Apology. At todays rates if late feed had been amid that i would hey totaled more than 10,000. Booktv will continue to bring you new programs and publishing news. You can watch all of our past programs anytime at booktv. Org. Im bill burns, im at the president of the cash anything gee Carnegie Endowment for billion and im die lighted to welcome Rebecca Lissner and mira rapphooper and their become, an open world. Recovering diplomats like me are sometimes prone to understatement, but even i can see that it its a vast understatement to say that were living through a moment of profound upheaval on both the international and landscape. Domestic landscape. The post colored world war primacy is in Rearview Mirror and the road ahead is dimly lit and domestic preoccupation its easy to lose be and to leach from restoring our uniolaugh dominance to equally ill losery idea we can disenavailable from the rest thereof he world and focus only only ourselveses but rebecca and mira have done in this new book is offering a way ahead put an extraordinary live thoughtful historically grounded and senseible approach to reinventioning u. S. Foreign policy, mindful of the hims himf our power but optimistic but the possibilities. Their strategy of openness marries the crucial importance of discipline and restraint, with an appreciation of the potential of the hand that we still have to play, and the number of other players, especially our allies and partners, who share a broad interest in a more open world. None of that should surprise us because mira and rebecca are two of the very best think ares and practitioners of their generation, from mr. Razz perch at the council on foreign earnses and rebecca at the Naval War College they have already produced together and independently a remarkable body of work on everything from the significance of our alliances to the role of technology and Great Power Competition to the National Security challenges facing the next administration. With so much to be pessimistic about these days mira and rebecca keep my hopeful but the future of u. S. Foreign policy and their new back real is essential reading at this transformative movement. I strongly encourage you to by a copy if you havent done so already and the link on the screen can help you do that. So, ill begin with a few questions and then the last 15 or 20 minutes turn to your questions which you can submit through youtubes chat function. Its wonderful to have you. Thank you for doing this. [loss of audio] its a pleasure. Always good to start at the beginning. I think, so, why dont you rebecca maybe if i could start with you. Why did you both decide to write this book now . Is this a Foreign Policy response to the trump era or would you have taken this on regardless of who was president . Well, let me just begin by saying thank you for that incredibly generous introduction, it is an honor nounder to share this virtual feed with you today and i need to give the traditional caveat that everything with say reflect outsider personal views and not any institutional views but our book an old world make the case the United States needs to reimagine its important policy for a post pandemic and potentially post trump world before it ties late and we start the project in the wake of the 2016 election when it was delighter that donald trump himself was more an of avatar than an, a architect. Even if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, he would have still have contend with massive adverse global power ship, technological change and growing domestic political dysfunction at home. We set out to take on two pieces of wisdom. First the motion that donald trump himself was fully responsible for the collapse of American Leadership and socalled liberal International Order, and second the idea that the United States could somehow return to Foreign Policy business as usual when trump would leave office, whether in 2021 or 2025 and the coronavirus pandemic has on tragically illustrate our central thesis, that a set of rules and laws and norms and institutions that were built for the challenges of the 1940s are simply not equipped for the of the 2040 so a new approach is needed. Thank you. Mr. Remarks mr. Remark tell us about the strategy of openness you lay out. What would an open world look like or what should it look like . Bill, ill start by just adding my tremendous thanks to rebecca. Its a joy to sayre the stage with you today. We have learn so much from your work. So the bottom line is that an openness strategy for which weed a stro indicate is a anyway grand strategy for the United States that should allow it to secure itself dearest interests even though as you so rightly noted in your opening remarks we have lost military and economic primacy at least in the wayses that were defined in the post cold war period. The objective of the strategy is to keep the world open and to promote interactions of the same kind. What are we seeking to promote . An open strategy would like to see states be able to remain politically independent and able to make choices free of political coercion. It would like to see the global comments such as the seas and air space say accessible and open and Foster International cooperation and beneficial trait as well as the free flow of information and places priority on transparent governance. Even if the states that xi them are not always themselves democracy. That raises the question, perhaps this all sounds well and good but a but what are we trying to prevent . What an openness strategy seeks to prevent is hostile domination of geographic spaces or a functional areas. You could think domination by a hostile state of part of a region, china dominating part of asia, for example. This strategy opposes foreign interference in political processes such as foreign intervention in elections and also opposes any effort to close off vital waterways, air spaces or information spaces to free exchange. Now, who would we possible by he talking about . When you hears talk but what we would like to achieve and prevent the most central concern is that china, the run who could close off parts of asia, achieve some form of dominance in its region, or inside a functional spaces like information spaces, perhaps creating a closed systemic technology threw 5g or givenning the International Court and to and the reason that were so concerned about this is that a closed world is fundamentally less safe for the United States. The u. S. Economic prosperity and National Security fundamentally depend on deinterdependence so if china closes off spas the United States bill less save but openness does not describe all the goals goals the united state seeks to achieve there some limits upon us and of course it does not mean that china or other states cant have influence. Its a construct by which we hope to govern international 0 order and expect we have to live alongside authoritarian powers who do not share our preferences. You stressed at the start there cant be a return to the status quo either prethe Trump Administration or back to what people imagine at least to be the heyday of post cold war american primacy. The thing i found hard nest policymaking which is the business of choices, is what do you not do . So, or not do as much of what you used to think you do could do and examples of the middle east where we got infat waited with our own imagine fall thinken and we overreached. Hough would this strategy you both laid out differ from past american grand strategies. What would the u. S. Do differently, what we not do as much of as we did in the first 20 years after the end of the cold war . Thats such an important question and youre right to save the grand strategyes all about making hard choices and clarifying tradeoffs. So, acknowledging that openness has long been an idea that has animate elements of american Foreign Policy but our strategy is the first time that openness would be the centerpiece of american grand extra. Lookening back to post world war ii world. We imagined an open world but once the iron curtain descended the United States seemed to acknowledge a closed soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and openness floundered. After the cold war ended the United States was at the peak of its power and could seek something that was substantially more ambitious than openness and embraced the idea of liberal universalism or the u. S. Style liberal political systems could permanent nate determine permeate the world and it overreached and you have seen donald trump articulate a reaction to that liberal usefullism universalism juan that retreats from open unless by rejecting affluences and rejecting International Cooperation and shying away from American Leadership and renovating the International Order. We feel in 2020 open informs is an idea whose time has come. Because the 21 them Century International environment is uniquely amenable to openness in a way the 20ths in century was not. Anything you want to add . Ill take up rebeccas great answer about the historical and strategic underminimumming of openness and why its time as come and specific examples was were suggest thing United States would do differently. As rebecca noted it this is the idea of liberal universalism, the idea that this more is moving toward direct political system and liberal vol value of the United States of the believe the idea of democracy and liberalism remains important and like to see the United States lead the world by its own example in continuing to adopt the ideas and ideals and we also imagine that we are living alongside authoritarian come pers to in russia, china and others who are not likely to chang the characters of their regime at least in the immediate term. And that the United States will therefore have to adopt a Foreign Policy and a set of strategies Third International order that acknowledges new found constraint particularly when it comed to used of liberal universality. One thing were specific in saying we would not do much of is engage in efforts at armed regime change to transform the character of any given regime. Might sound like an idea that doesnt have much of an enemy in current day washington bus because there fors on the left and right that have strongly issued forever wars and definite lie not want to see the United States take on new military entang. Ments. But were talking for here is extreme discipline when it comes to the american use of force for political ends in the International System, and that is a big departure from the first two decades of the post cold war world. Another fairly specific area where we see need for change with heavy heart is these area of human rights. That is to say we have to understand that these ill liberal regimes are very likely to engage in human rights policies that are not through our liking and that were going to have too find ways to address them that work tower existing International Laws until the people that populate those regimes ultimately change their characters. What we mean is we have to band together with allies and partners to call china out on its human rights abuse on the basis of existingry national lieu and agreement and do so on a repeated basis until china makes changes itself. That is relatively the idea we can change the ccps approach to human rights ourselves from the outside and again its with heavy heart we come to that position. But we think that understanding that these character the characteristics of regimened familially not up to us and will be a long hard slog if the impreliminary indication of living in a worldve liberal universalism is much more contested. How do you think the strategy of openness that you have both laid out how does it look from the perspective of chinese leadership in beijing and from the Vladimir Putins kremlin in pose scow . Rebecca why dont you start. Sure. So, an openness strategy is very cleareyed about the fact at that time russia and china do not share in our goals of International Openness, and that american grand strategy Going Forward needs to be oriented around precluding the possibility that either china or russia achieve in coalescing closure. Lets be clear that russia and china are not the same threat and they do not pose equivalent threats to the open world we propose. China is by far the chief antagonist to International Openness. The only country that both has a preference for closure and the cape came baseball to bring that out. Closure can look like military dominance and territorial annexation by china and also take on a subtler 21st form and they cho cheer technologialities prowess to undermine by leveraging 5g digital truck that is bit by china. So, an open world seeks to forestall that possible in the chinese case, but looking at russia it sees a different kind of threat. Russia is a pour in decline, it has been for a while, and covid and the associated crash in oil prices has only worked worsened russias position. Russia is a threat to political independence of our own as we have seenly seenly to russian en interference in the United States and our allies in europe and so the central charge in implementing an openness extract when it comes to russia is of course to maintain criminal deterrence credible deterrence in nato and develop the tools to forestall russias ability to by foreign meddling in its electoral processes. So, an openness strategy recognize the need as mira said to live alongside illly liberal russia and china but also creates bright linement about the types of russian and chinese behavior that the United States ought to oppose, behaviors that he pore tend closure and the behaves the United States ought to try to nudge in the direction of open unless but not oooutright. Add this thought on china here. Rebecca has given a great overview how we think but russia and china but a question that viewers might have jumping to mind is how is this different than strategy that thinks of dividing the world along ideological lines, free world strategy that sees democracy against authoritarianism. Openness, rebrand of the ideas that have become popular inside the beltway in recent year. We dont think it is and thats for a couple of Different Reasons ill illustrate with respect to question our this would lock from chinas be perfect perspective. They will be required to work with china on basis of mule mutual interest. The climate change. Cannot be done without u. S. Cooperation and second the crisis were livingthrough right now, the covid and attendant economic crisis requires far more u. S. Cooperation or cord integration than it received. Put the fact that some amount of great power deconfliction and co lab brace will be next collaboration will be nose in an contested International Order. And also add to this ongoing cooperation on Nuclear Nonproliferation with respect to north korea and iran. But a second reason why this strategies isnt simply but authoritarian versus democracy. We have on our face acknowledged the need to live alongside a stronger china and a willingness to work with china or other nondemocratic regimes so long as they will abide by Transparent InternationalGovernance Principles in their itselfs to build International Order. If china was willing to bring is Road Initiative to International Standards and allowed projects to proceed without miring countries in debt and commitments they dont understand, we might be willing to work with china once those project order help it to upgrade the standards by chit is proceeding. We mean we are willing to work with mixed regimes leak the vietnams of the world, in building new architectures to govern technology and the internet so long as their willing to abides by open principles. So the mere fact of a done trip not being a full fledged democracy is not a disqualifying factor on that countrys activity in interan International Order. We hope to be able to shape the domestic choices that nondemocracies may make in hopes of bringings them toward the advantage we see of open and interdependent world. Mr. Remarks let me follow up on china because ive always admired your thinking and writing on u. S. Strategy in asia as well. So, how do you affect through an opennessing extra the incentives and disinsend differents of xi jinping of the chinese leadership . In all of the dimensions of the strategy so diplomatic in terms of working with partner like india across to treaty allies like japan and south korea, what would your view be on if you had a new administration about some form of effort to return to Something Like the transpacific partnership. Creating rules for economic openness that fit your strategy but also would enhance our l. In dealing with questions like the nor