d with evidence-based methods after a series of disasters involving unsafe and ineffective medical products. those standards have boosted the confidence that americans place in medical products, the world places on the american medical byproduct industry. we must move forward, not backward as a nation. and embrace the opportunities of cutting-edge medical advances and the promises they hold for public health. i want to talk about one other important issue, it's been a priority, globalization. when fda was first established our regulated industries were predominantly local and the volume of imported products was very low. today, however, other nations increasingly produce in whole or

in part, the food and medical products that american consumers and patients use in their daily lives. nearly 40% of finish drugs americans consume today are made elsewhere, and 80% of the active pharmaceuticals in those drugs are manufactured outside our borders. for the food supply, the numbers are equally startling. more than 85% of seafood that is eaten here comes from other countries. about 50% of our fresh food and 20% of our fresh vegetables, and these changing dynamics obviously introduce new complexities, new risks for american consumers, as these products follow increasingly complex global supply chains to get to your table. and your kitchen cupboard. we can no longer rely on simple inspections at the border to track the products that are coming through. the volume has quadrupled over the last decade. we have introduced new high-tech risk-based screening systems of the borders to allow us to target on the most vulnerable commodities, the ones with the highest risk.

we really have to step beyond our borders to the places where these products are being manufactured. processed, distributed. that has caused us to have to undertake a whole new shift in how we do business. we now have foreign outposts around the world to be a hub for inspections and for collaboration. with industry counterpart regulators, and other stakeholders. we are working closely with counterpart regulatory authorities to harmonize standards, to share information, and in fact, to share the workload of inspections and assessments. of the products that we are all struggling to regulate in a globalized world. we are working together with other organizations, and nations, to try and actually

build regulatory capacity in many of these countries with very immature systems, but where an increasing volume of products are coming. and being consumed by americans who expect the same standards in the products they are taking wherever they had come from in the world. so that has been a major focus of time and attention. i think it represents a huge and underrecognized area that challenges health safety and security in our nation. so i think that, though i got lots more that i want to talk about, i think that i have gotten the indication that i ought to be winding down. so with that, let me just make a couple of points. one is that fda is a unique and essential agency. that has a set of roles and responsibilities that are not done by anyone else. if we can't do her job and do it

-- do our job and do it well there is nobody else to backstop behind it. moreover, we are regulating products that are so important to each and every one of us every day and to the health of our nation, our nation's economy, and in fact, our global economic competitiveness. as i look forward, i worry, fda has constantly been underfunded with responsibilities that outstrip the resources we get to do our job. if you look at what cost every american in this country to support the services of fda, believe it or not, it's eight dollars for americans for a -- her american her -- per american per year. i suspect some of you may spend

more than that starbucks later this afternoon, and yes, we regulate starbucks. [laughter] commissioner hamburg: as i stand here, not only concluding my remarks, but concluding my tenure very soon as fda commissioner, i really am proud to be able to tell you that fda is a stronger, more engaged, more effective agency, better positioned for the challenges of the 21st century. we are an organization that embraces smart science driven regulation, we are an organization that understands in the modern world the importance of partnership, we have a wonderful mission and an extraordinary group of employees. we have big challenges before us, and we do need your help and support so, while i will not be present any longer, i do want to leave you with this fact that the fda as a public health agency essential to the health of all of you, we need to strengthen it, rather than we

aken or undermine it. and to do so will require support and partnership of all of our stakeholders, and every american who uses fda regulate products is a stakeholder. i look forward to watching that vital collaboration amongst all of the stakeholders, just seeing the work of this relatively small in size, but truly mighty in purpose agency, be both appreciated and supported. thank you. [applause] moderator: thank you dr. hamburg. you mention striking the right balance. when it comes to approval of products and devices, and from the experience of your tenure, what percentage of the time would you say that fda got it right, and what percentage of the time did you realize that we

didn't do our job there, and maybe we should not have let that one out? commissioner hamburg: that is a very hard question to answer and to quantify would be a dangerous task. one of the things that's important to understand is that we are always having to make decisions with partial information. because when you are doing the study before it drugs actually approved, you can learn a lot. and if the drug really works and really reflects a good match between the target of the drug and the underlying mechanism of the disease, you will know it quickly as the decision would be obvious. with many things that don't work quite as well, it would be almost impossible to know everything about the drug. and even the things that actually are extremely effective, you still can't know

everything about them. in the context of a preapproval developments. it's when they go out into the marketplace and they are used by many more people and are used by people with other coexisting diseases and taking other medications etc. that you begin to learn a whole lot more. that's why fda has a lifespan approach to the regulation of drugs. we continue to monitor drugs after they have been approved, both through what we call post-market surveillance and sometimes by requiring those post-market studies to collect more information. in my view, people are quick to jump on us if a safety issue emerges, in the post-market setting. they think it's a failure of the system, someone had to admit a -- someone had made a mistake, but i think we know that everything has risks, and that the nature of the process is

that some of those risks will emerge when many more people are taking the drug, and it's more complex settings. so i think that when we can detect it early, and make the determination about how to address it, whether we need to change the indications for use whether we need to actually recall it from the market, or whether we need to provide additional warnings, all of those things are possible. and all of those things are part of the comprehensive regulatory process. moderator: you mention several things that you are proud of about the agency, what would you considered the number one contribution that you have made to public health in your tenure? what is the one thing you are most excited about? commissioner hamburg: that is an

impossible question, one because there are many things under our scope of response abilities. it is unfair to even asked. if you think about the way to answer the question, if you mean impact with the potential impact on burden of disease, i would say we have not answered that question yet. tobacco-related diseases represent the majority of preventable diseases in the world. and with the new tools we have over time, we will be able to make a profound impact on health and well-being in this country. and as regulatory authority, a fairly unique regulatory responsibility over tobacco, we also i think are showing the way

for many other countries around the world. and the global burden of tobacco-related disease. moderator: a couple of different questions on what you think of the 21st century cures initiative in congress to overhaul health care industry regulations? commissioner hamburg: i think we all can agree that this is a critical time to really look at what can be done to really leverage the opportunities in science and technology today to ensure that we are developing the safest, best, most innovative and effective medical products for people who need them. that's the goal of 21st century cures. we are sort of in a golden age for this undertaking. we want to make sure that all of the parts of the biomedical products ecosystem are aligned

towards that goal. i do think it needs to be approached in a very thoughtful and careful way. because many of the things that need to be done perhaps are not best achieved through legislation. i think for us, there certainly concerns about issues that i touched on in my remarks, of the misperception that you might be able to speed innovation by lowering standards for safety and efficacy. we think that would be a terrible mistake and ultimately would not just damage patients but would damage industry as well. we also are concerned that through this process, we might be given what we call in washington unfunded mandates, or cash -- where we would be asked to take on a set of new tasks, but there wouldn't be adequate resources to go with it. that i think would not only be difficult for that specific activity, but would have ripple

effects on other important regulatory activities are really matter to patients and -- regulatory activities that really matter to patients and consumers. moderator: what if any steps is fda taking to ensure truth in labeling of nutrition in vitamins and nutritional supplements given recent findings on walmart shelves? commissioner hamburg: we have authority to regulate dietary supplements in a limited set of activities. many people in this country think that the fda regulates dietary supplements in the same way that we regulate prescription drugs, there's a preapproval process. but we do not. we oversee and have the authority to ensure good manufacturing practices at their plants, there's a requirement that they report serious adverse

events to us, and we do regulate claims that they make, and when we find a product that has unapproved drugs, for example, that shouldn't be there, steroid or a viagra like compound, the frequency show up in dietary supplements. then we will take action. i'm not familiar with the specific walmart case, i will have to defer. moderator: there have been concerned that the medical device approval process is too lax. how do you feel about the process now, and have you felt political pressure to accelerate product approvals, and what changes need to happen to that product approval process? commissioner hamburg: medical devices have a different regulatory pathway than drugs.

for some of the points i was talking about, in terms of the different perspectives that people have on fda, too fast or too slow, too lax or too stringent, applies with medical devices. the majority of medical devices that fda oversees are what are called 5-10 kay's, not the highest risk devices with the middle category of devices. there are very limited requirements for new data to be generated as a part of that approval process. you need to demonstrate that your product is similar to an existing product in the marketplace, using a predicate mechanism and some people find that just totally lax and inadequate. to assess a changing device array over time.

others think it's more than enough, they would like to see even the standard that currently exists relaxed a bit. it's one i have been fascinated with during my tenure as commissioner to see the differing responses and i think that we need to continue to look at how we regulate devices because the world of devices is getting increasingly complex on one end and then there's a set of other devices that really don't need much attention. i think this is an area where i don't know that the u.s. has gotten it completely right, i do not know that the european union has gotten it completely right i think it's an area that we need to continue to learn more

about and i think that we are encouraged by some of the activities, partly through public-private partnerships that have developed, to look at innovative strategies to do research that's necessary to better assess devices through a recent new requirement for unique device identifiers on devices, so we would be able to track devices and their use in the post-market setting more efficiently. and learn a lot more about risks and benefits. i think it's a dynamic area. moderator: had a few questions come in on the relationship between the agency and those it regulates. this questioner says that within the ranks of the fda, there are many scientists and administrators who have served at the agency for decades, and one of the criticisms is that the leaders become too cozy with industry after working for years with the same officials, while

fda obviously strives to retain its best staffers, is the risk that staffers can overstay their welcome and this problem creeps in? commissioner hamburg: again, this is one of those areas where different people have very different perspectives. some people believe that there are lifers at the fda that have no use for industry, and are always skeptical. and then there are others who worry about the issue you were describing. what i would say is my experience at the fda, which is now almost six years, is that the employees who work there have just remarkable commitment to their jobs, and the highest integrity, scientific and personal integrity, we obviously operate in a framework where

there are very clear conflict of interest rules. very clear requirements about how certain kinds of interactions are structured, and i think that we need to work in partnership with industry because we are regulating the product that they make, and we need to understand those products. we need to have a full and open exchange of information. in many instances, there is great value in having industry academia, and government actually work together in shaping research in critical areas. i think people sometimes get worried about that. but we do it in a way that clearly defines us as free -- pre-competitive research, not a collaboration where there is a particular product that's being developed where an fda scientist

might be working in the partnership. but it's where information is being developed that can be applied across a whole category of products and help us to advance our knowledge and develop the regulatory tools that are needed to advance our ability to do adequate and full reviews of the products. and to enhance product development. moderator: you have been a champion of advocating sodium reduction. the majority of your statements reference blood pressure benefits of lower sodium consumption. however, some recent studies cited by this questioner including one by the iom have suggested that low sodium consumption for healthy individuals can lead to significant health problems. another article found that for healthy people, there is no or very minimal blood pressure

impact from sodium reduction. the questioner is saying that the agency needs to reevaluate what it says on sodium and is there any examination of shifting the view? commissioner hamburg: this has been a topic of ongoing discussion, i think that clearly there have been some recent studies that have raised some questions, there have been individuals who have obviously been representing that position over time. i think the body of evidence does really demonstrate a linkage between sodium in the diet and negative health consequences. and that americans' diets on average contain a very large amount of sodium. most of that sodium is in processed foods where we as individual consumers really can't control our exposures in

terms of what is in that food, it's not the salt shaker where you can control it, it's what you are eating. individual consumers really can't control our exposures in terms of what is in that food, it's not the salt shaker where you can control it, it's what you are eating. so we feel that we are providing very important information to consumers through things like the nutrition facts label, which enables you to know what is in the product that you are eating. and we do things that there is clearly, a very positive health benefit by trying to bring down sodium levels in the american public. moderator: got a couple of questions on biosimilars. i will try to combine them because we are running short on time. one questioner wants to know how you envision this new area of copycat versions of biotechnology drugs playing out in the u.s. marketplace, the other wants to know if devices such as generics in biosimilars

may actually discourage the development of lower-cost options for the public? commissioner hamburg: bio similars are biological molecules that are similar to existing biological therapeutics that are innovative drugs in the marketplace. they have a parallel relationship to generic drugs and innovative drugs. they are much more complicated molecules in terms of their size and how you make them. in the human response to them. it's a much more complex process than just generic chemical tablets. we've only just recently approved our first bio similar which was an exciting event for us. the pathway for bio similars actually is relatively new at the fda.

it was part of the health care reform act, the aca actually. one of a few things for fda that was embedded in that larger piece of legislation. we imagine that these drugs will be available to the public at much lower cost than the innovative biologics, which are very, very important drugs in medical practice, they make huge difference in the lives of many patients, but very very costly. it remains to be seen whether some of the most optimistic estimates of cost savings will really be true, but if we can help make important therapeutics available in a more accessible way, i think overall in terms of the american health care system, that would be a huge benefit

and the fda role is to assure that these bio similars can be used in these patients in a manner that is safe and effective. moderator: could you update us on the current listeria problem? we are interested in any specific foods or brands involved in recalls. commissioner hamburg: we have a couple of listeria problems. we have listeria in bluebell creamery ice cream, which resulted in several deaths in a kansas hospital. but this may be the list syria in spinach products where the companies did a voluntary recall after finding listeria. i don't know that there's much more it i can say other than it's a powerful reminder that foodborne illness is very real in this country, and it can be low-grade, where you get sick

and have a few days off from work, one in six americans suffer from foodborne illness every year. but it also does results in many, many hospitalizations and deaths each year in this country. we are in the midst of implementing the food safety modernization act, which is a historic opportunity to transform our food safety system from one that is reactive, where you respond after outbreak occurs, to one that puts the emphasis on prevention, and understanding where the points of vulnerability in the lifespan of the product are, and how can you shore up those risks so we can prevent problems from occurring in the first place. i hope that we will come as we implement the food safety modernization act, be able to report fewer listeria and other foodborne illnesses, but in the

meantime, i think one of the other things that striking about listeria outbreak so we've been seeing is that we are seeing listeria in certain food products where we hadn't seen it before. so it also is a reminder that microbes can be unpredictable, they can take up new homes, and that we have to always come back to the best strategies for food handling and hygiene, and the implementation of the food safety modernization act to prevent problems from occurring. moderator: i will ask you one more question. i wanted to remind our audience of our upcoming speakers. on tuesday, the irs comissioner will speak to us. on april 7, a best-selling author and outspoken critic of radical islam will address a luncheon. on april 16, ban ki-moon secretary general of the united nations will speak.

second, i would like to present you with your national press club mug, which is perfect for enjoying fda approved liquids in. [laughter] commissioner hamburg: we do regulate some forms of ceramics as well. [laughter] moderator: wouldn't you know it. the final question, dr. hamburg, you were named one of the world's 100 most powerful women by forbes in 2014. what do you think our country can do to encourage more young women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math? in other words, to follow in your own footsteps. you have less than two minutes to answer. commissioner hamburg: i think it's really important, we need to start early, we need to have exciting, engaged, knowledgeable teachers in our children's schools. have to help with mentoring, career pathways, and we have to make sure that there are good

jobs for women at the fda. we have a very strong representation of women in our scientific and leadership teams. i have been proud to be at the helm. moderator: ladies and gentlemen, join me in thanking dr. margaret hamburg. [applause] moderator: i would also like to thank the national press club staff, including its journalism institute and broadcast center for organizing today's event. if you would like a copy of today's program, or to learn more about the national press club, go to our website, press.org.

thank you very much. we're adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> now live from washington junds secretary of state sara sewall will talk about the challenges and opportunities in advancing the human rights agenda and other global issues. this live event from the council on foreign relations here on c-span. >> facilitated by the national security advisor and including high-level represents from a range of -- representatives from a range of agencies aims to strengthen the capacity of the u.s. government to prevent and respond to mass atrocities. in addition to representing the state department on the a.p.b.,

undersecretary sewal has overseen efforts within the state department to realign and coordinate efforts on atrocity prevention and response. tonight we'll speak about her on this area and the a.p.b., both successes as well as challenges. here's how we'll proceed. undersecretary sewall will first make opening remarks for about 15 minutes. i'll then engage her in further conversation and follow-up to her remarks for another 15 minutes and we'll leave 30 minutes for questions and promptly end at 7:00 p.m. for the sake of brevity i'll note that undersecretary sewlall has had a career in ac deem yafment you can see her resume on the program tonight and with no further ado undersecretary sewall, thank you. [applause] ms. sewall: thank you. i'm really always happy to talk

about atrocity prevention. i know that's sort of a strange thing to say. for those who are in the community and who have spent much of their lives working to prevent and respond to mass atrocities we all know the bond that we share and it's really a delight to be with so many of you here tobblet. to include senior fellow from the council, paul stairs, who is known to many of you as a guiding force in the prevention arena, to include atrocity prevention. but before i get started, i have to explain why really truly i'm here with you tonight. there was an event that reminded me how very important it was to speak publicly about the work that we do in government to prevent atrocities. and it was not president obama and it was not secretary kerry, it was alex true beck. this occurred because in

january, on "jeopardy," america's brightest trivia contestants were working their way through the category bad words. and when they reached the $1,000 question, the most difficult question in the section, trubeck provided this clue in classic jeopardy style. in 2012 the state department put out an a.p.b., a new prevention board, for these terrible crimes. what is an assault? incorrect. no one else even ventured a guess. and to make matters worse, it was not entirely accurate. right? the clue was not even correct. the atrocities prevention board was not launched by the state department. it was launched by president obama and the national security council. and i will contest that i have tried to reach out to mr. tre beck to clear up this confusion. i've even tweeted at him, but without luck.

so here i am at the epicenter of trivia knowledge to explain the administration's commitment to elevate within u.s. foreign policy efforts to prevent the mass killings of civilians. 3 1/2 years ago, the president identified the prevention of mass atrocities as a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the united states and he committed this country to becoming a global leader in preventing large scale violence against civilians worldwide. he made it clear that the u.s. cannot and should not intervene militarily every time there is an unjustice or an imminent atrocities threat. instead, he called for the u.s. government to use its full arsenal of tools, including diplomatic political, financial, intelligence and law enforcement capabilities to prevent these crimes before they evolve into large scale civilian atrocities. and the u.s. government is working now to put these goals

into practice. as one element of this approach, the president established an atrocities prevention board commonly referred to inside the government as the a.p.b. it brings together senior officials from across government to focus and coordinate their respective efforts. this interagency group seeks to identify atrocity risks in their early stages and then develop coordinated whole of government responses to prevent or mitigate them. each month as part of an early warning exercise, the intelligence community helps the a.p.b. identify countries experiencing or at greatest risk of atrocities. the board then has an opportunity to consider which cases need additional policy focus and usually the board bears down on one or two at-risk countries in particular. and of course the a.p.b. process feeds into a larger interagency process of decision making. the a.p.b.'s work is meant to

compliment and enhance, not supplant ongoing regional work that is done every day at the state department and throughout our government. so in practice this means that the a.p.b. is not spending the bulk of its time where threats to civilians, such as assad's brutalities against the syrian people, are already well recognized and addressed in ongoing regional policy discussions. most of the a.p.b.'s effort is devoted to potential or ongoing violence that might escape focused attention in existing policy. so i apologize for the mind-numbing bureaucratic speak but as anyone who has worked inside government knows, the key to getting things done and affecting change is to be a bureaucratic catalyst. and the a.p.b. is a tool to help empower prevention catalysts. it speeds up the cogs of our government's bureaucracy by bringing attention to cases earlier in the buildup to violence and in turn giving the u.s. government or other

international partners additional reaction time to plan and implement appropriate de-escalation interventions. and when threats emerge, the a.p.b. assists by helping marshall personnel, technical expertise, and occasionally financial resources. to strengthen our embassy leg responses on the ground. in the intervening three years since the president's call to action, the u.s. government has achieved significant progress in bringing atrocity prevention into the mainstream of our foreign policy process. the government's new coordination efforts elevate the profile of the issue within the interagency and within the state department where i live. for example, within state we've established an ty atrocities coordination -- anti-atrocities coordination group. regional and functional bureaus collaborate in assessing at-risk cases in the weeks leading up to the monthly interagency meetings and the prevention perspective is well integrated into our policy work

from central african republic to iraq to nigeria. atrocity prevention is also becoming better integrated into our embassy level work. frontline officers are now often the first to sense and report on emerging atrocity risks and chiefs of mission can request that the a.p.b. conduct risk analyses of their host countries or provide planners to help identify appropriate interventions to mitigate the risk. since becoming undersecretary for civilian security i have worked nat only -- not only to strengthen the state department's internal response to mass atrocities but also to build a closer relationship with our key prevention partner, the u.s. agency for international development. for example, pursuant to the strategic road map the bureau of conflict and stabilization operations has begun dedicating expertise and assuming a formal analysis planning and coordinating role in support of a.p.b. priorities within state, and as the new hub for state

planning and implementation for atrocities prevention work, this bureau works with usaid to produce assessments of the drivers of conflict in targeted set of countries at risk for atrocities and produces cord responding risk assessments -- corresponding risk assess thements. the new framework that's been developed in coordination with usaid allows c.s.o. to work with the department's regional bureaus to develop evidence-based civilian-focused intervention options including diplomatic, programmatic efforts. c.s.o.'s also developing a growing collection of best practices that are informing more targeted affective government responses. and u.s. government has also refined and expanded its tools to prevent atroys its -- atrocities. so in addition to the traditional levers of influence, such as diplomacy and economic assistance, we now can impose targeted sanctions such as visa restrictions and

asset freezes against perpetrators of human rights violations in specific cases. we also have the first ever national intelligence estimate on global atrocities risks. new mass atrocities response doctrine for our military, which i know a little bit about, and a presidential proclamation that gives us an additional tool for watchlisting and denying entry to human rights abusers. state department and aid are working to empower our frontline officers through a series of internal training programs to identify and respond to atrocity threats. and american diplomats are now monitoring media and political dialogue of dangerous speech. we've launched initiatives to strength and amplify the voices of nonviolent leaders. and our embassies are better equipped to engage community voices, religious leaders, mothers, respected he will elders, to encourage them to -- respected elders to encourage them to have nonviolent

speeches. this is particularly important in the lead-up to the kind of events that are prone to fueling outbreaks of violence such as elections. and nigeria's a great example of that. we provide some specific examples to illustrate how the u.s. government is now more prepared to identify and respond to risks of extreme violence. taking you back in time over about a year and a half ago when the department's atrocities watchers grew very concerned about escalating tensions. this initiated the a.p.b. process, elevating the focus on the threat and state and u.i.d. put together an interagency team from both the regional components of the agencies to conduct a thorough analysis of potential risks for violence there. this led to a broad diplomatic engagement and a programmatic strategy that was operationalized by the embassy. the a.p.b. process also galvanized over $7 million in state and usaid funds to

address the risks that had been identified in the assessment and it included a prevention advisor to support the embassy in the leadup to the 2015 national elections which was, as i mentioned, earlier and often is a potential trigger for violence and mass atrocities. through its programming the embassy was able to engauge local leaders. ranging from political party youth groups to religious leaders to facilitate dialogues between regional and national political elites and to support community stakeholders in their locally developed efforts to prevent conflict. i'll offer a different example of the a.p.b.'s impact. here would be the example of the central african republic. so when violence quickly

escalated in that african nation in december 2013, the board atrocity prevention he can perts worked hand in hand with regional bureaus as senior leaders from across government, identified key interventions, including from d.o.d. aid and state and together we marshaled up to $100 million in assistance. we were funding everything from peace and reconciliation programs to the purchase of vehicles for peace keepers to critical life saving humanitarian assistance and now we support u.n. forces with their planning and coordination. and when the islamic state of iraq drove tens of thousands of members of the iraqi religious minority from their homes last year the a.p.b. helped catalyze a swift u.s.g. response. its intervention helped ensure that local information collected by the embassy and by the state department's office of religious freedom was able to inform the u.s. strikes against isil that degraded isil and gave local kurdish military

forces enough momentum to break the siege and free the people from their entrapment. although i've shared with you my confident assessment of the progress that we've made and some examples thereof, and i think it's fair to say that the u.s. government's initial atrocities prevention efforts registered very many important achievements, clearly challenges remain. chief among these are resource constraints. while the a.p.b. coordination process doesn't require any funding, effective prevention, tools certainly do -- prevention tools certainly do. they depend on resources, particularly sources of funding that can be accessed quickly and deployed quickly. and in a constrained budget environment, we often see prevention needs that we are unable to meet. of course in addition to building our own capacity, we're seeking to encourage and collaborate with like-minded partners. i recently led a group of officials to meet with u.n.

people who oversee issues of atrocity prevention in new york. not atrocity prevention in new york, they're in new york where they work to overseay trossity prevention. [laughter] our collaborative dialogue is one i hope we'll be institutionalizing in years ahead to ensure greater connectivity. we're integrating prevention into ongoing bilateral and multilateral diplomatic discussions such as the u.s.-e.u. civilian security and development dialogue. in closing, it's no small feat to try to change the way any government does its business. institutional change is a different and slow process. yet we have begun to make enduring progress, integrating an atrocities prevention lens into the government's policymaking and we're working to strengthen agency capabilities and to institutionalize those capabilities within agencies as well as to strengthen the a.p.b. itself. some have expressed dissatisfaction with the obama administration's commitment to prevent mass atrocities across

the globe. i can understand their perspective. the a.p.b. has not halted violence worldwide. in its three years of existence, it has not protected every civilian from governments, insurgents and terrorists. yet as imperfect as our efforts are, they represent under deniable progress. both in symbolism and concrete results and as we approach the a.p.b.'s third anniversary, we're certainly closer to realizing the president's intent, that the goust are u.s. government embraces the mission of preventing mass atrocities. it's my hope that three years from now the united states will have made its decision making tools, resources and actions even more effective in preventing mass violence against civilians. president obama took a bold step in 2012 by elevating concern about mass atrocities as a foreign policy priority. atrocity prevention, he said, is not just a matter of values, but also an issue of national security. the president acknowledged that

it can be tempting to throw up our hands and resign ourselves to man's endless capacity for cruelty. but he also reminded us that holocaust survivors chose never to give up and nor can the united states of america. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for those very useful and illuminating initial remarks. i wanted to talk to you for a few minutes to try to get behind some of what you're talking about. one of the biggest challenges i think in atrocity prevention is measuring your success. because if you succeed, nothing happens. in other words you've prevented a mass atrocity situation. obviously there are other examples where you're on the verge of a mass atrocity situation that it's clear to see where you've had an impact. but how does the a.p.b. or how do you at the state department look at measuring success in your work on an ongoing basis?

sarah: i think what's fair to say right now is that we are, at this point in our efforts, focusing more on outputs than outcomes. in part because they are easier to measure. we can see where we have moved a policy process or garnered resources or had an impact on statistics in a particular way. but it's harder to measure success because success is a nonbarking dog. that will always be, i think an enormous challenge. i think anecdotally when we hear from ambassadors that we equipped them with tools to make a difference in their country, that serves as a pretty good proxy for now. like wise, there has been -- likewise, there have been governments, particularly in postelection when there's a transition of power, the follow-on government will express its great thanks for the work that the united states more broadly has done to help

ensure a safe and peaceful transition and election. those are some of the ways that we currently satisfy ourselves with. i'm sure, again in three years' time, we can to move a better metric. jared: how do you strike a balance between having the u.s. be visibly viewed as engaging on atrocity prevention and intervening to prevent atroys itities versus the desire for a range of actors to engage with the government in discussing these things? by that you alluded to some concerns for civil society. one of them is that, i think, that the a.p.b. itself has been very much like the proverbial iceberg which isn't entirely surprising given that many of the briefings are classified and what is doing -- what is being done is classified. but the a.p.b. itself has not been very visible publicly, nor has its work. and so how do you see striking balance over time with the american public being able to understand what any administration, this or future administrations, are doing to

advance atrocity prevention and to get the american public behind this work as well? sarah: i think part of the reason why i'm here tonight is because i'm very committed to doing atches as i can to speak -- doing as much as i can to speak about both the progress and the challenges that we face as a nation and indeed as a global community. addressing atrocity crimes. i think that this is one of those rare issues where i don't sense a partisan divide at all. i think all americans from every walk of life, every side of the aisle, are very proud of america's tradition in promoting and protecting human rights and generally certainly in the abstract feel that we should do more. so i think that there is a great need to communicate more fully about the president's directive and about the ways in which we are seeking to ensure that a bureaucracy cannot

deaden itself to the human costs overseas. but i think that in part because as i just confessed to some of this is real bureaucratic speak that is probably not necessarily congenial, if even understandable, by many americans. and i would love to think that process didn't matter and that bureaucracy didn't matter. but i can fully confess after a year back in government, it does. so that's not a very easily translateble piece of the story. it's a very important part of the story. but then you also have the difficulty of galvanizing a process to care about a problem before it's a visible problem. and that is a perennial challenge on the prevention work, as many people in this room will appreciate. everyone grease in principle that prevention is much more -- agrees in principle that prevention is much more economical and desirable and far better than the alternative but it's difficult to galvanize

attention and resources for that work. i think that the more we can talk about those challenges and the possibilities that exist to make a difference, the better it is. and of course try to do that in a way that is both concrete, but not in any way tied up in government deliberations. i think has perhaps been perceived as a challenge and i'm doing my level best to finish the circle. jared: the a.p.b. had been consulting with civil society more intimately. i'd be interested to know your thoughts as to your view now looking back at it over the last three years only one of which you've obviously been back in government as to what the vision is for the a.p.b. and how it might engage further with the congress or with civil society as it undertakes its work, acknowledging obviously that certain things that it does are never going to be public or capable of being public and maybe in a lot of

cases it will be passively receiving information. but do you see further channels for civil society and the congress to be engaging with the a.p.b.? sarah: i can't speak to earlier because i wasn't in government but in the year i've been at the state department, i've had a number of round table with civil society to talk about atrocity prevention work that we're doing both at state and more broadly within the u.s. government. and i have had an opportunity to speak at a variety of gatherings of civil society groups and as i said i'm committed to reaching out to partners in the united nations, to partners in bilateral dialogues and other multilateral forum. so i can't speak to what the n.s.c. role in that is, but i can say that i see it as a wonderful opportunity both to learn from people who are truly expert. many people have spent their careers in this field and many have very particular areas of expertise in regions of the world that are actually

extremely useful for the u.s. government to learn from. but i also think more broadly that, you know we have to rely on civil society organizations to both keep us honest in our efforts to make progress and to spur us on where we fall short. and i look very much forward to continuing that dialogue. jared: you were talking about partners before and the u.n. they also have seriously limited resources when it comes to the offices of the special advisor or genocide presprention -- prevention. i'm curious because the u.s. has been more public and outspoken in creating a framework for engaging on these issues as compared to our usual partner, shall we say, internationally. i'm wondering if your perspective, engaging with diplomats around the world, from various governments, how they've taken to the atrocity prevention approach of the united states and whether any of this might rub off to some

extent on other partners and enable more systematic approaches to be taken in other governments. sarah: it's really an interesting question. we frame it as atrocities prevention and we have a particular bureaucratic response that sits -- or seeks to address the challenges we see within our government of addressing these issues. other countries approach the question differently. they may define it differently. for example, you know, the u.k.'s very comfortable talking about stabilization work. and we have a stabilization leaders for numb which we exchange views with a number of like-minded countries about work that includes the atrocity prevention conversation, but also is broader and i think different governments define both the issue and the challenge as well as the response differently. another example of that is, an interesting innovation within the u.n. system, the way in which it is seeking to also be more adept at identifying challenges to human rights

early and galvanizing different elementings of the system to respond -- elements of the system to respond often behind the scenes, often diplomatically. there are a variety of responses out there. i don't think we're the only ones engaged in. this i think there's a lot of compliments in different ways states act and expanding and regularizing that conversation which is really an exciting development. jared: how do you see or how does the administration see its role in atrocity prevention relative to other partners around the world? because the united states obviously has an outsized global footprint and capacity. it doesn't change the i think moral responsibility and legal responsibility under the genocide convention or the geneva conventions or otherwise. but i'm curious how the u.s. looks to calibrate its responses on some of the examples you gave and how much it expects from partners, for them to be able to put in and to what extent decisions are being made in relation to other

partners, to pensionly working with the united states on these issues so we don't go it alone. sarah: it's a good question. i'm think being some of the recent experiences that we've had in coordinating vis-a-vis nigeria. i think every case of potential atrocities is, you know, it's like "unhappy families." there's similarity everywhere but there are very important distinctions. the potential for partners to play different roles is going to vary so much by the case. sometimes you really need someone who is -- who has ties with people that you fear will be the perpetrators. sometimes what you want are linkages and ongoing relationships with communities that could be victimized. it depends on history, it depends on geography. it depends on a lot of different things, as to who can be helpful in what ways in the atrocity prevention work. it's very much a pickup game

which means that it's created but it's a little chaotic in terms of trying to think about all the different avenues that you can use to seek to affect the situation in a way that in advancing the prevention agenda. jared: let me ask you one last question before we open it up to the audience. i'm curious what you see as the biggest challenge in let's say the next year for the administration on atrocity prevention. you've been around for a year, you've gotten knee-deep in all of this stuff. and see how the interagency process has played out and how your you're working to -- you're working to facilitate this process at the state department. what are your thoughts as to the biggest challenge at three-year mark with going from where we are today to where you would like to see it as one of the participants in this process? sarah: i think on the prevention side, i think resources really are a challenge. when i think about the way that

we're organizing the government, which is if we have a crisis we can request supplemental funding and see the need for it, we need to move swiftly and there's a certain sense of urgency politically and bureaucratically. such a different scenario than you faced on the prevention side. we don't have dedicated funding for prevention efforts. as difficult as the charting out what the right path is, you have then a whole second level of herd until terms of, is there any money available, what authorities could possibly be used, who still has something else, what can be reprogrammed? it's just -- if you were designing a process to facilitate prevention efforts, the way we currently do our budgeting is not what you would design. so i think both the existence of dedicated funding for atrocity prevention, as well as the flexibility and access to that funding is a huge challenge. i think stepping back and

thinking about mass atrocities as a global challenge, you know, clearly the biggest failing that we as a global community have is our inability to respond to it effectively and that is a function of a great variety of factors, to include the costs of responding. so i think on an absolute level that's the central challenge. but on the prevention side, in terms of the progress of where i think the a.p.b. has been able to move and what it's promised really suggests, i think, there's a more modest ask. but one that can still feel insurmountable in con strained budget times. jared: let's open it up for questions. just for everyone, please wait for a microphone before you ask your question. please state -- stand and state your name and affiliation and keep your questions an comments concise so we can go -- and

comments concise so we can get as many people in as possible. questioner: thank you. university of michigan. i'm interested in whether, when you were at harvard did you draw upon your work as dasd on peace keeping and humanitarian assistance and help to set something up as harvard and then set up the same kind of or reinforce that structure at the department of state? because it seems to me, it's unclear to me, when i was on the n.s.c. staff, president reagan used to talk about mass atrocities. we didn't call it that. i'm not sure exactly what he called it. in regards to madeline, cashen, emma and sophie.

sarah: kiveb not put my children in the sam category as the question suggests, so lelt me just ponder on that for a moment. we all build on our own experience and so there's no question that having served in the department of defense, in eard of enormous humanitarian challenge and a number of experiments in humanitarian response, clearly that had a huge impact on the work that i did after i left government in working at the center for human rights. and in working on the mass atrocity response project. so i think our experience always informs us. i think that there are many people in government today who have both been in the traverages -- trenches of trying to prevent and respond to mass atrocities or who have

studied those efforts, who have -- are a big part of the reason why president obama's commitment is beginning to become real. when i think about the world that i would like my children to grow up in, it is one in which the specific comments that president obama articulated in terms of mass atrocities being not just a moral responsibility but a national security concern, my hope is that the u.s. government and the administrations to come, regardless of their political tenure, will accept that as a given and move forward in continuing to institutionalize our responses. and which are think, i mean, part of the reason why i think it's so meaningful that the a.p.b. process and the way

we're trying to institutionalize atrocity prevention at state focuses on prevention is because i don't think there is any debate or deessential about the value of doing that. where you can -- dissention about the value of doing. that where you can use diplomatic tools, where you can use smaller amounts of resources and where you can make a significant difference. and i think where we tend to see the divide occur in terms of where the government is appropriately responding to mass atrocities worldwide, it's in the crisis stage. so i think there is a deep, a deep row to hoe on the prevention side when it comes to atrocity prevention, regardless of what you call it as you were referring to in the time in which you served.

questioner: i'm interested in the d.o.d. side of things. i know you interact a lot with d.o.d. thinking for them sort of engagements a big part of hopefully how they help with this mission. what do you see in terms of what we're getting right and what we're getting, you know, maybe what we coim prove on with respect to those en-- could improve on with respect to those engagements? sarah: good question. i used to work a lot with them. i worked wither -- i worked more with the military when i was with harvard than do i now, which is a lot. but one of the -- i think that while there is mass atrocity response doctrine my impression is that there is a ways to go in terms of it being internalized within the department of defense. i think that there has been

more progress on the more narrow almost tactical angle of protection of civilians when we think about our training of foreign peace keepers, which occurs largely through actual contracts at the state department, but i think there's much more that d.o.d. could do vis-a-vis mill tar partnerships and capacity -- military partnerships and capacity building on atrocity prevention. i think that one of the interesting things is -- in watching the evolution of u.n. peace keep something that it is serving so many different -- peace keeping is that it is serving so many different functions now. i think u.n. peace keeping may be a train work in which to engage instead of having to do it on a bilateral basis but a these two tend to be the forces that deploy frequently. but they're now engaged in counterterrorism missions and atrocity prevention missions. that might be the most fruitful

way for the d.o.d. folks to initially think about expanding their role but i do think that they have their own learning to do. because one of the dakers of -- dangers of importing doctrine is it means the machinery hasn't gone through its own process of intellectually absorbing the concepts and owning and -- owning the standard operating procedures. i think there's work in that regard to be done as well. i haven't been working closely with the military for some time. questioner: i'm with the department of state. you mentioned that obviously elections are key to sort of this aspect and with nigeria, i know it's not over. but can you tell us maybe some of the early lessons learned and how this may sort of lead toward a future template? sarah: i think it would be really dangerous to talk about

the nigerian elections right now because historically of course the violence in nigerian elections occurs more in the days following the results than it does during the elections themselves. because as you know we're waiting for the results, i would prefer not to talk about that particular case. but what i can say is that i think there's been an enormous amount of learning, certainly within the u.s. government and i think probably with many foreign partners and multilateral partners, about different kinds of interventions that can make a difference in preventing violence around elections. one of the things that president obama has been doing with some regularity is taking messages that are then distributed broadly through, i mean, you talk about bringing it down to the personal level. here we have not just the abstract sense that the international community is watching or that the united states cares, you have the president talking to the people . and in the case of nigeria, the secretary of state speaking directly with the candidates themselves about the need for

nonviolence. there are a host of issues relating to the mobilization of youthlings to discouraging tangible issues that we can focus on in pre-election pro invention efforts. -- prevention efforts. elevating the voices of those who speak for peace within communities, again something that is done in the case of nigeria. i think there are a hote host of things -- there are a host things. one of the things that i came into the j was tasked with trying to really focus and steer the efforts of the different bureaus within it and make them complimentary. one of the key ways in which the j enterprise is changing in support of atrocity prevention is through the role of conflict and stabilization office and they are working on capturing precisely those kinds of

lessons around different interventions. one is election violence, so that we have more of -- so that the learning is not in people's heads, which is what i'm really struck by when i ask around at state and policy debate it's, what do we know well, you know joe know knows or susie -- joe knows or susey knows. they did it with it -- susie knows. he had did it two years ago. -- they did it two years ago. but we have an enormous repository of knowledge and that's why it can be frustrating when we are scraping to find the resources to implement what we often believe are kl ma -- really can make a difference. questioner: hoover institution. thanks very much for this speech. i think it's a huge and important step in the public diplomacy on this issue. i appreciate the initiatives that you've taken on that. what do you think are the two or three steps that have --

that could be taken but have not yet been taken by -- whether by the government, the administration congress, civil society, to ensure the continuity of the games that we've made from its origin in the obama administration to the next administration, whatever that administration might be? sarah: thanks, that's a great question. i would like to think that we are doing it. because i think that the key is to make sure that each agency that has a role to play in atrocity prevention is internally imbeding that process into the agency. again, that's going to be different for each agency. but already the intelligence community has come, it's night and day. now there's a unit within the different pieces of the intelligence community almost every which way that owns responsibility for this issue of atrocity prevention and early warning. they put together tailored products and they have a recognized role in the interagency process.

that's not transformative of the response but for the intelligence community that is a very different reality than existed five years ago. so similarly within state i think that as we have tried to formalize the ways in which very talented individuals have worked within a system to work on atrocity prevention and now what we are trying to do is take that energy, codify it and catalyzed by the president's trecktifics and formalize that. so we've got the anti-atrocities working group that can bring together the different pieces of the state department for a regular process. that means that each of the bureaus that those representatives come from now is partly pregnant with spobblet for atrocity prevention. it's not just someone else's problem or just the a.p.b.'s problem. i think that in a perfect world, you don't need an

atrocities prevention board. in a perfect world, that's what our government does. but we're transitioning toward perfect. we're not there yet. the interim step is to broaden the community of people who feel responsible for this work. we talked about challenges vis-a-vis funding. we talked about challenges vis-a-vis gal vanizing people to act -- galvanizing people to act early. those are real challenges. but in terms of ensuring that there is imbeded with within the system -- within the system a reflex, a muscle memory of a problem to which a response and a solution is -- for which the response and solution is required i think that is beginning to happen. i'm hopeful that in the next two years that will have become incull cated in a meaningful and hopefully a moveble way. jared: let me ask a quick follow-up to that.

when the president will be issuing the executive order that makes permanent the status of the a.p.b. and that's been -- a lot of people have been anticipating that, but do you have any sense of the teaming -- timing that you can share? sarah: no, because that's an n.s.c. decision. when the president's ready, eeg -- he'll do that. but in the meantime, we're doing the work, so stay studented. -- tuned. questioner: thanks so much. international rescue committee. when we talk about violence and atrocities in this context, i think we think about these big inflexion points like elections or these mass episodes that break out among populations. my question pertains to the slower burn problems. things that don't surround elections and maybe over the course of years don't look that different but if you look over time, it gets much worse and structural violence, among particular groups and populations. one example that comes to mind is the situation of the ro hingea in western burma.

just wanded -- wanted to see, where's the place for that? we talked about the syria epic, the whole government's on it, type thing, and then monitoring what's to come. but what sort of things have slowly changed and have the potential to get much worse over time or slow burns, and put people in a position where they're exposed to great violence in this case maybe leaving the country because of this discrimination and being trafficked etc., this has been a big hole. where does the a.p.b. stand on that? sarah: i'll go in the abstract on this rather than getting specific to this case but then i'll come back to the case. typically the way both the intelligence community but also the policy shocks within different pieces of the government to include c.s.o., look at issues is that they are looking both at slow burn and then they are looking at precipitating events because often or sometimes it is a

combination of the two that can create the most dire circumstances. so there is no precollusion of a slow burn situation. many people characterized darfur as a slow burn situation for a long period of time. but clearly was recognized as ans a troys it case. and one that -- as an atrocity case and one that deserves attention. in the case of burma the a.p.b. is very well aware of the ro hingea issue and has been monitoring that and i think it's also very well aware that burma has elections coming up later this year. so the issue i think that we will be looking at is how those do or do not intersect. there are many different forms in which elections can trigger violence. whether you're talking about burma or nigeria, the underlying conflicts that have the potential to spark very

enormously throughout both countries, but elections are often a precipitating factor. i think the answer to your question, simply put, is that there's no distinction made. but that the prioritization process tends to put the interagency focus on precipitating events that we have reason to believe will spark underlying potential atrocities. questioner: tom miller. i appreciated your opening remarks. if i asked to you use two additional words and integrate them in your opening remarks, i'd appreciate how you'd respond. one is genocide. and second is syria. sarah: so genocide is one form

of mass atrocity. so the way the atrocity prevention board works is that genocide is actually perceived as too restrictive a case but is very much on the minds and is sometimes at issue in the context of the analysis that we do. and syria fits the category of issues with which the policy process is already seized. that's different from saying has solved. but the a.p.b.'s role is not to duplicate processes that already exist. particularly within the state department it is very regionally focused and in the way it frames and makes decisions. so where there are large recognized challenges, there's a process in which the interagency is discussing them. so syria's very much in that category where the a.p.b. has

come into -- category. where the a.p.b. has come into play is where we believe there is not sufficient attention being paid to particular instances or angles of mass atrocity issues and the -- atrocities issues and iraq is one of the issues. but the a.p.b.'s focus is in the areas in which the current policy practical sis it -- practice is not covering. that relates to the difference between a primarily preventive agenda and a response agenda. questioner: thank you very much for coming here today and talking about this. i commend you for the work that you've done. another slow burn situation is mexico. there are 250,000 internally displaced people.

displaced mostly by gangs and violence and drugs. drug dealers. 22,000 disappearances. this is our neighbor to the south. obviously the u.s. has a lot of investment interests, also joint citizenship issues, migration issues. but i don't think we've been paying enough attention to what's going on in mexico. similarly with some of the other countries in latin american. and the number of children who showed up at the border. and the reasons that were precipitating the violence that caused those children to flee and the terrible reaction by the american public for the most part and the newspapers basically send them back, throw them out as if there were gangsters themselves or criminals when they were victims. i wonder if that's on your agenda. sarah: well, the -- there's a lot of competition for attention in the world of atrocities and the character and scale and pace of systemic

and purposeful attacks against civilians has -- every continent has issues that are deserving. so i come back to the answer that i gave before about the difference between slow burn and precipitating event and the way in which we seek to look across the globe at the issues that are in need of prevention and those that we are able to envision. i hesitate to say the word narrow because the responses around narrow. but there's a difference between fixing a country and intervening to prevent mass atrocities and it's almost a proximate cause time frame issue that i think comes into play. i think that that's opposite. if we were to ask the a.p.b. to solve every problem related to violence and civilians it would not be able to focus, so we do focus. and so that's not to say that mexico -- issues wax and wane

and they come and go in their acutie and in the way in which we focus on them. i think those will always be in plucks. part of the reason why we set to systemize the review process is because there is a limited ability to look at issuings and we want to prioritize the cases as best we can. questioner: jeff smith, center for public integrity. i wrote about atrocities at "the washington post" in the bulletins. there are large scale and small scale atrocities. a lot of the questions you're getsing from the audience are what are the criteria that you use to decide? is there a numerical criteria? what constitutes an atrocities of sufficient scale and scope to demand your attention? how do you set that?

where that bar is? i understand also, i presume you're going to say that the bar is somewhat inplucks depending on other events going on in the world, but i'm wondering if your work has s guided by an overall -- is guided by an overall consensus about what constitutes an atrocities or mass atrocities, if you could be a little bit more specific that would be helpful. sarah: i can be more specific about the terms but not about the application of them. to be fair. because there's a time frame issue and there is -- and there are judgments that analysts make about whether or not things are a problem, so typically when we are talking about mass atrocities, we're talking about violence directed against civilians that is similar in the range of above 500 people over a sustained period of time. now that's a very low bar, frankly, globally. so there's a lot that is

captured by that. it's not dess positive for that reason resice -- precisely. so again the reason -- the fact that you have a slow burn situation that has a number of deaths that is lower than that threshold over a long period of time doesn't preclude you from being very concerned about what could ignite something far bigger because of a precipitating event. whether it's a coup or whether it's a war next door or whether it's a famine or whatever it is. so that's the answer but it's not dispositive in terms of what we focus on. questioner: former department of defense. i want to ask you about your broader set of responsibilities. because some of the atrocities preessential is like the cop trying to get there as something's happening or even

in the slow burn mode. but on the bigger level of, what are the things that -- strategies that you think about in terms of creating context in which there is respect for human rights or democracy or pluralism, what are those strategies that are most important from your perspective to focus on? and a subpart of that question is are foundations doing enough to invest in those kinds of things? i've heard recently some self-criticism about not doing enough to invest for example, say in moderates, in countries or in supporting democracy -building projects. have you tried to engage that sector not just the n.g.o.'s, but the foundations in supporting that kind of work? could you address those topics? thanks. sarah: i'm so glad you asked. so let me try to answer the first piece which is when i look across the j under secretariat and we have the

hard security issues of counterterrorism and security reform, international narcotics, law enforcement, as well as, you know, the populations, migrations and refugee office, the democracy and human rights office, really span the spectrum, to me they're all of a piece. to me one of the biggest and most profound differences that i think the state department can make is in bringing together the harder security pieces with the softer security pieces and blending them in areas that need attention. so that we are focusing on for example, building up a legal regime that protects human rights while we are training police to do the same, while we are ensuring that there is a justice system that can actually reach verdicts and make people feel as though there is justice that will come at the end of the day, while we're working to make sure that refugees are actually accepted in an area, in other words, the integration of the tools that we use so that there's a more

comprehensive approach to what governance means and what rights realization means. to me that's where the money has been made. that's so much u.a.d.'s -- a.i.d. does. it very much relates to a broader set of interventions that i think we at state can do more to foster both intrastate and then in partnership with a.u. -- a.i.d. and overseas. i was just in the horn of africa this relates to my second answer, but i was in the horn of africa looking at how we might re-envision our interventions there there a preventing violent extremism

angle. for me everything's all connected, so preventing mass atrocities pry venting violent extremism and terrorism. building respect for rule of law, protecting human rights. it's all integrated. yet our bureaucracy by definition has expertise that comes in the form of silos. it has different funding streams and different committees. you cabinet get away from the how -- can't get away from the how when you think about the what we should be doing in the way of effective foreign policy, so for me, within state , integration is something that i'm really looking for and greater consolidation of effort with a.i.d. and with folks and with regional bureaus. in terms of foundations we recently, the white house had a summit on countering violent extremism just last month and secretary kerry hosted a day-long ministerial at the state department that was really unique in a bunch of ways that i think are very important and exciting. first of all, it was one of the

first if not the first major event some 65 countries and u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon and president obama spoke. lots of high-level government and international organization focus, but it also countried -- included civil society and the private sector. so the conversation was very different as a result. the real focus of this similarity was the prevention of violent extremism and rather than simply the reactions to violent extremism. the reality is if you look at all of our incredible investments, and in many ways distinct successes in addressing terrorist networks, they have continued to spread. and part of the challenge for the international community in the years ahead is to get out of that curve and -- ahead of that curve and think preventtively. what that means is thinking ought the outer edge of the encenters of terrorist save havens or doing more to create resilient communities and good

governance that together reinforce the ability of young people of any target of extremist ideology to resist it and to resist the likelihood that those communities will align themselves tactically with terrorist actors. anyway, the summit on violent extremism, one of the big takeaways from this conference was that this set of interventions that are very community-focused, very locally driven, very -- they're fundamentally about people and their relationships to their future and their governments, really requires all hands on deck, to include foundations, to include the private sector, and i think we have now, the president laid out a challenge through -- in september, the u.n. general assembly in september when we're going to reconvene that same set of actors ask them to all make inroads in oregon viegal summits and working -- regional summits and working on

agreements up until september, we're going to try to find foundation and private sector support partners in that work. . i can't afford to do this or that or the other, they want partnerships from all i think the beauty of the prevention as it pertains to nonextremism is that it's relatively mappable in a way that is i think conducive to partnerships. i think when we're talking about mass atrocities so often it is harder to find the right partners with whom to say have a foundation work in the early stages of an election. there is absolutely no reason why we can't evolve to do that.

what i have not heard is foundations seeing that as their role. i think they see themselves as more likely to fund advocacy groups and direct service than they do to solve the more political for lack of a better word kinds of initiatives that are really necessary to prevent the violence that we've been -- that we then look at and try to repair with civil society organizations. in all of these prevention cases there is the potential for a concern about being politicized to deter people from doing the very things that they demand need to be done and, yet, it's very clear to me whether you're talking about extremism or prelex violence that those kinds of locally based solutions, many of the same tools that apply, there are local organizations that can do that work if they are properly supported. so a very long-winded way of saying there is a role. i do think that we tend to, because it doesn't seem to be

sort of a pure humanitarian kind of engagement, i think there is sometimes a shyness about other actors of engaging. from my vantage point it's precisely where it is most needed and so anything you can do to encourage us in that regard would be greatly appreciated. >> afraid that is going to be our last question for the evening under secretary se wahl thanks for coming and joining us tonight. it was an exceptional discussion. i've learned a lot and i'm sure everyone else did as well. >> thank you. [applause] >> tonight on the communicators, more from the international consumer electronics show as we look at new technology products.

>> if there is something you want to capture you just take it off your wrist and it'll be very simple to take off your wrist and it will expand and it will be as easy as gesturing. you literally just toss it and it's completely autonomous. there is no remote required. you don't need to be wearing something. it is smart enough to know that the direction you tossed it and the pressure of your toss, so if it's a gentle toss it'll stay close. it will take a photo and come back. >> the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. this morning president obama delivered the keynote address in boston at the dedication ceremony for the kennedy institute for the u.s. senate. you can see the ceremony tonight on c-span at 9:00 p.m. eastern. we'll also hear from vice president joe biden, who spent decades in the senate with

teddy kennedy. also addressing the gathering, massachusetts senator elizabeth warren and republican governor of massachusetts charlie baker. again, that starts at 9:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> this weekend the c-span cities tour has partnered with cox communications to learn about the history of tulsa, oklahoma. >> most famous for his writing of "this land is your land" and is very much more than that. he was born in 1912 in oklahoma so we are very proud to have his work back in oklahoma where we think it belongs. he was an advocate for people who were disenfranchised for those people who were migrant workers from oklahoma, kansas, and texas during the dust bowl era who found themselves in california literally starving. he saw this vast difference between those who were the haves and the have nots and became their spokesman through

his music. ♪ >> woody recorded very few songs of his own. we have a listening station that features 46 of his songs in his own voice. that's what makes the recordings that he did make so significant and so important to us. ♪ this land is your land this land is my land from california to the new york island ♪ >> watch all of our events from tulsa saturday at noon eastern on c-span 2's book tv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span3. >> tomorrow night is the deadline for a nuclear agreement with iran on that country's nuclear program. reuters reports iran and the countries it is in negotiation with are "struggling to reach a preliminary nuclear accord as gloom set in with both sides sticking to their positions." up next here on c-span, a

discussion on those negotiations. we'll hear from the retired general who used to head the u.s. strategic command as well as several foreign policy scholars. from southern methodist university in dallas, this is just over an hour and a half. >> good evening. welcome to smu and the special forum on nuclear weapons. welcome also to the security and strategy program here at smu. the new initiative we started about a year ago which combines the study of national security with the study of grand strategy and strategy in war time. it features events that have scholars and practitioners in the same room to flesh out the discussion of really important and critical issues for international security. thanks first to our board members patrocinioerson and ambassador jordan.

thank you for being with us tonight. nuclear weapons are in the news. you can't avoid them. if you turn on the tv, read the newspaper, you'll see stories, ominous stories about nuclear weapons. a few weeks ago i opened the "new york times" and i found an op-ed ominously titled "north korea's nuclear expansion." and the story said, it quoted an administration official warning about north korea's reckless pursuit of a larger and larger nuclear program, but the op-ed went on to criticize the administration for doing too little to stop it. obviously the ongoing debate about iran and its nuclear ambitions is tied to a broader fear of proliferation in the middle east. "time" magazine this week, this monday had an article called "the middle east nuclear race is already under way." these stories aren't just about nuclear proliferation, the spread of nuclear arms. they're also about strategies

as in how might the countries use nuclear weapons to achieve their political objectives? reuters for instance on sunday had a scary story with the title "russia threatens to aim nuclear missiles at denmark if it joins the nato shield." u.p.i. on tuesday, "russia demands removal of u.s. nuclear missiles from europe." meanwhile, "u.s. analysts, some u.s. analysts are calling for returning tactical nuclear weapons to europe ala 1980." all of this might feel a little peculiar and seem strange. after all, it wasn't long ago that foreign policy luminaries and national security luminaries were speaking openly about a world without nuclear weapons. it was only in 2007 that in the pages of "the wall street journal" an op-ed by george schultz, henry kissinger, sam nunn none of them starry-eyed

pacifists called openly for global disarmament. two years later the president gave a very stirring speech in prague in which he ek owed -- echoed their call and america's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. seems to be a bipartisan ks aggressive movement toward getting rid of these things. and yet that doesn't seem to be happening. if you read the news you're seeing stories of new nuclear powers, north korea, potentially iran. you're also seeing stories about the traditional great powers who are modernizing their arsenals, china, russia and the united states. the united states nuclear modernization program is particularly interesting for our purposes tonight. it's not going to be cheap. the congressional budget office recently estimated that it's going to be on the order of $350 billion over the next decade alone. the economist magazine also had a big story, big special issue

on nuclear weapons a couple weeks ago. they summed it all up. quote, 25 years after the soviet collapse the world is entering a new nuclear age. nuclear strategy has become the cockpit of foes jostling with the fave original nuclear weapons powers whose own dealings are infected by suspicion and rivalry. scary stuff. why are new nuclear powers acquiring weapons? why are traditional great powers modernizing their forces despite all the calls for disarmament and proliferation? put another way what is the value of nuclear weapons? what is the strategic logic of acquiring and deploying these forces? how have leaders from the past thought about the relationship between nuclear weapons and national security? and how does it fit in today with our broader foreign policy programs? i can't think of many better

people to answer these questions than the two gentlemen seated with us today. professor francis gavin, the frank stanton share in nuclear facility policy it at m.i.t. before going to m.i.t. for a long time he was the professor of international affairs and director of the strauss center for international security and law at the university of texas. he writes widely on diplomatic history, foreign policy, and nuclear weapons and his latest book is called the nuclear state craft history and strategy in america's atomic age. to his right is general c. robert keeler of the air force who until recently was commander of the united states strategic command. in that role he was directly responsible to the secretary of defense and the presidents of the plans and operations of all u.s. forces conducting global strategic deterrents, nuclear alert, space, cyber space associated operations. after leaving the air force and leaving strategic command he went to stanford university where he is currently the lead

lecturer at the center for international security and cooperation. we'll have professor gavin speak for about 20 to 25 minutes, turn over the floor to the general, and then open the floor to q & a. i'm sure there will be many questions. >> well, it is a real honor to return to one of my favorite places, the tower center, at smu. and to be on a panel with such a distinguished public servant and it is also a real pleasure to be here with my old friend and colleague josh rogner who has done an amazing job here as you all know with the security and strategy program here at smu and i think has really turned smu and the tower center into a go-to place for these conversations. i think we should all thank josh for his amazing job.

[applause] the history of the nuclear age is marked by a puzzle. thermonuclear weapons are monstrous, potentially civilization ending weapons whose use would be not only immoral and senseless but increasingly unthinkable. yet, we intuit it is the very destructiveness of the weapons that prevented the recurrence of great power wars since 1945. why? great power land wars have been the scurege of ewer asia for 31 years before the united states dropped atomic weapons on hiroshima and nagasaki, wars that killed tens of millions on the battlefield and tens of millions more through disease and political upheaval. 70 years ago most responsible people expected a third world war to follow the first and the second with consequences far worse than the first two. thankfully that war never came

and to misuse the title from a famous book it has led many people to proclaim, thank god for the atom bomb. did nuclear weapons prevent world war three and do these weapons have the intended effect of stabilizing world politics by making great power war unthinkable. this is the foundation of what we've come to call to terms and our whole way of thinking about newscast leer weapons is centered on this concept. much of united states national security policy has been driven for well over half a century by the idea that an attack upon the united states or i should add its allies might elicit a nuclear response even if our adversaries did not use nuclear weapons. and we've come to take this posture so for granted that we've long since forgotten how novel it is. or how unusual given american history such as strategy is. think about it for a moment. from the founding until 1950

the united states had entered no permanent alliances, was almost completely demobilized during peace time, pursued strategies that allowed it to be hit first and mobilize slowly and massively to win wars of attrition. that is how the united states fought war and planned strategy up until 1950. this strategy allowed for powerful civilian control over the military and strong legislative oversight over the executive branch in matters of war and peace while paving the way to relative isolation from world affairs. the nuclear revolution and the strategies the united states adopted to deal with it demanded something quite different. permanent alliances forward military deployment, and an often preemptive military strategy that left enormous discretion in the hands of battle field commanders and permanently shifted the power to make war away from congress to the president.

again, this strategy is premised on the idea that deterrence the promise of awful retribution if attacked kept the united states relatively safe and the world relatively stable for decades. most importantly, it's widely believed it prevented thermonuclear war. but do we know this to be true? how can we be sure that thermonuclear weapons and the deterrence that flowed from them actually kept peace and stability? in fact, we cannot. the problem is that we're trying to understand something that thank god, never happened, and we hope will never happen. a thermonuclear war. we have an almost impossible time understanding the causes for things that did happen. as many unresolved arguments over what caused the first world war demonstrate. trying to understand why something didn't happen, why we did not have a thermal nuclear war, is a methodological nightmare that eludes answer from even our most powerful and sophisticated social science methods. while the idea of nuclear deterrence is intuitively compelling one can imagine other explanations to the peace and stability of world affairs

after 1945. the scholar john mueller once argued nuclear weapons were unneeded to keep the peace. that the world had tired of war after two global con flag rations, that the overwhelming conventional might of the united states was enough to scare any possible rival and that great power war like slavery or dueling was a cultural practice that was increasingly seen as repulsive and not to be pursued. there are other explanations for the so-called long peace. for centuries, land for example had been the source of state power. but a variety of factors from massively increasing agricultural yields we arguably have too much food in the world, not too little which is historically unprecedented, to flatening demographic trends, to the development of post industrial technologically driven economies has made conquests too expensive. in other words, who needs land when it's far better to be singapore than the ukraine? which may not have been true in 1920. my point here is there's lots of other explanations from norms and taboos to military

factors to explain the absence of great power wars since 1945. the simple fact is we don't know what caused peace. now, for myself, i strongly believe nuclear deterrence made an enormous difference but i can't prove it. people will tell you they can but certainty on this question is impossible. now, why does this matter? there are two crucial trends as josh mentioned this introduction shaping the nuclear world, pulling in different directions and how you assess them depends on how you think about the question of deterrence. the first is the so-called global zero movement which josh explained. the idea that the world should move toward eliminating nuclear weapons all together. this is actually officially an american aspiration laid out by president obama in his 2009 prague speech though presidents as diverse as jimmy carter and ronald reagan also shared this goal. the other strand reveals that

nuclear weapons are playing an increasing role in world politics. we all know about the current tense negotiation over iran's nuclear program. less well known is the significant expansion and modernization of the nuclear programs of russia china and pakistan. the united states is also going through a multi billion dollar modernization program as josh mentioned. so one strand moves the world toward delegitimizing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. the other strand pulls in the opposite direction highlighting the importance to states of nuclear weapons for achieving their national security and foreign policy objectives. which is correct? these world views and the policies that flow from them are enormously consequential and we need to vigorously argue and debate over them. the debate must recognize however, that the answer to the most important question, the one that matters more than any policy question in the world today, how to avoid a nuclear

war, will never be known with certainty. we must be both rigorous and humble as we explore these issues. of course the right course also turns on a number of other important questions from the past. questions as elusive as they are consequential. i'm a historian and historians love to deal in puzzles. i want to present three of them very briefly. and depending on how you think about these puzzles how you answer them, how you understand the past will help shape how you think about contemporary future nuclear dilemmas and choices. they should also get the fundamental questions surrounding nuclear weapons deterrence, peace, and stability. the first important question, how close did we come to thermonuclear war during the cold war? now, there's at least three ways to look at this. first, through the course of the cold war did nuclear weapons and the strategies the super powers employed make

great power war in a nuclear exchange more or less likely? second how did nuclear weapons affect their behavior and the risk of nuclear war during sharp political crises? in other words, did nuclear weapons make crises more or less likely? was it harder or easier to exit without the risk of war? how high were the risks of an accidental nuclear launch or accident? now, on this question nuclear weapons clearly had contradictory effects. the fears and horrors of thermonuclear war no doubt gave leaders pause during stable times and during crises. one can't read this history without some feeling of terror. the recent book "command and control" joins others in highlighting the mistakes, accidents, and near misses that plagued nuclear management on both sides of the cold war. reading documents from both

sides of the cold war from 1958 to 1961 berlin crisis 1962 cuban missile crisis, or the set of challenges during the 1983 nato archer exercise give one pause. perhaps more importantly, the most important and dangerous crises of the cold war were generated by the very existence of nuclear weapons. in other words if one tried the counterfactual of a world without nuclear weapons for example the cuban missile crisis makes no sense. even the crisis over west berlin from 1958 to 1961 if it were as we now believe initiated by the soviet union's anger over the united states moving to arm west germany with nuclear weapons, is newscast leer to the core. the crisis of the euro missiles in the 1970's. the soviet fear of a nato first strike in the early 1980's. it is hard to create a counterfactual where these occur in a nonnuclear world.

could it be that in a nonnuclear cold war the united states and the soviet union and nato in the warsaw pact balance each other perfectly grudgingly accepting each other's fear of influence and avoiding major crises? who knows? but it's a scenario at least worth thinking about. the second important question why do states pursue nuclear weapons and why have far fewer pursued them than anyone predicted in, say, 1965 or 1995? is the less nuclearized world than we expected a product of the 1968 newscast leer nonproliferation treaty? remember the 1960's people predicted 20 30, 40 nuclear weapons states by the start of the 21st century. is this low number or relatively low number because of an emerging norm even taboo against the use of and possession of nuclear weapons? is it because of a demand of being an open, politically liberal capitalistic state

conflict with the goals of acquiring nuclear weapons as a scholar has claimed? or has it been american nuclear nonproliferation efforts everything from norms to treaties to threats to sanctions to even considering preventative military strikes to sprawling alliances and security agreements around the world? has that been the key factor keeping the number of nuclear weapons states in the single digits? again, we don't know. we can't be sure. but there's lots of argument. the one interesting surprise that will point out in the historical record is the united states went to great lengths, greater lengths than we perhaps realized in the past, to keep its friends and allies nonnuclear than it did even its enemies. countries ranging from west germany to japan to south korea and australia and italy and sweden the list goes on and on. in fact it showed a willingness to work with its adversary the soviet union against its allies to accomplish the same.

the third important question is an age-old one. how much is enough? in other words, what are the force and strategy requirements for nuclear deterrence? are they different than the requirements for assuring allies? and can state achieve meaningful nuclear superiority? if so, what are the benefits of achieving such primacy? this is a complex question but during the cold war there were two leading views. many of the academic and think tank analysts, renowned thinkers like bernard brody robert jere vice, and ken waltz, believed once the state possessed surviveable nuclear forces, enough nuclear weapons that even an attack upon them allowed them to unleash unacceptable damage on the enemy, that once you achieved that state there was really no point in building more forces. strategic stability was then achieved. and building more, larger or

more accurate strategic nuclear forces or spending money on things like missile defense was a waste of potentially -- a way to potentially destable ayes. many americans did not seem to accept this and the united states continued after the 1972 strategic arms treaty and antiballistic missile treaty to seek faster, more accurate, stealthier nuclear forces. multi billion dollar programs like the exeeper, b 1 and b 2, cruz missiles, per shalling 2, upgrades missile defense and massive investments in antisubmarine warfare, all systems by the way oriented toward counterforce and if one follows the logic of such systems potential first use revealed the united states sought nuclear superiority. what did they think they were getting for this massive investment, for these systems that arguably at least

according to some analysts undermine strategic stability? and did they get what they sought? there is by the way a limited but quite revealing bit of evidence that the soviet side understood that the americans were trying to acquire meaningful superiority in the 1970's and 1980's based upon capabilities russia neither had the technology nor the economic resources to match and it worried them quite a bit. which is an interesting contrast by the way to what appears to be a much different attitude in china today where despite an increasingly vigorous foreign policy and military expansion, based upon an impressive economic and technological base, the people's republic of china seems relatively sanguine about being on the shortened of the nuclear blavents united states. answering these three questions would go a long way toward helping us navigate the nuclear choices we have in front of us that josh so eloquently laid out. now i wish i could provide you with concrete answers to these

and other important puzzles but historians traffic in uncertainty and context and they are far better at asking hard questions and throwing cold water on those that would provide easy answers. which is probably why i don't get invited to more terrific events like this. it's hard to get excited by a speaker whose conclusions are, it's complicated, or it all depends, or we can't really know. that said, i do look forward to discussing these and any other questions you have and hearing from my distinguished fellow panelists. thank you very much. gen. kehler: i'm going paperless tonight. my screen has gone blank so give me a moment. let me see if i can make this do something it was supposed to do.

there we go. i can say something now. thanks for inviting me to the tower center. this is a big honor for me. i always enjoy coming to panel discussions like this, particularly when the audience is filled with a mixture of people like tonight. including a fair number of undergraduates. i'm gratified to see so many undergraduates because i think these issues in particular, well it used to get discussed in many places through the cold war, at the end there was a tendency to not talk about these issues. the conversations we have now are long overdue. it is the first time i have visited smu. it is a very beautiful campus. i walked around today. i wish i could spend more time here. i promise i will come back at some point and walk around and get to see some of the things you guys have told me about. i'm