Transcripts For CSPAN Atlantic Council Discussion On Nationa

Alongside james jones, john bolton, and Robert Mcfarlane will be on the panel together. All of them have served as assistant to the president for National Security affairs. More commonly referred to as National Security advisors. We will hear their insights about harnessing National Power and building interagency consensus to combat the most complicated security challenges of our time. The panel will be moderated by vivienne solana, national buty correspondent before we begin the Panel Discussion i would like to turn it over to my fellow Board Director michael anderson. Michael is the head of strategic at sob usa and has been an invaluable partner in advancing timely debates on crucial Strategic Issues here at the scowcroft center. We thank you for your 11 year partnership. We look been great and forward to many more events like these in the years to come. Before i turn it over, i want to remind everyone. And on theis Public Record and being aired on cspan. To ask questions and our moderator will choose among them during the q a session. I would like to thank all of you. Or being with us over to you, michael, and thank you. Thank you, paula. Its terrific to be here. I am mike anderson. Partneringlled to be with the command series. I must say i excited about this one. The commander series is the Atlantic Councils flagship speaking series for senior leaders. We have provided a platform across washingtons policy community including think takes, media and the government. The year, we have hosted chief of staff of the army, the commander of transportation chief of the National Guard bureau, and most recently, the air force leadership. What an exciting panel of luminaries we have gathered here today. We have these future challenges combined, are pals have 60 years of experience. They have led key decisions during times of crisis, spanning significant times from the cold war, the world terror, competition with china. Mean forhat it will National Security. There is no shortage of wisdom. Introducedelighted to our moderator, the national correspondent, from cnn. Nationalovered security for more than 70 countries. Thank you so much for moderating the conversation today. Over to you, vivian. Thank you, michael and paula. It is such an honor to be here. Im really honored to leave this conversation today. These gentlemen do not need an introduction, but for good measure, i will run through their bios. James jones, served under president brock obama as the 22nd National Security advisor beginning in january 2009. Previously he was the allied commander of europe and the 32nd commandant of the marine corps. The honorable Robert Mcfarlane is the cofounder and director of a Nuclear Technology company. 16th National Security adviser under president ronald reagan. And of course, ambassador joe served mostl bolton recently as the 27th National Security advisor under president ambassador donald trump. He was previously ambassador to the United Nations under president george w. Bush. Its great to have you here today. Its not ideal we are doing this on zoom. We do want to keep this as interactive as positive possible. You will see the q a the bottom of your screen. We definitely want to from you. Forget to put your affiliation and your name. We want to know who we are talking to. Also, join the discussion on twitter using a celections2020andforwarddefense. I thought we would talk about this is the ultimate goal, and for each of you, it would be great to hear your thoughts on the current National Security Council Structure and the role of the National Security council. These procedures improve policymaking, policymakers approach to National Issues . General jones, maybe we can start with you . General, i believe you are on mute, sir. General jones ok. Vivian go for it. General jones i should probably start out by quoting daniel , who president eisenhower used to like to quote and one of his famous quotes was america is great because it is good. That is something that we know through the century that is very complex and different from the 20th century. Nationalconcept of security and everything it entails is much broader. It is all happening at a much more rapid pace than ever before. Im sure that john would agree with this. Facing things every single day is almost doubled, does the pace of things every single day has almost doubled, if not triple. The ability to deal with the 24hour news cycle, technology, and the never ending demand of answers for complex questions never seems to go away. Characteristic has a great deal to do with the effectiveness of the National Security council. We should be as strategic as possible and we should serve as a coordinating mechanism across highlight they to presidency, those things he or she has in real time. This is complex. Work,ands an awful lot of and ability to deal with an everincreasing speed. Vivian the world was a different place when briscoe croft had this vision, brett croft whatpe you think you saw the nsc as needing to be under certain models into you think it was the right model . General jones ice that a lot of time with him before i accepted the challenge i spent a lot of time with him before accepted the challenge. Where the big differences between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration is we decided immediately to come there is one organization. Obama madet present decisions, it works better for him im not saying its the only way. Sure,e of the things for the president gets to shape the National Security council the. Ay they want to shape it that combination of Homeland Security and National Security i think john and i are in. Greement , where ambassador bolton you share your thoughts . Ambassador bolton in my book i quote a paragraph from johnson w news johnson new new sununus memoir, where he said when the president was in town there would be an intelligent briefing followed by half an hour of briscoe croft talking about National Security, and it went on for a while and he was day on and the governor would discuss with president the present domestic and political issues, and as i said in the box, if that were the way in the book, if that were the way things worked in the Trump White House i would have felt like i died and had gone to heaven. In National Security Council Structure has to adapt to a president leaving the country. Purpose,he councils the reasoning behind its. Reation and functioning it has no independent purpose. Ther than that the effectiveness of the nfc and i think for the problem i know were not supposed to be to topical is it just does not suit the current incumbent and we will see what happens in the next administration, whoever it might be. A what was the vision when you served originally . Was the world demanding a certain model model . He was rightthink that the president will design the council the way he or she wants it. It goes back to Henry Kissinger deputy, is and as his was working for brett at the time. , i would onlytaff , to enable john said the formation of designs to accomplish the goal the president has set. We are looking to build u. S. For Foreign Policy toward the middle east. They publish a direct to say is directions saying we want to accomplish this following goal thehe middle east with economic and military dimensions of how they will do that and then weeks later they come back and basin kissinger the three , that has probably been the way it has run. The point in that approaches this. , it is about publishing daysaper, and in the old there is probably a dozen papers to start with on our more differentiated set of policy , u. S. Policy toward allies, toward the middle east, andchina, toward russia that way with speeches, you got a public collaboration from the president or the security advisor or the secretary of state about the nittygritty of what our policy is in each of these domains. A certainthat meant order to the Relationship Building around the world, and riding and in oral discourse. The staff has always been too big. It was in the 50s under kissinger and i think i had it 58. Of the da but you dont need 400. I think john would agree. The beginning of wisdom is to have about a dozen in numbers system thatage the can enable the president to make sensible decisions and a staff of 400 is far to many to do that. I agree. Found the things that i upon my arrival is National Security advisor was the National Security council was severely underfunded. And severely overpopulated. It is therefore paid for by their Parent Organization and what happened was, this loan was temporary. Or two years, not much more than that. What we found was after one year , about half of the staff rotated and new people came in and i thought that was unsatisfactory and argued for more funding and basically an ability to make the national with the typeil do. Ounsel that they need to yes, i think 400 is way too many. I think it would be great to have a National Security council that would have a smaller staff. Vivian let me throw out another question. Im going to start with you, ambassador holton. Discovered that different National Security advisor seven on foreigniews versus domestic. Spokenticularly, i have to the current National Security advisor about this very issue. Its like the pandemic we are currently dealing with. Where was the responsibilities of the National Security advisor fall when you have very large Domestic Group . Ambassador bolton . I think it iston important what the coordination is on that side, and each president has their own vision of that. Thewn view is its not decisionmaking on the domestic side takes into account the International Aspects and there are some questions that obviously affect both like trade or the handling of the pandemic, but i think just as it historically, going back to Henry Kissinger, but i think we owe the original effort eisenhower, and he understood that was a great plan even if you were not voting the plan too long after you get it done because theres a lot to learn and planning how to do it. Do not exist on the domestic side, but is ultimately up to the president , whether he wants to work through the nsc structure, whether he wants to work through the someavirus Task Force President s, including the current one, do not necessarily agree with that. Vivian where is the line andeen Homeland Security what the National Security advisor. Is much of a role does the National Security advisor lay in play in Homeland Security . Administration, and johntop Deputy Brennan was the homeland , and we are all located in the white house, and the president he was present. They could coordinate how that meeting went to make the best use of the president s time. As a structure, that seem to be a valid way in consonants without president obama liked to make decisions, which was very much from the autumn of instead of the top down. It was not until the Trump Administration came around i model thatyou structure . Ambassador bolton the National Security and Homeland Security are fundamentally the same thing. I think were talking about the same homelands. The notion of these being separate. I think ultimately, you need to bring it back to a more coherent approach. I would make other structural , but that is beyond the scope of our discussion. I would like to get into some of the larger threat, the larger nsc. Ture for the im going to start with you on this one. Were talking about the number threat. Biological weapons, defining National Security and defense. If the homeland is no longer a sanctuary, how do we explore those issues . , if you can talk a little bit about these asymmetric threat . Threats . Foremostlane the family of threats is the in the United States stems from china and the challenges it offering in every domain from cyber to conventional military to kind of a novel approach expanding influence with apparently benign offers. We will build in london or congo. , the appearance of innocent offerings quickly turns into country where they borrow from china the money to build the port, lets say, in sri lanka. The debt,nnot Service China offers to turn it into equity or ownership. You can see how it does not take long before gradually china becomes the owner of the port or the highway where the power plant. China begins to have enormous influence over that governments policies. That has happened in more than 60 countries. Chinas goal is to expand its influence and presence, virtually to coal the sovereignty of country after , totry for three reasons gain resources like cobalt in congo and lithium intellect. Secondly, key locations such as malaga, canal, gibraltar, strategic locations int enable them to function the event of conflict and to project their forces with , on seace on land throughout the world as a crisis may require. That is a gradual but effective way to establish your presence and your ability to operate in peace and war very effectively. Penetrateoal is to theets, to ensure that initiative allows them to get into the huge market of western with confidence, control over the institutions as well as the infrastructure. China has raised concerns. Other countries, as well as lone wolf actors. Can you elaborate . The description of china was wonderful. Im not going to try to add to it. At the strategic level, we have two basic threats. One is russia. The other is china i think the russian threat represents the putin regime playing bad hand very well, especially in the past several years. Even a good example of how a declining economic power like russia can use asymmetric warfare techniques like in cyberspace in particular and depressed advantage with the resources it does have in the space of the former soviet union, in the middle east, and respecting us. I think these strategic threats are going to be critical for the next administration. Is the existential threat of the 21st century. Even though those are important and significant at a strategic level, i do not think you can dismiss the more immediate threat of Nuclear Proliferation from north korea and iran, which continue to grow worse, and the continuing threat of terrorism. Is weoblem the u. S. Faces are seeing threats across a Broad Spectrum which require a Broad Spectrum of capabilities and response. One thing i think is going to be critical over the next four tors, this is not a time reduce the Defense Department budget. We need to expand our capabilities in light of this broad range of threats we are facing. General jones, i was going to elaborate based on ambassador bolton. Ambassador you recently said the world is living in the shadow of Nuclear Catastrophe and pointed to escalation with the Trump Administration and china. You have pointed to the relationship between the u. S. And russia. Are feuding. Istan north korea continues to be an issue. Irans nuclear deal is on the rocks. What you make of all this and what can the United States do to diffuse the increasing tension, especially among these Nuclear Powers . Theral jones the one thing send a strong is message that we are committed to remaining a nation of great influence and we are going to do those things required to maintain that greatness. Doubt about our commitment. If you look at the middle east and going back to the Obama Administration, towards the end of that administration the arab world was seriously doubting our commitment. As a result of players like russia and others, filled with doubt. Pullingtalk about forces back to the continental United States from overseas, europe in particular. That is worrisome to our friends and allies. One of the first things we have to do is come out with a clear policy statement backed up by clear action, that we are committed, that we do want to maintain our position as a global leader. We know china is a threat. Butnow russia is a nuisance a clever one. We know iran is not going to hold to its agreements. Know the war on terror will find its way to the african continent and so on. There is a lot to do. The first step is to reassure our friends and allies, p