Americans and our allies. I should mention hes a member of the board p of advisors which is chaired by the National Security adviser Lieutenant General hr mcmaster. Experts work closely with the center on economic and financial power and are the center on cyber into technology innovation. The goal of integrating all instruments of American Power to achieve Better Outcomes for americans and for our allies. No as you may know, it is a non partisan policy institute. We are a source of timely research, analysts and policy options for congress, the administration of the media and the National Security community. We take no Foreign Government or corporate funding. This is one of the many events we host throughout the year. For more information on the work we encourage you to visit the website, fdd. Org. Today we invite you to join the conversation. We dont have a studio audience today. We are beinthey are being cautin response to health concerns. We are live tweeting fdd. I will start with a brief introduction. David kilcullen, i forgot to hold up the book so you could see it. You should go out and get yourselflf a copy. He is an authoritative voice on the unconventional warfare, counterterrorism, Counter Insurgency with extensive experience over 25 year career with australian and u. S. Governments, of the army officer, analyst from advisor and diplomat he currently serves as the professor of practice at Arizona State university and ceo and president of the Applications Group and research and operations firm and political analysis, remote observation fieldwork and related support to the government industry and ngos. Hes now director of the foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise institute. Doctor kori schake was at the institute for strategic studies in this experience in government working with the department of defense, state as well as the white house and National Security council. Bradley bowman isy the director of the center for military and political power. For the military officer during that timthe time he was with a k hawk pilot and assistant professor at west point. For those that havent read the book again, everybody should. Explain briefly who are the dragons and who are dismayed . This is a book about military by adversaries and potential adversaries since the end of the cold war and the title t comes from president clintons cia director. An incredible press and by when he was going through his confirmation hearing in 93, he was asked the cold war just ended. What do you think will be the threat environment that america faces in the postcold war period and he said was explained a large dragon token of the soviet union but now we find ourselves in a jungle filled with a variety of poisonous snakes and in many ways the dragon was easy to keep track of it he goes on t to lay out an incredible detailed vision of the weak states, failing states and nonstate actors which im calling the sneaks and suggested that the state adversaries are not going to be a big deal for the immediate future. What i am suggesting is that we had a period out of nearly 30 years since the testimony where the adversaries have adapted were involved and im trying to sort of trace the history of where that happened now. They have come back. It turns out Vladimir Putin when they took over, his aspiration was to be a member in Good Standing of the International Peaceful relations. That wasnt on top of his todo list. We wanted it to be a normal country and it was normal by its definition. So i think that they have specialized in playing a week and. Now you have china and as they get rich they are going to be a Strategic Partner and it isnt really communism anymore. Its okay, its not all okay. They havent evolved enough way. That is another dragon challenging us. Im insisting the dragons are back. Theyve learned from the sneaks into the offbeat in a different way now. Veterans administration is a National Security strategy. Im sure that youve read and thought about it. It does talk about the dragons s into the sneaks that it doesnt use those terms. Its what we call the revisionist powers china and russia. The snake is essentially rogue powers as well as the nonstate actors. So, the nss to National Security strategy is recognizing those threats. Is it essentially saying the same thing that dave is saying . Its going the same direction much less. One thing i would love for people to take away from the conversation both about the nss and about which i dont think we have sent her conversation with. As we talk about th talked aboun strategy but against sneaks in against dragons is that these are the wages of the success. Great powers were driven to the edges of the conflict spectrum because we are so dominant in on the higher rungs of the escalation ladder. So, nobody thought that they could win a war against the western militaries. And that is why they were driven to the ends of the conflict t spectrum. Moreover, i think that the notion that russia and china are revisionist powers, they are rejection powers. Russia has determined that it cant be successful on western terms and so as it is rightly pointed out in the book theyve taken a strategy which is defined because it isnt the word everybody hears all the time. The margin to not try to crush the threshold for the direct confrontation. And again that is a smart marginal strategy. And it indicates that we are still in their minds dominate in the middle of the conflict spectrum. So, both in terms of what they are trying to achieve politically and how they judge their military opportunities, we should acknowledge that we start from the notion as the success of what we did. Its just not going to be good enough and he makes the arguments nicely in the book that our adversaries have been much more adaptive than we have been. And the we need to insert ourses in order to remain the rule center of our own fortune. Particularly as a military guy, there is a tendency i think the disabled stupid we do well and what we do in the first gulf war and we wouldve preferred the enemies help us by challenging us in ways we are used to. Then the screws up all the plans we have and all the things with the weapons we are going to design but that is of course exactly what they want to do and part of the point is ou as our s are adapting and evolving to use darwinian terms and they are not because they get on the track is like to stay on it. The adversaries are employing methods far beyond just military power and we talk a lot about that and sometimes the strategies are onedimensional and part of that is because the military is so effective but if you look at th the way that the russians and chinese are operating in the military power is necessary but not sufficient, and that is why i think cutting the budget by 30 or cutting the budget is so shortsighted because if you talk to anyone that has spent more time in these places than i ever will come if you talk to the war fighters, they want those developments and diplomatic experts because they understand the battlefield of success in the long term sustainable political game with far more military power. The National Security strategy makes a narrow argument about americas first nationalism and for the kind of challenges identified in the book is rightly identified, cooperation polling institutions and allies along with this is a stronger front to confront these challenges, and that is the failing. They are not actually carrying out the strategy. Second, they have a conceptual mistake that cooperative enterprises diminishing to the American Power. Being the captain of the teams is the comparative advantage relative to the adversaries. Often the allies or portrayed iin thein a recent years liabils and on the contrary i view them as one of the great grand strategic assets. If you look at dave was there when we had 100,000 plus troops in iraq 100,000 plus in afghanistan and unless we have another 9 11 with weapons of mass destruction they are not going there again because it is a politically doable but what we can do is have the troops in syria leveraging 70,000 Defense Forces who, with our Logistical Support is seeing the caliphate. The American People need to understand the caliphate would still exist if it were not for the partners in this area where we would have to send the 101st was a lot of american casualties. They cant implement without the strategies. I have been to agree that our allies are the force multiplier and i dont know why he doesnt take credit for this kind of goldilocks solution with 100,000 troops or zero troops and as you say we are diminishing the Islamic State but also, by the way, secondarily keeping at bay the public of iran that has its ambitions to being done by a very small footprint of the highly skilled that are in combat. When we talk about the allies, that is the way that it goes. They are not contributing to the security in the way that they might be if theyre not spending enough money for the soldiers rather than making sure they are capable. If the russians attack they just cant imagine that. Some capabilities of and thats about it. The rest ofie the members i dont see them contributing and being allies that we can count on. They expect us to protect them with very little input from us. Primarily for being too threatening to russia and at the same time being too disorganized to unify affect. Its interesting to see how it has started to spend more in the last two or three years. President trump has made the same comment the last three or four have made. Would have the effect of the invasion of crimea. They are going ahead which we believe may be dont. It will make them more dependent on russia than ever. There are more people paying attention and it is a critical weakness. Can i talk about the allies more broadly. It is within the force of iraq people would say you were our Coalition Partner and i would say we are not a Coalition Partner, we are a treaty ally. There is a difference between the allies by treaty that are committed to certain requirements and then those that you aggregate on the ground and one of the points i make in the book is that u. S. Dominance poses the abductee shinned challenge for the allies so they want to keep up with the United States but they have the capabilities by the wayside and theyve tried to cover a band of these things that keep up but theyve got less resources for each individual category. So, part of it is how they learned to fight the best way to start thinking of it as a collection of powers that are individually computing. You are not talking only about the military allies. Youre also talking about when we have the h battlefield of success, as it is very much in the book, we need to have a way avto translate that into a politicalto success afterwards. We have not been very successful at that. The question is who does that and they would stop it years a ago. So theres not a total failure corrupt and state the minute we leave. It is a good challenge, and my having worked in both the state department and the pentagon, i was shocked at how little advantage the state departments personnel system takes of these events. If you think about the American Army was no offense, mostly what they are really into is taking talent at the middle of the bell curve and shifting the bell curve upward. So, they look for a young woman and that has the skills that would makeor her a good soldier. They recruit her into trainer and spend about a third of her career teaching and training her and promote her not just on what she has done well with the contribute in broader challenges going forward. The state department does none of those things. You have brilliant american diplomats. Bill burns, for example. There are people you can throw into the deep end and they will not drown. The institution doesnt rain itself to be successful. I cringe anytime someone argues the whole of government anything in the United States because we are capable of that and have the government designed not to do that. They add up to stuff and instead of trying to make us culturally different than we are and we are successful for a reason and its not to create hope of government operations. Its to build a better entrepreneurialism and we should have strategies that build on that. Im going to ask a question and i want you to answer me quickly, if president obama hadnt pulled the troops out in 2011, if we had stayed there and we worked harder with the iraqis im not going i to go with nationbuilding and going to quit the building of institutions. Would we be in a different place today with the military and state to broker among the factions and we have put more effort into try to create institutions of the government and bureaucracy . Yes. Do you agree with that . I do. In 2011 when people like john mccain and Lindsey Graham or warning the administration not to do that and ended up happening. Happening. Youd think after 9 11 the country would need a reminder. It happened again when we left prematurely in iraq an iraq andd happen again afghanistan. I wasnt a fan of going in the first place. I was very much not a fan of leaving as we did in 2011 if we had a bet theyre probably wouldnt be an ice is in the form that we found we would have to go back and. The Trump Administration may be about to make the mistake the Obama Administration made. I want to come back to that. Dont let me forget to come back to that. Lets go through the options in the book. I want to start with a. It is going to happen and we try to make the most of it so addressing these steps we decided to the extent the global primacy over the past 70 years or so is an example of the historical phenomenon of the entire like any other we are going to decline we just have to deal with the bat an that and gt landing was looking for a successor. I suggest in the book that isnt going to work. The office a president obama favored such managed decline. They are a lot more similar to each other than i would like to hear. But i do think the strategy to work that successor has to be interested in doing that. And capable of doing and friendly enough to ask. The russians cant do it, neither of them are friendly enough for us to trust them to do it. Its a basic ambiguity is not a contradiction in president trumps thinking because on one hand, he wants america to be great and on the other hand any president whos job it is you try to make america you know, denmark as fast. I think what the president wants is the United States to get credit without doing the work and that is the key to the failingin strategy. Ive looked for better analyze than the nato allies. I would love to train the nato allies for a better set. Unfortunately i cannot find a better set of american allies, and that leaves you with a choice of does the United States organize everybody, like everybody up, challenge everybody to do better than they sdo the shame everybody to doing more or do we step back in the hopes that others will step forward, and i think that its rightfully outlined the problem. It is so much less expensive to sustain a largely beneficial environment theyve given mixed messages that say you guys need to do more and by the way we will always be there for you and to whatever it takes. President trump said you need to do more but i believe you dont mind might not be there and that is the point. She doesnt always get credit for it. Just a quick comment on the fundamental purpose of nato is s to be toward the russian invasion of our european allies oand the fundamental purpose codified in article five of the treaty they understand the desire to try to get orer nato allies to pay moreir particulary germany, but the big mistake of the president was tired article because by suggesting that they will not be there to honor the collective response abilities you are inviting the ver the veg they do is designed to prevent encouraging russia to do what would be more costly. Going back three, four, five. They gave a blank check to the officer which id the world and toward war into world war i. We shouldnt mak should make itk but on the other hand, dont just encourage what they are trying to prevent. Somewhere in between there is a more complex strategy. It is a fundamentally different commitment. I dont think anybody believes the nato allies would back them up on a. It is a fundamentally defensive commitment and s is owed you dot have to worry about it galloping off in the way that. 100 estonian many of them are ethnic russian. His point is why they would go to the board to say im not defending this point have view its got to be somewhere betwe between. What is more likely is what is happening right now where little activity is being targeted to undermine the political unity of nato and that is the real issue. Unless you are suggesting that they shouldnt come to the i am not saying it is necessarily the right attitude but what is he is trying to achieve some kind of a double message and strategy. Another point to make as we speak about the relationship with nato and think about it as a competition underpinned by military and economic means its worth pointing out its almost entirely oil and gas dependent. They dramatically outspent russia on defense as a collective they just dont act in an organized fashion and that is one of the critical differences. So again it is about organizing and aggregating rather than operating in this kind of fashion. He has the section where he talks about the frontier craft and i like that section because he talks about how it is the longstanding policy to create a pretext for interference. Theredoes it stabilize and to t the neighbors sovereignty as a means of control and sometimes people like to blame the expansion over the policy but as you say in the book on 133 the goal is to reassert in your words the russian dominance into the whole idea they have the right to choose with whom they want to associate. He ha