islamophobia, with love, kindness and compassion. our jihad will be to stand for justice, to fight alongside the oppressed, to preach the truth to power, especially to preach the truth to teernical power, because our prophets of allah has said that is the greatest jihad. our jihad, brothers and sisters, will be in attempting to make america great again by being true witnesses of allah on this earth and by demonstrating to the world who our beloved prophet -- [ speaking foreign language ] are you going to join me in this noble jihad? [ cheers and applause ] let me take it up one level, then i'll conclude. they don't like the word jihad. we have to reclaim it back, because it's our word and it's a noble word. there's another phrase they don't like. there's another phrase that has also been hijacked by the

extremists within our own faith and the islamaphobes outside, but we mainstream american muslims have to reclaim the phrase because it's a koranic and islamic phrase, and that is the phrase that we say when we're happy, when we're excited. we praise allah and announce to the world that nothing is more important, more holy, more grandiose, more beloved to me than my creator. and we say from the depths of our hearts, allah. it's supposed to inspire courage, not fear, virtue, not injustice. and so, we have to reclaim that phrase, because it is a koranic phrase. so, when i ask you, are you going to join this american jihad, i want you to respond with something that will be heard from shining east to shining west, with a tuqbir that

will shake the halls of this convention center, with a tuqbil that will send a loud message to all of the islamaphobes and bigots that we are not scared to be who we are, that we are not scared to claim that we have no loyalty and no fear of being muslims who want to worship our lord and be a part of this country. will you join me in this jihad? taqbil! louder. louder, louder, louder. you can do better than this. one last time, and i want the halls to shake. taqbil! [ speaking foreign language ] >> our next speaker is who spoke at many of our events and someone i have gotten to know over the last 2 1/2 years in my time with isna. she is an incredibly insightful and thoughtful person.

she is the director of research at the institute for social policy and understanding, ispu. she is the co-author along with john esposito of the book "who speaks for islam? what a billion muslims really think." she is the former executive director of the gallop center for muslim studies. and in 2009, she was appointed by president obama to the president's advisory council on faith-based neighborhood partnerships. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome sister dalia mogahed. [ speaking foreign language ]

salaam. my favorite thing about coming to isna conventions are the conversations, the conversations i get to have with old friends that i haven't seen for at least a year, the conversations i get to have with people that i just met. especially young people. and i've had several young women come up to me during this very convention and ask me a question that i hear quite often. in fact, one particular young woman, i promised her that i was going to answer her question in my speech, that it was a longer conversation that we could have in the brief moments that i had between sessions.

her question was very simple, and yet, quite profound. she simply said, what is your advice to a young person like me who's trying to make a difference today? and i think her question merits a thoughtful answer, and that's what i hope to offer right now to all of you. what is my advice to her, to other young people and to anyone who wants to make a difference in a time of great crisis? how should we be thinking and acting in this current moment. i want to be very succinct, i want to be very organized, because you've been sitting here

so patiently. and i am one thing standing between you, dr. ramadan and dr., so i'm not going to overstay my welcome. three things i want to offer in response to this profound question. i think we have to think about courage, compassion and connectiveness if we want to make a difference in this moment of great crisis. i'm going to start with courage, because we are living in a time that requires incredible bravery. just declaring our identities as muslims has become an act of

defiance. wearing a burkini to the beach has become an act of defiance. great courage, though, brothers and sisters, as i've tried to remind myself and those that have asked me, is not the absence of fear great courage, the kind that is needed today is not the absence of fear. in fact, if we approach the kind of responsibility, the kind of stakes, the kind of risks, the challenge that we are up against today without a healthy dose of fear, then we are simply not healthy, we are simply not aware

of what we're up against. so, fear in this moment is rational and is healthy, but it's not the kind of fear that should cripple us. it's the kind of fear that makes us realize that we have to dig deeper than we ever have and reach up with more desperate than we've ever done and find the strength to know that it's not that we're not afraid, because we are and we should be, but that we will find our courage by understanding that there is something more important than our fear, and that's how i define courage, the courage that is needed today.

and one very important aspect, one very important dimension and requirement of this courage is the knowledge that it isn't just up to us to face today's challenges. you know, in the koran, the difference between the believers, when they were marching to meet goliath and his army and those who waffled and waf wavered was not simply confidence in themselves, but it was their focus, their focal point. one perceived the world through the prism of tawhid, and the other focused entirely on the means. one group found that courage because they said allah is with us.

how many times has a small group defeated a large group? and they went on to the famous story of david and goliath. while the other group said we are overwhelmed by their numbers and fell and gave in and indulged that fear, one group focused on the power of the creator, and the other focused on their own inadequacy. so, i'm not asking you today to simply have confidence in our capaci capacity. that's not enough. i'm really, i'm asking you to have faith, to make your faith conquer your fear, to find

courage in the conviction that it's not just up to us. that what we are called for is obedience, not outcomes. when i am most afraid is when i think that my ability is what is required to bring about a positive outcome. when i instead focus on my ability to work but know that allah is in charge, i feel invincible, i feel empowered, i feel more courage than i should if you were to see what capacity i have. my sense of courage is in the

knowledge that it's not up to me, that if i obey, whatever the outcome is, it is him. so, brothers and sisters, it is a time for courage. but it's also a time and a need for great compassion. what do i mean by compassion? it's the kind of compassion that is needed to meet people where you are, to go to your audience, to your fellow citizens, to your neighbors, and even to your fellow muslims, and meet them where they are. in their fear, in their ignorance, in their place of ang anger, and then to walk with

them to a different space. this approach of compassion when you feel that the world is so hostile can only be borne out of a conviction that you have something to contribute, you have something to give, rather than you have something to beg for or take from them. our fellow citizens are not overlords to appease and to beg for acceptance and approval. and at the same time our audiences and those we engage are not enemies to conquer.

they are our equals, our fellow human beings that we have something to bestow upon them, we have something to contribute in that we are offering truth-telling as an act of compassi compassion, not just in what we say but in the way that we act. so was so inspired when at ispu, we started doing research on the role of american muslims in the flint water crisis. so, in flint, people were literally dying because they didn't have clean water, a problem that we are supposed to

only hear about in far-off lands. and yet, it is right here in our country. flint, michigan, where the water was poisonous. and when we were doing this research, just trying to understand, what were the contributions of muslims in michigan, we by accident, liter literally came across the work of hundreds of muslims in flint and their role in the recovery effort, quietly acting on their faith, leading in the recovery of a crisis in a way that no one knew. we discovered that muslims had donated more water bottles than any other community, a million

water bottles. that muslims had set up free medical clinics, that muslims had set up institutions that would stay much longer for a sustainable relief effort long after the cameras had gone home. doing this in the name inspired by their faith, meeting people where they were in acts of compassion. they were not asking for anything. they were there to give. they were there to contribute. and this is the kind of role we have to see ourselves play iings

people called on to act as noble servant leaders to those who are most in need. the worst thing that can happen to a community that is being attacked is for them to internalize a sense of victimization. that is not to trivialize the actual victimization that many of us are actually undergoing, but what i mean by an internalized victimization is one where we learn, we fall into a learned helplessness. a sense of disempowerment, where we feel isolated, where we feel alone, where we see ourselves as in a state of defense, in a

state where we just want to build bunkers around ourselves. that's the worst thing that could happen, because that is far from what we are called to do. we have to see ourselves as people who have a role in healing this nation, from the deep traumas that our country is suffering from. so, the second piece of advice that i give to this sister is we have to lead lives of compassion, where we are approaching our fellow human beings from a place of generosity, not a place of need. and the third and final thought,

reflection i want to share with you is in connectedness. in seeing the connections between ourselves, our struggle and those of other human beings. if we don't understand islamophobia as just one dimension of a wider phenomena of institutional racism, then we are not seeing the full picture. we are but one -- as my colleague and brother, dawud put it today, we are one branch. islamophobia is one branch on a larger tree of institutionalized racism. if we don't see a connection, if it has to be explained to us

that the same cancer that causes law enforcement to disproportionately target muslim communities for surveillance, entrapment and criminalization, is the same ailment that results in the shooting and killing of unarmed black people every day, then we are not seeing the whole picture. that's one cancer and these are two different manifestations. we need to see the connection between our humanity and those of others, and that means authentic relationships and coalition building between communities. one of the most dangerous goals of any kind of bigotry is to

convince the target of that racism that they are alone, that they are isolated that they are weak, that they are defeated. and it is the opposite of the truth. i'm often asked in lots of different venues after i give a talk about the importance of standing against bigotry, someone will always say, well, you're just preaching to the choir. we already know this. you should be talking to, you know, xyz hostile people. and of course, there's merit to engaging those who you may deeply disagree with, but i actually have a problem with this idea of preaching to the choir, and here's why. we should start with those who are receptive to the message of

an inclusive, pluralistic america. we should begin with them. and guess zcaq&iñrwhat, there more people that are receptive to that message than we have reached. they are reaching their hand to us, and we haven't reached back. we are, in fact, sometimes too busy running after those who hate us, that will never listen to us, that we haven't done the hard work of actually building relationships and coalitions with "the choir." the second thing about preaching to the so-called choir is that every single one of those people that is in that room listening to you has members of their family and friends who i assure

you are not in the choir. and they can become ambassadors to those people who will not listen to a family member that they trust. so, to see the interconnections between ourselves means to reach out to those first who are receptive. i mean, this is just business strategy. if you have a marketplace, and 30% of that marketplace are untapped, eager consumers, do you go after them first or the people that you have to spend billions of dollars to even get them to listen to half of what you have to say? and yet, there is a huge portion of the american public that are eager partners that we have never taken the time and effort to reach out to, and these are

the people we need to start with. so, in close iing, i want to sa that as scared and as exhausted as some of us feel, and understandably so, i believe that as dr. yesir said, this is a beautiful time, a profound time and an inspiring time to be a muslim. we have an opportunity to change history. and i believe that we truly can do it with the help of allah. election day is four days

away, and our road to the white house coverage over on c-span includes hillary clinton today at 5:15 eastern live from detroit. then at 7:00 eastern, donald trump holding a campaign rally in hershey, pennsylvania. election night on c-span. watch the results and be part of a national conversation about the outcome. be on location at the hillary clinton and donald trump election night headquarters and watch victory and concession speeches in key senate, house and governors' races, starting live at 8:00 p.m. eastern and throughout the following 24 hours. watch live on c-span, on demand at c-span.org, or listen to our live coverage using the free c-span radio app. as the nation elects a new president on tuesday, will america have its first foreign-born first lady since louisa adams, or will we have a former president as first gentleman?

learn more about the influence of america's presidential spouses, from c-span's "first ladies," now available in paperback. "first ladies" gives readers a look into the personal lives and impact of every first lady in american history. "first ladies" is a companion to c-span's well-regarded biography series and features interviews with the nation's leading first ladies historians. each chapter also offers brief biographies of 45 presidential spouses and archival photos from their lives. "first ladies" in paperback, published by public affairs, is now available at your favorite bookseller and also as an e-book. next, a panel of experts on nato talks about the most recent conference of nato leaders held in july 2016. the potomac institute for policy studies hosts this discussion on challenges facing nato over the next year, particularly russia's military aggression in georgia, ukraine and syria. they also talk about the u.s.

election and how the next president could best handle relations with nato. this is just over two hours. >> okay, folks, i guess we're ready to start. i've just gotten the high sign. so, along with our state department colleague and all of our distinguished panelists, we welcome you to this, i think, very, very timely discussion on the north american treaty alliance, the post warsaw pact agreement and the like and where do we go from here. for 67 years now, as all of you know, we've had the nato alliance, and it was always designed, really, to keep the peace and to do things that are proper and consistent with the, really, the western civilization as we knew it at the time, but it includes really the whole world.

i had the opportunity many years ago and participated in a number of high-level nato exercises and certainly meetings. and they were always more than matters of military. they took into account political considerations, economic considerations, societal considerations and the like. and i never went to one of those meetings without learning an awful lot and coming back and being more prepared to do what i had to do in my particular role. i think as we all know, after the ending of the former soviet union and the like, the nato opportunities began to shift, even before the former soviet union left us, even before that, nato began to be interested in what they called out-of-area operations, out-of-area considerations and the like in north africa and elsewhere around the world, and that was a start. and of course, since then, as you know as well as anyone, and

as our distinguished panelists certainly will begin to elaborate on here in the future, they have done many more things besides just the sole purpose of defending the countries in the nato alliance. and certainly, their work with the european union and the like, all that i think is not only very timely but of great interest today. and so, without further ado, i'll kick this thing off with yonah. you want to take the lead here and introduce our first speaker and the like? and our panelists? can you make it? >> we have one too many chairs up here. >> thank you very much for your opening remarks. welcome our speakers and

distinguished audience. this includes first and foremost our wonderful interns and students who are going to be the next generation of scholars and professionals and diplomats and media people. sharon, do you want to raise your hand where some of our bodyguards there. very quickly. we'll come down later on in terms of questions and so forth. obviously, we would like to invite first the panel, but i'm going to share it with our colleague, richard prosen, from the office of european security, political and military affairs at the u.s. state department. incidentally, we have for you the bios in great details, so

you can look at that later on, so we'll save a little bit of time. but i'm delighted to work with richard for quite a number of years. and first and foremost, we published that particular book. this is not a commercial, but on nato we worked on for a number of years. but actually, the journey begins really over 50 years ago when as a participant observer, i had the opportunity to work initially with the u.n. and then with nato during the cold war. and i won't go into it, but at least we produced an academic book. and we want to follow up with the work on nato. we also produced a report, which

was based on a similar seminar we held right here a number of months ago. but let me first begin that we actually co-sponsored this event, in addition, of course, to the potomac institute and

center for terrorism studies with our colleagues with international law institute, law school as well as the center for national security law of the university of virginia school of law. now, the rationale basically, i think, for having this event is the general already mentioned in terms of marking, let's say, the 28th anniversary of nato. nato daily broad range of new challenges including piracy and terrorism, original global security conflict, humanitarian crises, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyber, and the list goes on and on. in the face of this strategic and other concerns, in the aftermath of the warsaw summit that focuses on various issues that we're going to detail including the modernization of the alliance, and projecting stability and all that, really the question arises for us as both professionals, academic and future scholars and dips and so

on. basically, whether the 28th nation members of nato, and some are represented in this audience, will continue to play the central role, political role, the military role in the coming months and years. and we can really go into a very long list of the challenges which are in the front pages of the media every single day. so, with that i would like to invite a person to share the moderation of this event and introduce some of his colleagues and we're going to move on. why don't you come up here

first. >> richard prosin from the state department, i work for the guy, the gentleman to my left, in the office of european regional security and political military affairs. i've had the pleasure working with him for many years. it's been an excellent collaborative project and i would commend the book to you for your reading in nato from regional to global security provider. i'm very pleased to be with you today to help co-moderate today's event. i want to express my appreciation to our distinguished panelists, members

and also to potomac institute for policy studies for hosting today's event. nato as an alliance acquires its potency not only from its military capabilities but also from its democratic ideals. from our belief in human dig and our respect for human aspirations. in fact, the washington treaty, which founded nato in 1949, emphatically states our collective defense alliance is also a community of values founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. we are now at a pivotal moment, i would argue, for our alliance. in the nearly 70 years of nato's existence, maybe have we never faced such a range of challenges all at once. security, humanitarian and political. yet nato is as important and violation for our security as ever, especially as we face a more dangerous road ahead. terrorism, as we know, affects us all from brussels to san bernardino to orlando, nice, paris and the list goes on. we stand together in the fight against daesh. nato is stepping up by contributing awax aircraft to

improve our overall intelligence reconnaissance. nato is moving forward with enhanced information-sharing measures and other capabilities as well. we have to remember nato's biggest military operation in afghanistan was a direct response to 9/11. as president obama and other leaders have noted in warsaw, we did far more than simply reaffirm our article 5 obligations to our common security. ally agreed to the most significant reinforcement of our collective defense at any time since the cold war. warsaw just this summer. one of the bumper -- well, the bumper sticker headline for warsaw was nato, an aessential alliance protecting our citizens and projecting stability. nato secretary-general stoltenberg recently at a discussion, he had in harvard just a month ago said kind of poignantly put this together in the phrase, standing together as we always have done, stronger together as we always have been. i think that summarizes where we are right now with nato.

in short, with renewed strength, resources and capability, nato will continue to uphold our shared values and meet the full range of shared threats. together with my colleagues from potomac institute, we have provided documents and few background documents on the -- from the nato's press office. the nato press office put together a summary narrative that was handed out to summarize nato's and alliance's recent accomplishments. the goal of today's event is simple and yet important. we would like to take stock of where we are and nato's capabilities and operations of today and provide suggestions on ways ahead for the near future. we are pleased you could join us here today. we look forward to a stimulating and thought-provoking discussion from our panel of experts. with that, i would like to turn it over to the gentleman to my left, joe manso, director of the office that handles nato policy

at u.s. department of state. joe? >> thanks, richard. okay. today's topic is nato's post-warsaw agenda. i would like to put a brief spin on what happened just before warsaw and what happened after warsaw. so, before warsaw we had another summit, the whale summit, that actually had significant accomplishments in three areas. the first area was strengthening of nato itself in terms of the tools available to the alliance and the creation of two new programs. one for enhanced opportunity partners, which brought a number of nations much closer to the alliance, finland, sweden, georgia, australia and jordan. each one bringing unique capabilities and regional insights and these nations are now working with nato in a very close way. also led to the creation of something called defense capacity building missions. the thought here being that part

of the security structure as we look forward is going to be training countries around the world in terms of building their military and security capabilities. so, these two things were created at the warsaw -- at the wales summit. in addition, of course, wales came after soviet intervention or russian intervention -- i date myself -- in ukraine and the immediate reaction of the allies, which was quite firm, was upheld at wales. part of this was the creation of the readiness action plan and the deployment of allied forces on a rotational basis in certain parts of eastern europe and also the suspension of day-to-day activities of the nato/russia council, keeping open, however, the possibility of political level discussions at the level of ambassadors.

and the third area of work, which occurred at wales, but was largely on the margins of the summit but occurred there physically was the creation of the counter isil coalition. it was a very intense 48-hour period of activity at wales where a lot got done. this sets the stage as these decisions were implemented for the warsaw summit. now, in warsaw, again, i would divide the work of the summit into three baskets. the three baskets would be work that was done in the east as we move from reassurance to deterrence. a large part is the enhanced forward presence, the deployment of four battalions and four eastern european countries, the three balts and poland, the u.s., germany, canada and the uk taking the lead for these battalions but a number of other allies also contributing forces. in addition, we had just before

the summit, an exercise that certified the very high readiness joint task force as part of nato's rapid reaction capabilities and we also had agreement on a tailored presence in southeastern europe. so, this was part of the package of moving from reassurance to deterrence. also a package regarding those in the south. nato was prepared to offer support to the counter-isil coalition, particularly in the areas of awax flights and defense-capacity building and nato offered support to the eu, in particular to "operation sophia" in the central med. this was a package of issues related to security challenges coming from the south.

and the third basket of issues i would look at in terms of both new challenges and an increasing more effective nato/eu cooperation. nato in the eu issued a joint declaration. they were going to work on a number of areas more closely together, including hybrid, including cyber, and this is something we're following very carefully. if we look at the recent defense minister's meeting at the end of october, we see that progress has been made on all these fronts. that indeed, the nations that are the framework nations for enhanced forward presence will in the first half of next year be deploying the battalions as agreed into eastern europe. these are on a rotational basis. "operation sophia" in the eu have requested nato support and nato has agreed to provide both information and sharing in situational awareness as well as logistical support to sophia. they've also agreed to continue

the activity and, of course, nato is working on further -- furthering its cooperation with the eu. and i would expect that at foreign ministers in december, we will see a more detailed report of where we are on implementation of our cooperation with the eu. so this brings us wales and warsaw, i think, together represent very significant development in terms of nato's -- both its actual capabilities and the focus of the alliance. nato has always been a political military alliance. allies can come to discuss with their allies, in fact, any security issue that is of concern to them at nato. nato has also been able to adapt to a new security environment through these two summits. so, finally, as we look forward, the brussels summit has been agreed to for next year. it's difficult for me to go into a lot of detail into the

brussels summit for a couple of reasons. one is, in fact, allies have not yet agreed formally on an agenda for the brussels summit, but also because some of you may have heard we have an election in the united states in the next week and i can't commit the new administration to any kind of policy. what i would say is, very likely allies will be looking in brussels to take a look at the decisions that were made at warsaw and to take stock of the implementation of those decisions, which do seem to be on track and will be an important part of the brussels summit. i'll conclude, i've worked on and off with nato summit. i must say that i was very, very favorably impressed by the mood. allies at the summit by the prompt action and the firm action that they took by the level of unity and the spirit of unity, both in terms of

reassurance and deterrence and in terms of the need to take action to new challenges -- regarding new challenges in the south. and i was also struck by the empathy allies -- where eastern allies understood that they were different but real security concerns in the south and southern allies understood that there were real but different security concerns in the east. so, i would say that nato, while not a perfect alliance is a healthy alliance and we can look forward to next year with some degree of confidence. thank you. >> our next speaker is kurt volker.

>> if you can see me, i'll do it from here, is that okay? great, thank you. thanks very much. i'm going to pick up right where joe left off, which is even though the topic here is nato after the warsaw summit, i'm going to start off with nato after november 8th. my thought there to start off with is that it is important we remember first who we are. the united states is a democracy, a market economy, a country that cherishes freedom and abide by the rule of law, seeks the rule of law, seeks human rights and seeks to build security in the world. we are best off in a world in which those things are respected and those things are growing in the world. and we are best off when we are working with allies who share those same values and same goals and we are building security together.

and that's why nato continues to be a vital interest for the united states today, during the cold war, currently and also after november 8th and looking forward, the united states needs a healthy, strong, vibrant nato for its own well-being, for its own u.s. national security interest. we need a strong and effective nato. we are facing around nato, nato countries, the most security challenges we have seen in a generation. let's tick them off. we have russia has has invaded ukraine, has annexed crimea, that continues to support insurance and destabilize the government in kiev, to russia that has invaded and occupy and continues to occupy two parts of georgia, and just "the new york times" just the other day had a

piece how they continuously move the border around in the parts they occupy in georgia. they have violated the cfe treaty, the confidence building measures, they violated the inf treaty violated the budapest memorandum which guaranteed ukraine security for giving up nuclear weapons. of all the agreements done after 1989, they all contained the language respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all european states and refraining from the threat or use of force and refraining from changing borderers by force. russia has thrown all of that out of the window. in addition to all those russia-centric things with the military buildup, threatening nuclear use, violating country's air space and sea space, we also have the largest refugee crisis plaguing europe in a generation and one that has destabilized politics in europe substantially, some going into power, some not in power but

challenging the politics there. we have the -- that refugee crisis is part of the largest humanitarian crisis we've seen in our lifetimes as well since world war ii at least where the syrian civil war has had the assad regime kill somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 of its own people and has produced over 12 million displaced persons. more than half the country is displaced as a result of this. we most recently saw russia's intervention in syria on behalf of the assad government, together with iran and hezbollah. they're laying siege to aleppo in some of the most barbaric direct attacks on civilians we have seen, again, since world

war ii. we face an ungoverned state in libya and that is a particular concern for nato because it was nato's military operation that took out the gadhafi government. unlike bosnia, kosovo or afghanistan, nato did not do a follow-on operation in libya to try to gather weapons, create a monopoly of security and a single security sector and build the mechanisms of a state. that is still something that needs to be done while nato is vital for the united states looking forward, it is facing an environment that is more dangerous and more challenging than anything we have seen since the cold war. and nato's adaptation after 1989, i think, was all in the right direction. it was all moving and doing many of the right things. this is continued emphasis on collective defense, a new focus on crisis management such as in bosnia or kosovo or afghanistan. focus on building partnerships, so nato doesn't view the world

as a theater of operations but also a theater where we work with partners to try to deal with security challenges together. nato enlarged, it went from 16 members during the cold war to 28 and soon to be 29 today. it built -- it sought to built a constructive relationship with russia through the permanent joint council and it transformed its military capabilities from massive heavy armed forces in europe to lighter, more mobile ones. while doing this, nato lost a tremendous deal of public support, particularly after the war in iraq, which caused a lot of european publics to want to distance from the united states. countries wanted to cash in on a peace dividend. we saw a massive decline in nato defense spending. we saw a disappointment and dispiritedness with the intervention in afghanistan that left allies less and less willing to engage in crisis management.

at that same time nato was in that kind of decline, that's where we saw russia turn itself around. we saw it invade its neighbors, violate agreements, all these things i've said. what i've seen most recently with nato is, perhaps, hitting bottom and beginning to pull back up again. we've seen some countries, particularly those in the east increase defense spending. we've seen the deployment of forces in the baltic states, poland, bulgaria, we've seen an effort to put nato further east. and i think in this respect we should be very grateful to retired phil breedlove who led this effort within nato. he essentially took over where there was a lack of will, lack of political decision-making and allied capitals and he kept nato's core article x defense commitment alive. but, unfortunately, in these other areas of crisis management and partnership and enlargement and so forth, nato has really

lost some steam. so, the next thing i would say is that as a new administration takes office, one thing we can be certain of is adversaries or opponents around the world will seek to challenge that new u.s. government. to see how they will react. i think we will see efforts to test a new administration from russia, from china, from isis, from north korea, perhaps from cuba. and we hope a new u.s. administration is up to the challenge. and i think it needs to look at these proactively. it needs to define clear goals, clear lines, clear strategies and have them upheld from the beginning days of the administration in order to create stability. on that i'll close on this.

the question was posed in the written material, what should be on the 100-day agenda for the new administration in dealing with nato? i would say that four things are critical for that new administration. one, reaffirm the centrality and u.s. commitment to article v of the nato treaty. this is the heart of nato. we can't be casting any doubt about it. the u.s. needs to be clear and committed to collective defense. second, we need to call on nato to re-engage in crisis management. all these crises that i mentioned, ukraine, georgia, syrian refugee, syrian civil war, isis, libya, these are things that nato is largely not dealing with -- or not dealing with effectively at the moment. and i think a new administration needs to call on nato to do that. finally -- thirdly, i'm sorry, thirdly, we need to reiterate our commitment and belief to a europe whole free and at peace. a europe where all the people of europe have the same rights as everybody else to chart their own destiny as democracies, market economies in a secure

environment. there shouldn't be a dividing line that says some countries that happen to make it in in 2002 are covered and those that were left out, well, too bad and now you're part of russia's fear of influence. we should not accept that. finally, we should reach out to russia but we should do so on the basis of making clear that russia has the choice to make. nato is there as a collective defense organization. one, based on these core values. it does not threaten anyone or seek to threaten anyone, but it will be strong in defending its members. and in that context, we would like to have a very constructive and positive relationship with russia, building security. we mean no harm or threat to russia. but russia, which has violated all of these understandsings since 1989, needs to come to terms with that kind of west, with that kind of nato. and if it chooses to do so, i think we'll have a very constructive relationship with

russia. those would be the four things i would hope a new administration would put out very firmly and very quickly. thank you. >> thank you very much, ambassador volker, for your overview and insights. and clearly, it triggers a lot of comments and questions. but i will suggest in the interest of our dialogue and discussion, to wait before coming back to your issues. and i would like to introduce our other speaker now, honorable ken wainstein, who will provide a broader context in terms of some of the challenges, not only related to nato, but beyond. since we do have the bio, as i mentioned before, so you can look at some of the details, let

me mention just a few highlights about his many extraordinary contribution to the national security concerns. as you can see from the bio, he's a former homeland security adviser to president bush, assistant attorney general on national security of the united states, attorney for the district of colombia, general counsel of the fbi and chief of staff to the director of robert mueller, incidentally, who contributed a great deal to our academic work. and we're privileged that he's a member -- distinguished member of the blue ribbon study panel

on biodefense with senator joe lieberman and some of the other colleagues. i would like also to mention his academic, distinguished accomplishments. some of the universities we're working with, georgetown university law school, also g.w. for many, many years and the university of virginia and berkeley. so, it's not too bad. and we're delighted to continue the relationships. i would like to also mention that he received many awards for his many contributions as i mentioned before. so, he will provide a broader context to our discussion. and then we're going to continue with the other panelists, and then invite the audience to participate in our dialogue. ken, would you like to come here or sit down there? whatever is -- >> i'm fine right here, if that's okay. >> if you're comfortable, sure. >> i'm comfortable. thank you. good to see everybody. let me just start off by sort of

framing a term that he used twice when he said i'm going to discuss the broader context. that is sort of code for i'm going to discuss something beyond what we're talking about here today. so he asked me about a month ago if i'd join this panel. he said, i've got this great panel of nato experts. i'd love to you join them. i said, that's great. i'd love to join. only problem s i'm not a nato expert. he said, that's fine. you'll be -- you'll provide the broader context. which you can tell from my biography is i'm a law enforce. intel guy. that's my background. in the course of those jobs i spent a good deal of time working with our foreign partners in europe and nato auspices and otherwise.

what i thought i would do in terms of the broader context is discuss nato and counterterrorism. the challenge, the threat we're dealing with right now. and nato, the extent to which it is or is not suited to address the current threat. so, that's the angle i'm going to take. i'm going to do that sort of by drawing on my experiences since 9/11 as part of the law enforcement, intelligence community here in the u.s., trying to take the apparatus we had as of 9/11, the culture, the process -- the counterterrorism process we had at 9/11 and bring it up to speed so that we can prevent terrorism on our shores. and then draw analogies for what nato has to do to do the same more broadly throughout the alliance. so, if you take a look back at the history of nato, as has been said here by the panel, it's a political and military alliance. yet the one time the article v was provoked was in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist

attacks. i think since that date we've seen increasing focus on counterterrorism as part of the alliance's mandate. culminating in the counterterrorism guidelines i think were issued back in 2012 and then continuing interest and attention being paid to terrorism threats since then. and that's attention and time well spent because i think it doesn't take much to realize -- much thinking to realize how the terrorism threat that nato across the board is facing is increasing. increasing in seriousness, increasing in volume of threats, and increasing in terms of the complexity of the organizations and operations we're facing. i mean, you just go through some of the factors that have come up in the last few years. the rise of isis or isil, which has obviously been a game-changer. they almost make al qaeda look quantity in terms of their

barbarity, their success, frankly, and -- and the level of infrastructure and operational complexity they're capable of. you've got the flow of immigrants, obviously, since the syria crisis into -- throughout europe. you've got fighters flowing down to the isis -- you know, join isis and fight the wars in syria. and those same fighters returning. hardened, trained fighters coming back to their homeland wanting to carry the fight back to the homeland. you've got the homegrown terrorism phenomenon and has that has been actually accelerated and exacerbated by the isis narrative and the fact that, you know, isis now -- it has a caliphate in its eyes. people feel like they can -- that's something that they can grab onto. they want to fight for. and i think we're seeing the impact it's having in terms of really energizing people to become homegrown terrorists throughout the west, including here in the united states. and you've got the fact that with -- with al qaeda core, in other words, the traditional al qaeda that was established and headquartered in afghanistan and pakistan, with the diminution of its authority and the greater sort of franchising of al qaeda and then isis, which is now growth of al qaeda in iraq, you see more and more of these

threats being franchised around the world. in many ways that's a more difficult challenge to deal with, for all of us, including nato, than the sort of more traditional al qaeda threat we had on 9/11. so the long and short of it is, for all of these various reasons the threat is real and it's only getting more and more serious. so, what should nato do about it in this is where i go back to my initial remarks is, you know, a lot of things that need to be done to try to beat this threat. and you know in particular that an educational institution, particularly for our young people of color, is preparing them to move into a world that will change every day, but a world in which they must thrive and lead. they are leading. they're marching on the streets and working on these issues. they're also focusing on the

issue. personnel not coordinated. they were prevented by law from coordinating their operations even though law enforcement officials were going after terrorists as a criminal threat. and intelligence is going after the same terrorists as intelligence objectives. they were unable and oftentimes unwilling to coordinate and share information you had the fbi itself internally. you had agents focused on intelligence operations, on criminal investigations, and often they were not -- did not

share information sometimes were prevented from sharing information you had federal law enforcement that wasn't coordinated with local law enforcement. there was coordination in the federal and state and local level. and general intelligence level. you didn't have coordination and sharing of information and so this was a situation that we confronted as of september 11th, 2001. and just to make clear, this wasn't the fault of anybody in the administration or anyone was terribly short sighted. but it was the severity of the threat.

we saw but almost didn't want to believe it was coming our way and was going to be as serious as it was as it became manifest on september 11th. we needed the political will to make those cohabitation. we got them. it took 9/11 to do it but we got them and a lot of changes made since then. i'll tick off a few, cia and intelligence community generally working with the fbi on a much more regular basis. joint briefings and information sharing happening almost on day one after 9/11 in a way they had never happened before. national counter-terrorism center, which is designed to draw together terrorism information from around the country, all around the federal government. you've got the fbi becoming much more of an intelligence-driven entity, not just livermore. you've got federal agencies and state and local agencies working very closely together with fusion centers, joint terrorism task forces, dhs, department of homeland security working closely with state and locals.

even mundane things like more police officers receiving clearances so they can actually get access to terrorism information, intelligence they need to keep their communities safe. so you've got all those changes that have been going on since 9/11 in the united states. the result is a lot of improvement but still a work in progress. i say that because as i look at nato and our alliance more broadly, we're facing the exact same challenges that the u.s. individually faced on day one. the challenges really are to develop coordination that's necessary to prevent terrorism before it happened. just to go back and investigate after it happened but prevent it. whether that's under the auspices of nato via cooperation and coordination among all the member states so. all those same challenges are there, but

actually even more. i think this is the sobering part of my remarks, which is that, you know, when we were trying to develop more coordination here in the u.s., we were dealing with one country. one country, same sort of general set of rules. but when we're dealing with 28 different countries, it's a different ball game. i saw it in my interactions with foreign partners. completely fundamental level, even definitional level, different countries see terrorism as a different type of problem. i remember in like 2006, 2007, a meeting with a number of our foreign partners, we were working very closely together, making a lot of operational headway against various terrorism threats. but we were talking about military commissions act, which had just been passed, which set up military commissions by law or by statute. and it was fascinating, because

our foreign partners were very upset about that, actually, because their point was these are western european partners. the point was, this is not a war. this is a law enforcement action. this is not a war. we've seen war on our shores. we've seen what war is, and this is not war. to them they saw what we're dealing with after 9/11 more akin to like red brigades, the gang of the 1970s and less a war, whereas united states often done what we do here, existential problem, called it a war and went after it. mobilized our country and went after it. just that definitional issue, very foundational level causes problems of coordination. another is very different legal

systems we're dealing with among the different countries. you know, another anecdote, i remember talking to a number of our partners about our effort, the united states effort to try to get passenger name record information. the names of people on airplanes, manifest information. for obvious reasons. we were attacked by airplanes in 9/11. in the american legal culture, third party records -- in other words, records held by third party like this kind of information doesn't get that much protection, legal protection. that's the way it developed and that's the constitutional doctrine. in europe they are very protective of that kind of information. here we are asking for something we thought relatively a gimme, they were saying, no, that's something we can't give. in the same meeting, after having that confrontation, we started talking about jihadist websites and how we're dealing with that problem.

keeling with extremist websites, not going over the line to encourage violence and trying to figure out what to do with it, keeping with strong principles of first amendment rights. a couple of the folks we're dealing with said we take them down. to us that was unbelievable. they see it differently. neither side is right or wrong. the concern is when you're dealing with a security effort like this, that deals with law enforcement and individual liberties it's a real problem to court nature activities with different countries, different legal expectations. those different expectations extend to different expectations about classified information, how to share classified information among different countries. here in the u.s. one system by the federal government and could share among people entitled to get that information.

every country has its own and it's difficult to do. in other words, we have a number of different challenges for nato to try to move to the next level in terms of coordination, coordination is the touch stone of prevention. you can't prevent an attack, terrorist incident, unless you coordinate intelligence collection, intelligence targeting, collection, intelligence dissemination and the operation is based on that intelligence. and i just to sort of wind this up, get past the more sobering part of it, i applaud the fact there's a new assistant secretary-general for intelligence. i think that's a step forward. interesting to see how that's defined in practice. i understand it was initially established with the idea it

would focus on russian military capabilities. obviously a big part of that person's mandate is going to be dealing with terrorist threat, particularly isis threat. that person's job is going to be to try to do something roughly comparable to what we've been trying to do in the u.s. the last 15 years. either been made more difficult by peculiar challenges trying to do this across an alliance like he or she is going to have to do and try to get different players to work together despite all these various logistical, practical, and legal obstacles. it's my hope the member states alliance and public will demonstrate and have the will to do that. there is a lot of tough decisions to be made. given the threat we have right now, it's a job that's got to be done. >> thank you very much. thank you for your overview covering so much territory in a short period of time. obviously we come back to many issues after we ask our colleagues to make their brief

presentation. just a quick footnote since you mentioned 9/11 meeting, anniversary we had this month right here with john gray and our colleagues. a discussion on the lessons of 9/11 and we remember particularly the victims. john o'neill who contributed to academic work we know very well lost his live, trying to save lives of others people. we knew personally a number of people and students who happened to be in the building. i think what's critical since we have representatives of diplomatic embassies that over

90 different nations were affected by this terrible tragedy. somehow we learned short history. anyway, let me move onto our next speaker. it is, indeed, a privilege for me to introduce dr. -- professor daniel emerson. as i said, you have the bio. i just mentioned some highlights former u.s. secretary of state of foreign affairs and special coordinator in southeast european civilization and associate director of policy planning for two u.s. secretary of states. currently executive director of the senator of transatlantic relations johns hopkins university and personal professional level, i'm

delighted that daniel published many books. one of them on terrorism and international relations. i was privileged to be part of the theme -- team in a conference like this one. i would like to mention the particular book. what we're looking forward to is insights again because presently dealing with this issue of the warsaw summit and the follow-up to what's happening, particularly eastern question, russia, the west, and europe, call the gray zone and publish on these issues. professor. >> thank you. appreciate being here with everyone. let me pick up the thread what they are saying and wrap what ken had said as well. so i think we're back to this

tale of three summits. actually we have a paper coming out tomorrow on our website, nato's future tale of three summits. the trajectory mentioned on intel side. nato tends to move ahead because it gets pushed at the summits to make basic decisions. that's how when you have 28 countries you lurch forward or not. so the wales and warsaw summits were important. it's important to step back as my colleagues do just for a moment. i think going into warsaw and even wales, we were facing over the last number of years sort of two tensions within the alliance. one you could call out or intention, which was a couple decades, nato's mantra out of area or out of business

following the end of the cold war. time to project stability, trying to do things because all the real challenges were outside. there were others, especially since 9/11, who would tart to make the case, especially since russia's activities, the new mantra has to be in area or in trouble. i think what at warsaw happened, both those themes came back together. it wasn't posed as an either-or choice anymore. we realized as an alliance we have to do both. make the credibility article 5 sacrosanct, make sure everybody believes it, and you act to enforce it. then you also say we have to deal with real challenges at home, which are not just traditional ones. the frontline today used to be gap, worry about traditional armies. today the front line could be ground bazaar in istanbul, frankfurt airport, metro. those are real security challenges not one

traditionally, so how do you square that circle? i think at warsaw the alliance did some of that. come back to that in a minute. i think the other tinge we had building was sort of a attention between what's the security challenge in the east or south and refer to that, where we had a lot of countries in the south saying the middle east is on fire, all this is coming to hurt us. this is really, really, really the main security challenge. then our eastern allies were saying what about russia? look what they are doing. we're really threatened by this, you've got pay attention. this has to be the most important decision. i think the alliance did a good job bringing that back together to say unfortunate not only challenges in the east and south but they are beginning to merge. you could argue that the russian -- intrusion of russian state power in the middle east has started to blend some of the traditional issues, terrorism and instability with an activity

state agent intent on disruption and power projection. if you go east you see instabilities in the middle east starting to go that way as well. the question is do you want a stable area in the east that abuse the east or another unstable area in europe abutting the unstable area in the middle east. none of that in our area. some had tried to bridge that gap. in the meantime, however, i think what we're finding, there's another problem and that's inside the west. there has been a lot of verbiage in this campaign about the value or lack of value of nato. i think many european allies are wondering where the united states stands. there have been over the years sort of a distancing from nato as we thought europe was fixed, yankee jargon, time to move on to other challenges. i think we realized that's not the case.

there are really a lot of questions in europe still about where the u.s. is, what it's committed to in terms of the alliance and its commitment to europe. frankly we have the same concerns about europe. we're sort of having the same conversation about each other these days. if you look at europe, not just given the issues he said, but brexit, economic crisis, in addition to migration crisis russian activities, you're facing europe -- i'm saddened to say this, europe is going to be much more fluid, much more uncertain, much less capable, much less credible. only the u.s. presence and continued activity engagement in europe, as a european power, will maintain that affirmation

of our assurance to our european allies about what this is all about. i think we're dealing with fundamentally important new issue, which eats away at our ability to do what the other wants unless we get ahold of that. if you come to the next first 100 days or come to the next agenda, the most important -- and i agree with curt on that, simply a political affirmation, we are in this together. we agree on the broad nature of the threat facing us and we will stand and face them together. the credibility of article 5 and article 4 and all the other articles, in fact, are still with us and we affirm that to each other. that means the next president really has to take the lead immediately, not projecting to summit and bureaucratic schedule but make a political summit perhaps right away to make and affirm that underlying political message. then i think you can get back to the summit agenda as it's unfolding. i would highlight three points on the cor nato agenda. juan is something nato traditionally does and knows

what it does. it probably is doing now fairly well, which is defense, deterrents. it has projected forward defense into its own allies in the east. everything that was said, i don't need to duplicate that. the challenge, we're deploying these forces. but given where europe is and the state of european conventional forces, you can't get there from here unless you beef up the size, scale, operational, the ability with all the rules and regulations mentioned across europe to allow forces to get to threaten parts of the alliance which they can't do today. what we call follow on forces, seems to me a core issue now within the summit agendas going forward building on what was done at warsaw and wales. i think there are two others, though, that are important. this takes us into what was said about the broader context.

it's not just -- a summit is about what nato should do. you only know what nato should do if you know where nato fits. because nato is not the lead on every issue we face. it is important in some areas. it's useless in other areas depending what we decide are our priorities. we have to understand where nato plays a role, where it takes the lead, where it can be a supportive actor and where it can sort of be the ensemble of issue that deal with challenges. that's the toughest issue, to sort out where nato should take the lead and where it should do something else. curt's point about crisis management sort of fits in that second basket. here i think we're facing some challenges for nato. one is it's not accustomed to doing these kinds of roles very well. we're also entering into some new security realms that's not accustomed to do on its own.

so i think we have to tease that out. so my sect priority beside follow-on forces is one area. i've been pushing this for a long time, which some know, has to do with resilience. the warsaw summit outlined a

number of baseline requirements that every ally should be able to meet under article 3 of north atlantic treaty, which is sort of the self-help part. every alliance -- should protect it's self first, then if you can guarantee that, of course we're working together. i think they have tried to define resilience agenda in a very solid way. it's very practical. it gives every nation some homework to do. i'm encouraged by it. as someone working, just push it a little bit. for me article 3, defining resilience as article 3 agenda is a static notion of what resilience really is. it's really linked the way it's been defined into infrastructures, continuity, government, so on. how do you define the networks that keep society going, vital functions of society if you want to phrase it that way. unfortunately none of those are national anymore. they are all interdependent. you cannot have a plan in one country for protecting electrical grid if the plan next door is different. so resilience going forward has to be shared. there has to be a project about shared resilience, not just country by country boxes. i think the next piece of resistance we should push on, weak, fragile, susceptible by disruption, either by intentional state actors or groups or individuals. how do you make sure those

countries are resilient? if they aren't resilient, doesn't matter how resilient you are because everything will bounce back into territory. my two watch words would be shared, has to be shared, and we have to project it forward. we have to think about projecting resilience, forward resilience as a new type of project for the alliance. but not only alliance but come back to where nato fits. much of this is civilian. much is where the eu plays a role or individual countries. look at my friend yohan, sweden and finland have huge predictions because of the their particular status, they had to defend their selves. they have a whole notion of societal security and techniques that the rest of us could profit from. it provides a new link for us with those countries as well in this area that nato is probably not going to do the lead. it's going to be part of what we do. the last one has to do with the same sort of set of issues, which is the issue of the basket of issues in the south. some would say nato needs southern strategy, but there's no sort of one southern issue.

it's just a conglomeration of issues. again, i think my guiding question is where does nato fit into that basket. not does nato do it all. i don't think it can. you see this with the point of coalition. yes it was formed as part but nato not part of the counter-isil coalition. many southern allies are very reluctant to get into new commitments in nato and their neighborhood. many arab states reluctant to see nato quad nato engaged. and if we're honest, the u.s. government doesn't know if it should be engaged because we're having a fight among our own commands with sent com saying, i'm not so sure about that. ucom saying, well, we have things to offer.

internal battle, u.s. not been clear on its own stake in this and that only feeds into uncertainty about nature's role, ken's point about counter-terrorism. we need to think harder about where nato fits in the south, there are a number of things to do, warsaw did a number of things, but could accept it up more, maritime strategy, particularly hard power hearts of the southern agenda. so let me stop there. i think those are three points i would say going forward besides broad political point, which is most important. thank you. >> thank you, dan. excellent remarks. just going to turn it over to jeff radke. jeff used to work in the same office i currently work with joe. he's now the deputy director and senior fellow -- deputy director of strategic international studies, senior fellow as well. we heard about military adaptation since russian aggression in ukraine and some of the military and security issues will test the next

administration. i agree with the points that have been developed so far. personally on that score, my view is that after a lot of very necessary and effective work by nato, primarily in dealing with the conventional military posture on the land in central and eastern europe, the most pressing need from military perspective is for nato to address its air and maritime posture and capabilities in the baltic sea region, black sea and eastern mediterranean. but if i can take a step back

and look from slightly different angle. if we're thinking about top one or two priorities for an incoming administration, that is the things that the united states government has to get right in order to advance our interests in europe and to advance our common interests with europe, in the euro atlantic region and around the world, i think the top priority is a political one. that is to address the u.s. interests that are affected by a fragmenting europe. a europe that is increasingly divided among competing visions, sometimes individual member states and sometimes within member states. now it perhaps should go without saying. the united states relies on europe. it is not only our biggest

economic and trade relationship, our most interconnected defense relationship through nato, our intelligence sharing, our political cooperation. if you take almost any area of government activity, we work closely and often most closely with our european friends and allies. but now we're in a situation where european unity is under pressure from several different directions. unless you're an advocate of american unilateralism, which generally doesn't work out particularly well for the united states, we need to find a way to recognize and to address the way that affects our interests. now, the european reaction to the somewhat centrifugal tendencies has also not been monolithic. you have on the one hand brexit,

and at the same time you have the european union producing a global strategy which is a good document that outlines a number of areas where the european union plays and important role and can play an even more important role in the future. so you have both tendencies. which of these will win out and what europe is going to look like in several years after these various tendencies have resolved themselves is anybody's guess, but it certainly affects the u.s. ability to relate to europe, to cooperate with europe, not just militarily but politically and economically as well. we need to be actively engaged especially if you think about the possible consequences of a so-called hard brexit, an abrupt severing of the relationship

with the european union and/or an acrimonious negotiation between the uk and the remaining european countries about the terms of that exit. so i think what this mean is there needs to be an intensified u.s. investment not just in our partnership with european union and partnership with the uk, but also an engagement in certain instances of the specific issues that will develop, that will arise between the uk and eu so we minimize the risks to our shared prosperity as well as our ability to act in a coordinated fashion, effective fashion around the world. so that's a bit about the internal challenges. the external challenges, the euro atlantic region, europe and united states face the problem

of external malign influence. i would point to anyone who hasn't read it to at least be open in the warsaw communique. the thing is pretty long. joe manson if you had a hand in any of the language that appeared in it, i would give you great credit for it chlt for those of you who deal with those kinds of consensus documents, they often wind up reading like consensus documents. if you look at the opening perhaps of warsaw communique which looks at russia's actions and role, it is quite stark and well put. it says russia has breached the values, broken the trust, and challenged fundamental principles of global and euro atlantic security architecture. nice words are one things but this is backed up by actions, some we've already heard discussed have changed deterrence equation in conventional terms in europe. but that's not the only challenge we face.

russia for many years has tried to exert influence on the political direction and developments in nato partner and in some nato member states. we are recognizing this more fully in the united states now. if we look to the future, we should expect russia to attempt to influence other election processes and state actions regardless whether there is an election in a particular country or not. if we look at that clear warsaw statement about how russia's aggressive actions have changed the security environment and the measures that deal with it, i think a priority should be a shared transatlantic recognition of the attempts by russia to exert russia on our politics. that means a recognition that this is happening and that we can't see it separately from russia's military pressure on

the transatlantic community and aggression in the ukraine. it means a clear statement that there will be consequences if that behavior continues. and from that recognition, then would flow elements of a transatlantic agenda that includes the european union as well as nato, because dan was absolutely right. there are certain things nato does well and certain things nato does less well. we shouldn't ask it to do the things it is not well set up to do. i think this will involve several things. it will involve cyber security, economic state craft, which includes cooperation and harmonization on things such as economic sanctions. it will involve transparency, media freedom issues and a whole host of steps that will help reinforce integrity of our democracies which are the fundamental thing we are protecting.

as curt laid out. i'll stop there and hand the microphone over but that's where the focus needs to be. >> thank you so much, jeff, for many of the issues you raised. it brought back memories decades ago, some of the colleagues at csi. ambassador in brussels dealing with some of these issues. again, we were trying to see what worked and what didn't work, and we'll come back to some of your issues. finally, we do a brief presentation by george benetz, who s apparently is director and

senior fellow at the center for international security atlantic council. he dealt with these issues for many, many years and looking forward to his views and then we're going to develop some discussion. >> thank you. thank you for inviting me to be part of this panel and discussing one of the top security issues for the united states, which is how nato is responding to the new security environment in europe. what is this new security environment? after decades of peace in europe, we see russia has invaded two of its neighbors and brought interstate war to the continent. as you've heard already, nato responded to this in 2014 at wales summit and this summer at the warsaw summit by taking some very important decisions. while i agree that these steps nato has taken so far are

helpful and good, i also see these steps have been insufficient and have not restored deterrence to europe. restored deterrence to europe. i think i see a strategic gap in europe between the limited steps that nato has taken so far and the more robust measures that need to be taken to restore security in europe. the source of this strategic app r -- g-- gap -- gap f--o mamanr many nap manymao understaunderstan understand t thr that hathat havp rt europep europeeuropean sec. to put it simply, nato's response so far has been too slow.pnato leadena ther them, wathem, wath

pas if this iras if f facing in 2016. these new threats come in three different shapes and changes. these are changes in nato's geography, changes in technol>> littlittle time and understand we will sp we will see ww aggressive response and this is the map that most leaders are used to. we used to call the layered cake. you saw large deployment of nato troops from the united states and other nations in west germany. what you saw here is sort of the geographic temperament and view

that nato leaders are trying to avoid. they don't want to have large troop deployments, but at the same time, they fail to understand that as nato's borders have moved east there are certain key changes that have happened apart from the troop deployments. during the cold war, the zone of friction between nato and its main threat was based on one of the four largest nato members, west germany. this nato member was backed up by other nato members with significant military capabilities, france, belgium and netherlands and four deployments of significant allies, canada, united states. the new security environment we see now is very different. as nato's borders have moved east, now the new zone of friction we see, this is a map of the new geography of nato. this displays most of the provocations that we've seen from russians military aircraft

flying without trans responders on, sea space of some of the nonaligned countries in the region. we see that there is greater friction and interaction between hostile external forces and nato forces in the northeast. but in addition to that, the nato members that are most vulnerable are not only the most geographically farthest away, but they're also some of the smallest in the alliance. it is a very different dynamic than we had in the cold war. the cold war, west germany did lack strategic depth, it is even greater now with the location of the baltic republics. when we're dealing with a change in technology, this map displays some of the, what are called anti-access denial sites in the

we west. most of you have seen maps focusing on crimea, perhaps the new zone in the eastern mediterranean in syria. russia has significant capabilities in st. petersburg as well as near the arctic circle. with these, you can see, it is quite a bit of range. with this new tech nnology and these weapons, nato is facing, as you talk to leaders, they describe nato airspace as contested. as well as nato sea space. this means that even now, in the preconflict state, the amount of nato military and naval air craft that go in can easily be pressured, as we have seen by

some of the fly-bys. this changes the dynamic and greater emphasises for forward deployed forces. this a brief chart showing come of the capabilities, one of the most geographically invasive parts of russian military capabilities in nato airspace. from kaliniga r rad, a wide access of poland and the new news of s 400 missiles deployed, the range possible even to range far west as berlin. those were just the capabilities, some of the land capabilities of the new russian technology. these are some of the maritime capabilities. these are some of the caliber missiles that have been disclosed. two in new ships having these caliber missiles have been

deployed to the fleet. these were the same type of missiles that were launched from the capsean sea. russia had aircraft. it didn't need to use this case bipt -- capability. in addition to this, russia has deployed russian bombers from that base we saw in vermant, all across western europe, just to launch cruise missiles into syria. again, it had capabilities in syria already. it did not need to do that. moscow chose to use those capabilities to show what it could demonstrate going around and the range of its military options. then very briefly to discuss the change in the nature of the threat that nato is facing. russia is a much weaker power

military than the soviet union was. but at the same time, it is also true and a fact that russia remains -- has a quantifiable military superiority over all of its neighbors. through the west and south. the great red bar see there, those are russia's capabilities. all of the bars to the left, those are the military capabilities of russia's neighbors. russia wants its neighbors weak and unstable, so it can coerce them and influence them and shape their patterns. if we also look at the charts to the right of the russian military capability, these are some of the largest military powers in europe, including germany, france, united k. they don't match up to russia. this helps us to understand why putin's strategies and tactics are consistently to lean on

european countries, on even nato members, by laterally, one-on-one to separate them from the rest of the continent, the rest of their a lie yanlllianca threats. this has not happened to just russian threats, sweden and finland, military leaders, not to join nato or there will be repercussions. the danish ambassador from russia threatened denmark, a nato member, that their ships would be face nuclear targets from russian vessels if denmark contributed to nato defense system. now, russia is not the only threat that nato is facing. and the only threats that are nate know are facing are not just conventional. another significant part is the giuk gap. russia has deployed a far greater number of submarines in

the north atlantic, and again, with their technology, they're quieter than we've ever faced before. so the admiral richardson has expressed great concern about the united states to move through the contested sea space of the north atlantic. this is one of the reasons why deputy secretary of defense, bob work, visited iceland and the united states is committed to reopening the base in keplich, and antisubmarine helicopters there. but in addition to that we have the threats from the south. we have migrants, unprecedented movement into europe. in addition to that we have terrorism. now, for many nato allies, the russian threat is the main threat. there are key allies, france and belgium that see terrorism as their number one priority.

while the terrorists that attacked paris were about less than a dozen in number, they may be perhaps the most successful pinning force in military history, because those dozen terrorists are holding down 7,000 french troops that are deployed domestically for counterterrorism operations, rather than being available for other french ornate t nato miss. we have a campaign being raised by russia within nato capitols. we've seen the dnc hacked, but this is not an isolated incident. we've seen multiple types of these attacks, again, in nato territory. british intelligence admitted that in 2015, they foiled a significant cyber attack against the election.

german intelligence talks about the increase in russian spies and their attempts to influence public opinion. these are things that the alliance is facing all across, and needs a much stronger response. if you've heard earlier there have been key deliveries from the summit. these are command cells of about 40 personnel. 20 from nato, 20 from the host country. they're good, helpful, but again, limited. they're to help nato war exercises and to facilitate the deployment of some of these other forces that were agreed upon at wales and warsaw. so the nato response force, which was supposed to be the rapid reaction force, but alliance leaders saw the speed with which russia acted in ukraine was much faster than the

abilities the alliance had. it tripled the response force and increased it so nato response force should in theory be deployable within 30 days. even that was not considered to be quick enough. nato created the vgtf. a smaller unit of about 5,000 troops like infantry that should be able to be deployed within two to seven days. the first units of about 1,500 troops in two days and the rest of the 5,000 within seven days. at warsaw, we saw some of the most -- more significant steps taken. the most famous of which have been the efp, the enhanced forward presence, four battalions deployed in the east, but in addition to that, we must also remember that through the president obama european reassurance initiative, the united states is also putting a third combat team in europe on a rotational basis. we're also seeing greater

deployments in the black sea region, with the uk, canada, poland, pledging to send some fighters for rotational exercises, which the alliance sometimes calls black sea air policing. but they'll be there a limited time. these are the ones nato is making a huge -- russia is making a big impact about and even nato it's self i feel is exaggerated the extent to which the military capability is deployed. as you can see in each of the baltic countries and poland, there will be a battalion. these battalions will be roughly about 1,000 troops. they will be led by one nation nato refers to as a framework nation. in addition to that, other countries will contribute smaller size units to that. what this means basically is that except for the united

nations, which will be mostly close to 1,000 troops, most of the other battalions deployed, even the framework nation won't be deploying close to 1,000 but probably half or a little more, 5 to 700 of the troops. the rest of the battalion will be provided by some of the other nations. nato, i think, is very confident and claiming credit for participation of 20 countries in the enhanced forward presence. i think it's good to have that type of political solidarity. militarily as a strategist i'm concerned it takes 20 countries 4,000 troops. and the reason why i'm concerned about the size of it is this. this a response to russian aggression in crimea and ukraine. after wales nato created, expanded size of nrf and created bgtf, about 5,000.

after warsaw nato deploying east 4,000 troops in these battalions. before nato announced this decision at the warsaw summit in july, as far back as january, the russians announced they were going to add 3,000 -- i'm sorry, three divisions to their western military district. since then, they have changed those numbers. they are adding two divisions or 20,000 troops to western military district and one of these has been reassigned to southern military district, which is the one closest to ukrainian border. so this is currently the balance of power in the northeast. you see on the left the size of the nato defense border, the fourth bar shows nato enhanced forward presence. the fifth bar shows if we added

on top of that the vjtf. the sixth bar shows greater size of 30,000 of nato's rapid response force. and then the last before the red one, this is if we added all these nato capabilities together what they would look inside. this is compared to what russia has just in the western military district, the district that borders nato territory. i think i'm having a little trouble. there we go. to put it very briefly, i see that nato has some key challenges, some key vulnerabilities. these are size, which you saw in the previous charts. speed, which requires two different types of speed, and readiness. in terms of speed, nato needs to improve its political decision

making speed because none of these troops are going to move until nato provides political approval for them. also even once that very difficult hurdle that nato has been wrestling with for over two years now, we still have military speed. the actual deployability of these troops, which leads to what i consider nato's main achilles heel, which is there is a very serious readiness problem all across the alliance. nato does not have sufficient military capabilities to face the threat it is seeing from russia. even if it had it, the problem is more severe, not only does it have capabilities nato thinks it has on paper, it has far fewer. more significantly we see this in germany where they have far fewer combat planes than they had before. even the ones that are remaining, about half of them are not combat ready. but this is not isolated just to

germany. the readiness problem is all across the alliance. for example, great britain, royal navy with lustrous career has more admirals than it has combat ships. the french as we talked about are overstretched, not just with counter-terrorism movement operation sentinel but also with their consider terrorism efforts in southern region in africa, mali, central african republic. so in the united states, because of sequester, the commander of ucom had to ground 25% of our fighter aircraft because there wasn't enough funding for them. so my last chart, just a basic comparison of where we are now. the current approach, i see a

stronger version among too many political nato leaders to take political risk or spend a lot of money to actually deal with the threat we're facing. as a result of that, every time russia acts and creates a provocation to the west, we have a very muted response. too often this means a bilateral response. there is a lack of political deterrence within the alliance. when russia pushes one of our allies or partners in europe, i think there needs to be a multinational diplomatic response. this will reinforce our military deterrence. likewise i think nato is taking too long to resolve the decision making problem. i think it needs to remember it has already delegated in the past authority during the cold war and secretary-general during balkans confli