roundtables and publications that will examine these important questions, and seek to provide answers, but to stimulate discussions and to guide american and allied policymakers. they seek to never gain the challenging environment that confronts us. we hope you will stay involved in the project, and in particular, the input and engagement of allied governments will be essential. ladies and gentlemen, it is now my pleasure and honor to introduce our guest speaker today, admiral gary ruffet, the robert and marion military fellow at the hoover institution and one of the united states most distinguished senior officers. the recipient of numerous u.s. and foreign awards. the 29th chief of naval operations, leading important organizational reforms and row introduced numerous innovations.

previously, and perhaps most relevant today, he held six operational commands, and operated closely with american allies in the pacific, europe and middle east. indeed, only one of two officers in the navy's history to commanded the atlantic and pacific fleets, which makes him the ideal person to talked to about the role of alliances in america's global military strategy. after after the admiral's remarks, we'll drill down into alliances dynamics in more detail. i would like to invite admiral ruffett to speak. [ applause ] well, thank you, andrew. and thanks to csis for the opportunity to share some thoughts on alliances and american leadership. and i particularly look forward to the panelists that are going to be up here later, because i

think it will be a great discussion. my interest in this topic is not simply because of recent campaign rhetoric that has raised questions regarding the relevance and he haefficacy, as new administration begins to take form. like so many others here, i served in a military sha was shaped by alliances objectives for the entire time that i spent in uniform. i cut my teeth on very large nato naval exercises operations, and i continued throughout my career to operate in our alliances both to the east and to the west, and i also had the privilege of commanding large allied commands. but those consequential allia e alliances were forged decades

ago, as an andrew mentioned, and time has moved on. the geopolitical and geoland scapes are changing. the reason it was grounded in our alliances is slipping it way. our decade-plus war in the middle east has generated an intervention weariness in much of our population, in a move toward isolationism by some. in a way, it is ironic that america's most globally connected generations in history pair to want to step away from the hard work and costs that it demands. and that's across the political spectrum. i find this as an uncomfortable and regrettable and even p

periless trend. we've seen the mutual benefit that comes from alliances relationships. we've experienced the necessary attention that is needed, and at times, the frustration that is experienced in nurturing those relationships along. as we ponder the state of alliances and their future, those of us who have been in the arena and in the policy community bear responsibility for talliances questioning that is taking place today. most value our alliances, whether nato or those with the asian allies. we have not caused an informed national conversation on broader security interests to occur, and how alliances enhance those interests. within our circles, within our policy circles within the u.s., we've a vibrant and thoughtful conversation going on. and that's good. but in many ways, it is a very close self-talk that can be

drowned out or negated by tweets or posts that provide a very different point of view to thousands, and even millions. the public's view regarding national security has narrowed. it is about isis. it is about the violence in the middle east. and avoiding another 9/11. and that's understandable. the trauma was great. and for over a decade, that has been america's fixation. the view of security is also formed by events, and not trends. we think about the ukraine. maybe some rattling up in the balti baltics. the east and south china sea, north korea. or it is often about people, leaders. it is about putin, or assad or kim jong-un. it is not about the values that bind alliances together.

we've been cavalier. we've plur we've blurred the distinction of ally and what it means. we've a lllowed it to be others who are perhaps aligned with us, who fight with us, and they are all seemingly equal in our security lexicon. we have not made clear that there are allies with the associated commitments, obligations that come with it. there are others. valued to be sure. but without the status of ally. we have not articulated the common cause based on interests. and values, and qualities that benefit us. the coverage and discussion is too often about what allies are not doing, rather than what they are doing. and what we do to help allies as opposed to how are relationships with them enable and facilitate shaping the environment, consistent with our interests, and to our advantage.

in a wider context, we fail to address the broad dimension of national security, and fixate on the military. neglecting economics, important trade relationships and arrangements, and the technological and industrial benefits that can accrue to those that are in the special alliances relationship. even the terms we use in my opinion skew the discussion. we talk of burden sharing rather than the beneficial contributions that are fundamental to collective capability, capacity and credibility. a pure military sense, we are simple in our math. highlighting how much or how little a host nieation is spending. we avoid the cost by being able to maintain american forces forward. in the case of the navy, just calculate the capital and personnel costs of a rotational force to replace our forward deployed forces in japan.

my rule of thumb is 4 or 5 to 1 to make one. so if you consider that cost as something that needs to be factored in, it changes the entire equation that is staggering. we prefer to focus and grade on the aggregate budget numbers and are not exact or critical enough, in defining the real contribution to military capability and capacity. we have not thoughtfully adjusted command and control structures, for increased integration, in this fast pace world we live and operate. the operational command and control model is essentially the same as it was when i was in the navy. related to that we've been neglectful in emphasizing deeper personnel integration and embedding among allies. it too is the exchange system that i experienced when i was a young officer. we have not optimized our

foreign officer area programs to our alliance interests. how many chinese foreign area officers are produced, compared to foreign area officers focused on japan, korea, thailand, the philippines and turkey. and could they have made a difference in the case of the latter three countries that are drifted a bit? while recognizing respective national interests, we have not naid our alliance structures the nuclei around which others can operate easily. such integration is challenging, because of the information space in which we live and operate. there are rational concerns in protecting sensitive national information. there are complexities regarding the security of integrated networks. all this becomes more complex, as other nations join in. but we must be able to do this to reshape our alliances for a new time. there are personnel factors.

the cost of posting more service men and women and their families in other countries. the cultural differences that may be awkward in those assign thes, but overwhelmingly lead to greater respect, affinity and indeed, affection. there are realities in the numbers, where do you get people, if you want to have a more robust interaction. and where are they to be drawn from. although i think this is a good opportunity to bleed some of the excess people out of our over inflated head quarters organizations, and that's a good place to start. those are some details. it is in the details that the gardens of alliances are attended and re-shaped. we must not forget that alliances are really about the fundamental values and interests like nations hold collectively and the shared obligations and commitments that those particular nations undertake

together to ensure those values define our future. i applaud csis, and mike green, andrew sharer forei enabling th more broad discussion. above all, we have to keep in mind that we in the policy world are not really the audience. it is far more broad, more diverse, and a conversation that has to be continuous. thank you very much. [ applause ]

thank you, admiral for a terrific presentation to kick things off and you've brought an invaluable perspective to this very important issue to kick off our project. now i'm delighted to introduce sort of old star csis panel, and

what we're going to do now is really drill down into alliances dynamics in different regions and also some of the defense p dedimensions of alliances. i'm going to introduce our panelists and ask them to speak. then we will open up to questions towards the end. the first panelist is dr. michael green, senior vice-president for japan chair, and before his time at csis, he served on the staff of the national security council from 2001 through 2005. first as the director for asian affairs when i met him for the first time, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for asia. very well known to many of you. heather connelly on my right is senior vice-president for

europe, eur asia, and 2001-05, deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau of for european affairs. thanks, heather. john alterman, another senior vice-president, geostrategy and is director for the middle east program at csis. before joining csis, weigh as i member of the policy planning staff for the u.s. department of state. our final senior vice-president, henry a. kissinger chair international security program here at csis, cat was previously principle deputy under secretary for policy in the department of defense, and also, served as deputy under secretary defense for plans strategies and forces. we've got a terrific lineup.

i look forward to hearing your remarks. >> okay, we're still using the hand mike. thank you, andrew. and congratulations on launching this project. both overdue and timely, given events around the world an transition we have here at home. i should mention, john is not here, because with all the senior vice presidency, we had to hide him in an undisclosed location. we'll be involved in this project and has given us great guidance. let's talk about the allies in the pacific region. generally, because of the rise of china, the north korea nuclear threat, the return of 19th and 20th century geopolitics to that region, a clarity of thought about alliances in asia and alliances from asia that has generally made the alliances stronger over the past few years. but still, there are big

questions, and over the last few months, some of the developments in the region as andrew mentioned have made these seem even more acute. first, the good news, though. japan, our largest ally in the region, measured by defense budget or hosting of u.s. forces or gdp, this year is introducing the highest defense budget in the post war history. it pays over $4 billion in host nation support. the japan maritime self-defense forces measure by budget or tonnage -- [ no audio heard ]. under prime minister abe, in a policy shift that began

incrementally with his predecessors, they've expanded what -- >> the light was on. >> so japan, as i said, when the electronics failed us, has a navy now that by most measurements is larger, different kinds of firepower of course, but larger than the royal or french navy. and prime minister abe has now introduced changes to the definition of what japan's forces can do that are historic, that increase not only japan's rule, but quite frankly, japan's risk. and when he said we shouldn't be measuring dollars and cents, we have to consider as he said, the enormous savings to us for deployment, but the risks that our allies incur by doing more. and doing more with us. which is how i think one could accurately define what prime minister abe is doing, which is

why it was some what controversial in japan. korea has introduced its largest defense budget, since the history, and like japan, korea is tightening our alliance, more joint planning for different contingencies. more inoperability, unlike japan, jointly combined. australia, recent poll showed that close to 90% of australians support the alliance somewhat or strongly. of course, our partnership with india, which was spearheaded with singapore, reconnecting with new zealand and new partnerships throughout southeast asia, all demonstrate our security relationships, core alliances have been strengthening. public opinion toward the u.s. in all these countries is quite high. and polling in the u.s. about alliances is high.

we've done elite polling at csis that shows significant majorities in all these countries, much prefer a u.s. led than chinese led system or multi poe lay multi polarity. so a lot of tail wind and support for structure that we heard that was designed during the korean war. there are also some troubling developments. whether these are systemic, one offs, the fault of the u.s., internal politics can be debated. one factor is that all our allies, everywhere, try the mike. am i -- success. one source of uncertainty constantly in our alliances everywhere, particularly in asia, where there are bilateral alliances is the dilemma that allies have. they don't want to get so close

to the ally, the big ally, they get entrapped in conflicts they don't want. they don't want to be so independent that they risk being abandoned in the face of a dangerous threat or rising power. all of the our allies, particularly in asia, are constantly negotiating this dilemma, how tight to be while still maintaining autonomy, but not so independent that they risk being left alone in the threat. and that is complicated in asia by the fact that none of our allies wants to choose between u.s. and china, as henry kissinger pointed out. so you see, constant hedging, constant positioning, and the question is, how much do we make of that. how much does it matter. is it systemic, deep, or just the adjustments that any bilateral network of alliances is going to have. there is great turbulence in our

alliances over the past few months in asia. park in north korea has 4% in her polls because of her scandals. a week political leadership is a recipe for difficulty coordinating strategy and managing burden sharing and other alliance issue. thailand, duterte, support is high, but clearly has a different hymnal from which he is singing. they're inviting the pla back in. is it hedging because they've done too much, uncertain about the u.s. commitment. something that came before our election. with questions about our commitment on south china sea, east china sea or did the election or difficulty of tpp trigger this. there is no single answer. i think it is a combination of

internal politics, external questions about the u.s. in some cases, confidence in the u.s. ally is confidence in the u.s., more room for the opposition to challenge bases, question american leadership. but it does all occur in a way at that means we need a fundamental re-examination of the basis for our alliances, what our allies get what we get and how to make them more effective. i'll conclude by saying in the asia pacific region, there are six brief things we should focus on, guidelines we should have. this will build on what gary and admiral are roughhead said. i think this bears repeating. the answer to all of these challenges we face is not distancing from the allies, not controlling the allies, not any of those things. if we want to deter aggressive action by other actors, reassure

our ally, and ensure that we have some say and significant say over the strategy of the ally state, then the common denominate for is more jointness. deters, gets a multiplier effect for your effort. gives you more tightness, work together. we go together. which in 1953 or '54 when that motto came up, it meant we go to together, and also korea doesn't go alone. we do it together. second principle, and gary roughhead touched on it. the measure of alliance contribution should be the effe effectiveness of the alliance. the carter administration tried to under pressure burden sharing matrix. and in the '70s and into the 08's, legislation acquired a ig regular port on burden sharing.

it is very counter-productive. it looked like we were seeking economic gains. particular advantage for ourselves at their expense, by just in terms of dollars. what the reagan administration found in the early '80s, sharing roles and missions, measuring the deterrent effect we want, the alliance effect and builds ago an lie ans where both sides contribute. many cases with our allies mean, they do more. korea needs to do more. we need this think more with australia how we deal with chinese encroachment in the south china sea, it is not fully developed yet. korea has to do more to have a sustainable command and controlled infrastructure. there are a lot of things we have to do. some of it will cost money, but not all of it. third principle as we approach allies and partners in the asia pacific region, we have to remember we don't have a

collective security organization like nato, these were created as bilateral alliances because there was such diversity of political systems, level of contribution. particularly since all of these countries trade and invest in china were not going to get a collective security system. we need diversity in our lives. some will be highly valuable. japan, australia, korea in particular. some are important, but perhaps getting the right answers out of the allies is not as important as keeping generally aligned in the larger goal of stabilizing the system and shoring up the existing rules and norms. fourth, we don't do enough to connect the key alliances in europe and asia. there is, i pine for the kind of williamsburg sup mitt where

thacher and cole and they sat together without any debate about what values we were trying to protect, what we called the west. we can't call it the west anymore, because there is too much of the east in this mix. but there is something we stand for, and we need to defend. that's a first principle. it is global. fifth, as admiral roughhead said, the history of alliance is a history of economic policy, too. and you know, tpp and t-tip, trans atlantic trade, the negotiations have been blown off the rails by this election. but i don't think there is a single governor in this country who don't want free-trade agreements. i think this will have to be part of the strategy in time. finally, as admiral roughhead said, goes beyond think tanks, it goes to governors and stakeholders across the country.

it will have to be a critical part. >> thanks, andrew. congratulations on this great initiative. i would love the dean atchinson mission state, it is an opportunity. i know during the campaign, nato does not often crop up as a top issue for discussion. we talk about the hot spots in the world. but not necessarily alliances, and i have to say, it was with great shock. i was sitting a the my desk. so the question was how would the united states withdraw from nato. and i said i beg your pardon. and i got out the washington treaty and i looked at it. i went, well, it was never a thought -- a thought i thought we would ever have. president-elect trump introduced us a conversation about nato. it would not be the one i would choose, but i'm going to take

the opportunity. i think in some ways, we have for a long time been confusing price with value. and that's what i think mike, what you were talking about. the burden sharing. it is always about how much have you paid. what is your fair share. you're a free rider. it comes down to the price. and for far too long, we have not talked about the value of our alliances. what united states gets out of it. how it served our u.s. interests. and i like the fact, and andrew, your remarks, instead of burden sharing, we talk about our obligation. we talk about our duty to alliance. that's what sharing that duty is all about. i think we've also confused transactionalism with the value of a long-standing relationship and partnership. for this, there is bipartisan guilt.

we've always been going to our alliances, we need this for afghanistan. we need this for iraq. we need this for libya. what we haven't done very much again to secretary schults, we haven't tended the gardens. what's important to us. why are you participating in operations in afghanistan, if you don't have national interests in afghanistan. why? because you're supporting the values of this alliance. when we speak only on the transactional, we erode credibility. we erode trust. and we erode the foundations of the relationship. so what is so important about our duty to explain is why we created nato in the first place. some ways, this is world history and civics all rolled into one. why did 12 countries gather in washington, d.c. on april 4,

1949 to sign the washington treaty. well, very much as it is today, they came together for a geostrategic imperative and unifying a deal of collective defense. and that's what they're doing today, but instead of the 12, there are 28, almost 29 members of nato. and so exactly, we have to put this context, these same principles, but in a 21st century context. and again, it is so important to underscore, nato was designed for and by u.s. leadership. that's why it was signed here. that's why we're the repository. it was designed for u.s. national interests and u.s. engagement. now, many say after the cold war, why did nato exist but curiously, it has always found so many more operations and missions to do. immediately after welcoming new members into nato in 1999, it

when to war in kosovo. it has continued to serve after 15 years. no one in nato, if you asked any expert, the nirs tifirst time, article five, an attack against one is an attack against all. that was unthought of, unheard of. and yet, it was invoked, and today, nato forces of which over 1,000 nato forces have lost their lives in afghanistan, again, supporting u.s. activities and interests. then came 2014. and russian annexation of kplcr and into eastern ukraine. the principles of 1949 became very clear in 2014, and continue to today. you this is not your grandfather's nato. this is a nato that's focusing on cyber security, on missile

defense. on looking at hybrid activities. its operations are in the gnc helping to prevent accidents at sea because of migration. it has a very robust agenda, military. but i will offer some notes of caution, i think as mike did as well. this is not an easy alliance. it wasn't easy at 12. it sure is not easy at 28, soon to be 29. there are group dynamics, and such a large alliance, there is no shared threat assessment or perception. if you live on nato's eastern plank, you have one threat. that's russia. if you live on nato's southern flank, you have one threat. that would be migration. isis, terrorism. the instability from the middle east. but miraculously, it has been

able to respond. the problem with nato, it has been so focused on the operational and the military, it has gort en it is a political military alliance. in my hope fortunate tow in the future would be it tends its own garden. it tends its own health. as we see a rise of populism, resure gen surgent russia. after events on july 15th in turkey, there has been no discussion at the north atlantic counsel about the coup, about what is happening inside of nato's vital members. it is surprising that at a very successful nato summit in

warsaw, poland, president obama had to raise by laterally uncomfortable questions about poland's constitutional court and its internal democracy, its health. those are the issues that are so tough for an alliance. if we don't get those right, if we have i wi-- i'll close on a on public support. nato is not the most popular in many nato countries. and what i find in the u.s., we talk about the united states and nato. no, it is a we. we are nato. u.s. airmen, soldiers, sailor, marine is a nato soldier, airman, marine. we have to start talking about this a alliance as it lives inside of us, a german, british soldier, et cetera. what i found so interesting in

public support, i was at the state department during the 2002-04 nato enlargement, we brought in several countries. we went across the country explaining why that was important to build support for senate ratification of an amended nato treaty. we need do that everyday. not just build out for when an important ratification happens. we have to start talking to the american people about why nato is important, its values, its roles. colleagues, its role is as important today as it was in 1949. mr. putin is reminding us of that everyday. thank you. >> thank you. >> europe actually seems relatively clean and easy compared to the middle east. our relationships, noy, quite frankly, we have not had the same kind of partnership we've had in europe, we haven't had the same partnership that mike

talked about in asia. a half millennium, 500 years, we've been the most recent of them, the u.s. came into the middle east after world war ii with a deep sense we would do external security kbguaranteein right, protect the region from communism, in part by not directly governing, but encouraging the states to adopt more democratic modes of democratic. whereas democratic governance was the anticommunism of 1950s, '60s, '70s, it became human rights and then we're fighting radicalism. there has always been this very difficult balance from a u.s. perspective of how to guarantee security to a place that doesn't do a very good job promoting its own security. we have for more than a half century, seen a governance component to that, and it is always been an elements of tension, because the point of

fact we've developed very good relationships with virtually every government in the middle east. think about it. we have positive relationships with everyone but syria and iran. we're not protecting governments from each other. but for the most part we're trying to promote more security and getting into the governance of although countries, and oftentimes not winning over the populations. we're very unpopular in the middle east, but popular among governments t. it is a very strange situation we've gotten ourselves into. turkey in the csis concept, has its own problems to work out. as we think about the middle east, we have three different alliances in the middle east. on the one hand, we have this generous relationship with israel. which is in many ways the closesest relationships, but

also the complicated relationship. we work with intelligence, but regional hostility means we don't work regionally, we don't base in israel, use forward position equipment, though israel can use extremists in its own situations. israel hasn't taken part in these broad regional alliances the u.s. has fought. israel is a member of u come, so it the way the u.s. looks -- the u.s. supplies about 20 -- the u.s. is bound by law to ensure that israel maintains a qualitative military edge over any potential enemy or collection of enemies in the region. so you could argue that this is a good relationship, you could argue that israel is milking the

united states. i've heard both arguments made in washington. it seems to me this is a very complicated relationship which isn't replicated any where else in the world. and it is important part of how the u.s. thinks about alliances relationships in the middle east. israel is a major non-nato ally. we have a lot of major non-nato allies in the middle east, and most distinguish by not being major. you have egypt, a big country, but major non-nato allies, morocco tunisia. we fight together, we do cooperative training, do basing there. but our major, non-nato allies are not really major many ways. our major relationships are countries with whom we don't have formal alliance relationships, principally, saudi arabia. we sell them tens of billions of

dollars in military equipment. we do huge training. logistics, support. we have sold them some of our most capable systems, thad, block 60s, guided missiles. we have spent tens of billions of dollars. we have committed troops. we have all kinds of things, but not under the rubric of the to rm mal kinds of relationships that we think about when we think about alliances. as we think in a middle east context, just to complicate your perimeters, andrew, we have a relationship with israel doesn't fit anything we do with anyone else in the world. we have treaty relationships, which are not our biggest relationships in the middle east and we have non-treaty in the middle east. as a commercial venture, this works. right, i mean, we sell tens of billions of dollars worth of

equipment, sales have help keep production lines for u.s. jets open. because we're not buying so many jets ourselves, but the gulf allies are. it keeps the production lines open. it perpetuates conflict to the region. people say, well, all these states are armed to the t and that lets them be more add have been ture than they would otherwise be, creating a need for more u.s. weapons, more u.s. troops, and that the u.s. rather than contributing to security, what this comes out is a moral hazard argument, the u.s. creating the very problem it is aiming to address. and the fact is that while the obama administration made a declared effort to allow the middle east to reach its own new

equal lib rebrum. now, this of course has from the 1950s, when is it didn't work, 1990s and 2000 s. it hasn't worked. we've tried to do shared missile. all from the same iranian threat, they are close to each other, it makes sense. they don't want to do it. they are closed bilateral relationship with the united states. they don't want a broader multi relationship, where they think the united states will be less committed to them. i think that creates all kinds of problems for the united states. what does the u.s. commitment need to be. how many u.s. troops in the gl is a normal u.s. troop

commitment. is it what it was at the time we deposed suddam hussein. we've lot sight. the gulf states have lost sight of what the norm should be. that's created a sense that the -- the united states can't avoid giving them a sense of depen den -- abandonment because we're diminishing our troop presence. while president-elect trump has come in talking about the importance of burden sharing, it is very unclear in the middle east context how it would work, and i think it is especially complicated by what we've seen in our gulf partners and allies in the middle east doing. in syria and yemen in the last several years. many cases, the u.s. has not been directly in the fight. has not been directly in the fight as they have been. but they've acted in ways using

u.s. a equipment to which the u.s. is objecting. how does the u.s. maintain leverage in this relationship. do you want to maintain leverage. do you want to have responsibility. can you avoid having responsibility. if the u.s. doesn't act itself, if the u.s. does act itself, it is not decision-making role. if it doesn't act, then it is tied to the decisions of others, with which the u.s. might not agree. i think we are going to have to find a way over the next five to ten years to figure out what our new model of relationships is going to be. the old model it seems to me isn't going to work, but unclear what the new model is. is yemen the new model. is yemen a desirable new model. are we going to be able to maintain consensus with our allies moving forward in syria. and i think there are a whole series of questions about how we and our allies will try to come together to deal with a whole

range of challenges and threats posed by the government of iran, which will get complicated, not less in the years to come. >> thanks, john. >> first, thank you to andrew and mike for assembling this group. we are not only four of the senior vice presidents. i note, i'm sitting to the far left. i don't know that i represent the far left, but i think represent at least the left of center. so i appreciate the effort to be inclusive on that. i was asked to speak particularly to the military aspects of alliances, and obviously admiral roughhead has hit the most important ones. i'll just try to hit a few points that i think either were overlooked or maybe require a foot stomp here and there. the first is just the history of course of the u.s. use of alliances in our military

approach. i think it is probably self-evident the u.s. has had alliances at the center of its military strategies. since at the minimum, world war ii coming forward. we have never fought truly alone since that period of time. there is some debate, i think of late as to whether that period of history is kind of coming to a close, maybe that was the aberration and the norm is something that looks more isolationist for the united states. we'll see. but i would simply point out that the challenges of the world are actually getting more complicated and interconnected and not less. there really is no real way to change that. isolationism isn't able to manage the challenges we see. terrorism, criminal networks, cyber attacks. you cannot wall off literally a physical geographical location,

and stop the security threats we face. even if you thought we could, it is important to remember that much of our economy depends on u.s. companies, and institutions being overseas. we tend to think of the u.s. as here, and others as there. and it turns out, a lot of you u.s. citizens are there, and a lot of u.s. companies are there. so it becomes very complicated to look out for both our defense and security in an isolationist sense and to think about the economic security in internationalist sense. i think this is an inevitable truth, if you will, that this administration coming in will learn, just like every other administration, essentially has learned, even if they don't enjoy it. i point to andrew's mention of president obama's interview in the atlantic. he dlclearly doesn't enjoy bein reminded of these partnerships abroad. but it is a reality. the real question is, how will

that reality dawn upon the next administration, will it come with low pain threshold or high pain threshold on the way. so let's talk a little bit about the roles of military allies. obviously, the first and probably the most well consider -- c afghanistan was a example of that. article 5 is declared, first and last time in nato history and declared in mutual defense of the united states. and it was undertaken vis avis action. if you look alongside us, we're talking about host nations as well. we might talk about afghanistan, in terps of partners, in terms of allies, we think in the south koreans fighting, should that

contingency occur. we think about the east european countries, fighting alongside in defense of nato territory. should that occur. but in addition to that very direct way in which we think about allies fighting next to us, we think about the roles in which they play in terms of providing capacity, just depth of capacity often, but not always. we're talking about ground force capacity. there are specific capabilities where the u.s. has essentially hedged by having less investment, but relied on allies who have stayed invested in certain areas. one obvious example are the british who have invested in mind sweepers where the u.s. has divested itself. there are cases we need allies in particular kinds of possible scenarios. because of the capabilities they bring. and then, perhaps also quite obvious, the location nal aspect of the here and there. if we want to be able to provide

our force in an economical and effective way, we have to at times be close enough to the place we want to fight to make it possible. that possible. that means both bases and places where the united states maintains relationships in order to be as effective as we can be in the execution of our and potentially common defense. then the last thing i'll point out, which gets really underplayed the intelligence aspect. many americans do not realize how dependent we are on intelligence that's provided by foreign partners and by allies. and the u.s. really cannot at least today substitute for that huge vast global network that we're able to tap into. and pretty uniquely tap into frankly, among nations. there's also the nontraditional spheres in the military sense, certainly intelligence as i said

is one that crosses over and things like governance capacity, to build out long-term institutal capacity and countries and places like jordan where we want to make sure there's security over the long term requires investment in not just military capability but institutions of government. that's true in a variety of other locations. local knowledge, culture, language, thinking about something like the french and their role in north africa, say for mali, there's a unique advantage that a military ally can provide where the u.s. doesn't have the depth of experience and aptitude. areas where there's border crossing threats, i mean this is self-evident that the world as we look at in the future will have more and more of these, from the security initiative over the bush administration, on the high seas, to the counter isil efforts today, we really

need to have our allies to look at things like again, today, foreign fighter flows and nuclear proliferation and flow of funds across borders and through cyber space to banks, those sorts of security threats rely on alliances. finally understated today but i know true for all of my co-panelists, every administration i know of looked to allies as a source of legitimacy in an international environment. that can change. we can have a united states that no longer cares about the rule of law. but the fact of the matter is historically and i think going forward it's hard to imagine the united states will not have the rule of law at the center of its foreign policy and national security interest as it has had for the 20th century forward at a minimum. >> let's me talk about adaptations and the examples i have have been mentioned.

i will simply say, we have a lot of work to do across our security relationships from former alliances to less form at partnerships and it is a tending the garden approach where we have a constant effort to undertake. and the value is there to undertake them. but i do think sometimes americans live up to our reputation for i mpatience, we think of others as being slower than we are. and i want to give you a few examples where we tend to talk about others, so first of all, the u.s. government's approach to cyber security, i think many people don't see that today as a wild success. when we think about nato where they moved to cyber security, this a lot of work to do to figure out how to implement that but there's just as much work to do on the isg side. the other example might be the approach to the north korean nuclear challenge where the u.s.

along with the republic of korea and japan and australia and others have been grappling with what the implications of this are. let's look at the usg approach on the north korea challenge, we're clearly well behind the curve in terms of thinking of the u.s. approach to nuclear north korea and moving beyond more comfortable perimeters that may have made sense. as john mentioned, we think about the missile challenge, vis a vis iran, the gcc should have requires the sharing of data, sensor data, et cetera. and that's not there because there isn't this strong desire to share information that would enable collective defense. the u.s. doesn't like to share a lot of its missile data often as well. again, there are places and these are small examples but you probably could think of many more where we should look inward as well as outward.

both are problems. but they are not uniquely problems of alliance structure. our own decision-making can seem as xler otic as can for instance the process at nato. so the last thing that andrew asked me to talk a little bit about is the u.s. defense trajectory under the trump administration. the quick answer is i don't know. i do think there is the potential for a little bit of back to future. i was in the pentagon then and his approach to u.s. posture and allies, i think it's possible there will be a view you can bring home assets and project from the u.s. that will run smack into the reality of the budget implications about approach, if you want to be able to use that force. if you don't ever want to be

able to use that force, you can park it in nebraska and you're okay. if you need to project it, say, into asia, if you need to project it into eastern europe, that's -- and routinely do so, that's going to be a very costly approach. more generally the idea of how you grow the defense budget -- between the health of the economy and defense, you don't want to have -- if you will, so much investment in defense done in a way that threatens your economy that you actually drive down some of the value you have as an ally. how the u.s. increases defense spending, meaning how much deficit spends, i think will become very important and what if anything it ends up having to sacrifice in terms of other investment areas, say innovation that allies might care about, innovation, et cetera.

not foremost in his mind and i do think that is the central core challenge motivating the incoming trump administration, how long it will stay sort of the core challenge they look at particularly isis versus -- can depend on how they encounter the environment and how the environment if you will, encounters them in terms of actions that others might take, russia and china, and others early on in the administration. i do think there will be heavy scrutiny, as there is in many administrations on combined activities and exercises. the extent to which they contribute to u.s. war fighting capability and how well you can quantify and link the value of what we often will hear in washington called billing

farmenership capacity. i think there are big questions about defense trade policy. you have a relatively protectionist administration we think coming in. as has been pointed out, military sales can be incredibly important to the defense industry whose stocks are doing currently very well with a trump president-elect. and their ability to export effectively depends on the relationship coming back the other way in terms of the trade back and forth, offsets in foreign countries, et cetera. the last thing i will say, as you open up the issue set, if the next administration opens this up of alliances and terms, if you will of the deal that -- i think there is a strong risk that others are already looking at how to make their end of the deal better. and i think we should not assume that we would get the better end of a follow-on renegotiation on

terms of various alliances. so we should keep that in mind going forward and how that affect both the alliances and again the sector more generally in terms of capability and capacities and basing arrangements that currently exist for us, i think is a big question. let me just end by saying, thursday we have our -- there will be a panel there that's focused entirely on u.s. public opinion and elite opinion goes beyond alliances and just generally talk about foreign insecurity policy and there will be representatives there and isolationist viewpoint -- standard bullish alliance folks like we are here. i hope you can join us online, if not in person, for that. thanks. >> thanks forgiving us terrific

texture -- and expert complexity. i just want to come back to something that mike raised and that's this question of the west and whether it is the west and if it's not, more generally for the panel, if it's not the west, what is the organizing construct, is it even possible to have an organizing construct given particularly some of the kpr complexities that john talked about in the middle east. if you wave your institutional magic wand and change allied institutions, more broadly, what changes would you make? if you look at the distribution of economic power among

democracies, real democracies, you have to include korea and you have to indonesia and india and australia and new zealand. and today almost all of the major powers except one big exception in the western pacific are democratic. not without their flaws but what we need to insist on perfection. this was a bipartisanship. i think you also have to embrace a certain diversity. you don't want to define the global network of alliances and core protectors of our way of life and values and rules so rigidly that you lose the diversity. in american foreign policy, john foster dallas had a rigid

approach and john f. kennedy said we need to make the world safe not only against communism but safe for diversity. probably kennedy was more right on that one. we want to make the world safe for countries to develop better norms and governance and democracy but we want to be doing it in a way that our number one priority is making sure that states are not coerced from outside. and that sort of is the first priority and we work on improving governments and democracy. so that would to me suggest a greater core function, perhaps the g-7, and i think more likely, a core group of like minded states that care about global rules and norms in a broad sense. that's a nfc type of initiative. then i think with respect to gray zone and frankly, this is a discussion that japan, korea and

nato of the gulf states should be having, maybe through the pentagon and other ways because it's little green men in russia and little blue ships in the western pacific, the questions we face are similar. and katherine and i have a piece coming out on this in a couple months to take a first stab at it. it's some combination, not one size fits all. >> it's a great question. what is our new organizing principle? we've been sort of in search of one to be honest with you. after 9/11 it was the global war on terror and that had very different manifestations. president obama sort of said don't do stupid stuff and stay out of things more than getting yourself involved in them. and reaching to out to adversa y adversaries to bring them back -- this is sort of the question. what is the new organizing principle? for me it's sort of -- who's going to enforce all of these international laws we think are

great and we think are stabilizing and we think are important? but if you don't have an enforcement mechanism and don't have a military power with a military will to enforce or to punish, whether that's sanctions or military action, that's -- that's the conundrum, we can sit back and watch and say that's a terrible thing to happen but not in our interest or we aren't affected by that. or we can wait until we are affected by that until our national interests are and i think that to me is the overarching question that we really haven't had a lot of deep thinking about. we react to events but don't put forward the vision, it was a vision about the world and how we would use it. that's sort of what we need and now from a leadership perspective, we're less able to articulate it and i would argue the west is it not a geographic location, it's an ideal,

aspiration, what we've been imperfectly trying to work at. to me it gets back to, international law is great, but when it's broken, who is enforcing those rules. if no one is interested in doing that, we have a very different organizing principle. we don't have alliances in the middle east like we have in the pacific and europe. we are an external -- but we do it on behalf of our alliances in europe and asia. if you don't have -- what the future of u.s. policy in the middle east and one of the questions, does this mean that the u.s. wants china to play a greater role in security in the middle east? i can't tell you what the trump

administration's view on that is going to be but i can tell you it will be consequential for the united states as well as for the middle east and as well as for china. >> i think that what i would say is that there are some constants theme attically and they are the ability to deal with fluidity across multiple types of challenges and probably multiple regions and that includes fluidity across different kinds of alliance relationships. you already see that where we use the construct that's most useful to the most important players at the time, whether it's nato or eu or u.s./japan alliance or tri lateral or talk about a quadrilateral. that's good. good to have that fluidity and flexibility because the challenges that we face will require it. i also think that they require it because that bilateral

construct, that cold war era construct is broken down to the point where there can be, you know, partnerships of convenience on different issues at different types. that's not necessarily ideal for the u.s. but it's the reality. you can cause that the rise in multiplarity, or loosening on security that combine countries in one of two camps. that may be a temporary period of time to be followed by a new security -- but i think we are in that fluid period, possibly waiting until a new set of arrangements, either that are caused by u.s. decision-making along with that of others or by more longer term demographic technological and other trends. >> all right, thanks. now i'd like to open it up to

the audience. >> since john said the turkey is in heather's lap, i'll ask heather the question. you said there was no consternation about the effects of july 15th for nato. if there were and you were there, what would you advise nato to do? easy question. well, it would -- first and foremost i think talk to allies about what happened and particularly its operations in syria as well as in iraq. this is a nato ally that is now entered a very complex operation of which another nato member is also involved. the alliance has worked itself

into a habit of not talking about what the alliance and its members are thinking and doing. it's easier to talk about a military operation perhaps in afghanistan to have a very honest and candid reflection about what was going on inside our own countries. so first and foremost, it would not -- it would just be an example of doing a briefing, whether i'm sure many members around the north atlantic council table would not absolutely agree with the presentation that is offered but it is to hear the government's formal position and to also understand what future is going to happen, particularly i'm a little concerned about the future of the turkish general staff and general officers, 200 of whom are in jail and what does that mean about military leadership moving forward within turkey. and the changes that are undertaken right now, within

turkey, that require a very intense dialogue. military to military but also politically. and i'm certain hopeful that we can achieve that. nato has -- just dances around the issue. i would like them to focus on them square on and deal with them very forthrightly. i think it's also very important as well for other nato members, particularly as we are getting towards very important election season within europe, french elections, german elections to make sure members are fully aware of the implications and policy and the european defense spending and nato operations and russia policy that is also equally important. i think my message is, nato has to focus as much internally as it does on external threats. >> thanks, heather. >> sorry. just down here at the front.

>> member of the regan foundations, i have a hypothetical question and that is now that new president is coming in, expecting asian countries to be more independent -- that's what i hear. my question is what if japan and south korea go nuclear, should we support it or would we support it? that's the hypothetical question. that's for you, mark. >> i want to speak for myself. it's probably not in our interest for japan and korea ato nuclear and not in japan or

korea's interest. the nuclear capability is going to put pressure on the credibility of our nuclear umbrella. it's one of the many areas where frankly our alliance dialogue has not kept up with the realities we now face. and i think if we have a serious dialogue with seoul and tokyo about how we maintain the credibility of our extended deter ent. one problems we've had, too many people in washington forget that extended deterrents is defined as the deterred and people protected. if our allies don't think it's credible, even if the reasons rr aren't good we have to take that seriously and washington is too dismissive of korean or japanese concerns. i think if we do, that 90, 95% steps we can take for confidence in the extended deterrent. even if either japan or korea

started to move in the direction of nuclear weapons, it would go through the interim step of some kind of jointly controlled system like we've had in the past with germany or britain. some kind of joint command and control or jointly combined but even that is a very remote possibility, very remote possibility. if we're serious about dialogue with the allies. this is a mega theme for all of us. alliances are not about telling us what to do, they are going to have demands on us. the administration will find that and find that allies are talking to each other about how to get more -- and -- >> the other aspect, it's important to note the connections between asia and the middle east when president obama talked about how the syrian government's use of chemical weapons would be a red line in syria, and then decide not to go to war in syria, it was noted quite closely in asia as here's

a demonstration case of what the united states does when a country violates a red line. if we're looking at what happens with north korea, everybody in the middle east will look at that, what does that mean about iran? and everybody in asia will look at how they deal with iran to understand how the u.s. will deal with north korea. there is a certain way in which our allies look to other u.s. alliance relationships to understand more about the nature of their alliance relationships with the united states. i think there's a connection there which they certainly see and which we don't see because mike is in a whole different floor than me. it's impossible to have a conversation. and there's not that -- >> we do watch you. >> i am with the united states of africa, 2017 project task and from africa originally, 73 years old. i'm usually very sensitive when i hear people about talking about what was created after

world war ii, this american -- and international liberal order, international order. i always wonder people who don't look like me and people in the rest of the world don't look like you five up here. do you get the authority to consent that you should be doing this? i see this project as an attempt to continue the -- >> thank you for that view. one more question for up here. >> thank you. reporter from -- i have two related questions, i wonder whether panelists would like to comment on the president-elect trump's peace through strength strategy and also the future of

the -- to asia. >> could you repeat the second part of the question? [ inaudible ] >> thank you. so i can't resist the earlier question which is a fair question from the gentleman with the 2017 hat, one of the strengths we have is that this system of rules and norms broadly is now embraced in my part of the world basically from the south asian continent to hawaii. that's billions of people, it's contested and debated and anti-americanism in places, definitely. do we make mistakes and make people mad for a long time,

definitely. i hear about it all the time. as i was saying earlier, this may have been a british and ang lo american and broadened but it's a model that i think many parts of the world certainly in my part of the world and asia, people prefer and we've seen that clearly in opinion polls. but it does i think reinforce the point we need to reflect the diversity of alliances and actors and players who have a stake in the system and listen to them. on the peace through strength, it's a great line, i think reagan used it, probably eisenhower and john quincy adams. the -- look, the odds are very high that the defense budget in the supplemental will go up 50 or $60 billion. one of my criticisms of the rebalance, which is the right strategy, is that it wasn't resourced enough. i see some silver lining in that. there's going to be resources.

i don't think the name pivot or rebalance will get much play. that's a fair bet but the impulse for it was not a purely democratic or obama administration impulse, the bush years and clinton years and george herbert walker bush years, reflects the fact that over half americans say age is the most important reason to us, most dynamic region of the world. governors care, companies care and small and media enterprises care and soybean growers care. it has momentum. the question as heather said, how quickly will a new administration sort out the priority and strategy and framing? look, every new administration since the cold war has declared its number one threat and number one priority and nun of them have followed through on it. clinton was global challenges but mostly it to do with gee

toshio ple -- geopolitics. one thing you can safely bet, however it was devised during the campaign, in sixz months or two or three, is going to be based upon a different reality. asia, i'm quite confident and our alliances will be part of that. but we've hit fundamental questions here that merit addressing in terms of political support at home and how do we make alliances more effective than they've been. >> thanks, mike, that's really brought us full circle and reminds me to thank everyone for coming today. if you like to follow the project, you can do that on our web page and finally i'd like you to join me, please in thanking the admiral for his speech today and also the panel. [ applause ]

later today on c-span 2, israeli and egyptian foreign ministers talk about the middle east and the incoming trump administration, live at 6:30. and at 8:00 on c-span 2, supreme court oral argument on immigration detention. the court will decide if detained immigrants facing deportation can be held for longer than six months without a bail hearing. a lower court ruled that the government must provide individualized bond hearings to determine their danger and flight risk. the justices heard the case this week. >> republican senator tom cotton

on the future of the republican party following the election of donald trump and some of the issues congress and the new administration will be considering. including immigration and trade policy. ♪ >> good morning. so i'm here with superstar senator tom cotton, who i would -- >> superstar -- the -- >> who is 39, which is another way of saying that his father's gop would be very different from many other people's father's gop. >> for the record my father is a lifelong democrat. >> there you go. >> which goes to show you the shift you've seen in places like arkansas over the last eight years. >> i want to get into this. i know we want to talk about donald trump and his influence on the party but before that it

struck me as i was thinking about this panel, just how much the republican party has changed itself over the past ten years prior to donald trump even coming on the scene. i've covered politics most of my adult life, moved down here more than ten years ago. and that was the party that got thrown out of the house in 2006. we had the rise of the tea party and all of these primaries and this culminating in your class in the senate in which the republicans took over. one of the big differences in your mind between today's republican party and just the one ten years ago and we're talking about the party in is ligs from donald trump? >> we have changed a lot in the last ten years. you can look at the faces in the party ten years ago this sunday, i redeployed to iraq and far removed from the united states senate. there are a lot of new senators like todd young from indiana, marine veteran, or joni ernst or

cor cory gardner not involved in politics. we have learned lessons of things that went wrong in the 2000s. it's fair to say our party both in grass roots and congress now, pro market party rather than a pro business party. we're focused on the operation of markets in the free enterprise system and celebrate businesses that succeed but recognize in a market based system we're not there to put our finger on the scale for this or that business or industry. we're there to -- people with good ideas or companies well run will succeed in the marketplace. we've gone back to a real focus on the constitution and constitutional structure of our government in getting back to constitutional basics. i'm not talking primarily about individual liberties, i'm talking about the structure of our government and need to reign in executive agencies and need

to restore some structural balance between washington and the state governments. so i think those are a few of the big differences you've seen over the last two years as we've been in the wilderness for eight years that are ir respective of donald trump's victory in this election year. >> would you say you're more an ideas based party? i remember when i first came down here you could went and canvassed 100 republicans about 99 of them didn't know anything about health care policy for instance. >> i think it's fair to stay, when you're the party on power, all you have is the power of idea, you can't award contracts and don't have pat tronage, with the power of your ideas and i think it's fair to say over the last eight years under the obama administration, our ideas have won, results from 2010 and 2014 and 2016, you also have a lot of new young thinkers coming into the party who are eager to move beyond the steal dogmas who recognize ronald reagan,

probably the greatest president of my lifetime if not the 20th century was a great leader and held timeless and eternal principles but if he were alive, he would say the problems of 1980 are not the problems of 2016. >> here you've defined what this new generation of republicans looks like in congress and now we have donald trump who doesn't look like that in many, many ways. i know you have spent a lot of time out with voters on the ground. do you think that donald trump is changing the republican party or is he a response to changed voters out there? is a conservative movement on the ground changing? >> he's both. most successful presidential candidates are both. they sometimes see things that are true that too many politicians, too many elites in culture and business and media and the academy miss and presidential candidates succeed

and do take their parties in different directions as well. it's a little bit of both. but some of the things that donald trump has seen is that out in places like arkansas, some of the places where i campaigned in the last month, indiana and wisconsin and iowa, pennsylvania, there are a lot of people who feel ill served by washington, d.c. and ill served by some of the policies that have either been implemented under the obama administration like obama care or policies that you got a bipartisan wrong consensus on like immigration. donald trump is speaking to their practical concerns. to me it's not that surprising that donald trump went into economically distressed areas in places like pence and ohio and wisconsin and said we're going to bring jobs back to you. hillary clinton would say, i'm going to bring you more obama care and mass immigration. >> you said you spent time in the upper midwest and you weren't surprised at all by the vote totals?

>> my wife's family is spread throughout the upper midwest in minnesota and wisconsin and iowa and i've gotten to know a lot of folks there, campaigned there in all three of those states recently. i was not surprised. you see the trend of those states moving in our direction in part because i think they feel somewhat estranged from the elite consensus that they see in our various capitals, political capital in washington and business capital and cultural capital and they feel washington policies have nort been benefitting them. that they've lost a lot of jobs and lost populations and they want a leader who actually spoke to those practical concerns, not one that spoke to distractions. >> what does that mean in the end for the people in this audience and big issues they care about? i'm sure donald trump is giving them a little heart burn. these are ones you have been spending a lot of time on in the senate as well too.

take trade. what are we going to see and how is senate and house trying to -- pulling out of nafta and abandoning in general what has long been an american pro-trade agenda. >> you're in favor of as well. >> i will say that sometimes that the expressions of his opposition to trade are overstated. to my knowledge he has never said he's opposed to trade. he thenksz thinks a lot of trade deals have been bad for the u.s. if you compare the promises made in the last 15, 25 years about these trade deals, he's got a case to make there but i also point out that the day after -- >> what way? >> the economic impact it would have on the united states in terms of job created or economic growth attributed to the deal

didn't pan out. you can maybe debate why that happened but if you listen to politicians selling those bills and compare the results, they are simply mismatched between the rhetoric and results. >> you don't deny they've been generally good. >> that happens sometimes. >> you oversell? >> i try not to. that's one reason why so many people are disappointed with politicians in washington, because they consistently do overpromise and under deliver. but i would say that in the day after british citizens voted to leave the european union, donald trump was in scotland where he has a golf course and celebrating the so-called brexit vote and said that day that we need to have a free trade deal with great britain, which tells me as he said in other occasions he's not opposed to trade deals, he wants better deals. he's now the president and will have the opportunity to get better trade deals, renegotiating deals like nafta or other agreements we have or pursuing new deals. when we pass trade promotion authority in the congress last

year, also known as fast track authority, it was for six years and no small part because we wanted a new republican president to have the authority to negotiate better deals for the united states. after the brexit vote i introduced legislation in keeping with what donald trump had said, we would give great britain the terms of all trade agreements we had with the european union. i thought it was frankly appalling that so many european leaders from the continent and barack obama had implicitly threatened the citizens of great britain with punishment if they voted to leave the european union. i'm not a british citizen, never expressed an opinion on it. they are a sovereign people. we shouldn't be threatening our closest ally in europe with punishment for making that type of decision. that said, i would expect and hope in any agreement we have with the country that has an economy that's one eighth or one ninth the size of ours would benefit us. that's the way most of you

operate in business, when you have greater leverage which the united states has because of the size of the economy and security guarantees we provide around the world, it's disappointing to a lot of people that the results of those deals don't match the rhetoric behind them. >> is the suggestion being that made going forward what you're going to see in american trade policy under a donald trump and republican congress is one in which you have more country by country trade deals in a distinction between developed countries? >> i think -- so -- >> no more giant trade packets. >> bilateral deals are easier to negotiate than multilateral ones. you can con sum mate them very quickly and donald trump will pursue some of those. if he pursues the trans pacific partnership which the obama administration has agreed it will not be submitted for a vote. like the treatment of buy logics or intellectual property.

when you look at the terms of trade deals, traditionally trade has been focused on things like reducing tariffs and quotas. increasingly trade deals not just ours but around the world have focused more on what they call regulatory harmonization which normal americans would call laws. they don't elect bureaucrats to make them. that's one of the big issues that drove the vote in great britain. it was immigration and surrendering authorities to day to day lives. when you talk about reducing tariffs in good, when they are predicting the size of sizes of olive oil decanters, that's another thing. why should people surrender to an unelected authority outside their own boundaries. >> you said what you took on the comments on brexit, he's not

opposed to trade. what about this idea of slapping tariffs on companies that move to other countries? >> i'll let him speak about the specific details. he spoke about them throughout the campaign and in varying ways but i think the best thing we can do for those companies looking to move jobs overseas is to make america more attractive place for those jobs, to reduce our taxes because we now -- our business here pay higher taxes than any other country in the industrialized world. that's true if you're an industrial giant in a c corporation like general electric or one of the businesses in arkansas that's taxed as a pass through that makes up 3/4 of our businesses. addressing our regulatory system, not just discreet regulations that need to change like the fiduciary rule. they have so little democratic accountability from congress. that's the way we focus on both keeping jobs here in the u.s.

and increasingly brings jobs back to the united states. >> i want to take a second and pull up our audience poll question. they get to weigh in on a thought and we'll bring it up, if it comes. nope. well, i can tell you what it says, in two years' time, will the gop look like the party of paul ryan or party of donald trump? while you think about that and answer that question, a different subject -- >> how would you answer? >> i don't want to bias the jury -- >> immigration is of course another potential area in which republicans in congress and donald trump may have very different views. what do you think are the areas in which you agree, disagree and more importantly, do you think so much attention has been focused on some of the big items

that he says he'll pursue, deportation. what are the prospects for a comprehensive immigration reform? >> well, comprehensive immigration reform is a washington code word for mass immigration and amnesty. prospect for that are very low. >> what are prospects for a fix that is a real reform for immigration? >> i hope we'll address this very early in a sweeping fashion. because our immigration system badly needed change for a long time. this was the signature issue for donald trump in which he most differentiated himself from other republicans on that stage with him and this is an area where he saw things that are were right and so many other republicans missed it. for years and decades going back to 1986, there has been a bipartisan consensus in washington that all immigration reform should look like what i just described or what the 1986

bill looked like which is amnesty for illegal immigrants here today followed by enforcement later and increases in legal immigration. the 1986 bill shows exactly what happens when you take that approach, you get the amnesty immediately, don't get the enforcement because congress loses the will for it and the courts enjoy it and increases of legal immigration, you've seen stagnant wages in so many fields so wrong. the right approach as donald said repeatedly, start with security and enforcement and build a wall or fence or some kind of physical barrier, not drones and sensors that are shiny and politicians like to talk about. get serious about enforcing immigration in other ways as well, a functioning workable employment verification system for american businesses, have a system to track visas because a third of all illegal immigrants came here legally with a visa. crack down on sanctuary city that's refuse to cooperate with law enforcement.

those are the table stakes and the big focus needs to come on illegal immigration. it doesn't serve the interest of american workers. we let into this country about a million green card holders every year. we've done that for about 50 years going back to 1965. of that million, only 140,000 of them are admitted in because of their job or skills -- >> that's amazing. >> 14%. in that 14% are people like lawyers. i don't think we need to give preferences to lawyers coming to the united states. you could immediately refocus green card admissions on what most americans would support, spouses and children. >> the nuclear family. >> we want nuclear families reunited and keep those 140,000 minus lawyers and have a modest refugee program that can be fully vetted and people can be

thoroughly reviewed at the level barack obama himself authorized five years ago and you could cut green card emissions from a million to 500,000 immediately overnight. then you've got a whole group of guest worker programs that have several million people working in them. many of them in unskilled and low skilled jobs and there's no evidence that we have a shortage of that kind of labor here in the united states. if you look at research in the census data in almost -- not almost, in every sector in every job, that job is held by a majority of u.s. born workers which means contrary to popular opinion, there are no jobs that u.s. workers will not do. there are no jobs that u.s. workers will no do that to me are a elitist and snobbish viewpoint. furthermore in those jobs, they have not had pay raises to include jobs that are often held by first generation immigrants. the hospitality industry and construction industry, they have not had pay raises according to census data in many years. i'm not a ph.d. but i think when

there's a shortage of something the price is supposed to increase. it hasn't. if you live in rural canada, you'll find a lot of doctors who come from overseas because we have certain needs that the evidence suggests we should try to meet with high skilled immigration, like computer scientists going to some of our best schools or doctors or noble prize winners but we need to focus on immigration system on those needs and skills, not on the policies that we've had -- >> i want to go out to questions. >> let's get questions from the audience. >> there's the answer up there. >> that's wrong, party of donald trump in two years. a president leads his party. the party in 2000 the republican party was not the party of denny hastert, it was the party of george bush. >> there you go. questions from the audience.

>> i'm bonnie kin zer, formerly reader's digest association. i have a question about your transformation from a democratic family to a republican. i would be interested in hearing that. and the other is knowing that you came from a democratic background and are now republican, how do you think this country will work together better on behalf of the people? >> now to be clear, because my father was a democrat, i was a black sheep in the family, i was republican from the beginning. i was 15 years old when bill clinton was elected president and at first i thought, like 15-year-old, i can't believe my governor is about to be president. i can't believe my governor is president. then i thought i can't believe what my governor is doing as president. i'm going to turn republican. then my parents don't tell me how they vote but i suspect my father, for instance, may have voted for al gore in 1998 and john kerry in 2004.

he was a vietnam veteran and always favored veterans who ran for office. eight years ago arkansas had no elected republicans. we had one member of congress that held the seat for 50 years. and then all seven statewide offices were democratic and five remaining seats were democratic. two-thirds of both the statehouse and senate were democratic as well. today at the end of the obama era, all six members of congress are republican, all seven statewide office holders are republican, 3/4 of the statehouse and state senate are republican. it's the result of the obama era in places that didn't work for arkansas and michigan and wisconsin and minnesota and ohio and pennsylvania. you have a lot of barack obama voters from 2008 who became donald trump voters in those areas. maybe a third of the counties i read that voted for barack obama

went for donald trump this time around because they didn't deliver on the promises in 2008. >> another question. >> thank you, senator, thank you for your service. that was very insightful. if your vision of this new republican party, i'd like to hear more of is it going to be an inclusive vision, which is the vision of where the 21st century is going to be. the victors in the 21st century will be inclusive societies. could you elaborate a little bit more? >> absolutely. you heard the same thing from donald trump and heard it on election night and speeches he was making in the last month or two of the campaign. i understand some of his rhetoric was heart edged throughout the campaign but consistently campaigned on being the president for all americans and being their president as americans. the democratic party has been

practicing identity politics for many years. they appeal to segment of the electorate on this or that issue and try to break it up and microtarget is the term we use in politics. what donald trump did and what republicans have done best when we succeeded as we did with george bush and ronald reagan, appealed to voters as american, not raised on ethnicities or class, but appeal to them as americans. that's for instance why i think donald trump surprisingly did better with hispanic voters in arizona than mitt romney did. he wasn't appealing to them as hispanic americans, he was appealing to them as americans, as people who have been hurt in the same way that white voters in the midwest have been hurt by the failed policies of the last eight years. i was pleased to see donald trump grew our share of the african-american and hispanic vote. but the way we'll grow that vote as a republican party, to appeal to all voters as americans.

we're never going to out identity plik the democratic party, nor should we try. i don't think that's a healthy thing in a large multiethnic democracy. as you can see with those around the world who struggle with those tensions as well. >> other questions, right here. >> senator cotton, you're from a part of the country that the blue dog democrats were in place for quite a while to get run of congress. your thoughts now with harry reid gone and the ability for republicans, particularly moderate republicans to reach across the aisle to more moderate democrats like jo manchin and others. what do you think the chances are with a razor thin margin in the senate? >> my thoughts on harry reid being gone are happy. i'm looking forward to working with chuck sschumer. we have worked together on

the 9/11 first responder bill. i was one of the first main conservative republicans to sponsor that bill. some of the concerns of my more conservative colleagues were misplaced on it. and i talked to chuck since the election working together and joe manchin on a subcommittee i chair or that i chair, we're eager to work together and we have a lot of democrats. i think ten of them who are up in states that donald trump won, six of them he won by more than ten points. i suspect they would like to work as well. i also know they represent states like missouri that pretty similar to arkansas and they have similar concerns of the people i serve. so i'm looking forward, i hope over the next four years to moving some legislation that long overdue that addresses the challenge we've had for a long time that with barack obama but especially harry reid has been frozen in the congress. >> senator cotton, thanks very much. >> thank you all.

[ applause ] >> later today, a memorial service for former cuban leader fidel castro who died last week. his brother, raul, joined other world leaders in the same location where fidel castro delivered his speeches in the years after he seized power in 1959. that's coming up on c-span at 8:00 p.m. eastern. at 8:00 p.m. on c-span 2, supreme court oral argument or immigration detention. the court will decide if detained immigrants facing deportation can be held for longer than six months without a bail hearing. a lower court ruled that the government must provide individualized bond hearings to determine their danger and flight risk. the justices heard the case this week. >> more from this wall street journal ceo conference with senator elizabeth warren on financial regulation and the future of the 2010 dodd frank

law and also her view on the election and the future of the democratic party. [ applause ] senator warren, thank you for making your way down here on a busy day and busy week unexpect unexpectedly. we all lived through a bit of an earthquake on tuesday night. a couple days after the election, you gave a speech and said this, if we learn nothing else from the past two years of election hearing, we should hear the message loud and career that the american people want washington to change. it was clear in the democratic primaries and republican primaries and clear in the campaign and clear on election day. so how do democrats show that they heard that message? what do they do now? >> i think the interesting question is going to be both, how are democrats going to show and donald trump show he heard

that message. that's the message he ran on but right now what he's doing, putting together a transition team that is full of lobbyists and the kind of people that he actually ran against. and so part of what we have to assess here is what is the mandate coming out and i think that the clearest point that comes out of this election is that the american people do not want wall street to run their government. they do not want corporate executives to be the ones calling the shots in washington. you can shake your head no to that but i think that is exactly what this election shows. it shows -- look at the polling from this. about three quarters of all americans do believe that the game is rigged and that's democrats and republicans and independents. and they believe it is rigged in favor of the people in this room and that it is rigged against them and their families and

their children. and they want to see change. they want to see that connection between wall street and giant corporations and our government broken. they want that not to happen any more. they want a government that runs for the people. that's what i think this election is about. >> how do the two parties show that if that's your -- what does the trump transition/administration do that it's not doing now in your opinion? >> it doesn't start by hiring a bunch of lobbyists to run a transition and floating names of people who have run giant hedge funds to be able to then run the treasury or people who come from industry to be able to run the regulatory agencies. the american people understand about the revolving door and i think they are really sick of it. the notion that someone is in

industry and makes a bunch of money and goes into government for a few years, regulating the very same industry then spends right back into industry again. >> elections have but you know, consequen consequences. she he won, he gets to pick his administration, right? >> he won, but i'm just making the point, you better take a look at what he won on. he did not win on a mitch mcconnell/paul ryan business as usual what can we do to help the giant corporations of america. look, i know that the lobbyists are out there salvage straigiva dancing in the streets, saying this is our big chance. we're going to slash regulations. man, look for a tax cut for those at the top. that's what the k street lobbyists may be thinking this morning, but that's not what the people who elected donald trump are thinking this morning. >> if you look at the populist

part of the trump message, one would think -- i think you've talked about this, there are things where, frankly, bernie sanders and donald trump started together and proceeded together. trade, wall street, as you said, college costs, childcare, infrastructure spending. is there a place there on any of those or all of those subjects where populists in the democratic party and a trump administration can come together? can you see that happening? >> well, the question -- this keeps going back to what is donald trump going to do? he's now -- it's been a week, and he's now given us at least the first tangible sign of his vision of how to run a trump presidency. and a big part of that are lobbyists and washington insiders, and the other part of it is to bring someone who is a white supremacist into the white house to be a senior strategist. and i think this is going to be

an important part of the mix going forward. you know, what donald trump is doing right now is that there was a lot -- face it, there was a lot during the election, of a toxic stew of bigotry and attacks on americans all across this country. and that donald trump start his campaign with an attack on mexican americans and rode the escalator down and did attacks on women, he did attacks on african-americans, he did attacks on muslims, he did attacks on immigrants, he did attacks on people with disability. it was kind of everybody who didn't look like the people who showed up at his rallies. there were a lot of people attracted to that, but there were a lot of people not attracted to that and yet vote for donald trump. there were a lot of people who didn't like that part of what

the campaign was about but said we want somebody who's going to shake it up. one of the first things donald trump has done is he has donald trump steve bannon in as a senior strategist. this is a man who has white supremacist ties. that's what he does. this is a man who told his ex-wife that he didn't want his children going to school with jews. this is a man who ran a news organization, who ran headlines like, "would you rather your children have feminism or cancer?" this is a man who says by his very presence that this is a white house that will embrace bigotry. and you know, here i am with the business leaders of america, and i want to underline something that you know -- bigotry is bad

for business. bigotry is not what your employees expect. bigotry is not what your customers expect. if that's the direction that this administration goes, that creates a real problem for everybody. and what i believe about this is there's no longer the possibility on this question of someone like bannon in the administration, of where donald trump goes next. i don't think it's possible to stand on the sidelines and be quiet about this. there are a lot of people in this room who help lead the charge to make workplaces open and accepting places, to say we're open, to all customers, we want to make sure that we serve all americans, that we treat everybody with dignity and respect. if this white house goes in a different direction, that damages every one of us, and i think it calls on the business community for leadership. i think it calls -- the democrats for leadership. but i think that's the problem we've got, and one of the ones

we're going to have to deal with going forward here. we can't ignore this. >> as you suggest, there are millions who vote for donald trump not for those reasons. and by the way, most people used to be democrats, they're -- you know, union workers, blue collar workers, upper industrial upper midwest voters. dhapt vote for that, donald trump, i don't think. but they vote for donald trump anyway. how did your party lose them is what i'm asking? >> all the more point, though, i want to make on that. why it is that this is a moment of such urgency. that people didn't vote for donald trump so that he could bring a white supremacist into the white house and take his advice. i think in is a moment when everybody has to step up. i think it's true for democrats, true for republicans, and i think it's true for the business community. >> but to go back to those voters, why are they not democrats now? why were they trump voters? >> i think that donald trump

made the promise to shake things up. donald trump -- look, he made the argument over and over that the democrats were too close to wall street and big business. that was the core of his economic argument. that too many insiders were calling the shots. that too many multinational corporations were running the trade deals. too many people who made it big were using the tools of government to work for themselves and not to work for anyone else. i think donald trump -- i want to be clear. i think hillary clinton ran on very much the same argument. i just think donald trump made it aggressively -- and let us do remember at the end of the day, hillary clinton actually got more americans to vote for her than donald trump did. the point is, you can't miss

this about the election. when you tuned in, it was driving -- when they drove it effectively or less effectively, it was driving the message that washington needs to work for the little guy. that washington needs to work for the families who have been left behind. that washington doesn't need to work for those at the top anymore. this is important going forward because it raises the question of what does the economic agenda look like. >> let's talk about that. what does the economic -- well, what should the economic agenda look like, in your opinion? what will it look like given the fact that there is -- leaving steve bannon out of this conversation at least for a minute here -- there's overlap between what donald trump is going to try to do -- infrastructure spending -- and what people in the senate on the democratic side, your side, would presumably like to do. where's the overlap? how does it come together? where is there no hope for connection? >> i want to draw the contrast.

i think there's no mandate for mitch mcconnell and for paul ryan. i think there is no mandate rate new to cut regulations and say, i know, let's just turn a bunch of wall street banks loose and see what they will do. i mean, what could possibly go wrong, right? let's not remember what happened in 2008 and the run-up to 2008. i think the appetite for that among the american people is zrks and i think that's exactly what was demonstrated in this -- is zero, and i think that's exactly what was demonstrated in this election. >> if mitch mcconnell was here he would say we won control of the senate and kept control of the house -- >> excuse me, i would say hillary clinton got more votes than donald trump did. we took seats in the senate, and we took seats in the house. he has fewer senators on the republican side, and paul ryan has fewer it on the house side. when they were voting for

hillary clinton or donald trump, they weren't voting for mitch mcconnell and paul ryan's deregulatory mix, let guys do whatever they want to do, let giant corporations do whatever they want to do. >> let's talk about that regulatory agenda. two big issues which you have been identified with very strongly. one is the dodd-frank legislation. and we have an audience question i was going to ask about this. there is a question of what the future of dodd-frank is, and i think we have an audience question, if it can be put up. maybe not? yes, no? all right. we'll skip that then. the question is, will there be a run on dodd-frank? will it succeed -- here's the question. this is what i want people in the audience and then i want you to answer this -- >> okay -- >> -- what happens to dodd-frank? is there a modification, does it get eliminated, or does it live on unchanged? i'm curious what the audience thinks. i'm more curious at the moment what you think. >> voting before i talk?

>> yep. >> okay. >> i don't think this will take language long. >> i don't know. i think there's consultation going on. >> it's rigged. the system is clearly rigged. we can agree on that. >> you guys think you're punching those buttons -- >> it's this -- >> there we go. some modification. >> some modification -- >> one in ten complete elimination, and nobody thinks it's going to change at all. >> all right. >> okay. >> your answer? >> so look, you want what i hope happens or do you want what i -- >> what you hope happens and what you think will happen. >> okay. what i hope happens is that we have some modification. i think that dodd-frank was not tough enough. and donald frank -- donald trump, let's be clear here -- donald trump said -- >> i think they had a different kind of modification in mind. >> this is the rick you run when you modify where does it go.