 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our final issue briefing of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2015. Thanks for joining us and a big welcome to our viewers watching on our webcast platform at weforum.org. By the way, a very brief introduction for those who haven't joined us for issue briefings. These are not announcements, they're not press conferences, they are an opportunity to interact with experts from some of the key content sessions and parts of the program that have been going on up in the more slubrious parts of the Congress Center. This one actually is a particular interest as we look towards the closing of the annual meeting. It's an issue briefing on the future of security, not a subject or an issue that is covered as often or in as much depth in previous meetings. I'm hopefully going to find out more. I'll just introduce my panel and then we'll go over to questions. First on my immediate left, I'm honored to be joined by Espen Barth-Eider, my colleague, member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum. Espen is head of Centre for Global Strategies. Next to Espen, Jean-Marie Guenot, the President and Chief Executive Officer at the International Crisis Group based in Belgium, and also a member of the Forum's Global Agenda Council on Fragility, Violence and Conflict. Now there will be time for questions both from journalists in the room and also over the social media. First of all, I'd just like to invite our two panellists to offer some remarks on this issue. Espen, starting with you. Why are we seeing such a focus on security here at the annual meeting? Thank you, Ollie. Well, I think that's actually a quite natural reaction to recent developments and I'm not only talking about the recent weeks but the recent years. The world is getting even more complex. I think it's also even more important than I would say for many, many years to really understand how the global international security landscape interacts with the global economy and regional economy. And for a forum that tries to understand the general trajectory of the world and the world economy and society, we need to understand the security landscape. And I think it's good to, just as a start to remind ourselves how fast things change. We were here exactly a year ago at the end of the World Economic Forum 2014. There was no war in Ukraine, nobody spoke about the Islamic State. And the world can really change very fast. And what we are arguing and has been a major theme throughout these many panels in this area is that while we are continuing to see a number of security issues related to so-called asymmetric threats, non-state actors, state collapse and so on, we're also seeing a high degree of strategic competition being back, meaning that key countries, key economies that used to cooperate are now cooperating less and competing more, sometimes violently, other times through economic means. And that may actually suggest a major change in how the world looks. So for the World Economic Forum, we thought it was natural to put more emphasis on this type of issue. Jean-Marie, last week the forum published its Global Risks Report and Conflict actually emerged as the number one risk in terms of outcome as overlooking the 10-year time horizon in which the report covered. In your capacity as head of international crisis group, do you agree with this prognosis, chilling as it may be? Well, I do think that we are going to see more and more what I would call geopolitical black swans. It's an expression that is familiar in the financial world, but more and more we see that it's politics that surprises us. I mean, as Espen just mentioned, we had two geopolitical surprises last year. I think what's happening is that we have conflicts that represent the traditional threats of force, so to speak. That's all the concerns we have, for instance, in the South China Sea and in Asia. And we are conflicts that are a reflect of threats of weakness, so to speak. When states who are, in a way, the guardians of the international order are no more the guardians of their own space. And that's what we have seen in the Sahel. That's what we see in the Middle East. And the most worrying trend for me is when the two converge. That is, when you see interstate rivalry, then using the weakness of some parts of the world, and certainly Ukraine was, I mean, had serious problem for many years, and the Ukrainian crisis probably would not have happened if it had been a strong, strong state. And so that combination of strategic rivalry with state weakness is a major new characteristic of the strategic landscape. And it is a cause for concern. Asymmetric threat, strategic competition. Is this the new normal, Espen? Well, I don't want to sound too pessimistic because I'm fundamentally an optimist, and I think the world can be made better through cooperation and will to invest in common solutions. But right now, I think it's a normal. And in a sense, we may look back at the last two decades and say that we've been living in the world of an ever-expanding global economy, which used to be what we could call the Western economy plus, and then expanded into areas like Russia, China, and many other parts of the world, and basically sharing some basic principles about how we interact with each other. Now, the question is, how long will that go on? With the, we see that what happened in Ukraine, for instance, has led to the return of sanctions, sanctions being used and replied to by counter sanctions at the level that we wouldn't have expected even a year ago. And that is why we, part of our focus on security is also a focus on geo-economics, which has, on the very general level, means the interplay between the global political affairs and global economic affairs, but which can also be interpreted as the use of economic tools for political, strategic purpose to hurt an adversary, for instance. Sometimes a tool that is used when one is not willing to use a military tool. So that, again, demonstrates that this is something we might have to get used to. But we should also think about how we can overcome this, how we can rebuild trust, how we can get key leaders, nations, others to work together and try to rebuild relations and also strengthen international organizations, because I fundamentally believe that the more the stronger the international regimes and rules and organizations are, the better we are as human beings on this planet, because there are, as you all know, a lot of issues which we should have been dealing with, like the climate, global health issues, but which in a sense has come in the shadow of this return of strategic competition. Thanks, and of course, we're happy to take questions from the floor. We also have some from social media. Does anybody have any questions here in the room? One is just coming over social media. Maybe Jean-Marie, maybe both of you could answer this. How is conflict being waged? What are the new tools that we're seeing? Well, conflict is no more conflict between armies of two states. Conflict now is wage on several fronts. There is the traditional battlefields. There's a battlefield of information. There's a cyber battlefield. And there are also new actors of conflict. There are proxies, there are semi proxies, there are militias that are under some influence, but not full control. So waging conflict today is very different from any previous conflict. The cyber dimension is something that is coming up more and more, because with cyber warfare, you can kill as many people or more than with a bomb if you disrupt critical infrastructure, water distribution, air traffic control, that can lead to mass casualties. And so this dimension is something that is not yet really very much in the forefront, but that will become more and more important. And if I can add to that, Olli, that I think we are way beyond realizing now that if any future conflict between reasonably advanced states or reasonably advanced actors in the future from now on and in eternity, I think will also be waged in the cyberspace. It may or may not be waged on the battlefield or at sea or in the air, but it will definitely also have a cyber dimension, which means that cyberspace, which is so much an area of new solutions and communication and ways to do things smarter and better, is also an area in which we are threatened both as individuals and states. And that's why we also have that as part of this broader discussion. Thank you. Let's just go back to the the prognosis you were painting earlier with regards to non state actors, are they here to stay? Yes, sadly, we see a crisis of the state in many parts of the world. It's linked to a variety of factors. It's linked to transnational movement. It's linked to the difficulty of state to control their own space to the mobility of people. It's linked to a crisis of politics. And the result is that non state actors sometimes have almost as much power as some weak states. And so the the challenge of how you manage weekly governed spaces, not ungoverned spaces, because every space is governed one way or another, sometimes governed by parallel structures, but it is governed. But when you want to address the the challenge of weekly governs govern spaces, you're going to address a challenge that's going to to grow. You see in large parts of the sale, that is the situation. You see now that in large parts of Syria and Iraq, that is a situation in parts of Yemen, that is a situation in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is the situation. So this is a situation that's going to stay with us. And for that, you need to develop adequate responses. After a decade and a half of interventionism, US interventionism, UN interventionism, there is sometimes a sense that's just too difficult, sense that one gives up. I think as we had discussions with them in a variety of security actors here in Davos, there's an understanding that one cannot give up. But that one has to really draw the lessons of what has been done right, and what has been done wrong in the last 15 years. If you just wait for a microphone for the benefit of our audience, and please give us your name and your your organization. My name is Anna, I'm from VEJA, a Brazilian magazine. French President Francois Hollande, and also John Kerry. Yesterday they were talking about more cooperation between countries to discuss the conflicts and solutions to conflict. How to engage more countries in that discussion, I mean emerging markets, emerging countries. Are they discussing enough at this kind of global issue, or do you think they are a bit separated from this kind of discussion? If I may, please. That's an excellent question. And I think a country like Brazil and many of the other large players who are emerging not only economically, but also becoming more important on the global scene. I think a big part of the answer to this broader question of global organization is whether to the extent to the extent to which these states are ready, not only to look after their own interests, but also be partners in in managing and carrying the system. Because of course, back back in the heyday of, you know, what some people would call American hegemony or American Pax Americana, the US did not only look after US interest, but it took a kind of a systemic approach. Some thought that was good, others thought that was not so good. The point is that it was kind of an organizing role. America is quite clearly saying that they're not able to do that at the same level as they once were. That has been said by President Obama, it was said by John Kerry here yesterday, which means that a number of new states need to take more of that responsibility. So which is more than just saying I want my share, which is perfectly fair. It's also saying I want to be responsible. Now, and I think that to the extent that the emerging countries sees that and takes that responsibility, which would mean contributing economically, politically, maybe at times militarily to international crisis management, the better it would be off, but it should happen in the framework of international organizations, they can be global, but it can also be about strengthening regional organization, but because in many parts of the world, maybe the best we can hope for is that the neighborhood takes responsibility to help weekly governed space to become a more better governed space. And in your region, I would say that a good example is Colombia, the country that may now be at the end of a very long conflict. And I'm happy to say that I know since I've worked on this in my previous capacity as Norwegian foreign minister, that regional players are playing a constructive role in trying to help Colombia into its final phase towards peace. Don't you think that maybe it's because of the best of military dictatorship, dictatorship in those countries, maybe that they are a bit, I don't know, they don't want to enter so much on that military discussion and conflicts discussion because of because they have some, I don't know, they don't want to talk about military any, any more. What they all the countries that have been through dictatorship during the 70s and 60s I'm talking about Latin America, especially know that. But I mean, there are many other ways. Yeah, but the thing is that there are many other ways to take your global responsibility than through soldiers and military might. I mean, there's economic, there's diplomatic tools, there's cooperation as trade. The point the point is very much whether the extent to which we can feel the vacuum that will be left by US that is less engaged by more collaboration between the countries that are now becoming more wealthy and hence should take more of a responsibility. And I think those those who come from Western countries, who used to be those calling their shots and I'm metaphorically here, not concretely, also have to be prepared that we have to share this planet with political leaders from from other parts of the world and also for maybe other traditions of thinking. And frankly, this international engagement, it has a greater chance of success when it has a broader base because it that increases its legitimacy and legitimacy is a big part of success. I mean, if you if you intervene in the lives of others, you have to be accepted. You have to be welcome. I think that has been the case with the efforts of Latin America in Haiti, which really brought a lot of Latin American countries together and Brazil and playing a leadership role there. So broadening the base of countries that engage in stabilizing countries with only partly a military instrument, just the broad range of instruments is essential to addressing the question of weekly government space. Sir. And again, could we have your name and organization, please? Katsuhiko Haro from Nikkei, Japanese newspaper. I have a question on intelligence. What can what are the obstacles for major powers to shut the terrorist group from their supply of finance or supply of weapons or, you know, how is it really hard to get into the black market to cut them off the supplies? Cutting the supply of finance for terrorist organizations. It is it is hard because there are multiple sources of funding. The fact that terrorist group are not states, that they are amorphous structures that continually change, makes it very difficult to to to track their finance. But there is a growing effort actually at tracking financial movements around the world. So you look at the Islamic state. I mean, what happens is that they take control of oil wells and then they sell the oil through middlemen. And that's where it gets complicated because if obviously if they wanted to sell the oil directly, that could be stopped. When it is the middlemen, then you have to to follow the track and that becomes much more difficult. But this answer, which I totally agree, also illustrates that actually working against, for instance, financial support to terrorism can also be in many ways the same work as when you look for ways to eradicate corruption or avoid sort of tax evasion and so on because it means a more better oversight of the economic flows can have many positive benefits. And I think in a sense there are some secondary effects of looking more deeply into those issues, which are positive. Gentlemen, before we close this this this fascinating discussion, I'd just like you to set out, even though this is a long term study, and as the beginning of the journey of work at the forum and at the ICG, of course, you have a very long horizon, but what are your priorities for 2015? Jean-Marie? For me at Crisis Group, when looking at all the conflicts that are developing in weekly governance spaces, the priority is prevention. Because what we see is that once a conflict has started, it's very difficult to end. And the more it lasts, the more difficult in a way it is to end because it fragments. And so I think the focus of the international community should be much more on prevention. And I would say that from the forum side, of course, there are certain, we're not a traditional diplomatic organization, we're not an international organizational member state, so there's a limit to what we can do in stopping conflicts, but of course we do, we can at times provide a discrete platform for background talks, for instance, between parties to a conflict. But where we can have the most influence, I think, is in the immediate recovery where we can try to engage with our membership, with key economic actors, public and private, together in seeing how we can lock in a positive process once it started, because there are many cases where you actually stop a conflict and then there's an expectation of rapid growth and economic development and social development, and it's not happening in any going to a negative cycle. So mobilizing a broad public-private approach can sometimes be the best way of actually proving that there's a peace dividend which makes people's lives better and hence takes away the temptation to go back to a war or conflict or terrorism. Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. Well, we'll close this issue brief now. Thank you very much for joining us here today. Thanks for you for joining us here in the basement and also our audience watching is online.