I would argue, thats a much better gamble for the future when you continue with the current system, the current bureaucracies and the current mess in washington, and thats why i have a much better chance of making America Great again with donald trump. And mediocre minds better on the stimulus. A canadian is a canadian and you cant take away citizenship. And barack obama has systematically rebuilt the trust of the world and our willingness to work through the Security Council and other institutions. You must not talk to anybody in the world, any of our allies. Whatever you want to call this system, a mafia state, a futile empower, its a disaster for ordinary russians. I think thats the hypocritical argument that i find quite annoying. And the Foreign Policy can be described by management. Science and religion are not incompatible and religion forces nice people to do unkind things. My conclusion to the question is no, i wont let you be you. Show me the word pretext. I quoted him saying that show me pretext. You can keep screaming that, and it doesnt change the point. We do not want sympathy. We do not want pity. We want opportunities. Its an appalling slander to me to the muslim religion. I never said the word muslim in my formanation. It is that kind of restraint and the soberminded, intelligent Foreign Policy that obama represents so i guess what im telling you is hes sort of a closet canadian. Vote for him for gods sakes. On geopolitics and its my privilege to once again have the opportunity to serve as your moderator. I want to start tonights proceedings by welcoming the north american y Television Audience tuning in to this debate on cspan across the continental United States and on cpac from coast to coast to coast in canada. A warm hello also to our online audience watching this debate live right now on Facebook Live or exclusive social media partner and on bloomberg. Com courtesy of bloomberg media. Great to have you as virtual participants in tonights proceedings and hello to you, the over 3,000 people who filled Roy Thompson Hall to capacity for yet another debate. This is great to see again. This evening marks a milestone in this debate series. This is our 20th semiannual contest and our ability, debate after debate to bring you what we think are some of the brightest minds and the sharpest thinkers on the big, global issues of our time would not be possible without the generosity and the public spiritedness of our host tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, an appreciation of monk and the oria foundation. Thank you, guys. Well done. [ applause ] this is a special occasion for us and our 20th debate and for the second time in the history of the series, were convening a oneonone contest. Our topic is the key geopolitical question of the moment, and it is can the process of globalization both economic and political that has defined the International System since the end of the Second World War survive an era of rising nationalism, protectionism and populism, to find out, lets get our two debaters out here center stage to square off on the resolution, be it resolved, the International Liberal Order is over. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your debater arguing for tonights motion. Hes a renowned historian, filmmaker and bestselling author, Neil Ferguson. [ applause ] neils opponent tonight and the liberal International Order is over is cnn anchor, celebrated author and big geopolitical thinker fareed zakaria. [ applause ] hes going to be an exciting debate and i just want to run through a few quick predebate items. First, for those of you watching online and those of you in the audience and there is a munkdebate. You can be part of the conversation and also we have a rolling pole going and you can analyze, comment and judge the performance throughout the debate at wwmunkdebates. Com vote, and weve also got our trusty countdown clock and a key piece of the success of the debates. This clock is going to come to zero from each of the different segments of the debate and when you see a countdown join me in a round of applause and that will keep our debate on time and our debaters on their toes. Now fun and critical datapoint at the top of the evening. All of you here, the 3,000 people in attendance voted on tonights resolution coming into this hall. Be it resolved, the liberal International Order is over. Yea or nay. Lets see if we have the results for you. The preaudience vote. 34 agree and 66 disagrees. Interesting, the room at play. This is a critical question we ask to get a sense of the variability depending on what you hear during the debate. Are you open to changing your vote . Lets have those numbers, please. 93 . So, wow 93 are open to changing and this debate is in motion and fluid and lets get it started and well have Opening Statements and Neil Ferguson, since youre speaking in favor of the resolution and youre going first and youve got ten minutes on the clock. Thank you very much, indeed, roger. Thank you, peter and melanie for giving us the opportunity to discuss this extraordinarily important issue. Voltaire famously said the Holy Roman Empire was nor holy, nor roman nor empire. It could be said about the International Order and its not liberal and international nor orderly and yet it seems reckless, at best to come to, of all places, toronto and try to get people to vote against those three words. Youre all liberal and youre all international and by my own experience, at least youre all quite orderly, but it seems to me that one way of thinking about this is how difficult it would be to get you to vote in favor of what i suppose would be the opposite which would be conservative, homegrown chaos. Were trying that in the United States at the moment. And i just want to make it very clear that i am not here to defend donald trump. Im not even here to persuade the liberal International Order is necessarily all bad. Im just here to persuade you that its over. Now, i think there should be some full disclosure, fareed. You and i have been amongst the beneficiaries of the liberal order, not quite as much as peter, but some. Weve had our fun davos in pass pen over the years, and i think you still go to those places and im not going to deny that its been pretty good. The question i want to address is whether or not its been good for a whole lot of other people who may not be so well representeded in this audience tonight. Has it been good for ordinary americans . In this audience tonight. Has it been good for ordinary americans . North americans, canadians and ordinary citizens . Has it been good for europeans and the places we come from . Those who didnt make it to toronto. Quite a lot tried or the Indian Muslims who didnt make it on to cnn really seems to me the point. And i want to the suggest to you tonight that we need to consider seriously the possibility that globalization has overshot, that in overshooting it caused two major crises and the consequences of which was living with a financial crisises and then a crisis of mass migration, and if we carry on telling ourselves this story, and the story goes Something Like this. Oh, weve been so much more peaceful and prosperous since 1945, thanks to those nice, liberal, International Order institutions and the United Nations and the Monetary Fund and so on and why must these beastly populists spoil it all and that seems to me to be an extremely dangerous narrative to think so and that was peace and prosperity in that way. In fact, i think it may be fake history. Let me explain why i think that. Why is it not liberal . Wases that because the principal beneficiary of this wonderful, liberal International Order has been china . Yes, that has been the principal winner back in 1980. China accounted for perhaps 2 of the World Economy, and the u. S. And canada together were about a quarter of the World Economy and what are the percentages now. Well, today china accounts for 18 of the World Economy and the u. S. And canada together slightly less. 17 and on present trends that it would grow by 2021 and china will account for a fifth of the World Economy. How can it be a liberal International Order if the principal beneficiary is a oneparty state run by a communist elite. And theyre not the only beneficiaries. Fareed wrote a terrific article about liberal democracies, the ones with elections, but no rule of law also turn out to have done rather well from the system. I actually looked at some of the measures you used in that article. I wanted to see if the world had gotten any more free since you wrote that article in 1997. It hasnt, the counties is about the same as it wases in 1997, and some of the worlds countries are getting less free by the day. Dramatic declines in freedom have happened in not only russia, but countries like venezuela. China the principle beneficiary of the liberal International Order ranks 173rd out of 195 in terms of freedom today. Some liberal order. Some International Order, too. Lets ask ourselves who really has benefitted from this yera of globalization and its an interelitest order that we should be talking about because the principle beneficiaries of the system turn out to be those lucky few who possess rare intellectual property or rare, real assets including and peter knows this as well as anyone, commodities. Even canada has experienced rising inequality in this era of order and its gone up since the 1980s and a third of the gains that this economy made in the glorious decade before the financial crisis accrued to the top 1 of income earners and the share of income in canada that goes to the top 1. 1 today is as high as it was before world war ii. Thats another consequence of the liberal International Order. The winners take all in this system. Its one of the paradoxes of globalization, and if im right about that, its signified by the fact that its not only populists who are trying to rein in globalization. Here in canada, you just imposed an additional stamp tax on Foreign Investors in housing because of the dramatic increase in the cost of housing that theres been as chinese and other investors have poured into the vancouver and toronto markets. The toronto housing has gone up by a factor of three since the year 2000. Let me conclude by observing that the liberal International Order isnt orderly. It wasnt produced by the u. N. , much less by the world trade organization. It was produced by the United States and the military and other alliances that it led. A point fareed himself has made often in prints and lets not confuse these things. It is very different if the world is led by a packed americana baseded on american par as opposed to collective security based on the u. N. As the challenge has been made to that tax americana what have we seen . Increased disorder. Islamic extremism, claiming tens of thousands of lives every year. Tens of millions of people displaced from their homes and Nuclear Proliferation and the koreans father and another missile tonight and luckily it didnt work. This were calling order and that seems to me a misnomer. Ladies and gentlemen, we dont need to support donald trump to know that theres something wrong here. You dont need to be a populist. And you can do it as a Classical Liberal which is what i consider myself and recognize that the biggest threat to Classical Liberalism is an unfettered globalization that undermines the foundations of a free society based on the rule of law and Representative Government. So the liberal International Order spelled lio. Ladies and gentlemen, an lie. It is neither liberal nor is it Truly International and it certainly is not orderly. Folks, its over. Thank you very much. [ applause ] a powerful Opening Statement and now well call on fareed zakaria. Your ten minutes will go on the clock now. Thank you all. Thank you. A great pleasure to be here. I have to confess i was nervous when i was told i would be up against Neil Ferguson. You know, i do not have his air addition and his oxford degrees and i certainly do not have his british accent. I thought he would have these extraordinary moments of eloquence and they began by quoting voltaire. Im a simple guy. I cant do all that. Im just going to tell you a story. Im going to tell you a story of how this liberal International Order began and its an interesting story because it involves a canadian, and about a year after pearl harbor, Franklin Roosevelt decided that he wanted to figure out what kind of world the United States wanted to build at the end of world war ii, and he already could see, believe it or not that the United States would decisively win this war, and he didnt have somebody he could talk to and really trust it, except Mackenzie King who was a confidant of his and he asked him to come to washington and king took the train from ottawa, went to washington and they sat down at dinner and roosevelt had a martini and didnt offer Mackenzie King a drink because he knew he was a tea totaler and they went to the oval office, and franklin, and described to him what kind of world he wanted to build. Mackenzie king kept a diry and it is one of the rare instances where we have recorded roosevelts vision and it basically was an understanding that the world had so far been characterized by war, great power conflict and colonial empires, and economic america n mercantilism. They cannot support the resurrection of the world order. Were going to try to do Something Different and build a new International Order. He did not call it a liberal International Order, but that is clearly what he meant and it is a world where we would ask for the Unconditional Surrender of the axis powers. We will also ask the british and french to understand that they cannot reconstruct their great empires, that we need a world in which freedom, liberty and selfdetermination has a much greater scope. He wanted a world of open trade and open economics. He wanted a world of greater commerce and contact, but he also wanted a world that had more rules and so there was some political structures that would be built that allowed for a somewhat more orderly resolution of political disputes and that he called the United Nations, and all these things together in roosevelts view would justify the Great American effort and involvement in world war ii. Now at the end of world war ii, roosevelt did not live to begin to build that vision, but he talkeded about it throughout the war and he workeded on it throughout the war and in fact, what happened was a partial creation of exactly that vision. After hundreds and hundreds of years of something completely different, perhaps thousands of years of Something Different there was built this liberal International Order and there was created a rulebased system and there was created an open economy with greater commerce and contact. It wasnt perfect. There were many, many flaws and there were lots of countries that were not part of it. The soviet union and its allies being the most important exceptions, but it did create a new world, and if you think about the world we live in it was the world that Franklin Roosevelt dreamed of with Mackenzie King. Greater order, much less Political Violence and much greater trade, commerce and capitalism and much better broad, sustained prosperity than has ever been true before. Thats the world you live in. Thats the world we live in, and that we take for granted because it has now become so common place, and it becomes easy to attack the little flaws that, and the challenges and the pauses that take place and the tiny reversions that take place when you have a world like that. So just look at the big picture. Stephen pinker and the professor who was a colleague of neils wrote a book in which he meticulously calculated where, violence, Political Violence and war, civil war and terrorism is down 75 compared with four or five decades ago and its probably down 90 or 95 from 500 years ago so he claims. Im not sure the data from the late middle ages is not very good, so im not sure that one can speak with confidence about that, but hes a harvard professor so i trust him. I think that when you look at the expansion of this world you see the endurance and the appeal of it. It started, as i said without the great soviet empire and it started without most of the third world and by the 50s and 60s countries began to realize that in order to grow fast you needed to be part of it and so japan and taiwan and south korea started to come in and then latin american countries start to join in. Then you have the collapse of the soviet union and the collapse of communism and all of a sudden the entire world becomes part of of this system. So the free trading system and the socalled gap had 70 countries, and 78 countries in 1970. It now has 170. If you look at the European Union which has six countries in 1970. It has 28 now. 27 when they kick out neils and britain, but still an enormous expansion from that time. This is the way in which all these groups have grown, and they include most powerfully, of course, the new rising and emerging powers. Neil talks about whom this order has empowered . Ill tell you where it has empowered more than anybody else. It has empowered the poorest people in the world and the United States, the nations calculates that in the last 50 years, we have taken more people out of poverty than in the preceding 500 and that is principally because countries like india and china were able to grow and raise their Living Standards and allow peasants who were living on a dollar a day to move out of poverty. I know this world well because my father was a politician and his constituency was largely rural and there were a thousand villages in it. When you went to india 30, 40 years ago and you went into the villages, people lived lives that looked as if they were in the middle ages and today when you go into those places it is a world transformed and they have food. They have medicine. They have shelter. Its not luxury by any standards, but it is the difference between living on a dollar a day and living on 3 or 4 a day and that transformation has taken place in india and china and it has taken place in latin america and it has taken place in other parts of asia and it is beginning to take place in africa. Those are the people who have most powerfully benefited from this new liberal International Order, but others have as well. It is not as though the United States has been standing still. U. S. Gdp is up 1,000 since 1970. European gdp is not up quite that much, but if you go to any of these countries you are struck by the fact that they are rich societies. There is a problem with inequality. There is a problem with how this wealth has been redistributed and there is the reality that people are culturally anxious when they see so much change as there has been in the last 30 years. We have globalized very fast and weve had enormous amounts of immigration and women have been emancipated. All these changes produce cultural anxiety and they make people wonder go back to a simpler time to make America Great again, to make britain great again, but you know what . These countries have been great because they led and spearheaded this liberal International Order, and they have found a way to allow the world to share in this extraordinary dream that Franklin Roosevelt had that he talked to Mackenzie King about, and it is a dream that brought peter monk from hungary and fleeing persecution here and its a dream that brought me from india to the United States to make a family and a life for myself, and it is a world that allowed Neil Ferguson to leave scotland and then britain and then come to the United States and fall in love with a woman who was born in somalia and fled to go to holland to find freedom there and then to the United States. It is where they have had their son, a Beautiful Boy named thomas. Tiny thomas, neil calls him. I think that thomas future rests on an open, plural, diverse, cosmopolitan world where people think of you based on the content of your character and not the color of your skin. I think that is the world that neil secretly believes is powerful, deep and enduring. Otherwise he would not have voted with his feet and moved to the United States and moved to palo alto because he knows that there is where theyre inventing the future and he wants to be a part of it. So what i say to you, Neil Ferguson, is come home. [ applause ] come home to the liberal International Order, come home to the liberal International Order that has been so good to you and that will be so good to your son thomas. [ applause ] wow. This is what you get when you get two fabulous debate eros stage head to head. We are going to move into two rounds of rebuttals. Each of you will have three minutes on the clock uninterrupted to react from what you heard in each others Opening Statements. Neil, youre up first with your first rebuttal. Now hes crossed the line because he brought my children into it. You should not have done that. That wasnt smart. Youre going to regret it. So Franklin Roosevelt had a vision, but what was the reality . The reality was that the United Nations was permanently gridlocked because of the veto exerted by the members of the Security Council, the permanent members and practiced what the u. S. Did was to dismantle other peoples empires and build one of its own which i think is fair to say, mixed results and i dont think we should fall into the trap as i said earlier of believing that the relative peace afteren in 45 had anything to do with the institutions that Franklin Roosevelt discussed after that martini with Mackenzie King. On the contrary, its an illusion. Its fake history to credit the relative peace of the 1945 period on those institutions. Its an incorrect inference, the reality was there was considerable violence and it was a lot like the violence before. Violence between two great empires, the United States and the sof etunion both of whom pretended they werent empires and they think his book will be like the great illusion. Proven wrong, the First Nuclear war that happens. The potential is there to invalidate that entire thesis in a day. Yes, people have been pulled out of poverty in china, but fareed, you know as well as i do, the principal reason for that is those countries abandoned communism and socialism and embraced market reforms in their own domestic policies. Once again, its an incorrect inference to say they grew because of the liberal International Order and they grew because they realize the state control of the private sector does not work. You mentioned thomas. It means a lot to me that we live in the United States because we live in a society based on the rule of law, on Representative Government and a constitution that has withstood all of the challenges it faced and will withstand the populism and demagoguey. Thats why we chose it because my wife can be safe in that country, safer than she ever was in western europe. Its not going to do with the kind of global that frankly, youre talking tonight. [ applause ] i thought what i do was talk about china because clearly, that is the elephant in the room as it were, the country that neil rightly says has benefited the most from this liberal International Order. It is not simply because it has embraced capitalism, but capitalism is a core part of the liberal International Order. The word liberal is of pertaining to liberty and the first time that phrase has been used was by a scottish enlightenment thinker and a forerunner of Neil Ferguson, in a sense and william robertson, the second man to use it was adam smith and both used it in the specific context of capitalism and free trade, but chinas embrace has not just been that. It has been a broader embrace of order. If you think of miles, china, this was a country that threatened routinely to have it threaten the war and there will be a few communists left and all of the capitalists would be dead and china has moveded from that place to a remarkably more rulebased acceptance of of this liberal International Order. It wanted desperately to become part of the World Trading organization. It is now desperately seeking greater and greater influence at the United Nations. It is now the second largest supporter of peacekeeping operations around the world. It wants to become the second largest funder of the United Nations in general. It has become far more involved in Nuclear Security issues supporting the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and securing the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty and remember. These are all things that china believed were terrible, vicious, american imperialist plots to keep the world down. Now the chinese actively want to be a part of that and they want to try and solve the problems that arise. If you look at how theyre handling north korea. Theyre moving to a more and more constructive, cooperative approach where theyre involving regional actors. They want to resurrect some kind of regional diplomacy. This is not perfect. Of course, its not. Of course, powers still matters. Of course, the old political rules still live, but what roosevelt was trying to do was to put some degree of regularity, some kind of norms, some kind of procedures that might help tame some of these savage winds of war, and i think if you look at the challenges we face, the extraordinary effort to incorporate the rest of the world into the system and the rise of Nuclear Weapons and the dangers that that poses and the dangers of chemical and biological weapons in their spread and look at how we have managed to deal with some of these issues. For example, the outbreak of ebola, and the outbreak of other kinds of diseases and they have been through International Cooperation through greater and greater consultation and of course, some of it has involved the u. N. And some of it has not, but surely that is the kind of war we want rather than one where we hope somehow that the countries of Nuclear Weapons have used them and the United States keep threatening countries to blow them off the face of the earth. It is inevitable because the alternative is unthinkable. [ applause ] neil, youre up with your second rebuttal. I want to talk about history now. You see, what troubles me most about fareeds argument is that we have heard something very similar before. If you go back to the late 19th similar before. If yo go back 19th century many people believed a new International Order could be based on what we now call globalization. The idea of an International Liberal Order was there before the First World War and the forces weve seen in our time were extraordinarily powerful at work. In the period of late 19th century, International Migration reached levels that we have now begun to see again in our time. The percentage of the u. S. Population that was foreign born reached about 14 in the 1880s. Free trade reached new heights. International exchange of goods, International Capital flows, all these things reached unprecedented levels. And liberal dont be bashful, fareed, i know you went to yale and have a ph. D. From harvard. Liberal intellectuals have made the exact same mistake that fareed and steve are making now. That is the everything is awesome mistake. Everything is awesome if you are in a liberal bubble, as for example your counterparts in the early 1900s. Globalization brought us famously said everything he could possibly order everything to his room in a matter of days, telegraphs, steam ships, international trade, said what could possibly go wrong that would never be something as absurd as a war given this liberal International Order weve created. And they were wrong. And they were wrong because they underestimated the backlash that is generated if you allow globalization to run too far. They also overestimated the ability of International Institutions to avert conflict, who now remembers the hague peace conference. So theres a warning from history here, the real history we should learn is the history of what went wrong when globalization last selfdestructed. What worries me when i hear these fairy story ris about Franklin Roosevelt, the United Nations and tiny thomas living happily ever after is it is globalian and worse than that, fareed, its fake history. And i suspect in your heart you know that. Thank you. [ applause ] for someone who doesnt want to be associated with donald trump, youve certainly used the word fake several times, neil. And i have refrained from associating you with donald trump because i dont know how you feel about him one way or the other. But let me talk about the challenges you raise, because theyre real. Theres no question donald trump thinks hes a singular unique phenomenon and in some ways i suppose he is. His flexibility with the facts and matters like that but in many ways it is part of a trend. You see it everywhere. Whats striking about it is where you do see it though. You dont see it in latin america much. In latin america theyre all busily trying to integrate into the liberal International Order from mexico to brazil to argentina, populism is on the decline. If you look in asia, whether its india, indonesia, japan, you see the same thing, reformist prime ministers and president s who are trying to integrate into the order. Where you see populism is in europe and the United States. And you see it in countries in europe that are doing very well economically. So it cant just be about economics because germany is powering ahead. It cant even just be about inequality. For example, the dutch have not had a rise in the way you measure inequality in about 20 years. Sweden is growing very robustly. All these places however do have are immigrants. That has caused enormous amount of society. There have been periods in the past when immigration has been restricted, even in the United States. The liberal International Order still continued to grow. What it tells you though is that these things can be managed. You can find ways to address inequality. You can find ways to deal with immigration. In fact, we are in the one western country that is not going through a great rise of right wing populism, canada. And i would argue it is in large measure because canada has managed immigration quite well. This is not something endemic to canada. It was not in your dna. Canada had a whites only immigration system that had its own problems and then it changed. Under trudeau and then moroni there was an emphasis on a certain multicultural and now youre in this extraordinary position where you watch the rise of this illliberal antiglobalist populism but you are not feeding it. Almost none of it in canada today. So i look at that and it gives me great hope because it tells me that there are policy solutions to the very real challenges that Neil Ferguson has brought up. And it reminds me once again that we should all around the world be a little bit more canadian. [ applause ] great opening to the debate. Were now going to move into the moderated portion of this which im going to do very lightly. And i want to just start, gentlemen, by refocusing this debate a little bit. Lets remember resolution be it resolved the International Order is over. Many people in this room are trying to figure out, is it over or not . So, neil, i want to pressure test you a bit. Give us some examples, some concrete examples of why you think not that its bad but that its over, that its time has come. Well, fareed has just said some extraordinarily optimistic things about europe, but i would say that the European Unions Current Crisis is a perfect illustration of why the liberal International Order is over. Remember, its precisely one of these institutions that fareed has held up as an example of what can work. But the truth is it isnt working and thats one reason why a majority of british voters are opted to leave the eu. I was very ambivalent about brexit last year, but i came to realize why so many people in britain felt that way. They felt that way because they discerned that in two fundamental respects the European Union have become dysfunctional, wholly mismanaged the financial crisis, massively amplifying the negative impacts on the other Member States of the european monetary union, britain felt very relieved not to be a part of that. And then it massively mismanaged the migration crisis caused by a crisis in north africa in the middle east which the European Union had a hand in causing, although european politicians like to pretent the migration crisis is a sort of natural disaster. But at every level the most basic roles that we expect a state to perform from Economic Management to the defense of borders were flunked comprehensively by the European Union over the last ten years. And the british response was we need to take back control. Thats a really important idea here. Because control by sovereign states is vital if they are to retain legitimacy. Whats scary in europe is to see populists gaining strength from the failure of fareeds beloved International Institutions. Thats the argument im trying to make tonight. If youre complacent as fareed im afraid to say has become, in your elite bubble on the Upper West Side of manhattan, imagining that everything is awesome and going to sweden to another bubble there and then presumably to a bubble in london, you dont realize how disaffected ordinary people in the provinces are in peripheral france, in the provincial parts of central and Eastern Europe that have swung sharply away from your liberal International Order. Thats the trouble. The populism that fareed eludes to is not something im here to legitimize or defend. My point is precisely that its a symptom of what is malfunctioning in this liberal International Order. And i think ultimately the European Union will fall apart because its simply not possible to pursue a Monetary Policy for an entire continent and have borderless travel for an entire continent. Its not compatible with the stability and legitimacy of the nation states themselves. And the brits have just been the first to realize that. Fareed, lets have you come in on that. In effect europe is the canary in the coal mine and its close to death. [ applause ] i am so glad that neil is mingling with the people in palo alto where my home would probably buy you a garage. I think its important to remember the history here when you talk about the European Union. For the 400, 500 years before world war ii, europe was racked by wars the kind of which almost no continent had ever seen before. Religious wars for example, onethird of all germany was killed. France and germany went to war three times between 1850 and 1950. Dragged the world in on two of those occasions. And when you look at the European Union today, the principle achievement is that it is unthinkable that these countries that routinely went to war for hundreds of years will ever go to war again. Yes, they have problems about border control. And, yes, when they meet they have debates about Monetary Policy. And, oh, yes, its very difficult to have Monetary Policy move in one direction and fiscal policy move another. Its a very different world from germany invading france, belgium from the horrors of world war i, world war ii and all the wars before that. So i look at the European Union and i know its fashionable to decry it and to talk about the bureaucracy and to talk about the sclerosis, but it is an extraordinary achievement of political and Economic Cooperation that should be a model for all countries in the world. That is how we want to solve problems. That is how we should. And those great liberal internationalists of the 1900s, norman angel and such, did not predict by the way perpetual peace. Book did not say there would be peace forever. He said that a war within europe would be so costly that it would make no sense economically to wage it. That the victor would lose economically so much by plunging the continent into chaos that it wouldnt be worth the candle. He was proven absolutely right in that because of the interdependence that had been achieved by this order. Now, why did britain leave . Britain has always disliked europe. I mean, if you rein john f. Gohn speech written by shakespeare all about britain written as this scepter, war like ma machiavellian europeans, it has always seen itself as a country set apart in all kinds of ways. There is the famous headline you saw in britain 1900 which said fog over channel, continent cut off. That is made up, fareed. Thats a made up story. But let me just to be clear, thats fake. I mean, its a good story, but its just not true, thats all. Some stories are good to check. But i thought that neil might bring up the brexit issue. I dont know if i have it here or not, but i was struck by theresa mays declaration of independence from the European Union in which she said we are doing this because we want to be a global free trading britain that embraces the world, that embraces greater international commerce, cooperation. You know, wants to remain in all the International Organizations and institutions we are in. We see it as a path to global free trade and greatness. Now, you might ask why you would then exit the largest free trade body in the world as a process of getting to free trade, but my point is if you look at the way in which britain has exited the European Union as some kind of harbinger for what is happening, i would argue youre looking at the exception that proves the rule. Europe has gone from six countries to 28. There was a line of countries desperately trying to get into europe. Why . If britain is the one country that wants to get out, why do all these other countries want to get in . Because they understand the virtue of the stability, of peace, of cooperation, because they see the before after picture in europe like you have never seen anywhere in history. Can i just push back a little bit here . [ applause ] because if you asked yourself what exactly the European Union is, calling it a free trade area is a stretch, fareed, because what the European Union has beco become, and this has been true since the treaty has been to crea crea create the federal republic over europe. In some ways when you look closely at how europe works, go to brussels, meet the people who run it, they live very good lives. Eurocrats dont even pay tax. Its extremely bureaucratic, highly they never actually i devolve anything they can retain control over. Its predicated on an extraordinarily complex system of regulation. And most importantly to my mind those people who run it have become almost completely disconnected from the ordinary people in what ill call provincial europe. Now, fareed sneers at the fact i live near but not in palo alto. I mean, really, i wouldnt make jokes about real estate prices in toronto if i were you. Its a reminder that the canadians themselves Justin Trudeau has realized that globalization has overshot. And i dont think its wrong to draw distinction between what the European Union has become, which is a kind of failed centralizing federalist state and what theresa may and others in london are hope to achieve. Because what we must wish for is a stable International Order based on democratic and rule of law based sovereign states. Yes, they can certainly reach trade agreements, but those trade agreements arent etched in stone. Its time unquestionably to revisit nafta. Its far from clear that its perfect. That is exactly what i would regard as a stable International Order is. Canada, the United States and mexico look at a trade agreement and establish whether it needs to be updated. That is not the situation britain was in. Britain was in a position where rulings made by the council of ministers could be imposed on the British Parliament regardless of what the british people wished. Theres a huge difference in my mind between that which seems to me the essence of fareeds liberal International Order and a more conservative nationbased order which historical experience shows is far more likely to produce stability. Fareed we have a lot of terrain to move through here. And i want to again keep this debate focused on the proposition. Is it over or not . We can discuss whether its good or bad, but ultimately the 3,000 people in this room need to make up their minds is it at its end. Lets come back across the atlantic to the United States. Neil said in his opening remarks some might argue that the liberal International Order has a fatal crisis of legitimacy. That by impoverishing broad sections of its own voting publics in the western democracies, it now no longer has the social consensus within the nations that it needs to further itself to advance. How do you respond to that specific argument that this is in fact over because of a crisis of legitimacy that it cant recover from . Sure. So lets think about that. That was much talked about after brexit and donald trump. And what i would point out is that we seem to be in a slightly different moment right now, right . You have just had the french elections in which the person who seems likely to win is emanuel macron, an economic free trader, believer in the European Union, believer in transatlanticism is he a friend of yours, fareed . You must have met him at davos. Exactly. The person who seems likely to win in germany is Angela Merkel. But if she loses, she is likely to lose to a social democrat who is more proeuropean than she is. You can see why were leaving. If you look at donald trump and the United States, well, it is true he won the presidency. It is also true that Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more votes than he did. And he now has the lowest Approval Ratings of any president in history at this point in the presidency. So its important for us to remember that there are many forces within these societies, that there are lots and lots of people who are in favor of the liberal International Order, this kind of world, the world we live in, as i say. And what is most telling and the reason i think its not over is because the one common factor in all these countries is that young people are overwhelmingly in favor of the kind of world im describing. Its because not only do they understand that it is inevitable, you cant stop china from growing. You cant turn technology off. You cant stop the cooperation and interdependence that comes from trade and capital flows. But they also understand that it is beneficial. They want to live in a world that is open, that is connected, that is pluralistic, that is tolerant, that is diverse. And that is why you see these extraordinary numbers when you look at young people in the United States, when you look at young people in europe, and even when you look at young people in britain, had the vote been, you know, an under 40 vote, brexit would have lost dramatically. And that tells me something very important, which is that the future lies with this kind of world. We are going through a period here where people who are older, who have less education, who live in rural parts of the United States and europe understandably feel anxious. And as i say there are policy remedies for that which we should employ. And across the board involving things from immigration to economics, but dont forget that the future belongs to this liberal International Order. [ applause ] demographics is destiny. You should always be wary of the people who say the future belongs to them because the reality is to answer your question, the peak globalization, peak liberal International Order is already in the rearview mirror. And you can show this with some very simple measures. Trade is no longer growing at the rate that it grew prior to the financial crisis. In fact, its significantly less important as fareed well knows as a driver of Global Growth post crisis. International capital flows have been reduced too. Notice also the crisis of migrati migration continues to expose the fundamental weakness of a liberal International Order that cant even achieve stabilization in a state like syria. Right now we have 65 million displaced people in the world, 21 million who are classified by the u. N. As refugees. This is not a succeeding liberal International Order. Its an increasingly ill liberal interelitist international disorder. That is why there is so much disaffection. And that is why we see support for populists on both the left and the right. Because remember, populism comes in two flavors. Its like ice cream in communist country, you can have raspberry or chocolate. Just as last year we had Bernie Sanders who of course would have been the democratic nominee if they hadnt rigged the democratic nomination system. And if one looks at the french election, fareed, im sorry to tell you but macron almost got no support from younger voters. They were all behind the communist. So lets not pretend that the center is holding when its not. What in fact we see and this is clear from a whole range of studies that have been published recently that youre much too busy with cnn to read that the politicals i mean, i know how that is, but if you actually do academic research, you find that one consequence of the financial crisis well, you know, this seems to me very important if were going to get the historical record straight, what is very striking is one looks at all the elections all the way back to 1870, financial crises leap to backlashes against globalization that erode the political center. And hes eroded from both sides. From the far left and the far right. What we see in european politics at the moment is really a regrouping of deck chairs onboard the titanic. You can imagine how this will play out and mr. Macron will doubt this win and he will then meet Angela Merkel or possibly martin short and they will tell one another everything is awesome. And the alienation will continue. And if you havent already read it, i do recommend michelle wellbecks wonderful book submission yes, this election in france will go pretty much as it has gone. He got that right. But at the next election in order to keep out the for National Candidate le pen, there will be an islamist candidate. And thats the critical point that we need to focus on. Not the here and now. Not this weeks poll. But where europe is headed. And its very clear to me that it is on an unsustainable path. If it cannot even secure its own borders, other than by making deals with yet another ill liberal pseudo democrat, mr. Erdogan in turkey, if it cannot ensure even the most elementary Financial Stability in countries. In Southern Europe remember the italian banks havent gone away as a problem. All of this talk of liberal International Order is just what they do at davos and aspen to keep their spirits up as ever slowly andin shrinks the deck the titanic. [ applause ] fareed, to have you respond to some of the symptoms of the demise of the International Order that people in this room might think about, we can look at the annexation of crimea, violation of sovereignty, something never supposed to happen after 1945, we see as neil has mentioned declining trade, but maybe more importantly more recently weve seen the use of chemical weapons on defenseless civilians in syria responded to by little more than a cosmetic military attack. Again, why are these things in your mind not significant events that foreshadow or state that the liberal International Order is in fact in demise . Look, you can point to every bad thing that happens in the world and find a trend out of it. But the plural of anecdote is not data. And when you try to figure out what is actually happening around the world, you have to look at the aggregate data. The aggregate data shows that Political Violence, by which i mean war, civil war and terrorism is down. Its had a modest uptick last year, but over the last 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years the chart goes way down. Ican i correct you . This is a really important point we are talking about whether theres been an inflection or not. If you look at the data on Armed Conflict or terrorism, there was a clear upturn from 2010, which is pretty much the low point, and everything that has happened since the misnamed arab spring has caused terrorism and Armed Conflict to escalate. So you cant claim that the liberal International Order is in great shape. It hasnt been in great shape since 2010 at the very latest. Let me just talk about that for a second. Fareed, 20,000 or 30,000 people a year are being killed by islamist terrorist groups like boko haram. I dont find that comforting and 30,000 americans die of handgun violence a year. And that is terrible too. Theres a difference, fareed. Let me again just broaden the scope and remind you that if you look at the worlds of violence right now, a striking thing happened this year. The colombians announced a ceasefire with fark with an insurgency gone on for decades, killed 300,000, 400,000 people, displaced millions of people. And what was striking to me is it marked the end of any kind of Political Violence in the western hemisphere. Half the world in other words now does not have a war, a civil war, an armed insurgency of any kind. If you say to yourself, well, thats latin america. Well, latin america was very violent. When i came to the United States, there were armed insurgencies in five or six latin american countries, the United States invaded, you know, was funding insurgencies in places like nicaragua and then invaded grenada and pan na. There was a lot of stuff going on there and that has now essentially come to a close. Violence in the world is essentially restricted to a band of places that one could call the crisis the crescent of crisis going from nigeria to afghanistan. It is almost all an islamist belt. It is worrisome. I think neil and i probably agree on some of the causes of it. But notice how restricted it is. You dont see it in asia. You see it almost not in africa, which is extraordinary. And my point here is not bad things arent happening in the world. There were bad things happening in the world in the 1940s you might have noticed. There were bad things happening in the world from 1914 do 1919. There were a lot of bad things happening in the 19th century. But the trend that we are looking at th, this broader tre is unmistakable. One more point neil keeps talking about the European Union. I think its important we understand that the people who want the European Union the most are not people who go to davos and aspen but people on the ground in the poorer countries that surround europe. So look at ukraine. Why is ukraine trying to break free of russias embrace and russia has as a result engaged in an act of imperialism against it, ukraine is trying to break free because it wants to be part of this liberal International Order. Now, why does it want to do that . Ukraine and poland in 1990 faced a choice. Poland chose to be part of the European Union, part of the west, part of this liberal International Order. Ukraine whether chose or not was not allowed to become part of that order. They had the same per capita gdp in 1990. Today, ukraines per capita gdp is onethird of polands. Poland is three times richer than ukraine having started in the same place in 1990. So when people look at that, it is those ukrainians, ordinary ukrainians, ordinary polls who understand this. And who understand by the way that the European Union provides them with political stability. It provides them with all kinds of economic assistance. It provides them with the Worlds Largest market into which they can grow. And it provides them with some sense of order and protection and fleeing a world they have known for so long. Those are the people who i look to when i ask myself does the European Union have a future. I couldnt care less about the bankers at davos. [ applause ] i want to come to you, neil, on the point of technology. Youre living not in palo alto, but nearby. We are living in an age of rapid Technological Advancement and many here might wonder why isnt the technological revolution that were living through underpinning a bull work to the liberal International Order. Its intention, allowing people to talk across linguistic and national divides would seem to supercharge liberal internationalism, not hold it back. Yeah, its funny how thats turned out, isnt it . Not quite what Mark Zuckerberg intended when he created facebook that he would unwittingly create the engine that probably did more than anything else to get donald trump elected last year. If one looks at the impact of social networks on not only domestic but international politics, you cant really claim that its done a great deal to help fareeds beloved liberal International Order. And thats not entirely surprising actually, because the unfettered growth of Companies Like facebook, not to mention google, has without question made us a more interconnected species. We really are far more interconnected than ever before. But has that promoted the values that fareed has been pitching tonight . Actually, no. Its turned out to be a tremendously powerful engine not just for the notorious fake news but for full blown cyber warfare. Fareed ducks your question about ukraine i thought rather feebly. What happens with the invasion of ukraine was a complete failure for the liberal International Order. It utterly failed to uphold not only the u. N. Charter but also the budapest agreement and the annexation of crimea by the Russian Federation is essentially now accepted by the liberal International Order as just one of those things, never mind. Ukraine is in a state of more or less civil war. It would be wrong to call it a frozen conflict because its really quite hot and there are periodic outbreaks of violence. The picture fareed paints of latin america is also kind of baffling. I dont know, heard of venezuela following events in caracas . Populism may be on the retreat in latin america. It is in some countries, notably argentina, but its putting up a ferocious rear guard action in venezuela right now and people are being killed in the streets of caracas. So my sense is that we have all probably overestimated the benefits of creating a completely interconnected world. We didnt realize that it would actually form a kgb operatives who would best understand how to unleash troll armies to try to influence democratic elections. We underestimated the extent to which an interconnected world would be a great opportunity for the radical islamists to propagate their message. Fareed says, oh, its contained in a crescent of crisis. Really . Radical islam is contained . I must say i hadnt noticed that when people were being murdered in san bernardino, in london, in paris. Even in qatar there have been attacks. This is a global threat. And unfortunately the technology that we dreamt um in Silicon Valley has proved to be essentially morally neutral. Can i interrupt you for one second, neil . I think its important to point out the incidence of terrorism and deaths by terrorism in europe in the 1970s is three times higher than it is today. I know its easy to scare people because these are muslims and they look different and they sound different and there are ways in which importantly they are dangerous, but lets not forget that europe went through very bad stretches with terrorism. Its easy to get people all riled up about this, but the reality is we have been through periods of violence. We have been through periods of terrorism. Yes, the russian annexation of crimea was a terrible thing. So was the soviet invasion of ch czechoslovakia, so was invasion of afghanistan, it was not as though we have had during what you call the heyday of the liberal International Order. Its not as if we didnt have bad things happening. The point is on balance where things are tilting. If you look at Martin Luther king jr. Great line, moral of the universe bends slowly but it bends towards justice. I would argue moves in zigzag ways and curves but overall moving towards a greater degree of freedom. Because your great hero, neil, Margaret Thatcher said when people are free to choose, they choose in freedom. I believe that while you dont. [ applause ] weve come up against the clock so were going to move to closing statements. These will happen in opposite order of opening remarks. Well put five minutes on the clock. Fareed, the stage is all yours. You see, i told you i was worried about being up against this brilliant well read man who reads academic papers and as i said has this very posh accent. But im going to try again to just tell you what i know. Ill tell you a seen from my favorite movie. Its wonderful movie lawrence of arabia and theres this movement where lawrence is convincing the arab tribes to go up against the ottoman empire. And he had to get them to take the turkish port. They have to go through this terrible desert. They all say it cant be done, its never been done before, he gets them to do it, but they leave behind an arab soldier, very, very important arab soldier who everybody loves. And played by omar sharif says you cant do anything about it, the desert swallowed him up, it was his fate. Lawrence goes into the desert for a second time and manages to bring him back and brings him back alive and presents him, nothing is written. What i want to remind you is that this is active ongoing history in the making. Nothing is written. Yes, there are all kinds of challenges to the liberal International Order. There are people who are celebrating its demise. From donald trump to Marine Le Pen to nigel farage, there are all these people who want it to fail, who believe that theyre onto something, who are exploiting the anxieties of people who perhaps dont understand the complexity of these forces and telling them something very simple, Donald Trumps message after all to americans to particularly the kind of americans who neil is talking about is your life sucks and its because of mexicans, muslims and chinese people. The mexicans take your jobs, the chinese take your factories, the muslims endanger your lives. I will beat them all up and you will be great again. Its a powerful seductive message, by the way that was the entire campaign in two minutes. [ applause ] but the truth is, you arent going to get very far by beating up foreigners, you arent going to get far by building walls, you arent going to get far by closing yourself off to the world. I feel as though ive lived through this movie. The india that i grew up in was an india that very much believed in rejecting this liberal International Order because it believed it was all a western plot, american imperialism, another version of british colonialism, so they shielded themselves from it. And said they were protecting their industries and protecting their workers and protecting their culture. And what you instead got was corruption, decay, stagnation and a sense of being completely isolated from the world. You lack the technological progress, you lack the dynamism, you lack the sense of hope that came from being part of this much larger world. So what i want to say to you is dont give in to the fatalism here, dont give in to the sense these are the great forces. We can fight these forces. You can fight these forces. You dont have to give in to them. And by voting for neils side you will be giving in to a certain kind of middle eastern fatalism. We dont believe in that. We believe that we can write our own history. We believe we make our own destiny. And i think as long as we remember that, as long as we remember in every one of these countries there are powerful forces that believe in pluralism, in diversity, in tolerance, in liberalism in the sense of the protection of liberty, whether youre a conservative or liberal on the political spectrum, we are all in that sense liberals. We would prevail because honestly there are many more of us, there are many more people like that, and there are many more people who are not scared, theyre anxious but they understand that this is the future and they want to prepare for it. And so let me close with words from somebody who is far more eloquent than me, but ive always remembered them and always taught that they summarize this kind of moment so well, though much is taken, much abides. And though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are we are. One equal temper of Heroic Hearts made weak by time and fate but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield. Not to yield. Never yield. Never give up. I know you wont. Thank you. [ applause ] neil, you get the last word. Fareeds a friend, you might not realize that but he is. But, you know, hes also an optimist. Hes a super optimist. In some ways fareed was even more optimistic about me in the sense of how the United States would do back in the day when he was a neoconservative. If you look back through fareed im a historian so thats the kind of thing i do, you find him writing cordiality between the great powers and rising global pers perty is neither natural nor selfregulating it is the product more than anything else of American Power and purpose. Oh, thats the same guy just 10, 20 years ago. September 15th, 1996, here he was january 2003, American Power has brought peace and liberty to countless places around the globe, special to western europe. American power helped create a more civilized world in the balkans despite washingtons tentative approach towards nation building, the war in afghanistan has vastly improved the lives of the afghan people. And war in iraq if followed by truly ambitious post war reconstruction could transform iraq and prod reform in the middle east. This doesnt quite sound like the liberal International Order you were talking about earlier, fareed. The United States built the International World order. If i think about the argument that is central to much of fareeds work, it includes a proposition about how the liberal International Order will work on its principle beneficiary as fareed has acknowledged, china. Here he is back in 1997. By dealing with china, fareed wrote, the United States can encourage it to play by civilized International Rules and moderate its regional ambitions by integrating into the World Economy some argue china will over time become a more liberal state. And in his post American World book fareed just hadnt given up on that. As Chinese Standards of living rise, political reform is becoming an increasingly urgent issue. Thats true. An increasingly urgent issue that they want to prevent from ever happening. Fareeds also given you an optimistic view of the threat of islamic extremism. Hes always been an optimist on this score in the post American World he wrote over the last six years support for bin ladens goals have fallen steadily throughout the muslim world. Much more must happen to modernize the muslim world but the modernizers are no longer scared. The muslim world, he wrote, is also modernizing though more slowly than the rest. The arc of history is one of those phrases that im allergic to because there is no arc in history. What there sometimes is is a cliff. And what worries me about fareeds optimism is that its the kind of optimism that leads you to walk off a cliff. Telling yourself that liberal International Order will somehow keep you up, its that wile e coyote moment that older members of the audience will remember when he runs off the edge of the cliff and keeps running, for an agonizing few seconds. He thinks hes still on solid ground, but then he looks down. And then he falls. History is much more like that than any kind of arc. We dont know when the next cliff is going to come along. If one thinks back to the last great age of globalization before the First World War, the most striking thing is how hard they kept running even after theyd gone off the end of the cliff, the socialists were still planning a meeting of the international in the summer of 1914. The statesmen kept writing their letters and their telegrams even after the armies had been mobilized. The liberal International Order is over because it has run over one of those cliffs. And like wily coyote, optimistic fareed and his liberal International Order are going to fall. Please dont go over the cliff with them. [ applause ] gentlemen, a terrific debate tonight and sign of a great debate you made your moderator for that i thank you. I thank the Aurea Foundation for making this possible. All of you in this room have a ballot. This is your opportunity to vote again on tonights resolution. Lets just review where we were at the start of this evening with the 3,000 people in this hall. 66 of you agreed sorry, disagreed with the motion. 33 in favor. And then we asked what percentage of you could change your mind and which of you were open possibly to changing your vote and look at that only 7 were dug in at the beginning of the debate. So lets see how this plays out. Were going to be taking those votes from you as you leave the hall. And for those of you watching online, well have the results on social media shortly after 9 00 p. M. Thanks again everybody for a terrific debate. Were going to do this all again come the