Good afternoon and welcome to the Conference Center here at Hudson Institute. I am the president and ceo of Hudson Institute, our mission is to promote u. S. International leadership in Global Engagement for secure, free and prosperous future. We are absolutely delighted to welcome back senior senator from indiana, senator todd young with us here at hudson. Today he is a guest in our bipartisan speaker series, dialogue on American Foreign policy and World Affairs with Hudson Institutes chair, Walter Russell mead. The discussion series is designed not to solely focused on the urgent news but also on the important news, that is to say, the broader questions and dilemmas affecting u. S. Foreign policy. Senator young still needs no introduction here at Hudson Institute where he is spoken many times. Hes an important voice particularly on Development Assistance and on the role of congress and u. S. Foreign policy in u. S. Foreign policy decisionmaking. Hes very much a conservative internationalist and critical for policies issues, marine corps captain, urges degrees of university of Chicago School of business, university of london before graduating from the Mckinney School of law at Indiana University picky making the bank bob mckinney was familiar the hudson trustee comments himself also a navy Academy Graduate and still are good friends at Hudson Institute even though our headquarters are now in washington. The senators served three terms in the house of representatives before being elected to the senate bill from a 2016. He will of course be an dialogue with someone else who needs to introduction here at Hudson Institute, Walter Russell mead, the dean of absorbers for Foreign Policy whose mustread global view called in the wall street journal is most widely read column on u. S. Foreign policy today. The senator has a hard stop at 12 45 p. M. So without further ado let me give you an warm welcome from all of us at Hudson Institute and turn the microphone over to walter. Thank you for the introduction, thank you, senator, for coming. Its great to see you again and greatly at hudson. Thank you so much for having me. Its great to get hudson again especially in light of the hoosier pedigree of this institute. Thats right, a proud former hoosier like a lot of other folks. This syrians conversations which some of you may remember we had center to chris murphy recently are intended not to do the usual journalistic sort of gotcha thing, but to give people in our audience here in this room and watching us on tv a chance to hear what american policymakers and serious Foreign Policy folks say when you get a chance to really express themselves. You can agree with it. You can disagree with that, but our hope is that after one of these conversations you have more insight into how American Foreign policy is seen by people who make it. So store young, i wanted to start up by asking you about the indopacific and i guess we used to call it the pivot to age. Im not sure what were calling it now, but trying to shift resources and attention into the indopacific has been a theme weve heard in several president ial administrations, but it somehow seems hard to do. Its a little bit like don corleone. We keep getting dragged back in when we were dating. Where is the pivot to asia, and what do you think we can do to advance along this . Well, youre right, there has been a branded or a rhetorical pivot to asia according for some time now, but its unclear the extent to which we have really been able to dedicate the appropriate amount of resources and attention to it. Its one of the reasons its important to reassess our military presence, in particular regions, and how we are spending our military resources is we need to move more towards naval, become increasingly dave list as a military so we can cover the large stretch of ocean in the indopacific region. We need to strengthen our alliances in that region and some improvements are being made in that respect or im not sure its helpful when we create uncertainty among our allies in the asiapacific, its i think at every turn we need to reassure them because the chinese in particular as engaged in their adventures activity are giving essential our allies the choice that. They can either be accommodationist towards the power located most closely to them but the one who tends to be a more transactional and predatory terms, often times. Or instead they can take a chance on the United States of america and a liberal International Order. I think with some work to do with respect to reassuring our allies in the region. Moreover, whether its the military presence in foreign areas, places like afghanistan, or the institutional focus in the state department and in other agencies of the government on places other than asia. I think that that slows us down. We know that the greatest existential threat as a look out a generation or two back to the United States is china on account of its population, its different values set, and its growing economy. And so i would give us an incomplete if i were to grade us, but we really need to be engaging partners and allies on every front, diplomatically, militarily, the mil to mil relationships, intelligence sharing where we can. And then a real point of emphasis that i have been trying to sort of elevated in terms of our Public Discourse as chairman of a subcommittee that oversees International Economic policy on the Foreign Relations committee is we need a coherent Economic Strategy to help work with these nations, to partner with these nations, and alternative frankly to belt and road and some of the predatory approaches that china in particular has taken. So this would be support for Infrastructure Development . Support for Infrastructure Development, so we passed the build act which will allow us to crowd in a lot of private money. Thats the Real Advantage to the build act because the United States can actually get an equity stake as can other countries whenr countt development they give Development Assistance in Major Development projects. So the build act was an important stride but i go far beyond Development Assistance peer we need more free trade agreements, multilateral where possible. I know where the Transpacific Partnership agreement and are sort of a bipartisan consensus during the last president ial election not to enter tpp. So we accept that political reality and move on and try and identify other countries come hopefully large economies with whom we can forge closer economic relationships. And then i think we need a coordinated strategy with partners and allies on things like energy. I think we need to come up with a written plan which ive called for in terms of investment in some key front your technologies come just as the chinese are doing. So, for example, 3d manufacturers artificial intelligence, quantum computing. These are all areas where the United States, if we are not making some strategic bets, we are going to fall behind im afraid, and weve met with success doing this historically. You think of darpa which laid the predicate later for the internet. These dont always succeed, but if we dont try, if we dont invest those resources we are sure to be outpaced by other sort of state capitalist models. Youve been going back to the middle east now for a minute, youve been one of the strong critics of saudi arabia in the senate, and had spoken very seriously about wanting to put some conditions on the aid and have a strong response to violations of human rights there. I know you went to saudi, you visited the region earlier this fall. Did you come away from that with any change in perspective, or where do you think we are now with saudi arabia . Every time i travel, my perspective changes, which is why i find travel so valuable and spent more time in us and i will continue to travel but youre right, i have been critical of saudi arabia. I have given criticism where criticism is due, and that given wholesome credit where that is due. On the one hand the saudi is in bs in particular is really trying to modernize his country and that something i came to more fully appreciate as i visit the country. Women are becoming increasingly empowered. There is a bit more breathing space for civil society. Thats not to say this is the United States of america or alexis de tocqueville would marvel at current saudi society, but they are modernizing. And i think longerterm this is a real opportunity for the home of mecca and medina to send a signal to the rest of the muslim world that you can indeed modernize once the economy and ones culture over a period of time, and reconcile that with the muslim religion. On the other hand, the way the saudi arabia is partnering with the United States and the emirates has carried out the military operations in yemen were deserving of the very vocal and direct criticism that i believe they violated International Humanitarian law, denying food, fuel and medicine to houthis and others in the country of yemen, thus radicalizing people who would not have other wise radicalize and further destabilizing the country at a time when 20 Million People were on the verge of starvation. And creating an environment that was fertile for iran to come in and provide more wherewithal to the houthis. Its a very complex situation but this is a complex partnership with saudi arabia that we likely will need to maintain for some period of time. Because the greatest threat in that region, something that was reinforced during my visit was clearly iran. Iran continues as all of your viewers know, they continue to try and develop nuclear weapons, continue to improve the military technologies, including Missile Technology in which those weapons could sit come and engage in terrorist activities and adventurism throughout the middle east. And so that destabilizing presence is a threat to not just those in the region and ultimately the United States. So its important for us to maintain a dialogue with sometimes bad actors and complicated partners like the saudis. You mentioned you would seen some changes in saudi is policy towards yemen that you thought were positive come in separate . Yes. Let me commend the government for making changes. They are targeting they are targeting a Different Military targets has improved. Im persuaded of that. I spent a lot of time with now ambassador as well as some top government leaders in saudi arabia, spent some time directly with mbs and myself and senator king who travel together felt like we left there with a much fuller appreciation, that they are making significant strides in the saudis understand that they need to bring that conflict in yemen to a political resolution. And they strike me as dedicated to doing whatever they can to make that happen. They are pulling in the expertise and the diplomatic weight of the emirates, level positive relationship with iran. And together they are all working collectively with some other gcc countries to try to stabilize that front region. Given the latest news from iran that the move on enriching uranium and so on is accelerating, how would you advise President Trump to proceed with iran at this time . He needs to maintain a maximum Pressure Campaign, but really i think the key is going to be to have a whole diplomatic initiative, visavis the european. We really need the europeans on board so that we cannot just bilaterally apply pressure, visavis the iranians, so europe, we will ensure remains on board with trying to bring iran back into a position of better behavior. Weve had our challenges, first with respect to military contributions from our nato partners in europe, but we need to make every effort to patch up any hurt feelings, to enhance trust, and to try and Work Together with the nations who still arguably our closest in terms of sharing values and vision of a liberal International Order that we have. Well, that brings me to some comments i president macron recently of france that, i i thought you might bring that up. laughs i tweeted last i can i wonder whether nato was really dead, or just mostly dead. Reminds me of monty python episode. Not quite yet gadget. Exactly. And in Princess Bride when he comes back. Yes. Where do you think nato is and what should be done about it . So to stick with the tortured analogy here, improperly stimulated, you know. Not braindead. In fact, as i said we share a common history with so many of these Eastern European countries. We share common western values. I understand our distinctions between every nation, every country, but they are our best shot and we are their best shot. This is why macron spoke up. Because i believe that so many european leaders fervently hope that we could breathe more life back into nato, and i believe its in the best interest of our country to do that. I also relatedly think its important for us to try and establish analogous relationships with pacific countries im going back to the indopacific question you started with. So i know aipac is not a mutual security alliance, but it could evolve into something more robust come into something more ambitious, and you know, look, our values and our alliance system, not the first to conceive of this idea, our greatest assets, geopolitically speaking, and the chinese, the chinese have to pay others. The chinese have two higher partners. The United States genuinely has friends and allies and like any friendship they need to be cultivated and sustained to endure. President erdogan of turkey is going to be visiting washington soon, and when we think about nato and the problems with nato, turkey has a way of coming to the fore. What do you think, what is the message you think the United States should be giving president erdogan . The yogi berra message, when you come to a fork in the road, take it, right . You cant have it both ways. You cannot at once purchased russian weapon systems, in this case the s400, the air Defense System which is designed to shoot down the most sophisticated americanmade military aircraft. You cant at once do that and remain a high level partner of other nato countries. So i dont know precisely how this gets resolved but i think thats the message that needs to be said. And here again Work Together with our nato allies to figure out a path forward. I do understand theres some competing dynamics with laying down the law but also wanting to make sure you dont fully push erdogan into the russian orbit. Understanding that there will be another leader or set of leaders who follow erdogan, and then they follow that model and as opposed to the erdogan autocratic model. All of these things will have to be factored into how we scope any sanctions regime that we might decide to impose in any future actions. I eagerly awaiting this meeting and the readout from the conversation. Okay. One of the requirements for having for strong form pulses having a strong domestic economy. There are a lot of people in the United States who would wonder why were spending all this money on other Peoples Security or aid to other countries when we have so many problems here at home. How do we build that economy and how do we build that consensus at home for a more active Foreign Policy overseas . Sure. So we build the economy by following sort of macroeconomic basics. We need a favorable tax regime, not just with respect to the domestic environment but with respect to international taxation. We recently made significant improvements on that front. We need favorable regulatory environment. We need trained people so we actually need further investment in human capital, especially i would say for rankandfile americans, those who dont aspire to attend a fouryear college. We are trying to rethink higher education, thats a key part of our National Security because as you said, to the extent our economy grows larger, we didnt have the wherewithal to invest in the military technology, occasionally the foreign assistance that is required to advance our values and to defend our values. The other component here is immigration reform. Look, i stayed a bit of economic. I know there are two ways to grow an economy. One is to make individual workers more productive. Another is to bring in more workers. I havent figured out how to nudge individuals into having significantly more children through a public policy. And so in absence of that we should embrace the Great American tradition of inviting others into the country to he