In the policy shift in syria. Spoke at the Atlantic Council for about an hour. [applause] i feel like im talking to these he rose here. I will try to maintain eye contact with everybody. Thanks for the invitation. Facilitating my presence. Im very glad to be back at the Atlantic Council to discuss the topic of great interest to me. I must admit i spent quite a bit of time thinking and writing down my thoughts. Will reach down to me in middle of the summer to ask me to do this. Ive been thinking about it a lot and i actually was struggling with this topic. I think i got it figured out, what i wanted to say, on sunday afternoon while watching the vikings dominate the giants. I got it down in writing. We will see how it goes. Numberlso good to see a of colleagues with whom i served while i was in uniform. Im happy to report to retirement is going well. The other day i overheard my wife telling one of her friends for 39 years he never expressed a view around the house, now he has an opinion on everything. He also thinks hes an interior decorator. I hope im doing this right. It has been a very good transition. I certainly miss the people i had a chance to serve within uniform. I dont miss much else about it. Comments,tep into my let me give you a few cautionary notes. Ranger. I view things as a practitioner and execution on the ground. Im a victim of my own experience and i tend to look at my own experience, especially over the last 18 years. I am retired. Not only a refugee from accountability, but nearly eight months away from the very best to Situational Awareness i had of this region. Im a little uncomfortable trying to articulate a future vision for a region i served in force along because i have focused on one dimension, the military security dimension. As a result of this and the finite time we have this afternoon, most of my comments will be about our approach in the military security area. Im mindful the approach i will discuss in a few minutes, the military is not the lead and our efforts must not only be in conjunction with other elements of power, but actually in a supporting role. Thereful as we meet today are military commanders and men and women in harms way doing their best. These comments are certainly not intended as a criticism of them. I will talk about our National Security interest in the region and share some observations on the environment that exist today and then i will offer some thoughts on what i would describe as the components of the Strategic Vision to preserve our interests in the middle east. Address proceed, let me yesterdays policy change in northern syria. The overall sentiment is one of disappointment that we are letting down our partners, perhaps adding to the humanitarian disaster in this be receiving may an advantage to play a role in what is admittedly turning into a lengthy and difficult process to bring a political solution to this area. I have long held the partnership with the Syrian Democratic forces as a model of how we should be protecting our interests in these complex areas. Gave us a way to do what we do best as american, collaborate, team build, understand, focus, enable, and advise while minimizing our free footprint and keeping the solution in local hands. In my previous role as centcom commander i spent time investing in this relationship. In my opinion, they are capable and trustworthy. They did everything we asked them to do even when it was not something they wanted. Beyond that, they protected us every day. The dedication was always evident to me. It should not go without notice over 11,000 soldiers gave their lives or were wounded in this campaign focused on our objectives and theirs. Im aware of the many conflicting interests in this area, those of the people of northeast syria and our country and the defeat Isis Coalition we formed. I believe the approach we were taking with increased security mechanisms was moving in a steady albeit slow and satisfactory direction. Although i understood no one party whatever be completely satisfied with the solution or the speed in attaining it. The stability we achieved after our military campaign was leveraged in a future peace process. When the current strategy was leaked in 2018, it articulated its principal priority was maintaining our competitive advantage against great powers. I agree with this and testified to that in several hearings. A key precept included in our strategy was the importance of partnership. Especially in those areas where well have to exercise the economy of u. S. Military resources. I consider this to be the direction we were headed over time in centcom. Strong partnership can act as a medic gary as a mitigate or where we accept risk. In essence, having a longer list of partners and friends than adversaries and competitors is always better. I believe partnership is important. This partnership certainly is. It must be nourished frequently and be based on mutual trust. I believe yesterdays policy shift will make it more difficult to build partnerships in the future. Let me move to the main topic on the future of Strategic Vision for the region. Idea i will share today. Our direction is moving toward great power and in places like this region when weve been talking about today, we have to adopt the ways that will allow us to preserve our interest and influence. Timesasked a number of since ive retired, why do we care about this area . Why have we been engaged here . This is a good question for our citizens to ask. I try to answer this by addressing five broad interests we have in this area. First i remind them we must ensure populations in the region cant be used as platforms for attacks against our homeland, citizens, or those of our friends and allies. This is the reason we went to afghanistan. We must prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. There can be no doubt an organization like isis would use this capability if it came into their hands. And containr adversarial influence and activities that destabilize the region and prevent them from spilling out and affecting our interests. Many of you saw the heartbreaking images of refugees trying to escape syria and the impact that had on policy and discussion in our country and across europe. We must protect flow of commerce. While our dependence on resources has decreased, many of our partners are dependent on this area which does produce 50 of the oil and gas reserves on earth. 20 of the daily Global Commerce goes through a choke point in the middle east. We must maintain a balance of influence. This list has not changed significantly for some time. I do acknowledge an argument could be made about the vitalness of each of these interest, with the possible exception of proliferation. I would argue these are not currently existential to the survival of the United States. That does not mean they are not important to us. Failing to preserve any one of them could make things more complicated. That said, we can not ignore the fact over the last several years we have responded in some manner to four of these interest and the other, nuclear proliferation, triggered a lengthy and unprecedented diplomatic effort. Interests and their priority ought to be a factor for a future Strategic Vision for this region. Today i will consider the interest i discussed a few moments ago to fall in the category of important, but not vital. Meaning our very survival is not a risk. If we subscribe to this concept this means future visions must also include mechanisms and approaches that mitigate the threat to interests that dont fall in the vital category. We cant conclude something is in her interest and then not address it or be willing to accept the associated risk. The middle east we see today reflects old and new realities. There are new aspects playing out that must be considered as we think about the way forward. Younger leadership and a restless population, increasing Technology Capabilities and learning cycles that are closing the gap. Information environment that makes things almost instantly known, but also instantly manipulate a bowl. Tensions in areas where we historically considered our relationships and leadership to be solid. The rise or resurgence of competitors that posed true challenges that could affect not only the world order of the United States and its friends and allies, but perhaps our longterm survivability. Less direct reliance on Natural Resources from this region. Fatigue from sustained investment in the region at home and abroad. Of course many of the same tensions we have observed for decades continue to course through the region. Multiple toxic narratives, this to me she yeah narrative, the turkish curd narrative the sunnishiite narrative, the narrative,d extraordinary separating exacerbated by displaced person issues. Difficult in concluding regional conflict and a general lack of dialogue. It is in this environment i turn to the task of thinking about our vision for the region. By me start this discussion talking about what i consider the characteristics of a good vision. First it must address our interests or mitigate what risk is taken. This is a theme you will hear throughout my remarks today. Communicateble to clearly and simply. It should leverage our partners and emphasize selfreliance. It must allow for blending, integration of all elements of National Power and it must be backed up by an engaged process that includes an element of predictability while also remaining agile enough to take advantage in the changing environment. Policy without process is dangerous and process without policy is meaningless. We can afford to look at our interest in the middle east without considering our interest an effectives and vision must be backed by a National Security process the debates and adjusts and implements our policies and strategies. We must ensure our and states are well ordinate it and to chelated across National Power. We must avoid overreliance on the military power of National Security. This does not mean we should not be stationing military forces or deploying them to the region. What it means is that cant be our only approach. Most likely should not be the only way we attempt to solve problems in the middle east. This will be difficult to do our maine have made it focus. We have to have better balance. A good strategy must be sustainable. If we are going to deploy forces, we need to build and sustain those forces. Need to address the challenges of the region and we sustainable Strategic Communication and information that supports our overall strategy. Et me offer you an instate any good strategy must start nd state that is clear and measurable. Our approach to this region has by four things. Access to resources, a desire to , ourin iraqi aggression desire to contain irans revolutionary approach to the region, and by our concern form terrorism which ended up on our doorstep. All four of these remain important. In my view none of them should dominate the overall approach. State should be focused on a balance of power in the region when compared against other great competitors or would be hegemons. This is not new in our approach. I remind people my first roommate at west point came to the academy from tehand american high school. Balance on both sides of the arabian gulf helped us until it didnt. Up until that time we did not have large deployments of troops in the region. We did not need them. Our relationships on each side maintained a relative level of stability that served our interest. We could argue about the tactics that fell underneath this approach. The Overall Concept itself in my view was sound. I dont think this is particularly wise or even achievable right now. I do support dialogue. It means the United States should pursue an overall approach that makes or keeps us the preferred partner in the region. Economically, and militarily. Being the preferred partner will allow us an opportunity to preserve our interest while at the same time shifting focus to look at our longterm survival. Having staked out a proposed and state, a preferred partner, let me address some of the ways and means we should pursue this objective. First we need to bring the conflict to a political conclusion. I consider these to be the chest wounds of the region. They continue to drive resources, feed fatigue, contribute to suffering, and promote more instability. They will not be solved militarily and we must pursue a full court press three u. S. And international diplomacy. We need to look at our Security Cooperation arrangements in terms of organization and execution of our military funding and sales program. Our efforts must be backed up with an emphasis on professionalism and selfreliance. In a region where we are their preferred partner, our officers should be the main effort, working closely to implement programs for our partners and with our combat and commands to support Theater Campaign plans. Makemplement this we must our support conditional on commitment to professionalism and sustained selfreliance. We should use our experience to help our partners in the region. Insist andontinue to support coalition taskforces like those we have in the maritime environment. These are good and they build selfreliance. We should triple the amount of money we spend on imet. Leadersa way to create and families who have an appreciation for our country. During my last year at centcom, we spent 19 million on this program. This is not that expensive. What we get is invaluable. We get officers that study in our schools and families and our communities. If you dont think this matters, look at the defense chiefs across the region. Overwhelmingly they have spent time in our schools and their families have the experience of living in leavenworth, montgomery, newport, and in washington and have taken away a positive view of our people and nation. Stepped thesehave programs back. It is notable in their lack of understanding and cooperation with our country. We should review and update our access arrangements and agreements through the region. With a view toward ensuring they can support our ability to respond quickly and effectively in the event of a true emergency. We should routinely demonstrate our commitment to the region with exercises focused on likely security scenarios. We should not forget the impact of the bright exercises of the 1980s at a time when we did not have forces on the ground, the deployment of large formations for the purpose of training and reassurance and partnership in sent a strong message. We should only deploy forces permanently to address those unable towhere we are mitigate through partners or unwilling to outsource our own security. This could include checking terrorist organizations with the ability to tack our homeland, deterring adversaries and competitors where our partners do not have capability or capacity. Ensuring safe passage of american and allied congress in the region and protecting our installations, locations, and other infrastructure and supporting routine training opportunities with our partners. These are some of the things we should be looking at in the future. I recognize it will take time to implement and attention to keep it on track. Lee terry capabilities will not be sufficient. We must bring the other instruments of our power to bear and let me touch on a few things that i think would be supportive of this. Well and foremost, resourced Diplomatic Missions in the country of the region are essential. These missions must be backed up by strong bureaus in the department of state to do their bidding. Secondly we need a better resource more responsive entity to help traverse the information environment. We study how the u. S. Information helped us when the cold war. We need this now more than ever. We need technical sharing arrangements with our partners that allow them to not only have the intelligence, but the capabilities to build selfdefense. We need to adjust the strength of our Global Market approach and the limitations of our rising challenges. I agree with what the doctor talked about in the previous panel. To supportetter way opportunities for American Business to do what they do best, innovate, employ, stabilize, and prosperity and bring profits and principles to our partners. Let me conclude with a few additional comments. I am under no illusion any of this will be easy. I know it will be very hard. A coherent global strategy will require we prioritize certain areas where we have been reluctant, especially in this region. Taking risk will mean we will have to look for ways to mitigate those risks. We have experience in doing this. As a commander i was supported of advisors. One of the things they reminded me of was the Foreign Policy that allowing any single power to dominate this part of the world would be detrimental to our overall objectives. Many of our relationships and alliances have been built around this fact. We should not forget this easily. I dont expect everyone will agree with my suggestions. I know there are other details i have left out which would need to be developed in order to make this work well. I do think this is a pragmatic approach that is in our grasp if you are willing to take a team approach. Think you for your attention and i look forward to be discussion and your question. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. One of the benefits of being the host of a conference like this as i get to ask the first question before i go to the audience. I know we will have a lot. Let me start with one question, a military question. Look ahead. You know the capabilities of the kurds very well. The United States withdraws or moves our forces to the south per the president s order. A safeinvades to create zone. What do the kurds do . What are their capabilities . What should we be looking for . Kurdstel i think the will defend themselves the best they can. Clear theyomes cannot deal with this modernized army and the capabilities turkey has, they will leave the area. Their fighters will leave and i would expect their citizens will leave as well. The feeling they would not be secure remaining in that area. That would exacerbate the kurdsnges and perhaps the move to some type of insurgent approach that nips away at the controlswhat turkey and then i think we have a thatterm security issue will have to be addressed somehow. Thank you. Let me ask another military question. Gulf, a lot persian of military sales to our partners in the gulf for many decades now. Some of those military budgets exceed the Iranian Military budget by multiples. And yet the United States remains the only power capable of defending that. Why is that . Why do these gaps exist . Mr. Votel that is a great question. That is when i thought about as centcom command. When you see the modern capabilities, i am not sure there is an easy answer. Some of it might have been our approach in the past has been to provide equipment to partners in the region without intention they would actually use them. It was designed as part of a much more balancing act of making sure people felt secure. I would tell you in some secondly, i would tell you that in some cases i think our own Security Cooperation contributed to some of the in effectiveness of these programs. When we were providing equipment to the ministry of defense, the ministry of the interior and the president ial guard in one of these countries and nothing comes between them i very much supportive of the idea of a single Senior Defense official. Under the control of the ambassador in these countries. Some of this may have been caused by our in terms of how we approached. The third thing would be that we just have not adjusted our expectations. I think thats why in my size of i try to of the the idea of professionalism, and the idea of sustaining your capabilities over time. One of the things that we observed from our arab partners. The equipment was outdated and they could not operate among themselves. I think we have a responsibility to help provide capabilities to our partners, but i think we have to come with a level of expectation and with a clear understanding of why we are providing the. Then our Organization Needs to match that. Those partners, tonking of the uae, went afghanistan, worked with us without caveats and approved from a modest level to a significant level print other countries in the region made the exact opposite decision. Anything that we can look back at that and see how capability and growth has differed tremendously . Do you see any changes from your our partnersom and willingness to work with us in such a way . Mr. Votel i dont mean to paint all the countries with a broad stroke. I would acknowledge the uae as a fantastic partner. You look around the region and you look at other countries that have developed in a very good soft capabilities. This is a desire that this is something they can emulate. It is done at a lower scale. There is an interest in it. An immediate and plumbing that. What you see not just in the uae an immediate employment of that. Youchallenge becomes when try to expand that at scale across the armed forces. And i just look at our example in the United States. We have wonderful capabilities but those did not develop developed over time. As a former centcom commander, i think we develop great ways of doing things, approaches to things. Training methods, operating methods, sops that emanated out of our special Operations Forces in overtime became the routine in our broader conventional forces. It does take time for that to do. We were enabled by intellectually curious noncommissioned officer corps, institutionalized education process that put a value on innovation, that put a value on new ideas. I think that is what we have to look at inculcating across the region. I know there are a lot of people here that have questions for you, but its a question between the capability, the gap between actual capabilities in some of these countries and the perceptions by the leaders of these countries. One thing i think about is when the war in yemen began, the saudi leadership gave its military commission to conduct Intelligence Driven air to ground operations against moving targets in an urban environment where you have to protect civilians. If im being generous, i can count on one hand the number of countries in the world that have those capabilities. If i am not being generous i can count on one fingers the number of countries. Huge destroying their between the mission set and the capability set there is a huge disjoint there. As these countries become more willing to use the capability, do you see that gap decreasing, to making us all safer, or do you see it increasing . Mr. Votel that is an excellent question. I thnink, my hope is certainly that we will see a decreasing. U. S. Ve long, in the military enjoyed a relationship between military and civilian leadership that has allowed for frank discussion back and forth about our own capabilities i can share review in my service, the u. S. Army and when i served, our chief of staff was pretty blonde in terms of as we were being concerned about things like korea was very blunt in terms of our ability to do that. I think that helped drive our civilian leadership and the department and others in a direction to make sure that we had addressed that. I think we have to promote that discussion back and forth between military and civilian. Indmit that it is difficult many of these countries to have that discussion. There is a believe because of a lack of experience or because there is not a process of allowing for frank discussion back and forth, that you know leaders can over assume what their capabilities are. Thats dangerous. Say, u. S. If we are seeing some indications of where countries are trying to do this. Yes, we have. Even with a Saudiled Coalition in yemen. Think anyone is trying to pains that in any kind of positive light, but we saw instances of our experiences of reaching out to the saudis to try to help them develop a process that would minimize the opportunities for civilian casualties and try to more effectively employ the military capabilities we had. We saw some instances certainly where they understood that. The challenges institutionalizing and really making a longterm change. That just takes time and it takes commitment, not just from us but certainly more from them in terms of doing that. Absolutely. Ok, lets go to questions. Im going to start with the back because the front has been getting an awful lot of questions in the last couple of panels. Lets go to the young lady in the back with her hand up there. Hi there. Thank you so much. Several u. S. Officials and think tanks have suggested that isis leaders are planning a massive prison break from the regional prisons in northeast syria, with the potential withdrawal of u. S. Troops in the region, do you see that as reality . Mr. Votel i dont know if i necessarily see it as a reality, meaning it is definitely going to happen, but i do see if the Syrian Democratic forces who have that, who have assumed that responsibility of protecting, safeguarding and detaining those ishters, if their attention drawn elsewhere because they have to defend themselves, nothing more important, it certainly makes the possibility of that much greater. So, i think this is something that we have to be concerned about. Detained foreign fighters, detained local fighters, and then, of course, the large number of family members that are not detained but certainly encamped right now in areas here that left on teheir devices, we could see some of this being a resurgence. We should remember in the beginning of isis they got a lot of their combat power by breaking people out of prison in places like mosul. Hundreds, thousands of fighters instantly joined like that. While weve been successful against liberating the caliphate, the physical part of it, we certainly have not eliminated the ideology that drives them. And this will be an important, this could be an important test for us. Ok. Sir, in the back . General, thanks for do this. I wanted to ask you about the u. S. Response since president trumps decision to take troops out of the state so. Specifically the pentagons decision to cut turkey out of she air task, out of isr feed trump as well as trump trump s statement that he would economically hurt turkey because of this. Mr. Votel i have no insight into any of that. Myring that with me over icloud account with me at this point. I dont really know. I read like most of you did the response from the turkish government today on some of that narrative is going back and forth. And so, i dont have any way of depicting it. I had not heard that we cut people out of the air tasking order but given the statements that we have seen come from our administration that would seem to be the right thing to do to make sure that we werent participating in whatever it is that the Turkish Military has planned. Can you explain to everyone what the applications of that are . Mr. Votel the applications are they will lose on e, cinda begin visibility on the things that we are doing and we will lose the is we begin to lose availability on the things that they are doing and they will lose visibility on the things that we are doing. It also includes a significant amount of coordination and procedures that keep all of us guides how aie anr and these activities get done. We rely heavily on this process every day, literally, every day, to help keep us safe in the air space up there. The chances are, you know, maybe it could lead to a miscalculation, a misunderstanding, it could be to something. I so we hope that is not the case. Im not saying it automatically will, but i think it makes it harder to operate in this environment and keep, keep military forces safe. Excellent. Blake . Will. Nks, lincoln bloomfield. You at socom and centcom and your commanders had dated a eyes on irgc. Here in washington we read about the irgc, sanctions them. We have a general understanding politically what they are. What did you see on a daytoday basis both on the ground, in the maritime domain . What did they do daytoday . How much if at all do they try to influence politics in places like iraq or yemen . What dont we know about them in washington . Mr. Votel thanks. One of the most keen observations we has is the we should not think of them wholly as just a military force. That is not the role that the general plays. Veryays a role as a influential policymaker with direct access, close access to the supreme leader. And he is, exercises a certain amount of independent decisionmaking in my view out there tha oftentimes, not just reflects military activities but actually reflects political policy type objectives for iran. An extraordinarily unique organization, much different than we would see in any kind of western country that is exceedingly dangerous. Linkedis very clearly into the governing regime. At attempts to influence the daytoday activities and places owne iraq through their interaction with political leaders and military leaders there, putting pressure on them through militia groups that might be on the ground that answer back to them that are actually more beholding to them than they might be to an iraqi leadership, that orchestrates the movement of arms around the region, whether that is to Houthi Rebels are into western syria where they can be used to threaten israel or perhaps other partners in the region. So, i think this is an extraordinarily Dangerous Organization and we cannot think of it like another military organization. That is not how it is. It has equal parts military and equal parts policy. Not only development but execution response abilities. General. Thank you for your comments. Reflected a lot of the frustrations that a range of your previous commanders at centcom have about things that need to be done that is difficult to get through the bureaucracy. I had the privilege from 20042016 sitting on the Advisory Board and we suffer the same kind of issues. There are a lot of things that they wanted to do that could not be implanted, politically could not be implemented. Do you have any suggestions as to how we maybe get more influence to take on some really comments and suggestions you have made, but simple do not implanted . Implemented . Mr. Votel stepping out of it, i think sometimes provide to the clearest view of what you have been dealing with. I know the challenge i think in places like in centcom, ill speak to my own experiences that are daytoday basis, you are so up front with what is happening right in front of you that it is sometimes difficult to look at the longterm aspects of this. And i think, frankly, the best kindf doing this is, is, of this policy process kind of approach, where we try to balance the things we want to achieve through our policy with building consensus across our government. Changing things like the Security Cooperation organizations isnt something the centcom commander can do by himself. The department of defense has something to do that in the department of defense. These are hard problems and the longer they are in place and the more difficult they are entrenched. This just takes time. The idea of going to a single defense official in these countries who is kind of responsible to the ambassadors there. Focuses its efforts through there and works very closely with a Combatant Commanders is a fairly novel idea and some of these countries and, frankly, we ve fought the whole way in terms of that. Sometimes by our own bureaucracy and sometimes by the bureaucracies of the partners we are trying to support. So, i think these things just take time. But i think it is important to the about them, to get dialogue, to get the discussion going on these things so that we can begin to address them. Thank you. Ok, barbara and then barbara. Votel, give me your thoughts, your prognosis for success or not for the Iraqi Government to do the necessary integration of the pmf. Mr. Votel yeah. That is a great question. I think this is a very difficult challenge for them. And this is one that frankly we have been talking to our iraqi partners about for a long timeth. The pmf law that brought them and was established years ago. Ambassador knows, this was a routine talking point with the Prime Minister and others as we went in there to talk about that. It certainly is not anything new and has not shown that. Positive about that. I want to i like to be a half glass full kind of guy and think that they can do that and i hope that they are able to, but im not overly positive that will be done anytime quickly. I would hope that we would be able to identify a roles and Missions Approach to this mightve been something to do. So, look at some of the Popular Mobilization forces. Like we look at our corps of engineers, for examples, some of the folks on civics works, helping maintain the infrastructure of the country. This could be an approach but i think that has not yet taken off. What you do see is these organizations now kind of continue to fight for their own identities. Really not much coming together. Wereact that the iraqis able to get all of those elements to work in conjunction during an operation like mosul is no small miracle. Literally done by some really, a few very good officers who would bring all of that together. But i think this will continue to be a very, very difficult challenge for iraq moving forward. Wereneral votel, you centcom commander in the period jcpoa was negotiated. What was the situation in terms of communication between u. S. Forces and Iranian Forces in the persian gulf during that period . How did it change after the u. S. Withdrew, and do you ascribe the change to the withdraw from the jcpaoa . Mr. Votel the level of communication is zero. There is no communication between the military forces in the region. And it was my view, obviously when i came into the position the jcpoa was in place and it was my view that we should try to figure out a way to be talking, a least military to our partners across the region. To add my maritime commander talk to that maritime commander because, frankly, i think we struggled with the fact that we saw provocations in the gulf. We were not sure if these were the actions of a rogue commander or being articulated from a more centralized position. I was a strong advocate of that. Were unable to move that forward in policy channels. Hadperhaps of the jcpoa stayed in place that may have provided an opportunity to to that. But i would say in the immediate wake of the, early 2016 and year andost of that maybe into early 2017, i think we continued to see a normal level of interaction, of unprofessional, unsafe interaction in the maritime area. 35 a yearp to be 30. 35 , that we were seeing and then we saw a drop off precipitously. One of the approaches that we try to take with this is we tried to call out the iranians on their actions and appeal to their level of professionalism. Inhink there is an ethic militaries around the world that sen your professionalism question, that bothers you, i think. Good effort,y pointed this out several time, i took reporters onto ships. It was like we had cued up the iranians. We were not on the ship 10 or 15 minutes and there were missile boats around us. Not doing anything unsafe but they were there. So, you could really get a perspective of that. And when you send a message that the professional militaries, professional navies do not operate like this. We protect our interests but we do not operate like that. We dont go out into International Waterways and conduct evocative actions. We dont do missile launches astride the principal Transit Route to the strait of hormuz. This is the action of unprofessional, undisciplined militaries. And we saw that drop off, almost to nil over the next year. I cant really explain why that was. Some of that might have been the fact that we did not have as many vessels in the area. So maybe were not seeing as much. Declineeneral, we saw a in that. I am, i remain in favor of communication back and forth. In syria, our ability to talk to the russians, both their ground commander and their air component was absolutely vital. We did not coordinate, we did not collaborate, but we de conflicted and this was important for keeping us safe and them. When something happened we had a mechanism to talk with them. For the most part this was professional military to military conversations. And i think that worked for us. Mindeally reinforced in my the importance of having some kind of mechanism like that. [inaudible] mr. Votel well, i dont know that it did. We were always concerned about the memebers. They were doing things with a houthis, moving things into the western part of syria even before then. So, the rhetoric i think probably went up certainly after we withdrew from the jcpoa, but i do not know that the number of those types of things that they were doing significantly changed one direction or the other. The president of the arab gulf states in washington. In conversations over the past month in the gulf region and in washington a number of senior officials have been moaned what they seen as a conscious absence of american Political Leadership in the gulf over the past couple years but they were really concerned about what they had seen over the last summer as deniableeased its attacks against infrastructure in saudi arabia, oil infrastructure. Interlocutorr described to me the lack of the u. S. Military response to the as thetack in th final nail in the coffin of the Carter Doctrine. What they said was perhaps more important than the Carter Doctrine, however was the absolute lack of any deterrence now provided by any military force against iranian actions. I have two questions. Believe the Carter Doctrine needs to be preserved and that the United States needs to maintain a leadership role in the gulf and security arranges . Tactically what might the United States and our allies due to restore a measure of deterrence against iranian actions . Mr. Votel i do think American Leadership is important in this. Under ideal circumstances, it would be great if that could be transitioned to leadership in the region, and i think there will always be things that we will be willing to deploy forces in this region. We have done it a number of times in the past. So i think we would expect to do that sometime in the future as well. I think those ought to be carefully considered, but i do think American Leadership is necessary in the region. And, especially as we try to, try to move to a new period of Great Power Competition and we begin to take risk in these areas. American leadership diplomatically, militarily, economically, information wise is very important. It doesnt necessarily take a whole bunch of troops on the ground to do it. In terms of that. So, i think there is, there certainly is a role for this. You know, in terms of the things that we can do and should do to try to deter iran, i was always very much an advocate and believer in these combined Maritime Task force is that we had in the region. They were composed of not just regionalavies but navies and in some cases others outside of the region came. Pakistan was a key contributor to this for a number of years. And played a big role. We had other, japanese and others that came and joined this. These were very important. I think one of the most important things we can do is, first of all, continue to show unity and cohesion among ourselves. Our list of partners and allies have to always be very present. You know, in terms of what we strike back at, what we, that i certainly a policy decision and one left to the president of the United States and i think it is important that we not allow them to have free reign in terms of things they are doing. There are things we can do to shut down routes. There are things we can do to promote more security, more understanding and the maritime environment about what is moving through that. And there are things we can do with our partners diplomatically, i think. With the support of our military leadership to, you know, hold them accountable and demonstrate to them that we are with them. A lot of these things are a bit intangible, i would argue. But i think, overall, thats kind of the approach i would kind of think of here. Mark . Thank you. George mason. You refer to u. S. Priority has switched to now pursuing the Great Power Competition. I presume that also means pursuing the Great Power Competition in the middle east. And im just wondering how do we do that effectively when so many of our allies and partners in the middle east, have good relations with both of our great power competitors . Thank you. Mr. Votel great. First off, i really agree with the first part of your question comment about the Great Power Competition isnt going to be limited to the Asian Pacific in, not limited to eastern europe. It is going to play out in other areas and the middle east has traditionally been an area where this has been done. Our previousck in experience at a place like afghanistan, it was certainly a key place where we, the cold w ar, the competition between the United States and soviet union certainly played out in the battlefield of, of afghanistan our support to the mujahedin. Certainly, i think the waterways of the middle east and approaches in the middle are key areas of that, so i really agree with that particular approach. Weterms of, in terms of how become better partners, more desired partners than the chi ore or the russians, Something Like that, my personal view is that i think there is a natural proclivity in the region to want to partner with us. I think they want to be aligned with us. Most of those countries want to be aligned with us. My observation it is principally in areas where we have pushed back, where we have not addressed some of their concerns were we have seen them reach out to others to try to satisfy their goals. Notou know, again, im saying we should give them everything they want. That is not the right way, either. Have think what we have to is we have to have a very serious dialogue, we have to be engaged with all of these countries all the time and talking with them about the security armaments and our broader approach in the middle east. And i really do think dialogue matters. I think staying engaged with people matters. I think being responsible with military sales and things like that really do matter with our partners out there. And staying with them. And, again, i mentioned security our mainon ought to be effort in a region like this when we are trying to focus other places. Thats important. You got have people to do that. But the numbers of people that come along with that are not the same as the numbers that come ndong with keeping wings a fleas and other things in place. Is i think the key is, making long Term Investments in these relationships. And continue to do it. That is why things like imet are so darn important. When you look at the amount of money were spending. Thats it . Its actually going down right now. You just cannot put a value on how important it is for somebody to spend a year in one of our schools, families that live in our communities and see what it is we are about. Many of their kids are ready coming back to go to school anyways. I think we ought to try to promote that. That is about longterm relationship, and we cannot emphasize these as kind of were negotiating things. We have to take a longterm approach to this bed we have to look where we have shared interests. And we have to look at how we align on those kinds of things, i believe. Cspan recently sat down for conversations with democratic president ial candidates. On wednesday at 10 a. M. , we will show your interviews with former maryland no problem. We have resources on our website to help you get started. Check out our Getting Started and download pages on studentcam. Org for producing information and video links to footage in the cspan library. Teachers will also provide find resources under the teachers to realpage to help introduce student cam to your. Students my advice is to find a topic you are truly passionate about and pursue it as much as we can. This year we are asking middle and High School Students to create a Short Documentary on the issue you would like the 2020 campaign. 100, 000ll award total cash prizes. Go get a camera and go get a microphone and start filming, and create the best video you can possibly produce. Visit studentcam. Org for more information today. The second day of its new term, the Supreme Court heard argument in t cases dealing with gay and transgendered rightswo. The plaintiff and one of them is hisy man who was fired from job as a Child Welfare services coordinator. He was joined by his attorneys after the oral argument to discuss how the case got to the justicesourt, how the responded to their arguments, and what the courts decision could mean for lgbtq rights. Good afternoon, everyone. Ok. There you go. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is thomas brewer, im a former president of the National Press club. Thank you for being here this afternoon, im looking forward to the discussion. I promise to be nicer than the associate justices were in interrupting when they made their arguments. We are here because of this gentleman to my left, gerald bought stock who lost his job because of his sexual orientation. He was an awardwinning Child Welfare advocate in the casa