kind of solutions they will come up with. we want to avoid an institutional bias or pre-determined responses and instead answer the question, what is most needed? we just helped with this kind of analysis in burma. we worked on a seven-person team with three members from the aid and four from the state department. including one from cso. under the auspices of darryl mitchell. we were trying to make sure that those local voices are heard and they drive what needs to take shape. as you know, cso has its own analysis tool. i know many of you have yours as well. sometimes they produce different conclusions. we want to learn from you and refine the icaf and make it more strategic and influential. the analysis that we all do should lead to the next step, a

single integrated strategy with two-to-three priorities that provide direction for all. many of these places need everything so you can never been wrong. from infrastructure to schools to justice systems. the u.s. can't be in a nation-building mode. jump starting is still plenty ambitiou ambitious. we cannot afford to work on priorities seven or eight. we need to work on one, two, three. we have to be catalytic. we need to make sure those people have the ability to make it on their own. next, the strategy leads directly to making sure that people and programs, resources address the priorities. burma will be a challenge in this regard. it's exotic, it's safe, everyone wants to work there. but to work together will be a

centerpiece our being effected. finally, we need to make sure that we are measuring and adjusting our work as we go. learning in real time and not learning two years after the fact. with this approach, we in the u.s. government can greatly increase our chances of success. it will help us work better with all of you hopefully in a transformati transformati transformational way. at cso, we recognize we have the coming year to improve the response to show change and impact. so for this year, we told the secretary we have three goals. first, we have to make an impact in two-to-three places of real significance to the united states. to do that, we will dedicate 80% of our effort to four cases. syria, kenya, north central america and burma.

then we will have another eight-to-ten places to test approaches or make a welcome difference by just sending the right person at the right time. so far, i think we are gaining traction in each of our major priority engagements. many of you are working in this places and we realize that we won't know it all or know best about them, so we hope for your support. in syria, we are providing a non-traditional surge to empower and unite a fractured, non-violent opposition. as the secretary announced, that includes providing non-lethal assistance. we are working with partners to set up an outpost for the opposition to coordinate with international communities. in kenya, we are helping to develop plans to ensure peaceful and credible elections a year before the vote. incidentally, kenya is one place where we have seen a potential

model for cooperation and innovation. in northern central america, we have a growing homicide and governance problem that could spill over into problems. we are addressing the violence on a regional basis. specifically to honduras and guadalajara and belize. our second goal for this year is to build a trusted and respected team. we want to be the people in the u.s. government who bring everyone together to find solutions to conflict. we have brought in an entirely new leadership team, refocused our organization as crs and restructuring the civil response corps and other corps resources. we are reducing the size of the corps to a proven leadership.

we are expanding our reach to deploy experts from inside or outside of the government on a pay as you use basis. instead of keeping a large-standing staff just in case of an eventuality, we are moving to deploy the right person to the right place just in time while expanding our partnerships. for example, this is one of my favorite stories, we recently got a call from the ambassador in liberia seeking our help. the day before the presidential runoff in november, a demonstration turned violent and one person was killed and eight injured by gunfire. some felt the police were implicated. the liberian commission set up to investigate the incident. didn't have the capacity to conduct an inquiry which put the credibility and goodwill of the government at risk. cso sent an expert from the

justice department and your civilian response corps who insured the investigation was on track. liberian investigators interviewed 70 or 80 people and sound a second slice of video of the demonstration that showed specific police firing on the crowd. it actually happened in three different ways. one of the liberian investigators first saw a plain-clothes person in a rather exotic shirt with a heavy arm band firing into the crowd. actually, the video showed a pop and a little bit of smoke and you could hear the noise. and still photography confirmed who that person was. it turned out it was a high-ranking member of the presidential guard.

that same 15 second clip was shown to the department of justice investigator who saw another police man in the same frame shooting -- this one in uniform -- shooting into the crowd. he showed that same video clip to the commission members and one of them saw a third person in that same 15-second clip firing into the crowd. that became the critical evidence that led to police u suspicions and the president of the country taking responsible. it is a great rule of law for the political process. it also shows that who we are and how we work are as important as what we are trying to do. to make quality impact in the first 12 months of a crisis takes agility and innovation that is different from the way the u.s. often works of the our

third goal is to work in a more agile way. part of that is to develop a model for diplomacy in the field and part of working as an anecdote in washington. as we know, the bureaucracy can move like an elephant. it is powerful, but very large and so you can reasonably predict where its going and be sure not to be under foot. our goal is to work in a more nimble, speedy fashion, which means more help from our partners. i used to ask audiences, would you rather spend $500 million on the largest u.s. embassy in the world in a place like baghdad or would you rather spend $500 million to train 500 americans, $1 million for each of them, so they are capable of working in a place like baghdad?

how many of you would favor the embassy? so we pretty much agree. almost unanimously. but i have bad news for you. since i started asking this question, they built the embassy. it cost more than $500 million. we're trying to figure out what to do with it. so we've got to find a way to do things differently. violent conflict has unofficially dominated u.s. foreign policy for years. so we need to expand the community of people who recognize it's centrality and can address it head on. there is a lot of room for improvement and i hope we can join together in doing that. i want to take a moment now to address the tension that we sometimes feel when non-governmental groups and governments find themselves in

the same space. the u.s. has its national interests at heart and ngos often strive for neutrality. those are not always the same thing. i think the key is to be very honest about when our interests are in sync and when we might need a little space. we should feel like we can help each other, but also keep our distance when necessary without it being a snub. good, open communications should make that possible. with that, i want to offer you a challenge. when i was at cso, we measured progress in afghanistan. for the first time, almost everyone i spoke to was telling us what they were doing was working while the larger enterprise was not going well. so we had a situation where we heard 100 success stories that somehow added up to one very

questionable larger evident. there is no mathematical equation that allows 100 pluses to equal a negative. of course, almost everybody had an explanation. it announced the flaws in the approach we take to these places. here are questions that i wonder if you are asking yourselves. are you working in places that really matter? even though it is impossible to be transformative, is the larger situation getting any better as a result of your involvement? even if you are doing brilliant work, what is happening on the broader scale? asking these questions is part of our goal and i hope part of yours. we're looking at the next dramatic event in how the united states can be a more intelligent responder and anticipator and intervene or and catalytic force. these are the questions of our

time. in this space, we see these questions in their rawest form. people are actually killing each other. because they can't figure it out. and there is nothing more profound in human life than people killing each other because they can't figure it out. so we're the most fascinating, most delicate, most demanding, most responsible moment imaginable and we're trying to say is there some way the united states can help so it doesn't lead to something much more

tragic. we need your help. if you ever hear me say we're on top of this, we have it under control, give me a call or send me an e-mail. because we need all the help we can get. there is plenty to be done. we need to keep building the momentum for this working congress, elsewhere in the government, and with our partners of all stripes. we need to expand the base of people who believe in this work and, as i said, it can't be business as usual. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> rick has kindly offered to take some questions, if there are questions from the audience. i do have to ask a question myself. will somebody be handing around the microphones or do people go to the side? handing them out. please, raise your hand so that they can see you. stand up and introduce yourself. there is a question down here. >> i'm bob burg. proud member of the board of the alliance. i am wondering, you know, in this more complicated world we're in, will want a lot of companies on the journeys you have mentioned internationally. that is the question we want

asked within a lot of governments. i wonder in your initial soundings with initial counterparts and other governments and nato and so for forth, your questions are resonating well? >> thanks, bob. yes [ laughter ] >> i've always wanted to give at least one-word answer. i'm more liking to go on than to be as succinct as he was. i still admire his stikill. the answer is yes whether we are talking to the commanders in the u.s. government or the u.k. government or even the colleagues that i had a chance to work with at the u.s. u.n. in new york. i think there is a great recognition that we really have to go at this in a much more creative fashion. one of the things i noticed having worked on this for about

20 years and maybe 30 or plus places now is that we tend to be -- most of us tend to be molded by our recent experience. that puts us at risk because we are in a huge risk in iraq and afghanistan. the next round of conflicts that we're looking at have a different flavor and different from the 1980s where many of us were mostly shaped by bosnia. although other catastrophes going on. we need to make sure we accumulate this knowledge rather than think we just got it. for me, one of the things that is most fascinating is i never know where i'll get the parallel experience. i was surprised to find in the congo that there was more haiti that i expected. in angola, there was more serbia

than i thought. now normally we would put regional experts. it is part of what we want to do is to have an intellectually challenging enough environment that there is a creative tension within the state department so we don't rush to a consensus view within the u.s. government that this is the way to do something, but really make it a more rigorous test. that involves a give and take with regional bureaus that have to be more dynamic than it has been in some time. that is one of our significant challenges. but the other thing i would say about the counterparts in the other governments, getting specifically to your question, that we are still all relatively small boutiques and we are still all kind of finding our space within our larger bureaucracies. so, we have to come together. when i was working at oti, i

used to say it was nice for us to do what we are doing, but we can't be a professional team that just practices all the time. we have to be in the league. you have to have people where you can go out. competition and creative tension should be part of this model. that is why you almost never hear me use the word "coordination." although i believe we have to work well together as a fine textile. >> do you want to take your own question? >> i can do that. it is nice to have help for that matter. let me go back here by the microphone. this gentleman back here. yes. >> thank you. i'm chris from american university and center for international relations. i am from greece, actually. i found myself working on this report that i wasn't expecting

in my lifetime to do. it has to do with the greece as a failed state and the liability -- regional security. in case greece becomes a failed state. the question i have is how many steps ahead can usaip be around the world in cases like greece and others that are not there yet? but they are close to becoming so. so considering the limited capacities in terms of money and resources, how many steps can usaip be before things get bad? >> well, fortunately i can answer for cso and say we have partners like usaip that can get out ahead of us farther in some of these cases. i would hope that many of you would be well ahead of us

because that would give me some greater sense of confidence that we are on top of this. one thing that worries me is i'm quite sure in some cases in some places -- i don't think this is true in the case of greece -- but the u.s. military has war plans for all matter of places on earth. it strikes me as a minimum requirement that we should have comparable civilian thinking. the fact we don't, i think would shock many taxpayers. so, all of us need to do that kind of forward thinking. it doesn't matter who gets the right the first opportunity at peace or draw our attention to it. for any of us who spent anytime in bosnia, the trip from zurich to zaghraib that one and a half

hour flight seemed like a sudden way to go from europe -- heaven and europe to hell. it certainly gave me the very raw introduction to the front end to never been arrogant about what you have. we should be anxious about these places. eliminating anxiety is preventing disasters. you recognize that. it is not a great feeling. worrying about stuff doesn't make you feel great. it is better to worry about it than see the eventuality. i think that places like greece, we should be alert to. probably for cso, our focus is on three cases. hot spots, too big to fail and long-standing conflicts that don't seem to be breaking loose. you can see what kinds of places fall into each of those. what we do in each of those

might be very different. we might have a full-scale operation and really be trying to push the u.s. government to make sure the assistance is in focus and in other places, do advanced strategic planning or advises an embassy. that is the model that we have been building upon. this woman right here. >> thank you very much. my name is mindy riser. a question about the richness of the u.s. government and those parts of it that may not have been involved in collaboration. the peace corps has its own identity and is at a distance of intelligence gathering. the people on the ground have such insight and commitment to the well being of their

countries. is there a way for them to be fed into the process? now there are many people in the united states and americans overseas with insights and knowledge that others don't. is there a way to tap into the extraordinary intellectual resource? >> sure. i think an awful lot of the processes that i have seen at cso invite that broader participation. the part of it is to differ differentiate the formal and informal. what we were doing at oti was doing everything in an overt space. being in an overt space meant we were transparent about the information we were collecting. if the intelligence community or anybody else wanted to know what we were thinking is fine because

it is public information. i feel that that is one way to get around the worry that people have about their insights being misused by the official world. what i do is open and i'm sharing it with anybody who has an interest in promoting peace in the place. i think that is probably the easier formula for people like the peace corps rather than being seen as information gatherers for the u.s. policy apparatus. one of my favorite sayings is a retired intelligence officer stood up one day and said, i found after i retired that i had an advantage that none of my colleagues had. i had open and free access to open information. i think actually it is interesting now. we get some analysis data from the intelligence community that

is based on totally available information. they saw that as a weakness in their own work. it is actually quite helpful to have them collect it. this woman right here. >> one more question. >> maybe this woman right here. sorry for missing the rest of you. >> thank you. i'm beatrice camp. i'm on detail to the smithsonian. >> great. >> i wanted to ask whether there is any part of your office that is working on cultural recovery issues? smithsonian did a lot of work in haiti after the earthquake, but in addition, i was thinking we had a briefing and discussion yesterday with ambassador derrick mitchell about what the smithsonian is doing in burma with the environmental and con ver -- conservation research.

on the artifacts with the baghdad museum and that issue, is there anybody in your office looking at that issue? thank you. >> the answer is not specifically, no. i would like to be able to say and i think we are working on to really understand these cases, you better not approach them from just a political optic or economics optic or anthropolitical optic. when this breaks down this badly, it is usually a witch's brew. to understand it, you have to have all of those disciplines at play. that is part of what we're trying to build at cso. i hope our talent, to be respected and trusted, will have that breadth of understanding. whether the culture issue would

rise to be one of the two or three top priorities in a place is difficult to say. it's possible and it shouldn't be excluded anymore than it should be the default position that we take. i'm really hoping we will have the freshness of analysis that will be sensitive to those kinds of opportunities, but not be a captive of any one when it gets there. thank you all very much. i really appreciate it. [ applause ] >> you have given us a lot of challenges, but you have also indicated where we can work to support you. so thank you very much. >> thanks. okay. i appreciate it.

>> now turning the podium back to melanie. >> thank you very much, ambassador barton. peace building works on flexible time. we are a little bit over, but we built extra time into our breaks and into lunch. we will continue with our substantive program. i'm delighted to move into our next phase. about a year ago, chick bombach was speaking with people at usaip about a question that we spent a lot of time talking about at cocktail parties and gatherings. what is peace building? what is the field? are we a field? chick and usaip decided to go down a path to create a report to try to answer some of the questions about the demographics and keys of our work. on june 14th, we will have a report coming out that is

looking at the peacebuilding field. on our companion network c-span later today, a look at the lessons from the japan earthquake last year and the nuclear meltdown. from the heritage foundation in washington. that's live at noon eastern. at 3:00 p.m., a member of the russia democratic movement. she is talking about russia under vladimir putin. i had my ambition to walk with john smith. i got to pocohontas. this is the rectangle space. pocohontas marries john smith in this church. i guarantee you i'm standing a little deeper than she was. this is where