was that there was significant opposition in the united states to giving back the canal. and, in panama in 1968 there was a military coup that brought to power a general. a military dictatorship. so, there was concern in the early 70's, really, that making a treaty, a deal for the revision of the treaty. >> we will leave this program but a reminder you can watch the entire program on c-span.org as we take you live to a discussion on current u.s. foreign policies hosted by the stimson center in washington, d.c.. you are watching live coverage on c-span3. >> well, ladies and gentlemen, a

very warm welcome to the stimson center, happy new year. my name is brian and i am the president and ceo and it is a great pleasure to welcome all of you as well as our guest. i want to start to recognize that we are in a national day of mourning and i want to take a moment to really reflect on the really tremendously remarkable contributions that president carter made to our country and to our world and the many of the issues that we will talk about over the course of the next hour. we are certainly thinking of the former president and his family on this day. the new year is upon us and in 11 days we will welcome a new administration to washington. as we get our bearings in the new year, we are really pleased to kick off a series of these

discussions that really think of brand strategy and america's place in the world and situate u.s. foreign policy in the minds of policymakers and all of us. we are very pleased to kick this off with one of the great foreign policy thinkers of our time, many of you know stephen who is the president and ceo of a fund. he coined the term acupuncture philanthropy. i love this term, to describe a philanthropic approach that leverage is the relatively moderate financial assets to trigger systemic change. if you look at his time at rockefeller and his career of public service prior, he really has had, and the organization has had a remarkable impact in some big and transcendent areas

of policies, sustainable development, global governance, peace building and other priorities. i would also note that stephen practices what he preaches. back in 2010 he said in a bishops path for the foundation to align the funds' investment practice with its invest -- with its purpose which led to it divesting from fossil fuels. last year he authored this report which i highly commend to you. i think we even have some copies on -- around the office, "a logic for the future" which is an exploration of international relations in an age of turbulence. it is a compelling romp through as i say grand strategy, issues of global governance. as we kick off the new year and administration we thought that this would be a great way to

frame the discussion that will unfold over the coming years. thank you for being here with us. >> thank you for having with me. thank you for being online and in the room, it is great to see everybody. brian: i will start by saying that we have been a beneficiary of the generosity of the rockefeller brothers fund in part of our china and middle east work. it will not blunt the salvationist -- savageness of my questions. >> that is ok, you do not have to have any future grants. [laughter] brian: i'm sorry you had to see that. let me talk about the order over the next of the course 45 to 50 minutes or so. we are going to have a discussion between the two of us are some of -- on some of the issues captured in his analysis.

we will reserve some time at the end for q&a with our online audience and for those of you in the room. you know the drill. can go to stimson.org/questions to submit questions. and we will certainly have time to get to those for some of you who are joining in the room. we will have a microphone passed around. with that, let's get started, shall we? you write in this report and i will quote "what distinguishes this. -- this period of human history are influences social, technological, and well it interactions among them that fueled the turbulence we see today." everywhere we look we are looking at up people and backsliding where we see new and reemerging threats, climate, conflict political instability and overall an erosion of the

institutions that we relied upon. help us to frame the outset and i will let you riff. frame your own thinking, what would you say are the two or three biggest challenges that we face? what are the chief causes of those? and what are the consequences? and, all told, you know having the confluences of all of these forces, don't they always create tell multiple? what is different? >> i also want to pay tribute to president carter, he was a remarkable leader. i had the opportunity to meet him in early 1976 during the primary season when he was still jimmy who? i was deeply impressed and moved by his sincerity, honesty, and

approach at a time when we are going through a period of domestic turbulence with the water great crisis input -- watergate crisis in particular. it is not working? sorry. oh. that's not so good. which one is not working, the room or the c-span? because i can speak to the room. no? ok. thank you. i was just saying that i had the opportunity to meet governor carter in the early 1976 before any of the primaries had taken place. and i had been very impressed with him. when we think back on the kinds of things that he struggled with and how he responded, there is a lot of relevance to the

situation we find ourselves in today. to get to your question, it is true that history is always essentially told as a story of turbulence. plague, war, economic crises, collapse, shifts in systems of governance and etc. what distinguishes this period is this simultaneous confluence of an array of forces across different domains and across the entire globe floss, and this is the key point, the possibility of three existential threats simultaneously. the first obviously being the climate crisis. the second being a new nuclear arms race which is already underway between the united states, russia, and china. the third being the advent of hyper-disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, biomedicine or nanotechnology

which have the potential to do great good, but they have the potential to alter human life. these three existential threats happening simultaneously in a world that has more armed conflict than any time in three decades. and an aging system, anachronistic system that is not up to managing the range of global problems that we are living with. brian: what are the challenges that you identified? to just pivot off of your last comment, one of the failures, if you will, of global governance has been, to your mind at least that -- our inability to better integrate a global majority into decision-making and giving them

agency to help manage and -- the challenges that they are equally facing. there are 6.5 billion people in the world, and as you know, today's international mechanisms whether it is the u.n. or other international agencies do a relatively poor job of reflecting their priorities, needs, concerns and integrating them as partners. so just one example obviously, we can take the security council itself which represents 2 billion people, not even one third of the population but has significant influence on local events. so, it may surprise you to hear this, there is not a whole lot of sympathy for the united nations, not in this town and really around the world, particularly as we watch the crisis in ukraine being perpetuated and we say how is

the u.n. not more effective in addressing this. the u.n. turns 80 this year. i have to ask you is it possible to even retrofit this organization? as the u.n. had its day and is it time to turn the page? stephen: it is interesting you would ask it the way you did because yesterday i had a private meeting with one u.s. senator whose name i will not mention, what is the u.n. doing for us over the world. the u.n. remains essential but the u.n. is not sufficient. we need to try to remake the u.n. as much as possible. i would say some of the outcomes of the summit of the future held at the u.n. in the fall after unga were positive directions including some real progress in the concept of the un security council reform.

we have to keep pushing to remake the u.n. as we can but also to think about how do we supplement the u.n. and augment the capacity to solve and manage mobile problems when the u.n. is incapable of acting. a lot of that has to do with recognizing that we are living in a multi-power world and a world in which power is much more dispersed than it has been in the past. one of the logics of the past that we have to divest from is this notion of great power dominance because it is not as accepted by the rest of the world. and that is a logic that goes back to essentially the napoleonic wars. and the congress of vienna. and that is when great power dominance was invented and it has been codified in the un

security council. but, it is being rejected by this global majority. thank you for using that term. i do not like the term the global south because it does not acknowledge the fact that we are really talking about the majority of the world's population. and most of them live north of the equator so they are not even in the south geographically. they are the global majority and we should acknowledge that. one of the things we need to do in the logic of the future is manage the process of dealing with multi-nodal power and to create a more equitable distribution of power. and, the inclusion in both lobo process and outcomes. brian: let me push you a little bit on this. what are the implications. give us on the top of your mind. what are the top one or two implications for the exclusion of global majority? stephen: i think they care, and

if we do not. if the united states in particular does not redesign our relationship with the global majority, others are doing it and we know who they are. china is very active in this regard. and quite brilliant and effective. the rockefeller brothers fund works in various places around the world and every that we work we see the chinese at work. and it is very impressive. and the countries of the global majority satan's when i asked them the questions, what is it like dealing with china, are they pulling you into massive debt and forcing you into political relationships that they might choose and they said make us a better offer. not the rbf, but the global north, or just -- make us a

better offer. it is not the direction that we want to go. but for us we have to be pragmatic and serve the needs of our people. this is what we are in essence forced to do if we do not get a better offer. sometimes it is a bargaining chip. we are all realists and the chinese are very good at playing that game. that does not mean that the core aspirations and needs of people in the global majority are not bona fide, are not meaningful and that we should not be meeting them. brian: so, many of you look through history. global governance is difficult. to get that many people in the room you have a lot of many different opinions and views and people pulling in different directions. given that, does the future lie in -- why does the future not

lie in what we used to call coalitions of the willing. the caucuses, the u.s., r.o.k. and japan trilateral. the color -- the coalition of the willing. as global governance has it day? or why work -- why not work with these coalitions where they are like minded attitudes pulling in the same direction? stephen: that is what we need to do. and that is what i think of when supplementing and augmenting the u.n.. it is about creating an ecosystem of institutions and processes to manage global affairs and not meant -- and not relying on a centralized system. many coalitions of the willing and regional organizations are very important in this. multi-alignment or variable

alignment where we will be aligned with some countries on certain issues and different alignments with other countries on other issues. the implication of this is far greater complexity and from the point of view of managing it through the paloma c and interstate relations, it is enormously complex. one of the things it requires is a massive surge about diplomatic capacity. one of the things that we need to do in this country and others is to build our diplomatic capacity and not rely so heavily on our mighty military force. build a diplomatic capacity that understands the logic of the future, to use the phrase. as opposed to relying on the logic of the past so they are comfortable in working in arrangements and variable alignment and in having to be

nimble and reactive on a quick basis. and that is a 20 year project and one of the ideas that i propose is actually a global diplomacy curriculum. that would be developed with scholars from across the globe and practitioners from across the globe and then taught in various schools of diplomacy and international relations and available online in multiple languages so that not only are we creating an american cadre of diplomats, we are helping to do this on a global basements. that will actually help create more global cooperation because the diplomats of the future will have some common basis in their training. brian: i want to push this theme a little. i want to talk to you about the e.u.. there is a line that struck me and i will quote it to you. you said that "today the e.u. it

is a dominant global market and is the largest trader of manufacturing goods and services and ranks first inbound and outbound foreign direct investment." you conclude that "the e.u. is the greatest single political achievement of the second half of the 20th century." can you explain to an american audience who would rebel against that and say no, it is just an overly bureaucratic, disorganized slow and messy aggregation of countries. convince me that that statement you said is correct. and, presuming that you can, you might not. if you are successful, is there a potential for other kind of regional pooled sovereignty? can we talk about africa or the indo pacific, north america, if you talk about invading canada

and this will end soon. stephen: i stand by that statement. i think that the e.u. is is a remarkable achievement. and i want to point out that it is not an achievement that happened easily or quickly. this goes back literally to the end of the second world war and the creation of the coal and steel community in the 1950's and it has evolved to become a much more powerful and well organized instrument. it started out as a peace project after two world wars fought largely on european territory and it has been quite successful. it developed into a very powerful economic project and you quote the data. and now more and more it is a political project. is it messy and cumbersome? all of those things apply and it needs reform and one of the reforms that we have promoted and it is in the paper is the

notion they need to move away from unanimous decision-making because it is slowing them down. it is very problematic. and there is e.u. reform underway in the same fashion that there is security council reform underway, and that will take time. i quote a french minister in the paper who said "we have to realize that the e.u. it is a daily miracle." and i think that is a fair statement. it is pretty miraculous that these 27 member states have been able to come together and do as much as they have done. it offers an remodel in the concept of shared or collaborative sovereignty that i think needs to be more of the future as opposed to nationstate sovereignty which is simply inadequate and anachronistic. we look at the african union and other regional organizations. i think part of what the logic of the future suggests is that

actually we should work to strengthen those organizations and help them become more effective and take on more responsibility and do it in coordination with united nations. one thought there is to give them participation and standing in some fashion in the work of the security council in the same way that some of them are invited to the g20. so that we are decentralizing the process but also coordinating it at the same time. i think the e.u. offers a powerful model. not that it needs to be replicated exactly. but the lessons from e.u.'s success and challenges, and shortcomings are important as we think about building regional capacity elsewhere. brian: do you see potential success in other regions around the world? where would you take that mottled next? stephen: the african union is

the one i with the focus -- i would focus the most on. this paper is looking long term into the future. africa is just going to be increasingly critical in the decades ahead. population growth is going to happen in africa. the consequences of climate change are going to be very acute in africa. the economic needs will be very acute in africa. i think the african union provides a starting point and i would spend time working with them in thinking about how to strengthen their capacity and how to integrate them in the global system or systems. and how to create this network of regional capacity that can contribute to global problem-solving. brian: i want to turn to one of the most interesting points, at least to me, that you raised in your document. you talk about, and you have this morning about the

multiplicity of existential risks that we face as an international community. there are challenges so big that they defy the ability of any single country or maybe even community of countries to improve or supersede. therefore, we are challenging and you pointed out i think quite articulately the need to really transcend traditional sovereignty and think about methods of aggregating sovereignty at the super state level if you well. the covid pandemic, and you speak as one example, climate change and the threat of nuclear war. i think you referenced that as well, challenges that all require a shift in how we coordinate responses to address these challenges. but i want to ask you how you would respond to those who say you have it all wrong. you are aggregating power in different ways, rather than

aggregating at the superstate level, we will -- we should be thinking about the substate and engaging individual states or private industry. for other actors to address these issues instead of going should we not be going down? stephen: in fact, i write that we need to be doing both. we need to figure out those challenges that require greater global capacity and those better managed at more local levels of governance and do both simultaneously. and as we devolved some power, we also need to distribute resources to help local or regional levels of governance to have the capacity to respond to the impacts of global problems in those particular locales. climate is the classic example of this. this is a lesson that we can draw from the european union as

well. there notion of subsidiarity is that problem should be solved at the lowest level of governance closest to the people that actually will create effective response. and i think in the global system we need to think that way. for planetary challenges we need planetary capacity. for managing the impacts we need local capacity. for coordinating we need some supranational institutions and regional institutions and ad hoc institutions and mechanisms. we are living in a very complex world, and i am painting a picture of a complex system of ecosystem of institutions, mechanisms and processes. this is not going to be a simple matter, and it will take real creativity and real political will. both of which are in short supply these days. brian: let us do a quick check

to that point. we are in an age of america first. some might say that we have always been in an age of america first. it is just more in our faces now. talk to me about you representing a nonpartisan and political organization as do i. talk to me about some of the broader challenges and this is not specific to the incoming administration, but really relevant to throughout history this american exceptionalism. talk to me about some of the challenges and where you see potential movement and opportunity to be much more practical in advancing this? stephen: perhaps the biggest challenge is that we americans are stuck in the belief that we need to be the hegemon.

we need to cling to global primacy. and i do not think it is possible. very candidly, it is no longer possible and not even in our national interest to keep trying. it creates adversaries, it loses allies, and we cannot succeed in solving problems. in fact recent history suggests that by trying to maintain global primacy, we cause more problems. i have the freedom to be able to say that because i am not a politician. and i think those of us who run ngo's, think tanks and funds should use that freedom to start this debate. my dear friend madeleine albright and i used to have a robust conversation about her concept of the u.s. as the indispensable nation.

i would say, the future requires that we be the indispensable partner and that we stop thinking of ourselves as this singular leader of the global scene. and we have to demonstrate leadership but a different kind. a leadership that is about listening, and i use the term strategic empathy in the paper. we spend more time listening and understanding the needs, aspirations and redlines of other states and peoples and developing responses to those that are less hubristic, and that we demonstrate a little bit of humility and global affairs while still wanting to be a very global problem solver. that is a huge mind shift for americans and huge political shift. it is not going to happen quickly but it has to happen and it will happen if all of us in the nonprofit think tank world

keep this debate alive. i want to be debated. i don't mind being challenged at all. i think that is very healthy and constructive, but we have to have that conversation. brian: i see my colleagues jumping out of their skin right now because i think they would aggressively agree with that. they have been trying in many ways to initiate that conversation. i thank you for that. i want to talk about one of the other elements of your report i found particularly interesting. this notion of what you call positive peace. "the logic of the future requires a shift from defining peace as an absence of war to embracing the concept of positive peace, elimination of violence resulting from systemic conditions like hunger, poverty, inequality, racism, patriarchy, and other forms of social injustice."

we are five years out from the u.n.'s 23rd agenda for the 17th sustain a bill goals. last year they reported only 70% of the targets are on track. not a great record. rather disheartening, particularly given the notion -- this notion of positivity. on the current trajectory for the world is experiencing the highest number, frankly, active conflicts we have seen since the second world war, the world doesn't seem to be prioritizing positive peace. talk to me. give me some practical -- how do we get there from here? we seem to be spending our tires and so many of these areas. the clouds on the horizon seemed to be getting darker. give us a little positivity toward positive peace. stephen: the first important

shift is in the mindset shift. it relates to the conversation about u.s. primacy as well. we have to be thinking about addressing the causes of conflict and focus on conflict prevention as opposed to constantly responding to conflict and focusing on when in conflict. that will happen and we will engage in this activities when it is necessary, but -- and this really relates to the diplomatic surge and i would add to a development surge. if we can as an indispensable partner help countries that are facing these economic and social dislocations to achieve positive development trajectory where the quality of life is improving and we are addressing the root causes and drivers of conflict, we will have less conflict over

time. again, these things don't happen very quickly at all but they won't happen unless we start shifting our thinking about it. and shifting resources accordingly. which means really taking a hard look at the defense budget. really looking at the development budget. looking at how we do development and how we spend those development dollars and being honest about how much of it actually reaches the people on the ground who need to benefit from the kind of development work we ascribe to. it is really about shifting away from this notion that military is the only way to achieve peace to the notion that resolving the drivers of conflict is the way not to need to use your military to achieve peace. brian: i want to talk to you about democracy, another big priority for you, rbf, and certainly a pillar of what you speak to in the report. last year was the year the world

voted. more than half the world's population headed to the polls. taiwan, bangladesh, our own country, south africa. great success stories and democracy seems to be flourishing. except where it is not. there are obviously high-profile examples where we are seeing a backslide in democracy in recent years. elections with some relatively minor to pretty significant controversy. think russia, venezuela. the question is this, is imperfect or you might see even fraudulent democracy better than no democracy at all? or does the abuse and misappropriation of the term democracy really begin to erode the public's trust and render democracy increasingly

meaningless? and what can we do about that? stephen: certainly, imperfect democracy is better than no democracy. flawed democracy is certainly better than authoritarianism and autocracy. fraudulent democracy is a different category. and we can debate definitions about this. as i look at our own democracy and the expressions of democracy around the world, what i see is people feeling that democracy is simply not delivering for them. so they are loosing faith in democracy. they are loosing faith in their own agency as citizens living in democracy. i think this really applies to our country. and they also don't see their place in the global economy and they are not seeing a bright economic future for their families. this also applies very much to

our country. i think this election was a referendum on the status quo. an american said, we are not satisfied with our democracy, satisfied with our economy, so we are voting against the status quo. if we don't reinvigorate democracy and give citizens a sense that they do have agency, and if we don't couple that with a shift in political economy that moves away from, frankly, the document -- dominant neoliberal model, an element of the logic of the past, and moved to economic model that is about human and planetary well-being, we will continue to erode the faith and democracy because these two things are so interconnected. if i look at russia -- i have spent 10 years living and working in eastern europe right after the fall of the berlin wall. i spent quite a bit of time in russia and ukraine and all of the countries of eastern europe and former soviet union.

i think what happened in russia, to simplify probably far too much, was that we all rushed to help russia become a democracy but actually what we were doing was rushing to help russia become a capitalist economy. the capitalist economy they developed delivered extreme benefits for very few and almost no benefits for the many. and they were told, this is democracy. so why would russians believe in democracy when that is what they associate it with? that is kind of an extreme example but i think that is happening in our country. i think we have to look at these things as two sides of the coin. we need to think of this as political economy where we strengthen the agency of citizens in the democracy to have voice and agency and we strengthen their ability to have a better economic future and reduce economic inequality in order to do that. brian: you spent the past 24

hours i know walking around talking in this town and i suspect if you are talking foreign policy, 90% of those conversations were focused on china. it sucks up a lot of oxygen in this town. it is my observation that increasingly we are seeing countries around the world really caught between the tug-of-war between the united states and china. our increasing -- are increasingly being asked to pick a side. my concern is the u.s. may not win the competition. you referenced a few minutes ago the backsliding or encroachment we have seen and the effectiveness in some ways of china's investment in the sahara. as this a concern? how do we deal with that? do we need to just win this competition with the chinese or do we need to find a way to cooperate and diffuse tensions? is it both? how do we escape

this complicated relationship? >> one of the most important and complex questions we face, seven have said, and i believe this, the u.s.-china relationship is the most consequential bilateral relationship of the future. if we don't get it right, we are going to have really a potential catastrophe. it requires a great deal of work. i'm very happy, by the way, we are partnering with the stimson center at rbf on china as part of our portfolio of activities related to china. it is a pleasure to do that work. we benefit greatly from your wisdom. i think that this is another case where we are following a logic of the past and not challenging the assumptions embedded in that logic. and the logic of the past as it

applies to china is, oh, we have seen this movie before. this is a cold war. that is the logic people are applying to this relationship. and if we think it is a cold war , it becomes a cold war. in cold war, as we know from studying the actual cold war, what happens is you get military buildup, you get mutually assured destruction, you get a whole lot of distortions in economics and politics that they lead to decisions that continue to undermine the values that we stand for, the system is that we would rather strengthen -- like democracy -- etc. i think we had to reject the kind of knee-jerk assumption that this is a cold war. could it become one? yes. but we have some power to use to help that not to happen. so what i think is to -- by the way, the foundation works in

china so we have been working in china at the foundation for many, many years. i have been going to china since 1979. i think i have been 20 something times. i am on a very high-level chinese government advisory body on environment and development. i have not huge chinese expertise, but some. i was just there in october and i gave several presentations about this report in china, which was extremely interesting. my thought is because this bilateral relationship is so consequential, we need to invest in much more intensive relationship with china. the artifice or the device i suggest, and it is not unique to me, is creating some kind of a permanent secretariat where the technical level expertise from the civil service of key ministries in both countries would actually be saccone into a

neutral place like singapore, geneva, doesn't really matter. in working side-by-side near in and year out, listening to their aspirations, understanding redlines, being creative about ideas for cooperation, sharing those ideas back with the national capital most of just being ongoing source of communication as opposed to the more episodic kind of communication that we currently have -- which, by the way, ceased for almost a year and a half after the espionage balloon incident. and we can afford to have those big gaps in our communications with the chinese. again, i want to congratulate stimson for the military dialogue that you've been managing for many, many years, which i think is extremely important. if you think about how we developed modern relations with china, henry kissinger's secret trip to beijing in 1971, he sat down with the foreign minister

and he started a conversation not by lecturing the chinese and not by telling them what the united states wanted in asia or wanted from china, but rather asking questions. what is china? what do you think of china's role in the world? what are you trying to accomplish? what is your national sense of china's identity? it was a conversation that then led to a much more empathetic, ongoing process of dialogue that led to ultimately realization of relations, again, we think of jimmy carter because that is when normalization actually occurred. i think now because we are in this thinking that this is a cold war, we are not having that kind of dialogue. we are lecturing. it is a natural reaction. instead we should be having these conversations based on the notion of strategic empathy where we are doing a lot more listening to each other and

trying to find the areas of common ground -- which there are numerous. climate is the first one. there's a lot of good cooperation going on between the u.s. and china on climate. not only of the governmental levels, but the nongovernmental levels, academic and research levels. very, very good work. we need to build on that and find the areas of cooperation. what we have to aspire to, in my view, a relationship of constructive competition. it will be competitive. but constructive competition as opposed to cold war and potential conflict. and we have to really go to work at this and be consistent and do it on a professional basis, quietly come every day, day in and day out, and make it a number one priority. brian: i want to turn these folks loose on you and take a couple of questions from the

audience. there's a little bit of energy in the room so i'm going to merge a couple of questions. let's start here with barbara upfront and then we will go back to the lady in the black sweater. >> great to see and thank you for your support. over the last 15 months in particular, i've been thinking a lot about international accountability, crimes against humanity, double standards. i don't know if you deal with that in your paper but i wonder if you have any thoughts on how particularly countries -- wealthy countries can avoid the double standard accusation and be seen as supporting accountability. i speak as members of congress want to sanction the international criminal court for its actions against israel. what can we do to show that every human life is precious?

brian: there's a lady right here. >> good to see you again. i wanted to ask you a little bit in terms of what barbara was asking, but on africa, with rare minerals. when you're talking about constructive competition and climate change, a lot of the mineral market in africa has actually been purchased, but in a variety of ways by china and increasingly those who are doing electronic vehicles or anything impacting climate change are talking about the rare minerals and how the united states are being locked out of africa. how do you re-envision i guess the constructive competition or because post-world war ii is very much a democracy and capitalism by the united states, what can united states as a government do to support a

constructive competition that you are talking about that then is supportive of american producers, particularly, helping with climate change? my second question if i can, it is about iran and what you might see coming down the pipeline besides maximum pressure and possibilities there. brian: i'm going to help you. i'm going to help you. right here. >> i with the global alliance of indigenous people. such a pleasure listening to you. thank you for your thoughts which brought a lot of peace in my heart. my question is, in your logic for future, where do you position 476 million indigenous people living in 19 countries? for the diplomacy for the future, we started work on what is called indigenous peace

billing and methodology that will help heal the world rather than fracturing the world. i just wanted -- i have not read your report and i'm looking forward to it but your thoughts on the next 10 to 20 years of work, how do you position this amazing work with these people, healing people? brian: four questions, one on the issue of double standards, china competition going notion of constructive competition. question on iran. and the final question on the indigenous. stephen: thank you for the great, great questions and wonderful to see so many friends and colleagues in the room. starting with the question of the double standards. i think this is a major, major issue. it is part of the reason that u.s. leadership is now being challenged so profoundly from various quarters of the world. we go around the world saying

that we really believe in the rules-based international order and we want you to believe in the rules-based international order, and then all of the sudden, it is when we make the rules and when we get to decide whether we want to apply the rules to ourselves or not. so the rest of the world looks at this experience, which unfortunately seems to be more and more frequent -- it is certainly better known because there is more transparency about this and exposure of it. they then say, why should we play by these rules if you who have led in creating these rules violate that when you think it is international interest to do so? that undermines our place in the run as a nation, undermines the international system, etc., etc., etc. that is a major, major problem that we have to overcome. we have to adjust -- if we need to make adjustments to some of those rules, then let's make those arguments. if we think there needs to be

more flexibility in how the rules are applied, then let's be honest and open and create the systems that create that flexibility. but by and large, let's hold ourselves accountable and as international advocacy organizations, let's argue for greater efforts to eliminate impunity and strengthen the mechanisms of international criminal courts and justice and the creation of the new international correction court -- which is an idea that is being proposed and developed -- and really make these things meaningful. because otherwise, we will continue to undermine the values that we actually believe in and want to see as values that others can believe in as well. it is critically important. and it will be very hard work because of the politics as you say, barbara, are miserable. that is why all of us -- i

actually think many of these ideas, as i have talked about them around the country, american people are interested in these ideas. the american people i actually think would like to see our country be this kind of country in the world. people will debate individual parts of this but in general, i think they would like to see and believe we are this country. so somehow we have to mobilize the american people so that the politicians get the fact that their constituents actually are in a better place in this and they are and it is not going to be easy work. in terms of the competition in china and the rarest minerals and the importance of all of that in the future of electric vehicles, etc., we have already because of our stance, in some ways we have lost some of the competition. we are damaging our own national

interest by not having acknowledged that we need to do more to manage the competition in a way that shared resources. i think one of the conversations we need to have at the chinese is to say, you have moved ahead aggressively in the market of electronic cars and in solar and wind. when i was in china in october, i was in mongolia and saw these massive -- in a coal mining region that is part of the gobi desert, massive installations of solar and wind generating enormous amounts of electricity that is being transmitted very efficiently all the way across the country to beijing. instead of competing in a way that tries to reduce the chinese ability to do those things, why not negotiate a relationship in which the benefits of that kind of engineering expertise and manufacturing expertise and scalability can benefit the rest

of the world? because the chinese also understand they can reduce their emissions and have made pretty substantial progress. they probably will peak this year. but that won't save them from the climate crisis unless the rest of the world is also keeping pace. they have an incentive to cooperate, we just have to figure out a division of labor. and do it in an equitable fashion. i know this all sounds naive because it seems so simple to say and so hard to do, but if we don't talk about it and we don't really think about it, if we don't design the ideas and then negotiate them, then it will continue to spiral in the way it has. there was a question about iran. this is something that as you all know, many of you rbf has been involved with for 22 years now and we are in close contact with the new leadership of iran. we met in new york as barbara

did and others with the president and the vice president for strategic affairs, former foreign minister -- people we have all known because they were the team that negotiated the jcpoa in the first place. my impression from those conversations and other things that we observed is that they are really eager to negotiate with the u.s. and the west. in fact, there will be another negotiation with europeans -- at least a meeting with europeans -- on the 13th of this month, which i think is very important. they have been spinning -- sending very strong signals to the incoming administration that they are eager to negotiate and eager to negotiate on a broader set of issues because everybody recognizes that by now the jcpoa, which was a state driven through his heart by a former

president soon to be president, that that is no longer adequate because of the advances in iran 's nuclear program, changes in the region, some of the sunset provisions of the jcpoa itself. we need a new negotiation and a new structure for the negotiation most of my impression as the iranians are ready -- if our giving advice to the incoming administration, i would say get to work on this. don't lose this opportunity because i think it is a genuine one. if we really want to help promote peace in the middle east come and advantage of this moment. iraq is we can. their proxies have been eroded. the economic situation is terrible. so use that. that is not the outcome. those are conditions that can help you get to an outcome. that is my answer on iran. on the question of indigenous peoples. thank you so much for asking that. we had rbf are deeply engaged

with the indigenous communities, mostly on work related to solving global problems at the local level. for example, we have been supporting indigenous groups in the amazon river basin who have had huge influence on very important decisions of global governance related to resource use is in the amazon itself. in this is across state boundaries. it goes across state boundaries. it is indigenous communities who are bringing their wisdom to the challenges of managing globally essential resources. and also another extraordinary example is guatemala where the indigenous community actually saved to democracy. it is not an exaggeration to say that. after the election when the right-wing forces who had been in power tried to prevent the

election results from actually being implemented and the installation of the new president, it was the indigenous community that stood up for the democracy and blocked the roads and would not let a coup take place, essentially. the power, the wisdom, and the community of these indigenous communities we can learn so much from. if we involve them more directly in these challenges, i know we will find better solutions. brian: a quick online question, the u.n. seems eager to address some of the conflicts, gaza, ukraine. is there a rule here? what should it be for the u.n. in addressing these immediate conflicts? stephen: 30 seconds or less. [laughter] the role of the u.n. has to be to apply the resources that it has to solving these problems. i think it is a question of leadership.

it is a question of diplomacy and also a question of public education. the u.n., one thing it can do, bring these issues to the floor in a way that is shared broadly across the global population. and that is not an inconsequential thing. the tragedy in gaza is highlighted by all of the u.n. reporting and monitoring happening there. without that things would be much worse than they already are. the fact the p5 can agree on solving any of these problems, is a major problem, but that does not mean the role of the u.n. is completely negligible. the u.n. needs to work for solutions. it needs to stand up for universal declaration of human rights and the dignity of a free life. those things, those normative kinds of activities by the u.n., are important and essential. brian: additional question, how do you get a copy of this report?

i will place you can go on to the stimson event page and we will cross-link to it and i suspect you can also go to the rockefeller brothers fund website. rbf.org. i'm grateful to all of you for making the time to tune in from around the world. for those of you here in the room come on c-span, very grateful. today's events and all events at stimson are offered free for your own pleasure and edification and so if you are interested in supporting the future of foreign policy program, can also support stimson at stimson.org/support. thatthis event was also recorded available. grateful to you for the remarkable work you have done. >> thank you very much.