THE ASPEN INSTITUTE ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL 2016

Transcription

1 THE ASPEN INSTITUTE ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL 2016 GLOBAL AFFAIRS: OUR AGE OF INSECURITY HOMELAND INSECURITY: HOW MUCH DANGER DO WE REALLY FACE IN THE WORLD? Paepcke Auditorium Aspen, Colorado Thursday, June 30,

2 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS DAVID PETRAEUS Partner & Chairman, KKR Global Institute Visiting Professor, CUNY Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School WOLFGANG ISCHINGER Chairman, Munich Security Conference JANE HOLL LUTE Special Coordinator, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General, United Nations DAVID ROTHKOPF Director, President, and CEO Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Trustee, The Aspen Institute * * * * * 2

3 HOMELAND INSECURITY: HOW MUCH DANGER DO WE REALLY FACE IN THE WORLD? (12:00 p.m.) MR. BARNABO: I'm Gary Barnabo from Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz Allen has been a proud underwriter of the Aspen Ideas Festival for 12 years, since inception. It's always good to be here. I know many of you feel the same way, absolute allstar panel here this afternoon. Hopefully, you've all had a chance to wolf down a hotdog, but you're in the right place for this discussion on Homeland Insecurity, How Much Do We Really Have to Fear? I think asking an essential question, how worried do we need to be? Terrorism, cyber threats, political risk, economic challenges, pandemics, disease, how concerned should we really be? David Rothkopf from the Foreign Policy Group is our moderator. He is the editor of Foreign Policy magazine, the president and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, a global advisory firm and the author of a wonderful book called National Insecurity, which really dives into the mechanics of national security policy making in the United States. So you are in wonderful hands. David, over to you. MR. ROTHKOPF: Thank you very much, welcome to all of you for what will certainly be the most disturbing panel of your day. (Laughter) We have got with us, an absolutely great story panel, including Wolfgang Ischinger, who chairs the Munich Security Conference, which is kind of like the Aspen Ideas Festival for security nerds from around the world, and then we have General David Petraeus, who is one of the leading security nerds from the United States. MR. PETRAEUS: And proud of it. MR. ROTHKOPF: And proud of it, exactly. We are proud of you. And then we've got Jane Lute. Jane and I did this routine yesterday, we are back by popular demand. Jane was the deputy secretary at the Homeland Security. She knows a ton 3

4 about a ton of things. She is working at the UN now, she does a lot on cyber security and I want to kind of have one of those panels, you know, we get this door closed here, we will just have a private discussion among us in this room, okay. Because there are, when we get to these issues of homeland security and security more broadly, a bunch of things that ought to be said that can't be said in public. If a politician were to stand up and say terrorism is a problem but it's not such a huge problem, they'd be done. And yet we would all benefit from trying to put these issues into some perspective. You know, I used to work with a guy named John Gannon (phonetics) who was a deputy at the agency, a really good sound guy, and from September 11, I actually stood next to him and Tony Lake and Susan Rice on September 11, 2001 in our office watching on the television as this happened. And from that moment onward, one of his mantras was "They're not 12 feet tall." The terrorists are not 12 feet tall; try to keep it in perspective, because when it gets out of perspective, they win, that's the objective. The objective is to create terror and so the tally of a terrorist success, the metric isn't how many people are killed, it's how many people are frightened, how many laws are changed, how many policies are changed as a result of that. And so I want to start with that and, you know, I want to sort of go through what we see as -- as another friend of mine was fond of quoting Jack London -- as the wolves closest to the sled. And I want to sort of see, which ones we think we ought to be attending to, and which ones we think ought to be put in some perspective. And so Dave let me start with you. Let's take this terrorism issue and try to put it in perspective, because you came up in the military at a time when there were existential threats, and where we were trying to contain and manage those existential threats. And we seem to have gone from that era to equating these new threats with being existential threats, and I am wondering if that isn't potentially a mistake? MR. PETRAEUS: Well, yes -- first of all, let me just say thanks for the opportunities. It is great to be with you David and with Jane and with Wolf and back at another Ideas 4

5 Festival. You are absolutely right to say they are not 12 feet tall or 10 feet tall or whatever it may be. The problem is there are a lot of them, and the total height of these on a given day can seem quite considerable. But at the end of the day, the Islamic extremists threat to identify that which is so significant, which is changing the landscape in the Middle East, which has created this single biggest challenge for our European partners in terms of domestic political situations in many decades; a far bigger challenge than the Euro crisis; has certainly led to or been part of violence here in the United States. But it is not an existential threat and so it may be the dog closest to the sled right today on (inaudible) and that situation room, talking to those who have been in the real situation room. But in the real situation room, I think you would be seized with a lot of other issues, because you are trying to get ahead of some of these issues. And whether it's the cybercrime, cyber threats that we discussed in a previous panel today, whether it is Putin, North Korea, the potential for nuclear proliferation, and that getting into the hands of Islamic extremists would be potentially closer, not an existential threat but a very, very significant threat, enabling them to do damage in the likes that we have never even really seen or contemplated in the past. But then all the way on up to what I think or actually sometimes overlooked, and these are the challenges to the so-called liberal world order that the systems, the structures, the norms, the principles, whether formal or informal, that have stood the world a reasonably good stead for many decades, since they were established in the wake of World War II are under greater challenge now I think than they have been at any time during that period, at least certainly since the end of the Cold War. I think that that's very significant as well. It's not the wolf closest to the sled, but it's one that informs the overall context through which, we are sledding and is something that I think we have to be very concerned about as well. MR. ROTHKOPF: I don't want to tip the balance of this conversation as the moderator, but I do want to ring a little bell and say ding, ding, ding because I think that's the big issue. 5

6 MR. PETRAEUS: We didn't rehearse this; we had no preparation for this panel, whatsoever. MR. ROTHKOPF: But I think it's true, I think -- you know, first of all the security order that came up after the Second World War, is past retirement age. We haven't spent much time revitalizing it, whether it's the Atlantic Alliance or the fact that there really isn't much of one in the Pacific, even as issues arise there. The mechanisms of managing security, whether it's NPT or whether it's domestic institutions are facing problems, there's general distrust of institutions. Europe, well, let's just stop there. (Laughter) Europe, the institutions of Europe seem to be at risk, and I don't, you know, I mean I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the Atlantic Alliance is still the foundational alliance of global security, how much should we be worried about that? MR. ISCHINGER: Well, I think we need to worry about a lot. I don't disagree with a word that was mentioned, but I think that we face a double or actually a triple crisis. First, there is a crisis at the level of what we call, in our language, global governance. The Security Counsel of the United Nations, an institution created by the United States by the way, not by China or Russia has become actually rather dysfunctional. It's been quite a long time since they last resolved an important conflict. Look at the inability to get their hands around the Ukraine crisis or even more importantly the Syrian war et cetera. So that's the first reflection point. How can we strengthen or re-strengthen global institutions and the respect for some kind of global rule of law, right. Second, it seems to me, not in all parts of the world but in parts of the world that matter, in the Middle East, in Africa, in the greater Middle East, there is an important crisis of the nation state. We have, as we speak, the clock is ticking, and each year we seem to have more countries around the Mediterranean in Sub-Sahara and Africa, looking at Afghanistan as it was and as it is and as it will be. 6

7 We have states that are either failing or are failed and are thus becoming almost automatically, potential home bases for the bad guys. So we need to make sure that we have a strategy that allows us in the West to help countries prevent drifting into this kind of failure to control their own territory and to have decent government that's a historic task. So unfortunately, I don't have any good news to proclaim here. I believe we are in this for a long time, I think the threat represented by ISIL is not going to go away, even if we were to eliminate it in, let's say, Syria or Libya because like a Hydra they are coming -- they will reappear at some other place in the region. And my last point is returning to Africa. From a European point of view, it's important to note that the number of people killed, the number of victims created by Boca Haram in Africa far exceeds the number of victims created so far by the Islamic State. MR. ROTHKOPF: Well that's -- but I think that's an important perspective and I do think every once in a while we ought to let facts guide what our fears are. You know I mean the reality is we look at the poll of the top 10 fears of American people, it tends to be things like public speaking, flying, things that will never kill anybody, when it really should be sugar, which is killing more people than any of the things that we have talked about here. I want to get to you on this point but Dave extended two fingers but he wants to hop in and something that Wolf just said. MR. PETRAEUS: I think it's hugely important to underscore what Wolf said about un-governed spaces because particularly in the Islamic world they are going to be exploited, it's not a question of if, it is just when they will be exploited by extremists. The effects will not be contained to the area in which they are. You can't admire the problem until it goes away, US leadership is imperative in responding and it's a generational struggle. And that has to inform all that we do and we have to do it in a comprehensive way. You just can't drone strike your way out of this. These are serious lessons that I think we have to take to heart. It doesn't mean we do it all, it doesn't mean that we don't get as many partners and it doesn't mean that we don't get others to be on the frontlines whenever that's possible et 7

8 cetera, et cetera because it is going to be a generational struggle. But the other point that Wolf had, which is that you could put a stake through heart of an individual organization of an individual leader and we will do lots more of that. You can't put a stake through the heart of the ideas that are inspiring some of this and that's I think a challenge that's going to be with us again for a generation. MR. ROTHKOPF: Let me pick up on that Jane, you know, we talk -- I don't know, maybe it's because we are Americans but we talk a lot about personalities and brand names. So we talk about Osama bin Laden or we talk about al-qaeda or we talk about ISIL. When the problem is extremism and we discover when you decapitate one group and another one emerges, or a franchising. You know I mean I see the threat posed by ISIL being that it started world's first open source terrorist organization. So anybody can be a member, you don't have to be in a hierarchy, all you have to do is you know declare allegiance and it's a force multiplier for them and it makes them seem much bigger than they are. Are we focused on the right bad guys or the right bad actors, or are we too guided by what dominates the headlines? MS. HOLL LUTE: I think we are way, way too dominated by a national security mindset. And I think we need to understand the difference between looking at these issues with a national security mindset as opposed to a homeland security mindset because they are entirely different. National security is strategic, it's centralized, it's top driven. Homeland security is transactional, it's decentralized, it's bottom driven, driven by the states and the localities of this country. You know in national security you know the watchword is unity of command, in homeland security it's unity of effort. You know information is shared in the national security setting on the basis of need to know, in homeland security it's duty to share. You know so there is an entirely different relationship between fear and the public and the leadership as against the national security or homeland security. In national security, the country has to be attacked before the nation will go to war. In homeland security, if you are a society, you are a community and you are fearful for your lives or your children's safety the mayor and the police chief are fired. 8

9 So there is a very different orientation on these problems and we talk, you know, sort of in the -- I have enormous respect and I have been colleagues and friends with all of you. I mean, and learned from all of you for generations -- decades. (Laughter) MR. ROTHKOPF: Wow, she is trying to lift us up and she casts us down. MS. HOLL LUTE: You know I wasn't going there, I wasn't going there. I am way older than I look. But I think it's really important, you know, because when you are dealing with these problems, this is all interesting how we think about it and it's important that we need a theory of the case. Let's take terrorism; what's been our theory of the case for 12 or 15 years following 9/11. Our theory of the case is the bad guys are out there trying to come here that's what we think. How are we going to deal with that? We are going to find them and fix them in a military sense, abroad. We have three tools. We have an intelligence tool, considerable; a military, best in the world; and we have our partnerships, our security partnerships with NATO and with other countries bilaterally. That's great. What if they are here? What if they are already here? What terrorist strike can succeed in this country unless there is already a basis of support? How good is our intelligence capability going to serve us, military deployed domestically, the Brits, NATO not really. So we need to think about the questions that you are raising, which are the real questions from the perspective of homeland security this country can protect itself. We can protect ourselves. And as we said for a very long time, we need to be prepared not scared. And the homeland security agenda of looking at borders and immigration and of cyber security and of national resilience are all tools that we need to put on the table. MR. ROTHKOPF: Yeah, I think you know -- by the way embedded in Jane's comment there is something else to take away. You know we sometimes look at bad actors or external threats and we say this is where the risk comes from. But very often the risks are magnified or exists more greatly closer to home, 9

10 whether its absence of leadership, institutional weakness, growing divisions within society that organically fuel some of these things. And so, you know, we can go and eliminate five terrorists and not address the core problem that put us at risk. You agree with that? MR. PETRAEUS: Yeah, I mean, this is why again, you have to have a comprehensive approach. This is more than just again killing or capturing bad guys with either precision strikes or Delta force raids or whatever. You have got to get at the root issues. Now, you have got to do it in a way that is informed by the knowledge that this is going to be generational in terms of longevity, and therefore, you've got to be as cost effective, you've have got to be as inclusive with your allies. By the way among our most important partners in these endeavors are Islamic countries. This is much more of an existential threat to Muslim countries than it is certainly to our countries, as big as the biggest challenge caused by the tsunami of refuges from Syria is certainly for our European partners. But -- and so therefore disparaging them or their religion is not a particularly helpful way about going about getting partners. And by the way in most of the successful cases that we've had or areas where we have made periods of sustained progress, we have inevitably had very important Muslim partners and institutions of Muslim countries working together with us. MR. ROTHKOPF: So disparaging them is one thing that we see some candidates do. Another thing we have seen a prominent US candidate recently do is disparage our allies. And he started -- by the way the President of United States you know said that some of our allies in the Middle East were free riders. Probably not so great for the alliance that you are talking about there. And then Donald Trump starts talking about how the Europeans are free riders. These are global problems. They can't be solved by any individual nation acting alone. Do you feel that a Europe that's weak institutionally, stressed by flows of immigration, unsure of its own future, and still reluctant to have any kind of foreign policy that's a real foreign policy that they can follow through on is up to the challenge of being a partner? How do you feel about the Donald Trump criticisms? 10

11 MR. ISCHINGER: I don't like it. And no I -- MR. ROTHKOPF: There is not a big approach from constituency, right? MR. ISCHINGER: As you know, if I were still, you know, a senior official in the German government I wouldn't say what am I now saying because now I speak as an individual and it's only my own responsibility. I think for the leadership role of the United States, which we will need even more urgently because of these issues in the future than we needed in the recent past. It would be an unmitigated disaster, if you ask me, if Mr. Trump were elected because I think that would create at least for a while, a rise in uncertainty about the role of the United States. What about his comments about NATO? And what about his comments about dealing with all sorts of other allies? And do we really believe that he could, if he wanted to, strike a deal that would not be the advantageous to the West with Mr. Putin, who was been in office now for 15 years or so; who is probably at least as smart, in terms of handling national security issues; as Mr. Trump, so I am not happy about. MR. ROTHKOPF: Is at least? MR. ISCHINGER: At least, at least. (Laughter) But the other -- but let me come back to the, sort of, to the more serious part of the question about Europe. Jane made the point and I appreciate that from the US point of view. The focus has been primarily on how do we prevent bad guys from coming here and then of course you have to think about what if bad guys are here. We know in Europe that they are there, we know they are in France, we have just seen it happen. We know they are all over the place. It's probably a little miracle that in my own country, in Germany, no big terrorist attack has happened, knock on wood. It will be statistically unlikely that we will be spared forever, so we know they are there. We know that it's much easier for them to come into our countries because it's -- for all practical purposes, not possible to completely control these many, many different borders et cetera. It's a little easier for the United States 11

12 with only two neighbors and the open sea on both sides. In Europe this is more complicated. So our challenge is to make sure that this "Weak European Union" becomes stronger, where it matters. And one area where it matters is a more coordinated intelligence and homeland security effort. Quite frankly, I published a piece; a little while ago, which created quite a bit of excitement; I said in the United States of American -- I mean, correct me if I am wrong -- for the first 150 or almost 200 years they didn't have a federal police. And then for some reasons, they created the FBI, which is sort of a countrywide executive police institution. Has the point not arrived where in the European Union in order to hunt a terrorist from Sicily to Norway and back we need some kind of capacity to act that does not respect national borders, a transnational kind of police like "a European FBI." Well, you can imagine the reaction, some people said, "Great idea that's what we ought to do." Especially those who are in charge of homeland security, they think this is good. Others who are more concerned about privacy protection and about the rights of the individuals say the last thing we want is that a Spanish policeman, you know, shoots people in Denmark et cetera. So there are concerns, there are fears but I think that's what we need to do in Europe. And my last point would be this, there is admittedly a kind of a malaise in the European Union about the functioning of the EU, whether we call it a weak EU or an EU that is increasingly been disliked, look at Brexit et cetera. Part of the reason is that many of the projects which the European Union has correctly tried to advance have been seen by our broader public as elitist projects. And when you ask -- when you look at the polls, when you check what would people like to see the EU do for them, the one answer EU, where -- even in Britain -- you get a positive response, is security. People want to have the EU act as a security actor, not necessarily only in -- I mean our military forces in the context of NATO in Afghanistan in Mali, in other places. They also one the EU to provide more homeland security. So if you look at the expectations of the people there is actually a good basis on which to act and create a slightly stronger and more resilient homeland security structure in the EU. Is that going to happen in the next weeks or months? I am afraid not as 12

13 quickly as I would like to see it happen because we will be -- our leaders will be busy discussing Brexit, Brexit, Brexit and Ukraine and Syria. They are overwhelmed at the moment with all these other major crises. MR. ROTHKOPF: Go on Jane. MS. HOLL LUTE: I think there is a dimension of security again which you see vividly from the homeland perspective. I mean one of the things about the national security institutions of this country that -- you know by and large at the level of generalization, there is almost no interaction with the American public. Our intelligence community doesn't have a lot of interaction, it's not designed to with the American public. You know, the State department looks outward et cetera. You know the military, we have long lamented the fact that it's was not drawn broadly from the American public. Homeland Security, we interact with 5 to 7 million people a day. So you get very vivid feel for what people mean when they say security, you are absolutely right Wolfgang I believe it. People want to feel free from fear of attack. That's what they need fundamentally, at home and abroad. But they also want guarantees against the unbridled use of power that's the less articulated version of security. You know, I mean, I think whatever the next president faces, whomever she or he is they are going to have to lead the global recovery from the next six months because we are in for a very rough ride as we have this public conversation about all of these issues, all the while facing what people believe is a deteriorating sense of security, whether it's financial security or actual security. So what are the tools that we have in place to reassure people because people are angry everywhere. I mean and this is an anxiety based anger. You know this is not a purpose driven anger, when you have purpose-driven anger people kill each other. This is an anxiety based anger, we don't trust businesses, we don't trust the banks, we don't trust the media, we don't trust markets, in many cases we don't trust governments or institutions. And I think the anxiety stems from the fact 13

14 that we may not know how to architect trusted institutions at scale in the public space. We are trying to -- and we are seeing that in evidence again and again and again. You mentioned earlier the UN is a weak organization, compared to what? I mean we -- our institutions, you know, their weight bearing effectiveness for social problems of enormous complexity has been called under question now across the board. So as we address proximate threats, what am I afraid of, what am I going to take action on because I am afraid? And what responsibility should we assign to individuals, should we assign to communities, should we assign to police forces? Security is typically something communities assigned to their governments to handle. We want safe streets, governments should run the police. We want to save country, government -- you run the military, et cetera. And here again the difference between national security and homeland security is stark. I mean Washington is not the national command authority as it is the national security, it's the federal partner. So the FBI, an investigative agency at the federal level has really defined and limited responsibilities compared to, you know, the state ,000 state and local law enforcement in this country. So we need to look at both parts of the picture. MR. ROTHKOPF: Okay, I'm going to open it up questions in five minutes. But I don't want to fall into the trap that I was trying to avoid at the very beginning, which is, it's easy to talk about terrorism, it's especially easy because of what you just said, people don't want to be afraid of an attack. But leadership, it seems to me, is sometimes about saying this is what we should be focused on, this is where the real risk lies, let's be able to move pass this. And there are some countries where there have been multiple terrorist attacks where they are able to manage them and digest it and handle it a little bit better and it causes less terror as a consequence. Apart from that, Dave as you look at it, a new President is coming in, what are the risks that ought to be prioritized, if you were advising this next President, as she came in. See what I did there? (Laughter) And she said, you know, where should we be focused, where should we allocate our resources? You listed some things, you said cyber, you said the rise of the emerging powers, we 14

15 talked about Africa as a place, you know there is a whole of host of things. And we know that in terms of terror attacks a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of Americans die as a result of terror attacks than as of -- the use of guns in the United States in sort of the normal course of action, 50 or 60 or 100 a year versus 30,000 year. MR. PETRAEUS: 33,000. MR. ROTHKOPF: So it's grotesquely out of proportion, and one should be much, of course, a source of concern. Where would you focus? MR. PETRAEUS: Well, I think the biggest challenge is to avoid focusing too much on the dog closest to the sled and you do get sucked into that. You know, I have been again in these different organizations, privileged to lead very large ones, and it's almost inevitable that you get wrapped into that day's dog closest to the sled -- that day's significant threat - - that day's topic de jure in the morning shows, in the afternoon shows and what will be on the Sunday shows. And so that's the risk actually. And the antidote is to make sure that you don't end up, you know, nose to glass on that particular issue or stuck to that issue and unable to address all of them. Because I think what the Commander-in- Chief really has to be is like that guy in the circus, who gets a bunch of plates spinning and then goes back and gives them the right spin to keep them all up there. And you know, you keep adding to it to the extent that you can, with your bureaucracy you do that. Certainly there are limits. You know, Jean, knows very well, I mean there is only one situation, you can only have so many meetings during the day. I mean, we used to calculate how many crises, every now and then waiting for another NSC meeting or a principles committee meeting, just joking, how many crisis can the country handle at a time? MR. ROTHKOPF: But the people from inside felt that they were too many meetings -- MR. PETRAEUS: But -- and that's why, it is three to five, that are really pressing at a given time. And the challenge I think for the Commander-in-Chief is actually to look at other than just that three to five. By the way the deputies 15

16 of the these different organizations; which Jane was, of course, and Michael Morell, my deputy at the agency; they spend almost all day at the White House. I mean Michael would disappear after the morning meeting and sometimes you wouldn't see him again until that night because they just have deputies after deputies after deputies, that is the one that meets at high frequency. And again the challenge has to be focused on additional topics is again the long range issue here, that's why I went from the very close fight, if you will, the tactical to the very strategic global issue that I think is the big challenge, which is the challenges to the so-called liberal world order and all of these different organizations, norms, principles and so forth that have stood us in reasonably good stead. And figuring out how do you deal with a China that benefited more from this system than any other country during recent decades because they achieved something no other country ever has, which is really two decades of almost unbroken doubledigit growth in their GDP, it is unprecedented. But they're are among the biggest challengers of this system whether it's building islands where there weren't any in the South China Sea, floating what will be the World -- the court on the law of the sea, aerospace identification zones that interfere with other countries, just one after the other. And dissatisfied with the IMF so you create the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, again we can go on and on and on. MR. ROTHKOPF: But I think it's a perfect - MR. PETRAEUS: These are issues that you've got to focus on even as you are knocking down the close fight targets. I mean you can't let them come over the walls they say, you know they're right outside the wire, you have also got to be engaging in the deep fight -- that is the challenge. MR. ROTHKOPF: I have written two books on how the US national security process works, and I've been in the government and talked to a lot of people in every single administration. I have spoken to every single national security advisor, the first thing that they say is, "We do foresight really badly." And this is -- 16

17 MR. PETRAEUS: And this is what you're going to have to do. And if you have to have a special cell that does nothing about -- think about these long range, you know the beauty of commanding what is the main effort of your country at a particular time in the military is you can get the most talented people. I had -- I knew every Rhodes scholar in the US military was, and they were either working for me right then or had just finished working for me or were going to work for me. And we'd have these cells called the Commanders Initiatives Group that would be thinking about these longer range issues. And again that's the kind of development that I think you have to got pursue so that you just don't get riveted to dealing with that day's issues. MR. ROTHKOPF: A number of you would like to speak, I know a lot of people here would too. So what I would like to do is -- are there people with microphones in here? So what I would like to do is, if you got a question, raise your hand, identify yourself -- stand up, identify yourself and ask your question in the form of question, keep it brief. And then we will try to get some answers, because we've got only 20 minutes. So let's go to this gentleman here. MR. MALLARD: Frank Mallard (phonetic) for David Petraeus. In the course of your talk, you mentioned the cooperation you were getting out of the Islamic countries. Could you elaborate on that? As far as I can see the cooperation is coming from countries like Saudi Arabia, which on one hand are helping you, on the other hand they are the greatest financial supportive of Wahhabism in which they are exporting and is creating most of the problems that exists within the Islamic world. MR. PETRAEUS: Sure. And let me just start with Saudi Arabia. First of all I think they are doing less of you talked about. There is on question of what they have done in the past. Indeed, the mosque in (inaudible) was one that was built with their money. I watched to a degree the transformation of Bosnia in the wake of their civil war serving there for a year. And in other countries as well. 17

18 But I can tell you that when I was commander vis Central Command -- actually Iraq Central Command, Afghanistan and the CIA, if we took anything to them about people that were financing extremists groups or anything like that, they would deal with it and they did it quite expeditiously because this is an existential threat from them much more than it is for us. Keep in mind that the current crown prince when he was then the deputy minister of interior and our single best partner for the fight against al Qaeda, when it came to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and really in the GCC writ large, Mohammed bin Nayef was nearly blown -- he was blown up, he just wasn't killed by a bomb that was designed and put inside the brother of the most talented and single most dangerous man in the world Ibrahim al- Asiri, who is this explosive expert in Yemen that we have been seeking for quite a long time. Beyond that you've got countries like the United Arab Emirates, which are helping enormously in a host of different ways, again a very comprehensive approach. The other members of the GCC by and large doing the same thing, we have got partnerships across North Africa with various countries. So again, if you -- by the way you can't deal in a country, you can't take action in a country, without that country either approving or at least in some cases providing tacit assent to what it is that you might do. The best of all is the active engagement. And you do see that as well right now in this partnership against the Islamic State that does include Muslim countries flying along side and certainly dropping bombs on some of the Islamic State targets. Although that -- some of that effort was diverted of course for the fight against the Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen, which is another whole challenge for that region and really for the world. MR. ROTHKOPF: And I think you would acknowledge -- and this -- any of you wish to speak about it -- that cutting the heads off of terrorists groups or killing terrorists doesn't address the extraneous problem, the only way to address it is to come up with a counter narrative to the extremist's narrative that is a positive narrative. And that's not going to be one the United States can offer, those countries must critically play the role. Right? MR. PETRAEUS: No. If you're going to counter the voices of extremism in cyber space and particularly now, and let's remember that the distinguishing feature, the single 18

19 differentiator of the Islamic State besides the fact that you have a leader actually who is willing to establish a caliphate is the expertise that they demonstrate in cyber space. And that is really a significant threat. It's been there in the past, al-qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had this Inspire magazine that was very important. And you may recall it was led by an American Yemeni who ultimately was killed along with the editor of Inspire. But at the end of the day, you've got to have credible voices, so these are voices in that language, in that dialect understanding the religion in a very scholarly way. And that is invaluable. And it's not something that is in great supply in the United States. MR. ROTHKOPF: If only we took our foreign policy magazines and web sites as seriously as they took. (Laughter) MR. PETRAEUS: Your subscription would jump. MR. ROTHKOPF: It would double to 20. MS. HOLL LUTE: I think it's -- I mean the one actor Dave did not mention is not Iran. I mean this region is not going to stabilize or succeed unless Iran successfully normalizes and back into the international community. Whatever you think about Iran, it is a strategic player in the region and more broadly. In addition, it has borne a very large burden with respective displaced populations and refugees. I mean there is -- it is a very complicated relationship that the United States has with Iran right now at this moment, you know, the US and Europe have not always agreed on the approach to Iran. But I think it's safe to say, in this particular region the historically great player, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt I mean these countries must succeed for this region to succeed. MR. ROTHKOPF: Next question. Yes, ma'am. MS. BARON: My name is Adrian Baron (phonetic) I am from California from LA. As a child we learned about speak softly but carry a big stick. And after dismissing a lot of the 19

20 propaganda in the media I want to know, do we have a big stick or is it really outdated equipment in case of an emergency? MR. PETRAEUS: We have the biggest stick in the world by a factor of -- I don't know what -- (Laughter) Look, let me again, you know, people are entitled to opinions but not their own facts. And the facts are that even with the cuts, and sequestration is the most horrible way to ever cut a budget. We have done some really dumb stuff, you know, it's not uncommon to hear people say on certain days that among the top five threats to our national security is Washington DC itself. But at the end of the day you know we are spending 600 billion on our military alone that is four times, yes China has increased dramatically, it's still four times what they have. One of the reasons that the US has to lead is because when it comes to the assets that are crucially important for the kinds of endeavors we're enabling; in Iraq, and to a degree in Syria, and some other countries, Afghanistan still; the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance armada architecture that we have, which is just not all that manned and unmanned platforms. It's the pipes, it's the communications, it's the 150 people that it takes to keep one of these in the air and analyze what's coming out of it, listen to it, arm it, fuel it, fly it, payload it, fuse the intelligence with everything else, on and on and do it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Then the precision strike, then the industrial strength ability to fuse intelligence that is so critical to what it is we're doing. Yes, we're still improving what we are doing as we rebuild what we took out of Iraq. and that's one reason that it would have been great if we could have kept some forces there. I am not convinced by any means that would have enabled us to have the influence to keep Prime Minister al-maliki from heading down the ruinous path he did with highly sectarian actions that undid all that we sacrificed so much to achieve during the surge and the subsequent three-and-half years. But we would have platforms, situational awareness, pipes all the rest of this stuff that would have been enabled to 20

21 us to get on the front foot against the Islamic State much more rapidly. And that matters because the sooner you can show that the Islamic state is a looser is the sooner it's no longer as effective in cyberspace. But make no mistake about it, our capabilities are more than all of the potential allies and partners around the world by several factors. And that's why again our leadership is absolutely indispensable. It doesn't mean we do it all, it doesn't mean we shouldn't have every ally and partner, we can. Churchill was right, you know, the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them, and all that stuff. But work with me here, I know it's lunchtime. But we have got an incredible capability and we've got to use it judiciously, cost effectively let others fight in the frontlines whenever possible et cetera, et cetera. But make no mistake about the capability that we have. And I would it's the same in virtually every area of governance, even extending into the diplomatic and development and other areas even though we have never funded them to the tune that they probably should have been. MS. HOLL LUTE: This is -- we can echo absolutely everything Dave is saying and not because I went to basic training in MR. PETRAEUS: Because we're professors together at West Point. MS. HOLL LUTE: West Point. (Laughter) MS. HOLL LUTE: I mean the United States can get anywhere in the world from Missouri. I mean, you know, we are really that much better than everybody else. MR. PETRAEUS: Without landing. MS. HOLL LUTE: Without landing. 21

22 MR. PETRAEUS: And come back without landing too. MS. HOLL LUTE: Without landing. MR. PETRAEUS: After doing something. MS. HOLL LUTE: So the question that has been at the heart of so many minds is what will the US do with this power. But as -- in Homeland Security what we discovered is every other country has borders, every other country is wrestling with immigration, every other country has a federal, state, local or federal center, periphery you know province problem. And they come to the US again and again and again. We could not open all of the bilateral Homeland Security dialogs that countries around the world wanted. Because they knew we were wrestling honestly with these operational problems in highly complex circumstances, where values compete, you know when borders on the one hand you want keep out people and things that might be dangerous, but we also want to expedite legitimate trade and travel, we want to keep out people who might be dangerous, but we want to welcome those who would enrich our culture and our economy. And we were wrestling with these. And despite what again -- whatever popular mythology may be out there, we are still a pretty special place. (Applause) MR. ROTHKOPF: Europe has a special relationship with borders. And I would like to just pick up on what Jean said because you had Schengen agreement, everything opened up within, and now you've got refuges, rising nationalism in a variety of different places and questions about whether this idea of openness can exist in an era with these kinds of threats? Where do you think that's going? MR. ISCHINGER: Well two points, first, there are good reasons for us in Europe to be self critical about the kinds of institutions and the kinds of things that we've created such as, you know, for example the euro, we didn't sufficiently create a hard enough sanctions to make sure that every single member of this euro system would actually not violate the rules. And more importantly, to the point here, when we created what we call the Schengen system in other words no 22

23 controls along the internal borders, but only controls around the outside borders of this rather large area comprising a majority now of European countries from the Mediterranean to the Arctic if you wish. The idea is a great idea and it has brought enormous economic benefit and it, of course, it means that even you as Americans can go from Denmark through Germany to Italy without ever encountering, without ever needing to show your passport. The problem is the same privilege can be enjoyed by our friend the terrorists. So the question is, have we sufficiently -- have we done enough to make the outside border control as effective as we should have made it. And the answer of course is no. When we created it, we did not reflect sufficiently about a situation where one of the countries responsible; let's say, Greece, or Italy, or a country with an outside border in the region of crisis, what if that one country is either unable or willing or both to do everything that's needed to control that border? Do we have a Plan B that can then be set in motion in order to make sure that the system works? The answer is, we did have the Plan B and we are now slowly grinding out a plan that would actually create a force, a European, a new European institution that would have efficient personnel to execute these border controls. So, yeah, I mean we are slowly learning. But if I may, let we add a second point. As important as the military capabilities are, and as important as it is that we in Europe also try to lift our defense expenditures up to a goal that we have all agreed to some time ago. Mainly, there was this famous 2 percent, as important as all of that is, I think, the threat of terrorism and fundamentalist extremism in Europe isn't going to go away only by showing and demonstrating and executing military strength. We need -- I echo what you said -- we need a comprehensive plan. Part of this comprehensive plan has got to be from a European point of view that we do not regard as we have done for more than a generation now. Our policies vis-à-vis the countries in Northern African, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East as recipients of charity, you know, classic foreign aid recipients, we make sure that people don't die from hunger or disease et cetera. We've got to -- even if it's painful, we have got to understand that would we need to create with these countries is 23

24 a security strategy, in which they can be partners and the strategy that will try to make sure that over the medium and longer-term we will prevent new failing states, and we will have resources to make sure that states that are about to fail can be rescued from becoming platforms for ISIL or Boko Haram et cetera, that's of course a huge task, I think we can do it. We need strong leadership support from the United States for that. And hopefully -- that would be my last point - - and hopefully the distraction created by, you know, aggressive behavior by Mr. Putin in Eastern Europe can at some point be eliminated so that we can focus on these homeland security and terrorism issues and so that we don't have to spend too much of our resource on hedging against what is perceived in Europe today as a renewed threat or at least potential threat from the East. MR. ROTHKOPF: I think that's an extremely good point. I'm afraid we don't have much time left. I think we will have a chance for one more question. But I want to put one button on that point. I had a conversation with the National Security Advisor of Jordan not too long ago and Jordan is an absolutely vital country in all of this. And I said, "What's the most important thing for you to maintain stability in Jordan and fight these things?" And he said, "That's easy," he said, "7 million jobs," he said we have to create jobs for people. MR. ISCHINGER: Absolutely. MR. ROTHKOPF: Now the problem is that when you say 7 million jobs you think of it as development, and when you think of its development for better for worse that ends up going to the children's table in the policy discussion, it's not taken seriously. And we have a bunch of impediments to solving these problems an other is our terminology. You know I call it semantic risk, right, if you call certain things soft power, you denigrate them, you make people think they are less important. But it is through soft power, it's through cultural outreach and diplomacy and education and interchange that you actually change belief systems. And if you don't change belief systems you can't fight these issues as well. So I would encourage all of you as you leave this room, never to use the term soft power again. Because what people believe, what they're willing to fight for, 24

25 who they're willing to support is actually the basis of all real power. Take one more question, somewhere in the back because we have been up close to the front. All right, is there somebody in the back there that you see? Okay, but very, very brief question, and we will try out to have a very quick answer. SPEAKER: Thanks, I will try to make it as brief as possible. When you look at China and you look at Russia, obviously we've pivoted to the Asian pivot -- and this is more for General Petraeus, I think, but you're free to answer obviously -- is China's more bullying for just sort of respect versus Russia has more longer term desires to sort of regain its overall dominance from a balance of power perspective? MR. ROTHKOPF: Thirty seconds. MR. PETRAEUS: Look they both pose challenges. In the case of China they're both partners as well as competitors. Russia, clearly, there is a desire to reestablish as much as is possible the former Soviet Union or at least the Russian empire and destroy the world stage, doing so with a significant decline in revenue because of the collapse of energy markets. China, the increasing assertiveness is very concerning. And again, as I mentioned earlier, when you put the two of these together these are the primary assaults on this liberal world order that has stood the globe in reasonably good stead over the last number of decades. MR. ISCHINGER: Very, very brief. MR. ROTHKOPF: Ten seconds. MR. ISCHINGER: Just to underline the point, I mean China is today and will be even more in the future, the biggest or at least one of the biggest economic powers right? Russia is not a significant power in that respect. The gross national product of Russia is smaller than that of Italy, slightly larger than that of Spain. In other words, when we think about the threat coming out of Russia they can't possibly sustain a longer conflict against, you know, a major adversary. It's -- in economic terms, not a major power anymore. And the interesting thing is that how Vladimir Putin has managed 25