That we may see being played out into the overall Russian Strategic thinking some of it is not just about abstract readiness. But the exercise is certainly testing thert of transatlantic community, testing the russian ability to pursue with the community ouralso the ability to keep deterrence posture credible. And thirdly, which is be our sort of reaction . Say three words here. Vigilantot to be calm, and flexible. It we have to do certainly intend this to be the case. In ae also have to do it way as an alliance, and as countries in the region. Particularly considering the bad habit of bad things happening in august and september time frame. As people mentioned. Sour,ularly if things go that is the thing we have to get behind. In a wider sense, we have to continue adjusting the alliances, the structure, the theern flank to reflect existing complexity and join us of the challenges we currently face and what we face in the foreseeable future. These are my first remarks. I will be happy to elaborate. E great, thanks. We will just pass it down, general. Thank you very much, thank you for inviting norway to this event as well and im representing norway. I will try to put on minor un norwegian lenses. I think one has to understand what is happening north of norway on a daily basis as well. S use a few minutes to send some brief remarks about what the siorth of norway. What we have seen the last couple of years is an increased activity when it comes to see power. Sea particularly increasing. Go russian doctrine is to west. Thather with this, we know weve also seen a russian modernization when it comes to submarines that are more silent than before. We have also seen weapons on board these summaries the heavy longerrange than before. This combination makes it so much more important today to have Situational Awareness of what is going on in the north atlantic. That is why were also trying to work with other allies to do this. When it comes to the air forces, we have actually seen a reduced activity from the russian side in the north. A few years ago, we saw different type of formations. It has been reduced lately. We have not seen much of the a few years aggressiveness that has been seen in the baltic sea. There is definitely a difference between the russian behavior in the baltic as compared to north of norway. Because of the sanctions and what have you, the interactions between the norwegian military and Russian Military has been reduced to almost nothing. On a daily basis, were still cooperating slightly on the border guard between russia and norway. We are cooperating on searchandrescue issues and incidents at sea. Be aware we also have still a line ine halt northern norway between the headquarters in the Northern Fleet headquarters. We do tests every week. Lately, it has not been used much. But is there for commanders to speak to commanders just in case we have something coming up and we need to get any misunderstandings out of the way. So when it comes to this exercise itself, we are interested in seeing how the exercises linked to other exercises in the north. We know that late summer, early fall is an active time, where there are a number of other exercises. How these are linked will be interesting. ,e also know that during fall maybe this time already, we see an annual deployment from the going further east and the northeast passage. We understand that most of the exercise activity is going to be on the western border of russia and probably facing toward estonia and let fear and lots atvia. From the norwegian perspective, we would like more transparency, as we all would like. If i could inform nato, or maybe against using the the and a document channel to inform about the exercise, that would be something that would be very welcoming from our point of view. Thank you. Thank you so much. I will move to evelyn. Thank you. Thank you again to the Atlantic Council, the estonian government, all the code participants coparticipants. I think i was asked to speak as someone working in the government in 2013 when the last exercise occurred. Sitting in the pentagon at the time, we watched a new defense minister come into office. He has only increased his power and stature within the russian government and russian society. He was already unknown figure two russians because of his 20 year lead of the internal russians, the equivalent of fema. When he came into office, one of the biggest and most immediate changes we saw was an uptick in the russian exercise regimen. This was not just oriented toward the very predictable cycle, which is one of the peace, because there are other regional exercises occurring. Really put a lot of force behind this subsequently. In addition to those normally scheduled exercises, which as we heard earlier, go back to the soviet days, he also initiated what he called snap exercises. They were basically inspections, exercises to demonstrate civilian and military leadership, the state of readiness of the russian forces. Hadatched in 2000 13, they for snap exercises, and they have gone up significantly. They doubled in 2014, there were eight snap exercises, 20 in 2015. They went back down to 11 in 2016, which i suspect is linked to the fact that operationally, especially with their incursion into syria commitment they did not have to do these exercises to test their readiness. They were at a pretty high state of readiness because of ukraine and syria. But the discipline to put that context in place for all of you, all of a sudden we saw this new minister of defense and these new smaller exercises, and then we had the larger exercise. There were about 70,000 committee 100,000 troops involved unofficially. We have the contrast that with the fact that thats in your, the largest nato exercise at the time had about 6000 forces, and was called steadfast jazz. It was not a very strong and determined name. At the time, we do not understand that russia regarded , that thi adversary was a serious matter. Of course, in the department of defense, the military intelligence community, we were looking very closely at all of these exercises and becoming increasingly alarmed. The first thing you learn in the defense business is the threat is the combination of intent and capability. Youre seeing capability changing and increasing in terms of quality an quantity. The intent was a big question mark. Our Political Leadership at the time, not just the United States, but the transatlantic community, the intent was we still regarded it as not necessarily a threat. There was a lot of discussion about that. I think with the crimea invasion ukraine, theof ongoing operations, the situation was clarified. Although of course, there are still those who try to muddy the overall strategic landscape and how we should perceive it. I wanted to set that out there so people understand the reason we are talking about 2013 and not much before that is because there was a change with Vladimir Putin coming back into power, with this new minister of defense. That is an important point to note. Here,back to my notes this idea that they were s. Ercising against terrorist you can expect the russians to all skate again in option bfuscate again in 2017. The other thing i would add is the real degradation of his curtains 2013 that all mentioned and others talked about in terms of transparency. This is where it is most alarming. This is why theres so much train why theres so much tension now is the russians are in violation of the vienna documents, they are really trying to declare what theyre doing. Those documents, theyre basically transparency measures in order to decrease the risk of miscalculation, decreased tensions when militaries in europe are conducting normal exercises for readiness. When a bit untenable russia is in fact the adversary, like it or not. We did not want to be in an adversarial situation, but we are. Ignoringthat they are these transparency measures, which were put into place with the idea we would not really be targeting one another, or would try not to, has created a real problem. , that ii would just say dont talk too long and we can open it up for discussion, there are a couple of things i would like us to watch coming out of this. Obviously some of the things thingslked about ill talked about before, a number of troops, where they go, the disposition of troops eared there is some concern about whether Russian Troops will remain in belarus after the exercises over. I think that concern is probably shared by the belarusian government. I think we should watch carefully what is being said in belarus. 2014, theyy come in have always tried to do what the previous Ukrainian Government debt, have a way to communicate with the west, and hedge against the kremlin being overly dominant. I think they have become increasingly concerned over time , even in the last year or so. We need watch closely what happens in belarus. We also need watch for closely held a exercise, if we see any other wmd,clear, chemical, biological. The Cyber Component is very important. Coming out of exercise, but would like some concrete things. There are many things we could talk about we would like to see, but i would like to see, first of all, obviously continuation of our strong deterrent posture. I would like to see it less rotational and more permanent. That may be unrealistic in the near term, but certainly we need we are sure that exercising, that nato is exercising, that nato is ready, that we shall resolve that we show resolve on the conventional front. On the cyber front, i think its very important for us to think about cyber ops. And whether nato can build not just an early warning, and i know it was working on intelligence for early warning, and we have the cyber center in we need an operational capability. Its time for nato to really take much more seriously the cyber threat because the reality is, we are already saw that the nato strategic concept identifies cybersecurity as something that requires an article 4 consultation but i would argue that given how given the potential ramifications, impact of a cyber operation, you could get very quickly to article 5 and nato cant be sitting there ringing its hands within the military committee certainly. And i think we need to think about a couple of things that are less less tactical, ifan you will. I mentioned earlier the transparency. I think the best thing we could do on the transparency front is actually to broaden the discussion and bring it out of the transalantic and talk to the chinese and the indians. What the russians are doing have implications for them as well. I think about the imf treaty, excuse my phone, it was all the twitter feed getting it excited. [laughter] unless it have a cyber op. Tyn kind of silent now our government and nato itself and the europeans in particular about the russian ongoing violation of the inf treaty. It may be because smarter minds are thinking, this has implications for the chinese because, what the russians have done, it is a mobile capability, it can be directed towards others. Why dont we bring in the chinese, the indians, other countries that have a stake in increased transparency, lowering the risk of actual military kinetic contact and increasing confidence, or Building Confidence . And then i would say, again, that thats probably the most important thing we could do at the higher level. And i would agree completely with the under secretary. We need to be calm, vigilant and flexible. Great. Thank you all for your opening remarks. Think we set off a broad and varied understanding of this. One subject we all touched on was obviously the transparency aspect or the lack thereof. So i think that is one of the things that id like to hear , particularly from you, under secretary, about how the lack of it is impacting preparations and the calculations that the baltics and your country are making, and broaden it out how its impacted the Nato Alliance and the wests preparations for this activity. Starting with you, if you would like. Things. The transparency is something that we seen, there is than some backsliding in transparency for the last 10 years, since putins famous or infamous speech. The transparency has been a constant victim. With regards to this exercise, it is interesting. I would put this into the context of turkey relationship between russia. It is interesting to see how i would put this into the broader context between the tricky relationship of russia and belarusian. For the russians, see more utility in transparency and have been more forthcoming in fulfilling some of the actual arrangement criteria. This may also reflect their own assurance over the possible russian agenda. As far as the future is concerned, i think the estonia n instinct is to see whether the existing regiment can be used before getting to something new , whereas Different Countries may have different interests and different concerns as far as the different concerns as far as the arms control and transparencies concerned. Someout of europe, to overarching, overwhelming agreement with countries as far as india and china, will certainly not be an easy thing. And so as long as we do have the current existing regimes, we should do our utmost to press on fulfilling the criteria that are stated on our behalf, on naders behalf, on natos the have, we are more than willing to follow the different procedures. In the vienna document, for example, to make sure that the exercises are and stay russiansnt so that the and other interested parties can get the sense of whats happening there. I stop with that. Sure. I think that transparency issue on the military side is basically one thing. Thats not to create misunderstanding. Misunderstanding is a prerequisite for increased tension, and increased tension, youll create episodes and youll get incidents and things like that. So thats why this transparency thing is so important. You can talk to that on a tactical side as well as on the strategic side. What do we think the what do we think of the deliberate information and the deliberate obfuscation . What is the intent behind the lack of transparency . From a political perspective, first of all, obviously there is a military exercise, but there is a political component of this. First of all, obviously directed towards nato, a message towards nato. Were ready, you know, dont try anything, a very strong message. The results of a message to the russian to mystic population the russian domestic population that nato is an adversary, the west is the adversary, were ready, were a great nation so that the patriotic element is there as well. We still have a lot of questions about russias significance, whether russia is indeed in an adversarial posture with us, whether russia is a declining power so therefore this doesnt matter. These questions are still out there being discussed , unfortunately in the political arenas. So russia will take advantage. They always like this kind of ambiguity anyway. With a wink. They want us to know theyre capable and powerful and look what they did with their cyber intrusion in the u. S. Elections. But they dont really want to take full accountability because they want those for whom its convenient to align with them or at least not oppose them to be able to do so. Building off that kind of, the level of concern and relations to the russian side, you said you dont view it as a direct threat, but thats kind of always an underlying concern in the back of peoples minds. I was talking about the little when he and minister last month lit the whiny and minister lithuanian Prime Minister mentioned there has been some media and rhetoric surrounding two provinces in the west in lithuania talking on various russian sites about how they were gifted to them by stalin years ago. Weve seen this kind of rhetoric before. If the direct military intervention is not the primary concern, its still in the back of our minds. What are some of the other concerns beyond the accidental intrusions . How likely do we think an intrusion or engagement that doesnt quite rise to the level of an article five violation . Thats for the entire pill. , the example that you note, the lithuanian example, is exactly the reason why we strongly feel that paying attention to the exercise is only military thinkers should do. Because one way or another, we expect to see the exercise in the news as a deliberate attempt by the russians. Considering the examples of there willercises, be full range of tools in their National Position being used from information to cyber to nuclear, etc. Meaning that we should not be passive in this sort of strategic communication. Except the elements i would personally be concerned about the accidental nature with serious serious consequences as well as some possible possible locations and this is where its fair to say that that whoever attempts to exercise this should show sort of professional, professional professionalism and particularly the light of the near misses or close to accidents that we have seen on the baltic sea or across over the baltic sea and in aerospace, we dont want to be in a situation where something goes terribly wrong in that kind of situations. Well, i think my comments will echo much of that when it comes to to incidents. I think that what i would be concerned about is the con guested air space, sea space, et cetera, in the baltic region. Region. That is where the most activity is going on and if something is going to happen, that is where it will most likely be. We might see incidents. Hopefully we will not see that. Aside from that, i will say i am kind of looking forward to after to exercise when we are able analyze the whole of government approach to the joint of this and how it is linked together. That will be very interesting to analyze. To come back to the Atlantic Council to talk about. Thank you. I would agree. Seeing how they mobilize. In the last time, they were only in the beginning of thinking of the complete mobilization and i think seeing how much further they may have come since then, plus there are a lot of internal Security Forces that have been created by president putin to protect him but also with new internal reorganization occurring and so i think it will be interesting to see what role they play. Is there going to be some kind of Color Revolution scenario of the little green men . Again, some kind of fomented or ofiterrorist some sort fabricated clash . How will they respond to that within the context of their scenario . So i think there are a lot of Little Things we will learn from this inasmuch as they will increase their readiness, hopefully we will also increase our readiness. Et is a great point that is a great point to raise. Control. Nd what you have raced as issues, evelyn. What do we think it might tell us differently than 2013 s . Estion all of a sudden the world started paying attention one year later. Looking for beyond those tacticallevel things . [laughter] that is going to be interesting. Lets see. I think what we will be looking the level ofsly command in and control. Again, how centralized, decentralization, decentralization and mobilization, and obviously one big part now is going to be the mobility part. How quickly are they able to move around and we adjourn and so what was mentioned in the railroad part. That is going to be really interesting to see how that is utilized because it will tell us something about the mobility again, i will have to come back to the joint notice again. Linking the capabilities together. That will be interesting. And i guess on the overall, if you are going to take it out from the political landscape. Again, we have a new situation in europe. Small differences going three or four years back. The transatlantic situation and relationship is slightly different. Europe is europe is changing slightly as well and then you have syrian, ukraine and all these things, together creates a different landscape and thats a whole new discussion, part of this discussion as well. Itll be really interesting. If i can add quickly to that, thats what i will be looking at, not just the exercise itself but whats happening in the other theaters where the russians are actively fighting inkraine and syria you and they have deployments, are they making any other moves, they are doing exercises not just to mask what theyre doing there but elsewhere, are they deploying new forces capabilities while our attention is diverted. Just to add two key terms, how offensive and openly offensive the exercise will be and secondly, sort of nation, internet and how extensive the other elements than the Defense Ministry capabilities or defense process capabilities will be used and also to the offensive nature of this issue, antiwest, antinato, the scenario and the execution of the scenario will be something thats very important. Certainly. Just a moment we will open it up to audience questioning, get those ideas disseminating and you raised a great point thate its just one point and the broader russiawest, russiaworld engagement, how do we Going Forward post leading recalibrate or if at all the engagement with and the posture that nato and the u. S. And allies have in the region . What are we looking for, how do we do we what are we looking from the presence groups and what are we hope to go build up, what capabilities are looking to increase in the region and how are we looking to structure and posture those forces . As far as in general goes, its fair to say that even by now, that we have we are just one year from summit. We can say that the creation ofe the efp concept, the deployment of efp battalions to the to the baltic, baltic region has achieved new elements of stability there and its a testament to the understanding in our view that when it comes to the we have to be very clear and and strong in the messaging. Now, as far as the concerned, i certainly the joint [inaudible] execution of efp forward, its centric. We see russia capability in the region which which is the matter of of keeping the lines of communication open and make sure that the [inaudible]. Properly addressed, we need to go ahead defense andnto the have with thes we naval capabilities to make sure that we are determined but haveo to take into account the realistic channels we havent me region. Think weld on that, i are on the right track with the efp and what the u. S. Is doing. Also, do not forget that we european nations can do more together as well and one example was what normally jested with the trilateral mru with the u. K. And u. S. Take responsibility for in nato. In region also, there is always an action of mile to go when it comes to intelligencesharing and incorporation within nato. We are supposed to be but that is something we should continue do you have anything . I mean, i agree with everything they said. Ok. We will open up the floor to questions from the advance. A quick reminder to please introduce yourself, say your name and organization and make it a question. To yeah, in the back there. My name is andrew. Im a reporter with political. L. I was wondering if you could comment on the larger strategic picture of the exercise we will have come at the fact it will have on ukraine. Does this affect the strategic caicos at all having up to to 100,000 troops in a neighboring country. . It was alluded to earlier that perhaps other troop movements could be done concurrently with the exercise. Is there any expectation off anything like that happening ing Eastern Ukraine . First. Go just by saying that i would not like to speculate on something sensitive. S and we should know that the ukrainians have long paid attention to the looming 2017 summit and have taken this into account in their own planning and assessments but i cannot go,k for them as far as we we just have to take into account that sometimes the exercises have been a convenient way to do something else. But i do not have any insight information to let me speculate on that. I am not ready to talk specifically about ukraine but i think i will refer to that we should Pay Attention to activities and exercises and that goes with the ukrainian ways. I mentioned i would be watching the ukraine. The speaker, the parliament, recently made a comment expressing alarm. The ukrainians are on high alert. Bilaterallyth nato speak with the ukrainians and make sure we are his phone july and as we can be. At least in this arena, my government has been pretty good, i mean actually very good, secretary tillerson sunday was in ukraine and gave a very strong statement of support for ukraine and sovereignty. So as much as we have questions, i am at least and courage that we made that statement and hopefully we can do more over the next coming months and weeks as a lead up. Hello. My name is dmitry. Thank you very much. You talked about transparency of the possibility of accidents. About what it would look like ideally to you. How do you communicate between the two of you. To wife. I think i will take that one. I would like to see more dialogue between russian leaders and european leaders. However, the sanctions we are there right now, i think where we cances increased activity. That would be first of all within the council to get that slowly up the hand running again, that would be increased. That would be first of a first step where we could talk to each other again and get the transparency issue off the table and then of course there would that wereays welcoming as well. And im being military side, i would say a Russian Council would be the preferred way of communicating. I believe there is a russian canceled meeting scheduled for july. I hope i am not misrepresenting, there was some talk of that in the media. I think what is also important is that we open a bilateral u. S. Discussion that will not pay negotiation but just a discussion. A russianu. S. Military discussion to talk about issues. The violation. The concerns russians have about missile defense, etc. So at least we can reduce the temperature a little bit and perhaps open the door to a little but double line control and getting the issues back into my a control box if you will. See aeve you will not likelihood of any sweeping agreements but of course we have to have dialogue and maintain some of the cooperation we have, u. S. , russian in the nuclear realm. The necessaryay therussia that areuld see as arrangements there. Ands just a matter of use russian diplomacy is something and all a Long Duration sorts of interesting tricks. Veryny cases they are how cannd sort of i say ok, lets come up with something new. Some new instruments. Some new form. And by doing that you can have all sorts of new situations into the core problem. So i do not think we should sort of fall into that. Existing instruments within the russiannato discussion. Questions to them to actually come up with more transference and information on this exercise. So far, not too much progress. My name is peter rees. I am on the house of foreign khmers to many. Foreign affairs committee. Countrieselements of that have tried to join nato since 2008, georgia and ukraine, my question is is there a red line that nato would draw of countries trying to join it as it would have to and article five if it truly included them in the regional bloc . I wondered if there is a red line in which the risk outweighs the benefit. Since it is a political question, i will even a stab. Perspective ofe nato it is very clear, if you want to apply for membership you must be a democracy. You must have your military organized unders civilian control. You must apply. You must go through a process and from the perspective of nato, whether they accept it depends on how well they meet the metrics set out and overtime if they are working with the country. Not generally an Automatic Process although there are countries like sweden and inland, if they decided to become members i believe they are ready and nato would be, at least on the military side, ready to accept them and i think on the political side as well. So there is no redline i think about whether you can apply or not. Generally speaking, countries not in europe of course do not apply. Agreed. Ofwe went through that kind redline to draw, i would say questions a personal so i am trying to present it that it is a question of lateral also. In that case, i think we would anday our sort of ideals probably also be hostage of this ont of redline thinking and the other hand, certainly it is members tofor the in theon whether any membership at benefit to the security of the allies. One more thing that underlines all of this and a under monitor personal question. It has to do about the debate about nato expansion. I believe very strongly that when we decided to expand nato in the 1990s we did not regard the United States certainly, did not regard russia as an ally. It was done to increased stability. So you can have increased economic stability. So those countries that had already made a certain amount of progress in that were in essence awarded for that. They received continued support in terms of what they had already done in terms of their modernization. To bed say that continues the case today even if you took by russiahreat because they decided to be an adversary, you would still see an argument when it comes to stability in terms of those who are willing to defend one another collectively against unconventional threats and state actors. Im suzanne miller. Int do you see any gaps intelligence on the size of russias Nuclear Capability in the region and then also directed potentially at the west . Well, i think im not in a position to answer that. So im sorry. Becausemy comments, when i commented on the intelligence sharing mechanisms in nato, my point is that should be broadened and deepened so that more intelligence is being shared between nato nations and in that way moreintelligence is being available for all the nato nations. When it comes to where the gaps are, im sorry, im not able to comment on that. [ inaudible ] id not like to. Id actually just comment on the Nuclear Issue but possibly not from the angle that you are hoping for. But instead of being intelligence, i would stress the part of understanding the way the Nuclear Issue is treated in the russian functions. I think this is where wehave some sort of catching up to do. After its difficult to understand the way the russians see the Nuclear Capability as something that can be used for actually deescalating the conflict and that in their sort of military political thinking, the nukes can at all stages of conflict be used to sort of out deter from the conflict that there is always this red button available that can be usedto deter the other side if this is sort of necessary. And the nuclear is much more integrated into their thinking and the use of military capabilities than is considered necessary or possible in the west. In order to understand that, we need to more study that and also take this into account in our own exercising in our own planning and so forth. And this is another area where i think we need to have dialogue with the russians, because this military doctrine of escalation to ostensibly deescalate but in my mind is deescalation is dangerous. And it rests upon a misconception about how the United States and its allies and nato in particular would respond if the Russian Military escalates certainly including independence but even with cyber or otherconventional means. I think thats an area where theres a definite needfor dialogue and of course theres a heightened interest in gaining intelligence on what the russians are really thinking with this doctrine because its highly dangerous. To tell us about that doctrine and how the russians view it. It remains to be seen. But the recent experience tells us that all of the strategic russian exercises have had the Nuclear Component in it during the last ten years or so. My expectation is were going to see theNuclear Component in the if i was to exercise my military, i would think id like to exercise all the components of it. Thank you. Way in the back, blue tie, white shirt getting up. Thanks. Jonathan ward, university of oxford. I wanted to ask you about zapad in the context of the shanghai cooperation organization. Im wondering if the sco matters these days in your view as you focus on the military theater particularly as it expands to include other nations . I mentioned earlier that i would like the conversation about these military exercises and the need for transparency about military exercises generally to be internationalized and to be brought out of the transatlantic concept. When it comes to sco, im not really sure what we can do because sco itself, the United States is not a member, i dont believe any nato members are members. So we and the agenda is very much controlled by the kremlin, by beijing. So i think we can engagewith those countries. Im not sure whether it makes sense to engage through that organization. One component or interesting bit of information concerning china,that its not in the framework of zapad per se. But as i said before, a whole range of different exercises going on during this season. And first were going to see the russian navy exercising with chinese navy First Time Ever on the baltic sea this summer. The chinese will bring three of their most modern ships to the baltic to train with the russian navy. Hi, im the guy who introduced the event. [laughter] sweden and finland have come up during the conversation. Again obviously not members but nato partners and they also live in the region, so to speak, and are close russia watchers themselves. Can you Say Something about or give us abit of a sense of how youre working with sweden and finland in terms of comparing notes or sharing perspectives and talk about both zapad and also sort of russian activity in the broader region. Sure. Of course, we have a good connection with finland and sweden about all kinds of issues. Theres a tight nordic connection when it comes to looking at things we can do on the military side when it comesto exercises and other spaces where we can Work Together as well as sharing notes. When it comes to sharing notes, thats being done. However, there are a few, you know, limitations there are a few limitations o what we share and we cannotwi share since were talking about court nations and not allies within the nato, within nato. But i would say everything is there to be able to cooperate and talk about whatever is on the table, and that is being done. We have time for one or two more. The woman in the white shirt black shirt sorry, cant see you. The woman right here. [laughter] what chance is there that the kremlin would leave behind , indiscernible] go ahead. Stand up and well do a twofer. Alex riten with the state department. In your Opening Statements you specifically mentioned broadening efforts to return russia to compliance by including china and india outside the osb framework. Im wondering if you can elaborate more on how you see that happening. On belarus i would say its not zero and then ill leave it to the military experts. [laughter] on broadening, i i dont frankly think i have gone through the modalities of a but i think it is clear that we, nato, by laterally we can make an approach to the Chinese Government because we certainly in the united date, have an interest also in maintaining a calm militarytomilitary relationship with china. Reducing the risk of miscalculation in the South China Sea in particular, it to some extent in the East China Sea where i dont think there is a territorial dispute. I think china is the first one week ago to, but certainly india is also increasing its capabilities in the maritime arena. All of these countries have a lot to gain from maintaining stability. China, while it is pushing the envelope as i mentioned in the sea still sees great use for its country and achieving its objective to be gained from the existing International Order and law. So while they might push the envelope a little bit to use a tired cliche, it is the on the envelope. We can have a dialogue with these countries that may be great a new mechanism. It might be worth doing that. Something like we have done before in the noncorporation arena where we have the united we can haveng or another country, maybe estonia or norway. But that is what i had in mind, more or less. When it comes to deep belarus question, that is a great question. Anythinge not seen tore we could expect that happen. We do not expect that to happen but we have seen it happen in other parts. Beit is something we will taking a lot of attention to and kind of looking for so i think that is where we are right now. Out of time so on that slightly ominous note, we will wrap up. I would like to thank our panel for a great discussion. It spins up into the larger context of russian and in aement in the west and much larger geopolitical context as well. Very brief. I will add my thanks tforo you getting us through the conversation. I would like to thank our panelists and partners. I think this was fascinating and there is certainly lots more to discuss. I would like to also given thanks to those behind the scenes who sort of kept this running, including the media and press. And those here at the Atlantic Council. I would encourage you to stay tuned. This is our curtain raiser or first shot. We will continue watching the exercises closely and after that return with a bit of written analysis and conclusion and observation. So please stay tuned. Thank you thank you so much to all of you for coming and stay cool out there today. I hear its going to be a hot one. Thanks. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] sunday on q a. In the country an absolute monarchy, speaking about the distribution of wealth, about the corruption can get you in so much trouble. Saudi arabian womens rights activist talks about time in prison after challenging the saudi government spent on women drivers in her book daring to drive. Youniversity women driving in the street and its a huge country. Women cant drive. We wanted to change this by this movement and the movement is going on, never stopped. We are still campaigning for the right to drive. For us the right to drive is more active civil disputes because women is not supposed to drive. We show that we are able, where capable of driving come because the drivers seat for own destiny when doing this act of civil disobedience. Sunday night at eight eastern on cspans q a. The alliance for Health Policy hosted a discussion about the future of medicaid and other program might change under the Senate Health care law replacement of t