 Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Lease Grande and I am the head of the United States Institute of Peace. USIP was established by Congress in 1984 as a public non-partisan national institution dedicated to preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflict abroad. On behalf of the Institute, we are delighted to welcome you to our bipartisan congressional dialogue series, a signature USIP initiative that brings together leaders from both political parties to discuss national security issues. Today we are honored to host representatives Amy Berra, the chair, and Steve Shabbat, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on Asia the Pacific, Central Asia, and non-proliferation. Our topic today is the impact of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on the Indo-Pacific region. Russia's invasion is shocking. We're witnessing an assault under false pretenses on the sovereignty of people of Ukraine by a founding member of the United Nations and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The effect of Russia's invasion is reverberating around the world. The mounting evidence of atrocities including war crimes and crimes against humanity are a tragedy for Ukraine and a test of accountability within the international system. The impact on the Indo-Pacific, from the role of China as a major power to India's return to its historic position as the leader of the non-aligned movement, will probably be felt for generations. These are just some of the reasons why this bipartisan congressional dialogue is so important today and why we are so fortunate to have Congressman Berra and Shabbat with us. Congressman Berra represents California's seventh district and serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee where he chairs the subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and non-proliferation. As the co-chair of the Congressional Korea Caucus and as a member of the House Taiwan Caucus, Congressman Berra is committed to building and maintaining strong U.S. relationships in the Indo-Pacific region. Congressman Shabbat represents Ohio's first district and serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee where he is the ranking member on the subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and non-proliferation. As a co-chair of the Congressional India and Taiwan Caucuses, Congressman Shabbat is committed to promoting the role of the United States in the security and stability of the Indo-Pacific region. Representative Berra, Representative Shabbat, thank you for being with us today. We're honored to invite Congressman Berra to offer remarks followed by Congressman Shabbat. After that, we'll have a moderated discussion. We look forward to the audience joining this conversation on Twitter using the hashtag at BipartisanUSIP. Maybe please hand the floor to Representative Berra. Lisa, thank you for that introduction. Thank you, US Institute of Peace for the work that you do in a bipartisan way to promote peace and stability and democracy around the world. It's also my honor to be able to share this virtual stage with my good friend, Congressman Shabbat, who we both have the privilege of, you know, I have the privilege of being chair right now and Steve's the ranking member, but when Steve was chair of the committee, I had the privilege of acting as a ranking member. So I think we've got a great partnership on promoting American values as well as looking to support that peace and stability in the region. I'm going to keep my comment short because I also know that we potentially will get interrupted by votes as the nature of being here on the House. But let's talk a bit about the subject on hand, the disruption of peace and stability on the European continent by the the unprovoked actions of Vladimir Putin and Russia in invading a sovereign nation Ukraine and how that really has changed the world, not just in Russia, but also the reverberations that we will see in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere as we'll get into in the question and answer portion of this. We can be very proud as the United States of some of the work we did in the 75 years post-World War II rebuilding Europe, working with Japan to create this dominant economy, working with the Korean post-World War II taking it from one of the poorest countries in the world 40 years ago to one of the most developed economies in the world and even the framework in the Indo-Pacific through stability and development where many nations were able to prosper, including China. That's been disrupted and that framework as much as we'd like to go back to where the world was a few months ago, I don't think we can and I think we have to rethink the implications of the unprovoked actions that Vladimir Putin and the Russians have taken in Ukraine and the damage and destruction that we haven't seen frankly since World War II on that continent. We'll get into this, but it is important to think about the lessons learned if we think about the Indo-Pacific region, the region that Steve and I have jurisdiction over. How does China look at this? What lessons does China take away from it? I know we'll get into that, but also what lessons have we learned as well as the coalition of nations? Europe, NATO's come together, but also Japan, Australia and we've watched and if there's time we can discuss how India's tried to maintain that neutrality, but as a senior member of the Quad and an important member of our strategy in the Indo-Pacific and as a country that has its own territorial integrity issues with a northern neighbor, this is a time for India also as no growing world power to also choose sides. I'll stop with that, so we have plenty of time to have an interactive conversation and pass it back to you, Lisa. So thank you for doing this. Anderson, thank you so much for your interesting opening reflections and if we may please hand the floor to Congressman Shabbat for his first comments. Thank you, Lisa, and thank you to the USIP for holding this particular forum here today, and it's good to be here with my good friend Ami Berra, the chairman of the committee, and I'm just glad that I was really nice to Ami when I was chair and he was my ranking member because now I'm his number two, I'm the ranking member and he's actually been very nice to me as well and we work together in a bipartisan manner, which is a bit unusual in Congress so that's a good thing. A month ago the world watched, let's face it, in horror as Vladimir Putin began an unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. His war of choice shattered the peace in Europe and demonstrated just what a brute he truly is and how brave and resilient and inspiring the people of Ukraine are. The question on a lot of people's minds is whether Putin's illegal acts will encourage other authoritarian regimes across the globe to act with such impunity on their territorial ambitions. Truth be told, only time will tell the full implications of Putin's transgressions for the rest of the globe. However, any discussion of Ukraine's meaning for the Indo-Pacific begins in Beijing. While the Chinese Communist Party's strategy may evolve, they are pursuing the same gray zone tactics against several countries in the region that Russia is engaged in. This includes military activity to advance baseless territorial claims against, for example, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India. Such claims make China the only country likely to attempt what Putin has done in Ukraine and this aggression places the CCP squarely at odds with the clear desire of countries throughout the Indo-Pacific to focus on trade and development and improving their economies and the quality of life for their citizens. That's what they want to be focused on, not the new arms race, but in many ways unfortunately that's what Russia and China are and have been doing for some time now. At the very center of the PRC's territorial ambitions stands President Xi's desire to annex Taiwan. By force, Taiwan's strategic location would greatly enhance the PRC's capacity to project power into both the Pacific and into Southeast Asia. It would also imperil our ability to support our allies and partners calling into serious question our status as a Pacific power. And as the world's leading maker of semiconductors, Taiwan offers a key technology necessary for the new Cold War that the CCP seems bent on waging against us, whether we want to engage in a Cold War or not, that they are starting one. Most importantly, Taiwan's vibrant, Chinese-speaking democracy represents a direct ideological threat to the CCP's legitimacy. It's no wonder then that the armed wing of the CCP, the People's Liberation Army, has been preparing to invade Taiwan. Let's face it for decades now. In light of these CCP ambitions, I think the biggest implication of Putin's invasion for the Indo-Pacific and for Washington is that Ukraine must serve as a wake-up call, that we must deter Xi from following Putin's playbook. Hopefully he's learning the right lesson here. Don't bite off more than you can chew. And hopefully that's what he's learning, not that aggression is something that's actually going to work and that you're going to benefit from. And that's why I hope and pray that we don't unnecessarily and prematurely pressure the Ukrainians to settle with the Russians having gained any land or particularly significant amounts of Ukrainian land. So we want peace, but we don't want Putin to benefit from his hostile actions toward a freedom-loving, peace-loving country Ukraine. So thank you very much, and I look forward to participating here. Congressman, thank you very much. And both of you have raised the very interesting set of questions about what's similar between Russia's behavior in Ukraine and China's behavior in Taiwan and what's different. Are they both an example of the same kind of thing? Are they being driven by different dynamics? So what's the same about those two parallel tracks and what's different about them? Congressman Behrer? You know, I think what's same is, you know, Xi Jinping has been taking China into a very authoritarian direction, consolidating power. You know, you'll see the Chinese Communist Party's, you know, party meetings coming up and I think you'll see a further consolidation, much as Vladimir Putin has been doing over the last two decades in Russia. So, but internal politics of Russia and China have been very much going in that same direction, which is why I think, you know, those two leaders have grown closer together. You know, clearly both have stated their ambitions. Mr. Putin, his ambitions to take Ukraine and Xi Jinping's ambitions to reunify Taiwan and bring Taiwan back in. So I think the broad 20,000-foot level is the same. I think there's logistics differences, obviously. You know, Ukraine is, you know, connected by land to Russia, whereas, you know, Taiwan's an island. The geography of Taiwan is different. Taiwan's been a thriving democracy and the people of Taiwan have built this, you know, very well-developed economy, very integrated economy with the world. So whereas Ukraine was kind of this young democracy, but you've seen how hard the Ukrainian people have fought. So I think there are some differences there and so I think it's important for us to think about that. You know, other differences are, you know, from the U.S. perspective, our economy is not really super-integrated with the Russian economy. So it was relatively easy for us to disinvest from Russia and for U.S. companies to make that decision. That's probably not the case with China or with any of our partner nations that have come together. You know, I think the world is pretty integrated with the second-largest economy and that's something that I know Congressman Shabin and I and the Senate Committee certainly are thinking through, you know, as we think about supply chain investments through redundancy resiliency, how do we not actually, you know, further complicate, you know, this integration of economies with China in the event that China does take an action we disagree with but rather encourage investment in other regional players or reshoring of some of those supply chains back to the United States. I also think, you know, it's not clear what lesson China will take away from, you know, Mr. Putin's actions. I think Vladimir Putin underestimated the ability of the West, Europe, and NATO to come together fairly quickly to coalesce and I think he's given us a gift. I mean, he's, you know, our NATO partnership is the strongest I've seen in my tenures in Congress and I think the partnership with the European Union was already budding as, you know, concerned about Ukraine but also about Taiwan. I mean, I've seen the EU and the EU parliamentarians take actions against China but also Lithuania's support of Taiwan and I think those are those are all things that potentially accelerate. So I would hope that, you know, Xi Jinping is taking the right lessons away from this that says, you know what, Mr. Putin may have made a bad calculation here. It wasn't so easy. The Ukrainian people stood up and it chose to fight for their country and their democracy and, you know, this is tragic. It didn't have to happen. As President Zelensky has told us directly, you know, he's perfectly happy to live side by side with Russia and have good relations but they're not going to live under Russian rule. This is their country and I think lessons for the people of Taiwan are also watching how hard the Ukrainians are fighting for their, you know, sovereign ability to determine their path forward and, you know, we've had those conversations with the Taiwanese and, you know, the people of Taiwan and, you know, I think there's real opportunities moving forward. So not apples to apples but, you know, some areas that, you know, there might be similarities and differences. Congressman, thank you. Congressman Chava, do you see the the analogy between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's potential threat against Taiwan in similar terms or differently? Yeah, I don't want to repeat everything Amir said, obviously, but yes, I mean there are similarities. There are differences. The similarity, of course, you have two authoritarian regimes who want to dominate, essentially take over smaller, freedom-loving, successful pro-American, pro-West democracies. And, you know, when you look at, and I think Amir's exactly right, this is blown up to a considerable degree in Putin's face and hopefully we're not going to see, you know, it's blown up in his face and that she's going to take the right message from what has happened here. You know, another similarity is you've got both Russia and China who are trying to make a case that neither Taiwan or Ukraine are real countries. You know, they try to look at them as some sort of other entity. In Ukraine's case, Putin was entering into this, you know, propaganda that these were just a bunch of Nazis and, you know, he's trying to reconstitute essentially the old Soviet empire and he's been somewhat successful in taking land from Georgia and Crimea in Ukraine in the Donbas region already. But he's essentially said that, you know, Ukraine always has been part of us, always will be, etc. And the PRC, of course, has acted for years like it's just, you know, Taiwan is some breakaway province, which is clearly not the case. So, and as far as this similarities, obviously, you know, you've got an island versus a landmass which is much easier to enter into a landmass. But our ties with Taiwan are, you know, much closer, obviously, than our ties were with Ukraine. You know, and with respect to Ukraine, there's been a considerable effort to say, you know, not one inch of NATO. And obviously, Ukraine is not part of NATO. So the United States, I think, you know, nobody anticipates we're going to send in U.S. troops there in Ukraine. But in Taiwan, it's another matter. You know, we've had this policy of so-called strategic ambiguity with respect to Taiwan for years, which essentially keeps the PRC guessing, well, would the U.S. be there if we act militarily or not? The Taiwan relations acts as will arm them, but it doesn't necessarily say that we'll act militarily. That's why I really would much prefer to have something called strategic clarity, where we actually do state that we would be there if Taiwan was attacked. And I think it's much less likely that China would make the dangerous step of actually attacking if they knew that we would be there and not just speculated about it. So there's, you know, there are similarities, there are differences, but overall, I think the similarities are pretty striking. Congressman Barr, you mentioned that one of the consequences of what's happened with the unprovoked invasion is that Europe has stepped up to a set of security responsibilities that it's talked about for a long time, and now it's taking steps to make sure that it advances them and does so very quickly. But we've seen Germany agree to reach its commitments under NATO, it's increasing its defense spending. You know, it's impressive what's happening in Europe. Do we see something very similar happening in Indo-Pacific? Can we see countries, as we are seeing in Europe, start to work very closely together in the face of what we all fear could be Chinese aggression or Chinese spread of their influence? Do you see anything like that, Congressman? I do. And I think we saw it actually pre the invasion of Ukraine. Certainly the Chinese aggression in the regions, not new. We've seen what they're doing in the South China Sea with regards to threatening maritime security and freedom of navigation, some of the gray zone tactics that many of the Southeast Asian nations are facing. You know, some of the economic course of measures that they've taken against Australia, Japan, you know, South Korea, I think all of those were pushing us closer together. I mentioned India on India's northern border, some of the aggressive tactics there over territorial rights, as well as some of the base placement in the Indian Ocean region. I think we're moving things in the right direction and helping us create multilateral coalitions so that the fact that the Quad is as strong as it ever has been and it's been elevated to the leader's level. I think that's a good thing for the region's security, but also, you know, for U.S. strategic interests in the region. You know, the fact that the Japanese and the Koreans are talking about beefing up their own self-defense capabilities and potentially in Japan a discussion about preemptive capabilities. I don't think that's just about North Korea. I think that certainly is about the other countries in the region. You have a deal like the Akastil that certainly is about maintaining maritime superiority, but also maritime stability. I think that was happening before the invasion of Ukraine. So I think there was a lot that was already in place. This may accelerate some of those conversations. I think one thing it does do is vis-à-vis Taiwan. I think the people of Taiwan, the government in Taiwan, probably have seen how quickly the Ukrainian people have stepped up to defend their country. And some of the preparation that went into place, I'm proud of the California National Guard, which trains with the Ukrainian military. So when I talk to our Brigadier General in my district in California where they're headquartered, he's like, we're not surprised that they know how to fight because we've been training them for a while. And that's something that, you know, I think Congressman Shabin and I, along with others, would be supportive of doing additional training with the Taiwanese military. But also having them look at what their conscription service looks like, what does a reserve force look like? Those are all things that we think are necessary. And also when you look at the effectiveness of some of the defensive weaponry that the Ukrainians have, whether those are stingers or javelin missiles, we've had these conversations directly with the Taiwanese instead of building a submarine, perhaps have more anti-ship missiles that are much more mobile and movable. I use the term strategic deterrence because I think our goal is we haven't changed any of the calculus of how we view Taiwan. We still have a one China policy, but we also strongly firmly believe the people of Taiwan should be able to determine their future and will support the people of Taiwan. It's China's aggressive nature that is really changing the calculus. And I'll close with this. Mr. Putin will say, well, it was NATO that provoked his actions. I 100% disagree with this. Vladimir Putin chose to do this on his own. He's always said he wanted to do it, and he instigated this. And what we're seeing is his provocation is forcing NATO to now, as you've said, do something that we were never able to accomplish, actually fully fund their self-defense capabilities. Mr. Putin accomplished something that no Republican or Democratic president could accomplish. And I think that is a permanent change. And I think that's a good one. So Vladimir Putin is the one who's changing the tenor and calculus in Europe. Xi Jinping is the one who's been changing the calculus and tenor in the Indo-Pacific. And any time he says, well, I'm just reacting to the Americans, that is absolutely false. We were happy with the framework that was prosperous for all of us in the last 40 or 50 years that he's changed the calculus now. Congressman Xiaobai, one of the interesting issues between we think about the difference between China and Russia and their aggressive behavior. We are, as Congressman Barr said, very linked into the Chinese economy. And so the use of sanctions, which we've done very muscularly in the case of Russia, would have different consequences if we did it with China, particularly if China retaliated with some kind of economic sanctions against us. How do you see the use of sanctions in the case of China and also in Russia? But also, are there things that we can be doing to protect our supply chains and to protect the parts of our economy that we don't want to be retaliated against in case we end up going in that direction with China? Yeah, we've clearly become far too dependent on the Chinese supply chain. We saw that at the beginning of COVID, when obviously they first of all denied that they had anything to do with it starting. And they said it might have been U.S. military over there, and that sort of craziness. But we know it started there. And then they were, rather than being open and honest so the world could deal with this pandemic and maybe get ahead of it and save a lot of lives, they were in the process of cornering the PPE market. And so we were dependent upon that. And we're dependent upon them in so many ways. We're dependent upon them in rare earth minerals. They've been cornering the market in Africa and the Congo and other regions of the world, which we have to be very careful about. We're talking about climate change. And some people obviously see it as a greater emergency than others, but nonetheless it's something we're dealing with. And so we need batteries. And they're cornering the market on cobalt and a whole lot of things that we need for that and others. So we clearly have to be less dependent on China than we are now. And so do our allies across the globe. And when it comes to sanctions, it's easier relative to Russia to get our allies involved there. And it's working to a considerable degree other than the Europeans now are too dependent upon Russian sources of energy. That's a real problem. And that's why the sanctions haven't been as effective as they otherwise could be. But when it comes to China, not only us, but our allies are so dependent on China and the supply chain there is that it's going to make it a lot tougher to sanction them if they take military action against Taiwan, for example. And also, their economy is so much larger that the Europe, I think it was, they talked about Russia as being essentially a gas station. And with the clencha oil that the rest of the world gets, not a real country, China is a pretty dynamic economy that much of the world is dependent upon. So I'll just leave it there. I think we've all noticed that in the votes in the UN that there were a number of countries in Asia that abstained. And we'd be very interested in your reflections on what's behind those abstentions. What do they mean? And very importantly for us, what does it mean in our efforts to try and maintain an open, free trading Asia and Indo-Pacific region? Congressman Bair first. Yeah. So we saw some abstentions from major countries that we have strong relationships with or are building stronger relationships with. And in this case, I'd cite India's abstention, but also the initial Indonesian abstention. Ultimately, they did vote for the resolution at the end, but did not vote to condemn Vladimir Putin's actions per se. Let's talk about the Indians because I've spent, as a senior Indian American member of Congress, obviously spent a lot of time talking to the Indians. I think we recognize India's dependence and long history of getting military hardware and other things from the Russians. And they need to keep that supply chain open, as they would say, for their own defense. I think the bigger concern right now is maybe there were members that were willing to overlook the abstention on the vote, but now the reports of a potential rupee for ruble exchange, which really would undermine the sanctions, the possibility of increasing their purchase of energy at discounted rates, which would allow Mr. Putin a lifeline to continue his unprovoked actions and terroristic actions in Ukraine against the Ukrainian public. That's something that I think if the Indians go down that path, they've enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Congress from Democrats from Republicans. At one time, the largest caucus was the caucus on Indian and Indian Americans. I think Taiwan and Steve will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Taiwan Pakistan's the largest demonstrating the bipartisan support for Taiwan. I think damaging that puts India in a difficult place. And as I've pointed out to the Indians, they have their own territorial integrity issues with a neighbor to the north in China. I would also say that if China were to incur on their sovereign territory, I don't think Russia is going to come to their defense and defend themselves, because I think Russia is going to play to China more than they play to India. We want to build our partnership with India. There's a reason why we're elevating the climate. It's becoming much more important. There's a reason why we do more naval maritime activities with India than I think almost anyone else, because we understand that we have very similar values. And obviously, we're watching what's taking place in Pakistan as well, a country that doesn't get talked about a whole lot. But we've seen Imran Khan visit Russia, say some pretty negative things about the United States. And obviously, if Pakistan wants closer ties to the United States, what Imran Khan is doing and stating is an utter falsehood that he's undermining the Constitution of Pakistan. And that's certainly a country that India ought to be paying attention to as well. And so. And Mr. Sheddoch. Yeah. Well, once again, I don't want to repeat everything that Amir just said, because he said it all so well. Relative to the India's abstention, for example, which let's face it, is disappointing. Amir and I will have an opportunity to discuss that with the ambassador this evening, because we're both having dinner with the Indian ambassador. And I'm sure that'll come up. And I'm sure he'll have many points of view about that. And we'll listen to those and we'll push back somewhat. But, and Amir also mentioned the various, the caucuses that we have. And I was one of the founding co-chairs of the Taiwanese caucus. We started about 20 years ago. And I'm the current co-chair of that caucus. And we were always second to the India caucus, but the Taiwan caucus actually surpassed. I think we have 199 members or something like that, which is now the largest caucus, even larger than India caucus. Now, the irony is that I happen to be not only the co-chair of the Taiwan caucus, but also the India caucus. So we love both caucuses and, of course, both countries. But in all seriousness, I mean, in Southeast Asia, a lot of the nations, for one thing, Europe seems a bit far away. And if you don't have to take on the Russians unnecessarily, there's some reticence. I think to do that, they'd maybe prefer to stay neutral. It is somewhat disappointing, but nonetheless, it is a fact that many of them, and that was the principal location in the world that did abstain. Much of the rest of the world expressed their condemnation for Putin's actions with respect to Ukraine. And you have maybe a couple of cases when it comes to Vietnam and India, they do have Russian weaponry left over from an earlier era. And when they're facing China, they don't necessarily, I think, want to make an enemy when they're going to need either additional equipment or spare parts or all range of things from the Russians. So I think if they didn't have to alienate them, they chose not to do so. But it is a bit disappointing. I'll be honest with you. You think that this clearly, you couldn't have a more example of a country invading another country. There's absolutely no excuse for what Russia did in attacking Ukraine. And we've seen, because the Ukrainians, their military forces and their people fought back so gravely that we're now seeing massacres and war crimes and mass graves and all this stuff. Putin should be held accountable. I mean, the man is a war criminal and hopefully one day he will be held accountable for the crimes that he's committed. Congressman, we're nearing the end of this dialogue and we'd like to give each of you a chance to share your final thoughts and reflections. But we've had two very interesting questions that have come in through the chat line. And maybe we can share them with you and if you would like to respond to them in your closing reflections. The first question is, we've talked about the lessons that China has learned and maybe Russia has learned. But what are the lessons that the U.S. has learned about Russia's unprovoked invasion? How should we change our behavior? How should we interpret what's happened? And then the second very interesting question was, and Congressman Shabbat, it relates to your very interesting point about moving from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity in the case of Taiwan. And the question is, what would we gain if we do that now? So if I can reverse the order and offer final first comments to Congressman Shabbat. Thank you. I missed the last question, what you said about that. What was the last question? It was actually about your comment on moving from strategic ambiguity on Taiwan to moving to strategic clarity on Taiwan. And the question that came in from our audience was, what would be the advantage of doing that? I think the I'll take a second one. First, the advantage of strategic clarity is, I think avoiding the military confrontation altogether, because China would know that we're going to be there, that we would act militarily. And I think they're much less likely if they know for a fact that the United States will be there. I don't think they would engage in war with the United States, but I think they want to take over Taiwan. And I think if we leave it ambiguous, if you look at the U.S. behavior on some occasions, I think Afghanistan is an example of that. And I'm not saying that a lot of people didn't think it was time to pull out of Afghanistan. We've been there 20 years. But the way we pulled out of Afghanistan, I think, sent out a message of weakness to the world's bad actors. And I think that's one of the reasons that Putin thought he could get away with Ukraine, that we wouldn't necessarily act on that. So now on the U.S. lessons, I think the lesson that probably we should take from Ukraine is that we need to provide aid earlier and deterrence earlier in the process. We're rushing to try to get the aid that the Ukrainians need here at kind of the 11th hour. You know, we knew for months and months and months that this was likely to happen, but we really didn't step up getting lethal aid into their hands quickly enough. And they needed air power. I think it's disgraceful, this whole MiG's scenario, where these are the people on the ground fighting the Russians. And they say they need planes. By God, we ought to get them planes. And the planes were available. And I think it was embarrassing, the West's ultimate response. And the fact they still don't have them. So just to boil it all down, we need to get the necessary defensive weaponry into the hands of a country like Ukraine. And you can project, you can say Taiwan is the same thing. We need to get them what they need in advance, not wait until it's too late. Oh, you're back. I think for mine, I'll take the first question first. I think what the United States has learned is multilateral coalitions matter. And I think the fact that NATO came together as quickly as it did, didn't just happen by chance. We'll have Deputy Secretary Sherman in committee, full committee tomorrow. And I've pointed this out to her, the work that the administration did over the last year rebuilding our relationship with NATO, rebuilding that coalition, all came to fruition with the invasion. The same thing I would say with our relations with the European Union, but early on, President Biden visited Europe and made the case that America is back. But then all, certainly in the months leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, there was a ton of work put into getting everyone to the same place. Because I think there was a recognition that sanctions by the United States alone were not going to work. And the fact that these sanctions came together as quick as they did and are as biting as they are, and in fact, I think the sanctions have gone even further than I would have expected. Certainly, they're going further than Mr. Putin expected. I think that matters, that standing together of like-minded, like-valued countries in a common cause, that matters. And I think you've seen that same effort with the trilateral relationship with the Japanese and Koreans. Certainly, we talked about the Quad earlier. I think that certainly matters. The real engagement in Southeast Asia, not because of China, but understanding Southeast Asian centrality and importance to dynamic economies of the region, that matters. When I was in the Philippines pre-pandemic, our relation was really bad. They didn't want anything to do with us. Well, thank you, China, for your great own tactics and for the Filipinos recognizing, hey, we really do need the U.S. engaged in our region. And so those multilateral coalitions, that economic engagement matters. Stephen, Congressman Schaben and I were supporters of the TPP. Obviously, that fell apart in a bipartisan way, unfortunately. But we do need to have a real economic engagement in the region. And we're hopeful to see, as the Indo-Pacific economic framework comes together, a real framework for economic engagement in a bilateral multilateral way. That's good, not just for us and the other partners, but for all the countries in the region, including China. And I think that's possible. So take the lessons that we can learn as if we stand together on our values and principles. I think the values of democracy can defeat the values of autocracy. If we try to do it on our own, in today's 21st century world, I think that's what the autocrats like Putin or Xi Jinping are counting on. And we may not be able to do it by ourselves. Congressman, we're delighted that you were able to join us today. Congressman Barry, in one of your introductory comments, you reflected on this incredible period of prosperity and stability that the U.S. has presided over with our allies and our partners for many years. And we also reflected together on the fact that one of the cornerstones of America's security and foreign policy has been its bipartisan nature. And you too, if we may say this, are proof that this very proud tradition in U.S. foreign and security policy stands today. We thank you for your leadership. We thank you for being with us. And we hope that we have a chance to be together again very soon. Thank you both. Thank you. You're welcome.