Be part of the National Conversation through washington journal. Cash washington journal. Announcer cspan, brought to you today by your television provider. Next, former National Security advisors Tom Donnellan and steve hadley speak at the aspen security forum. They outlined the main threats to National Security and discuss coronavirus. And, u. S. Policy towards china and russia. This event was held virtually and is about 45 minutes. I will start with a quick introduction. There is tom, hello. Thank you. There is steve. How are you . Introduction, he is currently chairman of Blackrock Investment institute and senior counsel at he served as National Security advisor to barack obama and headed the obamabiden transition. He is a veteran of many democratic campaigns. He of course serves on multiple served as the National Security advisor for george w. Bush from 20052009. Deputy from 20012005. He is now partner at a Great Consulting firm called the chairman of usa ip and involved in just as many bipartisan causes as one can be in washington, d. C. Thank you for all the bipartisan work. To interview both of them, we chiefim shooter, cnns National Security correspondent. We have all seen him on tv. The middle east and the arctic. She has a book next week with his virtual book tour called the madman. It looks fascinating, though not a relaxing beach read. Pick it off. Steve and tom, we have had conversations about the panoply of issues facing our nation. Inmatter who is elected november, by january 2021 when the next president is inaugurated, we will still have the pandemic crisis, economic crisis, as well as all of the issues facing our country. In the forum so far, we have had conversation about china and asia. A lot of conversation about iran. We have talked less about russia, we have talked less what alliances, less about is going on in the developing world. Jim. L open it to if you wanted to touch on those, i am sure your audience would love to hear them. Thank you. Expert thanks. Thanks to stephen and tom. It is an honor to be grouped with you. As nationaltogether security advisors, but years beyond that. And,ng with these issues in my interactions, as im sure many will say, both steve and tom proved themselves to be not only smart and knowledgeable but fair. I certainly always appreciated that. Enjoy hearing your insight on so many things. Stand by] what would you lay out them thate biggest threat famously barack obama communicated to donald trump in 2017, north korea. The most immediate threat. Picture yourselves in that position the day after the inauguration 2021, what would you say to the reelected president or the new president is the biggest or to the country and what would you recommend . How would you layout the world to them in that conversation . Tom, if i could start with you because you happen to be next to me in the window. Thank you. Nice to be with you. You have got to get the book a little more centered in the picture so people can see it. There we go. [laughter] i have a couple of responses to that question. Today, aitting here hope removed through the challenge we have i hope we move through the challenge we have in front of us which is christian to our democracy, to have a competent and vibrant election with an agreedupon outcome and strong support for the next president , whoever that is. That is our challenge. Our leadership in the world really in many ways is dependent on both our being and being seen as a vibrant and confident democracy. Part of thes been a United States placing the world its authority in the world from world war ii until today. Throughy we will get that moment. January 20, steve and i have had these sessions many times with president s. I will have to treat things briefly. One, either it is a National Security briefing, the focus has to be on domestic renewal. Meeting it what is still going to be a believed finance economics, employment, health and social justice. This will be with us for sure. That i think requires an investment agenda for their country. But steve and i have written about this. A sharplyresting that targeted smart investment agenda can address a number of the challenges we have including the economic challenges. China, we will come back to that i am sure. [no audio] investment in climate infrastructure and technology. Second, what i will believe will be the most important challenge. See,r as the eye can develop a coherent comprehensive approach with respect to china. I know we welcome back to that, but i fear we are too reactive right now and not a not using all of the national power. ByNational Security abides the next president , developing all the comprehensive power approach to the china challenge will be critical. I want to mention a couple of others that have not got a lot of attention, but it would be in my mind. Cyber. We dont talk about it a lot. If you look at the director of National Intelligence threat assessments for the last five or six years, it is at the top of the list. I think it is even greater today. I say that for a number of reasons, exemplified by the way which we are having this meeting today. We have a lot of our nations and the worlds gdp online and virtually with all kinds of vulnerabilities. We have increased tensions with states that have a highcaliber cyber capability like iran, china, russia. Of ave an entire new area tax base growing. I think we have not structure the way we should be in the white house. I would be looking at nonproliferation as well. It was touched on during the course of the or, addressed during the session today i think we were on a path right now which could end up with more Nuclear Weapons period. To ncludes moving treaty. We have seen a reuters report on korea, and north korea making progress on its program during negotiations of the administration. Iran is closer to a Nuclear Weapon than it was two or three years ago. Focused onink we are climate would be an important focus, or think should be. The United States has been out paste the game for the three and a half years. That is not for the world is. Live in the economic world, europeans and more so asia, climber is front of the agenda. Increasingly, ceos around the world see investment risk and we should see the risk here. Say, onetwo things i of the great firestorms coming out of covids in the emerging world. Withviously have to dear our issues here, but Going Forward these fears in the middle of a perfect storm on covid. I think we are going to have a death crisis for a lot of cash for long time. We are going to have a death crisis for a long time. I look at reinvigorating congress. That would be the briefing i would give if ever there january 20. At whatever time in the morning the president comes in. I have allegiance to george w. Bush, he came in early in the morning. [laughter] stephen, your briefing . Agree with everything tom set, but i think before i got to those i would have a conversation. Mr. President , what is going on in the world right now. Why so much chaos . Stepping through with what we all know, the International Order and system we have had for the last 70 years is under attack. It is under attack for the things we all know, the emergent stick, the reemergence of an ideological struggle between authoritarian state capitalists at the heart of russia and china versus democrats. New Technology Challenges that are increasingly revolutionizing our world beyond our ability to cope and adapt. Pandemicsllenges like and climate that we do not seem to be in a position to manage. All of these things are going on. Fundamentally, we have a problem here at home. We have a democracy that does not seem to be delivering what democracies deliver. Of life the best way that is consistent with the highest aspirations of the human spirit, but democracy used to deliver economic growth. Administrated competence. We do not seem to be doing that so well right now. There is a certain cry and there is a crisis of confidence among our people, institutions. Our brand does not look so good. In addition, the American People have gotten tired of american leadership. If you put all those things together, we are at one of these inflection points where the system we live with is really breaking down. You have choices. In some sense, the choice we have before us is, is this going to be 1919 or 1945 . Are we going to pull back from the world, focus internally, look to our own problems and let the world deal with its own . Or, is it going to be 1945 where we are going to help with our friends and allies, found a revised and adapted International Order . I would hope we make the second choice. If we are going to do that, we need to fix our institutions at home. We need to reconnect with allies. We need to start deleting and engaging in the world. We need to start revising and adapting International Institutions and we need to start, in some sense, refreshing our brand in the world and our values. Mr. President , you have a huge task before you. You have got to address all of the things tom talked about, but we have to somehow explain to the American People what is this moment and what the most fundamental choices. Then you have to make a case of the American People that fixing at home, engaging a and leading the world is still in americas interests. Thinks about the view. Thoughtprovoking. As you are speaking, i recalled a conversation at aspen i believe three years ago with jim klapper, he raised a concern fidelityhen about the about the fragility of u. S. Institutions. I asked him to apply your intelligence brain you often apply to other countries to look at the u. S. And what concerns you. That was his concern. Think it has borne out in the last several years. To that point, aspen is a continuing conversation so i felt that there. There is a lot to cover and we will get to participant questions. On the question of russians, tommy and stephen, there is a discussion now often led by the president , another reset, finding a way forward. I have had conversations with fiona hill about it. The root of a lot of President Trump path outreaches through his convictions that he can somehow get this relationship right. Hearst, and then stephen. , theere the groundwork now potential for somehow improving that relationship . Up againstat match russias increasing aggression . 10 seconds on your point on jim klapper, if you do an oldfashioned net assessment of the United Statess position in the world, you would bet on the United States for sure. There are challenges and we cant take them for granted. We have system issues. We have investment tissues. Any quality issues. We have big policy choices on things like immigration to ensure our demographic Going Forward. Those are all choices. Butere from a strong base, it cannot be taken for granted. Russia,kamai on number one is that russia is actively hostile to the United States across the board. We have had this latest ,eporting on the bounty issue but it is well beyond that. Acrosstheboard we can talk about the individual instances. That is not the first instance in afghanistan. Talk about this publicly, with respect to supplying arms to the taliban. Hospital ively they are actively hostile. Public at least two presentations from our intelligence communities seem to be in animists, that we can expect additional tax interference and try to upset the election in 2020. Should the United States address pressure from a better position of strength. [indiscernible] i heard a press report, the bolton conversation of this form today speculating about whether or not a second term of President Trump would have him pull back further from nato. This is dividing the united has been europe for a long time. Pushing back and not addressing that i think is quite important. This will depend might think Going Forward, on russian conduct. I think we should move forward to build we need strength, but russian conduct will matter a lot in the course of the selection. I think we do, and the cooperation category, we have an opportunity to get back to the table and renew the new agreement which provides for it were in all period of five years. Not the life of me, i do know why we would not do that. We have discussion going about whether or not we should have chinese global that is not on the table. Is to not the table have a scheduled place in the first time in half a century. I think those would be the elements of the of an approach i would prefer. Disagree with much of that. I thicken need to be put into a framework. If youre talking to a president , the other question is what can we expect of a relationship with russia . What should be be shooting for . I think they are hostile. There are a spoiler across the board. What is the kind of relationship we can hope for with a country that really has become an adversary . I think the american approach to that has been a longstanding administration effort. It is not complicated. Cooperatecally to with potential adversaries where we can. We cooperated with arms control and the worst days of the cold war with the soviet union, we should have a strategic stability conversation with pressure to develop all of these issues. Cooperate where we can. Oppose them and stand up for our principles. Where it is in our interest to do so. Manage those differences so that they do not result into permanent confrontational permanent confrontational or. Ilitary can we get russia back on that page . They have got to not interfere with the selection. If they interfere with the selection if they interfere with this election that as they did 2016, we are going to be in deep freeze again. Begin to solve ukraine. I think there is a possibility there. There is a ceasefire in place, shaky though it is. Begin things like strategic stability dialogue. At the same time, we have to deter russia from their intervention and interference with their neighbors. That means a strong relationship with nato. That means being more aggressive ourselves in checking aggression behavior. It is not that hard. Putin has been brilliant taking Tactical Advantage of situations and enhancing russian interests with modest investment. We can capture that. We can counter that. It is trying to engage russia in a sense, but deterring and taking away the free ride russia has had in some areas for their interference. This is something we can do. Interesting listening to the overlap between both of your analyses. What is notable of course is that we have a president who disagrees on many of those fundamental points. The importance and sanctity of alliances that extends to nato. We are still in it. Just ais concerned, but general question for the president about britains article three defending nato partners. But, not just nato. We had a weakening of the south korean alliance, there is a dispute there over money. Will the u. S. Withdraw troops . As a means of applying pressure . You again, raising questions about the nuclear for japan. You have a Current Administration that questions it. Alliances,ility of but also the importance. I am wondering if i could ask both of you, what is the lasting damage to those alliances from those questions being raised . Lost ande is easily difficult to regain. Stephen, i will start with you. Is there longterm damage . Mr. Hadley i think it can be turned around, no matter who is president. Tom and i will probably disagree on this. About aam less worried reelected President Trump pulling out of these alliances. I think there are a lot of people who, in his administration, who understand that particularly in a competition with china, the big advantage we have is our treaty allies, but also friends and folks with whom we have security and other relationships. This is a huge and important u. S. Resource. If you are worried about competition with china, the last thing you want to do is throw it away. What the president has tried to do is get the allies to do more. That has been an objective of democratic and administrative and republican administrations for years. The president is more threatening about it. We can discuss about whether that was the right tactic or not. In some respects, he has gotten some results out of nato, in terms of them increasing defense expenditures. Look, this is a president who was elected to be a disruptor. In so many ways he has been. I would hope both a Biden Administration and a trump two administration, the president would be become a bit of a builder. Relationships, then use our allies to address these challenges. It is the only way we are going to address them successfully. I think people around the president understand that and i bidenoth Vice President and President Trump understand that in their bones. Mr. Sciutto do you agree . Mr. Donilon now with everything. I agree on the fundamental analysis. One point is that at the end of typically getents the people and policies they want. We have seen that during the course of the Trump Administration as we move from, well, he wont pursue a lot of the things he said he will pursue because he will have advisors who may mitigate that differentback perspectives. That hasnt been the case. Ultimately i think a president will drive toward what his goals are. The president has a different view of alliances. I think that is a fair assessment. If you were in the room with us, i think you would say that. In fact, it is a more transactional approach. It doesnt have the same sense of history and the same sense of importance to the united dates, in terms of the Global Benefits to the United States we get from alliances, including in any competition with china. Not just security, but with trade and economics as well. The administration has chosen a different way. It has chosen a bilateral approach and a more unilateral approach on security issues. This transactional approach is very different. By the way, it doesnt put aside the issue of contributions by allies. Any 14president obama in who put in place the goal of having a 2 contribution for defense. The other thing i worry about is Popular Support for the alliance in allied countries. That has dropped. And that is not healthy for the United States. Is whoeverre gets elected president , there is an opportunity to reinvigorate our alliances, but there has been a different tactic in the last three and a half years. Again, it is very straightforward, different. An approach which i dont think works to our longterm advantage. Dont you think it is more transactional approach to things . Ofim dealing with the head an allied country or ally or adversary it is the same thing. Mr. Hadley i interviewed only folks who served in the Trump Administration and when i ask everyone to boil the president s Foreign Policy approach down, transactional with the most common description. Some see that is folly and others see it as wisdom. Are two minutes away from going to the audience. Youra know, you will use raise hand function to do that. Im going to briefly ask each of you is a picture question. Im being a little unfair. On drawing down u. S. Troops from just afghanistan but syria, ending the endless wars or finding a way to extract ourselves from them. Can each of you make an argument that it is time to come out of afghanistan . Tom, perhaps you first. Mr. Donilon a couple of points on that. , if you will,for a rebalancing of our Defense Forces globally. Gone a different direction during the course of the Trump Administration. For nosident had argued more endless wars. Out of the core message he put forward during the course of the 2016 campaign. I think we have sent check beyond the numbers 40,000 to 50,000 additional troops during the course of the trump presidency. My own view is that that takes attention from the kind of defense and security rebalancing we need to do. Where i think we have not put in assets,e proportionate the new doctrines, weapon systems, coordination systems i think we need. I am for a rebalancing out of the wars in the middle east. , itsecond piece of that is is exceedingly expensive. I think the socalled account of the Defense Budget that is devoted to the war effort, i up 20 billionas a year at this point. That is close to the entire budget of the state department. It is tremendously expensive. I think it makes sense to take a hard look at this and rebalance, draw down to what is essential. Probably having the key policy focus on counterterrorism, frankly, keeping your eye on that threat. I would say you are in these jobs and you have to decide what is important. What is important in the middle east right now, i think, is the Iranian Nuclear program. We can talk about that may be in the chat. If you were going to make a list of what is important there, in addition to getting the troop levels right, and i implore moving those troop levels down. I think that is the correct direction. I think the Iranian Nuclear program is the most important thing in that region. Mr. Sciutto stephen, your few . Mr. Hadley we talk about these ringing an end to an endless war, and those wars are already over for the United States. Because we have already done a lot of three the rebalancing tom talked about. We have Something Like 6000 troops in iraq. We are down to about 8600 in afghanistan. We have only hundreds in syria. In some sense we have already rebalanced. And it is our allies, the strategy we developed by working through other allies, is now what were doing in those areas. I dont minimize the fact that our men and women in uniform are at risk and some of them are being killed and every one of them is one too many. The fact is, from a u. S. Perspective, we have already rebalanced. If you look at those deployments, if you are concerned about iran, not just a nuclear deal, but irans disruptive behavior, if you are going to check iran in the region, iraq is one of the few places you were going to be able to do it, in terms of u. S. Troop presence and a country that a purveyornts to be of iranian influence. You have the first opportunity in 20 years to see if we can get a peaceful settlement of that war. The last thing you want to be doing is dramatically reducing our forces and undermine the ability of an Afghan Government to negotiate with the taliban. In syria i would say we have too few people. The tragedy of syria is people say that iraq shows the of couences of a sin mission. I think syria is the sin of omission. The migration flows that almost destabilized europe. I think they were in some sense under resourced in syria and we dont want that situation to be worse. I think we have already rebalanced. We have it about right. We can afford it and it is proportional to our interests. Ive done a lot of work on the militarys interest in maintaining the smallest foothold in syria. The maximum could do and try to push off the president s desire to pull everyone out. It is tough. They have managed to keep some on the ground. Next to both of you. I learned a lot. So, im going to go to the audience now. And the first person who i see raising his hand is chad. If you are ready for your question, we will be able to hear it. Hey there, chad. Hi. Thank you very much. Very thoughtprovoking presentation. I would like to ask the two gentlemen, based on their experience as National Security advisors, in addition to the briefing items they noted at the outset, what kind of recommendations with a make regarding the size, structure, and organization of the National Security council to best serve the next president . So, tom has more developed views than i. I think it needs to be rethought and restructured. People talk about, we need a holy government approach. Diplomatic, economic, military to bear on a problem. We need a whole of society approach, because the private society, thereil societalle series of groups are going to be required, including individual citizens, as we resist chinas efforts to disrupt our politics. It is going to require a concerted effort. We dont have the institutions to pull together a whole of society approach. We have a big issue about, since china is going to affect everything, how do you organize the National Security council to deal with the issue of china . A china czar . Does that make sense . The impact of technology, which is revolutionized how we do business, and i think we still have not caught up to where the technology is. I think there is a huge amount that needs to be done. We need to rethink how we do business, both in the interagency and also in the individual agencies. A number of people have written about what should be done at the state department, for example. Thatonilon thanks for question. I have a couple of points on it. Im not sure the National Security council is too big. We could go back to the history of this. On a lot of additional coordination responsibilities over the years, including homeland security. Specifically though, i think there needs to be some restructuring and reemphasis around three or four items. Steve references technology. In theot do a good job United States today of integrating technology and National Security policy. Some of it is because of the kind of people. Bringing them together is a really important aspect. I think we will have a ton of issues. Inis absolutely essential our effort to meet the china challenge, to get this right, we have all manner of issues with our Technology Sector in the United States. My recommendation would be, to deputy National Security advisor who coordinate these issues. Someone who can use the andearold muscle memory institutions and processes of the National Security council to do that right. I dont think today we have that kind of broadbased look at Technology Competition with china, for example. Technology, cyber, and health, for sure. You will need to have a National Security council, a much more focused effort on health issues. Refurbishing of International Institutions will be an important focus Going Forward. I am in a minority on this. I dont think the National Security council is too big. Big,e cannot drive these crosscutting issues, except from the center. I know my agency ive been the chief of staff at an agency at the state department, i understand that dynamic. The truth is, the president s policies need to be driven from the center on an interagency basis. As steve said, with another challenge we need to give more thought to, which is how do you get other Stakeholder Input as well . I dont think it is too big. I think it should be reorganized around some of these key challenges we have, particularly technology. We are down to the last minute. I did want to get to one more audience question. Stephen has his hand raised. Maybe, stephen, you keep a quick and given the time, if you have one of our guest in mind to ask a question . Thank you. Can you hear me . Mr. Sciutto yes. For an give very much informative discussion. I have been busy with ukraine, that i was also in afghanistan, remember afghanistan before the last 42 years of war started and was there when war started with the soviet union. With theu are familiar word nowave a president right that price himself as being the great communicator. I came up with a word one time during the cold war, after 1989 when the berlin wall went down telejurga jihad. With the clans inside of afghanistan, why dont we have the president give each of those clans a telephone . Thoughourage, that even we live in a democracy we have one vote for each person here in the beautiful, wonderful United States, that is not necessarily how afghanistan relates to things. I think that if we gave them the Telecommunications Capability as a gift, a satellite, free mobile each of telephones to the plans, we could create a that they could have every week if they wanted to. Im not a big fan of the taliban, but i feel the need to stay with some sort of presence, i think now, especially with President Trump, being gifted is being a good communicator on tv, this could be a good time for that. How do you feel about that . Mr. Sciutto stephen do you want to take that one . The specifics are interesting, but i think the broader point is that Technology Offers enormous opportunities that we did not have before. One of the things we are postcovid this world is how to be more adept at using technology. You have given one example. There are lots of examples. Thomas wright. The next president , whoever it is, needs to have someone at the nsc at senior levels that can work it how to utilize technology both within our government, but also in our diplomacy. Bring science and technology to the center of lessee making. As we did after world war ii. Have antto we Antiscience Movement going on now, but that is another topic. Tom and stephen, thanks to both of you. Im going to throw this back to anya was going to help wrap things up. Thank you so much. For ayou tom and steve master class and a tour around the world. We lost steve, what i want to throw one last question i guess we lost tom too. With that, i will close us out. We had a great discussion, covering everything from the middle east to afghanistan to restructuring the u. S. Government, to form a National Security advisors. Two former National Security advisors. We have an interview coming up with tony lincoln who is now a close advisor to Vice President former Vice President joe biden. We look forward to hearing from tony next. Thank you very much. Today, former education secretary arne duncan testify on the safety of opening schools during the pandemic. Live coverage begins at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. The perjury case against President Trumps former National Security and riser be reheard by the full u. S. Court of appeals for the decent circuit on tuesday. The panel will decide whether a Federal District court judge must dismiss the charges against Michael Flynn as recommended by the justice department. Ate the case live, tuesday 9 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan and at cspan. Org. Or listen live with the free cspan radio app. Cspan has coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and publicpolicy events. Cspansatch all of Public Affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free audio and and be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feeds. Americaseated by Television Companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Remarks now from House Speaker nancy pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer on the coronavirus relief. This is about half an hour. Rep. Pelosi