>> next on "q&a" john hulsman talks about the political and financial risks ahead and then british prime minister david cameron meets with members of the house of conl mons. after that another chance to see michelle bachmann speaking in new hampshire. in new hampshire. .

so what i do is what i did in washington. but it's more creative and you can do it actually for clients and be a little bit more honest about it. >> where do you live? >> i spend most of my time living in germany. i spend time in the hague as well but most of the time in germany. >> why would someone hire you? >> i have a unique background. educate -- educated in the u.k., so i understand yoirps -- europeans but i lived half my life in washington. i worked for the herityage foundation on the right and the council is in the middle so i know the points of view of every major school of thought

in washington so that's a good reason to hire me. >> where is home in originally? >> ohio. a place called rocky river about an hour from cleveland. i had an idyllic, eisenhower child. it was lovely. and in foreign policy we have lost that thread and we're very elitist. brian: we first saw you on this network at an event six weeks ago at the cato institute. i'm going to run some clips from that to get you talking about what what you do. why cato? >> one of the things i love with -- about cato and i've worked with them for about a decade, is they let the politics falled -- fall where they fall but they actually say

we have to have a foreign policy where we live within our means. back to eisenhower, it's what that was about, and my favorite president. how do you political economy? really focusing on the economics affecting foreign policy and politics, not the other way around. if i'm asked by anybody at cato to do anything i will take the transatlantic flight. >> why would a dutch government want you as a policy analyst? >> the funny thing is they talk about american decline. and they worry about it. they're not doing cartwheels in the streets. they think it's terrible, but they care intensely about america getting weaker. when i'm in america i talk about europe. where you aren't, you talk about the other guy.

i have a unique point of view. brian: so give us a scenario where the dutch government is using your expertise. do you go to them? write for them? talk to them on the phone? >> i work at a thirving tank called the centre for strategic studies. the dutch government funds my work there, half comes from the hague and half from the dutch government. they call me up and say explain the tea party. we all talk like we understand it but nobody really does. what is the philosophy about this? what is driving this? rather than read a newspaper of a european guessing, that's a great example. brian: do they ever ask you to come to washington and lobby for them? >> no. i would never do that. one of the great things about this is i can do and say what i

thought. i wanted to say what i thought was empirically the truth and if you are your own boss you can do that and you have to be able to say no to any client. that's the is hing point. i can say and do what i wish. i would never lobby for anybody. brian: where have you lived in the world? >> i lived in scotland. went to st. andrew's university. best decade of my life. i lived in highway high -- ohio where i grew up. ifed lived in berlin for three very interesting years and i live in berl -- bavaria. >> have you ever worked for an american politician in --? >> no. i did a lot of work fore them at herityage indirectly and that soured me on it. it's one of the things i love about this network, it actually, facts do matter.

and they didn't know enough about that. and, two -- and, too, i love the politics of washington, but if that's all it is, it's a pretty shallow, useless life. brian: what politicians did you work for? >> well, everybody, i did work for joe biden, chuck hagel on trying to work out a common sense policy for republicans. i did work for the finance committee, treasury committee, foreign relations, international committee, testified for these people. last night i talked to hill staffers again, to constantly do what you do, to educate people as to what is is going on. brian: do these groups pay you? >> not in this case. the way that this makes money is that the way i'm connected in washington, that's the selling point. they don't have to charge for being here. and the good news and we shouldn't say this too loudly is is i don't have to charge

american clients as much baw the fact of being plugged in is what they care about. but i do a lot of other things for low levels or next to nothing, just for friends. brian: you don't have to get specific but what kind of different organizations are paying you? >> no, it's perfectly reasonable. the dutch government -- government, the german government. the brazilian go. the cameron people, some of whom i knew in college, which is odd for both of us. banks, like barclay's bank say customer i've worked with on the gold price, which is really political. people like bank of america. merrill lynch is a very good client, where i talk about the arising in the middle east and how it will affect oil prices, prince. brian: how many people like you are out there? >> it's a growth field. it came out of nothing. people like ian bremer and the

u -- eurasia group. but the small boutique type people like me, 20 or 30 of them out there, varying degrees of being good or bad but it's becoming a thing because you don't have to argue to businesses and governments in the world that you don't know very much about. you take the knowledge of a think tank and monetize it. you can be both wealthier and more honest. brian: you live in behave aria. what part? >> i live in the north. i have to be near an airport because approximate i'm gone about half the time. the good thing about the low number is i can manage quality. i don't have to question them, check the footnotes and make sure the english makes sen. that's what i rely on. brian: are you married? >> i'm about to be to a very

pretty german girl. hello, air ofa. i'm madly in love and that's another reason i probably won't come back. brian: what languages do you speak? >> i speak very is poof -- poor french. many and english and i can get by in german. brian: got to ask you about that comment about what europeans assume about americans. what else do they assume about us? we don't care about what's going on in the rest of the world, we're self-involved, for good and bad reasons. they would accept that we're the greatest power in the world but we're woefully ignorant of how the world really works. brian: is that true? >> yeah. but it's true of them too. i've never met anyone as isolationist as a germans. brian: are they appingry about

us -- angry bus in any way? >> yeah. i have a classics background and if you go to greece you can find graffiti the greeks wrote about the romans being thugs and taking power in the world. port -- part of that is the new power. there is a sense of that. i think it's a little unfair. if you look at eisenhower, acheson, truman, nixon, we've run a really grown-up foreign policy for a long time and i think it's rather up fair -- unfair. what worries me is the congress and both parties are parading their ignorance and it's a tragic thing. it isn't just europe any more it's india, china, the gulf states, singapore, turkey -- you have to know more, not less. so when people pride themselves on never leaving the country i have to say it makes me rom my eyes. brian: where are the american

politicians rolling their -- parading their ignorance? where do you see it? >> well, when they say i don't have a passport and they're proud of it. at the last real change, the cold war, these were international businessmen. if you see butch cassidy, it's his father's railway they're robbing. we really miss those wise men, people with global experience who are quintessentially american. i love bush one for that wreason. i think president bush's people were the last quns to really do that but if you don't have those global linkages, the world won't make sense 20u78ing9 brian: january 11, the cato institute. this is a slip. it's about eisenhower's farewell address? >> yes. >> another thing i learned in

washington is is is is is it is almost impossible to lose your job is. it's not the real world. i worked hard at it. but in the real world it's really easy to lose your job and if you look at the numbers, the pew numbers about what the elites think about foreign policy and what average people do, it's the greatest disconnect in 60 years. two quick numbers. to tackle the deficit, 20% of the people say cut -- second most popular way is is is is cut foreign spend ising. the second most popular is is cut defense spending the are and you just almost can't be fired. we live in a world with other powers. if you just describe and are if you just describe and are inoffensive and play the game, i know almost no one month --

who has lost their jofrpblt the only one i know is is my co-writer on the left. i understand the value, i'm p belittling that. to do what we did was not an easy thing to do, to speak out about iraq planning not going well. at the time, remember, president bush's approval was 80%. it's easy to speak out now. thank you at the time that called for courage. and i had to be quiet and agree with him. either you serve the country and plate ball and not the ban -- man or you game all this out. most people game all this out because they have a livelihood and families, i totally understand that and they'll have a lovely life if they say nothing. part pve the disconnect is that most people in washington have a very, very secure livelihood and most americans don't.

brian: so if you're a viewer out there and you watch a lot of think tank sessions on this network, what would you advise people to do >> differentiate in things they actually say. we all agree america is not as powerful as in 1945, the soviet union doesn't exist any more. people who speak in these platitudes, regardless of party, very suspicious. if people say because we live in a multicultural world and america should change the policy to do these things -- the more specific they are, probably the more real and genuine and interesting work they do. but these platitudes, they keep you going. they may get you to be assistant secretary one day but you're not serving the public by that. brian: did you ever find yourself in a difficult position with the think -- think tank where you were

saying things they didn't like? >> they did. and i won't go beyond that. it certainly wasn't personal. it started out as a very broad tent. they had everything from libertarnse to neocons to old eisen hour style thinkers like me. but it became a circle your wagons policy and i couldn't go along with a policy i believed to be flawed the brian: sirbling your wagons because of george bush's position on what? you're talking about 43? >> well, after "mission accomplished" it was very hard to argue that things were going well. i didn't feel he was running a conservative foreign policy, which was what the book i wrote, the "ethical realism," was about. it wasn't burkian. it was utopian, robes

pierreism, expansionistic. if conservatives think they can't socially engineer america, why in the world would you think you can socially engineer a country you know far less about? brian: how often is it that a think tank is doing what they're doing because of where the money comes from? >> if you get a whole bunch of different donors, you can ignore them. the little ones i think are more amenable to the donors. herityage and the big ones don't. i don't think they do this about money. i think they do this, worse, about conviction. i think they really had forgotten what it was to be a conservative and that's where we parted ways. they didn't like me saying that and president bush and his people didn't like me saying that but if you see the money spent on iraq where george wolfowitz said the war would cost nothing and they made him

president of the world bank -- this is what happens when you reward people who shouldn't be. it -- the war made iran the dominant power in the gulf. you have to accept that. if you don't do well in analysis, you ought to be fired. brian: what's the most prestigious think tank in the us viewed from overseas? >> council on foreign relations. don't know that it still does the best work but in terms of prestige it has the magic, kind of woodrow wilson on through. and it's worth any -- my dues because the europeans are deeply impressed that i'm a member. brian: how much a year does it cost to belonging in >> because i'm just a lowly non-new york guy, about $400. brian: here's more from your cato conference. >> 1954 the french are in agony

over diene bien phu and there is tremendous pressure to intervene. eisenhower realize general ridgway is against intervening. what does he say? think of the difference between how it's depun these days. he said cost it, cost what it would take to go into oined china in a real way. reck wolfowitz saying iraq would cost nothing and because he's so good at math we made him head of the world bank. i find this incredible, absolutely breathtaking. i was in the room when he said it and i thought i had a heart attack, thought i had misheard. the one thing they doesn't happen is -- we know that that we want our trillion dollars

back. that's a totally different way to look at things than we do in washington the anyway, rinlway comes back, the hero of normandy, and he says $3.5 billion back thefrpblt i don't know what that is now thank you -- but i'm confident it's a big number. so what does he do? does he call in a neoconservative decision maker, he a democratic hawk or nation builder? no. he calls in the secretary of the treasury and says to george humphrey, what would this mean? i made three campaign promises in 1952, get out of korea, balance the budget and cut taxes. what would that mean for two of those three promises? and mr. humphrey says it will mean a deficit, mr. president. and he says, well that's the end of it. boy, do i miss this. brian: do you think it was that simple? >> i do because i think that eisenhower, unlike the guys we have now in both parties, had a strategy, a basic, fundamental,

simple view, five or six things that you lived your life by. one was you have to live within your means, you -- be you a government or be you a person. if you don't live within your means, yeah, we can print money for another 10 years and nothing much will happen until.bond markets attack, but in the long run you are selling the silver to pay the butcher bill and that's a really bad idea. all our strength subpoena economic strength. look at world war ii, which i'd enhour knew interest i am ately. the fact that we could increase the army 35 times only makes sense if you understood what general marshall and he understand about the united states. if we sell the silver to live in a silly way, very quickly we're not going to be able to do that. that's the magic of eisenhower and america and why i came back

to do the cato se vent -- event and which neither party is addressing in a forthright matter -- manner. ing brian: -- >> mrs. merkel's done well -- well lately. they j had welfare reform and also a constitution a.m. amendment whereby they can only run deficits of very minor quaments and they've lived up to them since. the other country, the really interesting one, is david cameron's brit averpblt the cuts are about 25% department to department. frankly this is something you can only dream of president my tag line is is these guys make you look like a maost. it's radicle reform. and look at cameron -- the bond

markets stopped attacking the pound and the pound strengthened almost immediately upon him doing that because people believed he was trying to reach these numbers. that takes courage. that takes honesty with your people about what can be afforded and what can't be. we really haven't had to make a strategic decision in america since 1943 and 1941. once you go all in in world war ii, you do everything. if ats -- it's so many is alia, like cloirks you can shrug and say it doesn't matter. but you -- you can do that in a -- when you are the only power but not in a multipower world. brian: the united states has 310 million. we spend as you know close to $750 million a year at least on dchts how much does germany spend? >> almost nothing and that's a tremendous difference. the real number if up add in

veterans affairs which you have to for defense spending and the wounded who are coming back horribly maimed and we owe them the care and should pay that, probably about a trillion dollars when you are done adding everything in. the germans spend about 1% on defense. they have 14,000 deployable troops. that's a high school. they have made a decision they will free-ride off american defense spending and they have defense spending and they have benefited from that. the british spend more. they have made significance -- significant cuts but through the years they spend about 3%. thee exceed the 2% that nato asks people to spend but they're cutting now radically. brian: what would these countries do if the united states all of a sudden cut 25% of its defense budget? >> be shocked. but not much would change. they realize in europe that the soviet union is nonexistent so they don't worry about that. they do intelligence and policing for al qaeda type problems and other than that

they don't care a whole lot and don't feel the need to go nation-build in afghanistan or anywhere else and when they do nation build all they care about is america. they say, we need to be close to america so we'll send in some paltry unusual be troobs -- troops. we're the only crip in the world that seems to take third-rate problems and make them financial milchecows. brian: how much have they cut in germany? >> it's significantly. ramstein, i go there when i go home. there say movie theater there. i love going but it's like going back to rocky river but it's not sustainable. frankly, we need those troops further east in places like

bulgaria and romania, which are nato allies. there is no hassle. we get tax breaks doing it. i think the whole german garrison thing is on its last legs. brian: how many are this now -- are there now? >> i think 75,000 and going down. we don't need them there. if queer -- we're going to forward position troops as secretary gates says we should do it further east, places like bulgaria and romania because they're prop-american. if you've been run by stalin, you will be that way too. >> and 2020 if you're brazil or less true if you're an established power like the united states, assuming 4% is

correct, these things -- medicare, social security, interest n the debt and defense spending will be 85% of the department. you can't cut interest on the debt as the greeks have found out. you you have to pay the bankers. social security we're going to have to deal with but nobody wants to with enthusiasm. the reality is whatever you do you have to cut defense spending the hence secretary gates trying to get ahead of the curve and do it on his own terms. but frankly we're fiddling like -- while rome burns. i'm talking swingian cuts. brian: the budget coming out of the pentagon is more than either the house or the senate is willing to give them. so who is the cutter here? >> he's very good, isn't he? secretary gates, he's my wing of the republican party.

he's the last eisenhower republican and i like him, but this is nonsense. limiting the increase in defense spending, which is what we're talking about here, given the three numbers that i always use and think are important and most americans understand but people in washington don't and they're kept simple for me by my staff, one third of all americans have no retirement, working age americans, other than what the government gives them. remember, social security was supposed to augment things, not be the retirement. that's not what it's doing. one third of americans have no savings of any kind. one quarter of all mortgages are under water and one fifth of all wealth was wiped out in the great crash. you cannot run an expansionist for policy given that financial reality. why i came back to talk about eisen hour is he would have inppingstimpingtlimbling -- instirvetively understand --

understood that that was our priority. i'm calling on people to make choices and save our country. brian: people watching about now are saying you know, this guy's abandoned the united states, he's living over in germany. he's got all the answers, why should i biss -- listen to john hulsman? >> and i'd say because i put my money where my mouth was. it would have been very easy for me to be a thimping tank person who went along with the crowd when bush was at 85% and said nothing. i think the neoconservatives are since seer. i just think they're horribly wrong. i dislike people in washington who voice doubts privately but don't do anything publicly how otch do you see that? constantly. and ats -- it's moral

cowardice. i put my neck on the line and gave up one of these incredibly secure jobs. i was in may -- my 30's and was at the -- at are one of the largest think thanks in the world. if i had said nothing i could easily have been an assistant secretary of state by now. brian: how old are you? >> 43. brian: at this stage in your life, do you want to live there forever? >> no, i think of the show, "the west wing," if i find a guy that people say this is a guy you could really work for, i'd come back. i miss living in the united states. a great deal. europe is wonderful but it isn't home. brian: what do you miss? >> the vibrancy, and the decency. europe is obsessed about every

social distinction the at home i'm john. everybody makes coffee badly. i miss the real egg altarianism of the united states, the tumult, the dynamism that you can be young with a good idea and do well. you can't do that in europe. i miss that tremendously. i have many friends and am in love with a european but i miss the quintessentially american. brian: you mentioned social security, medicaid, medicare, defense -- what else is there? >> well, earmarks, >> well, earmarks, discretionary spending annoys the heck out of mep too. some congressman builds a bridge and names it after himself or whatever. but it's one half of one percent. it just doesn't matter. discretionary spending, which is what obama and the republicans are fightering

about, that's worthy but it's not the story and i'm outraged they're continue telling people the truth. these five things are everything. and until we address all five of them, our status as a great power is on the line. brian: living in bavarian did, bask airia, advising the dutch, signature there in the middle of europe. tem us the difference. is there medicare? is there medicare? >> there is. they have ridiculously cushy social programs in europe. part of why they can pay for that as you rightly said is they don't have defense spending the they would say we cross subs dyes from an american point of view. in germany, the military is ols -- always lost -- last in every pofment not a left wing or right wing thing. they have wonderful train systems. you can afford that if you

don't spend any money on defense. but they're still in terrible trouble and have economic problems. they will problems with legal and illegal imgramingts i sit in a train in germany and realize i'm the only one of working age, everyone is very young or very old. it is not a sustainable system. they have their own horrible problems but they're different than ours because they've put all the money into the social system. we've put more into defense. we have the reserve currency and the dynamism i mentioned. this is going to hit us eventually. but ultimately it's the same problem, how do you pay for fewer -- people? people didn't expect to live that long. i'm glad people live to be 80

but we have to talk about the 18 years in between and how to fund them. eisenhower would know that and i think it's tragic no one in the republican party leadership bothers to say this. brian: the interest we pay on our debt here -- what's it like in germany? >> well, their interest rate is stable. that's one of the things they have done very well. depending on what you count, and this is always -- always ans obama trick, if you don't count state and local it's lower. but you have to. particularly california is an example, as is illinois, not doing well. basically their debt rate is between 60% and 80% depending on how you slice it. ours is there too. so you might argue, john, what is the big deal? but ours used to be 60%. -- used to be 45.

in a crash you have to do something. even if you're a democrat you say you have to prime the pump. ok. when that's over you need a debt plan. simpson was a wonderful program and everyone is running a mile from that because it could -- would require slaughtering sacred cows in both parties. no one is prepared to do than and until we are i advise clients to bet against the brian: what do europeans blame on america right now in the way the world is going? >> it's interesting. the french -- french are the most extreme and fun to use. when they got done -- there is the wonderful german word schaud enfreud which means to be happy about someone else's misfortune. when the people got over that

about iraq, suddenly it occurred to them what would half. a rising china, india, braise -- brazil is not necessarily a rising europe because of the are economic problems. one of the things i love bpt dutch government is they have meetings about what do we do about an america that can't pay it its -- its bills any more? brian: i wrote down some is words to describe you based on reading your past columns. you call injureself a jeffersonian. what does that mean? >> small, limited government, accountable government, balanced budget, government should be local and less government is is always better. brian: you call yourself a moderate republican in one. >> it means i have an eisenhowerian view, that social engineering for the rest of the world say bad idea and we have to live within our means it. brian: but you said you voted for barack obama? >> i did.

because given the choices, i thought mr. obama had never run anything which disturbed me given this crisis a great gale -- deal but neither had senator mccain and mcskein a prisoner of the cold war because of what happened to him in his service is, which i honor. but he was effective in a bipolar cold war world, clarity, decisiveness, but in a multipolar world, it's bullying, he's a greek tragedy, he's outlived his time. i thought obama being younger was a better bet. i'm no fan of mrs. palin and to quote teddy roosevelt, i couldn't leeve -- leave that cowboy one heartbeat away from the presidency. brian: you talk about -- at cato -- >> it's all george w. bush's fault?

i'm not a big fan of george w. bush as you can get -- guess from my iraq experience. from my iraq experience. however, to blame the happless ex-president for all this is a bit much and it's a curious reactionary comment from our secretary of state when she says once we get over these little difficulties we'll go back to the way things were in the 1990's. it's a curiously reactionary comment for a supposedly progressive person. are we supposed to get in our time machine and go back? from a -- an american decision-making view point think about that. it means before 9/11, before afghanistan, before the great crash, before the multipolar world. of course she wants to go back! you could do anything in the multipolar world. you had give. you lose vietnam in a bipolar world, doesn't really matter.

the amount of room for making mistakes was huge. in a multipolar world the margin for error is it very, very small and you can't do everything you want to do. that's something nobody in washington seems able to fathom. of course she wants to go back. utterly understandable and poisonous. to think these things will do away. india, south africa, the gulf states, singapore, brazil, turkey -- this is a 500-year change in power in the world, and it's staring us in the face and nobody is doing anything here. brian: as you know, anybody that watches these networks sees these think tanks and sessions all the time. why do people go to these rooms and sit there and listen to these people? and i don't mean that negatively >> i wonder that too! brian: and there's thousands of them. >> there are. i had a staffer who did just

that. he was a professional meeting goer. if anything was interesting said he would tell me. not often, but he would tell me. couple reasons. you know washington, it's a bit like high school. you want to be seen with the you want to be seen with the cool kids walking into the room. you want to walk in with, say, kissinger and brzezinski. you want to be seen to be part of the decision-making process, to have access to that power. being bit high school quarterback. part of it is that, to be seen, this ridiculous juvenile games playing that i don't miss at all but boy, when you are back, it hits you. i do feel a bit high school like. second reason is why i sent second reason is why i sent people out to do it, you want to know what's going on. so a lot of staffers, young people, are sent to take notes and they read some and say gee -- gee, this guy is

interesting, we should have him in. or i didn't like that but maybe we should have him in as an opposition research thing the 37 one of the reasons i try to push the nfl -- push the envelope when i speak is to change the responses, to do things people don't expect if you're just on a panel, you're in a level. if you sit in the crowd you're in a level. everything is rigorously grade and we're almost like mandarins in the imperial chinese system. everybody knows their place based on do you speak, are you the keynote, do you end it? people worry about these things constantly, and i have to say i haven't lost sleep about them since i left. brian: and you had some good zippingers and a couple good remarks and the crowd was

expressionless. >> yeah. absolutely no idea. i wrote a piece about this. one of. things missing in washington -- think of lincoln, jefferson, adams -- they had tremendous senses of humor. it doesn't make you less grave, have less gravitas to see the humor in the world. these guys are humorless. like the romantic poets, they were humorless and none of them saw the back end of 40. you can either be full of rage or find it funny and try to make it better the but as i say, when i speak i'm often met by incomprehension and no facial expressions the of -- of any kind because they're simply not used to people talking to them that way the brian: why do you call george w. bush hapless? >> i think he will go gown as one of our worst problems. he expanded the deficit. he's a herbert hoover kind be

figure. did a new entitlement program for senior citizens that is was totally unaffordable and is ruinous. breeks prescription drug benefits? >> exactly. spending money like l.b.j. and he's supposed to be a republican. and he left iran the dominant power in the gulf after our ux curgs there. and i think it will be seen as the boar war was for -- boor war was for the british, high noon, the beginning of the end for the empire. brian: and you haven't heard utch it -- of it yet but those who are saying what's going on in northern frick ap and tunisia and all that say direct result? >> that's rubbish. promoting democracy is a wonderful thing but doing it at the barrel of a gun is

different. people in the street are clear there is a huge demographic problem in egypt. young people without jobs. it's the largest wheat importer in the world and the price of wheat doubled in the past year. so a lot of people became hungry. this has nothing to do with george bush and the united states. that's what americans don't seem to understand. this is about apology. . it isn't about what america did or didn't do. we have -- we are utterly a peripheral bystander in this. a little human -- humility -- it doesn't mean we can't do anything but we have to be careful. the people of egypt had enough and what set them off was tun -- tunisia worked. they saw you could go in the streets without being killed. brian: another take, they may

never, ever give this country credit for what happened but they sat there and watched saddam hussein go away, that gave them the power and strength, the internet helped them because they could see the other way of living and it all ends -- adds up to this country leading and them saying -- >> i have more time for that. i think the soft power is often -- i think that's right. we had power but you don't manage soft power. when you watch a hollywood movie and you're abroad, i've been to egypt many times, they're not commenting on gosh, look how well these people live. look how free they are to see these things in this dopey movie. what i'm trying to protect a la eisenhower is our openness, freedom, that we enjoy. i think that is tremendously important still and i think reagan got that right and clinton got that right. as an example, america still

has tremendous power and pull around the world. in france they tax foreign movies but eight of the top 10 are still american. it's an attractive way of living and people like that and there is tremendous power in that and that's why if we fritter away our fiscal standing we are frittering away the greatest thing we have going for us. brian: there are many think tanks in europe. there's an aspen italy you spoke to. who runs that? >> it's a great example of soft power. the aspen institute in the united states has branchion -- branches. there is one in italy, one in france. the italy one is the biggest and i write regularly a column for them on line. i write it in english and they travis pastrana late it for me. but they have these ties around the world, some of these think tanks and that's a great source of soft power.

brian: who pays for aspen italy? >> i don't know exactly. they have dues-paying members but i think they do get some federal funding. i know companies like herityage didn't. i liked that because that's another paymaster that can get on your back and you don't have to worry about that. i'm not sure about aspen. brian: you lost your mike. pick that up if you would and clip it on there. the audience is going to wonder what happened. >> oking. if the fram government does fund that i would say that's a very good use of our money because you get to meet the leaders around the world. if you don't meet them, you don't understand their talking points. the fact that i know fini, now trying to ub seat berlusconi, or the leader of the xenophobic northern league, the fact that i -- isn't that something that

an american liveing a broad writes and injects himself into the italian discourse? hurrah for aspen and for me. brian: go back to rocky river, ohio. >> it's about an hour out from cleveland on lake erie. brian: what were your parents doing >> very wonderful people. minimum father was an executive, at a clothing company and my mother was a teacher. my mother taught, my grandmother taught, my uncle say professor, education and loving books and books matteringing is what we do. growing up in that environment, best thing that ever happened to me. brian: when did you first leave? >> i like most people threatened my parents with going to see the world and i actually did. i went to europe when i was 16 and it changed my life. i felt like an e.m. forster

novel. seeing this stuff for the first time. he see -- you see a giotti painting, you learn things and think i could have a wonderful life, and i have. brian: when did you graduate high school? >> 1985. grew up in reagan's america. i remember carter vaguely and the malaise speech, being confused by that but really the 1980's were the formative period. i have a rather sunny vufpblete united states which has sustained me in bad times. brian: you say you went to scotland. did you go here? >> i was a year at michigan. i went to st. andrew's as a junior abroad, was there one week and said did, called my father and said i want to stay. my father said well, we'll miss you, we're middle class people and can't can -- afford to come see you.

brian: and when did you know in life this was what you wanted to do >> in in high school, extem oranious speaking, there were two components, international and the other. i started speaking. and when i went to the u.k. to live and work abroshsd st. andrew's was really the seminal experience. brian: if you were to name three or four people either national figures or others that had major influence on what you do today who would that? >> my father because he made history an important part of my life. my mother because of her love of english and writing and that was an honorable thing to do with your life and on the bigger side, people like i'd -- eisenhower. when i read about the things americans could do and i still feel this way -- when we do

something wrong i still put my head in my hands but then i say yeah, but we still produced mr. jefferson, mr. adams, mr. franklin. and people like ike and jack kennedy really did matter to me. that sustains you through some really lousy times. brian: with back to your cato event. >> here's what i would do. the dos are indian ocean rim and china are where it's aught -- at. look at the 10 years from 2006 back and look at the year on year growth rates. it's compelling that this is where it's coming from but almost every problem in the world emanate from this region too so let's actually learn about it again. let's be foreign policy analysts again and analyze because if we don't, we're going to be in trouble. what shouldn't we do? nation-building. i will say this, it's eloquently silent about darfur now from the left because there is simply no money.

who is going to go do what on what terms? this is how things will change. they will tack with the wind not because they like it but because they have no options. this is a change. brian: when i was listening to you it reminded, and you have written about this, that george bush said no nation building in the campaign and barack obama aid -- said i'm going to shut down quaptquant, get out of iraq -- guantanamo, get out of iraq and on and on. why do we go through all of this if what they promise on all sides they don't followthrough on? >> i think, and it's back to an yerl -- earlier clip you had, part of it is the disconnect between the elites and the average person. the pew numbers are really good on those. it's at a 40-year high right now, the difference. most americans don't want to do nation-building, don't want to

be the policeman. most elites because their jobs aren't on the line aren't aware of how bad things are out in the country. they don't unts -- understand. they say well, we're a rich country, the mccain argument, we have a $500 -- 0 -- 500 million army, why don't we use it? it's a good managerial argument and it's absolutely poison and all the presidents get dragged in because all the people around them live in washington and come from this background and they say mr. president, you didn't understand how the world works when you ran for president, we understand that and now we're going to lead you by the shoulder. that's absolutely wrong. they should go with their first instirningts. brian: and you have this book you wrote called "the godfather doctrine -- a foreign policy

parable". why the title? >> wes is a good friend of mine. he came to visit me in germany and we were watching coppola's film and he said the funny thing is the three boys argue after the don is hit, the great character played by marlon brando. sonny, the oldest, the james caan character, michael, and tom hagen the adopted son, the dickie val -- duvall character argued very similarly to the arguments you get in america the the neepo conservative argument is pop's been shot, let's shoot everyone. it's the knee 0 conargueue. tom hague ep says we got to talk to everyone. let's negotiate, use institutions. the five families is their u.n. they sound like democrats. michael is the only one who acts like a realist and says it depends on the situation, whether we use force, whether we don't, whether we engage or

don't. all i care about is the family surviving. that's what he cares about. that's the al pacino lament and that's where i am. i don't care how we get there. brian: you have a book called "to begin the world over again" about lawrence avenue rabia. at the top you have a quote from lawrence will kerrson, around you a -- you talk about colin powell being a realist. people watching this would say he had a chance and he didn't stop the idea of going into iraq. how much of a real ivet -- realist was he there? >> i think he was a shakespeare shakespeare -- shakespearian tragedy. i have great respect for him and sorrow but he was a check 307b9 the system than failed because he chose to follow orders, which is what good soldiers do. my father was regular army.

i don't denigrate that, i respect that. but if he had resigned over the fact that the intelligence was shaky we would not have gone into iraq. i have no doubt about that. so i think powell has a tremendous historical burden. the sad thing is i think he knows that, and that must be an awful thing to live with today. i like wilkerson the i think powell's doctrine to get involved in wars only very cautiously and only when overwhelmy -- overwhelming american interests are at stake say good one. brian: go back to your comment about paul wolfowitz about it won't cost anything for the iraq war and he went on to be head of the world bank. what is it about this town that rewards did not -- and maybe you could shed light on this -- did the george bush administration think he had been successful?

>> they did rand that's hard to explain in europe. that's one of the marks of a zealot is you don't let facts get in the way of your theory. brian: whether donald rumsfeld was here i showed him a letter he and paul wolfowitz signed in 1998 where they wanted to go in and take out the saddam regime and they actually did what they said they were going to do. isn't that a plus then? all those people went into the administration and they succeeded. >> well, they succeeded but what a realist would say, what an eisen hour would say always is yes, but what's the cost? we spent a trillion dollars when we were told it would be nothing. i called paul wolfowitz the robert mcnamara reward -- you destroy the country and get made head of the world bank the

you reward people who for whatever reason make colossal mistakes. that's certainly what happened here. you've left iran the dominant power in the gufmentir -- mr. malaki is no democrat. and the king maker of iraqi politics is muqtada sadr, the greatest enemy the united states has, who until recently lived in tehran. brian: if somebody wants to read stuff you have written where is the easiest place to go besides these books, the "the godfather doctrine -- a foreign policy parable" and "to begin the world over again"? >> i write regularly for the >> i write regularly for the spectator in london. to for a journal in italy and if anybody bothers writing to me at these things, i write back to everyone who does write to me, which is an onerous but useful task.

brian: today we find john c. hulsman in bave aria, soon to be married and has been my guest for the last hour. thank you for joining us. it's my great pleasure. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] . >> for tree transcripts or to give us your comments, visit us on line. tonight on prime minister's questions, british prime minister david cameron talks about the u.k. response to the situation in lickia. then on road to the white house, representative michel

balk maup speaks at a fundraising brunch horsted by the state's republican party in new hampshire. after that the latest budget negotiations on funding the federal government. on television, on roos -- radio and on line, c-span, bringing public affairs time-out created by cable. it's washington your way. >> i do say to him, i do say to him, there is increasing concern about the government's competence on the issue of libya. we've had the fiasco, talk of colonel gaddafi heading to venezuela when he wasn't, and we had the setback last weekend. mr. speaker, does the prime minister think it's just say problem with the foreign secretary or is there a wider problem in his government?