other decision-making early on, not the decision to go to war and we were talking about my husband's book on the bush presidency earlier and one of the thing that is left out that happened in 2003 was there was no one a moment. there was a murky decision-making process around the invasion. i am. because you saw the art of it -- was there something that change in the decision-making? was there a better process or team? >> one of my professors used to , which is whenst the fax hits you between that -- eyes hit you between the nothing like. reality. a policy that was going bad and it needed to be turned around. it needed to be fundamentally changed. there was an alternative narrative which was called the baker commission report which basically was talking about a

slow and steady pull out at the time. that enter ocular test forced people to be more clear about things. i give a lot of credit to steve hadley for running a very that wasprocess inclusive of people's views but got to frame up a distinct set of decisions. one of the things we love to do in washington is a model things together. take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and muddle them together. everybody walks out thinking their position prevailed. quite frankly, you saw a bit of that in the bush administration where people walked out thinking their position had revealed and therefore there was not a clear vision and direction. examplesork, a lot of

that has encouraged that creative ambiguity among their advisors. bill clinton is famous for that stop -- for that. of examples a lot in american politics of it. it does not mesh with the award. >> it can be very dangerous in a wartime. >> if you did take away something specific from watching that surge decision in terms of your own personal leadership that has to do with isolating and what the decisions are and find a way to make them. startsfirst thing really anh learning, getting understanding of what is going on on the ground. i will give you an example. late 2005 that the marine who headed up the intelligence operations testified in front of john mccain's committee of officers

lost. it was headline news. with some of the senior leaders who robert out there as well and folks on the ground. i said we are being told in washington that it was lost. military guys, younger ones, kind of shuffle their feet and drew a map out and said, they would've done it down. it is real, simple sir. it runs down the river and we control about 2/3 and we are beginning to see the sunnis getting tired of al qaeda and wanting to push them out. come overot going to to our side if we do not demonstrate we can protected them. because i nice moment had someone, a group of people who were living it every day and

knew what was going on. finding out what is going on and getting ground troops and not just listening to experts from washington is a really important part of leadership. again, having that your open. -- ear open. with whate to start the situation is and figure out what to do. you have todecide, move forward. i like to think of myself as being an inclusive person when it comes to making decisions, but a decisive person once the decision is made. you,itary leader will tell you make a decision to do something. halfway through the execution is not the time to be questioning your self. a little bit about that. coming to the pentagon and working there, what kind of leadership styles and did you see their? more or less successful in a

caricature of a military leadership style that when not necessarily be called inclusive, right? into all kinds of different personalities. it is hard to isolate one. that done things rumsfeld was focusing on what is important, trying to figure out what is important and focusing on that. , which he collected over years, you managed to figure out your box, not your inbox. that place can vary you if you go to the pentagon. hassecretary of defense enough work to fill up 24 hours a day. somebody who says i will figure out what is important and i will stay on that message. really it was a interesting lesson that came

from that. >> that doesn't get as a really which isng question, where does accountability factor in leadership? obviously, secretary rumsfeld in the end left the pentagon and president asked him to leave after the midterm election in 2006. the iraq war was not well managed in his early days. how much of leadership is luck and how much can you be a good leader and have a terrible result? >> anybody who serves as a senior level whether a ceo of a company or organization of uso, for thethere really people you are serving. i think that is the ultimate accountability. you have to expect, it is not a question of whether it is fair or not there, what is right or the country, and the

organization and the people you are serving? is it means you exit, that is what it means. if you do not, if you do not walk in thinking that, you are i wouldyourself and question if you could be a good leader. >> can you be a good leader and not achieve great results, how much of those things go together? >> sometimes people have been a with no-win scenarios, situations -- in a way, you can ask yourself how well did they manage that really bad situation they were put into? i find that usually great leaders will turn a positive result. they are not necessarily going to be remembered for failure. >> or maybe they are smart

enough not to take on the challenges. i want to make sure we get a chance to get questions from the audience. get me a bit of a sense about your new talent at the uso. i always found when you come new two and a organization -- new to an organization, you have a crisp sense of what makes sense and what does not. oft is your outsiders view three exciting things i can do with this? >> it is absolutely a national treasure. the uso was founded by franklin beforelt in early 1941 we went into the war in understanding the war was coming. with strategicy vision who saw we would need something to support our troops overseas. athas really been a treasure

providing support and connecting in ways, inhe like some ways hard to explain if you have not been a customer. if you see a young 18-year-old show up in kaiser waiting to go off to fight in afghanistan, he has never been out of iowa before and he walks into the uso center and there is someone standing there that looks like sandwich and him a tells him to sit down, soldier, relax. a thousandof that, fact, 30,000in times a day. that is how often we see these people. >> 30 thousand times a day? a big data opportunity. fascinating. 30,000 interactions.

of that, said all organizations have to change and stay relevant. one of the things we have learned to be very agile and expeditionary. i'd like to say we have facilities in kansas, and dalhar, will -- kan learn to be in those places. the military will be deploying smaller deployments. we are starting to support the operation in western africa by providing satellite networks that can connect to the troops to their families back home. the one thing commanders felt strongly about. a lot of concern about the potential exposure. being able to connect with families back home is a really important thing is something of a uso has specialized in. figuring out how to do it in an environment where we may be sending 7500 troops and not the

larger numbers you see in the past. on finally, we are focusing what is called transition right now. we are not a veterans organization. we support active-duty and their families. that is our folks and we will keep that focus. making sure that can be veterans as they transition out is a really important part of what we do so we support a program across our centers having to do heroes and building stronger families. a lot of stress on the family's as a result of multiple deployments. sometimes, pokemon and -- both mom and dad are deployed. it is not an all volunteer force. >> it is very interesting as a leader, you are talking about a reinvention of your model in two

different models. >> absolutely. what i am calling it is reimagining our program. to do something called refreshing our brand. most of the people in this room i guess when they think about the uso, they think about bob hope and centers. right? we do so much more than that. we have to penetrate the consciousness of americans in terms of what we do. that is one of the things that is an important part of my mission. i want to make sure people under 50, under 40 know what to the uso does a know it has been a national treasure -- do not know 40's who bob hope is. >> they know who robin williams is. he was a huge supporter of the uso. a couple ofb

questions. here you go. hold on one second. can you do the microphone? withrk johansen, i work boeing. i enjoyed your view on satellites. you had a great discussion on leadership in very tough situations and recognizing uso serves veterans. what about the tough situation of the v.a.? how does -- how do they turn it around? gibson,edecessor, sloan who was president and ceo of uso is deputy secretary of veteran affairs. he is going to have an opportunity to work that problem along with his boss. again, i would go back to what i said earlier, which is first of all, you have to have a period

of a new leader, a voyage of discovery where you are figuring andwhat is really wrong needs fixing. hype ised to what the in the newspapers. once you have done that, oaks and on the two or three things that are critical. i do not know what they are for the v.a. i know that sloan is focused on that and i wish him the great success. it is the same thing you cannot do, you cannot do everything. period limited by the politics of our system. for somebody like him to make those kind of changes, they have to figure out what is an important. >> there's been a long-running debate about having this

freestanding v.a. versus the pentagon. people have said the pentagon has a lot of opinions about whether it should be more connected. have you ever had a policy point of view, whether we have the right set up to succeed? >> no, i do not have a view her say on it. i think that in washington, all too often we are not open to looking at more radical solutions to things. whether a new organization or a different or collapsing organization or putting things back together in a way that makes sense. having said that a month the pentagon has a lot on his plate. ongive it another mission top of that, there is logic in separating the two, they are different activities. you want to the military and active-duty military focused on the threats to the country

however defined. and not necessarily focused their, but you need somebody focus on veterans' issues. chris let me switch tables. here you go, sir. >> thank you very much. >> can you get the microphone? >> "the boston globe." on your discussion of military leadership and the unique skills that men and women gain and a military that is different from other sectors of society, when we talk about veterans, we talk about deployments and helping soldiers transition. i am wondering if you have thought as a country we can do a better job of tapping into that unique set of leadership skills when people are coming out of the military was smart congress will have the lowest number of veterans and generations. i am wondering if we have given enough out into how we tap into

its. -- 1% or 2% serve now. very importants to all of us in this room. they are doing in a sense, doing the job that we expect of them but also doing the job we are not doing. it is not the same as it was and the post world war ii or vietnam period. i have views on that. that incredible leadership skill built up by these young folks, you know, we trust them with an enormous number of direct reports under very stressful circumstances. it is not unusual for a lieutenant or captain to have $500 million worth of equipment under their command.

can you imagine in your business getting some by at that age access and control over $1 billion worth of capital? directors, their hair would fall out. they have learned to do multiple things. we have got second lieutenants and majors who were fighting in the morning and having tea in the afternoon with iraqis or afghans and building projects and villages in the evening. they are pretty good multitaskers. i think the problem is often on the soldier side, helping them understand how their skills translate into something that is useful in the private sector. here.k we need a beating -- medium here. people can help them take that financialal -- as

leadership skills they develop and turn it into language and understanding that accompanies or appeals to a company. on the company side, bank of america is a good example, they are all in on trying to higher more of our veterans. on the hr side, we needed to invest in people who know how to help those people be successful once they get the job. actually theob is easy part. it is staying in the job in being successful that's going to be the bigger challenge. a lot of these folks coming out, they want a career path like we all do. those 2 things can really be helpful in creating a successful environment for that transition. >> i think we have time for one more question. go ahead.

>> ben fernandez. you talked about the 2006 surge and you look at the press, several problems with syria, afghanistan. there areaq surge, those who do not agree. [indiscernible] institutional or personal relation or what can be done to make it better to sustain what the successor is? well, you only have to -- go back to see problems of civil military relations and it is not exactly a new phenomenon. , those thingsress

tend to come out. that is veryings helpful to our military is when you have sort of a clear decisions about the direction you are going to take. one of the reasons why the surge was successful was even though there were different points of view on the military and quite frankly, you want to those points of views expressed. you do not want to suppress those points of view. we allow a lot of that stuff to cool out and people to debate the various points in front of the president so the president had all of the information needed to make the decision and he made a decision. military, once a decision is made, is actually good about, ok, we have got it and we know what we have to do. where you see the worst aspects of relationships is where decisions go on made and that is is ahat decisiveness

really important part of leadership. next,,ave to go to our which people are excited to hear general mcchrystal. there,e finish up over today we are looking at being right back in iraq and syria in ways that clearly president obama tried hard to avoid having to make a military decision. we have heard a lot of criticism about how long it took to make the decision and what is the goal of the conflict. i am curious having seen the whole arc of our decision-making from 2003 in iraq. what are your thoughts as we return militarily to that country where we sacrificed so much? so much anxiety about where we were there and here we are all over again.

i am. about your views -- curious about your views. iraq really have been in since the gulf war. a lot of people forgot that bill overon waged an air war iraq throughout his entire presidency and it was president clinton who signed the legislation which actually talked about the need for regime change in iraq. one of the issues really surrounding that is the fact that iraq is an important country. it is an important country from a cultural standpoint, economic standpoint, and political standpoint in a part of the world that is very important to us. that is one of the reasons why you see the decisions that have been made and the desire to sort of see whether or not we cannot astain our position there

sustain a position of our friends in the region. not surprising to me that we had an announcement this week of another 1500 soldiers going in a support role. still the cause the stakes are very high there. 4 presidents learned in a way you cannot ignore. >> i am not sure it is a sobering note to end, but he why so much. i am going to walk to the stage my friend and colleague, our politico and general mcchrystal. >> thank you very much. [applause]

>> a pleasure to see you. >> a great honor. .hank you for your service and all of those watching who served our country. a great person to talk to about leadership. he has been a soldier, a leader in the military and on business, you are an author. you are a star own tech talk -- ted talk. when was the moment when you said, i am the god, i can be a leader -- i am the guy, i can be a leader? when did you think, i can't? >> early on, you focus on trying to be competent at what you do whether banking or supporting a whatever you do and you spend a lot of time on it. parallel to that, you are

position especially in the military and when i was a ,ieutenant, my first assignment making every mistake known to man. thinkve times when you that just do not have the knack to connect with people are trying, you try every style. you tried being a real nice guy and heavy-handed and you bounce back and forth. for me, it was probably about five or six years into that was suddenly i started to find out what i am. i do not try to be somebody else. -- >> youwere how old were how old at that point? >> about 28. you can subtly do things that seem right for you. you are not trying to be george patton, you have sort of figured out what your abilities and limitations allow you to do.

it was at that point i thought i could do it and found out i liked doing it and i wanted to do it. >> what did you think you were really good at back then that you realize in retrospect you were not? >> i thought i was very good at running things and i became a micromanager. vehicles and id couldn't all on the same radio frequency so i could talk at to turn leftld him and they all didn't want time and i said, i am an amazing leader here. to some extent, that's probably the most [indiscernible] thought if that, i you really got control of things and understood everything that thehappening and made decisions like that, you could control things to a level you can get the standard she wanted. true to athat is

certain size organization. maybe of around 120 guys and once you get past that, it does not work and suddenly you realize that model was wrong to begin with. do and i hadd to help from subordinates who cannot put up with my micromanagement and explained, we know how to do this business. your role is not to do our jobs but to help us do our jobs to give us an environment. get started a change in the way i think about leadership. a you said i came to believe leader is willing to learn and trust. this self-awareness you cannot appreciate enough. critique yourself. your greatest weakness as a leader is what christmas -- is what?

for one.azy as you can tell. [laughter] do notzy and ways that show. i will not do all of my homework and study some. when i went through most military schools, i do not write the essay. will make decisions too quickly sometimes. if people come with information, i will get a certain amount and i will be decisive. sometimes that is not yet informed enough. i get moody. to beot as bad as i used but i will be frustrated and it will make it harder for people to interact with me. ,t is not a one-time of the day but i will do that. when i get tired, i am not as a good leader, especially if i am

exhausted physically and i lose my patience. that makes it harder for people to deal with me. >> what are the adjustments you have made to offset one of those weaknesses? sleep more?' and stepto sleep more back and do not make yourself responsible for doing too much. get more senior, your job is to create an ecosystem which people operate. do that. do not follow the temptation of doing what you did when you were younger because you are good at it. that's not your job anymore. when we were going to iraq, a classmate of mine was selected to be my deputy. , a three-star job. he told me, we are going to go over there and you are going to deal with president karzai and i am going to fight the war. not how it that is

is going to find -- work. i said i might war fight a you will do the politics. he goes, no, you do not do it. only the commander can do those things. only the commander can form a relation with karzai and do those things. you have to do this. he was completely right. it took self-control to divorce myself from moving forces around was notap because that what i should invest my time in. >> you would not have the confidence you have if you do not make decisions along the way. take us behind the scenes behind one. i made a smart decision and saved lives or change trajectory or change an institution, a very specific one you can walk us through. >> i picked my wife and asked

her to marry me and that was the greatest. [laughter] i am most proud of is not a single decision in joint special operations command. we had an organization that was functionally excellent. we were better than any organization has ever been at the kind of things that it was designed to do. it was designed for specific high-end counterterrorism and special operations mission. because we were so good, it was our identity. .ur identity was excellence the problem was we were not right for the problem at hand started in late 2003 when i took over. we werewe could do what doing at this level of effectiveness but the war kept getting worse and we were not making a big enough contribution. whens one of those moments you say we can continue to do what we do and do it well and people packets on the back and

things can get worse or we can step back and say, we have to make a bigger contribution after the risk of stepping away from that which is comfortable. we made that decision and that was one of the ones i became most committed to and carry through the whole time of command. we were changing what we did, who we were, how we interacted and we were doing it in a way that was upsetting internally the organization. it was well received by some of our partners and not well received by others. other groups and whatnot. it was fundamentally essential for us to perform our role in the fight in iraq and afghanistan. so, there was not a brilliance to a single decision i made as i learned once you make a decision like that, it is consistent commitment to it.

never giving up the energy on that. you turn something and you have to start pushing it. would stay atfelt a day after day, the resistance, people who go, it did not work and step -- it did not work. time, the government had done all of these studies to figure out how to we fight a war. from that, you came up with a concept of intelligence. to getard enough for me 10 people to do what you want them to do. how to get the military to go from a mindset that completely change itself in afghanistan? command and 2003, it was already a great organization and we need to

change because the requirements had change. the requirement is changing. instead of us having to the problem and working a perfect solution to it, what we had to is aim at a moving target. resilientas this network of associations that was constantly morphing. it was a dynamic moving target. the consequence, i did not have a clue. all i knew was what we were doing was not right. and so what we did was overcame the inertia, that everybody to the idea, one of my young officer said, sir, you cannot steer anything until it is moving. let's get a moving and then we will fix it. some said, we should not rush to failure for that we need to do a study. the reality is, we do not know what we were going -- where we were going.

became what we are going to do is start moving and develop this organization that learns and communicates across the organization those lessons and adjustments in real time, faster than i had ever seen. it became the organization this organism that took in information, hard lessons sometimes and an adjusted constantly. we created, not just flat, or organism like things were information flowed everywhere and decisions were made much was atbecause everybody the same time. we call ensure consciousness now. it gives you this confidence that you know the big picture and you do not have to ask permission exactly how to do

this task because you know the big picture. you know what needs to be done and nobody can give you the right guidance because things are changing too fast. >> what is the worst decision you made? >> i have made a bunch of them. place whereink the i most thing i failed was in certain relationships. every time i spent a lot of time making sure the relationship with an organization or individual was right, it paid off. in other cases where it was not as dysfunctional as it needed to be and for any number of reasons, i do not fix it or i did not put enough effort, the command paid a price. if somebody in another organization, you do not like them, every once a while, you say, i am not going to deal with them. i will find an excuse. the price for that is in tokyo will.

calculable. to allow them to be institutionalized in the petulant or whatever. with the people surrounded around me. i would literally go against the wall of our awareness and pound on the plywood and say we are cutting off the relationships with our organization. they would talk me back from the ledge and say you always say relations are more important. there were always right. they would repeat my own mantra back to me. book, you spent a page on a rolling stones article -- what were the you thinking going into it?

offirst -- >> you have done a lot of pr and you are sadly. -- saavy. >> i would not give myself credit. i spent years were there was no public. i understood it was important. we did a lot of press. 2009ar in afghanistan in was not very popular in the u.s. and not very popular in europe. we felt this incredible need to communicate the story to build up support. i did the first "60 minutes" interview, literally, kicking and screaming. some people on my team said you have to do it. last thing i want to do, extreme close ups. not do it,f you do we cannot that the public audience and the people to start

to make the case on how we need to change the strategy. we did a whole bunch of media. they say we want to do rolling stones and i said rolling stone, i do not read it. they said it is a different audience and it can be focus on this. it was one of a number of imb eds. >> nobody knows afghanistan arguably more than you. you are thinking about what works and change the approach. what will a life five years from now? >> it is impossible to say. survivors ande they have proven it many times over. are they political commentators? that is the big question. they have an army and police force. they have the capacity to be an

effective society that is with taliban pressure. the weakness or challenge will come and their internal politics. they lack confidence in text on relationships with countries likethe u.s. and neighbors pakistan will give them the breathing room. they lack confidence in their local politicians and international politicians. when you lack confidence in something, you withhold your participation, your support. the most confident person in the world is a former full-size a plant something and coveted it farmer something -- is a and a plant something and confident it will be something. they are taking a short term view of something because they think i have to protect what i

have right now. if we do not have confidence, we when not send our kids to the military or invest. afghanistan has got to get over that and the governance will be the part of it. i think they have a reasonable chance to do that, i think it will motor along. it will not be perfect but no country is. it will benot do it, a different outcome. >> what would it look like if we did nothing? nothing in --one the soviets still would've done nothing. if we did nothing in the 2001, al qaeda would have remained --t of if we left after they would have remained.' we would've had a country damaged by the war and then traumatized by another decade of

civil war and the rising the warlords and suddenly the upending of government. they had 20 years of this andedible sort of upset kids had not been at school. had we walked out then, i think what we would've seen is a rise of the warlord civil war. the television would have accepted in 1994 through 1996 because people were so tired of it. >> the young gentleman over there looks to be 13 or 14. it seems we have this debate about isis and whether we authorized force to go and kill people who want to kill us. is there ever going to be point for that young then and we are not in war? some other acronym that wants to use the same brutal means, isn't

that the reality for forever? >> the power of one, single individuals can do something that cannot do before. -- an individual with a weapon of mass distraction have an effect. a computer can potentially have effects. small groups can do more than they ever have before. there've always been small groups that do not agree with us but there were over yonder. they did not matter so much on a daily basis. most of us remember the pirates and things like that lasted for 20 years but they only impacted a part of our economy. the difference is you have these organizations which before did not have the reach or technology or media standing to do much and can do that more.

it encourages them. they see more about it. for the foreseeable future, probably 10 or 20 years, it is likely we will see a series of challenges from groups from across the spectrum. not just against the united states but other existing structures, government structures, business structures, religious structures, will have all of those under assault in those difficult decisions on how we want to deal with it. in some countries, there will be a great quotation to lock down and the government is going to .et tight control technology also helps both ways. you can know a lot more about people now. there's a chance we will go into this police state in many areas because people want order in many people are willing to pay quite a price for order.

that would be one possible and the other is you get this chaos in areas that cannot be controlled like somalia was. you have this lack of centralized control and people are going to deal for themselves. be a perfect would sweet spot of democratically run government with enough control that you could have society and property rights and whatnot but no freedom where people do not have their civil liberties infringed. pretty delicate sweet spot to maintain a history has not been -- we spot most of history. we will have to work hard. it is going to be a challenge. do not think- i that kind of society is automatic and state to development. you progress and suddenly hit a democracy and all of these. it is a balance you maintain and protect every day because otherwise, it tilts one way or

another. >> will go to questions after this one. is it clear and the next presidential election, the question about global leadership and how much certainty and how robust the military presence but -- versus how much we will want to have. if you look at the past 2 commander-in-chief, look at her greatest strengths -- their greatest strengths as leaders? >> both of the president cared and they got to the right intentions. you say that's pretty obvious and that is not always obvious. both of them were trying to get the right outcome for the right reasons. both of them were challenged in very different circumstances when they came into power and the events that change george w. bush's presidency and that things that barack obama has changed. both of them have a data

challenge. probably,is that we the two things we need to think about is credibility. you have a foreign policy, is based upon credibility. it is your values and willingness to reflect and part is your ability to do something and your willingness to do something. if the united states said would like this to happen or not happen, everybody in the world makes a calculation and say canada united states causing that to happen or stop it? are they willing to do it? they go together. if they question of both or either, they make the copulation that maybe they will try this -- calculation that maybe they will try this. allies intoo our our potential foes.

that up through demonstrated actions. you cannot talk your way through it and they are mondays are our values and you have to believe us. , we areot say we want going to be strong unless you show you are strong and firm. credibility is in the key thing. >> is it hard to build up? the idea wetake should've been in syria earlier, anybody looks, these are complicated things and being able to show credibility and consistency, is it even possible? >> that is what makes it hard. a president really uses credibility, his predecessors established. that individual had a bit. the reality is you are operating on credibility a building for your successor.

a lot of it will not come until after. the second i was going to say is relationships. if you got a phone call right now and somebody asked if i can borrow x amount of money? roots.fall into 2 people who would not return the call and those who would. that is aips, simplistic view or relationships matter. not just between countries or people. one of the things i was struck over time is so much of not just politics but diplomacy is gold on the sinew of perfect -- personal relationships. people place great value on those. if we think we can go in and make a state his case of our position, that is not my experience. people whate is they do, they do complex

calculus of do they trust you, do you have the relationship, and do they value the relation enough to give a little bit on this so they can maintain the relation in the future. this give-and-take of relations between individuals and organizations and nations, is really, really important and does not come automatically. you like i tell people, if think about marriage, you meet and fall in love. welcome to the real world. married, work your rear end off everyday at it or you do not live happily ever after. that is the thing we sometimes do not pay as much attention to as i would hope we would. >> let's open it up to questions. start up here. service.you for your my question is about your sacrifice. of of volunteer

support. i think we have been working so hard and the rest of the america does not need to worry about it we have an all volunteer force. there's a huge disconnect between the military and the family and what they have to go through and there's a huge disconnect between the policies that support those troops. i am wondering your comments. >> thank you for your service and comment. military,hin the there is a sword here. exactly as you described, the military can get out of touch with the civilian side of society and the civilian part of society does not see it. during the civil war, one out of 68 americans were wounded so everybody saw or knew somebody that was wounded. out of 70,000.

most of us never meet anybody that is wounded. is not that sacrifice. that is part of it. when you have a military that becomes more insular and i used to go to basis of the time and every time i got to a base, i almost was sure that the sergeant or leader was the son or daughter of a friend of mine in service. it is very comfortable because you go, how is your mom or dad and on the other side, we are seeing ourselves all the time. the military can start to get self righteous and start to say, you know, we are the only people out here fighting. that is a dangerous germ to start growing. it is now proven much, it is a dangerous thing to have. would expand broadly. most americans are not ask to do but vote.

think that is if we is citizenship, that is not my view of citizenship. i am the chairperson for an effort to put national service for all young americans into reality. not military service but something. teaching, conservation, something. everybody does a service year for a modest leaving -- living stipend not for the work you get done in that year but for the difference it makes and the person who does it. you become different. you have a differences of contribution and pride. in reality, you get to know people you what not to know otherwise. you go, they are not so different or bad start it changes our review of citizenship and that is critical. i have with my colleagues here. -- one of my colleagues here. >> either one.

>> thank you for your service. you alluded to earlier. spring and arab benghazi with youtube video and isis and the role that social media plays. what our current our future leaders are doing to prepare for that side of it? isn't their training? >> what you saw play out was the power of real complexity. things came together, speed and interconnectedness and they wanted themselves at a speed we have never seen. the reality is that no one knew what was going to happen with hours earning. it was not like a disciplined movement that started. what it was was a series of things that set off of each other in a completely unpredictable fashion impossible to predict. social media allows that to happen and produce this swirling level of complexity that our

organizations and individuals are not prepared for. we saw the egyptian government was just stunned, called for a strike, a demonstration a week later we were also chasing the information. chasing the developments. what i think the key is going to be and what i hope the military is doing now, everybody has to change the mind-set and say all right. we are not preparing for anything in particular. we are preparing for this constant change. we're preparing to be adaptable. you say how do you do that? the reality is you create teams and ways of communicating very similar to the experience we sort of backed into.

so every day you walk out on to the field and you're playing a different sport. you go wow. today it is soccer. tomorrow it is baseball. it is that stunning of a difference. you no longer are going to be able to protect your ability to one thing and go out there and it is going to be very frustrating to people and that is why the structures and roles of leaders are going to be so dramatically different. to re -- they are going catch themselves looking at headlights and they are going to get run over. >> a question for about relations. some people think it is an institutional issue. some people think it is personal relationships that you have talked about so much. i'm curious, where do you think t falls on both? >> yeah, well, i think they are related. if you go back in history and

look at what president lincoln put together and we remember how good it was when he and ulysses s. grant the last couple of years of the war, it took some painful years to get to that. i think that ultimately it takes really good relationships. it takes people who trust each other, but you can't do this thing until you keep going through people until you find out people who happen to be from the same town or like each other. you can't build a structure and an expectation based upon serendipity of like personalities or mutually agreeable personalities. you have to create processes that force that. if you think back to a sports team you might have been on in the beginning of the season. your coach typically pulled all the people together and you started practice and doing some team-building things. a number of things you did just to get it together. we take people who really don't know each other.

they might. a few of them might but often they don't. they come together in a room wearing suits or dresses so you're sort of in your stilted special personality. i'm not always exactly like this. you want them to suddenly become this team. and yet they are from different backgrounds. military guys grew up in military. they speak military. they have get got a different background. civilians didn't for the most part spend time with each other. they were not at each other's weddings. they didn't read the same books. and it is just as true across the military. if you take the intel services and the department of state, they are speaking different languages. it is all english but it is different. we expect this team to come together seamlessly. i think it is unrealistic, particularly at the speed it has to happen. i think we have to step back and say if you want teams like that to work, you have to create a process to build that team together. i always joke with people. they say what did you do?

i said if we're going to go to war again, i would ask the president to take his top 15 people and go white water rafting. i'm not kidding. take several cases of beer. go white water rafting. don't invite the media. do all of those things you do white water rafting. just get to know each other. just pull each other out of the water. just see each other when they were not in a suit and they are going protect something. not because you're going to solve policy problem, but when you're doing these very difficult interactions you can look and go you know, i disagree with you but i know you. you're not a total jerk so let me at least calibrate my ears to listen. people laugh and say that is the kumbaya thing. i'll tell you what. i don't agree. i think as long as we are going to do this with people, i don't see a change in that in the near term, we need do that. >> i want to get one question from this other side of the room. what is one thing that leaders

on the civilian side can learn from the military? the military just gets it so right. i wish you could export that to the civilian side. >> they are remarkly similar once you get past acronyms. what i see. i think the military talks about leadership a lot and we say that is not important. that is important. the military, your efficiency ratings, the name of your job typically, the way you are admired or not admired always has leadership in the terminology. there is very rarely a bottom line that said that person made x amount of money or that person got this many bills passed. it said that person motivated and took care of soldiers. just the focus on talking about it and making it so overt in your culture actually helps it be true and i think that that would be an advantage for any

organization. >> we'll ramp up on this side. do you have a question? all right. >> so i have a question. how do you see drones getting more involved in modern warfare in the next 20 or so years and how is that going to affect troops on the battlefield? >> what college are you in right now? [laughter] no, that is a great question. first off, i'm a big fan of unmanned aerial vehicles. i think in your lifetime you are going to fly on commercial airliners that are remotely piloted. my generation says it can't ever happen. it will. in war, they are funny because there is two things to them. on the one hand, for our special operating forces, unmanned areial vehicles allowed us to change the way we fought. night vision, the internet

allowed us to connect unmanned aerial vehicles. in the old days if we wanted to raid something, raid your house, we would use about 120 people. we would take about 80 of them and create a cordon from about a half mile of your house from reinforcing it. then we would have a very small force that actually raided the house. but now di days by using unmanned ariel vehicles all of those other things can be done. we could do raids with 20 people. now instead of doing one raid with 120 we were doing six at the same time with 20 each. which sped up the pace of what we could do. so hugely effective. just an forgetly an effectiveness boom.

the problem is that they allow you to tailor threshold of some things. like you can fly over an area with no risk to americans and you can shoot missiles down or drop bombs. it feels almost anti- septic for us. president clinton shot tomahawks after we had intelligence on osama bin laden and whatnot. and if you had asked americans the next morning is america at war? people would go no, no. if you had talked to people near e receiving end of those tomahawks, very different response so the zanges you have different thresholds. you're shooting at someone and they go looks and feels like war to me and another, well, we are just doing surgical operations. americans can be perceived as

we're arrogant because we can stand frup the heavens and be like thor showing thunderbolts. although militarily it may be just the right move, if you building up massive resentment then there is a negative cost to its. it is one of those technologies that has to be very carefully balanced as we pursue it. pretty soon everyone is going to have them. that's a great question. thank you. >> well, with that, i want to thank bank of america for hosting us and i want to thank all of you for participating in the conference. thank you, general. >> thank you >> on the next "washington journal," matthew mitchell of george mason university looks at the history of a congressional lame duck session and what might the 114th before congress begins in january. then american legion executive

director verna jones discusses veterans issues including access to health care. plus your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets. live atton journal" is 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> here are a few of the comments we reasonly received viewers. >> hi just watched your show this morning on domestic and with was very andppointed with what i saw heard. i thought the guests were both itk and ineffectual, and seemed that the become callers men.a bunch of one woman is beaten every 15 second in this country by a husband or partner. every 15ne woman seconds. sweptssue, alarmingly, is under the rug in this country. probably and most likely because

perpetrators are male. the only way this will ever men are willing to look at their own bad behavior head on.ss it >> i was listening to your commentator, and they're talking some bills being on reid's desk to be presented for whatever. well, each and every one of bills have a repeal of what they call obamacare or affordable care act. so to whom ever is your commentator and that needs to point.t that >> i just her a meant from a said, i'malled in and watching the show recorded, by be good that it would to have democrats comment and

republicans comment, to fight it out, sounds like, verbally, on the show? if you ever decide to do that, i'm up for that. >> continue to let us know what think about the programs you're watching. us, or you can send us a tweet. >> president obama called on the f.c.c. to regulate service providers, the fcc is considering a plan that would --ow the up next the conversation on access.

>> thank you for sponsoring this event. we're going to do way better than having your eyes glaze over. activeoing to aim for an issue.tion of this i'll introduce the panel and they'll do opening statements we'll questions at the end.

old friend, my mick, he runs an organization the personal democracy forum and is the author of a new book, called the big disconnect, why the internet hasn't yet.formed politics i agree with the premise. left is kim woo, you may recentze him from his unsuccessful but yet wildly successful campaign for governor with 40% of the vote. that's amazing, from a standing start and no background in politics. has a background as a slate toter, they have a tendency overperform. his book is called the master switch. coined the term net neutrality, and no discussion of it is without hisete

perspective. jeffreyly, next to him, law rofntil recently a at lewis and clark and now runs founded,zation that he the international center for law and economics. based in portland, oregon. would like here, i neutral andto be as scriptive and explanatory as possible. because i think it's important to have a philosophical perspective, historical perspective. i wanted to start with you, tim, where thisaining whole issue of net neutrality from. >> thanks for having us here and devoting attention to this has become an issue and of concern.

i want to discuss why i think and give some historic background. f.c.c. theo the other day to go to a hearing where the chairman was announcing a new rule and there was a crowd of protesters there. beating drums,le camping out outside the f.c.c. on when i started working this issue in early 2000's we would be lucky to have 10 people show up to a talk or something. it was an obscure academic issue. but i think there's a lot of reasons that net neutrality has issue in ourortant time and i want to describe some raises.ssues i think it about thequestions power, private power in particular, and in particular the exerciser and there of. concernink there's some

as to whether private power has gone too far. question the perfect en yell issue of free speech. engine ofet has an an free speech and such people feel that will be threatened. in the sense that there may be a fast lane or slow lane created neutrality, it puts into play some of the equality or inequality which seem to striking in now.can society right the idea that what feels to many publiclike infrastructure might work better for some speakers than for other i think both raises questions of free speech but basic sense of equality. we don't have sidewalks, we usually have sidewalks for rich people and others for poor people. so if you go back into the canory of this issue, you date it from as far as you want

and i would date it back to even theory ofing of the the nation state. and the idea of public infrastructure. one of the things that countries somealways done is provide amount of what you can call basictructure, that is bridges,s like roads, ferries and so forth, that everyone relies on, all all citizens. for a very long part of human those were always provided by government. the role an empire built the roads, that's what made them famous. the degree to which government would build infrastructure was it, that was the description. that began to change about 500 inrs ago, particularly england, and spreading to the united states. we would havehere private actors build what might otherwise been considered

public infrastructure. so have private inn keepers or private bridge builders or and thenerry operators have some of them operate under regulation or under rules that them public duties. so this is the origins of the public calling or a common carrier. last 500evel since the years we've been struggling with what exactly the rule should be for these kind of businesses, businesses, but are somehow vested with a public function. it's not -- press is likehe this too, everyone thinks the times" or slate magazine are businesses, but it's more public. we have a originally funded by the initialnt, built in the

stages by the government, but later taken over by private companies, today dominated by the private sector, and it is rule that has been faced forever when we looked in ancient times at bridges or ferries, should these private operators of what might be described as quasi public or specialacilities have duties of nondiscrimination, delivery of goods and service or pricinghaps special rules. should they have to give this to everyone. that's the question, what are the essentials of the 21st century. is the broadband internet the same as electricity was in the thatcentury or the same century. in the 20th in some ways it's defining what citizenship is. i know you'll want that.pond to

do, could you bring us up to speed on this. interestinge spectacle of the president ining to express his opinion the public to the head of the f.c.c. as if he might not know strongly in favor of net neutrality. where are we on this issue right now? >> okay. briefly, picking up where tim he started with the beginning of the nation state and then fast forward to the early 2000's, i guess. have the internet, we have broad band. now, telephone, telecommunication services have already been regulated by the since for many years 1934. and along comes this new thing called broad band, and over you all know, we

do a lot more than just talk to each other. a single purpose telecommunications network now, it's capable of doing everything. what ultimately came to be f.c.c. aszed as the an information service. i won't go into these annoying legal details, but it's important to note that under the administration, his first f.c.c. chairman made this determination that we would all better served if broadband were classified as quote unquote service, which is relevant for our purposes regulated's far less than the telecommunication service. after that decision was made along some challenges to it, the f.c.c. continued to anert that broadband was information service subject to 1, lessd title regulation. over netbate

neutrality started to rage on, some people started to suggest we needed more regulation internet. when michael powell, now chairman of the federal communications commission under bush, decided that that was accurate that indeed some of the that tim and others had pro pounded suggested that there was some need to treat the little differently, recognizing many of the sorts of tim just mentioned, he pro pounded something called the internet freedoms. was a set of goals that suggested things like content the sale oneated the internet, everyone should have access to all the con ten they want. really well,ed until it didn't. it's not entirely clear, i'll be little contentious here, it's not clear that it didn't work. only clear that it was asserted not to be working and that we needed more concrete rules. some court decisions,

we can elaborate on those later, continued to throw out the f.c.c.'s effort to impose stronger rules. in 2010 the most full some set was prom you gated, in january of in year threw out those rules as exceeding the f.c.c.'s north to regulate the internet. now we're where we are today, those rules have been thrown out, we have a new f.c.c., tomthe wheeler, who is trying to grapple with how to continue the form of regulation of internet beyond these four freedoms. but consistent with the limitations that the court imposed and particularly they couldn't reimpose the rules they tried to impose in 2010. wheeler proposes something called an nprm, another set of rules. interestingly enough were met immediately with a massive outcry, massive the likes have never

been seen. these protesters that tim was talking about. thethis is opposition from left. this was not the same kind of opposition to regulation of the seennet that we have before. this was opposition that said you haven't gone far enough. do something far more substantial here, and in this case the argument was you to impose these title 2 common carrier regulations. internet like it's a water utility, an electric utility, as tim suggested. seewe're kind of waiting to what happens. chairman wheeler proposed the go of rules that did not that far but asked a number of questions suggesting he'd be titleo the possibility of 2 regulation, and we've had millions of pages of debate in f.c.c.'s record about this, millions of hours of events like words in millions of

publications like jacob's, assessing really right now this we shouldf whether treat the internet like a common carrier or something less than that. but the issues underlying regulation of the internet at all in this fashion, whether it's anything ranging from the internet freedoms up to like a common carrier, are kind of with a we want to talk about here rather than debating the merits and demerits specificallyrcane legal rules. i think we can do that despite rightct that where we are now is asking this question regulating thee internet under title 2. >> i want to ask you about the here.cal fix of freean issue expression, political expression. the week before last i was in ofkey having a bunch

meetings there, and there in turkey which is a democracy the president recently got a law passed saying essentially he could take down anything from at will.net and immediately began to do so, with things he politically disagreed with. there the politic censorship of the internet is very clear. talking about different band width speeds. isn't this rhetoric a little inflated? >> to stay on the turkey example, it's worth noting that protests broke out ago over ar government proposal to bulldoze a park and put up a shopping

mall and to do so against the wishes of the local community, the state media and the private didn'tst media in turkey cover this at all, and it was only because people in turkey have access to services like twitter that they were able to news out of what was going on with people protesting in the streets. the freedom to connect through relatively open services is reallyer vital to any hope for an open society. we here in the united states, it's worth trying to cast your mind 20 plus years ago before we had the internet at all, before networking, before we had blogs, before we had had e-mail, we just had mainstream media and it was a much more

closed system. if you wanted to be heard by the larger society, you had had to get through a gate keeper, you , an opconvince an editor ed pain or a journal of opinion say wast you had to valuable. and those gate keepers were not group.cularly diverse and we had a much more constrained national result.tion as a so what we have now is betterely a much situation, a more open media system thanks to the open internet. but that said, i think that this argument about net neutrality is of a larger argument over the merits of open versus closed systems, and i think i can illustrate this with a reason example, because the fact is there are services on the internet that are more open and there are services that are more closed. and that this philosophical whether everybody has

equal access and equal opportunity to reach everyone else with their mess an is playing out in real time in many other ways, not just this question of whether the owners nothe pipes have to discriminate in terms of the content that they carry and what they charge for that con ten. you may remember about two thehs ago when it was in middle of the summer and those, there was mike brown was murdered in ferguson, and there streetstests in the there almost from the beginning. on twitter just glancing at what was coming oddsgh your own feed, the are that you probably saw fairly quickly that there were a lot of angry and upset people in the streets of ferguson and people were sharing pictures of the police in their robo cop uniforms and so on.

on facebook, you didn't see this at all in your news feed for the first knew you actually saw was something else, you saw the a.l.s. ice bucket challenge. the reason why so many people saw the ice bucket challenge on as opposed to the ferguson challenge, if you will, a muchause facebook has different algorithm for deciding your newsll put in feed than twitter. basically facebook is putting things into your news feed that it thinks you're going to like to see, and also behind it is a commercial interest in not upsetting its users. they want to keep their users happy and in a mood to maybe pay attention to facebook's advertisers. twitter and its algorithm is much more directed by what you to follow.oose you may choose your friends on facebook, but that doesn't mean see all the information that your friends share.

facebook, because it can, the news feed -- the news feed and will charge you to reach all your is simpleso the point think that this issue of the neutrality of the service west on, it is absolutely vital to whether or not we have a open robust conversation or one that is in all kind of ways subtly shaped and throttled and limited by private interest. >> i'm not sure i totally agree with you about how facebook i do want to go back to this question about the a public utility or not. you used the metaphor of the water,ks, you know, electricity. there is the issue if band width is like electricity, the more you use the more you pay, i doesn't necessarily work that way. in practice, isn't this mainly really from the point of

carriers, commercial issue about whether they can people who to the use the most of it. >> no. >> why not? >> i don't think that's the issue. framed in order to suggest this is a simple issue the government should stay from, but i think it is much more complicated than that. anything can be expressioned as well as payments. that hides the complexity of the issue. so my position is i do think in our era that the internet has become one of the essentials and should be regarded as a public utility. i think there was maybe a different story 15 years ago trying tore incentivize the broad band rollout. into a new apartment or business, you star it, you want length tries, you want water and want broadband. what you want from the broad band carrier is to be reliable,

as possible, and for the service to be, to give you what you want and not to itself impose its own strange little slowdowns or whatever else. what the carriers have long theed and i can understand economic reason for this, is the differentially tax different speakers on the internet. so for those who have more to like to charge them more, and basically create a lane.ane and slow now, there's some economic oftifications for those kind deals, but i think the public interest augers against it and idea that there are some businesses which under the nature of public infrastructure. example, imagine the brooklyn bridge, i could say the george washington bridge, but politically loaded. but imagine the brooklyn or george washington bridge were privately owned and say favored

one pizza delivery company or or one taxi line over another. i think you can immediately see begins to start we, we favoruch uber, they get over the bridge, don't, that meal tips competition in favor of uber, for example. and i think in a way that internet.urts the because it derails fair competition. i'll also say that when we about speech, the idea that rich speakers get better access to some degree inevitable, but i don't think we it.ld try to facilitate the internet has achieved a rough parity. you still have to be good. but it is possible for a really thoughtful blogger to compete with the opinion pain of the "new york times" or to

compete with fox news or is ther it is and that function of them being able to reach people at relatively the same speeds. great inequality, we already have enough inequality in our society -- i'm starting to get political. we don't need more expressed on .he >> so the question of public utility ties into the question of something is a natural monopoly. electricity and water clearly are. there are a lot places where you than one way of accessing broad band internet, it may be a temporary condition that it functions like a monopoly for say consumers in new york, certainly does for me, to gethave one way broadband where i live. one way ofhave only getting cable, but you can verse it through at&t, u or verizon. >> it may not be available in

everybody's neighbor, but in years it might. to speak to this question of tim is right that this is a public utility and should be treated like a public utility. >> to answer your immediate question, to the extent that the economic one, it may be a problem of monopoly. if that's the basis for the here.tion the fear that there might be anticompetitive conduct by a anopoly that does not face sufficient amount of competition. we actually have laws that deal with it pretty well, they're called antitrust laws. we also have consumer protection laws. it begs the question in part, whether we need to build an enormous new apparatus to try that atve this thing root is a problem of, perhaps, of not, orblem, insufficient competition when we that deal specifically with that. on some of the issues that tim was talking about, the

that, whethers of it's true or not, i definitely take issue with the much of thision of and in particular with the characterization of what the allowingould be of prioritization and what the of forced or be mandated neutrality. we have nothing approaching right now, nothing at all. there is nothing neutral about the internet. interesting is that from that constraining bob's it, from being to access the parties that are advocating for more regulation, for common carrier treatment here are enormously rich. netflix, google, facebook, companies like that are the ones are advocating net neutrality. that should give you a bit of pause. whetherld wonder there's any reason to think that they're advocating for the

pizza guy, the little company who is allegedly going to be harmed if he doesn't have access to the fast lane on the brooklyn bridge, or whether there might be something else going on. we of the things i she should consider is going on here is that prioritization is really important,ul and precisely for the startup forks the unknown company that needs trying tof distinguish itself from the incumbent. the incumbent has a massive consumer base, easy access to financing, name recognition. all kinds of things. and along comes this new little constantlyup who is looking for ways to distinguish itself and make sure that the customers can find this new guy. unfortunately, like it or not, especially in a world where we have so much information, it enough just to be better. you also have to find a way to make sure that your potential customers know you're better. one way of doing that is getting

of prioritization. you can call it advertising or promotion, it's effectively the thing. i can tell you one thing that i think is a likely consequence if the ability for a startup or anyone else to access the only mean they'll be spending more money on other forms of promotion and theritization which in firstic stands probably means buying more ads on google. mention thatjust google was in favor of net neutrality? there's a possible explanation why. add one point in particular, i have this great quote from tim, it's useful to up.g it tim says consider that when you york taxity driver must charge you the posted ray and take you where you want to that's common carriage in action him i think that's right. but title 2, treating the like common carriage is like outlawing uber. the problem with common

carriage, the problem with overregulating the internet is the internet into a kind of status quote. as a matter of requirement, if to improseg regulationings they're going to be imposed in ways that outlaw that we canuct conceive of and allow other conduct that we can conceive of conduct that we can conceive of is conduct that is happening right now. forms ofnshrine those conduct and actually impede innovation, new business models, ways of structuring not just the internet but the content who are allegedly the beneficiaries of this net neutrality regime. really we have to be careful before we impose essentially mandate the business models on the internet of yesterday, we better be sure that we're not outlawing the models of tomorrow by doing that. commone is some real ground between the two of you. you both think it's worked, the

worked pretty well so far. it'sou, tim, think because, partly because topanies haven't been able defer en shake. they haven't been able to commercially regulate the market say -- >> carriers. >> yes. and jeffrey you think the risk is the government regulating the internet. but really both of you like it pretty well the way it works now. >> yes. >> and the question is what the of it on, an internet regulation.althy usually the unhealthy regulation is what the carriers would do government. >> that's right. >> but unlike the carriers regulation, the government has an obligation before it imposes regulations to them. and so the carriers can do what

they want, like it or not, notice and until they run afoul laws. primarily antitrust laws. defend government has to itself. and one of the issues, as we discussing, there's almost no evidence that anything billion dollar has ever happened. tiny's a couple of little things -- we can debate the significance of the three examples that anyone can come up with. but generally speaking as tim just agreed the internet works and theell right now. real question is, even if there are things that might have gone there enough. is there enough evidence to defend a shift, really a in regulation? or actually is there not enough and while there might be the road, perhaps the only valid course now is humility.nd and we don't have enough imposingto justify stringent regulationings now.

>> i just wanted to object to this consensus that the internet works pretty well right now. are being overcharged that would, you know, that we should be embarrassed by. we're paying first world prices for third world service. in south korea can get to the library of congress times faster than a kid in the south bronx. if that kid in the south bronx even afford to buy broadband service from one of the month op lists who may not eve than be choosing to put fast service neighbor. because they've already cherry picked the rip neighborhoods to the fast service into. there were a lot of prepare ises that got thrown past us there. jacob, we might in five years see more competition services being provided when verizon has already said that they are not

out any build fios further than it already has done, really for most people you want to pay exor by or move to one the cities that google or a city is putting this new giga bit level of internet we are never going to catch up to what large chunks of the rest of the industrialized granted at prices a fraction of what we pay. thatt's not lightly say the internet works well now. from the consumer point of view, all.sn't work well at >> to be clear, i think what i meant was we agree that it works terms of fostering allowing, and encouraging free expression. >> it's important not -- net neutrality is part of a broader debate as to how do we inl about private power telecom, and i would side with lawsiew that the antitrust

have been inadequate in this have serious we problems. by, if we have a continued trend towards more consolidation, towards, there's just a few companies being in a prettyd over important public facility, i think that naturally invites, by any economist description, monopoly, a company with a monopoly that shows no sign of disappearing at all or two companies that are charging prices, at some point you'd got to say that's it, monopoly extracts, here's the price you're going to charge. the case for rate regulation is strong and also saying you need to provide access to more people. strong. that's what we did with the telephone service, that's what cable.at points with i'm not saying at this moment is

necessary, but i don't want to when we haver unconstrained month only power. the government should never say let a monopolist charge excessive prices because the internet is special. government needs to super advise monopoly, one of the concerned about, this is an inequality issue in this is the sense that while middle class salaries are flat, essentials keep getting more and more expense. internet service being one example, cell phones being another example. these prices keep going up, so a diminishment in real income. so some of these issues are become important issues of what it means to be middle class in this country. >> i think there's been questions relative to this debate, which is whether the carriers are going to become

lesslike monopolies or like monopolies. i think most people experience them now as companies that like monopolies, i certainly do. but i'm not at all confident -- i don't know which way it's going to go. there may be real competition in have much ofdon't it, or may go in the other direction. >> i think making net neutrality the basis of the fact that people hate comcast is a idea. >> but if it a monopoly -- comcastnot clear that is a monopoly. onee is obviously at least other competitor just about everywhere in the country, we're broadband here, and it's true for cable as well, broadband.ocus on there is at&t or verizon at thety much every where in country. there are other options as well, that are alles investing enormously in their

networks. ask and one of the things it's figure out is where they ofe investedly ray trillions dollars and have demonstrated ever improving speeds, relative cost of contend and various other cost, not especially rapid increases in prices. prices have generally gone up. >> wait, that's not true. the price has gone up way faster than inflation. --e 18 times >> the point is that we are not experiencing -- i understand people hate comcast. isir customer service terrible. you'd all rear pay less than we it is we want.r all of these things are true, but we have to be careful about that kind of conflict into the very specific and detailed and potentially

counterproductive rules that we're talking about here. was sort of as burst of honesty on your part. what you're really saying here backat i really want is a doorway to essentially nationalize this infrastructure be offeredeve should essentially by the government or at the very minimum regulate sod government that it's indistinguishable from if the government were offering it. neutralitywhat net was originally about and that's not the problem these rules are address.to if that's the problem you see, we should talk about that differently. again, i don't agree with the premise here, but i think problem withl premises tohose common carrier stat fours the benefit of solving the supposed problems that we have in the net debate.ty >> my position is the amount of regulation. i don't have a fixed idea on the

right a. of regulation. has to do with the amount of competition. i've been involved in tele comop more years nowr and i've been waiting and waiting for the supposed market five, six,ur or competitive market for delivering cable and internet service. happy verizon built some very expensive neighborhoods. happy that google has wired two cities. but overall the state of poor.ition is and is nothing like what was promised. and when that happens, when you as opposed to sitting there and saying one day competition will come, so we anything because one day competition might be need to act,nk we and restrain what are -- we shouldn't do this because we hate comcast. you've got to act on the facts. acting like an unrestrained monopolist.

>> they put trillions in the and every year increases speeds. when you take account of the tax that are offered in these other countries that are supposedly offering better isn'te, the service necessarily better and it costs more. it's easy to criticize what we have. but it's actually not at all clear that what we have is worse morewhat others have, nor expensive. and again relevant i think, more neutrality -- net relevant to the net neutrality costs of what are the bearing this, if it the case that our service isn't as good and perhapsea's that's one or two countries where that's true what are we for that and how much cost and burden are we willing to bear in order to correct this cost.ially very small >> so net neutrality, the internet has been an economic

goose that's laid some very valuable eggs for this country. america has, to give credit to the internet, 30, 20 years ago the united asking if states was finished as a technological power. when you look at the world's top companies, they're almost all american. i think being the home of an a neutralnet, of internet has not everything but a lot to do with that. startups wouldat do better on a pay to play they can --re and that's just a mythology. if you ask the starters themselves, they're like we don't want to start our business negotiating with comcast or for an extra payment when we have no money compared competitor who would be someone like google or be an established company who a lot more money. it's clear that the nonneutral internet favors incumbents,

it's not just google who is in favor. when you look at who files exents in favor of net york tech it's new companies, it's like companies to get intoggling the market and know they would comcast --d if >> the question of what the absence of net neutrality would look like. example, it's not broad band access, but the wireless example, verizon for is offering certain content with charges attached to it. that just comes in the form of it's not directly translatable. be very turns out to appealing, the idea that you won't run up data charges if

you're reading or watching things. oft's the realistic version what happens if the f.c.c. doesn't mandate net neutrality going forward? of those things. there are people who are very critical -- thing.great >> so our media will begin to and more like television again? >> how do you mean? >> well, television is free, but only to the extent that it's paid for by advertisers, and so if you are somebody who can of advertising, .ou never get on television what you're describing already the thirdparts of world, it called facebook zero, doing withcebook is mobile phone providers in africa and asia is saying, you know, wants facebook, we'll let you bundle facebook with your phone, and if people just

the phone to get onto facebook, there won't be any data charges. of view of aoint user like wow i'm getting facebook for free what they don't realize is that they're not getting onto the internet at all. actually know that. i think it's the height of first you, iubris to say screw know you want facebook, but you can't have it because i can imagine something that would be for you. and you don't even know how bad it is. a valuenk we have difference here, which is that an open system is better than a system. >> an open, if an open system and the internet at all closed system means at least i get facebook, i would take the because they may be the relevant choice for people who can't afford anything more. >> i don't think that the walls at fordham law

school. but i think would it be a considerably different world for people who are thinking of starting new things. magazineut slate starting in the 90's, all the range of online magazines right now. you have an idea, you put it out there and you see whether it works. many startups, that's how they start and they either take don't.they you start with the position where you need to negotiate a you know that you're going to be at a huge disadvantage if you don't have a verizon, comcast, it starts becoming a permission driven system. becomes something where it's all about who has got the better deal, as opposed to -- my view starts to look a lot more like cable television. finally follows the path of cable. which was born about the same time. the final thing is probably it will untrench this generation of

companies. facebook is quiet on net relatively google is quiet too. because they know in a nay have therld money to pay to get access over their competitors, they could anyntage themselves over potential competitor. so i think it locks in the current incumbentings. facebook, google stick around longer. >> google and amazon are quiet in this. the real debate we're having right now is over title 2, whether we're going to improse rules.carrier those companies are all in favor of net neutrality, and i believe conversation are probably opposed to paid prioritization as well. opposed to common carrier rules because there's no reason to think those rules to them as well. and it's another danger here of the imposition of this massive regulatory apparatus that be for,ul what you wish

because you may end up hamstringing the very parts of these content, providers that you're supposed to be benefiting by this. your vision ofk what the world is going to look pessimistic. i don't think there's anything to suggest that that's likely to in large part because we don't have rules prohibiting paid prioritization right now ask that isn't what it looks like today. but also because if you work economics of it, you realize that that's not very clearly beneficial to the service providers either. they don't have a -- we may disagree on exactly where they would fall, and what amount of unfeeterred content is in their best interest, but it's very clear that, take an example much in the news today, netflix and comcast, are not other.at odds with each people pay for comcast broadband

precisely in part because hey can get netflix from it. ji --is that ginner that synergy that exists. broad band has to make sure content.'re offering >> or they could just offer don't.ervice, which they >> i don't know exactly where it would fall out. i can see marriage ins on which internet service provider or impede some content providers, but in general i think if they have a very strong interest in people getting access to what they want because that's why people are broad band.ay for and the other thing quickly is the again this vision is of small garage startup not being able to get access. example,st, for doesn't care about them. care less whether

the small startup has, is itgging its pipes, because won clog its pipes at all. it cares about netflix because actually and this is absolutely the truth really does impose some really difficult engineering problems on comcast network. it's not made up, nay really do. garage startup, until they become the size of netflix, comcast doesn't know exist. and so you could imagine, you a worldeate a scenario, in which some evil person comes to comcast and says i hate these people, it's run by jews, let's stop them, we don't want them on you can construct that, but that's just not really worky how it's going to out. how it going to work out is net flick is going to have to pay comcast and the next competitor through because comcast doesn't know it exists.

think they're evil, but they'll favor who ever has more money. so what the internet will start to resemble the rest of the paid and it's already quite a ways along there. spaces lefte a few in american society where smaller speakers have a decent chance. i think, i don't think comcast cares about them, but who pays it.ut it's clear to me that the speakers with money will get you'll gradually see the speakers with less money, let's say like wikipedia, which doesn't run any ads, the other thing is the consumer experience will get worse to pay comcast, type warner whatever, places like wikipedia will say i guess have to start running ads. so the consumer will always pay in the end whether it by seeing ads or whether wikipedia will be raiding money more friendly.

it'sople rely on it, and the, why would comcast let that go any faster than someone with a lot. money. ask --st want to who was this? said.ipedia, he a question for any of you. amazon dispute relevant here? because here you have not a monopoly, but a company with vast market power discriminating against respect content and it's the level of authors.l commercial dispute, but they now have the power to do significant harm to exactly the of people you're talking about. isn't that, and there's no net neutrality that could apply to appear as son, but is that the

kind of thing you're worried about here? >> yes, i think we need to be worrying about these new of power ands whether they are whying their platforms in a neutral way or not. extend the logic that tim we can extend the lonlic that tim gave us talking about the net as a neutral platform to think about amazon's role here. and that is absolutely worrisome. i'm not saying that we have to defend the old publishing model, you know, and hold everything in amber. but playing favorites in the way that amazon seems to be doing is very troubling. >> are you cool with what they're doing? >> yeah. and you know, but i will take a sor of the dwil's advocate role for the purpose of pushing the net neutrality discussion a little further and just point out that