you are prepared to sign those and i may or may not. before we bind this up, say if you would like to have more of this conversation. please join me in thanking our panel. [applause] >> on the far side over here. >> good afternoon, everybody. i would like to welcome you to the new york public library for a forum, shades of red and blue. i am the executive director and

along with the council, ethics and international affairs, the bard college, globalization and international affairs program, i would like to welcome you to this important discussion on global security. in a moment i will introduce the panel. before i do so if i can mention a couple things in that format, if you are sweeting we have the world's longest hashtag, shades of red and blue. exercise your thumb if you are using that. a number of panelists, distinguished authors whose works are available, to the title over there in the decision and you may be able to prevail on them to sign an issue depending on how they feel about the conversation. one last thing, i learned the other day, the first division of

the united states marine corps was founded in melbourne, australia, and the battle hymn for the marine corps, the division that has come out for the secretary of defense, the australian folksong waltzing matilda and i wear on this shoulder patch to this day the southern cross, one of the great emblems of australia. there is an incredible connection between the united states and australia. for good or for real, australia has set alongside the united states in every single conflict over the last hundred years, we may be the only country that has done that so the issue of global security is one which very much unites us in our approach and practice and it is an incredibly important topic to bring people together from diverse

perspectives because their common interests are at odds here. in terms of the process, jim castro from bard will be the conversations but there are two empty chairs and the reason for this is it is a special process we use in australia in which we are using for the first time here, which is halfway through the conversation, jim will open the table to you. we believe in these conversations, not just talking at you or down at you but if you are in the audience and have a question or comment, you say the title too but it is not a permanent safe, not coming to plant your self, here for the next 20 minutes or so but ask you to join the conversation on a temporary basis knowing you will be giving away when you do not to another panelist but another member of the audience.

make it brief, involved in the conversation but vacate the chair and you saw lots of people had a chance to do that. that is to come. in a moment we have a wonderful panel. i ask you to apply them all in a moment. i hope i pronounce it, jim from bard, and marie sorta and tom nichols, you probably already know half of them but please join me in welcoming our panel. [applause] >> thank you, thanks to all of you for being here and thanks to the organizers for putting this timely and important event together. as we are shifting to foreign policy, it strikes me that

foreign-policy tends not to be in most presidential elections front and center in the elections. several elections we have seen before in the debates, foreign-policy issues sometimes wouldn'tget a mention yet we saw in this election several key issues came to the 4, time and again, how we deal with china, trade deal, the question of russia that is still with us and more and the foreign-policy establishment in washington and beyond, the community of people who devoted their careers to doing this, same community of people did ben rhodes of the obama communication called the blob, they are not so connected to the electorate necessarily, so attuned to elections and this is true across the political spectrum.

given the nature of the result of this election but the way in which it rolled out, what do you think are the kinds of things the foreign-policy community would take away not only from election results but the nature of the run up to the election including the primaries. let's start with you. >> one thing that concerns me about the foreign-policy establishment and the public, we hear the american public say the establishment is not listening to us. i am concerned when it comes to foreign-policy the establishment listens to the public almost too often and foreign-policy now insofar as it does make appearances is almost entirely an extension of a permanent campaign on both sides.

i don't want to idealize this, republicans and democrats quietly shook hands on fighting the soviet union or any of those myths because that era of bipartisanship was remembered more fondly in our memory than it is in reality. on the other hand it seems now that the public and foreign-policy experts alike seem incapable of having a discussion of america's role in the world without thinking of the impact, the position you are taking has on your preferred candidate. it is like we are a parliamentary system, we are not capable of taking a position on foreign affairs that is not some extension of a candidate or a campaign and i worry about this. i think foreign-policy, reflecting my own bias here, i don't represent the government or the navy or anyone else.

i think foreign-policy has not only been mentally intricate business but a dangerous business. they are more forgiving than foreign-policy, experts are drawn into this partisan warfare and losing the ability to speak to each other. and some political organization or some person or campaign. in the best of all personable worlds foreign-policy, and these are not real decisions that could kill millions of people, i find that startling and the only good thing about this is in a strange way it is creating a new

bipartisanship of forcing experts who normally would disagree with each other into the same trench where they at least agree on things like basic roles of evidence and how to conduct an argument and that is happening very far away from the public debate which has escalated into an almost i don't want to say irretrievable but very deep difference between sites that strong experts -- >> that take away is structure of process but what about substantive issues, policy issues, are there things that came to the for this campaign for both parties resonated with the electorate in a way that is different? are there shifts in the population that we can read the tea leaves? >> what is most striking to me is there is and a line between foreign policy and domestic policy on the two biggest issues

for voters, economics and jobs, that was trade, nafta, china, globalization has taken away our jobs and there is a debate about that. immediately, the other which was security was not what should we be doing in the middle east but should we, what is the responsibility of people among us which we heard in the last panel. in both those cases people talking about it, we as foreign policy experts had views but that is not where the heat of the debate was and that is a function of worlds there borders are more permeable and immigration and refugees, the inability to roll ourselves off.

>> you mentioned trade, we had the interesting situation during the democratic primaries and republican primary where you saw sanders was proposing a very anti-trade deal platform that hillary clinton came on board to and this was one of donald trump's key themes, and i trade. in that regard the people who were supporting sanders and people supporting trump agreed on this issue and what does that say about what is going on with the electorate? why with a curious situation come to be? >> looking at the sanders supporters and donald trump supporters we have to take a step back. the anti-globalization, reactionary moment in terms of foreign-policy and how things have become so polarized is less

about the policy and more about america's place in the world and what is our identity. we have gone from a 20th century where america was the unequivocal superpower in economics and military and in the 21st century we have seen the rise of china and india, brazil, turkey. a lot of other countries. what we have seen is the prosperity in those countries people moving into the middle class becoming entrepreneurs and moving progress along and americans are stopping and saying what happens to our progress? we were the country creating jobs, we were the innovators and is that a function of trade and if that is so maybe we should stop that and though what we are projecting on foreign-policy i don't think we are taking a look

at where is america and our role in the global world order? >> it is interesting, in mcmxviii we fought in world war i and there was a big debate over what to do afterwords and woodrow wilson lost and we took a lower profile. what is often forgotten his we had the same debate and we demobilized 90% of our forces, we pulled out and when stalin began to move in eastern europe we had a big debate and went back in. in 1990 at the end of the cold war we didn't have this debate, we simply decided we would globalize our foreign-policy, go from america as the center of the free world to america as the pillar of a truly global order.

what is interesting is in 1992 the voters picked the least globalist of the two presidential candidate, george hw bush and bill clinton who ran -- didn't like nafta and was going to do less with foreign-policy. in 2000 they voted for george w. bush over al gore. at least the electors did. again, bush hard to remember now, wanted a humbler foreign-policy, no nationbuilding, less engagement and in 2008 they go for barack obama over john mccain and 2016 they go for trump over clinton so the voters have actually been very consistent in expressing two choices they are given they pick the one that is the least engaged with this project. >> that was true at the

beginning of world war ii as well. franklin roosevelt, to help the british, because he could see we needed to help the british. it is not uncommon for people whose job it is to liberate the world, on one of the coasts. >> the difference is foreign-policy in those days was able to persuade the people. this time after 1990, the foreign-policy community thought it was going to be a lot easier. when harry truman is gearing up for the cold war and frank -- franklin roosevelt gearing up for the war, they knew people would be drafted and they needed political support but in 1990 we thought free trade will make everybody rich, democracy spreading. in kuwait we had a war and made

the world pay for it so it is going to be easy so we can do this without gaining the deep consent. >> you are making two assumptions i would disagree with. in listing those presidential contests you are talking about the foreign-policy that is the deciding issue when most people don't care. there is not a pattern. the second thing i disagree with is the voters themselves are consistent. these are the same voters who at the same time tell a candidate, keep us out of all this trouble in the world, make sure america is number one, make sure america's most powerful country in the world, keep america number one, keep the global system, america at the top of the heap and the next press site, let's not engage in places we don't know about. >> fortunately elite never make mistakes. >> i never said elites don't make mistakes but only that the electorate for 40 or 50 years has sent highly contradictory --

>> i would disagree. the way truman persuaded the americans to support the marshall plan and the cold war wasn't to say america will replace great britain as the gyroscope of world order and promote a liberal global system. what he said is the russians are coming. because they were. here is the point. in 1990, when the russians weren't coming we doubled down on the -- replacing great britain thing and the russians became somewhat abstract. the idea is it is going to be easy and cheap and you are going to like it. they don't necessarily like it. >> i worked on capitol hill during the first gulf war and one of the things that struck me was bush xli had to sell the more. he had to sell restraint. the american people were not

saying -- this was a full-blown why aren't we earning that back? >> the american people like, very jacksonian response. wars that are quick and we win. they are not for nationbuilding and counterinsurgency. every president who started one of these counterinsurgency wars, truman -- johnson -- >> very shallow understanding of foreign-policy. >> the people are revolting. the voters -- >> the place i agree with you, you make it hard to agree with you but i will anyway. the place i do agree with you is since the beginning of the 1990s we don't have a clear picture of what we stand for in the world. during the cold war it doesn't

was that we are against russia, the soviet union was communism and we stood for democracy and we stood for human rights. hypocritically in many cases, inconsistently in others but carter leaves in human rights and so did reagan, since then, it is not clear we are the first or the best, it is not clear, donald trump says like kissinger was we should pursue our interest like everybody else, a lot of americans think no, we are more than that, we stand for something. it is important that we stand for something more than that. even the elites don't agree on that much less saying this is who america is in the world. >> i think the one thing we have to acknowledge in this day and

age is social media and the fact that we have gone as individuals and this includes cnn and the 24/7 news cycle, we have gone from being observers of information to being participants in it and i don't think whether it is the government or establishment has caught up to that reality and they are operating on the status quo, of the 20th century. and having the knee-jerk reaction if you look at foreign-policy under the obama administration, the obama administration and foreign-policy certainly suffered from what to do with this changed role, we are no longer, on collective action. >> there is a difference in the

participation. that one level of participation, very different. truman was trying to sell what we were going to do as we were ending world war ii and beginning of the cold war, there has been a large number of americans who were directly involved in that war in world war i and vietnam. the number of people the united states has sent to this long span of combat we are engaged in is a very small number. .. they key decisions that any country should have to make about going to war collectively via social media spur even before treatment. at the art you to give his fireside chats and would tell

people, look, get a map can follow along. literally maps sold out around the country. today to get the average american to look at a map, is under pain of death. >> google maps. >> we were talking earlier, there were a couple years ago the "washington post", this participation issue, the "washington post" asked what we should do about russian intervention in ukraine. people had very strong feelings about it. directly in proportion to how little they knew about ukraine. the average responded in this ball when asked identify where ukraine was, was off when average response of 1800 miles. ukraine is a single largest country who borders are entitled in europe and the average american could not place it on the right continent. >> how might there think having sharp and if there was a real chance they are somewhat into ie family would have to conserve in an american expedition in

ukraine? >> exactly. >> hitters may be where, in my view, the kind of core reason there's this gap -- here's where -- after world war ii we didn't just build this international order and global system but there's also a domestic order that basically if you didn't screw up and you'd have a pretty job for life. you graduate from high school, chances were you get into a factory or something. overtime your wages would gradually rise, not for everybody. there was a lot of racial discrimination in women didn't get an equal shot. nevertheless, in general there was this sense that things are going to get better and that you had security and stability in your life. what has happened since 1990 particularly but begin even before is there's a revolution in peoples ordinary lives. and so there's a feeling of insecurity at home and so here

you are off trying to fix an honest process, but here at home it's a mess and that, and they wonder why. why do you care so much about over there? and also i will say while some of our global -- global efforts worwere pretty well, a number of them don't. so the revolution in egypt didn't bring human rights. all those phone calls obama made to present erdogan didn't create the democratic islamism in turkey that is going to save the middle east. so there's this sense that you don't know what you are doing over there and you certainly don't know what you're doing over here. why am i going to trust you. >> i want to ask everybody, this is, i come from one of those towns that 40 years ago was thriving and is now depopulating and empty factories and all of

the things that we talk about everyday. anne marie, a great point, there still a division foreign and domestic politics. i find that when you talk to the ordinary voter or ordinary citizen, they are unaware of their own, walter, i can see you giving to look up playing the ordinary voters but when you say to people speedy we could flee where no man -- >> the standard of living around the folks who say you don't know what you're doing over there, you don't know what you're doing over here. when you try to make the point about think about the amount of chinese electronics that you are buying, the things that you are making that a part of that globalize system of trade and peaceful cooperation that you are surrounding yourself with. i always want to go out -- >> a heroin addict with no -- >> you are blaming the guy this book for four years because he got lung cancer. >> but again i think it's more

than in all kinds of communities around the country there's been a collapse of social capital. and again if you go to an ivy league college and you talk to the kids there or even a place like bard, what a going to do when you graduate? you will hear a lot more kids interested in fixing the world than i'm really going to go moved to west virginia because i feel as american it's my duty to help my fellow americans. i think the elites have stopped teaching that kind of patrioti patriotism. there's a sense of you gain peoples trust by doing things that they understand are good. then there's a likelihood that when asked them to do something they're not quite sure about, they will trust you and believe you. >> what do foreign-policy experts do in a situation where this anger, which i think is fundamentally misdirected at

this point because when people say you don't know what you're doing over there, my argument, somebody asked the other day, 50 years of this policy can what if we gotten? a global system of peace and prosperity and cooperation that's better than world war ii or world war iii. >> i agree that my response to donald trump getting elected was to cancel for trips to europe to essentially elite ideas. i just thought why am i spending my time talking to people like me in europe -- european watering holes rather than actually reading about and traveling in this country? one of the ways you can look at this election, look at the statement that said in multiple countries, the people who had been advantaged by globalization, although the same way, i'll see each other the same way, talk the same way, we differ a little, but the bigger divide are those folks are still

in those towns left behind in france, germany, britain, pennsylvania absolutely. i do think walter is right even as he foreign-policy person, i am far more connected to my counterpart in britain and japan or even in beijing that i am to folks in west virginia. >> i couldn't agree more at a think we need to listen. i get i think trust is something that people develop. the average american, franklin roosevelt was not very much like by the average american beauty was about as privileged as it was possible to be, and he was a cripple, too, which he lied about. and yet people felt that he cared about them. even then he found it very difficult to nudge the country into world war ii, but he built up trust on things they understood and then they're

willing to trust him on things that were a little new and more challenging. i think elites need to think about, there's a difference between being a member of an elite and being a leader. i don't think on our side of this we've done enough about that. >> i don't disagree with you, walter, but i think we're not thinking about yesterday is a perception about the voter and whether it's in pittsburgh or in west virginia and how they feel left behind. but at the same time they feel left behind because they see so many people whether it's in india, and brazil and mexico and -- >> i think you are looking at india, brazil and mexico. >> people in china and brazil and india are actually gaining a sense of confidence. >> i don't think all that many people in western pennsylvania nessus we know that the middle class in turkey feels more confident than it used to. >> they are getting a sense the world has changed and --

[talking over each other] >> but when you talk to people they always say why our jobs going to mexico, to china? why are those individuals doing better? the reality, talking that fdr, truman but you're also talking about and america will be at not only military power but we had the soft power where people wanted, people love the idea of america. to answer the question. >> the recent jobs are going overseas is because they think the wages are lower. they don't think the factories going to china means china is richer than us because if china were richer than us, the jobs would come back here. so what they see -- they are not actually. they don't actually go to china about or read a lot of chinese social media. [laughing] >> but they are told this. they are that a lot of these myths, station in this election spirit this would be as two of the sanders wing as the trump

wing, that selfish american corporations are moving jobs to low-wage havens overseas. they are not hearing selfish american corporations are moving jobs to high wage corporate -- what i think they're hearing that they don't believe is in the 1990s everybody said okay, we're going to let china build up. they will be doing low wages,, slave labor, whatever it is, but make us, but in the end it would make china democratic as it industrialize and becomes democratic china will be peaceful. what people see is that of the chinese middle class is happy. this is china has gotten really powerful by taking low-wage american jobs and build a big economy and is now becoming a military threat. the promise that free trade was worth the sacrifice to american jobs in order to create a more stable world order isn't looking quite so solid.

>> this is part of what i object to in this debate is the notion they were sold free trade and exchange for a more peaceful world. it seems to me the very first job i read in politics is working on a plant closing which was a really painful thing. seems to me that what all this bull county was required to maintain free trade because it's buoying up a fairly quickly rising standard of living with a lot of cheap stuff that you can for now that you could never -- why does yo he working to suppot free-trade? not because it's going make china peaceful because now you have an air conditioner that you can afford until now. >> had an easy time getting an air conditioner in 1975 than they do now. a smart phone i will admit. >> when you do listen and i think i didn't have to cancel -- i spent a lot of time talking with folks who worked, who were in fact, trump vote and very

angry folks. when i find i listen the adjective are demands to square the circle, to do the impossible. that they are almost a set of demands that i cannot imagine any policymakers succeeded with. this is why successive administrations of both right and left, democratic and republican simply cannot satisfy what it is that the iraqi people are demanding in foreign-policy. let me limit this to the foreign-policy agenda. it is contradictory within itself. >> and americans are getting, now they're getting very specific messages that are just absolutely wrong on the facts. and perhaps from both sides. in addressing these issues. these issues have real policy consequence. when we see an executive order that says we're going, the tray cover is not going to aggressively address o the trade deficits. this is just anybody who like i suffered through international economics 101 understands

quickly that a trade deficit is that this i this is a bad thingn economy. it takes leadership to talk about things that want them intuitively sound right, are not right. and to follow a policy direction that is based on absolute perpetuated falsehood eventually leads us to a very difficult place. it doesn't end up addressing the kinds of issues that everybody here is saying we need to listen better and we need to understand the issues. those are the very people who will suffer first with bad economic policy. so what is cisco? >> i do think both the left and the right are saying we need to rethink what, for people in both parties for 40 years has been orthodoxy, which is you support free-trade because free-trade expands the pie. we all learned our basic theory

of comparative advantage. it expands the pie and then you figure out how to redistribute the pie and you retrain or whatever. i do think what you're seeing on both sides, and i've been thinking about this, wait a minute. if it expands the pie but it expands the pie so unfairly that we so we're going to retrain but we don't. retraining doesn't work. we have tried it again both, the maybe we either have to have much more redistributionist policies, which are not sure are politically viable, or maybe we should in fact, have a more, have at least the same amount of protection as many of the nations that we are trading with the due. germany has more protection than we do. china certainly does. it seems to me we should listen and challenge our own orthodoxies there. it never occurred to me that you would support free-trade but it seems to me it's worth going back and asking why, who is this

benefiting? why are we taking this position? from right and left. >> without looking over our shoulders as experts, as people who work in foreign-policy, without looking over our shoulders to the which candidate or party -- >> exactly right. >> that's driving a huge -- >> that's when you lose trust when you -- >> without doubt. >> but i think there is something that our elite education does stress theory over history. political science over the history of power, economic theory over economic history. because in fact, if you look at history, while protectionism is in three bad, it's worked pretty well for a lot of, like the u.s. in the 19th century. and arguably are having protective tariffs against britain actually allowed us to develop a domestic industrial sector and one day compete with britain. a lot of other countries that protect, it's not because i didn't take economics 101.

it's because they took history 101. i think this is an area where our elite is bad, that they are too used to theory. they have models of ir and they try to think okay, i'll be going to become liberal internationalist? iit so what we do in bosnia? as opposed to what's the last thousand years of history in the balkans and what's next? >> wears bosnia? >> i think the elites have lost touch. i agree with that but i also think that we are losing perspective here because we look at this again i'm a purely american point of view and we're not acknowledging the world has changed. you are talking about protectionism. perfectionism didn't work so well for the soviets -- >> it worked really well for the germans and it worked for the japanese. >> it did not work well for latin america and it did not work well for a lot of those

countries? >> so study white works in some places and doesn't in others. >> you can't just say that protectionism does work and -- [talking over each other] >> that's what we have to have a debate. >> i don't know what we are arguing about right now. >> we had to stop reacting towards as if their magical incantations, that it is a protectionism and suddenly free traders all freak out. abc free-trade, suddenly all the protection is all freak out. >> more empirical and less abstract. >> also to say under what conditions. if you let -- if you have the same discussed but an appointment. to unemployment benefits make people lazy or -- it depends. some people yes, some people know. sometimes it's a necessary bridge. instead we had his immediate kind of electric voltage moments where those words come up and i think that that and for julie has been reinforced by our partisan debate. i think that the foreign-policy

community needs to transcend that and get back to, not to a consensus perhaps but a lease to a green ticket rules of the road of changing that consensus. >> to be able to sort through these kinds of issues in what situation would protectionism some level of protectionism or some targeted industries or whatever, when with those work? other issues, for a specific issues, how should we deal with the north korean threat, do this or do that? yes, there needs to be more listening to the electorate, but that's a good answer this question. >> not on north korea. >> those questions i think the require a combination of expertise but also leadership and the willingness to be able to explain difficult things. >> and to teach. fdr your point about fdr was really good point because fdr was not just a leader.

he was a teacher. >> and by the way so was teddy roosevelt, another member of the elite. george washington was the richest man in the colonies. so it's not that elites can be leaders but it's a lot of elites don't know how to lead. and people since that. i think you can be honest to the facts and honesty history, and also honesty people but you also i think you have to put principle ahead of ambition. you have to say even if it means i never serve as the under deputy assistant of x, i'm still going to tell people what a thing and they will know that what i say is what i think. [applause] >> profile in courage. >> lets see if anyone would like to join us at the table, if you dare. please. come and join speed we are really very nice. >> as simon said, come and join for a little while and then be ready to relinquish your seat,

please. [inaudible] >> no. i think it to come up. >> i have to? >> yes, please. >> this is how the panel will listen to the people. >> we are leading, we are leaders. >> hello. >> thanks for coming. >> open. why don't you begin. >> i was grateful you actually mentioned that the conversation had become what to a lot of outsiders, strangers, despite the green card, think of american policy, which is that fdr -- it was played out right here a moment ago in some respects. and the point is, discussing

microcosm of domestic issues, which are multi-various, but without addressing the rest of the world is a typical rest of the world use american foreign-policy. we just saw it happen. my question therefore is to bring it to global security. i'm sure you're all aware, david mccullough is the origin of this charge of disaggregation. and what do you see as the next logical step for dismembering radical terrorism and helping to share peace as a stems from the middle east? >> who would like to start with that? should be easy. >> i guess i would start with, i hear a lot. i go to some of the same forums and marie goes to and i hear a lot of sort of debate about will be democracy that is terrorism in the middle east, empowerment

of women, economic development? i guess my own sense is none of those going to happen it a policy relevant time. if maybe we'll get lucky and they will, but in fact, we actually had to do with the reality in which the arc of history isn't going to kind of come in, bend just when we needed to. so you are facing a very complex movement of a kind of, its ideological, religious, cultural resistance. it's state disaggregation. its changes in domestic structures. but i think we do spend too much time inventing imaginary paradises in which this problem will just go away. so i would say while i don't message and have an edge at this point, the first up is we just have to clear a lot of grant. >> i agree with that. i think that we -- i feel like i agree with you. [laughing] >> if people listen to me long

enough. >> i think we're approaching, we try to talk about these issues. number one, we have to take a look at, we react to terrorism to a military lens but we are not understanding why the terrorism has arisen in the first place. that has to do with, they talked about this in the last panel, it has to do with people feeling marginalized, social mobility. so going to ann marie, domestic policy feeding into foreign-policy. this applies whether you in brussels, paris or in san bernardino. we just have to acknowledge that. an approach, approach terrorism as realpolitik as will as well. the nature of war has changed today. when you're talking about, russia, we are not afraid of russia coming in with their nuclear missiles, their icbms. now they are hacking into our

elections. how are we reacting to that? on the one hand you can say well, no one is dying, but something is profoundly being disturbed in this country and in the world order. >> i actually would not approach this in terms of how we, the united states or the west or whatever we you want to use, is going to end isis or radical islamic terrorism or whatever the phrase is. we are not. it is to me the equivalent of the fight between the protestants and the catholics for a very long time in europe where, the best we can do is to protect ourselves and become more resilient, increase our intelligence. where there are very specific things where we can take action we should, but to me we are setting, it's crazy to think

this is an enemy we are going to defeat the way we defeated hitler in the second world war. i look at the british in the most recent attack and indeed the city after 9/11, where the view is okay, we stop a lot of attacks. every now and again one gets to pick when it does you go to work the next day, you keep going, you tell them no, you didn't win. ultimately, you let the larger forces within a religion, within various societies resolve this particular issue but i don't think we are to defeat at. >> i just want to give you a warning to be bit brief. >> i agree with anne-marie and i think this notion of some others, this is one of the worst myths peddled during this election, one day we will equivalent of an islamic right stag, racy american flag and declare victory. my biggest concern the way we

triumph is to endure our remaining true to who we are as ourselves. the second biggest, the biggest end of the cold war was a nuclear holocaust or the second-biggest inch of the cold war was the united states and its allies would become too much like the soviet union in fighting it, in creating an ashes could he state and a large intelligence apparatus, please stay. i think we avoided that and i think we need to spend less time thinking about how to defeat them and some strategic sense. we have to stop them but we have to keep always look at ourselves and say are we being true to our own values? that his victory in an enduring way. >> and i would also just say, having a sense of really what the threats are, not just the threats that opposed by isis or al qaeda, though they are real and persistent, but i disagree

that we may lead to the word about the russians and hacking and what they're doing in the cyber world. yes, that is a concern, but the new -- nuclear issue is not gone away. you make an argument we live in a far more dangerous time in terms of nuclear security and we ever have. that's what issue that really did not come up in the election. it doesn't make for good politics to talk about the potential for nuclear annihilation. but i think whether it's states like russia or the north koreans, or other nonstate actors who might use nuclear weapons, it really is chilling and should be chilling to people. i think that's another area where we need leadership to both be informed and the people speak about in an informed way, and to honestly address these issues with the american people. i think that's just not happening at all. >> you have been very patient. go ahead. >> it's been very interesting.

coming back to domestic issues, all the time listening i've been thinking about the white elephant you know, that is under the rug. and that is the enormous growth of wealth in the last 20 years in this country. my question is, what is the relationship? it's interesting that you don't mention that it's cadillac on the side, he talk about jobs, reductionism, globalization. what is the relationship between our economic policies and the growth, the enormous, unbelievable growth of wealth? it's almost like magical. >> it's not magic. >> i mean, i was using a metaphor. you would never believe that even ten years ago, you would never realize the disparity between our poverty which is also unbelievable and the enormous growth of wealth. for example, i was reading of the times today that ivanka

trump i think a something like $800 million, she and her husband. one person. so that's my question. >> who would like to start with that? >> i think the elites that we had been talking about, i think it's connected with what they want and how to achieve to augment that wealth is very much directly tied to, we can create cheaper things in taiwan and china or south korea, and we're going to get more profits in. the supply chain has gone global, and they have been pushing that every have been thinking about the consequences of what is happening to somebody in pittsburgh or in west virginia. just the social welfare. when you take a look at silicon valley and you're constantly all the time about the wealth gap within silicon valley. and how you have people who are

within the tech community sending their kids to private elite schools, then you have the people that are going and taking the nannies and the people are taking care of their homes, and they are in these public schools that are losing money. there's a significant gap. this is something where, where does it come down to? it does come down to the elites but also comes down to th battle our elected officials in washington but our local leaders on the ground. this is not a discussion about domestic politics but we can get into a discussion about campaign-finance reform and how much elections are dependent on the. >> i just want to say one thing. blaming rich people wanting to be richer -- >> i wish the elephant under my rug were grown a little faster. [laughing] >> no. i think when i said there are winners from globalization who went over and over and over

again. just even as university professor i remember the day in the late 1990s that a course i had talked to meet one instance in one place suddenly could be to online all over the world and i could reap the benefits of that many times over. so there's a class of people who have gained extraordinarily, and walter, my elephant is not -- but it got a lot bigger versus those are fundamentally losers as result of globalization. the divide in this country and in europe and in other parts of the world is that divide between the winners from globalization and the losers, and each country has to then come back and say wait a minute, we cannot continue as a polity with this amount of the patient. there has to be some redistribution of different policies so everybody gains. >> i want to place the word of globalization and say information economy.

>> yes. >> fairpoint. >> really this is as big as the industrial revolution. >> something there's an appointment in what were information is, access to information, to manipulate and use information is the new skill. some of the problem bursting with his income disparities, were not the intended consequences but they are the unavoidable consequences. >> if we are going to address that, then we will retrain people spirit or redistribute internally. >> we have the industrial revolution starts in the 1820s in this country and it's not really into after the second world war that we sort of learned how to run and a daschle society. my guess is information revolution will be the same. we don't understand what's happening in the way that we did when we had a mature and actual economy. things don't come with the economy doesn't be quite the the

central bank exit will. we don't know -- so we are in a period kind of, again this gets to the elite thing, that, in fact, a generation ago you could apply known techniques to existing problems. and more or less success would come. now it's a little bit hairier. >> let's continue our listening tour. >> well, isn't this a little complex? the idea that only elites can run for policy, it's really a simple thing. extension of human relations. you are generous, fair with somebody, they were probably treat you generously and fair. there are exceptions. there are crazy cults. if you drop a bomb on somebody, i hate, doesn't have to be islamic terrorism. it is bomb terrorism. the u.s., most electorate have

been fairly good, everything about the military is good. military-industrial complex, and their view is any war is an away football game. you root for the home team. it wasn't always like this. in the 1920s, the committee investigation. >> thank goodness that happened. >> but i'm just saying if we hadn't had that kellogg pact we might've had another war. >> on going to take issue and say the notion foreign-policy isn't that complicated and that we don't need experts to do. first of all, very clearly in this palooka and five it will engage in some real-time testing of that hypothesis. [laughing] >> and i don't think it's going to end very well. in part because i think the amount of information taken about the world, whether it's 2017 or 1917 i think i it's like

most specialized areas of knowledge beyond the comprehension of any one citizen, which is why we have a republic, not a democracy. which is why we mediate these decisions rather than do everything by plebiscite. i also think ordinary citizens are always surprised in foreign affairs by the problem of unintended consequences. that you move one part of the rubiks cube and six of the parts move. that's a difficult thing to do. the biggest, coming back as a foreign-policy specialist to say, i think we probably offer disassembling in our careers, it's a great metaphor that i didn't invent. i can' can think of who did, tht american street foreign-policy like plumbing. it's invisible. they don't not works and the only care about it when it breaks. >> i think that's right but i want to agree on two points. one very much a point, and our jamaica earlier, that when you

kill peoples families, they remember. the bombings in germany and in japan and world war ii, they bombed us, we bombed in. now it's much more one way, right? the places where we are dropping these bombs, they may bomb is through terrorism but they don't have the ability to really strike back. these are also from drones, so it's not even, there's not even a pilot. there you are in a wedding or whatever and boom, your child, your cousin. those humanitarian issues, those basic human issues of people who are getting killed and you look to see, well, who was responsible, and it's the united states, even for many reasons that we might articulate, i think speedy even when were defending other people. >> i understand but i think that is not just a sort of extra issue. i do think that is a core issue

about who we are in the world and what we stand for. >> but let me complicated a look at it and why i think this is complicated. >> be brief. >> during world war ii there was a big debate over whether we should have unforced unconditional surrender of germany and japan. roosevelt and the people who are against that said it will make the war coal loader because it fight harder roosevelt basically said, good. because the reason we're having world war ii was in world war i the germans didn't really learn what war was because it stopped because of outside of germany. so we're going to bomb dresden. were going to destroy that country. we're going to go through there like sherman through georgia on the more and teach them that war is not an option. so sometimes violence makes things worse. and by the way that worked. >> what did it teach us.

>> that we can control violent. >> the worst bumper-stickering world is one says war is not the answer. every time i see that i say it depends on what the question was. if the question is, shall we eradicate the jewish people from the face of the planet? then maybe war isn't the answer. if the question is made we should bomb -- >> georgia didn't secede after sherman. >> i think we are maintain our humanity, even in thinking, i think this is where foreign-policy experts do their jobs and say we had to think about things people would rather not think about and we are to make it our humanity doing it. >> you also though mentioned within your question this overreliance on the military to solve every international problem. >> yes. >> i think we could certainly see lots of evidence to support that claim. i would see in that goes back to the fact that most americans are very distant from the military, very distant from what it

actually means that it's sort of the opposite of what walter was saying, that since we are the ones who are engaged in the action as a country, but most of the people really are not engaged in it. the military went to war and american went to the mall. this makes it easier to see every problem with a military solution. this makes it easy to say we will increase the military budget by some astronomical number and cut state and usaid. i'm sorry to end up there though. let's have one last question. >> can you be brief? >> very brief. i'm not going to post my question. i would much rather lead into the last thought that you just mentioned. because we use war a as a historical point in our history, peace gets too comfortable, and so peace, it's very easy to succumb to human paranoia. even when there's no chaos, more likely than not we will let

chaos ensue. >> there you go. we will leave it at that. ladies and gentlemen, as i mentioned before, a number of our authors will be signing books. we are selling books over the there's another session in half an hour. we will be talking something equally intriguing, race, religion, ideology. does it divide? doesn't unite? but before we take that break, would you please join in thinking our panel? [applause] >> thank you very much. ♪ ♪

>> the white house correspondents' association dinner takes place in washington saturday night c-span love live coverage beginning at 930 with entertainer hasan minhaj from "the daily show." here's the president of the association jeff mason with more about the dinner. >> jeff mason, white house correspondent for reuters and president of the whitest responders association. you seem to end of one administration, the start of a new administration. from your standpoint what has been the biggest challenges? >> the correspondents' association is the main interlocutor between the press corps and the white house. we served in a row at the end of the obama administration and then started with the new trump administration. i think the biggest challenges of been that adjustment, and you administration comes into the white house with new priorities, with less experience in this case in dealing with the press and new ideas. we've had to talk to them about the needs of the press corps and