And generating policy ideas that promote economic policy, National Security and democratic governance. We are excited to showcase work coming out of our institution. An opportunity to hear from top scholars on pressing issues facing the world during this difficult time. And encouraging to submit yours at the q and a button at the bottom of the screen. Todays briefings from general h. R. Mcmaster, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was the 20 sixth National Security adviser to president of the United States, he served as commissioned officer in the United States army for 34 years before retiring as Lieutenant General in june of 2018. His latest book is entitled better grounds, the fight to defend free world released in september and available for preorder on amazon. Thanks for your service and for joining us today. To be with everyone hr, i know you have been watching these briefings, and the coverage of the aztecs involved with covid19. A lot of this is focused on the pandemic. With you i would like to discuss the rest of the world particularly the geopolitical, accelerated by covid19. Take a tour around the world which should be a lot of fun. Lets start with the country on everybody is mind, china. What do those relations look like . The intense competition is ongoing with the Chinese Communist party, it is based mainly on what is motive fighting the communist party, which is primarily, first and foremost, the partys foremost and the exclusive grip on power. Realizing the stream of rejuvenation. The competition is intensifying four or five different ways, we all see in recent days, that the Chinese Communist party is waging, with the narrative of a free and open democratic system that failed when china has succeeded. For how rapidly and how widely this pandemic spread and that in Formation Campaign and more aggressive militarily. In the South China Sea they forms two municipalities, a big landgrab in the South China Sea and so forth. And a lot of violations of taiwanese airspace, a backlash internationally. Trying to charge china 130 billion. Two thirds of americans have a negative view of the Chinese Communists party. The question is how does the competition play out and what is associated with this, china acted in an egregious manner, they ward about this and in recent days arresting, who advocate for Chinese People having a say in governing in hong kong, what you are seeing is they are racing to put in place this orwellian state. Across chinas population, it is going to happen in the backdrop, china not being able to look good on promises made on a program of national recrimination. As the economy contracts, to double down on practices that exacerbate the weakness and vulnerabilities, doubling down on prizes and so forth. The United States and free and open societies do everything we can to protect ourselves against efforts of the Chinese Communist party to vote for freemarket Economic Systems and the democratic form of governance, to strike at the Global Economy that is not directly connected in the Chinese Communist party. The essence of supply chain vulnerabilities continues certainly and you will see this decoupling out of china because the Chinese Government is not a trusted partner, not a good place to do business, we can no longer have critical supply chains vulnerable to disruption by the Chinese Communist party. The coronavirus will accelerate decoupling between west and china. Any other implications of the coronavirus by us and western policy toward china . It is going to bring our free and open society together and it will be the higher cooperation wanting the policies of the Chinese Communist party. I hope what will happen is, with chinese efforts, the emerging Global Economy. And countries that have been vulnerable to chinese influence in the deathtrap associated with it to protect themselves against china creating a servile relationship with these countries. And international cooperation, that is not how the narrative is but there is a lot going on between the european union, the United States, it is going to grow. What is going on in china and north korea and how has the coronavirus impacted north korea . The coronavirus has in many ways accelerated the trend of isolating the north korean regime in a campaign of maximum pressure. Covid19 is the enforcement mechanism for Security Council sanctions against north korea against Nuclear Missile programs. The demise that seemed to have been greatly exaggerated. And in no case is in north korea. And and the dynamic watch there. And the quality of life under the kim regime and have more to lose if north Korea Remains isolated economically and diplomatically. It slowed down in his efforts to coerce us into making concessions to the sanctions regime, they fired more missiles than in any Previous Year and the Trump Administration correctly has resisted what would have been a tendency to repeat the past. With a relaxation of sanctions and payoffs to exchange only for negotiations beginning. They cant afford to do that again. With long drawnout negotiations resulting in a week agreement in the week agreement boxing the status quo is a new normal and repeat the same pattern. Maximum pressure, the thesis is maximum pressure, he is safer without Nuclear Weapons than he is with them and the policy in large measure has been reinforced by the covid19 experience in north korea. Russia is another significant area of the world. This was supposed to be a big year for Vladimir Putin and now the coronavirus, what will this mean for the future of russia itself in russia and the west. This could be the biggest challenge in russia and it was supposed to be a big year. The celebration of Vladimir Putins ability to rewrite the constitution and extend his role in 2036 and instead at the beginning of the year in the russian economy and the economic crisis by the severe drop in oil prices, this was before covid19 hit russia and covid19 is exacerbated, the kremlin will be seen as complicit initially, and when the bottom has fallen out, severe economic crisis even before covid19 expands within russia and additional pressure, if the Health System is not robust enough to respond. Covid19 did not create a lot of these trends but exacerbated the trends. A few when Vladimir Putin tried to control in moscow the elections, huge protests against Vladimir Putin and mass arrests, killing a protester even so the pressure on Vladimir Putin did mount and something we are watching, who will emerge as potential new leader of russia, shifting away from him to others and hopefully among others who view the future more as maligned in the west then chinas communists party. You are a student of authoritarian governments, china, north korea, russia, coronavirus pandemic strengthen the hand of authoritarian leaders . It is weakening their hands, something we try to capitalize on. Lookout china handled this . Human to human transmission aspects of this disease, most dangerous aspect of the disease, by do their own people, lied to the international audiences, subverted the world health organization, stopped internal travel before stopping International Travel and the hamhanded approach to promote china as the solutions of a problem. In china let alone the rest of the world there is a real backlash against china for this. Lets go to north korea which has no case and iran, iran, because of its servile relationship, they got infected in a big way and they denied it is, didnt put in place measures that were necessary and in iran there were protests against the government and the corrupt order, covid19 will make it worse for iran, iran is perceived elsewhere from iraq to lebanon to syria to yemen. I think lets go to another one, venezuela. These are all connected to each other and the regimes are connected to each other. Venezuela depends almost exclusively on a roll. Once the bottom is fallen out of the market, the way they have been able to survive with stipends from china and russia in exchange for Venezuelan Oil provided at below market prices for russia and china at a profit. And russia had to bail out in venezuela, 4 billion and that has not played well in russia and that is exacerbating the sentiment. There is an opportunity within venezuela, as a leader who helped them get out of this crisis in the key factor to watch is venezuelans especially, are they going to begin to attribute grievances to the maduro regime, it is bad for dictators. What we are seeing is the benefit of our free open democratic system. As dissatisfied as the governments initial response to this, we have a selfcorrecting mechanism. We have a say in how we are going. Those societies that dont, as peoples voices are suppressed. The only alternative to change might turn out to be a revolution somehow. With open societies as we Pay Attention to ourselves and do what we can to strengthen the democratic processes and institutions. Host jonathan interesting question about Information Warfare activity that is going on. Russia and iran. s question, should the usb doing more to offset the disinFormation Campaign going around the sources and growth of the pandemic . I think we should. The best response would be for investigative journalists and our open press. Russia and iran, free and open society as a weakness. They see freedom of speech and freedom of press is a weakness. That is our strength so i think we are to be very active at exposing or the media should be, expanding their nefarious activities, dishonesty and disinformation efforts, if government does have a role trying to figure out how to bypass these firewalls, and reach these people, and whether than disinformation, countdown the statesponsored propaganda information in the United States, when they dont have access into the chinese market. Answering the question directly, we should do more to expose disinformation and propaganda. Host lets go to the middle east, iraq, iran, syria, how has the virus and pandemic affected that region. Guest when you think it cant get worse in the middle east it does get worse. It is a humanitarian crisis of colossal scale across the region. Iran is going through a crisis of the regimes own making. It acts like a terrorist organization rather than a nationstate, in connection with a corrupt Economic System ramallahs associated with the supreme leader, these sort of criminalized networks and guards core with members of the guard score being the Beneficial Owners of these companies. The economic isolation and now covid19 and oil prices. In the region, support for insurgents in yemen, support for assad with a proxy army in syria, support for hezbollah, the militias in iraq, terrorist organizations that pose a threat to israel, as it was before covid19 and the collapse of oil prices, what is the party of this, it is up to the iranian people but iran is in a crisis. They have three choices. And reimpose sanctions, those choices, they could become like the grinch at christmas. They negotiate and change their behavior. To wait out donald trump and work around it, it will escalate, covid19 has hidden a real escalation by the iranians in iraq and in the gulf. That escalation has 20 attacks on those forces since the january 3rd killing of soleimani with the drone strike in iraq. Reprisals against iran published inside of iraq and yesterday the president tweeting we will sink iraqi Islamic Revolutionary guard corps, navy vessels that harass our ships into the gulf and iran is going to continue to push it, but theres a chance for an escalation that resulted in appropriate reprisal against iranian assets. And proxies attack us, we know what the real return address is so i think a dangerous time in the gulf, the country in crisis, a backlash against iran as well. The political crisis, a dissatisfaction with the government. The next Prime Minister, blocked by the iranian this. He is certainly not doing that. Stuck with a very difficult situation. The iraqi budget is at least two times bigger than revenue. That is an understatement. The covid19 crisis as well as the iranian immigration. In a worst crisis, trying to maintain the influence, the iraqi people will want that more and more. Their fate is tied to an alternative to iranian influence, the Iraqi Government refused iranian demands to open the border, to protect our people from covid19, we are seeing kind of the latest episode in a serial mass homicide of the Syrian Civil War enabled by russia and iran and the humanitarian crisis, 1 million refugees with indiscriminate mass murder, bombing in that province, covid19 hitting the camps there and in turkey, disastrous and less there is some kind of assistance there. They are aligning with russia, russia enabled operations that killed turkish soldiers in syria, democratic opportunities there, in russia and iran. Covid19 exacerbating it. The Prime Minister stepping down there, it is iranian influence, the lebanese Financial System was in freefall as it was before covid19 because it was corrupt and there is a policy scheme. Assad and the rotc had something in that system. Out of the checking account, see like a good deal until the scheme collapses. The trends in the region, is it going to get better, it will get worse before it gets better but there are opportunities associated with isolating various sectors, assad in particular with external support. Host you mentioned irans escalating aggression. Having to do with Iranian Technology and the launching of the new satellite. The ability to combat the new threats posed by their technological advancements. They are pursuing Missile Technology aggressively, the Obama Administration or the jcp oa was in shape, one of the flaws what was associated did not block iran to the range of capabilities that threaten the most distractive weapons on earth. The Missile Program has advanced tremendously, provided technology in that program. Missile defenses in that region, we dont have an answer to that threat. What has to happen is to resist these calls to sanctions on the regime, the regime has to make a choice, acting like a normal nationstate, those terrorist organizations. And being treated like that. With different regions of the world, not reading much about india and pakistan would exist along their border, both countries are becoming increasingly connected. Pakistan it always seems like on the verge of a state collapse because they start in such a low level in terms of governance, the situation is getting worse. Covid19 hitting pakistan will be beside the population density and the lack of infrastructure. When the Pakistani Army meet any kind of a challenge. Sound like the geico commercial, they cant help themselves. And and they could have a clash there. Within india, india is a country of great promise of great problems, already huge numbers of the population who suffer from insecurity and food insecurity, there is a threat to the Agricultural Supply chain. It is in all the interests of the free world for india to succeed. One of the top foreignpolicy bodies, as we are doing everything we can to assist in this crisis the only thing that happens in india, because of the size of the population, to convince Prime Minister modhi, to abandon hindu nationalist policies. What could really be disastrous is if we saw the sectarian civil war that would create this cycle of violence across the greater middle east and it is connected to what is happening in afghanistan, concerned about the socalled deal with the taliban and. It is a strange phenomenon and partnering with the talent and in pursuit of peace, against the Afghan Government, sort of the inverse of what we ought to be doing and the reason im concerned about this, we created false assumptions of the situation that fit what we would like to be the reality. We would like to draw this bold line, that bold line doesnt exist. What is at stake, if there is a severe weakening of the Afghan Government you have a taliban like regime back in place. Once you have that that is a physical victory for an organization that continues to provide safe havens, what they had from the very beginning. And on the afghan pakistan border, grave concern, it is worth investment, the diplomatic invested, the military investment in the region to prevent the worst from happening. The consequences will be quite severe not even in the region. From the Syrian Civil War, what happens there doesnt stay there. And the humanitarian crisis has had on europe.