very unlikely outside the united states. again, on china relations, there may be differences between these groups in terms of how they view these differences. but the approach has to be brought in terms of seeking some -- there are variations there, but no difference in terms of policy. in terms of the diagnosis of what the problem is. i think there is a broad consensus that we don't have many options vis a vis pakistan. a democracy promotion has no basis. there are instances on that issue.

to sum up, what we see is a pragmatism moving away from idealism that is characterized in foreign policy in the cold war period. the story is not complete. it could go back. public sentiment is very intense. we discuss issues we would not have been discussing earlier. we characterize that as public debate even though the shift has

not -- is not complete. the conventional wisdom approach we have taken we see as the pragmatic approach coming stronger and shifting away from the idealistic movement as reducing. i think we are somewhat cautious in terms of making any final predictions. i think it is still in progress. i will stop there. >> thank you. did you want to add anything? thanks to the organizers as well. it is a great pleasure to be here. i should start by saying that i found this paper to be a useful one. from a state apartment -- from a

state department's perspective and i have been there and i've not had a paper that need a charter that indian policy. would have been a nice way to begin my study of the country. there is a great deal of good stuff here. i want to take my time to step through three basic points. but the first of these is to export in more depth the practical utility of this project. than to focus with some specific questions and observations about the details of the indian case and the van to export some possible avenues for future study and moving ahead. let me talk about the utility here. from a policy makers perspective, it seems odd, in a

sense, that political science would not have spent all that much time on a question of debates with other countries on their foreign policy. this seems intuitive and something that would be central. for the conference organizers, obviously it is. with my background in political science, i know this is not necessarily the mainstream of international relations scholarship. i think that has been a problem. the this is an effort to return these ideas to the mainstream, i think this is quite valuable. there's a reason why policymakers have been forced to continue to do this even if ir purists have not and it is because you are in the business of trying to get into the minds of your counterparts. you are trying to figure out what they are thinking and maybe get ahead of them and find areas of cooperation. you would like to do this, in ideal circumstances, by

exchanging views with those leaders. as a reality, this is not always possible. it is usually not possible. you have to settle for something that is second best and that is attempting to gauge the mood or prevailing schools of thought within the country and see how those trickle-down into the minds of the individuals who actually have the potential to do something about it. and in india, this is true. india is not an entirely opaque system. it is probably more open than a few of the countries you look at here today. it is still difficult sometimes to read the official mind. it is also a mind that has been in flux. india is developing rapidly and changing. it would be surprising if you saw a complete consistency. in order to get ahead of those changes or anticipate what they might be, this is the kind of study that you would want to

undertake. the question in india and the authors do a good job of the initially exploring this is how these ideas then feed into the actual policy making process. in the u.s. system, we have a somewhat more direct way for this to happen. people come and go from outside into the inside. people come from academia, serve for retirement government, come from political parties, some positions of power, and then leave. you also have a fairly extensive effort by policy makers or to attend meetings like this and participate and receive briefings and the open to this outside world. i think this is somewhat less so in the indian case. still, there is no way even in the american system to have an exact science of how these ideas that are bubbling up from the outside translate into the inside.

in india, this is even more true. i will come back to the point a little bit later. because the indian system is not necessarily immune from these things and it may be changing, becoming perhaps more open as it develops. if we assume that the debates have at least an indirect bearing on policy and i think in india this is a correct assumption, this kind of paper is useful for the outside observers and the people i was talking about before but it is useful because it begins when i might call a meta-debate -- a debate about the debate itself. in the indian context, this is an improvement over the current state of affairs. i think we have had, for a time, the best we could do is try to discern what indians think but not characterize it, cataloging, and then project that

characterization back into the debate itself. by doing that, that is helpful for the debaters. many of the indians are named in the paper, they find themselves characterized as hyper- nationalists, or nationalists, or great power realists and that sharpens the mind. that forces them to declare that they are not and here is why in here is what separates me or my ideas from those of my peers. that takes the debate to the next level. as long as we go -- don't get wrapped around the axle to much about labels, we will be in good shape. i think this is an important contribution in that respect. however, before we get there, i think that labels matter a lot. if i were to have one of my critiques of the paper and the project is the way in which it labels. here in particular, you saw the

nationalist" or neo- nationalist and there was a shift to nehru-vian. nationalist is not a determining level as much as nehruvian may be. maybe some of the reasons for this is because you're doing a comparative project and trying to bring the indian case to others. nationalist may have certain connotations but it is not an entirely alien term but it does not really capture what is going on. in fact, in some ways, it obscures what that mainstream indian perspective is. there are other problems here, too. you could be more clear about that, i suppose. even the other terms you use,

leftist, realist, hyper- nationalists are loaded terms. it's one comes with its own baggage. the leftists, by definition, are out of the mainstream. they are extreme. the realists, that is a more positive connotation. hyper-nationalism may be a little bit crazy. there is a bias smuggled into this. [laughter] i think we need to be very clear, particularly as you get going in this kind of project as to exactly what you make of it. some of these terms are very american terms and have been used by indians and are more extensively used now than they were say two decades ago and that is partially because these indians have studied in the u.s. or have studied american academic literature on international relations. to the extent that they are now appropriating american terms and american theory is that have

been developed most fully in the united states, i think there is an interesting dynamic going on -- that indians and their scholars may be thinking about india and their foreign policy in ways that have been framed by americans. i think there may be an interesting direction for further analysis to figure out how that is the shifting or playing into the indian dynamic or how the indian debate is more truly indian than i am recognizing. i may be wrong and this. the paper hints at some answers as to have indian foreign policy is more truly indian or idiosyncratic and its way. you point to an inordinate amount of attention to the idea of international status as being one of these areas. this might be an interesting avenue to explore. i wonder if you might want to make a very direct comparison in

the future with the united states in terms of the development of this indian debate as compared with the development of the u.s. debate and not the current u.s. today. i think that is the wrong comparison. i would suggest you want to make a comparison to the u.s. debate as it developed as the united states was a rousing power. -- was a rising power, late 19th century and early 20th century and that is the critical area where a country is dealing with its rising material power and where you might see some very interesting similarities between the two countries. one of the best points of this paper for those who will read it or should read it is your effort to get the on the labels and focus on individuals. you point to a specific personalities and people who are really driving this debate within india. the reason why this is so important in the indian case is

that the indian debate is under institutionalize. it is over-personalized. institutions are -- appear to be relatively empty vessels into which prominent individuals enter, make a splash, make a case, and may move on. they would leave relatively little behind. are you seeing a shift here? in india to greater institutional cessation? tion. in the united states, you could say that if you look around town at the various think tanks, you get a sense as to where they stand -- were the people based on where they said. heritage has a reputation and a center for american progress has

another. i'm not sure i see that in india but it may be emerging. more specific observations -- the paper begins by arguing that domestic variables are very important. i like it makes a compelling case. it talks about the relatively benign international condition, it's open democracy, a fractured policy, and the size and diversity. this all means that the indian debate on foreign policy will be influenced by what happens at home. when you then go into trying to explain indian foreign policy and how it has behaved, i think you shift pretty quickly to weigh very structural analysis, the end of the cold war. that seems to be driving a lot of the breakdown of what i would call the nehruvian - nationalist convention. the globalization of markets seems to be driving liberals

within india. the indian relative rise in power in the international system along with the rise of its neighbor china gives a boost to those great power realists. i read the opening chapter to the volume and he suggests that in some instances the policy debate in the country will lag behind a structural change. it appears that india is a real case of this where the debate is following the structural shift, not leading it. theoretically, this is sort of smuggling the structure back into the domestic. it is basically saying that domestic policy debate is driven by the structure and you are defining the relative rise and fall of players within the domestic policy debate by what is happening on the outside. it is not a true domestic story here. in some ways, it too easily

slides back into the structural story. this becomes important, i think, because the paper then does not do a good job explaining why andrea decided at the end of the cold war two allies more or less with the united states. it is not an alliance in any formal sense but as was explained to me recently in china, the chinese were very surprised by the extent to which india has moved away from its traditional non-aligned movement and started to bandwagon with the united states. this suggests that something is going on here at the domestic level. some shifts has taken place which is not determined by that international structure but i don't know what it is from the paper. i don't know why different groups have been privileged in

this policy debate. one thing that seems to be missing here is the issue of liberal values, a democratic affinity, you have suggested just now that india is not interested in promoting democracy. i fully agree. that is off the table. when you talk about democratic affinity, you start to get some residents. when prime minister came here and spoke a cfr, he contrasts of the indian view about the united states with respect to its view about china. what was central to this was shared values, democratic understanding of the world and principles. something is going on here that is not in the paper. the question that i would have is then whether perhaps as india is not interested in promoting democracy now but it's debate is lagging behind its relative power, perhaps as the indian

power rises, the debate will shift and you'll get an important change as to how they behave international law on this issue. we may see that in the future. what is driving that? is there a potential there that is under-explored? the other thing i think is missing is the china factor. china is mentioned numerous times in the paper but on my recent trip to india, have been struck by the extent to which china -- what to do about china is a litmus test for where to stand on foreign policy. he paper suggested is mainly about the united states but the china issue is tied to u.s. issue. in many ways, it is also a distinct and also changing. when it is a moving target. how in the response to that moving target is very much in flux. i would suggest that a future version of this paper might take up that issue as well as the u.s. issue.

let me close with a couple of ideas or questions for future study. what are the domestic drivers, the really, truly domestic drivers for these various schools of thought in india and what might they be as we move ahead to a more institutionalized a version of this debate? for instance, will we see big business playing a much bigger role? will corporations sponsor institutions more directly and sponsor individuals and schools of thought and allowing them to prosper within the system as those businesses rise? or will we see political parties taking a more active role in this? so far, we have not seen party think tnaks that are there to advance political agenda. as the party debate continues, you may see that. we are seeing the development of

some bureaucratic or institutional drivers for domestic debate coming out of the military. the military has seen fit to invest in think tanks. you are starting to see an institutionalized military investment paying off in the form of ideas of how about how the indian foreign policy should be and that a similar to these developments we have seen in the united states. it would not be surprising to see them in the indian context. finally, how the changes in the world may affect this internal debate -- three big things that i would suggest you might want to entertain. a war with pakistan is not off the table and you would think that my play directly into the debate. it is a foreseeable event and it will affect policy debate. i would be curious what you

would make of that. there is a continued trajectory of china and how that will play out and another one with respect to the united states is the endgame in afghanistan. how does the united states leave afghanistan and how does that play into the indian debate about its own foreign-policy and about its relationship to the united states? let me and there. let me congratulate you both. it was a very useful paper and very compelling. overall, this volume i congratulate you. this is a very useful volume, not just for what it can do to help political science return back to something that is a little more directly linked up with policy studies. thank you. >> thank you very much. i will invite you to make sure,

we will open it up to questions. >> i want to thank the discussion and the chair for taking their jobs as seriously and giving us a lot of feedback. by will focus quickly on two things thatdan said and one. that ambassador blake made. your point about structure versus domestic, i think that is important. you cannot, i would argue, that you can't exactly explain the shift by the end of the cold war because, in fact, these domestic consensus about the nehruvian model have been coming to an end. there is much more debate in the 1980's about whether nerhruvian economic and political model had run out of steam. india was "-- was growing at 3%

and to look elsewhere in the region, they were galloping ahead. the and were looking idea of india as a great civilization and india being itself was enough and we would muddle along and still be better than the rest, i think, was coming under a lot of opposition. if you look at the domestic debate, you would see that there is a lot of resistance to that. the end of the cold war brought it to a head. yes, that is a turning point but it could not have happened this way without having the kind of ferment before going on. the other point you raised was the counter intuitive point about democracy promotion. that merits a response. first of all, yes, the prime minister's statements about the affinity, i'm afraid i think it

is more rhetoric than not. i think the whole idea of democracy promotion is seen in new delhi as soft interventionism. as you know, the indians are allergic to any kind of intervention. i think that is the way in which that is seen. the concept of democracy came up in 2007, japan, india, australia, the u.s., and it was perhaps seen as a good idea but on the other hand, it was seen as maybe a creeping asian nato targeting china and the indians would not go along with that. i will leave it at that. ambassador blake, you talked about the diaspora.

it is a love-hate relationship in india. the non-resident indians think one way and the government presents them but also they need them. i think they kept them at a distance for a long time until silicon valley happens, frankly. they found it was as useful as the indian market opened. they are now going to 10 onwooing the diaspora. i will stop with that. >> let me make one point about democracy. it is very important to note that one of the most striking things to come out of the president's visit was agreement on the part of the union -- indian government to work with the united states for the first time to promote open government around the world. you might think that they will never touch the subject but in fact, they will work very closely with us and a number of other countries. it will not be any kind of

interventionist policy. it is at the request of other governments. nonetheless, i think that is an important step forward and the indian experience with its own right of information law is the substantial and something i think is quite an important example for other countries. we are quite excited about this. let me open it up to questions or comments from the floor, please. >> thank you, i would like to pick up on something about how useful it would have been and the policy planning staff for having a paper like this land on your desk. this raises the question about what is the american intelligence community doing

with the billions of dollars it is spending, measuring what ever it is measuring? to the measure of how many missiles -- missiles are deployed where? [laughter] in all seriousness, this is a question not for this palle but for the final panel and ambassador pickering in particular who has been a consumer of american intelligence throughout his career. after 9/11 and the emphasis of the commission on so-called open source collection and analysis, what is going on with the american intelligence community of these kind of papers are not landing on your desk as policy makers? i just want to table that for this afternoon. >> they do land on our desk but do we have time to read and [laughter] ? >> this is a question for

ambassador blake and i felt for the rest of the panel in terms of domestic debates impact on foreign policy. the more things change, the more they remain the same. i am talking in terms of the indian abstention on the libya issue. the think-tank community were strong proponents for the indian endorsement as a permanent member of the un security council and they were disappointed in terms of the indian abstention and they said it was a return to the wholenon- aligned thinking of india. how disappointed or you in the indian the abstention? in terms of labeling, it was very distressing. in terms of questions from the military-industrial complex, gottridge came out strongly

attacking defense minister anthony. he described a leftist mentality to him. >> let me answer that briefly. there are many issues to talk about. there has been an interesting eve aleutian in the -- evolution in the indian those. on some human rights issues and libya there has been some for progress. india has always voted in a way that we would regard as positive with regards the ieae with respect to iran. the libyan information was employed by incorrect reports that there were high civilian casualties by coalition

aircraft. those reports were incorrect and there were influenced by it was some of the otherbric countries bought and how they were voting. india has been supportive of what is going on in libya. we have a very good dialogue going forward on that. tom? >> tom pickering, i was somewhat shocked not to hear two words ever mentioned -- pakistan and kashmir. why? [laughter] >> in the chart, pakistan is up there because it is one of the areas of convergence across the board. i suppose kashmir could have been up there in the same context, convergence.

i think there are certain areas where there is consensus across the board. we just neglected the kashmir question. we also were focusing really on major foreign policy issues with the u.s. and other rising powers, as well. we probably should include that in their next time. >> we will take one more question. >> when i read the title of your paper," ambiguous power, call,: " i was intrigued by your analysis. is ambiguity in today's world the name of the game? in the old cold war days, you could have doctrines and follow

them but even in this town, the doctrine breaks down quickly. is it really bad to be ambiguous in your foreign policy? >> if i thought that ambiguity might be a cleverly disguised strategic brand strategy then, yes, it would be a good idea and it would be a smart thing. if because there is a cacophony of opinions and not an -- and people not paying attention to what the grand strategy should be or what the strategic purpose pushing these foreign-policy decisions are, that is another issue. i think it is the latter. new delhi got used to that sort of consensus for 50 years where they did not have to confront a lot of issues. they have that non-alignment model to guide them.

when it ran out, now, it is in a position of having to come up with her views. it is ambiguous right now but it also -- if you go back to the nuclear issue -- india had studied ambiguity about that. it was very deliberate on that one particular question. to suggest that it is a good thing overall, given the rise of india and given the rise of different expectations from outside and india wants to be part of the u.n. security council, you can go too far with ambiguity if you have to do something and be guided by certain principles. >> the democracy cannot the couple of times.

-- the democracy came up a couple of times. you can see how much democracy comes up in any other dissertation in any other country. [laughter] >> policy works. [laughter] >> [inaudible] context matters but sometimes it does not. >> it makes you wonder what they actually stand for.

>> they stand for coming back to power. [laughter] >> [unintelligible] >> henry has come back in the room and that is my cue to end this session there are many, many other questions and comments and there will be other opportunities. please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

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>> they are taking a 25 minute

break in this day-long conference on foreign policy debates in foreign countries. that is for lunch and we will resume our coverage at about 1:00 eastern where they will be discussing foreign policy debates. they will hear from the keynote speaker, william russell meaad. he is from bard college. that will start at about 1:00 eastern. and then the next panel discussion on domestic farm policy debates will be on the country of russia. we will have live coverage of that. that is here for you on c-span. until then, we will go back to earlier today when there was a session on the foreign policy debates in china.

>> i want to thank you for being invited today. it was a pleasure to sitting down with henry and deepa's paper. i commend the policy-oriented focus of this project. for those of us about were in

the think-tank academic world for a while and you slipped into policy, it is easy to forget how much value there is in understanding the intellectual landscape in that particular country were looking at. i thought both henry's chapter and daivd in nice job -- did a nice job of laying out the debate and try to talk about the policy focus. i thought i would make four very brief comments about the paper and handed over to david and mike:. the paper is a great paper as i anticipated. no better people than david to do that. it is well-documented and there is a second paper in just reading the footnotes.

the real virtue of the paper is when they lay out the spectrum of discourse in the chinese foreign policy community. it is a wonderful paper and i think the comments will only make it better. i will make four very brief comments. i am the chair and then i am not the discussee. while there is real value in being comprehensive, in some ways, this is the story of china. it is a big place with lots of people and is very diverse. there is real value in analytic person in it. parsimony. there is a lot going on in china today. and for those of you who have studied china or even looked at

foreign-policy debates in china, there is so much going on. at the end of the paper, you are left with thinking what really matters. this is something that all of us as china specialists struggle with. it is not a weakness of the paper but to the extent possible, i think if they try to highlight some of the dominant trends, that would be useful. the second comment -- the paper would benefit from some comment about what is not being debated in china. i'm often struck by how little discussion there is among ir specialists about what is not going on and the choice is china is not making. what is not being debated. even the most conservative schools of thought which the authors termed the nativists is

not a school of thought that is articulating a highly revisionist image or agenda of the international system. point number 3 -- it would be very useful if the paper at some point link to the schools of thought, this range or spectrum from the nativist to the globalist in the paper and link these debates to overall behavior. that is something that i was struck by i made the transition from a think tank world at rand to the policy world and trying to devise policy. sometimes, there seems to be a disjuncture between was being debated among scholars and analysts in china and what you actually see in terms of chinese farm policy behavior. that is not terribly surprising.

there are multiple different influences on the behavior of a state. there is bureaucratic politics, public opinion, and ir discourse. it would be useful if there was someone to tie the debates going on in china to some of the key decisions that we pay attention to in government. chinese policies and north kerria and iran and maritime territory dispute, especially behavior in the south china seas and the east china sea. in particular, some of us in government were struck by the fact that we know there's a very robust debate going on in china about this whole concept of biting your time. what does this grand strategy mean for china? at the same time as the debate is going on, you see some assertive behavior. the last point i will make is on

the policy implications. i thought they did a nice job of showing the policy implications. how do you shape policy behavior is? we have evidence to bear on some of that. over the last 30 years, there are several areas in which u.s. policy, i would argue, has had a defining in: shaping chinese behavior. in particular, chinese behavior on international trade, non- proliferation, and of course the chinese approach to multilateralism in the east asia context. it is not as simple as reinforcing the voices you likened china and being mean to the guys you don't like. it is not that simple. i would encourage the authors to look at what the mix of incentives is within the incentive as a way to reinforce the views we think are consistent with u.s. interests and do the opposite.

i am two minutes over so i will handed over to david to discuss his paper, thank you. >> thanks very much for getting us started very well. i am sorry if i gave our panel chair a scare by not getting here until 9:30 but the washington metro system being what it is is not as efficient as the beijing metro system and it did not cooperate. i made it. i am here. i'm really pleased on behalf of my colleague and co-author ren- chow who is a professor but for two years, he has been in the chinese embassy in tokyo which is physically why he is not here. he is one of the growing trend, something the chinese have learned from the united states

in a positive way -- academics that going to government and in theory come out. we will see if you come out, evan. [laughter] it is a real strength of the american system. the chinese have more recently begun to adopt that as well. ren-chow is one or five or six people going from academia into government. that is why he is not here. he has left it to me to present our paper. this is difficult to summarize a 13,000-word, 38-page paper. i think this will go into the fifth draft. i have written any papers but i have never written more drops of a paper than this project has required. there will be at least one more draft and i will incorporate

what you just said and what mike is about to. that is the introductory slide. i am technologically challenged. i am not that accustoms to presentations. china, i would argue, maybe i am biased because i am a chinese specialist, but they are the most important rising power. this one, i think, is very important. for a return every day, we see this. we see china gobbling up a global resources, soaking up foreign investment, increasingly investing abroad, recently throwing its weight around in the asian neighborhood, being the souter and government

diplomacy, sailing its navy into new waters, most recently the mediterranean, broadening its global and cultural presence and trying to acquire soft power and managing a mega-economy that is the engine of global growth. this is no ordinary rising growth. maybe it has already risen. how to deal with this rising power is the grand strategic question of our era. what kind of actor will china be on the international stage is really the key question before all of us as analysts or policy practitioners. there are, indeed, many variables that will answer the second question. this project and this chapter in this project is a slice of one

of the many variables. this looks at only one slice of chinese perception. it looks at how the chinese see their own international role. that is different than how the chinese see the united states or how they see brazil or whatever. this chapter is about how the chinese see themselves in the international system. that is a kind of sub-sub said. set. we argue that china is a conflicted rising power. we lay out in the paper a variety of schools of thought and ways and issues and levels in which china is a conflicted rising power. we make the point that many others, starting with my colleague mike lampton made several years ago in his book

that the foreign-policy process in china is increasingly pluralized. your book was published seven or eight years ago in 2001. 10 years ago. he had prescience in which he noted that the chinese foreign policy was beginning to pluralize and many actors were getting into the act and it was no longer controlled by the foreign ministry. here we are 10 years later and it could not be more true. as analysts, we need to dig deep into this pluralize policy- making process. it is very hard i don't and the people like evan who have to manage a policy to deal with such a pluralized process. that is what all other countries have to do with united states every day. china is becoming more like the united states. it is a pluralized, messy, often

difficult, often un-transparent, difficult actor. we look in our chapter at this discourse which is very diverse. why in an authoritarian zairone- party state and strong internal security, isn't there a coherence of the views? the answer is no. there is no coherent of views. there is huge animated, ongoing debates about a variety of issues. the paper goes into some detail on each of these seven issues that are being debated. there are other issues being debated but these are the seven principal ones that we look at.

these are the topics with which chinese pundits, policy makers, acted -- academics have been most fixated over the past few years. but those on the table. we did not try -- i hope you can see that slide -- week dis- abrogate the discourse into several schools. evan made a good, that we need to marry better the seven issues to the seven schools. that can be easily done a matrix. we should have done already but we will do so in the next draft we see a spectrum of views. chineseerge in the discourse about its own international identity. this is a spectrum about china's own global roles.

we find there are these discernible tendencies, those of us who were schooled in the soviet union long time ago, you remember tendency analysis. griffith - this is the literature we need to draw on. these are tendencies. these are fluid debates. these are not fixed debates. i would argue that it is impossible to tie schools of thought to particular institutions. or even individuals. our interviews with many individuals for this project shows the chinese strategic and -- the anchors are eclectic. they are not coherent. they are a bit like us. they will tell you one thing that fits in one school in the next sentence will be another. it is hard to pigeonhole people and institutions to schools. having said that, these seven distinct tendencies emerge.

when we get into the rest of the project this morning and if you read the introductory chapter, these seven schools are similar to but different from the three schools. it is identified in the india paper three predominant schools, nationalist, a realist, global list. these seven schools fit that broader template. the three central schools which federalistl lists category. the selective multilateralists set the global list category.

-- fit the global list category. i apologize you cannot see this because it is too small. i am just learning power point. the slide looks at each school along three indices. were the origins of the school? what a policy goals of the school? water the tactics that the school uses to try to achieve its goals? paperk this from deepa's and have tried to do this for the chinese. there are very distant origins, gold, and tactics. i still an idea from the dick samuels paper. you had a very nice chart, i remember. the japanese schools were on an active/passive u.s. position.

i tried to position my seven schools on a similar spectrum. what you hopefully can sasee is that the major powers are potential candidates for cooperation with the united states. the multilateralists are selective and cooperating because they have to and because they will be shamed in the international community for not cooperating. they do as well as possible but with a high profile. it is tactical. it is not philosophical. they do not buy into the western liberal agenda. you have the other schools that i would argue are not anti-u s but they are anti american.

that is another way to think about these schools in policy terms. maybe i can sharpen that discussion. finally, what the policy implications to the united states? if this came through? there should be three colors on the slide. the first color is the school, the second color is basically short and sweet, where do they stand on the u.s. and the third color is what should the u.s. do about it or think about them? the nativists are deeply hostile to the u.s. and we should ignore them but be aware of them. they represent the strands of thinking in chinese society. the chinese foreign policy of increasing reflects the strands in the populist. the realists seek to challenge the united states and strengthen china. that is their main goal.

what does that mean for us? those that argue for strategic hedging argue that that is the best way to deal with such a semidesert revisionist/realist state. the major powers schools is the good news. these other guys we can work with. they want to work with us and we saw that on display in january with the hu jintao visit. the implication for the united states is engagement. we work with this school. this school has been dominant in the leadership over time, particularly hu jintao has grudgingly, around to this school. -- come around to this school. hu jintao has changed and is thinking overtime from a kind of global revisionist, russia-

oriented, asia and view to the major powers kind of thinking. finally, we have the asia first school which seeks to compete with and undermine the united states in asia. they see that as their backyard. they say we are the intrusive party. for the united states, that means we have to maintain our presence, strengthen our global solve school, which rissole on display last week with the brics meeting, that is basically to undermine the united states in the system. for us, that means we need to play the game and compete with middle powers and increased u.s. aid and activism in the developing world. and we need to get in the game here agaie.

i hope there is resources and real effort put behind that. the last few years china has been much more in the game than we have been. selectable tie line arrests. they seek to use multilateralism to activeselectively. we need to praise chinese contribution when their careers, but equally exposed china's shortcomings, which are many i would argue. i think the international court of public opinion is a place where we should talk about what a could and should be

doing. peacekeeping operations. we all hear about chinese peacekeepers abroad. the chinese are pleased to say we're no. 1 in the security council, but they are no. 14 over all. of that kind of stuff -- i think we need to shine a spotlight on the global governance shortcomings. finally, the global list. they are also a natural partner for the united states. they believe incomprehensive multilateralism. some of them even believe in g- 2. they believe in contributing substantively to the government.

so that is basically our take away for policy. let me just close by arguing international identity is not fixed. this is highly fluid. it remains very contentious. it is very much under debate. very much a work in progress. therefore the united states and others can influence ongoing debates through actions and words and do so negatively and positively. we can reinforce some of the more negative trends through certain nativists and religious actions on our own part, and we are highly capable of that i would argue. what i really worry about is the american realistic chinese realists will clash together. we need a much more sophisticated strategy began to push the default release button. we have seen this movie before.

it is called the soviet union. that is not the movie we're looking at today. there are those in this country and government who believe that. this is a work in progress. it is fluid, dynamic. we affect their debates. we have to recognize where the sente of -- center of gravity lies. that is not good news to the united states, but it is reality. we have to recognize that. there are institutions, particularly our deliberations -- the liberations. that helps explain, i think, some of the multifarious actions are part of the chinese government and the last few years. evan says we are puzzled by action a and b.

my argument is the chinese are puzzled because they have this debate internally. at least that is one reason for the seemingly contradictory behavior on the international and regional stage in asia. these rules will evolve as the perceptions involved. -- evolves. they could get worse. already the realists are already the center of gravity, but there is a strong pull from the nativist. china could become much more assertive, much more difficult for us to deal with. it is not necessarily that the movement will be to the right- hand side of the spectrum. but there are strong forces in china that the argument that -- that may not be the case. this will sustain china's multi dimensional direction of foreign

policy. with that, i will stop and leave it to my good friend and colleague to tell me where i am. >> -- >> we have to actually shipped over. >> can i put this down here? put that up you there? >> they can digest. >> thank you very much. i want to convey my thanks and appreciation for a great paper. since we are supposed to focus on areas of additional clarity, let that not obscure the fact that i think it is up fascinating paper. for their research. it does a lot just to map the landscape. this is a tour graphic paper.

let me say first of all, i think it raises a very -- raises the very central developments in chinese foreign policy, one of which has already been mentioned. that is this is just one expression of the polarization of the chinese foreign policy process. also, i think it is a reflection of what i would say is a weaker chinese leadership and a stronger chinese society in the policy process. this really raises a number of questions that i would like you to at least -- because i think this paper is more important in the sense even then it appears at first blush. it raises the question, who speaks for china? i would like, it's at this point, but who do you listen to as a board hated on very -- who

do listen to on authoritative issues? there may be more than one group here. in any case, who speaks for chinese policy? this bears on the whole question of the chinese conventionality. who are the chinese? where does it had sodality reside? different policy issues and different policy places and so forth. -- where does intentionality come from? secondly, this paper breezes of fascinating question to me. -- this paper raises a

fascinating question to me. as americans we think all good things come from democracy, but in fact, as you look at the range of views, if they're all going to be given more expression in chinese society, in fact what comes out in your paper is actually the top leaders seem to be the moderator is frequently in this situation. if leadership becomes more salient in society less salient, you have to wonder where chinese policy is headed. finally, i say this as someone who was an independent guy. i think it raises the cost of conflict, and therefore, i would have reduced the probability of at least a symptom -- system disrupted conflict. in fact, i am beginning to wonder if increasing interdependence does not breed

resentment and conflict. there are these big questions that were paper raises for me, which i know was not your design necessarily to answer them, but certainly flag them as major questions. secondly, i would call but audience attention to what i thought were some interesting charts. i thought some of the other charts were fascinating as well. you talked about the frequency of verticals on soft power. what seems so interesting to me it is these articles peaked in 2008 and dropped precipitously. i know the problem with content analysis and frequent accounts and all of this stuff, but it seems to me there is a relationship between perception of the strength of the u.s. and

the popularity of the idea of soft power. broadly speaking, the weaker the united states is perceived, the less attractive and relative. >> we're leaving this session at this point. we are returning now to live coverage of this they-what conference on foreign policy debates and other countries. -- of this day-long conference on foreign policy debates and other countries. >> you can book continue to eke employees to pick up your copy in the back if you need to. at the same time, we are going to commence our discussion again. we are extremely pleased to welcome to the podium and our luncheon, a discussion of russell mead.

i know they have a great view of the new york countryside. i can see why he took flight there from washington. he is the henry -- he was the henry kissinger senior fellow for a u.s. foreign-policy at the council on foreign relations. i have a special affinity for walter, a book because we write about similar topics, largely from a similar perspective, and because we were both of security analysts, academics, scholars in the 1990's, writing books for the century foundation in new york. our books were published in 2002, and that is where the affinity stopped. walter's book became very well known and became famous, and i remained an obscure professor.

his 1992 book is a real gem. i have a sign that book since it came out every year to my graduate foreign policy course. it is one of those books that has a timeless quality to it. the book not only popularized the schools of thought idea that has inspired our projects in terms of application to foreign countries, but it also made the novel argument that over the centuries few countries have had a more successful policy than the united states. you can imagine that argument stunned some of the colleagues around the world, especially in europe. in part because of the book walter essentially expenses from the american experience the

primary school of thought in dealing with foreign affairs, that is realism. or what walter called fundamental realism. that is one of the legacies that we enjoy from the european experience. i always wondered how walter got away with that, how he expunged continental realism or european realism from the american lexicon and still got the henry kissinger senior fellow chair at the council on foreign relations. that is a mystery. in any case, he pulled it off. the book won a number of prizes. he has since been written a couple of other books. ofhe hasn't written a couple books.

"god and gold" which came out in 2008. he is traveling all over the world. we it corresponded with him over the past month. he does ia blog. an extremely interesting epilogublog. it is with great pleasure we welcome you to this location and we hope to a project that shares at least some intellectual communion with you in terms of your interest in schools of thought. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction and invitation, and think you to you for organizing

what i think is a generally important event in our field of international relations, foreign affairs, foreign relations, what ever you want to call it. after a great deal of hesitation, they changed it from political science department to political studies. it felt that was more modest and appropriate and deflected -- reflected a better degree of certainty. i think it is a wise choice. one of the things i like about this project is the way that i think it focuses our attention again on what this discipline is supposed to do, that is to help policy makers and wider public's who shape the debate over reform policy and affect the kind of choices that we make to make those constituencies smarter about the world and able to

make better judgments. to some degree what i think our discipline at its best is trying to do is to make the incommunicable wisdom that to drive dean acheson and so crazy when george kennan would stretch the importance of it, to make them more communicable. you can see mike technological skills at work right here. -- my technological skills out work right here. >> the laptop needs to stay open. in combat ability of technologies here. can we move it like this? so that this will not fall as quickly? ok.

[laughter] can you hear me? when i think about the kind of thing you are trying to do in this project, which is ultimately to bring culture back into the discussion of foreign affairs and a thoughtful way, i do think of george kennan as an example of someone who did this and did this so brilliantly in profoundly that it shaped two generations of american policy for and fought. he said kenan brought the understanding of soviet culture, restaurant -- russian history, together with his understanding

and political values together with of vision of how the world worked and what the world political realities were in the 1940's. he was able to lay out from that a sense of what the russians were after, where and how those ambitions created real problems and complex for the united states, and what sorts of the uniteduld be states take that would allow us to pursue an effective method of countering the dangerous elements of what the soviet were doing. that policy of containment, though it was disputed and contended over and thought about it really does do a pretty good job of encapsulating the center of gravity of american foreign policy right up through 1989 and 1990.

that shows of what this kind of analysis can achieve and how important it can be to do it well. if i were to define what i thought was the most important task facing people in our profession today, i would not say it is to come up with the seven. plan for bosnia, although they are very good, especially if they work, but rather to create the kinds of people that can look at whether it is in bosnia or the u.s. relations with india and indeed in other countries who could look intelligently deeply and wisely into this and come up with creative, useful ideas. a little toward practicality, but not the sort of pragmatism of the uninformed or uneducated.

i think this project of encouraging people to look at the way that other countries and communities think about their options and think about their strategies will promote that kind of ideas among foreign policy analysts in the west. i think what daniel markey said panel was bought panel on. he wished he had this kind of information that were provided him a great deal of help and try to understand who are these people, and what are they thinking as they look at me, and how can i began to think about dealing with them affectively? if we are going to do that well, if we're going to produce them well, i think we need to think a little bit about the kinds of studies we're going to produce,

the kinds of inquiries we can carry forward. what does it take to make candid? maybe a slightly improved candid? -- what does it take to make a kennon? a deep knowledge of your own society. politics, history, economics, culture. interestingly american foreign policy is very seldom talked as a subject in our universities today. there are few really good tax on the subject. it is even less caught outside the united states. -- there are few really good texts on the subject. i think it is of vital first up to the education of people who can make good form policy into

the future. then i would say the next thing you say is knowledge of the other. in this case what stock about the significant others. the key countries, cultures out there with whom your foreign relations will bring you into deep contact so that what george kennan was able to do about russia, one would hope that the policy makers in the future, their education will prepare them to do this about a number of places, that there is a good general background that helps you understand at least some level of complexity, and various regional cultures, foreign- policy debates around the world, and then also prepares you to go more deeply into ones you may be more professionally concerned

with or may erupt in force as all to focus on. we would also need a knowledge of the historical process, at the direction of history as it appears in our society and around the world. in the united states we live in the idea that fourth the last 300 years things have basically been going in the right direction. the development of an english- speaking global, liberal commercials civilization in which certain values that we care about achieved at least lip service and other places, and in general -- we're sort of like beavers to have been making a dam and creating a beaver pond, and we think it is pretty good. the rockets and the weasels that i've had to move as the waters of the pond rose are not as happy about the beaver pond as

we are. we need to understand of this historical process, both the ways anin which our relationship shape some of the presuppositions to bring to an analysis of economic affairs, and equally ways in which of their societies have been shaped by this and counter. -- by this encounter. the persian empire, ottoman empire, even in nigeria where the arrival of the british ended in theansion of islam north. the historical process looks very different.

this will inevitably shape the way people form schools of thought, the way domestic politics resonates. i remember talking to indian friends about 20 years ago. why can't we have a nice relationship? i said we do not to take anybody over all, or anybody, we just want to trade with you. he said that is what the british said when they got here. [laughter] so one has to understand this and rather deeply to begin to get a sense of where are they coming from. when i say x, what do they hear. and what do i need to say in order for them to hear what i intend them to hear? these were the thoughts that

were behind me when i started writing "special providence." those of you who do teach special providence, the price represents the decision of the century foundation. i have nothing to do with it, and i do not get any of the money. please tell all your students not to hate me if you can. i spend a lot of time traveling around on the state department's speaker program to talk about american foreign policy. i increase its lead define my mission as trying to get them to hate us for only the right reasons. -- i am increasingly urging them to the fine my mission as time

to get them to hate us for only the right reasons. i tried to think of the concepts of the schools when i think about them in the american context. the first thing i did is i broke with using theoretical models or abstractions. i could have done this nice power point chart of teh four quadrants -- the four quadrants, but i did not think that it's actually the way debates moving in our society. it is communities, cultures. a lot of it is emotionally based. if you want to understand the way americans respond to be vince in the world around them,

you somehow have to communicate all of that flavor, not just the black and white. you have to have the color. so i picked names. they are inexact. thomas jefferson was for and against almost anything you can think of. it turns out he has been the father of all succeeding presidents. and nevertheless, you can point to certain thought and feeling in the american case that really do trace themselves back to the 1760's. i looked for these continuities in communities of thought, and i

tried to round out our understanding or my understanding of the discussions that we have over what to do now with the cultural forces that shaped the people who participate in these and help us understand what they hear when i say x. i try to be fair. it is very difficult, because most of us start with this idea that there is one good foreign policy at any moment. in fact, that may be true, but they are correct and we will have a peaceful world have become a liberal democracies, that still does not tell us what to do in bosnia today.

one still might need to act as a cold, realism toward the correct theoretical case. the line between theory and policy is actually must more -- much more tenuous than we tend to think. in any case it seemed to me that in fact policy makers never really know the future. they are making decisions on the basis of an imperfect knowledge and the calculated political domestic risk as well as international ones. in and the american case, one of the ways in which our system has worked well is the debates among the upper schools and the schools rise and fall and influence, depending on how successful the recommendations are perceived to be or how pragmatic their perceptions are perceived to be in particular

circumstances, the u.s. policy system is able to alternate between fairly cynical political moves, smithsonian moves, very aggressive assertions of national agendas or to step back to let things become a we are able to do this even though we do not have a single controlling intelligence in the country, bismarck who rules their roost and is able to direct everything according to plan. it is a very anglo-saxon picture of how authority works. the invisible hand bring some order out of the contending schools of thought that is better and works better than a single, a grand plan might do. it is why a country without a strong state or powerful foreign ministry, state department, can

in fact overtime show's success in this form policy, because the political process keeps us focused in various ways on the national interest, even though nobody in washington necessarily has from administration to administration of a single, coherent dieting picture. -- a single coherent guiding picture. what people have found useful in a way to analyze the u.s. in a way to translate into chinese and teaching in chinese universities is how the american system works. how applicable is it to other countries one asks? this is part of the question you guys are beginning to try to answer in this book. it does seem to me that if i learned one thing from what i

did in a special providence is it is the uniqueness of the american system. that is liberal internationalism may exist in every culture as an abstract idea or can be transmitted, but miss sony and -- smithsonian has a unique relation historical implantation in shape and scope. so i think it is going to be the necessary first up. this is what i would counsel anybody trying to steady to think about schools and other countries, schools of thought. is to give deep in the weeds of that country's history and culture and do not think at all when you are doing your analysis of about can this be compared to this country or that country?

just try to get it on its own terms. for example, if you were to study french populism, i think one of the things you would quickly run up against is that all through the modern french history there have been to contending populism spirited one is traced back to because if the revolution and the other is to the catholic counter reaction. both of these trains of thought are populists in the sense that it often describe attitudes of large numbers of not particularly well-educated people. so you cannot quite speak of a french populism that works as

the jacksonian populism are right about in the united states. they occupy somewhat parallel positions, but understanding the differences between them is if anything more important than understanding the similarities they have. another thing to think about is deletion ship -- the relationship between the civil society and the people is a little bit different in the united states ban it in any other democratic countries. this affects profoundly the wave form policy works in the united states and the way in which different schools of thought says are manifested. one of them is that in the state department in particular, and like most foreign ministries around the world, political appointees reach buried deep

into the heart in substance of the bureaucracy. our state department is much less of an autonomous policy- producing machines than many others. in this way american foreign- olicy is much more effectied by changes in the political winds. it is also true in the division of power between congress and the executive is set up in ways that magnified the importance of minorities. so the fact that it takes two- thirds of the senate to get a treaty ratified means that our national was populace arcan usually get a pretty good case

to oppose treaty ratification. it is the biggest miracle probably in american history is the ratification of the panama canal treaty, which was also a political disaster for the administration that did it, -- so things like the international criminal court, they are born to be very hard because and the u.s. we have set a way in which the u.s. populism could sit at aretable iwhen treaties ratified. and other countries that is not true. one needs to understand the forces and civil society and the levers they have to manipulate the policy process. then one needs to understand to see how things are beginning to change, how changes the greater democratization, with a country

like india, the increasing transparency, the growing role of smaller parties in coalition, how is that changing the way -- the relationship of foreign policy to the rest of politics? this method of analysis is going to lead to more questions than answers. we are not really talking about science here, although it is an organized body of conjecture. we are hoping to find useful rules of thumb rather than laws. ultimately we need to think that as a profession we're hoping to inform intelligent individuals and intelligent public opinion, rather than coming up with this

sort of universally-valid ideas that can be proven by regression analysis and other things like that. that is not the goal i think. i tremendously bad you this project of looking at different schools and other countries, precisely because to the extent you succeed in this, you will be making communicable what was previously incommunicable knowledge. you will be making accessible the kind of understanding of other cultures that previously one could only have at the end of a long career in a particular culture or country. it is important work. i am glad you are doing it. go back and work much harder is my advice. there is lots to be done. thank you very much. [applause]

>> are there any questions or comments or rebuttals even? is there a microphone? >> could you briefly introduce yourself. >> i am a philosophy student at templeton university. recently people have looked at what is happening in the middle east and the obama administration, and some people say the old idea that you have to choose between realism and idealism has been completely baffled. now looks like maybe we do the morally-right thing or what people in the middle east also agree with us is the morally- right thing, then we will also a power. imately win the so some people think set not

just knocking out a solution immediately is because they are dealing not with just these even suddenly unfolding, but with the real paradigm shift. that kissinger is out. have things changed that much or maybe not? what do you see? >> i think the first person who said that was thomas jefferson in hailing the french revolution. in fact, if you look at it, the history of the last 200 years has been a history of revolutionary waves that in various ways to inspire enthusiasm, and ultimately a lot of confusion and heart search. in the u.s. we definitely have that reaction to the french revolution. the next time it came along it was americans revolutions. those had very disappointing

consequences. civil wars, anarchy and so forth. there was a falling off in america. realism rained and idealism was out the window. 1989 was one of those revolutionary waves that worked. and some of this is generational. policy makers who were on a certain age in 1989 and 1990 have a and defaults get emotional belief that revolutions work in the sense of actually producing liberal democratic societies in the majority of cases. politicians with either longer or shorter memories may have different assumptions. there i am afraid i have to say [french] george w. bush said that in the

second inaugural. that is the core concept of the end of history, although frank is a much more nuanced think there. if the oldest thing in american history what you just said here yet the fact that so many people each time it comes up think it is new is one of the reasons that people like us need to work much harder to do our jobs well. yes, sir, in the back. >> thank you very much. i am with the 2017 task force. you are lucky i was not your 1960's.n the 19dent in the

one will have to ask you on a work basis, should four in u.s. action taken, what should the conditions be? should we fix in on fact, intelligence, or fabrication? think about the disruption in iraq and the libya situation. what are the basis for action in foreign countries? misperceptions -- >> well, if one looks historically you can see that all of those have been in times important players. when i began my remarks i talked about the importance of

understanding emotions and cultures and in perfect knowledge. -- and imperfect knowledge. the war of 1812, the british had repealed the ideas of the form council before the war was actually declared. so it there is the spanish blowing up of the battleship maine. president lincoln, his first nickname in national politics was body lincoln, because president polk said the reason for the mexican war was that mexican troops fired on u.s. troops in u.s. soil. lincoln kept saying show me the spots. show me the spot where this happened. it is rare is that anybody is as helpful as and jefferson, davis, or the japanese in 1941 and clearly firing an obvious first shot.

i think this is true not only of the united states, i think it is true of all countries and leaders. one brings one hopes, fears, ambitions, values and kind of a mixed bag to every crisis. in a crisis things happen fast. we do not always know why we do what we do. there again what i suggest is that the the record and realize we can say normally one should never do x. one should not, but likely one does and what will again. yes? >> thank you very much. i am a student and research assistant. thank you for putting on such a lovely panel. much earlier on, i believe the first panel on china, there was

something about regional concentrations but tendencies. what you've outlined with the discontinuity is a variety of tendencies that different u.s. administrations might engage in. might that be more descriptive of other countries using their respective lanes on foreign- policy in the u.s.? >> would what be more descriptive or prescriptive? >> labeling them as tendencies. >> i think other countries would do well to understand that the american tendency, these different american tendencies. i think if the japanese have really understood what the political reaction was to pearl harbor, i doubt it would have launched the attack. in fact the polarities that most

of the time the average american is not particularly interested in american foreign policy. as long as the elites are not costing him or her a lot of money or sending too many people to go get killed, they let us do what we want. there are certain red lines that when they are crossed, then the jacksonians get involved. they expect things to be resolved in a certain way. he really thought america was so internally divided, ethnic politics and so one being what they were, that the u.s. would not be able to bring considerable force to bear in that war anytime soon, if not ever. if he had understood that better, i do not think the zimmermann telegram would have been written.

the ways that telegram ignited a certain reaction in the american popular mind. i definitely think that for other countries there are tremendous advantages and understanding the way we do in the way we do not respond. other questions? yes. >> my name is chris neil, a student at the l.a. school. he recently talked about president obama. -- you recently talked about president obama. you also described jefferson as ambiguous. to you think that obama is ambiguous? >> the article was and foreign- policy, the one you are referring to. my more recent article was about the tea party.

] i think president obama does, and i think we have seen the still at work, like all of us he has more than one school of thought in his head. the way i would describe schools of thought is there like a hand of cards. some people have more hearts. some people have more clubs. i think obama seems to be long oin two suites. he is long in the jeffersonian suit. it reflects the role of a young man in the bush administration. the u.s. gets in trouble in week -- when we engage too much overseas.

we define our interest expansively and start having a lot of conflicts. this helps create a police state in the patriot act as we have to crack down on civil liberties when we're under attack. it diverts resources away from domestic and international problems. you need to define your interest down, where we less about ideology than pragmatic spirit and -- worry less about ideology than pragmatics. on the other hand, president obama believes less in america as something that has been created in needs to be preserved, but he believes america is the shining hill on the city that we need to preserve, which is in the future. the way we do that is by working not only to build the city on the hill here at home but building freedom at home,

standing up for what is right. if you will not use your power to prevent a genocide abroad, what use is your power? who are you if you can stand aside and let certain things happen? i think he is genuinely torn between these alternatives. they are both in my view completely legitimate ways to think about the world. in the problem is and that those two in particular are hard to reconcile into a clear line of policy. what you often do, and i think jimmy carter is a president who had some of the same instincts. what often happens is you then start doing things for human rights as long as they are cheap. that seems like the obvious way to reconcile them. what that instantly exposes you

to is charges of hypocrisy, because you proclaim your principles very loudly, but you only defended them when it does not cost you anything. so other people look at you and draw conclusions. that i think is one of the problems president obama has faced. the other one is just as jimmy carter's pursuit of human rights helped destroy the new relationship with the soviet union that he bought and underwrite the strategic form policy that he wanted, so in a sense president obama's decision and that the right thing to do was to help president mubarak move on to the next stage in his career, i.e. a prison cell, that interfered with other goals.

now he is involved in libya, let's all hope it goes well. here is the problem and syria. partly because they are encouraged of hearing the americans talking about a duty to protect, here are people who live under a regime that is not only potentially genocidal, has actually killed 20,000 people to preserve its own power. in if he interferes in syria, this will end any reset with iran, get him involved much more deeply in the middle east. in any case, it is a much bigger thing. the biggest problem with smithsonian policy for an american president is that conscious is not strategic. right and wrong are not commensurate with the strategic

advantage. in one way your conscience is a little bit like healitler, it always wants more and once everything. jeffersonian is elevating strategic thinking into the major principles of your form policy. president obama is struggling to reconcile two absolutely valid world views that have a hard time coexisting. the problem is it exposes his policy to all kinds of criticism in danger. i wish him well. i really do. >> [inaudible] >> i think we have burned to the what wehe heart of

tried to do. i completely agree with you that one needs to start a new culture within each country we are in essence trying to buy getting into the cultures in schools of thought of other countries and rising powers. culture's communicate by emotions come up by spirit, but they also communicate by obstruction. -- abstraction. those abstractions are different to each culture, but important to access a school of thought, either in the united states, and understanding those better, or in the culture of another country. you have to find common abstraction. you have to find a some language and communication between the cultures of those countries and those of our country.

we have obviously settled on analytic distinctions in this particular study, because we are struggling to try and find the basis on which we can communicate, because you really cannot communicate on the ideas of emotions and experiences. the constructions of countries. i was wondering if in the last, if you could reflect on that. >> it is not attention but unsolvable -- not an attention that is solvable. i would tend to have a bias, and maybe that is just because that is the way my mind works, to start with the grass roots and work up. that is to say as you move forward on this work with the rising powers, i would say you

want to produce a look at india, japan, russia, china that integrates the foreign policy perspectives into just a mass stripped of the countries. -- massive of the countries. then i would look at what are the costs? how do we build the structures, because i think unless we do that, there is a certain -- because the analytical framework of modern political science is so and low american -- anglo american, and what is that? it is so much european, that relying on that remark can obscure some of the key questions from actually appearing.

the word nationalism in india means something so different from what it means in france or in denmark. in the united states it's been something else again. the french called those cognate that do not actually have the same meaning is false friends. i am more worried about false friends that i am about open enemies in some ways. i would suggest that theoretical integration of the results of studies of the culture's surrounding foreign policy in different countries into some kind of a cross-cultural free- market comes at the end and not at the beginning of the enterprise. that would be my bias. however, at the very beginning in need to walk away at everything to see what you get. if i were you in going on, i

would be thinking how do we, in the next stage, a car that depth of analysis of all of these cultures? >> that is helpful. i will reword this and start with the beavers, rabbits, and weasels. we will try to figure out what pieces of wood they would like to use to build a pond. >> that is the thing. they do not want a pond. [laughter] >> that would be the first order then. [laughter] >> thank you very much. this is exactly what we hoped for and appreciated very much. we will give you a few minutes, but no more, to take a quick break and we will resume our discussions now with the russian paper in just a few minutes. thank you all. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> we are bringing you live coverage of this conference on foreign policy debate in foreign countries. up next, a panel on the debate in russia. at 3:00, there will be a session on foreign policy debates in iran.

also, but implications about foreign policy starting at 4:15 p.m. and live coverage should wrap up around 6:00. this is all live from george washington university. later this evening, we take the kids same-sex marriage and hear from a democratic analyst on proposition 8 and its status in the california courts. you can say that tonight starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span.

>> we are one moment or two away from this next panel on the daylong conference for foreign policy debates. the next panel will be on the debate in russia. this is live coverage from george washington university on c-span. very quickly, the supreme court rejected a call today from the virginia attorney general to depart from practice and put review of the health-care law on the fast track. you can get more on that story from our web site, c-span.org. >> if you can let people know that are still in the hallway? all right. we are very pleased to have

these panelists with us to discuss the russia of paper. we did hold one of our regional seminars, if you recall, from our announcements this morning in moscow last november. we had some spirited discussions at that conference under the direction of one of the men with us today. i want to say special word of thanks to jim who is a cheering this session. i do not need to introduce him. he is known to everyone in this town and well beyond for all of his years of reporting in foreign policy analysis. he remains very active and we are also very grateful to tom gramm who is here with us as a discussant. the resumes are in your folder and i do not need to go over them in any detail.

we are very grateful for your being here and managing to survive the problems of getting out of new york this morning. with that, i will turn over to jim and the panel discussion on russia. >> and henry, thank you. it is a pleasure to be here on this beautiful sunny day. it is a testament to each of you that you are inside innocent dead of strolling along the boulevard. -- inside instead of strolling along the boulevard. we are going to talk about the rise of foreign policy schools of thought. this builds on a concept in which i strongly believe witches the concept of national character. history,pt that hashared

geography, and culture provide similar traits. by examining foreign policy schools of thought, we capture the diversity, indeed, at times the rivalry that exists within the national character. as people from roughly the same geography, the same socioeconomic groupings, the same backgrounds come to totally different conclusions about the place that their nation does and should occupy in the world. how best to protect or advance that place and what political bases must be mobilized or maintained to accomplish those goals? the diversity and competition of world views held by russia of's political and economic elite, and i consciously use "delete" in a singular term for the state

of politics -- use "elite" in a singular charm for the state of politics in russia today. that is a compelling theme of the paper we will discuss next. we will have a discussion now by one of the authors of the paper, but andrew, for about eight or 10 minutes and then we will proceed to have tom tell us what is really going on. or at least how he sees it in his in minimal fashion -- commendable fashion. the paper is very good. it gives us a usual examination of the professed dichotomy of abuse about the russian place in the world on part of the two men to occupy the top leadership positions in russia today, dmitri medvedev and vladimir putin.

there's a lot of discussion in my business about whether or not this divergence in views is it real or contrived. in any event, wherever you come down on that, you hear echoes in this very valuable paper about what the authors identify as the conflict between the slav ophiles and the westerns. they define that into a more subtle picture. in times, they even overlap, about how the main schools of foreign-policy fought in russia today -- thought in russia today do not see great contradictions between the various schools that are in competition to present their views and to make them

count in terms of policy. annamese introduction to the book -- in his introduction to the book, henry nassau asks -- henry now asks "so what"? it is a journalistic question. you need to have a paragraph to explain clearly why the reader should take into account this article today. the "so what" question here is very much are there common points in the domestic debates in the 5 rising powers about foreign-policy that would enable us to glimpse, or perhaps fashion, a framework from studying the global power shift that seems to be under way? that is the challenge to you as an audience to help identify and those points of avia. the other question -- points of

view. the other question that this paper brings to mind, and that's what journalism is for, given its demographic crisis and the miss shape and nature of its one-dimensional economy built on natural resources, should we really include russia as a rising power for the purposes of this conversation? is it, in fact, a dwindling power given that its population is decreasing and that its economy has not been able to move a from a primary resources economy into a more developed economy? the important thing here is that the russians themselves debate that question. it is an integral part of their own place in the world and how

they view them. i'd think it is fair to raise that and our presenters will have a go at that question as well as the others presented. andrew, whom i have come to know in watching him in the meetings in russia year after year, poses some of the toughest questions that vladimir putin and dmitri medvedev have to answer and will present the paper. igor will field your questions. andy? >> thank you for qualifying de difference in labor. when i was approached about this

project, i thought finally someone is asking me to do something that was trained to do. i was trained in 1980 and the job of myself and my mentors were to look at these so-called schools of thought in the soviet union and try to understand who is up and down. when i got my dissertation in 1982, the country no longer existed. -- in 1992, the country now longer existed. you make me feel useful. i want to express my thanks to my co-author. this is really a case, i think, where it was one of dostoevsky's soliloquies that two plus two equals 5 but where the some of the -- sum of the two pieces and

the whole is the greater the some of its parts. i really feel that way. jim alluded to russia. rising power. this project, we have a china which is clearly a rising power. india, for sure. japan, a rising power? 20 years ago, the real estate value of the imperial palace in tokyo was equivalent to the entire state of california. that is a bubble. it has been slightly downward ever since. the russian case has been a normal. and the 1990's there was a steep drop and even more unexpected was the rapid rise in russian fortune after the financial crisis of 1998 and the rapid economic growth that they

experienced. down is up. ok. walter, i am doing better than you with this technology thing. as jim pointed out, we've separated them into three schools of thought and to some extent it does come down to westernizers and slavophiles. there is a linkage between how they think about the domestic economic political model of the country and it being tied to foreign policy interests. there is a real linkage between extra foreign-policy and domestic. it is the same on the nationalist side, essentially, in that there are all kinds of different nationalists in the

russian spectrum from fascists to isolationists to a number of others. one thing they all have in common is that the model of development is inappropriate for russia and that the west should be regarded as the enemy. the pro-western liberals, especially in the 1990's administration, with yeltsin, not only did they say it was the democratic liberal economic model was before them that in order to achieve them and had to be with integration in the west. the transformation of this country for integration. in the middle with what we call the great power balancers, they are realists but we did not call them that because that is more focused on military power, but there is not a linkage between how they viewed the development

of the country versus the foreign-policy orientation. it does not matter whether the cat is black or white but whether or not it catches mice. they're pragmatic and flexible. global integration is desired on a multi-vector basis in all areas. not in terms simply dictated by the west, and i think that is the difference with the first school and one of their weaknesses back in the early 1990's. we go through this brief time during the last 20 years, and that their main the more fluctuation in the russian case and some of the others because the very tumultuous times that russia has gone through. there was a brief time in 1991 where the pro-western liberal

people were dominant. quickly the dominance was lost for two reasons. one was the economic fallout, the collapse of the economy which had a tremendous negative impact on the political popularity, and i think also a sense of disappointment with the west, or there were illusions held about both the speed and the transformation and a support from the west. for about nine years, from about 1993-2002, there is a kind of a launch -- malange, the crew centrum great power -- the quintessential gret power and the kissingerian way he looked at the world.

some of the people that were in the pro-western liberal school moved as well because of the disappointment. they claimed that, in fact, the mission of reform in russia had been hurt by u.s. foreign policy measures, etc. this period goes much for yeltsin and the first part of the vladimir putin period and came into power in 2001. then we see another shift. this shift also finds its roots, i think, in both domestic developments and the external factors. they're not just great power

balancers but the western nationalist position is a readiness to contest and tried to block particularly u.s. foreign policy initiatives. this was driven in a great part for the rapid growth of the russian economy which began to pick -- take off around that time. 2005-2006 is when russia paid off the imf debt and effectively became sovereign. financial sovereignty and then political sovereignty, a very important thing for vladimir putin. they continued to accelerate and the movement then became in february 2007 where putin and gives the famous speech in newton -- munich where he says power in the world is changing and this is a multi-political

world, etc., etc. the other aspect that was driving this ship, we argue, is that it had a lot to do with u.s. policy and the bush administration. whether it be missile defense deployments, democracy promotion, nato expansion the views that were betrayed in the russian political context as efforts to weaken russia and affected their arrangement. this reached its peak in august 2008 georgia. then we finally see one move back in the direction of the great power, a more centrist position, which is where things appear to be thatoday. what was one source of that shift? part of it was the outcome of the georgia war. the u.s.-russian relationship

was at its worst in 20 years and perhaps this was really not in washington's interest or in moscow's interest. much more important was the impact of the global economic crisis. coming in december 2008, there was a sense that there were dizziness with the success. the wind was at their back, everything was going their way. suddenly we are the island of stability. we may not be affected by the problems caused by the devastation but they got hit upside the head. the negative impact of the crisis was greater than in any other tree-20 country. -- other g-20 country. the second realization is the changing balance of power in the world was celebrating in the favor of mainly beijing. i think there has been increasing questions about to

what extent does this very, very rapid growth of chinese apply politically? as to what extent is that really in russia out's interest? -- russia's interest? it led them to think that maybe they should head to their position with the u.s. than there are the obama administration's policy. the shift in policy and missile defense committee effective tabling of the question of nato expansion. there is a growing realization overtime that these sets of policies were designed to accommodate russia to some extent, but if not to accommodate them not to directly attack their interests. now, the impact of the 2009 shift on a few selected countries, the usa, we have had a quite significant change in

relations. china, there is an increased sense of economic vulnerability but no significant policy change. the russia policy toward china had been pretty consistent for a long time. it is similar with india. no significant policy shift from moscow. iran, the other case in this study, it has worsened. the rush of position taken with the u.n. security council and, perhaps more so, the position of the russians to back out of the sale of the s300 which led the russians to actually have to paint the iranians money back. that does not happen very often. the real anomaly here is japan. in the past year or so, they have been on the most anti- japanese set of policies in at least the last 20 years.

part of the rationale for a reset or improving relations with the united states, first and foremost, and you're also, is the u.s. to strategically balance your position in the world, then my view undertake a set of policies that seem to be so tough on washington's closest ally in asia darks if you -- ally in asia and if you are an increasingly concerned about china? i will not go further into that, but i will be happy to take questions on it. i am on the following jim's instructions. a couple of key variables for the future. what are the variables that could affect a shift in which school of thought seems to be dominant and the policies being pursued it? one has been the oil price. this is not to say that russia

is a petrol state. there is no such thing, but there is a relatively strong correlation between a more assertive, and more aggressive russian foreign policy and a higher oil price environment where they are economically in a stronger position. the other most important variable really is our u.s. policies. this is the key thing to take away from the last 10 years. you can play the counterfactual. russian policy toward the united states in 2009 changed only because dmitri medvedev was president? i do not think so. vladimir putin had his own reset in george bush in 2001-2002. things change. putin evolved.

part of it was the sense of the economic growth and increasing influence that they had, but also in response to what the united states did. our conclusion is that, as we look to the future here is the president of russia in 2012? it may be less important than an external factors, be they oil price, u.s. policy, the chinese policy, etc. i will stop there and now you can hear what is really going on. >> andy, thank you. i mentioned that i had come to know and as a tough question. i now introduce tom as a man who can usually answer very tough questions which frequently came from presidents on russia and

russian policy. his foresight and vision on russia is virtually unparalleled in my experience. now we will hear from tom. >> thank you very much, jim, for that kind introduction. you forgot to mention them worked for two administrations, and each of which took the u.s.-russia relationship and it drove it to its lowest point, the clinton and bush administrations, and created the groundwork for the reset that the current administration is doing. let me say that i perhaps would have benefited from this type of paper by had read it 20 years ago. it does give an excellent overview of the schools of thought in russian foreign policy. i want to make three very, very brief comments. the first starts with something that this paper addresses right

up front which is that there is a broad consensus in russia about certain principles that should guide russian foreign -- russia'ssia and's role in the world. the idea that international affairs is it really a darwinian times of world, and each against of their own in some ways. russia has always been historically and the position of having to catch up to the leading powers, particularly in europe and the united states over the past 300 years. then there's the internal debate about russia and the west, whether russia is part of the westar something distinct from the west. i want to add two others that i think are important for understanding russia and russian identity. first is a central role of the

state. many commentators have noted that russia became an empire before became a nation and at the core of that empire it really was the russian state. over the centuries, it gave shape and form not only to the state but to russian society to the extent that it existed as an independent factor. this creates a certain link between russian national identity and the role of the state. most russians think, first of all, as the wrong country as an actor in world affairs. the state proceeds the nation. -- first the ball as of their own country in an actor in the world affairs. we have a russian state in a territorial cents that bears little known -- little to no resemblance over the past few hundred years. what is the central identity of

this russian state? what will be the fundamental principle behind the russian national identity? there has been a lot of talk about russian ethnicity as a foundation for that national identity. of course, this creates problems in russia today. if it is russian ethnicity that is a foundation for the nation, what do you do with the 17 million russians who lay beyond the border of russia in the former soviet space? if you try to do this as a density, the question still is, why these borders and how do you justify civic identity within the borders, but historically russia has been much more, and much bigger country in eurasia which leads to the second point. this is a common elements in russian thinking about foreign policy. that is the former soviet space.

we should remember that is also the former imperial russian space. it is the territory that has given russia historically their geopolitical half. it is part of the world that all russian ely to believe is critical to their prosperity and security. all of these schools that this paper mentions think that russia and should have primacy in the former soviet space. there may be few examples that those who wanted to shrink russia to the russian nation based on ethnicity, but almost run else believes that russia should have primacy in the former soviet state. the only issue that separates them is how? the road about a liberal russian empire and how will you would use market principles -- and

how you would use market principles to share market primacy. you see putin as president who will rely on the oil supply and and the economic contacts between these countries were less unifying the economic space and had grown out of this specific. as a basis for and compelling these countries to be a part of russian domination. the former soviet space is a critical element in russian thinking and divides these schools to a limited extent and how you go about reasserting the dominance and the domination. the second point that i would like to make is falling on what i have already said about there being a broad consensus in the russian foreign policy. the paper is absolutely right that there are three broad schools, but if you look at russia today, what is striking is that there's only one major

school, the pro-western liberals and the nationalists tended to be marginal within the russian political spectrum today. the only question i think is which of those schools is more marginal darks and the pro- liberal west for the nationalists? as they have pointed out, it has varied over time. when i find interesting in the paper is that you devoted equal time to the three schools. what i would urge is that if you take a look at this again is to focus at the great power bouncers and look at the variations within that school of thought and how they may play themselves out over the next several years. there are a lot of questions that you needed to ask. start with the obvious one with the west. what is the west?

if you are in russia and your thinking about this, you do not see a unified west, so you need to begin to deconstructs the west. and you see people like putin and even yeltsin before who tried to use the germans and the french as a counterweight to the united states in world affairs, certainly during the iraq war, which is a principal element, putin thought about russian foreign policy. if you look at the world today, particularly after the furniture crisis and the deep crisis in europe itself, both physical, but i would argue more profoundly one of identity and what the european union is and when europe will be going forward, to what extent does russia even see europe as a power in the world today? can you use europe as a balance in any real sense given the this-unity in europe?

-- dis-unity in europe? given the with russia's operated its foreign policy, despite the fact that they try to use europe and to balance the united states, they have never been in favor of european unity. the policy has been, and i think this is across the spectrum, has been built around bilateral relations with key european countries, germany first of all, france in second place, italy to a lesser extent, but they tried to do with a can to undermine a more cohesive european unity. look at the gas policy. but that the energy policies that putin pursued when he was president. there clearly aimed at isolating the eastern europeans, all of them from

germany. when you see is russia trying to counter the united states, but at the same time trying to undermine the european unity which seems to be counterintuitive because you want to use europe in some ways to counter the united states. of course, the russians have always looked for the past decade, if not more, to china as a counterbalance. we think of the formation of the shanghai cooperation organization clearly constructed with the intent of trying to limit the constrained u.s. activities in central asia, particularly after the united states got involved in afghanistan and began to use military bases in central asia. as andy pointed out, there is some rethinking of china under way right now, particularly after the financial collapse in

part because the chinese are acting in a much more assertive fashion and for all the concerns the russians had about the united states over the past decade and a half trying to build pipelines out of central asia and undermining russia monopoly over the export routes from central asian states, it turns out that the chinese have built an oil and gas pipeline across central asia and to try and effectively ending the russian monopoly of exports. if you look at the way that the chinese deal with the russians commercially, it is clear they do not cut them any slack. the oil deal that was signed between china and russia a few years ago, i think, effective price per barrel of about $21 or $22 at a time when the global price was somewhere over $120.

the chinese certainly are not making an effort to build up russia of as a major power and do not see any reason to, as i said, making concessions to their russian allies rather than push very hard their commercial and geopolitical advantages. this, i think, has led many in russia to begin to reconsider the role that china will be playing and what the russian relationship with china should be. at the senior level, clearly there is an understanding that they need to have good relations with china, an important neighbor. they're beginning more to think about her you balance against china and part of the recent policy is, in fact, motivated by a desire for closer relations with the united states as a way

to begin to create an effective balance to the chinese in the central asia and in northeast asia. one final point. it is more less about the context in which russia is formulating its foreign policy now. when we needed to understand is that this rusher for the past 20 years has been facing a novel geopolitical context o. for 300 years, the time that russia emerged as a great power, from peter the great up until the breakup of the soviet union in 1991, russia, the soviet union, it was a dynamic war of eurasia and it spurred its

power out from the russian heartland, around moscow, in all directions coming east, west, and south. for almost 300 years. that ended in 1991. we have had 20 years now where that pattern has not been reversed. if you live than this, russia now, for the first time in the modern period, is surrounded by regions that are all more dynamic than russia. economically, demographically, and politically. clearly china, in the east, obviously both economically and increasingly militarily, you see the energy in the muslim world come back to russia south, the ideology that is penetrating in central asia, and into russia proper. even in europe despite current difficulties even acting as an

attractive power in places like the ukraine from certain places in russia, and it is also providing the types of regulatory imperialism as russia tries to build up trade relations with the europeans. one of the debates and one of the challenges that russia faces over the next generation, i would argue, is how can recreate itself as the dynamic order of eurasia? how can they do so with a declining population? this will be the case for the next 20 years. this is what the debate inside russia is about today as they prepare for the presidential selection in 2012. ec various camps beginning to form and various ways we can think about this. it is state capitalism -- as

state capitalism the way to go? will this provide russia the power that it needs? or does russia really needed to do a much better job of building for markets, of building and attracting smaller and medium-sized investors in russia and greeting the type of dynamic economy that uc particularly in the united states or europe? we think about innovation, should innovation be focused on really rebuilding the russian industrial base? the automotive sector, aviation, even oil and gas and using those sectors as a way of of innovating in the russian economy, or do you take the approach that medvedev has which is focused much more on information technology, the gadgets that we all have, and

nursing as many ways -- and are seen in many ways as i technology. there's clearly a debate going on over that. this is related to the debate going on over the political system. there is no one at the senior levels they're really believes you should open up the political system with unfettered access to the political process, but there really is a debate over how you open this up, how much of the next generation darksome with putin on one side, still very much in favor of a controlled democracy, people like him of being at the heading guiding this country forward, and a president medvedev who would like to open up just a little more to encourage the type of debate, both political and economic, that he believes that the country needs to move forward. i think this is one of the things to focus on going

forward and with the paper may do in the future redrafted to see if there is a correlation between this domestic program and the type of foreign policy that russia may follow within the grid bouncer school. i would argue it is likely to remain the central one in russia for the next 10, 15, 20 years and probably longer than that. i will stop there. >> tom, thank you. we now have time for some quick questions, if you would. please identify yourself briefly. we will start right here, sir. there is a marker from coming. -- a microphone coming. >> andy knows i will beam asking the questions. what is your musings about why russia is being so badly with the chinese? >> because they can. [laughter]

well, you know, the explanations are not mutually exclusive. one is it to kick a dog while the is down. crohn the russians are extremely sensitive about china because they see it as a rising power. that is why they signed the agreement with the chinese in 2004. they do not see japan as a rising power, but i think they're really underestimate the strategic significance of japan for them, for sure. you will not see the border agreement. two, there is some political mileage to be had by appearing to be a nationalist with the sir duke of whatever. the more interesting aspect is when i see them talking about

military deployments, deploying the french, destroyers company, the s300 to the islands, i think in that way they may be using japan as a trojan horse. there is no strategic threat emerging to them from japan. where it may emerge from would be somewhere else. >> there may be another explanation [unintelligible] i do not rule out all of the hypothesis suggested by andy, but at the same time, the russians could seriously underestimate possible reactions of the japanese government and

society to those visits to the islands, and so on, and so forth. >> there's also a real frustration in moscow as what they see as a total and transients about the islands. there is no willingness about the islands. they're making overtures trying to build on what putin did five or six years ago. this may be the most interesting. it may be a way for the russians to say "i love you." a prickly embrace from the bear. that explanation could be mutually exclusive of at least one of the others.

[unintelligible] >> the reserve position on oil that russia has is higher than the u.s. but nowhere close to the middle eastern production. on the other hand, they have the largest reserves of natural gas and at a considerable amount of the big european market. the natural gas is really the clean fuel, the taurus feel of the future and they have a growing market in china, south korea, japan of going to the customers. why not natural gas considering all the elements that i talked about instead of war? thank you. >> i did not mean to exclude

natural gas. to some extent, there is a correlation between oil and natural gas pricing. if you look at the revenues that come in to the russian economy about oil exports, it is significantly larger than the natural gas. i do not mean to excluded. >> walter? >> ukraine was never really mentioned and it seems to me that when the big changes in pressure coincides with the fact that ukraine and neither seems to be slithering out of its grasp as much as the sliding back downhill a little bit. i wonder given the russian sensibilities and so one is the

state of the ukrainian question does not loom much larger in the russian mines then it often does in hours when they assess where they are and what they need to do. >> well, first of all, ukraine has been an important country for self perception in russia and for the russian natural -- national identity. it is indeed a difficult area in the mind of many russians to set -- to separate russians and ukrainians. there is no difference held in the minds of many russians where russia ends and the ukraine begins. talking about the former soviet space is a critical elements in russian foreign policy thinking. having said all that, i would argue, however, that the

centrality of this issue is in decline. it is more and more a sort of elite thinking. it is a lesson for an issue in the mind of the public especially for the youth. ukraine is just, well, a neighbor. the meaning of that ukraine for russia will be less in my perspective in the coming years. for foreign policy planners, once again, the ukraine is very central not only because of the ukraine itself but because of the relationship between russia

and europe. it is very important that the ukraine be accepted as part of a larger europe and russia will not. thank you for your question. it is very important. we should probably pay more attention to that. >> we have a question back here. >> gil, princeton. tom, i wonder if you could expand on your view that there are different types of great power balancers and how that plays out with regards to russia awakening about the chinese assertiveness particularly as china became much more assertive last year not just with regards to some of the east asian countries and the united states but even with regards to other issues that seemed to be of interest to rusher in

particular. are there schools of great power balancers with china at the center? >> i think they are beginning to develop, perhaps, a school of thought that does have tried as the center of attention going forward. clearly, the united states has been at the center of the attention of the great power balancers for the past 20 years and before that in russia for 40 years or more. it is interesting in private conversation that you hear some very senior russians beginning to articulate concerns about where china is going. some of this would be surprising because it is not necessarily the people that you would think about. i do not rule out the possibility that over the next decade you will find someone like putin beginning to identify

china as a longer-term strategic threat to russia. part of this and part of the reason i think the russians have been so hesitant in these conversations is because china clearly is a rising power along its borders. it becomes a bit more difficult to do because the russians also believe that the u.s. is a declining power, certainly in relative terms not in absolute terms. if you want to balance against china and align yourself more with a declining united states may not buy you a lot over the long term. i think that is a problem. i was in moscow about one month ago and a lot of foreign-policy thinkers and experts thought that if you read russian foreign

policy as it is now that there is a great more focusing on the east than there was just a few years ago which is factoring much more heavily in their own thinking and clearly behind this is how're you going to balance this rising power? houri going to protect or rebuild your own party is given the demographic? you will see that, and it will be people like putin who lead the thinking of like that. the pro-western school will focus more on rebuilding the relationship with the united states with china in the background, but not something in the front as a clear and articulated reasons >> so igor and andy get the

last word on the subject of the power balances. >> i would like to try to put this into context. the real shift in foreign -- russian foreign policy debate which is occurring right now is the debate becomes more about real issues of the global every enough, because if you look at the three if main groups, what are the differences? premier li it is about international relations. -- primarily it is about international relations. my understanding from this project is foreign-policy debate in china may seem it is about the nature of international relations systems. in russia it is about what is russia?

it started changing, and my point is that one of the driving forces of change is china. this is a real issue. been parttraditionally of the question between the relationship between russia and the west. the rest of the world does not exist in russians intelligence for 200 years. russia and europe, and then russia and the west. they brought the russian policy debate to where it should be. it is about the external war, what is going on there, and that is what it should be. thank you. >> a quick comment and your

question. excellentnse to tom's remarks. at this point the russian concern is more the mercantilist economic policy in china is expanding not only within russia, but also within the countries around it. the best anecdote that russians have to address that is to clean up the own system and make their own investment environment more attractive so there is greater competition amongst a number of players, including japan and the number of players. so you could find a somewhat similar response in fuelling this developing or expanding

overwhelming growth of chinese power. you are absolutely right to put the emphasis on consensus and that the consensus is great powers and power balances. if we just took putin for right now, there is no question that they have different visions of modernization and what this means for russia. they are both great power balancers leaning pro-west liberal. as i see vladimier putin occasionally leading in the other direction, but very responsive to what is happening in the revolution of the past 10

years. >> we will now take a minute to change places. before we do, maybe you will want to join me in giving a hand. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> we are ready to start the next panel, which is moving to

neighbor, iran.o's pitiless just make it off the flight and made it. i think something is going on new york. a conspiracy in new york. we have three people that almost did not make it here. from top the list now to carry. i thing next time take the train, please. and ground transportation. i will introduce the chair of the session, barbara slavin, who was a senior fellow at the atlantic council. adjectives like bitter and

twister are also common when it comes to u.s./iran relations. she has a very married -- varied media background. she was at the washington times. prior to that she was a senior diplomatic reporter for "usa today" for 12 years. she has reported directly from iran, china, russia, among other places. maybe we should have her on the other panels as well. she could do it all for us. she recently researched and wrote the report on iran, how they exert their middle -- influence in middle east. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. and i am glad my commute was not

so long. for inviting me to chair this panel. i am delighted to be here. in gary who needs no introduction since he has been writing extensively for as long as there has been an islamic public of iran. i'm going to make a come all of comments on the paper. -- couple of comments on the paper. i really enjoyed it. in my meetings i have probably much all of these different categories of foreign-policy practitioners but you described, but i think what is really important, and what will be emphasized is it is very hard to pigeonhole are running and when it comes to foreign policy. -- iranians when it comes to foreign policy.

she goes on to say it is quite possible for key individuals to hold several positions at the same time or move from one position to another in reaction to the change security environment. anybody who has dealt with iranian politics knows it is intensely criticized by rivalry. there are many politicians who would like to improve relations with the united states, but they want to make sure that whoever does improve relations with the united states is not one of their political rivals, so they will sabotage those efforts. if they look like they are succeeding. i i think of the particular leader who was among the very first to torpedo a nuclear confidence-building measure that was reached in 2009. he did not want his successor

as a nuclear negotiator or the president to get the credit for his success. i think the other point that he makes and was also made in the previous panel was the impact of u.s. foreign policy on iran. clearly the decisions the u.s. foreign-policy practitioners have made over the years have had a very big impact on iran's foreign policy. i think one of the most potent arguments that you hear from today about why they are so belligerent towards the united states and adopt policies that are rejectionist global power balances, one of the reasons is the policy of detente has failed. the bush administration, after 9/11, profited from iran's

assistance, particularly in afghanistan, but they just pocketed it. they did not give anything in return. of course bush rejected an offer a comprehensive reforms that was put forth in 2003. in other bush activities, there was also an impact of john bolton working actively to undermine european negotiations in 2004. in the second bush term we have softening of the position, but bush put preconditions on direct talks about the nuclear program, and see also air -- revised his democracy agenda, anians interpreted asians intending to change the regime.

it is my view that bush policies, particularly in his first tomb boosted the new conservatives and helped give rise to on a dijon -- ahmen denijah. i am going to let him describe in detail the five categories of foreign policy practitioners. just wanted to make a couple of other observations where i agree with her. one is that national then defines foreign policy more than it is long or any other third- world ideology. we see this project early in the pronouncements of the aid and relatives by marriage. who has also tried to improve relations. the other point that i like a lot better made that are about a

conflict between conflicts projections and fundamental strategic loneliness. as she points out, unlike turkey and israel, the other arab countries in the region, iran has no solid links with any important foreign power or organization outside its region. turkey has nato. israel has the united states. iran as venezuela. not exactly in the same week. i think we will talk to her about that of the discussion. -- not exactly the same league. the syrian alliance may be a little bit under threat now, and we can certainly talk about that. i think the overall impact of

the democracy movement is also cutting in a number of ways for iran. the democracy deficit will hurt it i would suggest was some of these other. especially when you contrast it to other powers. finally, i think there is a question that is also hinted at. how rogue regime can change its spots after all of these years. we have constituencies that are status thatran's benefit from it. how can you change their minds? what can you do that would convince them they would benefit if iran decides they want to be part of the system? i just wanted to put those out there.

we have easily have lots of other questions that we will raise. -- we obviously have lots of other questions that we will raise. i will turn it over now. >> this is really short. this is awful. what do short people do? [laughter] ok. first of all, let me begin by thanking them for having me on this project, from which i have learned from. i came into this project later than others. i have benefited tremendously

from it. secondly, i am very sorry that my partner is an art here. she really should be here. -- my partner is not here. these are difficult times in iran. those that are engaged in trying to make sense are sometimes agents of self war. keep that in mind. fortunately there is email in so we have tried to work on the street project. and identifying the stakeholders, pinpointing the institutional affiliation, pointing out have different views are reacting and compounding the tasks are

circumstances by participants come overgeneralized rhetoric and last of institutionally dallas-based constraint or highly-protested political environment. we have talked about a lot of countries here, and we have talked about political environments. i do not think any of these have experienced in recent years the foreign policy chief of being fired while he was on a mission to another country. literally had to try to the airport on his own because he realized he was fired and did not feel they needed to extend diplomatic protocol to him. we're talking about a very

intense political environment. in an attempt to understand political diplomacy's, i think three key points need to be kept in mind in relationship to iran. first and foremost is the continuity and ideological break that constitutes the 1979 revolution that continues to be the frame in which the foreign policy debates occur, and outside of which they do not. there is a valued framework that is important here. also there is a geopolitical contest. there is that issue that needs to be understood. on the one hand and the ideological brick objected to the resume insistent on the free islamic and indo-european routes and revolutionaries

constantly demanded that identity and relations with the whole world, including the mobilization against resistance against u.s. interference in regional and domestic affairs, and a very strong anti imperial stance. at the same time, this attempt in the direction of the form policy did not undermine the importance as a significant regional or at times even global area that existed. also, not abandon and perhaps even more emphasize was the conflicting impulses at times bordering on paranoia at that emphasizes the security -- insecurity and strategic loneliness that barbara pointed out in the region in which the distinctive culture and identity combined with and seemingly

detached. this combination, i argue, has made it more of the conflicting and even paranoid aspiring power, rather than the rise in power. in fact, i would venture to say it probably would not be here talking about iran as the rising power had it not been -- had 9/11 not happened in the united states not make choices it made in the region. in fact, i remember distinctly coming to washington in the late 1990's and early 2000 trying to convince them to engage with iran in a significant matter, and they would always say they are written in significant player in did not need to work hard on improving relations.

the second key to understanding foreign-policy tendencies is to view them in a position by a distant group of people. it is possible. it is possible to hold them in different positions. for example, if you looked at any one speech by it are wroir' leader, you will look at his position of an idealist and regional balance. he has even being a accused of a global projectionist. the former president also positioned himself as a reformist and then idealist, as well as the defense of regional power balancer. political scientist -- political scientist argues that in his

policies, he has shown himself to be an offensive realistic as the global accommodationist. it is possible, it is quite possible if you know the policy to know that people can actually hold completely opposite views. it is not as if they change positions from one place to another. it is that at any given moment they hold opposite views. the third point i want to point out is what i think daniel markey alluded to earlier and i think is very important regarding the external drivers of domestic foreign-policy debate. iran is a country that is safe with an active policy of isolation. it is not even containment, it is isolation. that is very important to understand. it has shifted over time in shape and intensity.

the domestic debate cannot be seen in isolation or separation from that external driver. that is very important domestic politics. keeping these three points in mind, we have distinguish three schools of thought. islamic idealist, a regional power balancers and global power balances. the last categories are further divided into two. the global balance is are divided. -- the global provinces are divided. there is a lot of overlap, but we did not feel comfortable putting them in a continued category there was -- where there was the overlap for reasons i will explain in a second. we argued that pure revolutionary idealism maintains

a very weak presence in foreign policy debates, mostly through rhetorical unit beat in dialogue between the muslims and non- muslim world. there is a tendency in the united states to talk about idealist as ideologues who are interested in the idea of expanding the reach of the islamic republic outside, and in fact to pursue policies that are expansionists in terms of supporting liberation. we argued that that is the kind of revolutionary idealism that was very much a band did in the early years of the revolution, and it is very quite clear in terms of policy implications where you are actually act. the islamic republic being very quiet about the rebellion in

russia or in china. you know, you really do not see -- it has been viewed very selectively. it has to do with the combination of valued politics and geopolitics that i talked about before. ise revolutionary approaidealim an islamic unity, now solidarity, as well as like the former president who view the colleagues -- conflict in terms of the allies. they actually talk about it in terms of the dialogue between the muslim world and outside. but, it is still very idealistic. the problem with this point of view is that i ru iranian

nationalism is a challenge to this type of ideology. they find it hard not to insist on superiority. in practice, the institution of the religious guide now occupied makes it difficult to sustain the calls for islamic unity because of the leaders to be the command of world muslim. the tensions that have developed within the persian gulf manifest why it is difficult to maintain a call for islamic unity. regional power balances consumes the bulk of the foreign-policy discourse. it should be considered the version of what foreign-policy

realists are. did you capabilities, both traditional and material. leadership in unity as an extension of power and calls for forming an alliance against security threats. there have been arguments that have those aggressive versions. this is important to understand in terms of the consensus that exist in the foreign-policy. even the more aggressive versions do not see iran as an opportunistic power. offensive religious are prominent among distance -- the fund specialists. they consider it a little security threat from the immediate neighborhood in the persian gulf neighborhood. these real was called for restoring and emphasizing assertiveness to the form policy, and most notably in

regard to the nuclear enrichment program and dealing with the west. they identified the main challenge to come from extra regional players, in particular the united states, which is intent -- intent on not only limiting the regional power which they see as already impressive enough to make iran an indispensable regional power, but to reshape the policy away from islamism. they see the threat not from the physical threat that may come from the united states, but increasing what they consider to be sold for staged by the united states. the push for aggressive counter must be pushed on a key police that i think it is important to understand. one, the belief that america's power is in decline, and strategic changes in the region favors iran.

this combination, they argue, has begun the transfer of power from america's camp to iran's camp. they see the spread of democracy in the region as going hand in hand with the inclination of regional states. they are also very clear or very intent on making clear to united states, as well as the allies in the region, the activity of the islamic republic security to regional security. they are very clear, they talk about all the time, and i think they tried to send the messages and a variety of ways to the united states government. they are very much accused of

questioning the defensive optimism regarding the decline of american power, at least in the short term. even if they acknowledge the argument regarding the decline of the power at this juncture, they argue offensive religious need to -- the questions and answer. first, the american power. secondly, will be american dominance -- " the end of american dominance coincide with the appearance of new power over the creation of the world system i? accusing offensive release of pursuing the adventure of foreign policy than a pro active one. they argue against the policy of security power wron

against other regional powers. since their notion of security is much broader and includes domestic stability, particularly in the light of what has happened in the past couple of years and economic security and development. they argued that the improved regional standing must be found in at mending relations in the region. this has been severely restrained after the 1979 revolution. focusing on the limitation imposed by the national players -- you can see these. their argument essentially concerns white meat feasible and more flexible policies. they did not see iran's involvement in the broader regional issues, such as the israeli conflict issue, and furthermore they view it as

dangerous and unruly proactive -- provocative return. they are focused mostly on economic development. they have a 20-year outlook document that essentially deposits iran as the predominant player in the middle east and southwest asia, and they argue that the kind of policies that are pursued in this relationship to that israeli conflict and emphasizes the importance regions and therefore is problematic. finally, the other category are other realists. what distinguishes them from the regional balancer we argue is that they tied the islamic republic status to the resolution or lack of resolution of conflict in the united states. on the one hand are those that seek the islamic status

intricately tied to the rejection that stance against any kind of relation or accommodation with the united states. they argue that the united republic has gained power. on the other hand, there are those who see a crisis-free and secured status in the region as well as those in iran to be based in accommodation. these are very much part of the iranian political debate. let me say that these policy perspectives offer little doubt but i ronnie and serve " -- strive for security in global roles in that security in global affairs. there is quite a bit of

contention on how they might achieve the objectives. the reality is that international pressures have increasingly marginalized the integration perspective, strengthening perspectives that emphasize resistance and opportunistic challenges of global power. the inability of those in favor of the foreign policy intent on reducing tension to deliver electors -- less harmonious relationship in the united states has strengthened those in the hands of the more confrontational foreign policy. keep in mind that nothing is set in iran. elections are coming up, and we have to see what happens. thank you. >> i hope you do not mind if i sit down. i have no slides and no use for

the computer. they just forced me to come. [laughter] the organizers of the conference should be complimented on their choice of paper writers in this case. she has been one of the most careful and consistently seen the writers in the whole corn politics. she follows things with the enormous detail. it is too bad that she cannot be here, because she lives in it, and i personally think this is an excellent paper. and i am not going to launch a major critique, but the points i

will make our the things that are left out, which i would like to see, and they may be left out because there is no good answer to a question. one of the points that were made in the beginning is that there really is an absence of a coherent iranian model of islamic foreign policy, exactly what is that and what does it look like. this may be explained in a variety of ways. in some respects the paper and the people who watch iran very closely have a lot in common with the old criminologist. basically you have all of these

things going on. much of it is opaque and behind various curtains, and people talk on one side of their mouth, but you know what is going on is really quite different from that. trying to figure out where the reality lies is really tricky. there is, unlike the old union, no regime ideologue. there is nobody that the finds this is the way we are. let's face it, those ideologues in the past usually were to explain what the leadership was doing after they did it to an end and rationalize and make sense of it. at least they were doing it. there were supposed to be some kind of rationale for what they're doing. there is no such thing in iran. it is a constant, fluid environment as a result, the

categorization of foreign policy tends to be organized in terms of those who have certain tendencies, those who believe certain things come of those who practice certain perspectives. i could not agree more with the idea that these ideas are not anything but fixed and beautiful. they shift all the time and different people can hold quite different views in their head at the same time. they are not limited by consistency. as a consequence, there is a shot -- constantly shifting landscape of personalities. there is sort of a central

agreement about the global areas, that is that we can all agree that the west in general, but the united states in particular, is a bully and priced to with search itself, and we stand up against that. what none of them say is that there is an arrogance on the other side, and they are just as spirited as we are. i do not disagree with them that we are arrogant. frequently. we insist on certain things being our way, regardless of whether it seems to make any sense or not, and we think we can get away with it because we are big and strong. unfortunately the iranians do, too. when you put those together, it gets very complicated. in fact, i think there is a serious question about whether it is even possible with these powers unless they change their

stripes one way or another, to actually come to any kind of a significant agreement that would last over any considerable amount of time. iran is as was mentioned, torn. on one hand, it despises the international system. it says this is a place for police and arrogance and people of great powers pushing people around. then by the same token they want to be part of that. they want to be a respected member of the international community. how do you square that? how you make sense out of that decision? -- how do you make sense out of that decision? if you were an outsider looking in on the policy discussions, you would wonder if it is possible to really have an

iranian form policy. some people would argue there never has been. i think that is not correct. basically the foreign policy that has been pursued has been very modest, a fairly conservative, and have not invaded anybody. they are not going out throwing their weight around in a way it is sort of the lowest common denominator that they have chosen, which is let's get along with the neighbors, let's not of such things in the neighborhood if we can avoid it. but maintained a consistent position against the west and the global arrogance, and for good measure, let's use this to show the arabs we are good guys and they can trust us, even if they cannot trust their own leaders.

and we gain points that way and gain support, and that increases the fact that we are loved and respected because of what we're doing, and that its very much with who they are in their own global arrogance that goes with it. if you have a single enemy, then you can organize your whole foreign policy ideas or efforts and capabilities can be organized with regard to that enemy. actually the united states works as a wonderful enemy for iran

and has behaved accordingly. iran serves as the magnificent enemy for the united states. they ask for it and make it easy for you not to like them. they do not cooperate with you wish they would. they are difficult and broccoli and hard to get along with. they have infuriating negotiators. after a while it is easy to say they are our greatest threat. whether they really are our greatest threat is another matter entirely. they do serve that purpose. in many respects since the fall of the berlin wall, the world has not had such easy enemies to identify. they serve the purpose very well. i think they certainly have served israel's purpose extremely well, because when the wall fell, they held themselves up as the communist move into

the middle east. they work our wall of defense, and they could sell themselves to the united states that way. -- they were our wall of defense. immediately after the fall of the wall, and i would challenge people to go back and look at the history, within a year after the wall fell you had perez and others identifying iran as the greatest threat to world peace. they have not said that before. they have been selling arms up until a year before that. they have been trying to collaborate, and all of a sudden they were the worst enemy in the world. it had served their purpose is extremely well in the meantime. i do not want to be flippant about this, but i do believe -- and i think this was made clear by the paper that iran in the

united states, which that is the key issue that a lot of us are concerned with here, iran and united states really do not have foreign policy at all, they only have domestic policies. we have a domestic policy in the united states that in some other way. and the foreign policy is the outcome of that, but not really a thought-through, strategically calculated form policy. it is more emotional. i do not have to go into the whole situation about iran and the fact that they have a deep sensation with foreign influence. i think it is critical, however, in thinking about iran, because one of the things that has made iran seem interesting and important in recent years, and that has not always been the

case, the reason it is is because it is seen as having increased and influence dramatically in the last decade. and it has. but we very seldom stop and ask why it has increased in its influence. if you will cast your mind back to 2001 when the united states invaded afghanistan, which was iran's worst enemy to the east, and then went in and over through saddam hussein it was the worst enemy to the west, and then presided over the installation of a government in baghdad that have not been through for several centuries, and then all the sudden we say iran is more powerful than it was before. there is nothing to balance iran anymore. i was in the room once with a

very senior american official who had been around during that time, and he was coming on very strongly about how terrible iran was in the horrible things were -- they were doing, and i said i agree completely. i said didn't we have something to do with that? he stopped and he said we did not mean to. [laughter] and we did not. one of the conundrums that goes with this is it did happen. ballooned,uence has and we actually -- and may seem a moment of destruction on our part as far as what we were doing, but a lot of people in the middle east, particularly the arabs, do not agree with that. they assume we actually knew what we were doing in this was done intentionally, and they really believe that the united

states, more than anything else, wants to go back to the special relationship we had, and they are not going to be persuaded, especially when they see as secretly selling iran arms and turning around in increasing the regional power enormously in the recent decades. so i think this is a problem that we have to get over. there are a number of issues that i think are also quite important in terms of -- that is that even though you have these idealists who really see the world in islamic terms, they maintain the fiction of the islamic unity as far as was said, but they would argue intensely in quite honestly that

they do not really pursue a suni foreign policy. that is not what they are doing. they do not want to see it in those terms. if nothing else, the shiites are only 20 percent of the total, so if you are pursuing a she not born policy, you are basically cutting yourself out of 90% of the action of what is going on. if you think that you were going to become the leader of the entire arab world or the entire muslim world and you should have that position, you are not going to get there by pursuing a shiite-oriented foreign policy. iranians do not want to be reminded of that. the fact is what is going on now is in an attempt to introduce the secretary and card into everything that is being done, especially in the gulf, and in

the middle east. anything that is challenging the status quo is seen as just the iranians in shi'ites' doing that. whether they are doing it is irrelevant. i would argue if you keep making that argument and say that everything -- every shiite is an iranian, and that that is all you really need to know in the essence of what is going on in terms of any change you do not like, if you keep saying that enough, you may make that true. it is potentially a self- fulfilling prophecy that goes on. couple of make a cou quick points before i quit. i do want to make the point that i think in terms of the paper, the key thing is there is an

internal conflict right now that is the greatest i have ever seen. it is the divisions are there that are absolutely enormous, and we do not know where that will turn out. without knowing the answer to that, it is very difficult to find out where you go from here. the secretary and abide i mentioned. one thing that is not there in the paper is outcomes. you have the categories. you have all of these people thinking in different ways, but in the end, what does that do for you? it may simply be that we do not know. i would add one final category to what has been identified as the different categories, and that is the category of wishful thinking. i am afraid that categorizes all iranians that is in the process.

they have an exaggerated idea of what can be accomplished, and a very exaggerated idea of their role in everything that is going on. that is very dangerous actually. in that way we resemble each other. i will stop now. >> i am going to ask one question, and then we will open it up. that is given the situation in the region, we see that syria is in turmoil or at least it was when i left my house today. can iran continue to count on a policy that emphasizes the alliance with syria and the link hezbollahyria with his l and hamas? he is serious really irreplaceable? -- is syria really

irreplaceable? >> there is a huge debate in iran. as i said, this notion of interconnected securities that has been played out by a defense of free was very much argues that in order to maintain this, you need to take the center of conflict away. that has always been the very important part of the defense strategy. the argument that is being made right now is that the conflict that is going on, the internal uproar in the region has three components. this is the argument the foreign minister mate. it has the domestic component, the regional component, and it has an international component. the argument is that in

relationship to other countries like egypt, all of those three elements are played. eventually it may lead to a real organization of the egyptian foreign policy, not necessarily away from the united states, but every categorizing of it. but the iranians argue in the case of syria, the conflict is mainly in tail. that is to say styria ultimately has a population of israel and the population and government ultimately have a similar position on israel. they do not agree on that issue. therefore on the one hand they want him to stay in power and will keep him in power, but they do not want to antagonize the population. they are trying to play a game

there. i am not sure given the nature of the porn policy they can at this point, but that is their game plan pyridinan . i always say what is happening in the middle east right now is everything is thrown up in the air, and everyone is trying to catch them or figure out -- figure out which side they will fall when they land on the ground. >> we will open it up for questions. >> the phenomenon on that nationalism is becoming a little problematic when you're trying to define it in the islamic world, and especially in iran where the concept of nationalism and islamic sayinthing and so o.

in the arab world at least they have two words for it, which means the arab nationalists, the idea that it is on the decline coming in the country nationalism, which is on the right in the sense. i think that would help a little bit. general, i say it is a phenomenon, because i think religions do not respect or do not consider or do not limit themselves to a geographic boundary. i think that has something to do with it. for religious people it is hard to honor that division, the geographic division, so it goes from the persian to islamic and

then the concept of the split between the sudanese and shi'ites clearly defined. in the case of that percentage that was talked about, the 10% or 15%, it is not only that it is like in my profession in the oil business, they are considering where the oil is. in the shi'ite area, just take three countries. iran, which is totally portia, and the eastern province of saudi arabia. that percentage is really not the same. that is why the saudis are much more concerned about these concepts. >> do you think that this disloyal politics has more to do with this function? in the sense that the saudis of our so preoccupied with

bahrain? is it more about oil? >> we are experience -- worried about iranians can cause trouble for domestic politics. let's not forget that the iranian revolution identified not only the great satan, but also the saudi monarchy. not only the enemy, but a corrupt leadership that leaves both ways. when the defense of realists were in power, they made tremendous relationships that improved dramatically.

but the dynamics of the region has -- have changed and the saudis are extremely threatened by what has happened in iraq. obviously they will not give up on bahrain. they have built a highway to make sure that they will defend when that time comes. it is not as strategically important to the iranians. it challenges their standing in the islamic world. they are defenders of the oppressed and minorities. it helps with real and securities that they feel in terms of the expansion of iranian influence in the region. -- real in securities that they feel in terms of the expansion of iranian influence in the region. >> academic colleague of mine

talked about the supreme leader. his assessment was that the supreme leader looking out at the world and what happened in the region, seeing these developments as god-driven. really of legitimizing the belief that god, going back to the islamic ideology, and i do appreciate your comments on whether you think that is true, but as you described and would think of the supreme leader, are they going to understand the red lion in making decisions about what they do? i could easily imagine that if crossing lines -- imagine them crossing lines. particularly in american

declining power. >> i have never met the man. i am not in the business of trying to figure out their minds or of their decisions are based on theology. if god or histories on the side of iran. there are secular theologies as well in the world. but, as i pointed out, they are very clear in a run and evidence suggests that the supreme leader partially believes in that argument. that american power is in design in the events in the region are waking up in favor of iran. he has said that they were inspired by the islamic resolute -- revolution. whether or not that was a

defensive posture or if he actually believes it, to me that is irrelevant in so far as the foreign policy behavior of a run suggests. that they have taken in the listed foreign policy is a posture based on the belief that it is the climb. on the question of perception, but was the second point? again, what i have to look at is the history as suggested, witches a very modest foreign policy. in 1998 the taliban killed 13 iranian diplomats. the iranian military mobilize with 100,000 military folks thinking in terms of moving into afghanistan. public debate domestically

prevented that. 2003, the united states invade iraq. it is a scary moment for a run. iran is ready to begin who negotiating the nuclear issue. 1991, they sit down and allow the united states to draw the support of the iranians. i made an argument that actively supported united states policy in many ways. there was the rebellion after the invasion. the iranians did not support the new americans. history of the iranian foreign policy has been clearly understood in terms of a very clear deliberation. even in the domestic issue that just happened over the firing of

the intelligence minister, the leader, with this notion of state interests. i intervene and i do not intervene, he says. he laid it out. i do not intervene in executive privilege, he says. but in some cases where it is the issue of state interests, what he calls iranian expedience in the situation, his argument was very delivered there. i am not trying to suggest -- i have a very hard time with the argument of trying to get into the heads of people in the way that others try to do. >> we can see that they have not sent troops into bahrain. let me, if i may, with the last word? are we allowed to go over?

two more questions from the floor. what do you want to wait for the microphone? -- >> and do you want to wait for the microphone? >> to what extent do different foreign-policy ideas in iran radiate regionally or ethnically? how does this multi-ethnic characterization of iran as a country reflect in their thinking of foreign policy? whether by ethnic iranians or others? the religious elements of that, is that an attempt to reach a level of national consensus that is independent? >> let me take a couple more, quickly. >> i was very intrigued by the effect of the tenants on that

school of thought. within a run at the moment. three things struck me. the first is the considering of the start of democracy in the uprisings. is there a role for the muslim brotherhood in egypt in factor? obviously that is part of being heard in the democratic system. as far as the regional balance of power is concerned. [unintelligible] completely absent in that discussion, trying to curb trade this as going back to the british model, controlling the berlin -- military.

the third is israel. that it is all about potential israeli attacks, as far as i mentioned. >> i have one question. you talked about iranians in isolation. the united states used to be strict with iran. given the acknowledge the new structure and the environment, when can they change his partner in the future? >> on the question of ethnic

separation, compaq people have made it that the iran and iraq war played an important war in creating and iran that was a more integrated country, ethnically. of course, the kind of mobilization that occurred, based on the shiite sacrifice, basically, ended up playing a very important role in that process. now, iran, being very multinational as a nation and a multi-cultural society, truly in important ways does -- you have their problems. in many ways those problems have been worsened because of the crackdown that has occurred and because of the kind of antagonism that has likened the

their relationship with external powers. so, those issues remain and they play against each other. clearly the arabian government does have an important influence in terms of generating that sense of nationalism. at this particular moment the idea of attempting to dismember run, not only containing their power, but it is very important. on the question of islam and turkey, it is an interesting question.

egypt may not be a very good approach to iran. moving towards a pluralistic democratic society, they have declared the anti- zionist policies of the population in general. the argument is that the arab masses in the policy is similar to the position of the iranian government. they are trying to work that argument and obviously there is an egyptian cottage that has been made several times. on turkey, as i said, the iranians do not seem to have a problem with that this idea that countries might find another model from turkey. good for them.

iran seems to be making this argument, but leaving that the region is moving towards their position. on regional issues and international issues. the american presence in the region is not like anywhere. usually it is not much light on the streets. iran is doing well, so what is the difference? the point is this chance to advance this counter to an intensive isolation. i do not remember the question on israel, but on the question of strategy, that is why you see this hyper-particularly since from the american attempt to try to shift iran to a completely

different view. during the bush administration it continued in different ways. you see this very hyper policy partner. i remember going to meetings there with the cia, even with the soviet union and china. china disappoints. now how disappointed they arkansas by the cia counterpart. the issue was supposed to. how issued through the europeans and they obviously failed. counting on the european punctuality, they are paying for it. keep that in mind. that is part of the problem for

the iranians. >> i think that your point on the red line is important. as a reminder of the fact that a lot of what is going on here, the way of categorizing people and their foreign policies, when push comes to shove, it turns out to not be very important. issues like that, they will not be taking on the united states and will not be getting themselves in that kind of position. it may be one of the things that we can tend to count on. when saddam hussein invaded in 1980, he thought that the arabs would rise up and join him.

they did not. the iranians made this a mistake going the other way. it did not count for much of anything. and it really is a pretty well integrated society. turkey is left out of these discussions and i am very sorry that it is left out. and i leave it out as well, probably because i do not know much about what i am talking about. but i do think that they are one of the most interesting avenues to get into the arabian equation. and i think we have botched that unbelievably recently by turning down the turkey tax deal. a huge strategic error. you cannot even give a good reason for it. regarding strategic allies, think about it in the region.

syria? it is a very good convenience, although not a strategic ally. and they are on the ropes right now. another one that people casually talked about is a rock. all you have to do is go to iraq and talk to she of politicians to discover that their love for iran is just about done. they do not have any strategic allies. they have not been able to find one. much of it is they're doing. just like the sanctions that we impose that could have been beaten, but the iranians held by being very nasty negotiators with the oil companies that were prepared to grease the wheels. unfortunately, that is the story of the iranian foreign policy. >> thank you again for your participation and questions. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> this day long for a loop and foreign policy continues shortly. with the implication of u.s.-led foreign policy. the white house says they're putting together a targeted sanction against the syrian

president, the foreign press writing that the administration is condemning the increasingly violent crackdown on anti- government protesters. according to one official, the functions probably will involve travel bans and asset freezes. so, we will be back here live at george washington university for this discussion on foreign policy. until then, part of the discussion from earlier today on japan.

>> all right. we are moving on to the japan session. i am pleased to introduce the chair of this session, joining us from the department of defense. we have got a number of people from the government over here. very busy people. the fact that they are joining us, i assume that means they think our project is important and they did not want to miss it. his complete biography is in the folder that was brought. he came to his present job from the stanley foundation, where he was running the policy dialogue

on the asian program. i remember that stanley foundation was one of the first to look at this idea of rising powers and try to write about that. it was very useful, so i think it is particularly relevant that he would join us today. he has been a fellow at the council on foreign relations and has worked in the u.s. senate with dianne feinstein. and he has also worked at the nyu center for war, peace, news, and media. he has done a lot of things. he has quite a few and eclectic pursuits, including something about a bed and breakfast. i am sure that he will bring a wealth of experience to the table. just a word of caution to anyone up here, apparently we are not

supposed to shut this computer under any circumstance because it shut off something in technology and we will not be able to get the slides back up. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> the incentive for me is? [laughter] >> that is never a good place to be. lots of downside and very little upside to these sorts of opportunities. in any case, by thank you for asking me to join this morning. this is the sort of conversation and discussion that we do not have the opportunity to engage

in as often as we ought to. as we were talking about before, we did not want to make a habit of it, but making policy decisions based on some information and analysis. being able to spend a few minutes with you all this morning to try to build some much-needed capital is extraordinarily valuable. my thanks for doing this and for inviting me to come along for the ride. we will try to make up for the time that our colleagues on the china panel have stolen from us. but that is a feeling that those of us that work japan are increasingly used to. in any case, i will offer some very brief and introductions. one of the things that has really impressed itself on me

for the past couple of years at the department of defense is the -- i am not sure that i would say primacy, but the real weight that these debates have in driving foreign policy decision making. here in the united states, china, japan, korea, and other countries as well. in many significant ways i would offer that there is no better example of the role that domestic political factors and domestic political debates can have in achieving foreign-policy national security making that in japan. not just a function, i should _, which over the past couple of years has had to do with a couple of thousands of years of concrete poured in. a much bigger set of questions

that has to do with a much bigger set of issues with japanese political culture and the influence of individual decision makers and the effect that electoral politics are now having in japanese foreign policy decision making as japan starts to feel its way to a multi-party political system. the discussion that we have lined up for this morning should be very interesting and worthwhile. i would offer that from my personal perspective, the main incentive drawing me here was the opportunity to avail myself of the wisdom and insight of three people whose wisdom and insight i always see in value. as chair, my main focus will be sitting under the table and taking notes furiously and

copiously as they offer their thoughts. with that, let me turn things over to dick for the presentation of denn thank you to sheila for the comments to follow. >> thank you very much, like. i would like to thank [unintelligible] for engaging in this project periods we have been engaged in ways that i am delighted to report to you. can you hear in the back? we were having trouble over here. it seemed odd, and it may strike other folks, talking about including japan in a project on rising powers. this is not the 1920's.

the last time i checked. [laughter] when wes not the 1980's were all agog about japan as a rising power. but it is included because potentially japan is a great power. with many of the pieces of being a great power again. of course, after the catastrophe is the capacityere for japan to be reborn, or at least reinvented, yet again. i guess that i start in a very japanese fashion, with an apology. this paper was written before. free/11. i hope that some of the discussions will get at what 3/11 might mean for a reborn,

revitalize japan. or not. so, what we have done here is right about hedging. while this chart is not in the paper, and there is no exam -- he will not be quizzed on this, but there is a point to this chart, which is to set the pace of japanese grand strategy is not new. it is not unique to the 21st century and they were not unique to the 20th-century. it has been around for a long time. importantly it connects overtime. i will not spend a lot of time on this other than to say that in the past there were three moments of real consensus on what their national strategy should be. getting rich and being strong.

it led to the rationalization of the forced march of industrialization that was very successful. and after a time of real debate and discord, as well as this course, there was another moment of great consensus. the central east-age of prosperity sphere, leading to the destruction of much of asia and japan, which broke out into another debate. rectified, in a sense, by the dominant brown strategy of japan, which is still more or less in place, to some debate.

basically, working until full. ribands flowering at the bottom and headed towards what is billed, it is a question mark for myself. this is what i think david was referring to in his kind remarks in the first session. there are to access on which the debates proceed. >> this is alliance relations 101. if you get too close, you become a risk in terms of the danger of becoming embroiled in their wars, but too little and you remain possibly held apart. this question has been a central

element in japanese security discourse for a very long time. the vertical dimension has to do with the extent to which the statute of limitations for japanese bad behavior in the middle part of the last century has expired. could japan again use force as a means of settling international disputes that unsettling contributions? some of my work has been slowly and deliberately slicing the pacifist and are metaphorically challenge, so i will keep it in a passage low for that is not elegant. but it is less than what is going on. the pacifists in this southwestern quadrant, each one has a different view of what japan should be and where it

should be, and where its identity should be. one view is that they should be speaking peace. another is that they should be seeking prosperity. another is that they should be seeking -- as those with say -- that it is time to exercise sovereignty. >> we are leaving this discussion from japan, earlier today, to return live to toward washington university to hear about the implications of u.s. policy as this day long forum continues. >> we did save some of our best for the end. those of the that have held out with us will benefit from this discussion. we appreciate were being here. i want to just indicate the terms on which we asked tom and david to comment on our project.

i will not go into their biographies, i will -- they are in your folders. they are obviously both extremely well known. we asked them to think about the relevance of this project, the approach of this project, however you want to characterize it. to evaluate it from their experience. as high-level policymakers on the one hand and at the top of the journalistic world in the other case. how have they handled it when they fight in these terms? and in terms of the debate with foreign countries. giving us the kind of hands-on perspective about the domestic debates that we have been analyzing.

secondly, of course, we wanted to look at the implications of the debates in foreign, rising powers, and in the united states, as well as the implication for their relationships. as the center of gravity moves in these debates in one direction or another along those spectrums that we identified this morning, what difference does it make? and along the spectrum between countries, it might potentially facilitate cooperation. when you get movement in opposite directions, spectrum of scope means the end of foreign policy as you might anticipate more difficulties. in fact case study suggests there might be something to that general hypothesis. the hope was not just looking at

the implications for the u.s., but those among the rising powers. i think it will start with tom and i appreciate your being here. and then the memo will go to david, say thank you. he lives under constant deadlines, i suspect. >> [unintelligible] >> you certainly did. and that you certainly have. [laughter] he is an abject perfect -- have done professor at the kennedy school -- adjoint professor at the kennedy school, so we claim

him as one of our all. >> thank you for being -- coming here. the high perspective of the archives is to make sure that no untoward fly goes untaught. i am delighted to be here. it reminds me, this audience = the floor of the house of representatives on a terrific debate day. i am glad to see all of you coming back from coffee to join us. i would say that there as -- there is a curse of the congress. while everything has been said, not everyone has said it.

>> let me give you the answer first, that way you can run out if you are in a hurry. yes, by all means, these studies can be very useful. my feeling is that you need to be very careful. there is no unified in the

united states the pragmatic school tends to hold sway and in many ways that strategy in the former i a set of ideas in analysis that come from more sources beware of the following

minister said something we did not particularly like or enjoyed. a buildup of fine pieces into a mosaic that allows you to detect general trends over time there is no consensus on u.s. interest. if you read the national security strategy paper the

solution tends to signal and the public -- potential interest >> this citrus trade dispute deals with hostages of the negotiation of economic news and fun and on the affected u.s. interests,

and, what is with the shoe that it and in a free and bananas the term is to be fairly interesting in their determinative nature of where they would go. not that there is any necessity to approach those particular problems without different ways of looking at the question or different approaches happily

with time to read them, all that -- other policy makers are often in that kind of difficulty. compared with the first four years of the presidential administration, we can see how a few saying that the view of the

real-world situation is is these are subtle changes that are very important. i expect they could be a few short chapters in an important book. certainly, two men dealing with the cold war. nixon on china. carter on the cold war. bush on the use of military force.

obviously, there was a shifter deviation from the past, but in my view it does not represent a massive change. in the influence of those approaches and the influence against them -- look at nixon in china -- or bush in the face of democrats. look at how those democrats voted in 1991 on not invading iraq, but getting it out of kuwait. there are interesting pieces there. they have a common-sense approach to the question with other factors play a role that might feed into school thinking but is not summarized by school

thinking or by school solutions, or by school approaches. issues influencing foreign policy formulation in the united states are many. earlier u.s. to me what the u.s. government is doing in this particular area. i would suggest, in one fashion, a great deal. in another fashion, nothing at all. collecting and this amounts of information on what various activists and players, institutions, fink. very little in perhaps aggregating it into a central, philosophical matrix or framework, which, as i suggest, may have limited usefulness, but i would be the last to say that it should be thrown out or discarded. i would tell you that a great deals of the is a primary

responsibility of embassies to collect. over time, as wikileaks gets boring and the more pedestrian stuff is fed into the public, you might see some of this on the scene. upper -- at the moment you are only seeing the juicier stuff that should have been put in a tighter category of classification. sloppily it was left in. in any event, there are huge amounts of that kind of material, which i think are very useful in forming a backdrop for the government and intelligence agencies, as well as the policy for relators, wherever they appear. is useful to take a look at policy objectives and what they mean.

they are not simply a statement of position just put out there after a long debate in the situation room in the white house. they involve a lot of operational activities and are based heavily on questions about the history of the issues and the understanding cover the cultural framework in which the issues they place. cultural factors that appeared to be extremely important, particularly in american foreign policy, america has seen its foreign policy referred to as an adjunct. i would not take it that far, but in some cases we have seen the pre-eminence of domestic policy and single issues, which, in my view, does not necessarily reflect the national interests of the country so much

as the national interests of the serving party, how to get reelected obviously, in some cases those that might be inclined to take on risks with syria's foreign policy problems are deterred from despair. with respect to how that affects their political future in the country, one only has to look at the fortunes of george h. w. bush, among the others are in this context. not that i necessarily see one or a number of issues as the total impact on the election campaign, but one can see and sense the fact -- jimmy carter, that there were serious issues having to do with the middle east and beyond that may have played a serious roll-call in the reelection question and therefore play a serious role in

the judgments on this particular approach to foreign policy. i think that there is a difference in the role of schools, which in my view tends to focus on past actions. in some ways emphasizing one of a number of factors we have all seen. the use of force. nationalism. regional interests. global aspirations and so on, as you have laid out in your papers and models. in some cases, these issues tend to be more debated within policy framework that they are necessarily fixed by individual hearings. in my view, there is no simple slot machine possibility or algorithm under which if a

particular school ascends, we can know in advance how the country or united states will decide the particular issue. we can see the influence of that school, but we cannot work out an absolute arrangement to use the school analysis as a detector of what, in the end, might be the final results of a particular policy approach. i think that questions of foreign policy that have to do with the engagement in the development of answers overcritical influences in most foreign policy problems and security issues require ongoing and continuous consideration. american negotiators often know that their biggest problem is agreeing to bring washington

along for a possible solution as opposed to necessarily bringing the fellow across the table who speaks a different language along with that particular approach. obviously it is important, as we look at that set of ongoing questions, school solutions continue with approaches that continue to add dimensions to this question without necessarily becoming a sovereign remedy. let me touch upon a few things beforehand. it has been mentioned that the practice of the united states has been engaging in foreign policy. those that are professionals in career bureaucracy, as well as appointments. professionals that hold political appointments at high

levels within bureaucracy, providing the mix. professionals have been brought up, i think, on the paradigm that says that it is not their job as professionals to consider domestic professional issues. that is the job of the political appointees. of course, over time they become political appointees and are required to do their best. politically elected seniors would like to see the policy move. but they have a lot of scope and opportunity for moving things around. i think that these political appointees understand as much, in some cases more, than the professionals necessarily do about the history, cultural context, and country's situation, then the principal players. if not, they usually learn this

fairly quickly as the process goes ahead. to some extent, policy comes down to a blend of these kinds of issues in the best of all possible circumstances. in the worst, the professional approach is overlooked for a short circuit id. under other circumstances, political appointees have not yet sorted out what they need to know about the cultural barriers as they go ahead. in some of these cases, some of these proposals are from time to time, trumped by domestic political considerations. as a result, issues are dealt with in a way that is considered less than satisfactory. the battle between consistency and inconsistency is very interesting. i thought that walter address to this beautifully at lunch.

-- addressed this beautifully at lunch. ideas that predates the american revolution to the 17 sixties. it is amazing to me that people think it is a new problem every time that comes up. obviously, what is consistent and inconsistent sometimes plays a role, but often is set aside in light of other considerations. to some extent, one wonders how relevant school thinking will be. or what one would call the emphasis of importance to individuals when policies are in our country tend to vacillate around those factors. i would like to close with a few other final thoughts. the approach that you are putting forward, in my view, as

an international approach, will be interesting. in feeling is that it is difficult to know -- my own feeling is that it is difficult to know whether nationalists in russia and nationalists in china would have the same perspective, if i could put it this way, on what divides the interests of their countries, or whether they will be at different places along the continuum of nationalism. to some extent that presents the challenge of deep research and the question of being careful about particular approaches. one has an opportunity to see, in the example of party meetings across countries, whether there are, in fact, unifying element of party positions amongst socialists in

france, germany, the u.k., poland, and so on. i would suspect that there are, of course, but i would suspect as many differences as there are interests among them. the question of thinking ahead, would one want to congregate for a discussion individuals who represent, say, nationalist or global list schools in particular foreign countries? my sense is that the discussion would be revelatory as much for differences as of unity. it would be helpful in sustaining the analysis of how individuals in those countries saw things. i think it would create an emphasis that it was more particular than general in the process. more singling out of individual

perspective is that necessarily of useful congregational claims of arrangements, if i can put it that way. i think that the work, as a final point, was very informative, valuable, it useful. more power to you. keep in mind, there are some limitations. be careful. >> [inaudible] >> here we are. >> this is what happens when you into anturn a print typeguy alaudio guy. thank you all, it is wonderful to be on this panel with an old friend. another member of the group of

ink-stained wretches, coming to join such an academic and interesting exercise as this one. i am sorry that i could not be here this morning after lunch time operations. as an editor of mine said so many years ago, it was not my idea to come out seven days per week. the decision was made in 1851 and i was not consulted. i am afraid that i got stuck trying to deal with news, non- news, and sorting goes out. i had a chance to go through the papers and we had some very good question from henry, which i will turn to in a bit, about how the day to day life of a reporter who feels they are