because we've got this huge gap of the middle men that we do not get them arrested, prosecuted, and put away. we don't even know who they are in many cases. we know there is a demand on one side and the supply is on the other. and finally, demand. i believe that if china were to take bold leadership, it would be hugely in their own interests. at the moment they're getting a terrible reputation for their environmental record in africa by having fingers pointed as being the prime instigators of illegal rivalry and rhino horn trading. and it's tiny little thing that china has compared to their other interests and building and developing. so finally i would end there. >> when you say the tracking of the ivory, are there mechanisms? do we have any ability to track the ivory down? >> there are gadgets that can be

used at a certain level. the problem is they have to be embedded within the ivory there is also dna tracking, which is an extremely promising field that needs a lot more work. you can trace ivory back to its origins through the dna. but if we had little sensors, they can be used. it's a question of at which stage they get located. but i think, again, the technical abilities of having smaller and smaller sensors are there. it's just that we need to apply whatever might be available to this field. >> well, i mean it seemed to me this may be the wackiest idea ever, but it seems to me it may be appealing to big game hunters instead of killing them, tranquilize them, embed them, and you wind up doing a service in the same process. >> funny enough we had a program like that. we called it green hunting.

and the idea was to use the undoubted energies of hunters for conservation to put them to what i would say is a more ethical use, dart an elephant and use it for science and going forth. >> the whole feedback of the entire hunt, et cetera, but you could leave there feeling pretty good about the future. you know? anyway. let's pursue these things, and we will pursue them. senator risch, do you have anything more you want to ask? >> thank you, senator kerry. and i echo what you said. i think it was very eloquently said. i just want to come back to this law enforcement side where you have this total inequality. i mean, when you have 200 armed -- heavily armed people moving out of sudan down into cameroon, they get in to a national park there in cameroon and kill 200 to 450 elephants

out of a total of maybe 600, and then they take the ivory and move back up, and it's part of their whole syndicate, if someone or entity or government doesn't confront that kind of activity, i mean, it's going to continue. and you're going to see the elephant populations decimated in a variety of different place, whether it's cameroon or the central african republic or others. so is there the capability there? if we know that these armed, heavily armed militias, or whatever you want to call them, are moving across-country borders to engage in this kind of killing, is there a force to confront them and to push them back? because it would seem to me if that happens a couple of times, it's not going to happen again, if they very decisively encountered and confronted and pushed back.

i don't know who would be the best here. dr. hamilton? >> i'd like to answer for our own neck of the woods, which is east africa. it's not the same situation. you cannot have a roaming gang like that transposing through kenya and getting way with it. and sometimes i feel that what we have going in kenya is a little bit taken for granted, that everybody says oh, well, kenya is doing very well. they don't really need any help. which i would have bought until a year ago when these cites mike figures showed us actually our levels of poaching were like central africa. so i think it's a different situation. and that roaming band that just goes hither and zither across borders is very much a central and west african phenomenon tied up with large resistance army and heaven knows what movements. >> mr. secretary general? >> senator, very briefly, what

we did do in response to the incident is we activated all of the networks we have through interpol, world customs and drugs and crime to try and seize their contraband so at least these criminals got no financial gain for their act. but we're also working with all countries of the region to look at how we can bring them together collectively, possibly through a wildlife enforcement network in the same way supported by the united states in other parts of the world so we can start sharing intelligence collectively and support one other in these endeavors. and the government of cameroon did ultimately deploy its defense forces to this park to expel the poachers. so they did act, albeit it was after the event. but we're hoping that that will set a precedent for any potential incidents in the future. but i think regional or subregional support is necessary. and through this contortium, we think we can lend them the sort of support they might need to improve that, the support. >> and i think it was the case

here that the rangers in the park didn't have any weapons, weren't armed at all. and here you have a heavily armed force that moves in and takes that kind of activity. so you need to think at a whole different level in terms of law enforcement when it comes to some of these things that are going on. but we -- we really appreciate your lifetime commitment to this, dr. hamilton. you've been working so harder. and we really appreciate the secretary general and mr. cardamone here working on this. i don't know if you have any additional thoughts on what i talked about. but thank you very much. really appreciate it. >> folks, the vote is now on, and we need to proceed to the floor in order to take part in that. but i want to thank you for coming in today. i think this has been really helpful, educational, and important. and i think it sets out some

interesting avenues for us to pursue both in terms of just diplomacy and work between countries, but also some specific initiatives that we may be able to take. and certainly some conversations that we can have with leaders in other countries in order to try to keep the focus moving in the right direction. so doctor, thank you for life's work on this effort. we really appreciate it and respect it. and we're going to continue to stay focused on this, i can assure you. thank you. thank you for automatic being with us. we stand adjourned. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

you can learn more about the members of the senate foreign relations committee in the c-span 2012 congressional directory. it's the complete guide to the 112th congress. and inside you'll find details on each member of the u.s. senate, including contact information, district maps, and committee assignments. with more about the supreme court, cabinet members, and the nation's governors. you can order one online for $12.95 plus shipping and handling at c-span.org/shop. coming up on c-span3, a brookings institution panel on foreign policy and the 2012 campaign. then british prime minister david cameron discusses the g8 and nato summits. and later, the future of the u.s. navy combat surface fleet with the undersecretary of the navy. >> i want people that i gift them the book is a better understanding of who she was, what she was like during that

four-year period. because there have been a lot of books written. and most of it is been written by people who have talked to friends of friends of friends. they really don't have the information themselves. i happened to be there. i knew her. >> from late 1960 through 1964, former secret service agent clint hill served on the protective detail to first lady jacqueline kennedy. >> there isn't any gossip in there, no salacious information. it's just what happened, what she was like, things that she liked to do, how humorous she was at times, how athletic she was at times, and how intelligent she was. and how kind of rambunctious she was. she tried to put me to the test many, many times. and i did my best to meet that test. >> more with clint hill sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. . this is c-span 3 with politics and public affairs programing throughout the week, and every weekend 48 hours of people and events telling the

american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites. and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. the brookings institution focused on america's leadership role abrodeuring a presidential election year. panelists including brookings president strobe talbot and experts on the global economy. they touched on iran's nuclear program, violence in syria, the euro crisis, and the emerging powers of india and china. this is about an hour and a half. >> i think we're going to get started. my name is benjamin wittes, and the director of the campaign 2012 project. and it's a pleasure to welcome you to -- i've actually lost track. sixth or seventh or something

like that of our series of events on the critical issues of the campaign. and the critical issues more particularly of what the presidency, that the results of this campaign will have to manage. for those of you who haven't been to the prior events and for those of you who have, i apologize for this being repetitious, but for those who haven't been to the previous events, i wanted to describe a little bit about the way this project works. which is that we have sort of divided up the world of the campaign into 12 major issues, some of them foreign, some of them domestic, some of them kind of hybrid. and for each of those issues, we have asked a brookings scholar or sometimes a pair of brookings scholars to write a paper sort of somewhating the discussion of the issue in the context of the campaign, talking about

president obama's record on the subject, talking about the critique of that record by the republican opposition, and trying to synthesize the merits of the record and the merits of the critique into something like a set of action items or advice for the incoming administration, whether it's a second term of the obama administration, or whether -- i think we're allowed to say it now, a mitt romney administration. we had to pretend that we didn't know for a long time. the subject for today, and for each of these subjects we then asked two or sometimes two groups of other brookings scholars to write a response paper. sometimes these were simply you know, arguments, people who disagreed with the thesis of the main paper. sometimes more often they were efforts to sort of add texture and richness, look at the issue

from a slightly different point of view. and then for each of these groups, there are 12 groups of three papers, we are having an event like this at which the authors of the main paper and the author of the response paper get together with a moderator from politico and discuss the three. so our subject today is america's role in the world, which has been, you know, a particularly over the course of the republican primaries has been sort of a recurrent thematic matter of criticism of the obama administration. it's one that is subject that the obama administration has talked a lot about. it's also a subject that it's been criticized a lot about. and it's actually played a -- i think a -- at least surprising to me, surprisingly sort of large role visions of american power, a surprisingly large role in the campaign. before i turn it over, introduce

our panel, and turn it over to them, i would like to announce that the compilation of all of these sets of 12 papers and responses is now available. and as of this week has actually shown up. it's a volume called campaign 2012. some of these papers we have already had the events for. some of them we have not already had the events for, but we will be doing so over the next few remaining months of the campaign. the books are available at a table outside this hall when you guys leave. and i hope you enjoy it. so to discuss today's subject, the main paper was written by bruce jones, who is a senior fellow in governance studies here and at nyu as well. and our response papers were written by homi kharas who is a senior fellow also in foreign policy -- i'm sorry, in global

economy and development. and by brookings president strobe talbot. and here to moderate is edward dovere from politico. and i will with no further turn it over to him. thank you. >> thank you, ben. again, my name is edward isaac dovere. i'm the editor for politico which means i've been paying a lot of attention to what the administration has been doing over the last couple of months and years, as well as how it's playing out on the campaign trail so far. i think as ben mentioned, there has been a lot of talk about it in the primary campaign, and a lot of talk about it in sort of ways that aren't exactly the traditional ways for democrats and republicans to be talking about foreign policy when it comes to the general election. so i think there is a lot to discuss here. but i think to start, if we could just -- bruce, if you could sort of set the table for us. and tell us where you see the

main issues, the main situations on the global stage that are of concern and relevance to the united states, and how the different approaches that mitt romney and barack obama have been taking to discussing them might play out come 2013. >> great, thanks. let me start a little further back from that and let me address that question. it seems to me that we are in a moment of some uncertainty and doubt in the american public mind-set about our role in the world, about the nature of the world that we're confronting. and there is an awful lot that is changing. the u.s. economy is exposed to and integrated with the global economy now at a scale that is substantially different than was true 20 years ago, let's say. there are rising powers who have greater influence in world politics and greater influence in international security than was true even ten years ago. the middle east is in turmoil,

and our allies and our stakes in that region are substantial. so there are a number of things that i think creating uncertainty and doubt in the american public mind-set. this gets injected then, and i think a very simplistic and frankly mischaracterized debate about american decline. and we've had a lot of discussion and debate and books about american decline or not decline, et cetera. i think it's the wrong way of understanding the problem. i think the rhetoric of decline runs far ahead of the reality of the decline. the simple fact is there are new factors in the world there are new actors, are new economic relations, and we have to adjust our policy to deal with those. the second point i would make is we have lived now for 65 years in an international system characterized by two fundamental realities. the international system was built by, protected by, promoted by american power. and the second reality is that our power by our own choice was embedded in a series of institutions, alliances, and

arrangements for partnership, for cooperation, for multilateralism. i don't see anything in either campaign, anything in the policy of the president, anything that romney said that is going to change either of those two fundamental realities. i think the core tenets of the relationship between american power and international order are very likely to remain true over a strong period of time. but the reality is we confront new challenges. china's flexing its naval muscle in the south china seas. india is asserting itself on the international stage. south korea, turkey, new mexico, brazil, a whole post of countries are seeking a voice. we're economically dependent on those country news in a way that we weren't before. and those are realities that will confront either candidate, no matter what their policy orientation is, those are realities. and either president will have to adapt to them. the final point i would make just to set the stage is we'll hear a lot of rhetoric about this.

romney will accuse obama of apologizing for america and not believing in american exceptionalism. obama will say that he is now tested as national security commander, et cetera. so the rhetoric will be there and each side will try to frame the other for not having a good grasp or not having the manage world. we don't know what romney thinks about foreign policy. he has advisers from every part of the spectrum. when i read the couple of speeches he has given on foreign policy, you strip away the rhetoric and look what he says he would do, and i find it indistinguishable from the obama administration. >> i want to ask you to pick up what is in your paper which is, the discussion of how -- excuse me, the discussion of these issues on the campaign trail actually affects a lot of the deeper things that are going on, the negotiations, the

conversations with foreign nations and how it -- it affects those relationships. >> sure. thank you, isaac. i will pick up, i think from what -- what bruce has said and my co-author, john michael arnold and i are in the category of respondents that, where is ben -- that ben mentioned at the outset which is we couldn't find much to dispute. bruce and his colleague's piece. we did want to focus in on a couple issues, notably, including the one that bruce just mentioned. i think what bruce has just said is essentially good news. what is emerging as a romney platform on foreign policy and the actual foreign policy of the obama administration.

that is a good thing. and first there have been a lot of positive features to president obama's foreign policy which by the way -- demonstrates some degree of continuity with -- with the second term of the george w. bush administration. for example, reliance on the g-20. the g-20 was an invention or at least a convening of george w. bush. so i don't think that either -- we the american people, nor our friends abroad, need to worry over much that there will be -- a radical breach. but to go to the not such good news. john michael and i focus in on what we regard as a perverse and even tragic irony about american democracy. i think it is fair to say that that function of american democracy that is most important and consequential is a

presidential election. which of course coincides with -- an election of a third of the senate and all members of the house. that is a very big day, every four years. in our lives. and it, it is consequential for us and consequential for the world. the outcome much more often than not is -- is sensible and one that we can be proud of on an all community and nonpartisan basis. but the process by which we get to that, the nature of the -- of the national discourse, or conversation, is pretty dreadful. and it has been about as bad this time around as we have seen it in a long time. it tends to -- not, i wouldn't say degenerate, but start as much more of a shouting match, blame storming, to know, we were

already getting a sense of the -- the charges that are going to be made in each direction, you know. that guy is a fat cat who straps his labrador retriever on his station wagon when he goes on vacation, and isn't sensitive to the need of the american people. that guy's middle name is hussein, that is not the kind of conversation that we need. and i think that is an extension of the extraordinary polarization that afflicts our domestic politics and policymaking particularly at the federal level. and it has at least two very deleterious effects on our standing in the eyes of the word. that's basically the topic we have been asked to address which is american leadership. one is that -- it's unseemly. and that takes me back to the irony that i am talking about.

that the, the most consequential function of -- of american -- democracy which is to elect our national leaders, is, as a process, not necessarily an outcome, as a process one of the most unedifying. and here we are, the united states of america, the inventer of modern democracy. i suspect that many of you around the room, i know quite a few of you travel quite a deal. you must hear what we hear as we travel. what is going on in the country and when will you get this thing over with and get back to leading the world? the second consequence is that it has an extremely negative effect on the ability of the united states government and the president himself to actually conduct foreign policy. because the, a lot of foreign policy requires, of course, the cooperation of the legislative branch.

it is not just difficult, it is impossible to -- imagine getting any major treaties through. maybe there is some chance of the law of the sea treaty getting through, you have a better sense of i, there are some optimistic signs. if you look at what this means for the two most important threats facing the planet today which is our nuclear proliferation, and climate change. we are dead in the water. and we are dead in the water largely because of the paralysis of the system in this town which is greatly exacerbated by the campaign. one of all of our favorite characters from american literature, pogo is often quoted these days. we have met the enemy or met the problem and it is us. i think that is -- that is a sad, but central theme, in what we are talking about. and i want to take it to you and your paper which takes some issue with the is ideas that have been put forward.

lays out the idea that -- basically -- there are huge disagreements and different pathways, given the choices between barack obama and mitt romney. if you could talk about that and where specifically you see that reverberating in which situations around the world? >> sure. so, you know i think if things were going reasonably well in the world it wouldn't make that much difference because in some sense the focus of the -- of the elections is going to be on -- on dope mmestic issues, that's probably, probably right. things aren't going that well in the world. in particular, things aren't going that well in the global economy. so i am not sure that i would -- would ascribe to bruce's view

that, well, sort of the, the fundamental institutions that take care of the world, the economy is still doing their job, and you know, regardless of who comes in, they will still be able to do their job. i just am not sure that that is still the case. the reform of the international financial institutions has been going very slowly. one of them, big destablizing factors in the global economy has been the mammoth accumulation of foreign exchange reserve buys countries in asia for example. and why? well, what some people would say is they're doing that because they have very little confidence that the international monetary fund would come to their support in a way that they would find either, either useful or reliable. and that comes from the -- from the lessons that at least some

economies have drawn from the -- intervention by the -- by the fund at the time of the 1997, 1998, financial crisis in, in east asia. so there is this sense that -- that, well -- you know the imf, the world bank, they all need to reform. and they need to have a -- a greater weight given to emerging economies as part of the process. actually -- that reform is going so slowly that it -- it may be threatened. the path that the g-20 agreed on is almost certainly not going to be met. one gets very much a sense of institutional drift of the level of the global economy. and even the g-20 that strobe referred to. the g-20 did some really

terrific achievements when it came together with a -- with a -- a coordinated fiscal stimulus. right now, the g-20 is floundering a little bit. the crisis has moved from being a global crisis to being an individual country crisis. individual countries are each taking their own roots to -- thinking about how they want to deal with this. the degree of macro economic cooperation across countries is very limited. the u.s. role in this, the traditional u.s. leadership role in this has been very limited. it is, it is posing a problem. so the question becomes -- which administration is more likely to pursue a multilateral list. towards global economic