Transcripts For CSPAN2 Center For American Progress Hosts National Security Conference 20240713

The president and ceo of the center for american progress. [applause] house everyone doing . Good afternoon everyone. I am so happy to once again thank you for joining us for this important event at an incredibly critical time for our country and the entire international community. The gathered together at the dawn of a new decade and at this moment its becoming clearer that the 21st century will be defined by a singular competition. A competition not of technology or of weaponry, but of ideas. Ideas about how to solve problems and one of the best ways for societies to do so. I believe the 21st century will be defined by a competition between democracy and authoritarianism and while this competition may not have the same military consequences of the cold war that unfolded between democracy and communism, it is similarly a competition to define the future of the world. As we all know, there are two distinct and opposing polls in this debate and on the one end is the United States and many of our allies and on the other end this the countries of china and russia and as we should all recognize, mine is not passive in this debate. Its assertively making the case for its form of government on the global stage in africa, latin america and the rest of asia. It argues that its form is more adaptive and effective, better able to address challenges like poverty and Climate Change and if we really want to be honest with ourselves, there are days our country erotic behavior makes chinascase very well. And yet, despite the sharply defined goals of this competition , our world is perhaps more complicated than at any other point area because this confrontation is not onlyoccurring between countries , its taking place within countries as well. Over the past few decades democracies themselves have over the past few years democracies themselves have witnessed the rise of leaders impulses like victor ormonde in hungary who has weakened the press and judiciary in india the Worlds Largest democracy, mister modi has championed a citizenship law discriminating against members of the Muslim Community and move that echoes is the disgraceful muslim man in the United States and our own country the president of the United States has attacked our federal judges, declared free press and enemy of the people and undermined election after election. To say that President Trump is a friend or a faithful steward of our constitution and democracy might be something of a stretch. Yet its not just democracies that are facing challenges from within. Even as democracies grapple with this rise of authoritarian populism, autocratic states have experienced protests demanding greater political freedom, largely Peaceful Demonstrations have brought down dictators in algeria and sudan and protesters have flooded the streets of hong kong, moscow and just this past weekend throughout iran. These Different Countries are united by their opposition to political repression and by their pleas and demand for the very simple right to have a say in their own political future. Indeed, in a world where were between nations is thankfully rare, the battles between authoritarianism and democracy may be moving within nations, not just between them i want to make a simple plea to the very esteemed group. It is to move beyond realpolitik and neutrality. We are fortunate to count so many scholars and leaders in this audience and i appreciate the call for analytical detachment, but this is a moment for choosing. We must consider moving beyond that repot realpolitik to defend democracy and add importantly here at home. There are so many moments in our history where todays realism looks very much like tomorrows hypocrisy. We must of course reject the dangerous unilateralism perceived by donald trump who speaks admiringly of foreign dictators or insulting and alienating our allies area and instead we must, and this is so obviously true, ensure that strengthening collaboration with our democratic allies stands as a core pillar of our Foreign Policy agenda that since joining with our partners to defend our collective Democratic Institutions againstinterference from authoritarian states. And unfortunately we havemore news of that happening today. And we also must stand up or fundamental human rights. But in order for the United States to uphold democratic values, we must fully embrace them here at home. Indeed, other countries take notes when we dont live our values whether it is widespread use of bitter Voter Suppression tactics for ever present political corruption, our government must End Solutions to advance fundamental, defend the premise of this nation that every Single Person deserves a meaningful chance to earn a better life and receive equal treatment under our laws and to takepart in our democracy because at the end of the day , whats most fundamentally weakens democracy is from within. Is the idea that democracy no longer delivers results for their people. That view reads a cynicism that is crippling. And so we must repair and revitalize our own democracy. When we invest in our people and education and research and infrastructure and healthcare, we both deliver results for our people and strengthen ourselves for that competition with china. So it is 20 20. This year will represent a vehicle moment in the United States. It can help forge a new Progressive Agenda in Foreign Policy and domestic policy that tackles the great challenges of our time. In the Foreign Policy a arena that means taking on the urgent threat posed by Climate Change and americas unnecessary war and return us to diplomacy with iran. Is incredibly grateful for the partnership of all the people in this room , not today but four days, weeks and months to come. And i have to say when i think of the people who have propelled that fight for democracy and human rights towards this core of our Foreign Policy i can think of no one better to make that case and our special guest for our next keynote session, ambassador samantha power. From 2013 to 2017 he served as our nation 28 permanent representative to the un and in that time she played a pivotal role in shaping americas response to every Major International issue from opposing russia, russian aggression in syria and the ukraine to enacting sanctions against north korea and ending the evil of crisis. Since the conclusion of the Obama Administration ambassador power is served as a professor of global leadership, public policy, human rights at the Harvard Law School and last year she published a memoir, the education and idealist which was hailed as one of 20 19th most notable books by behind us, Washington Press and New York Times andlet me say it was a fantastic we. Wheres honored to ambassador power could be here for our team a contribution on the power of National Security please welcome back to the state kelly maximum and help me get a warm round of applause for ambassador samantha power. Class at all, hope everyone had a good lunch and a good breakout session. Ambassador power, welcome. To recap the National Security conference, the first hundred days. Youre an astute person of experience, the first hundred days of an administration and therest of the administration as well so i look forward to your perspective. I want to mention your new book theeducation of an idealist. There are periods of that book i feel ivemoved with you through so its nice to see it written down in such a compelling and personal way. One of the themes that comes up throughout the book is how to advance your ideals and navigate the very complex National Security bureaucracy which many of us in this room have lived through and seen the ups and downs of process. How do you get things doneto reflect your values and your ideals . Many people in this room have been aggressive Foreign Policy agendas but theres always friction about that i would love your reflections on for the room first of all, thank you. Its great to see, like a big reunion a lot of people i havent even seen since that fateful day in january 2017. When everything changed. A galaxy far far away. So its great to be back in that galaxy. I guess i may be would give you the answer into two parts. Where i landed after eight years of learning on the job in the executive branch, i sort of encapsulated in the book in x and expression that i borrow from a couple professors, a stanford professor, but he brothers and the expression is shrink the change. And the best example i can offer of that child over in the book is it, the trump years that brought about the democracy recession, they contributed, their accelerating it, there helping fuel it in america is part of the democracy recession but we were living that for all of the years of the Obama Administration. There were 13 straight years of freedom in decline around the world and you and i were in jobs, many people were in jobs with that portfolio and it was maddening and we were trying whats a different tactics to try to chip away at that problem, gathering society, creating instruments at the un like special repertoires on freedom of association and things like that and working a discrete human rights issue. But sitting with my more creative younger members of my team in 2015, we came up with this idea of a very modest campaign called hashtag free the 20 which was our way of taking this huge problem of freedom in decline around the world and the resurgence of nationalism and populism, of zero phobic flair in many circumstances but turning it into something concrete that we could conceivably achieve and i dont think we thought even that we would achieve that much but we thought we would in profiling 20 women, female Political Prisoners around the world that we would make their families know that america care, reach them in jail, that their leaders would know there was at least some reputational cost and in the end thanks to the work of many people in this room and others and actually 20 female us senators as it happened, there were 20 female us senators at the time in the senate on a bipartisan base basis through their weight behind the campaign, 16 of the 20 women were freed from jail when you ask how you get things done , we can solve or even make much of a dent in the freedom recession but we did have something concrete with proof of concept that then morphed into other campaigns that were again about very discrete causes but sometimes you can define yourself out of meaningful action, especially now where issues like Climate Change by definition you feel so small even if you have a very influential role in a future administration so that a policy level. I guess iwould say now that were in this period , of not even having the ability to do things like make a list of prisoners and try to get them out of jail , even something that modest, i feel like now its each of our responsibilities as we work towards a change in november 2020 10 takes form on january 2021, but i feel like a lot of terms have been thrown around like rebuilding trust and restoring alliances and i wasnt in the breakout session. Im sure it got much more concrete but i think one thing that we can do now, those of you who have strong and thick and longstanding relationships with other countries is we need to answer the question of actually what will it take to not rebuild trust is of course we know it wont be real overnight what are the kinds of very discrete and shrink the change, doable, achievable measures at woodland with outsized influence with other countries . For some it a visit, cabinet level visit. Early might make a difference. For some its, i we will talk about this imsure but resubmitting our papers for the paris agreement. And that will take hold and come into effect early days after we do so but i think when i talk to young people i often say when they say what can i do, i want to make a difference in the world id say no something about something. It feels like we have a responsibility to know how to alter the ecosystem, the things that are within our control as someone said earlier, but lets hear from , lets use the time we have to hear from others what will make a dent and then comparably, we talk a lot about the us, a great question earlier to the previous panel. About how to create Foreign Policy, i dont want to paraphrase you but the Foreign Policy that resonates with a domesticconstituency. That has domestic appeal. That is not entirely knowable because people are different all around the country and it depends on what subsection of the American Public one is thinking about but that would be another really good way to use our time right now is to understand, weve talked about i think in the china context how do you walk that line in selling domestic mobilization around our and the investments. Around ai investments. Around renewal and rebuilding of our diplomatic corps. What is the sweet spot there on china where its not nearly the return as we were talking about, not a return to a cold war enemy that brings about that domestic globalization but the face also for the areas of cooperation we know we need. What is that sweet spot . Some of you have been listening to john favreau on positive america and weve been going around the country and he found himself very surprised to hear among independents and swing states swing voters how much it surprisingly matter to people that we have lost the respect of people around the world that we feel alone. People in that interesting middle, its one thing about Traditional Democratic voters people who changed their Party Affiliation from election to election, they just feel like its not good to have your respect and your Favorability Ratings plummet. Thats interesting and that will have a ramification for the next administration and again, how they packagewhat were doing. But it would be great to drill into, we know thats an issue that might resonate but then whats the remedy, what are the messages woodland and maybe its not this community who is best positioned to do that. I certainly dont feellike im particularly good at that. Knowing how to bridge the differences but if weve learned anything , in every sort of discussion like this among Foreign Policy experts, someone brings up the need to do that. So wheres the work being done to, in a very specific way run through each of the issues and find out how to get the most in this big bang for your buck so you can sell all the wonderful things that your breakout session that we decided we needed to do im going to put you on the spot a little bit. If you were in charge of the world and you were looking around all the priorities, we have no shortage ofpriorities. Change, endingthe wars. Rebuilding that respect , what would making a dent look like to you and what would be your first big Muscle Movement policy decision that you would maybe considerin the first hundred days . For a modest, just a little bit of a copout only because you did ask that question others i will try not to repeat what others said and i did sit in on jakes china breakout session as well. So heard a number of great ideas in that space. I guess i would say, i would start with and i will repeat a little bit but try to offer some something that i didnt hear. I start with the enabling environment, and to get back to the ecosystem, thats where what they have referred to as the diplomatic blitz but the trust blitz which that enabling environment, what one does in north korea or the South China Sea will turn and the power of our messaging in terms of the diplomacy will turn on our success in building i dont want to say rebuilding because by definition it will look different now but building a new relationship with the republic of north korea by injecting our more trust into the relationship with japan. It goes without saying that our European Partners heads are exploding and have been for some time so thats part of the enabling device is just somehow again, were not going to solve it in the first hundred days or the first term but retrieving americas word, americas credibility. The legitimacy of our actions, retrieving their sense that we have systems and processes, some of the things dennis wastalking about projecting that so that they , that theres going to be a huge amount of ptsd in our interactive litters who are for the first year, this administration did the normal things. They would meet with the senior director for this and assistant secretary for that and at a certain point he realized you people have no idea what trump is aboutto do about anything. So as we rebuild our systems also projecting and restoring confidence that nature, not just in our word and whether outward matters. So thats part of the enabling environment. Personnel issues that michelle forno and otherstalk about in terms of our diplomatic corps i dont need to say much more than that but to put a fine point on it , 225,000 us personnel, us pentagon personnel serving overseas today,225,000. 9000 diplomats. 225,000 to 9000, its one example of something that long predated trump but maybe from gives us an excuse to breathe new life into, theres signals you could send early on. Climate of course, we be depositing our instruments of reaccession i suppose. And that would be very welcome but i think on climate, not only the breaking down of silos that we talked about in the china breakout within our domestic institutions and the breaking down of the domestic policy silos we know exist. But also thinking through what the pathway to paris 2. 0 is and maybe the climate people will say well, its far too soon. We havent even sat down with china yet and what is that going to look like but i think for us to say to the world we know weve lost four years. Heres how mayors and governors in the private sector and Mike Bloomberg have made a dense in our absence. But were with you in, we remember that paris is always a floor and that we have to make up for lost time and of course the set of domestic executive orders that go beyond where we were when we left off is really important. The fresh or maybe not fresh to some people in this room but that i havent heard mention today is some set of initiatives and the human rights anddemocracy space and many have said our comparative advantage , i think mira alluded to this with china stepping up in the world in such cataclysmic ways and such important ways, that we have a comparative advantage is how do we show that early . Just a few ideas, i do think the confidence deficit in democracies right now is something that we need to try to remedy early and remember that 55 percent of the worlds countries even now, even with the freedom deficit for 13 years, 55 percent are still democratic. At more than half of the worlds population. Is there some big gathering of democracies . People who are involved in the community of democracies know that has never really had a huge impact, but whether its ad hoc gatherings regionally with democratic countries, we need to be cooling our resources, pooling our ideas. Other countries are way beyond where we are on combating foreign action interference, other democracies that is. Thats a topic for lets say a summit of democracies. Deciding whos in and whos out creates a race tothe top , we all know from the obama summit that everybody wants to be a us chaired summit. I dont think notwithstanding the damage of the trump years that will still be the case so getting a Little Energy back and pride in what it means to be a democracy and getting some texture to the benefits that canaccrue in pooling our strength. And again if you think about economically, the us and european democracies, how potent that front is in the case of chinese exports of its model to the degree that thats what its doing. That coalition, that block is even with the hungarys and the colons and the caveats to it, its a much more powerful presence and again, get a Little Spring back in the step. Of course in order to be credible in human rights democracy, most of our work is going to be on our internal struggles and reclaiming the legitimacy of our efforts beyond our borders and so the rule of law and independence of the department of justice or the attorney general, those are some of the things we were talking about earlier. The return to press briefings and embrace of even an adversarial relationship with the press. All those are going to be foundational to our human rights and democracy leadership and there are small initiatives that could have outside impacts like proposing legislation that we have our two legislation that we maybe didnt observe to the letter as we should have in the egypt context. At least not to my taste but you could imagine since coups are less the issue now then the extension of peoples terms or the doing away of constitutional limits on executive power all around the world, as part of this freedom recession you can imagine shaw brothers of carnegie has proposed this, legislation that does what we wanted for clues with those kind of constitutional transgressions that would have actual assistance ramifications. And then finally i think something really big in the anticorruption space and this gets to marrying the domestic and Foreign Policy, there are people here would be more expert than me but thats another example like climate where some kind of interagency where the full scope of our domestic tools and International Tools are brought to their. Just heard a statistic per 10 percent of leadership changes that occurred between 2013 and 2018 were fueled by public anger over corruption. And if you combine some of whats motivating progressive anger at the present, even some of what contributed to trump selection, somewhat contradictorily but the residents of a sense that elites are making off with National Wealth of all kinds and the potential residence of the work that we have to do to rebuild the rule along here and then to embed that in a Big Initiative and get the democracies of the world to get quite as far as we have on these issues and they hadstatelevel. I could be a really powerful sort of Signature Initiative i think for a new administration that takes power, particularly at a time when the rule of law is under siege by some of these more autocratic tendencies. At the time when china is projecting this kind of deference to whoever the sovereign is irrespective of whether they respect the rule of law. At the time when china itself is bringing corrupt practices to at least some share of its importantinfrastructure investments that is making around the world. There could be a lot of distinguishing power in that agenda. I want to pick up on the continued democracy authoritarianism the and there seems to be a major paradigm shift happening. Have a paper last year about having a democratic valuesbased Foreign Policy. You sitting here on the stage talking about how to pool collective Democratic Power to save the world, to our interests and our values. How should we be thinking about the otherpartners who are a little less democratic like the saudi arabias of the world who are not democratic , especially after a time when President Trump has been out there talking quite openly about how he prefers these autocrats to the democrats so how do you think about partners like saudi arabia or others around the world challenging the democraticside . How do we think about engaging in that space . Again, some of this is to state the obvious. The power of with human rights diplomacy sometimes your efforts and this will be true in the future even if its a more signature part of future administrations leadership in the world, partly the reaction to trump, partly the reaction to china but is the case that one of the main tools in your toolbox is diplomatic. His censure. His condemnation. And even the trumpet ministration does some of that, they just do it for venezuela, iran and cuba, anybody else . No, they dont do it for the philippines. So the tinnitus of our human rights diplomacy at the outset is something that we are just going to have to work hard to read dress and is going to take time. It took time after the iraq war was waged in part under the mantle ofliberty and freedom. It took time in the Obama Administration, its going to take even longer in the wake of trump. But i say that just because back to my point about bringing democracies together, i made the point in the context of gathering, thats not important. Whats important is that we function together. That we are a block that when these kind of modest tools are brought to bear, and they need not be modest. There are certainly we should be cutting off assistance to the saudis in light of the atrocities committed in yemen. They are like straight up cut off of support that i think are imperative and have long been imperative. But on some of the other sort of less precipitous and dislocating tools that you would employ, the power will come in numbers in part and the power will come in showing ourselves as well as those who are on the fence as well as the authoritarian countries who been strutting around for the last decade really but especially the last three years, now we are doing these things together. And theres a lot of hedging going on. Countries like greece used two at the very end of the Obama Administration used to be able to pull them into human rights criticisms of china, barely and now forget about it. The chinese investments within a major european, within the founder of democracy, the heart of democracy itself, they dont want much to do with that so i dont want to pretend that hey, were back. Everybody raced to the Democracy Club again, its not going to be like that but to remember the power of numbers andmultilateral coalitions. Especially with china , more and more. With governments like the saudis and egyptians and others. Or and more sort of dangling their options and their ability to forum shop. We lived with the tail end of the Obama Administration as well, just the specter that theyre going to go to putin or theyre certainly going to go to china and i think we need to get a little more comfortable, figure out where those lines are for us which countries would that actually harm our interest . Which countries, has that ship already sailed and we are just operating sort of gravy because the Major Investments are coming from elsewhere anyway so we might as well have principal positions. The extent to which chinese investments and military sales at some point in the future will end up in any event diminishing our leverage. It has been an argument for us keeping our irons in the fire. We got to maintain the relationship using more and more economic assistance tocc and whomever but maybe at a certain point its like at this point , that assistance we can now look plainly at it. China has come, russia has come. Theyve made their bed. Theyve chosen that relationship and each of these i think is a casebycase situation but i would say on the Positive Side which is i suppose easier in many ways, but i mentioned the importance of us sharing Lessons Learned on election interference and banding together on the uighurs would be one example if youre going to do a public statement, do it in unison with as many other countries as you can. But its also thinking really strategically about sudan, ethiopia. Even tunisia, all these years after its transition. Is there a way to pool resources . With an eye to really investing at critical times in countries that are trying to make transformational change . Everything theyre doing in sudan is just pushing water uphill. And theyre doing it with the occasional low level statement out of the state department saying the occasional trying to claim credit for transition in sudan. And, but there is no process. There is no strategy. There is no, how could we bring even, begin thinking about Business Investment at a certain point or back to anticorruption, how can we offer Technical Expertise whether at Civil Society level or at a governmental level to really assist them where they need it most in Capacity Building for a experiment that a year ago nobody would have dreamed that they wouldhave the chance to be embarking upon. So part of the conversation is what do you do about democracy and nondemocracy is really throwing your weight behind those who can be your friends but who are at criticaljunctures and feeling right now immensely lonely. China is there, offering no stringsattached infrastructure. Theyve been there. A different kind of strength but no human rights strings attached, no democratization rings attached. One interesting side note on sudan and i dont want tobe pollyanna , anything thats happening internally beyond saying nobody could have expected that they would have come this far. But and i think we will talk at some point maybe about multilateralism and where it stands but the Un Security Council because of chinas support and russias support front for the bashir government was useless as these events were taking hold and because the Security Council was paralyzed on sudan at the time when the body was charged with promoting peace and security could have been helpful. It was just sort of like off, irrelevant but it freed up space for the African Union to do something really positive and constructive. But it created for the first time a situation where maybe something we see in the future , one can sort of hope on one level but where the African Union and chinese were at each other because the chinese, the African Union want to go further in pushing for civilian led government in sudan and the chinese just wanted status quo and preserve what you have, the investments have been made and things are working out quite nicely and just again statism or this bias towards workers in charge irrespective of what theyredoing area but right now , or at least in recent years and spend the last few years have been open season for china in Subsaharan Africa and elsewhere. In many respects but this is an example where you see actually a new, want to call ethiopia democracy but a country knowing through a democratic transition or seeking to, then itself not under the auspices of the African Union to facilitate another democratic transition that you saw coming and even elbowing out of the way the authoritarian big brother who wanted to use the powers of the International System to preserve the status quo. Andi think , there are people who we are who have studied this closely but in that lies some reminders of how things work. Actually if one of the world potentially leading democracies was back in the game or at least could argue the other way which is that its this vacuum that creates the prospect for things like that to happen but with the change in ethiopia, leadership on behalf of democracy and human rights can extend all kinds of things happening in ethiopia but the support for rule of law, the aspiration to deal with historic grievances, the increased liberalization at least four political parties, media liberalization and so forth, you can imagine when countries are going through that and what company area and the regional organizations can end up asserting themselves even as the un and other more traditional bodies where we have played and up taking a backseat cause of the gridlock between the United States and china its an interesting questionbecause obviously youve been ambassador to the united nations. Your thinking of gridlock is going to persist i suspect and worsen now that were in this era of Great Power Competition so how do you Balance Investments and workingthrough International Institutions like the united nations. With kind of the new ad hoc multilateralism were starting to see emerge whether its coalitions of democracies or broader coalitions in general. What does that look like and if you lean into far too ad hoc multilateralism, you create a world that is a more competitive place. You have competitive block which is something weve seen in the past. It hasnt been as good so how do you balance as progressives working inside institutionsthat may be hamstrung by politics and then working outside them. Were definitely moving into a, were not moving into, were in that. Just for context, if you think of old school gridlock in the Security Council you think of the cold war and the sort of paralysis between the us and the soviet union. With the end of the cold war and the opening up of the possibility of the Security Council being quasiexecutive organ on peace and security, you have a couple decades there where it was irrelevant at times on issues where permanent members felt really strongly. So the Security Council is not impactful on issues related to israel and palestine because of the us traditional position within the Security Council. Certainly anything related to taiwan or membership issues, un membership issues or burma for a long time, the kind of near broad for china and then in the obama years because of what putin was doing you saw the list of things that you couldnt make progress on. The list of issues coming before the Security Council expanded but any issues on which you couldnt get past great power differences really expanded because suddenly ukraine is on the agenda and yet theres very little you can get through the councilbecause of russia. Syria, the bright line almost as if its ukraine, adding to that then yemen in the tail end where i think in many ways russias position at least on the inclusivity of the Peace Process and so forth which led to block different as actions. It might be a position more along the lines of what people would wish our position had been. But it was mainly just to be a spoiler also and to try to create an equivalence between what the coalition was doing in yemen and what russia and syria were doing in places like aleppo but burma again with the rohingya offlimits but not blocked, libya, iran, cashmere of course and so pretty much if you think of the conflict in the world, its someones got a dog in the fight now. To an extent, and i mentioned even sudan where china and russia were on one side and western democracies were sort of on another butnot very assertive. And so its more and more blocked on more and more issues. That was a real shift i saw over even the life of our time in the obama ministration where putin was initially was just ukraine and syria where he was going to throw his weight around. And then suddenly you want to play spoiler on south sudan arms embargo, he never cared about what was happening in Saharan Africa before ones he would not pick a fight on and yet he was personally vetting to carry Council Resolutions on issues much further appeal, just to be a disruptor writ large. Similarly china within the un system you would have just seen it very active on things that matter to china keeping itself off the agenda above all, keeping anything related again to is very narrow brought up the agenda and preserving a constructive space on north korea was always somewhat surprising. The willingness to work within the Security Council on north korea proliferation related issues but by the end, even in my time and this is totally accelerated in the last three years china when i in 2009 when we entered the Obama Administration , china was contributing i think three percent of the unbudget. And last year, for the first time it became the number two donor to the united nationsby the us. So now 12 percent, it overtook japan gave a special pleasure to china and that translated already again three years ago but its translating every day now into a willingness to assert himself across the budget process, practical human rights posts for peacekeeping missions. Trying to some of you read about how china threatened to veto the un afghanistan mission, kind of agree up the un mission, a pro forma resolution because they couldnt get their bills in roads, the complement to the tribute to the belt and Road Initiative and how constructive and important it is for afghanistan into the renewal resolution. Just throwing weight around to ensure that this sort of very gradual and you know, its hard to see its impact on the world as we know it but theyre up to something. But very gradual erosion of standards by inserting language around state consents everywhere. Chipping away at the idea that there are principles within the un charter that are higher than the state and rights and principles to which state have to be accountable. If you look at un resolutions now look at the language around state consents. So when the Security Council, these kinds of battles are happening, this kind of assertiveness is going on and meanwhile, the problems are going anywhere in the world and so theres a kind of organism adapts to mention to what is happening and again, that predated trump with ego while taking a leadership role for example on the constitutional crisis and gambia back in 2016. The ethiopia role through the au on sudan area youre going to see more and more of that but to your question, the way that it will start to see any of these institutions including operational african institutions, the au or the Security Council, it will turn on how the countries themselves, how those bilateral relationships are very real theres nothing in the multilateral either fixes itself. Its not like the secretarygeneral shows up and says enough gridlock, were back to cold war veto. What are you doing with all these features you know products are coming up on any of the contemporary prices. Youre making yourself irrelevant. People are very aware that the Security Council is losing legitimacy for reasons other than having five permanent members selected in 1945. That is to be the big legitimacy concerned about the securitycouncil, now its on the big crisis of our time , its not functioning thats going to come back to the chinarelationship , or your Breakout Sessions and those all resulting themselves because then as democracies are back cooperating, right now the democracies on the securitycouncil are caucusing with one another. Epr, germany, france and the unitedkingdom are aligning their messages. But the United States decided in the wake of north korean Ballistic Missile tests that we didnt want to bring those violations of Security Council resolutions to the Security Council. Europeans did. Last i checked, that was a violation of the Security Council resolutions and brought them over us objection to the idea that we are in a moment where the us and our closest European Partners would be disagreeing about whether to bring violations, north koreas violations of the Security Council. The cleavages are not just on human rights and democracy issues or womens rights or all the ones we know about. Even on the core piece and security question. I have some questions ask you what i know the audience wanted to ask you questions. I do have one question before we go to the audience which is your returning to teaching , congratulations. One of the things, they have done pulling around foreignpolicy and how they resonate with americans and what we have discovered is that , theres significant generational divide on what we consider important and not important in terms of our role in the world, what issues we should be focused on. Your engaging young people, how are you thinking about this generational shift in terms of priorities but also how we can engage the Younger Generation on foreignpolicy issues in a way that resonates with them . Answer in two ways if i may. First, a sort of genetic level infact where we started on this idea of shrink the change. I both and teaching and just completed a threemonth book tour where i was in 40 cities or something and on a lot of campuses. And i dont know if this will resonate. I feel like this is true of people of all ages and not just students but my main impression was a level of political engagement, activation, anger in certain quarters. But that i dont recall seeing in my prior travels and my prior experiences in the classroom. But it was coupled with a real anxiety, a sense of feeling small. So it was like almost like australias fire become a metaphor for this even though i was in australia at the time of the fire and not on american campuses but its just even just the images and if a parent, all of these parents talking to your kids about these problems and parents job is to tell a story about how everything is going to be okay and how do you tell , and that is true of planet but its also a set of issues with inequality or and will be a crisis or the mass migration. Its really caring and then really just sort of when you write side the solution with your own capacity. So thats where is shrink the change thing comesin where were trying to meet people where they are , not paralyzed but activated and then kind of hamstrung by that. So i think thats well beyond what anyone thinks our Foreign Policy should be. I think as we think about the kind of activation we need, society wide for the set of challenges that we face , just remember that simply stating the size of the problem without finding for those of you who are experts on the issues without finding some pathway where you can tell a story that there is something within your power to control. So people feel out of control, thats another way to put it commensurate to the scale of those issues. So thats just part of my reaction to your question and then the second and last thing id say is i think the capital is really interesting and theres people and also that i think is quite similar. So thats what we all know which is that younger people are very, much more skeptical than older generations about these the use of military force. Our challenge collectively is there does appear in many circles a inflation of us leadership in the world or us Foreign Policy with using military force. And so again, when you talk and your reminding, not just the country of the iraq invasion. Also the country of the leading the world in the old people in crisis. When i said case at the Kennedy School in the law school at harvard , people are just, they are outthere. Theyre bouncing to the halls , the facts that theres an example that concrete and now well documented by sellers about how you a democracy working behind and in support of local people who are willing to put their lives on the line in new guinea, how all the countries of the world when a democracy leads are in support of those individuals on the ground can build the airplane whileits flying. We helped neutralize Irans Nuclear Weapon Program and elaborate and incredibly complex negotiations while bringing russia, china, european and iran to the table in a way that nobody thought possible. You give them those examples they say oh yeah, but those examples are not part of our political culture but we have american carnage and nothing that the last administration did that worked with thieves and even among democrats just that a lot of what i talked about has been about confidence so i will say people show something interesting. The cap poll if you will correct me, with jobs and climate was number one or im sorry, this was generation z so for the younger crowd you are talking about climate number one, jobs and then analyze getting to polling also and then the number four protecting human rights. I think it was protecting human rights and ending global poverty and then lower than that wasnt terrorism, combating terrorism among young people. Its not that they want to throw baby out with the bathwater if you disaggregate but when you talk in the abstract about u. S. Foreign policy everybody thanks that will mean militarization and there is a reason for that. Our personnel are involved in Counterterrorism Operations in 40 of the countries Counterterrorism Missions which include operations and other activities, training and other activities, and 40 of the countries in the world. Theres a sense of what or how our Foreign Policy you know has become overweighted in that direction. We have a breakout session on the ending the forever wars. I want to open for a couple of questions. We are running a little behind so if you have questions, raise your hands and i will collect two of them. The gentleman in the back. Please, state your name and identify yourself. Hello, matthew petty, reporter at the national dash. One thing ive heard a lot of from trump world is the idea that the clock is ticking to one talking point is ive heard of force Decision Point on iran and you know, we seen the europeans start to move away from the nuclear deal and we saw serious military escalation. What you think a new Democratic Administration should do if the Trump Administration brings us past the point of no return . What do you think the way to deal with getting stuck into, lets say an escalation spiral that the next administration might not believe is justified or is a priority . Can we take a another one . Lady in the frontier. Thank you so much. That was great. Lets talk about the un. They both had this collective action dimension and the normative dimension and do both of those elements of the institution are in crisis and in retreat and to some analysts sort of think they are in juxtaposition and that by stressing and trying to shore off the normative side of the un your weakening the institution and that russia and china to see an incentive and participating in some respects strengthening the un but on their own terms. My view is you got to do both. You have to strengthen the un as institution for collective security but you cannot give an inch on the normative side. You have to continue to compete and ultimately we can be successful but curious to how you see that and particularly the sequencing because it would go aggressively on the normative side i can see that is a recipe for continued impasse. Why dont we start with those two. Okay. Let me work backwards. Im not sure suzanne at a level of obstruction, where to go but you are absolutely right to point to the interplay and duality of all of that. I mean, in order to defend against normal erosion which i is maybe i will say a word about the technology with that bucket of norms that are woefully underdeveloped but if part of what is happening and going to continue to happen and will get accelerated over time is to chip away at some of the belated realizations that the way a regime treats its own people is a predictor of how they are likely to behave within their regions or as partners i mean, china fundamentally either does not accept that or does not care. Right . The ramifications of accepting that events that occur internally have broader ramifications to implicate them too much could now implicate a set of bedfellows of theirs so if you are to guard against their desire to turn back the clock which mirrors what trump has tried to to domestically here then its about countries acting collectively to prevent that normal erosion. One reason they been we are fortunate that their ambition in the phase that coincides with trump is [inaudible] i know there are divergent views of even how ambitious they even are to this effect, whether they coexistence with the International Institutions largely as they are chipping away here and there or whether they have something and make the world safer for our talk or see and i think they are really its not actually clear yet where they are heading but wherever they are heading you prefer them to be at a nascent stage during the trump area where the u. S. Seat is vacant in where the u. S. Does not mobilize other countries and does not either care to do diplomacy or doesnt understand multilateralism and but for whatever reason we are lucky that it is now we would have been luckier if it was ten years ago when they werent doing it at all but you no, this is where again, two times trump is not to time strong but its you know, its an exponential harm that occurs in the second term because china more and more, as i spoke to, so need to collective action to preserve norms and then when you look at that bucket of new norms and again it need not be or best not happen at least initially at the un but in any multilateral setting it still will be about collective action on behalf of the set of principles that we wish to a spouse or if we were to get china to be a part of them in cyber and ai you absolutely have to be the point. There will be compromise involved in that and again the longer we wait the more leverage they will have in more countries they will have on their side of the table where the beneficiaries of these technologies so i guess i see them just very, very intermingled. I will say on Norm Development i mean, i hope that my way of thinking about it isnt already anachronistic. I dont know because i havent been in these negotiations now for a while and the world has not stood still during this time. But it is probably the case that on the big unresolved normative questions where china has to be a part of the question that they the process will end up having to look Something Like im not saying im saying this it tentatively but its kind of like a paris process where the p2 negotiation occurs as happened in the podesta process or whatever with president xi and then or but it could happen the other way where its a democracy process that occurs where we are then the spokesperson on behalf of as large a coalition as possible giving us then more potency in what amounts to a subsequent p2 process but thats why i mention that in year one all of that brainstorming among democracies about how we handle this strategic juggernaut that is coming down the path. But i say that in contrast with the traditional un process where the u. S. Is leaving behind and you cant get away with that anymore. That will not play itself out at the un. It should end up probably at that you and good we tried that in the obama years with those lean a set of cyber norms and i think from what i gather from the intelligence people it brought down cyber theft and some of the things were looking at but we did not touch the hottest, the hottest issues, i guess for the most contentious issues and i was the idea. We would start there and build out Something Like that process will be needed. On the iran question i dont think i have i think its i cant even know what scenario you have in mind exactly. I would just say you use the phrase point of no return. I just will never i dont know what that means. Theres always it can always get worse no matter how bad it is. And it can always get moderately better. Anything where climate stands out is a possible exception but so i dont know what the apocalyptic scenario is that you have in mind. I think we will have two profound issues irrespective of how the next month play themselves out under trump and we will have a major credibility challenge in sitting down with the Iranian Regime again, in so far as, the Ready Response to whatever reboot we want to do is yes, but wont this to be replaced the next time someone who doesnt like the deal takes office . In the old days we would either have the norm that dennis referenced earlier of respecting an executive prior agreement or we would have the prospect of rocking down an International Agreement in a treaty but you know, given the 67 votes threshold for treaties we dont do treaties anymore and so i think it will be very challenging to sit down. On the other hand the circumstance in iran that is helping fuel these protests alongside the recent trigger event of shooting down the plane and the lack of credibility around the regime traditionally in terms of welfare is a profound economic crisis. The crisis will persist irrespective of whether escalation or deescalation occurs. Especially because the Trump Administration is intent on piling more and more sanctions, not only on the Iranian Regime but on anyone externally who complies with International Law and the sanctions relief that the jc poa has enshrined in the Un Security Council resolution, anyone who complies with at the Trump Administration is treating as a rogue actor in the International System. The economic pain piled on to iran will be a major change in circumstances with huge ramifications for their internal stability and we have seen that in this weeks protest but also in the larger protests since 1939 which occurred just weeks ago. It is very hard to spike in late given the number of moving parts and that set of scenarios. We will have a panel later this afternoon to solve the problems on the iran front. Well thank you samantha for joining us. Im sorry we dont have more time for questions but its been a very indepth conversation about how to advance our ideals in a complex or worlds. Thank you for joining us and lets give her a round of applause. [applause] will now break for the afternoon breakout session and we will see you back you later. [inaudible conversations] we will now have a brief break before the afternoon breakout session against. [inaudible conversations] the u. S. Senate now returning from their party lunch. We take you to the floor now live