Transcripts For CSPAN2 Atlantic Council Discussion On National Security 20240712

Gentlemen, do not need an introduction but for good measure i will run through the very, very top lines of their bios. General james jones as executive chairman emeritus at the council and served under president barack obama as the 22nd National Security advisor beginning in january 2009 previously he served as the allied commander in europe and as the 32nd commandant of the marine corps. Great to have you, general jones bid honorable bob bud mcfarland is a Nuclear Technology Company Founder and served as the 13th National Security advisor under president Ronald Reagan and retired marine corps officer. Great to have you here too. Of course, ambassador john bolton shares the foundation for American Security and freedom serving most recently as the 27th National Security adviser under president donald trump. He previously served as the u. S. A matter to the United Nations under president george w. Bush and other government posts as well. Great to have the three of you here today. A few bits of housekeeping notes. It is not ideal that we are doing this on zoom and we wish we could be together but in the meantime we do want to keep this as interactive as possible but you will see the q a tab at the bottom of your screen and click on it and send your questions we deftly want to hear from you and dont forget to put your name and affiliation so we know who we are talking to them we want to make this a conversation with definitely get your questions in early. Also, we encourage them to join the discussion on twitter using ac elections 2020 and forward defense against a sea elections 2020 and forward defense. Lets get cracking. Lots to talk about with these gentlemen. Since we are being closely by the strategy of security i thought we would talk about the model that was developed by he inspired a model for staffing and process and efficiency at the National Security council and one in which many of his successors have referred to as the ultimate goal for running the nfc. It would be of what the current National Security structure and or the role of the National Security council and already see ambassador bolton laughing a little bit and how can processing and procedures improve policymaking approach to National Security issues. Maybe general jones we could start with you. General, i believe you are on mute, sir. Okay. Thank you very much. Probably should start out by saying quoting Daniel Webster who president eisenhower used to like to quote in one of these favorite quotes was americas great because it is good and america never ceases to be good and america will cease to be great. I think that is something we should keep in mind as we lurch fast and forward into this 21st century which is incredibly complex and very different on the 20th century and the former concept of Financial Security and not everything that it entails is much broader but its all happening at a much more rapid pace than ever before and i think i left the white house in 2010 and im sure john would agree that every single day is almost doubled if not tripled and so we are living in a very difficult time where our ability to deal with the 24 hour news cycle and the advances in technology and the never ending demand for rapid answers to complex questions never seems to go away. I think that characteristic has a great deal to do with the effectiveness of the National Security council which, in my view, should be strategic as possible and should serve as coordinating mechanism across the interagency to highlight the president those things that he or she absolutely hast to know in real time so this is a complex time demands just an awful lot of work of great people at every station and ability to deal with the everincreasing speed around the world. The world was a different place when they had this vision for the nfc and having served around the same time why do you think he kind of nfc is needing to be under a certain model and you think it was the right mod model. I spent a lot of time with general schoolcraft before i accepted the job and even during the job i consulted with him on a regular basis and one of the big differences between the Bush Administration and with steve hadley and the Obama Administration was we decided immediately to combine both the homeland Security Council and the National Security council into one organization. I became a little heavy in terms of people but at least for the way president obama like to make decisions work better for him. I am not saying its the only way but one of the things that general schoolcraft said on the outset is that every president gets to shake the National Security council the way he or she wants to and is probably the one institution in our government that has to be ready to go as soon as the inauguration ceremony is over with and so that commendation of Homeland Security and National Security goes back and forth depending on the administration and i think john and i were in agreement with combining votes is a good idea and that as i said its not the only way but has to be shaped for how the president likes to make decisions and how he wants to see the National Security council in the context of the government. Ambassador bolton, you had a strong response when i asked the questions why dont you share your thoughts . I agree with a lot of what jim has said and that i have in my book i quote a paragraph from dons memoir of his days as chief and staff in the bush 41 white house where he says when the president was in town at 8 00 a. M. Every morning there would be the intelligence briefing followed by for about 15 minutes followed by about half an hour with schoolcraft talk about National Security and sometimes that went on for a while and then bret would stay on when governor sununu would discuss with president bush the press and domestic and political issues and as i said in the book if that were the way things went in the Trump White House i wouldve felt like i had died and gone to heaven. It is absolutely correct that every National Security Council Structure has to adopt to the president who is leading the country and that is the councils purpose of the reasoning behind the creation and functioning is to advise the president that it has no independent purpose other than that. In a time when many, many issues come before the president that involve National Security when the interagency processes become cumbersome and bureaucratic and the effectiveness of the nse to advise the president i think is critical and there are many different theories as to how it can work but i think if you abandon it it would be a huge mistake and i think part of the problem, no we are not supposed to be too topical a part of the problem we face today is that it just doesnt suit the current incumbent and we will see what happens in the next administration, whoever it might be. What was the vision originally . When you serve now youre getting 35 years ago or so what would, do you think the world was demanding this kind of model or was it something that would enhance our ability to tackle National Security threat in the future . I think jim jones is right that each president will design, manage and oversee the council the way he or she wants it. The model really stems back to Henry Kissinger in the mid 70s and as his deputies adopted it i was working with bret at the time and the chief of staff but i think that i would only add to what john and jim have said that the council is to enable formation of policies designed to accomplish the goal of the president has set and so if we are looking to build u. S. Foreign policy toward the middle east the National Security advisor publishes a directive saying the president wants to know how to see accomplish the following goal in the middle east if the political, economic and military dimensions of how he or she ought to do that and they are about six weeks later a paper comes back. Since kissingers, schoolcraft and the three of us that is broadly speaking the way it has run and the point i would stress and that approach is this, that today it has become the fashion to publish one paper which is a National Strategy and in the holders who was probably a dozen favors to start with on a more differentiated set of policy issues, u. S. Policy toward allies my u. S. Policy toward the middle east, toward china, toward russia and that way by speeches targeted on each one of these you got a public elaboration from the president or the security advisor or secretary of state about the nittygritty of what our policy is in each of these domains well, i thought that had a certain order to the Relationship Building around the world and writing and in oral discourse and the staff is always been too big and was about mid 50s under kissinger and i think i had about 58 but you dont need 400 word i think john would agree and the beginning of wisdom is to have a staff that doesnt portray itself in numbers or hubris that it is running things. It is to manage a system that can enable the president to make sensible decisions and a staff of 400 is far too many to do that. Wait, i agree with what you just said in one of the things i found upon my arrival as a National Security advisor was that the National Security council was severely underfunded and severely overpopulated but one of the problems that manifested itself was that fully two thirds or three force of the staff on the National Security council were from the interagency, from the Defense Department and state department and from all over government on loan for the nationals agree to counsel and therefore paid for by their parent organizations and what happened was that this loan was temporary and either one or two years and not much more than that and what we found is after one year about half the National Security council staff, professional staff rotated and new people came in and i thought that was wholly unsatisfactory and argued for more funding and basically an ability to make financial Security Council with a mini agency with the budgets for the type of work that the National Security council needed to do which we did not have and so yes, i think 400 is way too many but i think more importantly it would be great to have a National Security council that would have a smaller staff that are dedicated professional staff that would be there for the long haul instead of losing 50 every year. Let me throw out another question i will start with you, ambassador bolton. I think probably have two brush up on this. I have discovered that the transnational scrutiny advisors have different views on where the role is for foreign and international versus domestic and what the portfolio should be for the National Security advisor and particularly ive spoken with president trumps Current National secured advisor Robert Obrien about this very issue where in cases like the pandemic that were currently dealing with, where is the response abilities of the National Security advisor when you have a very large domestic component in addition to the international and i think apart it depends on how effective the coordination mechanisms are on the domestic policy side and again each president has his or her own vision of that in my own view is that not enough decisionmaking on the domestic side takes into account the International Aspects and there are some questions that obviously affect both like trade, for example or like the handling of the pandemic. I think just as it is about to start as a bud said going back to Henry Kissinger, i think we owe them the original effort to Dwight Eisenhower who was one of the worlds great planners and who understood the benefit and planning even if youre not following the plan too long after you get it done because there is a lot to learn in planning but those mechanisms simply do not exist on the domestic side but its ultimately up to the president whether he wants to work through the nmc structure, whether he wants to work through the Coronavirus Task force which was on your way for a time earlier this year or whether he wants to work through anything at all. I think there are clear benefits to interagency coordination regardless some president s, including the current one dont necessarily agree with them. Where is the fine line between Homeland Security and what the National Distributor he buys or does and what how much of a role do they play in Homeland Security . Well, and the Obama Administration we had tom donald and john brennan was the Homeland Security advisor and we are all located in the white house obviously and at the president s Daily Briefing all of those interests were present and everybody had a role to play in it was my job to coordinate how that meeting went to make best use of the president s time but that same to as a structure, and confidence with how president obama like to make decisions which are very much from the bottom up instead of from the top down. It was part of the National Security Council Structure, was it not until the Trump Administration came around and i believe you, ambassador bolton, modify that structure. Let me say a quick word there. The National Security and Homeland Security are fundamentally the same thing. I think were talking about the same homeland so the notion of these being separate functions, i understand it was part of the bush 43 administration when the separate Homeland Security department was set up and so on but i think ultimately you need to bring it back into more coherent approach which is what i try to do. I would make other structural changes in the government beyond the nsc in that regard but that is beyond the scope of our discussion here, i think. Well, i want to switch to a broader topic and get into some of the larger threats facing the United States right now as a way with the structure of the nsc. Lets talk about metrics rather than in mr. Mcfarlane i will start with you but were talking a lot about a number of dots these days like fiber and disinformation and biological weapons and redefining National Security and in the wake of covid and with the elections past and present so if the homeland is no longer a sanctuary how do you Security Professionals explore Security Issues at the nexus of foreign defense and Homeland Security. If you could talk about these asymmetric and how to process them. Vivian, today has become apparent to all of us but the foremost family of threats to the United States stem from china and the challenges it is offering in every domain to cyber to military to a novel approach to chinas influence to penetrating country after country by apparently benign offers to build things for the host country whether condo or the United Kingdom and that is we will come china and we will build in london or the congo or a highway or a port and in short, the appearance of innocent offerings before how long however it quickly turns into an issue of indebtedness are those countries where they borrow from china money to build the port, lets say in sri lanka, and before long if they cannot service the debt china generously offers to turn into equity or ownership so you can see how it doesnt take very long before gradually china becomes the owner of the port or the highway so or the power plant or impede soon you have penetrated the government china house and began to have in normas influences over that governments policies. It is happening more than 60 countries and that is global in all of this is to, of course, expanded in court presents and indeed virtually to coopt the sovereignty of country after country for three reasons, to gain resources like cobalt and congo or lithium in chile and secondly it says the suez canal, djibouti, the mandeb straits, gibraltar in strategic locations that enable them to function in the event of conflict and to protect their forces with confidence on see, on land throughout the world as a crisis may require. That is a gradual but very effective way to establish your presence and your ability to operate in peace and war very effectively. Of course, the last goal of those three is to penetrate markets and to assure that in chinas case the belt and wrote Initiative Enables them to get into the huge market of western europe and to go with confidence and control over the institutions as well as the infrastructure. General jones, ambassador bolton, china has raised concern that now especially but in the past they are not the only ones that other countries as well as even lone wolf actors and things like that, can you elaborate a little bit . Thank you. China was wonderful by his description and i wont try to add to it but the strategic level we have two basic threats and one is russia and the other is china and i think the russian threat represents the prudent regime playing a bad hand very well, especially in the past several years and it is a good example of how even a declining economic power like russia could use asymmetric warfare techniques like in cyberspace in particular and impressed its advantages in oil and gas in space in the soviet union and in the middle east and in respecting us and these broad strategic will be critical for the next administration and i think china is the existential threat of the attorney for sentry but even those are important in sniffing as the strategic level i dont thank you can dismiss the more immediate threats and the thoughts of Nuclear Proliferation from north korea and iran which continue to grow worse and continuing threat of terrorism and i think the problems the u. S. Faces is that we are seeing threats across a block Broad Spectrum which requires a Broad Spectrum of capabilities and response and i just want to say one thing that will be critical over the next four years or whomever is president this is not the time to be producing the Defense Department budget and we need to expand our capability in light of this broad range of threats we are facing. Ambassador bolton, general jones i was going to elaborate based on ambassador bolton just that for you is that they recently sent the world is moving in the shadow of Nuclear Catastrophe and pointed to his concerns of escalation with the Trump Administration and china and pointed to iraqi relationship between u. S. And russia and nuclear arms, india, pakistan are feuding over north korea and continues to be an issue in Iran Nuclear Deal is on the rocks and so what do you make of all of this and what can the United States do to use these increasing tensions among these competing Nuclear Powers . I think the one thing that the u. S. Has to do is send a very strong message so that we are committed to remaining as a nation of great influence and we are going to do those things required in order to maintain that greatness into our ten to a role in a 21st century. I think there is still doubt about our commitment and if you look at the middle east, for example going back to the Obama Administration and towards the end of that administration the arab world was seriously doubting our commitment and as a result players like russia and others filled the gap and we hear talk about pulling forces back to the continental United States from overseas, europe in particular and that is worrisome to our friends and allies. I think one of the first things we have to do is come out with a very clear policy statement that is backed up by clear action that we are committed we do want to maintain our position as a Global Leader and we know that china is a real threat and we know russia is a nuisance but nonetheless a clever one at that. We know that iran is not going to live up to its disagreements and we know what north korea is. And we know that the war on terror finds its way through the african continent and so on and so forth. There is an awful lot to do but i think the first step is to reassure our friends and allies, particularly organization, International Organizations like north atlantic treaty where we agree to fine the concept after years of making somehow russia would choose to be inside the euro atlantic arc with the resurgence of mr. Putin as president we know thats not true and so as a result we need to make sure that as we move forward defense of europe closest to the black sea and the Baltic States that we do those things are absolutely essential to reassure our friends and allies and build those relationships. We need friends and allies. China doesnt have a friend or an ally. They are doing it on their own and every now and then they reach out to the russians and so on and so forth. Traditional role of the United States on the global Playing Field and to reach the commitment to those values. You served as National Security advisor when the cold war was on its last leg but still very much happening. Given what general jones is saying right now talking about the multilateral organizations they dont like the lack of give and take between the allies and certain organizations whereas the administration has called them out. If you start during the soviet era its where we are on some of those alliances and organizations like nato which was initially. Youve made a point that is salient right now that is the importance of allies. We have taken about a 30 year holiday since the end of the cold war where we believed the rest of the world would evolve for adopting freedom and the rule of law and so forth trying to compete now as america is no longer feasible, we must have allies and we have seen it quite vividly in recent examples such as chinas interest extending over the tele total communicatif europe with 5g. And the United Kingdom has had the courage to stand up here and say no we are not going to have you penetrating our communications, and immediately the next day said i will call and raise you we are going to pull out of building a power plant for you. How do you like those apples. They had the gumption to stand up and say mr. Prime minister, boris johnson, we are with you and we will be with you tomorrow to help you replace whatever china promised to do for you. When you look around at the ability to build the power plant china refused to build, we found out we havent pulled one in 40 years, so we need the allies to fill in the blanks where the United States no longer has the capability to provide the assistance, be it military or domestic so bringing the south koreans, japanese, United Kingdom, france, east asia from australia, new zealand and india, a partner that we have not forged a relationship that must be brought in to rally against. Youve stressed the importance for alliances and some of the burden sharing. Can you elaborate on that and the settings today . Not all organizations are created equal. Nato isnt the same as the United Nations. It is a commonsense alliance and serves all of the interests of the members. I do think its important for the nato members to live up to the obligations that they undertook about what percentage of their gdp they are going to spend on defense and its a widely held view in the United States that everybody should bear their fair share of the burden. I dont think that goes to undercutting nato. There are some people in high places today that to see it as an excuse to break the alliance. That isnt what most people think. And i think looking at the structures that we built over a sustained periods of time, they need to be strengthened because we are at a time challenging adversity and its hardly the time to say we should be withdrawing forces from around the world and expecting the oceans are going to protect us. That was a great idea in the 18th century but that isnt where we are today. Very important and i now want to touch upon Security Council members and encourage discussing. The Trump Administration acknowledged it is trying to get Nuclear Talks with russia off the ground and possibly doing so in a swift way that they would be able to bring some sort of agreement that might extend the new start agreement that expired in february. Initially the administration insisted it would prefer trilateral talks with china being included. China and russia have never been very enthusiastic about that idea and now it seems like they are proceeding rather rapidly potentially with some concessions. If any of you can jump in and talk about the state of play and the vision about having a trilateral nuclear deal given the atmosphere we are in today and the tension rising with those countries. I will say the last s. T. A. R. T. Treaty that was signed during the Obama Administration was the highlight of the u. S. Russian relations and everything seemed to go downhill after that. But i would refer to you on a more contemporary analysis of this issue. I opposed start mac at the time as two thirds of the republicans in the senate did. It didnt cover the nuclear weapons. That remains open today. Technological weapons like hypersonic cruise missiles, no criticism in 2010 but we are in 2020 now. This issue didnt really come up for the aggregates or its opponents. I think it is critical they basically said the forces are so small come back when its more appropriate meaning after we build up to your levels we will talk about armscontrol. I dont think we ought to buy that. I think this is a critical strategic question and it was right to tell the russians we are not in a bipolar Nuclear World anymore and the chinese are going to have to face up to this. I dont think we ought to let them off easily. There are models where there are powers and play and we just let china have a free pass. I think that its fair to say russia has adopted the stance of sponsoring an outdated treaty that signals back ten years and adopting the false metaphor of whats there is as there is and whats negotiable sounding like they are rubbin robbing themseln the blanket of peace ten years out of date so hes right we deserve to have a balance but russias dissidence is wrongheaded and someday weve got to bring china into this discussion because it is accelerating its military strength quicker than even russia. Given that the countries are very much involved in the space race as well and the dominance of the great frontier what are the challenges and opportunities and how has the creation of the space force impacted the approach on this issue . Anyone. I think the jury is still out on that one. But why not. Its something we will be a con tentative on for sure. Theyve signaled its emphasis so we will see what happens. Given Everything Else that is happening, do you think that should be a priority . I do think so, yes. Some critics would argue that we already have a dedicated capability in the Defense Department to Pay Attention to space, but the creation of the space force, we will have to wait and see what happens. Its interesting to see what happens depending on the outco outcome. [inaudible] hypersonic vehicles alone would apply an intense focus on how in the world are we going to cope with that and it was the consensus that the air force alone had other priorities and were not really equipped in terms of technology to solve the problem right now so we needed a dedicated force in my opinion. However, there are limits to how often you can create a new independent force that will inevitably be at august for getting a bigger budget with the existing services so there are limits to how often you can keep creating a new space force. I think we have to be dominant in the space. Its a venue that will be increasingly important to see the initiative to other countries is definitely not in the interest. I would have kept this together not because i underestimate the priority quite the contrary but by keeping one space force or whatever you want to call it, we actually could have remained more focused. We will see what happens. I want to hit on a couple more things rated we have an election in two weeks and obviously Election Security is always a major issue but i am talking now National Security advisers as a perspective and what more should we be doing, lets keep it to that topic given the role that you served and where have we fallen short. I want you to reflect on what we can do to protect the securities. Maybe we will start with you. Foreign interference is an active war against the constitution. We should increase our offensive Cyber Capabilities and help create structures russia, china, korea, however. You will pay a higher cost if you try to mess with our elections than you think. This is classic authoritarian efforts to disrupt the democratic societies. Its not a question of picking one candidate over another. They are trying to undermine our basic institutions and the approach should be zero tolerance. If you are the National Security advisor today, what would you be doing to combat this . I agree with what john just said. One of the things the next administration should concentrate on is repairing relationships, somewhat personal relationships at the National Leadership level just not in our best interest to sustain. Some people think the rest of the 21st century is going to be pretty much back to a bipolar world instead of the u. S. And soviet union it will be the u. S. And china and everybody in between will have to pick sides. A lot of countries want to have it both ways. You look at china and what they are doing with the concentration camps with the Muslim Population that doesnt seem to spark a lot of outrage and people who have economic dealings with china. One of the things thats important to reassess what our values are is to make sure our closest friends and allies share those values in terms of our behavior on the global Playing Field. The 21st century is about Cyber Security just as about nuclear power. The problem with Cyber Security is theres no Regulatory Frameworks that can control the spread of the technology so that people are free to use it as we see fit and we see in our own country the results of the Big Tech Companies whether its in confidence with the constitution or not so there are some big issues out there completely unregulated and domestically we will have to do that and be the champions of International Regulation because Cyber Security is in fact closest to the door and i will say happily although it isnt wellknown, the United States has developed the kind of technologies democracies would rather take forth, secure 5g and available to be used on the legacy systems as well so i think we are in a good position to assume the relationship on this critical question. I think jim is spot on. Beyond cyberspace, china has penetrated other institutions in the country with great advantage for themselves. Even the stock markets weve had over 160 Chinese Companies regulating stock exchanges. It sounds innocent enough and yet from that opportunity they have reaped trillions of dollars that have gone to advancing chinas strategy throughout the world so they are having it both ways. Education theyve penetrated our institutions and advanced scholarships and universities throughout the country and through the confucius institutions that are selling to the Chinese Communist party. These penetrations of institutions that are precious to us condition the thinking of the next generation. You see where this is going. Its technology, its stealing it from us and ultimately penetrating the institutions that advance it so we have our hands full and need to overcome our shortcomings just right. We have to be the leader of allies in this chinese onslaught. I have about a million more questions myself but i will hand it over to the audience. I apologize in advance. Im going to try to make this work. The first question is from a student at the Georgetown University school. I want to dig in on this a little more. What are the implications for the security . Im afraid the spread of the coronavirus in this country this year has taught our adversaries a significant lesson about just how vulnerable we are and how we fumbled this particular incident. The epidemiology of the biological weapons attack is quite similar to the epidemiology of the pandemic and at least under some scenarios weve not done a good job. It has long been the case and the logical and biological weapons have been called the poor mans nuclear weapon. And i think a lot of people will look at that and it isnt just a taattacks on the human populati. It could be on the food supply as well. So i think this is clearly something we need to learn and prepare for that are in the future and its also told us something about china and the way we behave. There are significant reasons to believe we still dont know about a small part of what actually happened. I think its clear that their handling of it has adversely affected opinions quite justifiably all around the world but i dont know what else you need other than the ongoing tragedy to see the bio defense needs more attention. This is a good one. How do we tackle beyond the polarizing rhetoric and turn these risks into action over the long term . Do you want to talk about it, yes, go for it. There are several things we must do. The basic issue is how do we stop encouraging the emission in the Transportation System as well as the power generations and so forth. We have to begin to examine what are the alternatives. Electricity is so fundamental we need to examine. Most of our electricity comes from coal for the past hundred years and we are finding however it puts out a lot of carbon but what else. Natural gas, oil, renewables like wind and solar. Yes, that makes sense. However, you find out they are limited in their ability to provide baseload power that is to be available all the time and large enough to be able to Power Industries and power generations and recharging new electric vehicles. Well, it is leading us or should back to the way of generating electricity that is well known to us. We ought to begin to start again because it is the only source of power available 24 7 and doesnt emit anything. Wind and solar are good as far as they go. There are American Companies as well as british, polish and several others exploring a different kind of power plant. Its called small modular power. These adaptable ways of generating power are coming online. We cant overcome the carbon issue. Its going to take policy changes mostly in europe and suddenly they are awakening to the fact its the only way to get from here to achieving the paris accord standards in the years ahead. Thank you. I want to piggyback on that a little bit and say without question one of the greatest things to happen to the United States is the global position with regards to. That is a technological achievement that has really placed us in the position of great leadership on the energy issues. I am old enough to remember the early days in the 70s where we get up at 5 00 in the morning. They look at where we are today. This is something we should celebrate and invest with the secretary of energy. The responsibility for managing the entire spectrum not just one or two particular aspects of the energy portfolio, but the epa more for the department of energy proposed. Im very happy and very proud to see that we have somewhat turned that not the department of Nuclear Energy alone. Let me and if i could theres a lot of rhetoric about how International Agreements are somehow going to affect Climate Change, but there hasnt been one climate agreement today including the paris accord that really do anything in terms of verification and enforcement. Theres a lot of political rhetoric out there from a lot of places including our friends in europe and particularly coming from china and india about what they are going to do. And yet if you look at the sources of the continuing sources of the problem, it remains countries that make promises and dont fulfill them. So until there is something more involved and how these agreements are going to be made workable, i think we could do it with lots of rhetoric and thinking about that question frankly. A lot of arm waiting by china and russia and yet China Remains the biggest emitter of carbon in the world by many multiples, so in the Paris Climate Accord or the nuclear deal or any of these agreements, a lot of folks argue that to get the framework in place and improved over time versus not having one at all then everyone is just kind of willynilly doing their thing so how do we get a framework like the nuclear deal. They are different issues but im trying to get to the core issue and then build on it. It goes to the question whether the country you are trying to effect, iran and its Nuclear Program or china and its Nuclear Missions are put in a stronger or weaker position by the underlining agreement. I would say obviously it depends on the particular circumstances, but the experiences were so eager to have a deal and say weve made progress that you leave the target in a better position after than before and youve got the problem of how you change the relative position so i think this is more rhetorical in many cases than it is a hardline examination whether its Climate Change and Nuclear Proliferation. I want to get a couple more questions in. We have about ten minutes left. The former deputy Legal Advisor has a question. What should the longterm strategy be to address the security and is it sufficient to simply block these technologies . Any of you can jump in, please. I think i would just say quickly we should do more than block them. There are a lot of things and again, china is the issue. They are the biggest steelers of the intellectual property by any measure or magnitude around the world so in some cases it isnt for in technology but things china and others have stolen from us and there are a whole range of steps we havent taken yet that would prevent china not just from ceiling but from profiting from it. Its a very good point the chinese are a complex Financial Mechanism of subsidies and advantageous financial terms in the first instance to get into the position that it gets involved in Telecommunication Systems and then its in a better position going forward. All of this has to do with the chinese approach not just political intelligence gathering in the economic sphere as well and we have to do better combating it. China has stolen the playbook in the 20th century studying very hard how the United States came from where it was in the earlier part of the 20th century to the position of absolute preeminence and by the end of the century so i think theyve studied that playbook a little bit. But what they have adapted i think is kind of a three step strategy that hinges on the penetration of markets and they have a very selective way of doing that. They want to get contracts and bring in their own labor force and in algeria they brought the chinese prisoners to do the work so they dont use local work and share their technology. The third step is to use the dependence that theyve built to manipulate the government. One of our closest allies their economy is almost 30 dependent on china and china is lecturing south korea, our closest ally and what they want them to do that to the security agreements. And if they dont, they threaten overtly the economic revise holes on almost 30 of their economy and there are Korean Companies for example have no relation with the United States only dependent on their relationship with china and they argue for going soft on china and one of our closest allies so its very ingenious and subtle. When you look at what china has done they own 60 of cobalt, a critical commodity the technology and applications and chile with lithium. I mentioned earlier the penetration of the stock markets and the trillion dollars theyve reaped to expand its influence around the world in more than 100 companies already. Countries. Thank you for that. There are so many Great Questions here, but we only have about five minutes left, and i do want to get to all of you. Im going to ask about the implications. The implications of the withdrawal in afghanistan by the peace talks and u. S. Presence in the region in general. I would love for you all to reflect on that. I think it would be a huge mistake. The advantage of keeping a substantial American Force not only for counterterrorism purposes, but for others in afghanistan, it should be clear by now although obviously it isnt, its not that we are eager to have the war go on forever. We dont get that to decide alone, however. The question should be what is in americas best National Security interest. If having forces deployed abroad provides the greater ability to protect the homeland and allies against attacks whether its from terrorists or more conventional enemies, then it is in our interest to do it and thats the calculus we should apply. The answer will change over time, but this kind of reflexive kneejerk assumption if we bring the forces home that it will be in better shape internationally i just think has been proven wrong so many times in history it gets frustrating to hear it again. One of my favorite sayings is the virtual presence and if you are absent you will create vacuums and they will be filled by people who dont have your best interest at heart. I think the tragedy of afghanistan and iraq was to put out the government following our military venturing. We were too hasty in our accepting of whoever emerged as the leader in the case of karzai and the Prime Minister almaliki. We didnt spend enough time making sure that the government was in fact capable of legitimate and paid a lot of attention to the economic revival. When you go into a country, you advertise we are not going to do nationbuilding. The whole premise of how we succeed is called into question. I think hes right. Been there, done that and understand what we have to achieve. The bottom line it seems to me we put our trust in the agreement that doesnt enable us to assure against the takeover by the television in the months and years ahead is misguided. I think to go back to your client, today theres a meetingg of an Alliance Taking place in Eastern Europe and its all those countries that have lived for 50 years under the soviet union. Its the three Cs Initiative and they are talking about how they can cooperate in making sure each of them doesnt fall prey to pressures from china or russia more likely to building fundamental things like electricity and power plants. Thats exactly the kind of rebuilding of alliances that we need to focus on in the months and years ahead. They did not decline in that domain. 30 seconds left basically for each of you to talk about closing remarks. Tell us what is keeping you up at night moving forward and then we can go chronologically. This isnt what keeps me up at night. Its important that i go back to president eisenhowers farewell address. He says America Today is the most influential nation in the world and he continued to be proud of the preeminence we realize americas leadership and prestige in the interest of world peace has given betterment and then he added throughout the basic purposes have achieved peace to foster progress and human achievement and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and the nations. Any failure traceable to arrogance or the lack of compassion or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievance at home and abroad. What are your final thoughts . The combined cooperative effort by russia and china to penetrate the countries and those of africa, latin america and europe is a central thread we must face and its in every domain. Military, economic, technology, education, healthcare and as we are currently seeing. We have to get better at how we defend across the entire spectrum of the instruments of their expansion, notably cyber. But these subtle altars of the in encumbering countries and of enormous debt they can never service but the collapse under the influence and control of china. We can do it but we need allies to do it and leadership, leadership. Thank you, sir. Ambassador, final word. Both parties have pronounced tendencies to say lets just focus on domestic issues. Lets forget about all the stuff internationally. And the fact is we can have a strong position in the world as a whole unless we have a Strong Economy at home. But make no mistake without a strong american prisons around the world, we will not have a Strong Society and economy here period. Very interesting discussion. Thank you so much for joining me today. Its really fascinating. And thank you all out there. I think the Atlantic Council for hosting thisel