Welcome to the more than 1,000 registered attendees at this jackson virtual discussion forum. This is the fifth of these discussions. These discussions have tapped the Exceptional Leadership in knowledge that resides in the jackson network. Today is no exception. All of our panelists today are senior fellows who teach here at yale. Our moderator today, secretary john kerry graduated from yale, and like jacksons founder, john jackson is joining us today, secretary kerry, john kerry at time, left new haven to serve in vietnam. He then served more than two decades in the u. S. Senate before becoming the 68th under ry of state president obama. You probably know all of that, but what you might not know is that secretary kerry continues to pay it forward, helping to train the next generation of leaders here at the Jackson Institute and across yales many schools. It is my pleasure to welcome secretary kerry. This time, secretary, perhaps ou might offer some initial perspectives on how you assess the global ramifications of our 19 and then introduce panelists. Thanks. Sec. Kerry well, jim, thank you very, very much, and ted, thank you for organizing this event for the Jackson Institute. The Jackson School of foreign the rs is really underwriter of what were doing today, and its a privilege for me to take part in this with a distinguished group of diplomats, many of whom ive spent many hours with and learned from. Their capacities are extraordinary. Paterson. Ann bob gordon was our leader in syria for a long period of time. There until they had to leave. They were telling the truth about it. We have a great group of panelists. Ill introduce everybody shortly. 50,000 deaths today in the United States of america, and we are moving up at a disturbing rate, obviously. And we hear from the experts still, dr. Fauci and dr. Redfield and others, that were have a cresting, that we ways to go, and that this is in fact perhaps the most infectious virus that they have ever confronted. We now have 190 countries that are reporting infections. The virus has impacted 190 countries. Our president didnt know there were 180 or so, but we are heading upwards. Obviously, the Economic Impact has been catastrophic. Unlike downturns in the economy or a normal set of ebb and flow recessions or booms, this was government and private sector we had to shut down to keep people from being infected at a rate where we wouldve totally and completely or more overwhelmed the medical capacity of our country to respond. So, we are now seeing 26 million americans who filed for unemployment since the outbreak began. And i have read estimates and talked to people, Economic Experts, who suggest we could be unemployment by the fall, late fall. I also hear from various experts that this is going to be with us through the year at least, and probably well beyond. Well be Wearing Masks through the year. We will certainly be challenged with respect to social distancing, and more challenged with the question of reopening our economy. We will get through this. We absolutely will get through it. But the question is going to be at what level of loss of life, disruption,l of at what level of chaos, that we have to rebuild from, as we will, and we are going to rebuild. What saddens me, as a former secretary of state, and somebody who believes so deeply in multilateral engagement, is the lack of Global Response to this, the lack of coordinated effort. Its been quite haphazard. Individual states and countries, our own president throwing the mantle of responsibility of leadership away from the white house and to the governors, the governors pleading for additional equipment. And for the First Time Since world war ii i want you to think about this hard the First Time Since world war ii, is United States of america not leading where there is in act a Global Crisis demanding leadership. To a certain degree, the world itself is adrift. We see the general secretary of the u. N. Saying a comprehensive Global Response would require 10 global gdp, and this comes at a time when we are looking at a global recession. Needless to say, there will be profound impacts. I cant protect them all, i dont know if anybody on this panel can, but they will be found impacts on all of our lives. Profound impacts conceivably on the alignment of the world, the world order in structure. For a number of years now, ive been fairly focused on the increased pressures that create a new cold war between the United States and china. And there are two schools of thought, those who believe it requires a confrontation that is inevitable, and then a school of thought that i fall into, which is it is not inevitable. Clearly with good diplomacy youll never know the answer to but the United States requires good diplomacy as a matter of principle as well interests. All of the major issues of our time, and there are a number of them, but there are some preeminent ones. First, obviously, im not doing these in order of the challenges that present us. But the challenges of cyber, increasingly, it will change warfare in its entirety. The coronavirus, covid19, is not the only paradigm shifter here. Cyber, for years, has been building up and the challenge is now, could make modern warfare a different animal than people are used to thinking about. I guarantee you this, i dont foresee a lot of set piece wars, of the aircraft carriers that nations have, big ships are going to disappear in a matter of seconds if you have a real war. The fact is that with the push of a button, you can shut down down financial systems, create havoc. Certainly have it at commandandcontrol above all of the things. So, a lot of things are changing right now, folks, and we just dont have the level of diplomacy, the level of International Engagement that puts those things on the table. Cyber, nuclear weapons, the i. M. F. Treaty in at that timers, the start treaty threatened, the potential of conflict, accidental or otherwise, particularly with iran and tensions created by the United States of america alone pulling out of an agreement the rest of the world was trying to keep together. I mean, when have you ever seen such a measure of chaos put in place by, fundamentally, one person . And one person who is seeing the people of equilibrium and thinking, lead, general mattis, general kelly, rex tillerson, an absolutely extraordinary moment in our history. And then, of course, you have global poverty, which will add to other problems that we have. And then we have the problem of global health, pandemics were here to talk about today. And that is joined to the greatest challenge of all. Some people still want to ignore and pretend its not a challenge, its the climate crisis. I spent years working on that issue, working on it as a Lieutenant Governor when i dealt as a senator and beginning in 1988 with jim hansons first testimony and all the way now with our secretary of state and we china aboardinging as a partner in order to achieve something. Clash e is a complete here between reasonableness and knee jerk d a ideologically driven process conflicts toward versus a resolution of these issues. You cannot resolve any one of those issues i just put on the table, from covid to the climate, without multilateral engagement, leadership from the United States, and china and the United States actually cooperating with each other. Everything else will not happen. So weve got to get about the business of putting that strategy back together and dealing with the realities of an interconnected world where theres a real linkage between covid19 and the climate crisis. Covid19 saw our president , at first, for a month or so, call it a democratic hoax. He still, until recent days, crisis a climate chinese hoax. And the threat that was over the horizon, which generals and admirals and scientists and coming at us all like a ton of bricks, the crisis was ignored for the longest period of time and, states nowthe united is leadingwhat does that remind . I tell you what it reminds me of. It reminds me of 30 years of the attitude on climate, where it is over the horizon. And youre going to deny facts and deny evidence and ignore science. So, this is the climate within which no pun intended we come together today with a group of extremely capable, extremely experienced cohorts in this endeavor. We have 150 years of diplomatic experience with us on this panel. The high points for this extraordinary group, anne patterson, is a retired career ambassador. The highest rank in the Foreign Service. She was the former assistant secretary of state, ambassador to egypt, columbia, el salvador, assistant secretary of state for narcotics and law enforcement, and Deputy Representative of the u. N. , and i worked with her extremely closely when she was in a number of hotspots, including most recently egypt. Robert ford, a person i particularly admire. A man of courage, who stood up to the administration and retired out of principle because he didnt agree with the policy. He was ambassador to syria. Amidst the regimes of brutal repressions. Francisco paco palmieri, currently on leave from the former service. Formerly the Principal Deputy assistant secretary for the western hemisphere affairs, great expertise in latin america. Harry thomas, former ambassador to zimbabwe, the philippines in philippines, the and bangladesh. Served also as special assistant to secretary rice when she was in the state department. David most recently served as acting ambassador to beijing, and served in other and served in six other Foreign Service assignments in greater china, as well as senior posts worldwide, one of our top experts. Susan morton recently retired from the state department after nearly three decades, focused on diplomacy in southeast asia. And served as acting secretary for east asian and Pacific Affairs and led the east asia policymaking. So, let me begin, get each of you a shot to sort of tackle this, if you would. I just spoke of the profound implications of this pandemic on helga economy, and security all around the world. And i would like to know what each of you see as the most Significant Impact of this crisis in the regions that you served, and what you think we might be doing differently . I know you have to try to compress that into three minutes so everybody gets a shot here, but lets begin with anne patterson. E thank you, mr. Secretary. I think the first impact will be the secondary and tertiary impacts of oil prices. And let me first say i dont think we know whats going on in saudi arabia, or know what is going on in iran. We need to get our embassies present ong get them the ground. So what are the implications . Well, first in saudi arabia. We know that the saudis have reserves for a couple of years, but we also know that the breaking point on their budget is Something Like 80 a barrel, so they will be in trouble at some point. We know that some of the other gulf countries are debt ridden. We know this is worrisome with the guestworker situation, then when they start to send these people home. And historically, the largest number of guest workers in the gulf. In saudin alone arabia. Come from pakistan and egypt, which are two troubled countries. So, when these people get out of work and go home, theres not going to be anything for them. And third is there assistance. Their assistance. The gulf countries will not be able to provide assistance to jordan or the palestinians or gaza, or any of the other places they filled in. The one that would worry me most apart from the millions of people in jordan and lebanon is this camp in syria, which has 60,000 isis dependents. And now is the issue there is they basically live in a space about the size of an american parking spot, so theyve already got a compromised immune systems. What is going to happen to these displaced refugee camps . In yemen, the coronavirus is about to arrive in yemen, too, and its Health System is totally destroyed. Sec. Kerry let me interrupt. Do you know what is happening with corona in the camps, particularly the big one in jordan . Anne we dont know yet. And i think one of the worries is the International Community is not engaged in these camps because theyve all been distracted by their domestic issues. And then theres issues like algeria, which has concerned people for years, but now its mostly dependent on oil and gas revenue. Robert ford knows better than most what will happen in situations like that. Picture is not entirely negative, but i think you will see, at this certain but i think you will see at the very least increased poverty and of problems, and i would predict political instability. Sec. Kerry ill come back there, but let me narrow my questions so we can get more in. Robert, do you want to fill in for your region, syria, etc. . So, i will talk a little bit about it because i think anne is right to highlight a big at risk population, which are internally displaced people and refugees. That includes countries such as syria, but also countries like yemen, iraq, lebanon, jordan. And so far, the administrations response has been to provide bits of money to lebanon and to jordan to help with refugee communities in those two countries, but it a small money. Were talking about 5 million in the case of lebanon and about 8 million in the case of jordan. Iraq. Out 26 million to so the administration is doing a little, but these are small amounts of money. Just to give the audience a sense of perspective, i just mentioned about 40 million in total for coronavirus help to lebanon, jordan, and iraq. This year, just on u. S. Military operations in syria, not iraq, only syria. We are spending over 1 billion. Thats with a b. On the focus, i think american policy, to deal with climate change, as you mentioned mr. Secretary, and Pandemic Public Health is going to take a , real reorientation of american policy and frankly, american thinking about the region. One of the things that will happen, as anne mentioned, oil prices and economic decline reverberates through the region, a lot of states are going to actually be more challenged in terms of stability. And the response is not an torican military response help states provide Better Services to their populations. Ill stop there. Sec. Kerry do both of you, just very quickly, do both of you or either of you believe that American Leadership has been further put at issue as a consequence of what china and others are saying at this point in time . Also, what they are experiencing in terms of our disengagement . Robert, you want to go first . Ibert well, i would just say think American Leadership has been diminishing in the beno east and north africa for more than 10 years. I think it started 20 years ago almost with the problems out of the iraq war. So, that is absolutely so, that has absolutely continued. And what interesting is that while russia has intervened militarily in places like syria , and war military engagement with the egyptian military, russia cant really do much to help countries address Public Health problems, like a pandemic. Or Even Economic problems, oil shock. Gamehina is upping its gradually. Not saying china will replace the United States in the middle east tomorrow or the next day, but i think over the longer 4, 5 thinking out 2, 3, them or even 10 years the , chinese will be more present in parts of the middle east. We will have to think about how to work with them, and in some cases, how to respond when we cant work with them. Sec. Kerry thank you. Anne, he want to help with that . Anne yeah, i think thats true. The rise of china in the middle east has been as dramatic as it has been in some other areas of the world, but it is there. People say in the gulf that the chinese are everywhere now in an economic sense. But i think the signal we sent by pulling back many of our indices staff in the middle east, and im well aware of the Public Health issues, leaves these countries to believe that we are essentially not with them, and that is a secondary effect because they start to look at other players. Sec. Kerry i just commented to everybody i was at the inference, which takes place the United Arab Emirates a year and a half ago, and the russian delegation got up and make this profound introductory statement about how literally foreignpolicy experts from around the world, that the United States was over as a leader. I mean, they stood up at this conference and said, there is a new narrative or you know . China and russia are now leading the world, and the United States as a country has declined in this will be a century of the far east Asian Countries and russia, and not the United States. So they have been pushing this narrative very actively. Let me ask david rank, ambassador rank, and assistant secretary borton secretary thorton, given this push by china to change the narrative, and their efforts very overtly to enhance their prestige or providing some of the needed materials, critical supplies, and actually publicly touting the effectiveness of their system, and its ability to be able to respond to these kinds of crises versus democracies, how effective do you think that has been . And whats the impact on our prospects Going Forward . Yeah, i will go first. Thank you very much, for comment and for being here today. Its wonderful to see everyone. It feels like old times, a