Transcripts For CSPAN Fmr Secs. Of State Kissinger Shultz O

henry kissinger and george schulz talked about the challenges facing the u.s.. they were joined with former deputy or -- deputy secretary of state richard armitage. they testified before the senate armed services committee, which is chaired by senator john mccain. he was not at the hearing as he remains in arizona battling brain cancer. [camera shutters] >> we will bring to order the senate of armed services committee. we receive testimony on global challenges in the national security strategies to meet those threats. it is my honor to welcome our distinguished witnesses. farmers secretaries of state henry kissinger and george schulz, and the former deputy secretary of state richard armitage. your careers of service have been unbelievable and great, we are so honored to have you folks here. i want to begin by reading a brief welcome from our chairman mccain, who regretfully is unable to be here for today's hearing. i am quoting him now. "with the rising global challenges and increasingly complex and competitive strategic environment, america needs leadership, wisdom, and experience that only statesman of this stature can provide. this committee and this nation thank you for your service and we are grateful for your continued voices of reason during these troubling times. we look to you for the lessons of history as we all seek to secure a safer, freer, and more prosperous world." i guess one of the most enjoyable committee hearings i have experienced before was three years ago when we had a hearing of the same with kissinger and schultz were here, a lot of the comments that you made were very prophetic. here it is three years later and a lot of these things have happened. so we are looking forward to this. speaking on behalf of the entire committee, we look forward to having the chairman back and i'm sure he will be. now more than ever the challenges of today's world require strategic vision. each of you is uniquely qualified to help this committee thinks through not only our present challenges, but also the strategy needed to meet them. the insights and wisdom you offered then were discerning. they have borne out in the years since. the trump administration recently released a new national security strategy and a national defense strategy, which emphasizes the priority of competition, the danger of rogue nations, and the enduring threat of terrorism. the national defense strategy is a frank and realistic view of the global strategic environment. it offers the blueprint for protecting our national interests and reestablishing america's position as the undisputed leader of the free world. and it shows a commitment to restoring our military advantage across all domains, and strengthening and expanding key alliances. so we just ask each of you to help us think through the strategy. the members of this committee are well aware that the keys to success of many strategies require resources, we need to cast aside partisan politics and pass an appropriation bill while finding a way to fix the defense spending caps that have disseminated our military in terms of readiness and modernization. we thank you for your service and what -- and look forward to your testimony. sen. reed: thank you very much, mr. chairman. i would like to welcome dr. kissinger, dr. schulz, and dr. armitage. certainly a distinguished panel and we are grateful you are here. each of you have played a very important role in some of the most monumental foreign-policy decisions in our nation's history. on behalf of all the members of this committee, we look forward to your testimony. this morning's hearing on global challenges in u.s. national security follows the release of the new national defense strategy. this strategy, which supports the president's recently released national security strategy, states that the central challenge facing our nation is the reemergence of long-term strategic competition with russia and china, and that this competition replaces terrorism as a primary concern in the u.s. national security. without question, russia remains determined to reassert its influence around the world, most recently by using a maligned influence to undermine the ourican people's faith in election process as well as other western election. it continues to threaten the rules-based order in the asian-pacific region by economic coercion over smaller neighbors and undermining the force of navigation. given the experience of our panel, i would welcome their assessment of the strategic threat posed by both russia and china, and what recommendations they have for how the united states can counter these powers, both militarily and by utilizing other critical elements of national power. great power competition may be the current geostrategic reality, but we must not neglect other equally complicated challenges. north korea's nuclear ballistic missile efforts are a great -- a grave national security threat. iran continues their aggressive weapons development activities, including ballistic missile development efforts, while pursuing other destabilizing activities in the region. the united states must stay focused on countering security threats from isis in iraq and syria as it has spread beyond the middle east region. also building the capabilities of afghan national security forces and denying any safe haven for extremists. in the coming weeks, this committee will hear directly from secretary mattis and senior leaders at the defense department on how the national defense strategies will address the threats facing our nation. review, it would benefit this committee to begin with our witnesses' assessment of the new strategy and whether it strikes the appropriate palette between great power, a petition, and the threat posed by rogue regimes, terrorist or nations, and other actors. the importance of allies and partners. the esteemed panel before us knows better than most that robust international alliances are essential to keeping our country safe. the national defense strategy unveiled last week puts a premium on bolstering current alliances while pursuing new partners. as i have stated many times, i am deeply concerned about statements from the president to -- that have undercut america's position in the world, and dismissed the position in the world the united states has established following world war ii. these actions isolate the united states and reduce our influence in the world, leading to uncertainty. at the same time, the administration has proposed dramatic cuts to the state department. i am concerned we may seek to counter the strategies pursued by russia and china simply by reinvesting in our own military advantage at the expense of necessary development in diplomacy and development as essential tools of national power. given the experience of this panel in cultivating diplomacy, i welcome their assessment on sustaine can be done to these political relationships and the importance of non-military elements for our national security. i want to thank the witnesses for being here and for their lifetime of service and dedication to the united states of america. >> thank you, senator reid. normally we ask our witnesses to confine the remarks to a certain time. i would not be so presumptuous. talk as long as you want to. [laughter] >> dr. kissinger, you are recognized. thank you so much for being here. dr. kissinger: it is a great honor to have this opportunity and i would like to say one word about our chairman, who i have known for 50 years, since he returned from vietnam. inthat time, i had been hanoy and they had offered to let me take him on my plane back to the united states. and i refused on the ground that nobody should get special treatment. and when i met him here at the white house, he came up to me and said, "thank you for saving my honor." and senator mccain has preserved the honor of our country as a great warrior, but also as weakne who, whenever the were threatened, he made it clear that america was on their side and that he was not simply a warrior, but a defender of our values all over the world. so thank you, particularly for this occasion. you have asked me to review the international situation, and i have taken the liberty of submitting a statement to the committee, and i will use my time here just to make a few general points, and then reply to your questions. i would also like to say how meaningful it is to me to sit next to my friend and mentor, george schultz, from whom i've learned so much. and mr. armitage. i will deal with your query in three points. the urgency example five other nuclear challenge from north korea, the immediate, exemplified by the middle east, and thely iran, long-term exemplified by great power relationships and by the reentry of great power politics as a key element of the international faith. the international situation they sing -- the international situation facing the united states is unprecedented. what is occurring is more than a coincidence of individual crisis. rather, it is a systematic, systemic failure of world order which is causing momentum. and which has led to an erosion of the international system, rather than its consolidation, a rejection of territorial acquisition by force, expansion of mutual trade benefits without are then, which hallmark of the system. compounding this dynamism is the pace of technological development whose extraordinary progress threatens to outstrip our strategic and moral imagination and makes the --ategic equation a tenuous tenuous, unless efforts are made to sustain it. the most immediate challenge to international security is posed by the evolution of the north korean nuclear program. paradoxically, it is only after pyongyang has achieved nuclear and intercontinental breakthroughs that measures to deal with it have begun to be applied. that has raised the possibility that, as in the case of iran, an international effort intended to prevent a radical regime from developing a nuclear capability will culminate at the very point that that regime is perfecting its capacity. for the second time in a decade, an outcome that was widely considered unacceptable is now on the verge of becoming irreversible. my fundamental concern about the nuclear program of korea is not the threat it poses to the territory of the united states, significant as it is. my most immediate concern is the following. if north korea still possesses a military nuclear capability in some finite time, the impact on the proliferation of nuclear weapons might be fundamental, because if north korea could maintain its capability in the face of opposition by china and the united states, and the disapproval of the rest of the other countries will feel that this is the way for achieving international prominence and the upper hand in international dispute. so therefore, i think the denuclearization of north korea must be a fundamental objective, and if it is not reached, we have to prepare ourselves for the proliferation of weapons to other countries, which will create a new pattern of international politics which will affect our concept of deterrents and our possibility of deterrents, and it will have to be carefully examined, in which this committee will go on to address. we face thee east, international system as it existed at the end of the first world war and at the end of the second world war. every country in the region is either a combatant or a theater of conflict and, to me, the overriding concerns at the moment are these. we have successfully defeated isis, but the question now is the success of what happens next, and i am concerned that in the occupied -- the territory once occupied by isis, iranian will becomeforces see a beltd we will emerging that goes from tehran to beirut and undermines the structure of the middle of the region and creates a long-term challenge. and finally, i want to refer to what has been identified by the administration as the dominant element now, the relationship, the great power relationship between the united states and china and russia. there is no doubt that the military capacity of china as well as the economic capacity is growing. and there have been challenges from russia which have to be met, especially in ukraine, crimea, and syria. and this raises the fundamental question, what is the strategic relationship between these countries, vis-a-vis the prospect of peace? strength comparable enough to reduce the restraint? our their values compatible enough to encourage an agreed legitimacy? these are the challenges that we face. the balance of power must be maintained, but it is also necessary to attempt a strategic dialogue that prevents the balance of power from having to be tested. this is the key issue in our relationship. let me conclude by stating that i think that the fundamental situation of the united states is strong, that we have the capacity to meet these challenges. china has to deal with adjustmentsdomestic and it is possible that we can balance those against the that can be exerted outside. russia is domestically also in considerable difficulty. and my basic point is that we can maintain a favorable balance of power, but we must couple it with a political structure in which the issue of war and peace as a diplomatic, as well as a military expression, because the evolution of the weapons is so great and the challenges of thatology are multiplying both elements of our national strategy must be stretched. and i am confident that we can achieve these objectives in that spirit. thank you. sen. reed: thank you very much. we pause for a moment. we have a quorum. and so, i ask the committee to 1056 pendingst of military nominations. all of these nominations have been before the committee for the required length of time. is there a motion to favorably report this list? there is a motion, is there a second? all those in favor say aye, all opposed say no. the ayes have it. secretary schultz, thank you for being here. dr. shultz: thank you mr. chairman. first, i would like to pay tribute to senator mccain. like henry, i have known him a great long time. he fought for his country in combat. he endured terrible suffering as s a prisoner of war and he managed to handle himself with dignity and pride. then he has served as senator and presidential candidate. i remember those dates with the slogan "country first." that is john mccain. country first, always. senator, i'm sorry you are not here. how mucht you to know i admire how you have served our country. i would like to appreciate my -- express my appreciation to be testifying alongside my friends henry kissinger and rich armitage. and i take the occasion to particularly underline one of the things henry brought out in his testimony. that is the concern we must have about nuclear proliferation. as you remember in the reagan period, president reagan thought nuclear weapons were immoral. we worked hard to get them reduced and we had quite a lot of success. in those days people seemed to have an appreciation of what would be the result of a nuclear war if they were ever used. i fear people have lost that sense of dread. now we see everything going in the other direction, nuclear proliferation, the more countries have nuclear weapons, the more likely that one is going to go off somewhere. and the more materials lying around, the more people can make a weapon very easily. this is a major problem that can blow up the world. so i think we have to get at it. the right way to start is what henry said, to somehow be able to have a different kind of relationship with russia. after all, russia and the united states have the bulk of all the weapons, and then start something. i will have some comments to make about russia in a minute. i distributed two things, number one is a little demographic outline, and i want to speak about that. and i also distributed a prepublication book, and i'm going to talk particularly about two of the articles in the book. one is by a retired marine corps colonel who was at the national defense university. the other is by lucy shapiro and her husband. lucy is a biologist and her husband is a physicist at stanford. lucy is the smartest person in any room she is and, and she is also fun. if you were looking something really good to get lucy to come and testify, you will learn something. i'm going to draw on these two papers. so you have that book. i think my main point is that there are four major forces acting in the world that are going to disrupt it greatly and rapidly. and anything we do has to be aware of these disruptions. the first is tomography. see the blue lines are 2015 to 2035. and then 2035 on out. the golden lines, and you can see how things are shrinking rapidly. birth rates are falling, longevity is rising, and a sense we used to think of populations as being a lot of young people and a few older people, now it is totally reversed. with huge implications. i think it is worth also noting the big declines coming in the population of china and russia. russia's economy is not as big as italy and it has twice the number of people. it shows you how poorly they are running their economy. their population is shrinking. in a sense, we have russia playing a weak hand aggressively. we need to put a stop sign on that and get to talking. i think the first thing you notice is the world population is changing, it is getting older for the most part, the places in the world that are seeing a big increase in populations are mostly in africa and some parts of asia. these are places where there are big explosions of population, these are also places where the economies are not good, and where probably adverse conditions are most likely to arise. i think it is almost certain that there is going to be a big effort for people to migrate away from those places. how the world is going to handle this large migration. we have to start thinking about it. so that is my first point. -- my second point has to do with governance. we are surrounded by communication. information is everywhere. some of it is right, some of it is wrong. some of it is put up for a purpose and some of it is neutral. it is hard to sort it out. people can look at this information, they can communicate, they can organize. we get a lot of government by protests of one kind or another. we have to learn all over again have to govern over diversity, just as government is having a hard time, things like nuclear proliferation come along which can only be dealt with by intergovernmental cooperation. this crisis in government is a very important thing to address and try to think through. the third and fourth big changes have to do with technology. the first is artificial intelligence. the second is 3-d printing, it should be called additive manufacturing. it is the same thing. -- it is a big deal. i am going to focus on what is happening with this. first, let me talk about the economy. what is happening as a result of these forces is de-globalization. this is already happening. it is becoming more and more possible to produce the things you want close to where you are. the advantages of low labor costs are disappearing. the more you produce things near where you are, the less you need shipping and that has a big impact on energy. it has a huge impact on the countries that of providing low-cost labor. places will wind up being able to produce the things near where we are. it is a revolution. the revolution in the economy has all sorts of security implications that need to be thought about. this is a very big deal. this is just a sample in terms of information. over $700 billion in capital in developing economies. greatly exceeding be $145 billion out loads was during the great recession. in contrast, foreign direct investment into the united states is growing rapidly. in 2016, flows into the united billion mored $391 than double the inflow of 2014. outflows in 2016 only 299 billion. in 2016 the united states sign that inflow of investment capital of $192 billion. in 2015 the latest statistics available from the department of -- i am putting an underlying on the point that i was making. -- and underline on the point i was making. robotics, 3-d printing, and artificial intelligence are driving manufacturers to reconsider not only how and what they make, but where they make it. we are on the very front end of a big shift from labor to automation. robot sales are expected to reach 400,000 annually in 2018. this estimate does not account for the newly developed collaborative robots that assist human workers and dramatically increase human productivity. there are other things i won't get into which underline it. new technologies are bringing manufacturing back to the united states. the united states has lost manufacturing jobs every year from 1988 2009. a total of 8 million jobs. over the last six years we regained about a million of them, with the cost of labor to a significant advantage it makes little sense to manufacture components in southeast asia, assemble them in china, and ship them to the rest of the world when the same item can be manufactured by robots or printed where it will be used. this is a huge revolution taking place. it also underlines the enhanced ability to protect your intellectual properties since you don't have to ship it around. that is the economic side. the fourth industrial revolution, i am reading from the text, "will drive massive changes in political and social spheres and will and evidently change warfare too." you want to look at the dramatic improvements in nano energetics, artificial intelligence, drones, and 3-d printing, they are producing a revolution of small, smart, and cheap weapons that will redefine the battlefield. open source literature says nano aluminum created ultra high burn rates which give then no four ornano explosives 10 times the power of tnt. small platforms will carry their -- very instructive power. you can put these small platforms on drones, and drones can be manufactured easily and you can have a great many of them inexpensively. so then you can have a swarm armed with lethal equipment. a ship at anchor is a vulnerable target. you have to think about that in terms of how you deploy. in terms of the drones, while such a system cannot be jammed, it would only serve to get a drone to the area where its target is. at that point, the optical systems are guided by artificial intelligence and can use on board multispectral imaging to find the target and guide the weapons. it is exactly that autonomy that makes the technological urgency -- technological convergence a threat today because such drugs will require note external -- no external input other than the signature of the target. they will not be vulnerable to jamming, not requiring human intervention the economists platforms will also be able to operate in large numbers. -- autonomous platforms will also be able to operate in large numbers. that is a revolution in how warfare is conducted. you have all sorts of ways of enhancing the impact of the weapon by explosively formed penetrators and buy what they call bringing the detonator. the chinese are very much on to this. the chinese can transport, erect and fire these fairly large drones with a two person crew. just a single battery of 10 trucks could launch thousands of autonomous active fighters over a battlefield. we have bases in japan and airfields, they can take them out. we have to learn how to disperse and change the way we deploy. this makes domain denial much easier than domain usage. i think there is a great lesson here for what we do in nato to contain russia, because you can deploy these things in boxes so you don't even know what they are on trucks, and train people to unload quickly and fire so it is a huge deterrent capability that is available and it is inexpensive enough so that we can expect our allies to pitch in. i might say, on cyber, there was some mention of that earlier. there is a big problem, but it is important to remember that all networks have nodes in the real world and some of them are quite exposed. when you combine that with autonomous drones, maybe you can do something about those nodes. the creative use of swarms of autonomous rooms to augment forces to strongly reinforced nato as deterrents. nato can assist front-line states in fielding autonomous drones that are prepackaged in standard 20 foot containers, the weapons can be stored under the control of reserve forces. if the weapons are prepackaged and stored, the national forces can quickly deploy the weapons to delay a russian advance. what is happening is, you have small, cheap, and highly lethal replacing large, expensive platforms. this change is coming about with great rapidity and it is massively important to take into account in anything that you're thinking about doing. let me turn to a completely different aspect of the changes going on. excuse me for rattling around my newspapers. now i turn to lucy's paper. she says "breakthrough advances in the sequencing, decoding, and manipulation of genomes of all organisms are occurring at the same time as disruptive changes in the world's ecosystem. we are in the midst of the sixth grade extinction which is predicted to culminate in the elimination of 30% of all ocean forms, that is going on now, sharks and rays, 30% of all freshwater frogs, all mammals, 20% of all mammals, and 50% of all birds currently alive. there is a gigantic change taking place." tropical diseases are everywhere. we are not getting up to scale on our diagnostics of them. and our treatment capabilities. we also know how to manipulate genes in a way we never have before, so why are we getting these mosquitoes that do so much damage and fixing them so they don't do so much damage? that can be done. this is all happening as a result of the warming climate. as lucy says, climate change is a clause of the global redistribution of infectious diseases. that is happening. she gives an example here. she refers to the worst animal disease pandemic in u.s. history, that was back in 1914 50 million domestic poultry in 21 states were slaughtered. how did this happen? global warming has shifted by returning birdlike paths leading to an overlap of the south to north asian-pacific flyway and the north american pacific flyway to the bering strait. the arctic waters are warming faster than other regions on earth, so the bering strait has become a meeting and mingling spot for flocks of flyway that formally rarely met. dna sequencing enabling identification of specific asian flu strains that were hitching a ride in these flocks. out of all this we get big trouble. i think it is quite apparent that what we are seeing is a result of technological change and increased knowledge in the dialogical area is a new world. a very different world. it is going to be de-globalized, and at the same time there are weapons available that will change the battlefield landscape. we are on top of these things, so are the chinese, the russians are probably less able. nevertheless, going back to the nuclear problem that henry mentioned. somehow we have to get our arms around the nuclear proliferation. a way to do it is to put a stop sign in front of russia and have them come to their senses, then start working with them on the nuclear matters as well. from that we can try to create a joint enterprise to work on this issue. take you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, secretary schultz. secretary armitage, thank you for coming back. >> thank you. now i get it. i know what my job is here today. i am a little like that fellow that followed know what to talk about my experiences in a recent rain shower. i recognize that your patient is -- i realize that your patience is in disproportion to the length of my opening statement. i have been here before. if you allow me to make only three points. the first, to join my distinct colleagues to send all the best wishes and prayers to john mccain. i miss him and i miss his voice, and i think it is important that he knows that. second, much to my amazement, the national security strategy and the national defense strategy actually work with each other to a very high degree. this is no small feat. having participated in many of those historically, they don't often comport. but this does. i want to call to note the national defense strategy, because i think it is a very clear eyed, well written succinct document that encompasses things. it encompasses the direction of political employees in the pentagon. they know what the president and secretary of defense want, they get it. it is a clear guide to our uniformed military and bureaucrats. i mean that term and a positive sense who populate our pentagon and beyond. they know what the president's priorities are. it is also very clear to you is -- as authorizer's what the president's priorities are. barriers on the street to show you what is important and what is not as far as the president and pentagon are concerned. finally, equally important is what the document does not say. it does not say that we face in existential threat today. it talks about here -- peer competitors, i'm all about competition, and if we do our job as a military and diplomats, fear competitors will become adversaries and enemies. to be in existential threat it seems to me you have to have the capability to annihilate the united states and the desire. china has the capability, it does not have the desire. she has too much skin in the game. capability.he north korea, iran, they don't yet have the capability, and their intention to me is still unknown. isis, and terrorist groups, they had the intention to destroy us but they don't have the capability. we have to keep our eye on the ball. the ball is to keep our competitors from becoming enemies and adversaries. thank you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. we have a full house here so i'm going to be very brief. one of the things that came across very clear from all of you and comparing our problems today to the problems of the past, we have threats that we haven't had before. all of you that served as director clapper, the former director of national intelligence, the quote he has given us and i'm sure you are aware of. looking back on than a half-century in intelligence we have no experience of time where we have been the set by more -- et by more crises and threats around the globe. then we have our chairman of the joint chiefs of staff to suggest that we are losing our qualitative and quantitative advantage. it is very frightening. i would like to ask each one of you, and secretary armitage you are very specific on the plan that the defense strategy, they came out from the president, and specifically the strategy. would anyone like to elaborate more on their support or nonsupport of that strategy that just came out? impressed but am it does not adequately represent the huge change that is taking place in deglobalization weaponryew type of that is coming out in the applications of that. we had the privilege of having jim at the stanford institution for years. he is wonderful. he is smart, he knows what is going on. if you ask him his opinion he tells you what it is right between the eyes with no ambiguity. >> i think you both do that. dr. schultz: he is a jewel. sen. inhofe: any other comments? mr. armitage: two comments. on the qualitative and quantitative edge that we are losing, is it no wonder? we are marching along europe, afghanistan, iraq for a long time. we ran these folks ragged. africa. it is no question that we are losing our training edge come edge, i our qualitative think it is run into the ground. i think the military leadership of the united states, secretary of defense, and you all ought to think to this problem and make sure we are deploying people -- and we are keeping people at home that need to be at home. i want to dispute to a tiny degree the fact that this is the messiest and most disorderly world we have ever seen. i think with 40 million refugees after world war ii and 40 million dead, someone might say, no, it was pretty bad. participated in the conflict, he can tell you. it is messy and disorderly, but is it the worst that it has ever been? i'm not sure. there are questions and the international community about whether the united states is going to take a traditional lead at we have for the past 70 years. thank you. sen. inhofe: while you have the floor. on the nuclear strategy, we had a hearing recently and it has been obvious to everyone and all three of you remember this, that china and russia have been modernizing their nuclear have beenell we sitting around not doing anything on ours. if you look at our nuclear triad, all three parts are aging. do you have any recommendations for what we need to do now? >> i believe in the tremendous importance of getting rid of nuclear weapons. as long if there are nuclear weapons the united states must have a robust, secure, and safe arsenal to use for deterrence and for a basis from which to negotiate down. >> we really haven't been doing any modernization since you have been at the helm. would you agree with that? dr. shultz: i read, but i guess was an early version somehow, that was sent to me of the national security strategy. i like to the beginning of it because it talked about our commitment to getting rid of nuclear weapons. this notion of using them that is spreading around is deeply disturbing to me. because of the consequences. do you remember the chernobyl nuclear power plant accident? t damage.ge -- vas i remember my first meeting with gorbachev after that. i found that he had asked the same question i had, what is the distinction between what happened to chernobyl and what would've happened if a nuclear weapon had been trapped there? the answer, nuclear weapon is much more devastating. it gets into your got the sen.se -- got the sense of the utter destructiveness of these things. sen. reed: thank you all for the extra testimony and her service to this nation. all have reflected the importance of diplomacy and also the multifaceted challenges that we face. not simply in the military dimension, the environmental issues, there are demographic issues, as secretary schultz has made very clear. can you comment, and you might , our secretary schultz whole government approach to this problem, is it adequate? dr. schultz: it has been over a quarter of a century since i have been here. i come every once in a while to testify. but what i know is i have run four departments, if you are not there you don't have a good idea what is going on. i think that the challenges, it is tremendous to coordinate efforts and they need to be coordinated. my impression is that since the defense department people can go and do something there is a tendency to rely on them probably more than we should. we should buck up other people to do more of their share. that is just an impression. >> dr. kissinger, any comments about our approach in terms of how well we are doing? dr. kissinger: the challenge we face at this moment is that is to determine what our national objectives are and how to reach them in a strategic manner. the defense department statement about our objectives seems to me adequate and expresses the necessity. but i would like to point out, as a student of history, that if one relies entirely on abstract military planning without having thought through the political consequences, one may find an and reversible position. none of the leaders who started world war i what have done so if they had known what the end result would be like. so when weapons are being procured, which in principle i favor strongly, one should also relate them to a military strategy that one is prepared to implement and a diplomacy that looks for the creation of a system by which you can determine the nature of the challenges and the extent to which they can be opposed. on the diplomatic side i think we need a more systematic approach to what we are attempting to do, on the military side i support what the defense department is trying to do and i agree with the objectives that have been stated with respect to north korea and with the middle east. they have been, up to now, conducted in a fragmentary rather than a coherent manner. >> thank you, secretary armitage, please. mr. armitage: the whole government sounds great, but in order to have a whole government approach you have to have an inventory of what your arrows are put in your quiver. i don't think we have that. you have to have resources, and it doesn't seem to be you can have a whole of government approach if your resources, at the state department, and insufficient ways. if it wasn't for the congress we would be down 30% in the state department instead of the 10% that the state department is down now. the whole of government approach has to embrace friends and allies. for us to do everything alone is wrong in my view. has to be seen that the whole of government is also diplomacy, also getting coalitions together . >> thank you very much. dr. shultz: a very important point that rich made. it is not only us, but our allies that we have to work with. all very much. you have signified the prolific -- proliferation issue as severely critical. and korea if it continues on its trajectory, that may be a way we can get the chinese and the russians to work together because my sense is they fear a proliferation problem. i will leave that to the next round. senator wicker: thank you very much. this has been valuable to members like me. dr. kissinger, let me ask about nato, and after you follow up, i will ask our other witnesses to comment. you said nato needs to be clear about its strategic purposes. what outcomes other than of -- other than violations of territorial integrity does nato seek to prevent? what should be the answer to that question among nato members? mr. kissinger: the challenges that nato faces now seems to be this -- for 300 years, europe was the designer of the international system and provided the leadership in the structure of the world, the united states in those periods standing apart. at the end of world war ii, europe was devastated, and the united states took the leadership of bringing together these various nations and guarantee their territorial integrity. the challenge was conceived to be from the soviet union as a military attack on europe. europe under the marshall plan recovered economically its capacity to act as a civil society, leadership in cash but it has not regained its but it has not- regained its leadership in international politics. therefore, at the same time, the challenges have altered from the attacks from the soviet union to a series of crises around the world that have potential dangers, but not immediately overwhelming dangers. so it requires a higher degree of assessment. so i think -- and so nato has constantly been faced with a series of what are called out of the area problems which are central in many ways to the overall equation, but not central to how they conceive it domestically. so it is important, and i support so many in the administration in that effort that europe play a more active role in some of the issues that i outlined in my colleagues. senator wicker: is ukraine out of the area, and what is the assessment there? mr. kissinger: that is exactly the issue. for russia historically, ukraine has been part of their territory, at least for 400 years. on the other hand, it is tied in many respects to europe. so i personally in my minority view have thought it was unwise to try to include ukraine in nato, but it is also impossible to have it as a satellite of russia. so the way i express that issue is this -- if the security border of europe is the eastern border of ukraine, then it is within 300 miles of moscow and will create tensions. if it is on the western border of ukraine, it is at the border of poland, hungary, romania. that is unacceptable for europe. so is it possible to have a ukraine solution in which ukraine is free in the political and economic field, something like finland, without the nato participation? in any event, russia has to adhere to the minsk agreement because it cannot claim ukrainian territory by force. but ukraine is at the border line of this conception. it should be politically and economically where it wants to be. the question is can one think of a military arrangement there that is not directly confrontational. senator wicker: the chair has told me that i can ask one of you to follow up. mr. armitage, would you follow up? mr. armitage: the most important thing we can do for nato is make sure they have a full understanding of the ironclad nature of our article 5, and we have to be credible in that. in return, nato has got to do something. it is not just 2% of gdp. i'm told recently that the british have no warships right now, that they are in ports. i'm correct to say the german submarine fleet is inoperable or nearly so. this is not acceptable. in exchange for an article 5 commitment for the united states, we have got to get a commitment that will stand up their capabilities. senator shaheen: thank you for being here and for your years of service to the country. dr. shultz, i cannot agree more with the discussion of the impact of technology and artificial intelligence and what is happening -- and how that will affect warfare. the concern that i have got as we look at what the potential for change in that area, how do we engage with the defense industrial base, which has been i think sometimes reluctant to acknowledge the need to move, and when we have got weapons systems that are very expensive and we have started down the road to development, how do we make that switch in a way that allows us to keep up with this evolving technology? mr. shultz: i suppose we have to start taking action. creating banks of 3-d printers and start using them. and the obvious fact that small, cheap, and many is better than a few very expensive and vulnerable is just that logic has to pervade, and we have to change. senator shaheen: one of the things i share the concern about nuclear proliferation and where we are now and what appears to be moving closer to a nuclear war in some way, not just in how we respond to what is happening in north korea, but the move to smaller nukes, and this whole russian idea that has been put forward that we can escalate to deescalate by the use of small nuclear weapons. how should we think about responding to that, because that does seem to be gaining some credibility in military circles? mr. shultz: a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. you use a small one, then you go to a bigger one. nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons, and we need to draw the line there. one of the alarming things to me is this notion we can have something called a small nuclear weapon, which i understand the russians are doing, and somehow that is usable. your mind goes to the idea that nuclear weapons become usable, and then we are really in trouble, because a big nuclear exchange can wipe out the world. i have a great friend in san francisco, the retired episcopal bishop of california, and he started something terrific called united religions initiative. he made a statement about a year ago. i tried to get him to publish it, but he would not do it. he said when you put your hand on the bible and swear to be president of the united states, that is the least of it. when you put your hand on the nuclear button and you can start something that might kill a million people, you are not president anymore. you are god. and who are we to say we are god? these weapons are immoral, as president reagan said many times. and we need to get rid of them. personally, i think the way to get rid of them is on the one hand maintain the strength of our arsenal, but then we need to somehow get rearranged with russia. personally, i'm very interested in henry's comments on the ukraine. agreement signed an when ukraine got rid of its nuclear weapons that they would respect ukraine's borders. then they totally ignored it. we cannot accept that. it seems to me with this new kind of weaponry, we can change the situation in ukraine, and maybe that is a place where we could have a pershing moment. a pershing moment is in the cold war, the soviets had intermediate-range weapons that could hit europe, japan, china, but not us. their diplomatic ploy was, do we can use our intercontinental missiles to defend our allies, risking their using their intercontinental missile on us. if we cannot agree, then we would the point range weapons in europe. we knew we were negotiating just as much with europeans as the soviets because putting a nuclear weapon in your territory is not very comfortable. at any rate, negotiation was conducted. president reagan did a very good job on it. we deployed cruise missiles. then came the day deal, ballistic missiles, we call them pershings. and here is where the alliance came in. everybody supported the germans. it was very controversial. the russians pulled out of negotiations. but the pershings got deployed. that was a turning point in the cold war. it showed the russians something special. it was a little side story, if i could just take a minute. nancy reagan was my pal, and she always fixed me up with a hollywood starlet at a white house dinner, so i got to dance with ginger rogers. after the deployment of the pershing, things softened, and i could go to the president and say, a soviet diplomat has said virtually the same thing, which boils down to if gromyko is invited to washington, when he comes to the general assembly in september, he will accept. i said maybe you want to think this over because jimmy carter canceled these when they went into afghanistan and they are still there. he said let's get them here. a huge event. i went to nancy and said, what is going to happen is gromyko is going to come to the oval office, will have a meeting, and they will all walk down to the colonnade to the mansion. there is stand-around time and a working lunch. it will be a nice touch if you were there for the stand-around time as hostess. she agreed. he sees nancy and he makes a beeline for her. before long he says, your husband wants peace? nancy said, of course, my husband wants peace. he said, every night whisper to your husband "peace." she said i will whisper in your ear, "peace." i said, nancy, you just won the cold war. we need another pershing moment. to get the soviets to see that there is a stop sign here and that there is another path, math all their economy is -- is a mess. their demography is a mess. they have really tough troubles in the caucasus. a different arrangement would benefit them greatly. and then we could start once again down the road of talking about nuclear weapons, and then this time maybe the more inclusive, have a joint enterprise of some kind and really get after this subject. senator shaheen: thank you. senator cotton: thank you for your appearance today and your service to your country. dr. kissinger, i want to return to a point you raised in your opening statement as well as written testimony. i will repeat it. you point out a paradox, the possibility that in north korea an international effort intended to prevent a regime from destabilizing capabilities will perfect their very capacity. an outcome that was widely considered as acceptable is now on the verge of becoming irreversible. would you elaborate on what you think that is the case and what we could learn from the situation? mr. kissinger: with respect to north korea, it is the idea that we should -- that there might be a negotiation based on a freeze for freeze. the concern i had with the iranian agreement was that in a way it legitimized the emergence of iran as a nuclear power. it only delayed it by some years. the situation with north korea is even more acute because iran did not get to have a nuclear weapon. but if one negotiates a freeze of the existing situation, and if that is established, other countries in the region confronting their own security problems are likely to come to the conclusion that it is safe to proceed with a nuclear program, and that then we would face a totally new situation, an arrangement in which there are considerable tensions, there is also an accumulation of nuclear weapons, and once this line is crossed, as george pointed out, we are in a situation where we have no experience in escalation where it is difficult to establish principles. and this would then start in my opinion a sequence of events in which some countries would resist us and other countries would insist on it. so, therefore, i think that denuclearization of north korea, which is not a direct, overwhelming threat to us, is important for the evolution of the international strategy with respect to nonproliferation. and, therefore, we need to make a distinction between measures that might relieve the immediate tension, but make an ultimate crisis all the more severe, and measures that need to be taken or could be taken to face the issue of denuclearization of korea. all the more so, it is the problem of iran, just down the road under the existing deals. that is my basic point. senator cotton: thank you. dr. shultz, in your conversation about destructive forces, one is migration. another historian who has testified in -- testified here before submitted an op-ed was published a couple days ago that even though this has been a source of controversy in the united states -- we just had a three-day shutdown about immigration, a contentious issue on our campaign, also contentious in europe. in elections in germany last year, parties had their lowest performance since world war ii. we have seen a rise of similar parties and politicians in sweden and austria and czechoslovakia, poland, hungary, and so forth. what ought western leaders doing to better manage the challenges posed by the graphic change in cash posed by demographic change and migration patterns? mr. shultz: i should think the first effort would be to do everything we can to see that the places that people are coming from are made more habitable so they do not leave. we have lots of things we could do that would accomplish that, i think. but then we have to reflect on our own case how beneficial immigration has been for this country. i went to a session in san francisco the other night where we were celebrating our old mint there, and it was alexander hamilton's birthday, and we were talking about how wonderful alexander hamilton was as our secretary of treasury. hamilton was an immigrant. henry kissinger is an immigrant. einstein was an immigrant. we benefited greatly. i daresay everybody in this room is an immigrant or a descendent of one. we need to be looking carefully at our borders and have a sensible immigration policy. and people in these places, there may be people that are probably ok for us. but i think the first thing is to do everything possible to help them in places they want to stay. senator cotton: thank you, all, gentlemen. senator heinrich: secretary shultz, you mentioned coming changes from artificial intelligence, to additives manufacturing, and another rapidly changing part of our world is the energy field, and you have been a strong voice for american leadership for a conservative force for addressing climate and energy. but at the moment we find ourselves in a position where the white house has obviously pulled back from the paris accord, they're implementing protectionist policies with regard to clean energy deployment in our country. i am curious your thoughts about what you believe america's posture with regard to climate leadership in the world and implementation of a clean energy strategy should look like. mr. shultz: just as we have a threat throughout the world from nuclear weapons, we have a threat from warming climate. in the paper from lucy's schapiro that i read from, it shows on the biological side some of those threats, but there are many others. i think there are two things that should be done that will help a lot. number one, a lot of people object to all these regulations, the government telling you do this, do not do that, so forth. let's get rid of all that. let's put in place a revenue-neutral carbon tax. put a price out there and let the market decide. so in the program that i have been working on, we would start with a $40 a ton tax and make it revenue neutral. so you would pass the money back to everybody who has a social security number. so make it a progressive tax and it would not have any fiscal drag, and it would sort out people, get them the incentives they need to go for things that are low in carbon. the other thing that i think is very important is to maintain a respectful government program supporting energy r&d. it does not have to be huge because i know i am the chairman of mit's energy advisory boards, and i have more or less the same role at stanford. i listen to what these guys are doing. and the r&d is dramatic. as result of their r&d, our solar costs are down. fracking was the result of r&d, so this can be very productive. we want to keep this going. we have been working at these two universities. we had an exchange that brought about 12 mit scientists to stanford and we talked about game changes. at mit, we did the same thing. then we came to washington, and john boehner, then speaker, set us up with republicans on the house energy committee. these were supposed to be the bad guys. it turned out that selling them r&d was a piece of cake. some said, let's have the government go into business and exploit it. he lost everybody, including me. let's have the government stay out of the business but support the energy r&d, and i think that has broad support. there are things that are on the cusp right now that are very important. of course, the holy grail is to get to a large-scale storage of electricity. we can do that. we can have an impact on solar and wind and the intermittency problem. but you also have some security, because our grid is so vulnerable to attack. anyway the r&d is important you. r&d with a carbon tax, you have the kind of program that will work. senator rounds: i'm concerned about some of the statistics we seeing out of the state department in terms of being able to attract talent, and losing folks from that pool at rates we have not seen before. just attracting people for entry-level positions, we are at about 1/4 of what we were a couple years ago. there are problems with the seasoned pool as well. what should we be doing to address that? mr. armitage: the a-100 class, the entry classes we have at the state department, yes, they are down. people read the papers and they hear the news. they think they are not particularly welcome. but the real impact of what is going on out will be felt in 15 years. i had it chair on a committee, making decisions on who we put on ambassadors on different posts, and i had trouble at the end of my tenure as of the previous slowdown in the accession to the state department, the a-100 class. we did not to have sufficient number of head diplomats that i felt comfortable putting in leadership positions. so we have got to turn around the attitude, and that needs to start with the president and stop talking about deep state and start taking ownership. anybody who has served in the military, we learned everything we needed to know in the first general order, which cautions young sentries to take charge posts and all government properties. that is all you need to know, and that is the position i think our president has to take and our secretary of state has to take. mr. shultz: i would like to say a word not only on behalf of the foreign service, generally. in 1969 i became the secretary of labor, and i was told that it was an impossible job for republican because the labor department staff was a wholly owned subsidiary of the afl-cio. we brought in a really top-notch bunch of people, and the bureaucracy would knock themselves out for us. i made friends with george meany, but they were there to serve. i found the same thing when at the treasury, state departments. the foreign service people are able, trained, experienced, and they have been manipulated to get them the right kind of experience and they are invaluable. i agree with rich's point, the key is the new people. you have got to have experience, move around and learn things from that. so it is essential. mr. kissinger: i would like to make a point, too. i agree what george shultz has said about the quality of the foreign service and also what my other colleague had said about the impact of current decisions 10 years down the road. but i do think the state department needs a combination of rethinking and reorganization in one respect to make sure we are used to dealing with strategy, because they have to have an ultimate objective. and so the pentagon is organized to make decisions. the state department is more organized to have conversations. the various officials of the foreign service officers and their experience abroad much of the time have to deal with immediate, current problems, and so they have a tendency to look for the immediate solution and not so much for the strategic outcome. of course, there are exceptions. and i would think the reorganization of the state department that leads more systematically to consistent thinking and less preoccupation with the very immediate problem would be highly desirable. and it is no reflection on the people who are there now that has to do with the nature of foreign policy. mr. shultz: would that mean, henry, to do everything you can to improve the stature of the policy planning staff? they are the people who are supposed to be thinking strategically with the secretary. and over the years, there have been some outstanding times of that, but that is a key ingredient. mr. kissinger: i tried to solve the problem to some extent by making sure that every action went to the policy planning staff, that the department understood what i think also is in the training of the foreign service officers and the issues which they have to address that there is more systematic opportunity to deal with grand strategy. in addition to what they already do well, which is the day-to-day management -- senator rounds: i am sure we could use lessons in short-term as well as long-term strategy as well. thank you for your distinct service to our country. i am just curious -- i would like to begin with what secretary shultz and if you other men would comment on it, i would appreciate it. with regard to nuclear the turns and the approach we have taken, specifically, with regard to russia, there appears to be a thought within the russian military that there is an interest in being able to escalate in order to deescalate and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons in some cases, particularly in their region. and my question is, in your analysis, which is the greater deterrent force that should be brought to bear? should we have the overwhelming force of a high-yield capability only, or should we have both the high-yield capability as well as the ability to respond in like kind, and would the russians take the threat of an immediate retaliation to be greater if we had both options available to us? mr. shultz: as i said earlier, it seems to me the idea of a low-yield nuclear weapon is kind of a mirage. it is a nuclear weapon. it has all kinds of aspects to it. even though a low-yield weapon would have huge damage immediately and have radiation and so on and invites escalation. so my own opinion, i hate to see people start figuring out how they can use nuclear weapons. that is what it amounts to, because their use is so potentially devastating. you get an escalation going and a nuclear exchange going, and it can be ruinous to the world of very easily. >> would you disagree with an analysis that concludes that russia would actually use a low-yield nuclear weapons as a response to a conventional conflict? mr. shultz: what the russians will do, i do not know. i read that they are developing what they call a low-yield weapon. i think that is a mirage. but if they wind up using one, it could lead to an isolation, -- and escalation and maybe the best deterrent for them is to know that. but i think the better way to go about it with russia is to put a stop sign to the kind of thing they have been doing and say, now, let's get back to where we can talk together in a sensible way. and we were able to do that before, and we had very fruitful exchanges with the soviets, not just with gorbachev but across the board, and got a lot covers as a result. and i think if we were to get back to that kind of thing, then this time we could reach out to others and try to really move the ball ahead in getting rid of these weapons. >> thank you. mr. armitage, we had manned portable nuclear weapons at one time in our inventory. but we came to the conclusion that a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. we also had a great deal of success in 1983, that brought tactical nukes to brunt. this has been up and down the flagpole several different times. and i think the russians and the americans come to the same conclusion that you said, a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. you cannot control it. >> thank you. today we have talked about a number of hotspots today, europe, the south pacific with china, the middle east, and during this discussion there has been no discussion about the continent of africa, the continent of south america. i'm just curious, in regard to our diplomatic efforts and so forth and the opportunities that are there, i think about it because i know that senator inhofe has made visits to africa, and it seems we are wide open for not only goodwill, but for the creation of cooperative partnerships of their in both south america and africa. i would like your thoughts in terms of the importance of those two continents and why it is that in the middle of a strategic discussion we have not mentioned either one of them so far. mr. shultz: i think your point is right on. as i said earlier, in the african countries, that is where the explosion a population is likely to come from, and for various reasons, that is where the migration is likely to come from. and if we have constructive relationships there, maybe we can help create conditions where people are less anxious to leave. that is probably the best way of dealing with migration issue. i agree with you. as far as south america and central america, mexico are concerned, i remember when i took office, president reagan said foreign policy starts in our neighborhood. if you buy a house, you look at the house, but also say, what is the neighborhood? if it is a good neighborhood, you will buy the house. if it is not, you will not. so we worked very hard to bring mexico into north america, and finally with nafta, mexico became part of north america. and that worked wonderfully, not only in economic terms, but it gave you the basis for talking about many, many other things, terrorism problems, and environmental problems, all kinds of issues that come along. you develop a friendly, easy-handed relationship. the three amigos come along. all of this is very positive about our neighborhood, and it is a hard thing for me to see us denouncing mexico and trying to break it up because this is our neighborhood, this is where we live. and we were working well. and we worry about, we say all their drug gangs are coming over here, where did the drug gangs come from? they come from the war on drugs in the united states. that is where the money comes from, where the guns come from, where the incentive comes from. so i think we ought to look on the war on drugs ourselves, what we are doing. and at the same time, obviously, our neighborhood deserves attention, and not just mexico, but central america and on south. there are some good things happening, some bad things happening down south, this is where we live. >> thank you. mr. kissinger: could i make a point on the nuclear issue? >> yes. mr. kissinger: i have been part of this discussion since 1950. and my original reaction to the problems of massive retaliation was to see that the tactical nuclear weapons might provide a substitute or an alternative, and at that time i came to a conclusion that has been presented here, that the distinction could not be drawn in any manner that was workable him at the time. now we are moving into an area in which apparently, relatively smaller tactical nuclear weapons are being considered by opponents. i would not recommend it is our preferred solution. but the issue will arise if this becomes the technology and if our only response is an all-out nuclear war we will face, with the massive retaliation concept. and so while i would like to maintain a dividing line between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and while it be highly desirable if some agreement could be made that would enforce this, if the technology develops in such a way that other major countries would consider them, we need to think carefully before we put ourselves in a position where our only response is an all-out nuclear strike. >> thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. kissinger, it is an honor to have you here, and thank you for your service and providing your wisdom today. mr. armitage talked about china having the means, but not the desire to attack us. my question is do you, based on a upon your long years of study in china, the book you wrote on china, what does china want? and mr. kissinger: of course, their mr. kissinger: of course, this develops out of a long culture. this is my assessment based on my observations. we in the western tradition think that for a country to be dominant, it has to conquer regions and occupy them. i think the chinese historical view is, while they would use force, they are thinking their impact is through the magnitude of their culture, the size of their achievements, and that they will attempt to impose respect rather than do it through a series of military confrontations. but it will always be backed by a force with which they can demonstrate the penalty of opposition. so if you look at their conflicts in the communist period, with india, with vietnam, and to some extent with us, they have always been aimed at some dramatic demonstration followed by some negotiation that then benefits -- so i think the chinese at this moment are proceeding by their cultural pattern. the concept is an attempt to restructure eurasia, but not entirely largely by military conquest, but through a performance that will lead these countries to look at china as the central kingdom. for us, the problem is hegemony by any one country over eurasia is a potential threat to our security. so the issue in my mind is, is it possible to accept the competition by political means with the back end of the military force that maybe needs it? but for that we first have to know what we consider threats to our security, how we convey that the china. in china, in my opinion, they're probably two schools of thought, one that believes that a conflict would risk everything they have achieved and would even in the long run be very difficult to manage, and another one that thinks america is basically on the decline and that, therefore, no attention needs to be played to our strategic concerns and that they can simply plow ahead, not in a military way primarily, but in a way that challenges the system. that seems to me to be the key issue in our relations with china. and i think it is of great importance that we attempt a conversation, a permanent relationship in which we decide we will not settle our conflicts by military means, that we will take account of the other's point of view, but we also make clear that are central interests, in the end, and conflict will have. so this is partly a philosophical problem, and it depends on how we conduct our dialogue in this period when both countries are evolving in a new direction. china, after several hundred years, reentering the international world, but i have been very much concerned with the impact of artificial intelligence and the evolution of science in which the scientists are running way ahead of what the political world has been able to absorb. and so how to master those trends seems to me to be the key issue in the china relationship, and i cannot conceive of a war between china and the united states, that will not due to the world what world war i did to europe. and so that should be in the minds of both leaders, but it may not be, and if it is not, then we will have to look to our interests, and we must always have the capability to prevail in such a conflict. >> i understand why generations of united states presidents have sought your counsel. that was brilliant, and i thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. senator inhofe: senator scott. senator scott: thank you. dr. shultz -- thank you for your service to our country. i was interested in your comments about threats that we have not seen before. i think specifically about your comments, new threats would be small, smart, cheap, and very lethal. i combined together your comments about drones with new technology and the new gene-editing advancements carrying unique and specific biological weapons. how do we create a national defensive strategy around these new emerging threats the world has ever seen before? mr. shultz: i think it is a very hard question, and in our own little work at the stanford institution, we are trying to address it. we are trying to say to ourselves, what is going to be the impact of this on us? what is going to be the impact on russia, on china, on iran, and so on, in south america, around the world? after we try to think our way through those things, how we position ourselves in this new kind of world to be effective, be effective in advancing our interests and taking care of our own population. but the threat of pandemics, i mean, from climate change, as lucy shapiro wrote. you should read her paper. i told lucy, i am shivering, but there are also things you can do with this new technology that she talks about that will help us. so i think we ought to be pursuing these things very aggressively. senator scott: thank you. mr. chairman, i liked dr. shultz's comments about having lucy shapiro talk -- two is about new gene editing. dr. kissinger, i would love to ask you a question. mr. shultz: i want to underline, mr. chairman, get lucy here to come to talk, she is so smart, but she is so much fun. she will light up the place. but you will also learn a lot from her. senator scott: dr. kissinger, i had the privilege of having breakfast with one of your high school mates, dr. greenspan. would you talk a little about the utility of economic sanctions against russia, specifically, energy sanctions as a way of impacting their aggressive behavior? mr. kissinger: russia is in my view not a strong country. russia is a country with a very determined leadership. and russia has presented historically a dual challenge of itself into the world. it covers 11 time zones. it is involved in every region of the world. it has no natural borders. it has always attempted to expand, to extend its security belt. on the other hand, at crucial moments in human history, it stood up to the mongols, to the french, and to the germans, and preserved the equilibrium of the world by willing their people to suffer for their independence. when i talk about russia, i try to recognize both of these factors, aspects. we need a cooperative russia for the peace of the world because of its reach. but we want to contain an aggressive russia that seeks to impose its domination on neighboring countries. so what one always faces is a dual concern. russian sanctions are of course a normal weapon. one cannot accept the notion that russia has a right to alter the shape of ukraine by its own unilateral -- but one's efforts should not be to break up russia, but do have the maintain their system. i would have agreed with the concept of sanctions, but i would also think now how to bring russia back into a community of nations concept or even a cooperative relationship with the united states. i met putin 15 years ago, and at that time the issue was the abrogation of the missile defense agreement in which i had been involved. and at that time, this was months before 9/11. putin said, i am not so much interested in the missile defense agreements. i'm interested in radical islam, and i want to know if it is possible to have a strategic partnership with america going from tehran to macedonia. so that sort of thing has always been in the back of their mind, but it is also in the front of their mind the environment. so my answer to your question would be i would reluctantly have agreed to sanctions. i would now look for a way to see whether we can restore a meaningful dialogue in the context that i mentioned, even keeping in mind some of the absolutely unacceptable things they did during our election campaign, which has to be precluded. but i would now think in the restructuring of the world that i tried to indicate, we should make an effort to have a dialogue with russia. senator scott: thank you, sir. thank you, mr. chairman. senator inhofe: senator warren. senator warren: thank you for your service. secretaries, you along with sam nunn and others have formed a group of former senior national security officials who have warned about the risk of nuclear proliferation. together you have called for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons. in 2007, you wrote, we endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal. today in this hearing we have talked about russia and russia's nuclear policy. but i want to ask about america's nuclear policy. in the coming weeks, the trump administration will release its nuclear policy review, which is rumored to call for new nuclear weapons capability, more usable nukes, and expanded conditions under which the united states would contemplate using a nuclear weapon. secretary shultz, do you continue to believe that the united states should reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons, and if so, why do you believe that would be in our national security interest? mr. shultz: i think the use of nuclear weapons -- senator warren: is your mike on? mr. shultz: i think it is on. i think the use of nuclear weapons would promote an exchange and would be devastating to our planet. so i continued to believe that we should be trying to eliminate them. we were getting their for a while, and now that has all stopped, and now our problem is proliferation. so this is a new problem. we have to work at it and work at it hard. senator warren: thank you. specifically, you have recommended we change the posture of our deployed weapons to increase morning time. how would taking steps like that reduce the risk of miscalculation that could lead to a nuclear exchange? the intermediate, i think was the turning point in the cold poor. we agreed with that then soviets to eliminate them. that whole class was eliminated. i read now the russians are in the process of dilating that agreement. i think that is an ominous development. but i agree very much with what henry was saying earlier, that we need to somehow put a stop sign to the aggressive behavior of russia and try to include them in a constructive dialogue which we could expand to other countries and try to get a joint enterprise going that would have the objective of getting nuclear weapons out of the world. >> thank you. that is very helpful. there is one other topic i would like to ask you about. last year the trump administration sought a significant cut to the funding for the department of state and many of us are concerned about reports of turmoil at the state department. low morale and ambassador ships. senator reid asked about morale. question abouthe a different point of view. i am concerned that we are not there to answer the call. let me ask, what impact does the apparent downsizing of the state department have on our national security and on advancing our interests around the world? would you like to start, dr. kissinger? sec. kissinger: i do not look at the state department primarily in terms of its size. i look at it in terms of its missions. of course, it's missions should be to supply us with a correct analysis of where we are functioning, developing a group of people to do things strategically side-by-side with the pentagon. this must have a minimum size. i would eliminate downsizing as a principal objective. there are a lot of special assistance and technical assignments that can probably be dispensed with. i have not thought that the size of the state department is a size of diplomacy. i think we should staff it to the level that is needed for our general foreign policy. i think this year's is a little too dramatic. sec. shultz: you told me much earlier, when we discuss to this, that the cuts that were proposed have not been gone through and that the congress has limited them greatly, which i welcome. i think it is essential that we have a strong foreign service to do the kind of analytical work that henry was talking about, that has the ability of execution, a strong analytical group. i added a lot of work, when i was secretary come on the security side. as an economist, i had a council of economic advisers added because it seemed to me that people knew about subjects that did not have economic analysis in it. so we had a little cea in the state department. that was small organizational rearrangements. we need a strong state department. as rich was saying earlier, it is particularly important to have a strong inflow of talent. these are the people, 10-15 years from now, we will be looking to. we have to bring them in, trying them, give them experiences. they have got to have experience out in the field. that's what they get. that's essential to keep going. sen. warren: thank you. sen. sullivan: thank you for your decades of service. they only thing that was going to keep me away from this hearing was my presiding duties over the senate. i decided to preside for the last hour. i'm glad i made it back in time to ask if you questions. it is great to see you all again. for really the whole panel, our two former secretaries of state, there's been a lot of focus. dr. kissinger, as you mentioned in your testimony, the media challenge of north korea. -- on the immediate challenge of north korea. the trump administration has put out a redline -- i think they have called it that, maybe they haven't called it that -- but they are not going to allow north korea to have a capability of an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear weapon on top. and yet that redline has either already been crossed or will be crossed soon. so it has led to a discussion among many policy officials and military experts on what is really in some people's view a coming fork in the road, that if that is the policy of the administration, that they will not allow that. yet north korea either has it or will have it soon. the fork in the road is some preemptive military option to prevent that capability, with all it's inherent risk or a sanctions regime that would address clamping down on north korea even more, with china's help hopefully, and addressing the issue that you mentioned, dr. kissinger, a proliferation. in your expertise, for all the witnesses today, give us your sense of that fork in the road? how would you be thinking about that issue, particularly given that this administration has said we will not allow this and yet it looks like it will happen soon. sec. kissinger: in terms of the analysis i gave here, we will hit that fork in the road. the temptation to deal with it with a preemptive attack is strong and the argument is rational. but i have seen no public statement by a leading official of any event. my own thinking, i would be very concerned by a unilateral american war at the voters of china and russia in which we are not supported by a significant part of the world or at least of the asian world. if china took an unqualified opposition to the nuclear program and a joint program with us, i think it should be possible to sort sanctions and pressures that are irresistible. that would be my preferred course. on the other hand, if it turns out that neither is available, then we better get used to the fact that south korea, in my opinion, will not accept being the only courier that has no nuclear weapons. that will lead to similar trends in japan and then we are living in a new world in which technically competent companies -- countries with adequate command structures are possessing nuclear weapons in an area in which there are considerable national disagreements. that is a new world that will require new thinking by us. and it will require also rethinking of our hold it. -- our whole deterrent posture. right now, or posture is one major enemy. but when you deal with a world where there is multiple possibilities in conflicts that we are engaged, so that we cannot hold back our strategic weapons for one, we will have to rethink it. i don't know yet in which way and this is why i think this is a little country that, by itself, cannot present an overwhelming threat to us. in a way, it presents a key issue right now. i support the administration's objective. but when we get to your question, we have to do some prayerful thinking because that will be so fight a war without an agreement with china or russia, alone, that would be a big decision. i'm telling you my doubts in my thinking. in the policy i agree with , bringing pressure on north korea. i agree with the statements made up to now. and i have not stated it publicly before. if you'd asked me directly what do i think of the world with korea, this is what i think. sec. shultz: i would say be careful with red lines. i remember at the start of world war ii, i had a bit in the -- i had a boot in the marine corps. i remember the day the sergeant handed me my rifle. he said take care of this rifle. this is your best friend. and remember one thing. never point this rifle at anybody unless you're willing to pull the trigger. no empty threats. empty threats destroy you. so i would be very careful in drawing red lines that imply that, if somebody messes with them, there will be a nuclear war. i agree entirely with henry here, that we should be working with china and perhaps russia, but particularly china. and as it dawns on everybody that what is potentially happening here is exactly what henry said. there will be a proliferation of nuclear weapons all through asia. that would not be constructive. i can't help but believe -- i know it has been a while, but my own experience with china, like henry's has been, is you can work constructively with the chinese. after all, they are losing population. they have plenty of problems. their gdp per capita is not high and they want to raise it. they will not raise it by turning their back to the rest of the world. they will raise it by interacting and being a part of it. sec. armitage: i'm in the position of a guy that says that everything they can be said has been said, but not by me. so i will forgo the temptation. sen. sullivan: cannot indulging for one more question? dr. kissinger, you mentioned with regard to china, the rise of china, the insights in your testimony when you mentioned the china has a centuries long history and has never conceived of a foreign nation as more than a tributary to its centrality of culture and power. in that regard, there is an issue that a number of us have been focused on. its the basic principle of reciprocity. increasingly in our relationship with china, with us and other countries, there is a lack of reciprocity in the way they operate and the way we operate. there are many things that china does here in our country that, if you are an american citizen and an american diplomat, and american journalist, an american company, you could not do the same thing in china. that goes across a broad spectrum of foreign investment. they come here and by american companies and all -- in all cause of sectors. we couldn't do that over there. they have thousands of so-called journalists in our country. we couldn't do that over there. could you comment just on this issue, given your decades long experience with china and how this issue of reciprocity, which a number of us are stunning to -- starting to focus on as a key principle in our relationship, is something we could do but seem something they currently don't seem interested in? does that reflect your comments and your testimony, never perceiving a foreign nation as an equal in that country? sec. kissinger: the history of a country forms its character to some extent. china didn't have a foreign ministry until 1911. before 1911, foreign policy was conducted by something called the ministry of rituals, which placed the foreign country a hierarchy directly vis-a-vis china. it is part of their thinking, of their experience. on the other hand, we have seen that president xi in dallas last -- in davos last year presented a global view. i believe china has understood that, if this were the principles of sovereignty and equality will be the governing ones. analysis that is to some extent at the back of the mind. in my experience i think the chinese are compulsive students and they analyze each problem with the enormous care. our approach is usually pragmatic. we want a solution to a problem. the chinese approach is usually no problem gets finally solved every solution has an admissions ticket to another problem. the issue between us when we talk is how do you marry the conceptual approach of the chinese with the pragmatic approach? i think that the chinese are very confident now of their [indiscernible] at same time, i believe it likely that the leadership realizes that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for them to carry out the domestic changes in an atmosphere of cold war with the united states. therefore, i have relieved that at least an attempt should be made to come to an understanding of the limits of our conduct towards each other. and where possible, where we can operate cooperatively. but if you look at the road and if it progresses, it goes across many civilizations and not all of them will adhere to that automatically. so there should be an occasion for the united states to develop its concept. the chinese stairs with a lot of flexibility even its scope. but if no flexibility and a contest occurs, we have to be aware of the fact that it would have catastrophic consequences for the world and that it is hard to see who can win with modern weapons, with new weapons that nobody has experience with, with weapons that george has described. this is what drives my thinking on china. i recognized the either scope and their history. they are a powerful force in the world. we can't abolish that. we have to be sure that we understand what our role is in the world and develop a long-range dialogue that doesn't change every four years and capacity to deal with it. part of that, of course, is that any lasting structure must have reciprocity. maybe not in every individual field, but the perception of the key actors has to be the the relationship is reciprocal. sen. sullivan: thank you. chairman: this has been overwhelming to us to be able to hear from you. this is better than it was back in 2015. i thank you very much for your patience and for your wisdom. you have been a great service to america. thank you so much. we are adjourned. >> all done gentlemen. very well done. >> you'd think you'd done this before. [indiscernible] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] the nation's mayors are in washington this week. one of the issues they are looking at is federal immigration policy. that's next. president donald trump is in switzerland for the world economic forum. we will have that later. tomorrow the president will for him and isos expected to talk about global trade. this week, the trump administration announced it would impose tariffs on solar panels and washing machines made in china and south korea. we will have the president's speech live on c-span 2. speaker ryan: the president of the united states. tuesday night, president donald trump gives his first state of the union address to congress and the nation. of thespan for a preview event starting at 8:00 eastern, and then the state of the union speech at 9:00 p.m. following the speech, the democrats' response. president trump's state of the union address, tuesday night on c-span. listen live with the c-span radio app. and available on your phone, desktop, or tablet at c-span.org. i still described it as a bizarre moment. he pulledrised when me over, but he is the president of the united states and you are in the oval office, so when he says, who are you, come over here, you sort of -- perry talksatrina about covering president trump and his supporters for the irish media during and after the election in her book "in america." "drain the swamp" is incredibly docketed. -- incredibly evocative. the notion that d.c. was built on a swamp, and by draining it, taking out these horrible people who live there and replacing it with better people. that was something people believed she could fill -- he could fulfill. they were prepared to take a chance on it. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. sunday night on after words, ame the neck in any -- kaleigh mcenany on her book. >> people asked me, why do you use this word?

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