Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming for this working with lunch council of Foreign Relations you all know mr. Ashford ash carter we will open up to all of you for questions so take notes and keep thinking of questions and i will come to you in a bit. I do want to tell you that during the qanda portion later on and i will remind you of this at the time, this will be on the record. Good to see you. Thank you, margaret. I appreciate that. The last time i interviewed you we were on some kind of vessel off estonia and you are carrying out a military buildup in response to russia. It was part of after a quartercentury we didnt have a war plan. Its kind of interesting to reflect on all the plans when i started that i worked on conventional and nuclear then we didnt do that anymore for about 25 years and then it became apparent to me whatever six years or so ago that we needed to plan. Thats when we began positioning the forces in different ways in europe, but the particular reason to go at that time and you may remember this was because that was going to be the location for the new Cyber Security center for nato. One is that is the epicenter of hybrid warfare of the russians started trying to blur the line between war and peace and cyber attacks. This was right after ukraine. They knew what the playbook was that the other thing is estonia is more advanced in the United States because it beat fraud in the technological era. I was a student and you had these things called checkbooks. They went right from the approval to Electronic Fund transfers and had never seen a checkbook before. I want to get to all those things because you put together the geopolitics of some of the thinking as well of trying to modernize the u. S. Military. But lets talk about a little bit of the book itself you refer to it inside of the five sided box of the pentagon and you say this isnt a memoir it is a sort of users manual. Is exactly right, and executive guide. Who do you want to be using it right now but . First i hope it renews the general citizens appreciation for the wonderful institution that defends them. Id like to read nonfiction and i like to read about a place that ive never been. If you are curious about this thing and want to know how the troops are recruited or how 750 billion is spent or the war plans are drawn or conducted, its that. The washington audience will know part of that at least from your own experience. For anybody that runs something you may be interested in what it feels like to run the largest place in the world. In fact i like to say that its larger than you take amazon, ups, mcdonalds, target and ge combined. More art than microsoft, apple and google combined. Its much property if you put together the state of pennsylvania so it is the largest enterprise on earth and getting your mind around the management of that, which is the ceo and coo and with the weapons buyer, i just think we all do even if it is just ourselves. It is a management guide for another manager and i hope that it is an inspiration for people. A lot of people come to me now and they may come to you also and say think about Public Service but i dont like everything i see. Its hard, but i am a fervent believer that theres got to be another generation for all of us. Care about the country, care about the world, care about this whole project and what i tell them is its the only government weve got. When i join in the 1980s i didnt love everything that was happening either but the only government weve got. You cant go down the street and shop for another one. Thats it. If you dont like it, get in the game. What happens givelapel pins f what you just described when you have the level of turnover at the top that we have seen over the past few months and the pentagon and when you dont have someone that is confirmed by congress in that role, what does that do to the executive . Its not good and i will give it to you in the good news and bad news. The good news is the department of defense is relatively speaking of a place with a very strong compass. 2. 8 million professionals. A place that responds very good to good order and discipline to hold together, thats fine. But no organization is maybe even especially including the department of defense because clarity and consistency in order are so important to it and move forward without a theater. What bothers me isnt that the place is going to fall apart or get in the position that we cant win a war anymore, but weve got to keep moving because it is a competitive world out there. The chinese, russians the russie iranians, North Koreans, terrorists. Tuesday the best you have to have a competitive streak. Youve got to see the best in people and we have labor markets that are challenging for us. Youve got to stay the best in technology, and only the secretary a and the top leadersp can move people forward. They will keep doing whatever they are doing well probably for a long time but they are not going to move forward. That is where the problem comes. And not someone that has made the ability to say i am confirmed, im here in miami vision. Half the battle and the other half is if the president listens to me. I didnt have to deal with that and none of my predecessors, when i first worked for weinberger for example, it was clear it didnt mean that he ran all the battles and stuff like that, but at that time it was plain as day the president of the United States listened to the head of the department of defense. And it was the same thing bush wanted dick cheney, bill clinton, on and on most of the time yes but not all the time. You want them to say theyve had their turn, they have said their piece. He was extremely polite about listening to people, and it isnt clear that he does listen order is going to listen that is a bigger problem than just for the secretary of defense but one of the things that is a passage in the book i talk about the question of whether you take a job when you are offered a job you have to think about it a little bit and say can i help this person succeed, thats what its all about and you have to be true to your values as well. Those are the two things you have to do. I wouldnt know how to help because he doesnt seem to listen to the secretary defense. And then maybe put the department together and that is a good thing but somehow they have to establish a before otherwise it is a fantastic place with a lot to say about the world and a huge reservoir of expertise and knowledge not be able to bring that to their to the president of the United States. That would be really frustrating to me. And you do not see the advisor running the consultations were meetings are some of the process. I think there is a process when it isnt connected to the president that might enter but again thats from the outside looking in. You might know the administrations that he serves and certainly knows how they ran under Brent Scowcroft that invented the kirkland system which is a great system. So i would imagine he knows how to do those but hes got the same problem as the secretary defense which is our uh to the man at the top are not and it doesnt seem to me that he has either as closely and thats got to be frustrating also. Lets talk a little bit about geopolitics. We started with russia and you are trying to position at the time. Where are we now in terms of russia as a strategic challenge to the United States, and do you feel like the u. S. Is left in the position where it could actually push back . Its not wonderful to have war as the thing youre thinking about, but the reason you think about it is so they know if they start something with us, they are going to lose and we are going to win. With the administration and the answer is plain as day no. If you want evidence of that, look at Vladimir Putin, does he look like a man that has been chastised. The question answers itself. He is someone that ive known since 1993 when he used to take note. He is a considerable geostrategic thinker. I cant agree with everything he says that there is no mystery about it. He speaks extremely well, he writes extremely well and says what he means. People always say what do you think putin is thinking. One of the things hes thinking is that he wants to screw my country. Everything else we can talk about syria, terrorism, eastern europe, whatever anyone wants to talk about, arms control, and i know how to talk to people coming to agree where you can, disagree where you cant, and thats diplomatic life. Thats okay. When one of the intentions is to thwart you, where is the middle ground so that is what makes it so difficult. But hes there and isnt going anywhere for a while. They do respond to pressure. When you hear now from the trumpet administration that they are interested in other exiting certain agreements like the inf treaty which is about to happen, or reconsidering things like new start mac for bringing them into the party talks to come up with a new weapons deal, knitting together the two challengers for the United States, what do you think about that for is that just Wishful Thinking because i will never get done anyway . That will never get done anyway. The second is easier because there is no logic. They both can play that in that game so why would you get in the room with two parties that are going to be good at playing for democracy and this idea that they are going to gang up on the americans ive never actually believed that because they dont have any other interest. Russia is going like this and china is going like this. They are going to be at each other a little bit in the far east and they have almost nothing in common except they both dont like us. That isnt enough if that isnto make a condominium out of. We cant afford to lose contact with the enemy, as the phrase goes, but with russia i think its important to keep talking. Its frustrating, and i am little worried just because they can think the wackiest things if you dont stay in contact with them, those of you that have seen theyve told you what their Intelligence Services have told them about whats going on so its wild. Its not safe to just let that run amok. You asked about the inf treaty and im sorry if it is an unpopular point of view because i know a lot of people would not like to see it go away but my view was as the secretary of defense, i dont want it more than they do because i was always looking on the other side of the fence at the shortrange missiles, which we were not allowed to have and i can think of a lot of uses for in europe and asia and remember the chinese are getting ready to fire them at us all the time and we dont have anything to fire back because we are in some deal with the russian. That doesnt mean that im preparing it all up and you cant forget they did actually violate it. Number two, i know what to do if i am given that latitude and i assume my successor will know what to do as well so from that point of view it isnt so bad we could make good use of what we call the conventional strike. So, we think this is designed to do away potentially with some of these arms control agreements because you are setting up an impossible round of the threeway talks. I think so. I think it is something that sounds good, and lets take the three biggest powers and get them all in the room and they will bite on that hook. I dont think that there is anything really there but in the meantime, you do away with something that could take 30, 40 years to build. Just in general, i am things take so long to make in the real world and it is so long to take them apart. I am always suspicious when something that has been around for a while is getting dismantled. That doesnt mean im not ready to charge into the future. I didnt take things apart readily. Im happy to build new things, but taking things apart is unless you have a real replacement, not a phony replacement, thats risky and things take so long to build. You can do a lot of destruction in no time in washington. I am a builder. Theres a lot of builders out here in the audience. It takes a lot of patience and the people that take stuff apart on the cheap in a little suspicious of that. Upon the length of the nuclear deal when you look at what is happening right now with a potential unraveling of the International Diplomatic agreement, when does the flashing yellow light turned red for you, what do you think is actually happening right now . I am less concerned than people might think for the following reason. I will come back to what that meant or didnt mean in the nuclear deal. What it did as you all know, if forced them into the early years before we could leave it to a lot of their stuff and we are still kind of getting the benefits of that, so they are putting their toe in the water now with this little bit of enrichment, but they have a way to go to get back to even where they were, let alone to a little bit of room. It was in a very determined circumstance they were starting with what they had been so theres more effect othe fact of the mattn the early years you agree and thats nice that we are now enjoying that fact. Plus they seem to just be putting their toe in the water because they dont want to get the chinese, the russians and the europeans on their back. What worries me is less bad and not that we are going to go to war with one another because our president says he doesnt want war. He said that repeatedly and consistently. And the iranians i dont think are in any position. You know that better than i do. They are not in a position of military strength or international or domestic or political strength to take Something Like that on. So, it isnt intentional or either. What is the risk in the u. S. Iranian situation today is something on tangible. We are up against each other so close there in the gulf and the strait of her that there isnt enough of an anchor. I happened to have been in the office where ten u. S. Sailors were detained by the iranians for reasons that happened to be us going into their territorial waters without navigating properly to put it bluntly. This is in the middle of a negotiation. Comparatively speaking that you are in the middle of a very visible negotiation. It isnt like the time that we are trading insults were not talking at all. But it is an american hostage because imagine what we are doing in the Defense Department and peter cook remembers this very well. It is happening really fast. Defense is a big deal. Detaining americans, it is going up very fast. And fortunately, actually john kerry could call somebody on a cell phone and get some leadership and get it settled down quickly before we can get at each other. That kind of thing which is possible every day because someone blundered and we took this into the iranian territorial. There is no counterweights now. Where is that going to come from, how is it going to get resolved, and that is ugly within one day because everybody remembers the hostage drama so that is what bothers me more than the intentional war. More that i worry about every day with the United States and iran is that there is a spark somewhere and the grass is so dry. I want to ask china and north korea. When you left the administration did you feel it was just Unfinished Business and how frustrated are you . Youve got to be frustrated that ibut im dealing with thee the early 90s and so all progressively getting worse there has been progress here in 1994 there were some in 1998 there were some. 2006 after they exploded their first bomb, Condoleezza Rice and colin powell gave it a try. I have to say i was part of those in the past, particularly the first two but also the six party talks. The Obama Administration did try basically. I think president obama i dont want to put words in his mouth but he didnt think that it would go anywhere. What he did, which i was grateful for is he backed me up. If you dont have talks we have the deterrence and defense. So we did at the deterrence andd defense and this means having forces that are so obviously capable of destroying the armed forces and north korean regime that they cant possibly imagine that they wont lose a war if one starts. And the defense is our Missile Defense and there was controversy. The undersecretary was doing Missile Defense and people would say youre going to anger the russians or they dont work. Why are you doing this. My standard answer and the governments standard answer at the time is they will get there someday and i dont want to be defenseless when that happens. So, we did build and deploy. So deterrence and defense. I dont object to talking to them now. All the president s that i observed deal with refusing to meet with the north Korean Leader unless and until an agreement resolves because they knew it was a gift to the North Koreans. They crave that. And if you are in a negotiation you dont give anything fo get. They would argue that it failed. That is a tactical point. You dont give away something for free. It isnt negotiating to give something away for free. Its okay if you want to have a meeting. Everything is a transaction so in general they are like that. I am all for dealing with them, you do this and i will do that. Thats how everything has to progress but i wouldnt give up the meeting. I would advise the president to trade a meeting. Is containment ultimately where this ends up not giving up Nuclear Weapons but putting a con strained . We say we are honored that you dont see the track being laid down. If that is possible, youve got to do Something Different from what we are doing. I am not sure that its possible and the more that they are dug into being treated like it is a faded complete the harder it would be to dislodge them. Since 2006, it is 2019 now, 13 years ago they exploded their first bomb. That is a load of cement around the ankles for these guys and then on top of that people are talking about kind of lesser things is important and a far cry from denuclearize them or even just tests for the more authority and so forth, but its useful but that isnt the nuclear peninsula. You know in othe and other peopn this room know that isnt new either. They promised that to george bush won in 1992. So we didnt get the new promise. They never lived up to that promise. I want to go to questions in the audience but before we do that, you hear a lot of questions regarding the firms particularly huawei and the level of access they should have this market and an exchange also american businesses conducting business with those. Should American Companies be allowed to do business with huawei, given that you could make the argument they are complicit in the surveillance . That is exactly the reason. I dont want to sound harsh, but china hasnt worked out the way that we worked in the 1990s and the economists i came to that conclusion i conclusion ane year 2000 i dont with vp la as well. In the 19 90s it is possible. I hoped that china would become like france. You shouldnt believe that by 2000 and you certainly cant believe it now. That doesnt mean that we are in world war iii or in a cold war with them, but you have to ask yourself what does that mean that china is but china is, and particularly in the economic and technological area, i dont think the economists have given us a playbook for that. So you see for example the tariff negotiation. If you like, that is a start towards the playbook but i dont think anybody can think it is a whole other playbook it is like a chapter of a playbook it is in the entirety. So blacklisting huawei is something that you do support tax you cant do everything like it is a handset. They do a lot of things but guess weve got to stick up for ourselves. China is a communist dictatorship and i am not out to change them. But when they come to the business side, they bring a combination of political, military and economic tools that are societies like ours do not possess. We need to protect our companies and our friends and allies against what is inherently and im even playing field. I think the companies reasonably expect the government to do that for them and not to say we have two playbooks, we have a cold war playbook and export controls and all that which is for a communist dictatorship we didnt trade with, that doesnt work. Whether it is an okay thing or not, these are real questions. Ive had some frustration with the International Economic thinking though im not an economist i would do better all by myself, but my disappointment is very real in that area. I want to open up to questions from the audience is just to remind you, you are on the record. We have microphones on the side of the room if you want to raise your hand. When you take the microphone, see your name and your affiliation. And one question, please. Following on the issue should the United States as a matter of priority develop six sh and leapfrog this if it is going to the backbone of the next revolution . Spinet in general, the answer to that question is yes we should be looking to leapfrog. Youve got to be careful, five g. Has become this big dog. I was around cellular when it was first invented and remember when we walked around in the Nuclear Command control area it was a huge thing. It was a tiny capability compared to what is in our pockets now. Its come a long way and its hard to put together its not magic. It is like for only smaller. Its not like the end of the world and youve got to do a lot of installation of the stuff because it is much closer together and is so there will be hassles with buildings and walls because it doesnt depend around curves as higher frequency, so 5g is an wonderfu isnt wonderft even know what the 6g people mean. At some point youve got to get on a wire line or get close if you are going to go super wide with your bandwidth so this is kind of a big engineering deployment project. Its not wildly sophisticated. I dont think its going to be transformative for the people to have but its a step up better but it requires a lot of leasing of Antenna Space on buildings and that kind of thing. On the whole i would like all that work and infrastructure brought. If it were an American Company i would trust more than huawei thats fine. But your general question about leapfrogging gets me to another plaintiff i may switch is i have been talking about things like huawei which is a defensive play back to china. You cant just play defense, youve got to have an offense which means we have to be better into this would undermine johns question here. If you are worried about chinese and ai, but to beat them at ai which we probably dont know how to do. So there is no substitute for just being better and getting there faster. We shouldnt take our eyes off of that and at the same time, we are trying not to be unfairly beaten with a communist dictatorship has tools that we dont. Can we try this side of the room . A fellow at the joint staff this year coming and my question is just my question, not theirs. Given what youve said about yon and russia and you also said that its a sobering fact that the problem of Nuclear Armageddon is less pressing than perhaps russia using limited strike to end a fait accompli where they try to push us out of europe in terms of defending an ally or partner so my question is about the responses that you favor and would they talk about missiles, Missile Defense, and so would you prefer conventional missiles and with our european allies, would you prefer a kind of low yield Nuclear Option and finally on the Missile Defense to be told if proven for years weve wanted Missile Defense against an iran a threat or Something Like iran what we now change our mind and say too bad, this is your problem. All good questions. But first of all, before we get to all of these new come at the end of your question, most of my answer to what we do about russia there are a few factors that have to be careful what we say here. One is its a big country. I would like to be defending the country, and so part of my answer for Vladimir Putin as you may think that the worst, but im global, so you show up and that is part of my answer. Another part of my answer is weve got to play this hybrid game better and call it the little green men or cyber and pretending it isnt an attack, to be an attack is an attack. They did have their attractions to a secretary of defense, we gave them up and we thought we got a deal once upon a time and if im not going to have that constraint anymore, russia is part of that. Its a little more useful with respect to china if i may say so. Thertheres a big debate going n now. The only thing i will say about that, theres a couple things, First Nuclear weapon is really small, but the second is, i mean, nobody can want to use more yield than they have to. But i think what bothers people most is the idea that somehow this makes more and more weapons more doable and usable. I dont find that plausible. I dont think that a grownup responsible people who think that nucleathink aboutnuclearwhd for whatever use Nuclear Weapons would think that would be a major, just a few kilotons comincommittees and 500 kilotono a lot of these things are exotic and people are looking for some kind of Silver Bullet to violate the treaty we would be able to take care of the russians were goes around with the Nuclear Weapons but i think that its more comprehensive than that and there are other ingredients to the wartime approach, and again at war with russia i am only saying that makes them convinced in detail that they will lose. Either way, Missile Defense with respect to russia, theyve got too much stuff. He can hold our own, but the North Koreans for a number of years at least the russians just too much stuff and again they come at you again and again and again complaining about Missile Defense and senator warner is here and has been having these conversations for 30, 40 years. If i knew how to defend myself from you, i would, but i dont. We havent known how to do that since star wars or any of these other things not that we havent tried. They have too much stuff. Continuing on the theme of alliances, has the transactional nature of this administration so far caused any sort of damage that cant be pulled back by a future democrat or republican outlines that they couldnt fix . You do have the ambassador that is pro nato. Yeah. Well, lets back up. Why do we have the length in partnerships anyway these are not favors that we do for foreigners. This is a force multiplier for us and people who reflect our values and interests enough that they might fight alongside us and having somebody fight alongside of you ialongside of g it by your self. And you cant do that transactionally. Its like a family or something. There are transactions within a marriage but there has to be an underlining relationship as well particularly among democracies. And you asked after youve called into question and outlines how easy it is to get it back, i think what is going to make that tricky where we have done that is these are democracies so you are not dealing just with the leader and the thing about the democracies once you have kicked its people off, where they felt disrespected, no leader can ever lead them in the right direction even if it is the right direction because they cant get away with it because the people dont want it. So come if you are dealing with Vladimir Putin, you can take them this way and that way and never mind his people. But if you are trying, you cannot zig and zag like that because she has an opinion of her on to Pay Attention to, so it is a relationship with another people is a democracy and that inevitably makes it something you cant pile up and down and do it in a transactional way, people want to feel connected. And with, i believe in the values thing and the enlightenment. The chinese are fine with me, but i am not chinese, and the enlightenment in our values are about what they call the dignity of man but would now be a dignity of humankind and i know sometimes we can be very american and so forth, but universal. Its about human rights in the salon and thats kind of where i am as a person and chinas ideology is fine, but since i am not chinese, isnt usually attractive, so you look at the globe and say where are there people that kind of share our values. Its more than just interest in history and so forth on its values as well and that matters to me and its worth having a relationship with people who share your values in an International Life even if it is an ordinary human life. That you wouldnt go as far as to say joe biden who worried out loud he other day about nato not surviving a second term and the presidency. I didnt hear him say that. That shows you how little i have to do with it. Maybe senator warner heard. I dont believe that if he did say that, only because i think it is a relationship, it is more balanced in the system. I just think people have a sense and they know that we in the United Kingdom are friends and are going to be friends for a long time. When i worked for weinberger a long time ago the secret then that we held there was no reason for that we did it because we were friends of Great Britain which by the way we used to be an enemy of before world war i and world war ii and so we helped them out when they were in a rough spot and that is a perfectly valid thing to do. These countries are going to look at the globe just like we look at the globe and say where are some people we can get along with one and not a whole lot of them. The europeans are one of them and the canadians are not the only ones. The japanese, australians, these are people who are friends for a reason. On this side of the room, i can see your name tag that if you could introduce yourself. One of the members of the arms control association, you said you could think of a lot of us uses. Since the treaty had no limits on the air launch and sea launched, could you elaborate a little bit on the uses or the need for having landbased systems particularly considering the fact that he also imagine a lot of countries that would welcome a u. S. Ins range missiles . I dont want to elaborate too much, but you are right we were about to do some things. But if you go to lets say the asiapacific and you want to be able to get somewhere quickly land to land there is some attractive circumstances in the United States, not going to be transformative otherwise we may have gotten out of the treaty earlier. If you previously from the constraints its not like i cant think of anything to do. Its nice to see you again. By the way what sort of pills are you taking to maintain the shape that you are in . I was going to ask you. I periodically go back to quantico virginia because my career started in world war ii. They were so proud, they were there and walked the same. They are so proud that they can respond within three hours and be ready. That is and what worrie isnt w. Its the cybersecurity war. How do we know when we are in one of those things, what shape is it going to take and how well prepared are we from that youngster down there in the marine corps and what is his role if any . I will tell you to me what it looks like its a cybersecurity looks like an attack. I get this question all the time and i dont care whether it is cyber or not. If you attack my people, you attack my country. A power grid is destructive and threatening to my people. Attack on the dnc fax there is more of a difficult territory. And attack but not like an allout military attack that it is an attack. What am i going to do to punish and push back in . So the first thing is an attack is an attack. Should they be part of that response coming just because i wouldnt necessarily respond to a cyber attack with a cyber response. Why should i when people flew airplanes into our buildings we didnt fly planes into their buildings. So, you do something to me and my people and i am going to do whatever i damn well want and that seems efficacious and that might be the United States marine corps, and it might not be a cyber response, so proportionality and discrimination are still important in cyber but you dont have to be a cyber for cybercrime it can be the ability to call something for what it is and not just befuddled by the fact that they happen to be using did you recognize it as an attack at that time . I did. It is an overtly aggressive act against our political system and by the way by someone who lives in a glass house throwing domestic political stones was it instantaneously . I wouldnt say i did. Remember we were not really part of that in the normal course of things that was more a domestic thing here and quite appropriately, the department of defense is not normally, so i probably cant tell you everything that was going on or that we knew was going on simply because i was into secretary defense, and there wouldnt be normal if jim cody or john brennan or one of those people were here they could probably tell you more. We should invite the skies for conversation about what were going to do about the election act. Obviously that is a political conversation. So how you do with it could seem to be affecting the outcome of the election itself. If youre in a position of responsibility and have to ask yourself is it appropriate for me to do something, im sure theres conversations like that going on. We would not normally be invited to that. And that is okay with me. But in the intelligence briefi briefing, i know what the russians were doing and surprised me and i did not require a whole lot of convincing. They werent doing it deliberately. Following up on your comment about keeping the department of defense out of politics, i was wondering if you could share your thoughts on president trumps fourth of july salute to america of that on the mall. What was your take away . I prefer to call it a fourth of july celebration. In general the troops are supposed to be training for war. And thats what they should be doing. And every holiday has its purpose and we have veterans day in memorial day which are particularly important to us. And we honor our institution. In inauguration days only honor president s, there are fourth of julys forward honoring the principles that created the nation in which we live, the different holidays have different purposes. One way to answer your question, the troops are supposed be training for war thats what we need them to be training for. I imagine you dont like the u. S. Borders appointment. No, they are not trained for that. They are not authorized for that. We have tens of thousands of people in the customs and border patrol. We have forces that do that and our guys are not trained to do that. And they are trained for war which is what we want them to be trained in. There also not authorized to in other words they dont have the Law Enforcement abilities so theyre not the right force to be using. If it needs to be bigger lets make it bigger. But our guys are not trying to do that and not authorized to do that. The gentleman with the glasses in the back in the middle. Thinking for this opportunity. The article in Washington Post last week signed by 100 guards, it is agreeing with the china policy arguing that china is not an enemy of the United States. What is the point of this article and you see china as an enemy of the United States and do you endorse the trump of ministration china policy security . There is a policy first the letter. First of all, the question is, china is a competitor in a strategic component and i dont want to be an enemy of china. I know who would win at a war with china. And we have to know it is us if we want to have a war with china. I think to the exception of the scholars, i read that in respectively read it and it has some good points and in general, i dont buy the american creation story of the u. S. China competition. There is one version of that which is by a good friend of mine and wonderful colleague graham allison. But remember vicinity formulation was that war was caused by the rise of one power and the fear that cause and another. That was the historical judgment. I dont think that quite works in this case. I dont see the United States fear as contributing to. And dont forget the Peloponnesian War in the trap, they did go to work and you know who won . The u. S. Side. So it might not get you where you wanted to go with these letter writers are in that camp. So i dont think we are causing things and they put that on china as well. With the trump of ministration policy with your other question. I dont know exactly what it is. Because it has the tree dimension which i talked to which it seems we have tariffs which i get and i understand. That is a tool but it seems to me one instrument and not an orchestra. I dont chalk that up to the trump of ministration because we have gone from her economic International Policymakers and i think theres other pieces tha that there would be other things than tariffs. I think to the extent it is reflective of this country coming to the view that we need to have a more intentional Political Economic policy with respect to china, i think that is necessary and inevitable and long overdue. But ics scratching for a playbook. Which is hard in a country like ours because we cannot decide this is the playbook like you can do in china and xi jinping says the playbook will not be that easy. I see all these hands and i know i have more questions. But i do have to keep to time. I need to get this wrapped up by 1 30 p. M. And i want to thank all of you members for coming today and for secretary carter for your time and conversation. [applause] the new cspan online store now has book tv products. Go to c cspanstore. Org to check them out. See what is new for book tv and all the cspan products. Weeknights this week featuring book tv programs showcasshowcasing whats availae every weekend on cspan2. On wednesday the theme is science and technology, scientist and entrepreneur weighs in on the state of Artificial Intelligence and its future. Godly director of cluster intelligence talks about the work being done on a. I. In Columbia University psychiatry professor explores between mental and physical health. That is wednesday beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. And enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. There is more book to be coming up next with journalist eyes in the sky which examines the pentagon aerial Surveillance System known as organs gorgon stair. Good afternoon i am patrick, a Research Fellow here and i want to welcome you in the auditorium. At the building in washington, d. C. And those of you watching online or on our website, i believe they are in fact on site here. I just want to go over a few admin iteft