In the hundreds of cases, while we have prosecuted, there has not been one suspect that has successfully and lamented the entrapment defense. Entrapmentted the defense. Ken we will wrap it up. [applause] [applause] on the next washington journal, a look at the Donald Trump Campaign and his positions on key policy. And then the executive director of the young invincibles talks about impacting millennial voters. It features mark perry discussing his article in politico. Washington journal, live every morning at 7 p. M. , on cspan. You can join the conversation with your calls, and comments on facebook and twitter. Wednesday, Bipartisan Policy Center looks at immigration policy and the positions of the 2006 8 candidates. It is 2016 president ial candidates. It is live on cspan. , institutey night policy studies was the , talking about the war on terrorism. Who is isis, why are they so violent . These questions are in the book among the more important and something we can do about, what is the u. S. Policy regarding isis and why is it not working . Are we just doing the war wrong, or should there be a war against terrorism at all . Those are the most important and will be the most useful. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern. We continue our look at the forum with the discussion on special operations and intelligence ops. [applause] [applause] thanknk you, i want to clark for having us here. I also want to think mr. Olson for stopping in. Our other guests only got as far as denver last night, said he could not join us today. , dr. Miketh us vickers. Former of special operations in the pentagon. Who has held many senior roles in the pentagon. I will open on questions that have touched your careers. Fightingall spent time extremist militants in your roles. Ith that it , looking at al qaeda and other threats thatis the National Security is making it out to be to the u. S. Public . And is al qaeda on the back burner for good, or are you just prepping for the next battle . Since you are in the private sector now, feel free to share anything with us at all. [laughter] michael the threat of a terrorist attack remains a National Security threat, clear and present danger along with cyber attack. Policymakersminds every day. Threat a bigger isil is a bigger threat because they can inspire radical attacks across the world. But al qaeda is more sophisticated. So if an airliner blew up over the u. S. , it would more likely than qaeda today ban isial. Lossesa has suffered come up and they are still in the game. They can come back in various ways. Cap lane kathleen i do think it is a significant threat. I do not think it has been blown up. , and is an area territorial region, that they have occupied and operated from. And they do operate worldwide. Out,eda is not permanently but we can try to keep them there. It has degraded because of a lot of worldwide attention. Not least of all the determined to my left and right. The two gentlemen to my left and right. Qaeda, alshabaab, you name it, it takes them longterm tools that all the we have. Kim did you expect we would still be a nation in this fight now . I want to say that i am glad to be back in this forum. I apologize for not being michael lumpkin, but i am pleased to be on this stage. I spent most of my time in m,iform avoiding them ki but not for lack of respect for her tenacity. It is good to be with you. I left military service for years ago. L was not on our scope. I cannot talk about them from my historical perspective. Mike ande with kathleen. It is a real threat. Scary too many. It is a real threat to us. Speak of them as the next generation of al qaeda. Army. Er credit them as an group,a is a terrorist they are organized like an army, with military equipment, they seize hold territories, they do things it is just not an apples to apples comparison. Threads,e are other russia threats, russia in and hezbollah, on and on. Are the National Security efforts skewed by the fear of isis and al qaeda win they have not caused nearly as much damage in our country recently compared to other actors . We have to walk and chew gum at the same time. We need to learn how to. O not think that we send a spend a disproportionate amount or taking away, from our ability to focus on longerterm challenges. Now, resources are limited. That is money, sequestration the it harder makes it harder. You will have challenges with money, people, and the vessels toolwe have full set set we have. We basically have a cold war tool set. It is a constant prioritization ools to usell t and to what end. It is a selective engagement energy. The u. S. Has chosen for many it is just as satisfying to the public, because it is difficult to see from the public, to put resources here and not there. Ofe we are in a time stability and we are accruing security threats, the one that you did not mention was the rise of china. It is really probably the focus. F economic competition ,hina, east asia, russia jihadists in the middle east and we need to deal with them all. And the capabilities that you need to do is her conflict with china. The competition with china is fundamentally economic, that is instability in the middle east, and vice versa. You need to have a poor olio of capabilities portfolio of capabilities to deal with these. I have never seen such a ride range wide range of threats to thee very highend lower actors. Steve, do you have the tools you need to do the job . Being donee, what is in ukraine to fight russian influence their there pentagon officials talk about russian interference, but i do not hear what u. S. Special operations is doing about it. They have spoken about the asymmetric warfare there. They do, what can they do . That will be here on friday, that could be a good question for him. The first word in private sector is private, so i will not go someplace i should not go. But i will say that it was a classic special operation and they had gone to school on special operations concepts and executing. But what specifically special Operations Forces might do is amenable no caps off. Surprise it was no that russia is a good at unconventional warfare. We know that that is something they invest in homilies on them execute that in chechnya we execute that in chechnya. That is deathly not something i would have foreseen definitely not something i would have foreseen. So what the u. S. Is doing about it, special operations is a good question. Particularly interested in working with nato allies to shore up the ability of those Baltic States to withstand pressure. Those little green men like approaches from russia. Ukraine is much harder. I was asked about mozilla before, and asked moldova love, georgia, these are not new territories. The put forward a view that we would spend more time on partner the coming out of summit, it is important to provide defensive weapons from the u. S. To the ukrainian forces. And some special Operations Training should be a part of that. By and large, efforts should be on the future we can stick to the article with the nato states. Kim working through other , or mores direct . Mike russia does work through , and wherethey can those proxies on the verge of losing, the work with they work with conventional forces. The nation back to proxy war. Oris not just in ukraine those around the former survey union former soviet union, it is in the middle east as well. Steve special operations across the nato countries is unprecedented. There is actually a command within the native Structure Nato structure, there is a headquarters, people going to , fieldery day training training that takes place every day. And exercises that take place with a special operations flavor across nato countries. I want to make sure that their indirect vision of the level of operation cooperation. Kim so while we do not see the bootsood on the ground on the ground in terms of training the locals, there may helping themroops do the same thing, helping them train. What im saying is that the coordination, the sharing of tactics, the interrupt the equipment, the knowledge of capabilities and limitations is at a high level. Workof the challenge is to with partners, like the ukrainians, i spent some time there. Robustt is the building tuitions institutions, winning influence, loving putin has done, he may have one in the short term, but he has turned the ukrainians into nationalist. Fight zenship to the so to shift to the fight against groups in syria, the u. S. Has a choice, but they have now chosen to be a little hands off, working through the coalition. Cominghere be a time when the u. S. Have to choose for more direct warfare . Lighth the afghan likethe afghan team with the afghan team . Mike what we did with afghanistan was remarkable. I would not equate that with the same as what putin has done in ukraine. This is the marriage of precision warfare with nonprecision warfare. If you compare to iraq maybe yes. Media. Kim do you need to ramp up the number of u. S. Advisers on the ,round, joint air controllers things that would make the iraqi forces, the Kurdish Forces, more effective in the battlefield today . Kathleen i would say that there to grow. The u. S. Contribution to include special operators on the training side, there is no doubt about that. But before you grow that out, there is absorption of a capacity issue, the Ground Forces that are there to work with. There ishere i think rightfully a lot of attention in making sure that we collectively get the iraqis, obviously their there is situation pressure there, but think it forces in to get there and give them capable to work with u. S. Trainers. Where we havent done that, Kurdish Forces is the most doneus where we have that, Kurdish Forces is the most obvious. It has worked well, we brought in firepower to match with their on the ground capabilities and then the training aspect. And i will add, i think that has sustained,ed, he you cannot do it limited and think it will take care of the situation. But before we jump in with a lot more, we need those Ground Forces to use her to come together. Forces canground take years to grow, in the interim it seems that isis is growing faster and is doing things like planning plots against the u. S. Homeland, said we have the luxury of this time it will take to bring forces up to speed . Mike . Is you trained forces, give them some support, but basically they will do the fighting. That takes a lot longer to get them ready man if you are willing than if you are willing to go with them on the front lines. If you combined power with the ground force kim i meant afghanistan even now . Mike but even afghanistan in 2001, the reason is you have a ground force, big enough to be the worlds greatest to execute the power. If you do not have someone with power, it just takes a lot of time. Just like training takes time. So that brings me to the question of the use of special operations, or maybe the overuse of agile operations, for every National Security problem that this country faces. One could argue that this white house uses them like the ultimate Swiss Army Knife of the pentagon. Do you have the numbers you need to meet the missions that you face . I know you are a few years out, but it is something i can watch. You can go out and protect Intelligence Forces or engage. 9 11 nce mike since 9 11, we had tripled quadrupled we have the use of these forces 9 11. Is dramatic growth. They are also integrated man. It is what you do with them. Constitutes maybe 3 of the overall manpower. The definition of special operation is in operation conducted by forces or with other horses are not organized or trained or equipped to conduct. It is a negative definition. Is notthe question should special Operations Forces be bigger, because Growth Management has been a challenge, but it is whether or not other forces should be equipped to do things that have fallen on special operations over the last few years. As operations were already there responsive, but there is no reason that other forces cannot do much of what special operations does. , theeen to make it clear issue is maintaining a high level of quality that is in special Operations Forces. Doing that expansion of them makes the challenge greater, to look why it is time at the rate of forces to see how about training the regular forces. Kathleen mike in 2006, at the height of the iraq war, we had six of vehicles, people call them drones, they are 60 today. There is plenty of capacity. Kim on that subject, can you on the move tote and how you plan to grow to several thousand people to do the same kind of intelligence is different then cia operatives and what they do . Mike it is growing. It is an Important Initiative in terms of human intelligence. And the department of defense and the military had something to contribute to the Overall National effort. That effort,er in it is a compliment. It is a junior partner, not rivaling the side of the cia. We have support from the the and i dni. Kim and is still growing . Mike yes. Us too that brings another subject. Specials by which operations carried out its trade. Sometimes guns, sometimes dreams drones. The targeted and usually get most headlines, but it could also give those in the white house a black and white solution to the problem. Overused . Eting we had 13 years in the middle of these targeted plans, and yet we have the growth of a second militant that has now surpassed al qaeda, according to the fbi director. So is targeting overused . Decade, the past fertilization the operation of our partners and that has made a different. Operations sm where these operations are really Intelligence Driven and the analyst are really at the center. Strategic effects, al in then its heels pakistan border region, only one of the Senior Leaders who was there for the 9 11 attacks is less. It is a shadow of what it was maybe 56 years ago. Been an Effective Campaign over many years. Kim but did it pushed the alloon to yemen, because now qaeda has a sophisticated bomb making machine and they are relatively unchallenged. Mike it did open up new friends in syria and open up new front in syria and yemen. 90 inked down al qaeda syria. Tartars ust targeting, it is the United States for several years attacking them, and they still survive. It is because syria gave the menu lease on life. Pot ofu cant help fight the problem, but it was not your job to bring ability to the middle east . Mike we are still working on that. Steve there are some nails out there that need to be hammered. Isnk that part of it tactical removal of confident leaders of my soul from their positions. Isil from their positions. Reminding everyone that i sold isil is vulnerable, they have weaknesses. And i think it damages their , to be ablefforts to reach in and with precision take out he leaders. Kathleen i think it is important in this conversation to remember that we are operating under authorities. These are authorities given in time of conflict that include the ability to use targeted approaches for cash or, for intelligence gathering, and in some i just want to start there, because i do think that the drone debate has become unhelpful, to say the least. Does it have a strategic effect . Absolutely. As policy makers, we have to be mindful of that reality. But if you look at the progression over time, we do not raze villages. We by and large do not strategically bomb anymore. The fact that we have a toolset now that allows us to really reduce the number of civilian casualties involved in a thelict, that, i think, is story thats important to tell. Are there civilian casualties . Yes. Are there questions about transparency . Yes. And i think we need to address both of those, but i think it has been a good tool in the toolkit, used well, and something we should look at. Michael back to the earlier point, i soul isis is different than an army. You need a different strategy than you do against al qaeda. And you defeat an army thats an army. Yet, isnt every drone strike a potential recruiting bonanza for the opposition . There is that theory. We have done a lot of surveys in pakistan. The closer you are to the strike, if you are local, the more in favor of it you generally are. The more you are removed from the fight, the more you complain about your sovereignty being violated and lots of other things. But it has been very supported by the governments. We could not do it without the support of governments. Kathleen talked about important cases and the consent of the host nations. I dont buy the argument. Business, butough it is a very effective one. A drone is an option, but when you consider a drone versus artillery, or dropping a bomb, or putting forces on the ground, it is not that bad of an option. For one thing, it can linger. It provides the ability to be patient. It can be recalled without any effect at all. A drone is a far more of delivering a precision strike than some others might be. K. Hicks i want to say what i think this issue gets too, fundamentally, is an Information Campaign, which we are not great at. K. Dozier what do you mean by an Information Campaign . K. Hicks when the strike occurs, you point out that it is a recruiting tool. Whether it is a recruiting tool or not can be debated. Weto have attacks that used to have a tax that would be ks thated as attac would be described as drone strikes to enable recruiting. Isis has incredible recruiting and a lowtech way. Twitter is extremely simple. Follow taylor swift. I think we are safe, but we in the United States, we really have this is back to the toolset issue. This is not a challenge that is first in fundamentally by a Government Organization in the light of day trying to tweet out government positions. It has to be more organic than that, and there is a big intelligence support piece of that, and it has to be regional. M. Vickers and the best recruiting tool for these groups is success, successful attacks on the United States, successful conquest of territory. You look at why people are flocking to isis. They have established a caliphate, and they a