happy new year and welcome to this week in defense news. i'm vago muradian. the reporter who broke the story, plus britain's newest nuclear attack submarine has spent months in us waters, undergoing tests. but first, events in europe have always helped shape american history. during the american revolution france's hatred of britain prompted king louis 16 to the colonies. throughout the cold war europe and a divided germany were at the heart of the a nato alliance between between nato and the

soviet union. washington struggles with budget cuts and shifts its focus to asia. what is next for the atlantic alliance? our next guest is fred kemp, president and ceo of the atlantic do council, an organization born in 1961 to foster close relations between the united states and europe. fred is an editor and the author of berlin 1961, kennedy, kruschev. >> i am a member of the atlantic counsel. >> and we are proud of it. >> the administration is in the midst of a strategic pivot from afghanistan and iraq over to asia. at the same time, there are growing calls from the political sphere and congress especially, let's pull american troops outside of europe. you think that that's a mistake. why? >> the term strategic pivot is a mistake. perhaps one moves troops outside of europe, but one has to think

of the strategic pivot not of the united states, but of the west. largest economic space in the world. >> 450 million people. >> absolutely. whatever you measure, if we are pivoting, it is because it is the biggest shift of political influence and economic influence since the 18th century. from west to east and from west to south. but what you don't want it to be is a shift of values. you have to bring your community values with you. that is the us, europe, it is also japan, also australia, also our friends in latin america. so we have to actually look at the world differently and to talk about the united states pivoting, without taking our common values along, would be a mistake. >> how, what is the best way to do that? because american officials have, over the past decade, really reduced their focus on europe. there has been a pullout of troops from europe obviously to cover the costs elsewhere.

folks questioning why seven decades after the end of world war ii we still have troops there. you know, what does the united states approach to europe and how you move this western pivot have to happen in the next years ahead? >> to a certain degree the obama administration is doing it. but it has to talk about it more. you have to solidify your base. you have to solidify the nato alliance, also, the obama administration came face-to- face with the strategic importance of europe, through a financial disaster, through the euro's own crisis. obama probably loses more sleep over the collapse of the euro zone crisis because that could have more impact on his election than anything else in the world now. angela holds the future of the united states.

>> henry kissier used to say who can i call in europe. if there is a euro zone crisis it is going to affect the obama administration. the problem is we are no longer in a cold war scenario, world war ii scenario, we are in the era of global competition. china is not our enemy, it is our competitor. brazil is not our enemy, these are competitors. >> right. >> we have to increase our competitive nature. general jones thought that one of the biggest dangers general jones the former national security. and former chairman of the counsel. >> former marine commander of europe, thought one of the greatest challenges facing the transatlantic unit in the united states was our noncompetitiveness. this is a national security threat every built as important as weapons of mass destruction. >> let's go to the question whether or not europe is in a terminal decline. some say the growth rates

aren't there there is going to be a long catastrophe for europe. what is your state going to be for the decade? >> we have a double crisis of the west. meaning both the united states and europe at the same time are in a certain degree of crisis and are in an economic and political crisis. the united states can fix this with an election. the 5xeunited states can fix th we've done it before. i'm more worried about europe. europe has to make decisions about what it's going to be in the future. so it is absolutely crucial, i do worry about europe for the reasons you have cited. but also because we now have a situation with russia, which is an opportunity, what is shift wkyc putin at the moment. we have an opportunity also with turkey. turkey has become hugely more influential in its region in the world. >> right. >> but we need europe reaching out, being more self confident not so internally focused but externally focused with us. >> let me turn to your book. i want to talk about that. it is a fantastic book on the economist list of top books to

read so congratulations on that. >> thank you. >> what you did extensive research on, for the book. what did president kennedy do right? what did he do wrong. and how did 1961 change it? >> the most controversial point in the book and the book that i think has caused the most debate was i say 1961, was one of the worst inaugural year foreign policy performances of any modern president. president kennedy had a lousy year and he mid it himself at the end of the year when he was asked by a journalist whether he could write a book about his first year in office, and kennedy said to him who would want to read a book about this has nothing to show for itself but a string of disasters. where kennedy went wrong was he started shifting things around, inconsistent messages. instead of a ocarrot and stick he had no carrots and no sticks. and that led to the building of

the berlin wall. true messages he sent to the vienna summit to kruschev that he essentially wrote the script for the building of the berlin wallaby taking away disincentives for it. >> once kruschev sensed weakness he decided he could push his hand in 1962 over the cuban missile crisis. >> that is my point. people criticize the book to the degree that it criticizes kennedy. >> right. >> but my criticism was of 1961. the berlin wall was supposed to be a move by kennedy by akbastau parkway westing the berlin wall -- by acquiescing the berlin wall. but actually a year later you had the cuban missile crisis. you had an increase that the threat of nuclear war. because the leader of the soviet union and kruschev decided through what he had seen in 1961 that kennedy he could take

advantage of kennedy. what are lessons for modern policy makers from 1961? >> the united states shifts world events through actions and inaction. that the perception of american weakness is almost as dangerous as weakness. and in 1961, kruschev perceived america as weak. the american president as weak. even though we had huge military superiority, particularly in a nuclear sense and that led to a near nuclear war over cuba a year later. fred, thanks very much. coming up, america's top

seals landing from a nuclear submarine emerging on pitch dark somalian beaches. special operations units teeming with kenyan and forces from ethiopia. a series of stories detailing america's secret offensive in the horn of offer ca. sean, -- of africa, sean, glad to have you back. how extensive was it and what were the real highlights? >> the campaign was important and is still important, because in the wake of 9/11 it became clear the horn of offer ca was a place -- of africa was a place

where al qaeda had a functioning cell. it was still hard at work, intelligence post 9/11. >> and there was the cole bombing in yemen in the harbor. >> exactly. intelligence suggested after 9/11 that both money, and people were moving from the afghan pakistan border region to somalia and elsewhere in the horn. that is why it became important in the united states and training camps were tracked from the middle of the decade, training hundreds of potential al qaeda fighters, which really worried senior united states intelligence personnel. there has been quite an extensive campaign, building from sort of very early baby steps in the 2002-2003 time

frame to now whether there are fairly regular air strikes going in, cruise missile attacks, predator drone strikes, fixed wing naval air strikes. >> even naval gunfire support has played a role. >> there has even been naval gunfire on one occasion. how has this campaign changed? you said in the beginning intelligence officers walked in with virtually no knowledge of local customs, local affairs, embarrassingly so in certain cases. there was the submarine mission to deposit cameras that was not deemed to be a big success. how has the campaign really struck rally changed in the last decade? >> from the intelligence point of view, it's become clearly significantly better as the united states has devoted more resources to getting a better intelligence picture out of somalia, and obviously has had more time to set up human intelligence networks and so forth.

and technical intelligence as well? >> 2006-2007 the united states, as one senior intelligence officer said to me, took risk in iraq and afghanistan to move unmanned aerial vehicle assets to cover more of the horn of africa. >> what are some of the things that have happened and some of the major battles, if you will? >> what's worked has been working by, with and through local forces. you know, even given all of the frustration that can involve, working with local warlords, the transitional federal government of somalia, the government of ethiopia and its intelligence forces and the same with the kenyan forces. other things that have worked have been combining the human intelligence and the technical intelligence feeds that have enabled the united states to strike and kill multiple sort of

high value targets as they described in the horn of africa. these guys are fighting for different reasons than we are wanting to fight al qaeda? >> in some cases that is true. sometimes the goals overlap but they are not the same. for instance those in ethiopia who invaded somalia in december of 2006 and didn't pull out until early 2009 and are how back in again, wikileaks that came out of the embassy make it quite clear for those no either iupia this is a proxy war with their pray traditional enemy fought in somalia as it is a war againstize lambists for the united states. i want to get to two fascinating stories. first is, there have been some fairly big battles. and i want to ask you about the

battle of bargol. in which american forces were pinned down. >> reporter: in 2007 lf=]wa sma number of united states special operators, were pursuing a high value al qaeda target which is at the very horn of the horn of africa. >> the very, very tip? >> the very tip and apparently, maybe bit off a little more than they could chew. they came under heavy gunfire and were pinned down and were forced to call to what i believe was a quite surprised crew on the united states destroyer that was stationed offshore, wasn't expecting the caution call, saying can you please you know, direct some five inch gunfire our way to enable us to break contact? which is what happened in the end? >> wow. that is very exciting. but there have been also bits of this that have also struck a sour note with some international organizations. you write about two

intelligence agents captured. tell us about that scenario and what the fallout was. >> these are two human tell japan soldiers working for a combined joint task force, horn of africa, sort of a nonspecial operations task force at the time, and they were in the region of eastern ethiopia, doing something they had by all accounts been told not to do, which was to go out there on their own. and when the ethiopian forces questioned them about who they were, because they were in civilian clothes, they claimed to be red cross workers. that story didn't last very long i'm told, because they were armed. but unfortunately, they were carrying a lot of high value sort of intelligence material that was instantly compromised. they were imprisoned by the ethiopians for a number of days and the commander admiral fox

fallon had to intervene to get them out. >> sean, thanks very much. we appreciate it. up

britain's new seven boat astute class of nuclear attack submarines is the most capable ever fielded by the royal navy. but making these subs a reality was hard work. britain's stopped building submarines for almost a decade. when plans got underway to build the hms astute, production problems put the effort years behind schedule and more than $1 billion overbudget. when the astute entered service lat year she ran aground. then in april disgruntled crew men opened fire in the control room killing one officer and wounding another. astute spent months off the united states atlantic coast for weapons system and warm weather trials. so far american officers are impressed with the new boat. chris caught up with astute in

norfolk and spoke to commander ian breckenridge, the sub's commanding officer. >> she was quite mean, she is a big step forward from our previous classes of submarine. i served in both classes and was privileged to command hms tireless, so i have experience of direct comparison. she is bigger 10 meters, 35, 40 feet longer, two, two and a half thousand tons heavier. speed wise broadly similar to what we have had before. little bit slower than our american friends, you have more power in your submarines. on the human side, everybody on huge change. so no more hot racking hot bunking. my controller systems on board we have platform management that allows touch spin control of a lot of the systems in the submarine. on the nuclear submarine a lot

of clever stuff done there. life of the boat will be on the order of 25 years. she'll never need to refuel. that is a big step change forward. used to be 10 to 12 years. i can carry 50% more weapons. my communications i think we are now into the 21st century. i have more satellite, more back-ups, a much cleverer system than they used to have. so it is sort of a full package. a very capable, good looking submarine. and it is now a pleasure to drive her. >> so similarities, anyone in the virginia class will have heard of full tryonics, you have up tryonics, very similar. we have the standard visual high definition camera on the bottom there. the top that is thermal imaging.

you can see. that turns night to day. and another great aspect is when the boat is operating, our scope is up at night, and in the older class submarines, lights off, curtains rigged, black light, can't see anything. not good for your eyes. this submarine with that capability. much, much better. better working environment. uk trail blazing stuff and the trials we are doing on it are proving it is a very, very good system. so it is a big difference. anyone you know, 688 you had the helmsman sitting there with the old joy stick. we now have the helm position here, on the left side. the boat is driven manually, by this little stick here. the design intent mode of operation for this submarine is auto pilot. and that is controlled from that screen there. the design of the auto pilot for

a submarine doing 4 knots is more complex than an auto pilot for an air bus doing 800 knots. the weapons storage compartment, an extra deck beyond what a t boat and a -- another class had. gives me the ability to carry a bigger mix of spear fish or tomahawk style torpedo and mix and match and i need in the tubes. >> the media will always jump at an easy target. we are an easy target. >> hms astute is not a lucky vessel. she hit a shingled bank and grounded between the scottish mainland and the ireland sky. one officer has been killed and another critically injured after a shooting on one of britain's most advanced nuclear submarines. >> i don't dwell on it. myself and my team look

forward. our tomahawk firings are successful. does it bother ome? used to, initially. not bothered with it any more. i have much more important things to do with a fantastic submarine to deliver as soon as possible and a really good team

as defense spending drops, most people focus on troop levels and programs, but the brunt of personnel reductions from looming defense budget cuts will also hit d.o.d.'s civilian work force. up to 150,000 or 20% of its 750,000 civilian workers could lose their jobs. the trend that saw over 100,000 hired over the past decade will be reversed, along with the buildup of contractors who served as government employees

across d.o.d. the trouble is uniformed or civilian personnel cuts tend to be made without first determining whether the work people are doing needs to be done at all. in past down cycles, the military services hallowed out capabilities by getting rid of the wrong people. after the cold war, the intelligence community condemned so quickly an entire generation of experienced professionals was lost, forcing a decades-long drive to rebuilding key skills. in failing to plan for the worst budget outcomes, d.o.d. now runs a real risk of being forced to make deeper cuts without having thought them through. as with any cuts, it's best to measure twice before losing the government's best commodity the, tens of thousands of years which has inun -- unintended and costly kons consequences. thanks for joining us in "this week in defense news." i'm vago muradian. have a great week and a very happy new year. alright everybody, get your heads up.

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