do with us. it is to get our minds off what is going on here. kind of like the malaysian plane. what can we do about that? what's going to happen here, -- the texansia and take itthe oil away from the eastern southerners realize the oil is not going to be any good in this country because it's polluting the atmosphere and everything and they are going to move up here. that is what they are slowly trying to do. as in ohioan, i'm not going to do it. int: let's go to john richmond, va on our line for republicans. -- the i have a question keystone xlthe keystone xl pipeh

a controversy in this country. you not say that the diversion of that resource to china, japan, korea, etc., wouldn't that solve the problem of keeping the russians and the chinese from getting together too much? >> the short answer there is no. deal isese russian oil further along, because oil is not priced globally. you can fix the price for oil. in fact the russians just tripled their perspective supplies. those are large volumes, it will be about one million barrels per day going into china. the keystone pipeline has gone into a lot of environmental opposition. it has had plenty of opposition going towards british columbia as well. this idea that the alberta tar sands can automatically go to

china does not work quite that way. his oil. oil is a fungible market. china can buy oil, that is not a problem. host: we appreciate you joining us to talk about your story today. that will do it for today's "washington journal." we are taking you live now to the american enterprise institute for a talk entitled calling treason by its name, a conversation with liam fox. we will see you back here tomorrow at 7 a.m. eastern on " washington journal." [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] snowden, a self publicizing narcissist. he did not propose to do anything legal, let's call treason by its name. powerful words.

we are very pleased to have a doctor with us this morning. >> thank you [applause] , it is nice to be back. [applause] fox, the former head of gchq called the snowden leaks the most catastrophic loss to british taligent ever. what is your assessment of the damage that has been done by the leaks? to both our national security and yours. >> it is huge. you can see that on a number of different levels. about 58,000 pieces of very confidential and secret british information was leaked by edward snowden. that is damaging to our security interests in themselves. we can discuss that. it also was to damage america's standing with its allies and damage the american diplomatic process, which is in line with what i described the verdant anti-american and anti-western views that glenn greenwald and

snowden himself, they did not want to live in the world, they said, where everything was under surveillance and everything you said and it was recorded, but is happy to live in an fsb safe house, cozying up to the closest friends of vladimir putin. crawfordorning james said the terrorists and other adversaries are going to school on u.s. intelligence sources and that the insights they are gaining are making our job much heart -- much harder. you talked about how there are specific instances where there is chatter when the terrorists are changing their operating mode talking about avoiding certain things based on the snowden documents. >> yes, we have seen from our own intelligence how groups in south asia and terrorist groups that we don't pose a threat to us have been delighted to be the by edward snowden how

cyber security services went about intercepting to medications. armed with that information they made sure to exploit the ways of talking to one another. i think there are three elements to the disclosures. first of all, there was the extent of nsa surveillance. i think that if that was done within the law and the limitations imposed, that is a legitimate debate in a democratic society. and i think it would be hard to withinhat it is stuck those parameters, but that was not a useful public function. the second element, to go into what you just described, the means and mechanics by which the intelligence services go about their business is extraordinarily irresponsible and damaging. third, going in for the details on the actual names of agents and operatives? that is criminally irresponsible

and, in my view, crime. i think it shows a total disregard for the people who were actually involved on the sharp end. the decent, patriotic people who put their lives on the line for our country, to disclose their names in public. we know that that has done a lot of damage in terms of the threats to them and our ability to deploy freely overseas. there are a whole range of areas. clearly, on that second, if you tell the enemies of your country listening toout their communications, the first thing they will do is find a different way. it is not just terrorist groups. this is a point that has been missed in the american debate. this is also about the ability ourconomic enemies to steal intellectual properties and, in the long term, damage our national prosperity. dealing without pedophile rings, being able to

break them up. the next time you get a bomb going off in the subway or a marathon, when someone's child is abducted by a pedophile ring, you might want to thank those who made it easier for those people to do those things. >> one of the secrets you pointed out was that not all of this has to deal with surveillance and civil liberties implications, and a particularly damaging leak was the revelation broken theave communications systems of the russian presidency during the g 20 summit in london. it was reported by "the washington post" that right before the russian invasion of ukraine we did not have intelligence to indicate something was about to happen. do you see a connection between those things? has edward snowden damaged our ability to figure out what rush is doing in the ukraine? >> let's put it in the general terms.

clear that it very you have been able to get signal intelligence about particular ways in which communications take place, then it is very obvious that if that is compromised, you have to close down those channels and that will limit how much information you get in the future. so, we should not be surprised if we are less able to get an idea of what is going on in the world in terms of the information that we can get to understand or preempt activities elsewhere if we have not closed down as a result of the compromises by snowden. why would anyone be surprised at that? >> mike rogers, the house intelligence committee chairman said that he believes that no one in the intelligence community doubts that edward snowden is now under the influence of russian intelligence. the only question is when he became effectively an agent of

russian intelligence. do you agree with him? what was your assessment? >> i think that that is very hard to say. i would not want to speculate on that, i am not sure it is helpful. but what is clear is to look at his motivations, to say that, as i mentioned earlier, you don't want to live in a world of surveillance where what you say and what you do is scrutinized. the first place you go is china? you regard the chinese embrace as insufficient to your taste, you had to moscow to be close to the fsb. this is a russia that not only invaded georgia, but let's look at it from a journalistic perspective -- a place where journalists are criticized in the press disappear. to have accidents and elevators. where the enemies of vladimir putin have terrible chances of

having a premature accidents. in the united kingdom and seen u.k. citizens murdered by the fsb. he chose to go. rather than living in the united he chooses to make his nest with the fsb. that is again a speculative matter, but what you can at least say is that his choices are very clear. i remind you, those are deeply perverse choices. >> not all the snowden documents have been publicly released yet. we are getting this in trips and drabs. we will talk more about that in a minute. chinese, do you think the chinese and russians basically knew?rything that he

is the damage done? is the counterintelligence much deeper than we realized? carrying snowden was these documents with him. if he was wheeling them around to the guardian and the united kingdom, and they were being transferred -- let's just talk about some of the security. when glenn greenwald's partner, maranda, was arrested, not only was he carrying a memory stick with 56,000 u.k. secret files on it, in his pocket he carried a piece of paper with one of the codes for the encrypted files area that was the level of wereity by which they doing this. not only did i think they had particularly ulterior motives, but it was more like james bond in the way that they were carrying it out, which would be comical if it were not so tragic and dangerous. i think we therefore have to assume that the places he chose

to visit, china and russia, must have access to those particular documents, given that their own security was superior. -- of the instance incidences from "the new york times," where greenwald travel to hong kong, they were walking up and down discussing the contents of these documents so freely that they would disturb in passengers around them. some of the national secrets that we expect governments and its employees to protect 4s. i think we have to assume that a great deal, if not all of this information was completely compromised. that has a lot of implications for the ways in which we carry out our security services, which are ultimately protection of everyone in this room and in our respective countries. >> glenn greenwald was very upset about his partner being assaulted, in his view, by

british security services. he said it was an attack on free speech and the freedom of the press. but he was carrying stolen documents. is there any difference between that and, say, a drug smuggler or diamond smuggler stopped at heathrow? >> it was the smugness, the arrogance of it. this toxic combination of arrogance and incompetence has been one of the hallmarks of all of this. -- youse, greenwald said arrested my partner, therefore i am going to be much more aggressive in my reporting. i know lots of things about the english spy system that i am going to reveal. if you have the audacity to stop my partner at heathrow, i am your to purposely damage national security as a consequence. what sort of world do we live in where that gets a feel it

surprise for public service? >> let's talk about that. my newspaper was just awarded the pulitzer prize for that public service. "the guardian" has shared in that award. "theave requested that guardian" be investigated. can you talk a little bit about whether the award was deserved? >> well, whether it is an award for good journalism, as a politician you might not want to make a judgment on that. ?ut an award for public service for possibly the greatest the trail of our national secrets of all time? that strikes me as quite bizarre. i do think that there is a real danger of a very cozy media back padding itself on the without really understanding the

consequences for the dangers that we face in a very dangerous world. i think there is a dangerous disconnect there. as for the newspaper itself, my that if individuals gave the names of opportunists outside the u.k. jurisdiction, that would be a breach of the 2000 terrorism act in the united kingdom. if that applied to me as an individual, why would it not apply to a newspaper? this is not about the privileged position of journalism, this is about equal application of the law. they are meant to apply to us all equally, not more favorably to some than others. i think that that applies also to newspapers. having spoken to the director of public prosecutions, we need a look at whether the guardian has in fact broken our main terrorist pieces of legislation as a consequence of mewling

58,000 highly secret pieces of british intelligence around, or indeed, more specifically, exporting outside the jurisdiction the names of operatives. that is an ongoing investigation by the metropolitan police. >> you have not received an answer yet? like i do not expect them to do so thickly. it is a serious charge to be made and it is a serious investigation that needs to be carried out. i think it is ongoing and will take its due course, but it is very important that we do so. there are questions here about the relationship between government, civil service, and media. i don't think you can take the view that we don't want the media to be able to portray themselves as the victims of the state. the state's responsibility is, primarily, the security of its citizens. >> when i spoke to friends at the nsa, they told me that their british counterparts are absolutely flummoxed by the response to the leaks here and

to the nsa surveillance activity. that the british surveillance activities have deceived very broad support in the united states. why is that? someoes there seem to be -- so much outrage in some quarters where it seems to be expected and supported where you come from? >> it is quite perplexing. from a conservative u.k. perspective, this debate has been very different on the two sides of the atlantic. in the u.k., the view of the public has sort of been -- well, of course our spies spy. if they are not spying, why are we paying them? that, i think, partly comes from our historical experience and relatively more comfortable concept of what our security services do. and also our experience particularly in relation to northern ireland, where we saw

the real threat on the u.k. man lands and relied a great deal on the security services to protect us. also, i think it is about comfort with oversight. there is a fairly good understanding that we have the prime minister appointment of the cabinet, an unelected cabinet where the foreign secretary has direct oversight and control over gchq and where the home secretary has control over the security service and we have the two external commissioner judges wanted by theprime minister, you have security committee in the house of commons. there is a confidence and understanding of that oversight. in the united states, the debate has been hugely focused on what the nsa does or is capable of doing in terms of civilian interception.

the other two elements, which i described as how the security services go about their business and the means by which they do so, the compromise of that, and its consequences. also, the impact it has on the personnel involved. i just find it strange debate. what have we learned so far? following the snowden revelations? has anyone shown that any of this surveillance activity has been illegal under the oversight that is set out in the united states? that is overseen by congress where permissions of given by presidents whatever political color. the last two administrations were very different. it seems to me that the argument has always been hijacked by -- let's call it a lever terry and element in united states politics where i think

insufficient balance has been given to the debate, watching it from a u.k. perspective, it seems to be rather odd. some of those i would normally have expected to be out there, outraged at the damage to the security of the american people, they seem to have been focused nsa have thee ability to intercept the e-mails of people. debatethe balance of the difficult to understand. >> fascinating. as you point out in your piece, glenn greenwald, the guardian, these people are very openly anti-american, anti-western, yet they seem to have tapped into an opposition on the right in the united states over these things. do you think american conservatives have been duped by this a little bit? i this left wing cabal?

>> i think it is a matter of priorities. it is a legitimate debate. let's face it, in any democracy, the level of surveillance that security services are able to have. and the level of oversight that they have, that is a legitimate debate. i just find it odd that the debate here has been so skewed in one direction without looking our children are being placed under, with pedophile rings knowing how we operate against them. by our entire industrial sector being potentially more open to industrial espionage. the security of our citizens now being more exposed because transnational terrorist organizations, against whom we have put so much effort to combat in recent years, now i know a lot more about how we owe disrupting their activities.

you tell me. why has there been such an imbalance in the debate? >> it is interesting, a lot of the -- the majority of the revolution -- revelations have had nothing to do with civil liberties. one former cia director i spoke , we worked onth the russian leak that we discussed, that we had tapped into the server at a chinese university, one of the backbones of the chinese internet, which severely compromised our ability to collect on china. even "the new york times" revealed that they had used certain technology to tap into al qaeda computers not hooked into the internet. they sought -- they thought that if they step off the grid they would be ok, but we found a way. the times reported that there is no evidence that the technology had been used against al qaeda in the united states. does any

of this have to do with civil liberties? any legitimate reason this should be in the public domain under any circumstances? >> i will probably get thrown out for this one, but just as i think there is a smug, self-congratulatory element inside the media, which lives in a limited double, i think the same applies to beltway politicians who are obsessed with the internal mechanics of politics and with, let's face it, abstract political issues vastdon't reflect the majority of citizens. nor does it interest them. what does matter is the security of those systems, their safety, the safety of the children, the ability to live without interference from foreign agencies and powers that will do them harm. what this is perhaps indicating is a dangerous dislocation between the political and media classes. the rest of the people in the country would much rather listen to a debate about what matters

to them and their safety and their families safety band some abstract political issues, which i think they feel are hugely ephemeral. >> can you talk a little bit about why signal intelligence is so important in the war on terror? our laws are actually much stricter when it comes to revealing these forms of intelligence as opposed to others. in world war ii if you expose a double agent in the nazi high command, that person might be killed, but it would not put the war effort at risk, whereas if we have lost the ultra program, the war would have changed. the signal has always been seen at ahigher level, treated higher level. we have had our intelligence baird to the world, with enormous damage. why is that exposure so much more damaging than the interrogation program or other things that have been exposed in recent years?

>> it is important because of the era in which we live and the environment in which our security services operate. the internet is a wonderful thing. it opens up information to us in a way we have never had before. it opens up information in closed societies. a chance to export values to people who otherwise would never have been able to give it. a tremendous opportunity in the era in which we lived. it has a dark side. the internet allows the enemies of our state to communicate with one another on a plethora of ways that they can do that. it allows them to organize against us, as we have seen in terrorist attacks before. it opens them up to uncensored herbal violence they can teach them new ways of doing us harm. our security services need to be

there. they need to be able to operate in that environment because our populations do here again it would be really nice if we all operated in one information environment and are enemies operated in another, but that is not the case. all the ways in which they transmit information and the ways we are able to intercept it are more vital than ever before. that has been completely blown apart. there are different estimates as to how much of the signal intelligence has been compromised, but we have to operate on the precautionary principle. we think that any elements have been compromised? you have to close them down. that means that a great deal of the time, effort, and risk that individuals put into getting this information is now lost to us. why?

because you have had one altra narcissistic individual who was able to and assisted by a number of others who had deeply anti-western interests to completely compromise us. the debate has not been about the industrial enemies of the country now have access to our intellectual property. whether our children were at risk from international child sex slavery. or whether we are more at risk from al qaeda or other terrorist groups. it has all been his beltway discussion about what the nsa can do in terms of domestic interception of e-mails. i find this very difficult to understand. we need to grasp that this is not a debate about the freedom of the press. this is a debate about our national security, the most fundamental breach of our national security, probably of

all time. it seems that the penny has not dropped for many of those who should be the ones who, on behalf of the people of the country, are being outraged. >> the other day and the press there were satellite photos in the front page of the american papers of russian troop movements outside ukraine. we don't have satellite images of terrorists are pairing to attack us. basically, in order to find out when the terrorists planned to attack, we need them to tell us. there are only three ways to do that. the three eyes. interrogation, infiltration, and interception. interrogation be don't do anymore. that stopped. infiltration is very hard. we are left with, essentially, interception. now that has been incredibly damaged. what is the risk that we face with the damage of another attack happening?

>> much greater. it is impossible to quantify, but we know it is much greater. you and i, everyone in this room , anyone who might follow our proceedings, we are much more at risk, as are their families, because of the snowden revelations. so, when they are all , theatulating greenwald guardian, "the new york times," and whoever else is lauded the pulitzer committee, they might want to think about the real story here. we are all more susceptible to all of the range of threats that i have already mentioned. just find it breathtakingly responsible. >> cnn had a video last night of an open-air ok the meeting in hundreds of these terrorists gathered, the number two leader of al qaeda spoke of

them, rallied them, completely unafraid of drone strikes. in which he said he rallied them to the cause of attacking america again. we keepaeda threat, hearing from the president that al qaeda is on the run, has been decimated, is nearing defeat. that does not seem like a terrorist movement on the edge of defeat, speaking openly like that area tell me what the al qaeda threat is today. >> they will be looking to see whether we are able to disrupt them. or at least we will want them to able toat we are disrupt them. that we are able to hear them. that we are able to intercept them. ultimately they will be looking to see our political reaction to the snowden revelations. so, has the reaction, in our three democracies, been to say that this is outrageous? that this is treason?

that this must be dealt with either full weight of the law? or it has not been a beltway discussion where the media is congratulating itself for being able to tell the public just what a big security risk they have been exposed to. i think they will come to the conclusion that we are self absorbed in a way that puts abstract political ideas ahead of the security of our country. if we don't put the security of our country is our first priority, what message are we sending to the people who want to do us harm? i think that we need to remember somethis is not, as i say, smug, self-congratulatory political bubble that we live in. what we say is listened to by people outside, enemies as well as friends. i think we need to be fully cognizant of the encouragement

that they will now have been given. not only have we told them how we go about listening to them in particular, and how we have gone about disrupting them in the past, we have given them the names of our agents and operatives, putting those people they and at risk, their families much more at risk of direct activity and interception. and we have told them that our political response is to gaze at our naples, rather than be concerned about public security. i think that all of those messages are exactly the wrong messages to send. we should be ashamed of ourselves. >> the editor of the guardian said he testified before the british foreign affairs committee. no names of officials have been leaked by the guardian. >> bazaar from a man who says they have only read 10% of the documents they were given. if you have only read 10% and you are willing to testify to

the committee a thousand comments that no agents names have been given, that seems to me to be an awful contradiction, probably in line with i think the full intellectual case that has been made by the guardian -- "the guardian" on this. as well as the responsibility of dealing with the issue. it is a demonstration of their incompetence. >> snowden, greenwald, they all said that this stuff was encrypted unprotected files, safely hidden away. should we be worried that they are not correct? [laughter] >> is not a question of whether they are encrypted or not. these are classified national documents. you cannot export them outside your jurisdiction without it in treason.

even if you take their at faceus argument value, moran to mule was carrying the password -- maranda the mule was carrying the password in his pocket. incompetence, arrogance, all added to a perverse anti-western ideology. this is a dangerous mixture. why are we not more outraged about this? i am outraged, you aren't outraged, we should all be outraged. >> if only 10% has been published, 90% of it is out there and waiting to be shared with journalists, shared with the world, is there any way to put this genie in the bottle? are these secrets coming out whether we like it or not? a stop to way to put these revelations? >> once it is outside our tourist action, very probably it is with the chinese and the

russians, there is a reason to assume it would be. now we have to accept that there has been phenomenal reduction in our ability to protect ourselves . there has been huge compromise of our security capabilities. we will have to invest in rebuilding them. we will have to look at what, exactly, the portion of our spending we contribute to security. these tremendous dragons that people rail against constitute 0.3% of total government spending and the equivalent of what he spend on the health services of bridge in every six days. or .7% of american total government spending. i think that puts it in perspective, the we will have to look at it again, how much we required to rebuild. atwill have to look again how we ensure it does not happen in the future.

on our protection we depend the competency of government and the integrity of the individuals involved in the system not to dive all jar secrets. i think that we again need to be looking at the government system of contract users and individuals to make sure we are minimizing the risks. you can never eliminate them, but you can minimize the risk of a security breach like this happening again in the future. >> a lot of these leaks have had the effect of tying the hands of our intelligence service. computers that were not log onto the internet, now they know, now they have other means. that ties their hands. the response from the administration and from congress, rather than doing is you say, to rebuild around this, it is to tie the hands of the intelligence services even more, showing americans but we are not listening to their phone calls

and e-mails. we will not collect this data anymore. we won't even require the phone companies to keep it. seems like the response should be to a leak like this that -- let's dramatically put resources our finding ways to affect intelligence capabilities as opposed to the response of spending a lot of time tying the hands of the intelligence community. problem is we have a massive hole in the fence. the first thing is to rebuild the whole and then maybe get a new fence. it costs money, time, and effort. if we were investing more of lives and time on the internet, then the argument might have some legitimacy, but that is

where our enemies are. our enemies are in the security services, where they need to be. some ofhan pandering to the arguments that have been made in the defense of snowden and his acolytes, i think it is incumbent upon our leaders to tell people the sorts of threats that we still face, to be realistic about the fact that since 9/11, the threats have grown, they have not diminished. transnational terrorism is more powerful than it was before. havet is why we needed to the activities of the security services that we do. to point out the oversight we already have in place. that it is governed by law. that no one has been able to that intelligence has behaved illegally or disproportionately within the ledge -- the oversight they were already subjected to.

so, let's try to get this the right way up. room arene in this decent, law-abiding citizens. we hope. who is tracking our movements on the internet more closely? the nsa and gchq or google? >> that is difficult to say. debateed how in the people were going crazy about , but it nsa were doing did not seem to bother them when they went on to expedia and it somehow magically told you the hotels in the last city you were looking at on a different website, or that what you go shopping they are able to say -- we thought you would like this. people don't seem to regard that as an unwarranted intrusion, but when it comes to security services, giving protection to them and their families, they

seem to be outraged by this. am i the only person who finds an odd disconnect in this process? it is all about our sense of proportion and priorities. we depend on security services for our very liberty. what i find deeply perverse about the political debate is it is almost as though there is a charge against our security services that they are the ones who are threat to liberty, democracy, and freedom, when they are the ones who were there by ensuring that the enemies of those things are kept in a box. get this debate in proportion, the right way around. it is seriously damaging not only our internal political priorities, distorting the internal political debate, but it is sending entirely the wrong signals about who we are, what our values are, and what our

intent is to those who would do us harm. >> if there is another 9/11, another london subway bombing, how will this all look in retrospect? >> i think that that is a really serious question. you could take a very politically tempting route to -- well, thank you to the newspapers who have helped mr. snowden. thank you to those who have given awards to those who have helped betray our national secrets. but i think that we need to just stop there. and say, before we get into pointing the finger and the blame culture -- how do we deal with the much more important questions, which are not lyrical ones, but our security ones.

how do we repair the damage to the system that has already been done? how do we prevent such damage from occurring in the future? how do we reorient take our political debate so that it is about the things that matter to the people that we represent? and whose security we are supposed to protect? rather than the cozy internal world of beltway politics and journalism? time for us to get real. >> let's take some questions from the audience. we have one right here. we will bring a microphone to you. >> thank you so much for appearing here today and for the valid points you made. you talked about a hole in the fence. remember, edward snowden before he fled was not a high level employee. his highest level of education was a high school degree. despite that, he had access to

this top classified information. what does that tell you about the security of our intelligence services? >> as i said earlier, that is a very legitimate question about the relationship between governments and the contractors it uses to physically carry out some of the national security thathe way in which they their particular employees. you are right, this was not particularly detailed or specific comedy element picked off the shelf by snowden. this was more like a shoplifter running along the shelf, scooping off as much as he could. however, he did seem to know enough to make sure that what he did pick would do maximum damage to the united states closest allies. not just the united kingdom, but countries like norway and sweden, where the diplomatic relationship would be compromised.

while from what we know so far, and as we say there are tens of thousands of documents we have not yet seen, we know that he meant to do damage, but specifically how able he was in the time, we have to wait and find out, but it does raise questions about how government goes about the practicality of its security relationships. these are legitimate questions. these are questions he should be looking into and which, for the oversight elements in our respective countries, should be the areas of focus. >> thanks, dr. fox. i am a retired cia officer. i served for over three decades overseas, here in senior

positions -- i would not have known a fraction of the data that edward snowden beta but i have seen -- i would not have known that it existed or how to as i said, i have been in this business a long time. what is your view about -- i will know that you touched on it just now, but could you be more precise about how snowden could have been directly linked to this? that inconceivable to me simply by surfing the internet or by using his own personal resources he could have figured out what was most damaging to our security services and the western security services. >> well, there will be questions to answer. i think they are now beginning to be asked about his motivations, what may have been his earlier, if any, links to

extra nationalan groupings. let's call them that, for the moment. that is another very legitimate needs to be investigated. i think the first thing to look at is exactly the issue you mentioned, how was this able to happen? how was he able to get access to this information, given the life he operated? are those restrictions sufficiently robust? that is a proper area for oversight elements within the constitutional arrangements of this country to be looking at. i would hope that that is the issue of priority. >> thank you, dr. fox.

i am the chief political correspondent for news mags. it seems as though we are having similar discussions like this, year after year. in october of this year it will be the 59th anniversary that your foreign secretary said that kim fielding was completely cleared and was not a counterintelligence agent. just four years ago we saw mr. becks diaz and greece release the names of 2000 people who had secret accounts and were hiding money to avoid taxes. tot can finally be done actually have strict penalties on people who break the law and not make the kind of mistakes slip through to with this information? is there an answer to this? >> the answer has to be yes.

we cannot continue where we are at these relatively low levels, with employees making such great disclosures about information. we have to look at areas of encryption in terms of the information and the level here that employees have in terms of the ability to access it. how we store data. there are simple firewalls in what we do. all of these issues have to be looked at. there will always be espionage who want toh people damage us, for whatever ideological reasons we have, what we can do is interrupt their ability to do damage. that is the area we need to be thinking about in this information age. otherwise this sort of level of disclosure would not have been able to happen. so, that is an area where we need to be considering.

need, in thewe , wection of the employees need to be a bit more robust in questioning and assessing them. there is no quite stopping it. the business of espionage will always be there unless, face it, we are in the same business ourselves when it comes to protecting our own national interests. what we have to ensure is that we are better at it than those who want to do the damage. >> in the back, here. >> thank you. leandra bernstein. i have a two-part question. first of all, you continue to refer to us and we. would you not agree that the united states intelligence

establishment and the intelligence establishment of great britain are fundamentally ?ifferent particularly regarding the history of the u.s. intelligence establishment versus the much, much longer history of great written's -- great britain's intelligence establishment? secondly, you also referred to the arrogance of the media. well, the way that that -- there is an arrogance to the intelligence community as well, which is also rather in sealer. the message that many americans receive is an impassioned, emotional, we are protecting you , how could you possibly ?riticize us that is the message, without much substance to it, and with a lot of hypocrisy.

for example, in our response to the drug trade, and our response to money laundering and these other issues that the intelligence community, chemical weapons, message -- weapons of mass destruction, issues with which the intelligence community ought to be taking greater responsibility for. >> well, first of all, it is the intelligence community, not the omnipotence community. we cannot expect them to be right about anything -- everything all the time. that would be unreasonable. as the what you describe arrogance of the intelligence community, that is the appropriate place for politicians to be talking about oversight. to be discussing the mechanisms of oversight that already exist inside a free market or a free country like the united states. if they think there is insufficient oversight, then there is a legal redress.

that is a good debate to have. a debate that should be perpetually happening. it comes to what i described as the arrogance of the media, i don't by any means mean the whole media. you know exactly who i am referring to. there are huge elements of the british media who are completely outraged at the snowden allegations and the way in which the guardian -- "the guardian" newspaper in particular was willing to set them out and are angry about how the guardian did not face the full wrath of -- about how "the guardian" did not face the full wrath of the law that an individual citizen would have for that level of disclosure. there is quite immediate debate going on within their. when i say we, i do this instinctively because i believe , and i mean this

in the classical, small l, british liberal sense, the democrats of the world are united by our values. we are the ones at risk from those who hate our freedom, hate our democracy, hate our liberty. at some point we have to grasp there are those out there who hate us not because of what we do, but because of who we are. are, what we have in common. it is that shared history that we need to protect. i am a huge fan of the united states. him him him in the context of american exceptionalism, it

is not that americans are exceptional, but that the constitution allows ordinary people to become exceptional or act exceptionally. that is the repository of the freedoms we enjoy in the western world, which is why it is so important that this debate be focused in the right direction. ancannot afford introspective and inward looking america in a world where the external threat have proliferated. because the threats are not just to you, but to us, to weed together. why we have that is got to have solidarity when it comes to the security debate. >> if maranda had been caught in 63,000 blood diamonds, he would have been arrested. >> especially if his plane ticket had been put -- had been paid for via national newspaper.

different questions might have been asked. very good analogy. >> why was he not arrested? course,s arrested, of under the terrorism act of u.k.. what was the reaction of the press? to say -- isn't that great? our security system has intercepted someone carrying top-secret files that would blow apart security? the reaction from the left of the media was to say that this was an unwarranted intrusion into the freedom of the press. first of all, we were told that maranda was a journalist. then we were told that he wasn't a journalist. that we were told he was the partner of a journalist doing some courier in of information on behalf of a journalist because the editor told him to regard electronic communication is safe.

we are entering into some sort of alice in wonderland political existence when we get into this particular element of the debate. here was someone illegally ofrying 58,000 files security information from one foreign country through heathrow airport to take it to another in my view,reak, are terrorist legislation, giving out the names of operatives to who those who. and we are supposed to be embarrassed the we were angry about it. >> should he have been released inkept in top -- kept custody and prosecuted? >> as a politician is -- it is not my place for me to comment on law enforcement in the united kingdom. but i think i have made myself relatively clear. about what i think should happen.

i think that there is a very serious national issue to be confronted here. what has become the conclusion? that it is ok. we came to this conclusion that in the name of journalism, what if we came to the conclusion that it is perfectly permissible to operate in this way in the future? where does this lead us? where does this leave the ability of our security services to operate? what will be the relationship between the state, citizens, and media in the future? this is a vital debate in which we are now engaged. we need to get it right. say that there to greater intellectual input that we have seen to this point. >> it has been suggested that edward snowden, by some fairly

high-level people in government, that we should consider an amnesty deal for him, where he would turn himself in, hand back the documents. do you think that would be a good idea? would it be counterproductive? >> on the documents? what are we going to do? asked china and russia to give them back and expect them to do so without having copied them? i mean, get real. the damage has been done. this is a man who has betrayed the trust and confidence placed in him by his own government and, by extension, his own people. he has done goodness knows what damage to the security of his country and the allies of his country. he has been willing to be best buddies with some of the most dangerous enemies that the company has. he has made it clear where his sympathies and values live.

and we want to give him an amnesty? please. >> one more question from the audience. >> there you go. >> thank you. dana milbank. to ask both of you to say whether you think "the guardian" and "the washington post" or wrong to publish those initial revelations from edward snowden? >> the press are perfectly at liberty to discuss the extent of surveillance. we have laws in which those who have the initial data can access that data. within the parameters of the law that we have, it is a good debate to have.

what is quite wrong and unforgivable in my view is what i said earlier, to set out the means by which our security services go about their business . even worse, the names of those whose lives are on the line to carry out that work on behalf of casehen you get, as in the of the guardian, the unwillingness to hand back the information, which the government said they have no right to possess, that they are wrong to hold onto, and are incapable of protecting, sufficiently, and making themselves a target for any of those who would lock -- want to the that, who then have information they possessed destroyed on the premises, on the basis of a secure arrangement with the government, and while they're doing so, carrying the same information to

the next jurisdiction by a human abouti really do worry the ethics and integrity of that. problems being able, in any way, as a democrat, to defend that as freedom of the press. published ind ird the washington post saying they should not have published those documents and that it was a violation of the law. the law is very clear. it is not just a matter of an individual, the government .xposing that the publication is a violation of the law. whether it would ever be prosecuted is another question, but i certainly think it is incredibly damaging to do that. tofinally, it boils down those of us in the political sphere. are we willing to defend to our last breath the security of our

people? are we willing to defend democratic institutions, the faith placed in us i our own people, including the oversight, that we have a responsibility to have on our security services, and finally, are we willing to uphold the law at any cost in any inconvenience to the political classes? that is the gauntlet throat and down to us. >> i would add at the end of as dr. fox pointed out, you can make an argument some of the regulations have sparked a valid debate on civil liberties. revealing the fact we have break into a way to al qaeda's computers when they are not connected to the internet, which has no implications for civil liberties, how does that help national security ward vance civil liberties? so many of these have nothing to

do with civil liberties. those, there about is no justification for publishing them in the paper. with that, we are at 11:00. thank you for an interesting discussion. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> president barack obama and vice president joe biden are hitting the road today to announce $600 million in new competitive grants aimed at getting people into jobs. they will announce the training and apprenticeship program at the community college in the western pennsylvanian pro of oakdale. officials say community colleges are among the best sources for job training. congress is on break this week, we are presenting some of the supreme court's notable decisions for this term. this evening, a case to him with free speech and discrimination, justices looked at whether canet service agencies remove protesters from an oregon hotel, where george w. bush was dining, while supporters were allowed to stay. we will have the oral argument at 7:00 eastern today. at 8:00 eastern, chemical attacks in syria, as well as a pop singer leading a protest in

ukraine. they are part of the fifth annual women's summit at the lincoln center. clinton was there. here is a look. >> that we in -- introduced exclusive posterity. for everything i was given as a child. i do not want to see other children denied the opportunity. it is an economic issue. a moral issue. a political issue. i want to get back to evidence-based decision-making. there is too much that has gone on -- [applause] our politics recently that is pure ideology, pure partisanship. the disguise of commercial interests behind a political

façade. we are marching backwards instead of forward. we often reach these points in american history where we try to consolidate or embrace the future, and how we go about doing it. thosek it is one of times. if we are going to beach or to ourselves, we have an election going up this year and we ought to be paying attention. for will set the parameters a lot of what can and should be done. the administration certainly supported imf reform. we think they are in our interest and the world's interest. congress got all wrapped up around misconceptions and political infighting, mostly against the white house. we need a very open, evidence-based, mature

conversation. i am notad to places enthusiastic about. it would not be my choice. part. is an essential for thet deny the right need for compromise. that is what i want to see and i want to see it start not just in the editorial pages where you read about this and try to make the points i think are important. officese's kitchens and and on the field, watching your kids play soccer, we need people to start talking and not be afraid to talk to somebody who disagrees with you. this is one of my biggest problems that i see. talk do not begin to across all the lines that divide us, we will get further and further separate. we cannot afford to do that.

>> you can see the entire women atthe world summit tonight 8:00 eastern, along with hillary clinton and christine lagarde and barbara bush. some of the duke administrators early on were not lawyers and gave the kids bad legal advice, which was, essentially, do not tell your parents, do not get lawyers, corporate with a place and this will basically go away. -- duke thought they had legal exposure because of that. beyond that, there was a desire to make this go away to protect brand.e rand -- once they decide the dukes were innocent come blasting they wanted to do was try to litigate with them about all that what had happened. the easiest course of action was

-- $20 million, have them sign nondisclosure agreements, which explains why they have not spoken to me or anybody, but it is not clear why duke felt the need to pay these kids. people get wrongly convicted all the time. there are places that defend those kinds of people and try to reverse the judgment made. wronglyple is people convicted of murder, spending 18 years in prison, 18 years, and getting $20,000 payments a year. these kids spent, other than their arraignment our, to no time in jail, no time in prison, and got $20 million. --in the "rise of science

"the price of silence" sunday night at 8:00. >> strengthening its military footprint along the eastern border. secretary of general anders fogh said there will be more planes. the nation alliance has already suspended most cooperation and talks with russia. mccain institute recently held a panel discussion analyzing russia under president vladimir putin. speakers include russian and eurasian policy experts. this is one hour and a half. >> i want to thank all of you for coming out on a rainy evening, a chilly evening. we have a mission of advancing

character driven leadership. we want to identify emerging leaders around the world who have strong commitment to character and values and can bring about change in their own societies. the mccain institute is a part of arizona state university. you can find us on the web at mccain institute.org. this is being broadcast on c-span. there we able -- will be an opportunity to be interactive. i want to introduce our moderator for the debate.

she moderated the november 1 forum we held over one year ago. >> thank you. thanks for joining us tonight. what a lively and timely topic we have tonight. who would have thought we would be really in the thick of such a brewing crisis? under president vladimir putin,

russia has clamped down at home and has sought increasing influence abroad. president putin is now encircling eastern ukraine and appears to to be poised to do the same as he did in crimea. no one knows exactly what his ultimate ambitions are. to wreck havoc on his neighbors? to create the glory days of the soviet era with a new russia? russia is an oil and gas driven economy. many in the west acknowledge sanctions will also hurt world markets. we must also keep in mind that the u.s. and its allies need russian cooperation on many key international issues and crises from the civil war in syria to

curbing iran's nuclear ambitions. how do we manage this crisis? how do we deal with president putin? is russia on the wrong side of history? or is he making history and is the time again to contain russia? my debaters tonight know so much about this topic. there are some of the foremost thinkers on russia and ukraine and eastern europe. these will be the containers for the evening. those who feel -- the engagers

-- we need to have a more engaging policy toward russia. thomas graham. andrew weiss is the vice president of the carnegie endowment for international peace. clearly a lot of knowledge here on this stage tonight. each side will have a five minute presentation on their argument. each side will have a three-minute rebuttal. i will ask questions. then we will open it up to you. we will keep to strict time so that they have concise and cogent arguments. hopefully we will be able to get a very engaging and lively

discussion and a lot of food for thought as we deal with this important crisis. anders -- or david, you will kick us off. >> thank you for holding this timely event and inviting me to be part of this panel. i was in kiev last week and had an opportunity to go down and see what is still an unbelievable and moving sight, barricades and barriers still there, tenants still there, people still sleeping there overnight. also, the memorials to the

people who tragically lost their lives, shot down by snipers. it was a reminder to me of what those people were and are fighting for. aspirations to live in a free country, a democratic country, a ukraine that respects human rights and dignity, rule of law, an end to corruption, a western orientation. essentially everything that vladimir putin is opposed to.

he views all of those things as a threat to his own role and his interests. people say the best way we can respond is by helping ukraine. that is true. economically, military assistance. it is hard for ukraine to focus on fixing its own problems when part of its own country has already been annexed by russia. we have to accompany our efforts with a strong pushback. in the face of naked russian aggression, the west cannot sit by and engage in a business as usual kind of approach. we have to give meaning to the word unacceptable. if we say russian actions are unacceptable, what are we going to do as to not accept them? that is why i argue for a tough hard-hitting sanctions policy to pushback on this. the two rounds of sanctions were decent first steps. they happened weeks ago. it is past time in opposing additional, hard-hitting sanctions against putin and his allies.

we have to shift from a policy of reacting to events on the ground. we need to preempt the aggression. we need to continue the implementation of the sanctions. the legislation that was passed in 2012 imposed sanctions for abuse of human rights inside russia -- we have to do both at the same time. the putin regime is a thoroughly corrupt, authoritarian regime that will do anything to stay in power. that is what we are seeing play out in ukraine. this is an extension of domestic politics. putin's paranoia which was

heightened the decade ago he began -- piqued again when he saw hundreds of thousands of people turn out on the streets of ukraine. the crackdown inside ukraine is being played out inside russia as well. the worst crackdown on human rights since the breakdown of the soviet union. we are seeing putin thinking he is winning. this is a dangerous mindset for us to be faced with. ukraine could be moldova very soon. it could be latvia and estonia -- members of the european union.

how we in the west rise to the challenge says as much about us as it does about russia. that is why we need to respond. are we going to place business interest ahead of principles, ahead of what we stand for, against the further engagement or efforts for strategic partnership? what relationship can we expect

with a regime that does not give a dam about the human rights of its own citizens? putin has fabricated the threats to russia and ukraine. it is time to state the truth and let people know what is going on. it is no longer time for wait and see. it is time for action. it is time for solidarity with ukraine, moldova, georgia. putin is the leader in authoritarianism. we need to see containment of his efforts, we need to pushback against what he is trying to do. at the end of the day, this is about a fight for freedom and vladimir putin poses one of the greatest threats to it.

>> andrew will go now and he will talk about how the time is to engage russia as opposed to containing. >> thank you. i think we are all here and our presence is to honor mccain's service and talk about issues because they are very important, as david just laid out. no one in this room will want to

sugarcoat or excuse what russia is doing in ukraine. there is no excuse for the violence. i do not think there is anyone in this room who is not angry and worried. there are fragmentary reports of armed conflict in ukraine. no one wants to see vladimir putin have his vision of more nationalistic foreign policy, where national identity drives the goals of all. we have got a long history in the 20th century, a very bitter history. no one in this room wants to ignore the tremendous push the ukrainian people have made for freedom. i don't think anyone in this room does not want to see russia pay a price for its conduct, in terms of international isolation. the question is, what do you do?

i hope in our discussions we can talk about the options and the policy choices. one of the things people have latched onto is the concept of containment to read if you go back to the early days of the cold war, 1947, president truman faced a difficult situation with the possibility of greece and turkey slipping into the soviet embrace. at that time, he created the truman doctrine and put us on a course to build the institution and security mechanisms that foster the cold war and helps defend western europe against soviet encroachment. that was a very different period in history. for anyone to look at a one-size-fits-all view and to think that that will work today, they need to look at today. our allies are presumably as

weak willed as they were in the 1940's. there are parallels. the world today is very different. we have a globalized economy. russia is a part of the globalized economy. we are not in the same position as we were in the 1940's to dictate the role of russia. russia wants to defeat radical extremism, concerns about china's rise. to assume that our interests are inherently conflicting maybe a bit of an overstatement. there is not two-camp world that is emerging. for me, why did it work? why did it work in the cold war era? why might not at work today? containment worked in the cold war area because there was

deterrence. we had a credible military threat to defend. today, i'm not sure if anyone believes that unless we make a threat to use our military, that we will be able to defend each and every country that russia is causing trouble for. it is a large-scale, open-ended defense commitment we are talking about. containment also requires strong allies and partners around the world. you look at the way other powers are responding. you have to ask yourself, where are the partners for the united states? can our approach succeed if we do it on our own?

i have my doubts. containment works when there are strong domestics inside the united states. the american people were willing to defeat soviet expansionism and great cost -- at great cost. i'm not sure after 13 years of for whether the american people, when they look at the situation that is unfolding in eastern europe today, are willing to make comparable sacrifices. for that, thanks again.

>> anders will offer the rebuttal. each team will have three minutes. >> this is a debate we need to have. first of all, what kind of a power is russia today? you seem to suggest that we don't know what russia wants. it is very clear that russia is a revisionist power. president putin has said and repeated that the end of the soviet union was the greatest

geopolitical catastrophe in the last century. this wonderful article saying that hitler was good until 1939, when he gathered the lands of austria, the sudetenland peacefully. this is the most official newspaper we see in russia today.

what has happened is that putin himself made a grand speech on the importance of a russian speaking people in that it must be brought together. the question is, how can we stop putin? there are two answers. one is that we stop them with war, which inevitably is happening now.

so little has been done to stop them. or we really throw in everything, in terms of sanctions, in order to stop them. can we stop them with sanctions? i am not sure. i would certainly try to do something, rather than talking. let me talk about, how strong is russia? russia is much weaker than the soviet union. if you think of nato's gdp -- 6%. russia's is 3%. its expenditure is less than one tenth of the nato expenditure. russia is weak. is it vulnerable? you bet. if you count out russia from the international system or if you simply sanction the big state banks, russia is done. this will hit russia very hard. the market fluctuations during march -- russia can easily be hit much more. where does the relevant russian technology come from? the united states. how can they develop oil and gas in the future? through cooperation with american companies most importantly, exxon. russia is much more vulnerable than we think. one third of their military equipment is dependent on cooperation with ukraine. president putin is heavily overplaying his hand. only the foolish would not stand up to him. >> thank you. tom will bring us home and then we will open it up. >> we are home already. thank you for moderating this event. it really is an important topic. it has been an important topic for the past 40 years. it is nice to see it is

important once again. i think the important question that we need to ask right up front is, what are we trying to achieve? what do we want for the future? what do we want for ukraine? we are all very passionate about the advancement of democracy in the world. we want to see ukraine have a chance to develop a full-blooded democracy in their own country. they need to develop a national consensus about where the country is going. they need to be able to put together the foundation of a prosperous economy going forward. russia, to a certain extent, at this point, poses a threat to all of those. if you look at where ukraine is located, it is also a country that is going to be important to ukraine possibility to build a prosperous economy going forward.

we know that oil and gas and a great deal of the trade is with russia. how are you going to build a prosperous economy unless russia is part of the solution at some point? how do we get russia to be part of the solution? that is the question we need to focus on right now. the second question we have to ask is, what are we prepared to do? in particular, what sacrifices are we prepared to make in order to achieve this vision for ukraine? my colleagues have argued for tougher sanctions. they have argued that it is

going to be easy because the russian economy is weak, because russia is corrupt. i would argue that the sanctions will only bite there when they bite here. where does this rank in our priorities? what sacrifices are we prepared to make in order to see these goals achieved in ukraine? what our leaders prepared to ask us to do to advance the cause of democracy and freedom in ukraine? finally, we need to take a hard look at the question of ukraine. what is ukraine at this point? the lack of authority, a country that we thought was unified is beginning to break down into its

constituent parts. the debate over what ukraine is is one that ukrainians need to have and they have not had the answer to that yet. what we need to do with russia is to create the space in which the ukrainians can have that debate in a productive way. to do that come in the united states need to combine resistance to what the russians have done up to this point, but to find a way to accommodate their interest, so that the ukrainians will have a more peaceful environment in which to work out their differences. >> i will start with a few questions as moderator's prerogative. we are on twitter. anders, i will start with you. it does seem to be that russia

is still holding a lot of cards. economic sanctions, although fairly weak right now, did not seem to be deterring putin. he has economic cards to play, with ukraine, with oil and gas to europe, with trade. as we kiss he is, he is keeping the west off-balance and the initiative -- as we as he is, he is keeping the west off-balance and the initiative is with him. he is cozying up to the brick countries. he is still a member of the permanent security council. who is holding the cards?

>> it is easy to confuse strength. what i would argue is that the foolishness of putin and the vacuum in the west -- that the west does not act -- when the west acts, it can act. when saddam hussein invaded and annexed kuwait, that was the last annexation and it took half a year before the west woke up, but it woke up. we are seeing russian troops moving into eastern ukraine. this is totally an acceptable. it is meaningless to try to seek a new agreement with putin. ukraine was the main success in the nonproliferation. it signed the budapest agreement. that was a memorandum, not a treaty. the u.s., the u.k., and russia assured ukraine that it would have its security, national integrity. now we know those assurances

were absolutely nothing. if i were iranian, i would say, let us get the nuclear arms as quickly as possible after this important lesson we have learned from ukraine. i think the cossacks are thinking the same thing. >> just a few seconds left. i'm going to start cracking the whip. >> sanctions will only bite there when they bite here.

the iranian economy is about half of the russian economy. is anyone feeling the sanctions in iran? absolutely not. this is not a relevant argument. >> for team andrew and tom -- we will give you another 30 seconds. his president putin doing what he is doing from a position of strength or is the united states and europe right, is he a week regional power? >> can argue that everyone is doing this out of weakness? on all sides. putin does have a problem of how he is going to maintain russia going forward. there are questions about how firmly he sits over this russian political system. we have seen the euphoria and russia over the past several weeks, the increased popularity for putin. you can hardly find a person in moscow that is not euphoric about what has happened,

following up on a very good olympics one russia finished first and so forth. the danger of the situation in eastern ukraine is not so much that putin is in control, as he may be forced by events on the ground to move in a direction that he does not want to and does not fear comfortable with at this point, because of the way he has postured himself domestically and russia. second, if you look at the west, i think we would all agree that what we do not have his unity. talk to the germans about finding sanctions. talk to the english about

london. the reason we do not have biking sanctions -- biting sanctions and we have gone against certain individuals is because we cannot agree that what is happening in ukraine demands sacrifices and equal sacrifices in the west in order to deal with the problems that russia might have created. there is not a leader in the western world who has yet stood up and made a forceful case why their population should make a sacrifice for one specific goal. >> since you finished in your 30 seconds, in 30 seconds, what do you think president putin's end game is? what are his ultimate ambitions? does he want to annex this territory? >> can i jump in? i think that's probably one of

the cardinal problems of this whole crisis, no one knows. you talk to people in the u.s. government, they don't know. you talk to people in european governments, they don't know. we've entered a world where there are no effective channels with the russian government, and we're basically all either in our public and private discussions sort of trading or talking points, and it's all sort of formulaic and predictable, but at the end of the day, putin is rolling out initiatives, and we all basically find ourselves, as we've seen this week with the

situation in east ukraine, where we're just struggling to understand what's going on. there's a lot of subterfuge and attempts to sow confusion. it's deliberate on the russian part, and we're all stuck in a highly reactive mode. the only tool people have been able to latch on to are the sanctions, because precisely as tom said, there's no agreement about other steps. >> david, in your opening remarks, you talked about possibly president putin wanted to annex some of the baltic states, members that are members of the e.u. what do you recommend we do here? are you talking about a permanent military presence in the baltic? should nato be recalibrated as an anti-russian alliance?

there's talk about should the u.s. be organizing some of the regions along russia's periphery that will give reassurance to the allies and send a message to putin? do you recommend a course like this, or is that going to just antagonize them further? >> to be clear, i did not say that putin would want -- >> you said it was questionable whether he could. >> no, what he wants to do is to destabilize them. he would like nothing more than to show the e.u. and nato, because estonia and latvia are both members, that he can play with with members of those organizations. i'm not saying he wants to annex part of their territory, but in the case of moldova, maybe. andrew is right. most of us don't know what he

has mind. that's why i don't want us to be in reactive mode. i want us to be proactive, to preempt and prevent what putin is trying to do and to hit him with hard sanctions. tom is also right. there isn't unity among western allies, but that's why u.s. leadership is so critical. let's remember that capital flight in the first quarter of this year was a little more than it was all of last year. the ruble's value is in decline. the stock market is in decline. the russian economy is stagnating and predictions for

growth are turning into predictions of decline. that's one of putin's biggest challenges right now. it's why he wants to deflect the tension from his internal challenges and to rally the troops. i would argue, tom, the reason it was so popular is it was so easy. it was bloodless. if there were body bags going back to russia, i bet you there wouldn't have been 70% support. the few people who are speaking out are getting fired from universities. news agencies are getting shut down. they're being threatened. they're being outed, if you will. it takes an incredibly courageous soul these days in moscow to criticize what putin is doing, but that's reflective of the ugly environment that

putin has created in the 14 years he's been in power. it is incumbent upon the west to stand with those people and to stand with others. i never said sanctions would be easy, but i don't see an alternative to tough-hitting sanctions right now. in fact, they should have been done weeks ago. >> what do you think, tom? we're talking about sanctions, but some of these actions besides sanctions such as what nato is considering, these type of things, could really further antagonize president putin. >> look, i am probably the odd person out here. we don't know what putin might plan in detail, but it isn't as if putin hasn't talked for the past 12 years about what his vision for russia is.

it sent as if he hasn't talked in the past two years about what his vision is for the former soviet space. he's talked about a creation of the eurasian union, and to some end, that is going to be dominated by russia. it's an entity that doesn't make sense without ukraine for commercial, economic, and strategic reasons. the ultimate goal i think for putin is to bring ukraine into russia's orbit as part of this eurasian unit. i also believe that he understands that this is something that is -- he's incapable of doing at this point. the goal in the immediate term is to at least create some leverage over the formation of a government in kiev, so that the government that ultimately forms is, as a minimum, neutral and not hostile to russia.

so the game here is for ukraine over the long term. we are in initial phases of that. second point i would make is that there is a genuine pride in russia today, and it's not only because of crimea. crimea, i've been in moscow a couple of times over the past couple of months. what really disturbed russians across the political spectrum was the unrelenting criticism of russia in the runup to the olympics, that they felt was unjustified, that was directed against russia as a people, and not specifically at putin, that was followed by a spectacular olympics show. the russians, who they thought would finish themselves what they finished sixth, finished first in the medal count, and now they've had a nearly flawless operation in crimea. they're on a roll. they feel good. part of this is payback to the way they felt that they've been treated by the west over the past at least couple of months and longer than that. it's not only putin, it's russians that feel pride once again. >> i want to pick up on that. you guys, i know, want to respond, but maybe you could fold it into this. do we have ourselves a little bit, the u.s. and the west, to blame a little bit for this russian insecurity? if you look at the years after the soviet collapse, the russians watched with alarm as outside powers, the united states, nato expansion, then you saw islamic groups moving in, and you don't have to be a quasi dictator like putin to feel nervous about what happened in kiev. a democratically elected leader, ousted by a mob, that's a bad president no matter how you slice it, especially when the u.s. is cheering on the protesters and the assistant secretary is handing out bagels. i mean, do you think -- cookies. i thought it was bagels. but doesn't matter -- sandwiches. do you think that the united states does provoke russia and play into those insecurities that, if you look at the region are a little bit legitimate? >> well, let's look at the reality, which is russia's most stable, secure borders are with those countries that are members of the e.u. and nato. so nato enlargement, in fact, has not posed a threat. it has bolstered russia's security, and yet nato enlargement was cited in the

2010 military doctrine as the gravest danger to russia, which is utter nonsense. there may be a psychology about this. maybe we haven't sat down on the couch with them to understand this. but we actually have promoted greater security and stability in europe through nato enlargement. the issue about extremism, let's remember that russia's attack and war against chechens in 1994, 1996, and again in 1999, and the suspicions of the chechens were behind the bombings in 1999, they're the ones who created the extremist threat through the slaughter of chechens, indiscriminate slaughter through the bombs that were dropped. russia has nobody else to blame for this extremist threat than russia itself, than the way yeltsin approached it both times and then putin took it over. that's how putin came to power, let's not forget. the point tom made about ukraine, neutral, i really hope the days when russia and the united states decide the orientations and memberships in organizations for other countries are over. let's let ukraine decide if temperatures to be neutral after things have settled down. >> i'm going interrupt. the u.s. wasn't exactly neutral about whether moldova or ukraine or any of those countries -- i'll give you a little extra time -- would join the e.u. the u.s. toughly campaigned on the e.u. behalf. was it really russia's choice? >> i would actual disagree. i think the u.s. was asleep when the e.u. was pushing to sign -- >> but after the protests started, you bet -- >> sure, sure. but, in fact, because what the people for the most part represented in maidan reflect our interests. we don't want ukraine to join the west and orient itself to the west to the exclusion of good relations with russia. geography alone dictates that ukraine has to have good relations with russia. about f ukrainians were led to

believe by their democratically elected president, by the way, who is not permanently endowed with legitimacy through an election in 2010, he forfeited it for many reasons. we can get into that. but what the people and protesters are representing reflected u.s. interests, and so we did wake up belatedly and supported what they called for. they were lied and manipulated, and then yanukovych ordered the use of force against them on november 30, december 1. that's when we should have hit yanukovych with tough, hard-hitting sanctions, which i think would have brought his regime down like a house of cards, may have saved over 100 lives in february if we had acted more firmly then, and perhaps wouldn't have this whole crisis that we have right now. >> can i jump in here? >> sure, yeah. you have two minutes. >> thank you very much. one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is who did the people many -- the people in maidan represent. what do we know about them? was this all of ukraine? even if it's large, perhaps a million people, a country of 43 million, if you look at the

demographics of the people who died in the last few days of the conflict, they're almost all from central and eastern ukraine -- excuse me, western and western ukraine, not from eastern ukraine. ukraine has been a divided society for the past 25 years, if not longer. simply to look at people in a square and to say that these are the representatives of the ukrainian people is not sufficient. you have to ask a broader question. why weren't the easterners there? why are the eastern part of ukraine resisting at this point? the problem we have is we see

something that is supportive of the values that we would like to see, the european orientation, for example. but if you look at the polling before the latest events, ukrainians were split on whether they wanted to be part of the e.u. or wanted a closer association with the russians. you asked about nato. there's a sharp divide between those in eastern ukraine and western ukraine. and finally, if you look at the composition of the government, this government, this interim government that we're supporting as a legitimate representative of the ukrainian people is dominated by people from the center and the west. there are very few easterners involved. so the question we have to ask

ourselves is, in fact, how do we create a situation in which the legitimate voice of the ukrainian people is heard and that they sort out their own interests? that, i would argue, is through elections, but not presidential elections, it's other type of elections, where you relegitimize through a democrat is process the people we're going to speak for the ukrainian people as a whole. >> anders, i'll give you a quick -- >> yeah, tom, what you said now is straightforward, anti-democratic. you said that the problem with ukraine is divided. you have one democratic party and one republican party. shouldn't you have one big united america party in line with if you putin's russia? the problem from putin's point of view is exactly what you say. ukraine had a big democratic breakthrough, and they wanted to have freedom. they wanted to fight against corruption, and putin represents authoritarianists and corruption, and he understood

it. he acted out of desperation and weakness. >> is it that black and white, anders? there are many ukrainians, russian-speaking europeans, who feel they're treated like second-class citizens and their interests are not represented. >> that's not true. >> go to ukraine several times every year. identify been to crimea every time for the last eight years. there's no sense of any discrimination against -- >> so it's just fabricated? >> the things that matter is that russia does not have a full status of official language, but the teaching in the schools is in russia, where you have a dominant russian population. they do watch russian television, so it's smaller things, but it's not significant discrimination. you can compare with how national minorities are treated in russia. they have none of the religious -- >> can i just very quickly,

please? >> please. >> there was a survey on april 5 showing 74% of the russian-speaking population in eastern and south european said they were not under pressure of threat because of their language and identity. this underscores, putin has fabricated this. it's baloney. it doesn't exist. the divide is grossly overstated by tom. ukrainians, even in crimea, don't want to live under the russian thumb. but when there are guns being bandied about and brandished, it changes the mood and the thinking, when people think that the government in kiev can't defend them and they don't have much choice.

you know, we should put ourselves in their shoes. why is it -- the goons who were reading buildings went to the theater instead of the city government, because they didn't live there. they weren't from there. they were being sent in. >> all right, let's move on. andrew, you talk about -- >> clapping for moving on? >> no, i think we've exhausted that point. >> oh, go on. >> we could go on, but unfortunately, i want to get to the audience. one more question. is russia -- we talk about we need russian cooperation on international issues s. russia really a credible partner on the world stage in if you look at what's happened in syria, the kind of double game they're playing with supporting a political solution, but at the same time continuing to arm the assad regime, there are other areas on the world stage. can president putin really be trusted and are we getting such great cooperation that it's worth kind of not giving them a pass certainly, but treating them a little bit more with kid gloves on this? >> the short answer is no. i think that what we need to do is step back and say what's the relationship about? as one of my colleagues and friends like to say, it's a lot like the tv show "seinfeld." it's a relationship about nothing.

it's been that way for quite some time. and so we saw with the -- we saw some low-hanging fruit, some important achievements in the first couple of years in the obama administration, and then they ran out of gas. they ran out of gas in part because there wasn't a real clear agenda for u.s.-russia relations. there have been a bunch of intervening events, but it's really been a relationship where we disengaged. we basically said we're not interested, we don't see much value in this. i don't think that's an unwise calculation. i think the danger from that policy is that now we're in a crisis. it would be nice to have access to our russian counterparts to try to de-escalate, and we don't have it. so all the specific issues on iran, nuclear proliferation, on counterterrorism, it's spotty. you can't point to any of those issues and say it's not a success. the one where you could come closest to that is on the

so-called process on iran, where so far we don't see russia being spoiler or wrecker, but that potential is there, and so there's talk and there are issues that are out there, and issues that are out there, and the discussions about possible barter deal where russia might end up marketing about half of iran's crude oil production to the tune of 500,000 barrels a day, things like that could be very damaging to the negotiation. but at the end of the day, even in the iran context, this is a negotiation between the united states and iran primarily, and russia will think about how to shore up its position. it's not a debate where the u.s. has to bring russia on board. it's a question where russia can be an enabler and a facilitator of success, but it's not the driver of success. >> but is it the spotty cooperation because of our lack of engagement, or is it because at the end of the day russian interests don't necessarily always align with u.s. interests? >> well, i think we've seen since the cold war ended these ups and downs, and this is incredibly volatile.