Transcripts For CSPAN3 Forum Focuses On U.S.-Japan Relations 20170728

Good afternoon. Im glad to see our audience survived the flash flood warning. Im Michael Green, Senior Vice President for asia and japan here at csis and professor at georgetown. And as the csis host i want to do our usual safety announcement. We survived the flash flood. If for any reason we need to evacuate, its my responsibility to give you instructions. And the general rule is well go out the way you came in and well make our way to either national geographic, which is around the corner, or well go straight down rhode island to st. Matthews. Our expectation is half the people will go to starbucks at du pont circle, but thats the plan. Im going to be very brief because ill have the opportunity to chair a discussion with our very distinguished panel of american and japanese retired senior military leaders. But first i want to turn it over to my friend who has organized this military Statesmen Forum to tell you about its intent, its purpose and a bit about what they achieved. Please, yochi. Thank you, mike. Thank you very much. I would like to First Express my deepest appreciation to csis and especially to dr. Michael green for cohosting this event with my think tank asia pacific initiative. I was here exactly six months ago in an event like this, exactly like this. And the theme was always the same, the u. S. And Japan Alliance in the era of economic competition. It was a preview of one yearlong project with dozens of japanese policy experts at the think tank. And the objective of that project was to identify that geopolitical and geoeconomic risks to japan and u. S. Japan alliance and the possible ways to deal with them. Today, we are here to share some of the takeaways from four days of conference which we just held in washington. Between retired military leaders and active Duty Officers, top active Duty Officers and the government high ranking officials from the u. S. And japan. This is a retreat type policy discussions. And this we have had this military Statesmen Forum for now four years. And dr. Michael green has been extremely supportive from day one. We are very much now in an era of radical uncertainty. And particularly how in reaction to these new heights of that uncertainties we are turning our attention to tried and tested values, institutions and methods. And the u. S. Japan alliance is among one of those tried and tested. And at this military Statesmen Forum we have reaffirmed that this tried and tested strategic values and significance of the u. S. Japan alliance, but at the same time we have keenly realized that this alliance has to adapt to a radically changing international environment, particularly in asia pacific. Now, one of the areas that we have to really evolve, more effectively, is in the field of economics, more accurately geo economics, increasingly that economic instruments are now used and utilized to achieve that geopolitical gain and objectives. In the area, asia pacific particularly, we are confronted with these challenges, particularly from china. But whether its china or russia or japan, the United States and europe, the trade policy now is increasingly has become to be a center, a center of what, or national strategy. That also reflects represents this new trend of that geoeconomics in where politics how u. S. Japan alliance can and should deal with them. Its a very, very new theme, a challenging theme. Economics al employed by some countries to modify or revise and even undercut the international order. They just dont like the rules, a rule based order, they are now challenging that. Cyberspace is increasingly exploited, and even manipulated, not only to undercut compromise that free and fair trade goods and services, but also to damage and undermine the democratic rules, process and institutions, democracy itself. And we are now also in the midst of that radical technical revolution, the Fourth Industrial Revolution based on a. I. , big data and so on. And its implication for that National Security, National Resilience is enormous. So those each strategic challenges that we have to deal with in this years military Statesmen Forum also has addressed those issues. We just could not talk about everything, but we did cyber security, geoeconomics, certainty and north korea and the others. We got support from active Duty Officers and incumbent government officials is indispensable to enrich the conversation and make that discussions at msf relevant and meaningful. And we are very much fortunate that we have members from joint chiefs of staff, department of defense and National Security council from the United States. From japanese side we have members from the selfDefense Forces, a minister of defense and the Prime Ministers office. Today, we have four members of the military Statesmen Forum, we have two cochair of the military Statesmen Forum, admiral mike mullen, former chairman of joint chiefs of staff and general a former chief of staff of joint staff selfDefense Forces. And all of you know admiral dennis blair, former pacom commander and dni chief, currently the chairman of the board of Peace Foundation usa. And general igasaki, former chief of staff, joint staff selfDefense Forces. So we are extremely lucky and privileged to have four of them to share their observations and their suggestions with all of you today. So i once again would like to express my deep gratitude to my friend Michael Green for chairing this and moderating this. Thank you. I hope you really enjoy todays discussion. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you, yoichi. Well have a discussion up here on stage and then turn it over to the audience to ask questions including i hope from some of the participants in the military Statesmen Forum who are not on stage right now. Yoichi has if you know him in classic form come up with the right idea at the right time. Theres never been anything quite like this military Statesmen Forum in part because on the japanese side there havent been former chiefs of Defense Forces with the authority that these gentlemen had. So there was an opportunity to create this kind of forum given the broad not only joint but policy experience of the Senior Officers coming out of the top of the Defense Forces. But theres also more of a demand for this kind of dialogue. The threat environment as dr. Funibashi just said is extremely complex. The u. S. Japan alliance was an alliance that we generally for decades managed as a rear area support alliance for contingencies, particularly on the Korean Peninsula we were getting ready for. But now japans on the front lines. The north korean threat we heard today about another missile launch, puts japan on the front line essentially with the north korean threat. And the maritime challenges in the East China Sea and South China Sea from china are also right in japans front yard. So this is no longer an alliance that is primarily a rear Area Alliance for president s. Its in the front lines. Thats changed japanese politics, policy, strategic thinking. And it means that we on the u. S. Side have really a responsibility to understand how the threat looks and the challenges look up close from japan. And japan is also one of our most important Global Partners now. The alliance for decades we talked about as a global alliance, but i can tell you from my time in the nse beginning a decade ago, when we go into the g7 or g20 meetings, were usually more aligned with japan than any other country al than any other country, including our closest ally. So its more complex, more comprehensive. We have less relative money to spend. All of these point towards more integration, more sharing of strategic assessments and the group of distinguished former chiefs of Defense Forces and pay com commanders and so forth are perfect to contribute to that dialogue. But most importantly, msf, the military statesman forum has established itself as a legitimate and important National Security institution because it has a tla, threeletter acronym, so the tsa going to play an Important Role going forward. Let me have some dialogue up here. To open it up. This was an offtherecord discussion but i have permission from the organizers to ask a little bit about the discussion. I wanted to ask each of the admirals and generals on stage, you know what their major takeaway was, in general over these four years of dialogue. In and particularly from this meeting. What is the conclusion, surprise, the imperative thing we must do that you took out of the meeting. And im going to start for this one, if its all right down on this end. Well go this way and then do reverse order for the next question. Well i think when youre called a statesman thats another word for old guy. And im going to take a little bit of advantage of that to give a little bit of perspective on u. S. Japan Military relationship in my time. When i was a commander of a guided missile destroyer, home ported in ukutska in the mid 1980s, when we were operating with the Japanese Maritime selfdefense force, we were required to leave port slip to make sure that we didnt communicate with the japanese ship until we were beyond helicopter range, of the coast of japan. Because a press helicopter could not, would then not be able to see us steaming together and communicating. That was a state of the alliance in the 1980s. In the mid 1990s i was involved in some joint planning with japanese selfDefense Forces. Ways required to put on a suit, grow my hair a little bit longer. Get rid of my shiny black shoes and go in a small delegation into the basement of the old Japanese Defense Agency Building in rypongi in order to do some secret conversations with counterparts in the japanese selfDefense Forces. And our greatest fear was again of a fresh leak of these operations. To be able to sit in an open forum with cameras and an audience and talk about important issues of the u. S. Japan Alliance is just such a maturing of the alliance that weve seen in, in recent years, that i dont think we should lose sight of the progress thats been made. And just in time, too. Because the security situation in northeast asia, in east asia, and overall in the world has become much more pressing, much more complicated than it ever has been. And the interests of our two countries are, are exactly aligned in terms of our vision of, of what we think east asia should look like from the security, the economic, the governance, the values, the point of view. And that imperative has enabled us to be able to talk much more openly and honestly and purely about how we can pool our resources and pool our efforts in order to Work Together towards that kind of an asia. So what i have seen in the military statesman forum is an unprecedented level of frank discussion. The japanese are famous for their politeness. The americans are famous for their directness. And what that resulted in the past was a lack of serious communication to really talk about points of difference that had to be worked around and real understanding of points of convergence that should be emphasized. I would say that in the four years of the military statesman forum, we actually get down to honest appreciations of the constraints on both sides, and the ambitions on both sides and working towards common solutions. In the past four years weve noticed and frankly acknowledged areas of divergence, the United States and japan share common objectives on the major, on the major issues, were not the same country, we dont live in exactly the same locations and so we dont have exactly the same priorities. And these were frankly discussed. Well talk about these later in this discussion. We dont see russia quite the same way. We dont, we in the past have had different interests with china. There are Economic Issues which are different among the United States and china. Between the United States and japan and our relations with china and inevitably at the highest level of Major Economic approaches and major security approaches, overlap. So there have been those differences. Rather than being joked over or papered over, theyre addressed in this forum and weve been able to i think when we come back up with ways to go forward. Which then passed back to those who have the jobs that we used to have. One of our rules is to try to be helpful to those who have the jobs we used to have. Rather than making our lives more difficult. Let me stop there as far as the overall progress and we will discuss the specific issues i know later. I would only comment this is the third forum for me, two of them here and then one in tokyo and i guess reemphasize what admiral blair said in terms of just in time. And ive also experienced the same evolution that admiral blair has, over time in terms of our overall relationship. Allies, but certainly constrained. And what i really admire about what Prime Minister abe is doing now is looking for a way to have japan represented in the 21st century security environment. And thats an end to both to move in that direction. And then to empower his retired Senior Officers to have some of that discussion. And very, i mean specifically orikisan is here. He and i were in the same job, at the same time and in particular, during the fukushima tomodachi disaster. And it was actually, it was validation i think of the alliance. The way we were able to support, instantly support not just the selfDefense Forces, but the people of japan. And by virtue of that experience, the friendship and respect that we develop for each other, this forum came along a couple of years later. So it was very easy to commit to it. Admiral blair talked about the issues weve discussed in broad detail and im sure will come to some of those. But ive also watched the discussion mature. Very similar to the relationship. One of the individuals in the audience today is general skip sharp. Skip was the commander of the forces in south korea when i was chairman as well. And starting last year and again this year, weve worked to try to create some version of the trilateral view. To set with rock views, as well as japan and the United States. And this year, we had a former chief of defense there, general jun, who contributed greatly, for example. And from my perspective, when i try to understand a problem, i really do want to try to listen to the perspective from, whom, who im with. What are your concerns . How do you hear things . And this is a forum thats afforded us a great opportunity to listen to our good friends so that we can understand the challenges and then try to move forward together. So its, its been more robust this year than last year, than the year before that. And i think it will continue to be in what i think most of us in this room would understand or believe that its an extraordinary time right now. Of uncertainty, geopolitical uncertainty. Geoeconomic uncertainty. And in that uncertainty, one of my beliefs is you need good friends. And we have one in japan. General oriki and general oasaki are going to speak in japanese. 2 is english and 3 is russian. Let me turn to general oriki, just parenthetically add, the other interesting about the timing of the forum is it comes, it began at a time when japans selfDefense Forces in Public Opinion polls in japan, emerged as the most trusted institution in japan. Its quite remarkable. So the role of senior military statesmen, and in japan the idea of military statesman is very knew, or at least postwar. The idea that they have a role in helping to frame this debate is new and timely. Translator thank you very much. For the introduction, my name is oriki. So were switching from english to japanese. So this is not a weakness from japanese people not learning english, but we do have a very strong alliance. We just concluded our fourth msf forum and then ive been attending this from the first forum. Between the United States and japan, we rotate the location between tokyo and washington, d. C. And so that means that last year japan hosted one forum in tokyo. So mr. Mallon talked about this earlier. So i was, when i was in active duty we had a similar job and similar timing. Since then we have been working on Opinion Exchange and also transanalysis. So with him i really experienced that kind of sharing of information. But now we are coming here as representatives from the United States and also japan. I thought we had really good communication. But through this kind of forum, i experienced there was a gap and theres something that we need to address. And then again, from first forum to fourth forum, think were developing really good communication and also good information sharing. And i think were becoming together regarding what needs to be said to have really good communication. For our fourmt forum, my impressions, South China Sea and some other various Security Issues are there. But our topic was about geoeconomics. And so what kind of economic implications are there to Security Issues . So dr. Green talked about north korea and there are not only military options, okay, let me back up here. So there are certain things that we would want from china, or the relationship to russia. There are some options including sanctions and so those are perspectives that we talked about. And also, theres one belt, one road initiative. In china. So when we look at that, initiative, the indian ocean is very much integrated here. And also the role for that, of that ocean. So when we look at the indian ocean, in terms of the obor, theres an economic application to security, so thats something that i learned from everyone and also other experts that we had. So i think we had overall had really good communication. Thank you. Thank you. My name is iwasaki. So to the same question, i think that since this is our fourth forum, i think we have went through many of the topics already and also these panels are really opinionated. So i think i dont have very much to talk about any more. But i think that my participation is about 3. 5 times, not fully four, no the fully three. My first participation was in the first forum was in tokyo. But i was still in active duty. So i could not fully attend to that first one. So thats why what i meant by half a time participation. But after that, i really am appreciative of this forum. Since i was a selfdefense force. Also from air, Japanese Selfdefense force and also i had a tenure as a chief joint chief of staff. So looking back at those times. I really spoke with my counterparts in the United States. But when i was in active duty, i felt there was a gap in communication between the japan side and the United States. So when i felt that i reached out to dr. Green and also mr. Joan hamrick, when you and also john came to japan i was able to talk to you to gain more perspectives and then also i talked to you about the need of more active discussions. Fortunately i had the opportunity to participate in this meeting, hosted by dr. Green and im very happy about that. Japan u. S. Are two Different Countries and therefore regarding the issue pertaining to sdf or the u. S. Forces, economic situation, what is legal, what is not legal, of course there are differences between the two countries. This is the first round of the conference. And in the course of the four conferences we have been discussing a lot of the discussions about wideranging issues. And the discussion connected here will be submitted the two governments. And the u. S. Forces and for the sdf. I think were able to give a lot of advice to those institutions. And therefore the deliberations on the accomplishment of the msf is quite substantial. One of the photograph cusses of north korea is one of the drivers of change in our alliance. 20 years ago, japan was largely in the rear area. Today theres so many threats emanating directly from north korea. Missile, cyber and so forth and now directed towards an american homeland. It creates the necessity of joint preparedness as allies between. And japan. It also creates the potential for fissures and different assessments of the threat. Well address particularly for the american panelists, the role of the military instruments of power within our overall north korea strategy. Its often said by experts that the military option is not realistic and general dunford said its not off the table. Thats important for japan. I would like to ask our american panelists about that. The progress on the japankorea peace of the trilateral agreement and how ready we are and where we need to be more ready to deal with, to deal with contingencies emanating from north korea. Including not only attack, but also collapse. Or provocations. Theres a range of threats we have to think about. So let me start im going to sort of direct certain questions and yes, please, sorry. You got no rest. So generally youre thinking about north korea. But also specifically im interested in your view on the japan korea peace of this. And how ready is japan . Clearly not enough. But what are the areas where japan and u. S. And korea has to make more efforts to be prepared for the growing challenge. Translator thank you very much. With timing bad timing but the launch of the icbm by north korea, that was reported. Let me consider the dprk, in 1998, the sky over japan there was a flight, there was some the Ballistic Missile launched over japan. But whether it was successful or not. In any case, the range of 2,000 kilometers, somebody was launched by north korea. Even prior to that, we had a lot of different information. And the Ballistic Missile, the japan needed recruitment. That what we claimed. But there was a time that japanese people in general did not accept that. In 1998, there was a Ballistic Missile which flew over japan. But after that, there was much better understanding about the necessity. And the system should have been deployed earlier. But since then, the we had the aegis, impact iii and the systematic operation has become possible. In other words groundbased network has been put in place. And therefore, as a result, i think our bmd system is quite ready. And naturally, in order to cope with the north korea or bmd situation, around japan, in a pacific fleet, is deployed, and together with aegis of the seventh fleed fleet, we had exchange of data and we shared the information together in order to step up our preparedness. And as the mission by dr. Green now of course naturally when we think about response to north korea, not only the Ballistic Missile, when the conflict happens, without our okay, we cannot go anywhere. Very difficult to take any measures without south korea south korea. The maybe your perception is the japan korea relations are not favorable. But politically, unfortunately that is true. There were ups and downs of the relations between japan and south korea. But i have been working at the sdf and then i became the chief of staff. And during that period, the air, sea, the ground of south korea i think we have had always good relations, military basis and political relations sometimes is different. So in terms of the personal exchange, blue house, Operational Office turned down the request. The military members of the korea could not come and we could not visit them. There has been good collaboration between japanese and the Korean Forces, and this issue has been discussed and maintained efforts to conclude we came to the very close to conclusion, that was frozen. Finally geasomia has been put in place and the frequency is not very high, but the majority of them are maritime exercise. But recently, the bmd, trilateral, the Information Exchange, training was carried out among japan u. S. And the south korea. So trilateral relations abounded. And for the first time in msf conference, of course response to north korea, we have had a lot of Information Exchange between japan and the United States. And the general sharp has been involved in this conference. Recently. And for this, this year, we invited the general jones from the korea, and korean side perception has been provided from him. And i believe that that is such a valuable opportunity to listen to the south korean view. And having his view, he returned to south korea yesterday, but japan locations or trilateral u. S. japan relations will be further strengthened as a result. Translator started from ud, but in 2009, at the end of march, i became the chief of staff of the sdf. The over japan, actually reached the pacific, i still remember that happened in 2009. That was just ten days after i took office and i come from army. The ground selfDefense Forces. And therefore, so i made my best efforts. And for the shelling, a boat was destroyed by north korea. So so many different, the incidents took place in that during that year. And if you can look at the current situation, japan has already become the player of the front line. I should say that japan has been on the front line for a long time taepondong, in terms of the reach for japan, therefore what we have to think or what we should have thought from them was the rocket used solid fuel. And so now because of the mobile, the launcher, we do not know where north korea would launch. Upgrading of the capability of and icbm should be take noon our consideration and the longer range is achieved. Japan and the u. S. Have to deal with this. So the threat has existed. And i think the in this respect we should have been more sensitive. But now the threat has been even, the higher. And between japan and the r. O. K. , i think theres some optimism. Within japan, the Prime Minister abe and then the new president , the president of the r. O. K. And a meeting, there should be future, oriented. In other words particularly in the area of security, the joint statement was issued. To look at the future and for the security, i think we have some optimism between japan and r. O. K. Very often influenced by political situations. Military comes under the political situation. And haiti. Japan and r. O. K. Both dispatched, the units. And the s. D. F. And the Korean Forces were deployed. In haiti. And there was the some work to create the school together. And s. D. F. And the Korean Forces Work Together. On the same side. And Korean Forces they use the truck and on that track, jsdf members just put the debris. So we Work Together on the same side. And therefore that type of relation should be further strengthened, reinforced. And the fact that we are able to reach that state, the trilateral relations will be even strengthened. So im retired, but i would like to continue to make efforts. Admiral mullen, same issue, but in particular given your previous job, i think it would be interesting for everyone to hear your thoughts on the military options, military instruments in the larger north korea strategy and the press debate, in a lot of the academic debate. Positives of binary choice, you need to either preektively bomb them or dialogue with them and theres a whole range of options and contingencies and so forth. So it would be helpful if you could also frame for us the role of the military power in dealing with north korea problem going forward. Actually, admiral blair and i talked about this in terms of this possibility coming up. And i volunteered him to at least take a lead. Ill fill in behind. If were you to listen to our discussion, if you were to read the press about the current north korean issue, its as if its a standoff between the dprk and the United States. With the other countries of northeast asia being sort of the backdrop against which this occurs. If you listen to our discussions, within the conference over the last three days, you realized that this is a, an alliance problem. Problem for an issue that the United States, its two allies, japan, and the republic of korea have to face and i think it puts a different, little different light on it. We need to evaluate our options in dealing with north korea in terms of their effect on our alliances, we want to emerge at the end of what half happens with our alliance with japan and alliance with the republic of korea and their relationships being stronger than they were. Not weakened. Much less completely dissolved by them. I think we have to keep, what i was reminded in our discussions, that this is a complex alliance challenge. Not just a mano a mano of kim jongun and donald trump. As we discuss specifics of the issues, i think we had some insights which might be useful. When i was the Pacific Commander and the temperature went up on the peninsula, it was pretty much a peninsula problem, the general sharps predecessor, who is the commander of combined forces, command would put his, would put his command on the higher alert. A series of wellunderstood measures focused on the peninsula would happen. Now if there is an elevated level of tension and potential for military action, or whether we are considering military options of the United States that affect as wide range of defense preparations in korea. In japan and in the United States. Not only are they Missile Defense preparations, but for example theyre cyberpreparations, both countries that both countries have to make. They are much more extensive, maritime and air defense preparations. So the part of any military option that comes up in that region has to be a very careful set of preparations by all three countries to defend their citizens and their interests. In case north korea decides to take aggressive action. That can only be done by not minutes of notificationotificat weeks of careful consultation and planning. So i think what you would hear from the military professionals is whatever youre going to do, militarily in dealing with korea, all three countries have to be involved. There has to be time for them to be ready to deal with a full range of possible reactions. Two other sets of insights we gained on some of the nonmilitary tools with which we are dealing. With north korea. The first is the sanctions. Regime. To make a generalization, we have been pretty much using simple straightstick sanctions to deal with north korea. They havent had the intensity of exquisite intelligence focus and cooperation with the private sector. Understanding with the network that korea has developed in order to take advantage of the gray market. Not understanding the Corresponding Organization within china, which is taking advantage of korean, korean desires to import illegal goods to make money and to, and to cooperate with north korea. We need a much more tighter focused effort involving the intelligence agencies, and in many cases, the commercial and financial authorities. In the United States, japan, republic of korea and china. And i think that china can be far more effective if we do not just point the finger at them and say, up to you, china, but that we involve the chinese authorities who have taken very aggressive tools for dealing with corruption. Which is a huge feature in trade with korea in dealing with counterfeiting. A huge feature. The North Koreans are not only counterfeiting dollars, they are counterfeiting yen. They are dealing with drugs. In a way that is affecting the those who live west of the yalo, as well as east of the yalo. The idea of both intensifying and internationalizing in a detailed way the sanctions regime on north korea is i think an important insight that we can, we can improve. And the final one that we all who have dealt with north korea for a long time is, i think we have not done nearly as well as we could in terms of pushing information into north korea. So that both the elites who are around the kim regime and more general citizenry can understand just how bad they have it. And can understand that they are not in fact the subject of an Aggressive Campaign from outside. Estimates are that up to a fifth of citizens of north korea now have access to a cell phone now. And thats a tremendous opportunity for getting information into north korea. There are many other opportunities and although there have been sporadic attempts by particularly the republic of korea, to a lesser extent, the United States to push information into north korea, i think we can certainly ramp that up as well. So i think those are the main insight that we had on, we had on north korea. In terms of both being in a better military posture. Increasing the information flow into the country. And working with china in a way that has all of us working on these sanctions, rather than simply waving our finger around. So what to do. However whoever is talking about it is saying there are no good optionings and there are no good options here. One of the things that i was struck with in our discussions, was which is a little bit obvious, and ive been concerned broadly about this. But when you look at the number of missile tests. That kim jongun has generated in his relatively brief time, its an extraordinarily high number compared to his predecessors. Theres a view and we talked about it in the forum is that while his dad and granddad may have had a more calculating purpose of the launches, his purpose very clearly is to get a Nuclear Weapon on top of an icbm as soon as possible. And if you read in the media, certainly of late, theres a pretty strong belief thats going to happen sooner than we predicted. As recently as six months ago. You combine that with the fact that he has eliminated not just his uncle, but his halfbrother and look at the numbers of people that he has eliminated in his regime. At a pace that far exceeds his predecessors as well. So given not just what hes doing, but the pace hes executing, what are we going to do . Michael, you asked about the military options, there are no good military options. In addition to there being no good options, there are no good military options. Probably what is for those of us that understand what some of those options might be. It is the catastrophic outcome of those options. The potential that is there. If it were preemptive strike for example on whats going to happen to seoul, whats going to happen on the peninsula. What do we get ourselves into . What i believe with respect to kim jongun, i dont think hes suicidal, at this point. At least thats my judgment. He is like many dictators around the world, going to figure out, try to figure out a way to sustain being in charge in that country. So theyed that he would actually launch one of these weapons on south korea, japan or the u. S. , is, that would be suicide for him and his regime. I still believe and you see discussion now, about well first of all, when you see what our president has said here in the United States which has been very strong. What general dunford said last week, at aspen, which, which was focused on not taking military options off the table. That theres clearly, were going to pressure him as hard as we can to appoint where he possibly makes the decision, this isnt worth it. Thats one path. It may or may not work. Another path is through china. Everybody up here, denny and i and our successors have all worked this issue at one time or another. The answer isnt absolutely through beijing. Beijing, from my perspective, cant get a free pass on this. Its too dangerous for them as well. So moving in that direction, in support of figuring out how to put pressure on this guy to make sure that there is not a disaster, i think is key. Its been ground thats been previously been plowed and its been unsuccessful so what are the chinese interests here . And how do we match up our interests with our allies interests . With chinese interests and figure out where the overlap might be so we could prevent this disaster. And i just reemphasized what admiral blair said. This sujust about the United States or north korea. Its about two great friends, two great alliances. It is in the bread basket of the world, four of the five biggest economies in the world are centered out there and in one part of the discussion. Even as we postured what might happen in terms of preparation. The First Response from someone was, the Financial Markets are going southing immediately and we all talk about that. We know that any outbreak there would have a huge economic Financial Impact globally. But to hear somebody say it. As part of that yes, we could expect and have to plan for this. Was a little bit jarring and a probably a little bit real given whats going on as recently as today with another test. You ended up taking the harder half. You ended up taking the harder half of the question. Before we offer the audience a chance to weigh in, i want to ask about something i dont think you did address, and that is the significance of u. S. Forward military presence in the western pacific. I want to get a japanese and u. S. Perspective, anyone or everyone, the polling, Public Opinion polling in support of u. S. Forces in japan is pretty good in both countries. But there are voices arguing for example in the u. S. , that its a mistake to have some of our best military assets within the missile range envelope of some of our potential adversaries and you have in japan, still in okinawa, challenging political situation, may not be getting worse, but its not getting that much better, perhaps. I would be interested in anyones view of how you see or how you would characterize the importance of our forward presence in japan. And some of the changes that are causing some people to argue we should rethink it. You want to start . When i was at centpac, i had a little Bumper Sticker west is best its much better to have your forces up there where the trouble may start thereby keep it from starting. And if it does start, you can a i ply them more, more quickly. All the talk about vulnerability and so on, with the memories of pearl harbor and when we moved the American Fleet from the west coast of the United States to hawaii and then it was vulnerable. Is useful to think about. But the degree of intelligence warning we have. The understanding, the political situation makes me think that we will not be, our forces would not be caught in their hangers at their pier in some kind of, some kind of surprise attack and that they ought to be there so that they can shape the environment rather than simply, simply react to it. I think its much better to have our troops there. Another important function they served is that the, is that the the coin of the realm in terms of commitment is forces, there. Those in japan and those in korea who, who face threats in a much shorter range than we in washington, and or Washington State face and those that their american troop there is and they are, are all in it together. So i think both for the, both for the reassurance point and the endurance point, and i can tell you from the warfighting point, forward is better, west is best. Just quickly, two thoughts. One is president xi in china, if it wasnt, it may have been his predecessor. At one point, the chinese leader said, you take the eastern half, well take the western half. My response to that is were not going anywhere. Weve enjoyed a level of stability in that part of the world. Since 1953. And it hasnt just happened. Its been a lot of work. These alliances are part of that. Our presence is a big part of that. It is i think incredibly important for us to be there. Across the board. And im reminded, you know, i would remind those listening, its 28,500 troops in south korea, weve got 54,000 troops in japan. And rightfully so. From a warfighting standpoint. I want my best foot forward. I want my forces, i want my best forces there. They understand their vulnerabilities. They understand the weaknesses. They spend a lot of time mitigating those challenges. I want anybody that is there to understand, they are our best forces. And they are the forces we integrate with in japan. And with Korean Forces. We practice it all the time. And there is one of the things we did talk about in this forum was the readiness. Theyre ready. Theyre for it, they know it theyre the best weve ever had. And im very confident in them. Translator so maybe my perspective is a little bit different. Strategically speaking, if theres a unit withdrawing and rotating out to different location they are a different perspective, in terms of operation and also missions in terms of operation. If we are to move a base, that sends a big signal to other countries. So lets say relationships between korea and the United States and japan and the United States, if we are to move a base. That means a big disrupt between those relationships. And that sends a big signal to the rest of the world. And i think that we are in a preparation phase of planning phase that we should be in deep consideration to consider what kind of presence that we are in need of right now. Lets say the japanese and u. S. Relationship, we will need a significant Strategic Dialogue or meeting. With a forum, we should review what kind of roles and responsibilities each country should have had or will have. Without that kind of careful consultation between those two countries. I think were going to make a big mistake. I think the three panelists already talked about many of my opinions, because i dont have very much to say. If we are to realynn or replace the United States forces, from japan, or from asia, i think that this is a signal that we are taking a weaker position to the rest of the world. For example, the United States goes to korea and also japan. As armed forces we have alliances and also treaties and agreements. And i think the most important thing is training and also exercises. If we have a Long Distance between two countries, that means that we need to have a one or two big exercises, once in a while. So coordination becomes less and less so by having actually u. S. Forces physically in our territory that means we can communicate closely. And also that technical transfer becomes more often and also more active. So thats why having physical presence in japan is really critical and also important to us. And so five years ago, there was a meeting with a whole of air defense commands. You might not know about this commands. But this one has a warfighting capability. Meaning that the aircraft fighters and also pax 3 and some other warfighting functions. So we have 50,000 airmen. But half of it, actually belong to this command. And so this command takes the bmds command in japan. So meaning that we have a warning leader function on his command. And also maritime aegis ship is actually belong, belong to this command itself. So theres a liaison kind of function here. So we had different commands, separate commands between japan and the United States. But we move this air integrated commands in yokota, because we wanted to have the same physical base sharing together. So meeting that the United States command and also japan, japanese command they can share the same information. To make decisions. I think that this shows the progress between the japan and the United States alliance, and also defense cooperation. The recent missile launches from north korea we are ready to monitor it. Those launches and testing from north korea together with the United States i think that moving a base is not a light decision to make. I appreciate that from all four of you, i think from time to time we have to recharge those batteries and make this argument and explain with different context. I agree with what all of you said. Actually the environment we face and the limited resources we have make this forward presence even more important and for it to be effective in terms of deterrence and dissituation shaping the environment, we will have to be more joint combined, operable in our bilateral alliances and our bilateral alliances will have to be better able to operate together as some of you said in several of these scenarios. I think one of the north korean targets is one of the reasons theyre trying to do is split our alliances, by threatening the u. S. Stress, and bilateral lines of japan and korea. And the answer to that is more joint morks committed in a very different way, i think chinas goal over the longerterm, and the tell or the sort of indicator of that was xi jinpings speech in 2014 which said the future basis should have no blocs. In a longer sort of less immediate threatening way. But nevertheless in a longterm way, i think Chinas Center of gravity is gradually see our alliances get weaker. If we want to motivate china a little more on noik noik we have to demonstrate that north koreas actions are making our alliances stronger coming together. So both to be able to fight tonight is that the saying in korea, skip . To be ready, but also for the larger geopolitical game we got to be more more forward. More capable, and i think thats important. Let me open it to the audience. I didnt ask about china so that somebody can say, you didnt ask about china. Or not. There are a lot of issues on the table and a lot of issues that were discussed, including cyber and others. Mr. Nelson . Thanks so much. Thanks as always for a terrific discussion. Chris the nelson report in eye old age, im a fellow at the sasqehoa Peace Foundation. So thank you for that theres hope for us all. From a military standpoint, theres a political issue potentially looming, at some point you would be asked should we negotiate a freeze with these guys. Should we negotiate a peace treaty that inherently accept them as Nuclear Powers. From your military standpoint what would that mean . What would be the down side to it . Or the upsides to it . Because could you see where we might be coming to that. If its true. As general sharp said. Its too late to stop these guys, except by military means, which is unacceptable. Our friend scott snyder said for years, i dont see any happy ending here. You can see where were facing this with the icbm crisis. Whats your response to the dilemma that im putting out. What is your military response to freezes, to peace treaties, to accepting these guys as a Nuclear Power . What would you say . To help you out. Some of our panelists, youre asking about a u. S. Dprk peace treaty or freeze . And especially in the context of this discussion. This is an alliance problem, isnt it . If were running around making an individual treaty with the north, our friends are going to have something to say about it. Thanks very much. The japanese peace treaty or freeze would mean. Well start with that. There are a lot of freeze proposals in the air right now. There was an interesting chinese proposal, in which they said if, the north korea would freeze its missile and nuclear program. The United States and the republic of korea should freeze their exercise program. As far as i can tell, the only the only benefit to that arrangement would be to china. Which makes a lot of sense because it was china that proposed it. They not only degrade the military capability of the United States and the western pacific, but they would, they would also slow down the north Korean Nuclear development. Which they dont much like, any how. So i chinese freeze is transparently selfserving and is something that we ought to, ought to reject. I think before you go into negotiations with the North Koreans, you should do a little bit of your history work. And many friends of mine and many acquaintances, many predecessors of mine have been involved in negotiations with the North Koreans. And their record for negotiating in good faith, their record for carrying out their commitments once theyve actually signed them and agreed to them. Is abysmal. Its perfect. Its perfect. Perfectly abysmal. I think that it reminds you of that american cartoon of Charlie Brown kicking the football, lucy holds in place for him and she just pull it is away every single time and he falls flat on his back every single time. Im a little jaded on the negotiation method, unless there is some reality behind it in terms of, in terms of an approved military situation. Something that would lead to you believe, north korea was now more serious. I tend to discount those. I think we should examine each one. Look at the surrounding conditions. To see if something has changed. That would encourage us to do that. But im basically deeply skeptical about almost all of that. About all of them. I would only add two thoughts. One is, no mat weather we have and given the batting record for negotiating directly with the north, as you know a perfect 000, that we need to move forward and in consultation with our allies. Specifically. And that it gets me back to if theres any possibility here, i think it is creating opportunities with china to then have all of us move to something with north korea that is almost sewn up ahead of time by everybody what we agree on. And discussions and with china not sitting in the second row, but leading at the table to generate possible peaceful outcomes. Thats what we all want, and what the specifics of that would be, im not sure. Thats certainly one path that i tend to agree with denny on this. I think going direct is truly based on the imperical data thats out there. Translator i did not understand the question that well, unfortunately, but so far this regard to north korea well, although we actually provided something that the north Korean Development has continued and second time, although there was a crisis in sixparty talks and other things took place, but in terms of the result there was no good result and north korea continued to develop Nuclear Weapons, so that should be the lesson that we learned out of our experiences. And north korea, the safety of the country and the revival of the regime, i think that is maximum, the requirement for them. In america, they say yes, and in exchange for that is condition that denuclearization is important, but that has not been successful. The dilemma has continued so one side must compromise, otherwise there is no solution and therefore, in an ideal world, the u. S. , north korea agreement will be very difficult. I dont know whether i answered the question perfectly, but thats my view. I think my view is very similar, but if i might misunderstand, if you look at the world the countries which are trustworthy and then there are countries which are not trustworthy and so if you look at the track record of the north korea even though there is a promise, the promise is broken by north korea. In some way or the other they try to earn time or they try to accumulate their fund and they tend to take a very similar action and in order to have them to make a promise and an irreversible condition should be defined clearly in order to move ahead. In any case, for north korea, for Ballistic Missile and the purpose of the development is the survival of the regime, and in order tor ensure is the survival of the regime, the survival is needed and the final goal with the United States and since that is the ultimate purpose and for that reason they want to be a Nuclear Country or the launching of the icbm, and so the purpose of north korea and the reversible, the conditions, i think that those two should be kept in our mind in order to deal with that. You, on the other hand, dont invest in that diplomatic option everything because you dont put everything on that debt because we know from experience it is a soothing work and the design of this fees for fees is to weaken our deterrence. Is that a fair summation . Yes, sir. I agree with the other gentlemen. Theres been a wonderful overview. Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures, so it raises the question and it is clear it would be extraordinary, but dont take that for our japanese friends. It is clear from just what you said and one readses that there are no easy nor good. Theyre all bad military that t are no easy nor good. Theyre all bad military options. If you assume over and over again, and i have heard here, is to secure a Nuclear Capability that would enable them to secure maximum leverage for its threat of use. Thats what they want, and nothing seems to deter it, and if you look at it from that perspective and buy it, why wouldnt negotiations or threat . They seem to have sufficient military capability to threaten south korea, particularly, that that makes that a difficult military and why would they initiate the military operation . Because worst case, that could bring a Nuclear Retaliation ultimately. Im not sure this is accurate. You all probably would know, but i understand fred kemp has come out with a recent book that says that kennedy in the early 60s was confronted with a possibility, probability of soviet encirclement of our allies and made a decision to use our Nuclear Capability calculating a loss of a million on either side. It was an extraordinary measure, extraordinary times, and im sure that in the bowels of pentagon and other calculations theyre looking at tradeoffs like that, but isnt it going to be necessary among these bad options to prevent north korea from achieving its objective at some point, because its not going to get any easier . Now back to the measure, in this calculation, it seems at the moment, it seem, china has the greatest leverage and they just dont want to use it and maybe in minor ways, the kontcounterf corruption and it wont affect the overall calculation, but if this were a possibility to bring pressure on china, given all of the historic restraints for historic reason, would japan consider developing a Nuclear Capability . Because, clearly, that will signal to china this could have complications for us, thats my question. So this is what Charles Krauthammer argued a day or two in the washington post, the only way out of this is to encourage japan and you encouraged the public of korea, and i recall hearing on the campaign trail as well at one point, is it fair to ask you to respond . Why not . You face more Difficult Missions in the past. Really . Translator so let me answer the question. First, with north korea icbm or nuclear of the the element lz be has been developed because they did not have any trust in the other countries and they are on the list of the Nuclear Capability they cannot feel assured. I think that seems to be a motivation, and also the development of nuclear arms is problematic, but if you look at the world situation or if you look at the relation of north korea with the rest of the world, the Nuclear Proliferation or technological prolive yagfer of course, the threat and there are other kinds of threats spreading throughout the world and to japan, the United States and worldwide, i think this is a very unfavorable situation, a very extraordinary situation and in that sense and the United States has every option on the table and so that is the reason, i think, that every option is on the table, and another point, the Nuclear Option issue for about a week ago, was there an opinion poll by private organization about allocate in japan whether Nuclear Armament is necessary and allocate 70 of the public. Say that they need to have the Nuclear Armament and japanese answer is only 9 . Only 9 say that japan should be armed as Nuclear Weapons. I think that is a result of the poll, and i checked that with the newspaper report, and so about japan in terms of national sentiment, and the security, i think the different result may come out, but if you look at the national sentiment, i would rather them go into the Nuclear Alliance with the United States. So other types of deterrence seems to be cold floor by japan. Maybe i think that is a more clever an option. Thank you. Others want to weigh in . I think we should remember, lloyd, that this is not a new dilemma that has been faced in the battle of cold war years when the United States had a huge military, i huge Nuclear Arsenal and the countries ashs want toed different forms of their own Nuclear Deterrence or reassurance. France or the uk decided that they wanted to have their own systems and they developed them. Germany, turkey, norway. Other countries decided that they would rely on the american deterrent, but it wasnt simply a declare tiff reliance and there were aircraft in which american weapons could be delivered by aircraft flown by german or turkish or danish pilots. There was a stationing of a shorter range of systems forward. So theres a whole range of things that havent been developed in order to reassure an ally that the United States Nuclear Umbrella extends over them without them developing weapon, and we actively had discussions with the channels with japan and the republic of korea. So i think your principle of our allies having nuclear reassurance is absolutely correct, and then i think its up to the allies to decide where along that spectrum from having their own arsenal to a series of intermediate measures to simply rely on the declareatory approximately see and develops weapons, themselves. I think this conversation will take place and agreements will be reached and the countries will still be secure. I want to make sure im not trying to get in trouble when i say this, but i think, and it goes back to what the admiral said earlier which is oftentimes and certainly lately, this is portrayed as just the u. S. And north korea, and it has taken on a particular a particular intensity because of the icbm potential which is now much more real, but we focus that, and what i worry about is sometimes we forget that south korea and japan are already under the threaten vel open in terms of missile capability. Theres certainly the development of the nuclear warhead, and that from an alliance standpoint we have a responsibility to include them in these discussions, and not almost de facto isolate them from them because were getting into this debate aboutis and north korea. We have a responsibility. I recognize that now that its u. S. Citizens that could be under the threat here very, very soon, but i think its a responsibility for all leaders in particular to speak to our requirements and visavis the alliance and in a form like this for three and a half days of a fresh reminder of the importance of that alliance, and i think that michael said it earlier that even after something really bad happens, that alliance is stronger and its not broken up because what we did or didnt do, and sometimes we have a tendency to not make that kind of consideration given sort of the short term nature of right now. Japanese people, south Korean People are already well under the threaten vel open that theyve been dealing with for some time, and not only nuclear, but on the conventional side, very, very dangerous and lethal and we shouldnt forget that as a part of how we move forward as this gets says more difficult. Thats a critical point. I cant resist, but three quick reasons why i think its a bad idea, and i was in the bush administration, and the president itself wanting to use the gamut and its a bad idea first because we have more than enough to turn power ourselves. We dont need it to deter or necessarily destroy in north korea. Number two, if the north korean aim and in the longer term said to weaken our alliances ask why would we not trust japan or the puke lar umbrella and it goes against the tool with great allowance ask solidarity. Can go in theyve been living alongside japan and korea for a lot longer than we have. Theyre not going to listen to us. What theyre going to hear is u. S. Japan alliance is really in trouble because the americans are talking about japan Going Nuclear or the u. S. Korea lines are really in trouble. Thats the signal wed send. So, yeah. Now, if theres doubt about the credibility of our extended because we are now under threat, then as admiral mullen put very well, we need to deepen the dialogue and think how we restore a greater measure of credibility, but thats a far different thing, i think. Just add one more point, mike. The a Nuclear Attack on either the republic of japan would kill lots of americans so an icbm reaching los angeles would kill more americans, but we are already subject to north Korean Nuclear threats equally and have many of our citizens bearing equal exposure and vulnerability as are japanese and korean ally, and i think that is one of the strongest parts of the deterrent equation that exists. Its a provocative question, but a good discussion to elicit it. In the front . Thank you for coming. My name is mitsuo nakai, u. S. Citizen and a member of the reagan foundation. I have a couple of questions. Two max . Yeah. Thanks. Since we have the generals here, how can we defend seoul . It doesnt take a Nuclear Weapon to destroy seoul. How can we defend okinawa where there are a bunch of u. S. Bases there . How can we do that . Its a military equation. Thanks. Hand the mike to that guy right there. Three seats over. General sharp . So the defense of seoul counts upon the forces of north korea and the United States and what korea has along the border thats organized there to do counter battery fire and the air forces that are there both in the republic of ckorea and the United States. North korea started immediately pulling the lan yards and artillery rounds started coming in there would be great damage in seoul, but we would relatively quickly be able to destroy that artillery through ground, air and naval fire, and i dont want to minimalize it, but there are very solid plans, very solid capabilities to be able to quickly react to any sort of attack from artillery coming in to seoul that are very well rehearsed many, many times. So it would be the end of kim jongun if he started that. Im absolutely convinced because we would not stop there. For those watching podcasts and dont know general skip sharp who was command of all our forces on the Korean Peninsula. And all of the Korean Forces. In the unc cap. Can we defend okinawa . You did say generals, not admirals. So chip gregson was commander of many things, but the air force base in okinawa. There is a little bit of revenge. I told general sharp he would be put on the spot. Thank you. The defense of okinawa would be the same as the defense of the mainland, air and Ballistic Missile defense, cruise Missile Defense using the full weight of u. S. And Japanese Forces more and more is planned. Theres already a battalionsized unit more or less going in. And japanese forcers are in unijima and unless theres some miraculous parting of the skies and the situation gets better our alliance is going to get stronger to defend the territory, the interest and the lives of our japanese allies. Its a very, very big thing to attack the United States of america for a treaty ally. Thats a very thats a huge, huge thing, and you know, the public discussion, we get nervous, but we have to remember what that is and the consequences that any adversary would think about. This is not some ambiguous gray zone and its about two of the most important treaty allies with likeminded businesses. We have one more matthew . Id like steve winter, independent researcher. A followup on the question just addressed and i did talk to one expert on north korea who suggested that even in the regime were destroyed that the plan of the North Koreans would be to go even in the decapitated state to go to a massive guerilla and partisan war using their whole population and that this would not resolve itself in months. It would go on for years and sort of a libyan situation, perhaps. So has anybody else addressing that issue . The assumption seems to be the military option is terrible and oh, maybe a Million People would be killed and how many million . It would be over in some sense, horrible as it is, but this suggestion is it wont be over. Would you hand the mike to that guy . So again, as was talked about. I think that it was north korea would potentially be the future of what human rights is about and how the government is treating them. Mainly human rights is about to look at them from the perspective of north Korean People. Without going into the class life plan, those, if something happens in the north, how do we make sure that the people and how do we get this word to them as quickly as possible, on about the truth of what were really about . Communicate across, again, it is not going to be easy, but necessary because if we dont and south korea doesnt and if japan doesnt and if we dont work this, the scenario you are just describing of insurgencies and going to the hills and fighting for a long time, i do fear it is really going to happen because of what north Korean People have been told and i believe what they truly believe today. We planned for this with the korean allies and we planned for it and we tried to talk to the chinese about it and its very, very difficult, but its important for japan, as well, what happens if the north collapses or becomes unstable. I dont think we do enough official and unofficial dialogue about what this scenario would mean to japan and i would like the generals to weigh in on this perspective. This panel is different from other panels from the panelists can order each other to answer the question. It wasnt an order. It was just a suggestion. Guidance. Translator it seems like yesterday, that they controlled, thats the problem. Im senior to mr. Masaki. Once north korea collapses, then what happens . I think this is my personal view. If the internal conflict continues there, thats one possibility, and whats the cause of collapse . I think thats the question we have to ask and then thats the most important thing, kim jongun was assassinated or died of illness. I think we can think of all kinds of Different Reasons and if thought that there was no control, then including in the military, whats the cause for fight or combat . There are all kinds of different factors that we need to think about. So whether it has become a guerilla war, there is no certainty and i think what we think about is the smooth transition or a chaotic transition right after the war in japan. The u. S. Estimate was i think that japan would fight until the end and there will be a battle on the mainland. However, it didnt happen and well end it. In case of iraq, Saddam Hussein and then the internal conflict occurred first. I think it all depends on culture and history and also any given country. So those elements are the need to be considered and i think we need to keep studying all kinds of possibilities. Translator i am from the defense, and when i was freshman [ indiscernible ] if there is a oneyear difference and then you treat it like dirt so that the syria was gone and in front of senior before i speak, i think i would be scolded later, so i always ask the senior to ask senior to speak first with lots of respect, and with regard to the north korea, my view is really similar to mr. Oriki. I think it really depends on how it collapses. For example, if the leader was assassinated or the collapse with the ferry in a calm way and gradually get absorbed to south korea, but since that would happen in the Korean Peninsula and so the threat to us is if the internal conflict that took place, its possible a lot might come to japan, and then if it was the moderate collapse, then once that north korea is unified with south korea. When the unification happened in germany, that germany had lots of economic power and then east germany would have a lot of economic power. However, when they got unified with that cause. Translator so lets apply this to north korea meaning that we will have a massive refugee problem if north korea would fall, and thinking about those refugees, they might make their way to china or russia, and they may take a ship to japan. So we would need to be prepared to accept or handle those refugees. And, of course, the United States, our forces would take the nearby tiff to spearhead some of the duties and the Japanese Selfdefense force is not going to would not going to be the major, primary role, but we would have definitely have a Logistical Support to the United States. Yes, maam, in the back . Trance tran i translator ida question. This is unusual because i normally cant ask a question in japanese. My name is haso and thank you for mentioning okinawa, dr. Green and also thank you for the question regarding the defense of okinawa. Earlier mr. Oriki and mr. Awasaki were speaking about moving a base or moving a military power and sends a signal that the alliance is weakened, so when you talk about move or realignment, what kind of skill are you talking about . For example, okinawa and one unit in okinawa and what kind of skill are you talking about . And also defense of okinawa and strictly speaking and prior to world war ii and Imperial Japanese army or the forces and there was an air facility that was built and currently the facility is used by the u. S. Forces and what kind of implications and what kind of impressions do you have about this transition in terms of the history. So im speaking before mr. Oriki, and i should now take the microphone before mr. Oriki and just thinking about the rotation here. Thank you for the questions. So currently, futenma replacement is being discussed. I mentioned earlier that moving a base should not be a light decision. I am not saying either or any type of scope, but what japan is going through is part of a bigger scheme and bigger planning. For example, moving a unit, if its done in an abrupt manner, i think that shows weakness, and of course, in order for us to move a unit from the United States side or the japan side, theres going to be a long and careful consultation in planning. So thats whats needed for careful realignment. Regarding okinawa. Thats my second hometown because i was staffed in okinawa as the first posting, and i spent six years there, and so okinawan people went through great hardship during world war ii so for my personal understanding i think i have that understanding. So mr. Ota left a message, and i think that really rings deeply among okinawan people meaning that okinawans or overall japan should not accept any foreign forces. I think theres a message there, and so i think that the defense of okinawa is coming from that kind of historical context, as well. Mr. Iwasaki, i agree with him. Dr. Green. They talked about the realignment of u. S. Units. My comment was not specific to okinawa or any other bases in japan or the United States. I just wanted to mention that in a generic term and also about strategy. There are many defense strategies. Maybe we should have a different scheme to consider one specific strategy regarding the realignment of unit from okinawa. I think mr. Iwasaki spoke it very well. For the defense of okinawa this is not only for the United States challenge and for us, the Japanese Selfdefense force. So lets say that in the 1970s there was some kind of an invasion or a threat to the an invasion. Because from the United States withdrawal and also a big movement from the russian army. And speaking of a hype kothetic and miyakojima, and there are some movement and there are some actions according to the plan undergoing, and theres 500 kilometers between those islands and maybe a bigger distance. We did not have a unit, a military unit there so meaning that theres a military vacuum. So we wanted to plug that in militarily. So having that unit and did that translate to deterrence. Not only to protect one specific island, but overall there should be sort of a zone defense okinawa islands and tracing a unit. We are getting to the end of this seminar. I wanted to ask admiral blair in the few minutes to explain, the china question, on the military threat appropriately, north korea, and some crystallization of what the views is are with the longer term, bigger challenge were dealing with. Our discussions on china and i think youd be a little bit surprised. We did not spend most of our time talking about the carrier battle groups and putting coast guard units and moving forward in the senkakus and the South China Sea. We we felt the military posture of the alliance was sufficient to make aggression against islands in that part of the world, pretty unattractive and pretty high risk, but we discussed more was the sort of longterm geoeconomic competition that china has taken with the rest of the world as shown in the very ambitious one belt, one road infrastructure building across asia and particularly in the ambitions to be dominant in the most important areas of technology in the future as laid out quite explicitly and the chinese document made in china 2025 which lays out the areas of Artificial Intelligence with robotics and the 21st century dominant technologies and china openly saying that theyll use all of the considerable tools at its disposal to be dominant in those sectors to be by 2025, and as i say, i think you would be surprised that militarily trained people felt that that was the aspect of our competition with china that ought to get our greatest attention that we could handle the military side of it and keep things quiet and make aggression unattractive, but that this technological, economic, human capacity, innovative competition will really mack a difference in asia and the United States and the republic of korea needed to get on with the being up front on it. So, you know, Winston Churchill had a quip that said the only thing worse than fighting with allies was fighting against them and generalizen hower and if you had a famous like patton, our alliances wouldnt have functioned and weve been very fortunate in more recent history to have admirals and generals steering our military strategy who have a very similar way of thinking about alliances and coalition and especially our closest and the most important allies in japan in particular and were all lucky today and we have with them, the gentleman on the stage and the participants in the nsf, and lets conclude, i want to invite you to join us for a reception if you have time. Its raining so you may want to, and lets thank our participants for their wisdom and their service. [ applause ] allies in japan in particular service. House Speaker Paul Ryan reacting to last nights senate vote to not advance a mesh out Health Care Law repeal legislation. He said i am disappointed and frustrated, but we should not give up. We have so much work still to do. At the top of the list is cutting taxes for middleclass families and fixing our broken tax code. We didnt cut our way to surpluses in the 90s. What we had in the 90s was a circumstance where the Clinton Administration and the gingrichled house specifically, and also in the senate which was in republican hands at the time came together to get welfare reform and spending restraint to keep spending flat while the economy grew and revenues caught up to spending. Thats how you get to surplus and thats why you think youre seeing so much focus in this administration on getting economic growth. You cannot cut your way to a balanced budget. You cannot tax your way to a balanced budget and you can grow your way to a balanced budget. Watch our interview with Mick Mulvaney tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan, cspan radio and cspan. Org. State and local education officials testified at a house education and the Workforce Committee hearing on the every Student Succeeds act. The law changed the way the department of education oversees state boards of education and local school districts