brent scowcroft, zbigniew brzezinski and stephen hadley and rmer treasury secretary lawrence summers. >> overly strong states are profound threats to their own citizens and to others, but the vacuums are as well. so on the one hand, one wanted to dismantle this totalitarian apparatus that had meant so much that was wrong in the world for 70 years, on the other hand one did have to maintain an awareness of, as i say, the historical danger of vacuums. >> think the soviet union ended when it did because yeltsin pulled it right out from under gorbachev. >> if there was no soviet union he had no job. >> i personally think that put is an transitional episode it won't lead to some restoration of totalitarian or some person innocent aocracy, it is going to fade. >> what was the casualty of events we celebrate 20 years ago was not only the freeing of eastern europe and the end of the viet union but it was the death of communism and the end of communism as an ideoly. >> rose: i look at russia's past, present and future next. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following. >> every story

direction of the war against al qaeda was going in after 9/11, like the former centcom commander, brent scowcroft, former national security advisor, and revisited a lot of these questions with people who were more prescient than others about the potential pitfalls of diverting to iraq at a moment when the job against al qaeda in afghanistan was unfinished. i think when we look back on that now ten years on, particularly with the quagmire we're faced with in afghanistan, we realize that that's what happened. >> there seem to be two large points that were made. one is making the case that it was a catastrophic mistake to go to war in iraq. explain. >> i think this should be looked at on the scale of huge mistakes made by great leaders throughout history. in fact, i went back to barbara tuckman's book when she goes all the way back to troy, the trojan horse being entered into the gates and i talked with people like chuck hagel, former senator from nebraska, bob graham, former senator from florida, who believes this is on a scale of when the athenians lost their empire. i really think you need to loo

from steve had ali and condoleezza rice and colin powell and brent scowcroft i am in touch with them quite regularly and get very good advice. i wish frankly we had the same sense of community and by partisanship on the political side because there really is a sense of, you know, i've been there. i know you're dealing with. i disagree with you on some policy issues, no doubt, but at the end of the day, we are all about protecting the country and the events of national interest and i see these folks quite regularly and so there is a community of interest in the national security side which is i think an important asset for the country. now we ask about models, there are different models. i think in terms of process management i do think that, you know, in a study fairly carefully over the years i do think that for one he said the shot twice and did put in place kind of this committee system in the late 80's that we felt good today and that is brent scowcroft to i think it a tremendous job. on the policy development side, you know, pretty consistently, obviously dr. kissinger is a mast

from steve tabler and condoleezza rice and colin powell and brent scowcroft i'm in touch with them quite regularly and get good advice. i wish frankly we had the same time since of community and by partisanship on the political side because there is this sense of, you know, i've been there, i know what you're dealing with, i disagree with you on some policy issues, no doubt, but at the end of the day we are all about protecting the country and advancing the national interest and i see these folks quite regularly so there is a community of interest in the national security side which i think is important for the country. you asked about models, they're have been different models. i think in terms of the process management i think that in a study carefully over the years i do think that one person has had the shot twice and did put in place kind of this committee system in the late 80's that we follow today and that is brent scowcroft. on the policy development side, you know, the person who again i had to deal with pretty consistently obviously dr. kissinger is masters of policy developme