Us for this discussion are rear admiral mike to the men, former rector of intelligence, most recently the former commander of the office of intelligence and long serving people positions, including being the first Senior Intelligence officer for china as well as serving as the chief and the fleet forces command. Also with us is the former acting deputy under of defense for intelligence. And also my coauthor who wrote the report with me. Thank you for being with me today. Mike, lets start with you. The study we just released talks about the eroding nature of u. S. Dominance, the challenges that china poses as geographic and economic advantages. Where do we stand right now with our ability to deter chinese aggression. We were projecting ourselves and would not have found ourselves sitting in the news chair. I trust brian and we worked together on the navy staff. Brian has been working these issues and computing compounding intellectual thought and giving considerations for not only the navy but forces. The challenges with our competitor china and i agree that we need to be looking at all forms of influence that will prevent combat environment and crisis that will affect the devastation for the globe, not just for china and xi jinpings own position. I think if he wanted to go after taiwan what would ensue is the downfall of the chairman and party secretary. I think he underestimates this. We know that if you take a look at the correlation forces and what would ensue with multiple players, there is no real winner in any of this. Where we need to invest our time and energy is in prevention, the right kind of thoughts and clear understanding. Misunderstanding can lead to downed paths that can lead to spirals that ultimately might tempt somebody to take a military solution to something that i think would be catastrophic. So how the actually prevent . You need to have capabilities to prevail. Longrange fires, in number of things are designed to ensure we have the right capabilities needed for any contingency. At the same time, a lot of our efforts need to go into the shaping elements. I do believe have a number of things that are underway that way, but the challenging environments we face today means that you dont stop your adversary from doing something. You want to shape it so they dont take the most extreme action. What can you live with, tolerate, and what can you not tolerate . When do you need to move . What are the triggers for you to bring more capabilities forward or work with allies and partners to be able to handle any kind of situation . These are tough challenges and everybody is working through it. Chinas behavior has been the most destabilizing element in the west pacific so everybody is concerned and every west of the dateline is highly attuned to ensuring china doesnt miscalculate. In a lot of ways, we are talking about this confrontation that is preceding war. A lot of the defense partners focus in how do we deny it if it starts . That leaves open this whole battlefield, if you will, of confrontation in the meantime that allows china to gain in that competition. You have had a lot of experience in your preundersecretary days and special operations and intelligence world, it seems like a lot of the opportunity is in the persistent confrontation we see that china has been acting on or initiating in a lot of cases. It seems that we should be in there as well in that fray. I think the department has made some positive moves toward institutionalized irregular into the institutionalizing irregular warfare. Right now, the chinese have engaged in quite sophisticated irregular Warfare Campaign against in the pacific for the past 10 to 15 years. During that time, we were obviously forces that would normally conduct warfare operations, obviously focused on the global war on terror. Now that that has largely ended, it is an eternity for us to refocus special operations for kisses on conducting regular warfare irregular warfare in the pacific. Regular warfare in the pacific. Regular warfare allows us to have many off ramps for warfare and allows us to push the adversary toward an offramp, not just create an offramp but push them towards an offramp. I think brian, in your paper, you do a very good job how regular warfare which is much less expensive, we can create the environment that will keep things preconflict. As with the objective is, all of the activity prevented from going to conflict that is really where the Department Needs to do more. It seemed seems to make a lot of sense but that has not and where the effort is. Dan, why is it that they seem to be guiding the entire Defense Budget on stopping china and white doesnt it work anymore as a deterrent option that is what we have done against previous proponents. Dan is rate to be here with unconventional thinkers. We can all agree this is undesirable and the department has a role in preventing this. It is something we can agree on. It is natural that the department go there. Viewing things through this kinetic lens. If we go back to how do we invest in prevention . One theme i am excited about is the role of technology. It supports regular warfare. It supports understanding of whether or not we are near an escalation threshold. These things are difficult to do planning around, funds in the budget because it is right at the intersection of operations and intelligence. There arent program and funding lines. So it is cutting the other way and we struggle to shift gears and we stay in our comfort zone where there is very clear scenario that is undesirable. There is a loss of a lot of equity outside that are advocating for a more traditional approach. It is the they can plant against and make money against. Mike, we should mention things they can do to prevent conflict in the intervening time. A lot of people have been raising alarm bells that china is going to invade taiwan. Are we in fact looking at an imminent in terms of the invasion of taiwan . If not, what can we do to forestall that possibility . We need to step back and say what motivates china to increase motivation and your and the others in our beijing, you are seeing what amounts to walking away from the one china policy. There is more chatter than ever to solidifying taiwans does your independence. People are talking du jour. Independence. They have a massive buildup of the Chinese Military employed across and doing many coercive things in the South China Sea and other places claiming the taiwan straight and claiming vast stretches of territorial places in the sea. It has got everybody concerned. Therefore the natural reaction is to increase your defense capacities you beget more realistic with your training, and then work with partners capabilities, and get more realistic with your training, and then work with your partners. China just sees all these actions that are designed to contain them in a circle there is going to be a new nato in asia and the push harder, because they see the need to break out at the freedom of action and to achieve the rejuvenation and dreams have set out for themselves. So this weird sort of perception element that gets to your point of, how do you shape those . It is very sticky because they are dealing with a totalitarian government. It is to be a oneparty dictatorship but under xi jinping it is now one man dictatorship and it is very clear. Check your Political Science definitions. How information moves, who is going to speak truth to power, those things tend to be harder in those kinds of systems. You dont know who is the ultimate decisionmaker about what to do next, do i increase my forces around taiwan to try to exhaust them to signal to the United States there is a penalty for apparently moving towards it. The military is being used that no other instrument has been effective in shaping matters in the chinese mind. Economics hasnt done it, information, diplomacy hasnt done it. So they are left with the military instrument and they are using that tactfully to say if you dont hear my concern and see they are approaching a red line that i am going to use the military and i am going to have to do it in strengthened ways, including missiles flying over taiwan to demonstrate a political point that they want to arrest what they see is a negative trend toward increasing taiwans independence. Maybe de facto shifting to du jo ur. They are acting to bring that back in. This is the fundamental thinking that requires you to look at yourself and say, what does american policy need to look like in this environment . Sometimes the best rule is not a big military platform moving it in different directions. That needs to be, metairie two things that needs to be complementary to insurance integrated and that doesnt just get focused on your allies and partners but sometimes has to be focused on your opponent, whoever that may be. We need to assure beijing we arent doing something that changes the status of taiwan. That is a starting point before you figure out whats my. Next move. Whats my next move . Does this lead to the possibility that china could lead to a peaceful institution with taiwan . When we have presented that the folks to the dod and the government, there is resistance. The feeling is we cant let them get anymore influence or control over taiwan. That is unacceptable to the United States, which seems like you are setting up the need for confrontation because beijing will see that as the path to their objective. They worked with middle east issues, ukraine, europe, russia invasion. Nobody said lests lift up the issue and solve the problem. The power is the status quo of taiwan is where our ultimate objective lies. No change except providing enough armaments to ensure the p. R. C. Doesnt think they can move quickly. You have a massive military and you need a little help with taiwan. That is what it calls for in the taiwan relations act. That is what we are doing. The status quo is being changed by xi jinping, has said that taiwan has to be recovered to be part of the rejuvenation by 2049. The unilaterally set out to change the status quote and started to build the capability to do that. This is the fundamental issue at hand. It is not about our policy but beijings policy. If this is about china heaven this perception that they are being pushed back by the u. S. And its allies in their behavior, how do you start to shape that in a way that makes them is concerned without backing down . U. S. Backing on and being conciliatory seems like one path traded convince allies for those to be conciliatory. How do we go about trying to assure china without undermining the assurance of our allies . I think the first thing and mike started to point at this, is this goes down to xi jinpings decisionmaking process. You dont just do that through intelligence collection, but through what you talk about in the paper which is probing and doing things to elicit certain responses that would help us understand the decisionmaking process better but also for us to shape the decisionmaking process as well. That needs to be step one. Right now there is talk in the u. S. About deterrence but all of the money we are spending is it deterring but increasing the hostility. One of the things we need to do part of that also has to do with our understanding of what the risk tolerance is. It is also understanding his risk tolerance. Once we have those two things and a better understanding of those, we can start drafting action that actually will create the off ramp and avoid conflict. A big part of this is the u. S. , there has been a lot of talk in circles for the past 20 years on this regime change. That, if xi believes that is we want to go farther than that, we can say goodbye the idea of keeping everything preconflict. That will almost certainly guarantee there will be a deadly war. That kind of gives you a few ideas. Sailing in Aircraft Carrier and putting these armaments right into their face, sure it shows that we can project force but we also need to be more mindful of what that might be doing to xis decisionmaking. You mentioned we are doing a lot of things that are trying to shape the environment during this piece time or competition period and it seems like what beat missing might be the feed left feedback loop how those decisions are affecting decisionmaking and risk tolerances and perceptions inside the chinese government. We try to implement that feedback loop and try to create the control theory model where we can see the impact of our actions and eventually be able to understand what might be happening . Is the reason the Intelligence Community exists, to have a strategic intelligence and insights and have feedback loop where we can monitor and adjust our policy if they are not achieving the right effects. We have hard target countries that are closed societies, paranoid, operational security, and china is tough to truly understand. We have good insights because the money the taxpayers spend on the Intelligence Community that goes to amazing anxiety few new what we were capable of in terms of learning these insights about others intentions, you would be very proud. At the same time, we dont have enough, and we need to have greater understanding so we can map out incision making circles and who influences who and how choices are being made. We have seen evidence of the fact that information doesnt flow as quickly or as cleanly through the chinese system and we can see the reactions that tell us that in fact they probably dont actually know what happens here or there. We are not well enough to know that system is clunky and that there is no way to potentially guarantee that you can get the right sort of information at the right time. This is the scary thing with regard to the chinese view towards cutting off communication with the u. S. Military. Their belief is first u. S. Attitude ought to be you have to respect china, not say bad things about china, and then, maybe if we can trust you, we will have a line open to you. They also believe if we have a hot line that we are prone to more risky behavior because that is the safety net. So dont give the americans a safety net that they created conflict and then they can get out so dont give them the safety net and maybe they will be more conservative with their forces and behavior. All of this, whatever the logic is, leads to very little official communication. As a very dangerous trend in terms of our ability as major powers to truly work out our issues. So, dan, is there a way for us to employ technology to improve the ability to generate the feedback loop . Dan absolutely. Even if there are no phone calls and formal munications, there is signaling that happens every day. We may not be aware of how our actions are perceived. It is important to recognize there is that foundation of communication and second, of course we have the ability and we need to collect more data and operationalize that and push that. More military commanders and others in the government who are able to form or shape their actions by it, working toward some Mission Command around them. This is where i think there is a real potential for technology. One thing that happens all around us is as computers and Information Systems become ubiquitous, there are so many more signals than their used to be. We can take commercial satellites and radar and we can process those images to see whether there was something built here or not. That is from a commercial source as we understand the ability to create new indicators that are appropriate and push them forward across the government to military commanders. It is very exciting to understand and work granule and realtime level how things that we are doing our affecting the baseline or how the baseline is moving. It seems like one of the challenges is how do we orchestrate this on the u. S. Side to take a probe and evaluate the response internet into a recommendation for another probe. To get to mikes point of how do we understand the decisionmaking process, you need actions and reactions. Ezra we need to do it faster and we cant wait 30 days unless that delay is intentional. An unintentional delay is where we seem to be stuck right now. The biggest thing right now is there is no question if there is a conflict there will be a global commander for china. There will be one person who is clearly in charge of the effort. The problem is we dont want to get there and we want to avoid that. We need today is i think we need somebody whos singularly responsible for countering and engaging in this preconflict activity with china for commanding thats on our side. That is one thing. The reason for that is simply to be successful in this preconfig state preconflict stage is it is about what the entire power of the u. S. Government is going to do. Being able to change together a u. S. Military action with a doj action or an action from the treasury department, being able to do those things in concert is extremely important to be successful in the regular warfare stage. That cannot be done under the current construct in the government. The other thing is there is the fundamental authority problem, which is that all of our legal analysis and how we conduct Analysis Centers around this idea of what is the likelihood of escalation . If our understanding of excavation is completely off escalation is completely off, and we will always get the answer that new thing is not permitted. We find ourselves with this loop that is stalling us out because of that. I think that one step toward breaking out could be a singular person in charge and we are missing that today. I do think all roads lead to the National Security staff and president and how they want to conduct their relationship with china and what they want to have veto rights on and what they want to have Mission Command be and do. You find the sensitivities are so high today that i think there is deep concern about not holding very closely everything significant with regard to china. And to focus on, as part of our major strategy, to work with our allies and partners and work with the good guys and build up capacity and relationships and be able to create an environment which demonstrates the fact that there are a number of partners that would be willing to allow violence or intimidation to rule the day anywhere, for the particularly sensitive area in asia. The problem is that there is so much that our society is unaware of with regard to china, and there are many allies and partners that are unaware of many of the chinese activities. If you have overly tight controls in the information domain, the insights you learn may feed into, i want to adjust my ability to go test over here. Those are operational elements. The strategic game is to use your information power, highlight what your adversary is doing which violates International Norms or would exact damage on him them such that experts would say the cost of doing this again are higher and higher than thinking about some other means or method. Today, if you look at the permission, we are under utilizing this instrument of National Power, because of tight controls and inability to delegate and trust there are a number of agencies and departments that in fact would stay within the boundary lines of the guidance lines issued from seniors, and to be able to then do the job of rabbit exposure of malign rapid exposure of malign activities which all of our friends care about. Our sensing systems are not perfect which means we have to be able to get more eyes and ears forward then we do. We tested into many big platforms that are slow lumbering and cannot get to the right places. We need more persistence which requires more numerous ways of testing that we can do so with our partners in a sharing regime which allows us to know exactly what the next move has been and if necessary taking the video clip or photo showing the chinese water hosing a philippine ship or dumping trash into the jet engines from australia. Those are the information environment should be exposing so beijing has to own them. Ultimately you want to condition that country to be a true responsible and stable. You want people to understand what their intent and activities truly are, not just what they are saying from their podium. The idea of using this sort of exposure, is that going to be sufficient to cause china to back down on its more aggressive actions and the potential for being attacking those neighbors . I think using those interments are better than instruments are better than not them and creating the case as evidence of what chinas hey your looks like behavior looks like. With a stop probably not in some areas. But the rest of the world is watching. Other nations that dont have the benefit of knowing what is going on, our responsibility is to share the insight you have with a number of people. Your own decisionmakers are the most omniscient. You need to use it for effect and that requires a sense that you have to use it quickly be for it becomes perishable. This becomes a tool or probe in its own right, a way of revealing or watching how the chinese respond and what are the things that cause them to react and pull back. It highlights the true character of the chinese, the true nature of the activities. People want to understand the nature of the danger. If they understand the nature of the danger, they can plan, if you are indonesia, south korea, you can figure out what your strategy needs to be along with policies to be able to deal with what is a genuine depiction of the nature of chinas rise. I will just say, its not just about can we share the intelligence or information have with the leaders of our allies and partners but we need to form a populace in the region. It is extremely important. If it if xi decides to push it towards war knowing the population in the region will not be very kind to him, that is something important. I will say that i think this idea of the rapid ability to get rapid information out to the population is something the dod and state of harmony to work closely together on and the Intelligence Community. That is a place where i Hope Technology will help us get over this coordination inertia that we are stuck in right now. Do we have ways of being able to get information to allies and partners, appellations more quickly . Are there other mechanisms that might be at play here that can be used in an era when there is an increasing number of i generation content . This is one of the most exciting areas where there is so much potential in technology. What weight have experienced in 20 what we have experienced in the last 20 years in the algorithms, it is great for the taking and great for the dod. Absolutely, rings of networks to be able to share with the most trusted allies and with other partners and allies together, i think those are very powerful tools, low cost. From there, you are able to start taking input from those partners and allies as well to build more complete picture and to deploy analytics against that. Soap in the report we talk about the idea so in the report we talk about probing to create uncertainty for china and a particular military action. You are saying instead of creating uncertainty that we need to create certainty and ensure them that we are not only going to publicize their actions on a world stage and make it available to allies and partners but that we will do that Going Forward and providing a watchful eye on their behavior. Have this phrase about providing strategic predictability and operational unpredictability. It is a guide for us. The chinese have strategic unpredictability and operational predictability. You see the dilemma. So where do we stand in the status quo of taiwan . Where do we make sure there is no confusion, because debates among the elites with regards to taiwan provides using signals, including debates that exist in congress. Then you get the suggestion we are going to treat taiwan as a de facto nation and there is a political element there. We need to do appetite suppression on the political and strategic activities to carry the highest symbolism that forced china to think whether or not we are actually living up to our word. They dont actually believe we are in a status quo environment. The paranoia people that exist in the ccp are inclined to not believe your first explanation that there has to be some other and they will discard the first as being true. We need to work on ourselves. Look in the mirror and find out whether we need to strengthen conversations with congress to understand that just being over there is wise or lead to something beneficial or simply creating more unnecessary friction and doesnt actually help. Are you accelerating our crisis or are you decelerating the crisis . I do think whether you are in the executive or legislative branch are part of the military or other agencies, we need to look hard at whether or not we are doing what we need to do to send the clear, honest signal and live up to that. Other things are going to be moot. You can try to shape and expose behaviors but fundamentally on this particular court issue, if china believes they have to act because otherwise time isnt on their side, then you are going to head right down that final into some funnel into something we talked about earlier. In terms of operational unpredictability or uncertainty, what are the tools we have in terms of military operations or are there things we can do in the economic and diplomatic world that create that tactical level of certainty without affecting the strategic relationship . Ezra what youre getting at is this idea that we obviously want them to understand where we are going to go. But we also have a lot of tools in the cyber realm, all throughout our state craft and economic tools we have at our disposal, at least creating enough. I think there is room for uncertainty. If xi feels that he is not getting reliable permission or the people around him dont really know whats going on, i think that will affect his ability to make a decision and at least make the decision to go into taiwan. There are a lot of places we can increase our efforts. It is coming down to having a coordinated Government Strategy and really the Campaign Idea not the dod but governmentwide campaign. We need somebody to bring that altogether. Having to pair a cyber action than economic action, right now these things are loosely coordinated but not really happening in concert. Brian mike, if we try to create uncertainty in the middle circle that xi relies on for information and advice, is that a problem or is that where we should focus our efforts or should we try to keep stability and certainty at the highest level in terms of art strategic level actions and focus our uncertainty efforts at the tactical and operational level . Mike it depends what you want them to be certain or uncertain about. I want them to be certain that if they try to do something violently and against their promises, we go back to the 1970s in regard to taiwan, that there will be a certain level of devastation and that their results will not just be uncertain but will likely onboard a major defeat like what they have seen in crane. Taiwan in ukraine. Taiwan watch the freedoms crushed in hong kong and now they are awake i would say and they are on path to maintain their own system of democracy right now. I think there is enough evidence that the reaction would be devastating militarily. We learned from ukraine, dont underestimate those who unite no matter what the history is, unite to rise up and demonstrate a signal of their displeasure. I think you find that in europe. If you are in xi jinpings position and you think i get my military ready by 2027 and when the geopolitical conditions look good, and then can move. The issue would be a high level of uncertainty, not only that militarily they can successfully do a quick operation but secondarily that every other Major Chinese objective is going to be jeopardized by this one particular operation, including xi jinpings desire that those who would evaporate like that and that is the certainty they want them to have. It actually is the most probable and most deadly outcome, so i dont want things to be uncertain. And that was your point that there are tools on the economic and diplomatic side that can help promote the certainty that the International Response would undermine xis objective to achieve his goals. The idea, and i think there is ample evidence out there but perhaps the chinese art receiving it arent receiving it that this wont cement xis legacy. The key thing is, his decision will be raised on the trust he has in his forces, and i think that is really an area of focus. Brian im going to ask audience questions in a minute. Dan, operationally, we could create more uncertainty for china with regard to how we are going to operate and beat successful Foreign Invasion in terms they would find successful. What are those in are we doing them today . Dan maybe i will briefly zoom out and say i dont we are doing enough of that and that is partially because we have a narrow view of deterrence by denial. There is this binary trigger that there is an invasion of taiwan and it triggers a military response. That comes across and mix the u. S. Plan around that. And makes the u. S. Plan around that. We take all of the resources. Some stay below the threshold what others are more ambiguous and maybe provoke other things. Not only does it drive the plan but also how we operate in predictable ways. If you think there are other scenarios possible, unit have forces ready to act on and they need to train and develop alternative ways of operation. You think operating forces in ways we generate continue surprise and operations of the admiral spoke to. A lot of things we do in the pacific have been obvious to many. There of anything we there are many things we are doing. I agree we can scale it up but the concepts are well entrenched within the thinking and planning for the components all the way up. That is underweight. You would be proud of some of the ideas that have been converted into the thinking there and with a sense that the other guys will be able to use machines to aid making sure you give data to those machines now so they are on the back heal. That is a notion that has translated into operational we have a keen sense of how to play that. We are in the spot to implement some of the ideas talked about. Brian i am going to see if there are questions from the audience. State your name and affiliation and i will go from right to left. She is bringing the microphone to you. Given the obsession with cognitive warfare for decades and the strategy built around that, how do you think they will respond to Something Like this . Do you want to talk about cognitive warfare . This is embedded in the chinese approach and i do believe they are throwing their instruments to be able to engage. We are debating this kind of thing and in talking about china and taiwan, we havent talked about anything else china is doing or any of the global challenges that face us. The penetration of our society how you cant talk about china or to a movie or tv series about china because they have penetrated. East is influencing the west and not the other way around, in serious ways. Here we are talking about one threaded issue. That is effective cognitive warfare. When your tools are penetrating a society so deep that we cant have a lot of open discourse about china and we cant have the Entertainment Industry basketball teams actually express their First Amendment rights to talk about different things. That suggests to you that chinese cognitive warfare has been darn successful in our country. That is a good point. In the work we have been doing in cognitive warfare, people tend to think of this as brain control and mind control of individuals but is applied to societies or populations. Brian next question. I am stanley kober. Whenever i hear a discussion like this i think back to vietnam. We had the treaty and the resolution and the North Vietnamese were not deterred. We bound North Vietnam here they were not deterred. Why do you think deterrence will work better with china now than it did with North Vietnam . Good point. I think what we have been talking about today is the things that are currently hatched out is the idea of overwhelming force is not working. Really what we need to shift more to is shaping xis thinking such that he does not take actions that will lead to war, not that we are just going to go with overwhelming force and scare him off with that. I think there is a difference and that is what i think dan and brian have been looking at is that technologically, how can we do that and make better acquisitions that dont create deterrence or change the thinking of the adversary. That is the difference. I think that is really well said. The reality of the matter is that if it was really just the threat of overwhelming u. S. Force, the rest of u. S. Dominance is irrelevant. China has the worlds biggest navy and are able to field targets faster and cheaper than we are shots on targets. It has to be something different. There is tremendous opportunity for the u. S. To achieve its efforts if we focus to uncertainty and shaping the history. I would say there are all forms of deterrence. The economic instrument is probably the most powerful. The question of how to essentially use that comes up. I think the chinese are very wise to that in moving their economy from what we have done in ukraine such as a way to allow them to reduce blunt maybe the best form of influence there. We have to be very clear that when our instruments become duller overtime, what does that mean for shaping and influencing someone elses sovereign choices and we need to be realistic about that. We cant get back to just sanctions and the problem will be solved. I do think we have to have a very clear understanding of the limits of our power. I think we need to have the distance and incentive. The strategic view is you dont want china to be beleaguered and act out in ways that are highly destructive. You want to bring china into see that it can actually use the norms and laws to benefit its own country. Its rise is greatly attributed to the International System it desires to change in certain ways. But how do you get them to have the if any that their standard of living and stakes for the ccp, leadership and the country are better when embedded as a responsible country in the International War than some kind of robe rogue country . That requires talking about different issues and having discussions that lead us i think to a better place. As it is right now, we are in this spiral of declining relations and friction that seems to be growing every week. Weve got to find a way to force correct both countries and others to get ourselves into a better place. If you only look at this as the problem between the relationship of the u. S. And china as a deterrence problem, you will fail every time to get the strategic outcome we are looking for. So we need to leave open the potential for china to be able to grow economically and influence and National Power as long as it does so as a responsible player. It seems like a lot of the rhetoric on the u. S. Side from elected officials, they say basically we have to prevent china from being able to get more influence around the world. It seems like that is a recipe for making china feel like they have to act out. I think we need to responsibly put efforts there at the same time keep an eye on the fact that the way they are thinking on beijing has a different objective and method for achieving those. Many of those are machiavelli an. I do think this is one of most complex problems we face in the 21st century. Cant boil it down to just the simple thing. That gets to the idea of how strategy will be in inadequate approach. As an insurance strategy that has to involve china assurance. Eight prevent defense is a terrible play to just keep doing from the beginning of the game. One section brian talked about, in a way you can think about this competition as it is about the strengths of bonds with allies and other nations in the pacific and across the world and whether they are cultural or military, the offense the u. S. Should be playing should be about strengthening those, building eight tighter network of allies around a sense of value. It is a model for not needing china to disappear or needing china to collapse. That is a competition. One last thing and i wont say that there is a lot of talk about this now. What we are talking about, there is talk from the pentagon and then they go back to their office and sign another hundred Million Dollar contract to support the denial strategy. I just think we really need to move off of this now, this idea that it is just going to be denial. But we need to see more than just words. There should be money decisions made. Brian we have time for one more question. In times of the hardline with china, do you think it would be giving them countries that may have some contention related to disputes, whether it is ones that are maritime or island based needs to ensure they can call and clarify intentions and be able to deescalate and not let one particular mistake that may have happened with a pilot or mariner out there lead the country to then go down and exacerbate something that could have been controlled much earlier. How do you nip things in the bud . Mistakes will be made. The potential for one spark to get spreading much sooner is higher if you dont have the ability to shower cold water on it. That is where the hot lines come into play in multiple countries. They should have if they dont but many have lines to the chinese. Brian i think that is a good place to end it. Thanks for being here we appreciate your time and your time online as well. Thank you for coming into the Hudson Institute and have a great day. 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