Transcripts For CSPAN2 Aspen Security Forum Discussion With

The Obama Administration. He spoke at the annual Aspen Institute security forum. Welcome back to the aspen security forum. Going to have a session with my friend tony blanken called foreignpolicy choices for 2021. Introduce both of our panelists. Tony doesnt need an introductionto most people for watching. We became friends and worked together long ago. President clinton at the National Security council had a very distinguished career in public service. As many of you know he was staff director for the Us Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Obama Administration and those eight years he was assistant to president obama and Principal Deputy National Security adviser. It was National Security advisor to Vice President biden and deputy secretary of state for president obama and Vice President biden. Is now senior Foreign Policy advisor to Vice President biden in the Biden Campaign and its great to have tony blanken with us and hes going to be interviewed by jerry side, executive editor of the wall street journal. He writes a weekly capital journal column which i read and all of us shouldread. Jerry has had an extraordinary career. He has reported from the middle east in the 1980s and 80s and 90s for the journal and coveredthe white house at the end of the reagan administration, the entire George Hw Bush administration and interviewed every american president since reagan. Hes part of the team at the wall street journal that won the Pulitzer Prize for their recording on 9 11 and has a book coming out which talks about briefly from august 21, jerrys book you we should have seen it coming, conservative movement in the republican party. Its a pleasure to have jerry here and tony, so great to hear see you atthe aspen security forum. Thank you. Tony, lets start with a scenario. Joe biden walkedout of the white house in january 2017. As Vice President. Lets say perhaps he walks back into the white house in january 2021 a president area and how will the world have changed in the intervening four years and how will he have changed in the intervening four years. First its great to bewith you, thanks so much for having me. So jerry, what has changed i think in a word pretty much everything. The Vice President s talk about this, he would inherit a divided country at home and a world in disarray. The two are inextricably linked to our own ability, to be a force for progress in the world and to advance our own prosperity depends on the strength and vitality of our democracy at home and thats very much challenged but globally we have time to state the obvious, extraordinarily obvious demographic and geopolitical change. Just over the past four Years Technology and information have accelerated the shifting of power and alignments among nationstates. The fusion of power away from nationstates and the growing challenges and Effective Governance within them so i think whats changed is the need to do 2 things. We have to approach this with equal doses of humility and confidence, humility because we face the most challenging and complex National Security landscape in decades and we cant just flip a switch and make everything right but confidence that it remains within our capacity to shape a Better Future in which our people are more secure and more prosperous and opportunity is safeguarded. I think the big thing though, the elephant in the room is covid19 and arguably jerry that is the greatest challenge the United States has faced since world war ii. Its killed more americans than died in world war i and more americans have perished and in every war the United States has fought since 1945 911 combined. The recession unleashed represents i think the deepest downturn since the great depression. Millions of americans unemployed threatening entire sections of our economy and of course theres so many tales that could wag the covid dog. Were looking looking at an emerging debt crisis, Food Insecurity , more protectionism, more nationalism, all of which can ricochet back on the United States so i think in a sense the biggest and most acute change driven by covid19 is a central dilemma. On the one hand this should be a wakeup call at our own fate, the United States is inextricably linked to events beyond our borders but the dilemma is this. When we have melting trans or national dangers, unprecedented interdependence , we have to find collective and sometimes even Global Response but we have rising nationalism, eroding faith in government, the diffusion of power i mentioned and resurgent Great Power Competition making that very cooperation increasingly difficult to achieve. So we have a lot of work to do if there is a biden presidency and very quickly i would just say a couple of quick things and thinking about this environment and how we address it. The Vice President believes true security for our people requires investing in them. Investing in our democracy and investing in our solidarity with the rest of the free world and investing once again in our world leadership so we have to start to rebuild the foundational rights of the United States promoting innovation, reinvigorating alliances and partnerships with other democratic nations and that in turn becomes the core for collective defense and high Standards International cooperation across the whole range of policy issues and it would give us a negotiating leverage attractive paul of a strengthened community of democracy she more collaborative responses to these very big challenges. Tony just to get in myway tony and i will talk for half an hour and then out to questions from the audience. As you suggested when the coronavirus is dealt with we will see china as the paramount strategic talent in our bilateral relationships and one that become more troubling is the will remind us endlessly over the next 90 days, many of these efforts stemmed from South China Sea problems happened on joe bidens previous watch in the senate and in the white house so the question is how will joe biden as a president view china . Parker, competitor, rival, enemy . Some combination of all the things you just said you had china poses achallenge across a multitude of dimensions, ecologically, technically, diplomatically. Arguably the biggest challenge we face from another nationstates writ large and as you suggested we have to contend with one dimension of this is an increase increasingly assertive china that uses its my course others and reap unfair advantage. It tends to ignore International Rules to advance its own interests. That asserts unfounded Maritime Claims that threaten freedom of navigation, represses its own people and a democracy in hong kong so this is a huge challenge but heres the, i think there is where we have to start. We have to put ourselves in a position of strength from which to engage china so the relationship moves forward more on our terms, not theirs and the problem is this. Right now by virtually every key metric chinas strategic position is stronger and ours is weaker as a result i believe of President Trumps failed leadership. Think about this, jerry. The president has in effect told china helped China Advanced key strategic goals. Rethinking american alliances, check. Leaving a vacuum in the world for china to fill, check. Abandoningour values and getting beijing a green light to travel human rights and democracy in hong kong, check. And then maybe worst of all debasing our own democracy by attacking its institutions, its people, values virtually every day and slowly reducing its appeal with regard to the competition with china and thats almost checkmate. So the problem is this, i think we have to think about it this way area in many ways the challenge posed by china is less about their strength than it is about some of our selfinflicted weaknesses. Another challenge is about us. The competitiveness of our own economy and workers, of our democracy and political system. The idea behind it is a good one. A High Standard race to the top agreement in which the rights of workers of the environment transparency are all front and center and by the way even in its original projection it involves china and that requires china to take steps to undo some of the management through state and the price of as positive and i think the other idea behind it that we have to again realize in a different way is china needs to face a choice. If 40 or 50 of world gdp is together in a High Standards raised to the top agreement effectively achieve than china has to decide whether wants to be part of that or left out and if i want to be part of it they would have to adhere to those High Standards but at this point given where we are even some of the deficiencies Something Like that would have to breathe renegotiating whether thats possible or not i dont know. Hes said if its going to be revived it would have to be renegotiated but thats not a commitment to do that rates thats correct. Its possible tpb vanishes forever but depends principles behind it might be resurrected and move forward and made better in some other warm and thats certainly possible that the larger point is this, if you are dealing with chinas excesses in commercial diplomacy in trade or for that Matter Technology which is obviously a vital chapter are you better off going it alone . Are you better off in inflicting a massive tariff war that does more damage to yourself than it does to china . At whats what happened in the case of President Trump he started to tear for it did terrible harm to our own farmers and consumers and if you look at some of the numbers and jerry you know this the numbers ive seen a 1200dollar lost an average American Real household income, canceling of the temporary benefits for American Families that they got from their tax cut. Farm bankruptcies were up 20 last year in farm income was down a multibilliondollar even after taxpayerfunded subsidies and the manufacturing recession that was wreaking havoc even before the pandemic. If you do that and at the same time you alienate the countries that should be with you because they are similarly starting terror force against them and by constantly insulting them or do you Work Together with other democracies and similarly agree with countries to set the highest possible standards and then take that wade and apply it to dealing with china . The think the answer is selfevident. One more china question and we will move on but in the middle east where he used to live and work people talked about creating facts on the ground in a way china has been trading facts on the seized territorial claims and artificial islands but is that a fait accompli or canals be rolled back and is there a way to roll that back . Back i dont think its but its a big challenge but again what you have to do is a few things have to reset the foundation to be able to approach china and as i said that requires in the first instance investing in ourselves reinvesting in our own alliances making sure we have the appropriate and by the way you will recall the rebalance to china under the obama by defenestration did those great things including for example deploying 60 of our naval assets to the region and then i think you have to be very clear and very direct and make your views and what you were going to be known. Let me give you a quick example. During the obama i did frustration china declared an identification cell basically requiring airplanes flying for International Airspace to identify themselves to the Chinese Government. Vice President Biden went to beijing he saw president xi jinping and said very matteroffactly we will not recognize the identification zone. We are going to fly airplanes. And thats what we proceeded to do slider flying our bombers there it into the South China Sea with the Vice President was a strong advocate of silky back up your words with deeds and you are clear and direct the government respects you. Lets turn to iran and the nuclear deal the jcpoa. So back on with the Biden Administration . Lets think about where we are first because theres a lot of digging out to do. When President Trump blocks away from the jcpoa an agreement that was verified we working he promised a better deal and he also said the pressure he would exert would make iran less dangerous. Unfortunately the opposite has happened that iran is Building Back its Nuclear Capability could President Trump effectively freed iran of its commitments and is enriching at higher levels and using more centrifuges than ever before and the breakout necessary for iran to have enough Nuclear Material for weapons decreased in more than a year under the deal to a handful of months now and it can get shorter but continue this way. All of this under President Trump swatch and at the same time in in and withdrawing from the deal the president has isolated us from our closest partners and encourage russian china to move closer to tehran this funding our own ability to work with the countries we need to check irans destabilizing action. The present as you will recall also promised pressuring iran with new sanctions that are allies oppose will stop its aggressive behavior in the region. What did we see . It became more aggressive and not lessen responded to President Trump sanctions by targeting oil tankers in the gulf infrastructure in saudi arabia u. S. Troops in iraq down to the american drone and as all of this was spiraling President Trump brought the United States close to a possible war with tehran on several occasions sent thousands of additional u. S. Forces to the middle east at a time we should be ending the socalled threat and youll remember this after iranian backed Saudi Oil Facilities under contract in iraq there was a retaliatory strike against sula money and no tears shed over his demise of passes has to be done in the context of international strategy. Dramatic brain injuries to 100 service personnel. The bottom line by walking away from diplomacy and acting erratically President Trumps made conflict more like the end the Nuclear Program is now advancing in the spots which brings us to something thats happening right now and this is important to come next january. Secretary pompeo asman talking about the u. S. Launching an effort to extend it indefinitely at the united nations. As best i know today and maybe this will change but as best i know today not a single ally is on board with that indefinite extension so russian china can keep their security housing and Administration May complain about the sunset on the embargo but it was the Main Elements or rather i should say a main element of that embargo was negotiated and put in place by the obamaBiden Administration through the hard work of discipline incompetent diplomacy and of course we insisted in the jcpoa itself on powerful sanctions on provisions. Theres only one catch snapback needs to be invoked by a participant to the Nuclear Agreement and in pulling out of the iran deal the administration literally headlined ending u. S. Participation in the jcpoa. Legally and itll make whatever argument wants to make that legally its on shaky ground and being able to use the snapback revisions we negotiated. So theres a lot of irony in hearing from the administration blaming the obama by demonstrations for the sunset of the conventional arms are stretched stretches because much of that was put in place by art ministries and the firstplace and we could have probably extended those prohibitions from inside the deal with our ally. Now we risk blowing up the knickers security and National Vital to our security. Thats the long backdrop and the foundation so the president has been very clear about this but he would keep the bill on the nuclear deal and make it longer and stronger if, if iran returns to strict compliance and then we