air and water, and much more will be at risk. >> frankly, i cannot think of anybody who's more qualified to serve as an ex-associate justice of the supreme court. follow the confirmation process on cspan as judge kavanaugh meets with key senators. the senate confirmation hearings and the vote. watch live on cspan, watch any time on cspan.org or listen with the free cspan radio app. and now we'll take you to the washington institute to hear from lieutenant general michael nagata. he directs international planning. he'll talk about the effectiveness of u.s. counterterrorism strategy since 2001.

good afternoon, everybody. i'm matt levitt. i have the pleasure of directing the ryan hart program on counterterrorism on intelligence and welcome, thank you for joining us for the latest in our counterterrorism lecture series. we just recently realized we've been running the series for a decade and there's a lot to be learned over the past ten years as we look back at what we've been doing in counterterrorism, what we've been doing well and what maybe hasn't worked out as well as we look forward to try and figure out what our counterterrorism strategy should be. to have a conversation about just that, we're really honored to have with us lieutenant general michael nagata who assumed his position as director of strategic operational planning at the national counterterrorism center in may

2016. previously he served as commander special operations command central, a subunified command and provided in the first two years of combat operations against and participated in the first years of combat operations against the islamic state. career special operations officer with over two decades of military and interagency counterterrorism operational experience, he's participated in contingency and combat operations in such varied locations as somali, the balkans, iraq, pakistan and syria. we will have the general give opening remarks and then we'll sit back down in the chairs. i'll offer the moderator's prerogative first question, fast curve ball to be sure and then we will open it up to q&a from the audience and we will end at 2:00 p.m. sharp because i promised your staff, apparently,

you have another meeting, that i would get you out of here on time. without further ado, general nagata. please do turn off your cell phones so we don't interrupt the program. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. before i start, i'd be remiss if i didn't express my gratitude both to matt and all of the members for extending me the invitation to be here today to make a few brief remarks but more importantly, engage you in a conversation about what i came here to talk about. the -- as you've already heard, i've been in my position as the senior strategist for counterterrorism at the national counterterrorism center for about two years. what i'm about to try to convey to you is a melding both of my

own practical operational experience, some of which has been successful and some of which has not, but, you know, whether you call it experience or scar tissue i have a lot of both, but experience or scar tissue, i have a lot of both. not just in united states military addresses the problem of terrorism around the world. what i intend to do today is to discuss those counter terrorism efforts. give you my perspective. particularly with an eye toward how our nation strive strategically to protect our interest around the globe from terrorism. after i make the few brief remarks, i'll get to the important part which is a conversation with all of you and with matt.

for nearly 17 years, the united states in conjunction with large number of its allies and partners around the world has exerted extraordinary effort. as all of you know our principal focus has been on the kind of international dlthreat that organizations like al qaeda and isis pose. during this time the united states sent some of its best and brightest to the fartherest reaches of the dploeglobe. along the way we have developed a dizzying array of intelligence capabilities, tactical innovations and technological

breakthroughs year after year. all of us can and should be very proud of all that's been established. not the least of which being the prevention of another catastrophic terrorist attack on u.s. soil such as our nation experienced on 9/11. we rightly grieve those we have lost along the way and still strive to take care of those who have been gravely injured and wounded in this longest of all of america's wars. i believe the time has come to ask ourselves some difficult yet necessary questions. despite the capabilities we have developed and the progress we have achieved why is terrorism today more widespread and complex than when we began.

as just one example of why the underlying trends of terrorism despites our best efforts is so troubling is a sobering statistic that one can derive from the global terrorism database by the university of maryland stark program. since 2010, terrorism related fatalities worldwide have increase ed more than 300%. terrorist attacks with associate fatalities have increased by nearly 200%. separately, here at home, federal law enforcement has about 1,000 terrorism related investigations open in our own communities across 50 states. i'm not trying to suggest that our efforts have been fruitless. the plain fact there's been no repetition of a 9/11 style attack on our own soil is a signal and important accomplishment. the fact that we have revolutionized and i don't use

that term lightly, our own abilities and practices when it comes to illuminating and attacking terrorist leaders and plots is like wise a big deal. that said, i would like to share with you some observations from my perspective as an operational practictioner and today as a d.c. based strategist strike me as germane toward answering these questions. first, where have we been since 9/11. well, the lion share of our investment since that day have gone into developing new ct capability and capacity that are primarily oriented on identifying, illuminating, target, tracking and as we say in the ct world finishing, terrorist and terrorist plots. our principal focus has opinion toward developing our ability of

terrorist leaders and foot soldiers while identifying and disrupting their most dangerous attack plans. the creation of entirely new federal agencies focusing on hardening our infrastructure, defending our boarders and disrupting violent extremist threats inside our country and abroad. second, where are we now? on the one hand, as i've already described, we have developed enormous proficiency and expertise in ct that continue to serve us well today. most recently when the islamic state exploded on to the world sta stage in 2014, the united states was far more ready to begin the military defeat of that entity that would have been possible 17 years ago.

on the other hand, the fact that isis emerged as a surprise for the united states only four years ago should be a sobering realization for all of us. it's compelled large number of experts to recognize that for all the successes we've had, violent extremism in every form continues to be very resilient. i'd like to provide three examples to emphasize this point. first is a personal experience. more than a decade ago i once commanded a foreign fighter task force that focused on foreign fighters that were joining al qaeda in iraq. our best estimates that are in excess of 40,000 foreign

terrorist fighters have flocked to its black flag in that time. first it's weaponizing and effectively employing commercial available unmanned aerial systems. p it's no longer on centralized planning, training or preparation. second and in some ways even more dangerously, is this group's innovative use of online propaganda including social media platforms to recruit, radicalize and mobilize individuals to violence.

no longer is the creation of new trich terrorists depending on physical and face-to-face contact between a perspective recruit or terrorist recruiter. consider the truck driver in nice, france in 2016 was able to kill and maim as many people with his truck as a large ied tack would have. third, we had a notion right after 9/11 that quote, we will play such an awesome away game that there will never be a home game. nearly 20 years ago i had to confront the -- nearly 20 years later i had to confront the sad

reality that despite the impressiveness of our away game efforts, the overall movement of terrorism and violence extremism has proven durable and resilient to our attacks. today we're contesting an unprecedented scale not just internationally but against a wider array of doe mystic and home grown violent extremism on our own soil. we must find way to preserve today's impressive ability to disrupt terrorism while reducing terrorism in all its forms.

it's necessary for the united states to shift more o investments in people and capability towards what i will imperfectly called non-kinetic of terrorism. it may seem a little unusual for a military social operator like myself to make such an argument but i've been forced to confront the simple reality that attacking terrorists does not create lasting success against terrorism. it's necessary but it is not sufficient. i'm not suggesting that we reduce our investments in what we have so successful done in the past 17 years.

the organization of both governmental and non-governmental to strive to prevent terrorism or terrorist activities the proven methodology that could justify such a massive investment approach. further more, the federal government has learned it must be very thoughtful and careful in how it supports or even resources or funds prevention programs activities with respect to our imper tiative to ensure free enterprise are protected. what i am suggesting is this, we need a much more vibrant dialogue and effort within our government and across our society about the degree to which we're willing to increase our investments in terms of fiscal resources, manpower and

genuine policy support for five related mission areas. first, becoming more effective in assisting families in identifying those vulnerable to terrorism recruitful. too muching them how to address their needs without resorting to violence. second, becoming more effective in contesting terrorism ideologies. becoming more effective at preventing terrorism travel both internoos

intergnarl l internationally and domestically. they deserve the credit that's due them. there's not enough of them. not everything was sfuccessful but we learn from every mistake. we were willing to absorb the set backs and persevere because

it was so important that we learn how to succeed. we do not know the prescriptions, approaches, skills, capabilities or organizational models best suited to succeed nonhfr kinetically. it will only be through the kind of ruthless experimentation that we were once willing to endure that we learn how to be equally successful in preventing terrorism. i'm going to stop there. i would be delighted to answer any questions you have or deal with any challenges you may wish to make to any of my assertions today. thank you for listening to me.

i appreciate your patience. we'll move to q and a. >> if i can have someone move the podium back so i can see people on this room as well. jen thank you so mumch. the missionaries that you lads o laid out touch on what we once called kind of radicalization. d out touch on what we once called kind of radicalization.laid out touch on what we once called kind of radicalization.laid out touch on what we once called kind of radicalization. it's the one area in what i would describe not as tactical but strategic there's still a tremendous amount of debate

about especially in this administration. when i look at what we do on cve as a country abroad, i see us doing lots of great things. there's a lotless less happening at home. how would you better shape our cve efforts here in the homeland? >> i'll try to be brief. the thing i'm most concerned about not just inside our own country but pretty much everywhere around the world is how -- is what i consider to be a strategic deficit in various

forms of support for the people, the leaders and the populations that are most likely to be successful in preventing someone from taking the path to terrorism. it's true in our own country. said perhaps a little more practically just avoid the darn darn dangers. >> there's an element of do no harm. >> right. the deficit is pervasive.

it's true abroad. it's true at home. the dirth of effective training and sufficiently support for mostly civil society actors, family members, community, activists, community leaders of various types.

everywhere i go the most frequent lament i get is the where can i go? who can i turn to who can teach me, train my people, train people in my community. how do we know what we're looking for and once we know we found it, what are the most effective approaches to dealing with it so we avoid mobilization of violence. holding a radical idea is not a crime. it's constitutional protected.

avoid violating their rights, avoid creating the impression this is just a government program to spy on americans. i think what i just described is more complex. >> okay. right up front here. >> the fight against isis that you've been involved with still

continues in eastern syria. what would be the implications of removing the troops from syria at this point in time. >> good to see you. i'm going to try to take this in three bites. the last part was consolidate the gains, if i remember right. let me take this in three pieces. the fight against the islamic state, as you know well, i'm not trying to school you. it's not confined to eastern syria. it's not even confined to syria. we do have to finish offer and

we're well on the way to fini finishing off the remnants of the declared geographic caliphate. it's shrunk down to a small part. there will still plenty of isis fighters elsewhere in iraq and syria. they are still terrorists. even when we finish the fight. including something we should all be worried about. a large number of foreign fighters. the good news is the coalition finished off a lot of those people but there's still a lot of them left. they have gone to ground from a lot of places.

the fight's not over. it's not even over in iraq and syria even once we finished off the last remnant of the original geographic caliphate. it begs the question to the two other things you ask me here, what do we do about what remains. my view is the role of the united states is irreplaceable in dealing with what remains. i don't know what the outcome of those debates will be.

my view and i express this view in the circles that i live in today that the role of the united states in maintaining focus on the remnants of isis in iraq and syria is irreplaceable. if we're not the galvanizing actor, i think it's unlikely that someone else will fill our place. experience shows that if the pressure on the islamic state remnants that are in iraq and syria is lifted, i think all you have to do is refer back to what happened in the journey from aqi to isis to realize what the remnants of isis will all become stronger. what can be done to consolidate

the gains? this is not original thought with me. you ask any one of the agencies you'll get the answer i'm about to give you. if the government's in that region are unable or unwilling to address the original grievances that allow the morphing of the remnants of aqi to the islamic state, there will be no consolidation of our gains. the people in the region have to consolidate the gains. some of them are trying. we have -- it's in our interest and view to assist them, to support them. consolidation cannot be done by the united states.

consolidation have to be done by people that live there. >> thank you. >> tim andrews. i'm a contractor at the state department. you spoke to resources for non-kinetic activitieactivities. i wonder if we drill this down a bit and look at the no coercive and ask you the question of whether we have our risk for that kind of activity calibrated properly. we've been willing to take a fair bid of risk on the kinetic side but in my observation over roughly ten years in this arena we're not willing to take risks on the no coercive side and what can we do about it? >> the short answer is i think it requires us to make different

decisions. the longer answer is in my opinion, as well as my experience, if you want to see a vivid example, watch what international leaders do in the wake of combat casualties among their own forces. we have to keep going. that's a common experience in the military.

often that does not happen. when there's a set back or perception of failure. this is true of governments around the world, the international community tends to flinch from failure in these n non-kinetic failures. we're less willing to accept risk than in direct combat with the enemy. that's a decision. that's a choice. i'll close by being a little more specific. this policy support can take many forms. in my role, we do assessments of how our fiscal resources and the capabilities that they fund are

being used. i doubt it will surprise you to know that a very small fraction of our counter terrorism expenditures go to things like counter messaging, terrorism prevention, et cetera. it's a very small investment we make. we still have a lot to learn in these arenas. we need to be careful here. more people and more money recognizing that some of this won't work. recognizing if we're willing to accept fatalities and keep going, we should be willing to

see an effort to counter an ideology or prevent the recruitment of an individual or group that may fail. may fail very badly. if we're not willing to accept that, it begs the question how serious are we in this arena because we don't know erveg that c -- everything that can succeed in these arenas. we have years now of knowing what doesn't work in tracking down and capturing or killing a terrorist. we have two decades of experience.

on the topic of terrorism prevention i'm frequently challenged when i make remarks like i made today. the basic version is thomas edison said something like i didn't invent the lightbulb. i invented a thousands ways not to have a lightbulb. we have to be willing to undertake that journey when it comes to ct. >> thank you.

my question is many countries from egypt to bangladesh are often accused of abusing their counter terrorism provisions as part of efforts to crack down on dissent that increasing political grievances and fueling radicalizati radicalization. how can we hold our partners to focus on the real threats that matter? >> only reason i'm hesitating is i doubt anything i'm about to say is anything you haven't heard before. there is a tendency. it's not just true of the united states but countries around the

world. it is an emergency in many cases that you don't accept risk in confronting the physical threat which means you do accept risk in other places, including the possibility that some of our partners or allies around the world may take license with the support we give them in ways that we do not want them to. we have to con front is everything of importance.

we have to accept the risks that we believe make the problem worse. our tendency has been to treat everything as an emergency. i'm going to take a little poetic license because i've been looking for an opportunity to say something about it now. please forgive me. i want to offer this audience something to think about. probably something you're already thinking about. terrorism, of courbviously, is important problem. terrorism is hardly the leading cause of mortality around the world. i was looking at an actuarial table and examining in an experience actuarial table. i have a likelihood of being killed by a household pet than killed by a terrorism attack.

i'm not trying to equate the two. when one considers the number of americans, just to bring it back to our own country. the number of americans killed by terrorist attacks since 9/11. asaid from that, the number of americans that have been killed in terrorism attack has been comparatively small when one considers the number of americans died in traffic accidents, opioids and the like. i think we sometimes invite what your question suggests. sometimes we inadvertently

things that actually ensure that the problem never gets solved. >> right up here in the center. >> thanks so much for the presentation. a little bit on the political background that as americans we live with the reality and specifically since 9/11, there's been changes of administration. i'm wondering in counter terrorism work, at least in offering plans and insights and strategy, it's affected by change of administrations. are you affected by that? >> anyone in government service

is affected by change in administration. policy goals change. policy preferences change to some degree. yes, i am affected. all my colleagues are affected by changes in administration opinion from that imperative has flowed mump of what we have done for 17 years now. whatever we do, we're going to prevent another 9/11. that has been a policy imperative that has not changed from administration to administration, in my view. i think rightly so.

that said, we've also been very consistent in being premaimaril focused on those active tis that lead to the death or the capture of a terrorist. where our focus has not been on preventing the creation of new terrorists. that's also been consistent from administration to administration opinion we published strategies and plans about this but if one examines the policy support, the manpower, and the money that wefr comm we've committed to these things, it's a tiny fraction of what we devoted to bringing a physical finish to a terrorist around the world. that's the balance that i think needs to be redressed. that's not unique to the current administration, the previous administration or the

administration that was in power on 9/11. i don't think the non-kinetic community could absorb the resources that's been showered on the kinetic side. there's too much imbalance. that has to be dressredressed i view. >> we have the thank you. you indicated that social media companies are the soft underbelly of the internet has become weaponized by terrorist organizations. social media companies in the united states claim they are doing a more effective job helping to reduce the proliferation of terrorist activity, et cetera, et cetera.

my question to you is the following. yet through the back door we in our organization are witnessing how isis is using collateral platforms of facebook as well as google, et cetera to now hide in plain sight. given the fact the companies indicate they are doing more, if you could get them to do more than what they are doing, what would you ask them to do? >> thank you for the question. first of all, i think we should give credit where credit is due. i doubt anybody in this room that anybody is not aware of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of extremist accounts, untold volumes of extremist

content that's been taken off mostly the large media platform is the ones you've already eluded to like facebook, tw twitter, many others as well. it's also important to recognize that you don't have to be a company like facebook to create a prolific social media platform. some of the most famous social media platforms or most well known, commonly used, if you actually look at who is running it, it's pretty close to a mom and pop cottage industry. it doesn't take a lot of people.

perhaps more importantly, i think there's an unanswered question about taking down content that we have to address before we go back to anybody in the text sector and say you have to do more. what's the connection? what's the correlation between taking down content and reducing the scale of terrorism around the world? i, personally, am uncertain about that. i would like to believe there's a direct causal correlation. the more we take down the content, the less terrorism we'll have around the world. i'm not convinced that's true. i'm not suggesting we should not take down that content. people get killed with that content.

i'm not convinced taking down more content makes the kind of strategic difference that i think some people think it does. it may be true but i'm not yet ready to embrace the idea that it's true. my caution to the people that endanger in tech sector before you ask them to do more, why don't we examine should we not examine how much of a difference does this actually make. just as importantly and i doubt this will surprise you, taking down content, extremist consent is a comparatively easy task for these tech companies to do.

if we're not careful, we're going to demand things of of them they're unable or unwilling to do. we may be approaching that boundary already. i think there's a step we have to take. how much of a difference does this actually make? . >> okay. on the left here. gentleman with his hand up. >> i'm larry mandel . i had the pleasure of serving in turkey. the you think our joint work

with the turks was largely sfrl successful and if you had to do it again, you'd deploy. >> first of all, it's great to see you. i would be remiss if i didn't say thank you to you and your colleagues in the team for putting up with me for all those repetitive visits. looking back, is always a tempting but dangerous exercise, but i'll try. my personal view is there was no alternative to doing what i would argue people like you, people like me, the ambassador, were all trying to do. that is take the time necessary

to encourage and persuade our turkish colleagues to take this journey with us. there are people in this government who completely disagree with me. i don't criticize them. i can understand why people in our government and across the coalition felt regardless of what our turkish brothers may think, we have to do what we have to do. that was not the tack i was talking. it's easy for me to convince myself what i do works, but i do believe it was working. the question i could not answer is could the united states, could the coalition afford the time it would take to bring our

turkish colleagues along the way with us. i still don't know the answer to that. if i had to do it all over again, would i? no. >> in the back. >> day after day isis became stronger and active. how important is it p to return and how do you describe security situation over there and what is your opinion of the kurdish leadership against isis. thank you. >> thank you for your question.

it was a great reunion. first of all, i want to pay tribute to the particularly the soldiers and the officers in the kurdish formations that fought isis in those early days. you were holding the line. we should give credit where credit is due. it was a very important measure and capability that prevented a very dangerous situation in iraq and it prevented it from becoming catastrophic. i want to pay tribute to that. i told my kurdish colleagues

when i was in northern ie rook a few weeks ago. it's going to be both a challenge and a test case for the new iraqi government once it's fully formed. the election has only recently happened. i don't think we have a final fornl f form for the government. once it's in place, it will be an early test case for the new government. i think the best people on both sides are trying to find a path towards some kind of joint administration.

i've heard people on both sides caution americans and other coalition members that there's significant peril for the entire country if that joint administration agreement is not reached. i agree with them. none of this is possible until the new government in baghdad has been fully formed. this is a story that's yet to be written. if we are to prevent a return of the islamic state or something like it, there has to be a different political outcome in this part of the world than we've had previously.

>> right up here, please. thank you very much. >> i've just returned from israel. spent three weeks on my brother's farm. a few rockets came over. not close to us luckily. sitting in that chair about six weeks ago, seven weeks ago was a woman who said iran poured 250 million dollar into gaza years alg. are we doing enough to counter that. we see what's going on with hezbollah. could you comment on that? thank you very much.

>> i can try. i want to start by saying at the risk of sounding like i'm trying to dodge your question, the question about are we doing enough or is the world doing enough because iran is recognized by many countries as a state sponsor of terrorism. the question of are we doing enough begs a different question. what are our goals? we would like iran to stop being a state sponsor or terrorism. we would like terrorism that's connected either directly or indirectly with iran to cease. that said, our administration has made no secret of its intent and its determination to deal with what we're -- i'll use a

u.s. government term here. to deal with iranian maligned behavior. that's our intent and goal. it's unfinished work, sir. some of it is under way now. i'm sure you're aware of the sanctions. if withdrawal from the joint plan of action is a component of this. there is much more yet to be decided and based on those decisions there's much more yet

to come that we have not decided so this -- we are at the very beginning of this administration's journey to contest iran's use of terrorism or terrorist entities around the world. it can't be enough yet because we've only just begun. >> the secretary of state has given us this 12-point plan. the secretary is saying things like he's engaging in this malign activity. how does someone translate these big statements.

>> i want to a void trying to turn this into a seminar about strategy development. at a minimum we try to look at this through two lenses. we try to look another it through the red lens or enemy lens. what are they trying to do and how are they trying to do it. unfortunately, iran has many instruments at its disposal when it comes to terrorist or terrorist activity. they have their own state organ that are at their disposal. they can use to conduct malign activities of many different types. iran is a global actor. they have people that will do their bidding in the western hemisphere. we have to understand what we're

grappling. thaths an ongoing process. we have to recognize that they have the ability to retaliate. if we harm them, they have the a ability to harm us or our allies. we have to take that into account. doesn't mean we should shrink for action. we have to be ready for possible reaction. that's ongoing work. finally, what can we do? what are we willing to do? i'm going to use one example so

i don't go on endlessly about this. iran is a very capable potential adversary. we will need exquisite intelligence for iranian use of terrorism. that's not been where our intelligence community focus has been for the last 17 years. there are other demands. one of the other things we have to take stock of is how much of our intelligence community capabilities can we afford to devote against a very complex and very formidable adversary when it comes to iran.

when it's intention with unrelenting demand for those same capabilities for other problems. our limiting factor is not our ability to impose costs on iran. our limiting factor is our a ability to know where, when and how and what the outcomes will be. those are all intelligence questions. the ic is meeting itself coming and going with the multiple terrorism and nation state challenge demands that are pouring onto the dni every single day. >> mike rollins up front here. thank you. >> thank you general for your remarks and for your years of commitment. it's greatly appreciated by those of us who have been fighting the fight. i retired after 31 years in the fbi and spent a lot of time in

this town and i could not agree more. first a comment then a question. i could not agree more with your statement about newer decisions and risk analysis and moving away from such high level of risk aversion that nothing gets done. with that said, one of the great fears we had that has not evolved as we thought it might was the danger posed to our country domestically by returning foreign fighters. without getting specific, i'd like to hear you speak to your level of confidence that we know who they are, we know where they are and when they return our plan is in place and will be effective to the degree it can be. >> thank you. i spent a fair chunk of time worrying about the foreign fighter problem. not just for the united states but many of our partners and allies around the world. i'm going to a conference soon to discuss this.

you used the term confidence. we know a lot. it's just we don't know enough. i've used the term in my prepared remarks that our best estimates estimates are that something in excess of 40,000 terrorist fighters have joined isis since 2014. there's a lot of latency in our reporting. we sometimes don't know that a foreign fighter joined a terrorist group or may have even traveled back home until months or sometimes years after the travel has happened. that's not because we're dumb or incompetent. it's a function of what i said a moment ago which is there is so much tension on our intelligence community, so many multiple competing demands, our ability

to focus collection and analysis on just the foreign fighter problem is limited. it calls into question our confidence in making such assessments. but our analysts are trained to be conservative in their estimates. so the 40,000 numbers certainly low. now many -- the good news is many of them were killed. very large number of them have died during the military campaign of the last four years. that's all to the good. but thousands of them remain. i'm going to change your question slightly. what's our confidence we can track them from places like iraq or syria to their next destination? which might or might not be their place of origin.

unfortunately the same answer. our ability to focus on that question with limited intelligence resources is limited. so we are often surprised about it emergence of foreign fighters that was in location x but now shown up in location y. i want to point something out. we're stopping foreign fighter or terrorist travel is a necessary component. it's part of, i would argue, the things we should do nonkinetically, making it much harder for terrorists to get on an airplane and travel internationally. this is no small task when you consider the world is very busy liberalizing international travel. it's never been faster. never been more convenient, never been more available and never been cheaper than it is

right now. so while we've been busy liberalizing international travel, we have to undertake the challenge of identifying a tiny fraction of that traveling population and prevent them from traveling what sofr. that is no small feat. it's going against the grain of liberalizing international travel. it's necessary. we have to succeed at this. this is another arena i don't think gets as much attention as it should. >> in the back in green. what were some of the other lessons you picked up over your time in the military and various tours when it comes to harnessing local populations to

defeat terrorist groups, whether it be those operation program in afghanistan, even the mr awakening and facilitating that uprising. i think there are a lot of lessons from those that are often contrary to how our bureaucracies are designed and often institutionalizing and often quite readily abandoned. thank you. >> thank you. i'm going to give you a very personal answer here. this is deeply colored, perhaps badly biassed by my personal experiences. but here's my answer. if someone wants to be effective in harnessing, collaborating with, having a functional and effective relationship with a foreign actor of any kind, an international actor of any kind. i don't care whether it is a local tribal militia or it's a foreign government's military, the key to success is personal

relationships. our logic and our language about ends, ways and means aligning interests are important. i'm not trying to discount that. but in the absence of taking the time and making the investments necessary to forge personal relationships with these actors is only so far can you go. you know, i mean, after the last 17 years, you know, there's a small cottage industry of books that have been published about what i just said. >> two of them. >> yeah. >> whether, you know, title is three cups of tea and what have you. but the common denominator among those i had a chance to read is this is fundamentally dependent on getting to the point. and this happens in our own

society. it shouldn't surprise us. it happens in american culture as much as it happens anywhere else in the world. you get to the point in developing your relationship with someone. i have my own memories of this. that's why i'm making this such a personal answer, where some local leader is looking at me, a much younger version of me with darker hair saying things like well, you know, colonel what you asked for here is very difficult. we would not do this normally. over the months you've done stuff for us and we trust you and because you're asking me, we're willing to do this. now maybe that's jut fst for sh. it is such a frequent experience for me that i've come to rather passionately believe that you have to have the logic. you have to have the nation state interest in mind. you have to be mindful of the

talking points you were given. but in the absence of a personal relationship, particularly when lives are on the line, particularly when the stakes are very, very high, you don't have a personal relationship with the people you're trying to work with, you're probably never going to get there. >> i tlaed somewhere in yo-- re somewhere in your book, dan. dave pollack? >> thanks very much, general. i want to ask you about something that may be sort of a happier prospect here which is -- >> happiness is in short supply in the counter-terrorism world. >> i'm not sure if you agree. it seems to me that in the long term on the ideological front that there is a promising potential today that did not exist until very recently which

is a change in the policy of countries like saudi arabia in particular. but others as well. in the way that they institutionally propagate islam. and trying to move in a more toll ranlt a tolerant and less violent and generally more enlightened or moderate direction. and we've seen that here at the washington institute where i am, where we hosted senior clerics from some of the countries and heard a very different message in the last year or two from what we used to hear. i wonder if you have any way of assessing whether this is made a difference so far, whether you see in the longer term it could yield some significant benefits for our overall international counter terrorism effort and if there is anything else that strike you about this phenomenon?

thank you. >> i'm going to start by telling you something that you probably already heard. it's a fairly common story in this town. i can't remember the exact setting. but it was high ranking leader from china who had come to visit one of our war colleges. i think a war college. and he was asked the question by somebody in the audience what he thought the significance of the american revolution was, his famous answer was, its too early to tell. i'm not trying to be trite about this. it immediately popped into my head as listening to you. untying this -- at the risk of using a bad analogy, the gordon knot of the variety of causes, grievances and ideologies that forment terrorism at the scale we see it around the world is going to take generations.

this -- again this is going to sound like a little bit of exertion. i keep a copy of george cannon's long telegram just to remind myself it's not impossible to take a generational approach to a problem. it is just rare. i think the world not just the united states, i think the world is going to have to adopt a generations long approach to untying this gordon knot of grievances, causes and ideologies. some of what we've heard from our arab friends is promising. but it is way too early to draw any conclusions in my humble opinion. i applaud what they seem to be trying to do. i welcome all of it. but if past experience is any indicator, some of this will

fail. will they keep going when it fails? i ask us that question. when we fail at something, will we keep going. or will we quit? it's too painful, hard, complicated. or it will take too long. if we're serious. if the world is serious, we will do what george canyon recommended in the long telegram. we will stay at this for as long as it takes. it will take even longer than 17 years to untie the grievances, the causes, the ideologies. are we willing to do it? i don't know yet. i hope so. or we're never going to be rid of this problem. >> all right. so we have about 15 minutes left which means it's lightning

round. i promise to get you on time and also promise to get everybody's questions in. i'm going to mike over here on my right, please. >> your name is? >> eric schmitt from at the "new york times." i want to look at this point as an inflection point to follow up on the last response. as we see the demise of the islamic states success on the battlefield at least, do you see the trajectory moving forward, consolidation of these various islamic extremist groups? or do you see, for instance, competition between al qaeda and the islamic state. what direction do you see this

taking? let me give you a slightly different answer. from what your question would otherwise lead me to. i'm going to answer your question by saying here's what i'm worried about the most when it comes to the future of terrorism. it's the convergence of two things i talked about in my prepared remarks. the convergence of -- and unfortunately, isis is a pioneer in both of these arenas and they've been -- therefore, they've been a model and example for aspiring extremists around the world. as indicated in the prepared remarks, no longer did someone try to recruit a terrorist ever have to physically meet an

aspiring terrorist. you don't even have to directly communicate with them. just get the right video and the right forum and you'll inspire that person of violence without any instruction whatsoever, no training, no preparation, no resourcing, no direction a complete decentralization of the recruitment process. it has been very effective. we were talking about the earlier conversations with the tech sector around the world. get all this content off the internet. fit weren't incredibly effective. we wouldn't be spending all this time on it. but converging with something else that i talked about in the prepared remarks.

the powerful technology and it's not the only example i used in my remarks. i'm sure some of new this room have seen if you have a 3-d printer, can you make a firearm in your basement. and that's not just true inside the united states. that's true around the world. you can download the instructions for a chemical weapon on the internet. recruitment of a terrorist no longer requires centralized planning or resourcing or direction, radicalizing them and then mobilizing them to violence doesn't require any central authority or centralized connection and increasingly powerful lethal capability is

available to anyone that has a credit card and the ability to follow instructions on the internet. that is the future of terrorism. i'm less concerned about the existence of large formal structures like al qaeda and isis. i'm very concerned about them. i don't want to make light of. that but i'm more concerned about where this is all headed. for increasingly this is such a difuse but central and lethal enterprise that much offu our current capabilities are not tailored for. >> on that note, right here please, the blue shirt. can you talk to the counter terrorism goals in west africa? i think highlighted last summer with the deaths of the special force soldiers in niger, there is an uptick in political violence in nigeria and round g

surrounding countries and widespread insurgency in terrorism around the region. thank you. >> terrorism is a symptom of a problem. the violence that too many african societies and too many africans are suffering from, whether it's in the lake chad basin area, it's in nigeria, somalia, on the other side of the continent, it's all a result of political societal cultural underpinnings that all african nations are struggling to address. on too many cases not

successfully. but there is no prospect of the united states being willing to mount the kind of large scale counter terrorism efforts that we're willing to mount so far in afghanistan or iraq. that's not on the table. nobody's proposing it. we have other problems including the competition we have to deal with. we have to find other solutions, we and our african partners and colleagues. we have to find other solutions. some taker iflts haerrorists ha captured and some killed. i am not trying to dismiss. that the future of counter-terrorism in africa could be a test bed for how seriously is not just the united states but how seriously is the international community willing

to invest in things that don't involve killing or capturing terrorists? i don't know the answer to that yet. >> with your permission, we're going to take two questions and then get -- >> i know i'm fighting the moderator here. >> that katie and then pass right behind you. >> thank you. our counter terrorism efforts to day have been incredibly enemy centric. it is focused on sprenltipreven enemy from recruiting individuals. and we also have drawn lines between insurgencies so the groups that hold the same ideology as al qaeda and isis and terrorist groups themselves trying to distinguish them from what i see as a broader movement. moving forward, as we're looking at how these groups and the movement itself is operating on

the ground, they're not focused on the united states or the west in the same way that we're focused on them. they're focused on the people. and my question is if the enemy is focused on the people and the united states is focused on the enemy, doesn't that create a strategic weakness in our counter-terrorism strategy and how do we start to fix that? >> great question. before you answer, the person right behind you. >> i'm linda. i have two quick questions. one is what -- based on your observation are the best practices to counter extremism in a nonkinetic way. and the second is given the status of terrorism's threat, how it is perceived in the u.s. government that is like less important or emergent than the threat from pure state competition from china or russia? how do you convince the

government that it's important to raise more funding or focus more on nonkinetic counter violence extremism? >> all right. i'm going to try to take these in proper order here. so your question was founded on the notion that the enemy is focused on the population. we're focused on them. that's a problem. what you reminded me is that i've -- i worry about. i'm going to use specific example here as a way of answering your question. there's a specific missionary

called counter messaging. some people call it fighting the narrative, contesting the ideology. the u.s. government calls it as counter messaging. i dislike the term. we're still using it. nobody cares whether or not i like it. but i dislike the term. it seems to imply that it is sufficient to criticize the enemy's message. now i believe it is necessary to criticize the enemy's message. some of the message is hol wilo hypocritical, specious. so we should criticize the narrative and the deal that they are offering to those they are either trying to persuade their -- to join the ranks or simply an effort to cowl them into submitting to whatever it is they want to do. it's insufficient to do that. they're offering the population they're talking to a deal.

it begs a question that we falter in answering. what is our deal? what are we offering the same people that is more attractive, more one reason we falter is because it's very hard to get international consensus on what the alternative ought to be. what i might think the better deal would be and what some other person like me in some other government around the world could be very, very different. so getting international consensus or regional consensus on what a more attractive, more persuasive better offer would be is incredibly difficult. and it's had the unintended consequence of discouraging us

from trying. this is a terrible answer. but it reminds me of what my wife often tells me when i i merge from our walk in closet having gotten ready for whatever social engagement we're going to. and my wife looks at me up and down and she says will you just try? we have to try. too often we don't try. the investments that need to be made -- i'll use cd as an example. i was in a recent -- about a year ago i was in a conversation with a pretty important person in our government about preventing terrorism or cde. i said, hey, with all due respect, sir, i think we need to invest more in this. his immediate answer was you have to prove to me it works

first. my spans wresponse was, sir, wi due respect, we haven't tried anything hard enough to see fit works. unless we're willing to try hard enough that we go through what as i mentioned thomas edison once said, we're not willing to fail, we're never going to find the road to success. that's been our problem. we're so afraid of failure, we're not willing to try. that's the best practice we could have got is try hard enough to succeed and endure the setbacks along the way. >> kate bower from the washington institute. thank you, general, for being so generous with your time in this wide range of questions. i had a question that you addressed. but i'll following up back to it. you discussed in your prepared

remarks the threat from terrorists getting ahold of unmanned aerial systems. i was just wondering, given the commercial available technology, what can be done to disrupt the ability of terrorist organizations to get ahold of them and to deploy them? or is this more a question of looking at the battlefield response? is this part of the threat picture that we have to take into account from a battlefield perspective? or can we do both? >> fund. ally organizations have changed from hierarchy to more network structures. for junior analysts and open source researchers, when is the best efforts focused on understanding how the networks are functioning? >> i'm sorry. could you restate your question one more time? i don't think i captured all of

it. terrorist organizations have changed for more hierarchy networks and sometimes it's cross regionally and with other organizations. where is our efforts best focused as journal analysts on where and how to understand the networks. >> okay, thank you. >> beyond just mining the washington institute's website, of course. >> all right. i will try to take these in order. let me make a quick note to myself here. an unmanned aerial systems -- first of all, i'm going to stipulate something that i i'd like to be wrong about. the toothpaste is out of the tube. the ubiquitous availability of increasingly powerful unmanned

aerial systems is -- there is no way to roll that back in to the spool. it's out there in the wild. for those that don't know, there is an international sport called racing drums. i was remiss -- i was actually intending to check periodically i do a search for the fastest racing drone i can find. by the way, for those that don't know, there are propeller driven and jet engine racing drones now. when i last time i checked, i'm sure it's faster now, last time i checked was about four months ago, it was -- i went sfearchin for what is the fastest propeller or jet engine driven drone i could buy with a credit card and have in three days. four months ago propeller driven about 200 miles an hour. jet engine, in excess of 400 miles an hour. you don't actually have to

weaponize that. it already is a weapon. now the good news is the lions share of people around the world are using them for recreational, peaceful or commercial purposes. that's all to the good. i'm not suggesting we stop any of that. if a bad actor wants to use it for a bad purpose they can. isis is showing the way. but the thing that i worry about most is the platforms are exceeding the ability of the human brain to pilot. they are already achieving performance characteristics that exceed what a human can match on the joystick. so people are flying the systems using a form of artificial intelligence you can put on a

smart phone. so we're dealing with flying robots. it begs this question. are we willing as a government to innovate faster than the commercial industry is innovating? >> and if you can't regulate. >> or that. there is not static. this is moving with what the united states government wants. >> on the other question, asking for advice is always dangerous.

i think understanding terrorism is -- there is a lot -- any analyst can and will learn from what we have in our classified holdings. those will always be important. but increasingly understanding terrorism is going to require us to do -- become much more effective in learning about terrorism outside of what is available in the classified realm. but we're not particularly good at that. they don't get paid for examining what is in the wild. they get paid and promoted for examining what is in our classified holdings. i it this future is going to require us to expand our april tour that make us very uncomfortable. it's going to require us to examine publicly available information that is no quality control. there is a lot of quality control on classified holdings.

but more and more of what is happening in terrorism is going to be found there. >> general, today you walked into the walk in closet of the washington institute and you tried real hard and you did real well. >> thank you. >> please join me in thanking the general and his staff for taking the time today and for making this possible. thank you to those able to join us in person and in those able to join us online or in the world of c-span. have a great day.

federal reserve chair jerome powell will be on capitol hill tomorrow testifying before the house financial services committee regarding monetary policy and the economy. live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span3. also online at c-span.org and you can listen with the free c-span radio app. and this coming thursday, senate banking committee will hold a confirmation hearing for president trump's nominees to lead the consumer financial protection bureau and the

export-import bank. live coverage is at 10:00 a.m. eastern an c-span3 and available on c-span.org and listen with the free c-span radio app. >> tonight it is my honor and privilege to announce that i will nominate judge brett kavanaugh to the united states supreme court. >> mr. president, i'm grateful to you and i'm humbled by your confidence in me. >> brett kavanaugh of the united states court of appeals for the district of colombia circuit, s. president trump's nominee for the supreme court. >> i'm pleased with the nominee that president has chosen and after talking to him yesterday morning, i look forward to supporting his nomination in doing whatever i can to ensure his bipartisan confirmation. >> if judge kavanaugh is confirmed, women's freedom to make decisions about their bodies, reforms to our health care system and the quality of

our air and water and much more will be at risk. >> frankly, i can not think of anybody who's more qualified to serve as the next associate justice of the supreme court. >> follow the confirmation process on c-span, through congress as judge kavanaugh meets with key senators. the senate confirmation hearings and the vote. watch live on c-span. watch any time on c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> a short time ago, president trump gathered with house republicans to talk about making tax cuts permanent. before that, the president talked about his meeting yesterday with russian president putin. >> thank you, everybody. yesterday i returned from a trip from europe where i met with leaders from across the region to seek a more peaceful future for the united states.