Cooperation or Competition: Planning for the Next National Security Stra...

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this is csis online

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i'm dan rundy thanks for joining us today at csis for a conversation called cooperation or

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competition planning for the next national security strategy

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the past few years have seen unprecedented challenges for the united

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global st that resulted in the loss of lives livelihoods and global supply chain

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stability to a continued and accelerated backsliding of democracy

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state actors who have malign interests towards the united states such as china

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iran and russia are at the heart of any number of global issues as they become increasingly belligerent

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in particular the focus is on china and russia which are furthering their authoritarian

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agendas by growing their military economic and digital prowess the last four years have also

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seen dramatic vacillations and how the united states responds to these evolving strategic

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competitors that vacillation has reached an inflection point with the advent of the

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national security strategy process under the goldwater nichols act the president

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states must submit an annual report on the national security strategy of the united states to congress

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the biden harris administration announced the kickoff of that process in early february now it's the hard part defining

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strategic and security priorities for the united states including where to cooperate and where

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to compete i'm really so pleased to be doing this with my colleague seth jones who's a

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senior vice president at csis and runs the international security program we have two really great experts who are

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going to help us unpack this we have dr nadia shadlow who was most recently

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u.s deputy national security advisor for strategy she was one of the authors of the 2017

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national security strategy she's known to many of us uh prior to that she was a senior

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program officer for international security and foreign policy program at the smith richardson foundation she's

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currently a senior fellow at the hudson institute we also have a an amigo de la casa a friend of the

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house uh jim steinberg who is a university university professor of social science

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international affairs and law at syracuse university where he was the dean of the maxwell school

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from july 2011 until june 2016. csis is really proud and happy with its

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partnership with the maxwell school and jim steinberg and his colleagues at the maxwell school have been our great

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partners and we value our partnership with them prior to becoming dean he served as deputy secretary of state

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uh the principal deputy to secretary hillary rodham clinton from 2009 to 2011.

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prior to that he was the dean of the lyndon johnson school of public affairs and he's had a wonderful career at the

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brookings institution he also had a wonderful career in government as well so we've got the right folks to help us

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unpack this and and look at these issues i we've got a number of questions to to

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take on but why don't i stop there and i'm going to turn the floor over to my friend and colleague seth jones

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thanks dan thanks for for organizing this it's great to do this event with you and it's great to do it with

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uh with jim and nadia two experts with extensive experience let me just

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give you my take uh this is in part based on a book that comes out later this year uh with wwe norton that looks at this

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issue of competition and you know as we as we talk about the

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issue of cooperation and competition in part under the interim national security strategic guidance

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that the biden administration has already put out i i wanted to give my take and um

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i think what's important from my perspective is to lay out that i see this more of a competitive

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than a cooperative uh endeavor and and why do i say that and these aren't entirely black or white

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concepts but i think that the core issue here is one of the core issues is

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that we have very different types of political and economic systems you could expand

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that to social cultural systems but i think in particular political and economic systems between the united

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states in a range of countries like china russia iran

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and even north korea and in in many ways you know they these are authoritarian

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regimes they're illiberal um their systems are antithetical to western

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enlightenment values they generally view the united states as their primary

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adversary and then competition to a great extent along these lines is a

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struggle over ideologies and and systems and i think that that obviously impacts uh the

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the norms and the rules of major international organizations

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non-government non-governmental organizations and security organizations but i do think it's worth noting that

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it's not entirely a zero-sum game it's worth pointing out even at the height of the cold war

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with ronald reagan and gorbachev they reached a historic arms control

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agreement and and i think in that sense what we see is there are likely going to be avenues for

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cooperation and it may may include issues like global warming uh certainly some aspects of the

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economic system and i think it's worth noting unlike the soviet union china's

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china's economy is much more intertwined with uh the global economic system than the

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soviet economy ever was uh its population of 1.4 billion

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is an attractive market for u.s companies it boasts 400 million millennials i'm

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going to say that one more time 400 million millennials five times the number

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as the u.s and so i think you know there will be important avenues for economic trade

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uh energy markets that i think make this not entirely a zero-sum game

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but i i think as as we look at u.s national security strategy i'm going to talk briefly about five issues that i think

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lie at the core of this these aren't the only issues but five that i do want to highlight

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one is um is that i i think any u.s strategy moving forward has to be based

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on u.s core principles that have been at the core of u.s policy really since

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the founding and that is the democratic nature of the us government the commitment to an

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open economic system and free trade as well as the ability of people around the world

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uh to get access to information and i think that does put the us on a

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collision course to some degree with countries that attempt to establish

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a great firewall to their own populations a halal internet or the russian version the the

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run net that ban websites and information that flows uh to their countries uh there may be

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very different views of human rights and i mean we certainly see this with the chinese treatment of uyghurs in

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xinjiang province i think at the core of this is a recognition that there are different guiding

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principles and systems uh that make this a competitive landscape and they i think they impact

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various aspects so that's one second i do think one of the areas where the u.s has been very far behind

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is uh what b.h little heart the british military strategist

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uh described in a conversation with the uh uh irish it was a

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conversation he described between the the irish statesman john wilson croaker

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and arthur wellesley was the first duke of wellington he called it the the other side of the hill and i think

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we've got a very uh we've done a very poor job of of of of understanding what is going on on

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the other side of the hill i think it's particularly true with the chinese where the chinese have

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spent vast amounts of of money uh translating materials from

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english into mandarin uh understanding what what was being discussed in the u.s

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both vulnerabilities and weaknesses and it puts the us at a disadvantage right now i mean it's worth noting that

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the largest chinese newspaper is a translation of foreign news

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we have no equivalent in the united states in fact i think if you look at the amounts of money that china's poured

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into the language training program um the amount of money uh that that

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they've poured into information operations they call it the three warfares

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staggering compared to uh what the us has put together i mean it really i i think george cannon would have been

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appalled at how little americans understand uh china in part because

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you know we've got no we've not we we've got no foreign broadcast information service or anything along those lines

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um anymore the u.s closed down any outside public access to the open source

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enterprise which was the which is the successor of the foreign broadcast information service in 2019

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and i think there needs to be a much broader substantial effort to understand these countries

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uh and that requires some funding uh i think where we're where we were in part with the

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soviets so that's number two the third is and i'm just going to hit on this really briefly

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i think we cannot mirror image as we look at strategy uh what is with with such a focus on the

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us department of defense uh an obsession with conventional or nuclear war when i look

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at you know the o plans in the department of defense the classified planning scenarios that's about a baltic state scenario

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with the russians a fight with the russians in the baltic states it's about a south china sea

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or taiwan straight scenario that's conventional or even a nuclear war and i think when you look at this this

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this is sort of where we were with a folding gap in germa in in the inter-german period

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uh in inter-german geographic uh uh area i i think when you actually look at what

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the russians and the chinese iranians are doing uh and and the north koreans to some degree is putting a lot

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of emphasis on what you might call irregular and asymmetric gray zone uh tactics

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and strategies so i think part of our strategy has to understand it's offensive cyber operations that these countries

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are conducting russian activities in africa are heavily focused on the expansion of russian private military companies like

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the wagner group uh in in sustained russian operations in

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syria they leveraged lebanese hezbollah is a major ground component so they've

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they're using those in the expansion of power so i think there has to be a much more significant

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recognition of the asymmetric irregular gray zone aspect of competition the fourth thing and i'll

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be brief in these final two areas the fourth thing is um i do think it's not just about defensive

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information but i think we need to think systematically about what offensive information looks like

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um and i think you know the the cold war equivalent is the use of radio free europe radio

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liberty uh against uh adversaries in west in eastern europe and in the

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former soviet union what what kinds of issues and how are we going to communicate that whether it's

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to those that are pushing for democracy in hong kong or in other areas of the world the

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struggle that navalny is leading in russia right now for uh democracy how are we gonna do this

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and how are we gonna what kinds of activities are we gonna support this is not just defensive i think there isn't there's an

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offensive uh component to that i'm not talking about by military force or necessarily covert action but i am

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talking about finding ways to push and i'm not even talking about

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using the barrel of a gun but push us uh values uh especially in

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protecting individuals that are also supporting it and then the fifth element is really um the support of allies and partners

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and i think this struggle one can see it in 5g one can see it in uh in the

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condemnation of human rights abuses whether it's chinese or or whether it's uh putin and the focus

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on pressuring uh dissidents or the offensive cyber operations or assassinations in

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countries like the uk it's to get back to the support so i think all five of those

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dan are important parts of of of what our national security strategy should

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include but again i see this really as a competition in part over political economic and

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other systems and i actually think it's inevitable uh if we're true to who we are that we will clash in part

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over different ideologies and uh and so you know again not entirely zero

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sum i i get it uh but i i think that's kind of the world we live in as i see it so with that i will turn this over

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to nadia sorry nadia before you i just want to make i encourage our audience to use the link

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on our event page at csis.org to leave us your questions which we can then share with our our the

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panelists uh as the conversation progresses sorry sorry about that seth nadia over to you

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no thank you thanks so much seth and and damn um so not to you know i actually agree uh

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with much of what seth has laid out and some of the foundational elements we need to think about

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where i might differ a little bit is that that i think actually both the trump national security strategy and the

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biden interim one are actually have have at least on paper addressed some of these concerns such as the

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nature of competition the biden strategy articulates the view of sort of hybrid gray zone the trump

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strategy discussed the competition continuum which was neither peace and neither war so i think we've made some

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progress on some of the areas but going back to sort of how i'll frame my remarks so

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i think seth laid out five points i'm going to lay out initially four points that i i think are still relevant

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to the current situation that we're facing uh these are kind of the four assumptions of the 2017

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nss the first one which i think the the current administration will

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agree with is that china had not been a responsible stakeholder since its accession to the world trade

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organization in 2001 and that our hopes uh that china would become

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a responsible stakeholder no longer held that that had been an illusion and we needed to understand that so that was

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one of the key assumptions of the 2017 nss a second was that political

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liberalization and the growth of transnational organizations had not tempered rivalries

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among states that these competitions are still going on in these multilateral organizations um

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as well as as as other places and political liberalization this convergence into democracy sort of the end of

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history argument hadn't really happened thus the basis for the idea of this being a competitive world

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uh third the the strategy challenged the assumption that globalization was an unmitigated good

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right this had been percolating but it put it out there front and center and said there were a lot of losers to

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globalization including all the manufacturing centers in the united states all those who had lost jobs around the

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world and that china had actually used uh globalization and some of its

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some of the trade relationships to create its own supply chain verticals which we can talk

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about uh separately and fourth it sort of raised the idea that technologies weren't necessarily in

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the service of democracies there had been this period of hope during the clinton administrations during the bush administrations that

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these digital technologies would liberalize and would advance freedom and democracy would flourish

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and we saw now that actually probably the authoritarians are winning now in terms of the use of technologies to

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surveil to control and that's only seems to be getting worse and worse

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so i think those four assumptions from the 2017 national security strategy still hold

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now i'm not sure you know if jim and seth will agree i think many of them several of them are

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in fact in the biden administration's interim uh national security guidance

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but not all of them so i wanted to just for the sake of conversation uh throughout some areas

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where i think there might be some differences first um

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where first i think the biden administration and this is in their interim guidance still has a tendency to place

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multilateralism transnationalism above sovereignty right a sense that these are big

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challenges happening they are unfolding sort of amorphously um you know everything from pandemics to

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climate to cyber to digital so i think a different view of that is that states

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are behind all of those things states push those things these are not amorphous developments these are

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developments pushed by state for varying reasons who have different agendas they don't just happen or unfold

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and i think the interim nss you know sort of has that uh has a different view a second view is

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that if uh the biden nss says which i really like his emphasis on the importance of showing that democracies work

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right i think that's really important and i agree with him but i think there's still going to be a tendency to fall

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back on old institutions and old approaches to these new sets of problems i see little evidence that they're going

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to be new approaches and i think i know this will be controversial but that's probably why you had me on dan i

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think a good example would have been to hold back on the decision to rejoin the w.h.o we now have no leverage at all

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to get reforms and we have to explain to the american people and to many others around the world

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why after 25 years the who has not been able to reform i think it actually would have been a

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good opportunity to to take um the interim nss approach of rethinking

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these institutions revitalizing them and actually using a real world real time example to do that

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again not everyone's going to like that but throwing it out there third i think the biden and nss the

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interim nss i think cooperation with china will just be harder than it thinks and i think there are probably different views

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within the administration on this so there's the we can compartmentalize view and i think

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there are others who probably realize it's going to be a lot harder it's just going to be a lot harder cooperation with china is not like

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cooperation with the united kingdom it's not going to be the same china

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has leverage over key areas renewables being won and climate so the biden

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administration's climate agenda which depends upon batteries right because you need

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batteries to store renewable energy and you need batteries to run electrical vehicles

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the entire supply chain is dominated by china and to think that it won't use

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that leverage i think is you know i think is a bit off again i think these are now being debated within the administration

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and you do see an emphasis on the need to think about supply chains differently but i think that's um another point

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fourth i think um they'll need to think about this what i see what some critics see is the

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de-linking of military power from diplomatic and economic now that might be you know unfair we'll

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see what happens this is interim guidance but i think it's um meaningful that

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sort of the peace through strength idea the idea that military power undergirds political and economic power

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uh was not there and that's one that wasn't just a trump administration idea it's been there you know in american

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history through different administrations so i think there'll be pressure among different camps in the biden administration

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to think about the role of military power and um and i don't think you can de-link

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the three i think they're they're intertwined uh fifth more specifically and then i'll end there

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is uh you do see a difference in terms of some of the nuclear modernization issues and maybe this is a sub point to the fourth point about

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military power but that was also notable in the interim nss i think there is going to be much more

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of a debate about nuclear modernization than there was in the trump administration and that in

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turn is important because that is a key part of great power competition and how uh how we see that competition

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unfolding so those are some of the areas where you know if i was the question of this

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seminar was initially planning the next nss um i think the four assumptions of the

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2017 strategy still hold i don't think the interim strategic guidance agrees with all of

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them but but there but there's a fair amount of agreement as well but it will come down to really how

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how decisions are taken to get things done and if as i said the bind administration wants to emphasize how

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well democracies work i think there's going to be an inevitable clash

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with this emphasis on multilateralism almost at to the expense of everything and i especially liked uh you know i

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like your point seth and i'll end you know if we're true to who we are we will clash with others and that actually is with our allies as

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well we are not always going to agree with our allies um and we are going to see that and

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managing that process um will be interesting so thanks very much

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thank you nadia thanks very much jim steinberg please thank you and let me begin by

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thanking you and seth and csis as you mentioned this great partnership we've had between

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maxwell and csis and especially this joint executive master's program and international relations that we're doing

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a number of you were teaching in uh it's really bringing together the world of the academy in the world objectives and one of the great think

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tanks in the world so uh just been a great pleasure and hope many of you will think about uh

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joining us in that um so seth had five points now he had four assumptions and i have

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three axes um i think as we think about national security in 2021 there are three axes that are

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around which we have to organize our national security uh strategy and they are

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and they're at immigrant the first is what nadia has emphasized which is the sort of the traditional

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competition rivalry tensions between states and we certainly i think have seen over the last several

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decades that any hope that that would sort of disappear with the end of the cold war has not disappeared states are

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central and especially large states which have interests which are different than ours and sometimes adversarial to

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ours are increasingly important in the international system and are at the front center of the challenges

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that we face today a lot of focus on china will talk about china but i want to generally say that there is a kind of

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traditional set of foreign policy challenges that involve china and russia and iran with free and

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the like and they persist and they are they are part of what you have to organize the strategy around

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at the same time the second access are these emerging transnational issues the global issues like climate change public

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health uh the revolution in biology with all the good and bad that it's going to bring with its cyber

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and the like and these are very different kinds of challenges uh require different ways of thinking

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different ways of operating and different ways of working with other countries because the the reality is is though

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states certainly have a role in creating these problems and a role in creating solutions

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no state by itself can solve these and we have to find ways to develop the institutions and arrangements that can

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manage these transnational problems and we have had a severe deficit today in our capacity to do this things

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have not evolved the right kinds of arrangements to handle and these are truly the existential threats

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that we face and if that weren't true before it wasn't obvious before covet it sure ought to be obvious uh today but

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the third axis is back home in the united states and the need for national rejuvenation because our strength and ability to

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carry out our national security strategy depends fundamentally on our strength at home on our economy on our political system

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on our sense of common objectives and purposes and that as much as dealing with the

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problems of rival states are dealing with international problems has got to be at the core of our national security

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strategy in order to be effective in order to promote our interests in the world we have to have the capacity at home we

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have to invest in our people and our infrastructure and our ability to innovate to create new knowledge to lead the way

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as we have uh in the past and in some ways our ability to cut out any of the other

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aspects or will be successful in the other two axes depends on our success in the latter and i think

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that one of the great strengths of the pride administration's interim guidance which i think is a very important document and very valuable

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document and they should get a lot of credit for putting it out putting it out early so we have some sense about where they're going even

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before the laborious process of writing a full up national security strategy which is nadia knows well as a

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is a laborious and and challenging process um you know it the fact that that has

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been so centrally identified as part of the necessary strategy i think is one of the

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great strengths of this because at the end of the day um we have a competition with china with

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others uh if we're going to succeed it's not going to be by hobbling the opponent it's going to be by

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training better being better prepared being more able and more capable than anybody else

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and we have inherent resources because of our democracy because of the openness of our society

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because of assessing who we are that we have every reason to think that we would prevail every reason i think that if we

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draw on and build and invest in our own resources and that's not only the surest way for

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us to be strong and effective but it's also the best way for us to reassure our partners around the world

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that we're capable of providing the kind of leadership that they are looking for from the united states and that's why

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the the experience of covert has been damaging for the united states because it has called into question

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our own ability to handle these challenges and i think an honest assessment of the fact that our power comes to some

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extent not a yes from the military but also from the success of our democracy as has said

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and that success means managing the 21st century challenges showing that we can be the most innovative most productive

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most successful society is what's going to lead people to support us because

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they see that this is a way that works and will lead us to follow in the same path in the competition

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that seth talked about about different models of governance so that for me really is the key and so

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we have to take on the challenges of the great power rivalries but for me at the center

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of the big challenges are finding new ways and more effective ways to deal with international cooperation

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to deal with the transnational challenges and to restore our own strength at home to be ready for the match

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great okay thanks very much could i ask each of you if i said the word russia to each of you just to say what

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if i say to you where russia what's your response to that in terms of the context of the national security strategy

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nadia can i start with you um yeah i mean i'll be quick i think the

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strategy identified well the strategy did identify russia as a revisionist power meaning a power that wanted to change

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the status quo that wanted to be disruptive and that didn't want to um abide by the values of

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the international order so i think i think we we've seen that um it's obviously a different kind of challenge

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than russia right the the 2017 strategy said that china competes effectively across all

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all domains economic political military technological all of those accelerated by technology

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acknowledged that russia was more disruptive in its approach but it can be quite disruptive and remember russia still poses an

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existential threat to the united states because of its nuclear arsenal so i

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think in that sense the interim guidance but i'll let jim and seth talk to that i think it's probably a pretty similar view

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it's interesting to me russia's got the economy it's got a hundred plus million people

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and it's got the gmp of spain and it causes so much so much trouble if

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i can describe it that way jim uh it does cause trouble um

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you know i think that uh as nadia said it's it has a particular set of objectives

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i mean its first objectives is is to keep putin in power i mean that's its dominant project objective its second is to uh maximize

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its influence in the areas around it uh which it has always seen is sort of at the core of the way it wants to

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achieve its security rather than cooperating with others it wants to dominate everybody else around it and three it wants to try to

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hamper the influence of the united states and his partners in the international system each of these things are problematic

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from our point of view the first is problematic on the value side because putin is an authoritarian who that we've

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seen in very dramatic ways just how he treats the political system human rights and the like

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a second his desire to achieve russia's security at the expense of his neighbors is fundamentally inconsistent with the

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uncharter and all the principles that we believe in that everybody should have a right to make their own decisions and then finally its disruptive

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role in international organizations and and trying to impede others agendas is a problem for us so

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across the board we have a set of issues with russia and you know we have to just be honest with them that that this

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is that there are these are fundamental differences and that we're not going to simply try to accommodate them

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i know there's been a lot of discussion in the in the the talking classes about well maybe we could join up with

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russia against china and it's certainly a problem for us that russia and china are working together

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but what it would take to placate uh putin and russia to get them on our side i think

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would be so fundamentally against our interests that we have to be prepared to deal with both of them as problems for the united

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states seth if i say russia and the national security strategy what's your reaction to that

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i think what uh russia has done is played a weak hand relatively well um you know as

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you know to dan their economy is relatively weak uh kind of mid-tier european at best uh

39:32

certainly not in the great power status but i think what what we see in 2014 in

39:37

crimea and then in eastern ukraine and then in syria and then in africa and then even in

39:43

venezuela and then if you add the cyber dimension and the espionage component what they've

39:48

done i think is use asymmetric irregular activities that aren't particularly

39:55

expensive that don't necessarily cost large amounts of money but to attempt to create or at least so

40:03

additional discord in the united states attempt to meddle in the elections expand power again in the middle east

40:11

not through what they did during the cold war which is deploying large numbers of conventional forces

40:17

into afghanistan but really using strikes from caliber cruise missiles off of maritime

40:23

platforms and air strikes uh from fixed-wing aircraft and basically get somebody else

40:29

to do the fighting on the ground syrians the lebanese hezbollah some of the

40:34

palestinian iraqi militia on the ground and then where we've seen them active in mozambique central african republic

40:40

libya it's gru svr wagner group and and other private

40:47

military companies so you know in that sense they've done a reasonable job

40:52

i think at expanding their influence meddling in in the us without a huge economy so

41:01

this does bring me down if i can just for a second come back to one of jim's points because i think jim did hit uh

41:08

one issue uh that i think is really important which is uh the us national security says

41:14

security strategy nadi said this to some degree as well uh needs to to begin at least in part with strength at home

41:21

but i think what we've seen in the last couple of years is competition is intense at home

41:27

and and i i think you know it's worth noting chinese influence in the nba in hollywood including

41:34

how hollywood companies are are are thing thinking in studios or thinking about

41:40

you know what what issues they cover and how they deal with china because they've got to export uh to the chinese

41:47

market uh if you look at the espionage the confucius institutes at in the united states the thousand

41:53

talents program the disinformation campaigns we've seen in the united states during

41:59

covid from the chinese and the russians is that competition

42:04

is also a significant issue inside of the u.s i think at levels that we did not see in

42:11

the cold war and i i think that makes this a little bit different so strength at home certainly agree with

42:17

but i would just push back a little bit to note that uh that that this it's a contested ground

42:22

right now let me try another topic and the interim

42:29

guidance there was discussion of domestic violent extremism uh and it's

42:35

the challenges that they pose to our court democratic principles and our ability to even promote

42:40

these principles i think jim you refer to getting our house in order as one of the axes can i ask ichi to talk about this issue

42:47

of how we manage or confront or how do you think the strategy will we'll discuss or think about this issue of

42:54

domestic violent extremism let me start actually with you seth you wrote a report i think that talks about this

43:01

yeah dan we're releasing another one monday with updated data through the end of january 2021

43:07

i mean i would say this is it's it's it's often characterized the phenomenon

43:13

is often characterized as domestic terrorism and i think what we see increasingly

43:18

both physically but also in terms of the internet and digital platforms is it is almost anything but domestic

43:26

the there is a lot of extremism and cross-pollination between extremists

43:33

in the u.s and and in europe or new zealand or australia if you look at uh some of the the main

43:41

significant groups the fbi has arrested individuals from adam waffen division or the base they are they have nodes

43:49

in other countries in fact the head of the base ironically is uh is uh still believed to be uh

43:55

in russia right now which which also gives you a sense of how competition has impacted um the

44:01

extremism uh landscape but i i think this is a this is an increasingly notable issue that our data

44:09

shows this csis data shows that in 2020 had the highest level

44:15

since our data set began in the 1990s of uh terrorist attacks and plots

44:22

in the us not fatalities but attacks and plots since our data set started in about 1994

44:28

which was you know around the time of the timothy mcveigh attack so this is a serious

44:33

issue and this is one to watch in the sense of competition because we've seen the russians in particular

44:40

uh have attempted through some of their intelligence organizations

44:45

like the gru and the svr to to to try to promote additional

44:51

discord um especially with some of the white supremacist organizations

44:56

uh they have attempted to expand the reach um uh echo the messages

45:03

that we've seen from digital platforms and there has certainly been training in eastern ukraine of

45:10

extremists coming from germany many of which we see cooperate with uh with extremists in the

45:16

u.s so it's a serious problem but it is increasingly an international one

45:24

jim can i ask you to comment

45:31

sure well assess the expert but i do think we have to worry about the domestic uh basis of these and i have no doubt that

45:37

there are outsiders who were interested in promoting it but i think all of us who watched what happened in the capital have to be concerned

45:43

about what's happening here at home and it does affect us abroad i think nobody would have expected to see a scene like that

45:49

in the united states is what we expect to see in other countries and it does have an impact and i think that one of

45:54

the things that we is our strength is that we can admit our flaws and i think that that's really

46:00

the starting point here is to recognize that we are an imperfect society we have problems here at home that we have to deal with but we also

46:06

can't just say that we have to deal with it we have to show a determination to say that while there are deep fissures and

46:12

polarization politically in this country that there are there are civic and civil ways

46:17

to do that and not to to resort to violence and i think that is the thing that has been shaking us at home and influencing

46:24

people's opinions of us abroad is to see this what is a legitimately heated political debate and

46:30

and fair right we have fundamental differences across the polity in our country about core issues about how the country should

46:36

be run but um it is damaging to us in our own

46:41

democracy and damaging us to the perception of our democracy if we can't find ways to come together

46:47

especially in a cross-party way uh to try to marginalize these violent disagreements

46:52

and confine the disagreements to the political space nadia yeah i'll just add i mean i think

47:00

seth's point about uh you know i'm not an expert on these issues but i think as in any threat internal or external we

47:06

actually need to know numbers uh we need to know sources we need actual specifics so i haven't seen the

47:13

last report theft but i would be curious to know the changes in absolute numbers from 94

47:19

to today because i think today the media which has a you know it's it's a highly politicized

47:24

and i would say generally not constructive media tends to use large uh statements so you don't have

47:31

any sense of what has changed what are the numbers and i think our rule of law system i think our system uh

47:37

can can protect americans from threats that exist we have a rule of law system if it's applied

47:43

fairly and honestly across the board i think that it's it's sufficient um but we do need to

47:48

understand what we're facing in a specific way right you can't train for a threat you can't a resource

47:56

a threat you can't identify the capabilities you need to deal with the threat unless we actually start talking about

48:03

quite specific numbers and putting them in context got it okay how about um the word

48:10

but actually i would like to know i mean if seth i mean could you what what are the because i think that's that's a really

48:16

important point maybe you don't have it off the top of your head but then you know send a link out to all of

48:22

us so that we can read the report that presumably you know has understands actually the numbers uh the

48:27

locale where where these problems are occurring around the country not at 9 30 monday morning

48:35

we are going live uh with uh with the uh it's we've kept it a relatively short

48:41

report uh it's got the data in there uh we can anybody that's interested in seeing the

48:47

underlying excel spreadsheets uh welcome to to see it um and i i would

48:52

say you know one thing that's that that is it that's useful to note about this well there are two things one is that the

48:57

fatality levels are actually relatively low so the attacks right now aren't killing large numbers of people

49:03

which is an important caveat and second the u.s history of dealing with this has been it's been pretty effective fbi

49:12

and law enforcement in uh in eventually putting its focus on threats

49:18

inside of the country and penetrating them and taking them down we're just at a point where uh i i think

49:24

the numbers of those inspired by al qaeda and islamic state are really low right now

49:30

so the shift has got to be on where we see the threat such as the white supremacists

49:35

uh some of the anti-fascists and anarchists and some of the the the anti-government militia boogaloo

49:43

boys that have they're hard to characterize in any any term better but have conducted attacks against law

49:49

enforcement in fact that's one of the interesting things is we're seeing individuals from all sides of the political spectrum

49:56

by the end of 2020 we're targeting police uh far right far left everybody uh for for

50:02

for various reasons but the history of dealing with the us is is it's a good news story

50:07

all right let me try something else allies how are we gonna do how is how's the national security

50:12

strategy i think about allies i think we've seen an increased interest in the last couple months on the quad

50:18

um but obviously we've you know we've historically had great uh relations with you know certain

50:25

allies have been important part of our various strategies we've had i suspect there's going to be a lot of change but i'd welcome

50:30

thoughts about the issue of allies and in this national security strategy jim why don't i start with you

50:36

great well i you know i i think it's probably a shared view that uh we have many strengths but one of our

50:42

greatest strengths is we have allies and the others don't um they have for a few countries that

50:48

are beholden to them but i think very few countries can really consider themselves the allies

50:54

of either china or russia they sometimes don't have a lot of choice in a country like cambodia you may feel

51:00

you don't have a lot of choice but but we have we have friends by choice not by coercion and they are incredibly valuable in

51:07

respect military capability they gave us access to the the whole world

51:13

they are critical economic partners and they they multiply the values that seth talked

51:18

about because they demonstrate that the values that we believe in are not confined to the united states or north america or the north atlantic but

51:25

there are there's fiber democracies in taiwan and and japan and south korea and and in

51:31

africa and the middle east and and so you know this is the universality of our message so it's absolutely

51:38

essential i mean both to deal with the traditional foreign policy problems that i started my first access

51:43

and to deal with the emerging problems of transnational problems because if we want to develop transnational strategies the easiest way

51:50

to do that is to work with like-minded states to develop a program and that gives us a solid core that we can then use to bring

51:57

that to the wider international audience so i i think as the strategy the guidance makes clear this has got to be

52:03

at the heart and soul of what we do and recognize that these are partnerships and we can't just tell them what to do we have to listen to

52:08

them as well but that we need them they need us and together we are going to be a very formative

52:14

force in shaping the future world order now you want to comment on this issue of allies

52:21

of course i completely agree with jim that allies and partners i would say right because depending on how you define allies not

52:28

everyone is in a binding alliance as a nato are a very important competitive

52:33

advantage that the united states has but we can't elevate the process of

52:39

talking to allies the process of talking to allies to achieving outcomes right and to

52:44

achieve outcomes that we want whether it's to deter militarily or whether it's to

52:49

improve the lives of you know of refugees around the world at a certain point we need to figure out the

52:56

coalitions the coalitions of the willing the country's most uh that most agree on the

53:02

on the uh the problem the diagnosis of the problem and those willing to solve it so if we continue to do the same thing

53:09

over and over uh elevating process over new approaches to getting uh to the

53:15

outcomes we want i think we will increase cynicism we will reduce confidence in democracies

53:21

and we will weaken our alliances because they just won't get things done so i think we're seeing a shift toward

53:26

you know coalitions of the willing d10 d7 i think we need to be flexible about that and sometimes it needs to be

53:32

smaller and dan just to challenge not you know but the trump administration elevated the quad

53:38

um it was built on and the biden administration you know a great thing in their first i don't

53:43

know what was march so first however many days you know had this incredibly important summit of the four quad leaders which is really important

53:50

but the quad had been elevated previously and building on that is is just as important as as as sort of

53:57

um traditional partnerships i mean that's sort of it no no thank you for correcting me that's right it was i guess invented in the

54:04

bush administration kind of was quiescent obama was elevated and trump and has now been taken to

54:09

another level and biden right okay okay yes just gonna have a little back and forth and first of all

54:15

i agree with that i'm gonna come in i'm gonna disagree too a little bit okay

54:21

because um you know i i get the coalitions of the willing but we went through this with with

54:26

secretary rumsfeld which is that if you tell your your friends allies well we're with you if you agree with us but if you agree

54:32

with us we'll go find somebody else to work with and and rather than try to find a way to find common ground it's just we're going

54:38

to do it our way and we'll we'll work with you everybody agrees with us you're not going to have allies for the long term and so

54:44

it's certainly true that you don't have to have a staying group of every time you don't have to work with everybody else but i do think that there's a reason why

54:51

enduring alliances especially the transatlantic alliance our lives with japan is things that we say you know when we

54:57

have differences rather than just say well we can't work it out we'll go find somebody else that we do try to find ways to work

55:03

together and i think it is an approach to alliances which means that we are are willing to find you know a way of

55:11

coming together around things rather than simply saying well we're going to just have a pickup game every time

55:16

we have a new set of issues so there can be new organizations to deal with new problems where there's a new set of

55:22

countries that are relevant like the am 10 and dealing with climate i i certainly agree with that but i i still worry about this idea of

55:29

this we're just going to use coalitions because it's easier to get everybody on board for the outcome i

55:35

i yeah i understand your concern i think the pickup game analogy is good um but that's not entirely the characterization you know

55:41

that essentially there are tough problems that we're going to be facing and we might all in

55:47

this policy community be better off moving from the the headlines of do more with allies

55:54

and partners to actually the specific problem sets that we're facing right so saying that

55:59

we want to do more with allies and partners at this point is is is just trite everyone says it

56:04

everyone uses it let's specifically talk about the problems germany pipeline russia the biden

56:11

administration has been very concerned about germany so what does that mean for nato i think there are plenty of specific areas that we can start to

56:18

talk about you know now that that um the complaints about the previous administration you know we

56:23

can't we can't focus on those complaints anymore we need to look forward and figure out how we can work on these

56:29

issues and have our allies contribute in kind um in in in capabilities and then

56:37

financial resources as well i want to pick up on this point a little bit because i think i i do think it's

56:44

it's certainly one level to talk about the importance of allies and partners including the nato

56:50

ones but i think we also have to have a continue to have a frank discussion about what they are capable and what we

56:59

are capable of and what they're not and i think if you look just to give an example on the military

57:04

side um the direction over the next seven to eight years that european

57:11

militaries are going in and this includes the french and the british is they are not they are not likely to

57:18

be major players in large-scale combat or even you know some of the major

57:24

crisis management operations they do not have heavy maneuver forces the germans are cutting them back

57:29

they don't have a lot of naval combatants support capabilities like logistics and fire support still huge

57:36

problems with aerial refueling and transport so you know nato's been talking a lot more about

57:42

coordination on dealing with china well first of all there are huge political will discussions a recent german report

57:51

public opinion report noted germans in general are not going to side with the u.s against the chinese you know and again

57:57

this is a context-specific public opinion poll so you know differences in views along

58:02

these lines but i think it's sort of worth highlighting uh that there are some huge and and these aren't just it's not

58:09

the just not just the two percent debate you know what percent of uh european

58:15

gdps are they putting towards defense whales wanted two percent you know we see the germans increase

58:20

by 34 but they're still way below this is about their ability to to perform key missions and i think

58:27

that's where we're seeing still huge challenges any of the baltic scenarios south china sea taiwan

58:34

strait scenarios iran scenarios in the persian gulf they're just not that capable at the

58:40

high end and i don't i don't see a lot of change we have to have a frank conversation about what

58:45

many european countries can and cannot do even under the nato con construct so part of the issue is

58:52

i think also a frank discussion on where we're at and what we can expect of of our

58:59

allies and partners okay uh the issue of burden sharing

59:05

has been with us since i think the eisenhower administration i wrote an art there was significant increases in

59:11

spending in the trump administration and getting allies to spend more um but this has been sort of a perennial

59:18

challenge i think for i don't know so at least 50 years maybe 60. i found some quotes from eisenhower

59:24

and john f kennedy complaining about now live burden sharing when i wrote an article about this

59:29

all right i've got an interesting question from the audience jennifer from washington dc the 2006 nss

59:37

gave us the 3d framework defense diplomacy and development most often we hear about the first two

59:44

and less on development with samantha power uh ambassador samantha power elevated to

59:49

the principles committee at the or on the net at the net or the national security council i seated the

59:54

national security council as usaid administrator how should the national security strategy reinforce

1:00:01

this more comprehensive approach and highlight its utility and benefits i would add in this context development but i think we could

1:00:07

think about development slash democracy if you will supporting the democratic

1:00:12

democratic values in government if you will anyone want to take this on jim steinberg why don't i start with you

1:00:20

well it's a great question and it's a very important focus i do think that you know it has been sort of a tenet of american

1:00:27

foreign policy for a long time that we do have a stake in the prosperity and well-being the health of

1:00:35

people around the world and that if even though they're far away and they're not here in this country that it does come back and touch us and we've seen

1:00:41

this with issues of public health for example you know we're public health problems because of inadequate health infrastructure and far

1:00:48

away places come back and affects us uh we see this uh on issues of uh of

1:00:53

conflict which can come back and affect us so i do think we have a stake there i think we have to bring a 21st century

1:00:59

perspective to this which is that there's a limit to what government can do i mean we have our traditional foreign aid programs and they're

1:01:04

valuable uh technical assistance programs and the like but a lot of what goes into development is helping countries grow

1:01:10

and prosper economically which means having good trade policies that allow them to have an opportunity to

1:01:15

develop their own economic capabilities for them to buy our goods and for us to be able to buy theirs it's

1:01:22

having effective governance right a lot of the things that goes into development is having effective governance and that's where the democracy part comes in

1:01:29

and working with countries to develop and strengthen their institutions this is another area where working with

1:01:34

our allies is very attractive because it's a shared interest that we have with europeans and

1:01:39

japanese and koreans and others um but if we're able to do this together it seems less like an american project

1:01:46

and part of the competition with china and more just because we see this as being in our interest

1:01:52

i think the election is a good one to not lose sight of how important democracy and development is to our

1:01:57

long-term national security strategy and our economic strategy and to think about you know creative

1:02:03

ways involving the private sector civil society and our partners uh as a way of trying to boost

1:02:08

economic growth public health and the lag uh in developing countries

1:02:15

yeah yeah i'll just add i you know agree with much of what jim said especially the

1:02:21

allies part this would be perfect examples of of working with allies who have different

1:02:26

sets of capabilities they have different comparative advantages in these areas and and working with them so we're not

1:02:32

all uh trying to do the same thing um i mean overstuff the same thing where there are lots of problems in these

1:02:38

places but overall development i would i would say to uh dr powers that it takes place in a competitive context

1:02:45

and this is not at all the way the traditional aid community thinks if they did i think there's an

1:02:50

opportunity for the biden administration and for her specifically because she's been you know she knows this field so

1:02:55

well what kind of information do you need and are you getting it on the ground at the local level where are the

1:03:02

competitions taking place at the geostrategic level where the competition's taking place um we haven't attended you know what are

1:03:08

our priorities what are our choices and what are our theories of change and development right we tend to do the same thing over

1:03:15

and over year after year well myanmar hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars or at least over a hundred

1:03:21

million dollars in aid from the united states government aid and it hasn't been a success we need to

1:03:26

understand why we need to understand um how we update our mode so in that sense you know i i

1:03:33

very much agree with with jim but it's fundamentally it too is a competitive domain

1:03:38

yeah i i i let me just comment on that myself and just say that i think we're we're not the only game in town anymore

1:03:45

the western form of development is there's now great power competition has come to global development

1:03:52

and if we don't meet the hopes and aspirations of developing countries they can take their business to china not in

1:03:58

every area but that you know that they've got there's some of that or you know so i think the other thing is

1:04:03

you've seen it with the uptake in terms of the membership of aiib the asia infrastructure investment bank

1:04:09

they think they got something like 80 members in in some unbelievably short amount of time uh

1:04:15

because i think they spoke to the hopes and aspirations of developing countries and so i think it does behoove us to think about what

1:04:22

what are we offering and do we need to kind of revisit the offer that we're making and also so i think these are these are good

1:04:28

points seth yeah just briefly i mean it is worth noting just to just to talk specifically about it

1:04:34

is china's broader development uh sits generally under its belt and road initiative which is not just about

1:04:41

development either it is they have used it as a tool for promoting chinese interests uh where

1:04:48

they have where they have uh where they have uh economic interests at stake and and money that's

1:04:54

been used now that as as one of our cs csi's colleagues has written in a in a recent book

1:04:59

you know the belt road issue has had us some serious challenges it's not it doesn't appear to be very

1:05:05

economically productive it's led to backlashes in some areas so it's you know they're

1:05:10

they're it's it is not a clear uh productive model for how you compete

1:05:17

but i do think it's worth ending on a recognition that when it comes to you

1:05:23

know how much money the us is putting into various agencies everything still dwarfs the department

1:05:30

of defense and i do think it is worth asking ourselves what is the there may not be a clear answer

1:05:36

state department's budget is roughly 13 times smaller than the department of defenses

1:05:43

wha you know what why is that it it doubled under the reagan administration state department's budget doubled under the

1:05:49

reagan administration because they wanted to push out uh the importance of uh diplomatic efforts

1:05:55

so i i what i'd like to see is part of the actual the the real national security

1:06:01

strategy is what what are the efforts we're putting into some of these as part of a broader strategy and i

1:06:07

think it is not just it's not just defense look we've got two minutes i would like

1:06:14

to give jim and nadia a minute on closing thoughts of each a minute if you want to just give a

1:06:19

parting thought jim let me start with you right so i guess you know we're talking

1:06:24

about great necessary challenges but i want to come back to the home front which is that we've we've in the past overstated the

1:06:31

bipartisan consensus and politics stops at the water's edge side

1:06:37

of american foreign policy but i do think in the long term one of the biggest challenges we have is that is the

1:06:43

inability to sort of sustain policy over an extended period of time and i know that that president biden has

1:06:50

got strong interest in trying to figure out ways to reach across the aisle but it is it's obviously troubling in any dimension but

1:06:56

in foreign policy i think you know one my greatest challenge will be to the congress to try to find ways to come

1:07:01

together to find some cross-out consensus about policy and then to work with the buying administration because i think this is

1:07:07

really you know we need to show ourselves in the world that this is that there are some things that

1:07:13

we can come around on and that everything is not just about the politics but that there are some principles of our foreign policy that we

1:07:19

agree on now i think there's some evidence that this is happening we certainly see more convergence on china for example than than we have on many

1:07:26

issues in the past but i think it will be important for the big administration to be successful

1:07:31

to be able to find a way to work with the congress and for the members of congress on both sides of the aisle to see to try to find ways

1:07:36

to build that coalition that can support sustained us efforts abroad

1:07:42

okay nadia i'll give you the last word yeah i'll i'll be quick so we'll end on time i agree with jim i think the biden

1:07:47

administration needs to take a leadership role in working with both sides of the aisle and

1:07:52

congress and it has to do so in good faith and in a spirit of national

1:07:57

rejuvenation which will require agreement and compromises on both sides

1:08:02

of the aisle so i do think i do think that that's uh that's very important okay great

1:08:08

thanks everybody i want to thank jim and nadia seth thanks for partnering with me on this um this has been great really appreciate

1:08:15

it and uh this will be on youtube shortly and uh thanks so much everybody for tuning in

1:08:22

today [Music]

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you