the strength for the republicans is in the metro area. the strength for the democrats, in the rural counties. and that is a state where you saw the margin switch in favor of the democrats rather in favor of the republican. i'd like to throw that out as a possible explanation for the polling fail. if you take a look, the swing was much greater for republicans in the nonmetro areas than the metro areas. colorado i've divided into different areas. you've got denver and boulder. and there's still more democratic votes coming in. but right now, gardner only gained over romney in 2012 by about 2%. if that had been extrapolated statewide, it would have been a 50/50 race. outside of that, in the non-denver metro area, he gained over 3.3%. rural areas, even more. in ski bunny, colorado, on the other hand, there are seven counties, and if i told you the names of the ski resorts, you

would recognize them. the counties, you never would. gardner ran behind romney. it was a rural issue, not an across-the-board issue. the same thing is true in other places as well. iowa, it's less obvious but the same distinction prevails. then the question is, what does this mean for 2016 if what we're seeing is not a uniform swing but a localized swing? and is this a turnout question? well, i've done two states, colorado and iowa, and colorado keeps moving up. but the differential, if you compare 2014 turnout to the 2012 turnout, is not very great. it's slightly higher as far as the percentage of people voting in rural areas versus urban areas, in 2014 versus 2012, but not enough to explain the difference. the reason joni ernst won is not because republicans were an unusual share of the electorate.

the reason why cory gardner is the new senator from colorado is because he won persuadables and a few of them within the denver metro area, not because of massive turnout differentials. if that plays out in other states, that would suggest that the democratic argument that they lost because their voters didn't show up is kind of like the republican -- you know, the flip side of the republican argument of vote fraud, that it's a convenient excuse to mask a message failure with persuadables rather than an actual explanation. what does this mean for 2016, well, to win the popular vote, republicans need to get about 2% better than romney, minus two, plus two to romney. that's about a narrow popular vote win. in the senate seats, only three states met or exceeded that. brown ran exactly 2% ahead of romney in new hampshire. gardner right now is 2.6 ahead in colorado, as i mentioned, as

more democratic votes come in. that will go down by a couple of tenths. and only in iowa did joni ernst run comfortably ahead of that margin, running six points ahead of romney. even worse, to win the electoral college, you need about a 2.5% jump, because the marginal state that would put a republican over -- of those, only two of those states, in the senate race, do you equal or exceed the shift in the popular vote that is needed to elect a republican president. the only places in the country where you see that are in the governors races that john talked about. schneider runs about six points ahead of romney. points ahead of romney. and maryland, hogan runs, i

think, seven or eight points ahead of romney. and with joni ernst. so the difference between what governors were running on and what joni ernst was doing versus what the standard republican playbook is might be really important to look at, if you are a republican strategist trying to win in 2016 and might be very good for democratic strategists to look at if you're trying to take the wind out of the republican sails. >> now, norm, what does it mean for the lame duck and the next congress? >> thanks, carlin. i spent much of election eve following henry olson's twitter feed. i would suggest to all of you who are here and who are watching, if you really are an election maven, follow henry. a couple of comments on the house. as michael said, republicans are going to have the largest margin since the 1928 election. their new slogan is we're going to party like it's 1929. [laughter]

my favorite house race that i watch closely was statin island. the question was, would michael grimm's margin exceed the counts of his indictment? [laughter] and the answer is he fell short. he won by 13, 20 counts in the indictment, so, so much for the anti-incumbent wave that we have out there. for the stunned democrats coming back to washington, the one bright spot, now they can get legal marijuana in the district. [laughter] a couple of just bullet points. we talked the last time about the democratic turnout machine. we reflected on it last time. i think it's just worth repeating here. turnout machines can be very sophisticated and very great. but you still have to get voters who want to turn out. and i mentioned the old joke

about the company that did the most dazzling advertising campaign ever for a dog food. and it flopped completely. when they analyzed it, it was because the dogs didn't like it. [laughter] if your voters do not see a reason to vote, you can call them. you can offer them transportation to the polls. you can tell them you'll take the mail-in ballot and stick it in the mailbox, and it will not matter very much. that's what happened this time. and of course the turnout for democrats was, in almost every category, lower than it was in 2010 when they suffered a drubbing that was quite historic as well. now, turning to the future, one of the things about a big wave and a victory that exceeds expectations, and that is incredible across the board, is that it poses an additional challenge to you for governing.

the conservative, activist base believes that everything they stand for, every way in which they approach the process has been vindicated. they are now in the driver's seat. and the idea that now you will dilute your product, compromise, give anything to a president who has been forced to the canvas is treasonous. so it poses a real challenge to leaders who are talking about reaching out and compromising, but the word compromise actually didn't come into the lexicon in the soon-to-be majority leader's mitch mcconnell's statements. he's going to have to give in, because now we're on top. and that's going to be a little difficult to deal with. at the same time, we have an even more starkly polarized ideologically-driven congress than we had before. another house race of great interest was in georgia.

the most conservative democrat who has managed to escape more near-death situations than every indiana jones movie combined, but didn't this time. and that will also tell you something about the broader nature of our politics. not a single white democrat from the south left standing in the house of representatives. and, of course, it reflects even the broader trend over the last three contests, that the robust blue dog coalition that was there before the 2010 elections is down to not quite but close to a trace element. and on the republican side, you've lost a group of boehner loyalists, like tim of wisconsin, and if you look at the replacements, they are much more over to the tea party side. and they're not starting with

any sense of affection or loyalty towards boehner. he will have a larger caucus. he's already working to make sure he can head off a chang. he will be the -- a challenge. he will be the speaker next time. it's a question of how many votes there are on the floor against him, but he will win comfortably. but he is not going to have any more leeway than he had before to tell his republican caucus, you know, we're bringing this to the floor even though a very substantial number of you do not like it. so that's going to make for some difficulty. of course, on the senate side, the losers are most of the democrats who would be accommodating to compromises and working across the board. they're not all gone. mark warner likely will be back. we have joe manchin, angus king, who once again will caucus with the democrats but will try very hard to provide a bridge for some of those bipartisan bills moving forward. but they're going to be fairly few and far between.

and always keep in mind the old saw that used to be repeated all the time of the young house member coming to one of his older colleagues and pointing to a member from the other party and saying, there's the enemy. and the answer was, they're not the enemy. they're the adversaries. the senate is the enemy. the house and senate have very different cultures, very different rhythms, very different rules. and when newt gingrich and bob dole took the reins of power in 1994 and had very much the notion they were going to work together in sync and force bill clinton to his knees, within three months, it was gingrich saying privately and then publicly that he had far more trouble with bob dole than he did with clinton and called dole the tax collector of the welfare state, which improved relations, as you can imagine. we're not going to see the same

name calling between boehner and mcconnell, but it's not going to be that much easier for things to move smoothly through the house and then through the senate, including many of those bills that passed the house the last time. one comment -- we haven't talked much about presidential consequences. this election was very good for hillary clinton, if she decides to run, not only because it puts a crimp in the potential campaign of my former student, martin o'malley, who isn't going to be helped by the fact that it was his administration and lieutenant governor who were repudiated in a big way in that state, but i think democrats now are shocked enough that winning the presidency in 2016 takes a higher priority in this unprecedented effort to unite behind a candidate. we also see a significant boost for scott walker, for john kasich, who now becomes at least

a factor on the national stage. and keep your eye, not as a presidential prospect but as a serious potential running mate, brian sandoval, who won handily in nevada and is probably a more attractive in many ways hispanic american candidate, i think, than susanna martinez, who will be governor but who has a few issues, including some of these tapes that have been released of her comments. so a lot of interesting dynamics out there. now, in terms of looking ahead, kevin mccarthy said before the election, anticipating the republican majority in the senate, we've got to show we're not the party of no. we want to come back in the lame duck session, take the budget issues off the table. we're going to pass a long-term continuing resolution. and at the same time, before the election, we had mcconnell

telling politico, as he had told many of his funders at one of the koch brothers enclaves, we're going to use the budget process and especially he repeated this in more gentle terms yesterday at the press conference. we're going to use the appropriations and budget process and especially reconciliation, where you only need 51 votes to pare back on obamacare, to cut back on the consumer protection bureau, to bring back coal and do a number of other things. those don't go together very well. you've got mccarthy against mcconnell. and mcconnell, who said no shutdowns.

mcconnell against mcconnell. you can only imagine that if a budget reconciliation bill gets passed through on a partisan basis, that does more than flesh wounds to obamacare, that basically defunds the consumer financial protection bureau and maybe does other damage to the sec and dodd frank and that blocks the epa from issuing regulations on climate change, barack obama will veto it. now, they may pass something else and send it to him. but if he keeps vetoing it, what do you get? a shutdown. so we're not past that particular hump, even if the leaders know intellectually that it would be a catastrophic thing to do. there's another factor here that is important on the money front as well. we will see, i think, a continuing resolution that will

probably take the current year's funding through to the end of the year, in december. that will be controversial. but with the numbers that are there now, they'll get it through, and the argument will be this is not the time to pick a fight. but remember that starting october 1, that two-year budget deal that deferred sequesters ends. and the sequesters come back. you're going to have congressional republicans determined to negate it on defense. but some are going to be saying, well, we can't add the budget deficits now. so let's just take an additional amount out of discretionary domestic spending. and that's not going to fly. and it's not at all clear that it's going to fly even to deferred defense, with a base that said we came here to cut government, not to keep it going. so as we move towards a budget, which now will be a budget that's more than a talking point, that will have to be in sync with the house and senate, which is not going to be an easy thing to do. then as you move towards individual appropriations bills and you're talking about across-the-board cuts on top of what we've had before, that means more cuts in emergency preparedness, the cdc, n.i.h. funding and medical research, the faa and air traffic control, not to mention the cuts in basic research and cuts in defense as we ramp up against isis and with other crises around the world.

this is not going to be an easy time to govern or to pass bills, even with just republican votes. and those bills will very likely be vetoed or, in many instances, filibustered in the senate. the filibuster will be turned around and used in a different fashion. a couple other observations, at least one on foreign policy. we have all seen this extraordinarily embarrassingly public pissing match between the obama administration and the netanyahu administration. some of it reflects a belief on the part of netanyahu that he can rely on congress, which will give him unquestioned backing. and that's true in both parties. but it's especially true with republicans. and remember, netanyahu was almost public with his support for mitt romney in 2012, which has added to some of the problems here. this new republican majority in the senate and the more robust majority in the house is likely to lead the israeli government to be even more dismissive of the obama administration. and i suspect we're going to see

more tensions there and more friction before we're done, as we know we're going to see frictions ahead, including with the use of the budget process as the administration moves forward with negotiations with iran, possibly towards a deal. and we'll see all kinds of efforts to try and put a crimp in that. we will probably see a newly empowered republican senate move with the house to provide more sophisticated weapons or push to do so to the ukrainian government in kiev.

and we're going to see, i think, more frictions there. and at the same time, john kerry is going to be hauled in to testify in both houses, in multiple committees, on benghazi and on all of these foreign policy questions, at a time when his challenges will be dramatically greater. one of my reasons, in my column, it's about the geopolitical implications of plummeting oil prices. if oil prices stabilize, you're going to see fracking drop off pretty dramatically, because the cost and benefits don't match. you're also going to see some of the drilling decline. that, by the way, will have economic implications for places like north dakota and louisiana, very good implications for california, among other things. it may change some of the political dynamics that we're dealing with as well. just two other points. we are going to see enormous frictions between the senate and the president on confirmations. one of the questions is whether, in this lame duck session, harry

reid recognizing that judicial confirmation also dry up. there will be some district court nominees that have already been basically approved by republican senators that may go through, but mostly nothing will happen. and most of the executive nominations will die as well. if you're worried about obama using his executive authority, one of the ways in which you can hinder that and hamper it is to keep people from moving into vacancies in those executive positions where they can act. and we are going to see a lot of investigations. one of the most interesting people to watch will be ron

johnson of wisconsin, who will take over the subcommittee on investigations. he has said multiple times, i'm gonna go back to the old style of doing it in a bipartisan way, doing real oversight instead of investigations. that will probably last a couple of weeks, maybe a month. but the pressure on him to do all of these gotcha investigations will be very, very great. we will see some things done. we will see trade agreements. that's a slam dunk for republicans. it's below the radar for tea party activists. they don't much care if you get that done. business likes it. democrats are divided. you'll anger labor, heading towards 2016. why not? there will be interesting possibilities for prison and sentencing reform. and for nsa reform where you'll see very unusual coalitions. rand paul and mike lee joining with widen and franken, for example. but john mccain and lindsey graham and others, we'll see tensions there on both of those issues. there is a chance for a corporate tax reform. but we have to keep in mind, businesses ideas is dramatically cut the marginal rates and leave all the preferences alone.

and any reform that is not revenue neutral is simply not going to happen. whether you can work some deal out will be interesting to watch. i do think there's a real possibility of infrastructure reform. john delaney has a bipartisan bill in the house, actually pretty strongly bipartisan, to create an infrastructure bank funded through 50-year bonds that now basically are almost cost-free. and they have repatriated profits from companies used with an incentive to buy a portion of those. so you don't have a lot of additional government funding directly. and that could happen. but, again, you're going to see substantial tea party opposition to anything that looks like it's expanding government.

and we are going to get a crisis on the highway trust fund again because of the refusal to raise gasoline taxes or to consider any other revenue source unless you can do something innovative like that. on the bigger issues, forget about it. we did not break the fever or move towards a new or restored era of bipartisan policy making. tribalism is greater. and with three to five republican senators, absent without leave most of the time, out there raising money and building support in the primary and caucus states with basically the appeals being far more to that, even narrower version or slice of the electorate, and you can see where we're going with that when you have a marco rubio basically denouncing his own immigration bill as we head towards that campaign. and a bobby jindal saying common core is the greatest thing ever to common core is the biggest threat to the american way of

life. that kind of tells you what direction and approach we're going to see. that's like an electoral magnet pulling mitch mcconnell's caucus away from the idea of working out deals where you give a little and you get a little. >> thank you very much, norman. thanks to the rest of the panelists. i'm sure there have been disagreements. but i'd like to turn to your questions. we have, i think, about a half hour left. if you could just wait for the microphone and ask your questions as a question. we'll take two questions from this table. the mic? >> i can speak loudly. >> well, okay. >> you have got to wait for the mic. right here. right here. >> my question is a simple one for the panel. no one has spoken to what the election results mean for brand clinton. i wonder if you might speak to that. >> let's get this second question on the table at the same time.

>> thanks very much. garrett mitchell, from the mitchell report. norm, i was looking for my black armband, which i didn't think i was going to have to wear, but i'm going to put it back on now, thinking about the prospects for the next two years. your characterization of the mind-set of the republican majorities, particularly in the house but in both chambers, suggests that there will be a preference for sticking it to the president and saying, you know, we had this wave because we stuck to our principles, so the prospect of there being some cooperation between the white house and the congress is not good. on the other hand, it seems to me that one of the ways to characterize this election is that the republicans had better candidates and that one of the reasons that the republicans had better candidates is because whatever the term "mainstream

republicans" paid greater attention to getting a higher equality of candidate than they've had in prior years, which would lead you to believe that there will be pressure in the republican party at large not to be the party of "no" but to be the party that wants to get some stuff done so that when you get to 2016, the republicans can run on some sort of message. and i just wonder if you can speak to that. >> team hillary and the next two years. >> yes. norm said the election will be good for hillary clinton. i think in some respects that's right. the martin o'malley candidacy seems to be over.

the warner candidacy was over some time ago and is not going to happen now. i think she's got problems as a candidate. the energy on the party increasingly is on the left. you have the party's wingers get discontented in a second term of a presidency. that happened with the george w. bush administration. it's happening now. and it's hard to picture hillary as the new face. i mean, the clintons' theme song is "don't stop thinking about tomorrow." that was released in 1977. [laughter] that's 39 years before the 2016 election. another area where i would disagree with norm somewhat is i think that after the government shutdown, the mood changed among

house republicans. you had fewer house republican members saying we've got to go to confrontation, we've got to defund obamacare and so forth. that lost appeal because they could read the polls, and it threatened disaster for the republican party. and republican primary voters, as gary suggested, i think have tended not to opt for the candidate who is the one that is loudest when he stands up on the chair and yells "hell no." that may have an effect. it will be interesting to see if that plays out in the 2016 election. you can imagine people reaching for the wings, as norm

suggested. you can also imagine people campaigning the way i would argue cory gardner did and some of the other republican candidates. the republican candidates being newer to the scene, you know, starting off unknown with the problems, you also have an option of framing their candidacy in future oriented terms to an extent which is going to be difficult for a hillary clinton, who was involved in her first election in 1970 and became a national figure in 1991 and is now, you know, sort of on the moderate wing of a party, arguably, which is moving left, which poses more problems for her. and that shows -- those are problems for her. there's challenges for republicans. it's not clear that any of the republican presidential candidates will be able to do

that. >> norm, a quick response. then we're going to take two questions over here. if somebody could bring the mic right up here. >> first, gary, let me say, there were candidates who did not make a big splash this time, like todd akin did. but when you have a joni ernst, the republican candidates being newer to the scene, you know, so you've got that factor.

there is no doubt that you have an establishment that doesn't want to appear as the party of no. there are two ways to avoid that. one way is to say we're going to compromise and give a little bit. the other way is to try and frame it so that he's the party of no, and the obstructionist. and i think you're going to see more of a push on the latter front. just one other point. mitch mcconnell said, election eve, you know, we're not going to repeal obamacare. it takes 60 votes in the senate. there was enormous pushback from the base. what did mitch mcconnell say the next day? of course we're going to do everything we can to repeal obamacare. so what you want to do, and that includes shutting down the government, even if you don't want to, if you end up with a confrontation where you're using the budget as leverage and you have enormous demands to use it to force the president to his knees, and he says, no, you have a couple of choices. you dilute your product and take the flak from your base, or -- and ted cruz will be right out there, pounding you if you give a millimeter, much less an inch -- or you stick to your guns and what results is a shutdown. so like it or not, there's some things where the dynamics may pull you away from what prag matically would be sensible positions.

>> two questions here. then we're going to turn to that table. >> thank you. it's my personal opinion that. >> who are you? >> sorry. i'm berk rosen. i'm really addressing what you said, norm, and that was not much is going to happen in the sense of compromise. and it seems to me that what structurally needs to be done is the leadership needs to divest the power down into the committees, which has been the problem now for the last 20 years. and that would be the seeds of bipartisanship, because when committees start marking up bills, by nature, by definition, there are amendments and compromises and there's a much better chance of coming up with solutions that, by the time they get to the floor, are bipartisan. so as i say, it's my view that the real solution to this is to just simply turn to your committee chairman and say, get

to work. give us an energy policy. give us a tax policy. give us a health policy. and instead of the top-down. now, is that -- would you agree with that, as the first part of the question, and the second is, can you see that happening? >> let's put this other question. >> the question is directed towards michael. largely around self-described independence. i was struck on the first wave of the exits that showed the party id question was 34% republican, 37% democrat, 29% independent. and all those correlated into the ballot test trends early on. and my question, michael, is, have you seen a tick or swing where independents contributed to a wave in second midterms and how long did that carry over in the corresponding presidential year? >> committee structure and independence.

>> burt, i certainly agree that we should have policy making start at the committee and subcommittee level and take it to the floor. in the senate, despite the polarization, you've got a lot of problem solvers. that is irrespective of ideology. jeff blake, corker, lamar alexander, lots of them. you are going to get republics coming out of senate committees that are going to get bipartisan support on the floor. most of them will go nowhere in the house, and that's a good part of the problem, because you're not going to see bipartisan policy making emerge in the house. it's not in the current dna of the house. it wasn't there when democrats were in the majority. it's there even less now. that's a good part of the problem. if it were the senate alone, you'd have possibilities here, again, with issues that are a little bit below the radar of the big, tough national issues.

but there's a big problem getting them to the president for signature or veto. >> john and michael? >> look, i'll fundamentally agree with norm, when we have divided government, it's still going to be hard, at the end of the day, to get a lot of these things through. but there is a constituency out there, and to some extent in the house, for a broadly speaking regular order. that is because, and if you look at democrats and harry reid and trying to keep a lid on there being controversial votes, it didn't really do democrats a lot of good. a lot of the democrats who are in tough seats, who didn't have to take votes, were then getting tagged on the campaign trail as having 99% voting records with the president. so it may not solve everything. i think, at the end of the day, you've got to get something through both chambers and the agreement of the president. but i think there will be a lot of good will, both on the majority and minority side.

something that mcconnell has emphasized, also an emphasis on a freer amendment process, at least to an extent, where his side as well as democrats will have a little bit more chance to play on the amendment side. >> michael? >> i think norm is right, in that the senate has got people, and i would name some democrats as well as republicans, inclined towards bipartisanship. they have been kept in -- we call it joni ernst's position by senate majority leader harry reid over the last four years, basically prohibited from engaging in that. you've got people like current finance chairman, future ranking member ron widen, for example, who really hasn't been allowed to bring things. you've got trial lawyers who tell harry reid to not put it on

the floor and it doesn't come on the floor. one person we haven't mentioned is the president, who we could see in his press conference yesterday, continues to have an apparent disinclination as well as a demonstrated inability to do bipartisan reforms. that is a problem. but i think there is some possibilities there. the senate is where it -- the place where it can happen more easily than the house, as norm quite correctly identifies it. but we've had histories under president bush, under clinton, under presidents bush and reagan, where, you know, the senate kind of does the compromising side. the house massages its own view. and they do get things through. that can happen.

it helps to have a president who assists rather than retards the process. chris's question, my understanding -- correct me if i'm wrong -- a three-point advantage for democrats and party id on the exit poll, that seems -- is that wrong? >> it was 36-36, democrat-republican. and independent was 38. >> and then it came out, what, six points democratic in the presidential election which i think was partly a result of change of man, partly as a result of turnout of democratic groups. independents, a lot of people say they're independents. they don't vote like independents. they vote all republican, all democrats. we've got the fewest number of split congressional districts since 1920. a lot of people who are independents are, or at least were during the last two or four years, disgruntled republicans. it's one of the reasons why we often, although not quite in the recent polls, where congressionallal republicans are rated lower than congressional democrats. when you look at the innards of those polls, what you find out are a lot of people identified as republicans give negative ratings to republicans in congress, where relatively few people who identify as democrats give negative ratings to

democrats in congress. they're both negative, but, you know, what it says, we're in a period of competition. republicans have won four -- no. democrats have won four of the last six presidential elections, popular vote. republicans have won house majorities in eight of the ten elections. that's robust competition, on a fairly even playing field with the democrats having some advantage in the electoral college, the republicans in equal population district legislatures. and the fight continues. >> the number of pure independents in the university of michigan's long trend line, starting in the 1950's, is about 10% to 12%. okay. we have two questions at that table. then we're going to go over to that side of the room.

>> barbara whitman. i'd like to elicit commentary on the virginia race. ed gillespie believed in himself so much that it was infectious. i was at his house on saturday morning, having coffee with him and his wife before we went out to vote early. and it was so infectious that i almost came to believe him. and at any rate, what i'd like to know is whether you all think that the fact that he couldn't convince people of that infectious spirit sooner, so that, for instance, as a fund-raiser for him, i had a heck of a time getting people to give money because they said that was a hopeless race, or whether there's any validity to the idea that having a 2.5% draw for a libertarian meant we couldn't make it. >> the question from the gentleman next to you. if you could say your questions quickly, then we'll try to move

around the room. >> adam powell from the university of southern california. michael barone, you said that millennials are mildly more than average democratic in this election. have you seen any survey data of millennial voters about hillary clinton specifically addressing the question of the fact that she'll be significantly perhaps a generation older than the republican candidate? >> anyone? >> i haven't seen that, but your question prompts me to go look for it this afternoon. [laughter] i think that's a good question. i think it's something, if you're running her campaign, you would be concerned about. you know, is she -- you know, she's -- you get the mood of ed gillespie much more upbeat, much more sunny, optimistic. the democrats, i think, remind me of murray's phrase in the 1965 in the new york mayor race, about john lindsey, he is fresh and everyone else is tired. i think that's a danger for the democratic party, possibly an opportunity for the republican party. on ed gillespie, mark warner was 65% of the vote 8 years ago. that was not a close election. and he went down to 49% in his

one-point reelection victory. you know, ed gillespie was already a serious player in political vineyards. he showed very well. warner got what he polled. actually, the polls were dead-accurate on what mark warner got. all i can say is, you know, he must have -- it must have been a heck of an election night for him, when you come down 16%. says something about the obama democratic party, doesn't it? >> yeah, it does. it also says something about the obama democratic party in virginia, where somebody who didn't think he had a terribly close race probably would have done things differently if ed gillespie had gotten a couple

million three weeks out. i can imagine that mark warner would have run a different race three weeks out. it shows the stability of the obama coalition in virginia, that it's now held up over a governor's race, a senate race, two presidential races. virginia is not a red state anymore, not even a light red state anymore. could gillespie have won? perhaps. certainly with additional resources. but then again, if i were a national party strategist, and i had to decide whether to expend money three weeks out, and the expense of the washington market, and i saw mark warner polling at 49-51, i probably wouldn't have put $2 million into the campaign either. much better to put those $2 million into the races that you know you have a shot at that are probably much less expensive per vote possibly gained. >> okay. this table over here, we have three questions. over here. let's put them all on the table. anybody can answer. if you could ask your question quickly, because we don't have

much more time. >> in a low turnout election, almost anything can happen. my question is, on the impact of early voting, what do you see as the impact of early voting on the get out the vote effort? the republican effort was said to be exceptional. the democratic effort may have faltered a bit. >> and the gentleman next to him. >> yeah. the republicans will defend a lot more senate seats in 2016. the democrats. how might that affect mitch mcconnell's agenda? >> and then your question right here. >> oh. sorry. linda kilian. i wanted to say, if you looked at the virginia exit polls, mark warner's favorability was 56%. gillespie's was 49%. it was all about obama, in virginia. the second thing i'd really like

to challenge your assertion on independent voters. i really think it's closer to 20%. and there's a lot of reasons we can't go into here, but look at colorado. look at the difference in the governor and senate race in colorado. pick six, ten, twelve races this year. those were swing voters. >> okay. who wants to take one question? henry? >> talking about the low turnout, i dispute this was a low turnout election, that when you take a look at the states where there were actually competitive races as opposed to states like mississippi or alabama where there were no competitive races, turnout was running between 70% and 75% of the 2012 level. the turnout differences between democratic urban areas and republican rural areas were not

significant. in states where both parties were committing lots of resources, you saw voters turnout at rates that were pretty high for a midterm election and you saw partisans on both sides turn out. democrats did not lose colorado because democrats didn't show up. the turnout national figures obscure a couple of things. one is that minorities tend to be concentrated in states that do not have serious races. hispanics tend to be concentrated in california and texas and nevada and new mexico, none of which had serious competitive races. african-americans are concentrated in a lot of southern states that did not have serious races. second, millennials tend to be more nonwhite. so the two things coincide. that young hispanics are in areas where they're not

motivated to turn out, and that depresses the so-called millennial votes. it wasn't a low turnout race. democrats did much better in states where they could have won than the national would suggest. it was up to the message, which didn't persuade, whether it's 10%, 15%, 20%, the people in the middle at this particular time. >> let me just address the senators who are up. there are 24 republicans up to 10 democrats the next time. it's really a reverse phenomenon. almost all the democrats who won in 2010 won with a very stiff wind in their faces. and republicans had wind at their backs. many of them in states that obama carried, blue states. but there's a dilemma for them, because they have to worry about primary challenges. if they move too far, too early, to accommodate the broader dynamics in their states, they could face a problem. but they do have a problem with some of these votes. and where the new majority leader mcconnell has said he's going to return to the regular order and have a more open amendment process, i'm just waiting for the first bill that comes up. maybe it's the keystone pipeline or maybe it's a repeal of the medical device tax, in an open amendment process with democrats step in with 20 gotcha

amendments, i think we're going to be seeing the amendment tree filled, not perhaps all the time, but a lot of the time to protect those vulnerable senators who are up the next term. >> john, get out the vote. >> a couple things on early voting. i think there's been a little bit of a misunderstanding of what early voting does in terms of turnout. early voting by itself, most research shows, does not increase turnout. it's certainly been used significantly by parties to encourage their voters to start voting earlier, but then, you know, on election day, you might not have those voters there. i think this cycle you saw republicans using effectively in places, i think the opposition to in-person early voting by some republicans -- i mean, i'm

not for an extremely long period, but i think a reasonable period of seven to ten days in early voting is something republicans should not fear. on the -- look, i think norm's point is well-taken that republicans have more ground to defend, but one obvious point is republicans are going to have 54 votes in the senate. 245er going to -- they're going to need to retain the majority. while many of those seats are in states that president obama won, very few of them are in wildly democratic states. they're in the states like ohio and wisconsin and places where certainly some of those republicans will feel pressure, but it's not as much of a slam dunk as those six very red states that democrats faced in this election. >> michael, quickly. >> i'd underline what john just said. i took a look at the seats that are up this time. and you've got, you know, in target states, states that were carried by obama, you've got seven republican senators up. only one of those states that

obama -- using the obama percentage of 2012 as an index get more than 53% of the vote. that's illinois where he got 58%, where mark kirk is up. the upscale voters did throw out the democrat brad schneider and elect the republican bob dole, 2013. i don't think kirk is a sure loser, though he's an obvious target. six of those seven states have republican governors, which shows that republicans are capable of winning statewide. the obama percentage ranged from 48 to 53. this is not quite as juicy a target for democrats as the current -- as this year's lineup was for republicans. and you've got harry reid. now, reid has shown in 2010, and the gaming industry showed they can get the votes out and bring them out even when harry reid's job rating was terrible. they conspicuously -- democrats did not do that in 2014 in nevada. and basically they lost both

houses to the legislature for the first time in a very long time. but the gaming industry and the culinary union are capable of ginning that up for harry reid again. and, you know, we have to keep up with our john ralston in the las vegas review journal. >> there's a question in the back. are there any questions on this side of the room? >> anna smith from the hungarian embassy. can you explain to me the phenomenon of general dissolutionment with the political establishment across the voting base, left and right, with a relatively low voter turnout? by my counts, the highest number of uncontested races and the fact that about 90% of the house races were really not very competitive. in other words, why do you keep

reelecting your own members if you're so angry and disillusioned with them? >> two points. one it's true there are a lot of saved seats. that's more because of the way in which americans are living in democratic areas or republican areas. i do think, when it comes down to the mix of competitive seats, we have always heard this story that we're going to have the election, where we throw out the incumbents on both sides and we're disillusioned with everyone. that really never comes about. these waves come about because one side is more motivated and the incumbents that are in danger of seats on the other side are the ones that get knocked out. if it comes around the other way, it's in the other direction. but almost never do we have this mythical throw all the bums out of both parties, although we talk about i every election. >> the republicans appear to have gained house seats or be ahead in, i think, and only four of the seats are 55% or more

obama districts. in straight-ticket voting, you can target things with precision and you don't waste money on hopeless races. >> you know what? michael, again, may be the limiting case here. if you've got a really anti-incumbent mood, strong enough that you've decided that you want to throw the bums out, and you've got a guy who is under a 20-count indictment for tax fraud and who is otherwise best known for threatening a reporter, to throw him off the balcony, and he wins by 13 points, what does that tell you? it tells you that voters in staten island first said, well, he's one of our guys. and seconds, probably that there's enough cynicism and disillusionment that voters think they're all like that. ours just happen to be the one that got caught. so if that's the sort of mind-set that people can have, these

utterly conflicting views in their heads, throw all the bums out, including polls that showed us a higher proportion who were willing to throw their own out, and then they vote in a very different way, maybe that just tells us something about human nature. >> i want to thank all of you and thank my guys on the panel. i just want to say one more thing, because i'm feeling very nostalgic. we've had election watch in this room since 1982. we'll be back for the 2016 race, but we won't be here. we won't be here. we'll be in our fabulous new building on massachusetts avenue. we hope all of you will join us for 2016. thank you so much! [applause] a discussion of the future of the navy. we look at talks about the nuclear program.

later, tavis smiley. veterans day coverage begins tuesday during washington journal with an interview with jalan's. gala.00, the uso live for the traditional replaying ceremony at the tomb of the unknown. from the whiten house ceremony. jonathan discusses current navy operations and the future of strategy, including the rebalance of the asia-pacific. this is one hour.

>> good morning and welcome to brookings. i am michael, with the defense center here and we are honored here.e jonathan he is the top leader and will be speaking for a few minutes about the trends in the navy and the strategic thinking. and theis up to rebalance of the asia-pacific. we will have a conversation of here. i want to say a couple of words of appreciation. in a quarterback country. maybe we should get you into the mix on saving the redskins. annapolisaduate of an and has commanded submarines. he was the commander of the

seventh fleet and was a major navy prior to his current position. he has been in that position three years and that makes him part of a remarkable class of joints chiefs who came into office i would like to say he should be considered for a fourth job next year. he has like to say that been at the home of the navy and has been associated with a number of initiatives, including a rebalance in the asia-pacific

and rethinking battle. please join me in welcoming him to brookings. >> thank you very much. >> you are very kind. we were talking about a high school and it was enormous. we were talking to the high school students about what we are going to talk about today and the interest and in-depth knowledge of world affairs stunned may. i was taken aback riot. there and they said, how do we get information beyond the headlines? we talk a little bit about the world not being in their world and they have a partner online

in taiwan. we got worldwide and they had a question and answer session where we were remarkably involved. i would like to talk about our strategy and why we are read do we need that with the asia-pacific balance. how we are moving along with the chinese navy. it is kind of an update on things. we are continuing the evolution, has directed by the president with our rebalancing. expect that there will be a relatively new commandant. this is a c services document

document. services "i reason for the changes are fiscal. they have been extraordinary. the need forss and energy. antiterrorism and maritime disputes have evolved. we have a new strategy of strategic guidance and homeland security, where the coast guard resides, has had a review. this compel us -- compels us. we dictate the value of presidents to be where it matters and when it matters.

and, how we fit into that. the value of the networks is the leverage and strength we get out of the networks. we will address the functions of security, andon, the importance of access. if we could put up a graphic here. compare thisworld, to 2007. you remember these situations? it is different. the mortgage bubble. surge in iraq. and cyber and electronic warfare. the electromagnetic spectrum. weapons of mass instruction. chemical weapons have evolved.

is to have this published. a little bit on the rebalance. , is that going to happen? i say, yes. events, thecurrent interest of your navy is in the asia-pacific. world's tonnage passes through the indonesian area. one third of the global crude oil and a half of the liquid natural gas moves through the south china sea. our trading partners are in the region. five of our seven security treaties are in the region. we have been engaged 70 years in the region with significant

and wee in that area will continue with the rebalance. that means refreshing our forces. we are on track with this reuters to japan and combat .hips to singapore a submarine to guam. and okaance of walnut okinawa.guam and most of you saw the landing on the nimitz. we will lookves, for that to the pacific. capabilities in the pacific area. that is the best and retains

that. you call it intellectual capacity. you can call it increased engagement with allies, partners, and potential partners, such as china and india. the rebalance is not single dimensional. china is an important part of it. china and our country are the largest economies and we are intertwined. you know this. our number one import source is china. is in our collective best interests. recognize we, we needed to get the relationship right and we are continuing on that track. it is about finding and working

out the differences and increasing cooperation. have a consistent application of international laws and norms. the rules of the behavior working group have been in progress and meeting monthly now. these are people from our defense and working on rules of .ehavior it contributes to international order and security. with his about that party and my group and with the heads of navy. how do we continue a useful dialogue that we need to make sure we have hovered in --

governance on the high seas? obama said we should institutionalize and regularize discussions that take place. well-suited to the task and encounter each other on seasease -- high routinely. we are often called together to cooperate in areas of shared challenges. these,s, soon on volcanoes, a ring of fire in the pacific region and, it was not all that long ago that we were searching for mh 370. how are things coming together? downe working from the top

and the bottom up. we have set up people to get together at the mid level. i met with thep, admiral five times in the last year and we are working on into theur input office of the secretary of defense and talk about that more on the junior interactions in just a minute. view, opportunity to get rid of needless unfounded and unprofessional cases. i am about unsafe operations. you are familiar with many of them. recently, our sensitive reconnaissance operation intercepts.

we have had no untoward since the one we viewed as unsafe. we talked about this at length and going ahead. both anda concern for the heads of navy. when we go to see and meet at its best to deliver live rent -- we have deliver it protocol. we need to have professional operations in international airspace. endorsed not long ago.

we started down the road back in april of this year at the western pacific naval symposium when we got together 22 navies to endorse professional behavior and communications. we had ships and worked at that. a lot of different nations and navies. this will be a long process that needs attention. in some cases, for some, it is different to have engagement that is open and be conversing at sea. in the counterpart visit that i visited the oceanic likeistration and it is our department of homeland security. that is where the coast guard is

located and we talked about introducing the protocol to the coast guard and it was taken in viable andg that is our coast guard is interested in making the connection to expand it across the globe with all of the nations and it was embraced world.es around the call --ept of a noted nona protocol -- the concept of a known protocol was endorsed. symposiums will continue and the next is in singapore. to discuss thee

impact and how do we move on. the admiral and i agreed to continue on with the initiatives that we started almost 15 months theyhen he was here and continue training in the promotion of this between us and to increaseisits proposals later this month. i will bring the proposals. we established communications and the means to do that and increased our academic exchanges theaval academies and commanding officers were brought and the admiral

attended and synchronized that. they are coming over here and some will come over to continue the exchange. we agreed to put together a working group and we are building the navy of the future my those challenges and fleet commander is working to find out how we put together sea andso we meet at new piracy operations to have simple exercises that we can get approved. it is about understanding how to continue on the road.

let me close and we will go to your questions and answers. are strong and the engagement is increasing and it is part of the rebalance. the relationship i have spoken to with china, their navy, and india, will not be at the expense of our allies. it is not zero sum. i look to continue and forward to your questions. >> thank you for the remarks and what you are doing. working with the allies and the chinese. i want to begin with the chinese. rememberlity, i

pacific command making a statement that everything we thought the chinese would do, they are doing faster than we once thought. you discussed trying to build engagement. how do you assess the capacity and the quality. i think the admiral is continuing the speed mentioned pace we couldis a consider in weapons development and architecture. i would say that what we are them and not internationally is that they

started out rudimentary and had problems here and there. not unexpected, for those entering into a multilateral engagement. olympic grading scheme. how did we do in this or that. they said, they were average or high-average. it is coming along well. especially the interest in humanitarian assistance disaster relief and taking on a role. >> are you concerned about the >> are you concerned about the role they're taking on? of course i know that our navies have come into close

proximity. they're not entirely comfortable with our presence. there's thinking they want to push us back. are you particularly worried about that? and do we need some new rules of the road for how the navies interact, some of the safety measures and hot line measures that the u.s. and soviets had in the cold war would be well served into inserting some of those into the u.s.-china relationship. >> i think it would be of great interest. we started a dialogue. it is relatively routine right now, perdyike, perhaps predictable. i think it follows suited that we have a means to discuss, both continue our deliberate processes but also when we have these untoward instances to get on the line we should talk about this instead of reading this in the media or diplomatic channels as to what happened. two professional mariners saying -- especially if it's contrary to things we agreed on, saying what's the story on this?

to me that's how you find out if you can trust someone else, how much confidence do you have in them? are you willing to take more risk? and how much authority do they have through the chain of command and just how tight is it? and it's also a way to evaluate that other navy or that other entity when it goes. this is not apple pie and if i gave you that impression that would be the wrong impression. it is encouraging but at the same time it warrants vigilance. to say who is -- thgs an opportunity, and who who are they going to be? if they're going to be large or technologically advanced, what are the intentions and how do we manage this growing entity that we're going to share the south china sea and east china sea? because we're going to be there and they acknowledge that. >> if i could ask a couple more questions. you itemized some of the specific things you're doing with more destroyer capacity, the four lit torl ships going toward singapore. another submarine at guam.

a number of specific changes and initiatives. but i wanted to ask you also about sort of the big umbrella change which is this notion that 60% of the navy is supposed to be focused on or based in the asia pacific at least by 2020 and that's a change from the 50% norm from the cold war. how are we doing with that? and the next question is about the budget and sequestration because even if we're moving towards 60% of our navy in the asia pacific, if budget pressures are pushing your fleet size down ward at some point 60% is no greater than 50% of the old. but i'm come to that next. how are we doing it approaching that 60% goal and what does it really mean? is that 60% that's going to be operating in the western pacific or more generally through the asia pacific region? >> that number of 60 prtsd represents the percentage of our navy that is home ported west. the idea is it's easier to

rotetationly deploy or to react if you have to, you're home port wrd you believe your focus of attention should be. we're on track for that. as we build ships we look toward home porting them to the west and again keeping that process going. because it's not just numbers. it's also the numbers of the -- with the most capability. the two destroys to japan is a part of that. the lit torl combat ships to singapore they're not a part of that in that they're not home ported there. the sailors don't move there. they would go out and operate, call them forward station and will rotate the crews. but the ships themselves are literally, kind of like we're your family and where your home is, in that case it will be san diego. still west but not as far west. but my point would be we certainly have a target number. we need 306.

our number of ships in order to accomplish the defense strategic guidance. but doing the best that we can with the ships that we have is also important. so put another way, we could have a lot of ships. but if they're all here home based in the united states and we're not operating forward, then we're not nearly as effective. and if we try to respond and it's three weeks from just about any place in the united states, any hot spot around the world. >> so that's a helpful clarifying answer on the 60%. i want to ask you about fleet size. while i'll let you correct me in the second but today's fleet is 285 ships. you're aiming for 306 but that's based on your hopes of where the budget will go and what's reflected in the administration's long-term budget plan. but we also know two things that complicate your life -- i'm sure there are a lot more than two. one is of course the potential

return of sequestration in next year's budget. sequestration level defense spending, which is lower than the administration wants or has planned on, lower than you've planned on. and yet at the moment it would be the law of the land that we return to those levels unless congress is able to act in the meantime. if we do wind up at a sequestration level of defense spending and we stay there, can you give us a rough sense of what that does to your plans and how big the navy would become? so instead of being 306, what's a rough approximate benchmark? of course the other complicating factor is a lot of times technology winds up costing more than we hope and so you could have additional pressure reducing your numbers of purchases of ships and airplanes because of that. so can you give us a little sense? you're at about 285. you're hoping for 306. but what could happen and how much could you fall short if you don't get the funds you need? >> we're at i think it's 289 is the number today. i don't want to quibble so

much. but there's a point to be made. we're growing. and we're growing because we've had a stable ship-building plan now for about five, six, seven years i would say. that has produced ships and ship projects -- ship-building projects that are coming in on time and under budget because we have a competitive situation and a multi-year procurement situation. so the value of that has started to show itself. and we'll continue to grow. under the current budget that we have today -- i'll start with that. the fiscal year 2015. if you extrapolate that out what we submitted to the hill, we would have 308 ships by 2020. and if you go out to 2025, we grow to 317. so that's a decent scenario. if we went to the budget control act -- and there's two parts of this. you go to the budget control act -- how do i say this, in a very predictable manner. so you sort of know what your budget is and you make those

plans. and then you can go about it where you get squerd where there's just no decision every year. you get to the beginning of that year and then you get is he questrd. we have this algorithm which kicks in. and that's a bad situation. for two reasons. you have a plan for any of it because you haven't been told to. and then you suddenly have all of your programs reduced by 10%. so you scramble for months to reprogram money and get the important moneys where they need to be like the ohio replacement. you lose months of work, months of hiring perhaps if you're trying to get engineers. so it's very disruptive and that adds up if you do that year after year. that is worse than just going to a long-term budget control act. and it doesn't help with your people who are the most important aspect of it. but to your point. i would say -- i worry about the ship-building industrial base. i worry about that scenario

which would cause us to have to reduce our ship-building account. this would take years to manifest itself in numbers depending on how many ships we had to retire to meet the budget requirements. but more importantly, if we lose a builder here and there nd -- and there's some likelihood we lose one or two, and we only have five, then you lose that competitive competition which gets you a much more effective ship-building base and a situation where, if you need to reconstitute your ship account, if you will, you could put money in but you only have so many builders. you lose your mid-gread venders, people who build specialized valves, circuits, and other specialized items, especially in the nuclear arena. and that would be a tough call and that would be a very tough recover yifment >> a quick followup just for the general viewer and observer here. those five shipyards, could you remind us of where they are?

>> the bath up in the northwest in main. electric boat in connecticut. down in the newport news area you have huntington. and then you have engles down in gulfport, mississippi. and then you have nass coout on the west coast in the san diego arena. so those are the big ones. there are other ship-builders but those are the big ones that provide our capital ships. the little combat ship builders are up in the northwest in wisconsin area and down in the gulf in mobile, alabama. >> i have two more questions, one on missile defense and one on air-sea battle. on missile defense this is an important priority for not only your service but all the services. and you've got the standard missile as well as the aegis radar that would provide information and guidance. but of course we also know that china in particular is modernizing its missiles very fast and as i look at this from

just sort of a military technology point of view it's always been tough for a defender in the missile age to deal with the potential threat for missiles, whether it's icbms and the nuclear threat or whether it's the tactical threat which is probably of greater concern to the seventh fleet, for example. how do you feel about the overall trend in missile defense technology and i guess to put it right to a point do we really need a break through in directed energy weapon defense before we're ever going to be able to change the balance and really have the defense in a potentially strong position vis-a-vis the offense? >> my view is there are two areas that we are doing some very good exploratory work, some demonstrations, and they are directed energy. i think that is a longer range effective weapon system that we need to look at. as we speak here, wever -- we have directed energies weapon. if you put it up out on the -- there it is right there. out on a ship in the air ban

golf and in just a few days we're going to demonstrate this thing. we already have, you can see the results behind. that's a low energy directive energy weapon and you can see the results of the small boats and the drone flaming coming down. the key is how do you increase the energy of this and what kind of power sources require that? i think we're on a path to do that. how does it perform? some people say well if it rains the water will absorb the energy and say, well, really? let's take a look at this. put it out in the most difficult or ause tier environment. i can't thing of one more than gulf.abeion the second peace is we've been sort of obsessed with bullet on bullet. we'll shoot do you know a ballistic missile or -- down a ballistic missile or druse missile. that's a pricey view.

one of these costs you about a dollar. so once you're on target and you lay something -- you lace it 10, 15 seconds, it's about $1. $1 million. ome of the other is to spoof and rather than just try and shoot it down. that's what i call electro magnetic warfare. know the spectrum, understand it, expand your ability to detect both low energy, if you will, seekers, and then to -- and the broad spectrum that we have out there, to move in that spectrum, to be agile in that elect tro magnetic spectrum. and we need to expand and we're working hard. >> the next is air-sea battle which is a big idea that came out of the think tank world to a large extent but also the navy and air force in

particular promoted it on your watch. there's now a concept, official concept opt pentagon website that people can read about what it means to the military. and i'm a -- jim stineberg and i wrote a book in which we talked about this. we saw a lot of concerns but saw the military logic behind it. i want to express in some reform what some of the stronger critics have said and ask you to respond and explain what air-sea battle means to you at this juncture. because it's now been around long enough as an idea that different people have taken it in different directions not so much within the military but outside. and some people have argued that what air-sea battle really should mean is long-range strike where we don't have as many assets forward deployed in the asia-pacific region. we have more in guam, hawaii, continental united states, get ready for a bigger war in which our assets are not so technologically vulnerable. and if we end up in a war specifically against china that some interpretations of air-sea

battle say we ought to preempt some of their launchers fairly early. some of their submarine yards, for example. obviously there's some logic to those ideas if you get deeply into a war and you have to really think about going to the limits to win. but the -- some people have said the proposal for an early preemption could be dangerous in a crisis. so i want to give you a chance to explain in the terms you see most appropriate. what does air-sea battle mean today in terms of your modernization strategy and war-fighting strategy? >> so let me back out of the war plan for china. if you don't mind and we'll talk about air-sea battle. it is a concept of thinking about how to get assured access to wherever it is you need to go. and this could involve -- and it really could involve humanitarian assistance, disaster relief. how are you going to get into a

particular site? how do you get access to deliver comfort when you have things that are going so much against you? we saw very much in operation tomedatchi. we had radiation issues, contamination. how are we going to go in and measure that so we can then get in and deliver it? and the logic that is behind working together to do that. so let me leave that for what it may. this can involve operations, across the spectrum. a lot of people feel it is think kin ectically in that approach. you need to get access. how are you going to do this to deliver this kinetic action? there may be a nonkinetic way to do it. maybe it involves cyber, surface to air space. you've got to think across the spectrum of the doe maines number one. two it could be a kinetic effect or non. which is best and could get us

the access and get us that answer? number three if you are under the sea, is it only an undersea effect that you deliver, be it a weapon, be it whatever the heck it is? or can you deliver across dome maine? is the undersea solution to something on the land better or sit air solution to an undersea problem the better way? so it's getting people to think across dome main, kinetic and nonkinetic, across the spectrum of challenges that we have. step one is to get our officers and those coming up to embrace this and stand back and instead of waiting until you're in an operation to say, ok, what have we got and how do wre do the best with that? that's great joint operations. but as we plan our campaigns in that, how are you thinking in the manner that i just described all those features? and then how do you build your programs accordingly? if the best solution is from an aircraft delivered by an air

force program there, then why am i building that? if in the joint force it is -- we are better served to invest in that and then similarly i should have that on my aircraft if it's a good effect. so it builds an interdependence element of that. so if you want to fast forward and say, ok, i want to talk about how you're going to take on country x, i would say well let's start at the beginning there. where do we have opposed access? what asymmetric approach may we have here? kinetic, nonkinetic, you get moy point. what's the best way across dome main to do that. that's the logic that i think we need to build. our most recent discussions with the air force and all of the services, because we've expanded this across all services. we have a service chief meeting quarterly that we get together to describe, we get reports on how we're doing.

and as we build our palms and our budgets are we doing duplicative effort here in this regard? is there a gap? and if there is who is best served to take on this gap. >> thank you. i'm going to take questions now from the audience. e have about 20 minutes. please identify yourself and wait for the microphone. >> thank you. thank you for your comments and especially what you're doing with china. i would like to broaden the aptur and ask you what you're doing with the joint chiefs and balances the long term and short term. clearly there's a balance. but yesterday for example, a general was in town saying do we want to increase forces in europe given ukraine. take a look at iran, iraq.

what sort of advice would you give in terms of how you balance these short-term issues which could be quite long it have term against the largerivity? especially as we find ourselves more engaged in the middle east region? >> i think for us we can, i use the term often, operate forward and use the forces that we have forwarded as effectively as possible. so if i look at europe, folks say what are you doing about europe? we're putting forward destroyers in rodea. called forward deployed naval force. we are building ships today which have great persistance and we could move them there, if you will, and it's about capacity, it's about deck space, if you will. and then bring in the kind of aircraft that you need that resonates with the air. put up the mobile landing platform and the flow fort staging base. and it's taking what we have and making sure that we are making best use of it for the problems of today. as i said in my opening

remarks, the focus is still within the department of defense and within the national command authority to the asia pacific. but obviously we have today's problems today to deal with. and i think we have opportunities. this is now 2-1/2 months old. we're building three of these. you see the deck space. and these are the kind of things we can use in and around your north africa, the la vanity, the somalia, the yemen and put these out around the world and leave the big deck amfib kind of issues to continue look the deliberate path with the high-end wafer piece. so there's -- warfare piece. so there's messages. and i think we're distributing that fine. on the iso operations, and people wonder about that, we provide carrier with air wing and right now talking with general lloyd austin, he's fine

with that. we've got a lot of capacity on the ships that we have forward today. so 104 ships are out and about around the world. they have a lot of capability. and we will continue to train and to expand that capability so the east can deliver that. so i will close with i'm fairly happy with where we're going and that the focus remains appropriately in the asia pacific balance. >> let's go here to the front row. >> nice to see you again. the world has changed. what do you think are the changes that need to take place in the training and education and learning of our sailors and officers? i mean, it's just not about hitting the target. you use two important words to me. one was understanding and the other was relationship. how does that get into our educational programs? >> well, we mentioned earlier

bringing people from the chinese navy over to interface with our folks to see who is this example, who is this department head today who in seven years will be commanding officer of a 40 and a destroy in the -- friget and destroy? who are the pilots and making sure that they meet and understand who the other one is, find out can they trust each other on an international screen or agenda? and that regard. and how different are they? they're not ten feet tall. they actually have many of the same concerns. that's helpful. it's not kumbaya. we're not going to all have a coke and say we can work this all out. but it is understanding how do they think, what is important to them, what's their psyche. that's one. continue those programs at our war college and put more of them in our naval academy. i spoke earlier, mentioned cyber. we have got to get a baseline.

we have got to have cyber boot camp big time in our naval academy rotc. and then we have cyber warriors. but we are putting tab let's and smart phones and the use of them back into our basic training. you say i didn't know you took it away. yeah, we actually do. today we bring them in and they have got their phones and tablets. we say take all that away. write a letter to your mother. and that's like giving them a chisel and hammer and say, ok. and we start that and say, well, actually we need to give those back, send an email to your mother or text your mother as the case may be that, by the way, this is how you need to use this. these are the basics of password protection, of understanding virus protection. don't charge this thing up on a computer on your ship. that's not a good idea. we don't want to share viruses

across that. cyber higene. so you've got to get that done. then all the elements of what you're doing it's a combat system. that network is a combat system. it exchanges information and the understanding of information dominance. he or she who has the information upperhand definitely has the upperhand and likely will lead to victory in some way. so there's the cyber education that needs to take place. and then lastly, bill moran and i, our chief of naval personnel, we are working diligently on saying, ok, today we bring a kid into the navy -- they're all kids to me -- and in two years we have them about ready to go be something like an aegis tech. two years. you can get a master's degree in two years. right? in any program most likely. certainly most of the colleagues agree if you're starting there. we're not even close to that. so what is it that we can do to be faster in that regard? after those two years it's

about six more years before we send -- at least six years -- before we send them to a major upgrade in their education. that's too long because their equipment is rapidly changing over and over. you know the loop that we're talking about. so how do we keep up with that in a manner that is sensible and reasonably -- well, we've got to evolve this. we are trying to build this airplane as it's flying, to put it another way. so anyway, those are the things we need to change, and those three i think for sure. >> thank you. et's go over here to the side. >> i just came from off virginia where your folks and a lot of the allies are starting off bold alligator. it goes to a lot of the themes you mentioned, but also to some of the challenges you mentioned in the past. we've got a lot of different countries operating there.

we've got a danish admiral. working more than past exercises on response, humanitarian side, the kinetic side. but also, they had to cludge an antenna on to the side for the lpd to communicate with the allies. it looks like they're stealing cable, sort of strung up there. and meanwhile the dutch ship, the flagship of this task force is built to damage control standards. even so-called low threat environment. somebody may get their hands on a cruise missile nowadays and do a very bad thing a ship with people on board. so with that as an example, how do we deal with these problems of interoperability with the allies not just technically but in terms of what they're able to survive, in terms of threats? >> well, if i had that answer as clearly as i would like to vit, we probably could have stipped bold alligator and said we have the answer.

but i will tell you we're in the bit of discovery and i think you're discovering that and you've outlined a few of the thing that is come about. what kind of equipment and capabilities do our allies have ? we need to understand that. and you don't get into those details and find those issues until you bring them together. that's kind of one. two, we're still coming back. as the marines come back to sea we welcome them back and they have a capability as they moved ahead on ground operations and expeditionary operations over the years in iraq and afghanistan. we didn't move at the same equivalent pace and didn't stay as synchronized as we should have. so the discovery that you just described, we're kind of putting an antenna on here that makes us compatible with our ground forces and we'll get that capability, understand it, put it into the programming system. and we'll build that. we'll install that as a payload for command and control and also for coordination among ourselves. what do we need now for the allies?

as we build the next -- as i just described, let's say you'll use yoush antenna as an example. the tracking processes if you will and capability and the planning capability, that would be great for the navy and the marine corps. but back to air-sea battle. how do we use that tw allies? is it compatible? do we make it compatible? do we step it up and have maybe two different modes? one would be internal and one would be allied in that regard. with regard to how do we i guess i would say baseline surviveability and all those elements, we have to figure that out right now what kind of ships would we put into a joint forcible entry scenario. i quickly threw up here in a flow forward staging base, that ship is built to commercial standards and many of its elements. we wouldn't put that in to do forcible entry. we would use one of my gray holes. that ship showed up here is a

$6 million ship uss america is over $4 billion so there's a scaling we need to consider in all that. but anyway, i sum rise with saying that's why we do bold alligator and those are the lessons learned we'll pull out of that and put into our programming in the future and concept of of rations. >> one quick followup. we talked about china and the allies. i want to ask for any update on how the russian navy is behaving and to what extent are you continuing to see them seek to be provocative in this very difficult 2014 year we've had with them. >> iled say they're very busy in the undersea dome main. they're not as i busy in the surface do main. out at sea many of the ships that we see, surface ships i recognized through my commanding days. they are building new frigets. new destroyers. they're not out and about so much. they're pretty active up in the

air. their long-range flights and reconnaissance probably more active than they've been in a decade in that regard. so they have operating money, clearly. they are out and about. they're operating professionally as always. they've probed up in the alaska you will. is, if we responded and they acted professionally in all regards. so so far so good in that regard. but i would call them more busy, more operations. their focus is on the undersea and in the surface and in the air. that's what i've seen. >> thank you. ok. let's take two questions here in the fourth row. take them together and see if we can respond then we'll probably have time for one wrapup round. >> how are you doing with tempo of operations and how are you managing that? >> thank you. and if we could add this one.

important or how less important role taiwan plays in the states' rebalancing policy? and also, i know that taiwan is expecting to get a technical support or buy a marine from state. how -- what are the steps currently? thank you. >> i think tempo. we have the vinson on a deployment now. her deployment will be close to nine months. that's not sustainable. we have right now the macon island, an amphibious ready group. those are the two big kind of the -- they're not -- i guess i will call them anecdotes. they're fallouts from this sequestration issue. and i will tell you what i mean. she is on a deployment which is well over eight months. when sequestration hit us, remember, it was sudden. when that occurred we because

of the sudden loss of operating money and maintenance money we stopped work on some of the projects in the shipyards. the vinson we slowed down dramatically, the reagan and the george herbert walker bush. she just got back, fair loy long deployment between eight and nine months. those on deployment stood the watch. when we finally got squared away and got the money going again and got the ship yards out again people out of the furloughs the hiring freeze lifted overtime restored we're trying to catch these guys up, get them through the shipyards and out on deployment. they're out there on watch longer deployments. they finally come home and now it's their turn to go on deloims. theirs is longer while we bring these guys back in. so this has taken about two years and that's the kind of impact that you have that has second and third order effect. it affects the big decks, the uclear carriers, it affects is

ssbns also. those are the shipyards, the federal employees we hire. when you don't have a predictable budget, when you do negotiations for the big-deck amphibs with the private ship yards, they're not going to -- if you will -- spool up to be ready in time. you don't have the work orders done. you get my point. this is all slowed down. so we've got another year. vinson will be out there about eight-and-a-half months, or this longer deployment. when you get into the p 3, p 8, they're fairly notional. six-and-a-half months. my target is seven months. i think that is sustainable by all indications with our people, maintenance, training, what we can provide which i think is reasonable and sensible gives us that presence and the ability to react to spool up and react as necessary. but we've got -- we need a stable budget. we need the current budget that

we've requested and we need time to bring the shipyard capacity up to where it needed to be before. so this is -- that's just -- how long this stuff takes in second or third order effects. with regard to taiwan, we have responsibilities with a treaty with them. we will honor those responsibilities. we have a process worked out with our department of state as o how we interact and both for our human capital, if you will, intellectually, if you will, and in exercise, and then what we can provide for assistance. and we're living up to that. we're continuing with that and expect to do. so fairly deliberatively laid out. not really a whole lot of leeway one way or the other in this regard. so unless there's something specific it's about the best i can tell you right now. >> could you clarify on that point, what is the guiding document? are you referring to the taiwan

relations act or what is the specific? >> the taiwan relations act. that is our commitment. >> let's take two more and see how we're doing on time. >> good morning. i want to ask you to put your joint chiefs hat on and talk about your level of comfort or discomfort with an army that looks to be going well below 490, maybe 450 as the active force. i know your predecessor was vocal on what his thoughts were. >> take this last question here, please. lot about ed a cooperation with china and i was hoping you could talk a little bit about the navy's goals for cooperation and capabilities of our allied and our treaty partners in the asia pacific. >> sure.

i share general oid narrow's concern with regard to the sizing of the army. because we are a supporting element of that in the joint force. and what i mean by that is, ok, if we're going to resize any of the services, really the centerpiece of the land force - the army -- then what is the construct behind that and what are we going to agree will be the limitations of our operations out there? and what is the our tendency to do that? what has been in the past we've said we're not interested in doing this that or the other thing. but then as we say the world gets a vote. a clear indicator is as we move nything from army armor out to heelos out to all of that, you know, we can -- we're the kind of fill-in behind that and

we're seeing some of that right now with operations in afghanistan and the so operations. so i think we need to do this in a careful deliberate manner. we did our own right-sizing of our personnel. it was 1%. we have 3%. we laid off 3% -- sorry, 1%, 3,000 folks. the effect on morale and the trust factor was huge. so what we can expect collectively of any of our ground forces and any of our services to size the force yet make sure we maintain that trust and confidence and the covenant we have with them i think is important. and it's a joint issue that we all need to understand. so the size, the readiness, the psyche and the morale of the ground force is a joint issue we all ought to be concerned with as we watch this. i think the other in the asia pacific allies interaction, i

think in the nearer term the concept of collective self-defense is a clear item that i'm watching and this is with japan. where that can take us if it goes according to the plan set out by the japanese government, then they can share with us ballistic missile defense. it's defensive in nature. they have all of the sensors, weapons, command and control that we have. so that would be a big movement afoot. next would be counter mind in locations like the strait of hormuz. very defensive, collective in that regard. required a little bit more coordination would be operating with our carrier strike group and assuming one of those missions of defense of the carrier strike group such as n.i. air defense and all of the rules of engagement and the caveat associated. so that would be one area. korea, we'll see where we want to go in that regard. that's a matter of what korea's

comfortable with regarding coordinated operations, especially at sea. right now it's very tentative as they're feeling their way through how much they would want to proceed in that regard. so when it comes to missions i would say ballistic missile defense. there is opportunities there. counter minde there's opportunities there. we've demonstrated this in a good way. the deterrent effect of coalitions op rations for counter minde about two years ago now where we did the counter mind exercise and 20-some countries came and demonstrated their interests and capability and commitment to keeping the strait of hormuzz open. and that deter and effect in iran who is threatening at that point to mine the strait of hormuz to focus our attention on counter mine not in iran but on counter mine had a great deternlt effect and changed

really the behavior of the iranian navy. >> thank you. please everyone in thanking the admiral. >> thank you all very much. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> coming up next, a look at the international atomic energy agency's role and talks concerning iran's nuclear program. then q&a. and live at 7:00 a.m. your calls and comments on washington journal." >> here are just a few of the comments we've recently received from our viewers. >> i just watch your show this morning on domestic violence and was very disappointed with what i saw and heard. i thought the guests were both weak and ineffectual and it seemed that the bulk of callers were a bunch of whiney men. one woman is beaten every 15 seconds in this country by a husband or a partner.

that is one woman every 15 seconds. this issue alarmingly is swept under the rug in this country. probably and most likely because most of the perpetrators are male. the only way this will ever change is if men are willing to look at their own bad behavior and address it head on. >> i'm listening to your commentator and one from the bloomberg news and they're talking about 2,000 some bills being on harry reid's desk to be presented for whatever. well, each and every one of those bills have a repeal of what they call obamacare or of the affordable care act. so whoever is your commentator, that needs to bring out that point. >> i just heard your comment,

the comment from a lady who called in and said -- i'm watching the show recorded -- that it would be good, rather than democrats leave a comment and then republicans and just airing them so like democrats and republicans basically fight it out it sounds like verbally on the show? if you ever decide to do that i'm up for that. >> continue to let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. >> now the director general of the international atomic energy agency discusses his agency's role in monitoring iran's nuclear program and its compliance with the p 5 plus 1 interim agreement. made up of the u.s., u.k.,

france, china, russia and germany. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> good morning. i would like to welcome to -- you to today's event. our speaker is the director general of the international atomic energy agency. the iaea. years ago when i spoke to groups or i briefed reporters,

i would simply use the initials iaea, then i would catch myself and remember to sound out the full name of the agency. today you don't have to do that any more. the iaea has practically become a household word. it's an indispensible effort. it's an indispensible player in international efforts to prevent a nuclear -- prevent nuclear proliferation. its safe guard system is highly sophisticated monitoring system is an essential element for providing assurance that nuclear programs are truly peaceful and for detecting possible violations of nonproliferation obligations. the agency has been at the

center of compliance controversies with north korea, iraq, libya, and syria. and now it's heavily involved in the iranian nuclear issue. iran's cy has monitored implementation of the nuclear lements of the november 2010 interim accord between -- the so-called joint plan of action. and since december of 2011 it has sought iranian cooperation in resolving serious concerns that at least in the past iran carried out research, experiments, and procurement activities related to the development of nuclear weapons.

ut so far iran has largely stonewalled the iaea's investigation. and if an agreement is reached between the p 5 plus 1 countries and iran, on a comprehensive solution to the nuclear issue, the responsibility will fall to the iaea to monitor iran's ompliance. yukiamana was elected as now serving his second term of office. before becoming director general, he had a distinguished career in the japanese diplomatic service. is last post as a japanese diplomat was ambassador from

2005-2009 and as japan's representative to the iaea he served as chairman of the agency's board of governors in the 2005-2006 period and in that capacity he accepted the noble prize on behalf of the agency for its work in iraq. during his tenure director general has done much to enhance the iaea's reputation for professionalism, integrity, and object tivity. his predecessor in my view sometimes strayed into highly political matters, providing his personal advice on policies that iaea member states ought to pursue. amano has kept the

focus on the ear of competence and it has been extraordinarily capable instrument of nonproliferation policy. and this emphasis on the agency's technical mandate has restored and i think increased the agency's credibility, and credibility is the iaea's number one asset. director general amano has made some tough calls on issues such as the syrian nuclear reactor and the possible military dimensions of iran's nuclear program. he called them the way he saw them as wasn'ted by the information collected and

analyzed by his very capable professional staff. now, it's predictable that governments that were identified by the agency as having violated or likely violated their obligations would attack the agency and its director general, accusing

amano has made some tough calls on issues such as the syrian nuclear reactor and the possible military dimensions of iran's nuclear program. he called them the way he saw them as wasn'ted by the information collected and analyzed by his very capable professional staff. now, it's predictable that governments that were identified by the agency as having violated or likely violated their obligations would attack the agency and its director general, accusing them of bias and of being the tool of countries like the united states. but yuki ammano has made clear that he won't be deterred or intimidated by such tactics. he will continue to follow the evidence wherever it leads. they're boosted the agency's technical cooperation program to ensure that member states especially those just embarking on civil nuclear programs can fully benefit from the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. in the wake of the fukishima die yeach aa tragedy the iaea has been at the forefront of efforts to ensure that the highest standards of nuclear safety throughout the world. and with the worldwide terrorist threat continuing to grow, and the worldwide increase in stocks of nuclear and radiological materials, the agency under his leadership has significantly expanded its role in the area of nuclear security.

o the iaea's agenda is full. it's role is critical. and the challenges it faces are daunting. fortunately, we have him at the helm. so mr. director general, we ook forward to your remarks. [applause] >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. i am very pleased to be here today at brookings. this institution has a well-deserved reputation for the excellence of its research and the high caliber of its experts. for more than a century you have made a major contribution to public policy, both within

the united states and internationally. it is a special pleasure to see both inehorn, a distinguished veteran of arms control and nonproliferation, with overwhelm i have worked for many years. i have been asked to talk about the challenges of the nuclear verification and in particular about the role of the iaea with regard to iran's nuclear program. before talking about what the agency is and does let me tell you what we are not. we are not a political actor as bob explained. e are not an international nuclear police force. we do not take sides. iaea is an independent technical organization within the u.n. family. one of our core activities is to verify that countries are

not diverting nuclear material from peaceful activities to make nuclear weapons. we collect and analyze all relevant information and provide factual, impartial objective reports to our board of governors to facilitate its decision-making. the ea states that director general is under the authority of and subject to the control of the board of governors. under the statute, the iaea's role in nuclear verification is to, quote, establish and administer safeguards designed to ensure that special appreciable material services equipment and facilities are not used in such a way as to further any military purpose. addition, the treaty on the

nonproliferation of nuclear weapons requires all nonnuclear weapons states to commit themselves to use nuclear material exclusively for peaceful purposes. these countries, nonnuclear weapons states, are required to conclude a comprehensive safeguard with the iaea and submit a declaration of all nuclear material and facilities to us. by inspectors visit to verify that the declaration made by countries are correct and inspectors continuously follow up. the safeguard system appeared to work well until the 1990's. however, the discovery of a secret nuclear weapon program in iraq after the downfall of 1990, 19 t 1, and development with north korea's nuclear

program showed that concentrating only on facilities declared to us by countries was not enough. we needed tours that would enable us to verify the absence nuclear materials and activities in the country. in response, member states approved the model additional protocol in 1997. when a country implements a protocol that agency acquires more tools to implement safeguards including additional access to information to people and to sites in that country. the additional protocol is essential for the iaea to be able to conclude that all of the country's nuclear material remains inexclusively peaceful activities. the number of states with additional protocol in force

has grown steadily and now stands at 124. this is good news. ladies and gentlemen, the route in which we implement safeguards today is very different than our founding fathers in the number continues to grow rapidly by 12% in the past 5 years alone. so does the amount of nuclear material to be safe guarded. it has risen by around 14% in

the period. iae resources are limited. demand for member states for our services continues to grow and our budget is being squeezed. that means we must constantly find ways of working more effectively and more efficiently in all areas of our activities including safe guards. we have developed important new instruments such as the additional protocols as i

vienna. this helps us to keep the intensity of routine inspections for states to that minimum level necessary to draw credible safeguards conclusion. if you are i want rested, i can come back to this issue later. the important thing to remember is that the state level approach if complemented strictly within the scope of safeguard agreements. i would also like to add that the assumptions in the 1950s was that nuclear weapon would only be developed and processed by governments. today, there are concerns about the possibility of nonstate actors developing nuclear explosive devices.

we have therefore become increasingly active in important to related areas such as nuclear security which involves helping to ensure that terrorists and other criminals do not obtain nuclear or other radioactive material. the iaea is now playing the central role in enhancing global nuclear security. that main safeguard issues on the agenda in recent years have concerned iran, north korea, and syria. these are very different cases. what they have in common is the fact that these countries have failed to fully implement their safeguard agreement with i iaea and other relevant obligations. this makes it very difficult to do our job

as far as iaea is concerned, our story began in august 2002 when in the media room boarded that --n was building a nuclear window media reported that iran was building a nuclear program. it acknowledged its existence and put it under iaea safeguards. let me say at this point, it is vitally important that the iaea and general should be impartial. that means applying the same principles to all countries. for me, the fundamental principle is at the safeguard agreements which would conclude with our member states should be implemented fully. resolutions of the united naon