Transcripts For CSPAN Foreign Policy And Combating Terror 20180105

Room. Our going to introduce Panel Moderator and let him theyduce the panelists so can introduce themselves. I am very pleased to introduce the director of the heritage foundations Margaret Thatcher center for freedom. His key areas of special place of specialization include the United Nations and the role of Great Britain and europe in the u. S. Led alliance against international terrorism. He was recently named one of the 50 most influential britons in dailys. By the london telegraph. And a leading authority on transatlantic relationships, he has advised the executive branch of the u. S. Government on a range of issues from the role of International Allies in postwar british. Britain leadership. His policy papers are widely read on capitol hill where he is regularly soughtafter. He received his doctorate degree from yelp universe from yale university. Let us welcome him and the rest of our panel today. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to todays event. Thank you everyone for joining us in such extremely cold weather. Really cold weather. It is more like moscow and washington. We will be talking about the russians later. Superbhave two washington foreignpolicy experts with us today. And you will see both Rebecca Michael rebecca and michael on cable she was here in showsgton on on cable here in washington on a regular basis. Rebecca specializes in nuclear deterrence, Missile Defense and counter proliferation. She has served as a military franks and hast helped to launch the bipartisan Missile Defense caucus. Athael is a senior fellow the brookings institution. He is also rector or research with a foreignpolicy program at brookings and he specializes in u. S. Defense strategy and American National security policy. He is also an adjunct professor in columbia and princeton. And the university of denver as well. He is the author of several books on Foreign Policy. He received his doctorate in foreignpolicy affairs from harvard university. Briefly say them to a few words to kick us off for todays discussion. And then i will follow that with a series of questions for our two panelists and then, we shall go into a you and a with the audience. Q a withll go into a the audience. Rebecca, i would ask you to introduce yourself a bit more and provide any insights you would like to kick off with regarding todays discussion and debate. Rebecca good morning, everyone and thank you so much for braving the cold to come out and join us for a little conversation about american foreignpolicy. Is this on . You can hear me well . Ok. I thought for this audience i wanted to give you a little background as to how i got started in Foreign Policy because i think that tends to be a curiosity for undergraduate students. I got my bachelors degree in history and Political Science at Ashland University as an ash brook scholar, a Political Science program. I did an internship every summer, i studied Foreign Language at the ohio state university. I am from ohio. And then, i came out to washington, d. C. As soon as i graduated and got my first job on capitol hill working for the house judiciary committee. Now, i had always wanted to focus on National Security policy but that opportunity was not open at the time so i took a good job on the house judiciary committee. To graduate school. I went to grad school at the u. S. Naval war college. And got a masters degree and National Security and strategic studies. And then focused my studies more narrowly. And then i got a job for the congressman who is on the House Foreign Services committee and began specializing in strategic security. That is Missile Defense, nuclear deterrence, and counter proliferation. And that is a very short timeline. If you have more questions about the particulars of that afterwards, i am happy to spend some time talking with you all. In networking for the congressman and we launched the bipartisan Missile Defense caucus. It was to be a forum for republicans and democrats to discuss the challenges to the u. S. From the threat of Ballistic Missiles and because Ballistic Missiles have become one of the i would say that we have entered a new missile era. Countries that do not have large militaries, navies and air forces that can travel to the u. S. Best that can challenge the that cantary challenge the u. S. Military are investing in Ballistic Missiles nuclearthey marry with weapons and chemical and biological weapons. A worlds them to coerce power, a superpower, like the United States of america, which is why we are seeing so much focus on the iranian Ballistic Missile program as well as north Koreas Nuclear Missile Program. So, i wanted to create this forum for republicans and democrats to look at the threat and try to find areas in which we can find consensus and tackle those issues that we can agree on to better buildout our countrys missiledefense architecture. The caucus is there today and it still does that. And then i would just say that is the area of my focus although i do cover a wide spectrum of National Security issues now that my focus, because of how acute the north korean security problem has become, that has been my area of focus in oa,ition to the iranian jcp the iran deal and all of the issues that surround the problem. I will leave that there. Michael, if i could ask you to say a few words. Michael, as you can see i am to thesed man compared two young whippersnappers up here but i will not make you hear the year by year. I love how rebecca did that. Let me do an equivalent. I studied physics in college. My summer jobs during then went from dairy firm work in upstate to york to then trying disprove einsteins general theory of relativity with a team of physicists. In case you wonder who one that, einstein was right. And i am not even kidding. It was not my idea to do that project but that was what we tried. And then i did peace corps in the former democratic republican of congo. I had some other things that were more applicable to the year aire at the time. Ultimately, i wound up shifting from that to the Woodrow Wilson school. I also spent time on capitol hill. Gets a bad rap. Congress as a body often deserves it but it is an equal partner in our government with the executive branch. A lot of people forget that. I am proud of the time that i got to spend in congress. For me, it was the congressional budget office. Arm working for people like rebecca. And then, i have been at brookings, a nonpartisan Public Policy organization for 23 years. I will leave it at that. Thank you very much, michael. I would like to begin with an opening question with regard to the wide war against islamic terrorism. A huge priority issue for the u. S. Administration. Today and it has been a priority for much of the last two decades. The state department recently announced that isis has lost about 90 of its territory in iraq and syria. View,s basically, in your game over for isis in iraq and syria or is there a danger that isis could reemerge in either of those two countries . And what explains the very rapid defeat of isis . 50 of isis territory in syria and iraq was taken away in just the last 12 months alone. And the total 98 . Those could address questions. I will start with you, rebecca and then michael. Rebecca i will take just a piece of that. The answer to the first question is that i think that we can take we can be happy with the gains we have made. I think that it is remarkable how quickly u. S. Military has been able to actually defeat the socalled caliphate that had existed there. The organization that isis had in both of those places. Good ats is very reinventing itself and popping up in other areas in which there is a power vacuum. That is why when there was the tragedy of u. S. Forces killed in niger and people wondered why we had forces there, it was because isis is trying to gain a foothold there. Anwill see that isis as Islamist Militant Group is not going to be utterly if he did anytime soon utterly defeated anytime soon. Why . Why the success . Why has the u. S. Military been able to over 5 Million People freed that were previously under isis control. Remarkable. Remarkable progress. ,nd even during the obama years when the Obama Administration was prosecuting the war, over 3 Million People free. A slower campaign but it was also seeing some success. And according to the pentagon, some of the things that are different about the way we are prosecuting the war is the tempo. The tempo of the military strikes. Afterpid we are going these targets. It is not allowing them to regain territory quickly. It is just how rapid we are prosecuting the war. And equity are you mad us will say that we have not changed the rules of engagement. You will often hear people say that they have changed. But he would say they have not changed but he has been delegated down authority so we have cut out the bureaucracy for approving various military strikes before we go ahead and do them and that goes to how rapid we have been able to prosecute the war. Owed to the is success of the work. I would agree with virtually all of that. Obama clearlyent struggled with syria policy throughout his presidency but by the last one or two years, again to get a better concept of what he thought he was trying to do and he said a lot of the conditions. It took a while. Things were just beginning to gel by the end of his presidency. And then President Trump was able to build on that, amplify it in some ways, and to some extent the enemies, whether it was a big strategic decision or more of a pass they found to naturally proceed, they partly dissolved. A couple of places they fought to the death. In other cases, the enemy decided let us shave our beards and revert acta being regular citizens of iraq or syria and sneak away. Hopefully, ellen figures out who we were. Especially for a lot of the foot soldiers. And perhaps stay around to fight another day under different auspice is in the future. In the future. In 2009 and 2010, and going back to 2008 a lot of those extremist fighters and a lot of others that became radicalized were biding their time to see what would happen under the new iraq with the new prime minister. When they did not like that, they joined up with a and isis took a lot of iraq. In other with, we have to be careful about declaring victory. I think President Trumps path forward in iraq is difficult but easier to imagine because there is a government there that we can work with and should be trying to help further improve the conditions to patch up the shiakurdish divisions. To minimize the role of iran. There are some things we can do, staying engaged in iraq with a more modest number of forces. Struggling still economically. Ishink the path forward going to take some continued american attention and resources but it is relatively easier to sketch out as to what it should be. Syria is still a huge hornets ast and we are nowhere near solution to the civil war. Unless you are like russia. And you are happy to see president assad when the conflict. It is not clear to me that president assad can stay in power and stabilize the country because he has so much blood on his hands at this time. So many sunnis are angry with him because he has killed their family members. That country is a long ways away from anything we should call victory or stability. Give President Trump and interim and hopeful great. Rebecca the other challenge with iraq that we are seeing is that iran is trying to make sure that, before the United States starts to pull back again, that it has a greater influence in iraq. And over the iraqi government. The is something that United States government is acutely aware of. We are trying to make sure that part of the final solution, whatever that might be in iraq, including a stable government, its ability to protect its own borders and protect its own people before it can do that on its own, the u. S. Wants to make sure that iraq is an ally of the u. S. And not another proxy state of iran. That fits into the overall strategy for what the United States is trying to do in terms of pushing back iranian influence at large in the region. Thank you for those excellent answers. Striking that 7. 5 Million People were liberated in total, actually. And over the last couple of years. That is a huge achievement there. Moving over to iran. Past few days, we have seen a wave of street protests, not just in toronto but practically in tehran but practically every major city in the country. And astonishing level of public protest in an extremely authoritarian, dictatorial country. Bet should the u. S. Response to the protests . Has the Trump Administration handled the iran protest issue well . Especially, in comparison to president obamas handling of the 2009 protests in iran . And what are the implications for the Iran Nuclear Deal . And could we be potentially downfall ofbly the the islamist regime in iran . Michaelickoff with first. Michael thank you. Ofanswer the question first how to handle demonstrations like this, i do think that so far the president is doing fine. And factoring in and of adjusting for his particular he addressesow diplomacy in general which is not always my preference. But now that we know how he operates, i think the basic approach of supporting the protests theres and condemning of supporting the protesters and conducting the government is generally fine. When you look more broadly at how we handle these situations and imagine 2009 with president obama in a ron or the arabs in iran or the arab spring and how we tried to gently push out president mubarak in egypt or how we tried to encourage protests in syria and look what happened we have to be aware of the ringsides of lu people into thinking that we are going to come and help when we want. That would be my only caveat of precaution. Sometimes, these things take lives on of their own. No one to know when things get to a Tipping Point and when you have an emerging phenomenon of vast protest, that is hard to foresee. People did not necessarily foresee Tiananmen Square in 1989 or the wave of liberation movements in Eastern Europe at the same time frame. What you want to do is be true to your own principles. Be clear about where you stand. But you want to be aware of the limits of your own influence. I would not suggest that President Trump give iranian protesters the sense that we are going to intervene on their behalf. It would be unlikely that we andd do so given its size capacities. That would be my one caution. Otherwise, i do think the initial response is basically fine. One more quick word on the nuclear deal and maybe stop rone on how to deal with a Going Forward. With iran Going Forward. From 2015 it will be hard for the u. S. To overturn that because it is an International Agreement and the monitoring bodies in charge of it say that iran is doing what it has been tasked with on the nuclear portfolio. Otherwise, iran is behaving horribly, probably even worse than in 2015 but we need to use other mechanisms to address that. The nuclear deal i dont believe was as good as it could have been but it will be hard to undo it. We can try to improve it. At that has to be done with negotiation which means we need new leverage which will be hard to get. If we rip it up, think we will be in a worse place. I hope President Trump stays tough on iran with regard to the demonstrations and its regional activities including its covert actions in iraq, syria, and elsewhere. Figure out better strategies on how to push back on iran in those domains but leave the nuclear deal in tact, even if he doesnt like it. Again, it will be hard to replace it with anything better at this point given that the whole International Community is behind it. And even if we stop dealing with iran economically because we have decided we dont like the deal anymore, the rest of the world will probably continue to do its trade and investment with iran and will be giving it a potential pretext to withdraw from its obligations under the the deal. The tough against irans regional activities, be vigilant on the nuclear deal, be supportive of the demonstrators rhetorically. Thank you, michael. I could go 75 different angles on this and we could spend the rest of the time unpacking. Of what was a lot just said. I will start with the protesters. I agree that President Trump has done very well on this. Of his response of showing solidarity with the protesters was exactly right. And that goes for nikki haley and everyone else in the administration who has a role. You will hear a lot of pushback from former Obama Administration the other side of this. The other position is that we should be quiet. An iranian affair and the u. S. Government should stay out of it. That is not what many of the demonstrators say. The demonstrators are not all demonstrating for the same reason. There was general dissatisfaction with the regime. And then, there are a variety of reasons for that. What they were promised, the iranian people, is that the iran deal would bring in this new wave of Economic Prosperity for the country and they have not seen that. They have not seen it. The iranian government used much of the funds for its military and for the irgc and for the Missile Program. This is why i oppose the iranian deal with everything i have leading up to the deal. I testified before congress that you do notnot if include the Missile Program, it is a horribly flawed deal. The iranians on not continue to spend all of their resources on the intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Anytime the iranians or the North Koreans test a satellite, that is an intercontinental Ballistic Missile test. It is different. There are other technical challenges for getting the launch to go on the right trajectory and to get it to its target but they are not just trying to inspire the next generation of nasa kids. They are trying to figure out how to get the missile up. Both the in the North Koreans and the iranians have cooperated in the past on their Missile Programs. The iran deal had a lot of problems but one of the major ones is that if you do not include the Missile Program you are essentially punting. Even if the deal as president workssaid even if it perfectly, we are not eliminating it but buying some time. For theher than a year iranians to break out and have a , fledged Nuclear Program what they could do is buy their time and not work on the Nuclear Peace but the missile piece which is harder. The North Koreans have had the Nuclear Peace done for a long time. They can just stop the nuclear part, continue their Missile Program, once the deal is done then they can go forward with the Nuclear Program. And now they have the Delivery System completed. I always believed they should be connected. Wendi sherman, the chief negotiator for the u. S. At the time said the missiles would be addressed early on in the negotiations. No deal. Iranians said and that fell off the table. My overall view of the i run deal is that if you go back and look at what Obama Administration officials said were necessary for a good deal and compare it to the deal we have now, it does not come anywhere near what the official themselves said was necessary for was necessary for a good deal. A statement. At we had the deal now. I am supportive of the administrations approach now. You do not certify a deal if you dont know for sure that they are complying. We believe they are not complying including the fact that we do not have access to some of the military installations. My reading of the ironic deal was that it was perfect purposely ambiguous to get the deal done. The u. S. Position but that we did have access to those the sillies. There are some to those the szilagyis facilities. I believe the approach is good. Not to certify but to continue to stay in the deal and put pressure. Workok years of bipartisan to get the sanctions on the Iranian Regime and to get the International Isolation on the regime. It took an enormous amount of diplomatic heavy lifting. Theuse we released sanctions, it is very difficult to get the isolation back on the regime. I believe the u. S. Approach has been good. You dont certify if you cant certify the iran deal. You continue to levy sanctions on the Missile Program. You support the protesters. You dont want to give them false hope that the u. S. Is going to do more. I would even say i would caution our own government that we dont become overly optimistic about what we can accomplish here. Because that has been a bipartisan, american tendency to have an overly optimistic view of what we can actually do. That is to President Trumps credit, his instincts on this are right. Which is that we are trying to dial back and lower the expectations about what the u. S. Can do in some of these countries. Deeds to be understood this needs to be understood as an iranian development. The u. S. Can provide moral support. If there is anything else we can do to help the protesters by bringing attention to the crackdown that the Iranian Regime has done, in trying to eliminate these social media in trying to get the protesters and try to differentiate between the iranian people who want reforms and the iranian government there is nothing moderate about the government. When you hear people talking about the moderate iranian president , that is a lie. He is not a moderate. And some former Obama Administration officials will agree to that. That was a myth to get the deal done. In fact, since the deal occurred, there have been violations of your of Un Security Council policies. I will be quiet there. Thank you. Some tremendous answers. Demonstration shows just how important the ironic issue is the iran issue is for the u. S. I am conscious of the fact that time is always against us. I will move shortly to audience questions. I know a lot of you have a wide range of Foreign Policy and National Security questions. Before i do that, if i could ask our panelists to very briefly give us their big picture overview, their overall assessment of the Trump Administrations Foreign Policy at the end of the first year. How is the administration doing . Is it doing better than the Obama Administration . Have we seen a fundamental change in u. S. Foreignpolicy over the last year or is there more continuation then radical reform going on . And if i could ask michael to answer the question first. Bigt is an impossibly question so i will put some provocations on the table. I am completing an oped with david gordon which is supposed to be in usa today on this question. We are both moderates. Democraticed in both and republican offices in congress and the executive branch. I am a moderate to hawkish democrat. You would expect us to be wary of President Trump and i am personally. His style. His approach make me nervous. Makes me nervous. I did not support him in the campaign. All that being said, i am surprised in many ways on how much continuity there has been in american foreignpolicy in 2017. I dont inc. President trump has been better than president obama. At an individual level, i think president obama was a better diplomatic style but President Trump has assembled such a strong team, and when push comes to shove, he will usually listen to their advice on the biggest decisions. That i think we have wound up with an ok first year. I am still very nervous. Some aspects to what he will do on north korea for example, i find unpredictable. And i do worry about a temperamental and tempestuous kind of interaction leading to places that we should not be. Especially given north korea is especially given that north korea is run as someone that troubles me even more than President Trump does and he doesnt have great advisors around him. Anyone giving good advice to the north Korean Leader has probably been assassinated. He just has a lot of sycophants and his circle now. In that kind of situation, i do get nervous sometimes from President Trump nor do i agree with some of his rhetoric or decisions on issues like Climate Change and immigration policy. When we get down to the core National Security issues on how to handle afghanistan, the rise of china, russia in general, there has been more continuity than i wouldve expected. There have been some improvements on a couple of issues. There have been some regrettable developments on a couple of others. But, on balance, in to what i expected, having listened to candidate trump, there has been a more mainstream approach and a better approach to Foreign Policy than i expected. Most of the credit i give to secretary mattis, secretary tillerson, ambassador haley, National Security adviser mcmaster, and to some extent Vice President pence but i will give donald trump credit for one thing. He is the guy that hired all of those people. This is not meant as an endorsement of President Trump. Have inverted. Heaven for bid. And he does make me nervous but things are better then i wouldve expected with more continuity on a number of issues. Over to you, rebecca. Appreciated the honesty there so i will put my cards on the table. I come from the republican end of the spectrum. I have advised i was part of an organization in my free time i also have four kids. I also want to put that out there. Time, i am working at a free tank a think tank. I was part of a republican advisory group. Timent the bulk of my advising senator rubio. I was doing backgrounders. I was helping with press releases and statements during the campaign. I did the same thing for governor walker. I did briefings for governor christie. I never talked to mr. Trump. He didnt ask and i did not offer. What most of the republicans out here in washington, dizzy washington. I was coming from the more conventional, republican style of rhetoric. Trump duringd mr. The primary. As it started winding down and the field started getting smaller, his style concerned me. The fact that the people i knew who knew about these subjects this concerned me. I voiced these concerns. I was not shy about that. And thisy this would be another piece of advice coming to this town. Serious to really get with deep down convictions about what your principles are. And not to confuse your principles with policy and not to confuse runcibles with style and approach. This has been a big gift that donald trump has given to the country. Politics in aized way so we are reassessing and trying to figure out our principles and priorities. And you want to be able to be willing to admit when you were wrong. Not to be dogmatic. Not to get into groupthink. And to reevaluate where your positions are as you are given more information. I believe that some of my early instincts and opinions about donald trump were wrong. Flat out wrong. He has surprised me in a lot of ways on his instincts in terms of what he thinks is right. His understanding of America First i have grown to appreciate. He has assembled this team. And it cannot be an accident. An accident that he has some of the absolute best people that he could have possibly found put into his cabinet. And he deserves great credit for that. I refuse to believe that this is all in spite of america of donald trump. Minutes on butf i think he is doing. Ledt we have gotten lul even if me as an dow list desk is an analyst billy we should be notg x, y, z, it does matter if you have the buy9iinf the American People. You have to listen to the American People and adjust and accommodate for what they want. Populist,trump, as a is a civic nationalist, has a better handle on that than what we have done in the past in either party. And our Foreign Policy is calibrating for that. Is are about human rights, country, as a government, and the administration has received criticism for downgrading it. If you study any of the strategy that was released, the administration got criticism from the establishment, because i do not know what else to call them, republicans and democrats, criticizing the downgrading of human rights as a priority. I take issue with that, and this is why killing isis is good for human rights, and we are doing that very well. Solling back kim jongun nuclear Missile Program and denuclearizing the peninsula is good for human rights. So what this administration is doing is recalibrating to make sure we are pursuing American Security interestss, not abandoning our principles for right, butieve is looking to see where we pursue those interest and where they meet to intersect with human rights. Then we really talk about. The perfect example is the wenian protests now, where are talking about human rights left and right now. We do not talk about human rights publicly and comes to inconsistent. T is it is perfectly consistent when you try to understand what the administration is trying to do. Ug for whatig pl we can do, which i hope the administration will do better, defense ofologetic not american parity with other countries, but of American Leadership and superiority, unapologetic American Military strength, which is why you see the emphasis on recapitalizing the military, expanding the selfdefense, finishing the modernization of the obama promised on the nuclear triad, but making sure we have the best Nuclear Weapons the world has ever seen, and that makes everybody nervous. I say do it, because Nuclear Weapons are there to preserve peace and avoid conflict. His approach is different, but this is the way i have heard general mcmaster talk about the way he had talked about it, and the president is not great at explaining a lot of this, which is why it lends to confusion and misunderstanding. Is very good at understanding what the president wants, explaining it, nikki is one oferal mattis few words, but he is one to watch and Pay Attention to what he says. What we are trying to do is regain the strategic advantage. We not withdrawing from the world. The rumors of a isolation was not part of what President Trump wanted to do. He wanted american strength to be such that we could intervene when it was in our interests and not when it was in our interests and just sort of great gain the american strategic footing. So i think they are doing well. I think the administration is doing well. I think the president s rhetoric gets in the way of itself. But that is a matter of politics because he has his own base. I am not in his audience when he tweets. He has different audiences. The way i look at it is it does not bother me because i understand you do not get to pick and choose which traits like about the president. He is who he is, and that same personality that gives us the uncomfortable tweets is the same one that has empowered general mattis to take out isis. You take both for what it is. About theoptimistic direction of the United States Foreign Policy. Mr. Gardiner thank you very much. They have been terrific insights. I would say that the most impressive figure so far the first year of the Trump Administration, the real star, is ambassador nikki haley, who has done an absolutely outstanding job as ambassador of the United Nations. She is somebody who reminds me quite a bit of my old boss Margaret Thatcher in many respects. I expect she will continue to project very strong u. S. Leadership in the coming years. I now would like to invite questions from the audience. Shortage i thought you relieve the you were leaving at first. Mr. Gardiner it would be help you if you identify yourself and where you are studying, will be very helpful. It is very good to see an order cueing. Shstyle mr. Ohanlon do you want a bunch to ask questions . Mr. Gardiner that is a good point. I am going to i think perhaps threecould have the first askents in this line here their questions. We will take those, and then we will take two or three on that side, and we will see how we are doing from there. If i could have the first three students in line here on this side, ask their questions, and in the panelists will respond. Hello. At northerng arizona university. Recently the you and high commissioner of human rights stated the events happening in myanmar our textbook examples of ethnic cleansing. I am wondering if i was wondering how the lack of response from the International Community has influenced the ynga. T of those roh mr. Gardiner thank you very much. Sussex university in boston. Do you think we should have stricter guidelines in the iae when it comes to the dismantling of Nuclear Power plants, especially those that pose a threat to interNational Society, National Society . Mr. Gardiner thank you very much, and the third question. I am from Suffolk University in boston. What do you believe will be the United States strategy Going Forward in syria the Trump Administration increasing the tempo and seeing the bureaucracy from our military . Mr. Gardiner thanks. Thanks for much. You have questions on vermont, the iaea, and syria. Rebeccah, would you like to start. So thenrichs armscontrol regime, that is thatregime we talk about, is various International Treaties that we have that control the development and the spread of Nuclear Weapons and the associated technology. I would say it has generally failed. There is an optimistic note for you there. It does not mean we should not it is of ourink own doing. I think the iran deal in particular was a major blow to the nonproliferation regime. That i will get your question more specifically in just a second. And the reason for that is what i believe it communicated to folks like those in north korea and elsewhere is if you persist long enough in your violations that you will essentially be able to keep a latent program in place with which is what basically happened but the iranians. In terms of what the iaea needs to do, im not very optimistic. I am not very optimistic with how well that will work, simply giving the iaea more authority and power to control. I think it is generally worth a shot, but in terms of what we contribute to that effort and our resources, i would say minimal. It works that are better if you are trying to actually on what i think the United States is doing in nuclear returns if your main goal is to prevent the spread and deployment of Nuclear Weapons anywhere in the work, the best thing the United States can do is remain a very robust, serious, credible Nuclear Deterrent. There are many countries that have foregone Nuclear Weapons and chosen not to have them because they rely on the American Nuclear umbrella. As the United States becomes weaker, we do not modernize, it was george h. W. Bush that ended the American Nuclear Testing Program, a republican. He ended that Testing Program unilaterally. We can start again if we need to do that. We have chosen not to do that. The best thing we can do is have a robust Nuclear Deterrent threat so other countries who do not have them continue to believe they do not need them because they rely on the United States. It worries me when people say that we can perhaps just deal with north korea having a Nuclear Program. As soon as you get comfortable and moved to a containment strategy, who is going to want Nuclear Weapons in that region . South korea is going to want at the very least the United States to deploy tactical Nuclear Weapons, which we withdrew. If there are Nuclear Weapons in south korea, who else is going to want Nuclear Weapons . Japan. Do you see the problem we are running into . Keg. Is a powder g it is a very precarious situation. The best thing the United States can do, realistically. I am not a proponent of global zero that we have decided we should move down the path of getting rid of the Nuclear Weapons. We have seen what the world is like without weapons, and more people died before the usage of the terrible United States was the only country who deployed Nuclear Weapons, i would say deployed, not used. Were using them right now. We are deterring mass war with them right now. And so they have been a great forceful global peace, and weve seen much fewer deaths globally since they were employed at hirschman and at i psyche. Ive written lots about this. It is longwinded, but you touch on my favorite subject. I will leave the other question. I talked to long. On myanmar, i think the world has responded well in two ways, first, getting on the ground with enough people and capability to challenge the government narrative in birmingham in myanmar that this was a justified reaction to the extremists in the rohingya community. There were such extremists, but i think the response was excessive. I would put diplomatic pressure on it as well, so that it would be hard for me in diplomatic circles for you could more . Ould we have done maybe a much more extensive sanctions regimen would have been appropriate, but i acknowledge this first things were done pretty well. Sometimes in these kinds of situations, that is the best you can do. I am glad more people were not killed because ethnic cleansing can sometimes be reversed. Ethnic killing cannot be, of course. On syria, where there has been a huge amount of killing and displacement, i think we are in a conundrum. We still have an Al Qaedalinked pocket in the northwest of the country that has not been defeated. Above and beyond all that, we do not have a solution to the civil war that has been easily envision now. I think some combination of temporary autonomous zones in the east, north, and south with then over time trying to create various incentives for russia and others to push assad out of power is the only viable strategy. At persuading assad to go is going to be very hard. We are not going to do it within the geneva negotiating process, because for assad who comes from a minority group, that would be tantamount to essentially running his own people at risk, because they are going to be dominated in any future such government, so he will not agree. Were going to have to get more what aic about successor government might be, and in the meantime help certain parts of the country begin to partially govern themselves and rebuild themselves, try to work towards a system by which that can be done without reigniting the worst of the civil war or creating a huge russian or syrian have a reaction. That is the best i can do in 60 seconds on syria. I will leave it at that. Mr. Gardiner thanks very much. We only have about eight or nine minutes left. Question, and in the panelists will give their rapidfire response. To the three students on this site here, if you could very briefly give your questions, and then we will move over to that side. I go to Northern Arizona university. Trump tweets a lot, but how does his tweeting when it comes to north korea and korean tournaments, how does that undermined diplomatic efforts or affect the peninsula with when it comes to Nuclear Proliferation or then Nuclear Program in north korea . University inolk boston. My question is, due to the importance and relevance of social media, how has groups like isis and other terrorist relations utilize that, and how do they recruit with it, and u. S. , as ane administration, doing to combat that . Hi, i am from the university of arizona. Rebeccah, you were saying a lot how we cannot abandon human rights conflicts and we have to preserve human rights. I was wondering if you think the United States, since trump has said he does not want as many refugees coming into the country as there were during the Obama Administration, do you think the united dates should take a bigger role in i think refugees, since it is only 1 of people in humanitarian crises actually gain asylum . Mr. Gardiner thank you, and now we will switch over to this site. I with the harvard extension school. I was thinking Bigger Picture with the concerning feature of trumps speech, and was wondering what your opinions would be on the political chessboard Going Forward, as far as International Relations and allies go. I am from miamidade college. You said about strategic advantage in our military system and things like that, how can we show this administration we need to do more strategic at home with our Education System so that we can have the resources ine the resources to our for policy . Hello, i have from Guilford College in north carolina. I was wondering what your take was on our administrations recent antiislamic, antiminority, antiimmigrant rhetoric, and if that in your opinion is increasing radicalization of americanborn, raise, muslim youth, and if it is providing further propaganda andcrisis and to enticement if that is compromising our National Security here. Good morning. University of massachusetts. This question is for michael ohanlon. You spoke about trumps firstyear year regarding for policy and you already spoke about the improvements. Would you go into more detail about the steps he took and explain what you meant about continuity and what we can see the next year. Mr. Gardiner thank you. One final question. Thank you. With conceptual models of analysis, and you compare trump and kim jongun as rational decisionmakers . Will your models if they are not rational decisionmakers . Mr. Gardiner thank you, and we have five minutes left. Ms. Heinrichs this is like a hard game show. Mr. Gardiner we will start with rebeccah. Two or three minute response, and that to mike. Ms. Heinrichs several questions about the president has been twittering, so i will say, there are people who say his rhetoric is undermining diplomatic efforts especially regarding the korean peninsula, to which i respond give me the evidence. Right now you have the first time in two years where the north has opened up its communication channel with south korea. I am not optimistic about how this will go. If they want to chat about the olympics, that is fine with me. I do not think it will change the u. S. Position which is the ultimate denuclearization of the korean peninsula. There has been no evidence that the rhetoric on twitter has negatively impacted what we are seeing. In fact, all the evidence points the other way. Sometimes the facts do not go with peoples narrow bus, but facts do not care about your feelings. What we are seeing is an enormous International Support for what the United States is doing. The harshest sanctions we ever seen. During the Obama Administration, i kept hearing theres nothing left of sanctions. That was not true. We have been crushing north korea in terms of sanctions. The chinese are on board. Now the chinese are violating some of these sanctions, and we got to work on that. A great International Isolation situation with the United States, and that is because the reason that makes everybody comfortable about the president s tweets about north korea, it is injecting some credibility in terms of our threat and willingness to use Military Form that does not get solved easily. I think that makes some folks uncomfortable. Nursing the philippines cut off trade with north korea, went before that they increase trade by over 100 earning the Obama Administration. Human rights and refugees. I would challenge your assumptions on whether or not bringing refugees here is even what the refugees want. If you go and look at some of these u. N. Refugee camps, there has been polling done where these folks want to settle again, these are not midwestern, prodemocracy, give me the American Dream folks who are in these camps in syria. Many want their country back, but they want to stay in the region. They do not want to be massacred. They are still islamists. I mean a political ideology as part of their system of government. So they are not in my view great candidates for assimilating well in the United States in terms of bringing in an enormous flows of refugees. I can go on and on. And then i want to talk about real quick that isiner i think tremendously well done. We just have a couple minutes left for michael to respond, and then we will have to bring the event to a close. Mr. Ohanlon let me do a bit of what rebeccah did in terms of allies, in terms of trumping a divisive leader, is tweeting. His tweeting. I would parse it like this. Im not quite as favorable toward the president as some, maybe not as are favorable desk as favorable as rebeccah, but i would say in terms of management of allies, most of our allies are nervous about donald trump. Many of their publics are not that happy about donald trump if you look at Pew Foundation polling, but the alliance itself has been reinvigorated, but maybe not in the sense of stronger than they were, but compared to what people feared a year to, when they sold donald trump the populist come into the white house having said a lot of our alliances might not be important. And ultimately largely because of the team he hired and deserves credit for hiring, i think people persuaded him we need to be on ambiguous in our commitment to our various allies. So after the first year, i am pleased by that. But part of my when i tried to talk about how icy President Trump, part of his is compared to my expectations having listened to his campaign. So when i say things are surprisingly continuous in some realms, this is not meant to imply that i am easy about all of this and calm and relaxed and necessarily confident about the future. I share rebeccahs view on north korea that there is some hope that the sum total of all the things that have happened to put us in a reasonable place, but i also have the fear that trump will box himself in because he has said some very strong things about eliminating Nuclear Programs, which even though i agree with rebeccah, it has to be our goal. You cannot give the North Koreans to much until we get to that point, and is not a realistic goal. Where we get to a point where we insist on the complete denuclearization and the president has this style of thinking and speaking, we could wind up persuading ourselves that we have to force things to a crisis Decision Point and wind up to some greater risk of more than i otherwise would think necessary. These are the pros and cons of how i see the first year, and i will finish by saying i am more unhappy about some of the domestic policy decisions, and this gets to one of the decisions about education. I think we are squeezing domestic investment weather in the environment or education. We do not know what the budget will be for this year because it has not been worked out. What we do see is the white house pushing very hard for increases in military spending, cuts in diplomacy, cuts in foreign aid, cuts and environmental protection, more modest but real cuts in other domestic programs, and the tax cut plan, while appealing politics, it is in the context of a country that already has a deficit and a debt that are too big. If i was going to give an overall bottom line one sentence summary, Foreign Policy has been more stable and a little better than i expected, domestic policy has i think that the country some damage, which is raps no surprise which is perhaps no surprise given democrats believing we need domestic levels and increase in Foreign Policy spending, but that is where i would come with my bottle line. I am nervous with where we could go with north korea and iran, although i am hopeful the better angels of this administration will continue to steer us through these choppy waters. Rebeccah,er michael, thank you for a term traffic for a terrific talk. [applause] for our last presentation, i am excited for this next panel. Im excited to introduce our moderated, francesca chambers. She covered the 2016 president ial race. She was previously the editor of red alert politics. And she contributes to all three publications and covered the president ial primary for the examiner. Francesca