has been written about the most is joe mccarthy. there are dozens of books about mccarthy, but there is no biography about the center -- the senator who had the backbone to stand up against him first. >> it was the hardest thing i had ever worked on for what i delivered from a podium. >> it is a selection of his speeches going back to 1989. that is tonight at -- tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span. >> now, a look at how foreign policy offense from the past compared to some global issues that speakers discuss the role the u.s. should have an current world affairs. this is one hour. >> good afternoon, everybody.

i would like to welcome you to the public library for our forum, shades of red and blue. along with the carnegie council for ethics in international affairs and the bard college globalization and international affairs program. along with our partners i would , like to welcome you to this important discussion on security. in a moment, i will introduce to the panel. before i do so, if i can just mention a couple of things beforehand. if you are tweeting, then we have the world's longest #shadesofredandblue. i should mention that a number of our panelists are distinguished authors whose works are on sale and available on a table over there at the end of the session.

you may even prevail upon them to sign a few. this might sound like a bit of trivia. the first division of the united states marine corps was founded in melbourne in australia during the second world war. the battle hymn for the marine corps, this division which was theanded by general mattis, current secretary of defense is , the australian fight song "waltzing matilda." they where on the shoulder patch -- they have on the shoulder patch, to this day, the southern cross, which is one of the great emblems of australia. there is an incredible connection between the united states and australia which goes back well beyond that. for good or for ill, australians

have stood beside the united states in every single conflict over the last 100 years. we may be the only country that has done that. the issue of global security is one which very much unites us in our approach and our practice. it is incredibly important to be able to bring people together from diverse perspectives because our common interests. i'e going to have jim k grow from bard leading the conversation. you will notice there are two empty chairs. there is a very special process we use in australia, which we're using for the first time here. that is about halfway through the conversation, jim will open the table to you in the audience. we believe in these kinds of conversations, not just panels talking at you. you have a seat at the table too. it is not a permanent seat.

you can just roll up your sleeves and catch yourself further -- plant yourself for 20 minutes. you'll be giving way to another member of the audience who made wants to have a chance. make it brief. then vacates the chair if you could. we saw lots of people had a chance to do that. that is to come. at the moment, we have a wonderful panel. i will ask you to applaud them all in a moment. you probably know half of them already. please join me in welcoming our panel. [applause] >> thank you to all of you for being here.

thanks to the organizers for putting this timely and important event together. are shifting to foreign policy, it strikes me that foreign policy tends not to be in most american presidential elections something that is front and center. several of the elections we have ,een before 2016 in the debates foreign-policy issues sometimes would barely get a mention. yet we saw in this election that several key issues came to the four time and again great how we deal with china, trade deals, the question with russia that is still with us, and more. the foreign-policy establishment in washington and beyond, the community of people who have devoted their careers to doing , they are not always so

connected to the electorate. i think this is probably true across the political spectrum. given the nature of the results of the election and the way in which it rolled out, what do you think are the kinds of things that the foreign-policy community should take away from not only the election results, but the nature of the run-up to the election, including in the primaries. >> one thing that concerns me about the relationship between the blog, or the foreign policy establishment and the public is that we often hear the american public says the establishment is not listening to us. i am concerned that when it comes to foreign policy, the establishment listens to the public almost too often. what i mean by that is that

foreign policy now, in so far as it does make appearances in our politics, is almost entirely an extension of a permanent campaign on both sides. i don't want to idealize this and say there was once a golden age where republicans and democrats quietly shook hands on fighting the soviet union or any of those myths. was ira of bipartisanship think remembered more fondly in our memory than it is in reality. it seems thatand the public and foreign-policy experts alike seemed incapable of having a discussion about american interest and america's role in the world without thinking about the impact the positions you are taking has on your preferred candidate. it is a most like we have become a parliamentary system in some ways, that we are not capable of taking a position on foreign affairs that is not some extension of a candidate or a campaign.

i worry about this. ,ecause i think foreign-policy reflecting my own bias here -- i should also say i don't represent the government or maybe or anyone else -- i think foreign-policy is not only immensely intricate, but it is a dangerous business. a lot of other areas of public policy are more forgiving than foreign-policy. i am concerned experts are being drawn into this partisan warfare and losing the ability to speak to each other even when they differ. because of this notion that everything they say has to be related back to partisan advantage or some political person oron or some campaign. now i think we living in the worst of all possible worlds merely aeign-policy is football to be thrown about in places like twitter.

these are not real decisions that could kill millions of people. i find that really startling. i think the only good thing i can say about this is that in a strange way, it is creating a new bipartisanship of forcing experts who normally would disagree with each other into the same trench where they at least agree on things like a sick rules of evidence and how to conduct an argument. that is happening far away from the public debate, which has evolved into a very deep difference between partisan sides that is drawing experts into it. >> that take away is structure, process. what about substantive issues? are there things that came to the four this campaign from both parties that resonated with the electorate in a way that you think is different? are there ships in the

population that we can start to read these tea leaves? >> what is most striking to me is there just is not a line between foreign-policy and domestic policy on the two biggest issues for voters -- economics and jobs. trade, that was nafta, that was china. that was globalization taking away our jobs. withthen immediately specific countries, and then the other was security. it was not what should we be doing in the middle east but what is the responsibility of people among us? which we heard about in the last panel. in both of those cases, the people talking about it, foreign-policy experts had views but that is not where the real heat of the debate was. that is a function of a world in

which orders are much more permeable. butgration and refugees, just in general the inability to wall ourselves off from global trends. >> you mentioned trade. the interesting situation during the democratic primaries and republican primary where you saw that sanders was proposing a very anti-trade deal platform. eventually hillary clinton came on board to it. this has been one of donald trumps key themes is anti-trade. in that regard, the people who were supporting sanders and trump agreed on this issue. what does that say about what is going on with the electorate? why would that curious situation come to be? at theink looking sanders supporters and the donald trump supporters, i think

we have to take a step back. this anti-globalized nation is a reactionary. in terms of things becoming polarized, i think it is much less about the policy and a lot more about what is america's place in the world and what is our identity? we have gone from a 20th century where america was the unequivocal superpower in .conomics and military here in the 21st century we have seen the rise of china, india, brazil, turkey, a lot of other countries. we see people moving into the metal last and their becoming entrepreneurs. they're moving progress along and i think americans are stopping and saying what happened to our progress? we were creating jobs. we are the innovators. is that a function of trade?

if so, maybe we should stop that. we are projecting gone to foreign-policy. we're not actually taking stock about where is america and what is our role in the global world order. it is interesting that 1918, we fought in world war i and immediately, there was a big debate about what to do afterwards. woodrow wilson lost and we took a much lower profile. what is often forgotten his after world war ii, we had the same debate. we demobilized 90% of our forces. we had already pulled out and when stalin began to in eastern europe, we had a big debate and moved back in. we did not have this debate at the end of the cold war.

we decided we would globalize our foreign-policy. we would go from america as the center of the free world to america as the pillar of a truly global order. int is interesting is that 1992 they voters picked the thet globalist of candidates. clinton was going to do less with foreign-policy. --y voted for al gore in 2000. at least the voters did. bush wanted a humbler foreign-policy. no nation building. then in 2008, they go for barack obama over john mccain. 2016, they go for trump over clinton. the voters have actually been consistent in expressing of the

two choices they are given, they pick the one that is the least engaged with this project. that was true at the beginning of world war ii as well. franklin roosevelt had to create lend lease to help the british. for peoplencommon whose job it is to look around the world more often. here's the thing. the difference is that foreign policy and most days was able to persuade the people. after 1990, think the foreign-policy community. that actually he was going to be a lot easier. when harry truman is gearing up for the cold war, franklin roosevelt gearing up for world war ii, they knew it would be hard.

people could be killed, drafted. in 1990, we thought free trade would make everybody rich. democracy is spreading. in kuwait we had a war and made them pay for it. it will be easy so we can do this without gaining the deep consent. >> you're making to assumptions i would disagree with very first and lifting all those presidential contest, you are talking about them as if war and policy is the deciding issue. >> i'm just saying there is a pattern. the second assumption is that the voters themselves are somehow can distant. these are the same voters who will tell a candidate let's keep up the struggle in the world. let's make sure america is number one. keep the global system at the top of the heap. let's not engage in places we

don't know about. >> fortunately it elites don't make mistakes. >> i never said they don't make mistakes. the electorate has sent highly contradictory -- >> i would disagree there. the way truman persuaded the americans to support the marshall plan and the cold war was not to say america is going to replace great britain as the gyroscope of the world order. what he said is the russians are coming. here's the point. in 1990, when the russians weren't coming, we doubled down on the great replacing great britain thing and the russians became somewhat abstract. to beea was it was going easy and cheap and you're going to like it. and they don't necessarily like it. >> one of the things that struck

had to sellbush 41 the war, it was that he had to sell restraint. the american people weren't saying let's just do this and get out. why are well-blown burning baghdad to the ground problem. like thisn people jacksonian response. warsmerican people like that are quick and we win. they are not for nation building and counter insurgencies. every president who started one of these counterinsurgency wars -- truman, johnson. >> what we're saying is american people have a shallow understanding of foreign policy and like it when we win. >> voters are stupid. you --place i agree with you make it hard -- the place i

do agree is that since the beginning of the 1990's, we don't have a clear picture of what we stand for in the world. it was during the cold war. it was not just that we were against russia. we stood for democracy and human rights. cases,tically in many inconsistently in others. carter believed in human rights and so did reagan. it is not clear that we are the first and the best. it is not clear that donald trump says as kissinger would we should just pursue our interests. saidnk a lot of americans no. we stand for something more than that. even the elites do not agree on that, much less saying this is

who america is in the world and making that case to the voters. >> one thing we have to a knowledge is that social media and the fact that we have gone as individuals. this also includes cnn and the 20 for our new cycle. we have gone from being observers of information to being participants in it. i don't think whether it is the government or establishments, they are still operating on the status quo of the 20th century. you're getting this reaction of whether it is donald trump or bernie sanders or hillary clinton having this knee-jerk reaction. if you look at foreign-policy even under the obama administration. foreign-policyma certainly suffered from the fact that it did not know what to do with this change to role where

no longer does government have a monopoly on collective action. >> i would say there is a difference between the kind of artistic patient. if we are participating through social media, that is one level of participation that is very different from when truman was trying to sell but we were going to have to do as we were ending world war ii and beginning the cold war. there has been a large number of americans who were directly involved in that war. and in vietnam. the number of people the united states has sent to this long span of combat is a very small number on multiple tours. bringing in a national guard in a way that really i think puts that burden on a small number of people. shiftedticipation has

from making the key decisions that any country should make about going to war via social media that might be problematic. would say get a map so you can follow along with. today, to get the average american to look at a map is under pain of death. we were talking earlier, there were a couple of years ago on the washington post with this participation issue. the washington post asked what we should do about intervention in the ukraine. proportion to how little they knew about the ukraine, the average respondent responsey an average of 1800 miles when asked where the ukraine was. it is the single largest country

whose borders are entirely in europe and they could not place it on the right continent. how sharp and do you think it would be if they or one of their family had to go on an american expedition? where in my view the kind of court reason that there ,s this gap after world war ii we did not just build this international order and global system. orderwas also a global where if you did not screw up, you got a good job for life. chances were you would get into a factory or something over time. not for everybody. there was a lot of racial discrimination and women did not get an equal shot. general there was this sense that things were going to get better and that you had security and stability in your life.

what has happened since 1990 particularly, but beginning before, is there is a revolution of people's ordinary lives. there is a feeling of insecurity at home. here you are trying to fix an honest electoral process, but here at home it is a mess. and they wonder why. why do they care so much about over there? while some of our global efforts work pretty well, a number of them actually don't. the revolution in egypt did not bring human rights. all those phone calls obama made to erdogan did not create the democratic islamism in turkey that was going to save the middle east. there is a sense you don't know what you are doing over there and you certainly don't know

what you're doing over here. why would i trust you? >> this is part of -- i come from one of those towns that 40 years ago was thriving and is now depopulating. all those things we talk about every day. that great point about how our foreign-policy, there is no longer a division between foreign and domestic. when you talk to the ordinary voter, they are unaware of their own -- and i can already feel you giving me the look -- but when you say to people the standard of living around the folks who say you don't know what you're doing over there, when you try to make the point about and about the amount of chinese electronics that you are buying, the things you are making that are part of the globalized system of trade and peaceful cooperation.

i always want to go -- >> and my cousin is a heroin addict -- >> you are blaming the guy who smoked for 40 years because he got lung cancer. >> it is more that in all kinds of communities, there has in a collapse of social capital. if you go to an ivy league college and talk to the kids there, what are you going to do when you graduate? you hear a lot more kids .nterested in fixing the world i'm really going to move to west virginia because i feel as an american it is my duty to help my fellow americans. i think the elites have stopped teaching that kind of patriotism. you gaina sense of, people's trust by doing things

they understand are good. there is a likelihood they will trust you and believe you. >> what do foreign policy experts do in this situation, where this anger, which i think is fundamentally misdirected, somebody asked the other day -- in 50 years of this policy, where have we gotten? a system of peace and prosperity in cooperation that is better than world war ii. >> donald trump getting elected europe.ancel 4 trips to thought, why am i spending my time talking to people like me in european watering holes rather than reading about and traveling in this country? in all of the ways you could look at this election, it was a

statement in multiple countries, that have been advantaged by globalization -- the biggest divide are those folks left behind in those towns germany, britain, pennsylvania. walter is right that even as a foreign-policy person, i am more connected to my counterparts in britain and japan or even in beijing than folks in west virginia. >> i could not agree more. i think we just need to listen. trust is something people develop. franklin roosevelt was not very much like the average american. he was about as privileged as was possible to be. e, which hea crippl

lied about, and yet people feel that he cared about them. even then it was difficult for him to knowledge in the country into world war ii. -- nudge the country into world war ii. he's don't trust on things that ony understood, then built things that were more challenging. there is a difference between being an elite and being a leader. i don't think on our side of this, we have done enough about that. >> i don't disagree with you. abouthere is a perception the voter, whether in pittsburgh or west virginia, and how they feel left behind. at the same time they feel left behind because they see so many people -- >> i think they are actually looking at india and brazil and

mexico. >> those people are gaining a sense of confidence. walter: i don't think those in pennsylvania know that the middle east and turkey feels more confident. >> they know that the world has changed. they think they are doing better -- when you talk to these people, they say, why are our jobs going to mexico or china, and why are those individuals doing better? you are talking about fdr and truman, but in america where we have not only military power, but soft power. people love the idea of america. walter: the reason jobs are going overseas is because the wages are lower. they don't think it means that china is richer than us. because if that were so, the jobs would come back here. they don't actually go to china a lot, or read a lot of chinese

social media. >> [laughter] >> they are told this. they are fed a lot of these myths. walter: this is as true of the sanders wings as the trump wing, is that selfish corporations are moving jobs to low-wage havens overseas. i think what they are hearing that they don't believe is that in the 1990's, everyone said, we are going to let china build up. low wages, slave labor, whatever it is -- but in the end, it is going to make china democratic as it industrialized s, so that china will be peaceful. they see that china has gotten powerful by taking low-wage american jobs, and now becoming

a military threat. the promise that free trade was worth the sacrifice to american jobs to create a more stable world order isn't looking so solid. >> this is part of what i object to in this debate, they were sold for free trade in exchange for a more peaceful world. the first job i had in politics was working on a plant closing. to, wee spoiled down are going to maintain free trade because it is creating a rising standard of living. why does the american government support free trade? not because it will make china peaceful, but because now you have an air conditioner you cannot afford until now. walter: you had an easier time getting an air conditioner in 1975 than now.

not a smart phone i will admit. your disposable income is less. i spent a lot of time talking with folks who were trump voters, angry folks. the answers i get are demands to square a circle, to do the impossible. they are a set of amend -- of anynds that i cannot see policymaker succeed with. both democrat and republican cannot satisfy what the people are demanding in foreign-policy. it is contradictory within itself. americans are getting very specific messages that are absolutely wrong on the facts, perhaps from both sides in addressing these issues. these have real policy

consequences. when we have an executive order that the u.s. government will aggressively tackle the trade deficit. i suffered through international economics 101. a trade deficit is not necessarily bad for an economy. it takes leadership to talk about things that are not right, and follow a policy direction that is based on an absolute absolute falsehood -- perpetuated falsehood. that leaves us to a difficult place. those people who say we ought to listen are the ones that suffer first with this bad economic policy. >> we need to rethink what

people in both parties for 40 years -- the orthodoxy, that you support free trade, because it expands the pie. we all learned our basic theory of competitive advantage. we have to figure out how to redistribute the pie. what you're seeing on both sides is, wait a minute, if it expands the pie, but expands it so unfairly -- we say we are going to retrain, but it doesn't work. maybe we either have to have much more redistributionist policies, which i am not sure are politically viable, or we should in fact have at least the same amount of protection as many of the nations we are trading with do. germany has more productions, china does.

ownhould challenge our orthodoxy. it never occurred to me that you wouldn't support free trade. it seems worth asking, who is this benefiting, why are we taking this position? >> and without looking over shoulders and saying, which candidate or party and lie on the wrong side of? >> that is one way that you lose trust. think there is something where our elite education does stress theory over history. political science over the history of power. economic theory over economic history. if you look at history, while protectionism is in theory bad, it has worked pretty well for a lot of countries, like the u.s.

in the 19th century. and arguably having protective tariffs against britain allowed us to have an industrial sector to compete with britain. it is not because they did not take economics 101, it is because they took histor101. i think this is an area where you eat -- where elite is to use too used to theory. if we are going to become liberal internationalists, what are we going to do in bosnia? what is the history of the balkans? where is bosnia? >> [laughter] >> i agree that the elites have fallen out of touch. i think we are also losing perspective here. we are looking at this from a purely american point of view. the world has changed. protectionism didn't work so

well for the soviets. worked well for the chinese government and the germans. >> it did not work well for latin america and other countries. study why it works >> in some places. >> you can't just say that protectionism just works. we have to actually have a debate. >> i don't know what we are arguing about right now. >> we have to stop reacting to words as if they are magical incantations. you say protectionism, and free traders freak out, or use a free trade and nativists freak out -- >> more empirical and less abstract. >> we could have the same discussion about unemployment. do unemployment benefits make people lazier? it depends, some people yes, some people no.

instead we have these immediate kind of electric voltage moments where those words comes up. that has unfortunately been reinforced by our partisan debate. the foreign-policy community needs to transcend that. not come to a consensus, but agreed to a rules of the road. walter: to be able to sort through these issues, in what situation would some level of protectionism or targeted industries, when with those work? how should we deal with the north korean threat -- how should we do this and that? yes, there needs to be more listening to the electric, but that is not going to injure those questions. >> not on north korea. james: that requires a culmination of expertise, but

leadership, and a willingness to explain difficult things. >> and to teach. fdr is a really good point. he was not just a leader, he was a teacher to the american people. >> so was teddy roosevelt. george washington was the richest man in the colonies. it is not not elites cannot the leaders. it is that he leads to not know -- elites do not know how to lead. you can be honest to the facts and also the honest to people. you have to put principle ahead of ambition. even if it means i never serve as the underdog 80 assistant, -- underdeputy assistance, i am going to let people know what i say is what i think. >> [applause] james: let's see if anyone would

like to join us at the table, if you dare. >> we are really very nice. come joinsimon said, for a little while and be willing to relinquish your seat. >> [inaudible] >> i think you have to come up. >> i have to? >> yes, please. this is how the panel will listen to the people. >> we are leaving. -- are leading. >> hi. >> hi. >> hello. >> thanks for coming. >> why don't you begin? >> i was grateful that you actually mentioned that the -- whattion had become

outsiders think of american policy. out right here a moment ago in some respects. ofcussing the microcosm domestic issues, which are multi-various, but without addressing the rest of the world is atypical about how the rest of the world views u.s. foreign policy. we just saw it happen. my question is about global security. the theory of the oregon of disaggregation. what are your thoughts on dismembering radical terrorism? >> i would like to start with that. lot -- i go to same

of the same forums and hear debate about, will it be democracy that ends terrorism in the middle east, women empowerment, economic development? none of those are going to happen in a policy relevant time. maybe if we get lucky. we have to deal with the reality in which the arc of history is not going to bend just when we need it to. you are facing a very complex movement. it is ideological, religious, cultural resistance. it is state disaggregation. if these changes in domestic structures. time spend too much inventing imaginary paradises where this problem will just go away.

i don't necessarily have the answer at this point. we have to clear a lot of ground. >> i agree with that. i feel like i agree with you. >> [laughter] >> if people listen to me on and off. -- me long enough. >> number one, we have to -- we react to terrorism through a military lens, but are not understanding why the terrorism has arisen in the first place. it has to do with people feeling marginalized. politics seating into foreign policy. this applies whether you are in brussels or san bernardino. we have to acknowledge that and approach terrorism as r

ealpolitik as well as war. russia -- we are not afraid of russia coming in with their ms,lear missiles, their icb now they are just hacking into our elections. how are we reacting to that? on one hand, you can say no one something is profoundly being disturbed in this country and in the world order. i would not approach this in terms of how we, the u.s. or the ort is going to end isis radical islamic terrorism. we are not. it is to me the equivalent of the fight between the protestants and the catholics for a very long time in europe. to protect can do is

ourselves, become more resilient, increase our intelligence. where there are places where we can take action, we should. it is crazy to think this is an enemy we can defeat like we defeated hitler in the second world war. i look at the british in the most recent attack and this city after 9/11. okay, we stop a lot of attacks. every now and then, one gets through. you tell them you didn't win. ultimately you let the larger forces within a religion or society resolve this particular issue. i don't think we are going to defeat it. >> we want you to the end that brief -- you to be a bit brief.

>> i agree this is one of the mythsmidst -- worst peddled during this election, that we were going to elect this islamic reichstag. we have to remain true to who we are as ourselves. the biggest danger of the cold war was a nuclear holocaust. the second was that the u.s. and its allies would become too much like the soviet union in creating it, in creating a national security police state. i think we have avoided that. we need to spend less time thinking about defeating them, but looking at ourselves. are we being true to our own values? that is victory in an enduring way. sense of what a

the threats are, not just posed by isis or al qaeda, though they are real and persistent. i disagree that we mainly have to be worried about the russians and hacking. yes, that is of concern. but the nuclear issue has not gone away. you can make an argument that we live in a far more dangerous time in terms of nuclear security than we ever have. that is one issue that did not come up in the election. it did not make for good politics to talk about the potential of nuclear annihilation. whether it is states like russia or the north koreans, or other nonstate actors who might use nuclear weapons, it is chilling. that is another area where we need leadership, to be able to

speak about it in an informed way and address these issues with the american people. i don't think that is happening at all. >> you have been very patient. >> it is interesting. coming back to domestic issues. while i was listening i kept thinking about the white elephant under the rug. that is the enormous growth of wealth in the last 20 years in this country. my question is, what is the relationship -- and it's interesting you don't mention that. you talk about jobs and protectionism. what is the relationship between theeconomic policy and growth, the enormous unbelievable growth of wealth? i mean, it is almost magical. i was using a metaphor.

but you would never believe that even 10 years ago. you would never realize the disparity. the poverty and the enormous growth of wealth. ivanka trun has something like $800 million. one person? that is my question. the lites we have been talking about, i think it is connected with what they want and how they augment that wealth is tied to creating cheaper things in north and south korea, getting more profits in. i have been pushing for that. they have not been -- they have been pushing for that. they have not been thinking about the consequent is for

someone in west virginia. when you take a look at silicon valley, you hear constantly all the time about the wealth gap within silicon valley. you have people within the tech community sending their kids to private elite schools. then you have people taking care of their homes, and they are in these public schools that aren't using money -- are using money, and there is a significant gap. elites, notn to the only our elected officials in washington, but local leaders on the ground. this is not a discussion about domestic politics. we can get into a discussion about campaign finance reform and how much elections are dependent on that. blaming richsay

people for wanting to be richer? >> i wish the elephant under my rug were growing a little bit faster. >> [laughter] >> there are winners from globalization that win over and over again. i revised in the late 1990's --t a course that i talked to hundreds of students could now be taught online. there are people that have gained extraordinarily. that versus those who are fundamentally losers as a result of globalization. it is that divide between the winners of globalization and the losers. each country has to then come back and say, wait a minute, we cannot continue as a polity with

this amount of division. there has to be some kind of different policy so that everyone gains. >> i want to replace the word globalization and talk about the word information economy. >> this is as big as the industrial revolution. >> it is unavoidable in a world where information, the axis to -- access to use and manipulate information is a skill. if we're going to address that, then we will retrain people. >> or redistribute domestically, and we can have arguments about policy. >> the industrial revolution starts in the 1820's, and it's not until after the second world war that we learn how to run an industrial society. my guess is that the revolution

will be the same. we told understand what is happening in the way that we did when we had a mature industrial economy. the economy doesn't behave quite the way the central bank thinks that it will. we are in a period of -- this gets to the elite thing. a generation ago, you could apply known techniques to existing problems, and more or less success would come. now it is a little bit hairier. >> let's continue our listening tour. >> the idea that only elites can run foreign policy, it is an extension of human relations. you are fair and generous with someone, they will treat you generously and fair.

american capitalism might be a crazy cult. on if you drop a bomb somebody, it doesn't have to be islamic terrorism, it is bomb terrorism. electorate -- everything about the military is good, their view is that any war youike a football game, root for the home team. this was not always how it was. pact, wedn't had the might have another world war. >> i will say this notion of foreign policy is not that complicated in that we don't have to be experts to do it. we will engage in some real-time

testing of that hypothesis. >> [laughter] >> i personally don't think it is going to end very well. in part because the amount of about then taking world, like most specialized areas of knowledge is beyond the contravention of any one citizen. republic,hy we have a mediate through elected representatives rather than plebiscite. citizenshat ordinary are surprised in foreign affairs about unintended consequences. you move one part of the rubik's cube and six other parts move . that is a difficult thing to do. this some point in our careers, a great metaphor that i did not invent -- that americans treat foreign policy

it ishe plumbing, invisible, they don't know how it works, and they only care about it when it breaks. point, when you kill people's families, they remember. germany and in japan in world war ii -- they bombed us, we bombed them. now it is very much one way. they may bomb us through terrorism, but they don't have the ability to really strike back. and now these are carried out through drones. there is not even a pilot. there you are at a wedding, and boom, your child or your cousin -- those basic humanitarian issues are people getting killed. you look to see who was

responsible, and it is the united states. >> even when it is defending other people. >> i understand. i think that is not just an extra issue. that is a core issue about who we are in the world. melet me help locate -- let complicate it. during world war ii there was a big debate whether we should have unforced unconditional surrender on germany and japan. thatvelt and those against said it would make the war go longer because they would fight harder. , because thed good reason we are having world war ii is because in world war i the germans did not learn what war was. so we are going to bomb dresden. we are going to destroy the country. we're going to go there like sherman through georgia, only

more, and teach them that war is not an option. sometimes violence makes things worse. and that worked. violence --ntrol that bumpere i see sticker, it depends on what the question is. if the question is, should we eradicate the jewish people from the planet, maybe war is the answer. but we have to maintain our humanity. this is where foreign-policy experts do their job. we have to think about things people would rather not think about and maintain our humanity doing it. >> you also mentioned within your question, this overreliance on the military to solve every international problem.

we can certainly see lots of evidence to support that claim. in part that goes back to the fact that most americans are very distant from the military, what it actually means. it is what the opposite of what walter was saying, since we are the ones engaged in the action as a country, but most of the people aren't engaged in it. america went to the war and -- the people went to the mall. raiseakes it easier to the military budget and cut usaid. can you be breif? >> i am not going to pose my question. i would lead into the last fought that you mention. because we use war as a

historical point in our history, peace gets too comfortable. it is too easy to succumb to human paranoia. when there is no chaos, more likely than not we will let chaos ensue. >> there you go. ladies and gentlemen, as i mentioned before a number of our authors will be signing books. there is another session in a half hour. something equally intriguing -- race, religion, ideology -- does it divide, does it unite? before we take a break, will you please join me in thanking our panel. >> [applause] >> thank you very much. ♪

>> washington journal is next. at 10:00, we discussed the deadline for funding the government with the kentucky congressman, the top democrat on the house budget committee. and our cast on newsmakers. john kelly talks about national security threats and top priorities for his department. coming up on today's washington journal, how the trump administration is addressing transnational crime. we are joined by the research director for the latin american and caribbean center at florida international university. did we discussed the 2016

presidential campaign with amy with then and hill newspaper. they are co-authors of the book "shattered" which looks at hillary clinton's failed presidential bid. host: good morning. a new week begins with congress coming back to session after a two week break erie and the president reaching its 100 day mark in office and the looming threat of the possibility of a government shutdown. it is sunday morning. a live look at capitol hill. the president expected to outline his tax plan on wednesday. the house and senate need to reach a spending agreement by friday. house speaker paul ryan telling his gop members yesterday that they won't rust into a 2.0 version of health care. president whothe tweeted that this marker is