aspen strategy group and welcome to this session on american global leadership in the 21st century. we want to thank them for the space and particularly dan sussman of alaska, i'm going to introduce in just a minute. let me tell you about our program this morning. we at the aspen strategy group are 35 years old. we have this radical notion that even in washington there can be an organization that's resolutely nonpartisan. we have been resolutely nonpartisan for 35 years. bill perry, joe nye, joe showcroft. we meet in aspen and debate about american foreign policy and leadership and each year we prepare a book based on our proceedings for publication and this year's book is available today. if the book we're discussing today called "the world turned upsidedown, maintaining american leadership in a dangerous age", we're going to discuss the book this morning beginning with senator sullivan and then continuing with our good friend who will talk about major changes and how america looks at global trade position, with richard dansig about the impact of technology on america's global leadership. we'll continue with a conversation that i'll moderate between former secretary of defense bill cowan and former secretary of state madeleine albright about these issues and then we'll culminate in a panel at 11:30 chaired by david ignatius of the washington post with dave hadley and susan rice, two former national security advisors. we've got a full morning. here is what's at stake. we took on this summer in our conversation, this book focuses on probably the major question that republicans and democrats have about our future. will the united states maintain its leadership in the world in the decades ahead? because that leadership is being assaulted by a combination of factors. first is the rise of right wing, anti-democratic, populist movement. even in countries poland, hungary, the czech republic and all members of nato, veering in an anti-democratic nation. we see the rise of marie la pens in france, alternative for deutscheland in germany. and some of these anti-democratic parties well-financed. some financed by the kremlin. some of them designed to hollow out the european union and nato from the inside. that's one big factor that we're contending with. the second, of course, is the rise in power of the two great autocratic countries, china and russiament china following xi jinping's, and for the asia pacific region in the future, china pushing out and violating the sovereignty of five other countries, in the south china sea and challenging japanese sovereignty and the control over islands in the east china sea. and china running rough shod over international law and making extravagant legal claims to the space in the south china sea. the only combination of powers that can manage this, contain china's ambitions are the united states and japan and india, all democratic countries, all increasingly aligned with others. in europe, we're facing an equally tough problem, vladimir putin has invaded georgia and crimea and eastern ukraine, pressured the baltic states all over the last nine years. the intelligence communities of the united states said publicly about a year ago that vladimir putin interfered in our 2016 election. there's no question that the russian government is trying to cut the united states down to size and limit our power in the world, and that's a second factor. we're also going to examine technology because the technological military edge that we've had, the qualitative military edge is being narrowed not just by powers like china, but also by the fact that countries like north korea now have the ability through cyber technology to penetrate deep into the heart, say, of the sony corporation, into the data bases of the united states government. this challenge to u.s. global leadership is also from within. there are major debates in the united states right now reflected in our conversations this summer. president trump came to office with a first point of view. we've had five members of the trump administration with us at our conference this summer. h.r. mcmaster with us and four other officials and they talked about the need for retrenchment, the need for stronger defense, more hard-nosed attitudes on trade and the need to demand more of our allies. on the other side we have critics and we had both sides in aspen, in our nonpartisan basis, that president trump is up-ending 60 years of american policy on trade, that the immigration and refugee issues are hurting the credibility of the united states in the crackdown on refugees, and that there's been a withdrawal of american leadership on climate, on the trade issue, and from u.n. agencies. we looked at both sides of the issue in our nonpartisan effort to be fair to both sides, to listen to both sides this summer, but i was struck in the public session that we had this summer when former secretary of state condoleezza rice said she felt that the united states had lost its self-confidence in the world, as the global leader. so we should look at that again this morning. do we have strategic direction that most americans and both of our political parties can agree on? those are the issues for this morning. we're looking forward to a good conversation and i want to start with our friend senator dan sullivan. this is a rather busy week for the senate and for the house and i want to thank senator sullivan for being with us. he spent five days with us this summer in aspen. he's someone we know quite well, as you all know, he served as assistant secretary of state for economic affairs in the george w. bush administration and he was the lead person on terrorist financing and did a great job for that administration and i had the great pleasure to work with dan during those years. dan was also attorney general of the state of alaska, he's now senator from the state of alaska. he is a member of the armed services committee and plays a leading role in that committee, a recognized expert on the asian-pacific region and america's global and foreign defense policy. i did not realize until i was preparing for this session, he's also a lt. colonel in the u.s. marine corps reserve, has spent 23 years in the marine corps reserves as he's conducted this public career at the state department and the national security counsel for the state of alaska, and now for all of us in the u.s. senate so i want to invite senator sullivan to take the stage and ask all of you to join me in welcoming him. [applaus [applause] >> all right, well, thank you, nick. and it's a pleasure to be back. i want to first thank my wife julie is here and i don't-- you know, when you're the senator from alaska, you don't get home that much so having her in town for a couple of weeks has been a real treat for me and my staff, jason and liz are also here. and i want to thank them. you know, i hadn't been to aspen before, in terms of this summer, and nick mentioned we worked together, i worked for secretary rice both at nsc and when she was secretary of state as one of her assistant secretaries. when you get asked by condoleezza rice to swing by a conversation that she's co-hosting, pretty much always say, yes, ma'am, and salute and do that, right? so she's such an incredible, incredible, important figure for our country and has done so much. but i've got to tell you, i had a wonderful time at the event and a little bit of bonding-- julie and i have three teenage daughters. our youngest two are in college and youngest is in high school and she actually went with me out to aspen and we went to all the-- she went to all the events, which is really great and we had met, actually flew to denver together and then drove out to aspen and she, like millions of high school kids across country, is a huge fan of hamilton, the musical. i hadn't heard much about hamilton we were listening on the drive out to aspen and on the drive back and i started to get into it. for those of you who were at the aspen meeting this summer, there was like in the meetings, there was all of these numerous, some were, i think on purpose, but others were inadvertent references to hamilton, right? so every time that happened my daughter would sit in the row there and she and i would look over and be like-- . [laughter] >> so there's the theme of the whole conference, which is the world turned upsidedown and that was one of the songs in hamilton. another one h.r. mcmaster and condoleezza rice, susan rice, hadly, all of these big shots, madeleine albright and someone said, this is the room where it happens, right? so, i looked over at my daughter, hey, another one. and then there was even a reference, this is like for the real hamilton geeks, somebody mentioned, i think it was about h.r. mcmaster how he was the right-hand man to somebody so we were having a lot of fun on the-- you probably doesn't know all of these references to hamilton were going on. so, thanks again for the invite this summer and then just to say a few words here. what i wanted to do is to try to address upfront nick's kind of opening question, which is will the u.s. remain the predominant global power despite all the challenges that everybody in the room recognizes? my answer is that is, yes, probably, but we need to focus on some key things. and the three keys that i wanted to highlight today are returning to robust levels of economic growth, strengthening and deepening our network of alliances that nick talked about. and then something that i've been focused on and i have a little bit of a bird's eye view on right now as a u.s. senator is a stronger executive legislature cooperation in terms of foreign policy. so, let me hit on these each in turn and then love to take any questions or comments. first, economic growth. so my team has passed out a chart that hopefully you're taking a look at. this was the biggest surprise to me as a u.s. senator so i've been in a little under three years and when i came here, i thought the idea of growth, maybe with the exception of national security, that growing our economy, strong, traditional levels, robust u.s. growth was the most important thing that congress should be focused on. so many of our challenges get better if we're growing and so many of our challenges get worse if we're not. and yet, my biggest surprise as a u.s. senator when i came here three years ago, was nobody talked about it. obama administration certainly didn't talk about it. democrats in the senate didn't talk about it, but republicans didn't talk about it either to be perfectly honest. in my conversations i used to get up. hey, how come no one is talking about growth. so i have been going on in the state with this chart and a bunch of other charts, i feel a little like ross perot because i pull out the charts and give the same speech. at least once a quarter and sometimes more often, look at this, look at this chart. okay? this explains a lot. v from my perspective. and this is very bipartisan, democrats and republicans, we have focused our country on strong growth. the red line is 3%, which is good, not great, but it's okay, it's a good target to shoot for. we haven't had-- we haven't had 3% gdp growth annually in almost 13 years. 13 years, and nobody was talking about this. you know, there's a lot of discussion about making america great, what makes america great. this is what made america great. almost 4% gdp growth annually, the average with all the recessions since world war ii, since the founding of the republic, it's about 4%, and then yet, we had a decade starting at the end of the bush administration, the entire obama administration, that never hit 3%. and nobody was talking about it. my view is, you want to understand what happened in the 2016 election? boom. so to me, we have to, have to, have to get back to the strong levels of economic growth. now, i'm a little biased, as nick mentioned, i was assistant secretary for the economic and energy and business affairs bureau at the state department under secretary rice, but i think this is even more important than the military power. actually this underpins military power and yet, we really haven't focused on it. so, what happened was, if you listen to the narrative, particularly in washington, people thought of this and they're like, wait a minute, how do i explain that? and so, people started-- start making excuses, calling this the new normal. the new normal. 1 1/2% n.d.p. growth is american hitting on all of its economic cylinders. that's a narrative in washington. to me it's one of the most dangerous narratives there is. if we think that 1 1/2, 2% is it for the country, we're going to have enormous channels. and we're not going to be positioned for global leadership. my view is different. i don't think that that's the future. i don't believe in the new normal. as a matter of fact, one of the privileges of being in the u.s. senate, if you go reach out to smart people like many of the people in this room who have time on their hands and you say, hey, i'd like to talk to you about an issue, next time you're in washington. i've reached out to dozens of people with one question. is this the future? do you believe in the new normal at 1 1/2%? and if not, how do we get back to robust levels of gdp growth that made this country great and our foreign policy strong? nobody believes in the new normal, which is why the narrative is so dangerous. so, it's the good news on that front. we're finally, i think, starting to focus on this. we're starting to focus on getting back to robust levels of growth. democrats, republicans, the white house. i think they're policies that you can undertake, tax reform. remember, a lot of the ideas in our current tax reform business, you don't hear it in the press, president obama this these ideas, chuck schumer had these ideas, nobody -- -- and i'm focused on energy, energy, energy. the u.s. is on the verge of being the world's energy super power, larger producer of oil, bigger than saudi arabia. largest producer of natural gas, bigger than russia. to me it's an enormous opportunity. grow the economy and when people talk about instrument of foreign policy and instrument american power, energy is one we're just scratching the surface on, it's a win, win, winnen so many fronts. foreign policy, national security and the environment. the last administration didn't like to talk about hydrocarbons, i was in charge of hydrocarbons in alaska, we have the strongest development in the world in alaska. you don't produce it there, if you don't, you drive it to russia, or kazakhstan or brazil or iran, places that don't have nearly the focus on protecting the environment that we do. so, to me sh, this issue of strong, robust growth goes to the issue also that nick mentioned in his opening remarks. this also goes back to the issue of american confidence, which we need to regain and so many smart foreign policy practitioners recognize that we are best at developing confident, long-term foreign policy when the american people and the country feels confident and there's nothing like the confidence of a growing economy versus something that's not growing. h.r. mcmaster focused on this last week at the reagan defense forum when he talked. as nick said, condoleezza rice talked about this after aspen. one of my mentors, someone who i think has a lot of respect in this room in terms of foreign policy, bob zellick when he gave his well-known stake holder, foreign policy, china, look at the end of that speech he talks about american confidence and having to deal with china from a feeling and position of strength. and to me, it's all about the economy. that's one area, we have to do better. i think we're getting there. the second is with regard to strengthening our position with our allies. and as all of you know here, as nick mentioned over decades americans have focused on that. to me, even stronger than our military, this is probably the most important strategic advantage that we have as a nation. we are an ally rich nation and most are potentially rich nations and not ally poor. there's not many looking to join the iran team or russia or china team, but in my experience, there are still countries who really want to be a part of the u.s. alliance system. so we need to deepen our current alliances and expand them. so, how are we doing on that? well, i think it's a mix, a mixed assessment. last year i thought we hit a low point, to such a point i went on the senate floor and gave speeches about low points of our alliances. why was it a low point? at the time you had candidate donald trump talking with nato being obsolete, questioning korea and japan alliances as a candidate and the other thing going on didn't get nearly as much press, some of you probably read it. there was a big article in the atlantic by jeffrey goldberg about the obama doctrine. now, you read that, it made what donald trump was saying on the campaign trail pale in comparison to how did is missiis-- dismissive was of almost all of our allies. it's remarkable that our sitting president was smacking everybody, but angela merkel in an article he knew everybody would read. that prompted senators to come-- whoa, whoa, wait a minute, democrat, president obama, possibly new president, president trump during the election. you've got to remember our allies are critically important to us, so in terms of my assessment on this, how are we doing? well, i think, going back to this issue of strong economic growth, more energy, that kind of power from the united states binds us closer to our allies. and focus on the asia-pacific, a strong u.s. economy in many ways is much more important than our military presence out the there... sclooep to me was a very smart strategic move that hopefully we can deepen. i even think we need to look at perhaps a much stronger trilateral security arrangement between korea, japan and the united states which is a lot of potential. so in that area, and i also think despite some news last week in the middle east with regard to the opportunities with our alliances, we have an opportunity with regard, particularly are typical arab allies and is in working much, much closer together because we all see and view our common interest, particularly with regard to pushing back against the hegemonic aspirations and terrorist activities of iran. so these are areas where i think in terms of allies there are some positive things happening. the negatives, europe. there continues to be a lot of skepticism of this administration, particularly i think a lot of it is driven by what happened with regard to the paris climate accords and the iran nuclear deal. and i'll touch on that in a minute but also strategic communications. finding our allies meaning discipline strategic communications at the thing for policy by tweet is by definition not strategic and we need to do a better job on that. congress can obviously play a really important role in all this which brings me to my third and final point. in terms of setting the united states for continued global leadership, i think we have to do a better job getting back to the difficult work because it's difficult, a better executive, legislative cooperation and working together in the area of foreign-policy and national security. we look at history. all of you know because you are all expert on it, the united states is strongest in the world when the executive branch and congress are working together. speaking with one voice. it's not easy. often it's hard. people look back on history and say that was easy, getting the nato alliance through the senate. no, it wasn't. but it's hard work here what is it? it's durable. it's durable. so in my short time three years innocent icing what's worked, where it hasn't. people talk about trade. one of the things we worked on when republicans retook power in the senate after the 2014 election, which was the class i came in with his we started working with the obama administration on trade promotion authority. president couldn't get it when he was and his own party when power. when the republicans came back, took the senate, that's when the discussions happened. i work close with the secretary of the treasury, ustr, secretary of commerce of the obama administration to make sure we get tpa past. not one vote to spare but we did that. i think it's an opportunity now that we have that. that's in the law. but with regard to the iranian nuclear deal, with regard to the paris climate accords, i can tell you at least from my experience in my class that senators, there was zero, zero engagement from the white house. zero. no one ever came over and said send it to, this is what we're trying to do. this is why this is good for america. we're going to bring this to the senate. to the contrary, they did everything they could to avoid senate ratification of these very important agreements. so i think it's a little bit difficult to complain that a president who actually campaigned against these agreements because they were not ratified by the senate, which would've taken a lot of hard work, and then when he came in and did it, is now being criticized. my view is some of the criticism should of been on the previous administration that never came to the sin at all and said this iran nuclear deal is really important. here's why you should ratify it, and here's how we're going to work hard to make sure you understand it and can do it. when you don't do that, you get dramatic swings in foreign-policy. so the kind of work is hard, but this is even predicted by our founding fathers. if you look at federalist, the federalist papers, number 63 by james madison, he lays out how critical a role the u.s. senate plays with regard to particularly given its long tenure, six years, staggered elections, with regard to our relations and keeping a steady foreign-policy. when you avoid that, and both parties are guilty of doing it, you have the swings. and so my view is we need to get back to doing it. but there's good news on that front. the good news is there's a lot more bipartisanship, from my perspective, that goes on in the congress and in the senate than you read about. i'm not one who loves to get up and bash the media, but but i d say in this area the media loves to have stories about conflict. about how the partisanship in the senate -- i was reading a couple of years ago a very smart observer of the american foreign-policy scene in the financial times. he wrote a piece that essentially said the partisanship in the senate hasn't been so high since the civil war. well, no offense to this writer but that's a ridiculous statement. and there's a lot more that goes on it it just doesn't get reported. let me do some examples, , big d small. the national defense authorization act, that is a very serious, important piece of legislation. i sit on the armed services committee. this year's ndaa dramatically places up the military, dramatically pluses of the military. it passed out of committee unanimously. unanimously. did you read that in the paper? you didn't. i didn't. and yet when it went to conference, with the house, came back to the senate for a vote, it passed by unanimous consent. that means 100 u.s. senators voted for the ndaa which the president will sign this week. that's very significant. that's about as bipartisan as a gift. you didn't read about it and that's a really important bill for the country, for our national security. one that i talked about at aspen, joke unity and i had the opportunity to sit on the panel when we were there talking about bipartisanship, or the domestic homefront picky and i have a bill, already passed the senate. he's working hard to get it passed in the house. on a topic that all the sudden is very, very timely, to bring much more resources to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, essentially attorneys to represent mostly women who, as you are seeing across different parts of american society, have been abused. okay? that's not a huge appeal but i think it's really important bill. and joe is the lead guy in the house. i'm the league in the senate. it's already passed the city. just on a more personal front, tomorrow night julie and i will go at dinner with one of my colleagues who i i consider a d friend in the senate, sheldon whitehouse. okay, if you know sheldon whitehouse of politics and dan sullivans politics, you might be like i can't believe these guys are going to dinner. but that happens because a medevac sheldon whitehouse and i have a bill that's already the senate called the save our seas act, about cleaning up the oceans, ocean debris. trying to get it passed in the house. so there's a lot more of that the goes on. i just think that in terms of foreign policy and national security, to position ourselves from based on prospective in the future we need to have that kind of cooperation in the congress. so strong growth, imperative. strengthening, deepening our alliances, imperative. and better cooperation on the foreign-policy, national security issues between the congress and the executive branch, to me do set us up for the next several decades of leading the world during challenging times. thank you. [applause] >> center will take your questions. just why don't you let me know who would like to ask the first question. i now teach college. i can call on people. ambassador negroponte. welcome, sir. >> good morning, ambassador. [inaudible] >> and i was wondering, given that that has been in the news lately, whether you might want to comment on your views and the work of your caucus? >> sure. well, this is comes with an honor even to be asked the question by one of the deans of the foreign service, and great leaders of american diplomacy over the last generation, ambassador negroponte, who i also had the privilege to serve with. one of the things when i got to the senate, there's caucuses,, right, the kind of show demonstration of support in the senate. and there's a caucus on a lot of different issues. but where the caucuses in my view a very strong, there's an army caucus, a marine corps caucus, and 80 caucus, air force, coast guard, right? some really strong constituencies in the congress for these very important aspects of american government. for this of you don't believe that come , julie and i just spt saturday in philadelphia at the army navy game, and trust me, there's a long of support our troops and wonderful young men and women who go to those world-class institutions. but what was interesting to me, and for those of you who have served on the foreign service, there was not any kind of caucus, any kind of, you know, established group that is supporting our career foreign service officers. as someone who actually led a group of them, assistant secretary, you're kind of a father of all the foreign service officers, i got to know what a great group of professionals our foreign service officers are, who in many ways like the military, deploy overseas, dangerous places. some have been killed in action. families sacrifice and risk. and so, and to be honest as a republican i thought some of the, there was kind of, what to use diplomatic term here, a sense that a lot of the foreign service is kind of left-leaning and, but my experience was very professional. they do great work. so i went to senator chris van hollen whose father was very well known in the foreign service and said hey, we should get a foreign service officer caucus going in the senate. support the many women in the foreign service. and oh, by the way, those of you who are part of the foreign service there's also a culture there that he will hit coming up to the the hill, i think. most of them. this was a little bit more of a hey, will be the tv cameras, just a caucus, they kind of come and meet and let us show our support for you. so relaunched that about six months ago. the deputy secretary of state has come into her caucus this wednesday on the senate side to meet with senators who just want to show support, have questions, have concerns. i think making sure our foreign service officers know that they are strong support in the congress and the constituency that supports them. it's really important, and it gets to this issue of executive, legislative cooperation. those are the kind of things that breezes that kind of cooperation get when we first launched the caucus six months ago we had on the republican side senators like orrin hatch, jim risch, really strong, very well respected, chris murphy on the democratic side, catherine cortez masto, nevada senator. we had a good group of ten senators already and hopefully we will go that but i think it's an important element of strengthening the executive legislative cooperation and making sure we in the senate understand the hard work, the sacrifices that our foreign service officers to our country every day. >> and i just follow up? ambassador and i both served in a career foreign service. administration proposal is a 31% budget reduction for state come to take the officer corps down by 8%. it's no secret, morale is very low and the dismantling of the foreign service. at least that's what i think. can the congress intervene to defend the foreign service? >> will look, i have concerns, too. some of it is what you're reading the paper and have to get to the truth. let me give you an example. there was an article recently that said applications for the foreign service were down by 50%. now, i don't know the truth of that. it was in a newspaper. i'm assuming they are correctly reporting, but to me that should be a cause for enormous concern. inc. about it. the marine corps is recruiting down by 50% guarantee you will be hearing on the armed service committee saying hey, what's happening in the marine corps? nick, your question on the budget. i don't think that dramatic cut a third of the foreign service or our related aid programs are going to see that kind of support in the appropriations process, in the congress. but again, part of discussed the broader issue of getting the congress to understand, to know the great work that the men and women and their expertise in the foreign service have. at a think everybody, when you do a code l overseas, people see it but do it on a regular is what we're trying to do in the senate. >> i think went time for one or two more questions. congressman harman, member of our group. welcome. >> thank you. delighted to be. dan, your great credit to the senate. >> thanks. >> it's wonderful to you on many topics including the arctic which we didn't get to today. my question is about congress' role in authorizing use of military force, something nick knows i'm passionate about. i was there in 2001 when the past with all but one vote the authorization to use military force against those who attacked us on 9/11. that entire document is still the basis for most of the u.s. activity in the middle east and elsewhere, at least seven wars have been justified under that. the state department and the defense department recently testified that they don't need more authority. he testified before john mccains committee. do you think that's true? what you think as i do that there ought to be a robust debate in the senate and the house about use of military force, the strategy behind it, so that the american people can have a chance to consider and buy into the military activities we have underway? >> i have kind of address that in two parts. there was a debate recently, rand paul had an amendment to,, now, it wasn't a multi-day debate, but i believe it was part when we're marking of the ndaa on the senate floor. and his amendment essentially said what you were saying, hey, we've authorized the 2001 authorization and it is been used in a whole host of other ways. we need to either reauthorize it or cut it off. that was what his amendment essentially said. i have a lot of respect for rand paul on a whole host of issues. i voted against that, but we did debate it, came to the floor. the main reason i voted against that was that you know, all tuskegee an example. alaska has a group of incredible young men and women going off, they are over there right now, the four to five, the fourth brigade of the 25th infantry based in anchorage and there in afghanistan right now. i spoke at their deployment ceremony. one thing i said to these guys before the left is look, i'm going to do everything i can to make sure you are supported back at home. as a matter fact, this week and unkind to go visit them in afghanistan and my wife is hosting a party back in anchorage for the spouses of the deployed. so we mean that seriously. and i thought having a debate on this world might cut off the authorization of their mission, mid-mission, is not how we should be addressing this. so there's elements of, it's an important topic but there's also realities on the ground. we have soldiers and marines and many others on the ground now, and the last thing i think we should be doing is having some kind of debate what we're saying we are not sure that you are authorized to do what you are doing right now as you risk your lives. that was a commitment i made directly to these diplomats at their deployment ceremony, so that's why i voted no. now, on a much, in many ways related topic, north korea. i've been very involved in the senate but also with the administration, publicly but also privately because i've a lot of respect. i think the president has put together a very strong national security team, on north korea. i think what they've been trying to do now, and obviously it's a tough issue, very tough but numerous administrations, you know, i think, but this administration has really been faced with stark challenge because it's very likely kim jong-un will have a capability for intercontinental ballistic missile nuclear missile that catches range of alaska. we've been on the front lines for years, but chicago or new york. so i think their diplomacy right now has, with the sanctions, with the u.n. security council resolution, has been very strong. one element i've been trying to lead on and we've made a lot of progress in the congress with the president and his team of our strategy with regard to north korea, we need a much more robust missile defense system. and by the way, that's another good news story. i had a bill that's now part of the ndaa, very bipartisan, 28 senators, democrats and republicans supporting a a released on missile defense system for america. that's never happened before. missile defense is always been partisan. now it's bipartisan, so that's important, key element of our strategy. i also support secretary mattis, h. r. mcmaster talk about it. the development of credible military options. as everybody who knows when you serious credible military options it make sure diplomacy more effective. but what i said publicly and privately to them is part of your credible energy options is a preventative or preemptive ground war on the korean peninsula launched by the united states. they need the authorization from congress to do that. so as a matter fact a couple of senators, prominent senators, right, right now we're working on not the resolution for that but a senate resolution process a, we're supportive of what they're doing, but if they move forward, again, preemptive, kind of like the goal for in 1990 or 2003, that is the article one power of congress and i don't think there's any, there shouldn't be any debate about it. i've been asking during confirmation hearings of members of the administration going into the department of defense. i probably asked this question a dozen times. do you believe you need to come to the congress to get authorization to do this? pretty much all of them including the reauthorization or the reconfirmation of general dunford at his reconfirmation in just a couple of weeks ago. they have also just. so to me that's where i think the aumf issue is going to come to a head. not all my senate colleagues agree with me by the way on this and i respect their views but i just think that they haven't read the constitution, the federalist papers in a while. it's a great question and i think in terms of north korea, it's one i'm looking at from one angle versus the afghanistan deployments of the kind of authorizations which again still very valid. i just think they are in some ways different from a kind of contextual standpoint. >> senator, i know you're busy but i think where to ask the following question. such an important issue, north korea. twofold question. number one, on the merits of the issue, it seems that secretary tillerson and secretary mattis would like to move to maintain deterrence over north korea but possibly move if they can happen to some kind of diplomatic negotiations that involve the north koreans that would stop the program. but there are other people in the administration who believe we ought to think seriously about preventive action. what do you think is the right step for the united states? and your point about congressional authorization, where is the republican party leadership and a sin on that and what kind of signals do you get from the white house from president trump, from the national security adviser? >> will look, nick, i think they're both good question but as an agent i think there interrelated. i think that your diplomacy as i mentioned is much more effective if your adversaries believe that it's a continuum and that military, credible military options are part of that continuum. if you go in, and this is again, i'm not, you know, there were a lot of things i was supportive of the last administrations foreign policy on, but i do believe by the end of the obama administration nobody, because of a whole series of events like syria and other things, russia, none of our potential adversaries around the world thought that administration had the will or desire to possibly use military force. and i think it made their diplomacy a lot more ineffective. so have incredible military options on the table, i think is important, particularly given this regime at how unstable and how unpredictable they are. i would, i think the focus of our diplomacy is not necessarily negotiations with north korea, who decade after decade proves to be a very unreliable partner to negotiate with. i don't think they have ever kept one in of any bargain that they've agreed to with the united states, ever and i don't think that's going to change. you can't trust them. you can't trust the iranians, similarly. the key should be with regards to china. that's where our focus with regard to diplomacy, both public and also certainly privately, discussions with regard to china on how to solve this problem. but but i think making it all at north korea, u.s. negotiations, someways i wouldn't say that's a waste of time but that's a sideshow. because it can't be trusted. they have never shown that they can be trusted. but china has i think hopefully converging interest with us on resolving this, and they have the power and the ability to do it. and so that's where i think our focus with regard to diplomacy. with regard to question on the aumf on the republican side, like i said i have voiced this very publicly in confirmation hearings on the armed services committee. most of the senior administration officials i've asked the question of belief and that stated it, that they believe a preemptive or preventative ground war on the korean peninsula needs the authorization of congress. is the republican senate completely unified on that you? no, it's not that there's some very prominent senators who i'm good friends with, have the utmost respect for actually don't necessarily believe that article one requires the administration to come get the authority from us. i just happen to think they are wrong, and i think that you'll see hopefully soon we will have resolution out with some i think very well known senators that say we are being supportive. where not try to do this aggressively. there some senators on the democratic side to a kind of saying it's all a disaster. no. i actually think in a u.s., if they can get it, brings more credibility to diplomacy. but that would be a very serious debate, a very serious debate in congress. and i think if it comes to that and we're not calling for right now, that if the comes to that we should have it. >> please join me in thanking senator dan sullivan. [applause] >> my pleasure. great to be here. >> all right, thank you. thank you, senator sullivan. we will take a minute i think just to move this podium offstage. jonathan, are we ready to go on to the next session? we are. okay. let me call up to the podium then my friend steve, and richard. come right out. >> so we looked at two issues this summer that are both important factors in whether or not the united states is going to maintain its global leadership role. the first is trade where i think we've seen the most significant departure from republican and democratic policy over the last half-century and the top administration. and that's a rejection of the transpacific partnership of the idea of a useu free-trade agreement and also perhaps even some fundamental changes. the second is technology where the united states as i said at the beginning needs to maintain qualitative military and scientific and r&d experts so we have two people here to talk about those subjects. the first is steve deconflict steve is a veteran of several administrations come most notably mostly like the george w. bush administration where he was senior official chief of staff at dash to the council. is now vice president of the ford motor company, a member of a who took the lead on trade with michael froman. we had active debate this summer. mike is not here but steve is, so steve, the podium is yours. >> good morning and thank you all for coming out today. as nick mention i work for a major u.s. company we manufacture 25 countries around the world and we trade in enormous volumes of commodities of parts of automobiles. .. trade is the movement of goods and services across borders. if you want free trade, you are achieving a less constrained movement of goods and services across borders. it's relatively simple. yet we find ourselves in these ca confounding and poisonous political debate in washington that we see manifesting themselves even today across our institutions of government. like many of you, i was stunned in watching one of the candidates from a major political party running for the presidency of the united states, not only to announce the north american free trade agreement, but actually threatened to withdraw from it out right. like many of you, i was surprised when then senator obama said that, and i was equally surprised when then senator clinton endorsed it, this being in the 2008 campaign in the primaries, in the debate in cleveland, moderated by tim russert yes it was that presidential candidate that propose to withdrawal from nafta within six months if the mexicans and canadians didn't agree to renegotiate. i think many thought that was empty rhetoric and it was, although to his credit, president obama, in office sought to make some improvements in nafta in the course of the transpacific partnership agreement, but still it underlines the fact that the political expedience of attacking free-trade agreements predates the trumpet ministration by a long time. it's interesting to study the politics of trade. the charitable trust is an enormous amount of polling and they found some interesting results. one is that 67% of self identified democratic voters believe the free-trade agreements make america stronger. interestingly, 36% of republican voters indoors free-trade agreements as making the united states stronger. the politics are confounding and it's an article washington d.c., the free-trade agreements will not pass the united states congress unless they gain the support of every single republican member and a small handful democratic members of congress willing to support for free-trade agreement. yet each of those parties is out of step with their own political base. in fact, the only major political figure who is in stuffed with their political face is president trump. among self identified trump voters, 27% believe free-trade agreements are good for america. he not only is speaking with and for his political base, but he's actually in greater synergy and greater harmony with the american public as well. of all the issues that have generated controversy among establishment political inform policy leaders, free-trade may be one of the biggest and yet it's the one where the president really does reflect the sentiment of the country. i was asked in the course of this project that we did the summer and you'll see a chapter in the book to do a bit of a diagnostic and analyze why this is and perhaps forecast some steps forward. mummy just quickly say on transpacific partnership, i understand the distress is caused many in the confusion it's caused about america's role in the world and what role america will play in the asia-pacific, but i have to say that agreement didn't die january 23 of this year when president trump signed an executive order to withdraw the u.s. from the agreement. it died a year earlier when it was signed. it did not have the support of the congress, it did not have the support of the american public, and it most definitely didn't have the unified support of the business community. that agreement was too big, too ambitious, and the return was too small to justify locking into place the status quo which is largely what it did in u.s. economic relations and asia-pacific. it fell victim to primarily a geopolitical aim. one of the things i've learned since i left government and came into the private sector 15 years ago is the geopolitics makes for lousy free-trade agreement, but good free-trade agreement make for great geopolitics. you gotta get the economics right first. if you simply paper over deep differences and competing views on trade in order to get to yes on an agreement, you are embedding in u.s. relations with major trading partners, tensions that will culminate in a manner that we are seeing today. whether it's u.s. korea free-trade agreement or many of the other issues of controversy. on nafta, it's a different take. in nafta, challenge, quite simply is that the economics don't work for the united states in terms of producing a trade balance that would excite political support in the united states but i would argue it works quite wellin making the united states far more competitive and building unity across north american space but it's indisputable that we have more than a 60 billion-dollar anti- trade deficit with mexico and this is what president trump is focused on her the problem with fixing nafta is that you cannot fix the 60 plus billion dollar trade deficit by growing u.s. exports to mexico. as beneficial as nafta is, the reality is the economics will prevent us from balancing trade with mexico on the revenue side. so, the only tool available to fix the perceived problems of nafta are going to be trade limiting which is not part of a free-trade agreement. i have a pretty gloomy expectation of the ability of the u.s. trade representative to truly achieve the goals they want after which is to balance out trade. there's many economists who would argue that trade surplus and deficit are not indicators of the quality and i tend to completely endorse that point of view however, large trade deficits may indicate problems in a trading relationship as well. that's what i think we see with many of our asia-pacific trading partners. >> let me finish by, in the interest of time, by highlighting very briefly the ten steps that i think we should consider as we look forward and trade and how to take it forward in a constructive way. i completely agree with senator sullivan's point of view that this is a holistic picture. it's not just about trade credits about regulation and tax reform and certainly it's about growth. in fact, as i raise in my paper, i have to believe that a couple quarters or much less a full year 4% economic growth will go a long way toward alleviating the trade tensions in the debate but we don't have that yet we have to deal with trade issues now. ironically, that kind of growth will probably balloon our trade deficit but will also, at the same time, treat the dissatisfaction in the public that has produced this poisonous political environment. very quickly, my ten priorities for our debate, first the who. you have to pick the right partners. you should be engaging with partners who agree and support free-trade at the same level we do. this was the original premise of the transpacific partnership to tie together a handful of countries who all had a high level of support for free-trade but in the course of the geopolitical ambitions we began to bring parties into the agreement who don't support free-trade by any measure of the records. second, we should pursue trade agreements with mercantile powers but they should be on a bilateral basis so we can effectively focus on the challenges and those economies and we can craft the necessary tools in order to force open those economy. multilateral's are for free trade. third, let me give you the what. we should adjust currency manipulation which, according to the peterson institute is adding 250 - $500 billion to the american trade deficit on an annual basis, and yet hereto for has not been a addressed by trade negotiators. corruption, a big issue that undermines comparable, comparative advantage in free-trade, we have to use the tools of anticorruption and would have to tie that to our trade agreement. regulation, harmonizing global regulation removes the cover the countries used to put nontariff barriers in place and enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. finally, how. first our trade negotiations generate a lot of skepticism among the public and the critics. while there are some consultative tools, we need to do better. there are some ideas on capitol hill such as requiring each negotiating session to be shared in detail with members of congress, one that is a bit of a stretch but i like is doing free-trade negotiations in public. it would completely dismiss the notion that anything is being hidden. i actually think the reason why negotiators meet in private in free-trade negotiations is because they are advocating positions are indefensible in the public. put it out in the open. that's easiest way to get support. i think we have to trust the market. where we have a free-trade partner, trade partner that's not really willing to embrace it, we can weed them out, wait them out and give them some time. i wish i had a dollar that would hear they will be able to sustain that or it will be a competitive disadvantage. let's play for the long run. if country is unwilling to make the steps to open their economy to the free trade of goods and services than it's okay to say no. finally, as i said a moment ago, geopolitics have to be subordinate to the economics. free-trade has to be driven by the economics first and the geopolitics have to follow. so that's it. if you want to take questions, i'm happy either way. thank you. [applause] >> steve, thank you very much. trade is obviously an issue where our two parties are divided but the public is divided and before we hear from richard, i think it's only fair, because i saw our friend mike froman walk-in. mike you are here, right? there he is. when we had our meeting in aspen the summer, steve and mike made the major presentation on trade. i thought it was one of the most interesting, most vital, but it's also where we see conceptual differences. the on the spot if you don't mind. we will get the microphone to you. you just heard the tail end of steve's presentation. you are both written papers on this. can i give you a two-minute right of reply. >> it's unfair, since i just caught the last end of his speech, i assume he's completely changed his views since he read my chapter in the book and is finally seeing the light. i agree with steve on a lot of things that we disagree on certain things. if you take the transpacific partnership as an example, it wasn't ever to bring countries into a free-trade area under a high set of rules. it's not about geopolitics versus economics. economics do have to be the dominant factor. we cannot justify a free-trade agreement other than how it benefits our economy what it's about who gets to write the economic rules of the road. what we are seeing play out is exactly what we want. if the u.s. did not moves forward, other parties would move forward and define the rules of the road that reflected their interest in values rather than ours and would carve up market access that benefited their producers at the expense of hours and that's exactly what we are seeing, even since the time we spent in aspen over the past four months. china hosted a conference on internet governance. moving ahead with its view of balanced internet governance. we all know what balance means from the chinese perspective, and i guess the question is would you rather have a digital a comedy chapter of tpp that allowed for free flow of data and information across borders and the non- taxability of products or would you like the chinese write the rules of the road? our withdrawal from leadership and our retreat from asia has opened up the door for others to put forward their vision and that will be seen as one of the greatest strategic blunders that the united states engaged in. finally, purely from a market access perspective, as we've seen as recently as last week, the rest of the world is not standing still. whether it's the eu finalizing its agreement with japan so it's pork producers get the access our pork producers fought so hard for or if it's australia's beef producers getting access to japan instead of our beef producers, that's happening in real-time. we are losing market share and losing jobs because people prefer to sit on the sideline rather than move ahead with the deal that would eliminate about 90% of all terrorists. >> mike, could you stay with the microphone, i'm in the give steve a two-minute right of reply. >> one of the big issues as we look toward 2018 between the u.s., canada and mexico, there is some speculation that you would be both better informed than me that the trump administration might even be considering ending nafta in trying to build up some kind of bilateral arrangement. this would be a significant point of departure for republicans and democrats over the past 23 years. what is your view on that? what is your sense of where the administration is going? >> clearly i'm not a spokesman for the administration so i don't pretend to have any great insight into what's in the heart. i think they put on the table, first i think we should step back. about 95% of what's been put on the table in the renegotiation is tpp. so for all the criticism of the administration, 95% of the text tracks tpp. it's the last 5% that matters the most. things like sunsetting the agreement after five years or changing the role of orga origin. those will determine whether moves forward or not. i think their first best option is to reach a renegotiated agreement along the lines that they have tabled without much room for compromise, but i think they're perfectly prepared to trigger the withdrawal notice and potentially withdraw from the agreement with all the disruptive effects that that would help. >> thank you mike. nothing new in my arguments that you missed. mike and i do agree on quite a bit, and let me emphasize two issues in particular that we do agree upon. first, it's absolutely critical that the united states play a strong leadership role in the act asia-pacific whether it's through trade negotiations or other means. it is absolutely critical to the interest of the united states over the next century. the second thing that might surprise mike to hear me say, but i think if you listen carefully you might've heard me say it during the debate on tpb to is that i certainly personally and in my company for that matter did not want the united states to withdraw from tpp. in fact we regret that tpp didn't move forward but we don't have any regrets that it didn't move forward in its current form because the reality from the perspective of many of us in the private sector is as good as the details were, it still fundamentally failed to change the economic model that doesn't work for the united states and the asia-pacific and you don't have to take my point of view for this. the international trade commission doesn't exhaustive analysis of every free-trade agreement to try to understand the consequences and produce that analysis for the congress before considers it. the consequences of tpp in terms of impacting the flow of american goods in the asia-pacific region was negligible. in the manufacturing sector, the international trade commission, an independent body found that there would be a net loss in manufacturing exports and manufacturing employment in the united states as a consequence. it's not that that the agreement was bad, it just didn't do enough. there were some key issues that were left unaddressed. mike knows my hobbyhorse which is currency manipulation. this is one of the most pernicious trade barriers used around the world. currency manipulation is a simple supply and demand manipulation. if you have a lot of your currency, you poor that into the global marketplace and you buy up somebody else's and you put it in your bank in your reserves. supply and demand, there's more of your currency out there so it's worth less but there's a lot less of our currency out there so it's worth more. very simplistic explanation but this hugely impacts trade flows. on an automobile that cost 30,000 dollars in an export price, 25% manipulation is probably four 100% of the profit margin on that product. you can produce, in the united states, probably an export to markets like japan when the japanese government is actively intervening in the value of the yen relative to the dollar which they have done 170 times in the past 15 years. they haven't done it in the past three or four years, they haven't done it since about 2011 or 2012 but the reason is because it using other instruments to produce domestic consumption with the effective weakening there currency with a massive quantitative program that dwarfs was done in the yard states during the great recession. and so, i would argue tpp was a good start and i complement the administration for taking pieces of that and making it part of their trade agenda but it fell short of addressing some of the biggest challenges we have in our trading relationships and, as a consequence, i think it would've been just as possible that it became a source of irritation and even friction in our trading relationships. if it would be better to separate out the sheep and the wolves in the tpp group, the ones that support free trade, let's move forward with an agreement for those that don't support free trade, let's bring them on one at a time and deal with the issues they are using to subvert global trade because it is indisputable that global trade has been subverted by tactics like this in a manner that makes participants of the american economy ask the artist question. i'm doing everything right. i'm working hard were building great products and we are falling behind and losing. you never dedicate those people to support free trade if they're doing everything right and still the wind is blowing in the face. >> this is clearly going to be one of the most i important issues as we think about the future of our country. for those of you watching on c-span, this is a book of the world turned upside down, maintaining american leadership in a dangerous age. it's being published today. mike and steve have complementary chapters with different points of view on these important issues. i recommend it to you. here's the order of battle. at 11:00 a.m. we will turn to a conversation with former secretary of state madeleine albright and secretary of defense bill cohen. until then i will give my friend richard eight minutes to tell us why the technology to nominee in a liberal world order out to be something on our radar screen. richard. >> when steve said we were falling behind in winning and losing in trade, additive feeling were falling behind on this agenda but were winning in terms of the richness of what's being described. i'm a bit of a loser in this in terms of limited time but i want to hit on a big topic i think stands alongside the kind of classical analyses of international relations that are naturally triggered by our topic of liberal world order and what may upset it. alongside this also is the economic analysis that you've just been treated to. it seems to me the most fundamental thing in many respects, underlying all of this is the technology tsunami that we are all expensive. you see this reflected when mike immediately talks about china and the internet and internet governance. we are all grou richly aware of the it revolution. i just want}we shouldn't treat it, which is the technology has the moment as the end of technological history. we are seeing dramatic innovations in allergy, robotics, new materials, space, manufacturing, data analysis, et cetera. i could go on with the list but i'd require more than the eight minutes it has given me. i'd suggest though that these are fundamentally affecting our notions of the liberal world water. it shouldn't surprise us that they do. if you look back at the great changes in history, uc technology, the printing press and galileo and the telescope overturning the status quo in world order as the church has it produced in the 19th century the effects of the industrial revolution on our notions of state power and state control. more recently, i believe the invention of birth control as one of the most fundamental changes technologically and undergirds much of the dramatic revolution that we call feminism that's occurring in our time. so, we should recognize the technological change the tsunami is not something that simply exists in its own realm. it's fundamentally affecting all realms. i think to switch metaphors from tsunami to something else, it's an underlying change in the teutonic plate that produces all kinds of what appear to be desperate earthquakes, whether if you look at this morning's newspaper it's the perforation of biology and north korea for the carpenter case in the supreme court about the ability of the state to seize cell phones and the like. the paper in the book, i sketch three things that i'm not going to talk about now. i will briefly mention the fourth. one is that the way in which this proliferation empowers nonstate entities is a familiar song, but i think there are some interesting new things that can be said about it. as technology competes with the state in effect by setting up these nonstate enterprises and empowering them, not just in weapons, but also in the equivalent of what any state would've regarded as an astonishing intelligence agency by virtue of what they can harvest from commercial data and the like. the way this proliferation balances out u.s. power is that we used to be eminent and dominant and spread to other countries and enable them to compete with us print this changes the world order in important ways. the third, which is much less recognized is the risk of accidents and emergent effects of these very complex, opaque novel systems are developed and interact with one another, particularly in the military context in ways that we can fully anticipate. i think there are grave risks of unintended effects for us in that arena that i think are also worthy of discussion. the point i want to focus on in conclusion is a more radical one which is the way in which these technologies challenge our very notions of the liberal order. we see how authoritarian states can use technologies to restrict privacy, to monitor individuals and the like. very striking how we all leave trails of dna, dna dust, you will have left your dna when you depart. we also leave trails of digital dust. everyone will know, from monitoring your cell phone that you were here. i doubt you're in the singular minority that didn't bring a cell phone to this event. these things are empowering to authoritarian states and our own states in ways that you wrote our privacy and the like. they also pose very fundamental challenges to us as different states develop different norms for dealing with these technologies. i can anticipate in the united states very traumatic issues associated with how we manipulate our bodies, embryos and the like. we are used to the abortion debate and how deeply it has affected us here. what happens when people begin to try to choose amongst embryo embryos, for example to maximize the intelligence of their offspring, not simply to avoid diseases and the like. what happens when china begins to make a different choice in that regard. suppose they decide intelligence as something to be optimized in the embryos of their population and americans make different decisions for 200 babies are born every day in america today that were conceived in test tubes. where we going from here? i have a set of issues associated with that. but most fundamentally and finally, i would just put you the idea that the very liberal notions of what it means to be an individual and have individual choice, of how in a democracy we put together majorities to make choices or challenge why technology, we tend to ascribe this to things like the russian interference with facebook and the like, and we marvel at the technological attributes of that. facebook takes 3 million ads every day. let's not be too simplistic about how they might string these things. think about the way data analysis combines with the earlier observation about digital tracking that i made. in terms of political persuasio persuasion, it's been demonstrated that with ten facebook likes, information about that, people , a machine using artificial intelligence can predict your preferences more accurately than your colleagues in the workplace. with 70 facebook likes, they can predict this information more accurately than your friends can about what you will choose to do. with 150 facebook likes, they can predict more accurately than your family members can. with 300, more accurately than your spouse. >> i'm not amazed that others can predict my references more accurately than my spouse, but think about what this means in terms of political action because when you link this capability with our ability to reach individual targets, now, as a politician, i can select your particular preference in some sub area and target you individually in that sub area. now that may seem to you to be okay, but what i can do is create differentiated messages. i know i have to put together majorities, i can begin to put together an effect, a dominant group of people spliced together from a whole lot of individual things instead of speaking broadside to the group. this changes the fundamental premise of democracy associated with what political speech is, with what electoral processes look like, and ultimately with what it means to be an individual and the way in which we are subject all to manipulation when we are well understood. much more could be said about this, but the one thing i understand is my time is up. i will stop and you'll before. thank you. [applause] >> i want to thank steve and mike for their thoughts on trade. i want to thank richard for his thoughts on technology. one point of this. we began 35 years ago as a nonpartisan national security group focused on the big arms control, the big arms race with the soviets in the 80s. where we are trending, in the next year or two is that all of us, in-and-out of government have to have a much more acute understanding of artificial intelligence and the emerging digital age. the impact that changing technologies will have on the balance of power between the u.s. and china, the united states and terrorist groups that will have access to these , and that we as a group mainly of people who come out of government from both parties are going to need a lot of help from people in the biotech community in boston and the information technology group in silicon valley that we have to have a private sector, public sector fusion to get our hands around this big challenge. thank you to richard for giving us a snapshot. also thank you to steven mike. i would like this podium to disappear and i kindly ask secretary albright and secretary cohen to join me. >> we are waiting secretary cohen's arrival and i'm going to filibuster. since we are, since c-span cameras are rolling, let me introduce, let me first introduce secretary albright and secretary cohen. i have had the great pleasure to work for both of these individuals. everyone knows madeleine albright in the extraordinary career she has had both as a professor at georgetown university and a public servant. she served as our secretary of state in the second term of secretary clinton. i have worked as her spokes person and then someone who has stood up for our values including democracy and human rights. her whole life story is a commitment to the united states and i want to ask you all to welcome secretary albright. i also want to ask you to welcome former secretary of defense william . he should be welcoming us because the going group for which he is chair is right upstairs. i have the leisure being his senior counselor for the cohen group, happily so. sectosenator cohen, representative cohen came to washington in the early 1970s, served on the house judiciary committee during the impeachment proceedings against president nixon and another time of the leadership crisis in washington. move the senate in 1978, was one of those people who became one of the knowledge experts and served for several decades in leadership positions in the senate and the mccain sector defense for president clinton and served with citrate albright as part of the leadership team in the cabinet. we couldn't have two better people to discuss this issue of america's future as a global power. the conference this summer, the book were inaugurating is about whether or not republicans and democrats can work together to preserve the leadership role. since this is your home turf, i want to start with you. i will ask the first question together and that is, are you worried that we are losing, are you worried that we are losing our leadership position to the challenge from russia and china to the changes in the global economy and also to this big debate inside, are we willing to be a leader. is there consensus in the country on that? >> short answer is of course i'm worried. i think everyone in the country should be worried. we really haven't just decided what our role in this world of disorder is going to be. i think, starting at the presidential level there is no coherent philosophy that is guiding us in terms of who are we, who do we want to be in this world, what can we be, and how do we go about bringing that to pass. i think it should be of concern because we are not living in a bipolar world. we may be living in a nonpolar world which could be the most dangerous of all. i think for me the concern is that we seem to be seizing international leadership at many different levels. while the president has promoted make america great again, he is doing it on the basis of transactional activities without a comprehensive plan of how the individual components or transactions actually fit into the pattern that is cohesive. if you go to japan, the japanese prime minister would say he is very fond of president trump. same thing would be said if you go to saudi arabia or the european friends, less so, if you talk to the prime minister of australia whose word that the united states is no longer able to be counted on to carry the leadership role for freedom and democracy and we need to continue to fill that role. it depends on where you go. my own fear is that we are seeing a wrecking ball being taken to the institution which we have worked very hard to construct. it's not unusual, most come into washington and they look at the white house or the institution and say corporate needs to be repaired, the walls are thin, let's have some remodeling done and upgrade our capability. i don't see that yet. i am hoping that will be the case, but if you're going to tear down institutions that you think no longer work, then tell me who the architects are, what their plans are, who the masons are, who the carpenters are, and tell me what kind of an institution you are trying to construct. i haven't seen that take place. i worried about it and i worry that other countries are turning away from us. the chancellor germany is saying germany will have to go forward into the future without the assurance of the united states being counted on. that is a very big change. you go around to our allied partners and they worry there is no consistency, no predictability. the president likes to say i like to be unpredictable. that is what i've done all my life. i like keeping people on their heels are on their toes, but i like being unpredictable. well, in geopolitics, it doesn't quite work that way. the people that i talked to were the just returned from india and elsewhere, predictability. they want more continuity. they want to be able to gauge the policies we are articulatin articulating. i worry about these, i look at china, i've been going to china since 1978, i look at what is happened in 35 and 40 years and i said this is dramatic. it's remarkable, it's transformational, it's admirable and somewhat intimidating. there is a country that has a vision, a strategic vision, they know where they want to get to and have very few inner visions on how they will get there. there's no congress or supreme court to contend with. you can see what their goal is and they have a capacity to carry it out. that's not necessarily true for the united states because we are democracy and we take time and we debate. the biggest criticism is there is no plan on what our role is point to be in the future other than let's make a bilateral deal. i will stop here because the secretary needs comment. >> i was remiss on one comment. i noted that secretary : shows the : groups and secretary albright has albright bridge. i just returned from a trip last week to germany and the czech republic and slovakia. you know the space better than anyone. we see anti- democratic national populace forces taking over governments, but i came away listening to the europeans and i don't think they believe we are any longer the leader of the west the way that every american president has been deemed to be. is this a fundamental point of departure and how we understand our leadership? >> i'm concerned that it actually is. let me just say, was terrific always to work with secretary . we proved bipartisanship and it's great to be here with you. i think there are a lot of contradictions out there that need to be put within some sort of historical context. i am a pre-world war ii person, but mostly my life as a functional human being happened after world war ii and we had a phase "after words" when the united states was the winner of world war ii and it really governed everything we had been involved in. every policy that the united states undertook, whether was assistance or defense policy or financial issues was done in the context of the world being divided into the red in the red, white and blue. that ended with the fall of the berlin wall and then we are in the second phase and i have to say, first at the un and then the secretary i was privileged to be part of looking at what our policy should be and within this entirely new aspect of things where the soviet union no longer existed in the countries become independent. we are now in the third phase and one that i think, richard you really pointed out, the technology plays a very large part in effecting osprey the question is what is the role of united states within an entirely new construct. president clinton was the first one to use the term indispensable. i just set it so often about the u.s. that it became identified with me but there's nothing about the definition of indispensable. the u.s. needs to be engaged. i believe the u.s. needs to be engaged for the world to be function and i'm concerned if we are becoming the dispensable nation and our president or others were in office, by the way, this room looks quite different than when we were there. they have fixed it. but i think that the bottom line is there is a question about how one presents america. i find it appalling that our president is talking about being victims and nobody wants to do anything with us then all of a sudden everybody is taking advantage of us. that is not the america i think is necessary at this point. i do think we need to figure out what our role is in this third phase but specifically, the question that you asked, and that is that i do think most of the things that have happened our double-edged sword. what happened with the fall of the wall but also globalization has created an interaction among all of us i think most of people in this room, we've all been beneficiaries of globalization. the problem is that it's baseless and people want and identity. what is interesting is the countries in eastern europe, next year we will be celebrating the creation of most of those countries after world war i. the bottom line is they were created on the basis of national identity. with the faithlessness of globalization, those countries are now into identity politics in so many ways whether linguistic or ethnic or religious and that's fine. i believe in patriotism. i don't believe in nationalism or hyper- nationalism that creates a dangerous case. there's also a double-edged sword to technology which is that we all like to talk about the women farmer in canyon no longer has to walked miles to pay her bills, she can do it on mobile phone. but it has also done something to disaggregate ourselves where it's difficult to have local parties and figure out how we belong. i tried desperately to listen to the things i don't leave them which would make it stand my way when i'm driving as i listen to right wing radio. i apologize for play plagiarizing as i tell my students not to do this by stole this from silicon valley. people are talking to the government on 21st century technology, they listen on 20th century technology and provide 19th century responses. there is no faith in institution. there's the issue about where the u.s. stands internationally, what's happening with institutional structure and i think we are at sea. i'm waiting for the national security strategy to come out and i teach off of them because we know how they are made. it's complicated and it's their bureaucracies at their best working to produce documents i get okayed by the committees that emerge and you actually have some clue about where the administrations are going. we have absolutely no clue at a time that the world is that one of the more dangerous moments. >> thank you so much but i think that strategy will be out momentarily from the trumpet ministration but i want to ask you both about the two big autocratic powers, russia and china. then we will open it up to questions from the guests. starting with russia, you both noticed this exceptionally well. it's the next crimea, troops in the don bath illegally dividing one part from ukraine to another and our intelligence community is united in saying that the russians launched an attack on our elections of 2016, they intervened in the dutch, french and german elections, if you are both in office now, working with president trump, what would you advise that he do to contain the more pernicious aspects of russian power in europe and in our own country, but also by necessity on iran, north korea and afghanistan to find a way to have channel open. >> the person that has to happen is we have to remove the cloud that's hanging over russia and russia's involvement and attack upon our democratic system. i think as long as it continues to hangover the white house with these unresolved issues will be difficult for the president to make a positive approach to the russians. and everyone would say we have to have a better relationship with russia. they can be a cause for great instability and cause instability. it would be important for us too have a positive relationship with russia. that cannot take place as long as this cloud of doubt is hanging over the white house in terms of what is the nature of this relationship between the president and vladimir putin. as long as there is suspicion and cynicism at what has taken place, i think it's going to be hard for us to formulate a policy that can do both things , namely continue to punish the russians for the past behavior in crimea in georgia and certainly the attack upon the united states, digital attacks that's been launched against us, it's at the heart of our democracy. were not going to be able to do that unless that cloud is removed from the beginning i have tried to talk about is that i thought the president has to take action to remove that by saying what you own, mr. president, what you owe? and to whom do a what? if you answer those questions in clear away the ambiguity, i don't know this, this is what i believe but i believe that the town of russian money in the trump real estate. nothing wrong with that. the russians have been investing in real estate when the president was in the private enterprise so the question is why have any inhibition about disclosing. that's where the doubt in the cynicism comes. there's something that doesn't quite fit in this picture that you can criticize the british prime minister, the chancellor of germany, the australian prime minister, call the president of south korea and appeaser and on and on and never once the word of negative criticism toward vladimir putin who has done things at the international and now our national level which are appalling. so, i think it's going to be hard, i was intensify the sanctions against russia and go after more of their individuals. i would deny them the one thing they want most in that is respect. that is what vladimir putin, for as long as he's been in power wants russia to be respected, and he should. it's a country with a great history, with great scientists and mathematicians and artists and riders. he wants his country to be respected. but if you want respect you have to ask respectively and he's not been acting respectably. i think he's been engaged in activities which have been contrary to the established norms that we expect of a great country. i would not allow him to have that status until such time there's been a modification of behavior. >> i believe it would be nice if the cloud were lifted, but the bottom line is i think we'll just go deeper because the cloud is more than a cloud. and we have to be very concerned about what has gone on. i do believe vladimir putin has played a weak hand brilliantly. he is a kgb officer. we can never forget that and he has played us in an unbelievable way and we always talk about containing russia, they are trying to contain democracy by the kind of things they are doing and that they have done in the united states and evidently are doing throughout europe as you pointed out, and, i think they have made a very strong play for at least equal assessments of what is going on in the middle east. i think they also, when i was secretary, he was known a lot about asserting russian power in the middle east, he would be very proud of what is going on now because the russians have become equal partners on syria and they have helped support asad, he has also very much played the game generally playing with israel and the number of different issues. i think they have played a weak hand well. we have to be very concerned because they are systematically making it more difficult for us to carry out what we need to carry out and have weakened us and has made clear he will run forever and one thing that he has done that he has been brilliant about, in the early '90s i did the survey all across europe ended questionnaires and focus groups and i'll never forget the focus group outside moscow. this man stands up and says i'm so embarrassed, we used to be a superpower and now were bangladesh with missiles. what has happened is vladimir putin has managed to keep the russian people in a weakened economy by having restored their so-called dignity by doing what he's done in crimea , all the pressures you pointed out, and trying to contain democracy. >> i want to ask you both a follow-up question. it's how we conduct american leadership in the world. it's a surreal environment when two weeks ago, one day the british minister and the archbishop of canterbury felt compelled to criticize publicly the president of the united states. i'm quite certain that hasn't happened since 1783, the treaty of paris. similarly over the weekend, you had a situation with the president and his rally in pensacola went after angela merkel and the nato allies publicly and having just returned from europe and seen the sensitivity of the european allies to this persistent public criticism juxtaposed to the president embrace of vladimir putin and others, what has produced this and what are the consequences for our credibility as a result? >> what has produced it? you have a president who was elected who had very little, if any experience in the political world. he came with no serious level, in my judgment at least, curiosity about the geopolitical situation. i was listening to steve earlier and he said trade first and geopolitics would follow. i'm not sure that's quite right. i think they're almost inseparable. when we are talking about tpp, to give you another example, i was in beijing the day after the election last year. i voted early and went, i was meeting with a high-level chinese official and we were having dinner at his home office and he asked me, he said now that president trump has been elected, does that mean the tpp is that? i regrettably, yes. he reached over and he touched me and he said good. it was good from the chinese perspective, it was not good from our allies perspective. to a person, they came here in the spring and appeared over at csi as give a presentation. they indicated we wasted seven years with you, seven years we wasted negotiating this deal, and number two, you undermined our credibility with our own constituents. that was the sentiment that was deeply felt. beyond the trade issue is one where we were the ones who were going to be the leaders of the architecture for an economic. [inaudible] >> we are determined to set up an economic system. that means. >> it means they will take the leadership role or try to take a leadership role. so, trade has an interconnection with geopolitics and they can't be separated in my judgment. what it says is the president has yet to decide what our role is going to be. you have mr. bannon who is an advisor who would like to see a less engaged role on the part of the united states. let the europeans take care of europe, nato has not been doing as much as it should, and he's right. the president is not wrong in suggesting that nato countries have not paid up in terms of making a contribution that they should have made. i made that argument, i think secretary albright made that argument, bob gates has made it, every secretary of defense including james mattis. he's not wrong in saying they have to do more, but the way in which you do it sometimes matters more than what you are asking. if you insult people, if you criticize them publicly as opposed to dealing with them privately, that tends to create friction. you can see this playing out. : and so the europeans start to feel that we were distancing ourselves and looking east as far as they're concerned. i think the policy, we got to decide we are suffering from war fatigue. that's clear. the american people say hey, we've been at this for a long time. we spend a couple of trillion dollars. it's time for us to take care of nationbuilding at all. that's a sentiment the president has tapped into is justification for that. it's time we do address things at home. that you can't do that at the expense of just gauging from global affairs. because when you do, other countries fill the gap. china is the link gap in asia. the russians are filling the gap in surrey. they're moving into egypt. they're establishing influence in middle east and also working on north korea as well as -- so when we pull back they move in. that does not work to our advantage. >> well, i do think that, i know this president wants to be remembered for being the greatest whatever. he will have, in fact, been the one that diminished american power more than any single president. and i think that that is not a record that any buzz should be proud of. because i do not believe the world works if the united states is not engaged. and we're seeing it. the chinese are talking about one belt, one road. they must have a very large stomach because their belt keeps getting bigger and bigger. and they are more and more interested in taking our place everywhere. i have just been to argentina, and we did a lot of discussion about what the chinese are doing in terms of investing all through latin america. they are everywhere where we are not, and so i think this is the time to be very concerned about this. and what i don't understand is the contradiction among the american people in terms of, i have always, you know, at sporting events, olympics are whatever we always have to be number one. and all of a sudden we don't want to be a part of anything. and america first is not number one. america first is isolationist, is a country that does not know how to operate internationally or, in fact, trying to determine where we protect our people the best. i am stunned by this, , and i'm stunned by a lot of contradictions in terms of the title of this is, is there overturning of the liberal order? i believe that we are in danger which is why a book that i'm writing that is coming out in april is called fascism, a warning. and i think we have to be very, very careful about the things that are going on in terms of people in various, the working class people who feel they've been left out of things, who are very angry, who didn't want regulation from washington but do want a strong leader. and so i think that there are very many things we need to look at history, what's going on here. and i have tried for the last year to be polite. i've had it. because i think we do have to say what is going on here. because there are some very dangerous aspects in terms of some of us have thought this will go away, but there are so many things being put into place at the moment, and the indent tpp, you know, , they'll think that is now happened that the chinese and what is left over, i think is a great concern. what is happening with our budget, i thought, i i think, e fact their dismantling the diplomatic service is stunning to me. and what has happened is in terms of respect, secretary tillerson now goes abroad, having been gamed by what is going on here, , and he does not have the respect that he used to go talk to the europeans or anybody. we need to say enough is enough here, that we need to figure out a way that -- people asked me to describe myself, grateful american. i came here when i was 11 years old. nothing was more important in my life and becoming an american citizen. and the respect that america, the people had for america. i do not wish to in my life by not seeing america as respected and as strong as we need to be to make the world a better place. >> i agree with what secretary albright and i who have worked arm in arm so many issues together. in fact, i don't think we could have claimed victory in kosovo without secretary albright taking a leadership role and pushing for our active intervention in that conflict. i want to come back just for a second on this issue of having a philosophy or geo- strategy of such. i watch secretary tillerson at csis gave a speech about a month ago. i was sitting in the front row listening to him and is really quite impressed. i'm sitting next to the indian ambassador, as a matter fact during that time but secretary tillerson laid out a vision lec software our software our relationship with that really caught my eye or ear if i shouy is that he kind of went out of his way to say china is an important country but it's india at the united states looks to enter the future for our strategic partner. not china. he went on several times to say that to make that a very definitive point. i thought it was interesting that he would be that forward leaning toward india as the president is getting ready to go to china. and then i thought maybe it is been a good cop bad cop situation where he's length of the foundation for dealing with xi jinping that by the way we're looking to india and that's a country as big as yours, it's not where you are now but it helps to be at some point, but the point was that the speech laid out a blueprint for u.s. and india, india japan, us-japan, india, australia, u.s. hostility. that's a quad, so to speak, relationship between the u.s., india, japan and australia. the indians so far have been willing to think in terms of a trilateral u.s. india japan. they've been a little more reluctant on the australia component, not because they don't share similar ideals with australia but because when you start looking at the quad it looks more like potential containment strategy of china. and the indians did not want to have the united states think that we are playing an india card against china. so we've got to be careful in that respect. much of it gets back to this wonderful notion of what is in our interest? our interest is to establish relationships with democratic countries who share our interests and our ideals. and to the extent that we can do that, we're not trying to contain china, but we're trying to send a signal to the chinese. we know you are a growing certainly economic power. you will be a big military power but we want to use that power in a way that integrated into the international system and not for either aggressive or destabilizing purposes. so we're going to build these relationships with all of the countries that share our interests and ideals and will make sure that we hold those relationships close to us. now, the danger i see from what is been happening is we are pushing away some of those allies. we insult them. we do not pay the respect that they deserve, and as a result they are pulling away from us. i think that's the danger i see that we are not cultivating and nurturing the people in the countries share interests and ideals and opportunities, and that to me is one of the great problems we're going to face in the future. >> thank you. at the aspen strategy group were focused on bipartisanship, nonpartisanship. i would say for this next question would ask you about china and north korea, that this been a consensus in the george w. bush, barack obama and at least at the cabinet level in the top administration, that mr. secretary, you talk about the close partnership between the united states and india joined by our alliance with japan and elyse that triangular relationship sometimes joined by australia, it's not the c c wo, not going to contain china but the inward, manage. limit the ambitions of the chinese running rush at over there neighbors. i think there's republican -democrat republican-democrat consensus. the problem is we haven't heard that from the president. he gets back to your first observation what is a strategic plan. let me ask both of you on this question, shouldn't we get president trump some credit on china and north korea? he is developed a relationship with xi jinping. guess prioritize that begin at mar-a-lago. one can argue the president has gotten more out of the chinese with some of their sanctions against north korea then previous presidents have, that the chinese now engaged they have to because they fear president trump might initiate military action against north korea. are we close to war? do you think there's a high probability of a preemptive strike by the united states? or do you think this is more kabuki in the sense that we're truly trying to try this to negotiation? you probably made the case for either that just, madam secretary start with you. >> i have to say i'm not sure i agree we have developed a better or the president has gotten something out of the chinese. i'm not sure that they're doing everything they could as far as north korea is concerned. because their concern is more a place for fall apart but they haven't cut off some of the major aspects of the support for the chinese economy. and in the meantime they are mucking around in the south china sea and, in fact, taking over climate change and a variety of other things. i do think that the celebrations of xi jinping now are putting him into a greater and greater role, and what worries me action is what you said, is about you think that is gotten something out of the chinese. so that is worrisome. i am very worried about what's happening in north korea. believe it or not, i'm still the highest level sitting official to have gone to pyongyang to meet with this guys father, and that i'm very glad that the united and i did nations have sent over an ongoing and understand that it dennis rodman is going back, and that would be really useful. [laughing] >> the u.n. envoys -- >> which i think is a very smart person and he knows, the fact that the u.n. is more interested in it. but i think what makes me nervous is an accident, and i think part of the problem is we know you need to have hotlines and you need to have some kind of mil to mil connections. so i think it is worrisome attitude it's unclear where the chinese are. what surprises me is that the chinese and the russians, if, in fact, there is some hydrogen test or already, whether some radioactive fallout from the test they've already taken, that they don't see the bad effects their people and that they're going to have to be more helpful. but i don't see them. the votes in the u.n. are nice, but they are not dispositive i think in terms of some of the sanctions aspect. >> i agree with secretary albright. i think the chinese could be doing more to it because the north koreans have, this goes back to lbj days, but it had guns and butter policy. they've been able to develop their guns and the russians and the chinese have been giving them the butter. and, in fact, if you look at the economic situation, the economy north korea has actually been improving. is actually growing. there's actually some signs that there's some entrepreneurship taking place, thanks to the support they've been getting from the chinese and the russians and others. so i think the chinese could be, they are in a position to do much more. they are reluctant to do much more. they constantly say they fear that if there's a collapse of the north korean regime that there will be millions of people flooding into china. i've always ask the question, i think there will be millions of people trying to get into south korea, which if i was there i would head south rather than north. but nonetheless, and you could see that from the professor took a number of -- defector who took a number shots to get over the wall that he was heading south, not north towards china. i think they are playing the long game. they feel, i'm speculating out but they feel that the long game they benefit ultimately by having a divided korea with kim jong-un still in power, with the united states still in a state of contention but not military action at this point. that asked the north gets stronger, the south will get weaker because they will have less and less confidence in the united states by virtue of perception that we are pulling back. and then eventually the north koreans will be able to unify the peninsula under north korean control as opposed to south korean control. i don't know what changes that calculus for them. i think the president does deserve credit for ratcheting up the pressure, but i think there's always a danger. i think there's a danger when you start using words like fire and fury, we're going to eliminate you from the map. i think henry kissinger in his white house years said something that i have never quite forgotten. he said, and idle threat that is taken seriously can be helpful. but a series threat that is treated as being idle can be catastrophic. so the issue becomes if the president is making idle threats which get the attention and a positive response from the north koreans, or from the chinese, that's good. what if we continue to make threats which are idle and are, in fact, serious, we could find ourselves in a situation that madeleine descry. where something takes place very quickly escalates almost immediately. -- describes. my own recommendation what it is is we need to go back to the south koreans and say you have been slow in putting in the fat missile system. the chinese have really come down hard on you, impeded your economy and tried to slow this process can pick you need to speed it up. it will be helpful if the president didn't go to south korea until the south korean president, not only are you going to take that what you're going to pay for it and by the way we are turning up the free trade agreement. that did exactly build a lot of confidence in terms of what the south korean president can do but we have to impress upon korean president no, no. thaad is coming in. maybe one battery or two batters. i would put thaad into japan as well. even though the aegis system moving from sea bass to land-based. i would put that if the japanese would have. i would increase their missile capability both in japan and south korea and say look, if there's going to be a threat to our people, to our allies, to the japanese, to those in guam, south korea, a thousand people in the region who are u.s. citizens, you're going to be put at risk in the north. and to the extent that causes in uncomfortableness on part of the chinese, that's not a bad thing in my judgment. i think it will do more to bring a solution about rather than letting them keep taking it down the canned forever. >> i think that one of the things having described we are in a third new era, that no matter who has gotten elected this was going to be an incredibly complicated time where not a lot of questions about how, people and institutions at age 70 need a little refurbishing. so the bottom line is that the remaining issues that need to be worked on that require a subtlety and an understanding of the international situation that seems to be missing. and i think that is what worries me the most is that no matter what, things will be hard. the issues that you mentioned, bill, are very complex and the required an understanding of some very basic issues, and not just got reaction. so i really do think that what i hope very much that the team becomes increasingly stronger and operates together and worked with members of congress to try to figure out how we live in this third era of the post-world war ii period. >> there are reports this morning that victor cha is going to be no need to be the american ambassador to south korea and i for think that's a very fine choice. he is knowledgeable, , strong, e knows the region. this would be a good sign. we haven't had an ambassador to seoul throughout the crisis. i have to ask you this. it's probably the most important question for america in 2018 and it's such a hard question to answer. how close are we to war? i've been assuming watching secretary mattis is a real professional, watching secretary tillerson, but a combination of sanctions, extended deterrence, the threat of willow protect ourselves and our allies might be enough with china to maneuver the north koreans at least towards some kind of diplomatic conversation. we haven't talked to this government as you point out, madeleine. you were the only american senior official was even been to pyongyang. no one in this administration are the last has ever met kim jong-un. we hear consistently at least in the rumor mill there are some in the administration who think we ought to consider a preemptive attack. so the question for both of you is how close are we to war in 2018? >> well, i'm often asked if an optimist or a pessimist. i'm an optimist who worries a lot. and i am, i think there's no reason to go to war. the course i teach at georgetown as sa, foreign policy is trying to get some countries do what you want and that's all it is. what are the tools? my course is called the national security toolbox. there are a lot of other tools there besides the actual use of force, the threat of use of force is something else and i think what you said on thaad and exercise is very important but i think we also need to figure out how to use the other tools together and try to figure out how to restore our credibility. because i'm very glad victor cha is going but it's not going to be an easy story there. and so i think it's a matter of how to work with congress to ton fact, begin to restore our credibility so that we don't have war. because if it is it's going to be a very disastrous one. >> i think we should really activate and information warfare campaign. i think we should try and have a career free radio, a radio free korea. and really saturate the airwaves as best we can and say president putin has said the north koreans will eat grass if you put more sanctions on the my answer was, let him eat grass but also offer them some texas beef that we not export to south korea so that they can see wow, life is good in south korea. life is not good in north korea. i would create as much instability as i could on the part of the people of north korea through information campaigns. in terms of going to war, i don't think anyone who has ever been in a position at the pentagon or state department would advocate that we take preemptive action. military action, i mean, the reason this can has been kicked on the road since richard nixon is because the consequences of going to war are so horrific. so if we're talking about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people might die, that's the reason they can has been kicked down the road. so the president is correct say i have a mess i've inherited. yes, but as you once said to the widow of the officer were lost in nigeria, you knew what you're getting into. you were running for the highest office in the world and problems come with this job. yes, it's been kicked down the road. now the issue is what are you going to do with it? a danger for me is that we combine or show a military force with not so vague allegations were tweets and statements coming out of the white house that we are preparing for a fire and fury storm, coupled with i think general mcmaster who said we are closer to worthen ever before. it then gets into the realm, well, could we start something by accident, misinterpretation, that he really feels we're coming with three aircraft carrier groups, with class submarines in the region, et cetera. coupled with the language that we are using. now, if we're going to continue to use the language and yet not do anything, once again that the road a critical of what the president might have in mind picky might be serious. he wouldn't be taken as series. i think we're closer than some of the experts who said where 20%, put it higher, i would put it higher, i would put a close to 35 or 40%, just because i think that we have ratcheted up the language. we are putting more and more troops and resources into the region, and i think it accentuates the possibility that there could be action taken by miscalculation but it don't think any military leader is going to recommend that we fire against someone on a printed basis. i don't believe that but it could happen. >> i wish we had another hour to talk about this but i want to thank secretary cohen, secretary albright for being with us, and thank you for your service to the united states. thank you. [applause] >> so without further ado, we are going to go to our last panel. we have as members of our strategy group former members of the cabinet, former national security advisers and also journalists. david sanger, nick kristof and david ignatius are all with us as i'm going to turn this over to our moderator, david ignatius. ignatius. but welcome to steve. >> thank you, nick. as you been seeing all morning and as you'll see in this panel, the reason that the aspen strategy group is unusual is that it does bring together an unusually high level of -- and it is genuinely nonpartisan, the discussions picked this summer as every summer, for someone like me, a journalist, gives an extraordinary chance to listen to what really matters, the questions that are going to drive our world going forward and to hear the smartest people in our country in foreign-policy and talk about them. so it's us national pleasure to be with susan rice and steve hadley, both former national security advisers, both part of what i sometimes call the great chain of being in national security policy, from thoughtful leader to thoughtful leader. through the years. so i thought we might begin by asking is each of you were to write a memo at your end at the end of this year turned upside down, to take the title of our session this summer, write a memo to your successor h. r. mcmaster, looking at where we are, we have come through this first year of the trump presidency, and where we're going. what would be the bullet points in that memo to h. r. mcmaster? susan? >> thank you, david. i think i would begin with a little bit of humility recognizing as steve and i do it's a tough job that h. r. mcmaster has. and arguably more difficult in the current context and even steve and i faced. i would say several things. first of all i would encourage him to do his utmost as i imagine he's trying to do, but in particularly difficult context to affect i degree of message discipline within the administration. one of the challenges we have seen as we have different members of the senior leadership team at different times saying quite divergent things on very important and sensitive issues. that's not only a function of the president and his tweeting that sometimes seems divorced from what i believe has been considered policy, but also even within the cabinet at times we are different things, for example, from the u.n. ambassador then we hear from perhaps the secretary of state or the secretary of defense and i think that in the time when our leadership is being questioned and went our stability and consistency is being questioned, having greater message discipline would be very helpful.. >> secondly, i would encourage general mcmaster to work with secretary tillerson and others in the administration to staff of the state department with urgency, and to cease efforts to reduce the budget by 30%, and to reassure our career diplomats, in fact, the work they do is valued and necessary. i think we have a huge crisis of confidence within the state department which is not a short-term problem, but with the exodus at the senior ranks and the lack of recruits at the junior ranks, i fear we're facing a generational deficit. and it is one that undermines our advocacy across every region of the world. i would also urge general mcmaster to be very careful -- give very general thought apropos on the conversation we were having on, north korea, to the public assertion that there is a viable military solution to the problem in north korea, for all the reasons that was discussed previously. i fear that while publicly new administration should take any option off the table, that we are boxing ourselves in to a narrower set of options on a very complex problem that could lead us in a corner what we don't want to be and where the outcomes can only be counterproductive. and then finally, i think the list could go on, but i would also encourage a renewed effort in 2018 to reinforce and reinvigorate our alliances, our traditional alliances in europe, also our relationships in asia. i think we are in different places with different allies, but each of them at different times has been buffeted by ambiguity if not downright confusion as to the constancy of our commitment. and i think in this very difficult and uncertain time, that is not helpful to any number of hours larger objectives. so let me stop there and let steep answer this question. >> steve, bullet points for h.r.? >> so i would start by telling him that he is doing some things right. when you're in those jobs everybody is selling you are doing things wrong. so it's nice if sir start out by saint you're doing something nice so i would probably say you set the table pretty well. you know, i've spent a lot of time in the middle east. i spent some time in asia. people are feeling pretty good. they feel he has connected pretty well with our traditional allies in the middle east. he has a good relationship with japan. a lot of the concerns people have from the rhetoric in the election had been mitigated because the policy adopted have straight considerably from some of the rhetoric. i would start by saying you set the table pretty well for a set of policies and strategies. now you got to put the food on it and eat the meal. they will start doing that with the national security strategy. i would probably say that the perception from the outside is the process is not working as smoothly as it needs to at any level. it doesn't seem to have gone into kind of a battle, and that's of course an issue for the nationals could advisers, really an issue for the president. they don't seem to be working together as a team in a coordinated way, particularly at the senior level yet. that's worrisome. i would say to them that one of the things they need to figure out is roles and responsibilities. this sounds a little silly and i may be wrong. i need to say i was not part of the trump campaign or the transition of the administration. i've never met president trump so you can decide how much weight to give on what i'm about to say. but this is a man who is now president of the united states has never been in government at any level for a single day. he doesn't even know how it works. he knows how real estate works. i think there's a problem of figuring out helping the president understand what his role is. what he needs to do and what he needs of the people to do and getting some kind of roles and responsibilities clarified. everybody seems to be tromping a little bit over each other and that's not going to work effectively. i guess another i would say is that there is a military cast to the policies, and yet some of the people who are former military who were in cabinet level positions know very well from their own experience that the problems we have with terrorism, the problems we have in the middle east cannot be solved by military means alone. and my worry is that i have not seen them rolling out the kinds of integrated strategies that you need that capitalize on the progress that we've made in iraq and in syria, against isis to break basically the caliphate and exclude those forces. you now need to come in behind with a set of policies that help those victimized communities reestablish good governance, economic prosperity and security. people say there shouldn't be any nationbuilding. we are not nationbuilding. those people need to build themselves but they need help, and it's in our interest to given that help. because if we don't know enough be long-term stability. it does not long-term stability, we will be back with isis 2.0. i would say i think they are not giving evidence to develop the kind of full set of strategies, integrating political, economic security and military to achieve stability in some of these areas. and that's an important thing that needs to be done. >> one big thing of this world turned upside down, in my judgment, has been the rise, really the validation of the rise of china as a global power. that was symbolized in xi jinping was extraordinary performance at the party plenum, which was probably followed by president trump's visit to beijing, which seem to me to be an american validation of this new chinese role. and i want to ask each of you to reflect on china and the united states, and susan, let me ask you to begin that. president trump's disruptive style, putting people, you know, on edge was on display during the transition we mentioned, had a phone call with the leader of taiwan, worrying the chinese, but that's been followed by an extraordinary embrace it i strung together all the nice things donald trump is said about xi jinping, , it would gon for pages. and in particular the administration seems to have decided that china is the key to successful outcomes with north korea. so i would ask you to assess that judgment, good relationship with china is the center come that it's best to get it that by disrupting them, threatening them with trade sanctions, et cetera. within this extraordinary embrace in the last few months. >> david, i think the challenge is solid. first of all in my estimation the bilateral relationship with china is the most consequential that we have in the world it's also one of the most complex and difficult because we have a mix of competition and the potential and, indeed, in some instances the reality of cooperation. and i think what we've seen from the trump administration is sort of pivoting to extremes pic on the one hand, as you mentioned he came entering the transition, putting not just china but manys statement on taiwan the suggested a radical recalibration of our historic balancing of taiwan and china. and also some very hot rhetoric with the potential for trade war. and now particularly culminating in his visit in november we've seen the pictures you sent i think extraordinarily warm embrace of xi jinping with as you said more accolades for xi that almost any other leader with the possible exception of vladimir putin. and yet you know, xi is governing in a very iron handed way. we have said nothing at all publicly about human rights or the rule of law. we have said very little about our very real economic concerns and the necessity of protecting our intellectual property, our industries that under threat. and so i think what we need to do is strike a balance. not one extreme, not the other. china is a country with which we must find avenues for cooperation where our interests overlap, and we have done so in the past on everything from nuclear security to pandemic disease, not to mention climate change. but we also have to recognize that china's interest and ours substantially the version we are competitors in many important realms, from the asia-pacific region broadly in the south china sea, to various other areas. and we can't fawn over china. we can't brush under the rug its nefarious practices. on the other hand, we can't create an mortal enemy where we didn't have one. and so that balance is one that a think we are to strike, to think we haven't quite found our footing there. north korea obviously is a very important issue with which we have to work with china, but i think we have to be realistic. yes, china has the capacity to continue to tighten the economic screws and north korea, and we've seen it incrementally do so over the years, including in recent months. we want to encourage that. we want to be able to continue to work with china to ratchet up the pressure in united nations, if that remains a necessity but also to have a productive dialogue with china about future scenarios that might unfold on the korean peninsula so that we are not surprising one another. by to expect china to go as far as we might like it to go, to put this sort of regime threatening destabilizing pressure on north korea that american administrations have sought for many years i think has been and is increasingly unrealistic to expect will be manifest by china. so we can't expect it to solve this problem for us. it is a country with which we must work on the problem of north korea but with realism and a recognition that china's interest and ours, while the converge on the goal of denuclearization, do not converge on the needs of achieving it. >> steve, what your judgment? is the top administration being too accommodating and optimistic -- trump administration -- about what this china reason, the way i describe it, and do to help the united states to frame an order in the world that is continual for us? >> i think we are all not really appreciating the magnitude of what china represents. you know, people said, there are people emphasize the competitive aspects. i think susan as writer that are competitive aspects who say we have another global rival. like the soviet union. the soviet union had great military power but was fairly weak in economic and in terms of influence. china is a formidable competitor. and when we talk about the change in the disruption of international order we've had since world war ii, one of the big factors is the reemergence of great power competition, and china is at the forefront of that. and in some sense it's not just china could you also we are actually seeing emerging or have emerged to major new world powers, china and india. so becomes a very complicated geometry. but i think china's significance is enormous. one belt, one road initiative that you talked about is, it is probably in my view the most remarkable strategic initiative so far in this century. it's basically saying to the united states and others, you think you can box me and on my pacific coast? well, i have been in land land-based access road is going to take me all the way to europe and i'm going to build infrastructure and i'm going to get support for those countries. if you look at impact the chinese economy has sat in southeast asia, the extent to which countries are dependent on china and that they're using that end to end to influence the policy of this country that's the potential when you look west as china builds out its infrastructure. so this is an enormous challenge for the united states, for the international order. and i think to manage it it's going to take us all working together. i was very troubled by the withdrawal from the transpacific partnership. not just because the economic significance of it but from the strategic significance. it looks like we're not playing in the region when we had to do just the opposite we need to be active in the world, and in that part of the region, in every dimension, diplomatic, economic, military, you name it. and we need to not look at it as northeast asia, southeast asia, south asia. it's all patient and we're going to have to work with japan, south korea, australia, india, all these countries in a coordinated way, not to draw new lines, not to contain china, but to engage china and try to shape its policies. because it is going to have a decisive influence on the region and the world, and it's our job to try and shape it in productive ways and to engage them and to design a revised and adapted international order that is stable that serves our interest and freezers as much as we can of the democratic foundation of the existing order. that's the real challenge so he has to do with north korea and all the rest by the don't think we really appreciate and that taken into account the magnitude of the challenge we face. >> so i want to just note we are going to be turning to the audience in about ten minutes for questions, so please do be thinking of what you would like to ask stephen hadley and susan rice. i want to turn now to discussion of a subject that dominates our headlines, our cable news coverage, and that's russia. i want to ask you to focus this looking forward, and ask susan to begin. susan, as i remember president obama's policy towards russia after the crimean aviation, after ukraine, after syria, and i would say to some extent after russian meddling in our election, but you can contest this, i remember the phrase exit ramp. it kept being repeated. we want to leave vladimir putin and exit ramp and we want to allow him to stop this policy that's damaging and disruptive. it seemed to be some optimism that given the sanction we're applying against russia that at some point this would just become too costly for putin and he would take one of these exit ramps. i haven't seen that, as i want to ask you as you look towards 2015, what you think it still time to keep those exit ramps open, or whether you as you look at policy would think maybe it's time for a different strategic view towards russia? >> well, let me just clarify how i understood the term exit ramp, and it was initially applied with respect to ukraine. we had organized the european union and ourselves and our g7 partners to implement increasingly stringent sanctions on russia with the aim of trying to get them to roll back their interference and involvement in ukraine and in crimea. and we were also engaged with our partners in europe on an effort to negotiate the minsk agreements which ranks in germany played a leading role in and we were very much engaged in which it in permit would have resolved at least the issue of eastern ukraine in a fashion consistent with international law, consistent with the interests of the sovereignty of kiev and we did that as were also substantial increasing our support financial, , economic, political and military to the government of ukraine. and the notion was that the pressure in the sanctions were not met purely to punish or as an end in themselves. they were to create an opportunity for a diplomatic solution to be found. and the offramp idea was you don't close off the opportunity for your policy to succeed if, in the event, the price you have is having the desired impact you want to be able to capitalize on that with the a diplomatic ope. and the same theory applied in the context of syria. that was not that there is no the practice in the context of russian interference in the election so i think those are different circumstances. but in the case of ukraine and in the case of syria, russia doubled down on its policies. and i think in recent months we've seen not the opportunity for them to take an offramp but, frankly, a superhighway where there's no constraint to what they might do because not only have we not increased the sanctions, even though congress mandated that we must come though sanctions have not been forthcoming from the administration. not only that but we've talked about rolling back existing sanctions. and we have essentially left the diplomacy both in ukraine and in to a lesser extent ukraine but particularly in syria, to others. and so i think we are in a place now where the question is what are our tools to address both the ukrainian challenge and the syrian challenge question asked of a broader question, is it time for a rather radical readjustment to our approach to russia? i think it is at least time for clarity and understanding across party lines on national and bipartisan basis that we face a russian that is pursuing policies that are antithetical to our interests. rush is not our friend. putin is not worthy of the nobel prize, as has been suggested by some. you know, , he is acting in a wy that is in violation of international law and in violation of the norms of humanity, particularly in syria. and we need to be united and clear in pushing back on that. i think we need to open the sanction congress of mandated. we need to consider additional sanctions. there are steps we could take which would, in fact, be more complex than the sanctions with imposed to date because it implicate not only european interest but in some instances our interest as well. but it implicate russia's interest even more so we should consider that balance. we need to continue to build up our support for the eastern flank of nato and not open the door to russian meddling in nato to our rhetoric or through any ambiguity about the constancy of our commitment to our nato allies. and in places like syria and elsewhere in the middle east where russia is running around arguably, eating our lunch in places like egypt, we need to be very clear about where we are with our partners in different regions and make clear that we are not leaving open doors for russia who, as a system whose interests are manifestly an opposition to ours taking advantage at our expense. >> steve, president trump has been remarkably consistent through the campaign, through all the turmoil that surround the question of russia in saying he believes that the interest of the united states are served by the better relationship with russia and with vladimir putin, and that you can't solve major problems unless you have that. is he wrong? and how would you assess the question i produce susan? is it time for a change in how we deal with this powerful russia? i would just tack on a comet i have shared with you before our session at to a friend of mine recently said to me, think about all these issues, we need to give russia a punch in the nose. we need to find somewhere in the world and give them a punch in the nose. what do you think about the punching in the nose? but more generally about this interesting paradox of trump's russia policy? >> will look, i think we could all agree that it improve relationship with russia would be a good thing. russia is active in a lot of theaters. my worry is that putin in some sense has decided his role is to be a spoiler in some sense. if the united states is for it come he's against it. if the united states is trying to do something, he will take the opposite side. ambassador kislyak before electable . said you americans have decided rush is the enemy and putin is going to just start initially what it's like to have rush as an enemy. this is not a good place to be in. the question is can we change russia behavior so in a way it's consistent with our terms? so that it can be a partner. we have a long way to go to do that. how do you get there? a couple thinks it seems to me and you see a lot of it in terms of ukraine and what he's doing in europe. my view for what it's worth is that russia, that putin is not a great strategist and he's not particularly reckless, but he is a brilliant opportunist, and he sees an opportunity and he steps in and takes advantage of it. and you saw in syria and you see in other instances. and you will make a move. and then he was the weather his interventions succeeds and whether he is resistant. if it starts to flounder and he doesn't, and if he is resisted, he will pull back. it is not resisted evil of his objective spirit we saw that in georgia i think we've seen it elsewhere. what you need to do? two things. one, you need to take things off the table, deny have opportunities. that's what we're trying to do, for example, in the baltic states and in central and eastern europe. we are trying to strengthen nato's presence to put troops on the ground to make it clear that the baltic states are off the table. the balkans are off the table. they are not going to be an opportunity for putin to do what he did in ukraine. second of all, when he does act, i don't know if it's punching in the nose but you need to act in such a way that he pays tactically and cannot achieve his tactical objectives and see that he's actually been strategically defeated. his aspirations in ukraine i think were much more ambitious in terms of basically taking a large swath of that country on the eastern side and have it very much pro-russian. he's now got, you know, donetsk picky is paying a price in terms of sanctions come in terms of isolation. at some point it will come time to test and see what he is willing to have a settlement of ukraine to reduce an investment, and do it on terms that are acceptable to the ukrainians and acceptable to the rest of us. i don't know. we ought to test that proposition, and if it is not available, if it is not an option and we need to increase sanctions and we need to do things like arming the ukrainians with lethal weapons. this guy is going to be a problem and he needs to be engaged on each of these kinds of scenarios, and i think this combination of hardening opportunities so we cannot make mischief, and then confronting him when he does act. finally, the thing we still have not figured out is a campaign is using to sow division within our society, you see it in the united states, you see it in europe, we have not figured out how to counter that anyway, and we're not doing it effectively. this is part of the ideological struggle. we now have xi jinping and chinese has his authoritarian state capitalism is an alternative to the western democratic free market model. putin certainly seems to believe the same thing. and they are actively trying to convince the world that theirs is a superior model, and we are on our back foot. we are not responding in a sensible way. >> before i turn this to the audience for your questions i want to ask one last question of my own, and i want to pull the camera back, if you will, to the basic question that we were struggling with last august in aspen. i think it's fair to say that every member who grew up in the shadow of the world that was created after world war ii and the idea of american power that was embodied in the work of president truman, george marshall, of the liberal american order, liberal international order as we describe it. as i wanted ask it as a final question. how lasting each of you think the damage to that order is? and what are the best ways to defend that broad idea? susan, maybe you could start. is the damage here going to be lasting or will this sort of revert to its previous shape after this period of turmoil and the presidency of donald trump? >> i think we have to distinguish between the various forces pulling at the liberal world order. some of them might be considered predominantly exogenous coming from outside, and we consider a number of those in aspen, the direction of europe, the rise in china, the new economy, russia's role. and each of those has an origin and a momentum of its own, which i think we need to be very realistic about. i think steve's point about how significant this reason china is is a very valid one, but i don't think it represents a mortal threat to the united states, if we manage it carefully. then there are the endogenous origins, or causes of the fraying of the liberal world order and those are things i would argue come from within ourselves as the principal leader and creator of this liberal world order. and these things are relatively, these are shocks that have been added to the exogenous factors. and i think we can work to manage temper and accommodate and limit the exogenous aspects of this. but obviously with the greatest control theoretically over the endogenous aspects. and i don't know that we have fully grasped the significance of what i would term the abdication of american leadership internationally, which we have seen take on new forms as we walk out of agreements that we ourselves committed to, come whether it's paris for tpp or put in jeopardy the iran deal or now take decisions on things like jerusalem which leave a substantially isolated internationally. .. it facilitates the kind of disruptive efforts that the russians engaged in during and arguably since the election. when we ourselves are so polarized and unable to agree even on the facts that we are debating, much less on where we are going, we are threatening our own ability to come back. the answer to your question, if we were playing with all of our cards on the table with the degree of national unity and strength and clarity of our role in the leader of the world, these challenges could be managed and we can see the evolution of the liberal world order. it may not be identical to what was in 45 or 90, but it can be a 21st century version that substantially upholds our interest and our values. but if we don't get our domestic house in order and decide what kind of leader we want to be and do it from a position of national unity, then i think a lot of that's may be off. >> steve, you always say to me and our conversations that we need to remember this president is an insurgent. i've grown to understand and think about that point. with that in mind, let me ask you directly, is the old order finished? is it over? if it's possible that is so, whit what might be coming to replace it? >> there will always be an order of some sort, that is to say there wil will be a relationship among states. whether or be like the order we've had since world war ii which is basically the creation of the united states and our allies based on democratic principles and open economies. it has been very successful, not just for the united states but for the world in terms of providing an unprecedented period of prosperity and security. the alternative to that is a different kind of order. you could have, and it's one of the answers to the question you put to susan. it is not fated that that order will fade away, but it depends on our policies. if we try to exclude and not adapt that order to the changes we have seen, it is more likely to fade away. if we do not embrace china and try to incorporate china in an effort to adapt that international order, by not standing aside when they create the asia infrastructure and investment bank, we should have embraced it and been part of it. we should have tried to use our influence to make sure it met international standards of transparency and accountability in helping those who received funds. it should been integrated into the national order. we should be doing the same thing with the one belt, one road. if we do that, i think china would be preferred to be inside at the table adapting the existing order and we can preserve it. if, on the other hand we do not we tried to stiff on china, the risk is that china, russia, and others will form an alternative international order based on authoritarian principles, not on win win but zero-sum competition and that potentially becomes a safe haven for all the bad actors of the world who want to get out from under the international order that makes him subject to things like sanctions. a space for the north koreans and the iranians and the money launderers and the terrorists and an alternative structure which will not be the place any of us would want to live in will be competitive with the international order that we've seen. >> i think it depends on our policies. one of the things i would add to the memo to mcmaster is everybody thanks because he withdrawn from certain agreements that you are withdrawing from the world. i don't think that is their intention, and they have to come up with an explanation of the theory of engagement they can sell these american people. last point, one of the things we made at the strategy group, we can say all we want about reconstituting and adopting the international order, but it's also supported the american people and there is a group of people who gave expression this last election who feel victimized by globalization, threatened by immigration, abandoned by their political leaders and betrayed like people like us. those people are the ones who really say the international order should go away. we have got to address the grievances. there are ways to do that. i wish we had a tax-cut that really helped the middle-class and an infrastructure that would give people in their 50s and 60s who only have 20th century skills jobs and then a real job training to adapt to the new economy. put a ribbon around that and i think you could have gotten bipartisan support for it. we've got to address those grievances to make people comfortable to continue to be a platform and supportive of american engagement in the worl world, and then we need to adapt this international order but we've got to address the factor factors, whatever, the ones involved in our domestic policy. we have to do both or were not going to save this international one. >> let's turn to members of the audience if they have questions, please identify yourself. >> please identify yourself. >> i'm with the capital trust group. what advice would you give president trump on the middle east and on jerusalem? [laughter] >> i think it's a little late on jerusalem. so, i think they are off to a pretty good start, they've embraced our traditional allies both arab and israel as well and made it clear we are on their side and we have their back. i think that's a good thing. they've focused effort and builds on what was done on the obama administration to go after isis, we've had great success in iraq and syria, a lot of rhetoric about checking iran, a lot more rhetoric than reality and the problem with iran in the region is a relatively unaddressed problem that we haven't really got a strategy for so i think they are off to a fairly good start and i think the other thing we really need to do, madeleine and i did a study and talked a lot about a lot of bottom-up activity in terms of young people and women who are forming businesses and social organizations, we need to be supporting them and we need to support those governments that view them as allies in building a better future for their people. we see that in places like tunisia. you see it in places like ua and what the crown prince of saudi arabia is trying to do with his country and for his country vision. we should be supporting those efforts. madeleine and i in the study we did for the atlantic council, we came away optimistic in the sense that there are things to work with in the middle east that offer the prospect of a more peaceful and prosperous middle east. we have to help them wind down the civil wars and we've got to support those governments that are making positive steps to reform their economies and engage their people in developing a common future. we do those things and have a little luck in the middle east over time can turn to a positive direction. >> susan, any thoughts about jerusalem or the larger question of middle east policy? >> i would say the following is where we need to be going. first of all, i will address the broader middle east, it would be folly to up and the real deal which is working and created a degree of stability. we ought to sustain it and not threaten its viability because we will be the ones, the iranians will be the ones free to pursue a program unfettered and we will be isolated from our allies. secondly, we need to continue and not take our eye off the ball of sustaining the games that we have made against isis. i think we are much better, generally speaking, at executing military campaigns and we are with dealing with the post- conflict political and economic and social reconstruction. i think steve's point earlier about staying engaged in iraq and syria, and building behind the military victory so that we don't see isis 2.0 is absolutely vital and it's not clear to me that we have a theory of what the post- conflict outcome will be in syria. i would also suggest that with respect to the peace process, or potential peace process that the move in jerusalem, while it may be done, was not helpful, obviously. if the aim was in fact to put on the table a peace plan that results in the potential for a two state outcome, i think what it has done is to make it very difficult, if not impossible for the palestinians to approach the proposal with anything like a positive attitude. maybe that was the point. but if it wasn't, i think it has had the inadvertent or the consequence of making the effort more remote. finally, i may take a different point of view, i think we definitely need to continue and sustain our efforts to counter the rands nefarious activities in the region, but not with absolute blind carte blanche support for the saudi's and their partners in the region because i think we have underestimated the ability of the young saudi crown prince to engage in behavior outside of his borders that is detrimental not only to our interest but also to saudi interests, i think we are risking exacerbating the filters in the region by our unqualified and untempered amen choir for everything that comes out of riyadh including its very destructive policies in yemen. i think we need to make clear to our good friends and partners in saudi and the golf that we share their concern about security and the threat that you iran poses in the region, but there is a smart way in a dangerous way to deal with that. also a way that may make ultimately the iranian problem more dangerous over time even if it gives us some short-term sense of gratification. we need to be a little bit smarter about how we calibrate our support because i think it is over torqued at the moment. >> we have time for one more question. let me turn this back to our director nick burns. this conversation makes me look forward to next summer in aspen and reporting back to you after that. >> thank you david and susan, bill, madeleine, those are the people who are left from this morning. it's been a great conversation. i hope you'll consult our book, the world turned upside down. it's nonpartisan. we are trying to provide solution for the whole country. thank you all for being here and thank you too our panelists. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> later today on c-span2, the centers for strategic and international studies will host a discussion on u.s. investments in the economies of developing countries. it starts about 15 minutes at 1:00 o'clock eastern you can watch it live on c-span2. also online at cspan.org and listen with the free c-span radio out. tomorrow, house and senate negotiators meet to discuss reconciling the two republican tax bills that were passed in each chambers in recent weeks. the plan is to combine the proposals into a single bill which would have to be approved in house and senate before goes on to the president for his signature. that's tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. eastern. it will be live c-span three. that will be wednesday. alabama voters are going to the polls tomorrow to elect a new senator to the seat previously held by jeff sessions. the birmingham news reporting roy moore has widened his lead over democrat doug jones according to the most recent poll. two new surveys are showing the republican leaning between four and five points. the election is tomorrow and after the polls close we will have results and candidate speeches live from birmingham. >> the c-span buses traveling across the country. we recently stepped in tallahassee florida asking folks what's the most important issue in their state. >> the most important issue in my state is funding brought a lot of time we talk about the lack of resources and the quality of the education, however it all starts at the source the board of governors, the money they give us, it's important that we rally for the money they give us but it also has to do with the amount of students attending our institution. i think we have to start at home where we are telling students come here and it starts from there and then we can rally for more funding. >> i think the most important issue to me in the state of florida is education because if we don't give our kids the skills they need to get a great job in the future, i don't know what our society holds. >> one of the most important issues in florida is the education opportunity act. as a first-generation student and a low income student, i pride myself on the importance of being able to afford the opportunity for students to be able to participate in educational opportunities across america. understand funding is not always resourceful and it's not always available but there needs to be an ongoing discussion for those considered the underserved. >> my issue is the quality of life, not the quantity. in my humble opinion i believe developers are over developing the mass communities, they don't make it as pleasant as it could be. >> voices from the state on c-span. >> on this week's communicators, a discussion on the fcc's upcoming debate and vote on repealing the net neutrality regulations. >> a couple weeks ago brendan carr, the newest member on the republican side was a guest on the program. here's what he had to say about net neutrality. >> in a nutshell, what this proposes to do and i'll be voting for it is returned

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