayers dollars. over the next year, our committee will focus on making progress in the following five key areas. first, encouraging efficient investment areas such as space in which complex programming capability requirements routinely drive up costs and adopting new technology including data analytics, encryption and technical training specifically in communitywide projects like computing, data security and tool management. second, reassessing the effectiveness of the community's human intelligence enterprise and synchronized in communitywide resources especially at a time of several intelligence community agencies are implementing reorganization

plan. this particularly applies to the recruitment and training of the next generation of collect tears, cyberexperts and analysts to operate in nontraditional areas and deliver intelligence on hard-to-reach target. third, reducing object that an unbiased intelligence analysis, particularly in the department of defense. where there is a multi-committee effort to determine whether there are systematic problems across the intelligence enterprise and centcom and many other pertinent intelligence organizations. in this context, it is vital the committee protect and seriously considered the testimony of many whistleblowers who have provided information to us. for example, we have been made aware of both files and e-mails have been diluted by personnel at centcom and we expect the department of defense will provide these and all other relevant documents to the

committee. fourth, at improving the efficiency of intelligence support to combatant commands, including efforts to curb facilities and personnel costs. at the lime in the committee identified up to $50 million in annual savings for the defense of intelligence agent pete and more than $300 million in unneeded construction disguised as this consolidation. in total this is one point i billion dollars in savings for one project. the response they received can only be described as delay, denial and deception. this has led the chairman of the armed services committee, the defense appropriations committee and need to ask the gao to conduct a full investigation. furthermore, whistleblowers have provided the committee with documentation showing the department of defense has provided false information to congress. committee will conduct another round of interviews and turned over her findings to the house

committee on oversight and government reform, which already has an ongoing investigation into this matter and the department of defense inspector general. finally, we have asked for data and i'll intelligence personnel and major support contractors at the combatant command. this request was made in december and this is information that should be readily available. informants have made the committee aware that facing decisions at significant cost to the taxpayer are being determined in order to maximize pay and in a fit of small groups of individuals. this includes both apartment civilians and contract years. this brings into question hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts awarded annually. this then finally, migrating cyberthreats and improving cyberdefense in light of the rapid pace of technological change to address these problems the committee helped pass a cybersecurity act of 2015. while the director of national

intelligence is published in the fabric intelligence information center, we need to ensure that the new law is implemented properly in the new center operate effectively. additionally the latest challenge is the government had met in gaining access to the iphone used by one of san bernardino terrorists is emblematic of the growing problem posed by encryption. finally, we need to educate members of congress on the importance of reauthorization of section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. i look forward to hearing what the witnesses have to contribute on this five focus areas and with that i would like to recognize the ranking member for any comments you would like to make. thank you, mr. chairman. , to join in thanking our witnesses, director clapper from the director brennan, director rasmussen and deputy director budget, we are grateful for your average than those of the men

and women of the intelligence community. threats we face today are incredibly diverse and daunting for an cyberto terrorism, russian aggression to north korean nuclear belligerence, from threats to space to threats from below the sea we are living in a very dangerous world. because of technology, some of these threats are new to the internet of things, for example, presents unique folder abilities to the most advanced nations like us assess the rights of artificial intelligence. other threats are more traditional. but still potentially devastating. north korea's genuine nuclear testing its recent pace launched, russia's interventions in ukraine, syria and its right to the baltic states, china's activity in the south china sea and regional power struggles in the middle east are a reminder that traditional state-based threats have not receded far from it. they are getting worse. still other threats are shifting. even as coalition bombing has haunted the group's expansion in iraq and syria, for example,

isis has thrown a sports in places like libya and sat to incite attacks in europe as we saw in paris and to inspire attacks in the united states is beside san bernardino. many of these threats are related. as his fearless is compounded by use of technology, social media encrypted communication. russia's terrestrial ambitions in china's naval designs are supported by a desire for the predominant in space and our greatest cybercapabilities are also our greatest vulnerabilities. to navigate through these treacherous shoals, we look to the i see to sound the alarms as you are doing today and to find and enable solutions. after the senate's version of this hearing earlier this month, many were saying the world was going to in a handbasket and i can certainly understand why given the myriad of challenges that we face. i want to emphasize here we are highlighting threats we could guess how best to counter them and we have faced and overcome far greater challenges in the

past. to that and we began receiving and reviewing budget submissions in order to many more sessions to make sure you have what you need to protect against these threats and do so in a way that is lawful cover protective of privacy and civil liberties, cost effective and in keeping with the highest american values. some solutions when it comes to the debate surrounding encryption are not going to come easily. simple fact by this man's case involving apple. one thing however is clear. the courts relate even if narrowly tailored to particular facts of this case will have ripple effects will significantly impact the law enforcement community, intelligence community, business community and all of us individually. this case and others like it implicates policy questions that can be decided by the courts alone. congress are inclusive discussions with tech companies come and just groups, the public on the global community, law-enforcement and intelligence community and the white house must carefully wakened eating policy considerations and arrive at sensible solutions.

as a first step we need facts. that's why several months ago chairman nunes and i asked the national academy of sciences or report an issue completed this year. it's also why supportive legislative commission on encryption in the broader cybersecurity commission. a hard look at the most commonly of their claims on all sides of the encryption debate would move us further from abstractions towards solutions. as a second step, we need to want to sleep knowledge complexity and not engage in absolute. as the committee a show with leadership on surveillance reform and cyberinformation legislation, privacy and liberty can must coexist. there is no doubt that terrorists are exploiting cheap and widely available encryption technology to do us harm and that continue to do so. at the same time there's no doubt are cybersecurity and privacy are under relentless attack from nationstate and criminal hackers in greater encryption provides a key defense. we can all agree law-enforcement

intelligence community have an obligation to investigate crimes to prevent harm to americans. similarly there's no doubt that american companies have obligations to shareholders to maximize profits in an increasingly competitive global world into their customers to safeguard privacy. our job in congress is to reconcile legitimate obligations and priorities. it is our job to draw lines. i'm not advocating a broad mandate on decryption or do i favor a world where law enforcement that they shut out of the list that communications than the hubble court approved warrant. but i am advocating is for a cooperative that-based approach to solving this very real problem. congress imposed a solution at the mass, but it would be far better for us to arrive at a resolution through negotiation with all the stakeholders that sets a standard for best practices and when we can live with that hold and champion around the world. guess we are living in a dangerous world as well as a complex world. make no mistake about it. it's also a world of great

opportunity. some of the challenges we have today are boring as the incredible talent, creativity and innovation of american business of solving problems every day. we also have the best intelligence community world working tirelessly to make sure advances are not used to propagate hate, violence and terror through channels beyond reach. the challenges in the answer to these challenges find solutions together. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. the >> mr. clapper coming of an opening statement to speak for the entire panel. >> yes, sir. that's right to >> thank you for 55 years of service. i don't know if this is your last world by threats hearing, but if it is, i am sure you are happy about that. last night with that, you are recognized. >> yes, i am. chairman nunes, members of the committee, we are here to update

you on some but certainly not all depressing intelligence and national security issues facing our nation. in the interest of time to get your questions, i will cover as you indicated, mine indicated, mine will be the only opening statement. we will be back next week. on the third of march to address the budget and management issues that you raised, chairman nunes. i said last year in stability has become the new normal in this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. violent extremists are operationally active and about 40 countries. seven countries are experiencing the collapse of central government authority and 14 others face regime threat or violence in stability or both. ..