weren't enabling, didn't matter what the external community wanted to do or was willing to put money against. >> if you look at those countries, the bottom of human development index and match them with countries we talked about in terms of likelihood of additional conflict or three years, you find a pretty good overlap, particularly when you look at countries like the issue of income inequality has risen, there is again -- one of the most unequal countries in the word--the world of intimate disparity and the failure to do what occurred in southeast asia, the failure to expand opportunity with respect to education, these are underlying strategic conditions that have an impact, not totally but have a significant impact on setting the stage in the future.

>> one of the themes that cuts across all regions and the economic and political threat, grave concerns about unemployment. the population is over 7 billion people, desperation in immigration to europe, better resource nationalism because it will fail to produce employment, i wonder how vulnerable do you think a retreat from global trade alliances, wto, return to resources that it -- nationalism, a wonder how big a concern you might see this unemployment and an ability to deliver jobs to you.

>> my own view is you have a real challenge, a lot of the interest in the emerging markets in the last decade was driven by resources, particularly energy resources under the notion that we were in a world of sharp scarcity in energy resources. in fact, we are entering into a very different world in which scarcity of assumptions are being challenged if not replaced, and if you look at who is vulnerable to that, it is front years and particularly those where resources nationalism continues to have a lot of salience, nigeria, a lot

of these countries are actually going -- following what are likely to be self-defeating strategies, you are even seeing some of that in brazil, brazilians are more likely to cost correct that the end of the day, they understand the world, but there is a lot of vulnerability in the frontier markets, the emerging markets particularly in africa. and to understand if the world is changing in a way that makes contact -- competition for what looks produced a much more salient issue. >> if you look at what are the

factors that relate to the increase in armed groups in many of these countries, no one has effectively dealt with the issue, growing issue of youth unemployment and youth without skills and so you wind up, they are the ones recruited whether it is by the narcotics cartels or the militias in south sudan. if we don't figure out how to help countries deal with that problem and it is not just the question of macroeconomics either but targeted effort in terms of education, skills and in terms of engagement to feel part of the society and so far we have not done a good job helping countries see that as a priority. >> to pick up on your deck about unemployment, many people were very concerned this time last

year about the levels of unemployment in southern europe. in some cases the dog that didn't bark and a lot of people predicted that there would be mass demonstrations on the streets, 1968 all over again and much worse and it was that because of the changing demographic structure in europe to dampen that problem? was it government's support network, family support networks? probably those all played a role. as market implied in other parts of the world where there are not those sort of safety nets, the threat is very real and those countries where the demographic structure or profile is not as favorable as it is in europe that is where the concern lies.

>> one little plan. democracy is an interesting driver because even in moonshiner, what we have seen is that the level of growth needed to keep unemployment at what the chinese view as an acceptable level is coming down because of the combination of one child policy and the beginning of the transition away from rural to urban migration. demographics are highly varied around the world. alan. >> formerly with the department of state, anticipated my question when he mentioned it europe, europe is not part of the global conflict tracker. given its importance to the

united states, is there any development in europe? thinking primarily of southern europe but including france, maybe more in the economic and financial area but with possible spillover effect into the political arena that should be of concern to the united states. >> i think the main issue and it is a huge issue of concern to the united states is that i think europe is increasingly under fiscal pressures and in those fiscal pressures nato linked military issues invariably get short shrift that if you summarize european defense spending you have a big number. if you look at the capabilities that that translates into because of the national orientation of all of the european countries it is a

pretty small set of capabilities and the underpinnings frankly of the nato alliance as an active collaboration are becoming harder and harder to sustain. >> that is exactly right. our concern for the european union and nato as partners in helping to deal with these foreign policy challenges, that is where we see the greatest vulnerability. >> the biggest question about europe is its future role, certainly global security manager provider and even in the immediate region around europe and we have seen less appetite among european public for any kind of activist foreign policy role with the possible exception

of the french in africa but what most european countries are going to make this question what will europe will play in the future in managing many of these disputes. >> fred. >> thanks. the question i want to ask is as good as the school is and it gets better every year, is it adequate as a conflict prevention priority tool? does it flag the things that should be opportunities to prevent some of these things. it is a great fool the shows where things may go in 2014 or could they get worse? it seems to have the orientation that is too much the case in most think tanks which is geographic. we need to understand american

threats as country by country, local dynamics that produce conflicts and horrible consequences. it is not at all clear on this chart whether national interest is just about people killing each other in a mass number the location and importance of country. it turns into a plumbing exercise and loses all the architecture and that is what is going wrong in the world and american foreign policy. and not just the united nations. alliances are more regional and local situations. and one of the problems with the ed snowden thing is it completely exposed this double standard in the united states about the interests of american citizens versus the interests of everybody else in the world. if we lose the impression that we are out there trying to advance an architecture for the world, that is in the interest

of these other people, many of the realizing we are not, talk about soft power deterioration, we lose the influence to affect so many situations because people think we are just in it for our own era national interests. so somehow there needs to be an overlay that reflects the kinds of trends that lead to a tipping points that lead to deterioration that may not be in 2014 in terms of people killing each other in mass numbers but if you don't do certain things like the security sector capability much more effectively addressed, throughout large parts of the world, things continue to slide. i love this discussion. i love this pool. it tells me where things are going to blow in 2014 but doesn't tell me what my opportunities are to make some of them less likely. >> one response?

>> you make some very important points. our exercise does tend to desegregate the various crises and potential conflicts and particularly focused purely on geopolitical contingencies as the main focus and the result of that is you sometimes lose these complex interdependent sees between different contingencies, how one could trigger the other, the contagion effect through the system and it is difficult to captures that because they are inherently unpredictable and even these relatively discreet crises are difficult to define and assess in any rigorous fashion. the large point is definitely correct. the survey should not be seen as a substitute for an assessment of one of the opportunities

these conflicts present in terms of early conflict prevention or mitigation efforts and they don't provide precise guidance or strategies for dealing with many of these conflicts. our other products, preventive action tries to do that, we provide more explicit guidance how to manage these conflicts. they're very valuable expert briefs. we are trying to limit what this exercise can accomplish, we don't want to overload it with too many excursions and get into policy prescription. >> can i make one comment? when is that is the beginning of my discussion, i talked about some of the trends the we see that cut across these individual

conflicts and didn't try to say we should do x, y and z but those of the trends and including the question about youth unemployment you need to be thinking through as to what you do over the next 5 to 10 years in trying to help countries deal with them. the second is a reminder, we also have an interactive map. we produce this crisis watch every month, we have the mack, the distinction is when you go up those countries and will of the reports but it pulls out those actions, recommendations we think need to be taken with respect to those issues. >> can i make one comment as of former policymaker, one of the most interesting observances that i had of this process, the prevention process, we were

asked in the clinton administration, to look at opportunities as well, there was often a real disjuncture between where they appeared analytically to be opportunities to where there was political pressure, a push to engage, the latter tended to talk to the former so you would not necessarily get the greatest engagement in those crises that looked as if they had the most opportunity for effective prevention. so this is a really complicated stuff and it is not all about

what makes sense analytically. the politics of this is very substantial -- substantially driving these outcomes. >> that is why this atrocity prevention board is supposed to recognize that. even though this is not on the headlines it is coming down the road so you need to think about how to deal with that ahead of time but the bigger point is in this, 24 hours a day, those policymakers are dealing with what is on their plate that day and it is hard to come up with additional hours to focus on what may be on their plate three years from now. >> it is a great conflict.

georgetown university, it is agreed conflict, and we thank you all, if i put on my susan rice hat, asking the question, what are your criteria of importance here, and is a possibility we might use force which is implicit in europe in your matrix and more the issue of humanitarian cost, is that the number one criteria or is it a geopolitical impact in the macro global sense? how do we choose? because we have to choose, we need priorities and what is the matrix of how you -- >> i will go back to my starting commons. and that is what america's allies are looking for, how are we going to choose?

and the president's speech this year was all about iran, israel, palestine sent a very troubling message after we had this whole buildup about transition to asia and that is the question that is out there. is there a strategy, does the second obama administration have a strategic viewpoint that is driving the behavior beyond one or two things they are focused on? i give the administration high grades for iran, doing a good job. we will see if it works. beyond that, i think that you

have this whole level of uncertainty even in the middle east where the saudis, other gulf states, the israelis are uncertain what is america's vision about its role in that region, when the vice president went to tokyo a couple weeks ago, he thought he had good meetings, the people who he was meeting with didn't think so, and that is really the backdrop to the prime minister's visit and increasing efforts in asia by asians to work out their own increasing defense architecture as a hedge on what happens if the united states really isn't there for us. that is the question. >> i would say that our concern

is focused on what is likely to produce mass loss of human life. the difference from the past is we are arguing and in the united states we are beginning to accept that the united states in terms of its own national strategic interest has to be concerned about that as well. and failure to deal with that problem of atrocities will result in damage to u.s. national interests over not only the long term, the medium term. you cannot simply ignore rolando or south sudan or central african republic. you have to react and you have to try to prevent those from getting worse and the same with respect to see real where we have yet to find an acceptable answer. >> as you say the principal criteria that we use for ranking the relative priority of different contingencies and u.s.

interests focus and to what extent do these conflicts pose a direct risk to the lives of americans to the risk of u.s. military engagement that might flow from these conflicts to us. those conflicts deserve more priority than the other ones and the hard hearted about the humanitarian, and in terms of relative priority, the ones where the interest of the united states and the livelihood of america are the ones deserving the highest priority. >> time for one final question and you have the opportunity. >> global witness national defense university.

i want to ask about the architecture of conflict and crisis that came out earlier. two or three states, a lot of the power brokers in these locations have an incentive towards predatory behavior and conflict and have the disincentive to building institutions and all those things. aside from military intervention are you seeing a push towards using new tools to d incentivize those conflicts in those fragile state that keep coming up over and over again to change in that year one through teir 3 dynamics. >> you are beginning to figure out a way and at least -- we are

doing more in consulting with regional entities in terms of trying not just to do it ourselves but engage others. to back off in support of am 23 and this is not cost 40. there are consequences. would have urged them to have done that earlier. >> if you are looking at where we have enhanced statecraft and tools, i think we have been much more creative and capable on the tools to influence states and the irony, the irony of these weak state situations is the tools.

we have done enormous creativity on economic tools and that is what brought us the break through on the iran negotiations. the fact is week states our contacts in which the typical pools of statecraft don't work very well because states are so mushy and it has been very hard. i go back to the study 20 years ago, in terms of statecraft, despite the fact that we have given a lot of attention t

i give you one example. compare the reaction of the international community to the crisis ton election what happened last year. there was much better sort of anticipatory action taken by the international community to dampen down the possibility of another kind of spasm of electoral violence in kenya. i think that was encouraging. i think there are also more resources in the greater inclination for rapid mediation when conflicts do arise. areain institutions developing actual dedicated tools and mechanisms for that. regionalhas them, some and some regional groupings also have that, and i think they are much better able to react rapidly in the event of a crisis and they have standby resources

to help out. i think that is encouraging. are we at an adequate state? clearly not, but i think the direction is reasonably positive. >> thank you, paul. i want to remind everybody that find a copy of the eurasia group's topic at eurasiagroup. net. you can find "next year's war" roup.org, and cfr's new conflict global tracker at cfr.org. i would like to ask you to join me in thanking david, mark, and all for an excellent presentation. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> this morning, u.s. chamber of congress president thomas donohue gives us the fate of american business speech. that at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. later, the release of reports on satan health care costs by the university of virginia live at noon eastern also on c-span3. >> if i were to identify the importantmost

challenge, it would be that, the notion that it is just as available to muslims. the reason is here is because of the inclination, which i read somewhere that is not only ahistorical but it is also anti-historical is the demise islamic history and tradition, hundreds of years of diversity. follow from the seventh century in a very limited, short period of time. i think our journey has to be about refusing, being told by clerics who speak for us that islam and its ideals is a seventh century reality. we are americans and muslims who the 21stslam of

century. >> being muslim in america, sunday night at 9:00 on afterwards, part of book tv this weekend on c-span2 and online for this month's book tv book club, we will be discussing mark levin's "liberty amendments." on c-ing up this morning span, "washington journal" is leave with your phone calls and tweets with a button :00 eastern, the health returns for general speech oes. bill to eliminate certain mandatory reports from the transportation secretary. coming up in a 45 minutes, representative are burly -- barbara lee discusses income inequality. then the republican perspective

on the issue with representative luke messer. francine kiefer of the "christian science monitor" on our story but the democrats' plan to highlight income inequality in 2014. [video clip] this administration declares war on poverty in america. today,0 years ago resident lyndon johnson declared a war on poverty in a joint session before congress. of you and ask are we winning the war on poverty in this country? the phone lines --