If by chance a fire alarm goes off we have two exits from this building, exit areas are behind you and behind me, and depending on where the alarm is going off, well direct you which way you should be going. This series would not be possible without the support of city and at t sponsored the networking breck nas. I want to thank citi for the voices of women and National Security and International Business so id specifically like to offer kristen, the federal Government Affairs at citi. Please welcome me in welcoming kristen. [applause] hi, good morning, everybody, thank you, kathleen and thanks again for joining us for this mornings event in this smart women, smart power series. Its been an honor to support these and we continue to bring extraordinary women and Foreign Policy and National Community to give their insights and expertise on so many fascinating issues and today will be no exception. Were thrilled to have joni ernst, first combat elected in the u. S. Senate. She served 23 years in the military, including time in iraq and kuwait during Operation Iraqi freedom. She represents my home state of iowa so im especially thrilled to have her today. And at citi we represent more than 100 countries in our unique global presence, aids us in recognizing the challenges in operating in often uncertain and unpredictable world as we can all attest to today. With that in mind. Were pleased to have the senator here to share her perspective on security challenges, countries around the globe, from north korea, syria, afghanistan and the list goes on. Thank you so much for taking time to be here today and were looking very forward to the discussion. Thank you. Thank you. And i do want to just briefly introduce our moderator, csis senior associate nina eastton who is also chair of fortunes most powerful International Summit and the floor chair of the forum. Thank you for moderating todays event and over to you. Thanks. Were supposed to call you joni, senator, thank you for being here, its an honor. Ive watched you from affair and its a treat to be here with you. By the way, the senator continues to exercise the theme smart womensmart power in her own family. Your daughter is yes, my daughter is at the Preparatory School at the United States military academy. She wants to serve in the army. [applause] now, thank you. You must be so proud. I am very proud of her, shes a strong, strongwilled young woman, but she believes in our country just as mama and daddy do and she wants to serve and she really does believe that she can make a difference and im glad for that. Thats very powerful. So joni is from a town called red oak in iowa. Its southwest iowa . Southwest iowa. Southwest iowa. You grew up on a farm. Yes. You went back to your hometown and thats where you live now. Thats correct. And she has to take a flight to omagh and drive an hour to get back to her town every weekend. Every weekend. What kind of a culture clash is it when you arrived at bca from there . Different from back home. We were talking the senator versus joni thing and i shared with nina that back home everybody has known me as joni, whether its growing up in that community because thats where i grew up, i served as a county auditor in Montgomery County and when i went to the state senate, folks still called me joni. But when i was elected to the United States senate all of these people id known for all of my entire life came, what do we call you now . Do we call you senator . No, you call me joni. Thats what you know me by. Its a very small town and Everybody Knows everybody. If im home and i have the day off, no makeup, i can throw my running shorts on and a tshirt and go to shop for groceries, i allocate an hour and everybody wants to get caught up. Its not necessarily about gig world issues, its joni, how is it going, how is your husband . How is libby doing at school . That good stuff. We know from your campaign commercials, you grew up on a farm and you know how to cast straig rate hogs. Anyone from iowa. What else did you learn on the farm . Iowavalues. My parents instilled in me that work ethics and i dont mind getting my hand dirty. I dont mind getting out there, whether it was helping my dad work in the fields, whether it was doing whatever needed to be done with live stock. Those are the things that we were taught and you didnt grumble about it, and it wasnt a big deal because every other kid in that community was doing the same thing, too. We all worked together as a family and growing up that way, its brought an interesting perspective. When i see other kids today, that, you know, they think that maybe dusting the house is beneath them and im like, wow, i did a lot more than that. So, theres been a culture change over the years, but i think those values will carry on at least with me and within my family. So, working like a family is not exactly what youre finding these days on capitol hill. But you and i were walking back in the green room about the connection between women senators. Yes. Talk about that and. Absolutely. That one special relationship youve built across the aisle. Absolutely. I do work a lot with other women senators and i found that sometimes working with other women, we arent so ingrained in a position that were not flexible. And we found that there are other senators, sometimes of the male variety, that they will dig in so deep that then they are afraid to move away from that position. And so in building the bond with the women senators, and i think there are 21 of us now, we really have that flexibility to get things done. You know, i have very strong views on certain issues, but i to understand the need to move forward. If were not moving, were not getting ahead. So, if we can Work Together, find a solution to move us forward, at least i believe were moving in the right direction. So, the women senators do tend to get along really, really well. I was at an event with deb fisher last night and she and i probably work the most together on the republican side and shes a neighbor from nebraska, grew up much the same way i did as well. Across the aisle, one of the relationships that i really cherish the most is senator Kirsten Gillibrand of new york and a lot of folks are really, wow, you know, you are night and day different. We do have very different policy ideas. On probably 95 of the issues out there, but as i said with women, if you can find that 5 of the policies and issues you want to work on together, then we work on those issues. If we share those passions, why not . So when we are outside of the senate, we dont talk politics. We talk about our families. And i value that. Its a Good Building block. You, of course, have an Army Background and you served in iraq, driving supply convoys. Tell bus that. Right. And were there hairraising moments . Yes, there were a few, but this was the beginning of the war, the early part of iraqi freedom one. And when we got into country, and we were we were permanently stationed in kuwait at the camp, but what we did, we picked up supplies from the ports and warehouses in kuwait and push as far north as Baghdad International airport and sites. So we would pick up supplies and deliver them for our warriors upfront. Yes, there were issues along the way and we had not been in country very long when we got our First Mission driving supplies into iraq. We did not have maps. We didnt have period, the Transportation Company and our battalion couldnt supply us with maps. What they only had one map which they used in their f3 their operations cell so they couldnt send it with us because there were other units doing other things. They needed it. So what we did, we had a Tennessee National guard unit at a nearby camp that had already made a trip up into iraq. They didnt have maps either so the Company Commander came over, sat down with me, sat down with my first sergeant, and our squad leader, those that would be responsible for different movements going into iraq and he hand drew a map from the hand drawn map that he had as well. Amazing. Thats how we navigated going north into iraq, but keeping in mind, too, there was a lot of movement at that time, a lot of convoys going up into iraq so we knew if perhaps we did take a wrong turn at some point, you know, you can hunker down, you can try and backtrack or hunker down, safety first, of course, protecting our convoy and the supplies, but eventually we knew that there would be other convoys making that route as well. So, a lot of movement at that time. And, yes, the iraqis at that point were hostile in some situations to those of us bringing supplies north and we had instances where the young men would swarm our convoys and one, i think mostly they were trying to pilfer items, anything that wasnt secured on the truck, they would steal. But they would try and stop the convoys and they would lay down in our path. And part of our rehearsals back home in order to keep us safe, is if they lay down in front of you, you keep rolling forward. You dont stop because it puts everybody in jeopardy. And what we found out is those young iraqi men werent quite ready to meet allah and theyd hop up and run away before they actually got ran over. So, yes, yes. Not backing down. Yes, exactly. But those were very intense moments because, one, you dont want to make a mistake that would inflame the situation, but you knew if you were threatened, you would have to take action. Yeah. So you understand that, that going in. But fortunately, i brought all of my soldiers home. There were two other Transportation Companies from iowa in the same area and they did not return as whole companies. And how many were in your company . 150. 150 you were in charge of. And we owe the lives of 150 soldiers. And we came home. Tremendous. So on the ground experience has served you where youre in the a subcommittee or lead in that. Because we have limited time were going to dive into hot spots around the world which is what im sure a lot of you want to hear now. There are cards on your chairs. Feel free to wrote out your question, just one note, if i cant read it, i cant ask it. So use penmanship and well collect the cards and ask them because we want to include audiences in the questions. There are so many concerns going on in the world right now. The top of which is north korea. Lets talk afghanistan . [laughter] i think well go from youve been getting briefings, you were at a briefing yesterday, you did say. Thats correct. So you know a lot of stuff you cant talk about, i realize that, but let me ask you broadly. Do you think that theres a level weve been hearing a lot of rhetoric on both sides as we all know, a lot of rhetoric coming from the white house. Is there a point at which rhetoric hurts our cause in trying to contain that threat . There is rhetoric on both sides and in this case i dont think thats the determining factor at all. I think north korea has been bent on obtaining Nuclear Capabilities for a very long time and i dont see that it was the president or any of his words which spurred that action. I mean, this has been an ongoing process for them long before we had an administration change. So, when the president is talking about north korea and the leader in north korea, i think that honestly, hes speaking truth to the situation. When he says, you know, if north korea comes at us, were going to go back full force, well, yeah, were going to go back full force. Theres no messing around with north korea when they have nuclear capability. So, you know, i cant speak for the president , but i dont see that his words have worsened the situation at all. If anything, it has put north korea on alert that if they keep moving ahead with their intentions of putting a Nuclear Warhead onto an icbm, that if they should use that technology, then were going to go after them. Take us through a scenario. Is there anything short of an actual Missile Launch with a Nuclear Device or a Missile Launch designed to inflict destruction, is there anything short of that that would cause a military intervention from our end . Well, that would be up to, of course, our military leaders and advisors to advise congress on those types of situation and provide that guidance for the president , but there are a lot of things short of nuclear. Obviously, if they attack any of our allies, or any of the countries in that region, there will be a response. Anything short of actual military action on their part, yeah. They not attack . Yeah. I dont see military intervention short of any attack, nuclear or otherwise. Provocation exists out there and we will continue to patrol. We saw some of our bombers were fighter escorts that moved a little bit to the east of north korea. That hasnt been done in a very long time. Now what . International area. So, we are in our right to fly those areas. So i think as long as north korea continues on the path that its on, you will continue to see us build in our resolve to protect our allies and protect our own homeland. We will do everything we can, short of war, to deter this regime. Lets talk about sanctions. We were having a fascinating conversation before we got on stage about both the effectiveness and the limitations of sanctions. Can you talk about that . Absolutely. We were having a great discussion about the sanctions and we know there are u. N. Sanctions out there. There are other sanctions put in place by congress. Other countries are engaging in sanctions. They have to be enforced in order to work, and there is a large black market between china and north korea. That needs to be cut off. We need to make sure that other countries are enforcing their own sanctions, otherwise you wont see the impact that you want to see. But i was having a discussion with the south korea trade minister two days ago and he said, senator, the way americans have you north korea is not necessarily accurate. We think of north korea in the 1990 state where north koreans were maybe starving and they had a poor ag economy and he said they actually have a robust ag economy in north korea where at least theyre able to feed their people. Maybe its not an american diet like were used to, but they can feed their people. And so, when apply those sanctions, we also need to understand they can selfsustain for a while. So it may be a number of months before we start to see the impact of those sanctions on north korea. And you were also making the point that, but having gotten to that level where they can actually eat, when you start taking that away. You might so popular revolt. And thats when you might see a popular revolt much the standard of living is little higher in north korea than in the past and those that experienced those decades of want and need, now that those wants and needs have been met and fulfilled. They dont want to go back to that standard of living. So, if we start to see that theyre not able to sustain their own population internally, the Living Standards start to drop, you may see that popular revolt, but then what happens when the people rise up against such a brutal regime . Those are questions that are unanswered out there. And how have you viewed chinas behavior in the last six months . Has it evolved . It has evolved and they have, in my estimation, when it comes to north korea, they have been very good partners. In what way, describe. Working on the sanctions. One thing that, of course, we needed to do was to get the buyin from china on sanctions and china actually did move ahead with some of their own thoughts on how they could curtail goods going into north korea. So, they actually started moving even before maybe the u. N. Gave instruction on sanctions. We have the greatest ambassador ever in china right now. Hes former iowa governor. Yeah. So governor branstead has had a very, very long relationship with president xi. They met in the 80s in iowa and have maintained that relationship ever since then, so they do have a good understanding of each other. President xi is wellversed on the United States and the governor, ambassador branstad with china. Its been helpful with what we see in north korea right now. I feel that china has been st stpg stpg up to tem stepping up to the plate. And there will be a point where they cant do more. But in the meantime, i think china has done quite well. And how close are you in touch with the ambassador . Not at much the last several months. Hes been very, very engaged in these actiontivities. We know through the state department they continue to work the challenges. China has greater channels and accessibility to north korea than folks in the United States does. They have been very, very engaged. And there have been reports that north korea is actually trying second track of finding republicans who can explain what the Trump Administration is all about. What do you make of that . That was a great question, a question posed by one of my colleagues on the left as well. There are two thoughts, really. You try and encourage that and start developing a relationship so you can exploit those relationships or you just simply cut them off. What value would we get . We have to go through the pros and cons of either just, you know, ignore it. Right. Or encourage it and use it to our advantage. Right. And thats up for other departments to determine. Beyond military action theres been talk of potential other ways to get to tamp down the north korean threat and one is a cyber attack from the United States. Youre not very hopeful about that. Can you describe why . No, because north korea doesnt have connectivity like many of our other developed countries has. And i was explaining to nina earlier that she probably has more connectivity at her house than the entire country of north korea. We simply cant do a cyber attack because there is no cyber there. There is very little of that in north korea. Korea is one of the most difficult countries to get human intelligence