later a confirmation hearing for julian castro. >> next, foreign policy experts discuss the escalating violence in iraq. national security, and how the u.s. should respond.

the american conservative, the american prospect and the institute for security and conflict studies hosted the event. it's just over an hour. >> good morning. thank you all for coming. welcome to our conference on the new internationalism. i'd ike to thank george washington university and the institute for security and conflict studies for hosting this event and thanks also to our co-sponsors, the american conservative and the american prospect. my name is daniel larrison. i am a senior editor and i'll be moderating this morning's panel. this will be a discussion on threats and responses with the focus on how to manage threats without resorting to military action. we'll be addressing some of the following questions, what are the real threats to u.s. security and u.s. interests more

gem, which u.s. interests are truly vital and take priority? how should we best respond to the threats that do exist and how can the u.s. ensure long-term security without resorting to military action and what will aid us and what should we avoid. each panelist will begin with their own remarks and with a little bit of time for questions at the end. joining me, william lind, expert on military affairs and columnist for "the american conservative" seated opposite me on the end professor of international politics at the fletcher school of law and diplomacy. n nonsenior fellow at the brook igz institute and contributor to "the washington post" and author of "the system worked." and matt dust, policy institute at the center for american progress where his work focuses on u.s. national security, policy in the middle east with a concentration on iran and the iranian/palestinian conflict and

co-sponsor of "the american prospect." to begin the conversation i'll say a little bit about how we in america tend to discuss threats and our interest in foreign policy debates and. then i'll try to answer the questions i just mentioned. in general american foreign policy debates suffer from an overexpansive definition that purports to find it in every crisis enconflict and the interests are often wrongly taken to be of vital importance. the overall number of u.s. interests is exaggerated so is the significance of the interests involved. and that reinforces another unfortunate tendency to overstate real threats and to purr receive threats to the thaus respect there. the u.s. does face real threats from terrorism and nuclear proliferation. but these are the minor or manageable ones. however the more manageable threats, the more inclined we seem to be to overrate them and overreact to them.

the more grand yost and ambitious role we imagine for the u.s. and world the more we will be alarmed by crises and conflicts that have little or nothing to do with american or even allied security. that means perceiving threats to the u.s. where none exist and exaggerating the ones that do. senator john mccain was the latest to indulge in this overkill last week when he described the advance of isis forces in iraq as a threat to america. as long as the u.s. considers t itself to be global hegemon americans will be encouraged to conflate dangers limited to hey particular range with dangers for the u.s. and entire alliance built up since world war ii but the u.s. and its allies are far more secure than that. it is a dangerous habit that need tons broken but there is an alternative. it requires us to focus on the few truly vital interests that the u.s. has such as the stability and security of europe, and that of our major

allies in east asia. and to distinguish them from peripheral concerns that don't require a substantial american commitment and requires us to give priority to the threats that jeopardize our vital interests instead of attempting to respond to each new conflict as if the u.s. had a huge stake in the outcome. we'll be hearing much more from professor barry posen ott the subject of his new book "restraint" but i'd like to quote from it to give us an idea of what this foreign policy of restraint might look like in practice and how it would address threats to the united states. he writes "the united states should focus on a small number of threats and approach those threats with subtlety and moderation. they should do that because the world is resistant to heavy handed solutions and because america is strong and well endow the and well defended by nature and possessed of an enormous ability to regenerate itself." any effort to reorient u.s. foreign policy away from the

current overreliance on military action will have to include the rejection of preventive warfare. dismissing the role of deterrents and as if they cannot be contained. prevention makes sense as a policy only if one accepts that some governments cannot be deterred but there is no reason to believe that such governments exist. the u.s. would also need to be extremely wary of cause to use force to intervene whether it is being asked to do it for a sensible humanitarian reason or some other purpose. while the u.s. has been successful at defeating toppling regimes it is demonstrated it shouldn't be used for that. if we are not able to stabilize the countries affected it should have no part in further destabilizing them in the first place. one thing that the u.s. can very easily do to contribute to international stability is not to undermine it through ill-conceived and unnecessary wars for regime change.

neither should it indulge ail light or clients that wish to destable laze their rivals. i'll suggest two other possibilities for what the u.s. can do to promote long-term stability before turning things over to matt. the first is to minimize tensions with the other major powers in order to reduce the chances to great power conflicts. one of the greatest dangers to long-term international stability and peace is the resumption of that kind of great power conflict that caused so much devastation and death in the previous century. armed conflict between great powers would not only be hammful to all countries involved and global economy but also has within it the potential however remote of nuclear war. to reduce the chances of this the u.s. ought to avoid pursuing premature or unnecessary policies of containment directed against any other major power. and it should focus on those aspects of their relationships whether potential for better ties and improved cooperation with the estates.

another possibility is to invest more resources and attention into efforts to mediate and prevent conflicts before they escalate into major crisis. that might involve submitting outstanding disputes to international arbitration or offering direct u.s. mediation for frozen conflicts or political crises that have the potential to turn violent. in order to be perceived as a neutral mediator the u.s. can't be backing any of the parties to a conflict. appeals for military intervention are frequently successful because they seem to provide a quick response that other method, diplomacy, economic sanctions through international institutions necessarily can't have. that is all the more reason why a foreign policy that seeks to find nonmilitary solutions to respond to threats should make a more consistent effort to defuse crises before they deteriorate and refuse to encourage sudden political change that adds to conditions for instability to conflict. it follows from this what the u.s. should not do. the u.s. should get out of the business of regime change

whether arming injure sents or encouraging uprisings. in recognition the sudden changes of governments produce tremendous instability throughout the affected region. the u.s. should generally avoid military action when it is not strictly necessary for the security of u.s. and its treaty allies. that doesn't mean fighting a war just because one or two allies wants the u.s. to do it and definitely doesn't mean taking sides in another country's conflict because they would prefer to us do so. the u.s. shouldn't extend is halfhearted commitments to clients -- they can be interpreted as promises of military aid or direct involvement. and it shouldn't be willing to ignore its basic obligation under international law for the sake of affirming nebulous norms. we shouldn't enable what the professor calls reckless driving which the u.s. does when it provides unconditional support to clients that behave in an

unduly or aggressive way and discourage them from treating our guarantees as an opportunity to take provocative actions towards neighbor that could trigger hostilities that would draw us into new conflicts. as professor posen notes in his book, restraint is not a panacea and will not eliminate the need for that in certain cases however it is much less expensive and more sustainable politically and less destabilizing approach to foreign policy that would contribute to maintaining peace and security in the decades to come. thank you. now continue with some remarks from matt. >> hi. good morning, everyone. thanks so much to the american conservative and american prospect for putting this on including me. it's a real privilege to be part of this event all the panelists with whom i'm familiar and with some of whom i'm permanent friends i was asked to address america's role and the negotiations with iran.

you know, with the goal of the conference being thinking about ways to or panel think of ways to maintain stability without military action with methods other than war. i'd say in light of the re-opened apparently iraq debate of the past week, i did not plan to have to come here and kind of restate that one of the best ways to maintain stability in the middle east is not to start dumb destabilizing wars. [ laughter ] but it apparently needs to be repeated and will continue -- >> ho you spell destabilizing? >> i think it's on google. so rather than kind of take hey more abstract approach i think as i was thinking through this, you know, just looking at the way the obama administration has handled the middle east, and i think, you know, i and others would have some criticisms about the way they've handled a number of anythings but i say let's look at afghanistan and iraq.

iraq withdrawal first of all. very much based and this is really, really important for the administration is basing this in democratic -- in legitimacy both in term of domestic support. this is something the administration is conscious of constantly. it seems to me but also in terms of international legitimacy. what john kerry referred to as the global test and was widely mocked but guess what, i think he was correct. that, you know, we are stronger when we act within what is seen as an international consensus. now there is a whole raupg of questions of how one establishes or cultivates or, you know, understands that consensus. but i think, you know, the understanding internationally was that occupation should end, the united states should withdraw from iraq. it was certainly democratically supported by the iraqis themselves and overwhelmingly supported by the american people. you know, just speaking as a progressive, i think this sense of legitimacy is possibly, you

know, a defining characteristic of the way that progressives understand foreign policy. i'm thinking of ray quote from josh marshall talking points memo back notice early days of the iraq where where he said legitimacy is one of the ultimate force multipliers that we'll be able to achieve our goals much better to the extent that we're able to bring allies along and be seen as acting in a legitimate fair and appropriate fashion. and i think another key word here over the last few years is pragmatism. it is thrown around a lot. it is not a doctrine in and of itself. it is not a principle of foreign policy in itself but rather a lens or tool that we use to view theories, principles and approaches and ask the very important question of what can we actually realistically achieve and at what cost? now, as someone who actually believes that the united states should look for ways to support freedom, to support democracy, to support, you know, the

self-actualization of people and people kind of determining their own destinies both individually and their communities and in their countries, you know, i think that should be a part of mer foreign policy but don't see any contradiction between saying that and how can we realistically achieve that. i think we've seen over the past decade some very good examples how we don't achieve that or don't invade and occupy other countries and set up new governments and then, you know, then leave people to figure it out. i would say, however, that those lessons, you know, hard ones certainly for us, most definitely for the iraqis with estimates of well over 100,000 civilians killed over the course of the iraq war, i think that this skepticism toward foreign interventions certainly on the part of the american people toward a large part of the american foreign policy establishment, though i don't know if it's yet large enough that i think this is one of the goals of this event to expand that circle of people who see

skepticism toward military intervention as an appropriate base line but i think that skepticism deserves to be put in the plus column of the iraq war. there are very few benefits that the iraq war provided and one of them was we're just not super crazy about large-scale military inventions anymore so i thank the neocons for that. [ laughter ] i mean, looking at iraq and then turning to look toward iran i think they are very, very useful, you know, example and counter example of how american power should be used. i don't want to overstate it but i actually do think obama's iraq policy has been a fairly judicious and effective use of american power. we're seeing the slow undeniable policy of a two-tract policy, some elements of which were in place during the bush administration to be fair but i think it's important to determine the importance -- before he came into office let's

remember he started and won a pretty vigorous debate even within his own party with his democratic party opponent hillary clinton about the usefulness and appropriateness of gauging with enemies specifically iran sitting down and talking with iran and advancing american security toward talking to our enemies. ainge i think he handily won that debate. i think the consensus was well on his side by the end of the campaign with five former seconds of state all endorsing his idea before election day. he took office and made clear both to the american people and to the iranian people his goal was to reach out to try to find some new, you know, new level of a relationship, try to overcome the tensions of the past decades. a huge challenge no doubt. it was frustrating, there were rounds of talks that went nowhere. there was another round of sanction, again the most important and effective sanctions being ones we were able to bring allies on board with us, european partners both

in terms of the u.n. and broader u.n.-backed sanctions but individually, you know, the eu and other country, countries like china even though, you know, they're not going as far as maybe some people would like them to do but they are taking very important steps in lessening their reliance on iranian oil, russia i'm sure everyone here can have some, you know, can have criticisms of what russia has been doing. i probably would agree with them but i don't think there's any doubt that the iran issue has effectively been sort of siloed, you know. the iran negotiations have not been indexed to u.s./russia tensions over ukraine or other things and i think that deserves to be recognized as a victory. so, yeah, i can see -- you know, look at this counterexample. on the one hand you had a massive military deployment, military occupation, a destructive war and expensive war and recognition it is in the

united states' interest prevent an iranian nuclear weapon either for just -- some people would claim iran would use that i don't find that very convincing. i think that's a minority war. somewhat more plausible that it would emfwoelden them to, you know, acting to destabilizing ways in the region and i think there's reasons to doubt that but i think it's a somewhat -- not an unreasonable claim. and then there's also the proliferation issue, the question of whether countries in the region would feel compelled, saudi arabia, egypt, turkey would feel compelled to obtain their own nuclear deterrent so understand nuclear nonproliferation is in the united states' interest that less nuclear weapons is better than more, you know, i would say on the whole even though we haven't reached the goal, we are on track, i think, to achieve something pretty significant for american security. and i think that that agreement goes to what i would see as really underpinning, you know,

something in the region that could be and obama has articulated this, others have but i think the idea that iran can be sort of encouraged induced to be a more reasonable, responsible actor in the region. now, you know, they say and do things that i think give reason force skepticism but understanding iran as, you know, as a state with interests rather than a cause that is going to act ideologically if you looked at their behavior over the past decades, iran has had lots of opportunities to commit suicide to further its ideology and has tak not taken those. it has interests as it sees as legitimate and pursues those h say bet that obama is making is, whether those interests can be brought within a broader framework sort of, you know, whether iran can use a foreign policy buzzword a responsible staying holer in the region and i think the jury is still out.

the move toward coordinating or talking to iran over iraq formally i should note because we've been talking to iran in various ways about iraq for decades. i mean that is actually one of the other pluses of the iraq war it caused the united states and iran put them in very close proximity and got to know each other in ways not always good but not always bad in which we simply hadn't before. so, again, the jury is still out on this question of whether iran can be brought into kind of, you know, a regional framework that adds to regional stability rather than regional instability and in this way, you know, obama, this administration has really acted, you know, over the protests of some of its closest allies and partner, saudi arabia, the gulf state, israel, all of whom have problems for some of their own reason, some difference, some the same. who are made very nervous by the idea that the united states might be willing to see iran and treat iran as a more rational actor with legitimate goals and concerns in the region.

so, you know, i'll just finish up by noting once again how glad i am to be part of this conversation. it's one that i'd really hope continues and will have more events and talk more but as we -- as progressives and conservatives, some of the views that we share about the role that the united states should play, the ways to use nonmilitary tools to advance our security, but i'm really interested and i hope to engage on this more, as again speaking as a progressive, one of my beliefs as i said about my, you know what i think about democrat a enfreedom, these should be a part of, you know, the overall how we approach foreign policy, i do believe we are in this together. it goes to, you know, both my own -- my local community, my state, my country but i think globally, i think that's something progressivism does bring to the table. so but, begin, the question should always be and i think

this is where we'll all agree the question is with what tools and at what cost, so i'll finish up there. >> thanks, matt. now dan. >> thanks. i would like to thank the american positive pect for organizing this and mazie who i think would have moved mountains to get me here and figuratively did move mountains. i have a built in excuse if any of this sounds incoherent i came in on a red eye from seattle so i've gotten two hours of sleep. that's the reason it's not coherent. i'm also in task to talk about asia-pacific, pacific rim and talk about both in terms of the economic side and security side, because as dan noted die have a new book out and it does address this somewhat. if you take a look at what's happened sort of on the one happened and on the other hand security in the pacific sphere

you see two discoordinate narratives because on the economic side, on the whole this sort of institutions that were responsible for what you're supposed to do in the wake of a financial crisis actually work surprisingly well. there were many excellent reasons to believe this sort of great power concert and the institutions they created pre-2008 were going to crack up in the fall of 2008. i'm old enough to remember when a lot of people were saying that in the fall of 2008 and yet that didn't happen. but you can't say that on the security side specifically with respect to the pacific rim and want to explore why. so on the economic side, you know, there were a lot of fears we would be revisiting the great depression and you know that in the midst of an economic crisis in some ways crises metastasize into depression the moments they sort of eliminate openness. and that was why the great depression became the great

depression, it was not just because of the stock market crisis in 1929 but it was in 1931 when there was a credit stalled banking crisis and no one cooperated and in 1933 when the london economic conference collapsed due to u.s. unilaterals among other reasons. but what happened after 2008 was different. most of the sort of key global public good, you know, think about it wwkd, what would kin e kindleberger do in terms of a crisis. most were provided. makes for goods was provided. no return to protectionism. the one tinge that even skeptics post that time would agree upon there were significant injections of liquidity into the system. there was by historical standards a surprising degree of macroeconomic policy coordination. there was provision of exchange rate stability as well despite a lot of very loose talk about currency wars. and international institutions actually functioned reasonably well.

whether it was the case of the world trade organization, the imf providing monitoring or the g-20 or other informal mechanisms providing a reassurance mechanism or blunting domestic pressures for protectionism. and it also should be pointed out on the economic side the u.s. also acted like, you know, a surprisingly confident leader. you know, whether you talk about the federal reserve endaying in a whole variety of both domestic actions and international actions in the form of currency swaps and opening up its lending window to european and japanese banks or the u.s. taking a lead in terms of imf reform and the only thing stopping that is the united states congress. or reforming the basel supervision rules or rules regulating sovereign world funds. so that in fact you're operating in a world where in fact the global economy has been surprisingly resilient post-2008 to the point now where people in the fed and elsewhere are concerned not about market volatility but the fact that

markets seem way too calm in response to a lot of geopolitical shocks which i find amusing for a variety of reasons but it does suggest that perhaps there's been more resiliency built into the system post-2008 like almost the system worked. [ laughter ] i'm sorry. on security, though, it's obviously a more disturbing message if you take a look at the pacific rim. if you look at the broad indexes like the global peace index or human security report you don't see a major spike in sort of instability and so forth. but there's been an undeniable ratcheting up of tensions in east asia and pacific rim. you know, just rattle off south china sea or north korea and get the point. and it's worth pointing out international institutions have been spectacularly unhelpful as these things go. the u.n. security council hasn't done anything on this issue. the east asia summit and the forum basically serve as a forum

where the choose and americans are accuse each other of acts and asiana has been split as they used cambodia of a way to provoke dissent within that group. the u.n. conventional law notes it's adorable people think it will work but it's not really going to work because china doesn't seem to want it and china's interpretation of things like the exclusive economic zone are very much at variance with sort of traditional customary international law on this. and the u.s. response on the security in the pacific rim also seems not necessarily more ham-happened but less sure of itself. there was the pivot that started in the fall of 2010 and that was certainly embraced about by a lot of countries in the region to perceived chinese provocations in 28 and 009, indeed it was embraced in some ways too warmly by some. you could argue the pivot emboldened philippines to take a more bellicose position on

scarborough shaw which led to the situation where the united states said we won't go to war on it. but the u.s. has actually committed to basically going to war over the san calcoo aisles but recognize it is a disputed issue and we have said our alliance commitment would get us into a war in that should china actually challenge that. so, you know, you can talk about two different narratives. even realists that tend to argue the u.s. should retrench in various parts of the world. when you start asking them about china they actually their eyes light up because they do think people like john think that's where the next big conflict is going to come from. but why is there such a discordant relationship on what's happening on the global economy and security sphere on the pacific rim and there's a good answer. if you take a look at least in

part in the distribution of power you realize that despite a lot of perception in this town, the u.s. still retains significant amount of structural power. you know, post 2008. susan strange wrote a great article back during the last debate about sort of waning u.s. and gemny pointing out the ways in which the u.s. has structural power distinct from things like gross domestic product or economic growth or things like that. you know, military power, financial power, ownership or production and production of ideas. on all four of these metrics the united states still retains an overwhelming preponderance of power. the u.s. is still the military superpower in terms of finance, the u.s. is actually a more central part of global financial networks now than we were before 200le which is really extraordinary when you think about it. but nevertheless true. in terms of ownership or production as well and production of ideas also despite a lot of loose talk about

challenging the washington consensus what is striking is the absence of any counterveiling ideas on that on the other hand what did happen the traditional u.s. supporters namely the european union and japan were devastated as a result of the 2008 financial crisis and really did suffer serious dramatic declines in some cases because policy own goals and there's no need to go into details but the important thing most sort of theories of hegemonic stability or leadership tend to acknowledge at this point, yeah, you want a leader but leaders need supporters an followers. it's not enough to have one big state. so what's happened is that in the wake of sort of waning european and japanese power, you now have the rise of china ras a great power and china's done something interesting with respect to the economy, to repeat what something matt said they acted like a responsible stakeholder and actually done just about everything that you would have expected them to have done in the wake of the 2008

financial crisis ranking from provision of liquidity to eventually letting their currency appreciate to not engaging in new bouts of protecti protectionism. i won't deny they engaged in espionage but that was a constant. that's not unique to a sort of post-2008 situation. so they've been perfectly willing to act as sort of, you know, a supporter to the u.s. created what bob kagan used to rerefer to as the liberal economic order for quite some time. on the other hand when it comes to the security sphere, you know, china is perfectly willing to act in a newly assertive manner on a whole variety of things and, you know, you can argue about why they're doing this and the extent to which there's a reach, you know, is this because they actually care specifically about chinese sovereign territory and that's it or is it a case of they're just trying to get influence over this sort of inner island chain with the idea eventually they then want to expand their influence to the outer island

chain so the question is whether -- the chinese side whether they view it as a border issue or sort of the first step of what they see as regional hegemony. it's worth pointing out there are a lot of debates about military interventions with idea if you use power that implies the use of force. in the pacific rim i don't think it quite works as well there because there is a way in which the use of extended deterrents meaning, you know, pledging to commit to use force in case there is a conflict has the potential to reduce conflict. or reduce the actual use of force if it deters another actor. so in the case of the seaen calkoos, it's worth noting that china's responded to by focusing energies a little more on the south china sea than eastern china sea and worth asking whether or not those sorts of actions do potentially act to

tamp down great power, actual great power war even if it ratchets up tensions in the short term. but i do think the more interesting question to ask is that despite the sort of rising tension in the east china sea and south china sea and so forth there's not a lot of evidence that those are actually affect patterns of economic exchange. you know, if you go back to sort of the pre-world war i era, last great era of globalization, one myth is it broke out despite large amounts of interdependence and as a constraint on state action. but if you take a look at the history, you start to see that, you know, from 1890 on states actually did start to take significant efforts to try to weiner them s wean themselves off and the least independent states that wind up launching the great war and what's interesting sort of post, you know, 2008 and despite recent tensions there's no real

shift in trade or finance suggesting china or the united states is trying to divorce themselves from what they see as other security rivals, indeed what is striking despite the ratcheting up of tensions there hasn't been significant moves in the way of economic responses, the transpacific partnership has not been secret sell rated. tpp has slowed down to a crawl because of domestic issues and by the way it's also true in europe, you know, edward snowden has been more of a break on tea tip than it's been an accelerant so there are two ways to think about it. it's possible this disconnect is temporary and eventually we will start to see some sort of economic segmentation. which in some ways in and of itself is useful because it's a useful trip wire to think about when we are shifting to real great power tensions that could lead to a great power war. but, you know, you could also suggest a more heretical thought

that maybe great power rivalry ain't what it used to be or operating in a case, where, yeah, there's disputes over islands and don't mean to diminish it but it's possible that the great powers in the region recognize it's not worth going to war over these things and it's not worth sort of destroying the sort of global engine of prosperity to claim a bunch of coral reefs in the south china sea or in the east china sea and leave it at that. >> okay. thanks. now you. >> i'm bill lipid with the american conservative mack and our thanks indeed to all of our sponsors once again for this opportunity. my message this morning is that too often foreign policy debates particularly that between interventionism and what is intentionally misnamed isolationism, the united states only pursued a policy of isolationism for three years under president thomas jefferson, his embargo which was such a disaster we have never done it again.

[ laughter ] that this debate unfortunately too often occurs in a vacuum. it occurs without reference to war. obviously foreign policy and war are intimately related in the real world because war -- foreign policies often lead intentionally or unintentionally to war. the fact of the matter is, that the choice between interventionism and a policy of a defensive grand strategy which i'm going to talk about is at this point not just a matter of, well, which one is nice? it's a matter of which one is consistent with where war is going? and war is at present undergoing the biggest change it has seen since the piece of west fail ya with the rise of what i call fourth generation of war. with the peace of westphalis did

was give the state a monopoly on war and we think of that automatically. but before that, many different kinds of entities fought wars not just the state, the state was rather a new thing at this point. religions fought war, races fought war, tribes and business enterprises fought war, dynasties fought wars and they used many different means not just formal armies and navies. the fourth generation means that the state is now losing the monopoly on war it established with westphalia. again, this is the biggest change in war in 350 years and it is going to affect foreign policy. as the israeli military historian martin von creffelt says who fights and what they fight for. and these are larger changes

than changes in how war is fought. at the root of this change in war is a crisis of legitimacy of the state itself. a crisis which is present virtually everywhere although it varies enormously in degree. but all over the world including in the united states a growing number of people are transferring their primary allegiance away from the state to once again a wild variety of other entities. to, again, tribe, ethnic group, races, religions, sects, causes like animal rights, business enterprises, legal and illegal, gangs are one of the principal elements in a fourth generation world and the same young men who have no interest in fighting for the state are often very enthusiastic about fighting for

their new primary loyalty. four times in recent years in the last few decades the united states military which proclaims itself the greatest in the world and certainly in terms of the amount of money spent on it is the greatest has come up against fourth generation nonstate forces, lebanon, in somalia, in afghanistan and in iraq. those forces had no fighter planes, no tanks, no artillery, no body armor, they were armed primarily with rusty ak-47s and improvised bombs and four times they have defeated us. the measure of success in a fourth generation situation is whether when we or the other intervening great power leaves, we leave behind a real estate. in none of those cases were we able to do that the pretense that we left behind a real estate in iraq has just

dissolved within the past week. as we have seen historically over and over, a vichy government disintegrates when faced with literally any opposition. this is a very profound change and, again, to try to carry out the debate on foreign policy without regard to the fact that our military can no longer win against forces which by any measure of physical power are incredibly weak compared to us, and if we graft their resources on the same scale as our own, theirs wouldn't even be visible. the fact that our military and the militaries of other states which are designed to fight other state militaries cannot win against these nonstate forces, this is a revolution, folks.

this is enormous change, and it changes virtually everything else. now, when we look at foreign policy, obviously the first thing it says is an interventionist foreign policy guarantees failure. because you find yourself in a war with nonstate forces and the nonstate forces beat you and so a pretty basic rule of foreign policy is you probably don't want to start wars you know you're going to lose. to many foreign ministries have done that but it certainly doesn't meet the conservative test of prudence. another meaning perhaps even more profound because the foreign policy establishment utterly doesn't get it is that you don't want to fight wars with other states, why? because the losing states legitimacy already shaky in many cases will disintegrate and with it that state will disintegrate.

we saw this, of course, with libia. i warned before we started bombing libya that the outcome would be the destruction of the libyan state and another big victory for the fourth generation as libya became a stateless entity. well, surprise, guess what happened? if you go to war with another state, regardless of which state wins the war, we will lose because the losing state will disintegrate and the real victor will be the forces of the fourth generation, nonstate forces will have another petri dish in which to breed and grow and from which they will spread. the distinction that will drive international relations in the remainder of this century is not some kindergarten level between democracies or laces that are free and dictatorships. it is between places that will

be centers and sources of order and centers and sources of disorder. and when we go to war with another state, almost certainly the outcome will include the creation of another center and source of spreading disorder. furthermore when we intervene in these places we will import the disorder here. it is not just that we fail to bring order to those places, when the root problem is a crisis of legitimacy, what chance do we have when we go in and create a government? a government created by foreigners, what legitimacy is this going to have? beyond that, we are going to import the disorder here. we will import it in the form of refugees, we will import it in the form of veterans coming back who have learned how to build things like ieds and some of whom will now be among other things gang members, again gangs

are very important entities in fourth generation war. we will import it in the effects on the legitimacy of our own government of another policy failure, usually at very high cost not only in money but in lives. so the first rule of foreign policy at this point is don't go to war with other states. the second rule is don't go to war with nonstate entities, now you put those two together and it somewhat suggests going to war isn't the terribly good idea. the absolute worst war we could get into and there is a substantial element in washington puffing the dragon to try to create this situation is a war with china. we desperately need china to be a center and source of order and it is naturally inclined that way because confusion culture is naturally orderly and supposed red china is now paying a great deal more attention to confucius

than it does to carl marx. a defeated china to disintegrate into another warring state. what a catastrophe. a billion people nuclear weapons, a lot of high technology and it becomes an enormous source of disorder. we could not imagine a worst outcome. the pentagon, of course, likes to puff the dragon because it's desperate for a symmetrical opcw when it says we can beat these guys because they're like us, yes, but what's the consequence if we do and that's not asked. what we need therefore is a change in grand strategy. the largest change in war in 350 years cannot be accommodated with changes in tactics or weaponry or various other small things. it requires a very large change at a very high level and that is a change in grand strategy, specifically we need to abandon

the offensive grand strategy we have been following particularly since the end of the cold war where we attempt to dictate to the rest of the world what their internal arrangements shall be and threaten them in a variety of ways all of those ways weakening the state by the way if they do not become like us the great conservative man of letters russell kirk rightly wrote there is no surer way to make a man your enemy than to tell them that you are going to remaim him in your image for his own good. [ laughter ] we need to return to the grand strategy that we followed successfully through almost all of our history which is simply a defensive grand strategy. we don't go to war with other people unless they attack us. it's pretty simple. their entirnl arrangements are their own business. we relate to the rest of the world very actively. but through nongovernmental means through trade and by

serving as an example not through playing the great power game with diplomacy and military force. it was said unfairly of wilhelm and can be said fairly of the washington establishment that its worst nightmare there is a car rell somewhere in the world in which we are not involved. [ laughter ] the defensive grand stage says those are other people's problems. you have these two wonderful oceans east and west that provide a lot of distance. we are going to use that distance and, yes, we are going to do everything in our power to isolate ourselves from disorder, disodd means the disintegration of state and, yes that, can happen here too. it is a very real possibility in this century that the american state will not survive it particularly if it keeps engaging in failed wars. the defensive grand strategy served us extremely well. it cost very little. it made us popular worldwide.

it gave the united states tremendous moral power and as colonel john boyd argued, the physical level of war is the least you powerful and it is the policy, the grand strategy that is in accord with the realities of the 21st century. the tragedy is that the washington establishment will not see this because it is made up primarily of people whose most important thing is their personal career and if you are a member of the establishment and you suggest any change, you instantly cease to be a member of the establishment. so the question i will leave with you is which falls first, the foreign policy establishment or the country? >> thank you. so we'll start with a few questions that i'll pose to the panelists and then if we have a little bit of time at the end, i will turn over some time for

questions from you all in the audience. since we've all touched on iraq or at least most of us have touched on iraq at the recent developments there in our remarks, maybe we'll start with asking is there anything that the u.s. could constructively do in response to the latest events, the advance of isis in iraq or is it rather the case that's it's time to cut our losses and recognize we don't know what we're doing in iraq, we never have known and then we should not try to remedy a situation we don't know how to fix? >> you know, it was my understanding there would be no math. [ laughter ] yeah, a good question and a tough one. i think what we -- you know what we've seen over the past couple of day, normalizing the idea we'll try to formally discuss

the situation with iran, iran, you know, i don't need to remind they walked behind the tracks of the u.s. tanks. they have a much broader and deeper understanding of iraq than we do and certainly their foreign policy, their national security policy over the past several decades was a raid toward preventing iraq emerging as a threat after the iran/iraq war so i think trying to work with them and what we're doing right now to say to maliki one of the roots is you're not governing and in an inclusive way, listen, what tools do we have to make him do that? we couldn't do it with 100,000 troops in the country. the idea that we could have done it with 5,000 to 10,000 troops that we didn't leave, i think, is kind of fantastical so i think what we should do is, you know, more of what we've been trying to do with syria is, you know, see -- work with the surrounding countries to see how we contain it.

definitely try to work to deal with the refugee flows because i think those are something that get more and more destable lyzing down the road but at the end of the day if the root problem as i think a lot of people recognize here is political, we unfortunately have very few tools to change that reality. >> well, would we be really in the best position to coordinate with iraq's neighbors when our relations with several our relations with several of them with quite bad. >> well, yeah, they're tense and they're also working at cross purposes. it is. it is. it's been stated. it's overstated. let's state it again. it's a cold war between the saudis and the gulf states and iran. it's a cold war within the sunni community with much more extreme islamist elements and less extreme but islamist elements. you have the muslim brotherhood crowd. you have the saudis working against the muslim brotherhood and their allied organizations.

so giving all the cross cutting conflicts, again, the question is what tools, what influence does the united states really have? i think, you know, continuing to stay engaged. i think t you know, the idea that the united states is pulling out of the region is just wildly overstated. but i do -- i do see it as a kind of right sizing of american interest in the region because we do still have interest in the region. we do have an interest in doing whatever we can to prevent global jihaist organizations from creating small states here to plan whatever they would. but again, i'm at a loss for what real steps we can take right now to change the reality. >> well, the professor will be speaking in a few minutes. just had an article come out in politico last night where he

made the argument, the case for doing nothing in iraq. does that sound like something that's plausible for the u.s. to do? do you think it's plausible for the u.s. to refrain from some sort of activist response in the face of what was happening there? >> i was told that matt was going to answer all the math questions. so i would say that particularly with respect to the middle east, what you probably want to do is eliminate the moral hazard problem for u.s. foreign policy which is the notion that if, in fact, there is a deteriorating situation in terms of security that is unfolding there that the u.s. would be the actor of first resort. so i would say in that sense there is incentive to not necessarily take immediate action because in some ways, this has a much more profound effect on iran than it does on the united states. there is not a bad argument. and here, this is also question of what do you rank order of

threats to the united states? do you think that isis having an actual safe zone of territory in which they can do whatever they want is a bigger problem than the iranian state expanding it's influence and that's a debate that needs to take place or whether or not you think either of these things are actual threats to the united states, also. but i do agree that i think there's something to be said for not doing nothing necessarily but making it clear, we are not doing anything unless we're acting in concert with others. we're not going to be -- this is not going to be 2003 -- or not even 2003, it's not going to be any unilateral accident for the united states. you guys are going to be effected a lot worse than we are. >> well, everything having to do with diplomacy and relations between states, et cetera is completely irrelevant to what's happening in iraq and syria and

a growing portion of the middle east. the forces behind these wars are far more powerful than the states of the region. we're looking at a war of religion. we're looking at the middle eastern 30 years war. the very long standing war between sunnis and shiites rekindled. one of the very few is that we helped rekindle it and they're going to fight it out. it's going to be like the 30 years war in europe and that's to our advantage. if you look at the demographics of this region, you see that it is filled with young men with no prospects, no jobs, and nothing to do. well, what do young men do under those circumstances? they fight. you are going to have wars where you have those demographics. what we want to ensure is that we are isolated from the

disorder that causes the proper policy for us is to stand on the sideline and say fight fiercely fellows and let them absorb their energies with each other instead of directing them against us which is what they do when we intervene in their region. we can't stop it. we benefit from it. and the single most important policy action we need to take is make sure we admit not one single refugee that will be fleeing by the millions from these conflicts because if they come here or to europe they will bring the same conflict with them where ever they go. >> yeah, just a couple of points. one on the moral hazard point, it's a good one. there was a few months ago when saudi arabia was throwing it's big temper tantrum over the u.s. iran reproach, i think it was -- who was it that wrote an ad in

the new york times, one of the saudi princes, they had just withdrawn from the un human rights council and he was, the ad said if the united states continues to behave in this way saudi arabia might have to take action to deal with security in it's own region in it's own way. this was intended as a threat which i found really interesting. the idea that they might have to act more -- >> the saudi military is perhaps the most worthless in a region of worthless military. >> my first response was, a, that will be the day. and b, okay. i don't perceive that as a threat. that's kind of what we'd like you to start doing. like the middle east, the 30 years war, i take your point. we may just have differences. clear through key concern of the united states government is the concern of the united states but i'm not willing to say we should

just stand back and let this region consume itself. i do feel that because what we're talking about when we're talking about letting these young men fight it is out is massive instability, massive suffering, massive displacement and i am really not willing to support a policy that says let's just stand back and let it burn out. >> problem is nothing we can do will change it. >> yeah, you know, that's a point. i'm just not sure i completely agree. >> can i say that your theory of states as we know it are totally dissolving is a crock. i understand your argument with certain states to the middle east and africa but telling me that the irani state or israeli state or variety of other states are dissegoing away i don't buy.

you're right they're not necessarily going to endure but i'm not sure i buy this argument that this is a more general problem. >> as i said t intensity of the problem, though it's probably everywhere, switzerland is a exception, japan, a handful of others, the intensity varies greatly, however, the examples you give, first of all, iran. iran could very well break apart because the iranians are only a relatively small portion of the population in iran. the iranians have important separatist movements going on. they're very concerned about those movements and are very much subject to the fourth generation threat. as far as israel, one of the things i learned when i went there was how incredibly bitter israeli internal politics are and to the point where i had a secular israeli say to me, speaking of the orthodox, we

should put them in the kind of camps where they only come out the smokestacks. that's the bitterness of israeli domestic politics so i wouldn't be too quick as to say that fourth generation war is just a problem in a few limited place where is the state is particularly weak. it is cropping up everywhere including here where we have seen the interesting fact of the united states trying to bring order to afghanistan, somewhere where nobody has ever been able to bring order while being unable to maintain it a thousand yards from the u.s. capitol building after night fall. >> well, i think we have time for maybe one question from the audience. we're just about out of time. there should be mics there in the aisle. yes, sir. >> when i saw the title of this,

the new international i was very hopeful that we would talk in terms of well, internationalism. instead i hear us talk in terms of the 400-year-old framework of competing nation states. the same framework that lies behind the united nations. there's so many problems that the world faces that seem to require a global response. shouldn't we be talking in terms of an internationalism that emphasizes globalism versus this prevential discussion. >> to have that kind of initiative that you're talking about requires, in some way -- and here i'll agree with bill, it requires a shift in identity. it requires that people think of themselves not as citizens of the united states or a global citizen or recognizing -- you would need shifts in public opinion that would require

people to think of this as a situation where, in fact, cooperation would be required but you aren't seeing that. if anything you're seeing the reverse. look at the european union for example. it's in some ways the most ambitious project that existed to try to remake, you know, national identities into something larger. you know, sort of european identity of the notion that there's not just greeks or italians or spaniards but this european identity. if you take a look at the most parliamentary elections you discovered the exact opposite occurred. essentially you have actors on the far left and far right. both of which are within europe's boards and outside of europe's boarders doing relatively well. and, in fact, the only place where that didn't happen is germany and that's because germany's mildly insane policies that they instituted across the

rest of the euro zone served them well and no one else well. so i think unfortunately you're still operating in a world where national identities or sub national identities trump any sense of cosmopolitanism. >> just quickly. just from a political perspective, the american people are in a particular place right now, very skeptical as foreign interventions and i like that as a baseline but that can change and i think it's worth thinking about if not trying to cultivate some level of global citizenship rather than saying what happens out there doesn't effect us because in the event of another crisis, another attack, you know, i think i can very easily imagine americans being induced to support maybe not this year,

maybe not five years or ten years but i'd say within a decade, being induced again to support something really stupid. so i think it is worth thinking globally and to come up with a, you know, competing set of arguments for how u.s. security can be advanced through nonmilitary global engagement. >> i would just add that globalism and internationalism are zombies. they're walking dead. the sooner we bury them the better. the elites have assumed that because they, starting with the league of nations after world war i transferred their allegiance away from the state to the international super state that eventually the rest would do the same. in fact, people are transferring their loyalties away from the state but it is to smaller more concrete entities that actually have consent -- content and what

is worth fighting for. it's what globalism really represents. let's cheer that development. >> thank you all for your attention. thank you to all the panelists. and we'll conclude this panel now and we'll be moving on to the next part of our program in just a few minutes. thank you. [ applause ] >> the former iraq administrator paul bremer wrote about the possibility of sending more troops to iraq. he'll join us on the next washington journal and we'll talk to congresswoman loretta sanchez about u.s. options in iraq. she serves on the homeland security and armed services committees. later as part of our spotlight on magazines series, steven levey on his recent changes at

the healthcare.gov website. you can join the conversation on facebook, twitter, and by phone. washington journal, each morning 7:00 eastern on cspan. monday, gm recalled an additional 3 million plus cars for ignition problems. wednesday, general motor's ceo mary bara testifies on capitol hill to discuss the investigation into the delayed ignition switch recall. live coverage starts at 10:00 a.m. eastern on cspan 3 and you can join the conversation on twitter. so the idea behind 250 and 250 is instead of trying to tell the entire history of st. louis as a time line or era by era we would absolutely miss vitally important things. so instead of trying to do that

and failing we decide what if we just gave snapshots of st. louis history that would give people a glimpse of all the diverse things that happened here and they could use their imaginations to fill in the rest. so we chose 50 places 50 moments 50 images and 50 objects and tried to choose the most diverse selection we could. we're standing in the 50 objects right now. this is what most people would call the real history. this is where the object is right in front of you. brewing is such a huge part of st. louis's history. it's an amazing story with lots of different breweries and of course the most famous, they were the largest in the world. and in the era of them talking about millions of barrels produced, they're producing so much beer, this is from an era

when things were much simpler. in the days before they had cans or bottle caps they put corks in the top of bottles and somebody had to sit on this thing and do it by hand. it has foot pedals on the bottom. that's where the operator would push down with his feet to give the cork enough force to go into the bottle. it has three holes for three different sized bottles. >> the history and literary life of st. louis. the gateway to the west. and cspan 3's american history tv. this panel from the american conservative forum on national security focuses on cyber threats and what the fourth amendment means in the modern age. this is about an hour.

i am going to moderate this discussion. i am the political editor of the national interest. formally the editor and former ceo of cq. our discussion topic has to do with the political context of american foreign policy and i'm going to translate that into two questions for our panel lists. what is the state of political sentiment with regard to american foreign policy today and what kinds of barriers or opportunities does that pose for an alteration in policy

directions from something approaching the neo conservative view that is pretty much dominated from the end of the cold war until relatively recently and moving toward a more realistic or realist or perhaps measured approach? >> i do have a great panel but i have a few observations. i used to be a political reporter and one of my observations during those years as when it comes to foreign policy the american people tend to delegate to their elected leaders and to the experts hired by their elected leaders to a far greater extent than domestic policy. especially if it has to do with jobs. they're on it very quickly if things don't go well. but in foreign policy, it's more of a delegation with one

significant provisal, don't screw it up. if you screw it up we'll pull it back. all of us read about vietnam in which the problems were such that the american people very dramatically pulled it back. i'll say another example which i think is world war i. we tend to forget the history of that period in which woodrow wilson not only took us into a war that didn't yield the results that were advertised but he used the occasion for a lot of domestic policy making that were very delicate in terms of the economy and other things and lead to the 1920 election which was one of the great of our history. >> those are one of the examples of the american people pulling it back. it's possible that we are in kind of a mild example of the

american people pulling it back. it seems to be happening in terms of where the american people are right now. president obama indicated he was going to move in that direction but he pulled back because the american people weren't favorable of that might be exhibit a in that. but the question that rises now giving what's happening in the middle east in the media time frame is what happeneds in that process if we find ourselves in a serious crisis. and crisis being potentially islamist fundamentalism basically taking over large swaths of syria and iraq and creating a kind of modern.

>> in that context, i'd like to introduce our panelists for this discussion. john is the senior editor of the new republic and contributing editor of the american prospect. he has written widely in cq, foreign affairs, new york times, washington post. he is the author of six books, john. >> right. >> including the current book that's out now and has kicked up a certain amount of controversial dust. genesis, trueman, american jews and the origins of the arab israeli conflict. i'll introduce the other two. next we have the vice president for defense and policy studies at the cato institute. he has written widely including he had a by line in the new york times just yesterday. author of three books including the power problem 2009, exiting