Transcripts For CSPAN2 Sen. Chris Murphy Remarks On Foreign Policy National Security 20240713

Good morning, everyone and good morning to all the people watching over cspan and electronic means of communication and very happy on the behalf of the Hudson Institute to welcome chris murphy from connecticut to join us in a series of dialogues that we have had at hudson over the last few years with a range of policymakers and important contributors to the market foreignpolicy debate from both parties for many different points of view, this is partly out of hudsons commitment to serious intellectual engagement over serious questions and reflects my own view of an analyst of the American Foreign policy that if you look at the history of American Foreignpolicy often are policy works best when you have many voices with different points of view and out of that sometimes contentious series of exchanges emerge ideas compromise instructions that no single American School mightve come up with on its own and if you think about it thats the way our constitution worked jefferson hated it, hamilton thought there were terrible compromises, franklin was not pleased with it. The constitution was maybe about better than any of the Founding Fathers had wrote what was in their own head. In that spirit i hope we have an interesting conversation today and what i plan to do is to begin by exploring with senator murphy a series of ideas lot relating to an article he has recently published in the Atlanta Magazine and i want to look at areas where i think his thoughts and those of a lot of people around hudson my overlap in places where there is tension between the ideas that he was expressing and things you might hear around here and places where i want to press him and find out more clearly what he thinks beyond that he is very graciously agreed to accept questions from the audience and were going to do that in the form of asking to write a question down and our staff will collate them and try to put them together and our goal is to make sure that the audience time is used in the most efficient way possible reflecting the questions that seem to have the widest interest among. With no further ado we will get started and it is wonderful to be here and to be with you. Thank you very much for having me im looking forward to it. As i read your article and look to other things that you have been talking about over the years one thing that struck me was you seem to share a sense of concern of a new authoritarianism and maybe china and russias role in promoting this that has begun in both parties and both on the left in the right to have more salient in American Foreignpolicy conversations. How do you see the snow authoritarianism as a challenge to the United States or torah values insecurity. Thank you very much for having me here i look forward to the conversation and maybe refer back to your opening remarks in which you reference the founding of our nation. I still believe this is an experiment and i think the whole content of democracy by which to run a country is unnatural even in a sense we dont run anything else that is important through democratic vote whether our family or our workplace. We tend to think theres ever government structures that make more sense for other things that are critical to us. I think we have to have a sense of that for delete and understand with the threats to our experiment come and so far Vladimir Putin has made his model of governance more attractive to those around and people from air to one to think about transitioning democracy and more less like hypocrisy and chinas ability to export the tools many technological tools to others that might want to pick them up and we have to see these threats as very real and we have to accept that the more democracies around the world the safer American Interests probably are in a little bit harder for to go to were for harder for terrorist organizing democracy. We should be in the business of protecting ourselves from tools and models that may ultimately find refuge on american soils but we should also recognize the advancement of democratic interest tends to avoid the United States and world in controversy and conflict overseas. My point in the atlantic piece, you are certainly going to get a democratic president who is going to be skeptical about largescale military operations overseas. I dont want my party and i dont want my parties foreignpolicy platform in 2020 to be about retreat from the global stage want to be involved in a conversation about how to see the threat and how different they are and what they might even 50 years ago still have a strategy to confront them outside of the confines of the United States. This struck me as one of the real point of different than american politics as a whole and points to similarity that is a bit more i partisan the people understand. And the public at large and there is a certain sense that there is less reason for the United States to be globally engaged than in the past but on the other hand looking specifically at china and russia they worry that there may be more dangers to American Interest and security than the very recent past and you are getting a debate in both parties to some degree a very strong and lively debate over whether america is pulling back or by staying engaged and maybe putting that engagement. How do you think about this . We have no choice but to be deeply engaged and the world does not stop at our borders any longer, or economic interest is clearly now global and the ability for information to flow across the borders and for other nations to use lowcost mechanisms to mess with us in the United States outside of the production military force is more menacing than ever before. I think were serious about protecting america and we have to be globally engaged. That does not mean that your end game is to defeat your adversaries or your contestants abroad. Ultimately, i do think if we can portray strength to russia and china then it may be there is a better chance they will decide to amend their political or economic behavior to a standard that is much more in line with American Interest. But we civilly do not have the capacity to meet them where they are. This is what i write in my peace china is midwife in transformative technologies and delivering them to the world or the way that russia is using corruption and bribery and information propaganda to try to influence the neighborhood today we are not really having any meaningful conversation in congress about how to create capacity in the foreignpolicy toolkit that would to countenance what theyre doing nevermind and what their operating without much significant pushback from the United States this in some ways. 2 a lot of observers talk about which is Congress Seems to hav have the one that seems to have the hardest time shaping policy. And that is regardless of party but with the relative weakness of congress by default both the executive and judicial branches have become much more important in the country so for many you have a lot of people who think a Congressional Election is important because it might affect the supreme court. , how does congress recapture its momentum in foreignpolicy is it Senate Foreign Relations Committee that needs to step up or institutional resources or rethink, what can be done. The first thing congress can go is get serious about sacred responsibility within the foreignpolicy realm and that the declaration of war, we just dont do that any longer. To some extent its understandable why we dont do it. Its not the same as 75 years ago. There are not armies merging against each other or peace treaties that wrap up hostility. War is messy in your enemy is shadowy and undefined. That does not obviate congress has a responsibility for the parameters of warmaking. In the first thing congress can do is get back in the game and that probably means we need to think more creatively about how we rate the authorizations and we probably have to sunset them and revisit them every few years to make sure were getting definitions right. But the Biggest Authority that weve given in the inability to authorize war in the point that i make is so much of what ails American Foreign policy is a lack of capability. We say russia is symmetrically because we dont have anything to meet what they are doing with their Energy Resources to bully neighbors or run 24 hours countries around the world. So congress could decide to crate new capacities and we would not manage those but if we gave them to the executive it would be better than what we had today. We did this in a very small way a few years ago when we wrote a piece of legislation establishing new propaganda operation. It is relatively eager in size and 60 million but for the first time the state department had to think about what they would do if they wanted to be present in fighting the information worse around russia and they said it capacities to do that. So congress could do that. We have legislation pending of 1 billiondollar Energy Independence fun. Which could get our government in the business of spending money to help countries become Energy Independent of places like russia rather than taking advice on how to do it. They could greet the new toolkit ive been talking about for yo your. How much money are we talking . We dont bat an eyelash when we plus up the department of defense by 50 70 billion a year. That amount of money represent the entirety of the nondefense, nonintel foreign budget. I put a plan to double the size of the state department in the usaid which sounds revolutionary until you realize thats what we give dod on a oneyear basis. Increase funding. I would argue theyre having a hard time figuring out how to spend the money we are giving them effectively i have another document which is a detailed plan by which over the course of five years you would double the size of the state department and usaid and not do it mindlessly but create these capacities that would meet the start. I think this issue with the institutional reform needed to adapt capabilities in the 21st century is very solid concept. It is about adopting the new realities and answering its being adaptable and can move into places very, very quickly. If you want to give advice to farmers in afghanistan, theyll find a way to tell you it is greater. It is not doing it very effectively. The state department is largely in the business of saying no it has money that is criminally silo and move from place to place and so you have to create not just additional money and authorities you have to create additional flex ability outside of the department of defense. 2000 marines or soldiers were not going to do the trick in a place that needed diplomats and political help to figure out how to create a structure northeast syria with the kurds and the turks could all live with. You decrease the ability for diplomats to get to places they did not get before. Its about flexible become a new capability and new funding. One thing on the state department capably that i noticed over the years ive done a lot of visits and lectures and visited a lot of embassies and so on. It is very interesting places. I noticed that where you need the diplomats most, they only stay for a year end the dangerous hotspots that american diplomats are stationed for one year rather than the normal three and because people are getting on leave and they dont come in and get out of the same time it is very hard to function. Can gardeners do something . Of course, its not an easy assignment, its incredibly difficult that nobody signed up saying is going to be easy. The structure of our assignment at the state department frankly has not changed in decades and when it was a bipolar world in which we had to understand the basics of how you argued against soviet expansion and poor america expansion you are dealing with content contestants buying for space. Maybe a beemer says. But today by the time you learn afghanistan, your ten months into a oneyear turnaround time. And once again the department of defense has started to think about how to deal with that. So yes the young soldiers going to these places and come out in about a year. But special operators do not. They have expertise in parts of the world and they stick around below the radar screen but long enough to develop contacts and an ability to understand the nuance of places in the state Department Needs to catch up. I think youre right. Every u. S. President since bill clinton has tried to build a constructive relationship with latimer putin. We have had reset, looked into his eyes and seeing his soul and we have done all kinds of things but we seem to end up with the same relationship, the hostile relationship, is that because hes not a disease yes and we have to take no for an answer or is there a way to rethink u. S. Russian relations . At some point you have to learn the lessons that are in front of you and there is a psychology to russia that does not lend itself cooperation with the major power that helps to organize the rest of the world. I think you have to understand that very foundation but you also to understand Vladimir Putin has done nothing to suggest hes interested in everything other than using the United States as a political fulcrum to be able to control his own population. That being said, i dont mean to keep beating a dead horse but we simply put him in a position to win when we continue to driver spending for aircraft carriers and drones instead of figuring out what would make him most nervous is countries around the edges who dont need his oil and gas. And today all were left to do is bully countries into not building a russian pipeline instead of actually going with her dollars to help them build any sweep of Domestic Energy sources whether nuclear, solar, wind or connections to other places, we spent 4 billion every year on the european initiatives. I dont think that is money badly spent but clearly whether putin would worry more if we spent 4 billion trying to win countries around him off of his revenue making products rather than brigades deployed in nato countries. If poland had gone into fracking and might be better off but russian money went into prevent that. I think popular practice in europe these days, i think if you really think about how you would spend a new 600 700 billion a year to make her country safer and to give those a little bit harder time i dont think you would choose to spend 0 with making other countries independent of the main revenue sue source of remaining primary. Another point where there seems to be interesting left right consent on call parker see, money laundering, dark money. We have a club pocket see admission at club hudson and i was struck with how important to give that issue. Its the most oldfashioned means of trying to project your influence to just buy it. And to use oldfashioned intimidation and bribery to try to win people to your side and in a world in which it is very easy to cloud the truth to create a narrative in which no one believes any narratives, that provides cover for this kind of oldfashioned corruption. Yet again were very badly resourced to me that the overseas and if you go and any of the embassies today youll find a handful of political officers charged with doing a whole ton of things one of which running anticorruption programming. So why not recognize this is a realreallife daily tool of all source of countries not just the russians and created classification of foreignpolicy officers dedicated only to corruption. Why not spend more money on funding anticorruption projects. Some of the stuff in ukraine with direct dollars on anticorruption efforts like a option to professionalize minutes of a police force and then have been really successful. But we spend that money 5 million here, 10 million there. You spend money on building anticorruption who want to engage with the input officers across the world to highlight and fight corruption you do a much better job than what we currently do today which is just complaining about it. The other side of this is how easy it is for crop dictators overseas to move money into the west including in the United States. How do we effectively limit incorruption everywhere is bad but i worry in the russian and chinese case where this money is not freelanced rich people getting their money safe as it is often connected to state power and moved around for political purposes. How do we address this problem . We have become adept over the years at attracting terrorist financing and finding it where it exists in closing down the shelters that harbor it. You can certainly choose to use the same tools to track the illicit gains and government officials. Admittedly its a little bit harder because these are countries in which we need to maintain a relationship with the executive who is either putting the money in his own account or handing out to others putting it in their accounts. When you go to terrorist financing you have legitimate interest with those organizations you try to protect. But again, i dont think we have begun the work of trained to find a middle ground in which to use the same tools to go after some of the corrupt folks that surround the autocrats or developing autocrats. This has been really great. I would like to turn to areas where some folks might have some questions about the point you have raised and one of them would be the question of the relationship of geopolitics and values where you say in the article that we should not extend guarantees to country that for example dismembered journalist in speaking of the journalist, let me say i am entirely in agreement with the policy that seeks to discourage the heinous behavior. But i do note the u. S. Saudi relationship began in the 1940s when slavery was still legal and it was not very pretty place. In Franklin Roosevelt who is the most progressive president in the United States has ever had in terms of real combo meant made an alliance with the worst mass murder of the 20th century up to that point stalin because he felt he had no choice. Clearly at one end of this geopolitical necessity can overcome even the horror of stalins camps and on the other you do not want to simply raise the white flag and say its for other people. How do we balance us . I guess i tried to answer that very simply and i dont necessarily buy that we should create two different categories one in which u. S. Interest in the other in u. S. Values. I figure should think of values like democracy and human rights as interest. It was easy to sort them into different buckets when you believe the world was in a march towards everyone having access to democracy. In the 1990s everything was good. And we are seeing things swing back around the other way and we have to see democracy promotion for the advancement of human rights as a critical u. S. Interest today because i believe as dictators get more noble and stronger overseas it may ultimately give more ideas to folks in the United States who might want to go about the process of converting our government to something that looks different than what we have today. I would simply put those conversations altogether and that does not necessarily mean you writeoff every country that has a less than stellar human rights record, you just dont see two separate conversations. I think saudi is just an example of a country that is crossed the line. I think they crossed the line to which our signal and continuing no questions asked is an invitation to other nations to engage in the similar behavior which is a risk to us. And i also make a specific argument was saudi arabia even if you want to look at this through the question of nonhuman rights and nondemocracy with National Security interest the way in which the saudis have funneled money to the brain ofism to form the extremism is an argument to treat more like an adversary rather than a friend. So on saudi i think i can argue both the strict security case in the human rights democracy. I am not trying to make a case but my understanding, he has been giving us more satisfaction on stopping the flow of funds to tears organizations and less on other issues so in some way he is an improvement from the Security Point of view and a disappointment and sometimes a bit rash. There is clearly much less complaints about funding directly from the Royal Treasury into political organizations abroad that we would disagree with. I dont know that we see the progress that he claims when it comes to money indirectly rooted to conservative connected mosques and preachers overseas. I know as a student having gone there almost every year, they are still in lots of places and more and more people every year are being paid to practice a version of islam that they did not used to practice ten years ago and that money is coming from somewhere. That is definitely the case but if the saudis were to be more cooperative on that front you think that would change the balance in your mind. I think it would and if you view them altogether in your concerns about human rights and democracy promotion together with her concerns about other conventional security interest you can balance one against the other so i dont think progressive should adopt a framework in which we say to countries that dont share our values on democracy and human rights that you will never be a partner with the United States. We maybe have a higher bar for your behaviors in other contexts if youre not meeting on the other issues. In asia i think we will see more of this because if i think how you balance chinese power without the cooperation of countries like vietnam and thailand it is very hard to do that. None of those would be a stellar example of democracy. That is exactly right. And again, i think you have to find ways to challenge them to step up to the plate on other u. S. Security interest, one of my critiques of the Democratic Party is that we have been and particularly in asia to reflect the trade agreement. I dont think that you can get in the game in asia unless you have a trade framework by which you can sit across from countries that have bad records on human rights and democracy promotion and ask them to give something economically to the United States. We dont have a framework to which we can do that. I would argue the next credit president to get back into the game on an asian trade you and maybe it doesnt look exactly how to but it would give you a platform we can make nonhuman rights and nondemocracy and see how they respond. I think the trade points you make a very interesting, i dont know how you square the circle of a trade agreement that the labor union will like in the Green Movement will like, the american exporters generically will like and the other countries will like. Is there a sweet spot and how do we go about looking for . Because i would agree its important. I guess my belief we should try to find the sweet spot that you might not be able to get an agreement that all democratic constituencies would sign onto but again im not sure how you protect your interest in that part of the world if you arent willing to try and i think our criticism has been a starting point for the trade agreements in the past has been to smooth out as many corporate complaints as possible and then on the backend try to figure out ways to get the labor union on board. If you are approaching these agreements through a workers lines and trying to get as many of the corporate complaints satisfied as you can you can probably get something that a lot of folks in congress in both sides of the aisle with support. You hope to see revival of the trade agenda . I would. That might not make me super popular amongst my progressive friends but i think theres a way to do better on behalf of core democratic constituencies in a new framework. I want to ask about climat ce diplomacy and you list Climate Change as one of the big new issues although you included a very long list i think some democrats would put it at the top of a much shorter list. That is an interesting different and emphasis. Clearly going back to the paris climate records to most people would only be a first step. What do you think american Climate Policy should look like. I think that is my worry, i think a lot of folks will truly will be sent for paris that that is still a nonbinding commitment on nations and we are not alone amongst the nation signed it. How many are its a very small number. Yes very small numbers. This is a much bigger longer discussion and i think president obama how to write which he was elevating the issue in all of our bilateral conversations and i think a democratic president is clearly going to have to put this at the top of the list sitting down with the indians or the chinese and i think its very hard for us to win any of the arguments if were not going to pass a piece of legislation domestically to retrace carbon. I dont think will ever be successful in international diplomacy. As long as everyone perceives us as talking a talk that were not willing to walk at home. The weather a carbon tax or renewed effort at a carbon cap. Im not sure any of those bilateral winds are possible unless we engage in Domestic Legislation that shows were willing to lead by example. Maybe the most fundamental question at least as i look at American Foreignpolicy is that during the cold war we had an atlantic Foreign Policy where the europeans were the primary partners in europe was a primary theater of operations during the cold war. In that case what the americans had to offer our allies was ideological solidarity, european and American Values will differ in some respects are pretty much aligned in many ways. If we go to an indo pacific foreignpolicy, which we seem to be forced towards, that ideology is less attractive and ive been speaking to people in india and their goal is not to westernize india but actually promote hinduism and other countries in asia would recoil from an American Foreignpolicy scene is trained to impose western and colonial values, how in some ways that seems like a harder transition for the Democratic Party to make them for the Republican Party to make even though i would say both parties face real challenges in this. How do you think that we manage or is the problem as bad as i think it is . I think you have democracy promotion and human rights promotion in both parties and i dont think this is a conversation exclusive to one party or the other. But again, i think today we dont necessarily even have the tools with which to make these arguments abroad. We dont have the dollars to spend on democracy promotion and part of the complaint that i have with her inability to meet propaganda coming out of china or other nations is that they essentially exist in a vacuum making arguments without the kind of counter narrative from the United States that we used to make and we should be trying to make in chinas periphery today. I would stand up additional capabilities that we simply dont have today. I get it, i dont disagree that its unrealistic for us to think we are going to replace with ours. But our ability to at least put forth a different narrative i think helps rather than hurt. That makes sense. There were two words that you did not mention in the piece that i thought were striking. One was the word israel does not appear in your article. How do you say we might have post israel, week still cannot tell, where you see u. S. Israel relations going in the new administration . We were talking about this on the way in and my peace is not intended to be a comprehensive and thats not a criticism its an observation. Is not intended to be a comprehensive narrative about progresses or democrats should talk about with respect to foreignpolicy. I think as the region gets messier and messier we need to be as hyper concerned as ever about israel security. In my worry is an issue that was not seen as political or available to be politicized and i dont think democrats or republicans care more than one another about israel security. What i do know, historically when we have been able to make steps forward on progress for peace in and around israel is been the United States who acted as a broker between the israelis and the palestinians. In order to be a broker you have to be perceived as delivering tough messages to both sites. It is not a position were in today. The Trump Administration has effectively a political arm of the government and we have no ability to broker discussions and negotiations between both sides and theres no one else that can fill that role except for the United States. My great worry is that not in yahoo and trump together have taken steps to potentially make a two state solution almost impossible. And having been there recently it is remarkable how that is the narrative on the ground moving beyond the conversation and tried to manage in a state that will exist for the next 50 100 years. The next democratic president is whether it is too late. Whether there are things that you can do perhaps in conjunction with an Israel Government that is willing to try to get back to reality that make the future possible. By the way, it was in no way trying to criticize the senator for not including israel. As someone who writes short pieces and periodicals i find the most irritating criticism when people tell you why did it you write about ask, if you had you would do about why and somebody would say why didnt you write about why. I dont mean this in any way as chrysostom im just trying to elucidate some more ideas. The other with a surprised me and not a criticism is japan. When i think a democratic countries in asia who are great powers and going to be vitally important in americas future, japan, australia and away, a few others lead to mind, what place do you see and how do you see the usjapan relationship and what should we be doing to develop it . One of the reasons why ive been so concerned about this ministration policy towards north korea is that the only means by which you are able to either mount an effort to convince north korea to think differently about the Nuclear Weapons program or be, create a system of protection and deterrence should we be unsuccessful in convincing north korea to change their minds. It is to have a policy by which the United States and japan and south korea are aligned when it comes to Foreign Policy priorities. We are not aligned with japan and the leaders may have a close personal relationship but our inability to bring japan into the trade negotiation that we are having with china make those negotiations harder and leave japan on the sideline and were unwilling to court nate with anybody when it comes to north korea diplomacy has left japan often surprised and ultimately in the long run makes containment which may end up being our policy and frankly is our policy today and for another 20 years will be our official policy a decade from now and is made much harder if you want joint up every day trying to keep japan, the United States and south korea together. Something this ministration has not been is sought to get the bilateral deal with very little help from other partners. This makes a perfect segue into the first question from the audience. Which is about the north korea talks. And they are asking what is the prospect for u. S. North korea denuclearization talks to resume and what progress do you think is possible . I think kim has gotten a lot out of this relationship this far, he gets an almost complete pass on the treatment of his own people in the production of cyber warfare on the u. S. Shores by the focus on showy photo on after showy photo on. Its got less testing nevertheless tuna fears and all other evidence to suggest he continues to move forward with the development of his program. And hyperfocus on the trade deal with china has let china off the hook, they known forever the only way you convince north korea to do anything differently is to get china to deliver a very heavy message to them something theyve never been interested in doing and are even being pressed in a meaningful form to do it today given our trade focus bilateral relationship with china. In this ministration there is no hope for any meaningful nuclear deal with north korea and it would cause in the Obama Presidency obama as we discussed elevates Climate Change as a primary conversation with china which made it hard for him to bring them to the table on north korea. If you are not going to make a number one issue with china, north korea and im not sure any president is going to or could given so many other concerns then again you may be in world which you have to look towards containment is not your unofficial policy but your official policy. A question that flows from that, would be when south korea and japan are not aligned and when general south korea has a doubles approach to north korea while japan is more hawkish, how would a Democratic Administration work with that additional wrinkle . I dont know that there is any good answer to that other than trying harder to create a multilateral framework as we parted the past where the nations that are part aiding these talks would have to hash those out. Right now, its easy for japan and south korea to be on different pages because we have basically asked them by and large to stand aside on north korea diplomacy while we take care of it ourselves. In the past we set up structures which they had to be at the same table and we had mechanisms to try to smooth out the disagreements. We have another question from the audience on china. Noting that the senate will be voting soon on the hong kong human rights and democracy act but also wondering where we have American Companies whether the nba that is approach to china or Hollywood Movie Companies sort of downplaying messages that china might not like, how do we deal with this . I think the current context was hard for the American Government to be telling private companies that they should stand up more strongly for human rights in hong kong or in china when reportedly the president of the United States told the Chinese Government that he would shut up about whats going on in hong kong pending the trade negotiation. So its as much distaste as i may have for the decision Companies Like the nba have made and until we decide to make it more of a domestic priority from our own government, its hard to tell private companies how to act towards china. How would you handle the balance suppose hypothetically the u. S. Was engaged in trade negotiations with china that were important and politically important and at the same time Something Like the hong kong situation arose how you balance these things and i know president clinton when he first came and said we needed to prioritize human rights over trade and then gave up on that. I guess it depends on the consequence of the economic negotiation paid what im arguing for is not a construct in which these two are mutually exclusive that you have to walk away from nonhuman rights and nondemocracy related issues if youre unsatisfied in the acts that youre making in those two categories. If you ask somebody how they balance something on their finger they could probably not explain that they just do it. Ultimately if you are elevating the human rights and democracy conversation it would depend on how heavy the consideration youre being offered on the other end. To me it is not something china is willing to give us anything so significant in the context over trade negotiation that you would not give them a slightly harder time than we are today with respect to what is happening in hong kong. Now the audience is implicitly criticizing me for leaving something out in our conversation. Theyre asking about the western hemisphere. And what is really from ecuador and chile to venezuela and i think i could add raxco that we are actually seeing a crisis unfolding in our own hemisphere, how should the United States addresses . First and foremost we can send money. When i thick about how we would allocate dollars under doubling the state department and usaid there are projects you can pick up from the obama ministration in the northern triangle. They were running with meager resources with Additional Resources to get you real security. If migration continues to be something that both parties will care deeply about, we should and spend real money to help our partners in the hemisphere try to stand up security apparatuses in which less families feel they need to run to the United States. Venezuela, ive been one of the few willing to be critical as the president strategy there, im very worried about venezuela becoming the next cuba in which we apply sanctions perpetually that get us nowhere because we dont understand the domestic political arguments in which way too many people are getting way too much from the current regime to turn antique and i think specifically the president mismanaged crisis by playing all his cards on the first day like a nervous teenager. And we held back recognition of guaido so we could do it alongside other countries that were similarly reticent to take that step of the moment or use a little bit of time to talk to the chinese or russians and i think we might be in a different place than we are today but today we are recognizing a government that is not really the government and not likely to be the government anytime soon. Would you support withdrawing recognition of the government or what to think we should do . It is so hard right now to withdraw recognition so i have not proposed withdrawing recognition. Ive just pointed out as to think about how to learn lessons for future crises like this that you dont need to recognize contest of government on day one and you can use as leverage to try to manage the situation and of course our inability to have any dialogue with cuba does not help had we spent the last two and half years continuing to try to work out a new diplomatic arrangement with cuba, maybe we wouldve been able to manage the crisis. I would not have one of been one of the u. S. Diplomats sent to cuba withou with what happeno the last ones with the mysterious brain injuries. I dont want to go into the saudi consulate an and in an isd trying to find the lot of a reason to continue their investment in madura. But we dont know the answer, instead of trying to get to a point where we can work with cuba on things like venezuela where we once again got back from shutting them out. Okay. Another member of the audience would like to know what do you think of the state of the relationship with key u. S. Allies that specify canada, uk and the eu, where are we in those relationships and what should we be doing . I certainly dont think we shouldve led britain out of the European Union, i think the European Union and nato are key postworld war ii constructs that have accrued to the great benefit of the United States and more democracy the better, more trading partners the better. And im very sad that we have a president who has helped weaken an already very weak European Union and in the long run written will be worse off because of their departure but i think the United States will be as well and im equally sick about her decision to view canada as an economic irritant and legitimate issues with them that often force us to take tough actions but they still are our most apart and trading partner and could be a much better Security Partner than they are today and we managed to get that relationship wrong. I guess youre kind of a book in hand and some ways and know the area pretty well, what are the implications of the french decision to block the obsession talks for North Macedonia and albania and is there a role for the u. S. In this and what can be done and what needs to happen. Whether or not the eu has officially been closed or not, they have been closed for the last half a decade. As they have been managing through exponential crisis. And that comes at great cost disability in the ball pit. I remember parachuting into belgrade the very night that a drone parachuted into a football match between albania and syria with a greater mop of it on her and you cant imagine anything worse than to get under the skin of then Prime Minister with a map of albania on the concentric tv screen. The historic meeting between eddie and him gets canceled and very quickly gets put back together because they all say that they need to keep their european aspirations on track and they cannot let the petty historical grievances get in the way of their focus on joining europe so a situation that could of got really messy instead got patched back together because of their belief that europe was in the future and is a European Future gets further and further away from the region, the historic grievances and rivalries that still exist and still sit as a tinderbox could actually explode and i think that again is my deep worry about our inability to see the important of a stable and growing u. S. National security interest. If hostility did break out again in the balkan we do have nato countries that are there. We have a treaty obligation to defend those countries and their ability to see a future in europe is dependent to stay out of balkan conflicts in the future. Germanys role in europe, is there a way i think many people feel germany has almost a strategic paralysis, not able to pony up for nato and not able to make a clear understanding of the Energy Policy or vision for europe, am i wrong about that . Paralysis may be too strong of a word but to the extent their control politics and the growth of the right wing has made it much harder for germany to leave and we have facilitated the growing dysfunction in germany. We sent steve bannon over to europe to help nationalist parties and Richard Grenell are investor to berlin made amongst his First Official initiative the display of his enthusiasm for right wing movements and Political Parties and it should worry us all that the alternative for Germany Party just scored about a quarter of the boat and admittedly in a series of eastern provinces that are going to be less friendly to the european integration. That is a big number for a party that comes back to the nazi era and again, they are modeling behavior in the United States and we should be fighting those political movements rather than having an administration who is lending fuel to the fire. Thank you. The senator has been very generous with his time so please stay seated while he makes his way out to get on to his next appointment but i would also like us to show our appreciation for an interesting interview. Thank you. [applause] thank you. [inaudible conversations]