Presidency along with the 117th congress should do about them. I am joined by a distant wish group of scholars and friends from numerous institutions all around washington but nonetheless, reflecting a real divergence and breadth of thinking experience and approach in thinking about these kinds of things. Lots of handson expertise. Americanat the new initiative at the Atlantic Council. He is a longstanding scholar. Any of you will know him for his years at the Cato Institute many of you will know him for his years at the Cato Institute. He is a former navy officer and is in many ways one of the great skeptics and contrarian voices in American Foreign policy who i have known for a long time and am really pleased to have them with us in this event. , the Catholic University he used to be at cato as well. He recently wrote a important article called of the case for the throng from the middle east. He is an advocate of minimizing the u. S. Military footprint. I think it is fair to say that at a broad level, all of us are advocates of minimizing the footprint to the extent possible but much of todays debate or conversation it will have a little bit of both. It is how much you do that and how much engagement is reasonable and desirable. To what extent is staying in some places with some degree of presence the least bad option for American National security policy. Cutting into that topic with real expertise on south asia is , madea. D and colleague she wrote a book called pakistan under siege. One of the best modern studies on pakistan. I would recommend it to anyone. I asked many of my students in recent years to read it. She continues her work on the afghanistanh asia, theater as well but also nigeria because she is interested in education and the way that influences peoples attitudes toward the state and a stream is him. Yvette brown. She has done some of the best research in the broader middle east. Two of the places where she has done her most impressive Field Research have been some aliya and afghanistan. This is where she is famous for not just hunkering down in the relatively safe green zone of those places which is where you a placeally find me in like afghanistan. She is out in the field, talking to people, seeing what is happening on the ground with remarkable bravery and a lot of preparatory work to make sure she can get out of the field in places where she will be able to learn so much from her work. She is an ongoing and very active expert in all matters afghanistan and pakistan but continues to research as well. Drug trafficking, pandemic disease origins, wildlife markets in places like indonesia, china, brazil, mexico and elsewhere. We are delighted to have you join us as well in the audience. We will look forward to your thoughts in the latter part of this discussion. We will go until about 2 15. Rhonda will have to leave us just before 2 00. I want to pose a question to chris about what we have gotten right and what we have gotten wrong in the middle east. I will have a similar broad range question for every panelist after. We will have a second round with us and then we will go to you and your questions. Pleased to have you with us. Chris, without further ado, the floor is yours. Chris thank you. Thank you for sponsoring this event. Mostly to tryl be to set the context. I think it is helpful every once in a while to ask how does we got here, how it is that we are referring to a forever war. Was it truly a forever war . Did it start somewhere . Candidly, i think it started after 9 11. We all know why. I think if you said to someone on september 10, 2001 that 19 years after, the United States would have spent 5. 5 trillion, it would have lost the lives of over 7000 american servicemen ,nd women, 52,000 wounded perhaps an equal number of 7000 or more contractors killed. Perhaps 300,000 civilians killed in the various wars initiated after 9 11. They would be surprised, i think. They would say how did this all happen . We go back to the reason why it all happened, it is because of the horrific trauma of the terrorist attacks on september 11, 2001 and the way the United States and other countries around the world reacted after that horrific event. Time,k that from time to policy inertia is what it is. Policies dont change unless someone changes them. Whyink part of the reason we have stayed in this path is because the political incentive make a dramatic change ieople come along recall that john kerry thought terrorism should be reduced to a nuisance. He was viciously attacked for that. Even people like john mccain or Mike Bloomberg at various stages said the terrorism problem have been exaggerated. I think it is helpful if this money spent, lives lost, is it necessary to keep the United States safe . So far, i have not seen any better assessment of this than by my former colleague, john. He is a longtime professor of ohio state university. Thatin 2014, he estimated for the cost of what we spent on after terrorism since 9 11, we have to believe that those Counterterrorism Measures were responsible for stopping roughly times square like attacks. An attack that was attempted back in 2010. If we dont believe that the various measures that have been taken under if we dont think that those are useful in stopping terrorist attacks, we should wonder if have 5. 5 trillion might been spent better elsewhere and even more importantly, we might if the lives lost along the way if these people would still be alive. Thank you for the excellent framing and focus on the big questions. Now i would like to turn to mad ea. I know youre no fan of unnecessary deployments to the broader south asia or afghanistan theaters but i read enough of your work to know that you are not of the view that pulling out would be the smartest decision either right now. Could you tell us about your thinking on both afghanistan and pakistan . Madea thank you. Exactly. I am not a fan of staying in a forever war. I think the discussion on policy in washington is increasingly framed as a binary choice. If you choose to say i think it is an unhelpful framing. Athink there is middleoftheroad option that will serve us best. Should commit to maintaining a small troop presence, several thousand until in afghanistan peace is achieved. That would take 35 years. That is being hopeful but that is the hope. It is through a very painstaking negotiation process between the two parties. Deal thatink that the was struck in february should be abandoned. I am working within the gray area of the deal. The fact that the conditions that were put in place have not been met to date. Until this piece still is achieved my argument is that it benefits both couple and the United States. Negotiate ed to both kabul and the United States. Forl leveraged to negotiate the best team in right. A good outcome in afghanistan will serve us well in america. Ofs helps the core objective counterterrorism but also narrative on america in the region. We should be clear that any poor outcome in afghanistan, down the road will be seen as americas failure and the failure of this forever war. , calling it the endless lore is war is not hope for. January 20, it will be at less than two or 3 of the height of our presence of troops there. All the terminology serves is to make this a politically charged question and unnecessarily so. Nothing good can come of staying, this is the key opportunity window of opportunity that we have. If we leave now if we dont leave now, that we will get pulled in again to a greater degree. I dont think that assumption is necessarily accurate. On the contrary, if we do leave now, the cost is high. We should be clear that the future looks grim if we leave completely now. It goes from regional proxy wars to an ultimate taliban ascendance. Not to sound too grim but that is what it looks like. Conditions for doing this still have not been met. Done real damage, he has weakened not only the american position in the battle sth our allies but also kabul position. The only party this benefits is the taliban. When joe biden comes into power, i think his hands will be tied. The ability to have leverage over the taliban, the ability to pressure the taliban as we need to do becomes that much harder. There is also a possibility that this can be done with what he hundred trips. My sense is that he does not want to increase trips right away. Think that President Biden troopsa few thousand more is what we need to if President Biden thinks that a few thousand troops more is what we need to do, he should. The question of afghanistan has been central to our relationship with pakistan. Stans actions have affected how the war has gone and how it goes. I think the last two years, things have been all right for pakistan. Between the two countries has improved. I would argue that the best aance that we have to improve future relationship with pakistan is if it comes to a full then we can focus on other things in that relationship. In afghanistan that descends into violence due to history with war, that country will become a theater for regional proxy wars. And then other countries will get drawn in. Michael thank you. Justin, i want to go to you next. I welcome any thoughts you have about this for the topic before this. Any topicso welcome from your paper. Justin thank you for moderating, thank you to the other panelists were participating. Chris argued that something has gone really wrong with the forever wars. That we dont know how much longer theyre going to go on. Have quite clearly failed to aims that we gradually expanded over time. In 2002, we actually dealt a pretty decent blow to al qaeda and santa a good message to the taliban and afghanistan but i want to expand on what chris said. I wrote this paper. I argued that these wars should end. It is not just that they failed to achieve their aims but we failed to situate the greater released in a greater context. We fancy ourselves a global power with global interest everywhere. What animated the paper and what will animate my brief remarks here is trying to situate the greater middle east in the broader strategic context. I looked at was traditional measures of power. If you look at the greater middle east, it contains about 3. 3 of world gdp that is on its way down because of sinking oil prices. Public closer to 3 . Depending on how you count, it contains between 3. 5 and 5 of world population. No country within the region can project power outside of its borders went away. Iran cant conquer saudi arabia. Saudi arabia cant conquer iran. The really the existence of a royal hegemon how can we push the iranians and russians back in syria . This paper says what do we need from syria in a broader strategic context . I drew on the work from notre dame and our esteemed moderator, michael. To get a handle on what we spend , this is not an exact science about is of the order of 70 billion per year in peacetime in addition to the 5. 5 trillion if you count iraq, afghanistan and the post9 11 wars. It is real money. Say 70the argument to billion a year for this . I looked at what we worry about in the greater middle east, are the concerns that we think this resource expenditure warrants . Inoncluded that oil is real terrorism. The main concerns i looked at what we worry about when it comes to the oil markets, what we worry about when it comes to israel and what we worry about it comes to terrorism. 70,000 troops, it is not necessary to protect what are limited to rest to those interest. I am happy to go into those discussions in q a. This is a bitesized version of the argument. The central problem is that the United States has had so few internal or external restraint on its Foreign Policy that it has been able to spend almost Unlimited Money at times on funds. The essence of strategy is about choice. When countries dont have any need to choose, frequently, their strategies can become striving in. I think that is part of the problem. Thank you. One quick, clarifying question before i move on. The term middle east gets used in many different ways. When you talk about 3. 5 of world population, what is your definition of the middle east that you are applying . The toe eastern to pakistan. Not including turkey . I will have to look at turkey but it was not an immense swing. Now, you have an intriguing opinion like this on like everyone. I believe it is fair to say that you now decided that the Peace Process requires a whole different look at the u. S. Military posture and a different approach. I eagerly anticipate your thoughts on somalia as well. Over to you. Thank you. Let me start by making a broad comment and emphasizing something that justin said and endorsing it. When we think about u. S. Military engagement in situations such as afghanistan, we have to think not solely in terms of the developments and also thiss but is rarely done in u. S. Strategy. Once engagement is launched, lens, the predominant looks at how to make the mission succeed. Whether it is a military mission or other missions. This contract trap that we often all into is thinking that impliesu. S. Interests moves on the ground. They use military deployment. This is particularly true of other u. S. Interests such as an , u. S. St in him invites economic objectives as well as geopolitical competitions. Those are all very important interests. Also, those values. This is who we are as americans. The fact that those are important does not mean that they should be addressed through military deployment, particularly, lengthy deployment. The third point i would make is policy is a real risk of , falling into the tyranny where engagement and say we have this tremendous amount of effort sacrificing blood and treasure. Theont focus on psychologically uncomfortable much more emotionally uncomfortable marginal utility and marginal cost. 14 billion a year on maintaining our military deployment in afghanistan, we have to ask what else we could put that money toward deforestation, degradation around the world that has significant impacts on preventing pandemics. It has the most crucial impact on preventing pandemics. If we see the devastation in terms of lines and economy, you opportunists coming out. They need to couple the analysis of marginal utility and marginal how the prospects change over time. This is the frame that we should decisions on how we engage rather than a notion that a grand strategy, all of this is looked at a certain way or the promotion of certain rights, objectives, it includes certain military deployment. Let me come to some of the specifics very quickly in afghanistan. First of all, i want to emphasize afghanistan in somalia. This does not mean that control under all circumstances is right. Of aia is on the cusp president ial election in december and february. It can easily end up very violent. Withdrawing u. S. Troops right now as opposed to waiting several months to get through the elections greatly amplifies an already enormous a combustible situation. I do not support that policy. Fromould be separate asking what is the marginal effect the marginal utility there . I agree with madeas analysis that the departure of u. S. A deal between the afghan republic and the telewill significant he worsened the terms of the deal. U. S. Troops might be dying in great numbers. Are dying on a yearly basis. That rate is only intensifying. Offended. N is already there is no prospect for immersing the u. S. , even if the United States and the Biden Administration increases its military presence. Down theimply slow rate with which the taliban is offended. I was a supporter of the search and that we should have negotiations with them every day. They said that the Obama Administration try to negotiate but the taliban refused. Mainly because the obama administrator should administration wanted to help the Afghan Government. I fundamentally dont believe u. S. Troops stay in afghanistan beyond the may deadline, the taliban will simply accept it. Ateink this will the go she i think it should negotiate a short delay with the taliban. However, regardless of the legality, the taliban will feel betrayed. You might say you dont care but it will start attacking u. S. Bases. It could also have the result of being pulled into an openended war with the taliban. This is my last comment. We are using the term forevermore. Use the termather openended war. Over to you. A secondlets go into round. What i would like to do is goin. I would like to invite each panelist to respond based on what they heard from each other. Phases part of the next of discussion. I would like to tweak the order slightly. You, i will begin with then go to justin. Then afghanistan about a specific question about the Peace Process. Certainly, everyone can comment on the whole region. Andbegan at a very clear conceptual grand strategic level in your analysis. I would like to push you further to ask you where you would like to see the u. S. Military presence in the middle east reduced, or any other form of u. S. Application of national power. And as you all know, because you are such a good military scholar with navy experience, we have a big Navy Presence in bahrain, a Big Air Force base in qatar, we have Army Logistic capability in kuwait. We have the smaller combat related options in iraq and syria. A little bigger in iraq. Those are primarily focused on the specific problems inside of those countries or pieces of those countries. We have forces in saudi arabia, which was not true for most of the obama period, but is true as the iranians has rebel threats against saudi facilities and saudi airfields. Then we have smatterings of capability going as far south in , whichion as djibouti will be in the africom military theater in the United States. It still in the Central Command theaters. With all of that in mind, as well as afghanistan, could you give us a couple of examples of where you like to cut, but also where you think we should stay. I think we need to steadyntiate between a permanent u. S. Overseas presence. And that additional increment of presence that is connected to the post9 11 wars. The United S