if people think the state department wasn't paying attention and wanted a special envoy, over a period of time we probably needed a bureau with deep experience working in the subject rather than the, what i would call, attention light factor of the special envoy. there is also finally the question of, how does the special envoy relationship, particularly in conflict resolution, accord with the rest of our policies? you've touched on some of that, and the natural conflict, if i could put it this way, between the functional bureaus, particularly those that deal with democracy and human rights. and some of the more difficult questions that arise in conflict resolution. but, i'd be grateful if you would address the two questions. the broadening question to other special kinds of appointments, and the other question in how and what way the special envoys have to take care and attention to look at the rest of u.s. foreign policy, and how it fits in to the context in which they work. thank you. >> well, i hope you'll comment from your work on the qddr, in

particular. we didn't try to take on the whole envoy question for -- because the conflict ones had special characteristics. but tom, you're putting your finger on a problem. because if you looked at the number of special envoys, and it's almost the same from one administration to another, you're talking about 25 or more special envoys, and if they're all supposed to report to the secretary of state, you realize, in addition to all the regular structures, you really have an unworkable structure. [ inaudible ] >> yeah. so it's not bad to put these under some of them under a structured bureau, and therefore have an undersecretary who is handling more of that. and i think we have to be very careful about the proliferation in to areas that, again, sometimes become more symbolic. and i think deserves more

attention. on the conflict with other policies, this is very important. we tried to deal with it a little bit, richard haass' experience working on cyprus in relationship to our relationship with turkey and nato and we touch on that in the report. i experienced it in needing the cooperation of ethiopia, absolutely critical to our policy, but we had other issues with ethiopia over democracy and human rights. and balancing that with the rest of the u.s. government, those are legitimate concerns. these aren't illegitimate when you're running up against it. was a challenge. and we had to work it out, and find out where the balance should be. but, those happen all the time, and that's where you need a policy process that will get us those, address it, and come to an agreement. i'll just give you one quick example. sorry. we needed a tough police -- peacekeeping operation in the

area. the u.n. had failed there, and the only ones we could go to were ethiopia. now, you know, for people who had all these other details, my god, is there one more thing that we are dependent on them? but we worked it through, we looked at it, secretary, everybody said the balance is right, we need them. so you have to go through a process, and assess it. >> i'll just say something briefly about diplomatic envoys. i think it's a great point, and i was left thinking about whether i should talk about thematic envoys or not. i decided not to because of the focus of the paper. but i think it's a challenge if you look at the 25 envoys alone who are on the apfsa page they're for all kinds of different things. we were very much -- i come to this issue in the context of the human rights issues. where the bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, which

some would challenge shouldn't exist in any case and there should be part of a thematic piece of every regional bureau but they themselves were very upset about the fragmentation of the various human rights issues, for example, the office of religious freedom, or the trafficking office, which is something that i know most about. and i think that it's difficult. because, you know, the -- mike posener used to complain to me that he would come to new delhi, and the first thing that the ambassador would complain about was that damn trafficking office, and why were they were creating such problems? and he was unable to talk about his agenda. at the same time, the trafficking office didn't exist, i wonder where the human trafficking, modern slavery issue would be on his talking points with the ambassador. like never mentioned. so you know, i think that this is the kind of challenge that has to be worked through and thought about, and i think that it's -- it's tough. and you know, you probably have to look at it on a case by case

basis to figure out what's the right answer. i agree with you that we should broaden this conversation to try to figure out when it makes sense and when it doesn't. >> so, a couple of quick comments, and i appear to be losing my voice somehow in the middle of this imagine. i'm just so moved by the wisdom. one, i think to pick up the case studies we actually thought about doing the qddr on a case study model, it's really much more effective and useful, i think, from the outside than from the inside. there is a tendency for every after-action report to say nothing went wrong, everything was perfect, nothing to see here, and these are really only useful if we're going to be honest, and really even getting willing to talk about individuals, because i think there can be a tendency to not want to criticize folks, and if we're going to learn from this, and this is something we're looking at with qddr, how do we become more of a learning institution at state, where you are more capable of taking some risks if you understand that if things don't go right it's an opportunity to learn and be better the next time. and this is, of course, the

essence of what we preach in terms of entrepreneurship and innovation in the private sector. it's not about succeeding 100% of the time. it's about taking risks, and having them pay off over time. and we know all the reasons in terms of -- we don't know all the reasons but we know many of the reasons in terms of general internal bureaucracy, in terms of how the hill reacts, and the media often with gotch ya kind of things. if you're basically trying to manage against failure, instead of manage for success, it is a deadening environment. and we know we still attract the best and the brightest in to this -- in to these institutions. but how do we do that? and i think that being able to get more comfortable inside and out with case studies, and being able to say, yes, this was the right thing to try, it did not work out, but here's why it was the right thing to try, will be learned from it. so we're really trying to look at that. i want to echo on the policy issue. i mean, something i wrote something about when i was in the think tank world before i came in so it's a matter of

public record, you look at something like syria emerging. for that first year and a half. and structurally speaking, you not only have at state and nsc and other entities, you have jordan, turkey, and israel, and lebanon, all having slightly different attitudes towards this. so, and i think there was not, i think it's fair to say, clarity from the white house on what the policy was. that question of was the problem a structural problem, was rob ford empowered to do it, et cetera, i think we can look at these case studies both where an envoy came in and they didn't come in. on the congress thing for those who don't know i am a former member of congress. so let me speak both ill of my kind, and defend them a little bit. i think congress is bored. they don't pass a lot of laws anymore. and when they do, it's usually

at midnight in december, when they're trying to go home. and so i think this makes the ability to play in some of the sandboxes more appealing. and so whether that's calling people up for oversight or issues or whether it's, you know, wanting to show that they're doing something on a particular crisis around the world. in their defense, however, and i've made this clear with my colleagues at state, state does not always do the best job of really engaging with the hill respectfully and substantively. i think that it can be sort of a -- you know, we're trying to save the world here and you're going to call us out for the 37th hearing so we're going to give vague answers, and try to get back to doing what we're doing. well, when congress acts in a way that they're essentially only showing up for their three minutes of questioning to be able to show that they were tough on state and wait for you to possibly misstate something and then that becomes the head line, of course you start,

again, to manage against failure instead of for success. so i think that cycle is not great. there's also been the history over the years of feeling like, particularly on some of the issues of human rights and corruption that state has sometimes erred on the side of a favorable bilateral relationship, and from the standpoint of the hill. but, there has been more and more attempts to leverage in whether it's drl or envoys or other things because the sense is, this is getting short shrift. which, of course, means that you are having -- you're having some policy coherence because a set of elected officials who write your budget have basically made a decision that you're not getting the balance right and those who are actually running the policy from state, believe that this is the right policy. so, you know, we often think about the nsc/state split or a functional regional split on this but we do preach democracy around the world and members of congress were elected, granted some of that is to the highest

bidder and totally manufactured redistricted mayhem, but nonetheless elected. and there. and you see this come up in other context. one issue that's certainly come up a lot in the qddr for obviously reasons has been the issue of physical security. and this is relevant in this context because obviously we're talking about conflict areas to some extent. this is an issue before benghazi, before the kenya mall attack. but it certainly spiked up. you can see from humanitarian organizations the complex risk even outside of the political dynamics has gone up considerably in the last few years. number of countries facing complex conflict et cetera and how we operate. and then you have again with the hill relationship, if i were still up there, and the people were wise enough to not have that be the case, people of my district, and i was being asked to vote and train a group of

people i'd probably want to go meet them. i'd want to look them in the eye and say are these people i want to support? i'm the one who has to cast that vote. i'm the one who has to effectively write that check. and at the same time, if you're state i understand why the last thing you want is a bunch of yahoo congress people coming down and playing around on the syrian border. i think in all of these things, you know, there really is genuine understanding, there are good arguments on both sides, and i think the attitude probably has not -- has been escalating, and i think that is part of where the special rep phenomenon comes from, more reports. because the fact is congress, only has a limited set of tools in the tool set. we can name a special envoy. we can demand a report, to some extent we can earmark funding. that requires them to get a budget passed. this is, i think, something where again, as someone who did have to represent people and people worked their tails off to pay their taxes and those are the taxes that pay for state operations and aid operations, you know that's got to be an important part of the conversation. >> qddr --

>> quadrennial diplomacy and development review. >> yes, yes. >> okay. >> i will say, tom, just to push back a little bit, i do think there is an opportunity for a special envoy. you know i think one of the things that princeton could talk about was he had good relations on the hill. he had good relations in civil society. and you could make those places a force multiplier if you used them in the right way. and i think that a lot of times, secretary even the deputy assistant secretary which we haven't talked about, the assistant secretaries are effective special envoys, some of these smaller cases might be good to talk about that at some point but there are a lot of issues with the assistant secretary that a particular member has that they want to raise with them, that they want to talk about their own pet rock and a special envoy can go up and talk to members of congress. and they do travel, they can reinforce messages, there is utility that can be done, i think you're right. sometimes state doesn't always use that in the most effective way. >> no.

i will echo that. i find it surprising that more chief submissions don't see every special rep as an opportunity. it's an opportunity to bring someone in. you can get press coverage. you can get meetings with civil society. you can emphasize an issue. in a world where government to government traditional diplomatic contact is less and less the whole equation. and how things play out in the media. how they play out in social media, you know, i do think there is an opportunity to use each one of these offices and say, hey, i'm the ambassador to sri lanka did a lot of this. saying hey, i see 12 assets there that i can bring in. and use creatively to push a message that i'm pro-actively doing. that's different than when you've actually decided on a message in your country and then someone wants to come in and mess with that strategy. but these can, i think, huge opportunities. >> i had one other point and it cuts to your current work; and that is the state department being decades behind in internal

structural reform. as david said earlier in today's program, the tendency has been always just to add on additional layers, rather than take a hard look at the way the building is structured to do what we're supposed to do. so that if an ambassador feels that he or she is being bothered by the work that has been decided, it's important for policy, then it's a reflection both of the ambassador's failure, but also the bidding's failure. years ago, there was a discussion about doing in the state department what the military had done in the '80s, which is to empower regional assistant secretaries to become kind of undersecretaries. who would then be able to make policy choices on how conflict resolution, human rights, labor issues, trafficking, all fit in, and to be able to call on resources the way that our regional commanders do in the military.

and i think until we start to take a look at that, we're going to be confronted not only with problems in the department but problems with special envoys, because they in a sense almost need to proliferate when you haven't made basic policy priority choices. and i think the connection between policy priorities and structure has not been looked at sufficiently. >> let me make one -- go ahead. >> do you consider the possibility that there are some conflicts in which the united states is viewed by both of the belligerents as so biased and fa vofr one that it has insignificant influence with both. if our real interest was peace, we might refrain from diplomatic initiatives that are likely to prove futile and give quiet support to others that might have more chance of success.

>> i'll let dan talk about that. >> to some extent that -- existed in the sudan and south sudan situation because there was a great deal of sympathy in the united states, in the congress, in the administration for south sudan's long wars and desire for independence and problems on the other side with what had happened in darfur, et cetera, and sudan. so it posed an issue. but on the other hand, it was not a conflict in which we could step back entirely. we did in that case in part because we didn't talk to the president of sudan, rely as the principle negotiating body the africa union's panel for this purpose headed by south africa former president mbeki. so we did in that case need to, in effect, use our force in support of that process. but we had spent, as i testified

before congress, between 2005 and 2010, spent $10 billion on the sudan/south sudan conflict, and we had a big stake in it. we couldn't quite just walk away. >> on the bosnia side, it was a different situation. most of our diplomacy was aimed at other europeans. we had a situation -- we had created what was called the office of the high representative, the first one of whom was carl built, former farm foreign minister of sweden. and our problem was not so much keeping the bosnians in line as it was more of less we were on the same page with the europeans. since that also involved russia, that was at times very difficult. and the office of the high representative, people still called him the u.n. high representative. he was not the u.n. high

representative because the eur and the u.s. government in general had a healthy distrust of the u.n. peace keeping operations in the past. so it was intentionally kept separate from the united nations and still is. >> i would add usually when people ask the question they are thinking about the arab/israeli conflict, so i'm not trying to read your mind, but i think it's probably a fair reading of the question. and my own view has always been that the united states should get involved in this conflict resolution process to the extent that both sides want us involved. and the reality has been, even though we have a special relationship with the state of israel that we do not have with palestine liberation organization, the reality has always been that both sides have wanted us to be at least involved if not actually the primary third party. that may be changing. and i think today we're now coping with -- dealing with a palestinian move to the united nations. i think it's healthy for this to

be taken up in multilateral fora, but when it comes down to actual negotiating between israelis and palestinians, the go-to party has been the united states. my complaint substantively on the issue has been that as much as we talk about being serious as a third-party mediator, we really haven't been, and we have a policy problem where we haven't imbued the secretary of state or the envoy with enough authority and power to actually go out and do what a united states national interest would dictate our envoy trying to do. >> i want to give the authors the last word here, but i will say one thing in teeing that up which is, you know, i think that one of the things that i am hopeful about with special envoys and with the state department in general is getting people -- and this will sound

cheesy -- getting people excited about peace building. we are a war-weary country. you see that on the right and the left. i think the isolationist fever isn't as bad as it was a couple years ago. but people -- i think it is an important moment for us to talk about diplomacy and development as part of the answer to the question, well, is there just going to be another isis five years from now or ten years from now. diplomacy and development is part of the answer to that in the context of individual conflicts and otherwise. in some cases that can be the deputy secretary, it can be a das, but this is something where i actually want to capture the imagination of the american people to believe in this, and i think there has been a tendency of at stake and aid, probably

less so in aid in the last few years that if your name is in the paper that somehow wrong. that you're not supposed to bring attention to yourself. holbrook wrote a book to end a war. people like me read it and it had a huge impact on our lives. that's not because he was a perfect man and everyone got along with him perfectly. it was about an aspiration in this way. and i think, you know, one of the things we're looking at in the broader context that i think this can be a piece of is getting people excited about diplomacy. i've joked with the secretary that the state should have a hollywood liaison, that all of my nieces and nephews know exactly -- or think they know exactly what a soldier and a spy is. they do not know what a diplomat is. now there have been some tv shows in the last year and some other things that have started to play that out. but i think you know, we want to look at case studies not just to learn from them, but we also want to celebrate. it's been the most enjoyable part of my job has been to go around and see amazing work that nobody ever hears about that our folks are doing every day in countries to try to build peace, try to pull people out of poverty. so, you know, for me i think this is part of getting better. we have to get better. we have to get honest when

things aren't working. but we also want to tell a story about the fact that -- to the american people that one of the things they support is this kind of effort. with that, i'll hand it to you with our thanks for the report. >> yes. >> just very quickly, i couldn't agree more. and peacemaking and conflict resolution is tough work. i mean, people wouldn't have gone to war if there weren't some very difficult issues at stake. while i think the use of special envoys or senior members of the department if so empowered, it really takes a lot of people to get this done. that's why using the full instruments of the department, if an envoy doesn't do that, it's a mistake. but point that point about multilateral institutions and other allies, absolutely critical, and you have to be engaged and engaged. and sometimes it takes a very long time.

i couldn't agree more that this is an area that the u.s. can invest a great deal more in and i think will serve us very well in the future. >> i'd make about six points. the first is don't take the job if you don't know the issues. second is know the local players. you have to reach out to them. in sarajevo, that meant not only the politicians, in fact, it meant politicians not very much, but to know the grand mufti, to know the cardinal, to know the head of the jewish community. these were the people who were really making policy in cultural terms, and cultural terms are key. third, and this has been said in one way or another, know the dynamics in washington. if you haven't got that game

down, it's not going to work. know the interests of other players. i mentioned the europeans, the organization of the islamic conference, nato, all of these elements have to be factored into the mix if you're going to do your job. know the limits of the possible. the early stages in bosnia not much was possible except preventing starvation and preventing any more mass executions. and finally, take the long view. ask yourself how would i like this place to look in ten years and how can we get there? when i was in the army, we had a sergeant who said if you don't know where you're going you're never going to get there. it's also true for special envoys. >> thank you all very much. thanks to usip and have a wonderful holiday. >> thank you. [ applause ].

this month is the tenth anniversary of our sunday primetime program, "q&a." we're highlighting authors, historians, journalists, film makers and leading public policymakers. from 2005, kevin fineberg's interview. from 2006, lonnie bunch on the importance of the african-american experience to u.s. history. from 2007, robert novak on his 50 years of reporting in washington. from 2008, rene-kator.

and from 2009, conservative commentator, s.e. cup. "q&a" at 10. victoria nuland, affirmed u.s. support for ukraine this week at a discussion at the american enterprise institute in she says economic sanctions against russia are working. this is about an hour. i remember that both you and strobe were quite pleased, even happy if this is the right emotion for dip plo mats and the reason for that was the so-called budapest memorandum on security assurances to ukraine, signed by the united states, the

uk, russia. and ukraine, just two months before in december of '94, in exchange for ukraine's asession to the treaty on the nonproliferation to nuclear weapons and the pledge to transfer the soviet era nuclear weapons to russia, the cig that tears, i quote, reaffirm their commitment to ukraine's independence on sovereignty and existing borders. refrain from the threat of use of force against territorial integrity or political independence of ukraine. and from economic coercion to subordinate to their interests the exercise by ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty. that's a pretty comprehensive list, congratulations, but, but things have changed and where do you think the change has come from and why? >> well, first of all, leon, it's great to be here with you. it's great to be back at aei with so many friends. thank you for coming out.

and it is truly interesting to think back that it was 20 years ago that we met and at that point we had so much hope about being able to knit a reforming democktizing russia into the international system that we could lift all boats including the lives of 150 million russian people. it is true that one of the first major pieces of negotiation that i every worked on in my career was the denuclearization of kazakhstan, bull rhus and ukraine. i continue to think that that was the right decision for those countries to make to move in the direction of modern european states that secure themselves through their prosperity, through their partnership with other strong democracies rather than needing nuclear weapons.

that said, part of that deal,s off underscored, was the commitment of all the budapest powers notably including the russian federation to keep their hands off the territory of ukraine. and obviously that has not happened. >> you spoke to the commission of the u.s. congress last april and you said today ukraine is a front-line state in the struggle for freedom and all the principles that commission holds dear. and a month later, "the battle in ukraine means everything" tim schneider of yale wrote ukraine has no history without europe but europe also has no history without ukraine. throughout the centuries, the history of ukraine revealed the turning points in the history of europe. this seems to be true today. now, looks like both you and tim schneider are talking about the same thing and the stakes are

pretty high, aren't they? >> they certainly are. as you know, the united states in a bipartisan fashion for 25 years has worked for a europe whole free and at peace. today the number one battleground for that aspiration is in ukraine. and the way ukraine goes will impact not only the neighborhood and the space between ukraine and the european union and nato space but i think will also have an impact on the kind of future that the people of russia can have. so it is profoundly in the united states' interest that ukraine succeed in its aspiration to be democratic, to be more prosperous to be unified to be more european, to integrate with our economies and to beat the cancer of corruption that has plagued it for so long. and that is why we are putting

so much effort into it. it is why we are working so intensively with our european partners and allies, partly with the eeu on increased economic support for ukraine now and that's why we welcome the decision of the congress in a bipartisan fashion to signal its support as well. >> okay. i'll return to corruption and congress. you were in ukraine, i think, first week of october? what did you see? >> you mean this past trip with vice president? >> right. >> i think i've been in ukraine nine times in the last calendar year in various ways, both with bosses and on my own. this last trip was followed the -- it was in november with vice president biden and we were there after the elections as the ukrainians were working to form a government. we were at that point advocating a broad coalition government

with a very strong reform program. as you saw about a week later, that government was formed with a large number of tech any cats with lots of experience in the economy in particular. as you saw, the government put forward a relatively robust and very concrete reform agenda, including things like cutting the public sector by 10%. including strong measures of corruption. the ukrainian parliament endorsed that which was by a very wide margin which speaks to strong support across ukrainian parties to deliver on what the ukrainian people asked for in those elections. so now they have to implement. and as they implement, we have to continue to support them. >> let's talk about the u.s. strategy. when you spoke to the senate

foreign relations committee this past july, you outline what, to me, looked like a four-part plan. >> uh-huh. >> support for ukraine's tackling political and security challenges, diplomatic efforts to deescalate what you call the crisis and to encourage russia to end sport for separatist. readiness to impose further costs by way of sector yal sanctions on russia and reassuring front line nato allies and friend like georgia and mall doe va. it's almost been half a year since you spoke there and outlined that plan. is the strategy the same? and if it is, have there been any shifts in maybe an emphasis or substance? >> the four points that you you lined are still how we look at the situation. outreach diplomatically with our allies and partners to russia offering an off ramp, offering

de-escalation if the kremlin is willing. try marly now focussed on implementation on the minced peace plan from september that the kremlin signed on to but has not yet implemented and the final point imposing costs for aggression. so i think you've seen all of those pieces since the summer continue to accelerate. on the nato side, you have seen us continue to on land, sea and air provide physical reassurance to our allies. you've seen the security support for georgia and mall doe va and ukraine increase. you've seen now with the congressional support for the european readiness initiative that will allow us to preposition equipment as necessary and further strengthen the alliance. on the ukraine support side, we talked about $320 million plus the $1 billion loan guarantee

for the u.s. support in 2014, very generous authorizations from the ukrainian freedom support act which allow us to do more in the coming period but of course conditioned on ukraine staying the reformed course. on the cost side, the very tough sanctions imposed jointly by the u.s. and the eu in september continued discussion about what more needs to be done there, but at the same time making clear that those sanctions can be rolled back if the protocols are implemented, if russia closes that border with ukraine, pulls back equipment and fighters in eastern ukraine and helps release hostages. those are the main points that we want to see. and we have made clear that sanctions will roll back if, in fact, they fulfill their obligations but we haven't seen

it yet. >> you described last april russia's occupation of crimea as quote, rubber stamped by an ill legitimate ref run dem conducted at the barrel of a gun. some of my colleagues in this town and outside have been suggesting in op-eds that under certain conditions the u.s. should recognize crimea's anxiousization. do you think the u.s. will ever recognize that? >> certainly not under current leadership i don't see how that is plausible. it was a complete violation of international law and once grow down that path, what's to stop countries all over the world from biting off chunks of their neighbor's at will? >> in the speech in the discussion on december 18th, president of ukraine said that

one can't find -- excuse me, can't fight aggression with blankets. now, last week the senate unanimously passed a bill that authorizes -- although not requires, the president to provide both lethal and nonlethal military assistance to ukraine and requires to extend sanctions on russia. it seems now that the president will sign the bill despite some reservations. what can you tell us about all of this? >> well, i think the ukraine freedom support act is emblematic of the strong bipartisan, bicameral support for ukraine and its aspirations that you see across the united states. and i know from talking to ukrainians that that has been very important to them politically. it's been important to them as they seek to build their reform agenda and to know that they have the support, not just of the administration but of the american people and they

representatives. we've had spectacular number of congressional delegations out to ukraine, not just during that period but since demonstrating support. and when you're trying to do difficult new things to have that national support is very, very important. the bill gives us -- gives the administration authorization for a broad set of tools, but it also allows considerable flexibility to use those tools in a manner that is flexible as we see how the situation develops. >> very diplomatic. >> thank you. 30 years. >> so if i could sort of probe a tiny bit, i know the answer, but let me do it any way because aei pays my salary. so lethal assistance, defense, we're all talking about

anti-tank, anti-aircraft, any -- are we closer to it than we were before? >> well, first of all, let me say i think that the american people can be proud of the security support that we've already given to ukraine. $118 million in calendar 2014 alone, broad authorization, as i said, from the congress to do more next year. beginning now to do the equipping and training of ukrainian units, which is the most important thing to help them to be at their best now being willing to give heavy armor and those kinds of things, including night vision, communications gear, the kind of things that the united states excels and the ukrainian's clearly need. with regard to your question about -- so we've been doing security support up to the high end nonlethal defensive range and also considerable support for border security. i don't have the number in my

head, but it's at least 70 million in border security, which is important not just to enable us should the ukrainians get access back to their border in the east, but they're doing a huge amount of work now to harden the rest of the border and make it a real border as compared to the sunflower fields that we saw in the east. with regard to the question of lethal, i think you've heard the white house and tony blanken say that we keep this under review. we're in constant dialogue with the ukrainians about what will make a difference to them. what's most important is that the russians be deterred in further adventure. >> thanks. now, of course, defending against the russian aggression is just one of the many huge problems that ukraine faces and you eluded to it and i just

thought that i would just collect it all in one. you know this by heart but let me recite it for audience. ukraine is almost at the bottom of the corruption list. it's gdp is likely to shrink by 9% this year and optimistically by another 3% next year. it's hard currency reserves at $19 billion are almost incredibly low for a country that size. and they have lost half of is value this year in currency. now, you said the most lasting anti-dote to separatetism and outside interference in the medium term is for ukraine to beat bad corruption. and they seem to agree to that. he spoke again -- speaking to the congress in september, he said, in fact, he listed what he called the sins of the ukrainian

elite, corruption, bureaucracy and cynicism. so some tough love along with assistance? >> absolutely. and, you know, we certainly believe and i think the broad majority of ukrainians believe that if ukraine does not beat corruption this time, if it does not create a clean transparent democratic country, than it will once again blow its chance. and that is what -- the mie don was about many things but it was certainly about the ukrainian people being sick of being ripped off by their leaders, by aloe garks, by a nontransparent system. they want opportunity, they want a free market economy, they want to know where the money is going, they don't want a small handful of clept cats running that country anymore. that's what the current leadership was elected on. that's what the government has committed to.

there is a lot of good detail in the government's program, now they have to live up to it. we're starting to see good progress in places like kiev city where mayor cleech koe has become the king of e-governance. >> he is an enforcer to. >> he is. and he is trying to make government procurement transparent. he is trying to put all the contracting online so everybody can see. the ukrainian government program also includes a very ambitious program of decentralization, of tax, local spending et cetera to reduce the number of layers, the opportunity for ripoffs in the system. this is what they're going to have to do and it's going to be very, very hard work and they need a lot of help doing it, which is why a good chunk of our technical assistance and the eu's assistance will be earmarked for that kind of work. >> thanks.

you spoke to house foreign registrations committee in may, and you said that the u.s. and its allies remain committed to a diplomatic off ramp should russia choose to take it. i would like to talk about this off ramp for a moment, if i may. there seems to be a consensus emerging among independent russian analysts that at least to a large extent the crimean adventure was a classic strategy of authoritarian regimes that is to boost domestic legitimatesy and popularity and justify repression by providing -- by arranging for confrontation on the outside and opening for patriotic marbleization on the inside. there is nothing new here, of course. i think in henry the ivth, shakespeare has henry telling harry, the future henry the vth

this. he advises him to busy giddy mind with foreign corals less they look to near on to my estate. given that the government has been pretty successful in patriotic marbleization and given that just the headlines of today and all the past week or so that russia is not facing just a recession but possibly a crisis, on the one hand, and given the fact that, as i said, given the fact that the -- it has successfully swept the economic issues under the rug as far as domestic political situation is concerned, how reasonable is it to hope that russia will, in fact, take that off ramp given that the regime badly needs now boost in legit

masy? or -- this is certainly one option, to liblize, to decentralize, to do what we have been suggesting for five years or do the opposite, do the classic authoritarian thing which is up the antiand instead of taking an off ramp, start nibbling, for example, at the baltic states in order to continue with what has been a pretty successful patriotic marbleization? >> well, leon, there's a lot in the way you phrased this, so i don't know exactly where to start. look -- look, there's no question that the russian economy was already in trouble when the kremlin chose to bite off crimea and it was a very nice distraction from the fact that the economy was already not going to grow at that t that mo. but it doesn't change the fact that the structure of the

russian state, the russian economy, prosperity has changed over the 20 years that the russians have been allowed to vote for their leaders. the russian economy is deeply knitted into the global economy and that also creates opportunity but it creates vulnerability for authoritarian regimes. now, whether or not those making decisions in russia over the last year fully understood their vulnerability to reputations things like the fact when you violate international law repeatedly, it has a knockoff effect on the environment for investment in your country, not to mention the constraints that already existed and were growing inside the russian system, or whether it's the fact that there's what we've done through sanctions on the one hand but

also the chilling effect it has on willingness to invest further when there's that kind of uncertainty. but the largest issue here, i think, is the broader economic mismanagement over more than a decade where the russian economy was not diversified away from hydro carbons and the russian people, i think, did not appreciate how vulnerable they were to this lack of diversify indication. i think because the kremlin fully controls information now into most households, they also didn't appreciate the costs of these adventures in ukraine, not only the material cost of maintaining tens of thousands of russian soldiers on the border of ukraine or in crimea, but also the knockoff effect of sanctions and isolation, et cetera. and now it's coming right to russian kitchen tables with the devaluization of the ruble with

the inflation gone wild, with the cost of borrowing, et cetera. so, the question is will this start a conversation inside russia about the course that they're on, about the fact that the kremlin has prioritized their foreign adventures over the well being of the russian people now, not to mention all the russian mothers and girlfriends and sisters and parents who lost children in the adventure in the east when so many russians were killed. >> how concerned are you about the baltics? >> well, i think you know that we've pat huge amount of effort into making it absolutely clear that nato space is viable, three presidential trips to europe this year, the investment including almost $1 billion in re-enforcement that the congress has now appropriated. the work that we've done at nato, including at the wales

submit, land sea and air that you don't mess with nato allies. we've also had consultations with the baltic countries as have our nato allies on an integrated approach to defense. you strengthening border security now, you see allies from all countries participating there. just to say that this was not our choice. but this is a clear necessity now to insure that first of all, those countries feel secure, feel all 28 allies there for them, but also that we make absolutely clear that this is not an adventure that anybody ought to be going on. >> you mentioned the information that gets to russians. one of the sources, a key source of that success in patriotic marginalization was propaganda

and if my recollections of my misspent moscow youth are true, it far surpasses anything that i saw in the '70s, in just sheer cynicism and not to mention technology and the reach. now, russians have been making quite a sport of it, one, a recent posting, mocked the propaganda line in this way. all the revolutions in history of humanity beginning with lucifer's rebellion against god have been designed by the united states to detract from the glory of russia. >> we preceded lucifer? wow. >> i'm coming for that. but of course, a couple weeks ago, addressing the nation in

the state of russia, president putin said that the united states supports violence and burning people alive in ukraine. now, i'm bringing this up because there have been quite a place according to you personally in all of this, and i brought you, i'll give it to you as a souvenir, this is just a few randomly selected print-outs of articles. now, i know you are fluent in russian, but for the audience, let me translate just the headlines that we have here. newland's words have confirmed it u.s. control over the ukrainian opposition. nuland did not mention plans to new government in ukraine. u.s. piece of work. who is behind the nazis? nuland arrives to ukraine to give marching orders prior to

the election. nuland is preparing a new midawn in kiev. what do you think of all this and how it affects you and a question i always wanted to ask you. the cookies you distributed to pro democracy demonstrators in moscow and ceavenue that rankled moscow deeply, do you have a recipe? and if you do, and it's not copy writed, we'll be happy to post it on the site. >> first of all, to correct some disinformation, they were sandwiches, they were not cookies. >> in which instance? both moscow and midan? >> i don't think i gave out sandwiches in moscow, did i? >> maybe you're changing as we speak. >> exactly. so this was -- >> i think we have correspondents here. so take note, please.

>> first of all, this happened, i can't remember if it was december 11th or december 12th, just to tell the story. cathy ashton of the european union, and i, were both trying to help foster some dialogue at that point between midan leadership, the opposition leadership, and president yanukovych. she had spent some four hours with yanukovych and i had worked with the opposition. >> and that's in charge of european unions. >> right, and we made a decision after the meeting to try to go together and work in tandem. so we were there one night, and then i was to see yanukovych the next day, and what happened was at 1:00 in the morning, we were all awakened by yanukovych had ordered the security forces onto the midan. there were some 2,000 young guys

in the sort of adam ant suits, pushing onto the innocent demonstrators while cathy ashton and i were there, and what happened was they started ringing the bells and started singing, and they ended up surrounding the bear cute, and they retreated at about 3:00 in the morning. you'll recall we issued a statement right in the middle, secretary kerry called it disgusting they were putting security forces onto the midan. so the next morning, the feeling was that i couldn't go down. we were all going down to see the midan leaders regularly during this period, but i didn't feel in classic slavic tradition that i could go empty-handed, so we brought the sandwiches not only to those demonstrators who

had had such a traumatic evening, but we also gave them to the bear cute, to these poor 18, 19, 20-year-old ukrainian kids who had been ordered by their president to move against their own mothers and grandmothers, so it was a symbol of sympathy with the horrible situation that yanukovych had put ukrainians in, pitting them against each other. obviously, that wasn't useful to moscow propaganda to point that out, but there are pictures of me giving the sandwiches also to the bear cute, who were equal victims of the authoritarian structure, which was also aided and embedded from the north. >> this is a very important footnote to history. >> yeah, yeah. >> because you know, these cookies are all over the russian media. so all right, letters to the etter. >> that said, the united states will never be shy about

supporting efforts for more democracy, more popular choice, more infranchisement anywhere in the world, as you know. >> excellent, thank you. i think, if you don't mind, we have a few minutes for questions. >> of course. >>ander. microphones are coming. if you could just -- i know who you are, but if you could identify yourself. >> thank you very much. very interesting, and i in particular would like to ask you, victoria, that is right now, it's a discussion about the $50 billion is needed for ukraine. and there should be in addition to the ims funding already committed and more money than this will be needed for the next two years. the truthful amount is something

like $50 billion. of course, you can't say anything about how much the u.s. will give, but how do you see the process going forward? of course, there will be an ims program, we presume, and then there will be a donor conference, and how do you see this donor process going forward? thank you very much. >> thanks, anders. just to shout out anders, who has been a mentor and a champion for two, three decades for those across the euro atlantic space who have wanted more open, more democratic economies and thank you for the work that you've done all these years. with regard to ukraine's ims program, you will have seen that senior ims leadership was in ukraine this week. issuing a public validation of the reform program going

forward. but also confirming that the program agreed last year it's going to need a significant adjustment, that there is a fiscal hole now to the tune of $10 to $15 billion. we have been working with the ims, we have been working with the ukrainians. we have been working with senior e.u. member states and on the commision of the responsibility we'll all have if the ukrainians stay on track to fill this hole. we anticipate that the ims will come forward with formal conclusions relatively shortly. we suspect that they'll have to increase their support for ukraine, but that the united states, europe, and other friends of ukraine around the world will as well. we internally have been preparing more support for ukraine. i think we will wait and hear what the imf requires, but we have also been in very active

conversation with the e.u., asking that they also give a signal of support. you will have seen the president come forward saying there is a need now and beginning to get e.u. member states ready as well. but again, this has to be pegged to implementation of reform. it has to be pegged to the president, the prime minister, the government, and the ukrainian people meeting their commitments to themselves, to the international community, to get it right this time in terms of corruption and in terms of really liberalizing the economy and making it better integrated with europe and better integrated with the world system. >> yes, gentleman behind anders. >> thank you, madam secretary. merry christmas. two very quick questions. >> could you identify yourself?

>> john gizzy. chief political correspondent for news mags. two quick questions. first, have the sanctions made any noticeable changes that you can detect in president putin's foreign policy dealing with ukraine or any other country? and second, as you may very well know, they rewired the old jalopy of the provinces given by the western powers to russia. 25 years ago, about not expanding nato, and the continued specter of ukraine becoming a nato member or georgia, they speculate, are responsible for the recent actions. would you comment on that? >> thank you. >> well, first of all, there were no promises made to russia that it would have a veto at any point by any american or

european leader that i am aware of over other countries sovereign choice of alliance. that's just not the way we do business, and anybody who tells you otherwise doesn't know the true situation. with regard to the effect of sanctions, you know, i think the market information that we're seeing from russia today is a clear indication that the isolation that the kremlin has wrought the pressure that the u.s. and europe and others have brought to bear on the russian economy, is having an effect. i personally believe that there might have been even more aggressive action in ukraine had we not had a steadily escalating set of measures together, the u.s. and europe, had the u.s. and europe not been completely unified along with australia, japan, other friends in our

approach. there were even worse opportunities than what we saw over the course of the year. but now, we have a really toxic cocktail with the effect of sanctions, with low oil prices, with the impact finally being felt inside russia of the economic mismanagement of the last 10 to 15 years where the economy is so heavily hydro carbon dependent, so it is a point of decision making, i think, for the russian leadership, but also for the russian people. whether this aggressive policy vis-a-vie neighbors is worth it, and whether this choice to prioritize imperial ambitions over the needs of your own citizens, over their wellbeing, is really in the best interest

of the russian federation. >> please. >> thank you. >> hello, ms. nuland. >> could you identify yourself? identify yourself? >> i'm niccolai. i'm ukrainian journalist, political journalist, and so totally spent seven weeks in battle zone in eastern ukraine and the reason i came here to share my experience from the ground. first, i would like to express my regard from ukrainian people for everything you do for my country. and secondly, probably you're more aware than me, but i want just to remind something. really what happened there. so regarding military support

here, around 80% in ukrainian army come from soldier power, so it's around 40, 50 years. i have got some kalashnikovs and some machine guns that shared maybe 60 years history. this is really ancient and it's impossible. so all weapons which we could receive, like modern weapons, it goes from russian, of course. and even though in september our president, he estimated it was up to 70%, so you probably know, and i believe that this is true. i interviewed some afghanistan veterans, i mean, the veterans who were engaged in the war in

afghanistan during the soviet union and now he went to the eastern your crane, and he said to me that in afghanistan, it was a honeymoon for them in comparison with this full-scale war what the taliban have, they have rockets or machine guns, but they never used the missile launchers like russians do right now in eastern ukraine. >> i'm sorry, if you could get to the question. >> the question is about, can we expect military support regarding this? and are you aware that russians will never step back from eastern ukraine? >> well, thank you for that. just to say with regard to your particular concern about armored vehicles, we have been in discussion with the ukrainian government on this problem, particularly after the extremely intense fighting in august and

september, which resulted in the loss of so much equipment and as the vice president announced when he was in ukraine, we are now providing an opportunity for ukraine to have some of the up armored vehicles that are coming back from afghanistan. and the ukrainians are pretty good at fixing stuff, so a lot of that will be repaired and made ready in ukraine itself. but you're absolutely right, part of the issue on the reform docket, and there's quite a bit about this in the government reform plan, is that the entire structure of procurement, battle management, of the ukrainian military is going to have to be realigned and reformed. that's going to take support. it's going to take effort. that is why one of our main lines of work with ukraine is this bottom-up review of the military that european command

has been conducting and beginning equipping and training of ukrainian military units at their request, so we're very much focused on that. again, we will continue to use our tools of diplomatic pressure, but also diplomatic opportunity, to try to get russia to fulfill the commitments that it made in minsk. the agreement signed by russia, by separatists, by ukraine on september 5th and elaborated on september 19th, is a good and fair deal. but it requires the return of that international border to sovereignty, closing it to further transfers of equipment and personnel. it requires withdrawal of foreign forces and military. it requires a hostage exchange. so that is what we're pushing for. we will continue to say to russia that if that is fully implemented, sanctions will be

rolled back. it's russia's choice. >> thanks. right here. >> thank you. madam secretary, thank you for your time. very quickly -- >> who are you? >> forgive me. david colton. madam secretary, on your last point, lab rauv's recent speeches seem to be resurrecting what putin put on the table back in august. that is that the cutting loose of the project, pushing the costs onto ukraine and the west, they keep crimea, and it's sort of a mulligan. and that, after that minsk agreement, which you mentioned, they went in. the military escalation continued. if in december 26th going

forward to resurrectments, my question to you is, how do we test the russians that it's not yet another temporary reprieve, a temporary truce? particularly given that sanctions in europe in two stages, i think early in the spring and then in summer, are scheduled to automatically wind down if not renewed? are they playing a different game to get out of sanctions with the same kind of punity they offered us from yalta? >> i have long since stopped trying to get inside the head of decisionmakers in the kremlin. it hasn't been a productive exercise. what we're trying to do is to make it clear that there is another way, that if the escalation happens on the russian side, the escalation

will happen on the u.s. and e.u. side to make clear that what we're asking is that they live up to the obligations they undertook in september. you know, traditionally in that part of the world, nobody likes to fight in the deep winter. napoleon found out what happens when you try. so the question is, can we use this period when fighting is never a good game and the clear pressure that is evident now to have cooler heads prevail and to get back on a track where minsk can be implemented piece by piece in a way that brings peace and security and reintegration? the ukrainian government understands that if that border gets closed and if they could have access again to their own people and their own cities that there is an enormous

reconstruction job to be done, that people have suffered a huge amount. i think they are prepared and we are prepared to help. but not in a circumstance where assistance is stolen to fuel the war effort, not in a circumstance where 500 pieces of additional military equipment has gone in since the minsk agreement was signed, so we have to hope that winter will be a period of cooler heads and come out of it in the spring in a better place, but that is very much in the hands of those who are fueling this fire. >> sir, right here. >> thank you. thank you for your comments, madam secretary. i'm from belarus politics blog. >> belarus politics. >> blog. >> okay. >> my question is about belarus. since the beginning of the war for ukraine, there has been considerable change in the rhetoric of the united states

with regards to the regime. although there has been no change in the domestic policies and his practices. can you say about anything about the policy change of the united states towards the regime? is there something ongoing or upcoming in this regard? and the second question is about the statement of sergey lavrov about the rights of russia to deploy nuclear weapons in crimea? what would be the response of the united states to this? thank you. >> on the last point, first of all, crimea belongs to ukraine. second of all, any effort to further militarize that region will be extremely dangerous and would not go unanswered, i believe, by those of us who also live in that neighborhood. on the question of belarus, i'm

not sure quite what you're referring to. we have for many years had an ongoing dialogue with the government of belarus regarding our concerns about human rights, our concerns about the political environment for dissent. it has been interesting in the course of last year, you have seen what we've seen, which is that the leadership in belarus is quite uncomfortable being offered a binary choice, and you know, i remember seeing the prime minister of belarus in september, and at the u.n. general assembly and telling them they had done more for their country in having minsk, the term, the brand minsk, the emblematic of a peace deal, than we had seen in a long time, but we remain open to a warmer, more integrated relationship with belarus, as the human rights

situation improves. we have given some concrete ideas to the government of belarus. we've been able to make some small steps together. we're now issuing visas again there for the first time, but again, it's in the hands of the leadership whether they want to take their country in a more democratic, open direction, and then we would obviously be able to respond, as would europe. >> oh, my goodness. right over there. yes, sir, you. yep. no, no, the person under the cameras there. yes. of course. >> all right, thank you. crayton jones with eir. my question to you, victoria, i'm sure you've heard -- >> excuse me, what is eir? >> executive intelligence review. >> okay.

>> you have probably seen the letter circulated, printed in i think it was the zooit, and it was signed by 100 german officials, and it was titled "again, war in europe, not in our name." and the letter goes on to say to those who would provoke russia that remember the last person to attack russia was hitler, and he was destroyed. now, this is coming from germans who invoke the image of hitler. you can imagine the level of fear that exists among certain people ability this going towards full on confrontation, potentially nuclear. my question to you is are you and the administration really prepared to push this thing all the way to the level of military confrontation with russia? and if it did go to that, would you consider that a failed policy or is that part of the strategy to eventually go that far if need be? >> well, first of all, i would

underscore the fact that the response that the u.s. and europe have brought to bear to russia's aggression in ukraine has been to use the considerable economic tools at our disposal. in the form of sanctions and political tools in the form of sanctions and in the form of isolation. we have not chosen to militarize this vis-a-vie russia. what we are doing militarily are protecting allied territory because we have treaty obligations should nato allies come under attack. it's russia that has chosen the military course of aggression. we have seeking to change russia's choices, to bring them back into compliance with international law, primarily through political and economic tools. >> one more question. >> please, sure. >> please, yes. thanks for your patience.

>> thank you, victoria for doing this. my name is andre. i am with the russian news agency here in washington, d.c. >> andre and i are old friends. >> thank you, victoria. i regard you as a friend also. and a very skillful presenter of the american position. i think that it's a very important tool which works probably for them than for the russians. anyway, two questions. one, from lavrov and one for myself. lavrov yesterday said you had a satellite in the plane watching what was happening with the malaysian airline, which obviously is a major milestone

in the ukrainian conflict. why are not you sharing the results with europe? russia has been asking for this for a very long time. it's a very important point. secondly, in the forefront for all of us right now, my question is very simple. when you heard the russian economy, and by the way, i have been surprised by observing that you do want to hurt the economy and the people rather than the regime. and you've just described why, because you want the people to rebel, which is called regime change, but when you hurt the russian economy, do you harm or help the ukrainian economy? thank you. >> andre, first to your point with regard to u.s. intelligence

at the time of the malaysian airliner's tragic shootdown, first, just to say to you that just to remind you that secretary kerry on, i believe it was july 21st, it was the saturday after the shootdown, gave a very detail ed discussio of what we knew from our own assets, including providing considerable detail with regard to the trajectory of the firing, et cetera. and he made clear at that time that we believed it was shot down by a missile from separatist held territory. we stand by that. we have given all of our information, including our classified information, to the dutch, who are the investigators. and to ikao, and we're

working -- >> who? >> the international civil aviation organization. so any efforts to say that we have not are also untrue. there will be, i believe, in the context of the dutch case, when they roll it out, they are likely to ask us to declassify some of that and i think we will be able to help in that regard. but the best declassified set of information from u.s. assets is still contained in what secretary kerry said that day. i believe it was the saturday the 21st, but i don't have the dates exactly in my head. we have also been very clear publicly and privately with the russian federation with regard to what we know. i think the question is whether russia has shared all its information with the dutch, and we have encouraged both the dutch and icao to seek information from russia because

there's been a lot of funky theories, let's put it that way, coming out of russian propaganda. now, on your second point, i completely reject your assertion that we seek to hurt the russian people, on the contrary, we have fought for 20, 25 years, to see the russian people in a more prosperous, more democratic, more open, more peaceful country. that is what i have personally committed my diplomatic career to over all these years. that's what we have committed some $20 billion in u.s. assistance to the russian federation over these 20 years to. our concern, those, is that it is the choices that the russian leadership that is making, that are now taking russia back to a place of isolation, to a place where it is closed off, where

its people are closed off, not just from clean democratic, open information by the kremlin's propaganda campaign, but also from their access to europe, their access to the market, their access to that opportunity to live in a more open society. so it's the choices that russian leaders have made that are increasing isolation, closing off opportunities. even things like ending our high school exchange, which brought some 200 russian kids to america every year, and you have seen, i hope, on russian social media, both on facebook, all the russian students saying bring it back. we want a chance to go study in the united states. that's the relationship we want. that's the russia that is in our interest, a russia that is strong, that is democratic, that lives up to its international obligations, that is a good partner for us. it is not we who have made these choices.

it's the leadership in russia. it's extremely regrettable to us that the russian people are now paying the price in their pocketbooks. we want to go back to a place where we can work together, but it's russia's choice. >> it's been extremely useful, i think, for you to have the ability to dispel all sorts of things or misinformation and clarify things. so we're five minutes over. would you like to take another five minutes to answer questions or shall we stop? >> i think i better go back to work, leon. great to be with you all. >> thank you so much. >> here's a look at some of the programs you'll find christmas day on the c-span networks.

holiday festivities start at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span with the lighting of the national christmas tree, followed by the white house christmas decorations with first lady michelle obama and the loathing of the capitol christmas tree, and just after 12:30 p.m., celebrity activists talk about their causes and then at 8:00, samuel alito and jeb bush on the bill of rights and the founding fathers. on c-span2 at 10:00 a.m. eastern, venture into the art of good writing with steve pinker, and at 12:30, see the feminist side of a superhero as we search the secret history of wonder woman. at 7:00 p.m., others talk about their reading habits and on american history tv on c-span3 at 8:00 a.m. eastern, the fall of the berlin wall with c-span footage of president george bush and bob dole with speeches from presidents john kennedy and ronald reagan. at noon, fashion experts on first ladies' fashion choices and how they represented the styles of the times in which

they lived. and then at 10:00, former nbc news anchor tom brokaw on his more than 50 years ofon world e. for our complete schedule, go to c-span.org. >> the role of religion and combatting terrorism was the focus of a discussion at the potomac institute for policy studies. clergy leaders talked about the need to understand all religions, religious freedom, and tolerance. this is two hours, 15 minutes. >> thank you very much, mike. as always, for your generous introduction. obviously, whatever we do, we do it the same, and this is the one situation i think of the

partnership that we have with many institutions as an academic, i have to mention our cosponsors, as you know, international law institute, and also the center for national security law at the university of virginia law school. and other partners over the years. some of them unfortunately are no longer with us. professor brenner, for example, from the university center for studies, and so forth. first, let me introduce our speakers in the panel, and then i will have a few academic

footnotes, try to put in some perspective, and then i'm sure we're going to have a discussion because in the audience we have academics, specialists, we have government officials, diplomats. and colleagues who have very rich experience in this area. and the keys to develop a good dialogue and try to focus attention on what religion can do in order to advance with justice around the world. so let me first introduce our distinguished panel. professor robertizen blatter to my left. you do have information in the package, so we won't go into details, but he's currently a

professor of religion in today's studies, and the chair of the department of religion at the george washington university. next to him, dr. saleva, a law specialist for the northeast and north africa, at the law library of congress. a colleague and friend for many years. next to him, dr. siheed, who is national director of the islamic society of northern america and is in charge of the office of interfaith and community alliances in washington, d.c. and one of the founders of the journal, the american journal of islamic social sciences, and welcome. next to him is rabbi wineblatt,

who is the president of the rabbinic cabinet for the jewish federations of north america and is also the rabbi of the congregational in potomac, maryland. next to him is theodore ramirez, who actually worked as a researcher for the u.s. commission on international religious freedom, foreign policy adviser to the u.s. congress. and next to her, dr. marianne love, who is associate professor of international relations in the department of politics at the catholic university of america, and she worked also with the state department on religion and foreign policy, and she was also fellow on the commission on international

religious freedom. and as i mentioned, our colleague professor don wallace, the chairman of the international law institute. professor of law at george town university. now, just a couple of footnote said. people are asking why do we have a specific seminar or event on a particular topic, and i would say we know from going back to the bible that there is a session for everything. there is something for war, something for peace, and now we of course celebrate very important holidays, christmas and also the jewish holiday hanukkah. which actually symbolizes the religious freedom, the first rebellion to make sure that people are free to choose their

faith and worship going all the way back to 167 bc, when they rebelled against the greeks. so there is time to reflect and to figure out what religion can do, academically, of course, mike mentioned our seminars that we focus on this topic for many, many years, almost every session related to terrorism at some component of theological symbols, ideas, doctrines, and so forth for better or for worse. but what's really important is to learn the lessons of history. and i looked at the calendar, the calendar of 72 years ago to

be precise on december 19th, 1942. 3,000 jews, and this reminds many of us of 9/11, but one of the many 9/11s of the jewish people are mentioning that because we had that experience of the holocaust, and 3,000 jews were rebelled in poland at the labor camp. they were killed and massacred by the ss. so simon visenthal who obviously is well known, he tried to mark every day, every day in terms of what kind of lessons can we learn. if we look at anniversary dates of december, this is the month

of december. obviously, we can recall many instances related to the terrorism all the way from the bombing of the town in lockerbie when 259 people, many of them students, some of them were my students from syracuse university, who were killed, and this was perpetrated by libya. and of course, as far as the united states is concerned, there is a long list of attacks in december against the united states. one i would like to mention because this was the first attack by the al qaeda on u.s. targets in yemen in 1992, and then of course we know the story, what happened. but it's not only the united

states, but many countries around the world. so if you really look at the statistics of bloodshed, obviously, we tried to count this effects for many, many years, but it's not only the number of attacks, but the cost, the human cost, the cost of property, the economic cost, the political cost, the psychological cost, and mostly, the strategic cost. so what i would like to do at this point is very quickly to provide a context to our discussion and then again as i mentioned, each panelist will have the opportunity to make initial remarks and then we're going to have the discussion. so this is, as i said, the panel. you do have the information and

so on. now, as always, we try to dedicate our seminars to the victims. this time, to the victims of theological terrorism throughout the world and also to mark and celebrate those who served to prevent future religious intolerance and violence. now, of course, during the discussion of religion, there are different views, there are some positive, some negative views, but the question, again, is the bottom line, what can religion do to advance peace around the world? now, we have to keep in mind in terms of factors, you do have actors, those who perpetrate an attack in the name of god, obviously, but there are others, obviously, that we have to take

into account. so in other words, we see the brother picture not only to focus on the religious issue. i'm sure some of us are familiar with a different kind of attacks that relates to religious concepts and ideas and so forth, all the way from taking over the u.s. embassy in tehran and then of course, we know the rest of the story. throughout the world, and finally, i would like to suggest that we really have to look at the map and see the arch of instability, not only in north africa and the mugrab, but the context between different groups around the world in asia and

latin america and europe and elsewhere. and so on. mentioning this because it happens also in december 1987 we had a development in the middle east in addition to the al qaeda, and al qaeda affiliate and islamic state and the plan of the so-called islamic state. we'll come back to it, also hezbollah, and so on, and the hamas actually was established back in 1987. and now if we look at the discussion today in the year 2014, we discuss not only the isis attacks but boko haram and

the attack in jerusalem synagogue or sydney recently and then of course the effect on the children and staff of the pakistani school. now, the bottom line about our discussion is in a way simple but very complicated. after 9/11, always a question is the worst yet to come? in terms of the esclashz alatio attacks, in terms of the escalation of weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical, radiological and nuclear and then the bottom line, will civilization survive? but to focus our attention today, the question is whether counterterrorism and religion, they can coexist. do they fit each other for better or for worse, and

hopefully for better. now, there are theological responses we will have to deal with all the way from the town hall, quran, and the role of the pope, his leadership in terms of the middle east, the holyland, to turkey, around the world, and most recently, of course, the development with regard to cuba and u.s. relations. we'll deal with that. aside from the religion, i think we have to look again at the personal civil liberties and the balance between security and freedom. with this, i'm going to ask our panelists to come up here and make initial presentations and then we'll have the discussion. >> one more thing, if i may,

since i'm the moderator and i have to watch the time. i suggested to the panelists to speak briskly, not more than ten minutes. and i'm going to take the opportunity just to raise this so it means you have two more minutes. and then since i'm a sucker friend for a long time, i'm going to show the red, which really means no more time. and we will have the next speaker. professor, it's all yours. >> thank you. >> you forgot one thing. only questions from the people back here, no speeches. >> okay. >> it has to be one of the more formidable challenges i have faced in recent times to speak

minutes. i better get started because i think i'm down to nine, nine and a half. one of the questions, the first questions that's asked on the literature that you have, a flyer i was sent, is religion relevant for combatting terrorism? i would say the answer to that is it certainly is. the first, and there are a number of reasons for this. the first reason is that you have to understand what the problem is before you can solve it. and what's the problem? well, when we speak about terrorism as a problem in the west, we're generally speaking about religious terrorism. and more particularly, we're mainly speaking about islamic terrorism. now, when i say this, i don't mean to imply that islam is inherently violent or that it has no peaceful side to it. in fact, you're going to see i'm going to argue it does have a peaceful dimension. i'm only clarifying when westerners are concerned about terrorism, they're generally speaking about this terrorism in this form.

now, islamic terrorism has many causes, political, social, economic, historical, and religion is connected to all of these. you cannot separate them. and therefore, you have to have an understanding of islam before you can even approach the problem of terrorism that westerners are concerned with. now, this might seem like a simplistic no-brainer, but i found that this whole issue is actually missing in most discussions by people in academia who study international conflict and by people in all levels of government. religion isn't really taken all that seriously. it's not seen as a subject deserving study in its own right. generally, the view is, and this comes across in obvious and sometimes more often in subtle ways, religion is seen as sort of a function of other factors. the real issues are political, social, economic, and religion is sort of a window dressing for those things. as the result, the discussions of religion are often very

simplistic and very superficial. in fact, religion, which is the field that i study, is a highly complex phenomenon, one of the most complicated subjects you can study. the mastery of any one religious tradition can occupy you for a lifetime, not to mention the subject of religion in general. also, religion in general is connected to every level of human identity and therefore expresses itself on every level of human life and culture. so if you want to understand religion, you have to understand it on all these levels. certainly, outside factors have an influence on religion. political, social, economic, but this influence itself is also complicated and religion can't be viewed as just a function or somehow as an expression of these factors. it's an independent factor in its own right. when it comes to this topic, you have to understand that, i'll cite one example, much of what

motivates religious terrorists and violence, against one's enemies, is seen as having a spiritual and transcendent purpose. it brings a spiritual and transcendent experience with it. so beyond the outside factors, there's a religious dimension here that has an independent role, and this is based on various interviews and studies that have been done on this. my first point is you have to understand religion in order to understand religious extremism, and islam is perhaps the most e important religion in this context. i do want to be fair to my muslim conflicts that the christians and jews have to own up to the violent dimensions in their religions because they have often fed into the problem of terrorism. i can elaborate on that later. what role can religion play in

combatting terrorism? because of the complex tity of e problem, one can't expect a single broad and sweeping solution. islamic terrorism takes many forms depending on place and time and therefore the solution has to be localized. but perhaps we can make some generalizations. a point that is made repeatedly by scholars of religious epics and those who deal with religion and international conflict and it was just mentioned a few minutes ago is that all major religions have a violent dimension to them and also have a peaceful dimension. now, i tend to take the position that neither dimension is necessarily the true religion. people say, well, the true judaism, the true islam. you see this dimension, these two dimensions in all religions. and which side emerges is a complex issue as well. again, social, political, economic factors play a role,

but religion cannot be reduced to these factors. the major religions also have long histories which have given them a unique character and this also has to be studies in order to get a understanding of which side of a religion will emerge under a given set of circumstances. what this means is religion is the problem, but it can also be the solution if we can find ways to accentuate the peaceful dimension of religion and strengthen the representative of that dimension. now, i myself have written about this issue with respect to judaism. my latest book which came out in 2011 is entitled the peace and violence of judaism from the bible to modern zionism. i try to examine both the peaceful and violent dimensions of judaism that have developed from the bible onward to try to get a better understanding of modern zionism which also has its peaceful and violent dimensions and my underlying motive was to try to figure out if i could get insight into the

israeli/palestinian conflict. i wrestled with this question in the book of how to accentuate the peaceful side of judaism. if this seems like an exercise in shameless self-promotion, i want to assure you you're absolutely correct. that's exactly what i'm doing. i would like you all to buy the book and read it and give me feedback about it, and in recent years i have also studied very see seriously christianity and islam in this manner as well where i see this dual narrative in both traditions. so we need to strengthen the peaceful dimension of religion. how do we do that? how do we make religion a force for the good? well, there are no easy answers. we could just kill all the bad people. which is generally been the way our foreign policy has gone, but we've discovered that's easier said than done, so we have to think of alternatives. now, in my experience, most people are actually peaceful people. most people are.

and in my years of working with muslims and i have done extensive work, my impression is that most muslims are peaceful. but they can't combat terrorism because they either don't have the power to do so or they're simply too scared to speak up, and i'm very sympathetic to that problem, so we have to give the moderate representatives of islam that power. one thing that would help would be including religious clerics with peaceful leanings at the highest levels of negotiations between governments who are involved in dealing with religious conflicts. but that generally does not happen. i am dismayed by the fact that in all of the many rounds of postalks in israelis and palestinians that have taken place in recent years, the rabbis, the sheiks, the priests are generally excluded. this is amazing. it's perhaps the best illustration that religion isn't taken seriously enough by people in high levels of government, but if religion isn't included

in these negotiation, my feeling is you will never have a solution to this conflict. for instance, the status of jerusalem is one of the major problems dividing the two sides, and it's inconceivable to me that you're going to have a solution without having to have solution without having the clerics at the table. now i think they are also much less -- you know, much less dramatic steps that you can take. helpful would be to fund programs in which religious clerics, where their religions wouldn't actually meet each other. jews, christians, muslims, these clerics should meet each other. it would even be more valuable if the programs were international. one of the reasons the terrorism thrives is simply that the leaders and lay people of these communities rarely meet each other and therefore they assume the worst about the religious other. christian and jewish clerices who bad mouth islam have generally never met a muslim.

and i find that case advicea versa. i can't tell you how many muslims i met through work who haven't met a jew and they are shocked to actually meet a nice guy. meetings like this have occurred. they read it periodically in the papers about clerics meeting each other in some international conference but there aren't nearly enough of them. i have participated in a number of them over the last ten years and we are running a program where we are inviting saudi academics who study religion wlor also, many of them, clerics to dialogue with us here at gw right across the river about religious issues. and that's been a very interesting program. in short, we become globalized enough to want to kill each other but not globalized enough to make peace with each other. one final observation is that programs like this will take a long time to change minds. this is one reason why we don't

see more programs like this. it is much easier to drop bombs and convince ourselves of the illusion we will take care of the problem quickly and decisively. but if we learned anything in recent years, it's that it won't happen that way. we will need have tremendous patience. this is one of the things i emphasize in all of my talks about religious experience. religious extremism. we need tremendous patience as we know across distance, language, culture and work on changing fundamental attitudes. this could take decades. this could take centuries but we have to start and we may as well do it now. thank you. >>. [ applause ]

>> good afternoon. thank you, professor alexander for inviting me to speak. i shall first say that i am here in my personal capacity. opinions are expressed and statements i make are strictly mine and do not represent the position of the library of congress or any other u.s. government institution. due to time constraints, i will limit my discussion to the traditions christianity and islam. terrorism but one manifestation of the intention on violence and aggression against innocent people. the evidence supporting the veracity of this postulate is reflected in our recorded history. atrocities commit bid attila the hun, pillaging cities and towns, and leaving no survivors behind,

are examples of the terrorism practices in the fifth century a.d. there are other similar examples. it has been reported that the mongals show success by cutting off an ear of each dead enemy and after the battle in poland, they collected nine large sacks of ears and sent them back to their king as proof of their victory. in the 20 century, it is at its worse. sigmund freud asserts that men are not gentle, friendly

creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked. but a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their instinct. these views are not shared by everyone. also by an international group of scientists in 1986 and adopted in 1989 assert that it is scientifically incorrect to say that war or any other violent behavior is genetically programmed into our human nature. in trying to understand the role of combatting terrorism and whether violence is an biological instinct or an acquired behavior, we are

compelled to point out as many others did that a lot of violence rising to the level of terrorism have been caused or carried out in the name of religion. and in early centuries of the common era, the conflict about the divine and human nature of jesus christ led to horrible interchristian violence, terror and mayhem. one account of the consequences of this conflict as told by edward given, historian, reads as follows. jerusalem is occupied by an army of monks in the name of the one incarnate nature. they pillaged, they burned, they murdered. and the battle of christ was defiled with blood. other examples of terrorism conduct id by christianity or in the name of christianity include atrocities committed by waves of

crusaders. not only against muslims, jews and some christians in the holy land but also against groups in the west considered heretics in the catholic church. one siege of one such group, in southern france, the personality of the enlightenment age were the following. the city tried to hold out against the crusaders. all inhabitants in a church had their throats cut and the city was reduced to ashes. in 1252, pope innocent iiii added the proclamation, rising panda, short only of breaking to

extract -- against the wrongdoing of the church. the murder of the fourth ka leave in 1661 is probably the first act of terrorism committed in the name of islam. accusations of violating the word of god, to betray the legitimacy of his appointment in office. the atrocities committed by two other notorious groups provide other examples of terrorism carried out in the name of islam. according to one account, in 1930, flooding mecca with the blood of pilgrims, they made a scene of fire, blood, and for 17

years, for 17 days, and removed the black stone from its sacred place. the name entered the english language to represent killing which is what the hashasheen did. these groups had never been a part of mainstream islam and were defeated, not by armies of the west, but by muslim -- by the muslim majority who rejected their ideology. with this record of violence can we expect religion to play a role in combatting terrorism? the answer is a qualified yes, loin if the teaching of religion

emphasizes peace and toleration. christianity, after many years of questionable attitude, no longer condones violence committed in its name. to the contrary, it's teaching today concentrates on peace, toleration, and love for others and its message to terrorists is that their actions are against what god is expecting from them. with reflect to islam that this is complicated because, one, there is no church or single institution with authority to speak on behalf of islam, thish allows terrorist groups such as present day al qaeda and isis to claim the authority to represent islam as much as any other groups do.