We have to do more outreach into the hispanic and africanamerican community. I think the ideas that we offer to those can to those communities are ideas of empowerment, toys, ideas of improving your station in life but if we dont show up, we cannot have those conversations, so it may sound simple to say, but showing up is going to be a big part of that equation. It we can be present we can have a conversation, and if we can have a conversation, we can persuade people of our ideas. Host thank you for joining us. Guest thank you for the opportunity. Host tomorrow, with talk about the conservative agenda and cpac from matt schlapp. Will also hear from ron pollack. Thanks so much for joining us today. Washington journal will be back tomorrow. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] next, a discussion on the obama administrations foreignpolicy goals with deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken. Then a discussion on Cyber Security with nsa manager nsa director mike rogers. On monday, deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke about u. S. Foreignpolicy issues. Among the topics, iran has nuclear program, relations with china and russia, and the failed ceasefire agreement between ukraine and russia. The former deputy security advisor also discussed president s policy priorities and u. S. Leadership in the world. This is about an hour and 20 minutes. Before we start, i want to introduce general powell who has been giving me questions to ask. General powell, what question should we start with . If you dont know, im not going to tell you. Youve got a great group here and im sure youre going to have an excellent discussion. And i think tony is uniquely qualified to deal with the issues of the day and to answer the questions that might arise. In an earlier session walter and i spent an hour and a half talking about these issues. But doing it in a way thats going to be for teenagers, kids, high school kids. Which is where i spend most of my time with students now. Because nothing i could do about my past, little i could do about the future, except watch it. But theres a lot i can do about the real future, which is our youngsters coming along in a nation thats going to be increasingly minority. Weve got to prepare these minority kids for the leadership positions that will be waiting for them. Thats kind of my passion and i thank walter for his support in this over the years. I thank the Aspen Institute for what they do on a daily basis. Now ask a question, for gods sakes, dont just sit there. Thank you very much, general. Its my pleasure to introduce the deputy secretary of state tony blinken whos been a great Public Servant and also a friend of the Aspen Institute. I know youre about to embark on a trip this coming week, so why dont you just open up by telling us what youre doing and what we should be doing about it. Walter, thank you very much. Its great to be here with all of you. I have to say, following secretary powell even briefly makes me empathize with two people in particular. Alan and rossy. They were the act that followed the beatles on the ed sullivan show. So with that said, actually thought id spend a few minutes, then we can get into the specifics of that with you walter on some things well be doing next week, including going to ukraine and visiting with our close European Partners. Just sort of stepping back for a second and putting some of where we are in a little bit of perspective, because there are constant narratives out there about u. S. Leadership or not, u. S. Retreat from the world or not. And i think its useful to create a little context for the discussions that were about to have. I would maintain that never has the United States and its government been more engaged in more places than at this char this particular time. And if you look at what weve done in recent months and in recent years mobilizing, quite literally, International Coalitions and countries to deal with isil, to deal with ebola, to deal with Climate Change, to deal with ukraine and afghanistan, you see that leadership in action. You saw it recently this summer when we brought the leaders of 50 african countries to washington for the first African Leaders summit here in washington connecting them with the private sector, putting in place a new foundation for moving forward on growth, on collective security, and building institutions. You saw it in Central America, the Vice President brought together countries of the Interamerican Development bank to propose a new deal for Central America where, if their leaders stand up and take responsibility for dealing with problems of governance, of corruption, of security, we and likeminded countries in the region will support them. And you see it in asia. I just got back from japan south korea, and china. And you see it in an effort thats been ongoing for several years, that is the socalled rebalance, where we are in a very material and concrete way building institutions, strengthening our partnerships with existing allies building new partnerships with new ones opening up even further to trade through tpp. And building a more cooperative relationship with china even as we deal directly with our differences. And youre seeing it in places like iran and cuba. Think about this. The change that was made with cuba, the possibility of an agreement with iran at least on the nuclear program, opens the prospect in the space of about nine months, two of the most difficult elements in the psychology of American Foreign policy for the last decades will be in a new and different place. Doesnt solve the problems. Well still have, if we do get a nuclear agreement, acute problems with the way iran acts in the region and beyond. But quite significant. And the reason i say all this again, because there is this notion somehow that america is in retreat or is not leading. Again, i think nothing could be further from the truth. Maybe the best way to test the proposition is to think of what is probably a Favorite Movie among many people in this room at least one that youre subjected to just before christmas every year, its a wonderful life. We know what happened to bedford falls when George Bailey was out of the picture. We know what would happen in each of these instances i just talked about if the United States was out of the picture. Imagine where we would be for all of the deficiencies and challenges that remain, where would we be without the United States in the campaign against isil . Where would we be when it comes to dealing with Climate Change . Where would we be on ebola ukraine, et cetera . The fact of the matter is we are leading. So the question really should be and the debate should center around, how are we leading . With what means, toward what ends . That is the proper subject for debate and one that im very happy to engage. Now, you were going to say that youre going next week to europe, mainly to deal with the ukraine issue. Explain what that trip is about and what youre going to do. Well, we have secretary horace is in europe now, hes working on iran, hes also working closely with our European Partners on ukraine. It is a very challenging situation. Let me put it in perspective. Because i think there too its important that we have specifics. There are a couple of big principles at stake in ukraine. Because you can make the argument that what happens in ukraine doesnt go to our fundamental strategic interests. But i think when you look at the principles at stake there really is a lot here that we need to be mindful of and it explains why weve been so focused on this and why weve been leading the effort to put pressure on russia to reverse what is going on in ukraine. First, the notion you can change the status quo by force in particular a big country can do that to a small one, is not a Police Department we want to is not a precedent we want to allow to stand in the beginning of the 21st century. Were that to happen, i think youd see serious and very negative repercussions, not just in europe, but in other parts of the world. Second, and this is something that doesnt get a lot of attention. When i served in the clinton separation, one of the great in the Clinton Administration, one of the great achievements early on was making sure that the successor countries to the soviet union that inherited Nuclear Weapons belarus, kazakhstan, ukraine actually gave up those Nuclear Weapons. And in the case of ukraine, the deal was this. They said, well give them up but we want our sovereignty and territorial integrity guaranteed. And three countries signed on to those guarantees. The United States, the United Kingdom, and russia. Imagine what this says now if we allow russia to, in effect ignore and tear up that agreement, the socalled budapest memorandum many of you are familiar with. What does it say to a country like north korea that has Nuclear Weapons and were trying to persuade to give them up . What does it say to a country like iran that doesnt yet have Nuclear Weapons, were trying to get iran to forswear them, if the kind of assurances the countries with Nuclear Weapons want to give them up are in effect ignored . Big things at stake here. I was just rereading russia hand where he talks about negotiating that. That budapest memorandum actually commits and obligates us to certain things. Will you explain what those obligations are . We made a commitment to stand with two other countries, ironically, for several propositions. And critical among them were the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of ukraine. And that has been grossly violated over the last year. So where are we . I think there are theres a good news piece of this and a bad news piece of this. The good news is this. Because of the pressure we were able to exert with president obama leading throughout this process in working with the europeans, getting them to exert the pressure with us, keeping the unity that was so necessary to making that pressure effective, we did create space for ukraine to have two successful elections and produce probably the most effective government that its had since its been independent. We created space for ukraine to sign the Association Agreement with the european union, which was part of the cause of the crisis in the first place. But what we havent seen unfortunately, is the separatist land grab fueled by russia supplied by russia, organized in many cases by russia that has not stopped. There was a basis for stopping it in the mins agreements. The mihnnsk agreements. The first ones concluded in september, now an Implementation Plan that was agreed by the countries in question just a couple of weeks ago with germany and frances leadership. Theres a clear way out there. If russia makes good on the commitments it made in these agreements there is what we call an offramp. If russia takes that offramp the pressure thats been exerted, the sanctions that have been exerted, those begin to be removed. You always have the crimea problem and thats significant and thats not going away any time soon and the pressure wont go away there. But for the east it could and it should. Russia is playing a huge strategic cost for what president putin has gained it in in ukraine. We see the devastating impact on the economy, taking deeper and deeper root. Weve seen capital flight of a rather extraordinary proportion. More than 150 billion over the last year. Weve seen a virtual standstill in foreign direct investment. Weve seen the ruble at an alltime low, despite the fact that theyve spent over 100 billion in reserves to try and bail it out. Weve seen the country get ratings of junk bond status from the major rating agencies. Weve seen growth go from about 2. 5 to zero, theyre basically in a recession. The drivers of the economy in the future have actually been singled out for the sanctions program, particularly the Energy Sector where the Technology Russia needs to actually take the next step in exploiting more difficult resources will be denied them. So this is not a good path. Also, its worth pointing out that to the extent the russians have gained crimea and may now have this foothold in the east they really have lost ukraine. The country is now more united and more focused and westernoriented than its ever been in its history of independence. Nato is more energized than its been in recent years. There is now a greater seriousness of purpose about Energy Security in europe than weve seen in recent years. In other words, strategically president putin has precipitated virtually everything he sought to prevent. My concern is that hes been left with playing the nationalist card because theres not much else left to play. The combination of the sanctions, obviously the fall in oil prices, mismanagement of the economy, all of those things dont give him a strong economic hand to play. So you play the nationalist card and it work in the shortterm. You see that in his numbers. The problem with the nationalist card is you have to keep playing it. As soon as you stop playing it then people start to focus on all the things that are going wrong. Thats why we try and continue to try to propose an offramp that allows him to move away from the direction that this is going. Right now, the critical thing is to see the obligations and commitments made in mincing, minkssk, both in september and the Implementation Plan that was reached a week or so ago. Those commitments need to be implemented. There needs to be a ceasefire. The heavy weapons need to be pulled pack. Ukraine has certain obligations too in terms of moving forward on decentralization legislation. Critically, the International Border has to be restored between russia and ukraine. Absent that border its basically russia has a free hand to throw if that doesnt happen do we arm the ukrainians . This is something that has been on the table and remains on the table as a possible course of action. Let me say a couple of things. First, we provided over the last nine months or so about 150 120 million, 130 million worth of security assistance. Its not just the infamous meals ready to eat. By the way, meals ready to eat are kind of important. If your soldiers arent eating theyre probably not going to be able to do a good job. Beyond that weve had counter radars that have been very important, night vision goggles, kevlar vests, et cetera cetera. We dont think that this conflict is going to be solved militarily. And the hard part about thinking about lethal assistance, even defensive, to the ukrainians, is that you do that and the russians are likely to match and it top it and double it and triple it. So where does that lead . On the other hand, theres obviously a compelling case to be made for helping the ukrainians defend themselves against aggression. Thats what weve been doing and thats why the question of additional defensive assistance remains very much on the table. Let me move to iran. Were going to do that, then im going to open it up because everybody here im sure has questions. Secretary kerrys been in geneva this weekend and he seems now to be getting closer and i think has even told people at the state department, perhaps in repair in prepare in case there is an agreement, how were going to sell it, what were going to do with congress. Can you give me the outlines what was you think that agreement could be . So where we are, first of all, is weve done a lot of hard work. And the secretarys done extraordinary work in trying to get the elements of an agreement in place. Were not there yet. Whether well get there as we sit here today, i cant tell you. We are making progress. Serious discussions, hard discussions. And moving, but were not yet there. But at the heart, any agreement has to do a couple of things. And this is what it should be judged on if we get there. The most critical thing is, as a practical matter, it has to cut off irans pathways to fissile material for a nuclear weapon. So what does that mean . It means that they have potentially a pathway through their facilities that are uraniumbased. Tauns, which has most things on the surface. That as a practical matter needs to be cut off. They have a plutonium program at the iraq reactor. That too needs to be cut off. And then the fourth pathway, that is a covert program, needs to be dealt with, principally through transparency inspections, access, so that we have confidence that they wont be able to pursue that. Now, what wed be looking at, what we have been looking at and the measure that weve set is, we want to make sure that on all of these pathways, we have confidence that were iran to break out of them, that is to decide to renege on its commitments or cheat, that it would take at least a year for iran to produce enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon. Did israel initially agree to that framework . There is a look, i think from the israeli perspective from everyones perspective, if we could achieve zero enrichment in iran, that would be great. So i think if you ask the israelis i suspect theyd continue to say that would be their objective. The fact is iran has mastered the fuel cycle. We cant sanction that away, we cant bond that away, we cant we cannot bomb that away, we cannot argue that away. Most of our partners i think have accepted that that proposition. The question is not whether or not you say most of our partners, does that include israel . Im talking about the ones who are negotiating with us, that is in this group in the p5 1. The