Im pleased to be here to kick off the year long celebration. I want to welcome any firstyear students here this evening its really wonderful that youre taking advantage of the program tonight learning from distinguished scholars who visit our university its really valuable part of our whole experience. So its the Triangle Center in the american grand strategy program. Thank you to all the faculty and staff who made this possible. It is made possible by the Charitable Trust in honor of the late terry sanford. A much blighted figure. He dedicated his life to Ethical Leadership and public life. Danford served as the governor of north carolina. Focusing his tenure on strengthening education. They double state expenditures he supported the segregation when other governors were blocking the africanamerican students. Building on the commitment to Public Service when he was president he established a institute for policy sciences to serve on the program to trade future leaders. Now the institute. The primary appointment of those. The two masters program. In keeping with the spirit of terry sanford. Is to bring men and women of the highest personal and professional stature to present to the Duke Community. This year ms. Monaco left the government after 20 years in Public Service and soon thereafter became council to counsel to attorney general. After serving as federal prosecutor for six years. They hired them to be a special counsel. In 202009. They returned to a senior position and in 2011 was appointed by president obama and confirmed by the u. S. Senate to be assistant attorney general for National Security. It was the president chief advisor. With the Natural Disaster response. With the harvard belford center. Terry sanford was an fbi agent for two years. He obtained a law degree from ufc. A moderator for tonights event is the on. Many years with lisa in washington with their own career in Public Service. And the director of her Triangle Center on terrorism and home land security. Before we begin it would be great if everyone would silence their cell phones and please join me in welcoming lisa to sanford for this very interesting topic. [applause]. There is not an inch of space left in this building. Do you have a super following. Let me echo and watch welcome to duke. Its great to be here. Lets dive right in. I wanted to start with an issue that is really in the headlines and on everybodys minds this past two weeks which is the historic storms in that had caused such devastation. In the caribbean and texas in florida and our hearts in the Duke Community of course to go out to all of those people who are still suffering trying to cover from the storms. I know that you even when you entered the white house in 2013 that was six and a half years after katrina. A big part of your responsibilities are still hurricane recovery issues. I wanted to ask you. What are the big issues heading down the pipe that the Trump Administration is going to be very serious issues about. Cleanup, recovery. And what should they be doing to kinda prepare for the very difficult Public Policy issues that are coming that way. When i was preparing to come down here i also saw that duke and many of those were pouring out the heart. I got to sit down with some students into fellas i have already been wowed by the folks here. Its a pleasure to be here. The immediate issues are going to be in restoring power. Particularly in south florida and getting and getting the access to roads. The generators, water. They are going to have to operate and in its already doing it. And the administrator. They are trying to manage both of these. And bring the federal government assistance. Its power continued rescue operations getting sick materials in there. Having been in a roll of the has me juggling a number of different crises and not only responding to the crisis but focusing on the longterm implementation maintaining focus this is a challenge for any white house after the cameras go away after the breaking news banners go away. Its a big issue. With sean donovan. With everybody with the health and human services. How were they good to provide housing and rebuild at a resilient level so focusing on the housing issues hundreds of thousands of people being displaced in florida alone. Environmental issues. Health issues. Toxins in the floodwater. There is a whole range of issues that the federal governments can have to continue to focus on. Maintaining in the white house leadership and focus is a real challenge. As a crisis from foreign and domestic will continue to come and officials in the white house. That means setting up a structure that can be led from the white house with very clear goals and objective to continue to implement. It will be months and years for this recovery effort. Lets turn to the second huge issue in the headlines. Just this week the Security Council imposed another round of sanctions on north korea. I went to get to the highlevel principle here. Our position is for a long time. That kim jung un and the north korean government should give up those. I wanted to ask you just right from the getgo. Is that a realistic position. Is there any possibility that essentially it believes these Nuclear Weapons were preventing him from being in the same boat as Saddam Hussein both of whom didnt get a Nuclear Weapons program. Or give up their program. And certainly does not want to follow in their path. He sees as a guarantee against that. What conceivable set of policies could actually ever persuade him to get those up. Or has that train left of the station. I think we have to step back when we think about what would be our objective here. And lets think about who is this guy. I and others had used words like he is unhinged and trying to send a message that he is not a rational actor the fact of the matter is he is extremely paranoid hes rational. Tickets would you just decide. He is focused as his ancestry has been on north korea. And he does view his Nuclear Capability as his ace in the hole. With other experts on this which is to say that the nuclear station is really not realistic. It does not seem at least had a we decide that thats realistic. We should be focused i think on deterrence. I would also say that the key ingredient of interns is a credible threat to military action. So while i have different and so publicly with some of the rhetoric on this about fire and fear in the likes a clear consistent message the recent delivery of military options been on the table as unattractive as they are is an important element of deterrence. If we are ultimately can have to rely on deterrence do we have to accept mentally that we can live in a world where somebody such as him had the capability of launching a nuclear weapon. Is that something we can tolerate. I think we have to be acknowledged and we had been seen as the steady march. And it has been a steady march. He has developed a Nuclear Capability and weve seen the most significant test a few weeks ago. There are four elements just to review here for a threat that we are focused on here in the homeland. Nuclear capability. Missile delivery. Weve seen the repeated steady march on the testing of the missile Delivery System. It could be affixed to that militant terry system. And we have seen some one element of our Intelligence Community believes that the capability is there. I would like to see what the full Intelligence Community says about that. But still, very concerning. In the fourth element is reentry. The ability to push that onto the missile Delivery System and have it reenter into the truck. In the Intelligence Community does not believe is there yet. But still, weve seen a steady march in a repeated effort to obtain all of those capabilities. As someone who is focused on the threat of the homeland where to be very clear about where he is on that march. We should be focused on in my opinion deterrence we should have a clear view about where he is on that study marks. We should be increasing our defense capability and we are steadily doing that. Reassuring our partners and allies and working with them so that they are the first among them obviously. We should be working on other means to sabotage and derail in slow and rollback hopefully the gains that he has made. And apply steady and increased pressure including the sanctions. I give credit to them. The ministration should be given credit for the success that they had had at the un in unanimous Security Council resolutions. In some of the weaknesses in some of them have already been pointed out. Nevertheless they had been unanimous resolutions. We can do some on her own as well. The unit lateral sanctions from the night seats. Pressure on china and chinese banks that continue to do business with north korea. Those are the tools that i think that we should be employing all towards diplomatic solution to this. This week is also the 60th anniversary of 911. And we have held this distinguished lecture many times on this anniversary. Is a good time to reflect on the issue which would take a lot of your time im sure in the white house could you reflect to us as well. If you look on the one hand 16 years there has not been any sort of attack even in an order of magnitude the size september 11 here. And that ground you have to say weve been quite successful if you woke up on september 12 or 13th. We go without any of that. There will be a good deal. Nonetheless these groups are incredibly resilient they are active around the globe and it just gets statistics from the state departments report. 11,000 terrorist attacks around the world. Causing over 25,000 deaths and 33,000 casualties. How should we evaluate how the United States and the world is doing against the terrorist threat. Its very important to reflect on it. And no no better time than two days after we used a word resilient in describing the terrorist actors and enemies. Its not a word i would use. Mostly because i associate that with positive training. Individuals who have gone through great tragedy. I would say we had faced a very adaptive enemy and that is important distinction in my mind. It reminds us of where we need to go. To get to the heart of your question. In the success or failure. They are diminishing the threat. Of a complex foreign directed from the military we as a nation did a number of things to make that possible. We broke down cultural barriers and share information. And we changed our legal structures and we created a new structures including the organization that i was privileged to leave the National Security division. We built up a net to enable us to have success against that type of 911 style attack. It has diminished and i use that word specifically because we cant forget 16 years later and be complacent about the 911 style threat. Weve a lot more to do on the new face and that is the hallmark of which the self radicalized individual the individual sometime known as the lone wolf. Were homegrown terrorist and we have a lot more to do on that score because the net that we build that i described post september 11 is not designed for that threat. Those actors charlottesville, those actors dont come in to the net that we build. They dont had contact with International Terrorist group. A shadow group. Communicating with people here. If that is not the trace thats the net we build and we need to construct a new one. How do you understand and see when something goes wrong and something buddys mind such that they take a machine gun and killed 50 people in a bar in orlando. The work that we have to do on this new phase is going to require partnerships. It will require innovation. And the role that social media plays in this. It will require our communities and our focus post september 11 was on the interface with the state and local Law Enforcement and international Law Enforcement. It is going to require a lot more work from her communities at home here and we have some challenges ahead. I wanted to get to the homeland issue a little later. The great thing about being professor is you get to push back again. Lets take a look at what bin laden was trying to do. Some people say he was just a religious zealous out to kill people. He wanted to challenge the whole nation state system that have been put in place my colonial powers. He really wanted to create this clash of civilization between what he believed was the Muslim Community and the west. And he wanted to impose a big Economic Cost for the role and intervention and we can look at each of these goals and say he has made it. Some progress. How do you validate that. Is this movement that theyve started is it succeeding or is it been pushed back. Or is it failing. I think the features that you laid out they were all a fair and they show up in some of the papers coming that were covered. I think the picture you lay out as layout is a valid one. There also has been tremendous strife in division amongst the movement itself. You see that very nature of isis comes from a schism with al qaeda central. But in support of your theory professor its what i think well likely be borne out. Bin laden has passed the mental to his son. Who has released four videos i think over the last year or 18 months and so is he the new leader. Of the al qaeda movement. And as already mentioned the affiliate in syria as being one in my role and the white house i was exceptionally focused on which is why quite frankly the president was focused on it. When we began the campaign against them. The leadership headquarters and by making factory that they have was amongst the first targets that the United States hit. That has never been far from our minds. On the other hand. We have seen this evolution and this kind of desperate metastases that they had tried to promote. And in many respects the discipline that he tried to impose on his organization to do complex lengthy and planning attacks like 9 11. That discipline has eroded. And weve have much more opportunistic and freelance operations i think it has diminished in its cohesion if nothing else. Lets turn to serious and you mentioned that. Lets start with a high level spot did the Obama Administration let them. There is a chance to topple the regime. Looking back that they would almost half a Million People killed in syria 6 Million People internally displaced. Over 4 million refugees. That means half of the population is not living where they were when the civil war began. Did we not fulfill our values by failing to do something to maybe have a different outcome right now. In answer to your question. The hardest issue that we dealt with a National Security team. I say that not by way of excuse but by acknowledging and i think you are right to acknowledge that. That the complexity here and continues to be something that is incredibly challenging when you think about something that has three or four civil wars going on within it. You talk about values. And its important i think to look at hard problems from a value perspective. I dont think we should shy from that. And the situation room where we dealt with a lot of hard problems we talked and wrestled with values questions probably more than you might expect. Depending on which orientation you come from. I think it is also important to recognize that there is not a singular to that description in other words it comes in many forms. The guy post that they laid out for us. Was always what is in the National Security interests of the United States. And we came at that might recognizing that the threats against the homeland in our allies and partners was the preeminent challenge we face coming out of syria and made that our top priority. What was the threats to us in our allies. What action that we took would be consistent with international law. Will it be consistent with the moral obligations which is why we are the largest contributor of humanitarian aid in syria. So all of that we into the calculus time after time that we can at this. And you say should we have intervened and a parttime the question is you always had to ask yourself at the table and the president always ask himself. What is the day after look like. And this is an issue that president obama was quite public about sane in the libya context we did not wrestle with enough up front. Was there a time when a side might have been more vulnerable for removal. In favor of what. What with the institutions of the state look like. After the fact. There are number of values that go into that discussion and you have to have one that you privilege and the president made our guidepost. In iraq and syria. And deployed our other tools. In the country. Which unfortunately i want to ask a couple more questions about syria. Another issue was the use of chemical weapons. They made the redline and then decided to essentially on the alternative ideal with russia to help gather large stockpiles of chemical weapons out of syria. However, four years later another chemical weapons attack. If there was yet another looking back its a mistake to not use that force. In terms of good deal or bad deal. No one should be under any illusions. It was an honest actor. It has been to protect the client state. And to really assert and project russian power. But mostly to protect the client states. What happened in the summer of 2013 was by no means something enter into. Thinking that they have even dealer or a plate like that on the other side who is on the level. How to get it he has any illusions about putin in that regard. In the face of a congress refusing to even take a vote on that president s request. They ought to be congressional approval and the weighing in on this. So entering into the arrangement and agreement with russia and others in the international community. Was an appropriate way to handle it. She tweeted this. After years of hearing for this. The trump do trumpet do the right thing. In his response. I think what he did was a positive step. I think we should be asking and should be focused on in service of what broader strategy. The answer to your question is yes. As an enforcement of the norm against the use of chemical weapons i support it. We need to understand and now in what service of strategy. They have long wanted us to take the type of actions how could can we use that as leverage. They had been reluctant or very slow. Lets get to some of the things we might want them to do. The campaign that president obama put together. To address ices in 2014 its taken three years. It has lost its stronghold. Its almost fully lost its stronghold in rocca. It will soon be vastly diminished. If this was winning the war. What needs to be done to win the peace. If you talk about that in syria. Who is going to govern that has not been vacated. The people who live there. They found it with more attractive alternative. So now that they are being moved out of this area. How does the piece peace get one in these regions. It has to begin in both iraq and syria with addressing what was some of the causal factors. It was born of the grievances. Just to put a fine point on it. You have sunni populations. In the areas in iraq. That have the following choice. I go to fight for a government that is not addressing my weaknesses. Or i deal with a group of they are left to those choices. They went through those places and other areas. They felt like they did not had much of it choice. One of the reasons why it before it became an earnest. One of the conditions the entry into that. And the deployment of forces. Are we can have a partner to work with. And will they be routed with an inclusive government. And that came with the government here with president obamas view. So that they work in earnest. It allows the disorder to factor in the first place. With i read in the proxies making way. With the malicious activity. The Inclusive Governance has to be the first in green. Some hundred thousands in iraq. Who are having steady but clear gains and they work with them. It will be there for some time to come. They turn out to be the best fighters among the best fighters im against isys. They are having how this desire after having them ravage the main cities. Express there. Is one. I think hes got it right. The special envoy to categorize the coalition. And brett said recently that now is not the time because of the point at which we are just trying to focus on the stabilization operations. In trying to make sure that that continues so his point was now is not the time in the next two weeks for this to be very clear that we are working with the iraqi government. And answering before the peace. Obviously we cannot be ignoring that. What is a socalled peace can be rooted in. That is in local control of these areas that isys has been pushed out of. One of the reasons the syria problem has been so hard is that unlike in iraq. A contrast with the challenge and syria we have a partner. And it existed in syria for a good long time in this campaign. Go through the air having at the Syrian Defense forces. For that steering kurdish forces. The challenge will be getting and it will be the air forces that control those places where isys has been pushed out. And as a big challenge. Thats one of the reasons i mentioned this before. Does that mean the u. S. I think the Trump Administration has been quite clear that that is not in a be the role. Its good have to be local arab forces that move. The reports are that the training we had been doing in those efforts very quickly and strongly that the courses in the training that we are doing is oversubscribed to hear the experts. So if it is disintegrating in iraq and syria we know that in the tens of thousands and we have seen the attacks which seem to be very difficult to defend in many cities in europe so than two questions about that. As it can be increasing and the threat over the next year both in europe and the United States and second with the threat level that we are facing here. This is a big, big challenge. To go back to your pullback question. Two days after the 911 anniversary. The threat of catastrophic. The lone wolf self radicalized title attack that we have seen here and added to that mix. The threat of foreign fighters and hybrid attack that we saw in barcelona very recently in paris and brussels of course. The with about 120 countries. To flow into the conflict. Those numbers are drastically down. But two words of caution. The numbers are based on information that we know. It sounds a little bit the data as as basic conclusion. That is information that we know and conduce. I think we can be confident that they have gone down. They have about 2500 european foreign fighters. We have to be exceptionally concerned. It will be more capable than when they left. And traveled to join the calais aide. So the question that you ask about european capabilities is really a critical one. We are at the 60th anniversary of 911 and we have already talked this evening about the changes we made we underwent a sea change in how we went about this problem. We change your orientation. Im out about how to deal with intelligence. We changed our structures. They have not had that moment even though they had been suffering a steady diet of these attacks. The deficiencies unfortunately an intra european sharing among countries as well. With the Law Enforcement and intelligence communities that contributed to us missing some of this. That while exist. Unfortunately and even some of our best european partners. Our focus ought to be. More Rapid Exchange of information and intelligence with them. But really working with our european partners. The french, the belgium and others to break down that wall because they are facing a real risk of those who have a lot more capability. So we will turn to questions from our audience. A lot of people are listening and watching and listening. On our life deeds. They can tweet in a question to at duke sanford. We are going to give this a try. And others if students there is a microphone there. Will be able to take a bunch of questions from our audience. Let me turn from very far broad. And acc. That is of course what happened in charlottesville and uva. As you know ive studied a lot of the preventative efforts that we are making it to try to address the threats that we make inside the United States. And quite frankly the vast bulk of the resources really seem to be directed at working with muslim communities and trying to deal with the al qaeda threat to the homeland. Directed towards the other front. The trumpet administration is here and gone further and canceled the some of that. With a small numbers. To these groups. The First Amendment right to protest. They try to intimidate this with violence. What should be done about this problem. I think we need to recognize the problem is not confined to the muslim communities certainly. And i think we made real strides to constantly reinforce that point in the abdominal administration. A lot of that ink has been spelled. Countering violent extremism. Part of that was an effort to be very clear that violence in service of hate regardless of its ideological vacuum should be unacceptable. In a rule of law society. So it is been very clear about what is part of the problem. And i think the Obama Administration made a series of changes in how we structure this. The first was to try to treat this as a matter of the concert concern outreach with the community we also had to recognize in addition to that. Is how are you basket best to get at it. I think we realize pretty realized pretty early on that this is not a top down prescriptive problem you could sell. Theyve got to come from the community themselves. Because back to what i was saying about the challenge that we have in the new phase. Which is the threat is not susceptible in all respects to the net has to be it has to be part of the solution. They are the ones that are going to be able to identify is a lot tougher problem. So recognizing those in the problem set. And how best to come at it with communities and how to organize yourself to do that. The Obama Administration we saw as a challenge of outreach in many respects and if you think about how the federal government is set up. We have our widest array of presence and maybe that was a mistake because many communities felt like we were securitizing the relationship with the Muslim Community we were trying to conduct outreach two. The chief spokesman or point of outreach was the u. S. Attorney in many areas. In the area. We change the overtime. And we set up an intra agency task force. And as a hub for best practices with the communities with schools and public health. We have the department of homeland security. Its that office that you reference the that has been cut from a budgetary perspective. For those combating hate from White Nationalism and extreme as them. They had been pulled back quite regrettably. I am a senior here at dirt at duke. From the time in the white house working with our allies overseas who were the friends who were just great relationships and who where were the friends you didnt wish you have. To say i have no diplomat would be to state the obvious. Look, weve a range of relationships some are closer than others. The relationship of the uk on counterterrorism matters was critical. I was on the phone with my counterpart in the uk i looked up at the tv. Was to really focus, i legged a lot of miles with him traveling internationally not just to our closest allies but sharing relationships which proves very important on a discrete threat. That do we have a question here . See how diplomatic i was . [laughter] so much for coming in this evening. Im involved in National Security decisionmaking. Today we talked about the dash among other things and one of the things we focused on was the significant use of drones over the past 10 years and i would like to hear what kind of conversations took place when making a decision to extend beyond just targeting known terrorists to other offshoot organizations when making drone strikes and perhaps not even necessarily from a legal authorization to use force respected but from an ethical point of view how far do you think we can go in continuing to justify and eventual attacks on alqaeda terrorists given we party taken out osama bin ladin and its been 16 years since 9 11 . So sounds like a fascinating course. I am now teaching National Security law and policy so i can relate. Look, let me get a little bit of a frame for how we approach this issue and how obama approach this issue. We operated from the premise that we were going to work with partners to stop threats, to the United States and the persons abroad where but they were both when that threat was posed and our partners were unwilling or unable to address that threat we would act unilaterally consistent with law and with our values and very important to president obama to have that framework around our operations and he made sure that we were putting those operations and conducting those operations in the context of something we call the president ial policy advice which basically said we are going to have a we have to make sure that the target is a lawful target first and foremost but then always ask ourselves is the action we are taking, the greatest action any nation can take, is that required is a continued imminent threat to our country, to u. S. Persons and apply the highest standard. Its important we apply the highest standard we can apply to those actions and this is outside the area so im talking in the context of terrorist threats outside of the Senate Judicial battlefield. We are going to ask ourselves questions to make sure that we apply the highest standard we can apply. No certainty that lawful target that poses an imminent threat to us is present and no civilians will be killed or injured in the context of that operation, setting out that framework. And it was important to have that framework to guide and apply rigor to those decisions guided first and foremost by the United States and our people but also so that we could set some type of standard and norms for the use of the technology that was proliferated in continues to proliferate and we could apply some transparency about how we are making these decisions and pushed back quite frankly on terrorist propaganda about operations. So the shorter answer i supposed to your question is when you are faced with those most weighty decisions and the greatest power that a government can exercise it was very important to president obama that we do so consistent with the rule of law and in a framework that would stand the test of time for not only the United States but for others around the world who might also be using this technology. President trump in the Campaign Said he was going to lose know the rules of engagement and let the generals do what they wanted and essentially unshackle the military. Do you think in this seven and a half, eight months that hes been in office he has maintained this framework or has it been jenice jettisoned. Its useful to distinguish two things. The question here was about or what i responded with the policy that we adopted and operated when it comes to addressing terrorist threats emanating from what we called outside of areas of hostility so outside the hot battlefield in iraq and syria. With regard to your question from the president and the isis campaign, i think its been. Clear from the military and others that there has been a greater delegation of authority towards the exercise of certain operations, special operations raids, decisions to deploy troops further further downrange as they say in iraq and syria and that delegation has gone on and that has been quite useful in terms of the pace and tempo of operations. It was said in a briefing recently that some 30 of the territories that isis has been pushed out of occurred in the last seven or eight months so i think you cant argue with those kinds of metrics that delegation probably has had something to do with it if you listen to commanders. And im not opposed to that because i think every commander in chief should be able to take a look at how he is managing the operations and sitting down with the commanders to decide how are we going to handle the decisionmaking in our National Security apparatus but i want to make sure and i think we should all be concerned if there is no process to that decisionmaking. In other words if the experts are being consulted, if there is not a clear process for deciding where should that authority be delegated to. The long and short of it is i think the delegation now probably has a tempo of operations and thats a good thing with the isis campaign but there has to be some rigor around deciding where you draw that line. We have another question over here. Hi my name is amanda walford. I am in professor genslers course. President obama recently said countering extremist ideologies are not defeated by guns or better ideas. Since that program has rooted out ideological reasoning behind violence particularly with the actors he mentioned previously how do you quantify whether or not they are effectively achieving this purpose in the future . So that is a huge, huge challenge for us. You are really asking about metrics in the programs. This is one of the things that has been the biggest question mark and how we use these programs and how much we expand. The counter Violent Extremism Task force set up i. D. E. A. Just. One of these ways i think to arrive at better metrics for this is to do more and see in research what that is. We havent done enough research. We need a lot more research. We have got some theories and experts in this whether its from the Law Enforcement social scientists and others. They have got their theories but i think we have got a lot more to learn on how do we understand what that process looks like and what are the best ways of going about combating isis and its narrative . What is going to be the most resonant counternarrative to what isis is putting out and what will be the best programs to work in different types of communities . Got to do more so we can learn more so the answer is not to shut those things down. Thank you very much for coming. My name is ted lenhart and im a student at at law school and also an alum of the undergrad abs program. Touching on the Trump Administration strategy in afghanistan a book world disarray richard haas suggested there are two possible strategies one which he endorses on counterterrorism mainly drone strikes and second building institutions presumably. Given your understanding of the situation in afghanistan which strategy do you think that serves the American Interest in what do you make of that top Administration Strategy now . So, the answer is going to be both which is in essence what we are doing and which i think President Trump has now continued to double down on in his most recent speech. Sick. He institutions in afghanistan or yemen for that matter those institutions have got to be in place if there if that partner, if that state is going to be able to spawn a capable Counterterrorism Force thats going to be able to address it before it comes to the homeland. So i think the Obama Administration and the Bush Administration all have this. We should be working with partners to address the threat where it is before comes to us. The ingredient to that though means you have to have a partner who has to be able to exist in a secure enough environment for them to operate and as i told another Group Earlier today sustained Security Apparatus in those countries. They have to feel confident they are going to get paid and its not a corrupt system otherwise why would they continue to put their lives on the line. Its all a continuum. We cant really look at this in isolation. I listen to trumps speech very trumps speech very careful in a heard him say we are not doing nationbuilding in afghanistan anymore. Would you say hes not being fully forthright on that issue . I think you could look at president obama speech who also said we were doing nationbuilding. Wood is building up institutions made . Is that nationbuilding . I actually disagree. You can look at some of the things we did and contrast in trying to supplant and do the work of the state for instance in iraq in the aftermath of the iraqi war supplanting and doing for the state as opposed supporting training advising and assisting those apparatus to get them off the ground. During nationbuilding i think there is a distinction between working with partners in building up their capacity. In the latter youve got to have enough risk tolerance depending on the situation that you are in and the situation in that country. We as the United States have to have a sufficient risk tolerance to be there to support those Security Forces for an example to be willing to go on that with them to give them the confidence to conduct that counterterrorism operation. All of that you run the risk are you going to get drawn in . This is a constant debate in a constant battle that we face as a nation added National Security communities. I do think a distinction should be drawn but i dont think you can really separate out the counterterrorism capability from existing in a state that has enough secure institutions to allow it to survive and thrive. Caitlyn do you have a question from our on line audience . We are livestreaming this event. I will ask one on behalf of he wants to know could the current risk to the u. S. Be used against us to capitalize on terrorist organizations . Yes. No, i mean its a great question and its a very clear answer. A former colleague of mine ali soufan wrote a piece just in the last day or two talking about how our polarized environment whether its rhetoric or whether its politics does contribute and feed into the divides that our enemies our terrorist enemies would like to see and if thats not reason enough to come at this differently im not sure what is. Thank you. A question from the top. Hi. Thank you so much for being here tonight. I want to say its really awesome to see a woman and National Security so i really appreciate that. My name is lea and im a sophomore in professor shandlers counterterrorism class. I know hindsight is 2020 but im curious if you felt that theres more that you could have or would have done with the Obama Administration to address the Nuclear Threat . Thanks for your question and thanks for being here. The professor may have stopped the audience. I think its a constant balancing question about whether to apply pressure he unilaterally on pivotal actors like china who really do experts are financing although the solution of this goes through china theres a trading partner with north korea and the ones who are most concerned about it to solution on the peninsula there so could we have calibrated more or less at various times the pressure that we as a United States as is opposed to the multilateral floor outside to china . Potentially but you cant, i mean this is one of the great things about this area that we are all talking about and you all are studying and many of you are studying. You cant look at these things in isolation and its going to be a multilayered problem at any point in time that you were looking at any one of these questions so i think you are right. Hindsight is always 2020. I want to sum up by asking one final question so id like to get all the students i planted in the audience in on this. I didnt tell them what to say, can assure you that. The question is about careers and being a student here in National Security, interested possibly in a career and of course you have a long and fruitful career right from the start of Public Service. A what should they be thinking about doing now to prepare themselves for that and for those who are getting their wellearned degree, either graduate degrees are undergraduate degrees in may, they dont have the same ideological bent that the Current Administration has. Do you factor that in whether they are trying to pursue federal Public Service now or what should they think about that . On your last question look, this is a highly personal decision about how you weigh whats important to you from a policy perspective and if you go into Public Service at the federal level or at any level in the current environment. I think you should know what your lines are. Is there a particular issue thats so important to you that you couldnt be part of a policy implementation or policy developments along a certain line and know what those lines are. Have a conversation with yourself about what you want to be a part of that dont be scared off from Public Service because the current moment is one that is scary to you or depressing to you or makes you uneasy. I think the recipe in very pleased to engage, to think about it, to get yourself and to engage with ideas you disagree with. Now to the first part of your question, folks who i talk to her earlier today heard you say a little bit of this but i like to tell people who ask any how do i get this or that job and what should i be doing now, i can give you a very liberating answer. Rest assured you are not forgetting to do something right now. You are not missing a particular path because there is no one path. Youve got to be open to opportunities that come your way even if they look like they were outside of the plan. That ought to be a clue because it might be fruitful and expose yourself to different ideas and different pursuits. Follow people on twitter that you disagree with, engage with ideas that get you out of your comfort zone. Dont stay in your own echo chamber because you may find its a whole different world that you are interested in either to engage with more, to come back, to fight against or refine your own thinking so be open to the different possibilities. Thats whats great about being in a place like this. You can find out all these things. With that wonderful answer to more tasks. The first is to give you a very small token of our appreciation and i imagine when you wake up in the morning and you turn on whether its cnn or morning show or would that be watching you see some of your successors whether it be h. R. Mcmaster or tom foster dealing with questions that are getting hammered by the press and choosing between the least bad option that you have a nice big cup of coffee and you say to yourself im glad thats not me. And so when you are having one of those cups of coffee i hope you will remember us from the Counterterrorism Program travel mug. My second duty is to thank lisa monaco for enlightening us this evening. [applause] thanks. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] you really hit me that there were these very important issues that needed to be discussed, debated even that our democracy and country relied upon that kind of selfexamination and i thought well, i need to know what happened and i need to be honest, candid, open as the possibly can in order to figure it out for myself and maybe doing it in a book would provide the discipline, the deadline to try to think it through. These people Hitler Stalin and mussolini were good projecting that kind of personality. As i said this revolution of idealism on the assumption or the belief that these dictators used political power wisely and benevolently and they were kind and this is the most important to bridge the gap between theory and practice. There are certainly that question of are we exceptional and the very question of why had it been never thought that this was a form of propaganda and the question where was the concept coming from and what was the job that it was doing for individual americans . I think one thing i was realizing and it took a long time to realize in fact at the very language we use only talk about Foreign Countries has been determined for us a long time ago. Muslim countries and especially countries in the east and were they catching up with us or were they behind us . What prevents you from being able to see it on its own terms. What i want to argue here is that the noble environmentalist was a kind of product that was sold to American Consumers just like big macs or cars. We take off for me head northeast into a serene and peaceful and silent sky. There was no one airborne. We head out to the northwest and we never find anything. Seth and i were not heroes that day. It was a horrific physical injury for the Young Harriet tubman but it opened up a new world for her. It allowed her to have these amazing visions and it erects connection to god. She heard voices and she heard people singing. She saw Amazing Things and that these very vivid dreams. It was terrible on the physical side but it was amazing for her faith. That image that shows dan bartlett the Communications Director that was the first time we started seeing the replay of the entire hit. [applause] first let me introduce our panel is ralph nace former director of the Leadership Council on civil rights previous run thousands of National Campaigns with bipartisan majorities to strengthen and protect civil rights laws under