to add your voice is to this debate. whitehouse.gov. that a movement for reform. we are seeking the balance of all that can contribute to this country. you can make it here if you try. gave hope herns. jose here? there. to think about this . were migrant up, he was, too.

born in california. so he could have just as easily been born on the other side of had been a the year, around seasons. actually born in mexico. so they traveled a lot. joined his parents, and . of school when returned to mexico each winter. learn english until old. math. thing is that math was in every school, and in spanish as it

studied hard. standing in the fields collecting sugar beats, radio that a sure name like his astronaut in the decided well i can be an too. kept on studying, and he graduated high school. studying, and he an eng noah nearing did degree, and he earned a at a national laboratory helping to develop a new kind of digital imaging found of the earth staring out of the window of discovery, and he was remembering the boy in the

fields with that that in america possible. that, el paso. right that's what we are fighting every boy every girl like jose with a and potential that is just waiting to be tapped. unlock that and all that holds not futures, but for america's future. done. to need help. you, god bless you, and bless the united states

america. -- [captions copyright national [captioning performed by

♪ >> on tomorrow's "washington journal," we will talk with new jersey congressman rob andrews about u.s. military strategy in afghanistan and iraq. then jeff flake will give his take on raising the debt ceiling and the federal deficit. and then matthew levitt discusses how al qaeda and other terrorist organizations are financed.

"washington journal," each more than at k eastern. >> tomorrow, congressman mike rorges will talk about the raid on the osama bin laden compound last week and the upcoming 10th have i ever of the september 11 terrorist attacks. live coverage at 8:00 eastern on use. later on c-span3, the house will begin work on defense legislation for 2012. it gets underway at 10:00 eastern. now, a discussion on japanese foreign policy. we will hear about shifts in japan's attitudes toward the u.s. and china. this conference was hosted by george washington university last month.

it's an hour. we have got a number of people from the government over here, very, very busy people. the fact that they are joining us, i am going to assume it means they think our project is really important and they didn't want to miss it. his full bio is in the folder

that you have got. he came to his present job from the stanley foundation, where he was running the policy analysis and dialogue and the asia programs in the foundation. i remember that stanley foundation was one of the first, i believe, to look at this idea of rising powers and try to write about that. it was very useful, and so i think it is particularly rely vent -- relevant that he could join us today. he has always been a fellow on the council on foreign relations. he has worked in the u.s. senate with diane fine steven -- feinstein, and he has worked at the institute. he has been eclectic, something about a bed and breakfast and

running that. i am sure he is bringing a lot of wealth and experience to the table. michael, i will turn it over to you. just a word of caution to anyone up here. apparently we are not supposed to shut this computer off under any circumstance because it shuts off something on the technology end and he about won't be able to get the slides back up. just a word of caution. >> thank you -- >> sorry, one more thing. c-span is here. >> the innocentive for me for that is -- incentive for me for that is? i will move over there. >> there is always lots of down side and very little up side in

these sorts of opportunities. my thank you for asking me to join you this morning. this is the sort of conversation and discussion that we don't have the opportunity to engage in as often as we ought to in the policy community. and for those of us, as david and i were talking before, you don't want to make a habit of it, but every now and then to try to make policy decisions based on some information and analysis. [laughter] being able to spend a few minutes with you all this morning and try to build some much-needed intellectual capital is important. my thanks for doing this and for inviting me to come along for the ride. we will trying 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.

[laughter] in any case, i will offered by way of some very brief introduction that one of the things that has really impressed itself on me over the past couple of years while i have been at the department of defense is -- not the primacy -- but the real weight that domestic political debates have in driving decision-making. that is not only here in the united states, but in china, japan, career -- contrary and other countries as well. in many significant ways, there is no better example of the role that domestic political factors and debates can have in shaping foreign policy and national security decision-making other than in japan. that is not just a function i should under score of the past

couple of years under the d.p.j. or even a question having to do with what area a couple of thousand meters of concrete get poured into in okinawa. it has much deeper issues. 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 toward a genuine two-party or multi-party political system. so i think the discussion that we have lined up for this morning should be very, very interesting, and very worthwhile. i would offer that from my personal perspective the main incentive for drawing me here was the opportunity to avail myself of the wisdom and insight of three people, in

dick, mitchy and sheila, whose insight i seek and value. as chair, my main purpose is actually going to be sitting at the end of the table and taking notes furiously and copiously as they offer their thoughts. so with that, let me turn things over to them for their presentation and for sheila for her comments to follow. thank you. >> thanks very much, mike. i want to thank henry, deepa and others for organizing this project which has been of enormous interest. it has engages us in ways that we are delighted to report out to you. can you hear in the back now? you were having trouble earlier. ok. it may seem odd. it struck me that it may seem

odd to some folks that we are talking about -- we are including japan in a project on rising powers. this is not the 1920's. [laughter] last time i checked. [laughter] and it is not the 1980's, when we were all agoing about -- agog about japan as a rising power. potentially japan is a great power. it has many of the pieces to be a great power again. of course after the cast stroves of 3-11 there is the possibility that japan may be reborn yet again, or at least reinvented yet again. and so it deserves some closer analysis. that sedition i start in a very japanese fashion, i begin with

an apology. we will get at what 3-11 may mean for a reborn, revitalized japan, or not. what we have done here is write about what we call hugging and hedging. while this chart here is not in the paper, it is from a book that i did a few years ago, and there is no exam. you're not going to be quizzeded on this. i know you are happy about that. but there's a point to this chart, and it is an important point. which is to say that debates about japanese strategy and national security are not new. they are not unique to the 21st century. they weren't unique to the 20th century but have been around a long time. importantly, in fact, they connect over time. i am not going to spend a lot

of time on this, just to say there were in the past three moments real consensus on what japanese national strategy should be. of being rich and strong, the rich nation and strong army, that led to this forced march -- or rationalized a forced march to industrialization that was very successful. the second being after a time of real debate and real discord as well as discourse between liberals and militarists here, another consensus. the greater east asia co-prosperity sphere, which we know led to the destruction of much of asia and japan. it broke out into another debate that was rectified in a sense through the dominant

grand strategy of japan that still is more or less in place. that is a matter of some debate, the oshida doctrine, riding on american guarantees, and being a american tile realist strategy. that is coming apart, too, hence the ribbons flailing at the bottom and heading toward what is still a question mark. but the way we map this discourse -- and this is what i think david was referring to in his kind remarks in the first session. it is that there are two axis on which the debates proceed. one is the horizontal axis, which is a proxy in a way for international relations 101 or alliance relations 101. if you get too close from your alliance partner, you run the

risk of getting drawn into their wars. if you are too distant, you run the risk of being unprotected. the question of how much you hug versus how much distance you put from the united states has been a central element in japan's discourse for a very long time. but the second, the vertical dimension has to do with -- the statute of limitations for japan's bad behavior in the middle part of the last century expired or not. could japan use force as a means of settling international disputes? i have been arguing that japan has been slowly, but deliberately slicing at a pacifist loaf it has been baking. that doesn't sound elegant, but it is what has been going on.

this creates four spaces for the debate. the pacifists in the southwestern quadrant, each one of these has a different view of where japan should be and what its identity should be. one view is that japan should be teaking peace, one a view that japan should be speaking prosperity. one is that japan should be seeking equality with the alliance partner, the normal nationalists in the northeast. and though who would simply say it is time to do it ourselves. they seek sovereignty. this debate is joined. it is represented. to the ambassador's question, it is joined in institutions in ways we try to get at in the paper as well. what is interesting about this array of views, we think, is that there has been a lot of movement. if you believe that the yoshida

doctrine-aires in the east, the mercantile realists, if they were dominating the discourse through a tacit agreement with the pacifists to keep the revisionists at arm's length to really not hug the united states, but hug article 9 of the constitution, they gave way the power in their own part to revisionists. represented by the prime minister and his alleys in the party. so i have here recent l.d.p. government, had consolidated power, had embraced a notion of normal nationalism, saying look, it is time to be normal in a tony blair-like way. we would write this is only one way to be normal.

there is a way to be normal indian style and russian style. the canadians and germans thought about enormity differently than the united states when it came to america's most recent adventures. we have variations. the -- a point is that in september of 2009, in the late summer when the d.p.j. took power with an unprecedented majority, a super majority in the national diet, there was a shift. it was the beginning of a shift that mike alluded to. domestic politics mattered. the world hasn't yet changed much, but the posture of japanese national security thinking, and the discourse had changed. by d.p.j., i am referring to the current administration. thanks to the serial

misbehavior of the north koreans, you can always count on them. the surprising assertiveness of the chinese in the spring and fall of last year, the government gave way to another government which was more amenable to the status quo, more willing to hug the united states. so efforts that had been made to reduce host nation support were abandoned and so forth. it is in the paper, and i hope you will have a look at it. but what we thought would be particularly important was to change this array slightly. it seemed to us that it would be useful to redimension the debate in china, that somehow finding the right distance not just from the united states, but finding the right distance

from china, was something that was the most important strategic choice facing japan today. getting it right not just with the united states but getting it right with china as well would require both military and economic readjustments that we tried to get at. so we redimensioned the debate a bit in the last third of the paper. given the relative power shift that has taken playing between the united states and china, maintaining the distance with the united states while closing it with china seems to make grand strategic sense for japan. these policies and these efforts as we have already seen have not been particularly well coordinated, however. u.s. and japanese policy-makers, the alliance managers continue to appreciate and elevate the importance of the bilateral alliance at exactly the moment when china

has become a little bit more assertive diplomatically, and that alliance drift was halted. and then again after the 3-11 crisis it looked like the relationship was further reinforced. the jury is still out on what all 3-11 will mean. that is what i will be spending the next year understanding. this created four spaces in a very active national security discourse. i will flick at each one and then i will stop. but the i'd yational and structural contradickses of the policies are reflenthed here -- contradictions are reflected here. as in the original model, there are those who distrust foreign entanglements. they are not just on the right, but on the left as well. they would require to sustain

an independent military capable. they see no reason to hedge their bets on the rise of china or on the relative deadline of the united states. so in their view, japan should regain full sovereignty and provide for itself in a self-help world. in i.r. theory we talk about internal balancing. the preference for autonomy in japan is independent for the preference for the use of force. there are those in the northwest here who advocate a china-japan condominium. they prefer a strategy of bandwagonning economically with the chinese. they are apt to discount china as a military threat, and they

emphasize the benefits from a robust bilateral economic relationship. they face betrayal by china, but they discount that. they imagine china will be generally a responsible stakeholder, and they don't want to miss the bus. the third are the balancers. they are in the southeast. they are much more attentive to military threats from beijing, much not namored with cooperation with china. those who would balance china would hedge by balancing -- would hedge militarily, maintaining the robust relationship with the united states in the belief that china is going to be more assertive and that those assertions should be met with containment

and/or deterrence of -- through deterrent states in collaboration. and then finally is this group we call the integrators. these are folks who believe that japan can and really should have it both ways. in their view, better economic relations with beijing need not be purchased at the price of diminished relations with the united states. so they would pursue a dual hedge by integrating with the chinese economically and protect japan from chinese coercion by maintaining a healthy alliance with the united states. they are confident that china's rise, and they fear china's betrayal. they fear china's betrayal and the u.s. deadline in equal measure. we have argued these ideas

matter, but we take time at the very end of the paper to explain how struck we have been by how ideas about how ideas do vary and how politics has affected the choices in asia, where things change and respond. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. i always pause when he speaks because i am digesting. thank you for inviting me to the conversation because it is so important. most of my background is from japanese politics and foreign policy. i see it from the inside looking out. i want to emphasize two points

that have been stated clearly. japan is at a moment of change whether looking out or policy determination internally. this is a very important moment to continue to look at japan and the choices it makes. that will have implications for the region, the globe and our relationship with japan. it is a terrific paper. the paper i have been asked to discuss on japan by dick, two people i have read and talked to over the years. so many times i feel like i have internalized what they say, it is hard to say anything that opposes here. let me talk about a couple of schools of thought. we often, sitting here in washington, assume that japan doesn't have strategic thinking, and that there isn't a contest of ideas inside japan that leads to the choices that japan makes particularly in its relationship with us. again, this kind of work is

integral to understanding that japan has made choices, strategic choices over time and particularly in its relationship with us. i think from here on out japan has made strategic choices clearly with china and other neighbors. but i think the calculus and the recalibration that the paper is getting at is very important. the strategic calculus for japan now is going to be very difficult and will require institutional reorganization, and it will be deeply contested domestically, which is the electoral piece of this going forward that is going to be fascinating to watch. in the china session i couldn't help but note two words that got used, and that was red line and silences. i think it is important in japan as well to note that there have been throughout the last half century in the post war period in which japan has debated its choices,

significant silences and red lines. we all know about the taboos, and article nine and other things. as we have watched the jans bureaucrats others engage in public discourse from the 1970's and forward, it is mainly because some of these red lines and silences have diminished in japan. you are getting a good healthy debate about the range of options. but there is still underneath it all some very deep concerns about these red lines and silences, and whether or not it is acceptable for post-war japan to really be debating a nuclear option or autonomy you saiding the security treaty. these are very difficult in some ways to talk about in japan. but i think there is potential here for japan looking forward to fund mentally alter its

relationship with us, to fundamentally challenge the ways in which japan has cooperated with us. i think you certainly see that in the base issue. you see it in the conversation. some of it was extended deterrence conversation. you heard that in the first year of one government. it also fundamentally offers for japanese strategic thinkers new opportunities. this goes back to the comment in the china section, which is remember the gaze starts in tokyo and looks out. even though we are doing policy issues relevant to the united states, but as you are sitting in tokyo listening to the conversation, that gaze is looking out, and it is looking predominantly in the northeast asian direction as opposed to over here because the change is in that region. many people will argue that there are opportunities to articulate a national strategy that has been very difficult to

articulate so far, one in which the economic and military interests of japan may become more converge ent or divergent, and perhaps to abandon policies that are no longer appropriate to japan today. those could be the things imposed by interpretation of article nine or the kinds of cooperations it has pursued with us. i have five basic sets of questions. it occurred in my mind when i read the paper -- and these are not critiques, but my own brain came at this in a slightly different way when i was re-ing, and so i would offer that up. when you talk about particularly in the last third of the paper which i think is so valuable, talking about china and where the schools of thought come out on china-u.s., i couldn't help but say if you are sitting in tokyo and having this conversation with policy

makers, intellectuals or others, the terms of the strategic bargain, the alliance with the united states were set at the end of world war ii. i am not going in the direction of an occupation army here. the emergence of a nuclear era and a new strategic context in which a deterrent required different set of capabilities than the japanese were ready to develop. i am not sure there has been a lot of think background that kind of strategic context. what can japan and should japan do, acquire or organize itself to acquire that would allow japan to have an autonomous capacity to defend itself? at the end of world war ii, this was the beginning of the nuclear era, a new world, and japan was not prepared to go that way. but that was the hug, the

beginning of the strategic bargain with united states that for the last half century, manny in japan, left and right have either resisted, gotten uncomfortable with, tried to reorganize. but i still think that hug is a slightly different hug than a choice of strategic partner here, and i think it is worth remembering that. second point on the schools of thought. again, a longer range in post war japan, and dick your work on the mercantile side is important here, and i understand it completely. i still kind of bridle at the idea that yoshida himself may have been a mercantilist. this may have something to say about a post 3-11 japan as well. that early period of 1952-1955 was fertile in terms of japanese contestation. there were debates and choices about what options japan had. what resulted was the yoshida

doctrine. it was a reconstruction era. it was a very particular historical moment. here we are again at a moment of japan trying to rethink and potentially be at that reconstructive moment ago. but i think the historical context matters to me when i look at your schools of thought when these ideas came and why, matters. and they strengthen and weaken over time. part of the question beyond japan is when you are looking at the introduction of new policies or new strategic choice, how do you determine what is continuity and what is change? how do you determine what is in the autonomy, has been there all along in the debate, versus what is really signifying that the agency of change has changed. whether it is institutions, individual decision-makers. when do you recognize that

yasahido was somebody different or a blankenship? the second on the list was the d.p.j. has a new school of thought arisen? has what we like to call the liberal -- the engagers, the globalists, have they arrived to japan to lead the japanese thinking and review process to alter japan's fundamental choices? i don't think we have an answer yet. you watch a reaction in washington, and people thought that was make happening. the d.p.j. hadn't been in power long enough for us to know. but it is the specter of that new school of thought arriving in power that has energized our japan conversation about these new voices. i suspect if we meet five or 10 years from now, they might end up looking a lot like the l.d.p., not in terms of the norm tiff preferences, but ruling in itself will shape their strategic understanding for what that latitude is. i am going to have to hurry.

my third point. how do you allow for new conceptions. this is for the japan paper specifically. in the 1970's, you have did he taunt, at least the pretended end of the corled war. you have this idea that japan can articulate a japanese preference, food security, devising a multiplicity of means to really follow japanese interests. taking the u.s. policy on meast middle east policy. you see japan moving in a much more set of autonomous choices than it had been able to in the past. new conception and thought or just new latitude to make strategic choices. the same thing could be going on, and we could see the northeast asian community concept very similarly. this a moment where northeast asia is more receptive to japan, being in this collusive

building. it really came out under a prefers prime minister. you have a middle ground now in the japanese thinking that doesn't really fall down ideological lines but really is attendant to the transformation that is ongoing. the ambitions of japan has to be central to that process, but it has been limited in the past. i think you used the elasticity metaphor. the bread being sliced or the salami slices of bread, what all of us watching japan are grappling with the idea of is a new loaf of bread being baked? are we seeing new ideas that really fundamentally challenge schools of thought that were

there before. in my mind the autonomy and the pacifists have always been there. they just haven't been a pragmatic policy agenda. it is the other two categories for me where we find everything happening. but maybe there is something new. how elastic is it going to be, and where is it going to come from? i haven't heard anything yet. hopefully you will disagree weather me, that suggest we have moved out of the traditional four schools of thought. i think we are still in that middle ground, but the agents have shifted. my final point -- and i am sorry because i am not going to answer your question about 3-11 and its aftermath. so much of our scholarship on japan has attempted to determine post war ideology, where you stand on article nine, where you stand with reconciliation with china, where you stand on the relationship with the united

states has to do with japan's thinking in the first half of the 20th century and internalizing that experience. one of the pieces that is so challenging for me, and i am doing this project that dick is going to help me with, i hope, is how does policy interpret, learn, use experiences of past mistakes? and who learns those lessons, and how does that affect the way these schools of thought are generated? world war ii was a miscalculation by almost every school of thought, whether it is autonomy, pacifist or anything else. that trajectory for japan did not turn out well. i find very few people who will tell me they ought to go back and try again on that trajectory. that set of choices has now been taken away, so your parameters have shifted. negotiates in the united states

in the post war period, there is a learning that has gone on there. not necessarily always in our favor, but you see it in the bases nies. stepping back and allowing latitude on the bases has not been healthy inside japan. that is why you have public sensitivities today. the d. . j. learning what works and doesn't work will also affect how the ideas in the party end up meshing in a strategic set of parameters in that party as well. thank you very much. >> thank you all very much as well. i think we have about 20 minutes for questions and discussions. my apology. let me let you respond. >> thank you very much. i will try to answer sheila's questions as much as possible and then defer to dick. before i do so, let me thank the organizers for including

japan as one of the rising powers, and also i would like to thank the american people, the government, the defense of -- department of defense forces in japan for providing really important support in a time of need. and i would like to have people here on this floor and in the u.s. to come visit japan. this is a difficult time for us, but it would be nice if we can see a lot of friends coming to visit us. tokyo is safe fortunately. i just came from tokyo, so please keep visiting japan. if you are a nuclear specialist, this is a great time to investigate what is going on. [laughter] let me answer some of the questions posed by sheila. the first one is deterrence.

i think we have been doing several things to think really more deeply about how we shape our did he terpt capability. one is the fact that we, our people, particularly the ministry of foreign affairs and defense, have started really talking to the american partners to discuss the nature and credibility of extended nuclear deterrence. for this our government officials came to washington in late 2008. some of them were coming from the japanese embassy here and early 2009, and they talked to their american counterparts, talking about what we would like to see in u.s. defense policy. basically there are three important messages.

the first one, our people told the american friends, they made a statement that useable nuclear weapons might enhance the credibility of extended nuclear deterrence. they didn't say we would like to see it happen. second, we asked the u.s. government to consult with us in advance in case the u.s. decides to decommission the nuclear-tipped tomahawk missiles, and the u.s. did decommission them later on. and third, we asked the u.s. government to reveal or provide more information to us on nuclear war plans and the nuclear posture that the united states maintains. those are three. this is new.

it is amazing how long we have been talking about a nuclear umbrella and nuclear deterrence without seriously discussing the content of the nuclear umbrella. but we have started doing so. but there was a kind of -- we have been backtracking since then. what i said happened under the l.d.p. rule, and when the d.p.j. administration came into office, they started to talk more about a world free of nuclear weapons. that is fine, and this is consistent with u.s. nuclear policy. but the talk about nuclear deterrence subsided a little bit, and we would like to see it come back again.

the second one, vis-a-vis north korea, we talk about deterrence. when we talk about extended nuclear deterrence, we are talking about deterrence by punishment. deterrence by punishment doesn't really work. when they use nuclear weapons against us, it would not be rational situations. it would be desperate. they would attack us with nukes in a dying cause. it would be a suicidal attack. in that case, deterrence by punishment would not work very well. so what we do is try to bolster beterns by denial -- deterrence by denial capability. we have tried to introduce missile defense systems and

civil protection, which is actually civil defense. thirdly, when we talk about deterrence vis-a-vis china, certainly we talk to the american partners to bolster all kind of comprehensive did he terpt capability. in addition to that, in the last year the government of japan revised what is called the national defense program guidelines, which is a kind of basic policy in japan. we started talking about dynamic defense. people get puzzled. what do you mean by that? it means actually we kind of came into focus more in peace time, a strategic type of war with china. we are not talking about fighting wars with china, but we are engaged in this coercive

tug of war with china over the islands -- not taiwan. [laughter] hopefully. and over the natural resources departmented in the east china sea. when we talk about defense, we are talking about increasing a kind of level presence of our armed forces and japan coast guard vessels in the area in order to kind of check the chinese naval activities and other maritime activities. the second point, how do the

kind of ideas get translated into a strategy? in case of the yoshida doctrine, when prime minister yoshida decided to form this strong alliance relationship with the u.s., it was in the 1950's. at that time, the doctrine was not regarded as a doctrine. the concept was doctrinized in the 1960's and 1970's by scholars, like the president of one of our universities, and another professor at kyoto university. they doctrinized the yoshida doctrine. they started to distinguish what the prime minister said

and what the two professors said about the doctrine. actually, yoshida himself did not talk about writing strategy. he made the strategic choice back in the 1950's because that was the only viable and promising option. but in the 1960's and 1970's, the professors -- actually, yoshida said in his book that japan would have to become more normal. he didn't use the word, but the future, but the two professors made a different tack on it and

spin-doctored what yoshida actually thought. they talked about the continuity between l.d.p. and d.p.j., and i agree with sheila. the d.p.j. government decided to return this fishing vex. the japanese government decided to back off. it was criticized for being velocity on china. but what the prime minister did in 2004 was he returned the chinese who landed on the island. they just returned them right away. he got criticized for being soft on china back then.

the distinction that we have to make back then between the two was the relationship with the united states. thank you. >> thank you, and my apologies about that. i guess we now have about five or seven minutes for question and discussion. as i was talking about with henry earlier, one of the good things about working at the department of defense now, nobody expects me to be polite, so i can be brutal in my cleaning up of ferings. we can take three questions and ask people to get quickly to the questions and turn them over to our panelists for their thoughts and response. start officer here. >> thank you very much.

my question is this. if you improve the stance -- is there any possibility of a bipartisan cooperation on this issue between the l.d.p. and d.p.j.? >> a second question? back of the room over there? >> daniel walledfield, graduate stuent. how prepared is japan for increased cooperation with its regional neighbors? particularly with south korea?

>> and a final question to add to the stack? also at the back. >> we just heard an inadvertent reference to taiwan. there was a recent public statement by the japanese government that did not mention taiwan, and that was with regard to the countries that provided humanitarian assistance after the disasters. it turns out taiwan has provided more than any other country, and yet there was no thank you to that government. >> so if we can take the questions in order. dick if you want to address the d.p.j. one first? >> it's a great question because it is something that we spent a lot of time trying to figure out. the best we could do is what i am going to do now, which is to acknowledge that the d.p.j. is all over the map. the d.p.j. is a mahut, just to

be clear. it's a mut. it has a lot of pro general torres. in it sit folks who are military hedgers and balancers. there are those who are economic hedgers, who were the advisors to the first d.p.j. prime minister. they are the bandwagonners with china. he brought 300 of his closest friends with him to beijing. at the same time the prime minister was announces from an american perspective that the japanese would renege on an agreement. there are folks in that quadrant as well. i think that the current administration has my greated toward the northeast here, and so you have dual hedgers in

place, and that makes them not completely distinct from the l.d.p. as we last saw it in power. but that is a great question. the second part of your question the prospects for cooperation -- cooperation with whom? >> that is a different question. i will stay away from it. >> i would say that the prime minister didn't mean to be in the northwestern region, but he kind of stumbled into the nrt western region by picking up on this. he didn't mean to, but he went -- did when he went into this bandwagonning area. under kahn, d.p.j. moved to the east. on the second question, i would

say yes, cooperation with south korea is certainly important. we are talking about maturing the alliance. as i said, i talked about national defense program guidelines which we revised last year, in which we actually talked about a growing partnership or a developing partnership with several countries, key countries. south korea, australia, southeast asian countries and india. why? because these are the countries with which we tend to share values and strategic orientations and those -- also in that document we talked about changing american things

doctor position. i forget. but there was a mention about changing american position in the world. we didn't say declining u.s. position, but changing u.s. position. >> changing deterrent power.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> a couple of quick comments. afghanistan has been -- during the cold war it had received american and soviet assistance. the burden is on us to do two things. the first one is to get others to help share the burden, whether it is neighbors, and one has to be careful of the zero sum game between the indians and pakistani. how can it neighbors and the british share some of these costs. the second is to put afghanistan on at least a road where it can

increase its revenue basis. if one looks at the lithium- copper-iron mines that are completely or largely untapped, except for the chinese, there are ways that one can begin to increase the government's ability to cover those costs >> t. >> for most of the 20th century, afghanistan was stable and at peace. during that time, it was a ward of the international system. at no point in the 20th century, was afghanistan able to operate under its own revenue. the majority was coming from foreign assistance which did not make afghanistan a source of instability for the region. to call them a supplicant is accurate in some senses, but it implies that the afghans will find it unacceptable. there is a historical record to

suggest afghanistan is able to operate with substantial levels of foreign assistance and not fighting this to be a violation of their sovereignty. >> can i ask one more quick question? i guess the difference, and maybe historically i do not remember correctly, have they ever had this lonarge of trained central military? in other words, the money that needs to go to them for years will have to go to them. if it does not, the armed troops will do something with the arms if they are not getting paid. it seems the dynamic will be very different this time if we ever get to good enough. >> it is important to distinguish between the wartime national security requirements of a state and peacetime national security requirements. afghanistan is waging a war for which one would reasonably expect a level of mobilized military effort would be greater than would be the case if this brings about a satisfactory resolution of the conflict.

part of the planning process for building of the ansf should be some thought to how we are going to demobilize its if and when we reach a printer were through negotiated settlement or three simple decay of military capability, we get to the point where it is no longer necessary. if we are building a system that cannot be built down, it will be destabilizing within the state that will never be able to afford a military establishment. normally, one expects a process of demobilization. when one thinks about the revenue stream required for afghan security forces, one need to differentiate between the waging of war and what will be required in a steady state once that is over. >> thank you very much. senator udall. >> senator kerry, thank you for holding this hearing.

i think it is very important. one of the things we aren't getting to and senator kerry asked that overall question -- how we make the transition? and we used to talk about this summer. this is the issue of a flexible transition deadline. and president obama in the national security order talked about july 11, of being in a date for an accelerated transition. and she really emphasized that accelerated transition. and somehow now we have gotten ourselves to the position where we are not talking anymore about an accelerated transition to an afghan-led operation in july, 2011. we have now moved to 2014. i'm trying to figure out how that all happened. it appears that all three of you

agree we should be doing that. and the reason is the mission that i think that has been pinned down to defeat, destruct, dismantle al qaeda in the afghan pak region. what i cannot understand is if we have as our -- which the president laid out -- accelerated transition deadline and move in that direction, what is it that as happened that keeps moving it down the road? is that the failure of the afghans to step up to the plate? is that the corruption? is it the inadequate partnership? what is going on here that has caused that? and i think that is the big question back in my state and in other -- the other question that comes up with people. why do we keep moving is down

the road? >> i can give you the historical answer to that, senator. last november in lisbon, and portugal, the nato countries involved in the campaign got together for a summit in which they reviewed progress and made the decision as a group to put a peg in for 2014 for complete transition. whatfer ti refer to dr. biddle- i would characterize as a war termination window. we are getting to the point by this summer where we need to begin that glidepath to full afghan control. the administration and nato have always said it will be conditions based on how things a pan out on the ground. i think you are starting to see a process that is happening in afghanistan already.

provinces and districts and towns centers are starting to transition to afghan national security force control. kabul province and kabul city is already fully under afghan security force control. isaf has identified a ring of provinces around kabul to the next for transition. and we are also seeing significant centers, the capital of helmand, being prepared for transition to the afghans. there will be transition activity this year. i would caution members of the committee into thinking -- against thinking we can immediately pull those troops out of country. once troops have left afghanistan, it is almost impossible to get them back in. but transition is much like the children's game jingo. you have a stack of blocks and pull them out.

it is an experiment. as you go ahead with the drawdown of forces, the security environment changes at the district level. i think we're going to see transition activity beginning this year. we are already seen significant progress in security in the last 18 months. whether and how that translates into a drawdown of troops i think is a different matter, but we should certainly see some drawdown this year. and a very strong progress towards the door down by 2014. >> dr. kilcullen, doesn't it worry you at all -- you talk about nato, but it looks like the major nato forces are coming out much sooner than 2014. the british and the polish. aren't there deadlines this year or next year? >> the british the deadline is april, 2015, the next british election. the british will be there, australians have said they will be there. >> all the way to 2014?

>> absolutely. the canadians have pulled out. the polish? i am not aware of a specific deadline. other members of the panel maybe. it is a matter of significant military progress not matched by the political reconciliation progress that will be needed to get to a sustainable state. this is not about military success. it is about sustainability of progress after military forces begin to come out. >> it is a combination of nation-building and the kind of effort we are talking about that i think dr. jones talked about the particular area up on the border where al qaeda is partnering with tribes in those regions. i mean, are we putting in the resources we need to put into that area? it sounds like you are saying this is the area where all of

these folks are at. why aren't all our resources focused on that area, and the afghan troops? we having that be our primary focus, if this is what our mission is is to defeat al qaeda and the people partnered with them? >> i think our forces are primarily focusing on to the real areas. one is regional command east, where these areas are. second is the the taliban's command and control in regional command south. in that sense, our priorities are roughly accurate. what i would also note, and you referred to nation-building -- this goes back to a comment we had earlier. i would strongly, strongly suggests that both historically and presently the answer is not only essential government in afghanistan. in my view, that is an a- historical, westernized approach

to afghanistan. some of the more successful areas, ones that do not get media attention. one a province has transferred from afghan to allied control. these are pashtuns with special forces. they have rebelled against the taliban. that is part of the transition. in that case, it is not essential government presence through all of that province or get kandhar. it is a local presence as well. that is what we missed for nine years from our strategy in afghanistan, that general petraeus has more recently added. >> is it not true that the central government does not like that trend? they see that as a threat. >> i would say, it was president karzai that supported the creation of this program in the

summer, 2010. >> but having militias and locally our operations, i think, he is very which washy all that. -- wishy washing onth at. that. >> my concern has been that if these forces are operating against the government, that is a significant concern. that was not the case in any of the areas i have talked about, village level, a small, tribal, community level courses. these are not militias. >> sorry i have run over some much. i know dr. biddle wants to say something. >> it is fair to say that the karzai government has not been as enthusiastic about decentralization as we have been. which brings us back to the printer that dr. kilcullen

mentioned which is the relative priority we place on the security effort as opposed to the governance reform effort. i think the political strategy in the theater and the approach that we are going to take to induce a karzai government that is less enthusiastic about decentralization to move in the direction we would like is a tremendous, and that priority right now. for understandable reasons, the theater command has tended to believe it needs to show early progress in security and that is a requirement, but i think if what we do is to prioritize security at the point where we kick the can down the road on the eventual requirement to deal with governance issues, we run the risk of undermining the security improvements that we are buying at such great cost today. in terms of -- to the extent that we need to change priorities in the conduct of the campaign, a change i would like to see is an increased emphasis

and and earlier. placed on doing the things we have to do in order to fill in the missing implementation guidance on how we improve governance. in due defense of the administration on the 240 -- 2014 date, one way of thinking about is that the deadline has moved from 2011 to 2014. but to be fair, this represents a greater degree of specificity lacking on the what the end state is supposed to be. the original announcement of what was going to happen in july, 2011, was the beginning of something. very vague of what the end of something much like. no indication that the west produce speech of whether what began in 2011 would end by 2014 or 2015. -- no indication at the west poitnt speech.

the administration is painting a slightly more detailed picture of what happens later. i think that a more detailed picture is needed, for political and strategic reasons. >> thank you, senator. >> i want to check on some history here. is it accurate that during the beginning ofnitaial the war under george bush that mullah omar offered up osama bin laden, provided he was transferred to a third arab country? >> my understanding is that the cia chief of station said down for talks along the border and offered that alternative and that was rejected by the taliban. >> when the bombing started, was there not an offer it at that time to give him up? >> i am not aware of such an offer by mullah omar.

by the taliban. >> what i am getting at is that some regions -- people in the region have suggested that the taliban have been chastened by the dislocation and loss of power and loss of personnel that has taken place. and there are arguments made by some that the taliban would not re-welcome al qaeda because they are more interested in their own political power and the possibilities within afghanistan itself. can you comment on that? >> i would like to offer some data. one historical point. the taliban surrendered after the fall of candy bar in 2001 -- kandahhar in 2001. 20 al qaeda signed a letter that

was delivered to president karzai by several mullash. hs. mullar omar moved into pakistan but the majority of the leader har group tkandha tried to live in peace for a period after 2001. what happened after that was what i would characterize as a failed peace making activity, where we continue our focus on al qaeda, now in pakistan, and a number of actor in the afghan environment, a former mujahedin, went after the taliban to settle scores.

after a two-year period, most of the people that signed that document fled into pakistan into gradually reformed their organization. that organization was formed six months after the invasion of iraq. there is an afghan history that is more recent than the 19th century about why these guys are fighting. >> that is exactly what i am trying to get at. >> it has to do with the perception of justice. >> lack of justice. justice is the framework of what drove the original talib, is it not? >> the taliban initially was an armed vigilante movement. the afghan border police -- who currently runs operations in southern kandahar, his father was a famously abusive warlord. he was the first warlord to be executed by the taliban.

they hang them from the barrel of a tank. and that indicates some of the problem right now and that the people that are working with us most effectively on the ground are in some cases long standing enemies of the taliban precisely because they abuse the population and the taliban attacked them in the early 1990's. i've had the opportunity over the last seven years to speak with a large number of afghans in the field, including some closely aligned with the opposition. what you tend to get from them is a statement to the effect that we do not like the pakistan needs, we do not like living in pakistan, we do not like al qaeda. worse than we ever did was to bring these arabs into our midst. and they will say, we are willing to swear off allegiant noto al qaeda and promise

to be a threat to any other country, we are willing to consider all kinds of reforms to afghan governments, but we need foreign troops to leave the country. you have got to put a huge grain of salt on comments like that from people within an organization that is very diverse and disorganized in a way that upper taliban is, but he did a similar kind of thing from lots of people who say, we recognize we screwed up in bringing al qaeda into afghanistan. we have learned our lesson. can we come back now and be part of a future solution? >> so just playing devil's advocate. why, from our perspective, when you look at our interests, our interests are to prevent this from being attacked again. obviously to adopt what he said -- disrupt, dismantle, destroy al qaeda and have a sufficient level of stability. but stability will not come until you have some capacity for

this justice. and for different groups to be adequately represented in the power structure. >> i think that is a good way to characterize it. another way is exclusive versus inclusive security. if you exclude groups from the security process, then they will attack the security process. if you try to make inclusive, that is a much more complicated, longer-term process, but it has a higher chance of success. >> why then is our current president structured as it is, in support of karzai and the central government entities other entities, but not politically adept enough or willing to be inclusive with respect to these other efforts? why is that not doomed? why is that not plunking down all lot of money, a long period of time because we are backing a set of people within in

internal, civil conflict where our interests could in fact be satisfied differently? >> i wanted to defer to doctor jones. the points you are making are very important. there is the village stability operations, which is the political component above village level and district level stability. i think u.s. forces in afghanistan have for a long time been pursuing an inclusive security model, trying to get the majority of actors at the village and district level involved in local level peace deals involving security commitment on all sides to create a resilient structure that resists the taliban. the problem we have is in connecting that to our afghan government partners, who have the different interests. that is part of the problem. >> to what degree -- maybe you

want to comment on that, also . to what degree could iranian interests, which are not lined up with of taliban and also do not appreciate the drug trafficking, and to what degree could russian and or/ some of the stans be brought to the table here? >> i would add china to that mix. they have geopolitical interests in pakistan. >> how do you see them being able to play that role? what could be strategically being a framework that brings people together? >> on the iranian front, they have been helpful in some ways in providing a range of development assistance in the west and in parts of the center of afghanistan. they have a vested interest over the long run and they have shown this historically of developing a range of the and pushing

strongly for the prevention of a taliban-governed afghanistan. the iranians have a helpful role to play. i would caution that the problems that we are going to have in trying to bring everybody together are their interests diverged somewhat. if one looks at the russian, the primary russian support networks tend to be the uzbek communities in the north. not with those in the south, which are with pakistan. reconciliation discussions may be supported by pakistan but generally are not going to be supported by the russians and their tajik and uzbek support networks. in that sense, there will be clear friction points in trying to bring regional countries together. >> senator lugar? >> this may be naive follow-up,

but in the past, we have talked about warlords. and we talked about various area in which they were the leaders. and continued governance in this country with a recognition of the difference between pashtuns and recognition of people in the north and so forth. hypothetically, is a stable afghanistan one in which we return to local government of sorts? with the warlords who are more akin to the countries north of afghanistan or to iran or to the pashtuns in pakistan and in control of specific parts of the country. this was the case for afghanistan for a long time. as all of you pointed out,

afghanistan was never very self sustaining interest of economic or political support. it always was buttressed by these alliances. president karzai and central government and the idea there would be national elections, a national parliament, akin to our traditions. is the former situation one that is ultimately more promising in terms of this political stability we are talking about today? >> i think when afghanistan has been stable is because there was a equilibrium relationship between the periphery and the center. they are paid a said of deals such that each side had a realm of autonomies. the problem we are in now is we have a substantial dis equilibrium in which the

periphery is preying upon areas in ways that give the taliban access to population areas. some degree of a reestablishment of stable equilibrium is necessary. the original 2011 plan recast that in favor of the center. that has proven to be unstable. to recast in the direction of the periphery is where we are going by default, and it is not, working either. what we need to find is something between the radical empowerment of local power brokers that we have fallen into by accident since 2001 and the insistence of centralization that we adopted in 2001. i think there are a variety of ways to think about recasting those bargains in ways that would make them sustainable. part of making them sustainable is going to be resorts' input from outside the system, which probably means from a loss. for the center -- forrom us.

the center will have to have sticks at their disposal and also have carrots at their disposal. their ability to raise revenues sufficient to make the ^ sweep or the sticks harsh is limited. if what we are going to aim for is a reestablishment of a plausible balance between the center and periphery in afghanistan, we or others in the international system are going to have to empower the center in such a way that they can offer a mix of sticks and carrots that can read establish the kind of bargains that existed before. >> what you are describing is the situation that is considerable, continued economic support. with the budget of the united states to buttress all of this. he said that the revenue will not be forthcoming bear. and so, as we discussed this

situations with our constituents in congress, we are talking about an extreme of expenditures well beyond 2014. and this is not often discussed very publicly, except in this committee when we bring it up, because it is awesome politically, given the arguments we are having with regard to our current budget. in any event, it is important to try to get some fix on what is likely to bring about this stability we are talking about. you have also raised the question which is not necessarily frightening, but president karzai's term of office comes to an end in 2014. we do not know, as we discussed pakistan and the impact there, when terms of office come to an end or how power is sorted out there. even as we are talking about the

stability from our standpoint today, there is potentially unstable political framework in terms of who runs this country and their interaction with each other to say the least. this is beyond our ability to this here in committee, but is an important factor to consider, because we can be talking about this flow of budget and so forth going on and on but we do not know with whom. we already have real problems in terms of delivery from the karzai government, leaving aside all the problems of the kerry lugar berman business in pakistan, which are so difficult we spent only $179 million out of $1.5 billion on four projects in due to lack of confidence in anybody

administering or disagreeing with what we should be spending it for. i would raise this as background for a dilemma. we finally get back to the thought that we are involved in all of this because we do not what people plotting attacks on united states of america, afghanistan, pakistan or surrounding territories, so the basic question is still how is the best route to prevent this, how much involvement, how much expense for how long? dr. jones? if i could come back to the justice issue. one unfortunate reality for much of the last 10 years even on the justice front is the choice we gave -- i sat in villages giving afghans these choice between central government justice and the court system that was nonexistent and a taliban shadow court.

the village stability operation portfolio that president karzai signed and general petraeus has been a major supporter of -- the choice now is what afghans have been doing for generations, and that is supporting justice through shurahs. there is an answer. this is the component that was mentioned earlier. the 50 years of stability between 1929-1978, that was a key part of it. even only on the dollar sign. the average cost for afghan national security forces is $32 million. for local police, it is $6,000 per year. we are talking about fairly small amounts of money. 10,000 afghan local police, $60 million. and we are seeing major progress

in the south on this issue. the u.s. government assessments indicate this. so i would say some of the progress we have had in the south is actually coming with a very small expense. >> by way of brief amplification, with respect to the cost of what would be required to keep afghanistan stable in the long run, it is important distinguish between wartime and peacetime costs. if we look back to what afghanistan and absorbed from the international system during a period of stability in the mid-20s century, they were receiving something in the order of $200 million from all sources. relative to what we are now spending to wage this war, it is extraordinarily cheap. even if you raise that, to account for the needs of wartime reconstruction or a different afghanistan or other requirements by a factor of 10, it would still be at a small fraction of what we spend today. the investment required of us

to sustained in afghanistan in the long term relative to what we are spending now to create an uncertain outcome militarily, i think it would be a modest investment if we decide that we are unwilling to make that commitment, that we are unwilling to make that investment in the long term stability of the country, we will with high probability get an opportunity to run the social science experiment and see what happens if afghanistan collapses. >> i.t. what for tremendous -- i thank you for a tremendous testimony. >> everybody would opt for that expense if we knew we could get there. the question is -- do we have the political framework to get their tare? >> i apologize for having missed most of the hearing. i had to preside, so hopefully i will not repeat some of the questions that have been raised.

and i think this follows the line of discussion that you were having with senator lugar. as we look at what it will take to sustain the afghan security forces at current levels, obviously, we are on an unsustainable course, given the target level it would require about $10 billion per year. the afghan government takes in about $100 billion in revenue. there is a disconnect there. i guess i want to start with a couple of questions. first of all, we heard both in this committee and in our services that there is consideration of increasing the target number of afghan security forces from 305,000 to 378,000. my first question is, do we need

to do that? and is that a realistic number? and then what are the prospects given what he said dr. jones in terms of funding, that level of security forces of the u.s. footing the bill, if that is what we do it? and obviously that is a concern i would have . so i don't know who would like to address that first. dr. kilcullen? >> yes, senator. i think we have covered this to some extent. just to rehash, do we need to do it? yes. because if we lose the war, that all of the money we have spent so far would be to not. aught. can we afford it? that is the purpose of focusing on the drawdown right now. 80 percent of the costs of the

war is the cost of u.s. combat involvement. another 10% is ansf development and -- involvement and 10% is civilian assistance. the devil in the detail is the issue of demobilization. if you expand the afghan security forces to 378,000 and order to win the combat phase, what are you doing with all those armed guys afterwards? what is the plan to put them into productive labor rather than having them on the street with weapons? that has been the achilles' heel of most foreign security assistance programs of this type. it is something the people in afghanistan are well aware of. but it is something that we are willing to engage with as a priority problem as we get closer to 2014. >> so you then agree with the

assessment that we need to increase the afghan security forces to about 375,000? is that something get everybody else on the panel agrees with? >> yes, i do, with two cats. one is assuming that it triggers an american the drawdown in the number of forces. the afghan national security forces are coming up as u.s. numbers are going down. second, the additional part of that number was up to 30,000 afghan local police. so this is both a top-down national-security force and a bottom up local police. >> i think it is appropriate and economically efficient to increase after a national security forces given their cost advantages over hours, subject to provisos. one being to amplify upon point -- demobilization need to be planned for during mobilization. postponing that is a consideration is dangerous.

credit, they are doing literacy training that is designed to enable an eventual reabsorption of this forced into a productive economy as it builds down. but more generally, at a fair criticism can be made that we are not devoting enough attention to systematically thinking about the bill down process to avoid having this institution become a source of instability once the war turns less violent. the other proviso is that there is a strong tendency in the united states and in theater to see the problem of building in indigenous military force in afghanistan in quantitative terms. do we have enough police or soldiers or trainers or rangers? when you look at the history of military performance of developing world armies, i would submit that very rarely does failure occur when it occurs because they did not have enough training courses or enough rifle

ranges or advisers. when developing world militaries of failed, it is typically because the officer corps becomes politicized and corrupted, because the society with which they are embedded is politicized and corrupted. and military's tend to be products of the society that produces them. a corrupt officer corps can not command effective combat behavior from its troops. i think in general, it would be to our advantage to pay more attention it to the problem of the politics of afghan security force development rather than simply the numerical issues of do we have the training regime filled with the necessary number of trainers? and to develop the necessary number of intelligence in theater to understand the question of the political orientation of the officer corps that we are creating. and understand whether or not we

are headed towards the development of an institution that is as professional and political disinterested as we hope, or whether we are headed towards an institution that looks more like a history of other organizations and other places in time. >> let me change subjects. before my time is up, because last week, during our hearings, a few of the witnesses suggested that bin laden's death would give some opportunity for more negotiations with taliban members in afghanistan, to renounce al qaeda. do you agree with that assessment? and is there any evidence at this point to indicate how they might be reacting? the dr. kilcullen? >> we saw some immediate commentary by taliban about the killing of osama bin laden. it is interesting to look at that commentary and see how different in different groups. tell a bad rep

said this willand create a circuit breaker and the opportunity for people that wanted to negotiate a felt like they could not abandon al qaeda well bin laden was alive, to see that as an opportunity to move on. some junior commanders in southeastern afghanistan at the field level called in and said, these guys are arabs. we are afghans. we have a different jihad. we respected osama bin laden, but it does not make any difference. we will keep fighting. there is an element in which the younger generation of fighters in afghanistan have a different attitude than the leadership group back in pakistan. and then the third thing that happened was, the f ormer taliban foreign minister said this will increase our desire to fight.

there are different ponitints of view. what we are going to see is the acceleration of the various processes that have started. the power of the centre group will be diluted somewhat as we get into an internal paower struggle. dr. jones refer to some. i would add the head of the military committee. it's not always appreciated quite how divisive the figure al jawahari is. it is quite possible that they will turn inward and spend time organizing themselves. but i think we should recognize that a lot of people that support the taliban in pakistan do so for economic reasons. these are business deals. there are a lot of other things

that go into the mix other than simply pashtun honor and politics. >> thank you. >> very briefly, i think what one issue is -- this is partly in intelligence question, so i will -- what does our intelligence say about that relationship? the more concerning element is when we say taliban that includes a range of different militant groups. the strongest ties have often bent recently in north waziristan. elements of the insurgent, the afghan insurgents the i suspect will continue to keep a relationship, a senior level relationship with al qaeda despite the death of osama bin laden. i think the onus is now on the taliban itself, its inner shurah. given the chance to break. they have the opportunity. are we given the chance to break ties?

they have an opportunity now. show us. >> thank you. >> unfortunately, i have a 12 noon meeting. senator mccain and some others. i need to leave. senator corker is going to close out the hearing. what i would like to do is i want to leave one question on the table as i believe and i would like an answer for the record with senator corker. and that is, i would like each of you to speak specifically to the political resolution. in the absence of a military solution, i want each of you to give your vision of what is the political solution and how you arrive at it? and i would like to lay that out. again, i appreciate enormously your coming in today. it has been very interesting. scratches the surface and a number of areas only. what i would like to do is ask you if you'd be willing to come

back sometime just in a discussion with members of that might like to take part in, that we could have a more rapid fire back and forth and to dig into some of this stuff in a non- hearing atmosphere. so if he would would be willing to do that, it would be very helpful. thank you for doing that. if you would answer that question for the record, your vision of the political solomon, that would be very helpful. thank you. -- your vision of the political settlement. thank you. >> nobody seems to want to go first. i will throw myself on that particular grenade. i think we should look at the coming constitutional crisis in 2014 as an opportunity as well as a problem. when president karzai's last term ended, april, 2009, there was a long hiatus before the elections in august and a long period before he finally began

his second term in november. depending on how you define the start and end of his term, h is time comes to an end in april or november, 2014. at some point in 2014, he is gone as president, unless there is based changed to the afghan constitution. it is quite likely that some people associate with the president may be thinking that is a good idea. to the future stability and interests of their part of afghan politics, it makes sense to change the arrangement so that he can remain in office. there are other people in parliament who are deeply opposed to that idea. i think that creates the opportunity for us to revisit some of the aspects of the constitutional makeup of the afghan state that have really contributed to the problems that we have seen. when i say ask, i mean, afghans. we have to set the condition under which afghans can have

that discussion themselves. in 2002, at the time of the bonn agreement, the country was still smoking. it was not the ability to bring together a large enough group of people to represent the range of interest in afghanistan and have a genuine discussion about what is the appropriate way for. the international community imposed a solution, which centralized power in the hands of a person too weak to exercise that power on a sum. to make a series of deals with powerbrokers across the afghan environment. having done that, it is now very difficult for him to make the structure work. i think we should have said the for present karzai given the circumstances -- i think we should have sympathy for president karzai given the circumstances. we should look at the failure to authorize the formation of political parties. there are no political parties. the only thing it represents the large-scale social movement that

generates leadership as an american political party does is the taliban. legitimate political parties do not exist in afghanistan. the other factor is the alliance. it is too easy to talk about a negotiated solution, but if that solution leaves out the number alliance, people in other ethnic groups believe they will be sold down the river as a result of a deal between taliban and the international community, that is a risk of civil war. there is an opportunity to seize that constitutional crisis and turn it into more of a review of the makeup of the afghan state. and i think to the extent we can get afghans to buy into that process rather than imposing from outside, we have a much better chance of creating a sustainable governance structure. >> couple of key points. first, let me say to preface my remarks that i do not think we

can assume the summit will work prepared both the his -- a settlement will work. but the the history and settlements agreed in the 1990's did not succeed. second, and part of that, it indicates at best a 50/50 chance that it ends in sedimentattleme. nonetheless, i believe it is important to push forward on settlement discussions. first, what will be important is to is the third party that is brokering the deal. this is a role that some organizations like the u.s. might be able to play a useful role. possibly brahini who may have some support among both sides.

may be trustworthy. second, and as part of that, pakistan has to be involved in any discussion. based on the amount of assistance and direct and indirect they give to insurgent groups, they have to be upper to the peter i-- a participator as does the u.s. i would support the construction of an overt taliban political wing. this seems to be a necessary component of any deals made in northern ireland in el salvador, an overt political wing whose individuals are identified. they can travel. in that sense that may rethink some of the un and other blacklists with the political element. and then give them a chance. how political settlement could transpire, there are multiple

avenues, but those are key steps that have to be frathough through. the military front should still be pursued. think very carefully about the third party, including the role of other states in the region including pakistan. and then supported a political wing. this is in my view -- would be quite helpful. >> i think there is an import relationship between the political end state and what we can do with respect to negotiations. if we insist on something that looks like the 2001 design, it makes it hard to see what is in it for about taliban. the taliban are not a broad based popular movement in afghanistan. the most they are offered in settlement negotiations is the opportunity perhaps to run for office on an equal basis with any other candidate in a highly centralized national system where they have to compete on a

national basis, their ability to command seats will be very limited and it is hard to see how they would see this as being worth making compromises to accept. i think almost certainly the direction of change with respect to afghan political end states is likely to be in the direction of decentralizing nominal authority and essentializing actual power by 2011. economic, and we have a distinction between a paper blueprint for how the country is supposed to be run, which assigns almost all governing authorities of any consequence to kabul, and the actual distribution of political power in the country which is mostly in the hands of peripheral power brokers and warlords that tie the hands of kabul. the right way forward in terms of thinking about what we can state is as in n. staan end

shifting the nominal powers of government outward by establishing a enforceable limits on the behavior of peripheral authorities such that we can keep them that within the bounds that to not create radical public dissatisfaction with the predatory form of local governments. and i suspect that the key bounds that we need to pay attention to our first of all with respect to our national security interests involved. we have to ensure that local authorities in afghanistan obey the foreign policy of the state. which is designed to prevent them from establishing safe havens for cross border activity by militants, or terrorists. secondly, we have to prevent them from preying on their neighbors. but third and importantly, we need to cap the corruption take by local officials in ways that removes what is currently off an exit--- existential economics athreat directed by local

networks at corrupt officials. the key to doing that is establishing a restraint at the taking of land. in an agrarian society, land and its control represents the ability to feed your family or a threat of starvation. one of the most damaging forms of predatory government's behavior in afghanistan today is the land taking by networks of corrupt officials for the benefit of the network which then drives the victims into the arms of the taliban. i think if we establish a series of what amounts to reach configurations through deals of the relationship between the periphery and the center -- reconsideration street deals of the relationship between the periphery and the center and as long as you avoid activities that will yield enforcement action, including the illegal taking of land, we will allow you a sphere of autonomy to do

what you wish in other demands. but if you violate any of the terms of the agreement, then you can expect enforcement activity from the center. we then need again to provide the resources to the center to enable and enforce the deal. if we arrive at a more practically recast bargain between the periphery and center that opens up opportunities for a reconciliation with elements of the taliban in which they could be offered seats in parliament, positioned as a legitimate political actor within society as a party or individuals, and you could imagine they're at least during the terms for conversation with different taliban factions about under what conditions might they be willing to renounce al qaeda, lay down arms, and commit to the government. with respect to the nature of the conversation which the taliban, i think it is important

that we regard both of their respective political role of the taliban in a reconfigured afghan state and the military presence of foreign powers as negotiable. at the end of the day, a permanent u.s. military presence in afghanistan is primarily an instrument or a means to end of a stable south asia. it seems to me that if we regard it as a means to an end and not as an end of superordinate importance because of the consequences of power projection capability of the u.s. it-based afghanistan, we need to be able to treated as part of the negotiation with the taliban, given the centrality of concerns with long-term foreign military presence in afghanistan and at least the things the taliban have been telling us today. >> i know time is limited. the issue you're talking about

about basically red-lining behavior and it's -- i think all of us who go there are frustrated by the sense it feels like we are fighting the mafia. and our soldiers are fighting criminality mostly on the ground. that is mostly what is happening. but the cultural aspect you are talking about, about the takings of land, is that something that is taliban-bred? or is that something that is part of the afghan culture in general? >> i do not think this is cultural. i think this is largely a response to fairly recent events in afghanistan since 2001, and especially the handing off from the united states today and out of responsibility for the mission in 2003, and afghan perceptions that the u.s.

is heading for the exit. those perceptions lead to an expectation of abandonment and create what political scientists sometimes referred to as a negative shadow of the future in which people who believe, although they prefer to be otherwise, the government is likely to fall and is likely to fall in a relatively short period of time, have powerful disincentives to make positive long-term decisions about how they run their province or about how they run their business. and they create enormous incentives for corruption in the near term to get while the getting is good and provide for a safe exile after a looming collapse that people worry is on the horizon. but that has created powerful incentives for networks of officials to come together in an explicative, predatory way so as to provide for economic gain for themselves and the members of their network while they still have the opportunity. have the opportunity.