Am delighted to welcome all of you to the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. Especially delighted to n, asme director rasmusse he completes nearly 30 years of Government Service. We are fortunate and honored he chose to offer a parting thoughts that the place for his atfessional journey began, carnegie where he served as an intern in the Junior Fellows Program after graduating from wesleyan. I have known nick for many years since the 1990s, we served together in the state department, when he worked for did this ross in the middle east coordinators office. Next went on to serve as one of the very few senior u. S. Government officials to serve virtually continuously since 9 11 and fighting terrorism around the world. Over the last three years, he has led and molded hundreds of colleagues across different federal agencies into a remarkably strong and cohesive chain. Ana moment when there is increasing tendency, i think, to disparage sometimes and to politicize the work of career public servants, i am especially glad to have the chance to highlight and honor the Public Service of nick rasmussen. He has embodied the best of Public Service. I hope you will give him a warm welcome. [applause] dir. Rasmussen thank you for the warm words and also my thanks to the Carnegie Endowment and staff in particular for pulling this event together. Making my last public appearance as director of in tct. It seems right to me. As arst paying Job National Security professional was as a carnegie in turn, a precursor to todays fellow program. 12,000 the 12,900 i made that year allowed me to live comfortably in my parents my very and subsidized much used nissan sentra, my first grown up car out of college. [laughter] dir. Rasmussen closing this particular chapter of my career here feels like coming home. It is an honor to be here. I want to spend most of our we have in conversation with bill and you, but i want to offer thoughts on some topics to set the stage. First off, something about the connection that exist between what is going on on the ground in isis in syria and the threat we face here at home. Second, the particular terrorism threat we face here in the United States and what we might do about it. Discussi will counterterrorism were probably as a National Security issue, where it fits in the landscape and our hierarchy of concerns. First, isis in iraq and syria. Things are trending well on the ground when it comes to isis in iraq and syria. Attempts to shrink the territory is proceeding apace. The campaign is playing out the way we envision did what. Isis has been driven out of urban strongholds and is finding itself dispersed in isolation and pressure. Part, isis like the capacity to command and whole territory and exercised it like functions, taxation, the exploitation of natural resources. The physical safety haven and joined isis has largely been taken away. Isis now hold only 11 of the territory it held at the peak of its expansion in 2014. That is tremendously good news. But if that is true, and it is, why doesnt it feel that way . Why we still feel besieged by isis threats and the isis narrative around the globe . The short answer i would offer is that those of us in the terrorism world expected it to play out largely this way. We expected isis was driven out of place like mobile and raqqa, that find new ways to implement their terrorist agenda, and it has. Directedks not directly by the leadership. The surge in the number of attacks taking place around the world, loan actors in small groups. Isis has adapted to its more difficult circumstances by changing its operational model and it will continue to adapt. Let me sake of context, see and not try to take a good news story, in many ways we are winning on the battlefield against isis, and turn it into bad news. It is not bad news. Stripping away the physical manifestations of the caliphate will have profound implications, positive indications for the threat picture. It just wont happen right away. Over time, isis will have fewer resources to support the terrorist agenda, and the narrative of success they propagate will bring more hollow and appeal to fewer adherents in the months and years ahead. As i said a second ago, those gains, be realized overnight. There will be a significant lag time between the success of the military campaign in iraq and syria and at the time we will feel appreciably less threatened by isis around the world. I favor that not to spread pessimism and read brother to say this not i to spread pessimism and dread but to suggest we have a long way to go. Libya, yemen, afghanistan, the philippines, egypt, turkey, and perhaps other dozen countries i could mention if there was enough time. None of this is comfortable to the policymaker. Simplee policymaker look we have committed in blood and treasure on the ground in iraq and syria, they want results and want to see an outcome in which are threat condition is softened and it simply is not there yet in my view. My second thoughts never was more specifically to the homeland, in the United States. I have spent a lot of time thinking about the homeland and what happens in the United States. For the most part, i feel really good about the work done over the 16 years since 9 11 in terms of hardening our defenses of the country. I could rattle through the things that need to still be done, but i think we can say with confidence that we made it very difficult, very difficult for a terrorist organization like al qaeda or isis to penetrate the homeland with a group of operatives. To grow a sleeper cell literally under our nose. Atups like isis and al qaeda this point know and understand that we are a difficult target, we are difficult to penetrate. That is why their focus is on inspiring and mobilizing young people already here, people already living in the United States. The term we use in the Counterterrorism Community to describe these people are homegrown violent extremists, hve. They represent the most ubiquitous threat in the United States. Most ofast half decade, the terrorism problems in the United States can be tied to individuals or raised here, or her only became radicalized well after they arrived in the u. S. The challenge we face at home is not a hard edged intelligence challenge of ferreting out sleeper cells in our midst. It is a challenge of community engagement. Working with communities in the United States to give them the tools to counter the rise of extremism in their own communities. As i step away from Government Service and a couple of weeks, i believe i can say with credibility we are not doing us not doing enough on that score and we could do better. If that sounds like i am taking a shot at any of my former colleagues, it is not a shot at any of them at all. I am being entirely selfcritical. I have occupied senior positions where this set of challenges has fallen to me to contribute solutions, and i dont think i have done a good enough job contributing to those solutions. We can talk more in the q a if thee is interest, but bottom line is the battle to defend ourselves against homegrown violent extremists will not be won by the fbi alone. We need to make it easier for communities to play a role in the effort. When i leave government, i will contribute to that objective with my voice from outside government. Lastly, some quick was about terrorism as a broader National Security issue and why it has been the focus of my professional life every day of the last 16 years. I think most people know that might 11 had a way of changing most americans of a certain age. I was one of them. For me, it set me on a path personally and professionally that brought me to this job and ultimately to the end of my federal government career. In thelvement Counterterrorism Mission has been the most extraordinary privilege of my career, to allow me to work with some of the most talented and dedicated professionals serving anywhere, not just at nctc, but places like cia, Homeland Security, dod, the justice department, i could name a dozen other organizations. I often tell my new employees that when they are joining ntct, they are playing the ultimate team sport. Their own success will not be predicated on their own good works, but predicated on the good work done by thousands of others. Partners in the federal government and partners overseas and foreign government, and certainly partners in the United States, state and local Homeland Security enterprise with work with which we work so closely. I would argue that that is why our work is so rewarding, sharing successes and failures with fellow counterterrorism professionals has been the highlight of my career. At the same time, i know that terrorism and counterterrorism do not sit above or in isolation from broader National Security interests or challenges. These days when i sit in the situation room and i see what secretary mattis, chairman dunford and secretary tillerson are carrying on their shoulders, it is hard for me to fathom how they do it. Iran, thea, china, array of cyber challenges we face. All of that weighs heavy on me even though the responsibilities are not mine. Terrorism and counterterrorism will continue to fit into that National Security landscape or long time. I sat there other National Security issues that demand more time and resources. Something i would argue unique about terrorism and its ability to drive the agenda for our National Security community. Attacks asymmetric attacks are called asymmetric because it is well beyond what National Rational assessment would presume. I have not said much about it this afternoon, but our work and counterterrorism is getting harder and more challenging. We need to continue to try and hire and train and retrain the very best and brightest of our young people to be counterterrorism professionals. Yesterday afternoon, i spent about an hour meeting with 11 young people who showed up less money for the firstever Government Service as entrylevel terrorism analysts. I have to say that spending an hour speaking to these incredibly smart and brave young people was truly inspiring. They really want nothing more than to be able to serve their country, and that made me feel very good about the future. I told him i would be watching and rooting for them from the sidelines in the years ahead, and i hope each of you will do the same. Again, thank you for having me at carnegie today, it is an honor to be here. [applause] host thank you very much. You have given us a vivid reminder of why we are also fortunate to have you as the director of in ctc nctc. The conversation started with a couple of questions, but i dont want to monopolize this, so i hope you are thinking of your own questions. I will open it up shortly. By, you provide a good overview i think of a lot of the challenges you have seen in the last 15 years. As we look at the landscape over the decade and a half or so ahead and a half or so. When you think about the time after 9 11, how has your assumptions changed over that period . What has surprised you the most in the last 15 years . Dir. Rasmussen i guess it would be this. We tend to think of terrorist organizations during the period after 9 11 as being covert, clandestine movements that could pose a threat to us but they were certainly not Mass Movements. They were not mass ideologically driven movements. It was about trying to root out small cells of highly capable and committed, highly ideologically committed people who were trying to do us harm. Isis has changed the model in many ways. Isis would not win in any elections in any country, it would not be a majority in any muslim state or community, but certainly isis opened the door to a Mass Movement approach to terrorism, almost a crowd sourced approach to terrorism. That requires a different set of tools if we are going to fight back against that particular problem. ,hat is enough of a challenge but the whole other challenge that was already there we had after 9 11 is still there, we just added more onto the table. Nothing fell off the table in the interim. I just talk to you for 10 or 15 minutes and did not use the words al qaeda once. If that suggests we are not totally focused on the continued work to protect ourselves from al qaeda, i have made a mistake. We keep adding problems to the problem set, and at the same time, the resource picture, as i suggested at the end, it is destined to get tougher as some of these other issues begin to crowd out the space. Just for thet question, it is one thing to look backwards at the expense in the last 15 years, but as you look at the next decade and a half, what worries you the most . You talked in your remarks about yberr told and cibe pools, and things that state actors can take advantage of. Are we doing enough to anticipate those kind of threats and prepare for them . Where should we be focusing more of our attention and resources . Dir. Rasmussen a good question, i wish i had a pithy, concise answer. One thing i have taken away from the last 15 years is the requirement to exercise a fair amount of humility in terms of rejecting and predicting. Now we in the Intelligence Community look to put out futures oriented bits of analysis, i struggle to take extendriously if they beyond the 35 year time horizon. Im not sure how useful conversation that is. I have challenged our analysts to think about, and to try to contribute solutions to where does this ideological struggle go . We had a conference last fall that i commissioned by asking the question, how does it all end . In my mind was not isis or al qaeda, but it, this particular form of extremism, largely emanating from sunni communities, but which has taken on different flavors over the past decade, al qaeda, isis, other regional terrorist groups. The question has to be not how youou dispute how do defeat isis, because if they are defeated, someone else will pick up the mantle of the struggle, probably from some difficult struggle and some other part of the world. Had we get back to that problem and not think about it in terms of winning in afghanistan or killing bin laden . That will not bring us the answer. The answer i got from analysts was on the time horizons you were talking about, youre probably not get that outcome. That goes to my point about sustained investment. That can beoblem managed, but a problem set that is not likely to drop off the National Security agenda in any reasonable time horizon. The best case outcome as described to me from the thoughtful people taking a look at the question was, localizing the program problem so it wasnt a global problem. Reduce it to a series of localized challenges, where the grievances were largely local and the answers could be driven locally, rather than some sort of global narrative, the sort that isis and al qaeda property now. But that doesnt play very well and strategies that emanate from the administrations of democratic or republican, you cant talk about holding the problem at bay and get a lot of credit for that. Host not a very compelling political argument. Geographically, youve talked about the challenge, the disorder and continuing dysfunction in the sunni arab world. You are right, whether it is isis or al qaeda or someone else, you are liable to see people taking advantage of that. As you look elsewhere around the world, africa, southeast asia, what concerns you the most now . You see people taking advantage of dysfunction elsewhere. Will it take different forms we have than what we have experienced . Dir. Rasmussen i think while it may have a regional manifestation, one of the challenges isis has thrust upon us is that the effort against terrorism could be pretty borderless pretty quickly. The individuals involved in recruiting and inspiring and a training and enabling terrorists dont have to be physically located or even speak the same language or operate from the same historical frame of reference. So that, to think about it as a regional problem now is a little bit misleading, because there almost is no boundary, no way to found the terrorism problem we are facing right now. That also gives us a certain advantage. We have individuals who are operating in this environment, they can be isolated, they can be in a sense kicked off since picked off if we can identify them. To it is adopting prospect think about dealing with something where there simply are no physical barriers or boundaries that prevent the flow of information capability information and capability. We dont want to be too optimistic about ambitious solutions, we want problems to be managed within an acceptable range of cost. Host you talked a little bit about countering violent which for more than a decade has animated different thinking in the u. S. Government. What have we gotten right in that effort . Learned that has improved that effort over time . Dir. Rasmussen this is a largely personal perspective, i think everybody comes away from this work with their own sense of what works and what doesnt. I come away feeling, again, a pretty welldeveloped sense of humility about our ability to engage in this work around the world, across the globe. The idea that american thoughts or resources or programs are going to shoot outcomes in urban , the urban ghetto of a large moroccan city, or some part of the sunni heartland in iraq and syria i think is a little bit pretentious to think we would have that impacts. On the other hand, i put all of the weight of the world on our own shoulders, dealing with the problem in the u. S. , where we have a very positive obligation i think to be aggressively involved in children violent extreme was extremism here at home. Alluded to ag i little bit in my remarks, the idea being we need to engage in communities early and often to explain to them what we have seen, what we know about how extremism takes root, not with the ideas of the problem will be solved from washington, that that the in