Adam smith talked Current National security issues. Talked yesterday at an event for the center for strategic and International Studies looking at defense and National Security oversight. This is an hour. Todays event culminates ninth Month Research effort conducted by the interNational Security program. Over 60 u. S. Government and military officials regional and functional Security Experts and leaders from the ngo and Civil Society communities were consulted for this project. We want to thank all of them for insights and perspectives. It was made possible by the sponsor open society center. Tonight key note address is by adam smith give us a perspective on capitol hill. Representative smith is Washington State 9th District Representative and serves as ranging house on the u. S. House Armed Services committee. Graduated from ford Um University with bachelors degree in Political Science and j. D. From Washington School of law. During his last year in law school, representative smith ran and won election for washington 33 district becoming the youngest state senator in the country at the time. Representative smith is now the 11th term in congress. Representative smith has previously chaired the subcommittee on air and land forces and the subcommittee on terrorism and conventional threats and capabilities. Previously served on the House Foreign Affairs committee and House Committee on intelligence. After the key mark remarks, ill join him on stage for a little back and forth and open it up to the audience before we move to a break in our first panel. So without further adieu, please join me in welcoming senator smith. Thank you very much. Its a great honor to be here. I always appreciate working with csis they have been helpful to me throughout my time on the around services committee. They know pretty much everything and its good to have them around so you can ask questions and learn. Its a complicated world tan a little unsettling this is first time in how long ive been before a group of people we actually have a budget deal. Normally thats what dominates all my thoughts know how much money we have so what will we do. Only caveat ill throw out there is well have that money for two years. Eventually you do get a debt in a deficit that are so high that you are put in a very, very bad place. And that is going to happen. I cant say when exactly, but when that happens all aspects of government and the military will not be excluded well have to figure out how do we live with a lot less money than we thought we would have. Tan i think that is one of the most important conversations we should be having at the pentagon and the government level is how we make the most of this little twoyear gift weve been given. And not think that it is simply something that is going to keep happening. Its economically impossible for it to keep happening. And distinctly possible for it to go the other way in a massive way. So well see how that plays out. But as far as Security Cooperation goes with other countries, its something ive worked on in a long time and started whether i was the chair of the subcommittee on terrorism and had jurisdiction over sew come so traveled the world for years and basically see every where that the special Operations Command, well not every where, but a lot of the places. As admiral olsen used to say he would start off every meeting by saying today we woke up in 87 countries or whatever it was, but it was a pretty good blueprint for where our military presence was throughout the world h understanding we where so come was. Whats the purpose . What are we trying to accomplish . Well, putting a side for the moment the really intense conflict zones, which ill get to in a second, what we are trying to accomplish actually so comp is preparation of the environment. I like that. Basically what they meant is we want to make friends in different parts of the world, whether its south africa, asia, so if things go horribly wrong, we are better prepared to deal with it on the one hand. On the other hand we are hoping those relationships and what we do will stop things from going wrong. Because thats part of our mission, not just in the military but in the state department and Foreign Policy to maintain peace. Thats complicated. All of you are knowledgeable, you can look around the globe, and you have afghanistan and somalia that are problems but a dozen other countries as well that is in some state of instability with terrorist organizations that threaten the west. So trying to figure out how can we work in those countries and countries around this em to bring a more secure environment. And the key to all this is a whole government approach. Now what we had and what we attempted to reform with the 2017 nda reforms on Security Assistance was as a result of iraq and afghanistan, as a result of all of the stuff bursting on us very suddenly, and in an emergency situation, we sort of made it up as we went along. We knew we had spread a lot of money around in different places to try to keep the peace, try to keep the stability. And thats really what this is. You are trying to make friends and figure out if you are working in the philippines, what do they need in the philippines so theyll cooperate with you. I always harken back to a story that retired so comp officer told me about when he was in libya early 80s. He said the single best thing he had was a dentist. Everybody in libya wanted a dentist. As long as he provide the dentist they would provide him everything he needed to. Its a bit of over statement but thats what we are trying to do. If you were in one of the places like afghanistan, secure environment. And what complicates that in terms of Security Assistance is you try to pass out this money, and Security Assistance is not just about training people how to defend themselves. Training other countries. The program is spread across a wide range of things. You had dod dollars going to build schools and drill wells and provide health care and a bunch of Different Things, and thats all sort of under that umbrella, i guess you would call it from new jersey Walking Around money. What you need to sort of keep the peace in the neighborhood. And it got very, very confusing in terms of who was controlling what. So we an attempted in 2017 to say we are going to consolidate all of this money, at least at the dod under one person under the under secretary of policy so we can keep coordination of that money within dod. But for all this to work, it has to be about a lot more than dod. Because depending on the country, you may need Different Things. Certainly you are always going to need security to do anything. But you also need the rule of law. So the Justice Department could potentially be very involved in figuring out how can you put in place a basic system of law that people can rely on. Health care is enormously important, as i mentioned. Special Operations Command runs what they call med caps, where theyll show in a village and say well be here all day with a bunch of doctors to help you out. So you have that. Agriculture. I dont know anything about agriculture, i grew up in the suburbs but it is very important in a lot of these parts of worlds, countries in the world. So how do you bring that together and have a whole of Government Cooperative approach . I think getting dod aes money coordinated is important. Whats going to be even more important is getting some of that money out of dod and into the hands of the people who build schools and drill wells and provide health care and set up the rule of law and set it up so there is a cooperative experience within the country. I did a trip through africa in 2009, i think it was, in which we visited a lot of Different Countries and tried to get an idea how are we doing. Went to bunch of different cities, congo, egypt, and really it varied from country to country how well our government worked. A lot of it is dependent upon the ambassador. Because if this model is working correctly, the ambassador is in charge of the country. And that was something we also went to yemen on that trip. I always talk about my trip to africa and say i went to yemen, well, yemen is not in africa, well, yeah, we jumped across the sea and jumped back. But in yemen there was a conflicts at the time. The ambassador had a large military presence there and he wanted to be in charge of it. Because its his country and he wasnt so he didnt know how to operate with the other people in there because you had these bifurcated command structures, theoretic will i in charge of the hold. If this is working properly, the ambassador works with whoever the military leader is, so kaum is frequently a big part of this, and all the other agencies underneath t and they all have an idea plan what theyll provide in kenya, libya, or somalia, or wherever, and structured spending the money wisely. Right now its kind of dros purposes. 2017 reform is start but we need to get to the whole of government approach to properly do this. At the end of the day what we are talking about is Counter Insurgency in the good sense. It got a bad name because its become synonymous with nation building. Thats not what its supposed to be. I think we can all agree at this point after whats happened in iraq and afghanistan that showing up in any country in the world, particularly one that is completely different from america, and saying, all right, we are here, well rebuild your entire country and show you how to run it, not a good idea. Counter sur begincy on the lower form is simply small little bits of help as i described to help a country maintain stability. Works best i think through the Millennium Challenge Corporation that works with foreign governments, well give you plan, what are you trying to accomplish in health care and elsewhere. And that has to start from the state department and work through the defense attorney. In my opinion. Well close with this and take your questions. Because thats one of the biggest conflicts out there. Dod has the money at the end of the day. When the state department all these other people are battling to have influence over a given country, if the department of defense happens to be there in any sort of force, they are the ones with the huge pot of money. Its 55 of the discretionary budget. The other 45 is spread out over everybody else. So tendency to have dod do a whole lot of Different Things they shouldnt be doing. One example was given to me when i was at kenya at dinner a great argument with a young woman between the state department and two navy seals traveling with me about state department and military running country and how security is how it all started, if military wasnt doing it how would you do that. But the state department woman had a good story how this branch of the military for the u. S. Had gone up and started drilling wells in this town up in northern kenya where they needed wells. So without talking to state department they just went up and did it. And pretty soon people who were either actively trying to resist the u. S. Or just paranoid started spreading rumors that the wells were poisoned. So nobody would use them. Because you cant trust the u. S. Military. If its u. S. Military they are here to crush you and take over your country. So thats why you needed more cooperative effort. Thats why you need diplomats involved and engaged. So while talking about massive increases in the Defense Budget, and cutting the state department, we are kind of making it more difficult to do this comprehensive approach. And this comprehensive approach is vastly preferable than dropping 150,000 u. S. Troops into a country and trying to pacify it. If we can do it for a small amount with cooperation from other countries and other agencies we definitely get more bang from our buck but ult ma ily more success sful what we are attempting to dochlt but that fight will play out. And general mattis said it best when he was trying to defend the state d he said if you are going to cut the state department you better give me five more divisions because well need this. Regrettable when he said that thats kind of exactly whats happening. Pentagon is getting a lot more money. State department is not. A lot of these other places in government arent either. So basically, as you talk about Security Cooperation, dont forget the whole of government approach. Yes we need to train troops in trouble spots in the world so they can keep the peace and keep the security, but security is about a lot more than the military. So ill look forward to your questions again. I thank csis for hosting this event. Thank you very much, representative smith, i know your back is bothering you so if you have to stand and walk thats fine. I dont have to do that. Thats actually not my back, but thats another story. Apologizes for that then. Lets start with you how you ended up whole of government comprehensive approach. Sure. Challenging to say the least right now, as you said, the state department is going through best described as restructuring. But heavy pruning approach. What do you think sort of is the next stage or era of congressional viewpoint with regard to where we go on these comprehensive approaches . If we are going to get to a point where it is well resourced and on a lot of the things. What do you hope for . Im not known for my optimism. I think thats unfair, by the way. Im not being ps mystic. It pessimistic. But ill start with something positive going on. Im working with senator and along with cruz to do a fairly comprehensive reform of Development Aide that puts more power in the house of u. S. Team. And actually improves that particular leg of the stool if you believe the development doma approach to Foreign Policy. And actually quite promising. Its ironic, because this is something that was central to my approach prior to 2008. And i worked with susan rice and gail smith on the campaign at the time. This was a big focus of ours that we were going to reform the way we do foreign aide. Foreign aide right now is spread out over 40 different agencies and its been boxes of money that you cant get. Its very difficult. Raj shaw, not the one in the white house, the raj shaw, did a marvelous job, but we never did the reform. And never did the reform because the state department would let go of it. The state department wanted to control t and i always thought that was a mistake. We should have a separate department of development sort of like they do in great britain, but its a turf thing. And the state department wanted it. So under the Obama Administration eight years we did nothing. So raj did what he could within the confines of the law. But now we have possibility of reforming that and that would be a good step to do that if the u. S. Had more power and authority. Because there has been in washington this debate whether structural reform is possible and whether one should do that to make some of the bigger structural changes or one absent a major crisis one is forced back, if you will, into working with what you have. It sounds like in this example maybe its a view there really is a chance for fundamental structural change that could help us . I think there is a chance. And its always worth working on. As legislatures thats what we do is legislate. So i would never say we should walk away with it. I think the challenges are daunting because of the current strurk and also because of the money problems i alluded to in opening remarks that will eventually bite us. Everyone is short of money. So you tend to get locked into patterns and dont have the freedom to innovate as you should. But i think there is a possibility we could get to a better approach. Speaking of spending, we hear a lot in washington about how difficult it is, and many of us experience, to try to explain anything like Security Cooperation or defense, whatever the comprehensive approach, whatever it is, to people just thinking about where they want their tax dollars going and the value trying to explain the value of that when folks are looking at whether they want their taxes raised or they want benefits decreased or whatever the issue may be. They dont want either one of those things. What is the compelling case, if any, that you have found works, if you will, in terms of talking about your travels, your experiences in this sector, and the value that it can provide to americans . Is there a way to spell this successfully . Yes, there is a rather sizable problem after i explain how we do it. Ive been giving this speech for a long time. Constituents tend to be very straightforward in their focus. Whats this doing for me . Im spending money on this, how is it helping, or if we are spending money across the world, how is it helping. Well, four ways that it helps. Three practical and one is more idealistic argument. But to begin with, the United States of america is still the largest economy in the world by a comfortable margin. Everyone talks about how china is catching up. We had this conversation in the Armed Services committee very soon they would be past up. Actually looked up the number. And im saying a little bit here, but last year we had 19 trillion in gdp. They had 11. I dont know thats a pretty comfortable lead. And we are still responsible for consumption. Which means we have more invested in global stability than anybody. So number one is economics. If we want to continue to grow we need to can assess the market. Would you rather have access to market like kenya or somalia . There has to be something there. So we have an interest in maintaining the stability to help continue to grow the economy so that we can sell stuff to them, bottom line, so there is the economic benefit. Then there is health care argument. You know, basically disease spreads like that. Good article about how disease spreads like that, how the fact that cdc and health and Human Services arent really run by anybody at the moment. There is a problem. And maybe part of the reason weve had more people die from the flu this year than weve had in any point in recent memory. But if you have instability in these other countries, then picture favorite disease, bird flew w flu was going to kill us, then swine, anyway, this is going to spread, ebola, of course. So making sure that countries have Stable Health care systems protects us as well. And then there is the fact that instability leads to terrorist groups that would vary much like to get tous. So if you can stop instability, its less likely somebody is going to attempt to kill you either here or while you are traveling abroad. So three very practical arguments why the u. S. Is invested in this. Whatever problems we have here, there has never been society in the history of the world that has been as wealthy and prosperous as we have been since world war ii. And we were a country that was built on lofty values and principles. And if we can help spread that across the world and help people, we ought to. If you want to make it a christian argument, you know, basically love thigh neighbor, and help whoever you can help, Good Samaritan story, basically. You know, you should help anyone you can help. And we are in a position to help a lot of people. There is a lot of suffering in the world. And actually weve been more successful at this than people realize. Been actively engaged. I forget the numbers, but the Poverty Level has gone down a heck of heck of a lot. You know this. Its gone down a lot. And we ought to be proud of that. Loosely speaking, democracy and capitalism, they work, they make the world a better place. Now the part that gets in the way of all this is what you said about, what do people want to spend their money on. Again ill start with the good research. Peer research does a fascinating pole, i havent looked because its rather depressing, they ask the American People, here are the 18 areas with the federal government spends money, roughly speaking. And in these areas what would you like to be cut, increased or kept the same . And the answer to the question of what the American People would like to cut is nothing. Literally, nothing. In fact, most of the categories, social security, medicare, medicaid, transportation, health care, you add upkeep it the same and increase it t and that number has to be less than the decreased number or they dont want to see anything cut. And its like two thirds. 70 of people want to see either increased or kept the same on all those things. Right. Even foreign aide as tangential as it is, difficult to make this argument consistently eeks out a narrow victory in terms of people want to spend more money as opposed to those who want to cut it. So there is the support for that. The problem is what the American People want, if you look at the polling, by the way, im not fond of polsters, unless im in a very, very close race. If they are doing the poll, its shocking how accurate it is. All these polls that get published, if you dont do it right, you may ask the first 300 people that walk out of a burger king somewhere. But if you do it right, statistics blows my brain away that, every race ive done and i hire good polsters, they are spot ton, right on the numbers. But the problem with polsters is not what they are pulling to see who is going to win the election, do you have something to worry about, is when they try to figure out whats the message thats going to work to persuade people to vote. Thats the part i just as soon as not pay them for. Because basically what they do is they figure out that if you tell people you are going to give them something for nothing, they like it. Really. I learned that when i was six years old. So when it comes to the government, this is the basic thing. About 80 of the people support a balanced budget. By the way, today, not ten years from now or 15 years from now, whatever economist would say, no we have to balance today because fiscal responsibility is good. What do you want to cut . I already told you that story, nothing, in fact we want to increase. How high do you want taxes to go . No, we dont support any tax increase. Now as i jokingly say, you can do a poll so you can get majority of people to support a tax increase if you can convince them that it is not going to impact them directly. Now now, the problem with that, very quickly, the group of people impacted by that will spend a lot of the money that they have to convince everybody that it could impact them, and then your lead evaporates. So city state tax is great example of that. So basically the position of American People is we want you to balance the budget and do it without raising taxes. By the way we are 21, going on 22 trillion in debt and projected deficit for this year is a trillion. So any of you can do that . No one gave me a magic wand when i was elected to this job. And we can make the case foreigner aid but you also have to have a budget in which it fits and given peoples position on revenue and spending and balanced budgets, that is impossible. So what i am trying to do about that, other than simply tell funny jokes about it, is to tell people this. Its like, hello, lets talk and have an honest conversation about the numbers here so we can talk about it. Do we want a Defense Budget . Its going to be okay to not balance the budget for a while, but its not okay to send the debt up over 30 trillion. There are numbers here. So lets work on this. Revenue we need to raise. To have an honest conversation. Instead what polsters tell you, you get the poll back, in a close race, run ads talk about all the things youll spend money on and taxes youll cut and how physically responsible you are. And as ads run people start to believe it. Thats why i said jockingly the state of the union ought to be banned. People, maybe this doesnt come across in print very well. Well, its in the constitution. Thats not technically true, as theyll point out to you. But in the state of the union, this is true republicans and democrats, i walk out with the same reaction. Really we have that much money, i had no idea. Its an excuse to promise everything. Because before you told the speech the polsters told you this is what they wanted to hear. I could go on. Until we solve that problem we are going to it be up against virtually making every area in the federal government function. So that probably brings us back to the point you were raising before that this problem in defense has the money, has some of the money. And you wanted to along with your colleagues in the 2017 National Defense authorization act better align perhaps the resources with the kinds of authorities you think appropriate for this sector. As you look ahead now that the legislation is passed, dod gun implementation, what will you be looking for insecurity sector reform for signs of success, signs that dod is not meeting that . I mean, basically to make sure, this is where the ig comes in, that the money speaks, the way we said it should be spent. Not drafting over into a program thats not being run by a person who is supposed to be in charge of all the money. Im developing programs over here they are calling Something Different that falls under the house of this. One of my favorite stories when i was there, we went and visited a village where they were making hats. Interesting looking hats but the culture. So and selling them. And it was a missed program. I dont know what missed stands for. But it was a d. O. D program. So the department of defense is making hats. Why . Well, part of security. All part of the economics. So im not saying its a bad idea to help the people in them have something they can sell in the markets going forward. Its something we have to have a better idea this is part of what dod is doing and ought to be better coordinated. So the way well be able to tell if its working or not is money really being controlled in this one area we told them to control it so basically we can evaluate it whether or not this is correct use of those funds. And do you think are you looking ahead already to new rounds, if you will, much in the acquisition sector, where state in continual reform, is this an area you are already looking ahead in this cycle . What way do you think whether or not the time is right . I dont think so. Other than to pass another law that said no we really meant it. I dont think we need to do that. I worry a little bit in the acquisition reform area, every year we pass something new, and depending six months trying to figure out what the hell it is, i think we need to give them a chance to implement what we pass. And i would say that they did as good a job of anybody trying to change fundamentals of the process. And i think mattis, shanahan and lord are also doing a fabulous job, as are the secretaries, im very impressed with Service Secretaries these are people like we are not going to spend money this way. Lets figure out how to buy more off the shelf technology. Not to get locked into programs of record that wind up costing a ton of money and producing nothing. So i think they are doing it, because at the end of the day all of the legislation we passed in the world isnt the most important thing. Its the culture. The culture at the pentagon. Does the culture reward behavior that is in line with the reforms that weve proposed . If it does, it will happen. If it doesnt, it wont, no matter how many times we pass a law saying that it should. Whats your sense on afghanistan, in particular, and how the United States is doing in that whole government approach in both Training Afghan crews and more generally in terms of the approach for the country . We are Getting Better at training their security forces. You cant talk about afghanistan and how we are doing without, summer publics, but winter olympics, but diving difficulty degree of difficulty. And degree of difficulty in afghan is very high. Its not a particularly well organized, well structured society. They have a lot of guns and they like to fight. And that makes it very, very difficult. So what we are i think making pros re progress of training the Afghan Forces to protect themselves, but it will never be a country to be secure in the sense we like it to be. There was an article i think in the new york times, i get things online these days, said we cant get the outcome we want, so what are the best of the worst options and listed six. But essentially they were all the same. Which was, you know, youll have a Central Government that can basically hold on, and then youll negotiate with a whole bunch of war lords lords in different provinces to try to stop insurgency from happening. Thats the best we can hope for. And its certainly better to go into a libya or somalia or preafghanistan situation. And we are doing the best we can. We have learned a kind of lesson from the afghanistanian. Hard lesson from there and iraq. But i think they are implementing these policies as best as they can right now. Syria . Sticking strictly to the issue of u. S. Support to forces on the ground. You are not going to ask me about norway . Im happy to ask you about norway. Even norway has been in the news. They have a little cross border dispute but thats relatively small. Just in the sense of security sector. Since the United States has been providing aide, attempted overtime with providing aide effectively, most people would say, struggled with it, particularly nonstate actors. Whats your sense of the degree to which we can hope for the United States to be capable over time to learn how to work effectively . Its not a matter of learning. Its a matter of, you know, its funny, you mentioned afghanistan. I talked about how tough it is. Then you claim ame up with a pl thats tougher. I think most people know asad is not going anywhere, not with rush and iran backing him to the degree he is. Hes a brutally unpopular leader. Our lallies want to kill themselves as much as they want to fight against asad. Turkey has problems with the kurds. That crosses over. Then you have its a mess in terms of figuring out who our allies are and then coordinating them. We dont have at least in afghanistan we do have a clear set of people we are working with. Its its a constantly spinning situation in syria. So until we can resolve these situations and syria spills over into iraq, but both of these are important, number one until we can get turkey and the kurds to get along, and i dont know, i mean there is so much. Kurds are splitting like five different factions. So they have their problems there. I mean, if i was advising the kurds, i would say take what youve got and for heavens sake leave turkey alone. If you are able to carve out an area in iraq and syria, take it, try to make peace with turkey, and thats going to be a problem. Because there have been, and i dont agree with the way they are running turkey by any stretch of the imagination, but you cant deny the kurds have attacked places in turkey. And if you are the leader of turkey, what are you going to do . So we need to resolve this situation. Because we want the kurds. They are worthy of our support. I think they are worthy of independent state. I think the countries around them would be wise to say we will give you an independent state. Because if they would have, they would have less reason to be concerned about their neighbor. And i think the u. S. Should do more to support the kurds in that claim. Not just the turkey, but crucially with iraq as well. Because the baghdad government, and i think body is doing i dont want to say hes doing as best as he can, but hes certainly doing better than trying to be a shiite leader. But once the fighting stopped they turned on the kurds and started fighting as well. So we have to resolve the difference between the kurds and the turks and kurds and baghdad, then we can talk about how our Security Assistance is going. Because you cant really do it in this situation that is that fluid and you dont have clear allies on the same page. You would want . I wouldnt want to be the diplomate in charge of that, but yes we have to resolve this only way to do it diplomatic will i. Let me ask one moran then turn it over to the audience. Which is on leahy, you heard value it brings and the tension it brings in terms of limiting the operator offensive ability to train where he or she believes he needs to. Do you think we have it about right today . And what do you see as sort of the future trajectory for human rights issues . More generally human rights issues with regard to history . I think we do have it about right today. And im very worried about the future. And, yeah, i think it was most problematic, really, in, if my direction is correct, west africa, where you had the molly government falling apart, im for getting the name of the country, but there was another ally in there that had a cue, its a tough battle to strike, people should say we should get out of there and not train these people. I disagree with that. Too dangerous. And too many people that want to do harm to United States and allies. We have to try to find a way to work together. If working with a country human rights record we cant support we need to get out. Future im really worried about, because, you know, we have heard a lot recently about the return of great power rivalries. And mostly on Armed Services committee we talk about that in terms of how much more military equipment we need to build. I think that misses the point a little bit. Russia and china, russia more than china but each in their own way are promoting, i mentioned earlier one of the things as America Needs to promote is our values and values being freedom h capitalism. My name is adam smith. How can i not be in favor of capitalism. I understand the down side of capitalism. But its better than plur tokcy which replaces it. There is Political Freedom and promoting that is what will lead to a more stable world. When you choke off peoples economic and Political Freedom they tend to getting an accelerat aggravated and rise up. Russia is strong man, and yes i mean man. And putin is trying to undermine democracy as a way to promote authoritarian. I think it rt staed because rtee didnt want russians to think their economy was in the toilet and started the rivalry against the west. But now he believes it. He believes strong man authoritarian is moll rule. So certainly we have seen some of the stuff going on in eastern europe. We have seen his influence in elections here. And then also western europe now hes trying to prop up a dictator in libya, certainly propped up asad. So concerted effort to undermine human rights because he wants the opposite approach. China isnt as invested in that i dont think. They just dont care. If you are a democracy and you have a good human rights record, fine, well do business with you. Fine, if you dont well do business with you. And as they grow economicicly, i know i pointed out they are still below us, but 11 trillion is nothing to sneeze at and they are not in the type of debt we are in. So they are out there. They are every where. I remember when i was in the republic of the congo, a whole group of Chinese Business people there, disconcerting thing was jerusalem 75 chinese flags all over the place. Im like what the hell was this. But they were in town so they wanted to make a warm welcome to them. They have a lot of money. Start to go spread their influence. Potentially thats good. I mean, if we have another partner who is invested in global stability and prosperity, thats a good thing. But if they undermining freedom rights and capitalism, then we are sewing the seeds of war and dis cord. So we have to contend with russia and china in their effort to spread authoritarianism and do all that with a president who seems to have lack of enthusiasm for the task. Lets put it that way. Well go to audience questions. When i call on you, stand, say your name, your affiliation if you have one, and it is a question, only, please. And one. Well start right up here. And wait for the microphone. Thank you very much. My name is mike jake from pack advisory. I know on thursday ill be speaking to Ministry Defense about corruption. So obviously the focus of my question has to do with that. As factor in return on investment. You emphasized stabilization. And in almost all cases where u. S. Has intervened to try to end conflict, haiti, bosnia, afghanistan, iraq, our efforts have been obstructed by criminalized power structures, regimes. So the solution to that, as you point out is a whole governance approach, elections that allow countries to government and oversight development, media, et cetera. Your question. The question is how do we do that . Would you support legislation that would mandate for Security Systems above whatever the threshold that the pentagon do assessment of the corruption risk, develop a whole of Government Accountability of strategy, and provide support for advisers, go out in the field how to deal with corruption issues . Thats actually a very good idea. Yes, in fact i just said i dont want to add reforms, but i think that would be a smarter way to do it. It would be like the challenge corporation for the pentagon and say, look, if you want to go into ethiopia or kenya or philippines or wherever, you know, give us a coordinated plan, or well send off some of the money. I think thats a good idea. Okay. I have one way in the back here. Thank you very much. Im [ inaudible ] in asia today. I think you covered everything. I dont think you leave any room for me to ask any questions. But anyway my question will be going back to afghanistan, there is attract from chinese expanding militarily in the area, and part of afghanistan is concerned people are still asking when time will come for them to be reilight at the end the dark tunnel. And finally what do you think pakistan, pakistan still helping the u. S. Combatting terrorism or still going back what they have been doing for the last 20 years . Thank you. So im tracking. I couldnt quite here you. One was china, is there any hope for afghanistan, and is pakistan getting any better. Yes, sir, and in the region. In that region, china is problematic. Because on the one hand, i have this core of optimism about the idea that if there is another power in the world, as i said, that is invested in stability and prosperity that has a lot of money, thats potentially good. But china continues to insist doing it in a, the word im speaking of i cant use here, just a fashion stepping on everybodys toes even when they dont have to. And we have to be a Counter Point to that. I think the increased relationship between the u. S. And india is a very positive thing. I really ash carter this was something that he was really focused on. And i think the new administration has picked up on that as well. With south korea, with vietnam, with all the countries in that region, you know, we have to be counter balance so that china and china would be so much better off if they didnt take militaristic approach to this, if they would work cooperatively with their neighbors. They are the biggest kid on the block. And that aint changing. They are going to have influence and power. They should try to bring everybody else along with them so they feel good about the experience. But until that time well have to be counter well, we are going to want a presence in there no matter what. But right now counter balancing china basic instincts is important. Light at the end of the tunnel in afghanistan, ive sort of answered that. Its not a particularly bright light. But there is the possibility of the kind of stability that i described. I cant imagine a time in my lifetime when they stopped fighting in afghanistan. I hope im wrong. Im wrong a lot. So i hope this is one of those times. As far as pakistan is concerned, i dont think things are getting a whole lot better. You know, they have too much extremism bowels of their government, their military and their intelligence services. They are part of the reason afghanistan is so unstable. It goes back and forth across the board. Pakistan continues to play, i believe, this double game with the extremists. On the one hand theyre fighting them, on the other hand they use them when they think its useful to them. I havent seen much change. Nor do i think its going to chan change, the president got in hot well, this president doesnt get in hot water in that sense because you have to perceive something is hot in order to be in it but he was very critical of pakistan and there was blowback from pakistan. I wish talking strongly, we are going to cut off some of your money, but theres two problems with that. A, at the end of the day thats not going to change the fundamental problem of extremism in pakistan and their need to reform in the way that frankly, much of the muslim world needs to reform their government, saudi arabia is kind of trying to do it. Pakistan needs to reform. Second, we still work with pakistan on a ton of things. A lot of which i cant talk about here. But we still work with them. We still need them. If we cut them off and they go looking to china to fill that gap, thats not good. So i think where pakistan and afghanistan are concerned, i dont have a ton of optimism of things Getting Better in the short term. We have possibly time for two more questions. I will group them and you can answer them together. We have one right here. Thank you for such an articulate discussion of the need for forward engagement. Im max kelly. Im a defense consultant. I spent the last seven years at National Defense university actually looking at lessons from interagency stabilization and our work came to two succinct conclusions that are relevant to this conversation. The first is that building schools or Training Forces in and of themselves do not contribute to stability or preventing fragility. They only work when they are serving a politically informed, politics first strategy. Our second conclusion was that no agency or institution in the u. S. Government really has that as its mission. No institution, even special forces, dont have as their core logic, their core training, their Core Selection process, building the internal politics of other countries from the ground up, and all the way up, not that so the question is, the institutions that were stillborn during the last 15 years to try and actually create that capacity, they were stillborn. They never went anywhere. Is there any interest in congress in trying to revive or reinvigorate that capacity . If you dont mind, please hold on because i know we will run out of time otherwise. Lets just go to the second question here. Then maybe you will be lucky and they will be roughly the same question. My question, i will be short, thanks so much, congressman, your opinion about perspectives [ inaudible ] specifically ukraine, georgia, since they are different type of challenges, they all struggle with i didnt understand him. Hes asking about any special considerations or conversation you want to give to the issue of Security Assistance to ukraine yes. Okay. The answer to your question is that is my dream, all right . From a legislative standpoint, i would love to revive that process. I would love to have that organization in charge of it. Its part of what made me fall in love with the special Operations Command. They are the closest thing to a group that can do what were talking about here. This is what they do. Thats what well, let me amend that a little bit. Most people think of the special Operations Command as the guys who killed bin laden. They kick in doors and shoot people and theyre really good at it. During my time with them, i learned that, you know, by and large, they wished people didnt think that was all they did. What they really fall in love with is the idea of going into a country or village or town thats fallen to pieces and help keep it together. A ton of thinkers at all levels, special Operations Command, when i visited the philippines, when i visited in kenya, they are all thinking about all these questions weve said in a way that nobody else is, comprehensi comprehensively. Yes, security is their first instinct but since they are the guys who have to keep the peace in very, very tough parts of the world, they are the most qualified in terms of thinking holistically about this. Yes, the state department should be in charge but the state department doesnt have the security focus and its absolutely true, what my navy s. E. A. L. Escorts were saying during that dinner in kenya. You can do all you want but if people show up and shoot you, were dead and were the ones that can stop that from happening. Now, there was a time back in the day, when briefly in some document somewhere in the pentagon, the special Operations Command is typically a supporting command. In other words, theyre not in charge of anything. They do what the air force or army or whoever tells them to do, but they were the supported agency in the global war on terrorism. They were supposed to be the ones coordinating exactly what were talking about. And that slowly went away. So i would love to see that happen. I would love to see us get back to a place where we had a Central Organization that was in charge of this. Now, personally, if i could just sort of move the u. S. Government around like, you know, hotels on monopoly board, i would take socom and u. S. A. I. D. , make them a hybrid and put them in charge of this. Take 12 people from each, say you got a new agency, do this. I think those are the two groups in the best position to do it. The state department would of course freak out. If theres anyone here from the state Department Im sure i will be getting a nasty phone call soon for even suggesting such a thing. But those are the two groups that are really most on the ground dealing with it. They are diplomats as well as all the other things that they do. The problems with the state department being in charge of all this stuff, they got so much to worry about that they dont get down into the weeds on the level socom and u. S. A. I. D. Does. Those are the two groups. Like i said, take the 12 smartest people from each, say here you go, heres 50 billion, go save the world. Because i think they are in the best position to actually coordinate that. Now again, everyone would be wait a second, im not taking orders from those people, what are you talking about. But if i were god and i could make these things happen, thats what i would do because i think they would be in the best position to coordinate it. Ukraine and georgia sort of bring us to the russia question and i could give a longwinded answer but i have really explained what russia is doing and why its so bad. In the case of ukraine in particular, i actually agree with what the Trump Administration has done, because while russia is a profound threat for all the reasons we know, at the end of the day they are playing a weak hand, the demographics are terrible. Their economy is terrible. They, you know, theyre not all together that strong. They will push and if nobody pushes back, they will just keep pushing. So in ukraine and georgia, we have to raise the cost of what theyre doing, which is why i supported the decision to sending, start sending offensive arms or better defensive arms, but whatever. We decided we were going to arm them a little bit better to raise the cost of what russia is doing. Then we got to wait out putin. Because theres no solving this problem as long as putin is in charge slash alive which i think is pretty much the same thing. Because he has made his decision. He has decided that his role in history is to bring down the west and all that it stands for. Like i said, this is somewhat heartfelt. This is not, as far as i can tell, just some megalomaniacal madman trying to rule the world like a james bond thriller. He honestly believes if his way doesnt work, mob rule will take over. You have seen the story about he was in berlin when the wall fell which is really unfortunate because it had a real negative impact on the way he views democracy. Essentially he was surrounded by a mob and they were going to kill everyone inside but he worked his way out of it. He fears mob rule. He this nks the only way aroundt is an authoritarian regime. The west is completely opposite. We are for representative democracies and hes going to play a zero sum game as long as hes around. Thats not going to change. Whether its obama or trump or bush, you can look into his soul, he can do a reset, you can do whatever you want to do, it aint going to change. What do we do . We got to wait him out. Now, its a complicated waiting out game because on the one hand, you do want to keep up the pressure so he doesnt roll into estonia or anything like that. On the other hand, as many people have said including you guys, you know, a strong russia is a problem. A weak russia is a problem. Because if russia looks like its failing, lord knows what putin would do externally in order to try to prop up support. So like i said, we got to wait him out. Boris yeltsin was an unfortunate postsoviet choice. Its a complicated society in that, well, theres people here who know a lot more about russia than i do but i was in russia with john kelly, of all people. We were just Walking Around red square, this is 1998. Not long after all this changed and he just sort of said, i still have a hard time understanding this. We spent 70 some odd years fighting these people as basically the worst people on the planet and now all of a sudden its all good and we are supposed to get along. How does that work. And hes right in the sense that russia, some of the basic things we take for granted about a free society, they have no history of it. Like ever. All right . Before communism, it was the czars. They have no history of selfgovernment. When i was over there, i dont know if its still true, they didnt have mortgages, okay . You couldnt borrow money from a bank to buy something. So who did you borrow money from . You know, so at some point, russia could play a positive role and i will close with this thought because i think its ultimately what can bring us a more Peaceful World for my children and their grandchildren. A unipolar america dominated world is never going to work. Postworld war ii was sort of an accident well, not an accident, a moment in history thats unlikely to be paralleled. We need a multipolar world. We need a world a whole lot of reasonably big powerful countries that have a vested interest in peace and stability. To get there, we obviously have to be part of it, china has to be part of it, i think india has to be part of it. I also think russia has to be part of it. Its not going to be part of it under putin. Which is why i say we have to wait him out. And figure out how to maintain ties there. So eventually we can get a reset back to 1994 and go how can we do this differently this time so that russia integrates into the world instead of deciding to become its opposite. Representative adam smith, i do think you managed to cover everything but norway today. Impressive array of issues we threw at you. I want to thank you for your service as Ranking Member on the house Armed Services committee and if everyone can please join me in a round of applause. Cspans history series landmark cases returns this month with a look at 12 new Supreme Court cases. Each week, historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind these significant Supreme Court decisions. Beginning monday, february 26, live at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and to help you follow all 12 cases, we have a companion guide written by veteran Supreme Court journalist tony morrow. Landmark cases, volume 2. The book costs 8. 95 plus shipping and handling. To get your copy, go to cspan. Org landmarkcases. Earlier this week, wyoming Governor Matt Mead delivered his eighth and final state of the state address to a joint session of the 64th state legislature. From cheyenne, this is 50 minutes. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you