 So let me start by saying though, I'm I'm amazed. I'm enormously impressed by the commitment and the resilience of this group In Staying with it for the entire day and not just staying with it being actively engaged in it for the entire day And I just want to express my admiration To and for all of you in your efforts Okay ready What he meant was he tried to several times It's just it's just the way the way it is First of all before we get into the final discussion There's one thing I would like to do often this gets left to the end and everybody's folding their coats and and so forth And I don't want to do it Actually, let me do one housekeeping thing first At the conclusion of this session upstairs, there will be a reception in the international women's commons There there's food there as if you have not been fed enough, but there is more food And there are also beverages of a variety of sorts Which may be more appropriate at that hour Not for Boko Haram and in fact Boko Haram has been excluded Just to add a certain degree of verisimilitude to what we're doing here Boko Haram has gone home Well, you know, it's an important point because this discussion is not for you in your roles It's for you as each of yourselves as individuals Secondly, the other thing I'd like to do is I would like to thank the people whose organizational skills made this possible It is a very very large group of people I see Sharon Morris over there, but there is a great group of people here at USIP And and foreign policy right and and Grace Rooney and the folks from foreign policy and Claire Casey and the folks from Garten Rothkoff and a lot of the Contractors and others who have come together whether it's doing video or sound or whatever There's a lot of moving parts here. I know it seems like just a casual intimate conversation between friends But none of it would be possible without all of them. So just one more round of applause for all of those Having said that we are not done I we really want to go and we want to provoke a discussion and the main job of the gentleman to my right here at The front table is to help provoke that discussion by offering up some of their cross-cutting conclusions But remember Well, you know, none of you are obligated to speak here All of you are encouraged to speak and when I get up and we start moving around what we're looking for our big ideas From you as individuals. So you're not trapped in your role anymore. You don't have to be the World Bank And struggle against the constraints of World Bank behavior for example But there's no better place to start this than with George. So there you go You see how this is working every time Every time I turn to him, but I know let's put Jim Jeffrey Okay, I would defer too but Various themes throughout this fascinating day and once again David George. Thank you very much for putting this together and for inviting me One question that's kept coming up is who is we? We first of all on a Problem like this is going to be the people in the government of Nigeria the various actors inside the country And that's always the case in a problem that is Discrete within a country at some degree in a region But we is also us the international community as represented by the various actors here But also we in a larger sense of the United States in the West first of all and Johnny did a great summary of how Boko Haram getting out of control can threaten all of us, but beyond that What we're all about as a nation as an international community in the UN charter is to resolve problems like that We all know that because looking around here. You've all lived that in one or another way But that's part of the problem and that's why I'll try to be a bit controversial in the next couple of minutes Essentially most of the people here have been sent out by one or another institution to carry out or in the case of the media report on International or American or other efforts to promote democracy resolve conflicts Stimulate economic development Build up government capabilities and use all of that as part of our overall overarching almost ideological security and Political agenda for the world It's at least in my case is one who's done it and I think that many others I've encountered almost a secular religion It's something we believe in and we should because it's been extremely successful since 1945 Not just as mentioned at the beginning of this thing with the Marshall plan and the rebuilding of South Korea as we heard but over the last particularly 30 to 40 years many parts of what we used to know is the third world have become middle-income countries thanks to our Institutions and our efforts and their own efforts and So when we're presented with a problem to quote President Obama and his West Point speech We tend to use the hammer that we used to Which is all of these tools all of these activities all of these institutions to approach it and in this particular case the Nail that we're trying to hammer with this is a violent ideological Ideological movement we've seen this and many incarnations around the world sometimes. It's a civil war sometimes. It's a Ideological as our religious movement An insurgency of one or another so it but whether these tools really work It's hard to say logically it seems so because in the long run If we're successful in our agenda and we've often been successful in our agenda in central in South America in the Balkans And Southeast Asia we dry up the underlying causes of Violent extremism and we don't really have that problem anymore. So there's a bias to turn to That except that that's a long run solution and we're faced here today with a short run problem Not just with Boko Haram button an awful lot of other areas and not just in the Middle East now think of the Ukraine There are also tools that we're used to doing that even in the short run actually a pretty effective and one of them that we talked About a bit this afternoon is democracy and in my own experience Regardless of the situation people everywhere regardless of their cultural backgrounds or their history of political Views kind of like to vote and will support efforts by us the outside community to try to give them for your elections free media while it's often under pressure is something that's Pretty much appreciated Getting money however including during the surge in Iraq just bringing around bags of money and dumping it on tribal shakes Desks is often a very successful policy if you can link it up with things like jobs programs Even if it's clearing weeds out of canals, that's helpful too In conflict areas and various other steps of this nature There is thousands of them many of you have done them, but they probably are not going to get to the underlying Answer to something like Boko Haram in looking at the relatively few resolutions of violent situations Around the globe in the last few decades of this sort you've got Sri Lanka in some cases a bad example, but it did end an insurgency Northern Ireland What's going on with the pkk in Turkey? and Columbia Columbia is a fourth one that was mentioned a little bit earlier you have several common factors that Reflect two things that we also heard about this afternoon internal situations Made at home with the outside community to one or another degree Columbia the most Northern Ireland Somewhat and in the other is not too much helping but still made internally and secondly a set of ideas What are you for if you're the government if you're fighting an insurgency if you're fighting some violent extremist group Sometimes it's not all that good an answer in Sri Lanka. It was very much tied up with ethnicity sometimes in the Turkey of to some degree to my surprise of Recep Erdogan, it's trying to overcome ethnicity with the Kurds But it's always some kind of strong answer that motivates a political system and frankly motivates the security forces And that's the second thing security forces. This is among other things a security problem It's other things but security is the leading Bow wave of any movement like this and you have to have a Countervailing security force of people are willing to fight and die and that's not easy In my experience around the world it has seldom been done by forces that have been trained by us to look like us It's been done by mountain yards and Kurdish women and Kobani and Shia militias and other groups some of which Paramilitaries and such aren't all that nice, but they get the job done Finally and most importantly, it's strong local leadership very rarely Bosnia comes to mind the international community comes up with a leader who can Push the agenda, but typically it's a local leader who is able to seize the agenda Mobilize the security forces come up with a theme that makes at least part of the population believe that he or she has a vision to go forward And it's worth fighting for Without these elements the things that we do from the outside the election monitoring and the peacekeepers And economic development in the bags of money even Can be helpful, but they're not going to get to the core problem. Thank you Maxude Well, I'd like to echo Everyone who actually appreciated the excellent effort that was made today by all of you Even those who are behind the scenes because I had the chance to speak to many of them and I had great insights I have actually three main Areas I would like to discuss with you and maybe share with you The first is on violent extremism and that's very much the area where I'm working in at the moment the second Element is narrative Counter-narrative and beyond and this is something I think we've discussed today But it's important as to where we're going with all of this and finally talking about the importance of Developing the international peace strategist. We need to have peace strategists and what it means in the long run Especially in light of the peace games Regarding the first element which is on violent extremism I've noticed there are many discussions over violent extremism and what are the expectations etc Frankly speaking, there are several things to be considered and very important for us to continue to acknowledge these things a To counter violent extremism it needs to be multi-dimensional by default There's no one single factor or variable that can explain violent extremism Nor there is one Solution that fits everything or one tablet that will solve all the diseases of the world Unfortunately, it's so complicated that requires some level of sophistication on our behalf to a understand and be to intervene And that's not an easy job Also the discussions over the role of economy in countering violent extremism the role of religion in countering violent extremism The role of ideology in countering violent extremism I think the key point here especially the linkage between ideology slash religion It's not about what you believe in or what you embrace or what kind of even political grievances you use to justify It is about how on earth can you justify the killing the use of violence against innocent people and Therefore, it's important that when we deal with these issues that we don't confuse personal choices of faith or political orientation or whatever decisions they make With the fact that whatever they embrace or believe or worldview they share or have or endorse That this should not ever justify the use of violence against innocent people and we need to separate these two and come up with Solutions or ideas around this otherwise will go into a path where it might be very confusing For public sphere and public exchange of debates and ideas This where we can debate if it's true to believe or not to believe or not being affiliated with any believe at all Or if you endorse this economic model or that economic model if it works or not We need to let things for political or public discussions and debate within the social realm But when it comes to the use of any of the above for Basically harming and killing in the name of all these ideals. I think it's important. We have clarity and distinction on these matters Also one of the interesting issues related to vatic extremism which are very dear to me personally and I always talked about this in many occasions before is Not about countering vatic extremism because it's always puts us in a position We're always responding we acting instead of actually being proactive and setting the stage and setting the tone For what is needed to be done Therefore we always talk about positive CVE or even better alternative CVE and the things that we can do and how we can think out of the box One of the gentlemen I spoke to Malcolm He told me about some of the stories of using the role of women or Community or youth looking at the different elements of society in large the different ideas that could be produced or presented Therefore, I think we have so much in our disposal to explore that is not yet being touched or even mentioned during the day Which I think is worthy of looking at from a different perspective Then the second component is the issue of the narrative counter narrative and beyond again When you look at what people are presenting in terms of what they're advocating for and I always say this in different meetings Basically, those are Unfortunately, but they're constantly promoting a culture of death a culture of destruction a different world view The alternative is maybe to provide some sort of a culture of promotion of life promotion of construction It's a very simple equation There is a vacuum The youth needs to have some sort of purpose or identity and then someone else provide them with the alternative Unless we do something about this as in being proactive in terms of providing What is the alternative is a true that this is the end of history is a true that the human potential is at the moment in Able incapable of producing anything new. I don't believe in that Personally, I'm a very boring classical modernist and I think there's still more to go forward And it's too early to say this is it for homo sapiens. They can't move forward Therefore when it comes to understanding that afterwards, we know that so well, I'm flying tonight I need to say everything I need to say before I come back to the great Washington And it is a great Washington and and basically one of the main ideas that I'd like to share with you today Is not to be limited or lucked with existing? Axioms how people define or understand Von extremism or understand narrative or we have to counter narrative I think we need to go beyond that What is it that we're promoting? What is it that we want in classical psychological literature if you want your children to go sleep home early? You don't tell them don't stay late, but you promote the behavior you want from them They want to go sleep early. So if you ask a Von extremist, I don't want you to be Von extremist It's bad for your health to be Von extremist. The question would be from their side. So what do you want me to be? What's the alternative? Well, I want you to be critical thinker. I want you to be culturally intelligent I want you to be open to different ideas be creative be innovative in your own way and stop before you actually Think doing any kind of harm to others and basically provide them with alternative And this is a big challenge a challenge on us collectively Finally, and I thank you for your patience is basically that a real take away from this exercise And I've been really in a position of honor and privilege to join for the second time is Basically promoting this mindset of having the international peace strategists Just the way there are the war games where all of these great generals come together and start strategizing Just the way we had the great generals like for example Klesovitz in a big fat book called on war Strategizing about how to defeat the enemy and deal with that. That's fine But can we have also great peace strategists those who can promote a different approach to things This is a time of our history where we reach a certain point of civility What we realize that the ultimate and absolute sense of reasoning and rationalism is to go beyond our own Biological urges to kill and shoot and run Basically to build sustainable cultures and be able to move forward with our understanding collectively as humans There's still more to be done. We as a group of people were a sample of what's happening outside in the world But I believe that there's so much that we can do only if we were able to truly look at things from a different Perspective the perspective other than what's actually being produced and explained. Thank you Thank you Extremely extremely helpful and relevant and I hope somebody in the room said, you know, I'm gonna go right on peace You know, it just seems like a publishing opportunity But I think those are exactly the themes that we're here for and I think they frame it in a really important way Johnny David thank you. I think this is an extraordinarily important occasion talking about an extraordinarily important issue in an extraordinarily Important country Today we are approximately two months and ten days before the first round of the Nigerian elections on February 14th 2015 And I can think of no more an important discussion for us here in Washington than to be talking about the most important Country in Africa the continent's largest democracy largest economy and a country that we want to see remain strong and Unified and not one that collapses into civil war or Christian Muslim strife Let me Say a few things about what I've heard over the last day and night and also At the end posit a few recommendations First of all, we know that Extremism is indeed a global phenomena It's not exclusive to one region of The world and certainly what is happening in Nigeria northern Nigeria is not unique That said based on a lot of things that we've heard over the course of the day and last night that There are some things that we should all remember There is no I think as one of my colleagues at USIP said earlier today. There is no cookie-cutter solution to be found the processes For building peace Should be locally owned That said the international community Does have a role to play But it is in fact not the dominant role And it is not the most important role But it is clearly a role that we must take responsibility for Equally in most of these cases a military only or a security response only solution will not work Focusing specifically on Nigeria The Boko Haram problem is we all know has been caused by a variety of political economic and sociological and historical Factors therefore a Multiple set of solutions will have to be used to resolve this problem It will take a long time to implement many of these solutions But that does not mean that there are not immediate things that we cannot do Today tomorrow next week and next month to ameliorate the situation It is important to remember the drivers of This conflict These drivers must in fact be addressed if we are to see an end to this and We know what these drivers are Their poor governance their political and economic corruption Their massive massive youth unemployment in the northeast and the north in general The need for the restoration of economic growth and opportunity across the north The need to empower the 50% of the population who were frequently left out and that's women the need to To revitalize the country's infrastructure the need to ensure that there is public service delivery and Most importantly a need to revitalize public trust between The government both at the national and the regional level and the citizens that they represent all of these things must in fact be addressed the We also have to remember and do deference to the ambassador that In proposing Counter extremist narratives We must make sure that the counter narrative is not simply Rhetorical but is in fact real Nothing is more destructive than to have a Counter narrative which is counterfactual Which in fact is not based in both reality and a real sense that it can Be achieved and meaningful for the person We also need constantly wherever we can to find Partners we need reliable honest principled partners at every level Both at the national the regional level in and outside of government and we must always seek To help empower those partners Without taking away their ownership of the issue and we also need to find ways to identify Spoilers and to signal them out and to sanction them if necessary I started off by saying we were two months and two weeks away from probably Africa's most important elections in Africa's most important country a nation of 177 million people Which if the UN is right will be a nation of? 400 million in less than 35 years time a nation that today Is creating more new citizens through birth Than all of Western Europe from Sweden down to the tip of Sicily and all the way from the Polish border to the Portuguese Peninsula This is a country that we cannot afford to Ignore it's not a country that we can afford to see slip over the edge of the table into the abyss It is a country for which there is not a single Universal 911 number that can be called to pull it out of the fire should it fall in therefore prevention Prophylaxis and early action are required If we don't do it now We will not be able to successfully do it after it has begun to burn It is a time for higher level political engagement from Nigeria's bureaucratic partners those in Washington and London and Berlin Paris and Brussels it is not after the last Slide on the second scenario has materialized It's not after the country has begun to burn and disintegrate the time is now for the prevention for the Operating theater is not large enough to take the work that will have to be done to salvage this so The thought is there is that again action Clearly is required right now Those who in three or four months say that they weren't warned Should stay and say they were based on part of what has happened to deep happened here today The warning signals are out there the lights have been blinking bright yellow for some extended period of time No one will be able to say That they were not warned about this crisis Thank you. Thank you very much. We've got about 12 minutes left actually so what I'm going to do is All of you have had a chance to speak. I'm not going to ask each of you to speak for 11 seconds And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about ways that we can follow up on this and you can continue To deliver these messages to a large audience in a moment But before I do that, let me turn to George for finals that are remarks. Thank you, David Thanks, thanks to all of you and I can be brief because indeed my colleagues before me never said much of what I wanted to say Is that why you deferred until the end? That's right. Yeah, that's precisely But it's also I wanted to say something about the value of this exercise And this is not said in a self-congratulatory way because I had nothing to do with the conception of it Indeed, this was something that Kristen Lord and David conceived over coffee. I'm told some It was actually lunch at the palm But but I think better than that even better than that Some of us have had experience in with other kinds of scenarios. I recall very vividly the shell scenarios in South Africa recall also the use and the utility of Scenarios that were done to show projections on what would happen if HIV aids were not addressed in the African context and one of the things that that those scenarios do is that They show us what the possibilities for better or worse are if certain things are allowed to to Continue on their course and certainly the conversation that we've had here today Strongly indicates that if something is not done Urgently to address the drivers that we have seen The outcome is going to be predictable and predictably nasty And so one of the values of these scenarios is indeed to inform us Of how we ought to change our current behavior. We started out. I would dare say somewhat prosaically saying we were constrained very much by the by the realities of the current situation But as we progress through this we saw that those constraints only increased over time that the possibilities for Constructive and positive action only became more and more limited until the final slide as Johnny points out that If you know by that time We are clearly Dealing in the most reactive way with a most disastrous scenario So what should that say to us it should say to us as Johnny has already suggested that the time for action is now We still have opportunities and possibilities and I'm pleased to say that in the course of the conversation We did indeed identify a number of specific concrete kinds of things that we could proceed So that's one thing that this conversation today should should help us Realize and understand, but I think there are also other ways in which we can use this exercise today And that is in our conversations with our other interlocutors, and I'm thinking particularly of the Nigerian government And with the Nigerian opposition Because at the end of the day it seems to me that if there is to be a real Change in the dynamic it's going to have to come out of Some kind of an understanding between the political the key political actors in Nigeria, but this flow of events serves neither of their interests and the only Set of actors it's going to benefit out of this is Boko Haram And I think that's where they're not actually Boko Haram. I know you're pointing I understand I'm trying to illustrate it Okay, but the point is that I mean it seems to me one of the clear things that comes out of this Is that we need to be looking for points of convergence among the principle political actors in Nigeria? That would change the dynamic in this current situation that does not lead us to that final slide So I simply wanted to say that and I hope that we will find ways both in the way We write up the results of this that we use it that we can use it in ways in our Conversations or respective conversations with others the last point is is the notion of the strategy the peace strategy and the peace strategist Needless to say US IP likes to think of itself as being precisely in that role We also are aware that you know that doesn't happen without the broader cooperation for many other actors but it does say to us that we need to stop thinking about our selves in isolation in our particularly Highly circumscribed in defined roles and start looking for ways for the various Agencies and organizations represented around this table to have a Conversation precisely about a peace strategy, and so I hope that all of those things are things that flow from this enormously important initiative that you put in place. Well, thank you very much George. Thank you gentlemen, you know the intention You can applaud for George And in fact, I think it'd be rude not to applaud for George but Because we are here in his house, and this has been a remarkable day, right? You know, I thought perhaps we would end up with a little bit more dialogue everybody here has really participated actively You've been a terrific group Not just because you've participated actively but because you've brought to the discussion an enormous amount of experience depth And many many perspectives and I include the audience who participated in this as well I think this is one of the great things about this And one of the things that amplifies what George is saying and what Maksud and Jim and and Johnny were saying is that Whatever ideas we may have come up with and all of us view this through our own eyes and see it in different Perspectives all of you will now go out from here and you will take those things and you will share them with other people All of you will have had experience this experience interacting with one another Cross-pollinating ideas and you will take that and share it with other people You know, we've done some remarkable things today, and I'm glad Yusuf is here because you know It couldn't happen without the support of the United Arab Emirates and the embassy here But it's already had a broad impact we we joked a little bit about this But the reality is that it was one of the top trending topics on Twitter all day in Washington, DC So it was having a social media impact. It was live streamed So it was reaching out to the world and people will be able to view this Wherever they are whenever they want to via the live streaming Foreign policy has a peace channel which is part of this whole project where articles about the peace game will appear Have appeared where summary of this peace game will appear and that reaches three to four million People each month around the world I am inviting each of you right at this particular moment that to participate in the peace channel the purpose of this channel is to increase the dialogue about peace and peace strategies and Ideas for peace so that we give it the kind of attention that most Organizations typically give to war so send me the articles. Tom Stackpole is up there There he is waving his hand. He's one of the people who edits the peace channel and send him the in fact send him the articles but But but but but he and say we're Darby Senior editor will go through this and help pull together your pieces so that we have an ongoing discussion We'll have the meeting in Abu Dhabi in June We will continue to have meetings although one of our great innovations here is the thought last night that perhaps next year We will do the Abu Dhabi meet the Abu Dhabi meeting in December and the and the Washington meeting in May or June You see what we did there, you know, so they Well, you know, we only have to do this two or three times before we come up with that kind of thinking. Oh We should get a bunch of experts together for a few days and finally you the light bulb goes off, but um In any event we will have those meetings on an ongoing basis Obviously, we hope this is something that continues onward and onward that the scenarios get better That the approaches get better that we try new ideas that we think outside the box and that we actually become collaborators in the development of this idea that Maksud so eloquently laid out there of being peace strategists of Developing the counter narratives in a constructive way that are not counterfactual that we can take the tools and the networks and the The abilities that all of us have in this room and amplify that out through all of these other things and Actually start having as many constructive conversations about peace as we do about conflict And you know this goes and I will conclude with you know the point that George just made If there is any you know, we we don't do these scenarios to come up with a magic solution There is no magic solution in fact Very often in these cases We have found that the perfect is the enemy of the good that people will say we will not take action because we do Not know clearly who we should be acting with We will not take action because there are great risks here, and we might not be completely Successful we will not take action because we are not sure what that action will actually bring in the long run And one thing that these scenarios demonstrate unequivocally time and time again is that when you embrace that view You make it certain that it will be harder to take action in the future that the action will be less successful in the future and that you will be dealing not with Keeping the peace or preserve preserving the peace or extending peace you will be dealing with conflict You will be dealing with ending a war and cleaning up with the catastrophe that that often produces So you know if that is the only thing we take away that we must act now that we must be creative That we must think outside the box that peace strategy deserves as much time and bandwidth as war strategy Then we will be doing something extremely valuable. We couldn't do it without the US Institute of Peace We couldn't do it without the support of the Embassy of the UAE We couldn't do it without all of you and that's why we hope you will contribute to the peace channel going forward It's why we hope that you will return for these future events when they're done in the right place at the right time of Year and That's why we hope that you