 Welcome. We're delighted to have you here. I think our seventh program in the Schieffer series, this is a project that we do jointly with the Schieffer School of Journalism at TCU. And it's a great opportunity for us to bring some of the most interesting people in our world, in the policy world to meet with all of you. And this is made possible because of the enormous drawing power and respect that people have for Bob Schieffer. We're delighted to have him as the standing moderator for these sessions. This is going to be a very interesting program. I note that we have lots of reservations, but on Passover, Good Friday, weekend, on a lovely afternoon, some people play hooky instead. But they're going to be the losers in this dialogue. This is going to be a wonderful session for us. As you all know, NATO just, we just had these observances for the 60th anniversary of NATO, probably the most remarkable political and military alliance in history. And the question is, is it going to survive its success? I mean, it's a little like an old, maybe it's like an old man that's got a heart problem and can't climb steps anymore. In any case, or is NATO going to find a reinvigorated future as the world becomes a little more uncertain and problematic? And I think we're going to explore these issues today with this remarkable panel. Bob Schieffer, thank you for this, and we turn it over to you. Thank you all for coming. Thank you very much, Dr. Hamry. And I can't remember when we've had a more distinguished panel that we have than we have today on my left, Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft. I can't imagine that there's anybody who's come here today that is not familiar with Brent Scowcroft and the remarkable resume that he has had. I would just sum it up by saying for at least the last two decades Brent Scowcroft has been one of the most respected voices in foreign policy. And one of those people who's truly seen as one of the wise men of American foreign policy and I can't imagine anybody involved in foreign policy who wouldn't want to know whatever problem or whatever issue they were addressing that would not want to know what would Brent Scowcroft do and what would he advise. So he's also, of course, associated with CSIS and we're all glad for that, General. Thank you for being here. On my right, on General George Dolewan, a former NATO commander who had a distinguished military career beginning with being a company commander in Vietnam. He is a graduate of West Point, of course, has held a variety of high-level staff and command positions down through the years. Over here is John Tanner, a Democrat from Tennessee, and he is currently the, let's see, president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The alliance is a legislative branch. He has a long history of dealing with foreign policy problems. He's on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He also serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. Congressman, thank you. And he, I would also add, is just gotten off an airplane from coming back from Europe. And I guess the Parliamentary Meeting's there on NATO's 60th anniversary. And then Karen DeYoung, my old friend from the Washington Post. She's an associate editor there now. She writes about terrorism for many years. She was the national security, I mean, foreign policy correspondent for the Post. She's won many awards over the years for journalism. She's also the author of the book, Soldier, The Life of Colin Powell, which I must say is one of the best books about Colin Powell and a very good book on foreign policy, because it's about a lot more than just the man you wrote the book about. So here we are, 60th anniversary. I think Dr. Hamry summed up very well what the situation is now with NATO. NATO and the president, will it continue as a viable organization? We know what an important role it's played since its beginning. It's hard to believe that it is now 60 years old. I want to start with something that Barack Obama said the other day when he announced the new Afghan policy for the United States. And that was that Al Qaeda is actively plotting attacks on the U.S. mainland. General Skokroff, do you know anything about these attacks that are being planned? Do you know what Barack Obama is? You can't talk about it, alright? But, you know, we now look back on Iraq and we wonder about the questions we should have asked, perhaps that weren't asked and certainly were not answered. But what in the foreign policy community now are people worried about about Al Qaeda? I think our concerns about Al Qaeda go back to 9-11. And they've sort of become the code word for terrorism, for everything we fear. And indeed, one of the major reasons that we're in Afghanistan now is to prevent Al Qaeda from getting a training ground and a base of operations that we don't want to have. But I mean, I guess what I'm driving at was the president overstating this. Is the threat posed by Al Qaeda, the way he painted it, it was in the most severe kind of term? Well, who knows? But I think, you know, in the words of Osama bin Laden, his target is fundamentally not the United States per se, but it's the United States and its role in the region in propping up what Al Qaeda feels are corrupt anti-Islamic governments in the region. So according to Osama, what they're trying to do is drive the United States out of the region so that then the support for these governments will be diminished and they'll be able to take them down. Well, General, to any of your friends or sources in the intelligence community, what do they think about specific threats that Al Qaeda may be planning against the United States? Well, I think it's very prudent to assume that they are planning to attack us, as they did on September 11th. I think they still have sleeper cells in this country. I think there's active planning going on. Whether that planning turns into a real opportunity for them, I think we have to be vigilant. And I would caution that since it's been what now, eight or nine years, it was eight or nine years between the first attack in the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001. I think it's prudent that we should assume that there are this planning going on and what we can do in terms of our vigilant at airports, at any other place that it may take place is extremely important. I would not relax our guard and I would hope that's the point the President was trying to make. Well, Congressman, you're just back from the NATO meetings. Do NATO members accept President Obama's assertion that Al Qaeda poses the threat to them as well as to us? Yes, but in a different sort of context. What Dr. Henry said at the outset, NATO is evolving and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is playing more of a role because of this critical mass of public opinion that must be maintained in order to over time pursue a military expedition. One can do that for a while, but when that critical mass doesn't necessarily have to be 50%, but when it begins to dissipate, then you have trouble and we have to pursue Al Qaeda and Coca-Cola where they are so they don't have a safe haven, basically. What I am hearing from the parliamentarians and what I am worried about with regard to NATO is not necessarily the outside threat, but the dependence of some member nations on Russian energy. Karen, we'll talk about that and get more on that, but let me just go back to my original question. You're covering terrorism now. We don't call it the World War on Terrorism or Global War on Terrorism anymore. What do your sources tell you about the threat that Al Qaeda poses right now? I think it's interesting. You read the quote from President Obama in his speech. If you looked at what he said just before he left where he introduced in this country his Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, I think he was even more sharp and if you closed your eyes, at least at the beginning of his speech, you couldn't be blamed for thinking it was the Bush administration talking. He said, Al Qaeda is actively plotting to come here and kill us and therefore this is the policy we need to adopt. Now, obviously he was saying the threat lies elsewhere from where the Bush administration thought it was. I think that in terms of specifics, it's Pakistan where they believe that a lot of these groups that formerly were specific to Pakistan, Kashmiri fighters, groups that had particular interest in Afghanistan itself and Al Qaeda, have begun to form together now and that it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between them. That you see Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group that they believe was involved, are responsible for the Mumbai attacks. They now believe that they are branching outside of Afghanistan in coordination with Al Qaeda. In Somalia, the Al-Shabaab group, where the leadership of the two organizations are very close, American, Somalis, Canadians, Europeans going to Somalia training there and they believe there's a very good possibility that they will be moving out. I haven't heard anything about specific attack plans uncovered recently and I think what was said previously about you just have to assume that that's the goal and it will come when we least expect it. One thing we do know for sure is there are more US troops going there. We also heard General Petraeus go up on the hill and it was almost just lost in all the coverage of the economic situation, saying we may need to send 10,000 more troops there next year. Where does this end, General? Are we going to have the size force in Afghanistan that we once had in Iraq? What I was faced with in Bosnia is not the same scale but I think you have to get clarity in terms of what is it you want to accomplish. That determines the troop to task analysis that the military does and I truly think it's much more than just military. I think we have to go through a period of stabilization of what was called the surge in Iraq. There needs to be a similar sort of thing take place I think in Afghanistan but it's much more than that. It's civil agencies, it's bringing in NGOs and other agencies that bring rule of law. All of that is part of I think what needs to happen, not just troops. Troops are going to be needed for equipping and training the Afghan military and police as well as providing security. It is a much more complicated mission and I think we need to understand that here. It ain't just troops. Well it's also not nation building. Is it in the sense that we saw that defined during the Bush administration? That term has always bothered me. I call it security building. I think you have to figure out what is success at the end. I always talk about the implementation of a war fight, stabilization and normalization. What is normalization? How do we put that up? That may take 5, 10, 15 years and you have to have that clarity in order to put the team together in order to achieve it. We didn't do that in Iraq and we had not done that very well in Afghanistan and I think until you do that it's just not throwing troops at the problem. What is success in Iraq? I think we've expanded the mission. In Iraq what is success? I'm sorry in Afghanistan. I think we've expanded the mission. I said why we went in was because the Taliban regime in Afghanistan would not kick out al-Qaeda, would not deny the sanctuary. So we went in to force that. Then the previous administration started talking about democracy building, rule of law, all those kinds of things. And we tended to look at Afghanistan the same way we look at Iraq. In my judgment we cannot do in Afghanistan what we're trying to do in Iraq. And we need to go back to the original idea which is the idea of a sanctuary for al-Qaeda which would be unacceptable. Therefore we need more troops right now because we are losing the struggle. But what we need to do is train the Afghan troops because they're the ones in the end who will be able to prevent al-Qaeda from establishing a stronghold. And not to nation build, not to turn Afghanistan from the loose collection of tribal and other affiliations presided over by a ephemeral government. Not to change that into a modern unitary nation state. Is it possible to get the best of these people if they are able to cross back into Pakistan which they're now doing? And when you talk to the president he will tell you we're not going to pursue them into those safe havens now. At least not with boots on the ground. We might do it from drone aircraft. But how do you do this as long as they can continue to do that? That's a huge problem for us. And it's a problem which we forgot when we were on the other side of it because when the Soviets were in Afghanistan we were crossing that border and pushing Taliban and other insurgents in. It's a very difficult border. And one can I think with some legitimacy say our real problem is Pakistan not Afghanistan. Let's go back and talk a little bit about NATO itself on its 60th anniversary. Congressman was the recent summit excess for the Obama administration? I think it probably was. I was there and spoke as the NATO PA president on Saturday morning. And there was a general consensus. If I may follow up on what you're doing. It's just my opinion but I don't think we ever had an achievable goal in Iraq and I don't think we have defined an achievable goal in Afghanistan. When you're talking about an alien political structure basically a western style democracy and Baghdad ruled all of Iraq or the same in Kabul to rule all of Afghanistan. The only way I know you could do that is if you had 50 years and an unlimited amount of money which we don't have and it goes back to that critical mass of public support. I personally think 2009 is a critical year for NATO. It's got to show some movement in Afghanistan I think in order to keep this critical mass of public support from some of our European allies. But General Darwin said once you get stabilized unfortunately bad guys don't take the time out because we're having recessions. We've got to do what we've got to do and we've got to do it now. But what we should do in my judgment is stabilize the situation. And it really doesn't matter what kind of government they have in some little town in southern Afghanistan as long as it's a stable hostile environment and they don't respect human rights and it's a hostile environment to Taliban al-Qaeda. We don't want you here anymore. And to do that you've got to get people in there like General Darwin said to show them there's a better way of life so they'll say no to the radical fundamentalists. Karen do you think that if NATO is seen as a failure in Afghanistan will the alliance have a future? I mean this is something that's been around a long time. And if NATO went away you kind of wonder what would the impact of that be on almost everything. Is it critical for NATO to be seen as making a contribution here in Afghanistan? I don't think it would cease to exist. I think that it's difficult to talk about failure in Afghanistan because failure obviously is not an option because it depends though on how you define success. I think that a lot of the coverage certainly out of the summit was Obama went, they refused to give him more combat troops but I don't think they really even asked for more combat troops. I think that they had already decided they wanted four brigades I guess to do election stuff temporarily there and they got that. They decided some time ago that this is an American war in combat terms and the Americans are going to fight it and that this partnership there will involve the Europeans giving more money, more trainers, more civilians. I think that that's where we're not totally sure that they're going to be able to cough up what it is we would like them to give. And again it depends on how you define success. If you define it as a coalition fighting force then I don't think it is a success because I think it is now and increasingly will be an American war with the Europeans kind of coming in and doing additional tasks that we have decided in terms of our strategy and I think they agree with that they will do. But again under largely our direction we're putting our own person in and the number two slot is a UN mission there. We are sending our diplomats very far afield in Afghanistan whereas before they've been restricted to the east and into Kabul we're opening offices all over the place. Let's shift and we can certainly come back to Afghanistan and we may hear or we'll certainly come back if you choose during the questions from the audience. But I want to shift to the whole subject of Russia and NATO expansion. Croatia and Albania were welcomed into NATO at this summit so where does NATO expand next or should it? Will Ukraine and Georgia eventually join NATO? Or should they? Well that's a really fundamental question and you know you have to go back really to 1991 when we were trying to convince Gorbachev that it was not only OK with the Russians that NATO continued but that a unified Germany in NATO was not a threat to them. At that time we actually rewrote the NATO charter to take out all of the things which said NATO is an alliance against the Soviet Union and we tried very hard for a time to say this is a new NATO but as soon as you start expanding NATO I would say you know some people say we set out a new NATO but Eastern Europe joined the old NATO and that's the problem we have. What is an expanded NATO for? Are we mixing up NATO and the EU? Are we trying to get these states to be part of a European community or part of a military alliance? And that gets back to your previous question. What is NATO for? You know it's the best military alliance I think in rural history. We can actually fight together. But what for? Because the original reasons that NATO was organized have disappeared. Do you think we misled Georgia for example and the people there about the relationship between the United States and Georgia and about this whole idea of NATO expansion? It depends who we is. Well I'd say the previous administration. Some people did. Some of them may have been in the administration but if you look at it in one aspect at the Bucharest summit we had this discussion and primarily because of European resistance we decided not to put them on the NATO path. Let's suppose we had put them on the NATO path and Georgia had occurred anyway. We would be in the position either of backing down and looking like wimps or getting involved in maybe a military adventure that I don't think anyone would say ought to take place in that region. So what you see to be suggesting and maybe it is not a good idea for Georgia to be part of NATO. I'm suggesting we need a lot more thought about what NATO is for. Not only Georgia but take the last two to entrance. Why are they in NATO? Are they in NATO because of the critical contribution, military contribution they make, Albania, Croatia? I don't think so. Why are they in NATO? I can give you all kinds of arguments why they ought to be in the EU. The EU is designed to modernize countries to teach them the rule of law, to teach them how to govern themselves. That's not NATO's job. It never has been. General, what's your thought on that? Mixed. I think you have to be very careful as you continue expansion. But we said the door is always open but now we've gone from 16 nations when I was there and we added three more when I left and now we're up to 28. I think you have to ask the question to those new states. Do they all have an Article 5 guarantee? Because that's what you're saying under the NATO treaty that an attack upon what is an attack upon all. And I think we need to ask those sort of questions and Russia plays a very key role. I had a Russian three-star general as my deputy going into Bosnia. The Russians joined us in Bosnia. We've forgotten that and we've forgotten how to build on that. I was trying to teach him English and I had a dinner for him and he stood up and the only English words he said, no NATO enlargement. So, and I had with Khrushchev, the Ministry of Defense, we had long talks about this in Primikov. And initially I said that we are really securing your western flank. Your problems are to your south and to the east and he agreed. But when you start now into the Ukraine and Georgia, I think there are other ways to do this besides making them a member of NATO. Because I think you have to go back and say for each one of these 28 are we ready to commit an Article 5 that an attack upon one is enough. Look at just in Moldova today what occurred with Moldova and Romania. And it goes back to the reason I think we need to keep a presence in Europe because there's a lot of instability yet in great parts of Europe that in our interest to try to prevent that spark from rising up causing more tension and problems. So I think we need to be very careful about how we expand particularly with Ukraine and Georgia. And I think we need to treat Russia with a great deal more respect in the role they can play in trying to help us. I found that by, and I'm not a soft skinned sort of guy, but I found that you can really get them where we have common interests to really work with you. And I think we have common, they're right there, a global power. They have interest in the Middle East, they have interest in Afghanistan. They want to help us in Afghanistan. So I would be very careful about how we go about expanding more into the sensitive area of the boundaries. Karen, just step back from this as a journalist. Do you think in fact that will ever happen that Ukraine and Georgia will become members? I think that certainly the Obama administration, without saying it, has tried to step back very far from that. And in their conversations with the Russians, again, they don't feel like they can actually come out and say it. But they certainly want to strongly imply, look, this is way down the road. Don't let this be a problem in our relationship. Don't worry about it. We can't say it's not going to happen, you know, maybe even in our lifetimes. But it's a decade away, it's many years away. It shouldn't be an issue with us. And I think they just want to kick the can and kind of get rid of it for a while. Well, Congressman, let's just talk a little bit about relations with Russia. The Obama administration famously said they wanted to restart or reset. And are we doing that? We are to the extent that the Russians will cooperate. I was in Kiev Monday and met with the president of Ukraine. I was in Tbilisi Tuesday and met with the president of Georgia. And they had a big demonstration there today. Many of you know, the Sackastvili is still over 50% popularity. Yeah, well, maybe you want to talk a little bit about what we were just talking about taking Ukraine. The reset with Russia gives a little concern to Ukraine and Georgia, as you might imagine. But yesterday at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, I spoke to the EAPC meeting, Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. And after that, the Russian ambassador wanted to speak with me. And I told him, I said, what I don't understand from you is there are some issues that we agree on that are good for both of us. There are some issues we disagree on. The Russians can't seem to take them and put them on separate tables and work with us on the ones we agree on that are in nuclear proliferation, radical fundamentalism. That's as good for them as it is for us. So the bad guys don't get nukes and terror. But they want to mix it all up. And they keep, at least in the parliamentary area. And it's very frustrating to deal with them. But do you think that's just negotiation? Or do you really think they don't see places where there can be cooperation? I mean, Senator Non, who's the chairman, as you know, of CSIS, at one of these sessions said, the United States and the Russians ought to sit down separately and make a list of things that concern them that they think the other could be helpful to helping solve. Do you think they're in a mood to actually do that? I mean, you're suggesting that maybe they're not? I don't know. I told somebody, maybe the Russians, they decided where they're going for themselves. On one hand, they say they want to help us and let us train through the territory of Afghanistan on the other. A lot of people think they had something to do with closing the air base at Manas. So I'm not a Russian expert by any means, but I've talked to them and talked to them over the years through the Duma members that come to the NATO PA. And I'm glad to see the reset button hit, but I think we need to say, all right, we agree on these things. What are you going to do to cooperate? And then we'll talk about what we disagree with. Where do you think there are things that we could cooperate on that there might be? We'd have the best chance of getting something done. Well, I think there are far more areas in which there's cooperation than opposition. We can cooperate on North Korea. We can cooperate on Iran. We can cooperate on terrorism. We can cooperate on Afghanistan. Those are the things that concern us more. And, wow, do the Russians have exactly the same perspective? No. But I think George is right. What we've tended to do is turn to the Russians where we want their cooperation. And then when we don't need it, we ignore them or kind of stick a finger in their eye. And from the Russian perspective, I don't think we've done it deliberately. But I think, you know, they tend to be sensitive, maybe to an excess, and take things very efficiently. And I think I agree with the congressman, you know, deal with the whole thing. That's hard for the Russians to do. So what would be a good first step? Well, what the Russians told me a couple of years ago, their number one threat that they see coming from the trans causes is drugs. They said, we want to help because they're coming out of Afghanistan. So I said, you know, that's one of our major concerns that's funding a lot of the Taliban. So I said, here's an area that we could cooperate on. What we're exactly doing, I don't know, but it's an area that I think is worth exploring. But they are, this influx of drugs in the Russia is a major concern. That's one area that I think we can quickly work together on. So how has NATO changed in these 60 years? Karen, you've been watching it. All of you have been watching it. Anybody? Well, obviously the biggest change is that it started as a Cold War institution and the Cold War went away. And I think that left the problem that General Skokrov pointed out, which is that you've got a bunch of new members that see the world in one way and the kind of initial members who see the world in a different way. And they haven't managed to reconcile those two things yet. Whether that's what does Article 5 really mean? Or what are our responsibilities out of area since we don't seem to have any responsibilities in area anymore? So what is it going to remain a viable institution? I guess that would be one of the questions that I would raise. Do you think so? I believe so. I think it's evolved. It started in 1949 as a political organization. In the early 50s it started to get as a military alliance. And now it's expanded so much to 28 nations. How do you get consensus out of all of that? Which is again one of the ways they make decisions. So I think all of those need to be looked at. There needs to be political transformation within the structures of the alliance, not just the military transformation. Because decision making is still, it goes back the same way it was done 10 or 15 years ago. So I would hope we would see some sort of ways to have a better decision making on getting capability, on needed equipment that they need, et cetera, et cetera. And it's a very cumbersome organization right now. It was a 16, it's even more so a 28. What are your suggestions? Well, I think that NATO is important in two ways. It wasn't important as a military alliance. It's also, it is the one institutional, institution existing that keeps the United States and keeps the Atlantic community together. And I think that's critically important now. But we've, the end of the Cold War, relaxed those ties. We sort of each went our own ways and we're facing threats that in major part are common threats. But we don't have that instinct for communication and cooperation that we had before. And NATO represents that. Without NATO, there's nothing that drives us together. Now the question is though, what is NATO for and what can we do with it? And when you go back to the question of Afghanistan, it's not, will NATO collapse after Afghanistan? But one of the arguments for NATO is it can be a useful military institution to use in different places in the world where there are troubles. But if it fails in its first effort, then there's a larger question, well, what on earth is it for? Congressman France comes back to full participation in NATO and the military command structure. What do you think the immediate impact of that will be? Well, I think most people welcome that. NATO is actually working on a new strategic concept as we speak. In NATO PA, we have appointed John Peterson from Norway, former Defense Minister of Norway, to head it up. And we've been taking testimony basically from all of our five committees in NATO PA, and we will submit our recommendations on the new strategic plan, which hopefully sometime next year. I noticed Kurt Volk came in, our ambassador to NATO now, who I visited with when we've been over there, I guess it's February. The new strategic concept, I think, is vital and will help answer some of the questions that we don't know about. I might say this as well. I agree more with General Skorkov on that this is the tie that basically binds the United States in a way that I don't know if you didn't have it, you'd have to invent something like it if you wanted to stay tied to Western and now Central Europe. In Eastern Europe. In the NATO parliamentary assembly, we have broadened it with much more than the member countries. We have associates and observers, and we welcome them and invite them to our meetings and let them make motions and so forth, because we think dialogue with those folks is so critically important. George and Ukraine, I agree, we need to go slow. Both of them are very interested, but those biscuits aren't ready to take out of the oven yet. Oh, southern price. We always ask the scholars and fellows here at the CSIS for suggestions and topics they want to see addressed. And one of the questions we got was this one. The Danish Prime Minister, Rasmussen, was named as NATO's next secretary, but this took a considerable amount of negotiation with Turkey because of the Danish cartoon scandal. Will this issue continue to be a hindrance for the alliance, especially in Afghanistan, and beyond that issue, what kind of secretary general do we expect him to be? Who'd like to address that? Well, I'll try one. I think it was a very serious issue for NATO. Turkey is one of the strongest military members of NATO, and Rasmussen, there was not only the cartoon thing, there's a PKK broadcasting from his country, and also he, several years ago, specifically said he did not see Turkey ever getting into NATO. So that's a big problem in the EU. So that is a big problem for them. And the Turks see it not only in a way as an affront to them, but to the whole Muslim world in a way. So I think my impression is, and you probably know much more about it, is that it was satisfactorily reconciled. There were some good movements by the EU to open up some new chapters in their dialogue. So it may have been a plus-plus, but I think it remains to be seen. I think likewise that I think in the end it will turn out to be all right. But it was not, it was very important, I think, for President Obama to go to Turkey and do what he did in Turkey. It was a great signal. Not only is it an Islamic country, it's a strategic country for both NATO and the United States. And I think he signaled all of that by going there, taking questions, meeting with them, and having a very, very good move. The sector general of NATO is, that's why I talk about this political transformation that needs to take place. So we need to get where we can get decisions made quickly. We can get consensus if that's what it's going to take. But the sector general plays a key role. Everything I've heard about this, the Dane, has been very positive. So hopefully he'll be affected. Did you want to say something about that, Conor? The Dane's per capita suffered more casualties in Afghanistan than anybody else in the alliance. And so President did speak with the Turks and held up the proceedings in Strasburg-Kale for about 30, 40 minutes, Saturday morning. But it got worked out and they needed to be worked out. Karen? Yeah, I think that that's, it's important for Turkey not only to be in NATO, but for the regions that you said important to be seen as someone who has a voice. And so if you are, you can't be in a position of looking like you're just disregarding their concerns, if in fact you want them to be in addition to the strong military force they are within NATO, also a sort of gateway kind of into the Muslim world. So you have to allow their concerns to be voiced and give, I think, a strong appearance and a reality of addressing them. We'll go to some questions from you all now, but before we get there and while you're making your way to the mics, some of you. Let me just bring up North Korea and how do you all assess this threat at this point? General, was this a success for them or was it an embarrassing failure? What should we make of it and how concerned should we be about it? One of the things that NATO has stayed carefully away from is North Korea. And is that, they ought to stay away from it? Well, I don't think it's hot, but it's one thing the Europeans have not wanted to get deeply engaged in Asian issues and North Korea is right at the top. Just NATO aside. You take me. I mean, I don't mean this as something NATO ought to be involved in, but just NATO aside, this is such a serious issue. Every time you have knowledge of what you think is happening. The sort of country that has the leadership, that has the mentality that it has, anytime it starts dealing with missiles and nuclear weapons, it's a great concern and I think we should be concerned. But where does that concern lead us to take what action? I would draw the line. I'm not sure we're at that stage yet where we need to. I think diplomatically we can still handle it. Okay, you had a question. Yeah, go to the mic if you wish. It seemed like it was pointed in the wrong direction. Bill Courtney, I'm former U.S. Ambassador in Kazakhstan and Georgia. Russian military action in Georgia last summer was popular in Russia and the international price that Russia paid was fairly low. Russia is bitterly opposed to color revolutions and bitterly opposed to independent exports of Caspian energy to world markets through Georgia. There's a risk that Russia will try to take Georgia this summer completely. What should NATO do if Russia decides to take Georgia? Excellent question. Who wants to? Let me just, and I'll tell you, I was at the beginning of what we call the Partnership for Peace and Georgia is a member of the Partnership for Peace. If you read the Communique from the 1994 summit, I think it's paragraph 25. It talks about that the partner, the partner nation can come to NATO at now 28 plus one and if they feel threatened to bring that up before the fact to the alliance. It's not an article five, but it is a way if their territorial integrity is threatened to come before it. It's a little known fact that we have that I think if Georgia feels Albania, by the way, did come before the council at 16 plus one. So I think there are other, there are means to do that. And if that happens, I think a clear signal can be given to the Russians by NATO of a partner nation. And by the way, Russia is also in the Partnership for Peace that I think that can work if it's handled right at 28 nations. General, I'd like it. I'm less concerned about Georgia right now and Russia undertaking new action. I think the Russians, I don't know that they feel badly about Georgia, but I don't think they feel particularly good because it was also associated with part of the financial crisis that they're dealing with now. I actually think a bigger problem right now is Ukraine. Ukraine is in desperate shape economically and almost in bad shape politically. And if there is unrest in Ukraine, then I think we've got a real problem today. I think Georgia will work out. The Russians behave very badly in Georgia and they have particular issues about energy supplies through that region. There's no question about that. And there I think we need to be very strong. But on Georgia, from the Russian perspective, it looked to them just like what we did in Yugoslavia and Kosovo. They followed the same path that we did. This brings up a question. Do any of you think that NATO should consider making Russia a member of NATO? I'm actually open to that because it seems to be part of what we need to discuss. What is NATO? Is it implicitly an alliance against a resurgent, aggressive Russia? And I think probably part of the new members think it's exactly that. Is it a military instrument that can be used by the responsible world to deal with problems around the world? Like, for example, a force in the West Bank that will give the Israelis a sense of security if they withdraw in a peace treaty. What is it for? But I don't think we ought to say Russia cannot or can get into it until we do a new strategic concept and figure out what are we up to? What are we trying to do with an instrument which has lost its original mission? What do you think about that, Congressman? I think Georgia is critically important from the energy standpoint. What I said at the first of the seminar here was one of the biggest threats to NATO now is some member nations being so overly dependent on Russian energy. And the pipeline that we could possibly go through Georgia with from Azerbaijan, well, really ran or hack that you could come, would free the EU from T. Boone Pickett said to cut the lights off on him this winter. But seriously, this is a critical part of the world. And I agree, General Jowin, about Turkey. There's no other country in that part of the world where you have an Islamic population with a secular approach to government like that. And I would hope that Turkey and the EU could come to some. I think that would be good for both Europe and Turkey, but that's a different question. No, not right now. I would not be in favor of Russia. I'm the rare. Go ahead. Collette Matzocelli, Center for Global Affairs, New York University. With President Obama's plans to negotiate with the Russians on reduction of nuclear armaments this year, how do you see the implications for both missile defense, given Secretary Gates proposed cuts at the Pentagon and for NATO, given the new strategic concept you've been talking about? Well, you know, I think we need to look very carefully at missile defense in the Czech Republic and what is it, Poland. I'm not sure if that is the right way to go, in my view. NATO has said, and again the 94 summit, that theater missile defense was a concern for them and they would look into it and what could be done. Whether we need to put missiles, there are other ways to do this, in my view. And again, I don't think Russia has a veto over actions that the alliance takes, but at least they should have a say. We should be consulting with them about all of this. And if it sticks up, we put a stick in their eye, I know we're saying it's because of Iran that we want to protect, but the Russians see that and then they have 20,000 nuclear warheads. So, you know, there is that concern. So, personally, I think we need to see a lot more information that these missile sites in Czech and Poland are worth the price we're going to have to pay with other nations like Russia. What do you think about this whole idea of the missile defense system, John? Well, I didn't think that's what the question was about, but I think our explanation for the defense deployment is an eventuality that the Iranians develop a nuclear weapon and a missile to deliver it. That's down the pipe. Essential to prevent that from happening is cooperation with the Russians. If the Russians don't cooperate with us on Iran, we don't have a prayer. So, it seems to me that we ought to be very flexible on our deployment pointing out to the Russians, let's work on this problem. It's a problem for both of us. If we solve this problem, this other one goes away. Yes. Consulting lawyer, whatever. And I'm also with CSIS. I've lived in Europe a bit. I'm well below General Skoproff. But I was once ahead two years of General Skoproff. Joann, you caught up, sir. Good job. My question really is to all of you. Once upon a time, Churchill's advising general, General Pugh Ismay, I think is his name, famously said NATO's purpose was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and my good friends, I quickly add, the Germans down. I would think that that's been changed radically, and you lived in Germany a lot more than I did, General. I wonder whether any of you would say what the purpose, the peaceful purpose of NATO is in the internal harmony of Europe itself? I would like to talk about that, Karen. I'm going to do initially one of those things, which is to answer the question, shift it a little bit. I mean, going back to what we're talking about. A technique made famous by Condoleezza Wright. Come on, stop it. If you talk about what is the purpose of NATO, and we've all been talking about as you keep expanding and expanding, that purpose becomes muddier and muddier, and as the world changes, that purpose changes too. As they try to figure out what is the common threat that they all share, what is it that they want to address, the question of whether you let Russia in is an interesting one, because at some point you come to the question of the decision being who doesn't get to be in NATO, not who does get to be in it, and so if you expand its reasons for being and its membership so broadly, then it becomes more an exclusionary society than an inclusionary society. I think for Europe, I agree with you that the original purpose, and still the purpose, as has been said here, is to provide a connection between the United States and Europe. I don't know if, as the United States ceases to be the, in fact that is what's going to happen, but if the United States ceases to be the kind of one big superpower in the world, are the countries of Europe going to see that connection as quite so important to them as they do now? Already you see, we've talked about the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic has already said, has not agreed to have the missile defense components there, and the government there is going to have, you know, the government lost that battle. There isn't one right now. They lost that battle with their own parliament, and so they clearly are not taking their orders from the United States and don't see the world, and their role in NATO is quite the same as the United States sees it. Ed Berger, the Eurasian Medical Education Program. Since you are talking about new roles perhaps for NATO, you mentioned an element of the initial charter for NATO which I think has been forgotten from the beginning, which is called the CCMS, the Commission for the Challenges of Modern Society, which was designed at the outset for NATO to exercise its activities in non-military ways. It was used at the very beginning and has almost been forgotten. Suppose one were to lean on that and use it. Would it draw the coalition together and continuously? Would it be a good sense, a good idea to do that? We would like to talk about that. Primarily what the NATO Parliamentary Assembly tries to do with the outreach and with the five different committees that we have, we focus not only on Article 5 is the heart of the military alliance, but what we try to do is through parliamentarians in the legislative court, is reach out and talk about the world financial crisis and what it means for a country that doesn't have any money, can't feel the military. So what we try to do is do some of those things that you suggest and in some ways the parliamentarians and members of Congress are a little freer than the formality sometimes of bilateral or multilateral meetings of governments. And so I think it has a pretty constructive role to play in that regard and I think it answers the question that you suggested. Over here. Peter Juliak from Booz Allen Hamilton. As you know NATO established a cyber center of excellence in Estonia and there is a mechanism to assist countries under cyber attack now in NATO. What is the potential for NATO to take on the mission of collective cyber defense of each other's cyber space and deterring cyber attacks and retaliating against cyber attacks? Thank you. Who would like to answer that? They are doing quite a bit about it. And there is a whole group now deeply involved in cyber security within the alliance. They have taken the Estonia example and they are really formed certain committees to study it. And I think it's a very serious threat to the alliance. They understand it and they are doing quite a bit about it and that includes both in the political and military as well as diplomatic level. Probably a couple more and we are getting to that. Thank you, Rogue Weigel from India Global Asia today. President Obama must have been watching you all because he just made a statement. He said that we are facing a security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan that demands urgent attention and the Taliban is resurgent along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now before he left for the G20 in London, he had a very important visitor from the United Nations, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He said, he told the President that now or never break it or make it. You think it was a kind of warning from the United Nations security, I mean the Secretary-General to the President and also the international community on this global war on terrorism? I'm not sure I understand the question. What you're saying is was the UN Secretary-General saying what to the United States, what? That make it or break it now or never as far as global war on terrorism or we are facing so many wars are going on around the globe including terrorism and the nuclear. I didn't hear that quote. I mean my understanding of the meeting was that it was a pretty cooperative one and that it was more a case of the White House saying in gentle terms, get your act together in Afghanistan because you haven't been strong enough in fulfilling your role of coordinating among the various players there. All right, back here. You'll be next. That's right, you'll be next. In the Dubinsky Voice of America as you know there are violent protests now in Moldova which is bordering with Romania and Russia accuses Romania of interfering in the Moldovan events and stating that Moldova wants to reunite with Romania which is the member of NATO. Do you envision any role for NATO in case Romania in some way gets involved? Who wants to? I don't envision one but this is not a new problem. This is a problem that's been going on since about 1991 and I think we need to be in this case patient. I have no idea what's going to happen but I think to engage NATO at this point in a controversy like this would not be a proven move. I can just give an example between Romania and the Hungarians. When we started this partnership for peace, one of the requirements that you respect the territorial integrity of your neighbors and this became one of the criteria for partnership for peace and later for membership. What happened, the Hungarians and the Romanians again, bitter enemies in centuries solved their problems and it started at the military to military and then the political level. I think there is room here with Romania now being a member of NATO for dialogue and again Russia can play a role here. As the Russians told me about why they went into Bosnia, they had a common interest. They did not want to see this spark of ethnic conflict go all the way straight up along their border. I think there are some common interests and I think the sooner we engage someone like Russia in this I think the more useful it can be. Back here, I think we're probably getting close to the end here. Thank you. Leonard Oblander, Independent Consulting International Liaison. From a certain perspective, NATO was defined by its role vis-a-vis the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact has disappeared. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Treaty Security Organization, SISTO, have emerged. The question is how will NATO be defined vis-a-vis its role with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, SISTO? Is there a process evolving to ensure that opportunities for partnerships versus emerging competition or enemy relationships are the deciding factors? Lady? I don't think as far as the Shanghai Cooperation Council is concerned, I don't think it's grown and taken on the stature yet that would present that question to NATO. I don't think it's clear that the Russians and the Chinese view it as a sort of... Is enough attention being paid to the emergence of these organizations so that a decision can be made wisely by the administration, by NATO, and its partners. I can, but I just briefly touch on that because there have been other organizations as well. And I think when we understand... I was in the fold of the GAC when the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain came down. That was 20 years ago, in 1989. And then we adapted the structure of NATO to what we went into Bosnia. The world is still a dangerous place in the Middle East, in Africa, as well as the Far East. So I think there's going to be cooperation, much more cooperation, particularly in the area of development. It just isn't military. I keep coming back to that. And I think there's going to be an opportunity here for other organizations to cooperate, particularly in the area of interest in terms of NATO, with other agencies that you're mentioning. All right. Well, I think we'll stop there. On behalf of TCU and the Journalism School there and CSIS, thank you all very much for that.