E spoke about military and his is 45 minutes. There is a reward for your patience. Welcome the retired fourstar germ who commanded u. S. Forces afghanistan and 41nation contingent there. From march 20162018. Longest span that anyone commanded those forces and he has been described as one of the leading experts in the battlefield situation in that country. We are going to have a conversation as informal as we can sitting here under bright lights and microphones where we will go through issues that came up this morning with regard to the diplomatic domain and then the military domain and open the floor to questions. In order to keep this organized and not distract from your meal, you will find cards in the middle of your tables. Please write our questions on the cards. They will be gathered up and find their way up here one way or the other. With no further ado, general, thank you very much for being here. Let me pose the most awkward question i can to begin with in part because it is complimenter temporary. You have been described as a warrior diplomat. Im interested in giving the conversations we had this morning and your perceptions on how that process works, right . You have been on the ground with diplomatic counterparts and trying to determine how to move forward. What is that process like for you . Do you have advice in terms of best practice and how to proceed . First off, thanks, bill and thanks to the meriedian universities of michigan and va. That term im uncomfortable in the presence of such distinguished diplomats in the room and i wouldnt present sume to adopt that title but it illustrates that a conflict, pulled into this space where you have to deal with the political environment and numerous examples from my time in afghanistan. My role is to lead a coalition of 41 nations. So by by that mere fact alone, you are involved and each of those nations have its domestic political revolutions and a number of governments change. During the course of the time i was commander and you are drawn into these conversations with each of the allies. With respect to their commitments. Additionally, we are working in a sovereign country, in afghanistan, dealing on a daily basis multiple times with the leaders of that government. You have to be aware of the political realities and diplomatic realities. The outcomes we dealt with were delivered through political means. For example, every two years, nato will have a summit and in my time in command were two in 2016 and 2018 and it was critical to the future of afghanistan. In that summit, the alliance agreed on the extension of Security Assistance to the afghan assistance for four more years and once that political outcome was achieved, then he we could do the military opportunity. Many, many examples. Another example and i say given the political side, the effect of domestic politics in afghanistan on the fight and so, a good story to illustrate that point would be in the summer of 2016 and we had some political tensions at the governmental level. There was a concern there might be fracturing of the government, which could find its way into the Security Forces. So as the Coalition Commander and as one of those involved in advising and assisting the forces, the cohesion of the Afghan Security forces was essential to the outcome. If that cohesion is threatened by other forces, political rivalry, tribal differences, et cetera, that could put our security gains at risk. This is a point where we engaged with afghan political leaders from the government and the opposition to not allow their political differences and with full respect to the political process dont allow those things to find their way into the Security Forces and i respected that. These are how routinely leaders of coalitions, be they be american are brought into the political space. I wonder if you could say a little bit how you work with a partner like afghanistan one of the themes that came up throughout the morning is aid without dependency is the way i would summit up. But this idea that you would provide support advise and assist without creating dependency of a nature that vulnerability if and when the u. S. Pulls back and what the proper sequencing and how you empower local institutions and all of those important things. There is always going to be some amount of dependency because the funding is coming from donor nations and the United States. So really cant get around that level of dependency because the ability of the Afghan Government to sustain a Security Force is a longer term undertaking. But the president was focused on that. We have frequent conversations on how to reduce the amount of money that was costing the United States in terms of the Security Forces to reduce the bill he was asking other nations to pay. So the other thing i would point out, if you take a stip back from the conflict and we had a 140 Coalition Forces and today we have 20,000 Coalition Forces, it is the Afghan Security forces that are bearing the brunt of the fight and they are willing to do that. So dependency is not just financial. They have taken the fight to the end. When we came out of the wausau summit with four more years of Security Assistance, one of the things we did is do an assessment, what was working, what was not working and what needed to be fixed and he was cognizant of that time line and how we could deliver more of a selfsustaining Security Force by that time. Of course, the best way to deliver is to lower the level of violence and a Peace Agreement and enduring Peace Agreement would lead to a lower level of violence which would make them. And clearly the issue on dependency as well. Before we move on to another question, i want to say this, the Afghan Security forces deserve tremendous credit and dont get the credit they are due in terms of their willingness to continue to take the fight to the enemy to improve on their weaknesses. Ill give you an example. When we talked about what was working and not working, some of the outcomes of that were to double the Afghan Forces and doubling of the Afghan Air Force and go after corruption and leadership deficiencies inside the Afghan Security forces and president ghani with great strength of will went after. Hose things at great political the inhernt was to retire officers that were above the international norms, but give them some sort of a retirement that they could look forward to so we could bring in the next generation of younger leaders. The typical afghan leaders were 1015 years older. With all of the things that would come with that, energy levels, willing to take risks. Additionally on corruption. President ghani turned over everyone who was in the supply system was removed and replaced. That could lead to a shortterm problem as you try to get new problem and learning new systems. The more prone they were tore corruption. The doubling of the special forces and the more than doubling of the air force made a big difference on the battlefield and seeing it more, went from 0 Commando Companies to 60 Commando Companies. The effectiveness of the air force have been tremendous. There are Success Stories that are contributing to a lack of a dependence and ability to take over the fight on their own. I was pleased with the willingness of the afghans attack of these issues. I know you didnt serve in iraq personally. Im curious as i think all of us are veterans of these lunches and conversations, if you move this time line back a bit and talk about iraq people wouldnt have present districted how those forces withered in the faces of the challengeses they faced and policy makers were set back when they did. Im curious what you sort of see as the key distinctions here. Clearly you think the Afghan Forces have done well and admirably. What have we done better . What is the cultural distinctiveness . What are the key components we should be learning as a country . I never served in iraq and cant speak firsthand. I served six years in afghanistan. But i can tell you about the perceptions that existed in afghanistan. When people saw what was happening in iraq, they said lets not let that happen here. This is a social issue and i would say inside the enemy camp as well. And i believe this has been a motivation on the part of the taliban in negotiations, they dont want to see afghanistan generate into a scenario where sis gained a foothold. This will expecter of a civil war and syrialike scenario, i think proved to be an incentive for some people and deterrent for not allowing this to happen, point number one. Secondly, the Afghan People have endured four decades of war. And yes, the others in the middle east have endured long wars. This has been crushing. The misery and suffering of the Afghan People has produced a country that desires peace and ready for peace and see the International Community are the ones that achieve a peace that they cant achieve on their own. The express of International Support for them and these expressions are extremely important. In 2016 when the u. S. Had been talking about, at one point, a complete withdrawal of u. S. Forces by the end of 2016, instead what we saw in the summer of 2016 was a renewal of commitment for another four years. I think this helped to strengthen the will of the Afghan People and the relevant parties to stay with it. But again, overall i dont think neither the people of afghanistan nor the neighbors want to see a complete collapse and the kind of situation you had in iraq. Certainly the military i know feels strongly about that. So, i hope that this is enough to keep it but i touched upon the social issues and other issues. And this is something i do want to highlight. We tend to, i think, westerners look at things through a political or a military or diplomatic lens. But the social pressure for peace, the religious pressure for peace inside afghanistan is significant. And should not be discounted in all of this. We saw the Peace Movement start after the south asia policy was announced and then we saw some incidents occur which led to a Peace Movement which really spontaneously started to spread around the country to different provinces, different ethnic groups, different locales. This coupled with the religious movement by the ulamah of afghanistan to declare a fatwa against suicide bombing and declare that the war was not jihad, so we saw levels of engagement for peace beyond just the ones that we tend to think of in the west. Philip so building on that, when you were there, you negotiated or were part of negotiating the first ceasefire in the country and so i have a sense of your view on kind of the parameters for what peace and negotiation might entail. But one of the key things this morning in our discussions with this was this idea of selfreinforcing deals. That in the longer term, no third party was going to be able to be in a position to enforce a deal between the taliban and the government and other entities. So this needed to be something that was attract to have all parties. Mr. Nicholson broadly philip broadly speaking, what do you see as sort of the negotiating space that would won dane deals that would be potentially of contain deals that would be potentially of that description, satisfying to all parties . What are the key parameters . Mr. Nicholson thanks. First off, its a very tough job that ambassador khalil and his team have undertaken. Im deeply grateful that hes been willing to take this on and that the u. S. Government is so committed to it. This is extremely important. What were getting at, i believe, is what are the elements of an enduring peace . If it were something that was simply about a troop withdrawal and a renunsation of al qaeda, i dont believe renunsation of al qaeda, i dont believe that would be enduring. So there are reasons that the social gains that have been made in afghanistan need to be discussed as part of this. And, to some extent guaranteed as part of this. Why do i say that . Because i dont believe it will be an enduring peace settlement if these issues are not addressed. To simply negotiate a deal that allows for the withdrawal of International Forces and some sort of renounceation of terrorism in my view will not last. And so it wont be enduring and therefore it wont protect our security interests, nor will it protect the gains that need to be preserved inside afghanistan. Inside afghanistan, again, back to the social pressure and the religious pressure, there are demands by the Afghan People for this dialogue to occur with the taliban. Ive sat in many shuras throughout afghanistan, but one that was most striking was in kandahar, with the women shura in kandahar, talking about and they saying, look, let us talk to these guys. We know them. We know who they are. Theyre from our families. Many of them are our cousins. We know how to talk to them about these issues. And we know how to work towards a solution. And so there was a hunger on the part of many, many afghans and from civil society, social groups, to talk to the taliban. And we saw peace marches occur where groups out down in kandahar, of course from helmand all the way to kabul, of civilians who were not aligned with the government, not aligned with the coalition, not aligned with the taliban but aligned for peace. And so there is a Strong Demand for this dialogue. So this what were calling the interafghan dialogue is really this conversation that has to be in my view, at the core of any enduring solution. So these issues need to be discussed between the parties that will be there when were all gone, and, to your point, this is what will produce a selfreinforcing peace. Now, if it one of our primary interests, of course, is that afghanistan not be a haven for terrorists to launch attacks on us or elsewhere in the west. So that is a legitimate security interest that we have and it needs to be preserved as well. Can they do that . I believe that the afghans could. And if the violence between the taliban and the government were lowered, and they dealt with their differences through political means, then this would allow taking the fight in a more concerted manner to groups like isis and others before they would spread. However, these simply having an agreement that gets u. S. Troops out of there, Coalition Troops out of there, and renunsation of terrorism to me is not going to be enduring. So the sequencing of these issues and some conditionality being applied to these issues, in my view, is extremely important. Let me give you an example. A troop withdrawal is verifiable. U. S. Troops get on a plane to leave the country, everybody sees it, its covered by the media. Thats verifiable. A ceasefire is verifiable. If you have a universal ceasefire as we did in 2018, then you know, if theres violence in certain areas or not, and hopefully you can figure out if there is violence, who caused it. The renunsation of terrorism is less verifiable. So how do you ensure that because someone even if they say they renounce their ties with al qaeda, how can you verify that they truly have renounced their ties with al qaeda . So do we trade a verbal final thing, a troop withdrawal, for a less remember final thing . Or do you align a verifiable troop withdrawal with a verifiable ceasefire which then provides space and time for the interafghan dialogue to occur . So not again, not second guessing the negotiating process, because its very, very difficult and theres many, many factors. International, regional, national, etc. But the elements and their sequencing and the maybe the conditionality of a staged withdrawal tied to certain verifiable actions i think would have the promise of being thats uring than one simply negotiated our withdrawal. Philip let me tie these points together a little bit with a more specific aspect of any resolution. And reject this premise, if youre inclined to. But it seems that the incorporation of the taliban into the military and or police of afghanistan is an inevitable part of any durable solution. Thats the premise, again, reject if you disagree. But id love to hear why. What do you think thats going to do in terms first of all, how would that be accomplished, foast accomplished most effectively . And what would it do in terms of some of the points you were bringing up before about this carefully developed cohesiveness and effectiveness, particularly in some of the units youve described, in the air force and the special forces . Do those have to be kept sacrosanct . How does one frankly kind of protect this house of cards thats been built over time from what is a fundamental cultural change potentially that would have to be part of a negotiated settlement . Mr. Nicholson its a good question. Its a hypothetical. I dont want to second guess what general miller and his team are doing now. Having been gone over well over a year now, from the theater, this is not a question that we were deep into on my time. But fundamentally, if you have a peace deal, and you have a process by which reconciliation is occurring inside the social fabric of afghanistan, then this reduces the potential for tension inside all the institutions of government. Not just the military forces. The other thing id say is it would allow a focus on common enemies. So isis is a common enemy for both the Afghan Government and the taliban. And so in one sense it would enable a degree of cooperation. Again, obviously, theres much to be worked out here on how this would occur. So i personally havent thwarted any ideas on how youd go about doing that. I think i would point to the fact that the Afghan Military today is an interethnic, intertribal theres different religious grupets. You can go to units in the special forces and find representatives of every ethnic group in the country, different tribes, different regions of the country. So this country has dealt with this problem in a different form. And in some cases those ethnic groups did fight against each other in the previous four decades. So i think you do have former enemies that are now sitting side by side inside the Afghan Government. And the afghan social fabric and ability to engage in dialogue and shura, they do have a conflict resolution mechanism inside their society, which, frankly, has moved more effective than some of the official forms of conflict resolution. So i think i trust in the afghans to figure out a way to do this. And i believe they can do it. I have Great Respect for the afghans ability to solve problems that we would find intractable in the west. But they find a way to get it done. So i cant tell you a specific solution for how it would work. But i think that they would find a solution to this. The key would be, again, an enduring Peace Agreement amongst the blidgerans that enabled then a conference to begin about how theyre conversation to begin about how theyre going to move together and work inside the government. Move forward and Work Together inside the government. Philip i think we set a record which is weve gone an entire morning talking about diplomacy and security and by my count we havent mentioned the word china once. [laughter] so obviously the current sort of feel inside the beltway is pure competition, conversations like the one were having today are increasingly in the minority. What about china, though, in this perspective . Chinas a country that borders afghanistan, lest we forget. We may find ourselves in a tuation where with chinas initiative, afghanistan becomes a strategically important foothold for United States for a very different reason, right at moment were thinking about getting out of there. At least to large extent. Im curious about sort of your experience sort of in this space, thinking about chinese involvement in afghanistan, but then also your sort of view on the distant future here in terms of what the relationship between u. S. And china might be when you think about afghanistan in the middle of that nexus. Mr. Nicholson thanks. The urse again, applaud to ambassador for helping to forge this International Consensus for peace. He has engaged in the u. S. State department and our government have engaged with the chinese, with the russias, russiaans, with the pakistanis and others for reaching a consensus for peace and the chinese are part of this. Ive always believed, and i did as commander, that this was one of the areas, afghan policy, where we could see an intersection of interests with the chinese and that given all the competition thats occurring elsewhere, was there the potential to have some degree of cooperation on joint interests that we had . For example, the chinese are very concerned about the threat of terrorism emanating from the region into china. As are all the neighbors. So is this a joint interest we can work on . This idea of joint interest also applies to the russians and even though, again, were in competition elsewhere, there are common interests that we have. I think this has been a reason why weve been able to forge some degree of unity of effort, with the chinese and the russians on the issue of afghan peace. So i do think theyre shared interests. Obviously the chinese, because of belten road, have an interest in the stability and economic viability of pakistan. Because of the chinapakistan economic corridor. Stability in afghanistan in theory would lead to greater stability in the tribal regions of pakistan, which is right where the cpec runs through. So you would think that there are reasons that we would have a shared interest. I think were beginning to see that borne out in the dialogue thats occurring around the peace process. That end im not, of course, up to the in terms of the latest details on the status of the chinese hosting an interafghan dialogue but the mere fact that they offered to be engaged in a more deliberate way to me is an indication of an interest in seeing peace there. So its encouraging to me that we do have this the stars have align and we have this International Consensus for peace and a regional consensus for peace. And then we have both warring parties calling for peace. All of which, i think, is important to being able to actually close an enduring deal. So, yes, i think there is potential there for us to Work Together with them on that. Philip thanks for that. So, another key theme that weve been through today was that were in a mode where were not thinking necessarily in a max malist way about outcomes in afghanistan. But in way that is satisfying to our interests and to afghan interests and a mutually greeble settlement might be a good way to put it. To put that in really stark terms, in your view, what does good enough look like in afghanistan in six months, in five years, and in 25 years . [laughter] then were almost out of time no, were not at all. Mr. Nicholson so this is probably a good time to mention im going write a book about my thoughts about afghanistan. Frankly, im still working through some of those questions. Synthesizing what weve seen in afghanistan and where that might take us in the future is a process im in the middle of. And of course the longer youre in afghanistan and in the region, the more you learn, the more complex layers of complexity you begin to understand and then realize that theres no Simple Solutions and theres no easy answers. But i do want to come back to some fundamentals. I sincerely believe that america has no better friend in the region than the people of afghanistan. And they have fought alongside us and our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines in that country for years. And they share our values in the sense of being against terrorists. They dont accept terrorism. They reject it inside their own culture. And they reject the idea that their country would be used to launch terror attacks on someone else, like us. So we should place a very high value on that, in my view. And this is a tough neighborhood that the afghans live in. And they need help. If they are to survive in that neighborhood and hold their own. But again, they share our interests. In stability. They want a moderate, peaceful existence for their people in their country and a return to peace that they enjoyed decades and decades ago. Number one, we have a great friend in the Afghan People. They are recovering from decades of war and the countrys been devastated. So they will need help and they will need help for some time to come. But when you look at the young afghans who have, since we went there on, have been able to get an education, many of whom were here in washington attending school, and then theyre willingness to return to the country and help make it a better country, a peaceful country, this gives me great hope that this next generation of afghan leaders in particular, again, share our values, share our interests and want a peaceful, moderate government inside their country. And that this, as you think longterm, this is one of the things we need to focus on. The education of afghan youth, the helping them with economic opportunity. These are the things that will really lead to an enduring solution. But it is a longterm undertaking. And i dont think its going to be as i mentioned earlier in one of my responses, the reduction in the number of troops and the expense at some point i do want to address that the expense of the war. In the Public Discourse about afghanistan and the cost of afghanistan, inside america weve seen, in my view, some inflated figures of the cost of the war and theres reasons for this. But in consultation with the chief of mission of country, we estimated we were spending about 25 billion a year inside the country. And we had less than 14,000 troops. Whereas the numbers you see talked about in terms of cost today are more than double that. Some of these costs that are attributed to the war are sunk costs. They would have to be spent anyway. But because theyre being expended in connection with the campaign, they can be billed to overseas contingency funds which represents another postmoney and theres an incentive if youre in the pentagon to build those bill those costs to that and this drives up the perceptions about the cost of the war. So i think the true cost of the war is less than is being talked about. And the issue there is it skews the calculus about whether its work the longterm commitment by america. But again, we are down to a much lower level of troops and if the negotiation proceeds the way we think it will, that number will come down further. But again, i think were going to continue to need to invest in afghanistan for some time to come, to give the Afghan People the chance they need to deliver an enduring peace there. In my view, these elements are central. I know youve spent this morning talking about different elements of the peace process. A ceasefire in my view, is critical. A ceasefire creates conditions for dialogue. It reduces violence. It reduces the wear on the Afghan People. It creates a time and space for people to have a dialogue and get to a solution. A troop withdrawal is a goal hat everyone seems to share. The ceasefire on the part of the taliban, as some of them have said publicly, reduces their leverage. A troop withdrawal on the part of the coalition reduces our military leverage. So, again, there may be some compatibility between achieving those at the same time. A ceasefire and a troop withdrawal concurrent, in my view, would require both sides to sacrifice some of their leverage and create conditions for an interafghan dialogue that could begin. But this again, the sequencing, the conditionality, at what point is the conversation and the interafghan dialogue mature enough and has delivered enough of a result to warrant a further troop withdrawal . These are the kinds of questions that need to be addressed. Philip following on you that last point with one of our audience members questions. What if we find ourselves in a situation where either u. S. Political will or the agreement thats reachable with the taliban does not involve a resideual u. S. Counterterrorism presence . What are u. S. Options for remaining engaged in a forward position . Is that a tenable position . Mr. Nicholson i defer to the current military leadership to make those judgments. Theyre the ones that will provide the best military advice to the administration on this question. So i dont want to substitute my judgment for theirs. Again, ive been gone over a year. What i would say is i do think that if this is not addressed, threat of terrorism emanating from the region is not going to go away. There needs to be the taliban renouncing al qaeda and truly cutting the sanctuary and support they provide to these terrorist groups is essential to reducing their threat. The ability of the Afghan Government and these special forces that weve invested a lot of time and money in, who are very good, their ability then focus exclusively on terrorist groups as opposed to fighting the taliban also will pick up some of that load. I think theres some capabilities that the afghans wont have, that they will never have certain capabilities that mirror our own in terms of intelligence and fires and some of the others. But they will get a lot of capabilities that len able them to go after these that will enable them to go after these terrorist groups. In my view, the threat one of our key interests is the threat of terrorism emanating from the region. If we were to draw down and leave, that threats not going to go away. I think the intelligence communitys been quite clear about this. If we were just to leave, we could expect another terrorist attack emanating from the region within years or even months. Philip so recognizing that youve been on the sidelines for a little while and this is a very fastmoving situation, going to that question of terrorist threats. One of the inquiries from the audience was, goes to a debate we were having earlier today about how significant a threat isisk really is. I wonder if you have when youre speaking about that, the nature of the threat youre describing, are you really thinking in more general terms, do you see that particular entity as substantial threat or other iterations of isis in this space . This was something that there was a dwernlence of opinion on this morning. Doctor divergence of opinion on this morning. Mr. Nicholson there are 21 designated groups in the region, designated under various stipulations in u. S. Law and executive order. Some of these groups are purely regional in nature. Meaning their objectives are either in pakistan or afghanistan. Some are transnational in nature. L qaeda, isisk. Al qaeda in the subcontinent has some reach. But what you do see is people moving between these groups and so you see people changing tshirts, if you will. So isisk has been able to recruit from the ranks of the taliban and the ranks of turkey taliban, pakistan and other groups. So when you have an environment within which 21 groups can exist that feed on a population of people who are economically disadvantaged, that have radical forms of religion being preached to indemnify in the schools and who dont them in the schools and who dont have a hope for a Better Future economically, then i would liken it to a petri dish of a medium for which you drop these strands of terrorism, 21 different strands of d. N. A. Into that petri dish and, yes, bad things are going to come out of that petri dish. Unless you put pressure on it, unless you take out some of those strands, unless you change the medium to something thats less conducive to the growth of these terrorist organizations. And this is a longterm undertaking. So i do think, again, the majority of the violence in afghanistan is caused by the talibanAfghan Government fight thats going on right now. If this is taken off the table, if this is reduced, then i think it exposes more, it allows a greater concentration on these other threats. And, yes, there will be some taliban members who will move to isis banners. But i think this will be more than offset by the ability of those Security Forces in place and potentially, if some solution can be figured out, taliban fighters joining this fight in some way, to put pressure on these terrorist groups. I think that will offset the and this is why a ceasefire is so important in reduction in vie and reduction in violence is so important. The other piece id say is that the Afghan People, if theres a reduction in violence and the Afghan People, the social pressure, the religious pressure that will be exerted on those potential recruits will be greater and i think will help in some ways to deter or lessen the ability of isis and these more extreme groups to recruit from amongst the people of afghanistan. Philip were running out of time but i cant resist asking this next question because its near and dear to my own heart and work. Youve negotiated in this space. But the question is essentially about spoiling. When youre dealing with an entity like the taliban which does not have perfect command and control, how do you manage a situation with regard to expectations, both on the afghan side, on the u. S. Side, where attacks are inevitable . Its the scale that maybe you can control, but not even always. So how should we be thinking about that almost eventuality . Mr. Nicholson the story id use would be the ceasefire in 2018. We were moving into some uncharted territory when president ghani offered, declared a ceasefire and offered the taliban an opportunity to join him. It. And no one knew whether the taliban would participate or not. But in order to demonstrate sincerity, president ghani said, we needed to move forward with the ceasefire. The ceasefire was in response to a call by theual ma of afghanistan by the ulamah of afghanistan for ceasefire and to begin a negotiation. So president ghani received this call, he responded to it and said, yes, we will honor your request, we will declare a ceasefire, and we invite the taliban to join. Then there was a period of days where the taliban held their own internal deliberations and then after about three days, i believe, declared they would also they wouldnt join the Afghan Government ceasefire, but they would have their own ceasefire. For three days. Concurrently with the end of eid. So we entered into this period not knowing how this would play out. From a military perspective, and you can imagine we have close consultation with president ghani, with the minister of defense and interior on how we would manage this, we had to be poised to respond to acts of violence in case it was not honored. So in a way, were at a higher level of readiness during the ceasefire to be able to respond to incidents, even if they were isolated in nature, so that the Afghan Security forces had the confidence to know that if they were engaged during a ceasefire, even though they had ceased offensive action, if they were attacked we were going to back them up. So this was the formula we used going into the ceasefire. And of course we were overjoyed to see that the ceasefire was largely honored and we had those scenes across the whole country of taliban and Afghan Soldiers coming together and in many cases asking each other, why are we continuing to fight one another . So that in turn unleashed social pressure that then helpedous build toward the current helped to us build toward the current peace initiative. So no one looks no one from a military perspective puts on rosecolored glasses and thinks its going to be perfect. If anything, were even more on the balls of our feet ready for a fight, when you go into a ceasefire, than you are on any given day. Fortunately in the case of the ceasefire in 2018, we didnt have to do that. But i think this is instructive for the way forward and, again, this event in 2018 really gives me the hope to believe that the Afghan People can do this. The Afghan People want this. And that actually many of the foot soldiers on both sides want this. If we can get the international construct right, the regional construct right and the leadership onboard to see this in their interest, then we can deliver an enduring solution. Philip good positive note to end on. General nicholson, thank you so much for your time and insights. We appreciate it. Thank you to measure i had yon center for hofede meidian center for hosting this event. Greatly appreciate your time, round of applause, please, for general nicholson. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] this evening nbc news is reporting that the Trump Administration has rejected the house judiciary committees invitation to take part in the impeachment proceedings against the president. In a letter to chairman jerrold nadler, white House Counsel said in part, adopting articles of impeachment would be a reckless abuse of power and would constitute the most unjust, highly partisan and