 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and on behalf of Ambassador Dick Solomon, I would like to welcome you to the U.S. Institute of Peace in this conference on a very important subject, the prevention of violent conflict. Ambassador Solomon sends his regrets. He's stuck in the notorious Washington traffic, but he hopes to be here in about five minutes, five minutes or so, and he asked us to proceed, and then he will join us as soon as he gets here. This, of course, conference, as I said, focused on an important subject. We'll have three panels today. One will take us on a two-door iso across the globe, highlighting the potential conflicts that are at risk of breaking out and the unique dynamics affecting the conflict prevention efforts in each region. Since the world is increasingly defined by global issues that transcend borders, we'll have a second panel which will look at critical cross-cutting challenges. The global economic system, governance, and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and we'll also have a panel on global conflict prevention initiatives. Hearing about these ongoing efforts by the State Department, the EU, the UN, and civil society groups should help us identify the critical gaps and an action agenda going forward. And we also, of course, please that the conference will conclude with a tribute to Dr. David Hamburg. Nice to see you, David. And Ambassador Solomon, of course, will give some remarks at that tribute to David at the end of the conference. And my apologies for being a little late. Tara and Mary have reminded us about President Kennedy's speech 50 years ago at the American University. He announced the establishment of the Peace Corps on that occasion, and we're still working at building those institutions. And I want to comment very briefly before we get into today's events about what this institution is trying to do in the service of preventing, managing, and resolving violent conflicts. And Mary has touched on some of the key themes, but I want to say that I think you're probably aware that this institution, which when it was created a quarter of a century ago, was it had a great, very broad mission from Congress, but the world was such it wasn't clear where the Institute of Peace would go, how it could function in a world which was still in the middle of the Cold War. And we've had the opportunity and the privilege in many ways following the end of the Cold War to be able to take our very broad congressional mandate and to build some activities designed to deal with conflict. And when I first came here, the buzzword was conflict resolution. And I said that seems to be a little narrow. I think we've got to broaden it and think about prevention, management, and resolution as a much more inclusive approach to dealing with our mission. And during that period, it's turned out that it's the last phase that really has focused our efforts and accounted for the growth of the Institute. Dick Holbrook negotiated the date and accords to try to stabilize the situation in the Balkans, but then frankly the State Department didn't have certain capabilities and institutions for dealing with it. The example I'd like to give was we all know that the conflict in the Balkans was driven by religious and ethnic tensions and hostilities. The State Department does not have a Bureau of Religious Affairs and it hadn't been structured to deal with the kinds of ethnic conflicts that were emerging after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We did have a program in religion and peacemaking and we got our analytical folks and academics out of their offices into the Balkans and they did some very good work helping the different ethnic and religious communities in the Balkans organize themselves to try to promote reconciliation. And on it went from there where because we were small because we had this broad charter from Congress, we were able to do some innovative things. General Tony Zinni called me about the same time and said I've got these war fighters, my Marines, but the Clinton administration is sending them around the world of peacekeeping missions would you help us retrain them? So suddenly we had an opportunity again to take our broad mission and start to do things that given where we're headed now the size of this institution and the fact that we are within a year going to be permanently located down opposite the State Department and staring at the Lincoln Memorial will I think have a have more certainly more visibility and hopefully more positive impact on the way that this country deals with conflicts. Mary mentioned the issue of training and looking ahead to our role particularly when we're across the street from the State Department. This institution should be a change agent for the way that we approach the management of international conflict and one of the things that we will embed in our work there is an Academy for International Conflict Management and Peace Building. It's a training program, it will be small, it's not meant to rival the Foreign Service Institute or the training that gets done at the National Defense University, but it is a way of trying to innovate in the training of skills that are frankly up to now not part of the toolkit, the role conception of the Foreign Service Officer. And one of the things that we look for as we build the institutions that Mary was talking about is not just bureaucratic reorganization but training the way our Foreign Service folks will deal with the ethnic and religious problems that are endemic in so many parts of the world. And this to my mind is one of the great opportunities that the Institute of Peace brings to our work. And finally let me just say that as we have looked at the problem of dealing with conflicts, looked at organizational issues and I think you may be aware that building on the great work that David Hamburg did his really unique and path-breaking commission on preventing deadly violence. We had former Secretary of State, Madame Albright, and former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen do a commission on genocide prevention. And they again recommended certain organizational changes. But the core of the issue in my view is the problem of political will. That we can get early warning, we can reorganize certain aspects of the government, but unless we can change the way we think about managing conflict, unless we can somehow operationalize the insight that we all recognize when we look at conflict situations. We all know the preventive action is cheaper in money, it's cheaper in saving lives, but somehow generating the action. And a lot of this relates to Congress authorizing or appropriating money as well as administrations deciding that they will commit in many ways troops. I mean in the Rwandan case there was a recognition if we had sent in a small number of troops on a multilateral basis we probably could have prevented the genocide, but it didn't happen. And over and over again we can find examples of genocidal violence, deadly violence against civilians on a broad scale where nothing is really done until after the blood is flowing. And so figuring out the ways to generate political will in some ways is the capstone of this effort to effectively deal with preventive approaches to managing conflict. Well, again we're really delighted that you're all here today. We're due credit to Abby Williams who's the director of our Center for Conflict Analysis and Preventive Action. We've had an overflow turnout of folks here. It's clear we need a bigger facility and within a year we'll be in one. And let me just conclude by saying I'm really delighted that David Hamburg is with us today. We do want to give recognition to the conclusion of this session for all that he has done for leadership in this area of activity. So again thank you all for coming. And I know you're going to have a very creative day. And Mary thank you. Thank you all very much. I understand panelists, we're also speaking to a live webcast and a number of people in some overflow rooms. So we thank you very much all of you for your participation. My name is Mark Grossman. I have the easiest job today which is to chair this panel with these five speakers. I just thought I'd make a couple of comments by way of introduction. First of all I thought it was very interesting in the first hour or so to hear Harold Nicholson's classic work diplomacy, Abby, brought together somehow with the national security strategy of the United States of America. And although I suspect that these two books would not be in anybody's book club over the next few months, as I was thinking about this during the break there are actually quite a lot of very interesting lessons from Harold Nicholson's diplomacy that apply to the questions of the national security strategy. And I think to this panel as well, and I recognize Nicholson's book is old and there are no minorities as diplomats and there are women as diplomats. But the idea of simultaneity, the idea that who we choose as our diplomats matters, and very importantly as Dick Solomon just said, how, what kind of professional education we give to our diplomats is also extremely important. And I thought that a lot of the themes that Nicholson hit on in some ways came through in this national security strategy. And I thought it was a very good way to get the day started. As I say, I've got an easy job, which is first of all to also honor David Hamburg. Thank you very much for being here. We're honored to be in your presence to thank you all for this opportunity and then to introduce this panel on regional challenges. And I think that for me you all have the bios of all of the people who are here, so I won't take up any time in that regard. But we have people who are going to focus in on the questions not just of the region, but also how it relates to the questions of conflict prevention. And the conflict prevention aspect of this, very well defined, primary prevention, the unique challenges and opportunities associated with preventing the initial onset of large-scale violent conflict. And that's what we're interested in talking to you about in these presentations, and I hope then we'll form the discussion that we have going forward. Our plan as a panel is a pretty simple one. I am going to ask each of the panelists to speak for between five and seven minutes, and we're going to go just right down the way it's listed in your program. Then I thought we might just among us have a conversation for a few minutes, and then open this up to what I hope will not, will be questions and answers, yes, but also conversation among all of us that will focus in on a number of topics, but primarily, primarily, so that there's outcome here to think about what it is that USIP can do going forward in light of some of the things that we will hear about in the panels. That's our plan. I want to bring this to a close right at 12.15. I know that people's time is valuable, and so without any further ado, I would ask Mark Bellamy, our friend from National Defense University now to come and lead us off and talk about Africa. Mark, please. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Usually, Africa is the last to present, the fact that I'm being first today. I don't know if that's ominous or good sign. I'll do my best to keep within the six-minute timeline, but I know that Mark is going to be a very strict timekeeper. If I accelerate as I'm going through, you'll know that it's because I fear that red card. It's hard to know which countries in Africa or which conflicts in Africa pose the greatest risk of large-scale violence in the near future, in part because the list of potential candidates is so long. I've narrowed it down to what might be called the African Big Three, and I'll talk a little bit about those three particular countries, although this is not a definitive priority list. I'm sure other countries could and probably should be on the list. I think from the US policymaker perspective, the greatest concerns in Africa today is the greatest concerns are first, the Sudan, where a referendum early next year will almost certainly result in the secession of southern Sudan and the establishment there of a new and extraordinarily fragile independent state. There are a number of plausible scenarios between now and that referendum in January that could trigger large-scale violence. There is an even larger number of plausible scenarios following that referendum, post-referendum scenarios that point to a possible resumption of civil war in the Sudan, and these are all risks that are clearly visible to us today. Second priority concern is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC. On here, too, the risks are clearly visible. President Joseph Kabila of the Congo does not have a popular base of support. He lacks the institutional or the financial means to carry out his authoritarian agenda. Local rebellions and insurgencies, many of them fueled by outside interests, fester everywhere in the DRC. A collapse of state authority throughout much of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a return to widespread ethnic, tribal, or militia-based violence is a plausible medium-term scenario. In the third case I cite that of Nigeria, the risks are not as obvious as in Sudan or in the DRC, but the stakes are just as high. Nigeria's 150 million people are split by ethnic and religious and religious antagonisms, but they are united in their resentment over corruption and misrule from Abuja. The potential for violence careening out of control in the Niger Delta or along the ethnic and religious fault lines of central Nigeria is heightened by the government's reliance on heavy-handed military repression to deal with protest and unrest. Fallout from sustained large-scale violence in any of these three countries will quickly spread across regional borders. A resumption of civil war in Sudan will generate significant civilian casualties, large population displacements, calls for international humanitarian intervention, and possibly calls for U.S. military intervention, at least on humanitarian grounds. Neighboring countries, especially those supportive of southern Sudanese independence, may well be drawn into the conflict. A breakdown of order in the DRC will further intensify armed competition throughout the Eastern Congo, creating pressure for renewed intervention by Rwanda, Uganda, and possibly other nations' forces. An already deplorable humanitarian situation will worsen, generating renewed calls for international intervention. Should the Nigerian government lose control in areas of the Niger Delta for any sustained period of time, significant disruptions to global oil supplies will ensue until alternative sources are found. Given Nigeria's size and economic importance, a breakdown of authority there will put all neighboring governments under increased strain. More generally, large-scale violence in resource-rich nations such as the DRC and Nigeria invites non-state actors, including international crime networks, to expand their reach and activities. This is already a significant problem in many areas of the mineral-rich DRC and in Nigeria, the Nigeria Delta, the Niger Delta, whereby some estimates $60 million of oil production each day is siphoned off and marketed illegally. What are the challenges to effective conflict prevention in Africa? There are many. I would argue that the most significant is the inability or the unwillingness of African governments to first admit that there's a problem or that there's a risk, and when a risk is admitted to accept responsibility for managing it. In the three cases I've mentioned, governments have historically done more to exacerbate risks than they have to mitigate them. And we can perhaps talk a little bit about this in the discussion that follows, but my point would be that these ruling regimes, all to one degree or another, have a stake in perpetuating social divisions and at least to some degree of lawlessness, not in their capitals, not in their central areas of central control, but in the peripheries where their control is weak. In terms of what the United States can do to reduce risks in countries like Sudan, Nigeria, or the DRC, I think a first step would be to assess to what degree the incumbent governments are the largest part or a major part of the problem. And from there determine whether and how we intend to confront those governments. It's not as simple as it sounds. We, the international community, have known for a long time that the Kabila administration's attempts to build an authoritarian edifice without the means to do so are a formula for disaster in a country as fragile and divided as the DRC. And yet the donors who continue to foot the bill for 50% of the Kabila government's budget have largely fallen silent. They appear intimidated by the Kabila government's resurgent nationalism and its resistance to international tutelage. By continuing to underwrite a government whose policies it deplores, the international community may be contributing rather than diminishing the risk, contributing to rather than diminishing the risk of large-scale violence. So we need to determine not only the extent to which governments are the source of the problem, but the extent to which we either through possibly through acts of omission are accomplices to that. A second point is that conflict prevention in Africa requires the coordination of external actors so that we are all saying the same thing to governments, to opposition groups, to rebels, to other actors. I mean this is widely understood as a principle, but it has not consistently acted upon. Over time the coordination problem has become more acute due to the proliferation of external influences. China's emergence as a major force in Africa is one factor, but so is the emerging role of nations like Brazil and India. Sovereign wealth funds or on the dark side unregulated or illegal companies or criminal syndicates that are working with weak and vulnerable but still sovereign governments. So governments in Khartoum, Abuja, Kinshasa today have many more potential partners and benefactors to whom they can turn in times of difficulty. This decreases our leverage and requires that we redouble our efforts to create consistent international pressure. Despite these challenges there have been recent cases where a concerted international diplomatic effort has worked. I won't, we can maybe talk a little bit about those. Kenya in 2008 was rescued from the brink of truly large-scale violence and chaos. Guinea last year was rescued from a military coup that was threatening to spiral out of control. In both of these cases unpopular governments were caught between a very disciplined and very effective broad-based international diplomatic effort on one side and a large block of domestic political opinion on the other. They didn't have much room for maneuver. They didn't have many places to go. These two interventions that we may want to talk about were strongly supported by the United States and other major donors, but they were African led. And this brings me to my final point. While the U.S. can and should play a catalytic role in steering diplomatic coalitions in the future to resolve or to prevent large-scale violence in Africa, it will inevitably be African leaders and African governments who will play the lead role. That's not bad news. That's actually probably good news. There are a number of reasons to think that the African Union and African sub-regional organizations are in fact stepping up to this task and have been doing so over the past 10 years. Finally I'd say that if we want to play a more proactive role perhaps one of the best things we can do is try to reinforce that willingness, reinforce those nascent capabilities, work more with African regional institutions to ensure they are capable of playing that leadership role. I'll leave it there and look forward to our discussion. Thanks. Thank you very much. My name is John Park and I work at CAP looking at Northeast Asia. And this morning I wanted to raise the ongoing dilemma of dealing with North Korea. North Korea has been on the headlines and been in research topics as a priority for a long period of time. And the challenge is always to raise attention to North Korea and why it's a priority now. You'll hear that phrase over and over again in the literature, a lot of policy statements. If you go back to think tank reports from the mid-1990s and also congressional testimony, there's a consistent theme that North Korea is on the brink of collapse. And so sometimes I feel like the boy who's crying wolf but you know with those refrains this time I think there is a serious aspect. Is the collapse imminent? I would talk about North Korea from the aspect of risk and the risk management and risk analysis aspect is something that CAP does quite closely. With the first question that we are looking at, this whole notion of what is the greatest risk of outbreak of violent conflict, large-scale violent conflict in the region. In my region, Northeast Asia, North Korea has changed dramatically in recent months and I would highlight one point which I think is quite significant. March 26th, North Korea sank a South Korean warship called the Chana. Why is that important? For over a decade, North Korea was seen as weak as a country that was on the brink of collapse because of a decrepit economy, a country that engaged in nuclear weapons development but for bargaining. Basically the threat assessment about North Korea was of a weak state collapsing and the countries having to pick up the pieces. March 26th was different in the sense that you had North Korea carrying out this attack and the sinking of the Chana. Now North Korea is seen as a clear and present danger in a conventional military sense and the countries and specifically South Korea and the United States to the context of their alliance are responding in that manner. That is creating a certain reaction feeding into reaction cycle that is currently happening right now. From the Chinese perspective, certainly they have been monitoring and dealing with the situation very closely but the way that they have been responding to the U.S.-South Korean alliance response again the cycle of reaction feeding into reaction which merits careful monitoring. All of this is happening in the context of change internally as well in North Korea so the confluence of external and internal change in North Korea is somewhat unprecedented usually it is one or the other. Right now something that was hypothetical, Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law Chang Se-hong Tech becoming the regent and many believing to be the orchestrator of the succession process eventually the reigns of power being handed over to Kim Jong-il's third son Kim Jong-un that process is underway. The hypothetical of Chang Se-hong Tech as the regent of this process has now become a reality but that leads to a dilemma of what do we know about Chang Se-hong Tech? What do we know about this leadership succession process? What do we know about North Korean nuclear decision making in this leadership process especially as Kim Jong-il is ailing? All of these questions I think lead to a confluence of risks that are multiplying and something that again has to be a lot of it. Can we jump to the conclusion that something is imminent? I think that is still early to tell but certainly we have to engage in these type of discussions within intergovernment but also within the different groups that are dealing with this issue here in the United States as well as out in Asia. If we address the second question of what are the likely consequences of not only one but two new conflicts merging together for Northeast Asia it's particularly difficult because there are no regional institutions. We have relied on alliances, different types of growing economic integration activities, announcements and developments of free trade arrangements and so forth. The greatest danger I think in the region is the fog of what the countries will do in a period of rapid and sudden instability in North Korea. Why is this the fog? I would highlight four particular areas. One is the real strong notion that the border between North Korea and China is something that is understood with an existing North Korea. If North Korea were to collapse, if there were to be sudden instability in North Korea and the other countries would feel that their national interests were to be at stake, I think there's a high degree of probability that you would have countries implementing policies that are geared specifically to their national security and policies. The borders in this instance are only recognized between North Korea and China. So in the event of rapid collapse of North Korea this whole notion of what that border means I think will come into play. The second issue of the concern area are the troops. Which troops would be involved in a situation of sudden instability in North Korea? This all has a direct correlation to the whole notion of preventing violent conflict because talking about these issues and what the indicators are on the signposts are I think there's an ability to at least get on something of the same page. It'll be difficult to be exactly on the same part of the page but certainly that is a priority right now. The third notion of what the missions will be, clarification of this point, this point will be critical as well because if we look at what the countries are looking to achieve their goals are all different in the short term and the medium term and the long term. Already we're seeing some reaction from the Chinese side and their concern is not related specifically to North Korea and I would highlight that China in looking at a lot of their activities and engaging in discussions with Chinese counterparts you see a Chinese reaction right now that focuses on their concern about what they see as an expansion of the U.S. South Korean alliance, the area of coverage. Already the Chinese are conducting what they view as something within their rights and that's a live fire exercise on their coastal waters in an area that would about the areas where the U.S. South Korean naval exercises would occur most likely sometime this month. Let me move to the third part of the challenges that we face in effective conflict prevention. If these are the dangers and these are the risks that we're monitoring right now. The challenge is how to address these growing gaps and the idea of the maps as everyone has a different map in terms of the policy challenges that are really faced by all the countries related to the very quickly evolving situation in North Korea and also these differences and goals. We don't really know why the countries have specific motives and how they're changing which points to all the more in the challenge they need to have these track 1.5 dialogues. Track 1.5 a quick word there is something that is different from track 2 in the sense that we are engaging a lot of government officials in these dialogues. The institute has been running recurring dialogues with counterparts in China and with Japan and South Korea. And the notion of having these recurring dialogues is very important because we're able to monitor how the different countries are changing in their perception of signposts in this situation right now. The last point I wanted to mention is the notion of what the U.S. government can do right now and reducing the risk of a new conflict breaking out in the Korean Peninsula. First and foremost the United States successively has laid out different priorities some consistent others that have changed according to how the situation is evolving. But there has been a gap in terms of the engagement mechanism and this isn't really a function of the government per se but I think institutes like USIP where through these track 1.5 dialogues we would be able to have this recurring engagement with partners out in the region. The final point that I'd like to raise is that within this as we look at the three elements today of the principal's policies and practice as it relates to Northeast Asia and preventing conflict the three operational aspects of convening mapping and capacity building are priorities right now. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Nick Vozdev and one of the things I was struck by Ambassador Yates' speech this morning is she gave a pretty good and compelling reason why it's not contradictory for someone from a war college to be coming to an institute of peace to talk about conflict resolution. We're seeing how this convergence is occurring in the United States and in the circles of government. My brief today is to give you an overview of the sources of conflict in the Eurasian and European space. I'll give you a general framework now and then in the discussion we can get into greater specifics depending on what you'd like to focus on. First looking at the sources of conflict in this area we can look at three general drivers that we need to continue to address. The first is what I would call unsettled geography that is that even though we have borders on maps that there are still lingering questions about how those borders are drawn. Ethnic groups aren't satisfied. Minority groups within borders don't like how borders were drawn but it goes beyond just simply the ethnic issues. It has to do with resources with control of water, strategic minerals and the like. Someone might have drawn a map and split control of a key resource and now that resources are becoming scarce or there's competition groups may want to revisit how those resources have been apportioned. So the first is we still have these geographic questions we have essentially certainly in the post-soviet space the imposition of arbitrary borders from the soviet period but even of course in Europe as a whole the precise settlement and the like more or less accepted but when you have a period of tension and you have increasing competition and you perhaps have economic hard times coming after a period of prosperity you may have unsettled geographic issues arising in other parts of the continent. The second and this is probably the most profound in the former soviet space is that many of the countries do not have stable mechanisms for political transitions that is they do not have accepted rules of the game for how power is transferred for what happens to winners and losers and if you have a situation where politics is zero sum and people who are now in power figure that if they lose power they lose everything that creates the basis for conflict. If you don't have a system for how you regulate the transition of governments so that you know if you for example take a look at the case of Georgia Mikhail Sakashvili will be an interesting test case so will he be the first president of post-soviet Georgia to actually finish his term in office and turn power over to a successor because his two previous predecessors did not have that opportunity they were removed in extra constitutional fashions. You have the question of succession in places certainly in Kazakhstan or in Uzbekistan where the leader who was there at the time of the soviet collapse is still there and the question is well what happens when you have a death or incapacity and so that can be a driver for conflict and then finally the reality of this area is that these countries don't always get to control their own destinies outside powers are involved you have spillover from other conflicts from other issues that then have an impact on what happens. So what we've seen in Kyrgyzstan over the last two months shows that all of these factors have been in play we have ethnic tensions we have resource tensions over land and water and division of economic assets we've had two governments that were overthrown in the last five years where there was no mechanism for transition we've had the disruptions from ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan we have the involvement and interest in meddling of outside powers Russia the United States China and other players in the area so all of these things have come together in Kyrgyzstan all these factors are present there and what makes it difficult to resolve. When we look at future trouble spots where conflicts may arise first and foremost throughout this area it may be for low-level violence not massive outbreaks of violence but the reality is is that throughout the european and eurasian space questions of immigration national identity the cohesiveness of the nation-state versus demands of regions for greater autonomy you may see the resumption of low-level violent campaigns generally the ability to cap down these conflicts have been as long as economic times are good as we've certainly seen in places like northern island if the economy is doing well people have less incentive for violence but if the economic crisis continues we may see the resumption of conflict in some of these areas we have the trouble spots the forgana valley in central asia particularly with what happens with water resources there the caucuses may be quiet but it's certainly not resolved and we do not see much movement if any at all with any of those conflicts and then you consider the continuing presence of armed formations and large numbers of small arms and the like it's uh it's definitely a tinderbox that all it takes is a spark to restart the Balkans again the Dayton Accords and other things froze conflicts they stopped immediate conflicts they did not provide long-term mechanisms for reconciliation the willingness again of the european union and others to continue to fund to buy off conflicts essentially by providing large amounts of aid how long can this continue in the in the state that the european union may find itself in economically and as the european union has begun to withdraw and disengage from the eurasian space that leads open to the possibility of a resumption there finally i would add just does another area of the zone is the Arctic as a zone of conflict as the ice melts as resources open up as demand for resources increases you may see the possibility of conflict picking up there the good news is is that this area of the world has relatively well-established mechanisms for resolution there are a lot of incentives in place in many of these areas for people to try to avoid conflicts bad news is or the the areas of concern that i would see here is that much of our emphasis over the last two decades particularly again in the post-soviet space was on freezing conflicts we wanted to stop violence we wanted to stop people from being killed we froze things but we didn't necessarily have in place the mechanisms that would lead for resolution now that we're starting to see some of these conflicts fall out the risk that simply freezing a conflict and hoping that it will go away over time is not a long-term strategy we may need to be revisiting particularly in some of these areas that we're not going to be able to prevent conflicts from breaking out but the prophylactic measures that we'll need to make sure that a conflict doesn't spread in essence creating areas where conflict may rage it may not be solved and we're trying to create zones around it to prevent just as we do with fires wildfires in california you let the fire burn itself out and make sure it doesn't spread in the hills three things just to conclude with in looking towards the future that may require some changes in policy or may require us to to reconceive of things i certainly believe that the principle of the Helsinki Accords which is you do not allow for border changes by violence that has to be a principle that's upheld we've often however translated that to mean that there could be no border changes no territorial adjustment at all and i think we may need to revisit the question not of using violence or allowing people who have engaged in violence to change borders but to have to encourage countries to come together on regions and brokeaway regions to come together and perhaps open up the possibility that there can be revisions of the territorial settlements that the Stalinist territorial settlement in the soviet union the Versailles plus territorial settlements in other parts of Europe might be open to revision through negotiation and i would really stress that we're not saying we're just going to recognize what you were able to seize 20 or 30 years ago in a frozen conflict and we're just going to live with it the question about encouraging stakeholders to to perhaps be open to that idea the second thing of course is in conflict resolution conflict prevention modes of trying to build up greater stakeholders in transitions that is that moving away from people thinking that you have zero-sum political outcomes that if there's a change they risk losing everything which then causes them to to sort of say what's better to to keep what we have and to keep it frozen rather than to even admit the possibility of a potential settlement if you think you might lose out finally this is more for the realm of in the security area for this part we had a lot of emphasis in the 19 years on NATO being the primary provider of security the rise of the Shanghai cooperation organization in the Eurasian space raises the question of thinking forward about whether or not there needs to be more of a relationship between Brussels and the Shanghai grouping in terms of thinking about joint missions joint operations for this part of the world not thinking of it as NATO will go in and solve it but that NATO reaching out and perhaps having a much more institutionalized relationship with the SEO than it's had up to this point so those would be the three areas where I think we may need to think more for the 21st century on this issue and with that not to take any more time I'll stop there morning I'm up here to provide a breather a short break or an interlude because there's nothing of urgency that I really have to talk about in Latin America so everybody can relax now I hope no one gets up and goes out and starts texting but basically Latin America just is not threatened by the kinds of situations crises that we've heard in the other regions in fact last year as many of you know the region was including the US policy was consumed by Honduras and it became known as the Honduran crisis the crisis of Honduras and we use that very frequently until at a board meeting one of my board members who is not associated with Latin America particularly said crisis you call that a crisis and that's true I mean there was very no bludge had virtually at all involved it was certainly military was involved very quickly and but in any event I think that Latin America does differ from the other regions we're gonna we've heard about today it has just very few conflicts of the kind we've been talking about either interstate or internal struggles over power authority territory what have you the last interstate war in Latin America was over very very quickly it occurred in 1995 and indeed the two presidents of Peru and Ecuador were here at the Institute of Peace in a joint program with the Inter-American Dialogue to sort of celebrate their peacemaking so it was very interesting and internal wars in Latin America there's been some of those the most publicized ones were mostly resolved Central America and Nicaragua and El Salvador and Guatemala which had US involvement were settled or largely settled in the 1990s people from both sides now participate in government there's been changes government from one side to the other side of the conflicts the guerrillas in power now in two of the five Central American countries one major conflict does remain in Colombia where the government faces actually two guerrilla armies but you know that's a war that the government is clearly winning there's little question with considerable assistance from the United States almost every Colombian feels greater security today than almost any time previously and certainly over the past eight or ten years it's really been a remarkable change and it's not surprising that the current president as the person who most sort of associated with the current president was easily elected with some 70 percent of the vote because the people do see real strong and deep improvements in the country and what had been a deep ideological battle that occasionally seemed to actually threaten the government is now basically over territory in control of the narcotics trade more than it is over great ideology or the the potential for assuming any kind of power outside of Colombia there's occasional guerrillas in Peru now and old Sunday Rolumen also the shining path but not very much more than that the dangers of interstate conflict I would suggest is probably only one serious danger right now it's possibly between Venezuela and Colombia I don't think that will happen because of any intentional acts on either side I think if could occur because of some pushing and shoving I frankly also don't think it's very likely the source if there is any is you know Venezuela seems and I suspect they they are convinced or they've convinced themselves that the US wants a change in the Venezuelan regime at least they have some evidence to back that up and we'll do it through Colombia that Colombia will be the instrument and this has put the Venezuelans on some alert the Colombians and I think they probably have a better case to make see Venezuela's assisting the guerrillas and with the danger basically that they're going to prolong the war in Colombia not that that's the big danger of that more than anything is just that by providing refuge access to arms access to more money that this can be continued and but I still think on the end that this will remain below the threshold of really having a any kind of interstate warfare let me say there's also been some concern in Latin America about an arms race over recent years and there has been some expenditures I think it's been overblown frankly and as does this what is the Swedish Institute of Strategic Studies that sort of suggests that as well I'd be happy to talk about that but I wanted to move on to be able to complete this in the time a lot it so I'll be happy to talk about arms races one thing that is important though despite the lack of the kind of interstate or internal conflicts we've heard so much about there is it's not a region at peace by any means Latin America indeed it's literally one of the most violent places on the globe if one includes sort of criminal activities we do domestic not domestic internal violence not domestic violence in the way we use the term let me just give you a few numbers and then six out of the ten countries with the highest homicide rates in the world are in Latin America and so are nine out of 15 and 17 out of 30 Latin American and Caribbean countries are among the most violent in the world Mexico incidentally which we hear so much about the violence is only 17th in the world so there's quite a number of Latin American countries that are more violent than than than Mexico and just to give you some comparative event in Western Europe there are 1.5 homicides I guess it's per a hundred thousand people I'm not sure what the denominator is but in the USA the number is six per hundred thousand in Honduras it's 60 some 10 times the US 40 times Western Europe Brazil it's 26 which is four and a half times the United States per capita and Mexico it's something like 10 which is quite a bit below Brazil interesting even though we we hear most of the violence about Mexico and let me say I think also this is violence that is not sort of just well it happens it happened in New York and happens in Chicago and but it really is threatening to political stability in many countries certainly to democratic stability the rule of law is and it's not so much in place like Mexico I think Mexico is badly shaken up by it's having tremendous impacts politically but it's really that the smaller countries of Central America and the Caribbean that the dangers are much greater they just don't have the institutions the resources to deal with this and again you know the amount of violence corruption then also the kind of nasty backlash against crime that has its own problems emerges and let me just say that if Mexico is somehow successful you're going to see just 15 other countries in the immediate area just inundated with the crime and violence as well so you have a problem that it's not you can't deal with it in any single country you really have to deal with I could go more into that let me just say that on the whole though that there is no good way that I've seen so far of dealing with this they're really I mean we're watching in Mexico where there's now a terrific internal debate about how to manage the crime and violence was it right to really sort of launch a full-scale campaign to try to deal with the drug trafficking and other criminal activity or was that a mistake and it's better to sort of live with sort of this infection and the corruption that occurs and sort of but you know you feel less threatened than you have and this is a debate that's playing out I think that it's playing out a bit in our own drug policy in Latin America which is obviously associated with this criminal but I think this is one area that if I had to suggest that from my very parochial perspective that would be worth the institute taking on is precisely this crime and violence I think it's really as threatening in many respects as the some of the civil wars were once in Central America for example I don't think there's any question let me just do I have two more minutes no I don't have two more minutes I do but I'm going to take one let me just I want to say a little about lessons but one of the things that occurred to me though is shouldn't Latin America then be sort of a play more of a global role in this sort of peace I mean here's a region that has avoided the kinds of conflicts that is so brutalized so much of the world and can Latin America play more of an international role and the fact is it's it's there's a big question about that and but I think it's worth examining on issues like non-proliferation we have the Brazil-Turkey negotiation with Iran which I'm not sure was terribly helpful but the fact is that they were engaged on that issue and could that be turned toward more constructive similarly peacekeeping they've done extraordinary job in Haiti Uruguay has more peacekeepers per capita than almost any country in the world again that's another and then support for multilateral institutions one thing the Latin America has probably more multilateral institutions for square inch than anybody else but again it might be something that think about thank you thanks it's always a pleasure for me to speak at the USIP and I think it's the third event that I speak at the past few weeks all overflows and I'm beginning to think this is a conspiracy by Dick Solomon to heighten the anticipation for the new building badly needed I also would like to acknowledge Dave Hamburg who just stepped out but who has contributed so much to research on on conflict prevention before I focus on the main issue that I want to talk about which is the dangers urgency and consequences that are related to the Arab Israeli issue specifically I'd like to just give a little bit of an overview of some of the intermediate issues that we have to pay attention to even though we're not so much focused on and also some of the ongoing conflicts but I will mostly talk about the Arab Israel issue first the water issue in the Middle East it's a major issue that we're not really focused on today there is an a meeting in Cairo among the ministerial meeting of Arab states to deal with the water issue very big issue of conflict between Egypt and neighboring states and also states along the Nile about the waters of the Nile we know this is a big issue in the negotiations to Israel and the Arab states particularly Israel and the Palestinians it's a big issue for Syria Iraq and Turkey and that's a looming issue that cannot be underestimated that we have to pay attention to the issue of refugees even separate from the Arab Israel issue as such we've seen what happened in Lebanon demonstrations by Palestinian refugees that have been marginalized that is a big issue potentially in Lebanon the Iraqi refugees refugees are really often the seeds of future conflict the Iraqi war has produced refugees in in Syria and Jordan we need to pay attention to that those are issues that could flare up in not so much tomorrow but in the intermediate period the delicate balance within Lebanon itself the Lebanon domestic Lebanon issues not fully settled there is a relatively stable short-term environment but that could flare up because there are so much a instability in the in the structure of the system that could produce internal conflict and that that will inevitably be consequential for for neighboring states there is a another issue that I think comes out of the Iraq war which I call a a major change in the distribution of regional power that is destabilizing and that we have to pay attention to there is a sense of marginalization of the Arab states at the expense of non-Arab states with the rise of the role of Turkey in the region the rise of power of Iran the sense that Israel is also empowered the sense that the Arabs carrying their weight in regional affairs that leads to competition and an environment that is destabilizing that we have to pay attention to there are two immediate ongoing conflicts that obviously could escalate anytime the Yemen conflict between the Houthis and the government and between north and south that is potentially destabilizing not only internally but those can also draw in Saudi Arabia and Iran there's the Iraq environment which obviously remains unstable and in the next year could actually become more urgent particularly as the U.S. completes its withdrawal of its combat forces and if in fact we the the different sects do not come together in the formation of an effective government even with an effective government the absence of effective provision of services that has been visible in Iraq could become a potential problem obviously Iraq will remain an issue that is consequential for the region but there's nothing in my judgment that is more urgent more consequential than the Arab-Israeli conflict and particularly the Palestinian-Israeli conflict I think we're running against a really a very short timeline and I think the next year is going to be critical for on a variety of dimensions I'd like to to focus on those dimensions the first dimension is really coming toward the end of the line on the two-state solution I think there is a disbelief in in the region that it is going to happen my public opinion polls show that half of the population no longer believe it's possible at all ever and and and that's I think increasing I expect that by the day and so we have a disbelief we have an environment that is untenable and clearly even in the West Bank before we talk about Gaza and Hamas I think an environment where although there's some economic improvement and stability is still not a natural environment and and I think that the only what's holding it together is not the economic prosperity that's something that is good there is not by the way economic prosperity we're talking about it in comparison to what it was a few years ago in comparison to Hamas is an improvement but it is not a sustainable environment it's still an environment of occupation and I think that if we don't have some breakthrough in in in the coming year I think we're facing the prospect of a third into father I think that is not something to be underestimated in and we know what the consequences would be not only for Israel and the Palestinians but but for the region and the US the Gaza is the situation Gaza is untenable it's simply untenable and I'm talking about in part of course the humanitarian situation there that is just not sustainable but beyond the humanitarian situation I think the role of Hamas is unsustainable the fact that Hamas is not shooting right now is not a natural situation for Hamas I think what's what's holding it together is not so much deterrence although that obviously is a factor the Israeli deterrence but rather the belief that they still are going to be able to play some role in an unfolding mediation environment where conflict resolution may become possible so they still are holding some hope that something's going to happen which they're going to play a role if that disappears there's no doubt that they'll start shooting and we know what that will entail in terms of Israeli responses and and actions and escalation Israel versus Hamas versus Hezbollah in in Lebanon I think in the short term I do not expect that either one of them has an interest in starting a conflict for a variety of reasons both sides are not anxious to start a conflict but that situation is highly unstable a single incident could create a crisis that would lead to escalation that will go out of control and so I think that the Hamas the Hezbollah issue remains a big issue in the relationship with Israel and I think that while it's unlikely that you know that that either side is going to decide to wage war against the other in the foreseeable future it's there are a number of scenarios that one can draw that can create an environment where one can anticipate conflict an open conflict Israel versus Iran I think that the international sanctions may buy a little bit of time Israelis are divided among themselves whether it's wise or unwise for Israel to wage war on Iran in some ways the the sanctions on Iran may increase the likelihood that some people who want to wage war on Iran preemptively will will voice the need to to carry it out in in part because I think that there is a sense that the sanctions themselves will not reduce Iran's ability to pursue its nuclear program and so for that reason I think this is something that certainly is is possible that we have to be particularly what mindful of I think it would not be in Israel's interest to wage war against Iran I don't think it would be in America's interest for Israel to wage war against Iran but I think it is a real scenario that we have to watch for and we have to try to prevent finally I just want to mention the conflict within Israel itself there is a changing environment within Israel that we have to be careful about there is an escalation of rhetoric between government officials and people coalitions on the right and the Arab population in particular the Arab citizens of Israel, Palestinian citizens of Israel it's escalated in the past few months particularly when this government came to office both sides have have been engaged in a language that has fueled a dynamic that is destabilizing within Israel itself there's change in assertiveness from the religious right we've seen tension arise all of that is obviously tied in some ways to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Palestinian-Israeli conflict although it's not identical to it and I think we have to be particularly watchful those who are following the internal conflict we have to be particularly watchful of that environment inside this is an extremely consequential issue I think the Arab-Israeli issue is not just about Arabs and Israelis not about Palestinians and Israelis it is consequential for the rest of the region and beyond I call it the prism of pain through which Arabs and many Muslims see the world what happens on that issue is critical for American foreign policy if you look at the decline of the perception the image of the U.S. in the past year since the Obama administration has come to office the primary issue of complaint across the board is this single issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict when President Clinton when Secretary of State Clinton spoke in Washington a few weeks ago she was comparing her vision of how the international community saw the Arab-Israeli issue in the 1990s when she was first lady versus now when she's Secretary of State and she said in the mid 90s when I used to go around with President Clinton and meet with world leaders across the board very few people used to raise the Arab-Israeli issue today almost every leader around the world will raise this issue as the number one number two or number three issue in the global priorities this is a global issue it is consequential this has to be I think the most urgent issue that we have to pay attention to thank you we thank our panel you can see why Abby and everybody else chose these people of times across the panel that issues that are kind of outside of various state questions came up questions of crime questions of refugees questions of water all these things seem to me very much to define the future as we're going forward when I think about the job that we have in front of us and that is to return and I'd like to return a little bit to as what might be a more academic question and that is to focus again on the issues of primary prevention and sort of what do we do with the information that we have and the information that we have has been developed now by institutes like the U.S. Institute for Peace I was very glad when a number of people early on talked about the genocide prevention task force this idea of you know how do we think in advance about primary prevention when I think about the academic work that's done here on primary prevention or Michael Lund's bell curve about how conflict arises and then and then falls so my question to the panel is I wonder if you would take each of your regions and the issues that you have raised and also consider the academic work that's been done the thinking that's been done on questions of primary prevention and do you see any lessons there you know I spent my career for 30 years as a foreign service officer almost as a as an operation operator but I see now that there's all this wonderful work done can't does it apply and I guess I've raised that question first do you see themes that apply across the regions and secondly are there themes that are that apply particularly to the region I'd be interested to sort of connect this to questions of primary prevention so we'd like to go first sure I just want to say you know we have this obviously artificial division of conflict prevention management and resolution and we know that that is not exactly something that is easy to divide I think at some at some level when we think of conflict prevention we're thinking of something that might turn into a conflict that we're trying to prevent in the case that I highlighted most the Arab-Israeli issue we have a conflict and and what we're trying to prevent is escalation that could you know be hugely consequential both in terms of human terms and in terms of of political consequences globally I think at some point you can no longer prevent and manage you can resolve you have to resolve and I think we're at a point in in Arab-Israeli conflict in particular where the issue is no longer about conflict prevention it is really about resolution it's either going to be resolved or we're going to be face another generation of some kind of conflict that is going to have to be managed maybe in some ways but but it's very hard to do may I ask if I could if you take that but then take the other or another of the examples that you used in your talk Yemen I mean is there are there possibilities for this kind of primary prevention to apply in some fashion in Yemen as opposed to the Arab-Israeli conflict or in addition to the Arab-Israeli conflict no question I think first I would start you know sort of from the outside not from the inside because one of one of the problems in any conflict but but including one in Yemen is the expansion I mean there's no question that one of the worries from the international community is not just what happens in Yemen itself and the consequences that instability is going to have human cost but also it's going to be a home for groups like al-Qaida that thrive in an unstable environment but the fact that it could draw players like like Iran and also Saudi Arabia it already has up to a point but it could draw them in more I think that you need to create a regional regime that deals with it you we cannot we've learned that about Iraq as well that it is you can't just look at it in isolation because in the end those conflicts there are a lot of players outside who have an interest in what happens inside and unless you figure out a mechanism to bring them on board to coordinate to to work together where they're an asset to prevent the conflict and not a source of of of fueling that conflict down the road I think you cannot succeed and I think in Iraq in particular this is going to become more important as we move ahead thank you maybe I just talked John Park you one of the things that you raised in the North Korea example was the question of refugees refugees North Korea China but is there a primary prevention strategy that you'd be working on today to deal with the potential of a refugee crisis in North Korea both to deal with the North Korean psychology in this but also the psychology in Beijing well one thing there is the role of China and you know frankly trying to figure out what China has by way of plans and preparations to deal with potential refugees is a challenge right now the U.S. through different groups have tried to engage the Chinese side but the Chinese have basically shied away from that because any discussion about the role of refugees is usually tied to contingency planning and that has a direct connotation to say collapse which the Chinese government is adamant about preventing but one thing about the refugee issue that can be helpful and academic research policy research is definitely shedding more light is related to how China treats its borders while the Chinese are very reticent to talk anything about the Chinese North Korean border we do have a precedent now there's case study analysis of what the Chinese did with the border with Burma there was a refugee issue there the circumstances were certainly different in terms of what caused it but how the Chinese addressed it I think there will be important lessons learned that can inform any type of potential discussion either a track 1.5 or for further research on how the Chinese would deal with refugees in that border area and if you were giving somebody a sort of policy idea how would you kind of translate that lesson to something that you know an assistant secretary for east asian affairs or someone at usip and the 0.5 part of that track might pursue one of the things in a certain extent there has been a great deal of focus on Chinese strategic prowess this notion that they've planned everything out they gained everything out and they're ready I think that's a dangerous assumption and you know certainly colleagues in government in Washington are very concerned about how the Chinese would respond in terms of these policies to the rapidly changing situation inside North Korea you know the lesson that I think can be drawn from the Chinese experience in a place like Burma and how that can inform discussions between government officials is in this area that if North Korea is still contentious for the Chinese government how can you argue by analogy because one thing that we do know is that the types of capabilities of Chinese have a rate on the border regions are similar so people's armed police they have very specific rules and responsibilities and missions if there's a way to talk about the Burmese case I think we would be able to draw out some potential practices that the Chinese may apply in the North Korean kids. Interesting. Any other panelists on this question of the sort of lessons of primary prevention to the issues to the regional issues that you that you raised Mark? Well you know primary prevention is sometimes a very hard thing to do and I'm thinking in an African context and to take my example of Nigeria if we were to go to the Nigerians and say you know we've given us a lot of thought and we think that in six to 12 months there's an 85 percent chance of you you know there that the reaction is going to be very swift and indignant and you know we're going to be shown the door you know trying to get these nations to repent you know is sometimes is sometimes a tough thing on the other hand it's probably worth keeping in mind that many of the preventive prevention problems we face are old conflicts. The other two I mentioned Sudan and the Congo I mean the reason that prevention is necessary is that the previous attempts to fix these problems have not been fully implemented. So prevention in those cases and in many cases is really a question of fixing it the first time around. I'd almost say that an ounce of of cures were the pound of prevention in those cases. So primary prevention I think in many cases a question of getting it of enforcing the peace agreements and carrying out the undertakings that have have have have already been arrived. Good thank you Peter. Just I'm not sure this responds to your question very well but there is a one thing a real difference between dealing with the kinds of conflicts that most of the other panelists have talked about and the crime internal violence problem that that I tended to focus on in that you can solve conflicts of the more let's call it traditional kind I don't know how else to country by country in some ways in some situations. In other words I think if you ended the conflict in Columbia for example now in Latin America it would be ended and it would be over and you'd have a region then that didn't have conflict. The crime problem you can't resolve in a single country. The crime problem responds to a variety of demands, a variety of supply factors and that eliminating it in one country will just push it to another country which is very different in other words going after it in Columbia and there apparently has been some reductions in the territory devoted to cocaine although the amount of the amount of production is may not be that less but all of a sudden we're now seeing a country like Bolivia which had almost eliminated coca production is now coming back stronger and similarly Peru. So the crime issue and indeed the Mexico crime syndicates emerged when the very successful effort by George Bush to push the trafficking of cocaine from South America through the Caribbean was stopped there and then they began to move through Mexico. So it really does so I just say that and then just one other small the role of the U.S. in some situations in is very important. I think the U.S. has played a very important role in Columbia. I think that the U.S. assistance program the Plon Columbia mark was involved has been you know really a I think an outstanding success although at a very high cost both in terms of money in terms of actual financial costs for the United States half a billion dollars a year not many countries that the U.S. can spend anywhere near that amount of money and and secondly in terms of you know the brutality and the nastiness the scandals that have enveloped the government a lot of Columbia has been very successful but it's been at a high cost and I just think that it's it's very hard to imagine that the U.S. was ready to invest anywhere near the effort of force in the rest of Latin America. In Mexico the built half a billion dollars a year doesn't matter a whole lot frankly. It sort of shows U.S. support and what the U.S. might be helpful in in lessening the smuggling of armaments to Mexico or the U.S. in reducing its own drug consumption in the country of both very long term propositions that are going to be very hard to make any difference in any short run period and and then you begin to go beyond Mexico and you have three or four countries in Central America you have a half a dozen countries in the Caribbean and it just mounts up and and really the the only thing it really is going to depend on those countries to get it right somehow and they're going to pay the huge part of the cost we're not going to pay a high cost frankly and just don't know what the U.S. role could be I mean I really think that this needs a hell of a lot more more more study than than it's gotten so far I mean and certainly our overall drug policy needs sort of real attention I think it's it's one of those policies that stuck in time warp and nobody really wants to debate it it's Congress is sort of afraid of it and it just sits there we spend lots of money we have lots of people in jail and it doesn't accomplish very much. Nick would you like in on this particular topic? Just briefly because I think Williams comments on Africa apply to some extent also for the Eurasian space but in the end you know we can we can have the theories we know what the literature says you've got to tie it as was said this morning you have to tie it to political will to act and particularly when you look at the Eurasian space and some of these other areas it is easy to make arguments why the costs of preventive action are high and risky and that the costs of inaction can be deferred and delayed and that's usually what happens is that you see these things build up but you know what the costs of intervening are and you don't want to pay them and you hope that maybe they can be deferred and maybe you'll dodge the bullet and that's sort of what we've seen with Kyrgyzstan with the extreme reluctance of anyone to really want to get involved in there right now. Thank you. The other question I would like to just post to the panel before we go to audience questions is the other thing that struck me in every single presentation was the focus on the possibilities of regional organizations and if you think of the African Union the Six-Party Talks the Shanghai Cooperation organization in Latin America the OAS, the America sewer actually a little bit less in the Middle East but perhaps there are lessons from you know organizations like Helsinki someday to be applied in the Middle East I don't know but it's an interesting question anyway and I'd be interested in the panel's views on whether given this grouping of regional organizations one do you see the possibility of infusing them as organizations with the desire, the interest, the capacity to do conflict prevention just as we were talking earlier about the professional education of foreign service officers is there a professional education to be done of these regional organizations and secondly I was very struck by the number of times people talked about the regional organizations working with one another so NATO works with the African Union maybe there's cross fertilization in Asia, Nick talked a little bit about the archip where you'd have organizations like the Council of Baltic Sea States working with NATO working with the United Nations working with the European Union so I'd be interested in whether you think that these regional organizations have capacity whether it's possible for an organization like USIP to infuse them with more capacity and whether you see going forward more work between these organizations. I'd be interested if anybody had a quick view on that and we'll go to the audience questions please. Well in terms of the Middle East I mean first of all you know the regional organizations do play a role and in some ways in the Palestinian Israeli negotiations because of the internal vulnerability of the Palestinian Authority they have felt that they need a role from the Arab world directly even to legitimize the negotiations and President Mahmoud Abbas felt he had to go to the Arab League to get authorization in essence to go to this proximity talks that we're now engaged in for four months. A lot of the Israelis think that one of the incentives for them in concluding a final status agreement would be to make peace with the rest of the Arab world so there's the Arab peace initiative has become part of you know it isn't regional organizational you know position that has that is weighing in in in the negotiations so we do have it's not that you say maybe not in the Middle East actually there is something like that in the Middle East. I think the problem has been something that goes outside of the Arab world that is that involves Israel involves Iran involves Turkey and that has been complicated by the Arab Israeli conflict itself and recently by the problem that I laid out up front which is that after the Iraq war there is a sense of weakness in the Arab world and Arabs are somewhat concerned about bringing Turkey in or bringing Iran in or bringing Israel in because they feel they're marginalized and they're these powers are weighing in on their issues what they believe their issues including including Iraq so there's a little bit of discomfort with that there's also a discomfort on the Israel issue in part because take the nuclear proliferation issue which the administration wants to pursue on a rule-based kind of foreign policy which is we're not only telling Iran that they shouldn't develop nuclear weapons but we also want the Israelis to be a little more open about the nuclear issue and have a conversation about what they're doing propose some kind of a regional dialogue about proliferation to prevent also Arab states from ultimately developing it well you know how could you do it when you have the environment of the Israelis obviously reluctant for their own because of the conflict itself the relationship with Iran so I think it's a bit difficult but it is the way to go and it is the way to go in the context of the conflict resolution that is inevitable I don't think it's going to happen I mean part of it is it has to be simultaneous in some ways you have to put these ideas on the table you have to make them catch as ideas I think the administration is actually doing the right thing while the while we don't have a mechanism yet or we don't have an organization yet raising the issues matters and I think when you have an opportunity to clinch it what people have adjusted to the ideas it could happen in the in the 1990s when the Oslo process was in place there were these multilateral talks about issues that are relevant regionally they were promising if the political process had moved forward I think they would have paid off yes they're not on their own Madrid might have also become turned itself into an organization itself absolutely a very fair point Nick please having raised the the question of NATO and the SEO in the talk now in the question point to look at some of the the problems that that would raise I mean one of the question one of the issues that would prevent closer working relations is of course differing organizations having much different views about what security is so that the SEO defines security not only as preservation of kind of peace and making sure you don't have terrorism and the like but really the preservation of the existing political status quo in each of the countries and certainly the European Union and the United States want to encourage reform and change and so that if you have a situation where we are all talking about what we want to preserve security and prevent conflicts from breaking out and an SEO perspective is fine let's just support an existing government to the hilt in a particular country and enable it to fend off challenges and and and NATO and the United States are saying and the European Union are saying no we want to encourage political change political movement that that might preclude that kind of cooperation from happening and then of course the other reality too being that you lead again in the Eurasian space certainly conflict prevention resolution management is linked to to geopolitical issues and it may be difficult to to sort of put all that on hold and say well NATO and SEO peacekeepers will just work in the short term to ensure peace and stability and somehow will avoid these larger questions down the road so you know that that raises its head that some of these conflicts if left by themselves might be solvable but they're not left to themselves and and that has to be faced as an issue thank you so much as I mentioned earlier for northeast Asia the challenges there are no institutions on a regional or international basis that function there a lot of people point to the six-party talks but you really have to look at the six-party talks as a very nascent mechanism and there there's an ongoing debate of whether it's effective or a failure and for many it depends on how you define it if you define it as a denuclearization form people give it a failing mark if you define it as a nascent crisis management mechanism people give it at least a fighting chance the notion there is it's too early to tell with Ambassador Grossman what you mentioned about the Helsinki process it's interesting because when the six-party talks were going well the whole question of what comes next and it seems like a distant past but literally about two and a half years ago there was a conference in Seoul in Jeju Island which is on the southern tip of South Korea they gathered all of the architects of the Helsinki chords and all of the former German officials who dealt with German reunification and the question was how can we brand and apply the lessons learned from Helsinki to northeast Asia they came up with what's called the Jeju process and again I would you know draw people's memory back to that period the United States had entered into negotiations with North Korea and in the context of the six-party talks had come very close to the end of phase two which is nuclear disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities phase three would have been about verification inspections and then this notion of U.S. North Korea diplomatic normalization this idea of implementing things like peace and stability in northeast Asia and then this notion of a Jeju peace process that being then and now being now if we look at what the capacity of the various parties can be I think it's in the notion of these track 1.5 gatherings they are not the complete proxy for what could have been but certainly play an important role in terms of moving forward in getting the different parties to talk about these differing perspectives and where they are with their mapping exercises because you see a very different future and in these different futures they also feed into policies of how they would deal with North Korea so priority right now is something called deconflicting plans each country has a different plan in terms of how they would deal with instability in North Korea and deconflicting them has to occur but the question is where and the track one it's too sensitive and the track two the academics and other colleagues don't necessarily have they have not necessarily been following these type of issues and that puts us in the track 1.5 space where institutes like USIP and Asian government counterparts can form these recurring channels of communication and achieve these very important tasks of closing gaps let me conclude with what the institute has been doing by convening meetings in this area during the process of the six party talks moving forward we were able to convene these gatherings and commission papers on what nuclear disablement look like before phase two of the six party talks began we commissioned David Albright to actually lay down 13 steps of nuclear disablement and that was a report that was circulated among the six party talks we also did a piece on what a peace and security mechanism agreement would look like something that would be a nascent charter for the region and some were hoping that the peace and security mechanism within the six party talks would be the beginnings of perhaps the first regional organization in northeast Asia the final point was related to the whole notion of de-conflicting again it's one thing to identify but how do you actually get the government officials from the various countries to talk very frankly about that I think that right now is a perennial challenge good very good thank you very much Mark would you like to have a comment on this I think there's a lot there's a lot that can be said about regional organizations I would just make one maybe one point here you talked about Mark about the links between different regional organizations one of the most important links that occurs to me at least in an African context is the link between the regional organizations AU and the UN because our ability to use the UN Security Council in whatever way we think is necessary to prevent conflict try to mobilize the Security Council on whether it's on Sudan or Darfur is in Broadway we're going to depend a lot on what the AU's view is right and we've often complained that well we can't get in traction on Darfur because of a Chinese veto in the UN the fact is that the AU had decided that there needed to be traction on Darfur the Chinese veto falls away so there's the ability of regional organizations the extent that they are as you say infused with this desire to take seriously conflict prevention their ability to sort of set the parameters what we can do in the UN something we shouldn't underestimate Excellent, thank you Peter would you like one minute on this or should we go before we go to questions? Let me just say that there's just a lot of restrictions on the organization of American states and what it can respond to what it can't respond to on the whole its best role is when it's involved early on in a conflict that it sort of senses it begins to talk to the various parties before it really emerges once it emerges it really has a very difficult time in playing a role in tamping it down but it does have a lot of smart people who are in touch with the and you know they sometimes miss things they miss the Honduran which could have avoided a lot of difficulty one other thing is the various meetings that the Latin American leaders are now meeting more than probably any other group of leaders have ever met and frankly this has had some positive results if you take just a Colombian Venezuelan difference it's not that the Colombians talk to the Venezuelans it's that the Colombians talk to the Brazilians and the Venezuelans talk to the Brazilians and the Argentines and there's just efforts by you know presidents talking to presidents to say hey what shouldn't you do this or shouldn't you apologize for this or shouldn't you sort of keep down the rhetoric on that issue and that can be helpful if they're meeting as they often do let's say often as every couple of months or so good thank you very much well we'd like to now invite questions to the panels I know there are two microphones here so maybe the best thing to do is people would like to line up and we ask simply that you keep your question short if you could identify yourself and if you wish your organization and we'll start right here Ambassador Balamy I'm Monique Biedel with Falling Whistles we're a grassroots campaign for peace in Congo what's your analysis of the impact of the Monusco drawdown on the legitimacy of and the outcome of the upcoming presidential election the request you mean by the government of the Kabila government to for the you know UN peacekeeping operation to wind up by next summer well you know I think that should I we don't do this one at a time like this yeah okay you know I'm not I'm not sure what the exact you know impact of that you know I think obviously this is a manifestation part of the manifestation of what I mentioned earlier about this newly resurgent sense of of Congolese nationalism and this restlessness with the international tutelage that they've lived under for a for a certain a period of time and this new assertiveness on the part of the Kabila government I don't think anybody believes that the you know throwing out the UN peacekeeping operation next summer is a good idea you know is going to augur as well for the for the Congo you know I think a bigger problem in the in the short term is what I alluded to in my remarks that the fact that the international community is continuing to is continuing to engage with the with the with the Congolese government with this air of normalcy and without this sense of urgency or concern and that is that the the assistance is continuing to flow the you know debt relief debt relief continues to be you know a very important thing for the government and is likely to come through in ways that in fact reinforce Kabila's chances for reelection I think the Kabila strategy the government strategies make sure they have no competition I mean that's that's how we plans to win the election not not that he's going to go out and you know you know win over win over hearts and minds he's going to make sure that there's not any serious serious serious competition out there so I you know I think it's a it's another very worrisome very worrisome situation we've had a couple of questions from the breakout room both of which Mark focused on the Congo so if we come back to that it's okay sure yes sir this is a question for the broader panel I'm Mark Beall I'm on a writing sabbatical currently if this is from this side of optimism if preventing violent conflict actually works if you come up with a mechanism to actually do it and it works very well how can we guard against people policy makers actually taking it for granted and the reason why I bring this up is because everyone knows what an intelligence failure is but what is an intelligent success and so goes to your question the reason I bring it up by the way is because what Mr. Park Dr. Park brought up about the South Korean ship sinking and will uh organizations entities North Korea seek out non-attributal means of engaging that forego that process it's a great job description of writing sabbatical I think that's very out of it yeah that's terrific I don't I don't want to give away who I work for so very good well Dr. Park why don't you start and then I'd also be also be interested in Nick's answer to that question sure that's a very interesting question and the way it's phrased and I go back to what ambassador Solomon said in his opening remarks about prevention being the best way to deal with something the alternative being picking up the piece of something that's very costly in lives and treasure with respect to the whole notion of conflict prevention working or not you know it goes back in North East Asia go back it'll go back to the role of China and what China is doing by way of its prevention they don't call a conflict prevention but certainly their behavior and how they're dealing with North Korea is one where they don't want to pick up the pieces and that that is something that they have re-firmed over and over again a slightly different direction to answering your question I think signposts are very important in terms of gauging where we're at but unfortunately with Northeast Asia and North Korea everyone has a different set of signposts even within countries but one thing that's unique about China is their statements really matter and their long held view of conflict prevention with North Korea has been maintaining peace and stability so you hear that phrase over and over again I think the canary in the mine shaft is something you'll have to be very mindful of is when the Chinese statements change if it changes from and it's already changed right now they're asking the parties to exercise common restraint so now it's common restraint the big canary in the mine shaft will be when the Chinese are concerned about law and order in the border area so we already see a gradation of the signposts and how you read the tea leaves if it's your understanding that's important but the critical function here that the convention really works or not is how you communicate that understanding among the different groups Nick I think a key part of this is to continue to encourage a high degree of in all of these areas these potential conflicts high degree of transparency direct speaking frank speaking and for people to know exactly what capabilities are on the table when you look at the up to the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 you could look back and you could see the signs were there but you also had a lot of subterfuge and you had a lot of sort of just ignoring or pretending that the problem couldn't happen that it was inconceivable that you could have a direct armed conflict and therefore because you started from that premise that there could be no armed conflict then you you wished it away that it wasn't going to happen because you know countries don't don't do this anymore they don't do this in Europe anymore the greater greater European neighborhood and so that I think that in part being aware of that this can happen and therefore having sides in a conflict or national act or subnational act to be very clear about what their what their intentions are what their capabilities are what they're prepared to do and not wishing it away is an important step the other thing there too may be to in some cases when do you walk away from a peace process when do you say that a peace process has failed or that it's not producing results I mean this is one of the questions of the frozen conflicts of the Caucasus as well which is at what point do you say the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process it's meaningless I'm not saying that it is I'm just saying at what point do you start to begin to conceive and say it's not worth it to continue to have a process and to have meetings and to give people the illusion that progress is being made when no progress is being made because that may then force stakeholders to then stare into the abyss because if they then stare into the abyss and then you hope that they're rational decision makers or policy makers but that you know also sometimes made that could be a way to move forward on some of these things but where you just sort of say well we're going to have another set of talks and you know maybe 30 or 40 years from now we'll move forward that may not it may cloak the fact that underneath that ice of a process frozen process you have something happening under the surface that then catches you by surprise may I just make one comment to you and take the advantage of the chair before I come to your question and that is the other thing about complacency which I think is very important and relevant to USIP is that the actors who might have been involved in something successful for example Liberia people who worked on Macedonia Lord Robertson Javier Solana people move on and the lessons that are drawn from how did we do this and what was successful what worked what didn't work are gone and so some systematic way to get people's history and to get people's lessons is also a way to avoid complacency because you then build in the learning inside of the institutions and that's something that the government certainly should be doing but it seems to me an important role for an organization like USIP yes please thanks very much I'm Bridget Moykes with the Friends Committee on National Legislation thank you so much for the panel it's been very informative for a generalist like me to hear the different regional expertise and I wanted to ask and also to appreciate that each of you addressed in some way the role of the US in helping prevent and mitigate conflict and try not to fuel it as well I think that's part of probably one of the most important parts of our discussion today and in Washington so I wanted to ask about two specific situations and the role of the US in them one that was not mentioned on this panel but that Ambassador Yates mentioned which is Kenya which I thought might have been in your list of top three and that we're very concerned about and watching closely both in terms of the constitutional referendum but longer term leading up to 2012 and what can the US be doing to help prevent violent conflict there and also Iran and I very much appreciated you noting that the sanctions could increase pressure for a war against Iran and that we need to mitigate against that so what can the US be doing in that case as well good both of the questions Mark first and then Chip Kenya I guess I could have listed as three or four or five it's certainly a major concern Kenya's one of those cases where the United States does have special for a lot of reasons does have special entree and special influence and where the views of the United States are taken seriously by all sides and I don't think the problems in Kenya are that complex in terms of what needs to be done to try to try to insulate that society against a recurrence that kind of honestly saw 2007-2008 there has to be and I think it's achievable but I do think it'll take a bit of an international effort to ensure that the two sides and there are two main protagonists here there are two main two main parties to this conflict I have rules of the road that they have agreed in advance and those rules are transparent and there's a sense on the part of the Kenya public that when this referendum vote comes down it's not going to be a question of lights are going to be turned off the votes are going to be accounted the account of the results is going to be announced the following morning it has to be done completely transparently completely openly the two sides have to commit to the process have to commit to the to the outcome and I think that will go a long way to prevent what happened before the other thing that needs to happen longer term and this is true not just for the Kenya but for most of the countries that we deal with is that the security sector requirement particularly reform and police has to be pursued much more vigorously and one reason that these people deal with each other is that they don't have any protection from the state and when there's no state protection when there's no police when there's no one you can turn to you fall back on your own resources and that's when you begin to get the intercommunal and the ethnic violence and that certainly was the case in Kenya this is a long term project though and even in those states where we get some sign of political will and political commitment on the part of governments whether we're willing to come up with the resources a really big question and too often we're not you know we're much better at telling them what they need to do in order to fix the problem they don't have the resources and we often come up short unfortunately Sir, you know on the Iranian issue there are a couple of things that have to be noted one is that the best service we do is really addressing the Arab-Israeli issue let me tell you why I think that because I think even the Israeli concern if you look at what are the Israelis worried about with Iran's nuclear power it is less the fact that Iran might use them against Israel Israel has a second strike capability I think most experts in Israel don't think that Iran would use nuclear weapons against them they worry that Iran is going to be so empowered that they're going to be bolder in supporting groups particularly groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to undermine Israel groups that would not be particularly relevant if in fact you have a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict most Arabs by the way outside of the Arab states neighboring Iran like the United Arab Emirates certainly worry about direct Iranian threat but most other Arabs like Egypt or Jordan or Morocco who are also fearful of an empowered Iran are not really worried about Iran in the sense that Iran is going to attack them or they're going to go to war with Iran they're more concerned about an Iranian empowerment that would meddle in their domestic politics and would exploit an Arab-Israeli conflict that is undermining their own legitimacy in their own countries so the Arab-Israeli conflict is actually the source of the worry about Iran in some ways so the biggest service the U.S. can do is actually to deliver some kind of mediated settlement that would reduce the chance that Iran would be influential having said that obviously that the timing may not work out that way so the Israelis are still thinking about whether they want to carry out an attack or not now in my own judgment the Israelis cannot do it without U.S. support what do I mean by that they certainly can attack Iran relatively effectively and undermine facilities in Iran without American support and even that is a they can't do it in sustained fashion and certainly not in a manner that would assure that Iran is not going to be able to have to rebuild its capabilities within a relatively short order the main thing is what happens in the morning after because Iran is not going to sit still and there will be consequences and the Israelis will need sustained American support the morning after to be able to deal with the crisis that is likely to emerge now the issue is whether the Israelis think that they need an American green light or whether they think like Egypt did with the Soviet Union in 1973 the Egyptians even went to the extent of expelling Soviet advisors from Egypt just a few months before they waged the war being certain that once they start the war their ally is going to support them no matter what because you create a different environment than they can guarantee American the Israelis could guarantee American support if Israel is at war with Iran the morning after no matter how it started it's inevitable or the Israelis would have to think that American support would be forthcoming that means that the U.S. has to be very coordinating very closely day in and day out and sending the right messages because these kind of calculations are inevitable I think I think for now Israelis appear to be divided among themselves on whether it's wise or not but if there is a decision on their side that it's wise I am not sure that there is all that much that the United States can do frankly because I think the Israelis will inevitably calculate that whatever we say or tell them or beforehand they will assess that the morning after the United States will be supporting them because Israel an ally will be against a country the U.S. is opposing and it'll have to be forced to take sides good thank you yes please thank you Andy Loomis in the Convent Prevention Office of the State Department's SCRS Office of Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization I have a question I wanted to take this opportunity to turn those spotlight back on you Mark if I could and that is too often as you know the long-term prevention planning gets displaced by urgent crises and I'm curious of your given your former high perts in the department what you would recommend what adjustments to the bureaucratic structures or incentives to ensure that long-term prevention gets sufficiently focused on and prioritized inside the U.S. government thank you well I'll be short since I'm not a panel member first I think it goes back to the point that Dick Solomon and others have made it goes to the professional education of people in the Foreign Service and in the Civil Service people who serve our country in the State Department and that is from the very beginning questions of conflict conflict prevention diplomacy before and after conflict have to be part of the ethos of people who join the State Department be that either Foreign Service or Civil Service people second thing I would say is you put your finger on part of it which is how do you then structure the incentives to make that true and one of the ways is through SCRS through service in SCRS through service in whole of government through service in other places perhaps in the government that are working on diplomacy before conflict perhaps after conflict so that those jobs are promotable and those jobs are honored and those jobs bring people the kind of respect and promotion that they desire I think the way that SCRS has stated has put out kind of the three levels is a really good way to think about this that you have people ready to deploy in a number of 200 people ready to deploy in a number of 2000 and then calling on the larger society I think that makes it a very important part of the normal day-to-day life of Foreign Service and finally I would turn to Colombia where I think starting with Ambassador Pickering and President Clinton and then moving through the next administration I believe now as well people have figured out a way by and large to make sure that in Colombia people are doing the strategic thinking and the operational thinking simultaneously and so to go back to your question one thing you might consider would be learning some lessons from how this was done in Colombia where I would submit to you again like Peter said lots of problems in Colombia not perfect in Colombia but on the issue you raise of how to do the strategic and the tactical and the operational simultaneously I think there are some useful lessons to be learned there yes please Can I just follow up that question? Can we come back? I'll come back to you at the end Okay Yeah I'll bring Colombia up again Oh good okay good Thanks so much for your comments I'm Ginny Bouvié I'm here at the U.S. Institute of Peace and I head up our Latin America work which focuses very much on Colombia I have a couple of comments I want to thank you for your presentations and nice to see an old friend Peter Hakem but I'm going to kind of bring you to task on a couple of things I think I would agree with you that overall Latin America has had some major improvements in the picture in terms of democratic governance but I don't think that we can rest on our laurels just yet in terms of conflict and conflict prevention Colombia being a case in point Colombia is often pointed to as the success story but before we congratulate ourselves that the government of Colombia has won the war I think we should remind ourselves that Colombia is the place that has the oldest guerrilla force in the world that the war does continue that the guerrillas have shown themselves incredibly adept at stepping back and waiting and then reemerging again as a threat the paramilitary has been a tremendous threat and they have infiltrated the government structures such that the Congress is now one-third controlled by paramilitary linked with drug traffickers so I think that's even if the conflict in Colombia were to end tomorrow I disagree with Peter in the sense that the conflict would then be over I think there are a lot of changes that have happened in the Colombian governance structure that would make it very difficult to say that there's an end I would just I know we're short on time but I just wanted to mention also at the local level I think we're seeing things like violence emerging in Bagua over indigenous conflicts over natural resources and we're seeing more and more of these throughout Latin America that I think are ripe opportunities for prevention to take place and USIP is engaging in a study of successful case stories looking at stakeholder interventions in five of the Andean countries that will contribute to that kind of thinking about prevention Excellent, thank you. Peter, there's your chance to talk about Colombia I just, you know, I think it's a matter of sort of balancing what, you know, it's where you sort of end up on the success or failure it's not a question I don't think we're very far apart, frankly but, you know, I'm sitting on a panel where we're talking about Iran and we're talking about Israeli, Palestinian, and Gaza and we're talking about North Korea and we're talking about the sort of other parts of the world and Latin America looks very, very good compared to that and I just can't help but sort of in relative terms I certainly, if someone said to me where would you put if you had 10 experts on conflict resolution in the State Department I would certainly not sort of assign them or very many of them to Latin America at this stage that's the point not saying that there aren't indigenous conflicts there's not conflicts over lots of issues but the relative importance and the relative urgency and the relative destructiveness of these conflicts and their reach across the hemis the world are just very, very, very different I think Good, thank you Why don't we take two questions together? Okay, please Okay, I'm Jessica Sauer I'm from Independent Diplomat and I really identified with what you guys were saying about the importance of regional organizations and the political will to prevent conflict and looking at those two points I have a question for you about the recent Supreme Court ruling on Holter versus Humanitarian Law Project where basically held that Americans and American organizations can't work to train or provide material support to groups listed as terrorists However, this has major ramifications for a lot of different NGOs that are in the field doing work on things such as conflict prevention and so my question for you today is what's your view on this ruling and do you think it will impact conflict prevention and conflict mitigation in your area of the field? Good question. I hope there's a lawyer on the panel. Yes, sir. Go ahead My name is Mangistu I'm Mangistu Ayala I'm an Ethiopian I'm studying conflict resolution in the Nova South Eastern University My question is to Ambassador Belay I agree with you in identifying three countries like Nigeria, Sudan and Congo an issue of concern on crisis but I feel Ethiopia is worse than Nigeria in so many indicators and I don't know why you just mentioned Ethiopia because it's very important for America and the region it's situated in a volatile region in the Horn of Africa there is a conflict in Somalia which is related also with international terrorism and all indicators in Ethiopia are showing that it's going in the wrong direction very dangerous direction You can see through the report of the International Crisis Group predicting that Ethiopia will have escalated level of ethnic conflict you can see the human rights reports of the human rights watch and others and they failed the state index Ethiopia is in a very bad situation and I think the way America is managing that situation is governed by the policy of fighting against terrorism and it's kind of condoning tyranny and dictatorship for the mile peak interest of fighting terrorism in that area and I think in the long run that will be a cost to America I hope you will say something about that thank you we'll come back to that first I open the panel on the first question whether anybody's got a view you may have stumped the band here you're too young to know what I mean but Johnny Carson used it stumped the band you may have stumped the band well you know on regional organizations it's kind of interesting because David Hamburg is here and David supported the first time I met him was when Carnegie Corporation of New York supported a project that I was conducting at Cornell on the role of international organizations in ethnic conflict and this was of course coming out it was the early 90s right after the Iraq war the end of the Cold War so people were thinking about how is the role of regional organization going to evolve and it was interesting the prediction in that book it was a volume that we put together we brought in a lot of scholars I edited it with Milton Essman at Cornell University and we called it actually International Organization Ethnic Conflict Book that was published by Cornell University Press and the prediction was actually that regional organizations are going to acquire more importance in the post-Cold War era that was kind of the prediction in large part because people thought that you know with the end of the Cold War the superpowers will be less interested in local conflicts and that's you know people are going to be interested in what's in the backyard and then that's going to result in an enhancement of regional organizations and I think when you look at it it hasn't been exactly an accurate prediction I mean it's been in part accurate in the sense that some regional organizations have been more influential but I think for a variety of reasons in part because of I would argue because of the the America's unexpected America's re-engagement in the world and because I think you know even before 9-11 it was a globalization issue and the empowerment of America and what that led to sort of America's leadership in mobilizing things that are you know international community beyond regional organizations and not 9-11 that it has not worked out the way you know it could have expected and if I were to look at the region that I follow very closely the Middle East and looking at the Arab League particularly as a regional organization that you know has a long history I would not argue that it is stronger today than it was in 1990 and the same could be said about the Gulf Cooperation Council which may be among the members still more I think that the U.S. probably has more influence in some of the Gulf Cooperation Council members than the Gulf Cooperation Council itself Thank you very much I just want to say that although I don't think we're perhaps competent to talk about the ruling you put your finger on a very important question especially for an organization like Independent Dibblemount or others who are kind of in conflict prevention so just because we can't answer the question doesn't mean it's not an excellent question I think it is Mark on Ethiopia we've got about five minutes left three questions as I said a number of countries could have qualified for the list in Ethiopia certainly as a country with many problems and a lot of reasons to be worried about it I suppose it highlights one of the points that I try to make in my presentation which is that if we do identify countries that are at risk are we willing to confront them are we willing individually or collectively to engage with these governments and that's a question that's often posed in the specific case of Ethiopia I suppose I didn't put Ethiopia up in the same level as Sudan DRC or Nigeria because though there are many problems there are many worrisome signs kind of Ethiopia the fact is that the militia government the regime there has for better or worse been able to clamp down on the opposition to button things down when they felt that they needed to button things down it's not pretty and it's not always reassuring but the risk in Ethiopia of the country cartwheeling off into large-scale violence of the kind that you might see in Sudan or you might see in Nigeria and DRC I don't think is quite the same I don't think that level of risk of violent confrontation is quite the same Good thank you got four minutes three questions I'm Mindy Reiser Global Peace Services USA in terms of Latin America while you didn't use the word failing states or certainly failed states there certainly are trouble signs from country like Jamaica and I'm just wondering in terms of those who would do ill whether the disaffection economically in some of these countries could be a bit of a beach head for those who would do ill and associated with that of course is Hugo Chavez but what's interesting is not a word was said about Cuba and that's kind of amazing in itself and I'm wondering if you have any predictions how that will be going certainly after the death of Fidel but Raoul looks like he's entrenched for a while thank you sir I'm Rob Dubois like my sabbatical friend there I'm a generic security advisor and I have 12 questions per panelist oh no you have one question 30 seconds combined into one question yeah I was actually inspired Professor Gvozdev and Professor sorry Talami Sayid Talami we have communication is the one word that really I think ties all of this conflict prevention conflict resolution together and on the idea of specifically on I'm thinking about the awakening council for example up in the northern part of Iraq they're being marginalized there's hundreds of well 100,000 men who are armed and well-trained now and probably not being well paid or addressed by Maliki I think we could message Maliki communication is issued until I'm look at the long-term benefit of taking care of those guys because right now Al Qaeda would love to co-opt them and as far as the zero-sum transition planning we need to message to the the leaders who have that perspective so I think the question here is that we have a global change every generation barring an apocalyptic change of our technologies every generation is getting more and more cohesive in communication President Obama doesn't want to put his BlackBerry away doesn't that lead in the long-term in the big picture to I guess facilitating improved conflict resolution thank you my BlackBerry says we got a couple more minutes yes please my name is Agere I'm working for Catholic Charities Migration and Repugies Services I would like to thank you for the wonderful presentations that you did today and it is already stated that the three African countries Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria have a potential violent conflict which will spill over to the neighboring countries and probably have an effect on the region I just want to hear more about the interventions that was made so far by the United States international community as well as the African Union and then how it was effective thank you thank you very much all right come on all right thank you my name is Melanie Coano and I work at The Before Project we've been active for some time now in Guinea and this question is for Ambassador Bellamy there seem to have been a shift in U.S. foreign policy with Guinea especially in the last year with more resources both economic and staffing and I am curious if you have any insights into that shift and if that can be replicated elsewhere very good very good question very good questions all actually thank you very much why don't we just go down this way and take whatever one you want Mark I think a number of them were the shift in resources I didn't quite understand the question was the shift in resources made available for Africa for Guinea in particular or for Guinea Guinea yeah well I think that this administration regard rightly regards Guinea as one of its successful prevention stories maybe not prevention it's a little hard to know but I think there's no doubt that this is a good case study in the U.S. working with allies and working with the African Indian and working with Echo Wasp to take a bad situation and to basically to arrest this downward spiral and this is probably a good case of what I mentioned before I've actually coming forward with the resources to back up to diplomacy so yes I think that's probably a useful small a useful case study Peter would you like to make a prediction on Cuba? Do you have a question Jamaica? Sure I mean Jamaica let's just start with the first part yeah there's a dozen other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that are facing similar kinds of problems Jamaica isn't the only one and this is what I was talking about with the crime and violence problem on Cuba most people see it frozen that it's not making much movement others a few analysts who have been to Cuba recently think that the negotiations between the Catholic Church and the government over the political prisoners that there is some opening beginning to occur one question that we didn't talk about at all I found it interesting in the panel I just throw it out at least the problems that USAID has generally in the management and long-term perspective and how it operates and the money it goes and where it goes didn't come in at all in our discussion of conflict resolution or and it seems to me that that's part of any kind of long-term strategy has to be our development aid programs overseas that's exactly right perhaps there can be a USAID working group over in this corner during lunch that's a really important question Nick I'd give you the last word on the communication question if you had one briefly I think that based on what Peter said about Latin America you need more of that where presidents are talking it not just bilaterally but multilaterally the more communication helps but again it's not the panacea the fact that everyone may have a blackberry doesn't mean therefore mean that the risk of conflict has disappeared but it it does help perhaps to ensure that you might have at least an avenue of communication ready so I think that's a a very good point and the extent to which the South American presidents informal network can be extended to other parts of the world is a good thing good well we're a couple of minutes behind I hope you'll you'll forgive us one of the things that John Park said was that a big job now among people is the question is he put it a de-conflicting plans so I'm going to de-conflict your plans for lunch which is that all the speakers and panelists everyone's on a panel if you would just sort of gravitate over here we're going to follow Mr. Kleiss for everyone else lunch is outside through those glass doors you're welcome to eat there welcome to be here and the second panel will reconvene at 115 please 115 so if you would join me first of all thank you USIP and then thank the panel