 Good morning. Good morning and welcome to everybody. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president of the United States Institute of Peace, and I'm delighted to welcome everybody here this morning. This is the seventh in a series of USIP bipartisan congressional dialogues, and the series was launched at the beginning of 2018 to provide a platform for members of Congress who are working across the aisle on issues that are critical for our national security and to advance common interests. And this is the bipartisan spirit that in fact has been at the heart of USIP since it was founded by Congress in 1984 as an independent, nonpartisan, National Institute dedicated to reducing and preventing violent international conflict. And so we believe that that mission, that a world without violent conflict, is very possible that it is in fact quite practical and it is essential for our national security. And so we pursue our mission by linking research with policy with action on the ground with partners working in conflict-affected places for lasting peace. And here we use our global headquarters here to bring people together from across different views, perspectives, to tackle difficult problems. And so as an organization, we believe very strongly in fostering bipartisan efforts to strengthen national security. And we have found, despite what you read in the papers, that there are many very thoughtful members of Congress who very much embrace this as a critical way forward. And so we're honored that we're able to have with us today two foreign policy experts leading voices and supporters of USIP, Congressman Francis Rooney from Florida and Congressman Don Bayer from Virginia. For a conversation on a critical topic that I think everybody is seized with, soft power in a sharp power world, countering coercion and information warfare. Both congressmen have experiences as US ambassadors. They have lived and seen firsthand the effectiveness of soft power and the ability to influence others through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion or force. Congressman Rooney served as the US ambassador to the Holy See from 2000 to 2000, sorry, 2005 to 2008. And he's now the vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman Rooney also joined us for a previous dialogue in June on Russia's disruption in Europe, which is an issue very related to the topic this morning. We're delighted to have you back. Thank you for coming back. Congressman Rooney, Congressman Bayer served as the US ambassador to Switzerland in Liechtenstein from 2009 to 2013, and he now serves as the vice ranking member of the Science, Space and Technology Committee. Delighted to have you join us this morning, Congressman. So today, we'll have a chance to really look more deeply at what is sharp power, the ways in which information is used in deceptive ways for hostile purposes, and have a chance to understand the way in which this disinformation and social disruption is enabling countries to spread regional and global influence that contribute to instability and violent global conflict. Over the past few years, we have seen countries such as China, Russia, Iran, turning more to sharp power as a way to pursue their objectives, and of course in a world where we have such open and interconnected media systems, these tactics are proving more virulent and able to spread more rapidly than ever. I know that USIP has seen this firsthand in the places where we work, a lot of fragile countries around the world that are characterized by very fragmented societies, and it makes these places especially vulnerable where these tactics can prolong and exacerbate violent conflict. So we'll have an opportunity to discuss this today with our two foremost congressional leaders, and before we begin, I want to invite everyone to follow USIP on Twitter at at USIP and join in today's conversation using the hashtag bipartisan USIP. And with that, please join me in welcoming to the stage Congressman Rooney and Congressman Bayer. Do you want to just give us a start? Yes. Like I said last time, it works a lot better to have notes. Things can go seriously sideways when I don't. First, I'd like to thank Nancy and Ambassador Byer for being here and everyone at the Institute of Peace and the great work that Stephen and all of you are doing. I thought I might just kind of start with like how we got where we are a little bit, you know. In hindsight, the post-World War II bipolar world brought a level of stability that we didn't necessarily appreciate then, but we can appreciate now. And you know, the autocracy of Russia pursued a sharp power and some soft power agenda. They had these client-state skirmishes all over the world. And we had international institutions that were put in place to try to counter that and create symmetric relationships among the Western powers and reciprocal relationships that would be mutually beneficial. It started with the so-called liberal state, right? And of course the United States developed its own soft power tools. We radio-free Europe, West of America, the Department and Eisenhower Foundation exchange programs. We've all known many people that have come from around the world through those programs and become familiar with our country. We have many of our people that have become familiar with other countries that creates that symmetrical bond and of course, AID. Notice General Mattis has commented recently during the first budget discussion, which basically took AID off the table, that if you don't do the AID money, I need more tanks. My contrast, our deployment of soft power in the bipolar world with the Russia view of sharp power, conversion and coercion and intimidation, you know, Eastern Europe, the surveillance in every building, client-state cultivation, money, force. I saw it in Latin America and Asia and it comes down to the fact that autocracies have to display force since they don't have citizens' rights. And they can't take care of their people like we take care of our people. They have to do it through repression. So came the end of the Cold War, the end of history, right? Remember that? US soft power and economic engine blew them away, freedom won for a while and it created the unipolar world. And now what do we have? We're back to a multipolar world. And to me, opinion, it's quite chaotic. We're seeing these tectonic movements as realignments take place and new hegemonic ambitions come up. You know, Condi used to say when I was still involved with things in 2009 that the realignments that ensued from the Cold War are not done yet. They're still evolving and I think we're seeing that kind of every day to one extent or another, which makes the USIP's work very important to complement AID and the State Department and the more hard power people. You know, China and the WTO, there's a great article recently about did the US get it wrong? Okay, when they joined the WTO, the whole game changed with China. Perhaps in some good ways, perhaps in some bad ways. I don't think we really know. We could use a bit of the Chinese sense of history, long-term perspective on that, still unfolding. But clearly, it's put a lot of strains and we're seeing a lot of it right now. In the international organizations, it seems to me became less powerful and more impotent. You know, the abuses of the UN Human Rights Commission and the International Criminal Court, those didn't have to get that out of hand with a little more leadership. And now we have aggression by these newly empowered hegemones. You know, we've got Iran and North Korea with their nukes. No one seemed to be able to deal with North Korea. I think they've defied Clinton, Bush, Obama, and now they're defying Trump. We've got Russia and Crimea. And in the Ukraine, this has got worse even today in the Wall Street Journal, the article about the Sea of Azov, you know, that's trying to stranglehold the eastern Ukraine. It reminds me of Robert Kake's great book, The Return of History. I don't know if anybody's read that, but it's coming for us every day. And so The Return of Shark Power and the Autocrats has also complimented this, you know, the coercion that we're seeing and subordination that we're seeing with China and Southeast Asia, with the Belt and Road. And we see in Africa and Latin America by huge infrastructure projects, finance with yuan and hard to be paid for. You know, I think we've seen some of that in Slovakia or Slovenia just recently. We have these proxy campaigns going on, you know, Iran's in Yemen, Iran's in Iraq and Syria. Iran's basically owns the eastern half of Iraq now, probably debate a long time, whether it was right that we got them in that position to be able to do that. I have my own opinions about that. And then we have this new disinformation campaign. I don't know how much China's involved in that, but we know the Russia stuff's been in the paper a lot. And the influencing both Eastern, influencing both Europe and the United States, leveraging those technologies that Nancy mentioned presents a new kind of danger to us. And I think we need to deal responsibly with that. Even when they get into elections, imagine that. So what can we do now to counter with soft power of our democracies? You know, we have to appeal to our values and culture the old way, the hard way, the refocus on our symmetrical alignments, reciprocal alignments that allow everybody to win and build trade relationships. I have personal experience with the Holy See's soft power, you know, both with dealing with the reinterpretation of Islamic theology to come into context with the modern world, both in the work that the Holy See did with Iran since they could talk to Iran in 2005 through 2009 and we could not. And then the mediation roles they've done. I mean, you may disagree with what happened with Cuba, but you can't disagree with the unique role the Holy See could play as a soft power armeter under the radar screen where nobody wants to take credit for what they're doing. And that I could cite many instances of similar mediations and interjections with the Holy See, most of which are quiet because they don't need to take credit for what they do. And I think the soft power works really well when you don't have to take credit for what you do. It keeps it soft. Other soft power institutions, of course, is the new U.S. agency for global media. I'm real excited about combining those things, repackaging them. The Farsi broadcast into Iran have over 17 percent market share. And one of the things I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do with soft power is show the Iranian people that when the time comes that they're ready for us, we're ready for them. The same way that the Warsaw Pact countries knew that we were ready for them when the time came that we could approach them and vice versa. And I think that's incumbent on us, and I think that the Global Media Center is a real opportunity to do that. Agency for International, the other thing is, to me, this may be at variance with some current things, but I think multiple lateral trade agreements are very important. And fortunately, NAFTA has survived, and some slight, maybe improvement, I don't know, but it survived. TPP has not, but there's a little bit of nascent discussion in the White House that maybe they need to revisit that, too. Every chance I get, I talk about the security aspects of multilateral trade agreements. And I've even made the comment to some of the people in the White House, do you know about CETO? TPP's got a little bit of CETO in it, if we could just get it done. And then now we have TTIPS dead, and in Latin America, we have the rise of the Pacific Alliance. So are we going to sit here and let the good, profitable Latin American countries develop their own relationships with Asia, or are we going to get on that bus as well? So we've got some real challenges there. And then the last thing is, you know, these exchange programs and the threats to USAID are troublesome, because the more people that get to know the, if we believe we're the best, then the more people that aren't from the United States that we get to experience us, you would think would be the better for our country in the long run. And so I hope that we can get back to what we used to do, like what the department did and the Eisenhower Institute and things like that. And we need to refocus on our Cold War allies. They're still the strongest allies we have. We share the cultural heritage, immigration heritage, fought two wars with them, maybe more, those two I remember. I guess you could say that the first global war, the French and Indian war was one too. And it's the only ones that we can really leverage those common ties with. So hopefully we're going to be able to do all that and get back in focus before things continue to, we don't want to be negative about it, but before things would continue to devolve, as I think they're doing right now. Thank you. Thank you, Francis, very much. Good morning. I'm thrilled to be here. Nancy Lindberg, thank you and your staff for putting this together. Thank you for Francis for inviting me for thinking of me. My wife is on the board of the International Advisory Council here at USIP. So she told me I had to come. And I was thrilled to be here with Francis. We are both Jesuit educated here in Washington. I went to Gonzaga. He went to Georgetown Prep, source of all Supreme Court justices. And I didn't get into Georgetown Prep, which is why I went to Gonzaga. And we're two of the few business people in Congress. You think that Congress is being a low-sleeve business and lawyers. It's actually mostly former staff people who succeed their bosses. And when we were both ambassadors, the Holy See and Switzerland, which have an incredible overlaps. For example, Switzerland has the Swiss Guard that protected Francis all those years. I also represent the Lichtenstein, where the Crown Prince Hans-Odham is very close to all the popes. Pope baptizes all the children in Lichtenstein. It's a 100 percent Catholic country. But most importantly, the only two countries that have square flags, the Vatican and the Swiss. And I want to apologize for leaving a little early. We're having our Democratic votes for speaker at 10 o'clock. And I'm not allowed to miss it. I want to take a slightly different tack than Ambassador Rooney. There's political and technological changes. Democracies are really perhaps more vulnerable than they've ever been to disinformation. Because of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, just smartphones alone, where you're bombarded day in and day out. And so the tactics of disinformation, subversion, intimidation, internal meddling, not just in elections, but in how we actually understand the news on a day-to-day basis are far more prevalent than they've ever been before. And they've actually become absolutely central to the practice of foreign affairs and these resurgent autocracies. And technology gives these governments the ability to cost-effectively reach into cell phones, reach into living rooms around the world and sear so fear, doubt, division, undermine alliances, spread the fake news. I get an email a week from my aunt and godmother out in St. Louis. Her favorite one is the one about all the advantages that members of Congress have. We get our own free health insurance. The first day we serve, we get our salary for life. None of our children, all of our, their colleges are paid for, et cetera. There's 22 of these. 22 of them are wrong. But someone has sent this to her and she believes it, and she's very upset by it. The original academic analysis of sharp power focused on Russia and China. And those countries certainly are the world's foremost purveyors of the sharp power. But not just them. Especially every country. In fact, no self-respecting dictator is without a paid legion of keyboard warriors on Twitter or Weibo or V-Contact, along with the pseudo journalists and the hackers and other agents of sharp power, including the couch potatoes that are in the parents' basement in some Eastern European country. It's no accident that Assad al-Qahtani, the man chosen to orchestrate the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, was primarily an information order. And this speaks to the centrality of information order to the security and the diplomatic toolkits of autocracies. Traditionally, unmatched soft power of the United States. So many of the things that Francis talked about. Our culture and our ideas have made us and our allies very resistant to the tools of sharp power. But just as our vulnerability to all the new technology of soft power, sharp power has increased, as we struggle even to ascertain the level of Russian meddling in our last elections, our soft power is at a low ebb. Anecdotally, foreigners, I speak to you don't know whether to fear a newly erratic United States to laugh at us or to cry for us. More scientifically, Pew research around the globe shows a sharp and continued decline in the perceptions of the United States and of our government around the world, but particularly among the people of many of our traditional allies in Western Europe and Canada and, of course, in Mexico. It's ironic that only in Russia, Israel, and curiously Kenya are we more popular than we were two years ago. And so when people don't respect the United States, it weakens and empties out our soft power. And this is, of course, compounded by the hollowing out of the formal tools of our soft power, our diplomatic corps and USAID. I know, Francis, that we've been often to be mown that there are more members of military bands than there are US foreign service officers. There are more accountants than the Pentagon than there are US foreign service officers. You've all heard the refrain America first means America alone. Up to this point, in some ways, we've witnessed the enduring centrality of the United States to the global democratic system, NATO, EU, United Nations, and so forth. But leaders so far have been willing to grant us leeway and endure withering insults or misguided tariffs or withdrawing from bilateral trade agreements in the hope that one day America soon will be America again. But as we alienate the populace of those democracies, I fear the domestic political logic for those leaders is going to change. They have already started looking for alternatives. Francis pointed out the thought that with our withdrawal from TPP, we will let China write the rules for trade in the Pacific for a generation. But the erosion isn't complete. The America soft power relies on three components, our cultural exports, our economic reeminence, and the power of the American ideal, the shining city on the hill. And to maintain that power is critically that we maintain all three of these. We cannot remain a beacon if we don't live up to these ideals. If we ourselves do not take a vision of the world founded on democracy and human rights seriously. I know we will be working together with many members of Congress across party lines on the murder of Khashoggi and our failure at the moment to live up to our American ideals. Some degree of power capability, our own sharp power is always going to be necessary to counter our rivals. But we have to rely on the soft power that's unique to the United States. And to do that, we cannot allow it to wither away. Thanks. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Thank you. Thank you both. I mean, this is an important conversation at a time where there are many people reflecting here in this town and globally on, you know, what are the stresses and strengths on the international liberal world order, which of course, we've been a primary abholder of for the last 70 years. You both, and I was struck by the fact that not only were you both ambassadors, you were both ambassadors in places that are themselves beacons of soft power. You mentioned your experiences as ambassador to the Holy See, to Switzerland. Let's start by, you know, we have smart power, hard power, soft power, and now sharp power, especially from your experiences as ambassadors in the kinds of places that you were. Say a little bit more about what is specific to soft power that you saw or experienced that was so particularly effective. Well, I mean, first of all, there are places like Switzerland and the Holy See that offer real opportunity because of their lack of hegemonic aggression. Historically, they're not as big a threat. And I saw it with the Holy See with Amadena John when he was saying a lot of horrible things. The White House and the State Department would get me to go talk to the Secretary of State of the Holy See about what we would like to see the Pope say. The Pope would say all this stuff. And, you know, when George Bush would say it or something or anybody else, he would criticize them just wanting to get your hands on our oil or something. Well, he couldn't say anything about the Pope doing it. And the Pope attacked Amadena John for the world for three or four straight years. You know, the mediating role in de-intensifying conflicts is an element of soft power which I know the U.S. Institute of Peace is really expert at. And we've seen that with the Holy See many times where they've intervened. They've intervened between Chile and Peru one time. They've intervened all over Central America. Chavez asked them to intervene in Venezuela and they were smart enough to realize that they couldn't accomplish anything so they said no. And then the last thing was this Cuba deal which I thought was fascinating that you can conduct a multi-site negotiation between two hostile countries over two years and not one word got out. Very few mediators could accomplish that. And how about Switzerland, which is another place of new travel and soft power? There are a variety of different takes. Let me take my favorite, which is when before I went over I sat with the Assistant Secretary and said what's our goal? What's our mission? They said to overcome the anti-American sentiment in Switzerland. And this is based on the two wars in Abu Ghraib and death penalties and environmental stuff. And after Megan and I had been there for about six months we realized the heart of anti-American sentiment was the American expat community. That was upset about Fatka and Fubar and all those other things. So we ended up getting deeply involved in the Swiss culture with her own take on it. So hiking and climbing and skiing and going to all the cantons and meeting all the mayors was incredibly helpful in terms of restoring that relationship. One of my favorite little anecdotes, we were climbing a mountain near Grindelwald with a guide and we got about halfway up the mountain, some Swiss are coming down and they said oh my god we've never seen Americans this high on a mountain before. And at the end, you know, we were talking about running for election there, but anyway. But then from the real soft power, when the U.S. wanted Russia to join the WTO with the so far vein hope that it would move them away from an extraction economy, move them into modern economies and help democratize, Georgia had veto power over it and we went to the Swiss to say partner with us, you're great negotiators to get Georgia to come on board on Iran sanctions. Switzerland was the hole in the doughnut for buying oil, doing banking and buying centrifuges for Iran and because they're not part of the EU nor NATO. And so it was soft U.S. soft power again and again that eventually got them to close down all of those things so that by the end they couldn't cast their checks. And the Swiss are going to say please give us a little slack so we can pay the Iranian diplomats in Geneva. But that was all soft power that did that. So what do you think accounts for the rise of what we are now calling sharp power? I mean why is this suddenly like a tsunami wave bearing down on us? I would say a little bit about how you define sharp power. Well I think sharp power is all these things that are not military but are not soft, whether it's surveillance, co-option, subordination, minor forms of physical intimidation or mental intimidation. There's a lot of things that would not constitute military conflict and don't constitute soft power. And I think you go back to this whole chaotic hegemonic evolution in the post-Unipolar bipolar world is unleashing a lot of new hegemonic ambitions and efforts combined with as you mentioned about technology that kind of gives them the weapons to use to do it. I'd say sort of three factors and to repeat what Francis has said. Number one is the all-powerful U.S. military and I know Russia still has some nuclear weapons but they're beyond nuclear they're not a factor to deal with at all with us. China is rising but it's still a small small fraction of what we have so if they want to compete they can't compete on a military basis on a hard power basis so it pushes them to soft power. Meg and I have been to Aspen Institute week-long seminar the last two years on Russia and the one thing that comes out of this is how incredibly insecure Russia is and how much they they used to be a world power and now you know the population is shrinking and they have enormous problems. With Putin especially this desire to fight back and be recognized as a world player again and without you know in the Cold War we had the military against military here it's Unipot polar so they have to do the sharp power and China on the other hand are just completely different beasts I mean the the rate of economic growth there is so strong their ability to invest in so many different things and once again if you will go back 3,000 years there's these this sense of Chinese exceptionalism you know that they should be leading the world and this again is one of the tools to help them do that. Yeah remember Zing Hai came back from his exploration told the the ruler of China there's nothing to learn from those guys forget it. So I mean even the terminology sharp versus soft power suggests that the sharp power will reign you know that it can pierce the soft power tools. How do you see when you think about going up against sharp power with soft power and this conversation used to happen vis-a-vis hard power of course which is why we came up with smart power but how do you what's the how can the soft power tools and approaches prevail in the face of sharp. Diplomats and business people being the ambassador here have to be optimistic about the future we can't be too pessimistic that's just by nature and so we've got a hope that the value-driven city on the hill that Congressman Ambassador Barr mentioned will ultimately win out over these nefarious autocratic influences that don't provide for their people where we've proven that we can and so as we face these widening tools that create more opportunities for them to create mayhem we have to be even more vigilant in propagating our the shared values and culture and the things that that bring us together with the with the world especially our former allies. I hardly agree you know I think we're both enlightenment candidates and believe in the enlightenment you know which means that in the short run you're going to get hurt by the people that don't play by the rules but but by playing by the rules by lifting the ideals up we always win in the long run and both of us see it in business I'm sure you know our number one principle in business is integrity which means you often get out bid or screwed by the person that doesn't play with integrity but ultimately ultimately we win almost always the other principle thing in business is it's got to be a win-win deal to be enduring and most of our great foreign policy victories have been bipartisan enduring victories that could sustain whether it's containment or whatever and and that's not always the case in partisan politics we're gonna be working on that win-win in the next two years looking forward to it you heard it here hey and we start with climate change yeah we the climate change bill the carbon tax bill was introduced last night it's been a congressman's main project and i think i'm the one of two republicans on it yeah two of many to come yeah you got it you also have flatjackets around here can i borrow a flatjacket when i go back i have to go campaign for france is in florida um so congressman you talked a little bit about some of the soft power tools and your remarks that we developed during the cold war are those still the right tools do we need to bolster them are they you know how do do they need to evolve um how are we doing on our soft power toolbox that's a good question you know without getting too far off message here i think we need to make sure that the free press and the first amendment that have made our country so important and given us the the democracy can't die in darkness so to speak of the washington post uh are adapted to facebook and google and i feel real i have real problems with what we've seen out of facebook and google lately and i don't think our legal and constitutional regiments have come to terms with them and i'd add to that that and i think we've seen enormous evolution and awareness since 2016 with the russian interference but the education of the american people starting in first grade to be suspicious and skeptical of everything you read to test everything and sometimes you know not just my crazy aunt in st louis um but we see it from the left to where um you know things that are blown out as my daughter will often come to us and say can you believe this is honey let's let's let's check that um and across the world across the democratic world is to build a the kind of skepticism that goes with the free press you know that's a fascinating point when you think about the the slavic paranoia that's written about so much that you alluded to about russia makes it easy for an autocrat to manipulate their people whereas we have been insulated from that manipulation because of our lack of paranoia that's a really good point congressman we're in the last few minutes before you and you are excused for this important vote vote thank you for making the time to join us despite that time crunch but before you leave a final question and any final thoughts you want to add but that is you know do we need to compromise our commitment to open society that is really characterized you know who we are as a as a as a people in the face of these sharp power attacks that's that's a hard question an easy answer hell no you know in fact when we go back through our history when we did compromise you know the alien sedition act or or the internment of the japanese or any of those times we're always retrospectively embarrassed that we compromise our values for our short term security so i think i think we need to double down on america as uh and live up to our ideals we know we clearly will agree on what our ideals are we just need to live up to them in every possible way thank you for joining us thank you very much yeah thanks and congressman we thank you for staying with us and i'd like to leave if you want you're stuck with me okay it's hard to act to follow congressman buyer let me assure that i'd i'd i'd love to give you a crack at that question because i think it's one of the fundamental issues is how do we you know should we uh compromise our open society commitments in the face of all of the sharp power attacks that we're facing no i would agree with congressman buyer we actually have to double down we have to figure out how to deal with the new threats that come from technology and and some of the adverse consequences of globalization that have created some bad trends in our society now that are being manipulated by politicians and figure out how to remain true to the values that make america what it is i mean when you've got the president of france sounding more american values than us i've got a real problem here we have to get back to what makes the united states the united states and do you see that the united states has to you know get down into the mud and wrestle with some of the same tools and tactics and how do we draw a line against the onslaught of what we see well you know statecraft is kind of a messy business at times and we're no angels and you need to combine all the tools of statecraft to win the game but that doesn't mean they're in the derogation of our fundamental principles that drive our country you know you could make the argument that a a russian cyber hack is just the leaflet drop of today with current technology so i think what we have to make sure is that we know what's happening we have to invest in intelligence we have to know what they can do to us and and that doesn't mean we have to do the same to them but there are times when we have to deploy intelligence tools certainly we have to have our military hope the more you have the less you have to use it so it's been my kind of feeling about the military we've got a real problem in asia right now with pulling back and not living up to american values so the head of the philippines goes and cuts a deal with china because you can't trust us you know a lot of things that we we need to deal with so a final question then we're going to open it up for quite for audience questions and that is um you know we've seen enormous amounts of chinese investment going into an arc of fragile states you know across asia um and africa uh we can't compete with that kind of investment do you see uh soft power as a way to continue engagement with those countries or how do you think the u.s should respond to that kind of i don't know what you would call that money power yeah it's it's certainly a sort of a question who's going to run out of money first you know margaret thatcher used to say the problem of socialism is you run out of spending everybody else's money both china and the united states are spending gobs of money around the world to accomplish different objectives and a lot of our money's being spent right here to accomplish more social objectives while they're trying to pursue their mercantilist policy and uh you know i think that we need to do things like the build act that we just passed that i think is a step in the right direction to bring elements of opic xm bank a id together to be more effective in combating china you know you go back to why a ad was ramped up or the xm bank was put together years ago was to combat meaty the jab the original japanese business promotion thing back in the 80s and so you know that that's one positive step that we can we can look to great so um we have mics for those who have questions and i'm gonna um here let's stage the mic with the gentleman in the second row and while you're going there i'm gonna start with a first question that we received from a young student in florida who is watching online and the question is can they vote yes they are in college good at nova southeastern university and the question is how do you better prepare young people to address these challenges well i think civics would be a good start i read a lot that there's not enough civics taught in grade school and high school and i think we need to make sure that the commitment to united states if you will values that we've been talking about it bleeds down into what the kids learn in school they need to know our history one thing i admire china for is their uh orientation towards history you know because we're doomed to repeat it if we don't understand it and so a lot of things that we could do to give our students now more of a historical grounding in the world and in the history of the united states and why we are us why did they write the declaration of the independence what were they fleeing those kinds of things would help that's what the musical hamilton is for right sir yes thank you congress i think you're on yep okay thank you congressman very much for your presentation today i had to a quick comment introduce yourself oh my name is anthony vance i'm the director of public affairs for the bahais of the united states our problems of course that work that bring us to today's session are primarily in iran where not only are bahais persecuted but there is a tremendous campaign of hate speech that takes place in the state controlled media and some of that makes it into google that is the persian version of of google um you i'm sure you'd be very interested to know that the state department is has just received and has accepted for consideration a proposal from an entity i i don't want to identify the the company right here but it's it is working with us in terms of creating algorithms that can remove certain forms of hate speech from from websites uh or reduce their um their position in the hierarchy of uh of searches we'll see if that proposal you know is actually approved but i think it's a really kind of cutting-edge thing the kind of thing that you and congressman buyer were talking about this morning now the question that i'd like to ask however is a much more mundane simple one and that has to do with house resolution 274 which is before uh the house foreign affairs committee it condemns the persecution of the bahais of iran and also other human rights abuses outgoing chairman ed rois supported it two years ago a similar resolution we're hoping he can get get it through committee and and through some sort of expedited procedure it doesn't need hearings it doesn't need most of those are unanimous concerns yeah but it's not just the passage of a resolution this has to do with this whole idea of i'm going to ask you to get to your question oh yeah the question would be the question would be could you urge uh chairman rois to uh to to get this passed uh to to get it through the process in the in the congress i'll look into it but i doubt you're gonna have any trouble with elliott engels pursuing it in january either yeah i think it would be a pretty good shape that's right but we'd have to start all over again then right now it's got over 130 am i also mentioned your comment about the effort in iran to deal with hate speech gets back to that whole idea of policing google and facebook yeah you know i think if we could get apply the first amendment it would it would and get other countries to do the same to separate out libel and non-protected speech for protected speech would lay a groundwork to maybe deal with them on both sides of the equation not having the hate speech having the freedom to present all points of view yeah i mean this is this is one of the big conundrums of how to and a big challenge that may be coming before congress in the coming years of how to deal with the social media play like i said i don't think the regulatory schemes and legal schemes are up to date to deal with these changes i mean it's like having laws dealing with horse and buggies when the automobile began and and uh the europeans have actually been more forward-leading than us with their antitrust pursuit of google we've just been sitting around like i've been saying to these guys like the chairmen's of the committees that deal with the judiciary why aren't we doing that why don't we get the justice department to look in their abusive market power amazon google and facebook are the standard oil and uh carnegie steel trust of today do you do you foresee congress ticking that up in the next well i haven't seen anybody do it yet maybe we're gonna change i don't know right now we're following europe's lead interesting too uh right here in the front room you just pass it forward hi thank you congressman reporter with voice of maric so uh you mentioned importance of business and also the u.s has been in a trade dispute with china for a while so do you have any expectations in terms of the incoming meeting between trump and prentin shei do you think they can reach a deal if so what kind of deal should be like and especially you bring up a bill to stop higher education espionage do you think that should be considered as part of the deal thank you well i think that the the issue of the confucius centers is something that american people will know about and i think there's probably differences of opinion from what us and our intelligence community might feel and maybe people in the chinese government that we need to uh we need to make sure the american people understand what's going on with confucius centers at least from our point of view and trusted with the job of protecting the american people as far as the trade deal i think that i think that uh some of the articles have been written about china post wto uh have have some truth to them that maybe china hadn't played by the rules as often as other countries obviously russia hasn't happened i'm not playing by the rules either that's a problem with authoritarian regimes they don't have to play by the rules they just do what they want we have people like me and congressman byer and the free press beaten on them all the time if they don't and so uh there's room for some correction an ip threat theft and things like that i'm disheartened that google is willing to cave to china on this uh china only google website i was disappointed that delta airlines and marriott uh caved just because they had a map of taiwan on their graphics i mean so what i mean taiwan ain't going anywhere i mean if china wanted taiwan they'd go get it you know uh i think there's opportunities for china for taiwan to continue to evolve and the conflict between the two sovereigns will descend to the point that one is automatically submerged into the other and that's by the way always been the view of the holy sea that ultimately uh the the catholic church has the best opportunity in china not outside of china and you can see that in what the pope's doing now so i'm going to take a couple of questions to make sure we get to them so you sir and then over there hi congressman thanks for your time uh i'm david cofield with kyle house group here in washington dc um there's some reports that the administration may be conducting a foreign assistance review um with or without consultation with congress and stakeholders are you aware of it um and our uh opportunities uh to be engaged in that process i'm not it wouldn't be the first time the executive branch has uh decided to do some things without keeping congress informed which is a two-way street david halberstram and either 90 either 71 or 72 wrote a book called the imperial presidency i mean that was 71 and 72 about things like the cold war and revenue sharing can you imagine what we've got up there now and so uh you know that's why we all fought back so hard on the initial 2017 budget for the state department and a id and and we'll be ready to fight back right now the men were arching kora uh try peace international um well the major concern i want to um present for everyone to um kind of um take a look at is um the very concern that for the fact that there is a thing known as um great power competition um how possible is it actually for um a government to be on the front line of um trying to promote soft power soft power soft power um well my organization is we have a strategy um on a crowdsourcing of solutions to global peace we believe that that is um probably a more feasible um um angle to approach soft power um because then it is the people that have to really pursue soft power and bring it to the fore rather than the government standing on the front line so so the question is the how can governments pursue soft power versus people power soft power well i think you make an interesting point that has analogies to the holy sea that the reason that the people may be more effective than government is the people don't have a hegemonic agenda like the holy sea or switzerland but on the other hand at the end of the day soft power is based on influence versus coercion which means it's got to be based on some moral righteousness higher than whatever dispute and in the mud is going on and so as long as the soft power is based on values culture and principle probably there's room for everybody to do it states people uh non-aligned NGOs whoever us institute of peace thank you uh do we have other questions thought i saw another hand a minute ago that i skipped over no yeah oh honey hey congressman um haddy amher from the brookings institution so i've got a question for you that's where robert keegan is isn't he that's right he is office is directly next to mine in fact that's a great book uh book of his outlines a lot of the things that we've been talking about here um uh and uh and i agree so here's a question for you um you know having uh uh which my my congressman don birer still here but but actually really interested in your answer as i talk to uh uh european and asian uh i'm middle eastern diplomats um you know i i get this question from them which is can you please explain to me why the administration did x y or z and uh and they've they've kind of stopped asking me that recently and when i asked them they they sort of come to a conclusion i think which is based on the following you know our our leadership in the world as as you and don have alluded to is based on our military strength based on our economic strength and based on our ideals but i think with the diplomatic community was also based on the following uh a dimension of who we are which is that they believe whether they agreed or disagreed with our policy decisions that they were based on a broad and deep analysis that that took place in a process led by the white house um uh that you know they consulted across the agencies there were deputies committees meetings ipcs you know and decisions were taken they they now the the ones that i talked to have are now sort of disregarding the decisions i think that we are taking or feeling that they're not based on deep analysis and so i i would pause it first of all that that is another sort of american strength the belief that we have done rigorous analysis in our foreign policy decisions and so um i guess my question is what can um really wise members of congress like yourself and don uh do together with a think tank community to try to instill a belief that that america uh you know can and will do this deep foreign policy analysis that they are willing to follow whether they initially agree with it or not sorry if i've been a little bit no i think you make a really good point i mean like i said before i have the utmost respect for the uh intelligence community of the united states and the department of state and the work that they've done a lot of smart people are in that building over there i've learned an awful lot from them and and the ability to uh to figure out containment george kennett the ability to figure out how to deal with the decline of the palestine mandate that's smart guys figure that out that had a leadership in the executive branch it was willing to back them up and work with them we i just read a great book lords of the desert anybody read that it's about the the kind of soft power under the table conflict between the united states in the uk over the evisceration of the palestine mandate the uh saudi arabia in iran finally realizing what their petroleum was worth and wanting the right kind of deal that they deserve quite frankly united states being okay we're going to give saudi arabia half pigs get fat hogs get slaughtered the uk declining power thinking they should be taken seriously church hill okay no those iranians get five ten percent well look what happened they nationalized anglo america anglo uh uh you were iranian and we're here with the ramco today and so there's a lot of great lessons in there that point to you to your kind of question george last question master moose george moose from the u.s. institute of peace board since we're talking about books there's another new book that's out there uh peter singers book called like war which goes back and traces um the evolution of the use of of social media and the related technologies one of the observations from his book is that well and one of the one of the things that constrains us so much as we have been so compartmentalized institutionally are in our responses to these challenges of sharp power and which seems to suggest that there's a both a policy agenda and a legislative agenda there to think about how do we minimize our own vulnerability vulnerabilities just in terms of the way our own organizations or institutions are currently constructed wondered if you've had any well check that book out you know that kind of gets back to this whole thing of how do we you know we have laws governing horse and buggy in an era of the automobile that we need to do something about and you know congress is a lagging indicator if there ever was one i mean you know as politics generally in a democracy is the people have the ideas first they elect the kind of people unfortunately right now they've elected some of the reflect frustrations about globalization that we need to work through a little bit but so i think there's got to be a legislative and executive response to some of these changes that we're seeing happen congressman i want to thank you for joining us uh this is clearly a critical issue that we will be wrestling with in the years to come appreciate your your leadership on this the bipartisan spirit that you're bringing to these tough problems that are absolutely critical for moving us forward so please thank you very much i think you hit the nail on the head all of our major forum policy victories have been bipartisan and based on the fundamental values of our country and the really the Judeo-Christian ethic of you know that and so hopefully we can get back to that and i really appreciate the chance to be here i love these things that you set up these bipartisan forums and the more we can talk that way the better we can defuse our own internal conflict down on the hill okay this partisanship that threatens to rip everybody apart and the 24-hour news cycle where everybody's got to say a bunch of mean things about the democrats and democrats that say what you mean things about republicans and the people are sitting back in milwaukee saying what's going on in my country well they deserve better thank you for being a beacon of how it can be and and for all that you're doing to make it a more bipartisan spirit so please join me in appreciating and thanking you thank you very much