Transcripts For CSPAN3 The 20240703

University. I want to welcome you to day two of the barack obama conference. Very exciting, very engaging, inspiring and very much thought provoking. Day and day two certainly offers to be all of those things and more. I want to start by welcoming some special guests before i turn it over to paul fritz and the panel and the special guests. Guests include students from comac school, the ib program, as well as our students in the hofstra Honors College, the and e program. So were so delighted to have the students here with us. You heard yesterday a lot of the perspective of panel this in terms of how impactful Obama Administration and ten year was to the lifetime of of people who really consciousness was just being raised during that administration. So were really excited to hear from todays panel which well start off with with Foreign Policy and driving in this morning just off of the top of my head i was thinking sort of reenergized by yesterdays conversation and all of the things that the Obama Administration had to deal with, just some of the Foreign Policy topics that were top of mind, to me, quick memory. As i get older, that memory is fading but two wars. The cairo speech, the arab spring, Osama Bin Laden, of course, benghazi reestablishing decent diplomatic relations with cuba and the iran nuclear deal, just to name a few. So those of us who have jobs where we think were pretty busy and, we have a lot to deal with. You look at that list and you say, boy, i have such an easy job. So with that ill take my easy job and step aside. But welcome, paul fritz, who is associate professor in Political Science and is also Conference Research director for the obama conference, who will moderate panel and introduce our panelists. Paul. Thank you very much, reardon, for that wonderful introduction and welcome to this really important Plenary Session today. Thank you. Also, president poser for being here and all your support for the conference. Thank you. Dr. Mina bose, the conference director and wonderful friend to work with on this project. Thank you to Honors College for coming today. Packing this this room. Its great to see so many people here. Thank you to all the Conference Participants who already gave us a wonderful day yesterday. And its so much fun. Im looking forward to more fun today. And thank you to everyone else for attending this. This is a, like i said, a really Important Panel Foreign Policy for the Obama Administration was challenging in so many different ways. If we think about president obama entering office, he faced multiple challenges, some of which previous president mentioned two wars, the war in iraq going very well. War in afghanistan, worse, we had the continued of al qaida as a terrorist threats, the for Iranian Nuclear weapon weapon. Sorry about that the rise of china as a military and economic competitor was clear early on the horizon at this point in time fractured relations with many traditional or u. S. Allies that had been hurt by the iraq war and other things. And then on top of this, an economic recession that threatened the stability not just of the us economy but of the Global Economy. So it was almost overwhelming in some ways the numbers of challenges that the Obama Administration had coming in. So today were going to try to examine some of the the Foreign Policy priorities and choices over the course of the Obama Administration in this context of these many challenges. But i would also maybe suggest these challenges, some opportunities for the Obama Administration to do some new things in Foreign Policy. Were are exceptionally fortunate to have this distinguished panel with us today. I cant think of really any other panel thats suited to be able to come these questions, important questions of Foreign Policy than our guest here today. So let me introduce each of them, please. And i have condensed their bios, but they are so that they are still fairly long. So i but i will try to get through them a in a reasonable time to time for questions. Our first panelist is benjamin jay rhodes. Ben rhodes is a writer, a political commentator writer and National Security analyst. Hes the author of the New York Times bestseller after the fall being american and world weve made and the world as it is a memoir in the white obama house from 2009 to 2017. Mr. Rhodes served as speechwriter and deputy National Security adviser in the Obama Administration, participating in all of president obamas key decisions. And i just want to know how rare that is that someone stays in that type of position for entirety of two terms, i dont recommend it. I wouldnt repeat it. Yeah, i think it demonstrates your dedication and drive to to furthering american Foreign Policy in his time. In the white house, he oversaw the president s National Security communication and public diplomacy. He led the secret negotiations with the cuban government that resulted in effort to normalize relations between the United States and and he also supported the negotiations to conclude the joint comprehensive plan of action or better known as the iran deal. Mr. Rhodes is currently a contributor for nbc news. Hes cohost of the pod save the world, cohost of pod save the world podcast, a Senior Advisor to former president barack obama, chair of the National Security. His work has been published in the atlantic. The Washington Post, the New York Times, Foreign Affairs and other outlets. Mr. Rhodes also serves on numerous boards, including the legacy of war, the Plowshares Fund and consults for the obama foundation. So please join me in welcoming ben rhodes. Peter baker is the chief house correspondent for the New York Times, has covered five president s as a reporter for the times and in his previous position at the Washington Post as a white house correspond, mr. Baker has reported on elections inaugurate oceans, economic crises, Foreign Policy, natural disasters, legislative battles, Supreme Court appointments and all kinds of other things. In between his stints in the white house, mr. Baker spent four years as Moscow Bureau chief for the Washington Post, and mr. Baker also covered the early months of wars in iraq and afghanistan and was the First American newspaper journalist to report from rebel held northern afghanistan after september 11, 2001. Mr. Baker is the author of seven books which have garnered many awards and spent a lot of time on different bestseller lists. Most relevant to our conference. He is author of the obama the call of history, which was a finalist for the acp image award for outstanding literary work. Mr. Baker won all three major awards devoted to white house reporting. The gerald prize for distinguished coverage of the presidency twice the Otto Beckmann memorial, also twice, and the Smith Memorial award. Mr. Baker is also a political analyst for msnbcs and regularly a panelist on pbss washington week. Please join me in welcoming mr. Baker. Dr. Elizabeth saunders is the director of Georgetown University at his marotta center and associate professor, the walsh school of foreign service, a core faculty member in the Security Studies program at georgetown and a nonresident senior fellow at the brookings institution. Her research and teaching interests on interNational Security. U. S. Foreign policy, including the presidency and Foreign Policy and the politics using force. Dr. Saunders first book leaders at war how president s shaped military interventions, which was published by Cornell University press one the 2012 George Jarvis schrader best book award from the american Political Science Associations International history and politics section. Her forthcoming book, the insiders game elites, democracy and war, will be published very soon by public Princeton University press. Very much looking forward to that. Her has also been published in some of the most prestigious journals in Political Science, including international, interNational Security, world politics, Foreign Affairs and many others. She is also a Senior Editor at the monkey cage, which, despite the name, is an incredible important and serious Political Science blog that provides critical public face and analysis and was previously hosted by the Washington Post and lives on in another now. Most recently, saunders was recognized by the International Studies section of the International Studies association with the emerging scholar award. Please welcome, dr. Saunders. So thank you so much. All three of you, for being here. Im just hoping to have of a conversation and a throw of some questions out to each of you and for everybody to to address. Well do this for a while. Then, of course, open up to q a. Im sure that there will be lots of questions given the size of this audience, as well as the interest in all of these topics. So the first question i want to throw out to to all three of you as regards whats called is sometimes called the Obama Doctrine doctrine. This is sort of strategy ideas in some ways, right . In the sense of what were the main purposes of Foreign Policy under the Obama Administration . What do they want to achieve . How do they want to achieve them . And i guess one of the questions i have is, was an Obama Doctrine. Can we define it . And if we can define how is it consistent with traditional ideas in u. S. Foreign and how did how did it diverge from some of those ideas. Sure, ill ill start on that. Theres a question that got asked a lot by peter and others when i was in white house and i actually always resisted it. And you and i are genuine. You know, i think maybe its my english major background, your doctrine suggests a kind of criteria that can be applied across the board. And actually, if you think about, you know, there is not many doctrines that that hold up, you know, the monroe doctrine, the doctrine or really the two and the last, i think clearly articulated doctrine by president was was george bush in 2002. And that was about preventing nations from getting weapons of mass destruction. And and setting aside iraq. It wasnt uniformly applied. Right, because north korea acquired Nuclear Weapons in those years. So we actually resisted. And maybe this speaks to the kind of nature of barack obama and, how he looked at things, given the complexity the world we kind of resisted saying theres a one size fits all label we can put on Foreign Policy. However, i think i can still describe what were doing in a way that answers the question, which is that i think the obama Foreign Policy, you know, has to be understood as this kind of transitional period in an american in americas role in the world, in the sense that when i look back on it and having had the benefit, being able to reflect after a few years, you know, there was a period from the end of the cold war until the iraq war really where america was this kind of unparalleled hegemon, the world we really had a capacity to shape events in a way that was unnatural and unusual in in world history. And by time, Obama Took Office in 2009, our assessment and our lived reality is was over the combination of the iraq war and how that had fractured the international community. And then i think just as importantly the financial crisis which was globally as entirely an American Made event that that in many ways was much more disruptive than the iraq because the financial crisis created real economic and problems in every in the world. Our our capacity to put ourselves forward as a hegemonic and to direct events and to tell countries what to do was already over. And so therefore i think that the obama eight years was this kind of bridge managing the legacy of events. In my memory, the first term and this is where it is useful have been there the eight years the first term was it was really about managing the drawdown in iraq, managing afghanistan policy, ramping up counterterrorism in kind of the combination of is the bin laden operation. But there is a lot of active Counterterrorism Operations taking place and in really i think people do understand this managing the financial crisis that was a Foreign Policy challenge as much as a domestic and coordinating stimulus with other countries, you know, designing through the g20 or through the china relationship, ways to get the Global Economy going again, but doing so from a position of greater, i think, humility than obviously had been the case in the bush years and an understanding and accepting and at times welcoming a world in which there are emerging powers that are playing a greater role. The second term of the Obama Administration was the effort to begin to direct and shape the postamerican hegemonic world and and i think this is best understood through some of the agreements that we made. I actually think the one that is most emblematic of the kind of world we were trying build is the Paris Agreement, again, entirely Foreign Policy agreement. It kind of gets slotted as an environmental issue, but that became a multiyear, multilateral and bilateral project to get 200 countries into a Climate Change agreement. And the reason i think thats emblematic, its the First Agreement of that scale where everybody has to be part of the agreement. Everybody has to do something. And so youre talking about emissions reductions, targets for every country youre talking everything from. You know how we can get china to reduce its coal . How are we going to get brazil to address deforestation in the amazon. So this kind of complex, this is the new world. Everybody has a role to play. Countries like china and india and brazil are more important. And therefore, we them to do more as well. And then even the other, you know. The iran agreement is a multidimensional agreement. The ebola response. How do we get dozens of to surge Health Resources to west africa . So i think we are trying to to to understand that the United States is on a glide path from the height of hegemony that weve been at thats causing a lot of disruption. The national system, as china emerges, as countries adjust to this reality. I think a lot of the controversy in the obama was that we basically we were acknowledging through our actions that we dont think we can play this role anymore. And i think that was very contentious in washington because people were accustom to. Why arent you fixing that . Why arent you doing why dont you . And there is a component to this, too. We cant get over extended. So i thats how i would describe it as shaping a transition out of an american hegemony to a more collaborative world order that look is going be bumpy. Were still living, you know, obviously we didnt count on trump coming in and trying to dismantle part of the things that we worked on. But i think actually its still happening. I think thats what joe bidens trying do. Hes hes trying to pick up and and Carry Forward the kind of effort of what is you what is the us role in the world when we are still the most important nation and the most powerful. But we are not a nation that can control events around world. You well his author this is the author of the Obama Doctrine so should listen to what ben tells you more than what a journalist tells you. Lets just start with that. I would also say by the way, if you want to understand obamas Foreign Policy, you absolutely should read bens books. Both of them are worth reading. The first one really is a very, very lucid and thoughtful memoir, which most of these memoirs written by white house people, frankly, are not. Bens is worth it and most of them are not. So thats a thats a high compliment, because i do think ben wrestles with hes not saying this right here, but wrestles with his own as well as obama as, you know, a learning curve while in office. Right. Because you can say the things you want to say when youre on the outside, when youre and ben had great experience before coming to the white house. But until youre in white house, you dont really know what its like. And im a journalist, so i dont know what its like. But i have watched the people who have and its its remarkable how they learn that the things you say in a campaign trail or in a Senate Hearing bear little resemblance to what you have to with in the situation room. So its worth reading his book for that reason alone. Remember, during the campaign 2008, we asked obama reporters asked him what his Foreign Policy be like. He seems to be more like bush 41 than bush 43. And i remember i was actually asked at kennebunkport at one point and i asked president bush one as well. You know, president you know, senator obama says his Foreign Policy is going to be a lot like yours. He gives you a lot of praise. He says, yeah. He says because bush 41 was no dummy. He understood the point. He said, what did he say about my son . Not so much, sir. You know, and of course. So obama comes into office . Not totally, you know. Sorry generous. The head of zeus hes coming at after terms of bush 43, right but hes running against in my view, hes running against bush first term. But bush second term. What do i mean by that . I mean by bush first term is when you see a lot of the things that really upset people both here and abroad, the unilateralism, iraq, invasion, guantanamo namo, torture, a lot of these things that sort of break the glass, if you will, in national sphere and obama runs against that. And theres a desire move on from that. Thats what he says when youre talking about 41. He wants international is he wants to have alliances. He wants to work with partners. He must be part of the international system, not just running roughshod over but he inherits bush two, that is George W Bush his second term, which actually had begun to pivot back toward a more conventional internationalism. Bush 41, 43, had begun to repair the relations with the allies and begun to resist. The more aggressive policies urged on him. He did not go to war with iran. He did not even strike the Nuclear Facility in syria as he had been urged to do. He resisted time and again in that second term. What cheney and others in his administration wanted him to do. So by the time obama takes, there is no more torture going on. He actually an order saying that, but there is that theyve stopped the waterboarding long before then. Bush actually is trying to get people out of guantanamo and return to countries where they had been from and find a way to actually close it. He doesnt get there, but neither does obama. Obamas takes that and tries to. It goes further. Obama know the military tribunals that upset so many people have been legitimized or credit or what have you certified . I guess in effect by congress. Obama then comes along and makes a further changes to them, so hes taking it to drone strikes. I think, which had begun under bush really get amped up under obama. A lot of things that were changing already by the time obama comes in. Obama takes and runs with it, but he presents a different face to the world, which is helpful obviously to the United States, which is trying to repair its image abroad. The polls all how many people in Different Countries were excited about obamas presidency saw him as a new Generation Model of a of a of a of a more advanced multicultural, multiracial, multi, you know, national superpower. They saw him as younger and exciting. And i think that was was helpful. Bomb of course himself has his evolution over time right and i often i often point to i dont know if ben would agree with this ive pointed to libya intervention in 2011 is a pretty key pivot point where up until that point hes doing some some of the things that, you know, maybe his predecessor would have done send more troops to iraq im sorry, afghanistan, albeit with a timeline that bush would never have agreed. He does amp up the drone strikes overseas. He is taking a you know, and agrees to the intervention in libya against, i think, own instincts. Frankly, i think he was probably kind of he was at least he was ambivalent about it lets say. And because libya doesnt go well, right. It ends up, it doesnt want to have another iraq. Were not going to send in troops on the ground. But he wants to have he wants to stop the slaughter and it just proves to be a very unsatisfied conclusion to that, not just because of the benghazi attack, but because basically we cant pick up and rebuild. Were not willing to do that as a country at this point. And i think from that point on, he becomes even more skeptical of internationalism than than he had been before. So when we were on the plane with him, i remember at one point and and this later became public, and im going to im going to talk about something. It was off the record. It violated the ground rules, peter, that i was on a plane. But it has been it has been reported. Let me say, on a plane. Our friend and colleague, mark landler. Yeah, he didnt break that. But we can have that argument. No, its fine. Its fine. I dont think that obama walks away from it anymore. No, he does. No, no, i was joking. But he was asked one time on the back, the plane, where he came back to talk to the press about his Foreign Policy, since basically it down to this, he says dont do stupid , right . Dont do stupid in the New York Times who said dont stupid stuff . Only after trump did we start quoting president s more more liberal and. I think lbj, we didnt cover lbj and we didnt report him literally at the time. But i think that began encapsulate some of where obama lands later. He does not want get us into syria. Hes limiting how much he wants to get involved and what he sees as a mess. Now, you can say thats a smart thing. Going to avoid disasters like. The iraq war, thank goodness. A lot of people would say that we have a thinking president , somebody who just goes by his gut, their critique would be that he sometimes let himself get paralyzed by the what ifs. Okay, if we do this, then what . Right. He was a second. Third, fourth order thinker. It was enough. Say, hey, lets arm these people in syria. He wont say, okay, when you do that, what will happen as a result and what will happen if this happens in that happens. And again, ben knows better than i, and he may disagree entirely, but it seemed to me watching the outside that a lot of times the the inaction became a decision as well, because we could see all the possible disasters. You took action and he would rather not do stupid. And there are consequences to that as well that making a bad decision is one thing and making no decision its consequences as well. And thats the limits that ben in some ways is talking about of American Power that we cannot individually a country shape the world. We may have to let syria devolve into this horrific miasma of violence and strife because we dont have the capacity, willingness as a as a lone hegemon anymore, to use hisindie world. We may have to let syria devolve into this horrific miasma of violence and strife because we dont have the capacity, willingness as a as a lone hegemon anymore, to use his word, to to change that. And thats a thats a, um, and thats a really slap in the face, i think, to a country that is used to having its way in a way around the world. And so theres the end, the end of the presidency is actually involved. Theres a story involving ben maybe got it wrong. I think you told me the. And if not, then i hope youre not going to disagree with it. But its its in the book that i did write and its on the last day of the presidency before president leaves the white house. He has the few people who are still left, the masochists like ben, whove been there for eight years and they come to the east room or a state dining room or one of the east room, east room. And theyre talking you know, theres the last night the next day is the inauguration of trump. Everybodys upset and he has this conversation, says ben. And i says, ive had this conversation as to whether, in effect, i should let you tell it, whether we shape history or we are simply, you know, part of the current in effect. Right. How much we hes struggling with this idea as a president as a as a country can change the direction of the river or how much are we wrapped up in, you know, in trying to basically just keep the keep our selves on the raft as we go down the currents. And i think that was in some ways emblematic of the eight year, you know, eight years of of president obama trying to fire and the answer to that question to me. Well, ive been a professor on the panel, which means i give the tests. You always start a test. You know, you give you ask students to define things and would not typically say, like, dont to the guy who wrote the answer, you should listen to the guy who wrote the answer. But i do think that its unlikely. I would probably ask students to define the Obama Doctrine or really any president ial doctrine on a test. And that is precisely because, as i think all of the president ial doctrines have had slippage in how theyve been applied. And i think thats a feature not a bug. So what do i mean by that . If youve been following the the recent spate of leaks, the discord leaks that came out. You probably notice that a lot of the revelations that have to do with our adversaries, you know, its not good that they came out. And it has all sorts of implications for National Security andan keeping secrets and who has access. But some of the really most the most important ones are actually about our friends and allies. And its stuff that doesnt really surprise anybody, but its you just like you dont want to talk about it. Its really awkward, right . Like the canadian ones are not good. Theyre theyre you know, theyre not contributing enough. And we probably knew that. And now front page news and thats just like nobody. Thats embarrassing for them. Its embarrassing. We just everybody would rather not talk about it. Right. And i think that that is a part what these grand declarations of doctrine often are. Theyre theyre grand declarations. Theyre rhetorical. And then the rubber meets the road. And you have to make choices, right . Governing choices. And i think a hallmark of the obama Foreign Policy was being extremely conscious of the limits of capabilities as both peter and ben have talked about. And, you know, we cant intervene everywhere. But if you even go back to the truman doctrine, which ben has, i think rightly pointed out, its like one of the ones that that kind of stuck truman doctrine says we will help. You know, anticommunist, we will try to prevent the fall of communism and help anticommunist movements around the world. But truman didnt always do that. Right. I mean, the the famous dean acheson defensive perimeter speech where he says everything on this side of the line is in our interest. Everything on this side of the line, were not going to defend. And of course, what happens next. The north koreans invade south korea, and thats an oversimplification, what happened, of course. But there has been slippage between grand declarations and the reality on the ground since. I mean, the truman doctrine and i mean the probably if i thought hard enough about it, the money over doctrine, right so professors love nothing more than to like poke a hole, a big grand statement. So. So i think so. So then. So whats the lesson from that. The lesson, from all of this. From the discord leaks from the from the from trying to analyze how how successful or how sweeping or how credible these doctrines are, is. You shouldnt expect them to be. And its when we Start Talking about the slippage that everybody gets frustrated right. So if the obama is about thinking about one were not going to do things, its the talking about it that gets people kind of upset. Right. People people would people do not want to get into messes. But when you when its couched or when when your opponents say, well, you said leading from behind and youre abdicating, i mean, it just it feeds the it leaves an opening for someone to say this is a doctrine that is hypocritical. Right. But hypocrisy, it turns out to be a really useful thing in Foreign Policy. Its a tool to be able to speak in these lofty rhetorical terms. And i mean, nobody expects that were going to prevent every bad thing that can happen that may or may not happen in the international system. Its just not realistic. Right. So so the art of managing that is, i think part of what i mean, i agree with almost everything ben and peter said, but i think that obama was not just the one who was at this point where he america is on the decline. Hes also the one who had to go out and talk about it. And that was just an inherently difficult to do. I think the other thing we havent talked about yet, thats really important is the basic fact that obamas a democrat and going all the way back to truman. You have the who lost china debate and this haunts i mean, it haunts Lyndon Johnson if you want a person print by the way you study johnson thats my advice for. Anyone thinking of choosing a dissertation or paper topic, it haunts Lyndon Johnson. Part of why Lyndon Johnson in intervenes in the vietnam war and escalates it to mind bogglingly high levels. This idea that if if not so much that that at moment of decision everybodys clamoring for war. But it is hard for any any president. It was hard even for Dwight Eisenhower to it in 1954 to get up and make a speech, say, you know, vietnam is just not a very important to u. S. Interests and its really fine if it goes communist right. And youd hired a better speechwriter than me, youd hire ben to write that speech. But it would be a tough thing for a democrat to do under circumstances. And i and and on top of that, democrats, other they want to do right. They want to pass health care. They want to pass climate bills, typically National Security. So its not that its unimportant, but its you know, its not often the thing that democrat has come into office excited about focusing on, they want do a good job, but they dont necessarily have its not top of the agenda. So theres opportunity costs for for for paying political to following your own Foreign Policy instincts. And i think thats a really important piece that is difficult to talk about. No president likes to say its very hard for scholars like me to find evidence of this because president s dont like to be on the record even in private, saying, well, i would really take this position, which i think is in the national interest, but i cant because it will be bad for me politically. I mean, its just its icky, right . And so its hard. Its hard to find that evidence again, if you want it, you should study Lyndon Johnson. Who would say it all the time in the dictaphone. But in in pretty shocking ways. I mean, its just kind of mind blowing how frank was about it. But i think we cant forget that context that that obama is managing this world. I think thats totally either the right diagnosis. I think he absolutely was grappling with this of this tension between can can individuals shape events or are we constrained by the international system. Those of you who Study International relations . Im sorry, might recognize that as agents, structure, debate or realism versus of individual action. But hes to do that as a democrat and that is a its just tougher and that may or may not be good thing. Its its for a scholar like me its just a piece of the puzzle that cant be ignored. So i wonder if we can talk about a specific instance that i think ties together a lot of these issues that have been brought up in terms of whether theres a doctrine, what it might be, and the challenges that especially democrats and im thinking of decision in 2009 with afghanistan in where obama campaigns and saying that this is a that we cannot lose that we must win and authorizes a surge socalled afghan surge of significant troops of up puts limits on it in terms of time that it could could be there that the u. S. Would be there and given the result of afghanistan today, clearly those efforts did not work in a lot of ways. Is it was it was it possible to have a different outcome with afghanistan . Was the decision made 2009 was this a case of a democrat being boxed in by military, by others, by a perception that we that the us had to win the good war because the iraq war was the bad war and sort of what drove this episode in the Obama Administration and i just i want to open up to to everybody. Yeah, well, i mean, first of all, theres i a very important clarification as i literally wrote the speech that was entitled the war we need to win it was not about it was about the war against al qaida. You now afghanistan featured i its not i i would yeah its totally but the reason thats important is because it actually it actually describes an informs the Decision Making that he then pursues because essentially his afghanistan and when when we when we did the surge which by the way, i did not think the right thing to do at the time but was pretty young and not exactly like running afghan war at that time, but i think looking back, i dont think the surge at that level was the right decision. So this is not me, you know, blanket defending things, but to exploit, to understand we did in afghanistan we had this review in the and fall of 2009 and peter, you may you may have been the reporter that we wrote the story that then inflamed i think the pentagon which was the thing he decided in that review, was that our objective in afghanistan was to defeat al qaida, not to defeat the taliban. And was the Central Point of tension in of him putting limits on on the surge and him setting a timeline because he he was persuaded at that moment we come in, its 29. Weve weve got about 30,000 troops in afghanistan. And there had been a troop request sitting the shelf literally at the end of the bush years for 20,000 troops. May have the numbers slightly off, but these are approximate and things are really going poorly in afghanistan. The taliban is beginning to make gains. Al qaida has really rebuilt a safe haven on the pakistan of the border. Hamid karzais is beginning to kind of show signs of, you know, corruption and resistance to working with the United States on things. And so clearly we were persuaded that more resources going to be necessary in afghanistan. And so what president obama does right off the is he approves the 20,000 or so troops that had been requested. And troops got to get to afghanistan in the spring and summer. And then he appoints sand mcchrystal to be the general there and we get a request for actually 80,000 troops was was the was the the actual request. But i think mcchrystal knowing that that was to be a impossible ended up revising it to 40,000 troops and we have this deliberative period of time where he says before i authorize and this is peters point about he asks second, third, fourth order questions before i send these troops and authorize this surge. I us to step back and consider what are our objectives and what can be achieved in afghanistan, what other tools need to come into here in essentially what obama was persuaded was the fact that if we didnt send that surge now, there was a risk of a very rapid collapse of the afghan not very, but a collapse of the afghan government. And a collapse of the afghan government. Before we had degraded al qaida, which again was, the original purpose of why we went in there in the first place and the surge, on the one hand, does not really succeed even in that timeframe in transforming the security situation, it is a much harder slog for the military and even they would acknowledge at that time that they were not having the success that they anticipated while they were carrying out the surge. With all those resources, however, what is happening in that time is we are rapidly degrading al qaeda largely in pakistan, but using bagram air base, jalalabad in afghanistan, using afghanistan as a place to both go after al qaida inside of afghanistan, but also in pakistan. And what what ends up happening is the end of the surge, the timeline that he had set was june of 2011. By june of 2011 to important things that happened. One, we had killed Osama Bin Laden and, had really significantly degraded al qaida. The point that they were kind of on a pathway to to defeat really to the surge had not had the results that the more optimistic forecast had had in afghanistan. And what obama took from that is not that okay now i need to surge more troops. What he took from that is, you know, theres just a limit we can do militarily in afghanistan and so we have to we have to begin draw this down. We have to begin to reduce american troops there. Were taking really high casualties at the height of the surge, reduced the cost. You know, congress, which had been very enthusiastic about the surge was getting frustrated, paying the bill for hundreds of billions dollars. And afghanistan and begin to Train Afghan Security and see if we can create a political and dynamic where the afghans themselves since then on their own, clearly you know we we executed that drawdown we were down to about 10,000 troops by the end of the obama ministration. We did not remove all troops precisely because our assessment in 2016 is if you removed all troops, kabul was going to collapse and that was the assessment in 2016. And we didnt wanted, you know, for better or worse criticize us or not. We did not want to to hand the incoming president that collapse, especially if it was Hillary Clinton. And we presumed actually she would probably want to keep us troops in afghanistan so that i offer that context because actually, on the one hand, sometimes we forget and im in new york, i entered into National Security policy. I witnessed the 911 attacks. Thats literally what caused me to take a uturn in my life and move down to washington. We that when when we went into afghanistan, i dont think any of us anticipated that we were going there for 20 years to build a new government. I think we thought we were going there to get these people and to stop them from doing that again. You know, and i would say on the Positive Side of that afghanistan policy, we pretty much did that. And it was in that intense period of between 2009 and 2012, essentially that the vast majority of the degradation al qaeda took place. On the other hand, we clearly failed in our effort to to to leave afghanistan as a place that could be selfgoverning and and defend itself. And i think that failure is on every administration, the one i served in. And it it may that the model and this is a whole separate discussion but you know it may be that we missed the window at the beginning. It may be that the model, the very model of what we were trying to do wasnt going to work in a place like afghanistan. And that there wasnt some some formula that could work, because the counterinsurgency strategy was one that had worked for a period of time. Iraq, that travel to afghanistan in the same way that think even general petraeus expected it would because afghanistan is a different place. So that i think when we look back on afghanistan, we should rightly judge the failures that took place. But we should recall that the core objective related al qaeda was actually met. And while i dont necessarily believe that the the scale of the surge was necessary, i do believe actually that the central insight that president obama had out of that review was actually saying, were going to ask our military to defeat the taliban, because that would require far more than this surge. That would basically require an open ended surge of an even scale that even that might fail. And so the narrowing of his objectives, al qaida, i think, explains how our policy, the way it did over the course of the eight years, because once that objective was on its path, where to be met is when we started drawing down. Elizabeth, i wonder if you want to follow up on this, because i know youve written on some Decision Making and the afghanistan episode, and i wonder if it says anything larger about Decision Making the Obama Administration and responding to it. Yeah, well, i mean, ive cited both peter and ben in my writing, so i dont really i mean, i think its important to. You know, i dont really have much skill with on the afghanistan analysis, but i think its important for those of us in the room who are scholars or if youre a student taking a class, a topic like u. S. Foreign policy to remember we study slices. You know i study u. S. Foreign policy. And if you wanted me to talk about health care at on this panel, that would be the conference organizers committing malpractice. Right. Couldnt tell you the first thing about Health Care Policy in the Obama Administration, but president s and a select few advisers around the president have to do all of this every single day. Right. They take a meeting on, health care, and then they go into the situation room and. I think sometimes we forget and its important for us to drill down and understand pieces of it. But this context of this other stuff going on is is, you know, its important for us to stop and remember that. And thats one reason why i keep coming back to this idea of know obama as a democrat comes in, as weve already talked about with this incredible set events around the economic crisis as the inheriting the Afghanistan War but has his own objectives, knowing i think it is it the west where they say the presidency is 18 months . I mean, the presidency is eight months if you want to get anything actually done and and so i think we have to think this this review is coming. If you if you could, as choose when youd have to make this decision the worst possible time. Its the worst possible time. And i mean, i dont im actually curious ive always wanted to ask ben if this very question, how much if you studied the vietnam war, Lyndon Johnson, who says the quiet part out loud all the time, literally says at one point i had to do vietnam, because even if nobody it then if i then tried to do the greatest and im skipping over the curse words, but theres curse words, right . They would shove it. Ill leave the rest to your imagination. Right. That that my would use that against me and deny me the great society. So i had to do that to basically neutralize and and, you know, i think no president other than him would ever say that out loud. So i dont think theres a document. I mean, if there is i would love to know, but i doubt theres a document where thats written down or a tape. Nixon really ruined everything. And but im curious as to whether i call this in my writing, the sort of the political opportunity cost, right. That i totally agree just from the public reporting from peter and others that it sort of leapt off the page. Obama really did not want to do this. And hes, you know, very early in his presidency, these other the learning curve hasnt, you know, kicked. But also the libya mess really hasnt happened yet. And this is the moment of max among peril for all of his other agenda items. By the time he gets to syria, which i know we probably will end up talking about, you know, he can absorb those costs and in my in the book that i just finished thats coming out soon call this the doves curse. Right. That for for leaders whose instincts are fundamentally dovish. Theres always this sort of credibility problem of like they choosing not to fight because its the right thing do or is it because theyre wimpy doves and . This is so unfair to to all president s with those proclivities. But its just the world we live in. Right. And i didnt make i dont make the rules but i think this is actually has haunted democratic president s better or for worse. And it leads them when the political opportunity costs are high to kind of choose a just enough right. Theres a wonderful book by les gelb and Richard Betts called. The irony of vietnam, the system worked and the idea is, you know, the system basically spat out what what president s wanted out vietnam was to not lose and but not necessarily to win. And so that that is the context for understanding why they chose these decisions and made these decisions. And i think i think of afghanistan as a reluctant choice to neutral in issue prevent. I mean, which isnt to say that there were not very important other, you know, National Security goals, but a president fundamentally would really have rather done what biden ended up doing, which is just not to get any further. And because he had realized that the Campaign Promises were maybe not things that you did want to say out loud. So but im actually very curious to know how much you feel like the looming either explicitly or implicitly the looming kind of agenda and all the other things played into that decision . No, i look actually, it was well, first of all, the Campaign Rhetoric was we called for two additional combat brigades in afghanistan, which is not 40,000 troops. You know, so so in this, you know, the escalation we had in mind was not anywhere near it became i dont, i mean, he he was very disciplined in trying to compartmentalize his Decision Making. He do one thing and i remember in the in the review, which was again, the militarys request was for the surge to be open ended and. They actually gave us a chart that i kept in my office in the last day. I was in government, because it was a reminder of, you know, need for civil relations to work this country because the went up like this and. Then it continued for a decade and was so unrealistic that the thing that the country would support that and so obama brought our director to a meeting and asked him to present to the generals the cost of what they were proposing, which was, you know, several trillion dollars. And comparing that to the cost of the rest of the budget. And it was his it was his way to show them. We cannot do this. Its the closest we got to like. So it wasnt like i can pass my Health Care Bill if i dont do your research. But it was like i am president. I have think about it. And he would always and he would say out loud, hed say, i dont hold it against. You youre doing your job. Youre youre a military commander whos been asked to give yourself the best chance to achieve objectives in afghanistan. Youre supposed to ask me for these resources. I, as commander in chief, have to worry about this issue against the rest of our Foreign Policy in this issue, against domestic and other budgetary priorities. So he would talk about that. I think i think the two areas that do interact with what youre talking about are one. Yes, i do think there is a reality. He to this day, i think would defend the surge in a way that i wouldnt when your military is really aggressively pushing for something and youre a new president at a time when the generals were at the you know petraeus had become this kind of there because the republicans had built him up because bush couldnt be the front man for the war. But, you know, this was this guy was like General Macarthur level political stature. Theyre pushing for this. The Republican Party is uniformly pushing for this. And most of the Democratic Party, like the chairs, every democratic committee, it really did not skirted. You have to do this. You have to do this. Yes, i that had to inform it. That was not the political dynamic there might have been atmosphere might have led to a different decision. But i that was more just like there was a term amount of momentum to do this and less like if, i dont do this, i cant get this Health Care Bill done. Thats my sense now, i think where vietnam really entered into it was with this time because what he didnt you know this is not a war he started but it was a war that obviously was going to define an aspect of his presidency. And he was like and he did say this just, you know, if i dont limit this, thats how this could become. And theres scenarios where i still called obamas vietnam. No, in the New York Times. I think i mean. Yeah but i made everybody get to vietnam right. I dont know. Yeah, i would push back on the road that it could take the pride and push back on this pretty hard. I dont think it was we didnt start these wars and and he limit escalation and you know 50,000 casualties in the vietnam war and killing millions of vietnam is very different than having an 18 month surge in afghanistan. I totally know. I know. I know. Know. They still call they call this. Everythings. Im not pushing back. And you pushing back against the New York Times. Now. But everybody dies. But the escalation you know point what was what was. Well what happened over the course the surge a bunch things happened. He fired general mcchrystal, who he really actually. But there was this article in which they trashed biden. They trusted these people. And that was part of the escalation risk was we felt like Civil Military relations were out of whack. The generals thought they were just going to roll this guy. That all change after fired mcchrystal. And so by the time we get to the even though petraeus didnt it even though gates didnt really like it, they saluted and and implemented it and and that was a different president. And yeah, i mean, you know i you should totally consider well, maybe that was 2011 and were out of 18 months and he can be be i think that part of it is also just the comfort in being commander in chief to those things converge. But yeah i think i think that what he would say is why shouldnt i as president consider hey, if i if i put all my its not just a political question, its actually a substantive governing question. If i make my presidency about this in afghanistan, im not going to be able to do a whole bunch of other stuff. And thats certainly came up in the syria context, whereas like if i, if i believe what obama said, that theres not no limited military actions here that can make any difference. So if we do this, this is what im doing, the rest of my presidency without any evidence after libya, afghanistan, iraq, that we can pull this off. And im not doing anything else. You know, theres no Paris Agreement is not in there, too. I think the the you know, with the military youre often if you do if you dont. And he chose, over the course of his presidency, increasingly to be criticized for for not doing it, but what he would to us in private constantly is if i went in, the same people would be criticizing me and wed be in a war and id have american troops dying and the people arent going to support another war like this after iraq and afghanistan. And so his own views evolve pretty quickly. You know, i mean, hes a politician. Yeah. I get very frustrated with people who claim who get who dont see domestic policy, think its its icky. Yeah, right. I mean, it is weird to say it loud in in in a press conference, but they got where they are because they have good political instincts and they have things they want to accomplish. It would be malpractice for them to not waive these things, just as he understood that it would be not right for the military not to make the request. So i dont this is more a frustration i have with scholars who dont want to talk about the domestic politics or expect or or even politicians who say, you know, politics stops at the waters edge. Politics is never stopped at the waters edge like all way back to washington and hamilton versus jefferson like if you seen the musical you know, like the first cabinet battle is all about Foreign Policy, right . I mean, is the very quick that peter. Sure as we look at that some this is like presence youre right and the people that he would remind us should have a say on this are. The voters and voters elected him to get them more Affordable Health care, far more than they elected him to pacify marjah in southern afghanistan. You know, and and voters are often from Foreign Policy debates. And when you consider it, its kind of seen as, like you said, it is seen as icky like now security should be separated from politics. I think weve learned by now, after everything weve all lived through since obama, that theres not really this is an artificial distinction like politics, everything. And the is that the iraq and Afghanistan Wars were never going to have the ends that were promised at the very beginnings. So whoever was going to be holding the bag when those ends didnt materialize, whether it was joe biden. When the fall of kabul, whether it was us in after the iraq withdraw like that that was going to happen at some point in both those places, i would add, because know paul wants to move on i would add just 30 seconds and i actually i dont have that much to add. What you all have said. I think you cover it very well and talked about the tradeoffs in the and i was in afghanistan for eight months in there. The First American troops got there and we did somehow it was the basically the end, the clash of american idealism versus, afghan reality. We did somehow go from wanting to get rid of al qaeda to owning the country and trying to make it a better place. And thats you can can say that was always silly. The british and should have told, you know, we saw the british and soviet experiences in afghanistan. We should have known, but it was at least born out of the idea that we want to make it a better place. And 25 Million People are now, unfortunately, back in in a horrific, repressive country. And the girls and women, we told that they could take their burkas off and go to school now are now are now no longer able to do that. So theres theres a real tradeoff. And the problem is a president cant say that. Right. Or at least doesnt feel comfortable saying that were going to go and were going to get rid of the al qaeda. And its okay that women are still going to be repressed there. The 12 million girls, women. Were going to have to remain second class citizens, essentially slaves, and were not going to do anything about it because it gets our green. Its against the american grain to say that out loud and to acknowledge that thats the reality of what we are, the choices that were making. But he said that were learning, i would say, on the vietnam acknowledge the defense of in your time. I think what he wrote was that obama feared it would be obamas vietnam. And i think youve confirmed that thats true. But the other history that he took, i think and i think he wrote this in the speech he gave at west point was was eisenhowers formulation, which is exactly right, which is that the nation has so many resources as it called political resources, and called economic. You call them Energy Resources or psychological moral resources, eisenhower said. And i think you had obama quote this in that speech, which is that know he had to choose between how much he spent on the military versus building new schools and and providing, you know, a better life for citizens. And thats effect that what obama took from that and more importantly in some ways what biden took from that. Right. Because in venice, as he was against the surge decision that was made, biden was really against he was the main voice probably in that room offering skepticism of that thing. And what did he learn from that . This is really interesting. Obama had not been in that room before, but by the time biden becomes president , he had been right. So he had already had that learning curve and his his experience, his lesson that took from that, rightly or wrongly, with the military rolled us military rolled obama im not going to let them roll me now. You can always learn a lesson and apply it the wrong way, right . You some people would say, yeah, learned that lesson that he still he should listen to them a little bit. Maybe in 2021, maybe listen to them a little bit in terms of at least how we got out. Even if you decided you want to get out. But that was was the consequence arguably of that ten meeting multi month process was not just obamas decision, but bidens decision to presence later. Thats right. Exactly right. I think biden also did have one. If i could just add one tiny thing which which feeds into all other topics we could possibly talk about. He had one other thing that obama probably had, but it wasnt quite obvious at the time. So its biden choosing his choice. I totally agree with everything he said that. And then, you know, his approval rating, if you look at it, it goes down and yet he still gets the Inflation Reduction Act. Right. And i at that and i say, you know, he by the time Biden Takes Office polar partizan polarization is so dry it drives everything i mean, truly nothing any president does anymore is seen through anything other than the lens of whether you share their party. Right. And and the caucuses are much tighter. Yeah. The democrats are afraid to split because splitting apart means trump. Yeah. If the if the Inflation Reduction Act was always going to be in the hands of joe manchin, then what does it matter what i do politically, leigh, in afghanistan, i can do what i want and partizan polarization, some terrible consequences for american Foreign Policy, right. The iran deal, the the the pull out of the iran deal and the inability to credibly commit long term. So i dont mean to be imply that its a good thing but i think this is maybe i dont even know if we know if its an upside or downside, but a consequence of polarization is we democrats can sort of beat democrats on Foreign Policy if they want to be and a consequence of trump because its harder to argue im sorry that were in a partizanship here, but its harder to argue that. The republicans have some more responsible and credible voice on Foreign Policy after four years of donald trump that that image is so sticky we lost the other. Yeah, they still can. They do. And they. And that makes no sense and id like to study that someday. Yeah, sure. So its kind of had a dream where i didnt have to say anything really at all because they had discussion. So welcome back to so but but now i want to turn it over i have many many more questions i got through two of the questions so but i still think it was incredibly informative of about the the thinking in the Obama Administration the pragmatism the the domestic and Foreign Policy priorities, all of these things that. So, yes, we didnt get to the iran deal. We didnt get to syria, but we got to so many other interesting things. I want to turn it over to our question audience for questions and answers now. So please, general priority for student hofstra students first but but anybody ask a question and please make sure to come up to the microphone. I wont make you to find anything. Yeah at. Thank you. I was i didnt. I didnt know i was not try to jump in front of the students this is a question for professor saunders and, mr. Rhodes because i think theres a a convergence because, professor saunders, when youre talking about democratic doves, kind of like having enough of a war. It reminded me of bob dole in 1976 talking about democrat wars. And im like, huh, bob dole kind had a point, right . And im. In the shadow of republican noninterventionist dont seem dont pay the same political price as democratic nonintervention us. And this is a long history. Right. And im curious and this is mr. Rhodes. I mean, youre you know, the Obama Administrations operating under that shadow. And may professor, this is maybe a bit more for you. But i also i think for mr. Rhodes as well, thinking about what are the roots of that, right. I think back to the Democratic Party is the party of secession and the cultural outs as having to try to prove theyre sort of like you kind of patriotic bona fides. But id be curious thats my snapshot. Why i do democratic nonintervention pay such heavier political price than republican noninterventionist. So this is what my book is about and i even know if ive after working on it for many years, im i it still puzzles me right. I find that the data are very clear that the republican ownership of the National Issue that theyou look at a single question asked by gallup like who which party is better to to help to do well in protecting security. I forget what the formulation is, but it are terrorism, international threats. The democrats have a brief window at the nader of the iraq war where they tie the republicans and i think maybe go a point higher. But they never cracked 50 from 2002 to 2020. And despite trade a few weeks after bin laden. Yeah like three weeks. Yeah, he went down. Yeah. And and its its just this and its the fiscal responsibility thing to which like its impervious to any facts, right and the flip side that is that the democrats are seen as the more social, you know, social program party. And i think i mean where does it come from is is a good question i think i think of it as sort of a in the in its modern form when we had power Projection Capabilities think of it as really going back to truman and who lost china. Yeah but i think you know we often talk about the advantage that a nixon has in going to china the hawks advantage in making peace to me its its that the the advantage that a hawk has this the flipside of the doves curse right the hawk and can evade can get around the constraints the hawk and can pretend like the river is not problem and just decide to go to iraq because hawks are the from the party that owns national and im not suggesting thats correct i just think its a political reality and so when a hawk decides not to intervene like okay well the hawk thinks this the hawk is the National Security party. They must know what theyre doing. And its easier its sort of cheaper politically for the hawk to be able to engage in what become a misadventure. So the hawks misadventure is the flipside of the doves curse. And i think that pushes it makes the trade off. Its not that the democrats never can choose not to. Its that they have to be mindful that theyre going to have to absorb greater political for it and i just think its a its an incredibly weird, persistent reality in our politics. I think. Yeah, the only two things id add very quickly are one, i think democrats and i think obama bucked this trend too often. Democrats are reflexively way too defensive on this. This is i mean, we wont get into it, but this is the iran deal debate in miniature like defend your principles, go out and make your case and too many too often democrats, particularly a Congressional Democrats who are wonderful people, but like theyd rather not talk about this. You know so theyll either just take the hawkish position, just get it, make it go away, or theyll just the subject, right. And so part of it is we need to confidently make our case and obama did that and and poked a lot of bears and touched a lot of third rails. But he he had the competence to do that i think to. The one other thing id say though just introduce a positive point of being a democrat because weve been talking about military policy is People Like Us more around the world when theres a democrat as president and thats something that its also on the polling and we looked at this in 2008 that we leaned into like we obama will make us more respected in the world and restore and and that is something whats interesting is americans defer to republicans on National Security, but they also understand and defer to the fact that democrats will make us have stronger alliances and be more respected in the world. Its that and thats a kind of jfk, i think legacy. Maybe fdr and jfk that theres something about the iconic president who stands for a certain progressive values and a kind of intangible piece of the obama that its harder to dissect than a panel but the influence of of a figure that on the global stage is kind of the Positive Side of the coin if the if the doves curses that negative side of the coin the positive is people did generally accept obama as makes more respected better liked most places than than a republican one so nobody steps i might turn to my ringer on the panel the winning journalist peter baker, to see if theres a question, please, if there are four, come on down and we keep your question as brief as you can, please, because we only have 5 minutes left. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Quick question. So briefly. Seems that obama from dr. Sanders frame of reference was boxed in by his being a democrat so sort of the will of the Democratic Party is sort of acting a Gravitational Force on his choices. Benjamin rhodes you brought the fact that obama has his eye on the concerns of the voters and then is very frequently said that obamas very pragmatic, sometimes the William James sense that hes trying find this right truth from all of these you know, these three sort of perspectives. Have you noticed any. Unique sort of Obama Doctrine . I like to say it is something that obama wanted to do himself. How did he see the world apart from these burdens in context on his decisions with to Foreign Policy, i guess to introduce a new concept . I was always aware from the beginning of the obama presidency, from the campaign that that he was going to see world differently than anybody had ever been president had stage before and the most obvious reason is because hes black. But he also lived in indonesia as a child right after cia supported coup led to killing of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. In other words, barack obama had in his identity and in his life experience, the experience of being on the wrong of American Power. And i think thats a very important concept and i think that might contribute to his pragmatism and, his sense that just because were doing in the world doesnt necessarily mean its the right thing, which i think is often what informs the hawk, whos like, if americas doing it, its right, you know, even if is not working, its still the right thing to do, you know . And i think that both contributed to some of his restraint on the issues weve been talking about. I think it also contributed to his capacity, i think to be to to to mobilize countries in the global on issues like a bola or Climate Change that you know, we havent spent that much time talking about, you know, that this is a really its a really interesting phenomenon to have a president who can look at america from the outside and i dont say outside as a nonamerican as donald trump would say id say someone who just, again, doesnt take as granted the reality that if the americans state is doing something, it must be right. Because if you have the of barack obama and the life history of obama and the kind of global from kenya to indonesia, familial experiences, barack obama, like youre going to be a little more skeptical and youre going to ask the second and third and fourth order questions and youre not to shoot first. Youre going want to ask you exactly what were shooting at. You know, and that perspective is important. Peter, anybody want to know . Okay, so weve got time. Well get one more quick question and beyond the issues with afghanistan and the military directly, there, one of obamas policy was the pivot to asia and not just an individual will president , president ial, but one thats going to obviously concern the United States for decades in the century to come. You mentioned military actions and constraints as well as alliance building, and thats something that we growing in the region. How you see the president s president obamas vision for that pivot military, political, economic. What was what wasnt reached and constraints and Going Forward you know from there in 30 i can jump in on that real quickly and just say just i mean like he did pivot asia is an aspiration now that has bipartisan in its own way and its and and in a different weird way like so you hear ron is sad to see other day say we dont care ukraine its just territorial territorial dispute but we really care about taiwan the words russia can invade ukraine is fine but china not invade taiwan. So suddenly now Republican Party has its own version of the pivot to asia. In obamas case, to some extent, bidens case since then is that as as long term that may make sense because asia is the future. That rhetoric is true. Reality just keeps biting. Was with you probably were too. I think are both with president obama right after his reelect in burma. Maybe i can bowtie around march and suddenly gaza blows up and. He has to get on the phone with middle east leaders and send hillary from asia. I had to wake him up at 330 in the morning in cambodia. I make that call. That is one of the more uncomfortable moments of the. I dont want to ask you. I dont you know, mohammed morsi, the muslim leader of egypt, is on the phone. Sir. What . Well, and this is, of course, the problem, because asia the pivot to asia can be a long term geopolitical strategy as obama and Hillary Clinton viewed it. And it can be a political thing as as were now seeing in the current context. But then you have a lot of reporting and guys like putin and morsi and so forth who are, you know, demanding attention and we didnt get to in this panel, which im kind of im im kind of sorry about that. I really actually wanted to bannon and professor sanders about russia and how obamas handling of russia plays out today. Yeah, youre really i will bring to that panel because it does what it reminds me of is how much our view and this is my last point would be the view of some base Foreign Policy, president s Foreign Policy change in the years and decades to come, depending on what follows. Right. Trumans doctrine today is remembered much more than it was at the time, and ben points out the losing china thing was was really and the same point. Sorry, really fundamental and yet not remember very often today sort of you know put to the side the russia conversation is going to be one where we look back i think at all these president s over the last 25 years and say, where did we get proven wrong . Was there something we could have differently . How much is this past . How much is this inevitable . And id love to hear people talk about that. It will continue that in the 30 seconds. 30 seconds i give is like the the the political scrutiny economic movements had many functions what didnt work right is that like the Transpacific Partnership trade agreement we negotiated trump scrapped right but big but that actually trade agreement exists and peter points out its same group of countries that we were seeking to stitch together that the us is now working with right. So india, japan, korea, australia, new zealand, bring in vietnam, bring in singapore. The countries that were in the tpp are the foundation of what has been actually a about through trump and biden. Thats the grouping that were working to build out security, Economic Cooperation with. So this is to take us full circle that bridge i was talking about like what it what are the what are the new arrangements that the u. S. Needs to set up in a post hegemonic moment. I actually this is one where again as peter says, hopefully if we get to the other end of this rough geopolitical waters, were now people may look back and say obama started a turn that many other president s continued and this is of the architecture we have in asia that be the optimistic view. Well, thank you and thanks for bringing that really full circle there, because i think it helps us to cover tons of issues. There are so more things we could talk about. We could do three more of these panels and still not them. But thank so much, elizabeth, peter and for your insights. And thank you all for attending. And please join us for many more events today. Iall right. Good afternoon and my name, susan poser. Im the president of hofstra