 Good morning everybody. Welcome. Delighted to have you here. My name is John Hamry, the president at CSIS, and delighted to welcome all of you for this discussion that we're going to have with two of our leaders from Congress who are leading. I mean, we've got an awful lot of Washington that's doing a lot of talking these days, not enough people who are actually leading. And we are very fortunate that Congressman Forbes and Congressman Hanabusa are here because they're real leaders. They've actually been working together on legislation that deals with the rebalance. I keep calling it pivot. I can't quite help myself. The pivot to Asia. And they've been digging into the details. This is what governing is about. This is what legislating is about, and the two of them are real leaders. And we're very fortunate that they're willing to take some of the time with us to actually hear their insights on what are the problems that they are working through, why these are problems, and why their legislation is going to make a difference. And we're really very honored that they take the time. I know it's hard to get to this part of town in the middle of the day. And that's why we're slightly delayed, so I'm going to get off the stage, turn it to Mike Green, and let you get it started for real. Thanks everybody for coming. Thank you, John. Thank you, everyone, for coming out, and especially to our two distinguished guests from the United States Congress. I'm going to engage in a dialogue up here with Representatives Forbes and Hanabusa, and then we'll turn it over to you to ask questions. We'll have microphones. I've had the opportunity and the real privilege of talking to both members about their effort to keep the U.S. Congress and the administration focused on the Asia Pacific, to go beyond declaratory policy and visits and have a sustained commitment backed by the Congress. I was particularly struck in our conversations on the Hill, because I remember Representative Hanabusa being from Hawaii, of course, talked about her mentor and one of the most important, maybe I think the most important senator in history of the country in terms of U.S. relations with the Pacific, Daniel Inouye, and what a motivational person and a kind of compass he was for how to think about sustained and deep U.S. engagement with the region. And Congressman Forbes picked a somewhat more obscure person, Carl Vinson. If you'll recall, Congressman from the landlocked district, a landlocked district in Georgia, who pushed Franklin Dental and Roosevelt to build up the U.S. Navy in the 1930s when no one else would, and who also happens to be related to our own Sam Nunn. So both members have a deep sense of commitment to this mission and some pretty important role models going forward. I thought we'd open up by asking each of you a bit about the Asia Pacific Priority Act, which passed in April. And maybe I could start with you, Congressman Forbes, and if you could lead off by telling us why Asia, I think it's important to start with the fundamentals, but also why did you begin this process of oversight on the Asia Pacific rebalance strategy and what did you hope to achieve and achieve with the legislation? Well, first of all, Mike, let me thank you for the work you've done on this. Thank you for CSIS and for all the work they do for having us here. And then I want to say what a privilege it is for me to be here with Congresswoman Hanna Boussa. One of the things that I think you look at as a model is that with our committee and with our relationship, we've been able to do something that's kind of rare in Congress today, which is get a bipartisan approach on anything. And that's not an easy thing, but I just give her incredible kudos for her work on this and our ability to work together. Second thing that I'll tell you is I think this is a rare time when you have a president and you have a secretary of defense who says that this is one of the most important regions in the world. And we saw the executive branch, at least through their nomenclature and their words, say that we were going to have this pivot, as John mentioned, and then the rebalance, whatever you want to call it. It is a focus on the Asia Pacific area, but Congress had not done that. And we felt it was important to begin to focus the questioning, because the first part of developing a strategy and a plan on anything is to begin to ask the right questions. And so what I think both of us wanted to do was to make sure that we were beginning to ask those questions. And in doing that, we felt that the Armed Services Committee obviously was the best place to do it. Through that process, we have to give the chairman a great deal of credit because he backed us in doing that. And then as we looked at the Asia Pacific area, I'm going to now veer off and just tell you my perspective for just a second. I think if you look at the United States in the last decade, we've asked the Army and the Marine Corps to do a disproportionate sacrifice, and they have stepped up to the plate and done it. I firmly believe that as we look at the next decade, maybe two decades, it's going to be the decade of the United States Navy. So goes the Navy, I think so goes our national defense. And no area is going to be more important than looking at what we're doing in the Asia Pacific area. And then also just from an economic point of view, you're looking at two-thirds of the trade probably in the world is going to be coming through there over the next decade. And of course, we know if you look at major military powers, they're going to all be focused around that arena. So that's why we thought it was important that we do this. And I'm real pleased that I think we had an opening volley that I think is going to pay great dividends down the road. So I'd like to defer now to Colleen. Thank you. First of all, I'd also join Randy in saying thank you very much, Mike, and also CSIS for doing this. And I must give Congressman Forbes a great deal of credit. I'm not as senior or as all of you know with how we sit on Haas, he's on the top level. I started the last seat on the bottom level. So to be able to serve with him on this special committee that was formed was really an honor. But also it's a great statement of both the fact that Congressman Forbes went to bat, but Chairman McKinnon and also Ranking Member Smith who also joined in and not only felt that this was a critical issue, but also one that would allow someone with like me to be able to co-chair or to be the ranking member to Chairman Forbes. The reason why I think we all started this is that we were getting feedback as the President said in 2011 about the pivot to Asia Pacific. And of course, even then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was very kind to say, and of course, remember Hawaii is the gateway to the Asia Pacific. What did that mean? And that's what we were being asked. Well, what does it mean? What is the strategy? And I think as we realistically, other than saying that we're pivoting or we are rebalancing or recalibrating whichever word you want to use, we really didn't have any kind of understanding of what it meant. We had discussions that of course Asia Pacific, the Pacific is a huge area. You know, when you really think about it, 55% of the earth's surface, and you think about what five of our seven treaties are there, three of the greatest economies of the world are there. India is part of the PECOM, the Pacific Command's AOR area of responsibility. So when you think about the future and you think about what it's going to happen, it is Asia Pacific. The President, I believe, is absolutely correct. When he said the 21st century will be defined by Asia Pacific. And that is of course, whether we are in cooperation, or we are in conflict. I think one of the main purposes of doing the oversight committee and also gathering the kinds of information that that we needed to gather was was to say what would be required. And it was also to realistically view what resources the United States has. How much money are we going to place in defense, for example? But the pivot is not only military, it isn't only security. It is viewed as the way by which we would have economic growth, we would have cultural understanding. And those are all very critical elements of the diplomacy that's necessary in the region as well. Because as the United States is no longer able to to just simply continue in what I call our hub and spoke method of negotiations with all the countries like us with China, us with with South Korea, us with Japan. We recognize that we can't continue that way. So then the next question becomes how then are we going to be successful in the pivot? It really is going to come down to relying on our friends and allies in the region and also being able to recognize that what we need to do, we need to do, which is something that I think the United States is not a country that's accustomed to doing, which is to recognize the cultural differences, the history. And we all know the region has great historical differences, which may actually add to the difficulty or the challenges in us moving towards the Asia Pacific and also defining what is it that we wish to accomplish in the region? What is it that we will do as the United States to ensure the economic growth, the stability and everything that is challenged? I told someone once and people just kind of laughed, but when we were growing up and we saw the map of the world, our map of the world cut the Pacific in half because it was obviously very convenient to do that. So those of us growing up in Hawaii would look whether it's Hawaii here or here. You know, where did they cut that map? Now if you look at the map of the world that puts it a Pacific in the center of the map, then you can see Hawaii very clearly. We're a white smack in the middle. But think about this. The Pacific, 55% of the Earth's surface, the AOR, 17% of the landmass. And if you put every landmass in the Pacific, you still have room. That's how large it is. That's the challenge. So how do we, as really the greatest military force in the world, and we still like to view ourselves as we are the greatest country in the world, as well as the greatest economic power in the world, how do we then look to Asia Pacific and what is our appropriate role to be played? And that's why I think when we started this, it was so critical because it really forces Congress to look at what is it that we can achieve and where is it that we must seek out partners, effective partners in the pivot to Asia Pacific. Thank you both. I particularly appreciate that last point about the need to recognize the diversity within Asia. This is not a region where a collective security organization like NATO is going to work anytime soon or perhaps ever because of the range of development levels, culture, political systems. There is one common denominator, though, and that is almost the entire region wants more of us. We did a survey here at CSIS of regional experts across the Asia Pacific. One question we asked was, do you support the pivot or rebalance? On average, 80% did across the region. In one country, the numbers were quite low. You can guess which one was China. We asked, how would you characterize the pivot? The most common characterization was good objective concern about resources, except in China where the concern was about containment. We may come back to that containment in a minute. I'm sure we will, or that problem of how you manage the China issue. I wanted to ask about the resources question and the implementation question. You've been providing oversight on this and talking to experts and grueling administration in a friendly way. The professor in me wants to ask you to give a letter of grade. How would you characterize the rebalance right now? What are the strong points and what are the points that you think we need to do better on? We can start with you, Connie. First of all, the first thing we have to do is we have to understand the region and what we need. The one thing that Chairman Forbes and I have always agreed on, and we both watch very carefully, is how many Virginia class submarines are being built and whether we're going to retire any carriers and all the different components. Let me explain why. It means a lot to me. Senator Inouye always told me the story. He says, Colleen, remember after World War II, the United States controlled the seven seas. He says, we didn't. He goes, now we've got 20%. Maybe that's a lot. He said, but we will always control the deep blue sea and never lose sight of that. Of course, that's the difference between the two subs. We also have to realize the difference in the types of topography. When we fight it in Congress all the time, does the LCS, for example, which is viewed as, and it's a toral, sorry, the toral comebacks, we in Congress don't speak English. I'm not quite sure what we speak. We speak in capital letters all the time. I don't even think we understand all the capital letters sometimes. What does that mean? It also means for example that you need the support of cruisers out in the sea because the toral comebacks are that, their shoreline. With each ally, they have a desire or a need for a certain kind of support. I agree with you. Everyone says they want us there, but everyone's definition of wanting us there differs by exactly where we are and what it is. When we talk about resources, and it is a balance because as we want to do certain things, because ships, for example, what is the, and we've had this great conversation in Seapar, which I'm fortunate to sit on, and Chairman Forbes is chairman of that, is what is the size of the American fleet? What is the right size of the Navy and everything else? But in that case, what is the size of the fleet? They will tell you, we've had 348, 347, Secretary of the Navy's before John Layman comes up with one figure, Admiral Ruffin comes up with another figure and we say, what is it? What is that? Composition. Composition is a different question because it depends on who we're looking to, where we're looking to be. I think the bottom line we can all agree to is if we don't define where, we're not going to be able to define the numbers. And then the question still becomes, does the United States have the resources to meet whatever those demands may be? Is that your major concern about the rebalance? Well, first of all, no. I have two other major concerns but let me just ditto everything columnist. I'm the exact same page with her. But here's my bigger concern. You're right. The world is crying out for American leadership. They want American leadership. And you're also right. They define that in a different way than what we do. But my bigger concern is we don't know what that means. Not so much that they don't know what that means. And let me just give you two examples that I think are the crux of the problem of where we are. The first one is, as I mentioned earlier, before you can get the answer of what resources we need, you have to start asking the questions. And then you have to develop the strategy. And I have enormous respect for the CNO of the Navy. And he's done some wonderful things. But let me tell you where I just really disagree with him. Is Monday, when he made the statement, that for us to even talk publicly about China, crossed the line and could antagonize them. I think that is exactly the wrong direction. That's the direction we've been headed. But I think it's the wrong direction and for three major reasons. First of all, how in the world would we dare say that we're going to give China a veto power over what questions we can even ask. The second thing is, if they're becoming this major power, which I've granted that they are, they need to get a little thicker skin. And we're a major power and people criticize us all over the world. Well, we understand that. It's going to continue to happen. Well, China needs to grow up at that particular point in time and say, you need to be able to take some of this criticism too. But the third thing is, our whole fundamental basis of why we're here is because we believe in the marketplace of ideas truth will win out. To let China dictate to us what the marketplace of ideas is going to look like is just absolutely wrong. And so I think that's one of the big areas. The other area that let me just say, I won't take this long anymore but you asked the crucial thing, is we all realize the importance of diplomacy. But diplomacy requires three things. One that we have the right strategy. Secondly, that we communicate that strategy very clearly to both our opponents and our allies. But the third thing is that we have the right capacity and capability so our diplomacy means something. If you walk around the globe now, I'm very concerned because I look at the number one concern the Russians had was our getting our land-based missile defense systems out of Europe. We gave it to them and put on the back of the Navy but we didn't give the Navy the resources and I think we have huge gaps there now for that. The second thing is if you look at Iran, the number one concern they wanted us to do was pull off our sanctions and we pulled them off. If you look at the Afghan insurgents, the number one concern that they had was that we give them a time certain so they could tell our allies, okay, Mike, you support the United States on blank date, we're going to come get you. If you look at China, their big concern for us is a reduction in our Navy because our Navy is so important. Well, what do we show them on a budget when we go over there with the President's tour? We pulled an aircraft carrier. I mean, that's the most symbolic thing we have on our fleet. We have tried to beach half of our cruiser fleets. We're not going to build an amphibious ship that's the number one target for the Marine Corps and we're going to stop our Tomahawks. I mean, didn't make any sense but let me tell you the other one. The other one is we're getting ready, I believe, we're hearing this and I think this is going to happen probably the next few days. Number one concern the North Koreans have is pull up our land mines along the DMZ. Well, I'm going to suggest that we're hearing that this administration is going to embark within the next two weeks on signing the Ottawa treaty even though they won't get it supported by the Senate but then they're unilaterally going to start doing that. Even though the Chairman of the Joint Forces Committee just within the last couple of weeks said that would be a huge military problem, the commander of our forces in South Korea said it's a huge military problem. President Clinton said it would be a big problem. President Obama said it in 2009 and then we had of course the Bush administration saying it was a huge problem. Now I say all that because I think we've got to be able to talk about these issues. We've got to develop a strategy that's the right strategy but then on all of this we've got to start bringing our allies into this and you can't just do the stuff unilaterally without talking to them about it. They're the two big directions that I think pose the biggest problem even before we get to the resource debate. I think on that last issue which I also worked on in the Bush administration we'll hear from our Korean allies because when you pull up landmines you just make the North Koreans problem easier. You're exactly right Mike but here's the big thing our allies in there I mean we've got to start sending some messages that our allies are going to be at the table with us. We can't just come to them when we're making these decisions and say so let it be written so let it be done. We need to bring our allies there to the table so that they are part of this discussion and I don't believe they have that. Let me ask you about allies and then turn to China and then we'll open it up. You both said some interesting things about allies. You said Representative Hanabusa hub and spokes yes but we need more. We need to network our allies and I assume you also meant we need multilateral frameworks as well. I mean we shouldn't do hub and spoke. We have to stop that and we have to get into really just multi-national kinds of discussions because if we don't do that we have to recognize that we can't do what we think we can do in the region. The region is so huge. We need our allies to be in with us and you need them to buy in. Whatever that buy in is going to be we need them to buy in. Have you in your oversight looked at what you started I think rightly with our capabilities with the objectives and the challenges and then our own means particularly our naval forces and naval capabilities and in particular within that our deep sea under sea capabilities rightly in my view. But part of this process also presumably will be what do we want our allies to be able to do and we do have process. I mean we have the defense guidelines review with Japan, US and Korea are looking at wartime operational command transition. Australia is doing a new defense white paper presumably that will be an interactive process with us. Do you think we know what we want our allies to do? The president in April in Japan said he welcomes Japan expanding its interpretation of the constitution to be able to do more missions within a reasonable set of policy parameters set by Prime Minister Abe. Do you think we know or do you have views on what kind of roles we want our allies to have? Do we want them to have more capability because we're more stressed, more jointness. What's the direction? You mentioned one example of networking and coalitions and multilateral dialogue but do you have some ideas for your oversight process of where our alliance should go? I think one of the first things we have to do is we can't hide from the fact that we're okay with United States Japan, United States Korea but we're not okay with Japan and Korea and the longer we take to try and understand it and I don't think we need for everyone to say we're okay with the past. I think what we need to do is and this is something that one thing I took away from President Park when she spoke and addressed the Congress was when she talked about trust politics because she said it is a matter of not forgetting the past but being able to sort of put it there and then to move ahead but they got to get to that point. We cannot in my opinion do everything in the region unless our major allies are there and as strange as it may be one of the things that I always look at is the F-35. I know it's totally unrelated but F-35 in the way what people do not realize is how we are building the F-35. We're building the F-35 with nine allies together. So everyone has an investment in this new fighter the F-35 and it does a variety of things. I think one it opens it up to a process where everyone feels an investment. It also to a large extent defrains our costs where we're not the only one supplying it. Everyone in the region who has an investment whether it's Australia, Japan will then be part of it and have their own fighter force as opposed to being exclusive as we have been in the past. I use that as an example because I think that if we're really seriously going to look at protecting the region with the resources that we do have whatever that configuration will be we need to be able to run our allies to carry part of that as well. But in order for them to agree to carry part of it they have to get to the point where they're trusting each other. And we also have to look at the role in the South China Sea and of course if you're from Vietnam you don't want us calling it South China Sea. You want to call it the Eastern Sea. Eastern Vietnam Sea is fine or if you're from the Philippines you want it the West Sea or West Philippine Sea. Anything but South China Sea is what they tell you. But what we need to do is we need to recognize the challenges. And we also need to recognize the limitations of our allies as to what kind of force structure they have. India is enabled. Japan clearly more air force than anything else I think. And so when you look at it the configuration it's almost like somebody has to sit there with a map and say okay we've got this here with that and how is all these pieces going to be effective. And as long as we just look at one person at every time we're not seeing the big picture and we got to see it. But Chairman Forbes is absolutely right. We still have to ask that fundamental question what is our role what is that we intend to do in Asia-Pacific what is it going to take and what is our objective in Asia-Pacific like people have said and I think you've said it Mike. What is the strategy of this pivot and I'm not sure that we have the answers for that. Let me ask about allies first and then last point. I think Colleen is exactly wrong the F-35. I think that's a wonderful example a perfect example to put forward. But Mike your question was do we know what we want our allies to do. Well I don't know who we is but if it's the does the administration do they have a policy. They haven't communicated at the congress because I couldn't articulate that. Secondly I can tell you from the visits I have from all of our ambassadors and our allies don't know that. And I'm going to tell you two things that seem mutually exclusive they're not. One of the things we learned I think very clearly from our hearings and our briefings which is a little different than what the way we like to think of it in the United States. We'd love to have black hats and white hats. We'd love to have the pendulum all one way or the other. I think one of the important things we need to realize in the Asia-Pacific is we can't make our allies always choose between just the United States and just China. If we do that we create a bad situation for them. We don't need that. We need to find commonality of what we can have. The second thing is we need that word American leadership which means this. Everybody needs to come to the table. We need to have them at the table but after that we need to lead. And the best example I can give is how I do it in my office I imagine Colleen's the same way. We bring all of our staff even our interns and everybody has a free say. So whatever they want however they do it. But at the end of the day I've got to make the decision and I make the decision and then we lead on and do what we need to do. I think the problem with the United States is that we're not bringing the allies to the table. And then at the end of the day we've got to say this is the way we've got to lead. And it's very important that our allies come along with this F-35 wonderful example Colleen but there's a lot of other things that we can do to get back to cost and position strategies and those kind of things that we used to use very well. We've just thrown them out the window today. We aren't using them. And just to clarify when you say cost and position strategies. You're not talking about the Pentagon budget. You're talking about the other guys. I'm talking about the other guys. Strategy and raising the cost for coercive action. Well here's what it is. When we have opponents or adversaries or potential opponents or potential whoever they are in the world. You know one of the things they manage what they're doing. They spend a lot of money on things that are pointed to us that look ugly. You know but what we can do is we can kind of use these cost and position strategies or thinking to make it more expensive and so that they shift to other places. We used to do that very very well. We don't have a lot of good planning anymore. What we have now is kind of I think Colleen would agree with me. When I came to Washington I used to be the moment in fact we had six month planning. I just said everything we did is only six months. Today we would be ecstatic if we had six month planning because we're just kind of reacting. We need to get out of that. You mentioned earlier that you thought it's a mistake to be too polite about the China problem. No. Let me clarify that. Okay. Not people I think it's absolutely important that we are polite. One of the things that I think we don't have to do is when I talk about a problem I don't have to be in your face and be obstinate how I do it. And I think it's very important that we talk civilly about doing. I think the danger is that we think we can't even talk about it. So we have this mentality today if I don't use the word terrorism there ain't gonna be any terrorism. That's just a myth. If we think that China is not a competitor they view us as a competitor. Not an adversary but a competitor. And we need to at least raise those questions and put them on the table. For us to be mute about that and think we can't even raise the questions is bullish. Thank you for the clarification. Polite is always important in diplomacy and when we did as you both know when we did our independent study here at CSIS that the Senate on Services Committee initiated and has cooperated closely with us on to look at these questions the greatest source of confusion about what the strategy is we concluded was the difficult the administration had talking about the China problem because you're trying to impose costs for coercive behavior but you're also cooperating on a whole host of regions and the ultimate goal is not to fight China. The ultimate goal is to have a US-China relationship where we're benefiting and the world's benefiting and everyone's getting richer and happier. But that makes military strategy and defense budgets and everything you're talking about hard. What's the right balance? How do you do this? Is there a way you have good advice for the President on this one? But I think one of the things that we have to recognize and first of all I think when we deal with the Asian countries in particular a sense of respect and a sense of understanding is very critical. So I know that in speaking to a lot of people when I first got here the image that they presented is we didn't have to pay attention to China or give China their just do so to speak because everyone said well China will implode. They're growing too large they're just not going to be able to sustain and they're going to implode. I said I'm not an expert on Chinese history but I know enough to say China, the life of us as a nation is a blip in one of their dynasties. They've been around an awful long time and they have also shut that country down, call it a cultural revolution or whatever to do what it feels it needs to do. So patience I think is a virtue that they have or if you want to call it a tool that they have that we're not as good with. The United States isn't as good as that. So the first thing we got to understand is the makeup of the country and the cultural parts of the country which I think we have for so long just dominated that we haven't paid enough attention to. So when we talk about China and when we talk about for example the build up of China people react and they've said things like well look at China. China's got they're going to spend maybe at best 100 and some on billion dollars in military build up and that's a fraction of us and maybe at the most it'll be 200 something but that's just maybe at best not even half right. But my reaction to that is but look at where and what their target is in terms of the spending. China is not like the United States. We're not everywhere. They're not everywhere. So if you think the concentration of China's build up in terms of forces and focus sort of your question to us about where are we focusing is probably from South China or if you take the islands for example the first island chain or whatever it is from Japan all the way down. That's a huge frustration in terms of a focus versus the United States we're in the Middle East we're all over. Yes we have the largest budget but if you were to try and figure out how we cover that it's a different story. So I said we must respect the fact that their resources are targeted in my opinion. I have no other basis than just watching how they're growing and they're in a particular region in the region and we are not able to comprehend that because that's not the way the United States thinks. The United States is a world power the United States is trying to be to a certain extent everything to everybody whereas I don't think China is. If it has an impact elsewhere it's usually because they're trading or there's some kind of economic impact and I think if we don't begin to really focus and understand and look at for example what's going on in Vietnam what's going on in the Philippines what's going on between Japan and everything else we're going to wake up one day and wonder what happened. That's why for example in Hawaii RIMPAC is going on. China's participating those are all very important I think diplomatic slash strategic types of positions because as we join together at least there is an overture and how it's interpreted or how it's accepted. I think China's coming in with friendship but it's still something that we're starting we need to acknowledge China's growing power and recognize that we in the United States can't just simply say they're going to implode they're not going to be able to do what we do because the question is do they want to do what we do and I don't think they do. Excellent point. Last question for me Mr. Chairman you talked about imposing costs for behavior outside of the norm, coercive behavior but obviously China the PLA is trying to complicate our planning, impose costs on us, increase the risk to us with the H2AD anti-accessary denial, cyber, a whole host regions. You could look at this and say this is look this is defensive China has interests it has a long coastline or you could look at it differently and think this is changing the status quo. I guess what I would ask is can we handle this? We can have to fundamentally change the way we've done strategy in the Western Pacific for over half a century or can we handle this? Are there technological alliance and other solutions? I think there's no question we can handle I think the question is whether we do handle it or not and I think Colleen is 100% correct in how we look at them we want to put China in a box to say they're all good or all bad. It's a multifaceted country it's a huge country and you can't do that. But the second thing is I hear so many people when we're looking at strategies saying we don't think China's and it's not just China by the way we're doing that because they're the biggest one but it's any individuals that could be in that region that might be building up these capabilities. People who come to the table and say we think this is China's motive or we don't think this is China's we don't look at it all wrong. You have to plan according to capabilities not according to motives because motives change just like that and so what we are talking about what Colleen's talking about is you have to look at capabilities these countries are building up and ask the question that she put them on the table. Why? Why are you doing that? Why are you building some of these things? And Mike it doesn't matter if their attention right now is defensive or offensive we have to look at the capability and say how do we plan for that? In that process we have to be very very wise to make sure we're not allowing them to put cost of position strategies on us where we're spending all of our money in places that strategically it's not important and the final thing that I'll say is what Admiral Locklear said on all you know he's head of the Pacific Command and he was asked basically the question well look all these other nations of the world together don't spend as much on their navy as we spend on ours you know why is that? And Admiral Locklear said exactly what Colleen just said he said if you want me to defend Long Beach and Norfolk I'm good to go but if you want me to be around the world and keep these shipping lines open and our cable lines open I gotta have a bigger navy than what I've got. And remember when we're talking about ship 85% of the goods we sell in the United States are coming over the water but also we forget 95% of the international financial transactions that take place are underwater cables that the navy has to protect it's not coming through satellite so that's why it's important Trivick thank you I'm very happy to receive questions from the audience please raise your hand keep it brief right here in front we have microphones Great thank you Eric Weiner with Banyan Analytics we're an Asia Pacific Focus Institute I want to get back to the imagery of the Asia Pacific center map that you talked about you talked a lot about Northeast Asia and some Southeast Asia but the Pacific islands in the middle there collectively make up quite a few square kilometers and I wanted to ask you what if any role do you see collectively those islands playing in our future strategy in the region they face a number of traditional and non-traditional security threats thank you It really is the proximity the geographic location of the islands and I think that in terms of what we are able to represent for the United States we're the most forward or western or whichever way you want to look at we'd like to think us as ourselves as most forward but in addition to that what people also do not recognize is Hawaii is more and that the chain of islands that we represent it's more than just the military presence there we are also we just bless the opening of the Daniel K. Noe NOAA Regional Center so all of NOAA's operations are really on Pearl Harbor basically with our Navy and we have all these different types of things including peace institutions East West Center for example which gets cut out of our budget every year which we try to preserve East West Center is a very important component of it because many of the leaders of the Southeast Asian plus the Pacific area countries have somehow touched the East West Center because when you talk about our ultimate goal is always peace our ultimate goal is always being able to develop an economic viable entity with every country in the Pacific and Sharon it's got to begin with the relationships of these leaders are able to build it really it begins with trust in some form or another so when you look at that and you look at the presence CSIS as a Pacific form there as well the Asia Pacific Center for security studies also there so we have all these different institutions there and they are to bring and their purpose is to bring people together so that we can have the continued dialogue CSIS's Pacific form is noted for that I mean they're out there meeting with all the different leaders as well so our proximity and I also would like to think the fact that as you know Hawaii we are a state of minorities but what we have I think is a prime example of how different countries in the different cultures can get together work together and yet preserve their identities which I think is critical for the future the ability to respect and to preserve the identities of the respective countries and be able to work in that format that's where we have to move from now I think the United States has for too long been able to say this is the way we're going to do it just like Chairman Forbes said this is the way we're going to do it we can't do that anymore and I think it's a place like Hawaii that would serve as the major example of how it can be done all this sounds very very important because Jefferson used to write that liberty was gained in inches well I think national security can be gained or lost in inches sometime and one of the things we've got to be very very careful about is we don't get susceptible to diversionary things that make us over here and keep our eyes off of what's happening in those inches that you're talking about some of this is incredibly important in how you kind of begin to do a layering that could impact us huge on our national security strategic goals so we can't take our eyes off of all of this island they become very very important overall. Yes right here on this side second row. Hi good afternoon Kwai Dang Senate Foreign Relations Committee you touched upon the historical differences that would impede the progress over the Asia Pacific region can you give us some examples of the historical differences that would impede this progress? I think the differences that really impede upon it are things like whether or not the Prime Minister's visit to the shrine is interpreted as an act of absolute disrespect to Korea for example or and it's situations like that we respect of how we may view it the point is how is it that our allies view it and how are we able to move it together we in the United States we're already dealing with the issue of and it comes out in armed services all the time which is Futemba and Okinawa within Japan and where shall those troops move and so you know we see a and the other thing that we also have to recognize is the political structures for example we are not we tend not to be the United States tends not to be to be as sensitive as we expect other countries to be sensitive to our whether we're able to do something Chairman Forbes talked about six month plan and we don't even have that but do we stop to recognize the political structural changes within all of our allies and what it means when whoever is Prime Minister or whoever which our ruling party is able to take control and how that shifts we tend not to do that and then we also tend not to really stop and recognize how that will then impact relationships to another country so I think those are the things that we have to be real about and we also have to understand what our presence has been I listened to the president of Vietnam for example when he spoke at the APEC conference because I wanted to know how I was in high school during the Vietnam War and I want to know how they now perceive us because you know that's where the coin the phase the ugly American and do they want our presence do they not want our presence how do we deal with that and it's very interesting to see the perceptions or even our relationship with the Philippines after the Philippines basically said we don't want any military presence now and then now we have the movement and there are other things for example in Hawaii the number two for the United States Army is an Australian general who is assigned there and so what does all of that mean so these are the different types of things that are going on that we need to keep focused on because it does have implications as to how our allies view what we're doing and how they view each other I understood in this town that one of the two deputies of the U.S. Army of the Pacific is an Australian and it might not be a bad idea someday to have maybe one of the deputies in Pak Fleet be Japanese or Pak AFP Korean that might not be a bad idea and the interesting thing about that is you know for the United States we have always been so protective of our quote our posture our strategy and so forth that we are opening or we seem to be opening it up it's like some version of the F-35 maybe this is what we need to start to look at but those are the things and is that the way we're able to then bridge the various types of historical cultural problems that we deal with do we bring them all for example and redefine PAKOM the Pacific Command do they then believe it or not one of them is a non quote unquote navy person do we expand that to you know maybe international I want to I whatever it is and make them part of the strategy that we don't know but that's going to be a real change in how we view and how we move forward but I raise that because it's there and like you said very few people are aware that in fact it's an Australian general the country is a good boss though let me go over here right over there thank you very much Tio Scandling Kimura with SICE at Johns Hopkins I wonder if you could talk a little bit about domestic challenges that we face both at a macro level with the executive branch or with the legislative branch and at a micro level for the average American citizen challenges to the US rebalance to the Asia Pacific well let me see when you're talking about you're talking about the average American citizen and how they view the rebalance and the domestic challenges that we're having at home is that a fair I think one of the things that we have to recognize and Colleen begin talking about this in her last statement about how different countries perceive things differently well we do the same thing in the United States so if I could get the leaders of our allies in the United States in a room by themselves and say strategically what's the best thing for us to do they could probably come up with that answer but each of them then have national domestic things that they have to deal with some of them may be emotional or historic or cultural but let's bring it to the United States today President Wolk in a room today and decide what he thought strategically might have been best to do in Syria or what might be best to do in Iraq that's one question but then he's recognizing that we have a population right now that's very very war weary and they they don't want more money spent in Iraq or in Syria or some of these other places when you look at the Asia Pacific area it is very difficult to make the connection with them so that they can understand how important it is to be involved in strategy in that whole region because right now they are looking at their own economy they're looking at their children going to college they're looking at their jobs that are kind of having a difficult time getting and their question they're asking is why would we invest any resources over there as opposed to putting them here so I think that's one of the things that leaders are having to look at in the United States how do you make that case for why we should be concerned and making these kind of investments and resources when there's so many domestic needs and challenges here that's one of the things we're having to deal with I agree with what Chairman Forbes is saying is that the country the United States is just war weary it just doesn't want to even think about it and fortunately anything that sounds or looks like defense is interpreted as somehow related to war and I think that's the first problem that we all have and then it becomes a question of with the limited resources that we have as a country how do we then of course allocate it I think the problem that the military has had is that in the Pacific it is viewed a lot very positively not for everything else that we've talked about it's viewed very positively for HADR which is Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief that the United States is the country that people turn to whenever and we know that we've had typhoons whether the Philippines recently with high-end or the Tohoku earthquake in Japan or Thailand before we are the country that people look to but somehow that's lost we are also when you really think about O.D. and what it's able that Department of Defense and what it's able to do there is probably no greater entity within the federal government that does energy research for example or technology research or anything along those lines because when you think about our Marine Corps the ability the expeditionary forces necessity to be able to be self-sustained for 30 days wherever they may be think of all the technology research that went into their whole idea being able to generate their own power, generate their own water, generate everything for their own subsistence. So the military unfortunately is not credited with the amazing amount of dual use technology that has been able to create humanitarian assistance that it's done and also being able to help train other countries because we are looking at ourselves in a conflict situation where we think well we're not in a conflict situation anymore our allies depending on how developed their own military forces are, are and they look to us as also providing that form of assistance to them. The problem is how do you convince or how do you tell the general public that the military is just not the military it's almost like you have to change their name or do something. So people realize that research, development, futures, economic stability all of that comes under what they do and we haven't done a good job of doing it and people don't want war no question they're weary of it but they also want security. It sounds schizophrenic in a way but we want all those things and we think that somehow we can turn the switch off and turn it on and it can't happen that way but it's our problem or it's administration's problem, government's problem to be able to effectively relay that and have people understand and buy into it but you know if it's a choice between being able to pay your tuition or building another Virginia class sub people may say tuition and I understand that, I understand that but that's the types of things that we have to balance. This question is a good one because Colin you mentioned this earlier on the LCS I was at a dinner with the C&O and my wife was there that night and he and I were talking the whole thing and on the way home she looked at me and she said do you guys ever talk in English? You know because you're not and what happens we forget that because we get kind of wonky sometimes and we've got to do a better job and the Pentagon's got to do a better job I mean terms like reset and those kind of things to the average American it means nothing. We've got to paint pictures for them that really show that connectivity and we could do a better job at doing that. Lee Kuan Yew said recently that Americans think that the world is like a DVD. I don't know if you heard this that you can just turn it off while you deal with other stuff and then when you resume and everybody will have been waiting for you. On the other hand you both I'm sure seen the surveys, a number of surveys recently, past few years show Americans now think Asia and the Pacific is and will be the most important region in the world to us after decades of people saying Europe. I think we need to end now but I wanted to thank you both for not turning off the DVD for keeping the Congress and the administration and all of us focused on our interests and our strategy for asking hard questions and for letting us ask you some hard questions today and especially for your leadership and bipartisanship which is so important these days. So please join me in expressing our appreciation.