exchanges with other developing nations, is and as such my views here should not be understood as generalizations that could apply to all emerging actors but i believe that these observations are more than just educated guests and they could inform our discussion here. when we started discussing the proposals one thing we realized is that we were dealing with different degrees of understanding of what implications of the lts process were -- or are because we're still working on them. as we work together i gain some insight on some of the challenges faced by these different emerging space actors and challenges that affect their participation which i believe will also affect the implementation stage, which is something we are discussing here. one thing, for example, is that the decision in policymakers in each country, you know, they may have limited awareness of the

importance of maintaining and preserving the sustainability of outer space activities. if i put it bluntly, they do not realize the far-reaching consequences of our discussions sometimes, right. and then it is often the case that developing countries have limited resources and in the widest sense resources of all kinds to handle these tasks that will handle the implementation of lts guidelines. and obviously this fact can be attributed in part to the lack of awareness i just mentioned because they don't realize what's involved. they do got devote enough resources, enough time, enough funds to develop these resources. and now this is, of course, followed by limitations in terms of human resources, right? smaller country's may simply do not have enough expertise to handle such issues and another problem that we face -- and this

is something that stems from my personal experience -- is that the decision making and space matters is fragmented sometimes. there may be too many actors involved -- sorry, there may be too many actors involved and poor coordination from them. and when we don't have established governance and roles and those discussions on policy space issues, discussions from the military to the scientific to the diplomatic community, back and forth and then this makes it very difficult to consolidate national positions and you realize when you were discussing some issues in the lts when we meet as countries. you have these consultations going back and forth and positions tend to change from one session to the next for no apparent reason. and these limitations, then they have a very interesting consequence. as they have space limitation, human resources in technical and

regulatory matters this means they get involved with conceptual aspects of the guidelines and too some extent this was the case in the proposal of brazil in the beginning. they share a conceptual rather than practical nature and we familiarized ourselves with technical aspects of the discussion, things like informational monitors, et cetera. and then, you know, we as diplomats in my case but other colleagues who are legal special iists they had to seek support of technical experts and this makes the negotiation process much more complicated. your challenge will be to identify who your domestic interlocutor is. who will you seek for if that and then appoint that does not

apply only to emerging space countries or developing countri countries, this is perhaps used as an excuse. we need to handle internal criticism. we all do. why with are we doing this? there's always the same guise. we're just being called to kind of check the -- offer a check mark then say everything is okay because it's a consensus based and i have heard officials ask me why we were involved in the process at all, this is not something we should be dealing with our concerns are much more mundane this is not true and it

is an opportunity to age kate these people in a sense but in countries with smaller space programs this is not always possible. it's something we have to be aware of. and another point for concern is that some of these koubts reis are worried about the process, they may create barriers that may burden space programs whose funding is often very limited. no due consideration is given to that but in many of these countries people don't have an understanding and out of concerns we say okay, we are not going to get engaged, we are not going to implement this or do that so how do we handle this? the answer is precisely how do we address this question i just mentioned.

one thing is we need to handle the lts process as a permanent one. i know peter wants to finish and i want to see the lts guidelines as a living document. i do not mean reopening the discussion, that's not what i'm saying, we need to decide and agree and have a document ready by 2018 but it would be a good idea to agree documents should be open to periodic revisions, every now and then we should sit down, we could agree on that, and assess what has worked and what hasn't. and the thing is not only making guidelines more effective but when we reopen the discussion we will be creating opportunities for more people to get engaged. this is not like what happened with the debris guidelines. you have to surge of interest, a lot of people get involved and after that you need to work very hard to make sure that more and more people get involved. in the case of copuos, for

example, you have many new states that join copuos in recent years and they did not participate in their discussion on space debris and the space debris document and they just say okay, this is a document, we don't know what this is about. and this is related to the fact that they don't have enough experts and people who can handle that, right? now, another point, we must create opportunities and programs to have established an emerging space actor's work together, right? . emerging space actors cannot be consumers of guidelines and rules. they have to participate actively in joint initiatives and the lts process presents with us this possibility as the preservation of sustainability. the conservation is only effective if countries agree to work together. the process must not follow this logic, you should do this, you should adopt.

but rather let's work together to see how we can implement this guideline in your country. you can learn something from us, i can learn something from you. so this is an active process and those with more experience and expertise have to reach out the initiative l larwill rely on th. but not just established act sors. even brazil has governance that would allow us to do that. and capacity buildings are needed to develop the knowledge and expertise and we need to create more opportunities for specialists from countries at the development in the process of working the guidelines. one idea we had, we could use the u.n. regional centers for space science and technology education this would allow us to

reach out to large areas of the globe. i would say the key answer is joint work in the implementation stage. we have to learn the ropes together and if we work together we increase our shared understanding of lts issues and how to handle them. we hope a growing number of space actors realize the preservation is in the interest of all of alike. the sustainability of the outer space environment is a shared need and like michael simpson i would also like to quote mr. spock who said the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. and this is a spirit that should guide our work. thank you. [ applause ]

>> appreciate the invitation of the state department as i joined this panel, important panel at the very last moment i present myself. i'm a science and technology councilor at the russian embassy and all the areas of scientific operation including space that are not suspended by today not by russian initiative. so we consider very important this attempting to highlight the topic of outer space activity and there is no doubt that the liberation within copuos of the guidelines remain one of the key points of attention. that's why the result reached in

vienna so far should not be underestimated. we're welcoming the subset of 12 guidelines, i agree, too, but there is a lot of work to be done in order to satisfactorily achieve by 2018 the task of drafting the entire set of guidelines that would provide for the aggregate regulation for safe operation. we consider is this this entire integrated state of the guidelines extremely important. we do not want to make optimistic assumptions but we have to say there is an intersessional meeting of the working group in vienna finally that's attempting to agree

substantive space security issues may be achieved. the russian side was diligent in goi going through its share of work in regards to updating russian proposed draft guidelines so to compromise existing differences and in position of various delegations adhere to. recent discussions in reason is and the fact that the delegates under the guidance of the chairman working group, mr. peter martinez, succeeded in achieving a balance served to prove that consensus of pertinent safety and security issues denote not to be for so difficult after all. we believe that the sets of guidelines being drafted gives an excellent opportunity to provide for a framework to deal with challenges to safety and security in outer space.

we also hope if we will prove to be very meaningful and self-sufficient in the long term it's obvious to us that attempt s to take a more expansive approach to visualizing potential legal regulation in these demains will hardly be successful in the absence of development practice of enhancing safety on space operations. the success in achieving this goal will be core elements in the process of regulating space traffic management. we believe the important -- the idea of establishing united nations information platform serving as an instrument for accumulating multiinstitutional information is a part of

national effort to implement the guidelines that russia is working on creating the implementation service in order to increase awareness of states and other users so russia has the motivation and will and methodology. also we have more than 20 research centers and institutes under the umbrella of national russia academy of science and space corporation conducting serious research and development on space, weather, topic we have for other developments, terrestrial infrastructure and several spacecraft dedicated in observing solar activity and the

detailed presentation you might find as we present it this april in the fantastic space weather event organized by world secure foundation and hosted by the u.s. state department so expansion of reliable space situation -- situational information is and will remain a factor in ensuring safety of space operation. spiking of space traffic management in general, russia is not against this topic of deliberative dimensions within copuos but we are unhappy with the trend when we noticed that there was an artificially branded number one political issue.

crucial questions arise when one attempts to visualize an agreeable organization for and the related institutional and operational aspects of space a traffic management. there are many questions for states to address. for example, it would be important to understand the source of legitimacy of superimposing on states for acting in a prescribed way as well as the mechanism for securing action. that's among the current ideas on a term expressed publicly are those that are based on the extravagant assertions and important dramatic change of condition for carrying out space activity. some experts go as far as proposing to identify new stratum which would be in

between airspace and near earth outer space in advancing this id idea, authors do recognize the basic norms of international space law related to non-place ment of nuclear or other weapons in outer space will not apply to this newly identified stratum. we strongly oppose this idea. we're not also supportive of the idea that the right to self-defense could be invoked in outer space. here are some states that do not refer only to article 51 of the u.n. charter. they also deem it appropriate to provide for preventative and preemptive self-defense in outer space. the charter of the united

nations certainly does not provide for such types of self-defense either on earth or anywhere that's thus it would be prudent to attempt to arrive a common understanding of preserving the concept of the uncharter. a working paper presented by the russian federation within copuos specifically on this issue contains among the other things a question that could prove to be very useful to start meaningful discussion on this topic. it would be much better to arrive at universal understanding and have it approved by the u.n. security council and the general assembly, finally russia invites the united states and all the partners participating in the

process to give a good thought to and act constructively to achieve a task of drafting by 2018 the entire integrated set of the guidelines for regulation for safety of space operations to secure space sustainability. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much for inviting me to this very interesting session. i'm director of space policy, japan. so to begin with, i would like to briefly explain japan's current activity on outer space japan is one of the space nations. japan is conducting our own space program and we cooperate with the international

community. and also international corporation especially large corporations japan is now in the international space station program in cooperation with the united states, russia federation and canada and the european union countries. and we decided to cooperate for this program project by the year 2024 and also japan will host the next round of the international space exploration form, so called isef meeting in 2017. our space activity has become much more diversified. there's secure and outer space activity has become much more important so we emphasize the importance of the rule of law in outer space. in this context lts has long-term guidelines and can

play a very critical and important role to share and promote this concept in the world. actually, japan participates in the support of this process from the beginning. during the six years of the negotiation process we contributed from the point of associates to this process of the chairman of the committee itself and the chairman of is s and chairman of the working group such as space weather. but however we are also facing agreements on this point but finally in this june we could

have the first guidelines. this is a quite important step for the rule of law in outer space. actually, we couldn't have had any kind of agreement for these 40 or 50 years but now we need to have some kind of document. so this set of guidelines shows the importance of the rule of law in outer space and playing an important role to the process of rule making so at this stage i would like to explain for detail japan's effort with regard to this first set of guidelines. for example the issue of guidelines one, two, and three, these guidelines deal with the

national registration favor and supervision until now, japan doesn't have any kind of concrete comprehensive space law but in complying -- in order to comply with these guidelines we are now preparing new legislation, so called japan space activity law. under this law, the supervision and control of launch and the operation of space objects can be made by only one law. this law makes much more clear for japan's space activities and also guideline 12 and guideline 13. these guidelines deal with sharing information about space objects and space debris.

also for japan we put the importance on the issue of the space situational awareness ssa and cooperation for the best policy on space now japan is implementing space activity as a country including the u.s. and also we tried to compact this. currently we have only to look for the ssa activities but we are now developing much more comprehensive pictures of japan's ssa activities. the capacity building and the awareness rating issue.

a space faring nation, japan is always implementing our cooperation project to basically in the region. for example japan established the framework of the japan regional space agency forum. is we deal with so many projects in the area of prevention and global issues such as the environmental issue and also the active engagement of international space activities. at the same time japan tried to make these activities to

disseminate the concept of importance of rule of law in outer space to these countries. so the most important thing is to implement the first set of guidelines that show the very important best practices for the future. at the same time we may have to develop compromises in the discussions about the remaining set of guidelines. actually, there are some draft guideline guidelines that fit the discussi discussion, but the point is always very conflicted. but we have some other issue

which we may have to address urgently such as the conjunctional assess ment. we'll take you live on a u.s. policy towards russia. speakers include former defense official, diplomats, and foreign policy experts. it's from the atlantic council in washington live here on c-span 3. >> and fpri and also u-penn. it's my pledge your and a true honor to welcome phillip breedlove. general breedlove is the former supreme allied commander in europe, the highest post in nato. he spent a large portion of his military career in europe as well. he told me earlier today that eight of his overseas posts were in europe, three were in asia. he began as a young captain and

then returned as a four-star general to lead the first u.s. air force in europe and then all of nato's forces. sfool logue russia's invasion of ukraine in 2014 general breedlaw was one of the prime architects of the american response which involved reinforcing eastern europe quickly with a small number of u.s. troops and working overtime to help build consensus for a larger and more robust plan to double down on the alliance's eastern flank. he is actually most proud not of this work, he told me but of the work he's done with young officers when he was major commander, a post he held eight times over his illustrious career. and of course general breedlove has been a strong voice in calling the u.s. to refocus its technical intelligence and collective defense capabilities on russia after many years of focus on the middle east and the

fight on terror so without further ado, i would like to please welcome general breedlove to the state. general? [ applause ] >> okay, one of the first things they teach you in the military is not to stand up and disqualify yourself when you're about to speak so i won't disqualify myself. i will qualify, though, what i'm about to do and that is if you're looking for a speech, you're not going to get it. i rarely do speeches. i want to have a talk. i want to roll out some ideas on the table and respond to your questions about some of those ideas and the qualification of what i'm about to say is that you must remember from whence i come and that is i was the nato military commander so the thoughts that i will talk about will be primarily aimed towards defense policy and these are

questions -- and i would call them concerns or worries -- i have that about the policy decisions that our new government will face as it comes into being and our existing government will face during the transition. none of these, i think, will surprise you. but what i want to do is sort of add my flavor of the concerns on these areas. the first one was mentioned, i thought, very well this morning and that is our vector with our large neighbor to the east in nato is not good. we are not headed in a positive direction and i would opine that we have to determine how to arrest that bad direction and how to create a more positive path forward this neighborhood. i agree with what has been said numerous times just in the last week or so that no matter who is

elected or what happens across the next week or two that none of this change that i believe we need to see is going to happen fast. we are in for a -- as my father would say -- a spell of bad weather and we have to get through that storm to a better place. the question which was asked very nicely in my prep for this is what is russia's incentive? about i think as we talk about th this, in russia's eyes they probably see things moving very nicely now. they seem themselves back on center stage, they see themselves as being seen as a superpower so how do we build those incentives that would bring them to a place where we might chart a more cooperative future? again, the vector is not good. from georgia and crimea, i see steady pressure still in the

wrong direction. in georgia we hear almost weekly about a line moving. one of the very last trips i made is the supreme allied commander was to south ossetia and i visited a little town where an elderly couple that used to live on the edge of town that was very reliant on that town for medical care woke up one morning with a russian barbed wire fence separating them from their town and forcing them to go many kilometers to the north to get to the medical care they needed and this sort of line jostling in georgia seems to just slip under the radar here in the united states. there seems to be no concern about these sort of actions. in crimea we still see the weaponization, the preparation of the capabilities to in a minimum exert influence in the black sea at the maximum to sort of control at least the northern

half of the black sea. and in thedombas i believe you saw the report that point out weapons, money and people continue to flow from russia into the dome bas. so the vector in some of these key areas is not good. and let's not forget about the arctic and syria. i do want to say, though, that most there are there shall one or two in here that have been on my staff. you might have to ask them afterwards but most people see me as an optimist, a glass half full person so while these are all challenges and, frankly, the vector may be bed on these challenges they are all every one an opportunity to find that first step of cooperation that we might need to chart a better future is now what i want to do with that in the first few

minutes is talk about three challenges that worry me. these may not be the top three on any of your lists but these are three things that as i left, i wish i had been able to do more to correct. these are places where i find myself maybe a c-plus or b-minus and i wish victim gotten t en t paper to an a. the first is what some call hybrid war, some call in russia active measures, what i have begun to call conflict or competition below the lines or below the threshold and that is this broad-based competition across all the elements of national power, diplomatic, informational, military and economic. money of this, by the way, is new, this has been going on around the world for some time.

frankly, on both sides of the situation. we do some of the same things out there i think what is more surprising or at least concerning about this conflict or competition below the lines now is those things that have become maybe more overt, more open to the public. certainly, as was discussed in this morning's first panel, the cyber component of this competition below the lines has become much more public. i was one of the first people hacked and played out on wikileaks and so i have felt this personally, this war below the lines or below the threshold of more overt action. and you have heard me say in the past and i continue to say because for a fighter pilot repetition is important and that is this.

the most surprising thing to me in this new style of exterior competition is that force is back on the table to change internationally recognized borders in europe. a la crimea, a la dombas, a la south ossetia, et cetera, et cetera. so how do we deal with that? and probably surprising to some of the nations that i still visit in my post-military career is how do we come to grips with that this is happening in every nation in our alliance. it's tailored in each nation because what remains below the threshold of response is very different in nation a than it might be in nation b. but if you believe what was agreed to this morning about meddling or trying to influence the u.s. election and how sort of overt that plays out, then it

becomes easier for other nations to understand, yes, this is happening in our nation, too. and how do we deal with it? if it's happening here i ask the question then who is immune and i think the answer is no one is immune. so big policy questions. what does our tolerance say? what does our action or inaction say as it relates to everything from cyber in an election to continually meddling in the borders in south ossetia? where are we setting the bar as it relates to this conflict below the lines or below the thresholds. and what, again does inaction mean? so the response, i think, is also key. if you ever hear a senior

military officer complain about big international issues, one of the first things that you will hear is that often the military element seems to be the first tool of resort and i would opine that in most instances we've talked about the military element should not be the first tool to be used. rather that our nation should consider all of its elements of power and try to do them in a way that may bring more balanced focus on the problem. for instance, if you would allow me to use that old war college model d-i-m-e, our response to must of russia's issue with us has been a big "e," some "d,"

almost zero "i," we have not really entered the information battle" and very little "m." so would a more balanced approach using our diplomatic informational and to some degree our military tools coupled with that large "e" economic component, would it be a better approach? that i believe is something the next administration will have to take on. the second conundrum that bothers me, and i'll quickly get through these last two so we can get to your questions. the second conundrum is how do you deal in either the information or dialogue space or in the actual military space, how do you deal with an opponent whose central theme of how to approach the west is an escalate to deescalate regime, meaning no matter what you do, we will do it a little harder, a little deeper, a little faster and a

little more dramatically in order to convince you not to test us in these waters. in a grand sense, it's a philosophy. a philosophy designed to help us make the decision that we should not compete and that to some degree capitulate to what we see. how do you deal with that? again, i challenged in the first couple of points about what does no response mean? what does that say if we have no response. so how to deal both in the information in the a diplomatic as well as mill dare sense with an escalate to deescalate opponent. and it was touched well in the first group this morning. how do you provoke or not provoke, how do you not mistime so that you create more problems

than you had and in this regime how do you not capitulate? and by a pump lating reward bad behavior tough, tough way forward. then the last of the three thin things, that worries me, frankly, is all of the discussions and new conversations about nukes and where they might be used and might not be used. i haven't gotten through all of the recent discushions at sochi. i understand that possibly there was some language there that might have been a little more open door in more -- to a more well-grounded conversation about nuclear weapons. i hope that to be the case and i'm going to search that out and try to get to that reading here in the next couple of days. it's unfortunate that we would have an overture possibly, a

positive overture at sochi and then turn around and have one of our northern nato allies threaten this week that the introduction of u.s. brains and a rotational basis on their soil would make them a nuclear target. so i think there's some mismatch of dialogue possibly coming outover there. but the bottom line is for a military commander to be in a regime where one has to plan and one is plan and thinking about how to approach an issue with an opponent that says tactical nukes are an important part of any conventional conflict or could be, that's a tough problem to hoe and i think that's, again, the third thing that i think this new administration will have to face. so let's get back to the phil breedlove that is a glass half full. there are lots of issues. any issues could be that first

step towards trying to find a more productive future. i'm sure it will come out in the q&a but i do believe we have to find a path to product ive dialogue. productive dialogue is not being in the vicinity of each other, talking at each other and delivering national positions. productive dialogue is dialogue that would lead to a measurable, verifiable, tangible out come that nations could see and say the u.s. and russia have made an agreement and made an improvement in situation x. that's the kind of dialogue that we need that produces good behavior that could rebuild a trust relationship so we could move forward on that trust relationship. so with that i think i'll sit down and i'm prepared for

questions. [ applause ] >> general, thank you so much for those remarks. you mentioned a few interesting things so i want to start off the discussion by asking you a couple questions before we go over to the audience. so one thing you were talking about is the need for dialogue. on the other hand also the need to expand our military, informational and diplomatic commitments to balance it out with the economic side that we've already been seeing as a result of sanctions, but the question is multiple administrations -- republican and democrat as we heard earlier today have tried to reengage with very, have extended the hand of dialogue. we've tried a stronger hand as well so how do you palace dialogue and deterrence? how do you strike that difficult balance? >> not in avoiding your question but in sort of turning it a

little bit. to balance deterrence and dialogue you have to first have deterrence and dialogue and i'm not sure that where we sit today we would be completely happy with where we are in either regard, as i said before, i think there's a lot of dialogue but is it productive? does it lead to measurable quantifiable steps that folks could see so that the dialogue meant something? are there regimes about the way we do exercises? the way we report things, r there ways we move or fashion our troops in the western military district more to the asian nations? are there those things that we could look at that would -- where dialogue turns into results? now that's good. the deterrence piece is an interesting question, too. how do you prove a negative? i believe we are deterring in a certain sense and i think nato's

unity and strength and complete commitment to article 5 is a great deterrence. but somehow that deterrence working for us in this -- what i talked about, this competition below the threshold or below the lines? i'm not sure it's working all that real for us in many of those cases so i think we have work to do on our dialogue and work to do on our deterrence. balancing them is absolutely key because i don't think that productive dialogue comes from a place where we do not have an effective deterrence. >> so earlier on the second panel on sanctions, david cramer was making the point that the problem that we have with russia now is not the lack of dialogue or the lack of communication, right? kerry and lavrov, as david put it, might as well move in together they meet so often but it sounds like you're describing

a different kind of dialogue. could you elaborate more on what you mean and speak to david's earlier point as well? >> i agree we have a lot of dialogue going on. that's kind of what i said a moment ago but what is happing is -- this is not an attempt. but i think we could find some form of -- and it's dangerous to put a word out because that's the word that gets reported -- cooperation, collaboration, find a spot where we can find something useful thoo can be measured, verified and for people on both sides of the argument to see such that this is not just more chatter and something of meaning. i think that's the way to talk about it. >> i remember i was reading a bit about some of the things you said in the past about russia

specifically and right before you left your position in may of this year you made a really famous, at this point, comment which is you said, and i quote, russia may now be ten feet tall but they're pretty close to seven feet tall. and you said this back in may. could you tell us what you meant by that and how do you assess the threat russia poses today to europe? >> so the context was a little important and it's not always transmitted when those few lines with transmitted but the point being that in the western and central and southern military districts russia is able to amass force and capability very quickly and if you follow the great writer jean menit he talks about interior lines which is moving mass and supply based on

great infrastructure in the military district. so in the western, central and southern military districts russia was able, demonstrated very ably in the context of crimea that they can rapidly assemble force, sometimes under the guise of a snap exercise, other times just as a movement and they can rapidly put force together. but what i was trying to do there was be intellectually honest because if a military man or woman gets up and the first thing they're talking about is russia is ten feet tall, ten feet tall, quite often your voice will be dismissed as a plea for more money, more men, more ships, more airplane, whatever. so what i was trying to do was to be intellectually honest to say that the russia force is a learning and adaptive force. it did not do so well in the first incursion into georgia. it got much better when it went

into crimea. it we learned in crimea and was even better when it went into dombas and then was even better at several of the things they needed to be better at when at n they went into syria. so this is a learning and adaptive force that has capabilities. it's not the ten-foot tall soviet union we used to talk about but clearly it is a capable force. >> and you know, a question to kind of take you in a forward-looking direction, you mentioned a few times that you are an optimist and this is how your staff would probably describe you. but looking ahead we're at perhaps the lowest part of u.s./russia relations since the cold war. what kind of future do you envision with rauchia? in other words, what is the end goal, right, that the u.s. should seek to effect in its relationship with russia? >> thanks for their. you and i talked a little bit about this before. i'm glad we get to talk about it here. our nation has sort of coined

the phrase that we want to see a europe whole, free and at peace. i certainly ascribe to be that. and i'm not a great writer of grand strategy. but i often add to that a europe whole free, at peace and prosperous. why do i add prosperous in? i think prosperous is important because if our economies improve and our nations economies and people are more prosperous, it solves a lot of the ills that bring internal pressures on nations anyway. certainly it would help with the currents refugee flow if the nations of europe were more pros er rous and their economies were on the rise in a demonstrative way. and so why is this important or why would we talk about it in the context of russia? it's my opinion, i'm not an economist. i'm an engineer. but it's my opinion that being

prosperous in europe would be far easier if russia was a part of that equation. again, let's go back to that word. what is the word that we need to coin as our future with russia. >> is it a partnership? is it a collaboration? is it an understanding? is it a you name it, there's any host of words to describe it. but if we can get to that point where we're not competing in a belligerent sense, we can be more apt to be prosperous. prosperity first, i believe, begins with security. and if we can get to that security arrangement that allows for prosperity to happen, then we're going to be in a better place. and back to this same interior lines that we talked about before. the road rail infrastructure, the energy infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera that russia could bring to the

table if we found ourself in a better position with them would help us with that. so what do i want to see? what i would like to see is that we are able to find some future relationship first, first based on good behavior that allows us to get to whole, free at peace and prosperous. >> i think that is an optimistic vision. so you live up to your reputation. but you know, if i could push you a little bit on this and i have to admit one of your former staff members said that i should ask you this. you know, put yourself in moscow. right? how does this all look from moscow's perspective? so you know, if we're talking about the angle that we want to see, europe whole free, at peace and prosperous where russia is a contributing actor to that vision, you know, what is the end goal with the u.s. and europe that russia seems to be seeking to achieve?

what is russia's end goal in all this? >> right. again, i think i would agree with some learned colleagues who have written recently, one as recently as yesterday that what russia wants first and foremost is to be seen as an equal and be treated as a world superpower in a multipolar context. and frankly, what is the view from moscow right now? they're probably pretty happy. they see themself at the center of most of the great power conflict that's going on. they see themself even the center of the discussion about the u.s. elections and so i would say that right now, russia feels better about themself on the world stage than they did years before. i think that this is one of their goals. but certainly russia wants to be a great nation and recover its economy and other things.

so they i think also have internal concerns. i think though that when russia looks at us, they see kosovo. they see iraq. they see the dissolution of the abm treaty. they see nato enlargement. they see libya and to a certain degree, they take umbrage with us over syria. and so there are a lot of a path through history that is engrained in their thought that puts had the u.s. in a bad light. and they want to be a part of being at that table in a multipolar way to try to rectify, if you can allow me to use those words. so i think we have to be intellectually honest enough to understand that russia has a view. and whether we agree with it or not, they have a view of history

and they have a view of where they want to be. and they are going to act and have acted most recently to effect gaming that position. and again, i think, and it's just my opinion, they probably are not terribly unhappy with the progress they have probably seen. >> we, it sounds to me that it's a difficult situation where the end goals that you've described from the russian view, from the u.s. and transatlantic view seem to be diametrically opposed. where do we finds those points of common ground and cooperation that you were saying? i do want to hope this up to the audience. you know you're eager to hear what everybody has to say. so if you have a question, please let me know. so i'll take a couple to start. fred kempe, president of the atlantic council, please. >> i apologize to the audience

that you showed favoritism. but general breedlove, i wonder if you could talk about, you've mentioned the elections. if you could talk a little bit about from a military man's standpoint what response would you be suggesting excepting what seems to be a high degree of confidence that russian government is behind the cyberattacks connected with the election. some have written about what steps should be taken in terms of proportional response. what would be your advice? and have we taken sufficient response yet? >> so let me take a couple more questions. the lady in the middle there. yes. just please wait for the mike and introduce yourself. you just ask you to ask a question rather than making a statement. >> this is a question. i'm mindy riser. i'm working with a number of ngos that focus on peace building and conflict resolution. we're talking a lot about russia

and the u.s. but i would the general to talk about the role of china in this. russia and china have had their differences and tensions and alliances. how does that play against the role of the competition and the possible cooperation between russia and the u.s.? the role of china, which, too, is a major player and considers itself pivotal for world peace and world instability, too. >> thank you. >> and one more question. the lady in the yellow jacket. >> thank you. reporter with congressional quarterly. general, i wanted to go back to what you said about intellectual honesty as i pose this plan related to u.s. plans for missile defense in europe. the -- it was previously stated that this was to protect europe from an iranian nuclear missile. as that potentiality seems increasingly unlikely and as tensions with russia continue to

escalate, there are some murm plerrings these sites should be reconfigured to make them applicable to a russian missile strike. however, the current plans wouldn't be able to protect from an intermediate continental ballistic missile, only an intermediate range missile. we have plans we're saying are to protect against iran from a varnishing iranian threat. we have a russian threat. are we not acknowledging that it's to protect russia for diplomatic reasons or is this is basically a solve to our european nato partners? if it's a solve, could there be a better way to reassure them than these missile defense sites that haven't yet proven their capability? >> i'll let the general respond to those three questions about the level and degree of response, perhaps military response, the role of china and the last questions about ibm and our defense systems. >> so fred, thanks for a tough

question. i think from the -- from the remarks i made, it's pretty straightforward that i don't believe that a new set is the answer. i believe that we cannot reward bad behavior with a no answer. so how our nation responds i think is important. i also believe, and this is nothing secret. it's discussed quite openly. we rely so much more on cyberthan some of our competitors in the world that if we were to start a big fight in cyber, we stand to lose so much more. and so i don't think that necessarily that's the answer. again, what i think is that our nation has a broad series of tools, diplomatic informational military, economic, that's a

real rude, crude approximation. but there's a lot of tools to use, and i think that we have to do that creatively, judiciously but probably the most important thing i said which is probably the most controversial is i don't think the a new answer is the answer. >> uh-huh. >> i think it was mindy. so yeah, you bring up an incredible complicating factor. it's going to be complicated enough, but incredibly important, to find a way forward i think with russia. and every time i say that i want to say the following so that it doesn't get disconnected in reporting. finding a way forward with russia starts first with good behavior. measurable, verifiable good behavior. we cannot reinforce or legitimize bad behavior by

skipping past it. but finding a way forward with russia i think is very key. and we have to start somewhere. the china piece is confusing because as you know, that is a part of what the tool set that russia uses as it has its conversation with us. and what we believe about their relationship, i think is broad in the work, in the writings. some believe it. some don't believe it. but the bottom line is, i think that russia worries about all its borders. and it has issues on a lot of its borders. we have to be honest about that, as well. but we need to solve first a bilateral thing and not allow that to be played off against this third party to sort of slow down the deal. we need to to be focused on trying to work our issue.

i actually believe there are a lot of opportunities with china, too. i mean, i see what our industry is doing in some places. one of my particular university that i'm a part of and doing some work in now has got a deep relationship with industries in china and i think there's opportunities there, as well. and we should try to focus on the opportunities as opposed pot opposition. >> the last question. >> the last one is really hard. so first of all, was it rachel? yeah, i'm sorry. f-16 ears. let me first disagree with one of your premise. i do not see the threat from the tirn diminishing. i do not believe we have a verifiable way to understand that their missile development

is diminishing at all, in fact, what i see is continued testing and capabilities in a nation that is much more likely to use it than some others. ala some of the actions you've seen in the waters off of their shores. so i don't think about this the way do you. i think that the missile threat, the missile threat from iran is growing. and ergo, european phase adaptive approach remains a concern and remains a capability that we should pursue. i'm an engineer. i know how a tippy 2 radar works and how it's aimed and how it's optimized. i know a little less about the a jis system but i do understand it as i was a part of developing the architectures. and i can tell you with my

reputation on the line that will tippy 2 radar is optimized for shots out of iran. our capabilities in that site in northern turkey and our capabilities for the physical locations of the aegis ashore capabilities give us capability against iran. i would never say that that doesn't give us some capability in other directions because i think that would also be dishonest, but this system was built aiming at iran. and i still see a threat from iranian missiles and i think that's basically where i'll leave that. >> so i do want to do have roundup questions. we're letting this go a little late which means the last panel will start at 1:15, just a point of organization. let me take another round of questions please. i want to go all the way to the back first. i see a hand in the isle. the gentleman, yes, in the gray.

please wait for the mike. >> thank you for your speech and i have one question. >> could you introduce yourself please. >> i'm with the caspian policy center. my question about your call for result-producing cooperation with russia, i think russia and u.s. been working with the group to result in in so far and there was one area which was different than ukraine and ossetia that is russian and u.s. positions were kind of overlapping each other in order to support the resolution. would you suggest that at least this will be one point that russia and u.s. can increase their efforts at least for the next administration to try to resolve the conflict? >> specifically? >> one point that maybe russia and u.s. can work together in an

increased manner. >> okay. >> next question please. the gentleman here in the glasses. you were waiting patiently. . on the right, yes. >> thank you. as you were talking about bad behavior, you didn't mention turkey at all. it was just centered on iran. but i don't know the if erdogan just forgot that he's, that, turkey's not part of nato as far as i know. what about this according to stoois according to russia according to everything, to the european union to, nato partners within the european union, turkey, maybe you have some thought on that. thanks. >> thank you. one more question, please. let me go to the front here and take the gentleman in the middle

in the beige suit i suppose. >> yes. i'm richard field with the budapest beacon. general in, addition to being a military alliance, many suggest that nato is also a community of values. do you agree with there assessment? and if so, does democratic back sliding in eastern and central europe pose a threat to nato in particular to its credibility as a deterrent force, and if so, what can and should be done to return those countries to the democratic fold? thank you. >> thank you. so general minsk as a point of cooperation, turkey and then back sliding eastern europe as a threat to nato. small questions. >> yeah, the questions are getting easier. so i think on the first piece, could minsk be a place where we cooperate? i think the answer is every one

of our conflicts is a potential place for cooperation. it's a matter of do we, are we willing to invest what needs to be invested to do that? are we willing to find regimes to move forward. the minsk piece is complicated a little bit because four of our very senior partners in europe have sort of taken the lead or four of our nations in europe have taken lead on sort of moving that process and i think that our government has sort of allowed that to be the centerpiece of how we approach minsk and ukraine. but certainly if the -- if the two sides were serious, any of these conflicts i think is an opportunity. and it would be a very tough one and we would have to first find our way forward with our european partners who are very involved now in resolving that

conflict. and work out how that might all go together. but i would not write any of them off the list. so on turkey, what i would like to say first about turkey is a that across the history of the u.s. military, there have been many times in our nation where our -- where our government and the government of another nation was not connecting at a diplomatic level. but all the time that they were not connecting at a diplomatic level, they were connecting at a military level. some of the -- some of the instances in south america are most demonstrative. and so what i saw as the sack cure, the military commander of nato is that our relationship

inside of nato and our bilateral u.s. relationship with turkey certainly got put under some pressure by what has happened across the past year or so in turkey, bug what i would say is those relationships are still strong and capable and resilient. now, the face of the turkish military has completely changed, as you know. and so a lot of individual relationships and things are being rebuilt. but what i don't see is a schism in the mill to mill business. like every nation in the alliance, we don't always get along 100% with each other. but we manage to move past the places where we might have differences in a military sense to maintain appropriate,

professional, collaborative, and most of the time very cooperative relations. and so i will only speak to the military side. that's what i'm uniquely qualified to do. and i will avoid the landmine of speaking to the political side. i think that turkey, many forget that turkey lives in a really tough neighborhood right now. to their north, the black sea, which is covered by weapons from crimea almost completely in a surface-to-surface and coastal defense cruise missile capability and about 40 or so percent covered in an air defense capability. so they have a body of water to their north that is very much being influenced by their neighbor to the north and east. to their east and to their

south, wrapped in a cloak of some pretty tough fighting and societal issues. and so from a military sense, this is a nation that is -- that's lynning in a tough neighborhood and i think we have to remember that. i am not apologetic. i just want to make sure that we remember from the position they find themselves in. and the last one, thank you for that question. yes. we often talk about nato and that we are a community of values, and that is a great part of our strength, a great part of our strength. and yes, we have all along nato's history had times where

sometimes the nations went a different way based on democratic processes. et cetera. sometimes less totally democratic processes, but the nations have maybe not perfectly aligned with all of the nations of the west in their values. and what i find and what i saw multiple times sitting in thenack once at the wales summit where our senior most leaders were at the table is that there's a lot of work among the nations to try to recenter those who have demonstrated some concerning things. and this is the way that -- this is one of the beauties of nato is that sort of internal self-policing and that internal cajoling and work that is done there in a way that is not

publicly threatening and causes nations to you know, get their backs up. and so there are -- there's work to be done. but i have a lot of confidence that the nations, it won't happen immediately but i can tell you they're work on it and i'm sure they're working on it now. i've been out of the business for about four months but i guarantee you they're working on it. >> well, general, thank you so much. really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and have this conversation with us. there's no easy answers. but it's really a pleasure to see an optimist in the room. so please join me in thanking the general for his time. [ applause ] and i would only ask everyone to please stick around. we have our last panel which really is the hard hitting panel that will take up the policy questions. so just bear with us as we set up for that. and we'll go straight into it. thank you.

>> partnered with them and with penn and with is the koch institute and with who else? fpri. dan hamilton, is he still here? my task is made all the more difficult by the fact that we have had such excellent panels so far. and they have gotten into the

area of policy rather than diagnosis. although the discussion of sanctions, of course, was both policy and diagnosis. i'm going to try to approach and i've had the pleasure of talking to each of our panelists in advance. i'm going to try to approach the moderator role a little bit differently. that is some very quick rounds, one an overview, a snapshot of what they feel should be done differently or the same in the next administration. secondly, go into a very brief period of analysis of why, you know what, are the driving factors. thirdly and the most important round and i want to save plenty of time for that is going to be okay, what does the policy look like? is it going to be something like containment? is it engagement? is it somewhere in between restraint as it's put in the title of our panel? it's a tall mission. so a tall order.

therefore, i'm going to spend very little time introducing the panel. you know their main, be their trooubts are on the program. mayor main affiliations. and now i probably have lost the important things that i wanted to say in addition to that. first of all, i'm going to go in, well, in alphabetical order and ask you each to raise your hands when i say your name. judy addly. in addition to her above all assistant to the president deputy security advisor as you know from the program but you also should know she has extensive experience on capitol hill where she rose to the level of staff director of the senate armed services committee. she now serves on the u.s. institute of the board of the u.s. institute of peace. i want to have saying these things give you more perspective where they come from in terms of where their perspective is. dr. evelyn farkas if i'm

pronouncing prob properly. a nonresident fellow of the atlantic council and was assistant deputy secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and you're asia and before that a wide range of experience on security issues both with the u.s. military on capitol hill and in the think tank world. june herbst is the director of theure asia center. let me repeat my thanks to you and to elena for the job you've done in setting this up and your wonderful cooperation with us as the junior partners in the endeavor. and finally, john i know him because we work together at the state department for a time is one of the most distinguished career professionals of his generation on working not only on russia receivology russia, your asia but also in the middle east highly relevant to our discussion today. finally, dr. william ruger, vice president of research and policy at the charles koch institute.

he's also vice president for the charles koch foundation. it's a very busy job. he's a veteran of the war in afghanistan, very important to note and he's had an extensive academic career in the areas that we're talking about. so i said i wanted to just discuss the organize the discussion in three phases. overview. i'm going to ask each of you in probably inverse, if you promise to keep it less than one minute or one minute and two seconds in inverse order. >> you warned us. he's very strict. >> yes. >> to answer at the same time two questions. to what extent should the american next next american president change u.s./russia policy orator what extent should it remain the same and connected to that in his first or her first 100 days, what specific actions or declarations should the new president make on some of the key issues such as syria, ukraine, cyberattacks, all the

things we've already discussed. then i'll go back to analyzing why. how do you justify it. will, go ahead. >> i can do that in one minute no doubt. small questions. >> go ahead. >> so i do think there should be change but i think we need to step back from the particulars of russia for a second and move to the question which should guide the particulars which is what role should the united states play in the world particularly in terms of our grand strategy. and you know to, me our grand strategy should focus on making america safer. that means we should have a defense capability second to none but the policies we've been pursuing oftentimes go under the term prime ministry or liberal hedge moneyism. i don't think they've been working. they're not a good guide for action ahead nor should they be. we need to a more realist centered approach to the world and to russia that has a laser like focus on america's safety and our vital national interests. that's more prudentialing about

using the "m" of the dime that we just heard about and a greater realization of the problem of unintended consequences and lessig norring of constraints and i think that's been one of the problems with our approach to russia is that it an hasn't been all that realistic. and so we need to ask some key questions about russia or that guide our thinking. > what does the president do in the first 100 days. >> that's your next question. you should ask these questions or she, right? you have to think through carefully what is required and possible as opposed to what is simply ideal and frankly i think american leaders have talked about what should be that goal that kind of kind of cloud kind of in the sky goal as opposed to thinking like what can actually be achieved. what's realistic? what are the constraints? how is the world going to get a vote or the particular country?

and i also think that we have to think about how our actions will be perceived and what those consequences will be. i think nato enlargement to hint where i'll go later has been a prime example of ignoring some of those potential consequences. >> so the policies of the new president should be very different. >> exactly. >> evelyn? >> okay. so first of all, i did think ahead about your question but mainly in the russia context. though i'm happy to pull up and talk about it more generally if we have time. i think we have to continue to deter russia. that much is clear. but i think we need to do more to deter russia and i won't go into the details unless we have time in a second round. >> we will. >> so certainly that would include doing what we're doing in the nato context. i think that has actually been sufficient to deter russia but we need to keep doing that and consider whether we need to do more. probably the areas where we need to do more and general breedlove knows this well is in the air defense arena and the maritime

arena. there's been a lot of emphasis what we need to do on land. so continue to deter russia but more robustly in the outside of nato context, that means considering living lethal i'm an advocate not for just considering but giving lethal defensive weapons to ukraine, georgia and moldova who have no guarantees so the least we can do is give them those weapons. secondly, i think we need to continue to leave the door open for cooperation with russia. this is something general breed love mentioned, as well. let's be realistic. i'm very much a fan of the idea of being much more rational, realist, prudent in our policy. no more wishful thinking with regard to russia. we can keep the door open and keep our hand extended in certain areas but hud should not run after the russians in the hopes that they might cooperate even on issues like counter-terrorism where i have actively been one of those people trying to get them to

cooperate in the past professionally and it hasn't worked. i would prefer toe actually have them make the first move when it comes to things that have nature. second, or third rather, we need to restart our dialogue on strategic stability issues and general breed love touched bonn upon it. i'm sure others mentioned it, as well. but the area where there's the greatest danger in our relationship with russia has to do with strategic stability at large which is really our balance of military power with russia. that includes everything from cyberall the way up to strategic nuclear. the russians have rightfully so a great deal of fear about our capabilities. that has driven them to a dangerous military doctrine which we can talk about more if you like in q and a but it very much merits a rational discussion with the russians why it's dangerous. what assumptions they're making in designing their dialogue and also in their military modernization and how they're going about it. that's the three things. the fourth one is hold russia

accountable. i believe that the international community has done a paltry, i don't even know what the right adjective is but a miserable job holding russia accountable. we're making some progress with regard to the m ty-17 shootdown over shootdown in 2014, but on the issue of the sib ber attacks against the united states, that's still lacking. we have not yet shown that we have taken sufficient action to deter russia from on going activity. you're giving me the sign. budapest memorandum. nonproliferation is not a joke. the memorandum is not just about giving a random political guarantee to ukraine. it has to do with the nonproliferation regime. we did it because the deal was ukraine would give up their nuclear weapons. what other country would give them up now for a political deal with the united states and the other guarantors in the face of this failure by the international community to do anything to respond on that front. that's hanging out there.

then, of course, obviously the interventions and continued occupations that general breed love mentioned, the violation of the imf treaty. i'm getting breathless. >> stop now. we'll go in second and third rounds. >> there's just about to be an exercise again with russia and belarus on the nato border, violations of the vienna document. the osce, we need to work more and i can talk more about what next in the 100 days of the osce. that's my quick attempt to answer. >> you policy would be breathlessly different if the next president follows you just as it would be in a very different way if will's policies were followed. the one minute has ended up being two or three. to be fair, you can have as many as two or three. if you can keep it to one, that's great. >> i think what i'll do is leave the specs for your second question. i think in terms of russian policy, i think we need to change the dynamic. it's not working now. something needs to change.

so i think we need to a stronger and much more assertive approach to russia going forward and the old adage peace through strength comes to mind. we have to show strength as we go forward. and i think to agree with william, i do think you start with setting goals. i don't agree that the goal should be only what we think we can achieve. i think we set a goal. it should be aspirational goal and let's see what steps we can take to achieve it. i would hope the next president whoever he or she might be will set the goal for why you were of the goal that general breedlove mentioned europe, whole free and at peace. with nations able to determine their path and to be secure in their borders and those would be sort of the top goals and i did like your prosperity addition to that. i think we also have to recognize that we are dealing with a very aggressive russia that doesn't share these values. they have completely different

values. they want a buffer zone. i mean, putin has established as one of his top foreign policy priorities protecting russian speakers wherever they may be. there are a lot of them in our nato member countries. so we have to be very aware of that. this doesn't mean we break ties completely. this doesn't mean we don't engage at all. it means we have be realistic as we set our policies going forward. then just a couple of other general points. i think as we go forward with russia, we have to making it clear there will be consequences for their actions and that we are willing to take those steps to show that there are consequences. nato really has to get back to its original purpose. nato has to be a deterrent force given where we are in europe today. our nations need protection and article 5 is real. hopefully it won't be challenged anytime soon. and i think we also just an overall thing the u.s. really has to re-establish its leadership on the world stage.

i think a little bit too much rightly or wrongly we are perceived as weak on the world stage and we've done a little bit too much leading from behind and i think we need to -- i think that dynamic feeds to change if we are to successfully engage with putin. i'll leave specifics to the next round. >> you were under three minutes. >> we're back on schedule. >> john? >> i'll also start at a high level of distraction. in earlier sessions today and in this one too already, we've talked about what are our interests? any conversation has to be with our interests. it's really pretty simple. so i apologize if i'm saying it's quite basic. the post cold war era despite all of the headlines about unpleasant news has been the most prosperous and the most stable in world history. and the basis of that has been peace in europe. the two greatest wars in world

history began in europe. and establishing nato in 19 -- shortly after world war ii provided the basis for building a global stability system and that was the path of global prosperity. now, i'm telling you this because our interests are in maintaining that. that is the vital interest of every american. and right now, we have the world's second greatest military power with one of the world's largest economies changing borders in europe by force. so explicitly saying he wants to upend that security order. that is is a vital threat to our interests. and part of the confusioning in washington and globally on there is because we had a president who claimed that the crisis in europe was a regional crisis. he just didn't get it. now, one of the reasons he didn't get it is because his

predecessor had us engaging in the middle east in ways that were beyond our capacity. and that way i'm something to some of the things bill said that we can't do everything we might want to do, but we have a vital interest in stopping putin in europe. so i definitely think the next president should have a different policy than the current president also, this objective of ours to deter putin to stop him in ukraine which is a current battleground is very much within our capacity. we and the eu together have something like gdp 17 times that have russia. we remain by far the world's leading military power. we have the ability to stop putin in ukraine without involving american troops by using a combination of our economic power, our diplomatic power and not our military, not our military men but our military equipment. so what i would like to see the next president of the united

states do is say explicitly, my job is to reaffirm the transatlantic relationship to europe, strengthen nato, help the eu to strengthen itself which is also an american interest and to stop a power in the power in the kremlin from upsending this world. we do that, that simple statement liking that will remove most of the power of moscow's massive disinformation campaign because if american leaders and european leaders are saying what plain evidence tells us every day that what is going on in ukraine is not separatists fighting against key effective, it's not a civil war, it's a hybrid war led, financed staffed and equipped from moscow. suddenly news papers will begin to report this straight and with that, once we acknowledge that, we can develop the policies relatively modest within our means which we'll be able to stop that and secure the basis of global stability and prosperity. and one more point, watching a

relatively weak west respond to clear aggression only encourages the longer term danger to the united states which is an economic little powerful and growing power militarily china who has been pursuing some of its own revisionist ames in the south and east china seas. >> that's a good summary. still all for quite different policies coming from different perspectives for the reasons you already know. all good policy depends on good analysis of the fundamentals. we've heard allusion to great military power, lesser economic power but still important intentions. not only in this panel but in the previous two outstanding panels. so but i would do want to dwell before i ask you to go into more specifics about exactly how policy should be whether it's

more robust containment, whether it's the titles we were given for this panel, i do want to go into the analysis by asking basically three questions simultaneously but they all are deeply interrelated. so the first question is whether the current dilemma, the current confrontation that we have between u.n. and russia is driven primarily by vladimir putin and his global strategy for as general breed love said for becoming a major recognized as a major world power and or what has not been mentioned and i would strongly emphasize myself, i did in a question earlier, his need for political survival. the existential threat that democracy and the rise of the west does represent for him. so the question is, is it driven primarily by vladimir putin and the circle around him and his

agenda their agenda, or instead, is it driven primarily by mistaken u.s. and european policies during either or both the obama administration as several speakers have said or the bush 43 administration as other speakers have mentioned. and this, of course, includes nato expansion and some of the other things, support for the color revolutions. so happy these twos questions, of course, raise the question of what the lessons of history and what the considerations of grand strategy as you put it will in our private phone conversation how these play into. so these are the three questions of and lit cal sort before which i asked you to come back and not defend but spell out in greater detail the policies that you have outlined already. all four somewhat different but when i do that, then i will come back to ask you for the first 100 days if anything special is to be done then.

we went in what order did we go the first time? we just ended -- i'm going to mix it up. we're going to evelyn first. >> okay. >> all right. >> then will. >> okay. >> then judy and then john because john just had the last word. let him have it a second time. >> he's kind of the boss. >> i mean -- he did go over 2 1/2 minutes. >> i think it's important to understand what or at least for me i have to first start with what are the kremlin's objectives. it's not just putin but it's the group around him. number one is to keep him in power to, keep themselves in power. number two as already been touched upon, to ensure that russia is regarded and is indeed playing a role as a great power equal to all the other great powers of the world. number three, which is related to one and two is that this kremlin that putin is against regime change. he's against it because it touches on number one, his desire to stay in power and his

perception rightly or wrongly that the america in the west is actually interested in seeing his regime change which, of course can become a self fulf l fulfilling prophecy if he continues along the road he's on but is also related to wanting to demonstrate russia is a great power which plays out in the context of syria. those are the objectives of the kremlin. i think that that is always important to bear in mind. the foreign policy that the kremlin is now advancing is also a reaction to the fact that kremlin can no longer deliver on the economic deal that he made with the people when he came to power first in 2000. he's now switched horses to the nationalist horse. so he's going to make the russian people feel good about being part of the federation based on making russia great again. and that means that what he's essentially advancing is a 1th century perspective on russia's role in europe in particular, europe and central asia so with

regard to its periphery and that clashes directly with what our perspective is with regard to regard to russia's role in the international system because the kremlin sees that the countries in particular around its periphery do not have full sovereignty, they have limited sovereignty, that the kremlin has the right to exercise control over those territories indirectly or directly but primarily indirectly politically economically although obviously with force. from our perspective, we believe that sovereign states not only have the right to defend their territories but that the people within those sovereign states have the right to determine their government and if they would like to be democratic and determine their own futures their institutional affiliations as states we support that. that is a value that we hold dear and runs into direct conflict with the kremlin. so i think that's at the root of what's going on and i'll stop there. >> thank you. so will? >> yeah, so you know, i don't have a brief for putin or his

aggressive actions. but i. >> the question is, is that what is driving or not driving policy. >> right but i think it takes two to tango, right? so i think we have to acknowledge that there have been actions on both sides that have not made the relationship what it needs to be or could be. and so i think we have to acknowledge that our behavior in the post cold war era has been part of that. no one less than general breedlove ran through a list as long as his arm of things we did that provoked the security dilemma inside of russia and caused them to fear for themselves. this is a country invaded multiple times in which most recently happened in the lives of people still alive in russia and that is a reality that i don't think we should ignore and americans again, we you know, the cold war for most americans is ancient history but the experience of world war ii is not for russia. so i think we have to be careful. and i want to kind of talk about

the beginning of the end of the cold war. george h.w. bush. and he was pressured by staffers at one point to go to berlin as the wall was falling and he said, something i think really smart. he said what would i do if i went to berlin, dance on the wall? and well, we not only danced on the wall but we danced over the wall and we danced right up to their border. and i think we need to kind of go back to that wisdom of h.w. which is to kind of understand how these engagements, how these even choices by other states are going to affect us and to really try to calibrate or affect them and try to calibrate plorly so that we are focused on achieving things that are positive. i think there are positive ways to heal the relationship and that would be good for both of us. again, i mean so this idea for example evelyn talked about well, letting other countries choose their institutional affiliations. well, that sounds great.

and i think that's a good ideal. but that doesn't, that, we get to also choose our affiliations. freblgs with ukraine or sxwra or other countries that might vant to join nato we have to ask is that actually good for our safety? it's not a club that has open membership. that's a an club that the club should decide who gets to be in. we should think again about what might be the consequences of. >> there's this policy. don't expand nato. we're still in the analytical stage. john, on the question is it primarily putin driven, is it primarily mistakes of the u.s. and the perspective in history the causality of the present dil lem na and the underlying factors before you can policy? >> i would recommend to read the end of empire. a book about the last year or two of the soviet union. the reason why i recall it now is that in talks between

russians and ukrainians in late 1990, early 1991, you hear the most liberal russians we've seen in the past generation or two generations or for that matter centuries yeltsin and gorbachev both telling them the leader of ukraine that you know if you decide to have a referendum and be independent of us, we're going to have to really worry about protecting our russians and our russian speakers. that's data point one. telling you that certain phenomenon that we see today which are the precondition for kremlin aggression were there among liberal russians in 1990, 1991. second data point. nato expansion as a conversation not a reality was not taking place in 1991 and 1992. if you look back and see soviet union imploded, that within

weeks or days actually of the demise of the soviet union you had frozen conflicts in southern settia and other places. now the frozen conflict model is the model of kremlin aggression today. it predates nato enlargement. okay. data point three, crimea. when did russia take crimea? at the end of the 1th century. question, when did russia take eastern poland and central poland? at the end of the 18th century. i don't think it's unreasonable to ask the question if we had not enlarged nato, would the front today between russia and the west be in warsaw or in kiev? i agree with will that the russians did not like nato enlargement and i don't disagree that this plays upon traditional

russian historical sensitivities. but the same nation that complains about being invaded multiple times is the same nation that has invaded other countries more than multiple times. and even someone who is kind of favorably disposed to putin right now, henry kissinger, has said that russian security is contingent upon insecurity of its neighbors. is that an acceptable solution for us? is that acceptable for us? i don't have any doubt that poland being in nato where it's been a strong member is very much in our national interests. so i think that even if you had questions about nato enlarge. in the '90s, vultd to say it probably makes sense. and the reason why it probably makes sense is because those imperial russian tendencies which were super charged in soviet times never died. and we see those imperial russian tendencies today and

those are very much not in american interests. >> judy. >> yeah. well, i agree with what john has said. and i don't buy the argument that what we're seeing from putin today is because of quote mistaken u.s. or european policies. i don't think they're mistaken policies. i think they are policies as john said that are in the u.s. national interests and they are policies that we should continue to support. you know, they're in line with our values. they're in line with the helsinki final act. they are in line with most generally accepted principles respect for border. i mean, aboutussia doesn't agree with it, but may e the only nation in europe that doesn't. so i don't think that we should lower our values or lower the policies that we support because of what russia believes there. in fact, i think the only way we have been mistaken in recent years is not responding strongly enough when russia has acted.

i think in those cases, ukraine, some would say georgia, i think those have been mistakes we haven't been strong enough. the problem is if we would adopt this, you know, russia doesn't like nato expansion. therefore we shouldn't. i'm not saying that you're arguing that, that anybody up here is but i think that emboldens putin tin emboldens any russian leader to just keep going. you know, we're in eastern ukraine now. how far is it going to go if we change and we say that well, okay, you know, i know russia doesn't like it. so maybe we change our policies. in fact, i would go another direction which is you know, i mean i think in terms of georgia and ukraine, we ought to be out there with a u.s. policy of membership for both of them as soon as we can get it. because i think that's the only way first of all, i think it's in our interests to have both of this em in the alliance. they both clearly want it. we've always maintain add open door policy. but i think it sends a very

strong signal, as well that this is the path we're going to take. just one other thing on the nato expansion although i think john has really answered that. spent the '90s and into the 2000s working with russia. nato/russia council. we have gone over and above what we should have had to do to try to make it clear, i mean, i remember discussions in the '90s about russia becoming a member of nato. i mean, we have in so many ways shown that they should not be considered a threat, and we can't change their perception, but we didn't ignore it. we took it seriously and we tried to bring them along. i mean, it clearly didn't work, but i don't think that means we should change our policies. >> thank you, judy. that puts in history, as we agree to factor in history, longer term. remember that when nato, after

the iron curtain fell and after russia became the russian federation of the soviet union, we offered a special relationship to russia with nato. and they accepted it, and there were some significant actual substantive exchanges in the 1990s. but my role is not primarily that of historian or commentator. for those of you who don't know, this panel, since we started 15 minutes late, is snnow schedule to go to 2:30. i'm saying that because i'm reserving 30 minutes for the audience comments and discussion, probably starting with general breedlove with commenta commentary. so all right. so now the third round. you already all alluded to your policies. but in the framework of engagement versus restraint

versus containment, i would like you to spell out a little bit more. and i also, especially those who have congressional background, also to ask the question, okay, what kind of policies would the congress sustain and agree to? but the key questions are, please, so those of you who advocate -- everybody advocates renewed engagement in the sense general breedlove put out. if we can find areas of common interest where we can get a good deal, of course. but that's an obvious. but if you advocate -- i think i'm addressing this to you. you're advocating renewed engagement based on the analysis you have said, or just advocating restraint. but in either case, what do you want to see? what would you expect to see from the russian side, as a

response, positive response or showing of positive working. in what areas should the u.s. pull back from the wrong things it's done in the past? if so, would that be seen as a sign of weakness. how could we avoid it being seen that way. and finally -- let me stop right there. >> i'm glad you talked about engagement and restraint not being mutually exclusive because they're not. i think we should be restrained in some areas to make sure that we aren't actually creating self-fulfilling prophecies in a different direction. but i also think that we should be engaged. we should find areas of mutual interest to start to build some of that relationship back, including say, counterterrorism, counterproliferation efforts on trying to maintain stability that ultimately i think is in both of our interests in the long run. so i think we should do that. and we ought to find ways, and the general talked about

different kind of lower level discussions. i think those are helpful and fruitful. i also think that we need to -- i think we need to kind of stop talking about russia as the way we do, as a potential super power. we don't need to rub it in the nose that they're not anymore, but we should stop telling the american public this is the cold war again. this is a country that has a fraction of the military power of the united states. they spend about $66 billion. the united states spends about $600 billion. i mean, the population of russia is a lot smaller than the united states and europe combined. our wealthy allies in europe are far superior in terms of their economic capability than russia. so it doesn't mean that there aren't dangers. i don't want to sound unrealistic given my plea for realism, but we have to put it in a proper context. that means there are

opportunities, because they also have to acknowledge our interests in that region. and when john talked about, you know, old europe and then the first wave of expansion and the next wave, right, i think we can be pretty clear about where our vital interests do stand in regards to those current allies versus the issue of expanding further. >> these are generalities. i would like you to be specific as we discussed on the phone. >> sure. >> all these questions we sent around, so you had time to think about it. what specifically, what pullback, what other specific actions would you have the next president to take? what would you expect from the russian side. what would you expect specifically? >> i would quietly and diplomatically but surely take off the table the notion of expanding nato to include georgia. >> would be seen as a unilateral concession, would it not? >> how it happens -- >> but the question, the shotgun

is how would it be seen in moscow? weakness? how would you make it be seen as a positive? >> i think america is great country. it's strong. it should be confident about itself. it shouldn't have to worry. it should say, look, we're the most powerful country in the world. we have nuclear weapons. vee the world's strongest military, the world's strongest economy. europe and our allies are a part of that. i think we're getting too upset about, like, they may perceive this as weakness. and then what? is that -- and then what going to be 1930s again? >> good question. a very good illusion from somebody to wants to take an historical perspective. that's what some people thought the munich agreement was. >> not everything is munich. i think we have a tendency in the foreign policy community to think that any act like this is going to, right, and it's not really. the outlines -- >> i think if i'm correct, you're confirming that a combination of restraint and

engagement would be a better policy for us. >> i think the other three panelists all advocate and have already spelled out in some detail policy of containment. which of you would like to add further, either to your description of that policy and justification of it, or to the reputation of the opposite approach we heard not only now but in some of the earlier panels. we heard considerably, and i would be happy to come back to your sanctions removal, et cetera. but who would like to speak next? evelyn? >> i just, i really want to respond to that, because yes, of course, we should not overblow russia's economic power, its political power, you know, russia has no real allies, et cetera. there's a whole list of things we can list as their weaknesses, but the reality is they are a nuclear power. they do have a -- they can do a lot of damage. they're doing a lot of damage to

us internally in reducing the confidence in our electoral system. and of course, everything we have already talked about that they're doing in the international context. to say nothing of i don't even think we have talked about the abomination of what happening in syria. the human rights violations, and i'm sorry i didn't list that on the accountability list. because that is just despicable. so i think that you're right that we shouldn't overemphasize what russia is about, but the problem is, in part, those of us who follow russia recently have been pushed into this because there was a real interest in kind of dismissing russia and saying they're a small regional power. we don't need to were eabout them. and general breedlove, myself, others in the government who wanted not only our colleagues but the rest of our country to be aware of what the risks were and what the objectives were of this country, which is not behaving as a status quo power, we needed to spell it out very clearly. as many people have already

mentioned, it's not just about russia. i worry very much, i was in japan this summer. i worry very much about what the chinese are deriving as lessons from our failure to dete deter russia. it's about the international order. i think the first thing the president has to do is come in and say, okay, i support the international order. united states is a status quo power. we may have differences with countries about how we implement the rules. there are problems with interventions. humanitarian interventions are being lumped together with other interventions. let's have a discussion with the russians about that. i think we need to be very clear what the rules of the road are and spell that out clearly from day one. then there's a whole host of policies that i would advocate with regard to syria in particular and ukraine and other scenarios. >> if i could just pick up on this because i agree with what evelyn has said. i think in some ways in terms of the specifics, i think our

engagement with -- wrong word. our interactions with russia almost starts with syria. i mean, we have a lot of issues we're dealing with on the european front. i get to those, but i mean, this is where they are really stepping way outside. we allowed a vacuum to be created in my mind. they stepped in. i think we need to figure out our syria policy, i agree with you on that. i think we need to figure out, first of all, stop the discussions in geneva because it just makes us look weak. figure out what it is we want. do we get back to assad must go? you know, obviously, there is a humanitarian crisis we have to deal with. we probably need to take steps to change the dynamic on the batt battlefield. we need to figure those things out. i think that some of the moves we should be taking, some of them you have heard discussed, safe