We gave up the best base in that area. just amazing to me that we re going to have to go back and hopefully what are your thoughts about it action we end it up here, secretary austin? i don t think it s preordained that we re going to have to go back, senator. i will tell you, what you heard us say, that we recognize that trans national terrorists will migrate to ungoverned spaces. we re committed to not allowing al-quaida to regenerate and be able to export terror from afghanistan to the united states of america. we ll remain laser focused on that going forward and do everything in our power to make sure that doesn t happen. thank you. one question. are you against dishonorable discharges to the military for not taking a vaccine? you re the leader of the dod.
0 to work, to come out of bagram. no way to keep bagram and go to effective zero in well, thinking of what we have may have gained or may have lost as we leave. we think about countering adversaries, so again, general mckenzie what is your assessment of the foreign influence in afghanistan, the wake of our - hosted what we called the conference. we all adversaries from filling the we talk about that region after the fall of afghanistan. generally what they want is they want assurance. they want to continue to have ties with the united states because they want alternatives to russia and they want alternatives to china. unfortunately because of the geographic location, they ll always have to deal with russia and china. our partners in the region want a message that the united states is not going to turn our back on them even though we left afghanistan. we had a productive conference based on those themes. i couldn t agree more. it makes us more vulnerable if we allow anybody else t
That two and three scenario i outlined. again, the key is going to be supporting the afghan security forces going forward. we have seen in places where there have been governance vacuums in the past, including in afghanistan, but in libya, somalia and others, those become havens for people who are up to no good. what danger is there of that? our though days gone where we have to worry about terrorist organization like isis and al-qaeda taking up space in a place like afghanistan because we re not there? i wish that were the case, but it is just not. our intelligence agencies have focused on this, and are there are problems in other parts of the world, east africa, west africa, other parts of the middle east? absolutely. but ungoverned spaces, as you say, nature abhors a vacuum, it fills it and in this case it filled it with malign actors. let s hope it doesn t come to
Up to no good. what danger is there of that? are those days gone where we have to worry about terrorist organizations like isis and al qaeda taking up space in a place like afghanistan because we re not there? well, i wish that were the case, but it s just not. our intelligence agencies have focused on this and are there problems in other parts of the world? east africa, west africa, other parts of the middle east? absolutely. but ungoverned spaces, as you say, nature abhorrors a vacuum. it tends to fill it, and in this case it s filled it before with maligned actors. let s hope it doesn t come to that. you re right, ali, to point out our successes in foreign policy. we ve done a pretty good job in colombia helping the colombians rebuild that society. we ve done a pretty good job in the balkans. 20 years ago the balkans were on fire. we had some missteps and failures along the way as well. the jury is still out on
Dangerous parents of the world, to do things that low inevitably protect the united states, it will prevent isis from establishing themselves in areas where they could proliferate their activity. as they get squeezed in iraq, this is where they re going to end up? i think it s a legitimate feel th feeling that this will spread into this part of the world. you need to worry about yemen, you need to worry about north africa, in order to ensure that this doesn t become eat hot bed against the homeland. do you agree that? i do, but i actually think exactly that, that terrorists move to ungoverned spaces, so by definition, you don t have a government who controls the space and you re going to have these kind of understand don in.