The Center Welcome to the center for new american security, we are pleased to have you here with us this morning. As a think tank focused on developing bolden innovative approaches to american foremost security and challenges, its hard to take a hard look at the Foreign Policy that informs american Foreign Policy, because it is pretty vital that we examine the course our country is on, and the prevailing wisdom behind it, and ask ourselves with someone from the past holder today. How it will future demands have different efforts for the years before. But do we need to do differently than what weve done in the past . So to address these questions then, and other ones as well, we are very pleased this morning to house senator josh hawley of nevada. How the emergence of great power conversations should and even must change american approaches. Senator josh hawley took office in january 2019, hes the youngest senator in the senate and serves on the Armed Services committee, the judiciary committee, and the Homeland Security committee. And this time in congress, senator hawley has emerged as a major voice in the debate over policy towards china, including on the issue of hong kong, on Technology Issues and on an array of National Security issues more broadly. So we are delighted to have him, and i ask you to join me in welcoming senator josh hawley. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, it is great to be back, its great to be with you this morning. My theme today is, america relationship with the world. And as any student of American History knows, that relationship has always been unusual, because we are an unusual nation. We were the first colony to break from its parent country, the First Republic of the modern era, and the First Republic in history to be governed by a middle class. We were in short, a revolutionary nation, and all these years later, we live by that revolution still. This revolutionary republican heritage has shaped all our dealings with the world beyond. For our first century, weve insured not abroad in search of monsters to destroy, the fairest face john quinte adams, in fact we venture not abroad much at all. And today, the American Public as rightly skeptical of open ended commitment, and rightly tired of endless wars. And, yet, we have rarely been content as a status quo power. We have long sought to make the world to different, better, safer for our republic, and for our way of life. Now, we find ourselves at a new crossroads, to an uncertain future, the long Twilight Struggle that defined american Foreign Policy for half of a century has been over now for half as long, but the long promised end of history has not yet arrived. Almost 30 years ago, george h. W. Bush spoke eloquently of a new world order in the aftermath of a cold war, a new era of universal liberal values. Instead, at this hour, we find ourselves embroiled in the longest war in our nations history, with no discernible end in sight. Frequently at odds with our european allies, over matters small and large, divided at home, searching for purpose abroad. And all the while, the greatest threat to our nations security in a decades, rises in the form of a martial and expansiveness china. It is my argument to you today that our present a Foreign Policy concern, the cast of mind and expectations embraced by both major parties from the last 30 years its not adequate to our time, and it is not right for our future. This consensus has left us distracted from, the dangers at hand and has left us and prepared for the challenges that we face, and it has been rejected by the people of this country. Im talking about the consensus that i will call progressive universalism, consensus of a new world order. Built around american hegemony, and the goal of expanding multilateral rules based patterns of cooperation to the entire International System. This consensus anticipated the steady expansion of professional ideas, progressive institutions and progressive values worldwide. Both of our Major Political parties embraced this vision. The american left emphasize the expanse in a multilateral institutions and decisionmaking. They prioritize cooperative bodies like nato and the United Nations and stressed International Norms and International Law as the Building Block of a progressive global order. Their version of a universalist project is all the United States as indispensable, yes, but it also regarded american unilateral action as something to be avoided, even as a danger. So, left leaning universal pushed to integrate the United States more deeply into multilateral bodies, patterns of cooperation. Their aim has been to use american influence to expand a network of norms around the globe. On this approach, the International System would put to look more like america, and america will become inseparably bound to the International System. American conservatives, on the other hand look somewhat different. If the left came to believe that someone around the world of shared the same values, then the right concluded that everyone could share our values, and should. For many conservatives, this month building a world of democracy, and this ambition required, in turn, a willingness to enforce changes and hostile regimes, in an attempt to democratize whole regions and cultures, while preserving the ability of our government to act on its own. Conservatives have not fundamentally disagreed with their counterparts on the left about the ultimate goal of creating a progressive International System, its just that they doubt it could be realized for a multilateral institutions. At the end of the day, conservatives did not trust anyone to get the job done, but america, and for this reason many conservatives embraced international and defended the protection of american hard power. The differences between left and right on how precisely to achieve the universalists vision and have precisely to arrange it features have led to fights that are by now all too familiar, dinner lateral isnt versus multilateralism, the proper jurisdiction of international tribunal. But in the decades since the cold war, right and left together have steadily expanded american commitments have steadily expanded militaries footprint has steadily expanded, americas military involvement in every theater of the globe, and all manner of projects from election monitoring to punitive airstrikes, to a military and aid. And it is this consensus of left and right together that deserves pressure. More than that, it deserves replacement. The universal Progressive International order never fully arrived because it was never fully rooted in reality. The unipolar moment at the cold war and was bound to past and, it has. That moment was an aberration, a triumph at one of course but one that offered no roadmap for our Foreign Policy today. And most of the world never signed up for the universalists project to begin with. Neither russian nor china for example ever agreed to play the part assigned to them. Meanwhile, the pursuit of the universe illustrate left the United States without a clear strategic focus, but with metastasizing commitments, commitments that have been paid for in the nearly a dollar of the american working class, and in the daily pressured lives of american soldiers. Lets not forget, as we honor our veterans one day after veteran today, who these soldiers are. They are drawn overwhelmingly from middle and working class families, and for families with a history of military service. The burden of the nations war has fallen on these americans, and this country can i continue to ask them to fight on without a clear purpose, and without clear priorities. It is time for a new departure, based on americas needs in this new century, because the point of american Foreign Policy should not be to remake the world, but to keep americans safe and prosperous. And, those aims are in service to a higher one, to preserve to protect to defend our unique american way of democracy. We are a republican nation, the first of its kind in the history, and it is time we pursued a Foreign Policy in keeping with that national character, and the National Interest that character defined. So we should begin here with americas history and americas character. We were the First Republican in the world founded on the political power of a middle class. Though the right to suffrage was to narrow and our founding in the right of citizenship were unjustly constricted, still the United States was never governed by and aristocracy. Artisans and farmers are the ones that supports the revolution and sent their sons to die for us. They were the ones that ratified our constitution, and that constitution was written with him in mind. Since our founding, the citizenship has only expanded, not without great struggle, and the character of our public has only become more formerly entrenched. Our culture, our economy, our whole theory of freedom its premised on the dignity and power of the working man and woman. Ours is a middle class republic. And to preserve the american nation means to prove preserved the security and prosperity of this american middle. This imperative forms the basis of our interest in the world, we seek an International Order where we can practice our unique way of democracy. We seek an International Order that it will allow our working people to prosper, and to maintain their political and economic independence. Of, course we seek an order, where their country, are people called home is physically safe and physically secure. We are today a vast continental nation, and our middle class as large and, to enable it for asperity we manufacture and trade, not only among ourselves, but with others beyond our borders. Our middle class character makes a commercial nation, and for that reason, a trading nation as well. American interests are bound up with access to other regions of the world on open and equal terms. American security requires that this nation be free to speak out and free to negotiate with those partners to return favorable to all sides. We can only pursue those in if no region of the world, if gnocchi area vital to us is dominated or controlled by another power. As americans we have long to find the political liberty at home as freedom from domination, that is the theory of our constitution, and it should be a keystone of our Foreign Policy abroad. We seek an International System that is free from head to non micro, free from control by any one state. We seek an International State meant where they can get on a level field, where they can control their own destiny. This has long been our ambition in the world when this nation was still in its infancy, and our borders did not yet span the continent, the Monroe Doctrine announced our intention to prevent any foreign power but exercising hegemony, dominance, in our hemisphere. This hemisphere was in the region of importance to our security. In the first and second world wars, are in for similar, this nation took up arms in places far from home to stop imperial powers from seizing control of europe and asia. The same logic guided americas hands through the cold war, across administrations, this nation pursuit strategies of alliances to stop the soviet union from dominating europe and asia and ultimately the globe. And we succeeded. Amid this history, of course, america pursued its own experiment with imperialism. Thankfully, the American People rejected that policy, and this nation has rightly pronounced imperial ambitions. We should be clear that imperial domination violates our principles, and threatens our character, our aim must be to prevent imperialism, not exercise it. To stop domination, not foster it. And now we must gird ourselves for a new effort. Because new challenges wait, and new dangers rise in the worlds most critical of regions, the indopacific. It is here, in asia, that the Great Security challenges up the 21st century are now playing out. It is here that any policy centered on american interests must focus. This region, this sprawling expanse with diverse peoples and cultures and nations its critical for our trade, critical for our jobs, critical for our national welfare. And, today, this is the region where the minutes of hegemony looms largest. It is surely evident to everyone in this room that the indopacific is increasingly left. So in this critical region at this moment, the peoples republic of China Gathering strength by the day, intervening in the affairs of its neighbors, distorting and manipulating cameras on capitol to distract as much as it can, while giving us much as possible and return. And its not just about trade and investment its only about programs that seek to bend the wealth of the world with the Chinese Communist party. Its far more than that, china bracing we believe our allies and partners, aggressively militarizing rockets in the scene, and openly seeks control of the entire region. We see this in hong kong, where promises are broken and violence escalates, and basic liberties are restricted or just appraisingly ignored. We see it in taiwan, where a free people stand fast against the power but on everything there independent identity. We see it even in our own corporations like disney and the nba, throw overboard free speech as a first sign of asians commercial pressure. When it comes to commerce, it is true. It is also true that they have given us a degree of market access, but for years this relationship with china has concealed another inconvenient truth, our producers and our workers are increasingly at the mercy of the Chinese Communist party. China is building its own military and economic power on the back of our working class. This reality has been right in front of us, for those that ive care to look. Over 3 Million Manufacturing jobs left our shores in the first dozen years of the century, due to china. Devastating families and getting communities. Our workers have known for years what this city is only beginning to discover, that the beijing regime will first take from you and then replace to the second it gets the chance. Chinas drive for regional hegemony is a clear and present danger. At every juncture that china has grown and strength, those that have shown the willingness to weaponize and protect its power, to chinas before domination its the greatest Security Threat this country and this century. Our Foreign Policy around the globe must be oriented to this challenge, and focus principally on this. Our references, to curb rogue regimes and to protect valued partners like israel, these priorities are essential and they remain in americas interests. Now, we must address them in light of chinas bid for mastery in asia and beyond. This is more than a contest, its much more than a rivalry, this is a bit for mastery, by an authoritarian and imperial state that we fundamentally cannot trust, and that we fundamentally cannot support. And so, we must adapt and change to answer this new reality. That means strengthening our ties with our existing allies and partners in the region, those maritime democracies that have historically kept this region open and free. It means seeking out new numbers, like india who share our interests. It means key strategic places encountering malign chinese influence in other arenas, from africa to latin america to our carleton universitys here at home. It means evaluating our current range of commitments to ensure that this challenge has the attention and resources it needs. American might is not limitless, and nor are the lives of the American People. We must make hard choices and articulate clear priorities in order to meet the challenge before us. Lets be clear, our task is not to remake china from within, rather it is to deny beijings ability to impose its will without, whether be upon hong kong or taiwan or our allies, or upon us. We cannot make our nation in our image, but we cant react americas we, protect our way of life. We improve our friends, and we support freedom loving people everywhere. I tell you today that our Foreign Policy can change, and must change. It is time we face facts and address the world as it it is. And it is time our Foreign Policy honors those nations in new custody and reflects its character. To those who advocate for withdraw and isolation, i say that will not keep america safe and prosperous. Outlets the Foreign Policy for the people who built this country, when that honors our workers by protecting their livelihood, protecting our way of life by respecting our Service Members by asking them to sacrifice for a justified purpose and only with a reasonable plan. Our purpose in the world is informed by our character at home, and buy our enduring aspiration to be a free people. Our unique wa