 Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry if I could have your attention. I guess we'd like to get started. Good morning. I'm Stephen Flanagan. I'm Senior Vice President here and holder of the Henry Kissinger Chair in International Security Issues, and delighted to be your moderator this morning. We're going to move very quickly through the program and touch on each of the key stops, but more sort of an issue focus. We're going to start, first of all, with our colleague, Reginald Dale, who's actually not at the end of the table, the second from my left, who's director of our, as many of you know, I know from his work in this on Transatlantic Media Network, and also a senior fellow in the Europe program. He's going to touch on USEU relations, transatlantic, various other aspects of transatlantic relations, and the all-important question of what is Barack Obama going to do to make up for, to Gordon Brown for those crummy CDs that don't even work that he gave him. I think he's been putting on his thinking cap on how you can overcome that. Then, Steven Schragge, who's our Shoal Chair in International Business, will touch on the G20 agenda in some detail. Then they'll come back to me. I'll touch on the NATO Summit agenda, the Strasbourg-Kiel Summit, the joint Franco-German hosting of this summit. And last but not least, Belent Ali Reza, the director of our Turkey project here, will touch on the president's two days stop in both Ankara and Istanbul, which is promising to be one of the more interesting parts of the trip. So we have provided you with a number of background papers, as well, on all of these issues, including just one commercial word of advertisement, the advance of a major study that Belent and I and a number of other colleagues have been involved in here on looking at the US-Turkish relationship and where that is going, and how Turkey's changing internal dynamics relations with all of its neighbors are going to affect US interest. But let me turn then first to Reggie Dale for a review of some of the broad transatlantic issues in the US. This will be rather broad, but I thought that as of so little time, I'd do a sort of series of bullet points. And the first bullet point is very a general point, which is that President Obama's been talking for many months, if not a year or more, about the need to restore US leadership around the globe. This trip is his first chance actually to start doing something about that, putting it into these promises into practice. For the first time, he'll be sitting around a summit table, several summit tables with world leaders. He'll be there as the first among equals, which is the first time he's been in this particular environment, rather than being on a pinnacle by himself as he is in the United States. So the other governments will be looking with regard to this real test of his leadership, particularly, I think, in the economic section where the whole world is suffering and there's a real opportunity for the President to show global leadership, which in fact he has not yet done in all his talks to the United States, including to US audiences, including last night's press conference, it has entirely been in domestic US political terms. Now that's obviously understandable in terms of US politics, but he has not so far attempted to place the economic crisis in a global perspective, say what he wants to do for poor people around the world, take a broader look at how America depends on the global economy and on exports, and therefore should combat protectionism. And I think it'll be a real expectation for him to step up to the plate in that respect. Secondly, second point, this President is the first for decades who has virtually no experience or knowledge of Europe, and I think not much instinctive feel for it. One could provide a couple of examples of that, but I want to move on quickly. Nevertheless, he remains a superstar in European public opinion, more than here, in fact. The latest poll I could find on this was one taken just after the inauguration, which showed that whereas in the United States, 68% believe that Obama will have a positive impact on the course of international events, in Europe, the numbers who believe that he'll have a positive impact are 92% in France, 90% in Italy, 85% in Spain, 82% in Germany, and 77% in Britain. So actually there's even more expectation that he will have a positive impact on the world in Europe. One might even say that Europeans seem to be more in love with him than he is with Europe. In his Berlin speech last July, he talked about the walls, he said the walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. That was somewhat hyperbolic because actually there aren't many walls to dismantle. In his second term, President Bush had made a big effort to repair relations with Europe and particularly with the European Union. He had actually moved towards the Europeans in a number of fields, such as Iran, Middle East peace, and climate change. And the relations were pretty good, at least between governments. Now, Obama's policies are closer to European policies in a number of respects on climate change, for example. His commitment to a multilateral approach to world problems. And on the domestic issues like universal health care, that is something that Europeans of course feel sympathetic to. And as Gordon Brown, so there's a big opportunity for a closer relationship. And Gordon Brown, when he was here just recently for his, gave this address to joint houses of Congress said, never before had a U.S. president faced so many pro-American leaders in Europe. And he was referring, of course, to himself and President Sarkozy in France, the Chancellor Merkel in Germany, and Prime Minister Berlusconi in Italy. Now, that doesn't mean there are no differences. There are both between President Obama and Europe and among the Europeans themselves. There are differences between the U.S. and Europe on Afghanistan, on Russia, on economic policies, and particularly an area that the Europeans feel extraordinary important is the whole area of trade, protectionism, the Doha round of talks, which is, in fact, the biggest multilateral effort underway in the world today. And that, I think, would be the area where I would, if I was writing his talking points, I would say that he should show the most leadership. Steve referred to his relations with Gordon Brown. Well, there's a certain amount of public relations making up to do there, I think, because the British press, at least, is convinced that President Obama dissed Gordon Brown in Washington, both in terms of the inadequacy of his gift and in terms of substance, but particularly in terms of protocol. So it would be nice if he could make some sort of gesture there. The splits inside the EU are over areas like the degree of economic stimulus the Europeans should apply. There's a lot of ill-feeling in some countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, that their Western European colleagues are not showing enough solidarity in confronting the economic crisis, and there are splits over how to deal with Russia, and that would be reflected in any attempt if Obama wanted to round up the Europeans for a joint policy or joint initiative towards Russia. Now, so you could say, well, in most of these areas, actually, the UK is closer, as it often finds itself, closer to the U.S. position than the continent, to the continent, particularly on the need for more economic stimulus and on the need for a bigger effort in Afghanistan. On both of those issues, you'll find the UK sort of rather uncomfortably straddling the Atlantic. So I think one could sum up by saying a couple of things. One is that by the end of his second term, Bush was much closer to the European governments than it had been, but he was still strongly disapproved of by a lot of the general public, whereas Obama is adored by the general public, but still has to prove himself to the governments. And in approaching that, I think Obama will be driven not by the kind of sentimental, nostalgic, common values we share sort of approach that is normal for U.S. presidents, but it'll be his approach to be more governed by what are the U.S. needs for a partnership in solving international problems. And I hope that that doesn't lead him to underestimate the contribution that Europe can make on many of these issues. And I'll stop there for now. Thank you very much, Richie. Stephen Treger, you have the biggest agenda. And I think this is going to be a very challenging meeting, and I think there's three key points I'd like to make on this. First of all, the stakes are incredibly high. In our briefing before the G20 meeting last November, I said the idea that you would somehow try to rework the entire financial system in a Bretton Woods 2.0 at that point in time was kind of like calling together the fire chiefs in the middle of a five-alarm fire to restructure the fire department. Now we're five months later, we're at a different stage, and there's been some encouraging signs, but we're still fighting a fire that is still uncontrolled and is spread from the U.S. financial and housing markets to virtually every corner of the globe. It's wiped out world trade and GDP growth in a way we haven't seen in a half century. And perhaps most importantly and overlooked, it's sowing seeds of potential instability with unemployment, protests spreading across the world everywhere from Latvia to China in a way that I don't think has been fully understood by the political process. And most government action, I would say, a lot of think tank analysis on this tends to be, I'd say, a step or two behind the spread of this phenomenon, this fire, trying to shore up at times firewalls that have already been breached. For example, there's been a lot of debate about the lessons of the Great Depression and the failed 1933 Economic Conference, but most of these have focused on the economic aspects, when in reality the Great Depression really wasn't ended by any economic action, it was ended by conflict that spread from instability and ultimately authoritarian regimes. Now no one's suggesting we're at the 1930s right now. We're far from it, it's a different world, but when you've got the director of the National Intelligence for the United States saying that the economic crisis is now the number one national security threat and seeing the raw data is something we really need to pay attention to. And as Reggie mentioned, it's also incredibly high stakes for the individual leaders. You know, President Obama is not only confronting the biggest challenge he faces, he's doing it for his first time on this type of world stage, he's doing it just weeks into his presidency when many key members of his team, particularly at Treasury, aren't on board yet. Others are under fire for the AIG or other aspects of the financial rescue packages, so it's a very challenging time from his perspective. Also from the key EU leaders, you've got Gordon Brown facing election before 2010, Angela Merkel facing elections, many other EU leaders that will have their own political pressures going forward. You may have potential widespread protests in London as this develops. China is being called on to do a lot more, but it may fall below the 8% growth rate that it targets to prevent internal instability. And you've got all world leaders very cognizant of the fact that any open disruptions or disagreements could shake markets and shake confidence in the way going forward. So you've got these high stakes. I guess the second question is, is the G20 really addressing the core challenges we face? I think in the run-up to the conference, you've already seen governments dampening down expectations, and I think there's a real risk of a disconnect between the level of the challenges we have to confront and what we're going to be able to achieve through a one-day conference, especially with the new administration that's only been several weeks in office. In terms of the immediate economic areas, things economists look at, like stimulus policies, monetary policies, reviving the banking system and lending. This has been hurt by, you know, widely publicized rifts between the EU leaders in the U.S., even in terms of metrics for stimulus and whether additional stimulus is needed, and in terms of also in terms of monetary policy and rates. We have a new fairly aggressive bank policy, but it was only unveiled this week, and the question, is there enough time to coordinate or see how it's taking hold? The EU and others have pushed international regulation to the forefront of the agenda, and I think there's a widespread agreement that we're going to have to look at both international and national strategies on regulations. But the key question, again, is in the middle of this crisis and this firefight, should we be focusing on long-to-mid-range things when we still don't have control of the basic dynamics going forward? And there's also a number of efforts, kind of what I would call shoring up the firewalls or to use the Katrina analogy, shoring up the levees for this unprecedented storm that we're facing. I think we are going to see some positive action on the IMF in terms of increasing IMF funding. China looks like it may give up to $100 billion in this tronch. I think the IMF itself took some key actions in terms of lowering standards so that more people will have access to funds that was announced. I believe today or yesterday. On trade, I think this has been some of the most disappointing part of the G20 from November. It was really a two-fliss tiger. It gave this apparently strong statement about halting protectionism and reviving the Doha round that was routinely ignored or honored in the breach as 17 of the G20 members enacted new protectionist measures. It was interesting to see whether there will be anything more than symbolic statements at this meeting, though I think there's some evidence of progress potentially on trade finance, which collapsed in the crisis. But one of the problems is, again, in this storm, this system, our world trade system was built to deal with one or two violations. If everybody's passing by America provisions or pushing the bounds of what's legally possible, and it takes two years for a WTO case to go through, you could have a meltdown before the system could address it. So what are we doing to shore up and expedite that kind of processing? On wider strategic issues that I mentioned, there doesn't seem to be much on the agenda other than I know President Obama has mentioned food security, which may kind of creep in under that front, though the situation in Eastern Europe on the doorstep of the conference could push this to the forefront of the days ahead. So finally, given these lower expectations, what's to watch for in the summit to see if it's a success? And maybe the most important piece of it may be that we're setting up a process going forward, which isn't even a given at this point in time. One thing to watch is obviously the underlying divides that we've seen being deepened or actually being bridged. Obviously the U.S.-EU divide on regulation versus stimulus. China in terms of the IMF, you know, but also participation in how we allow emerging powers to have a greater role. But one thing that I think was key to watch in the Finance Minister summit was the first ever the BRIC countries issued their own statement. That's Brazil, Russia, India, China. And you've seen Russia and China call for a new global currency, concerns about U.S. debt and the management of our economy. Is this going to be a competing bloc? And then how are the other emerging powers that are at these conferences going to align either with the traditional G20 or maybe a new BRIC bloc? That's very early stages and something we'll have to watch. Second thing is more than words. Are there going to be any other concrete actions besides that way, as I mentioned, or operational ways forward? How they plan to do something in the G8 or G20 is as important as what they pledge to do. They really have no operational capacity, you know, from leading this effort on crime and terrorism in 2004. You know, they can make these pronouncements, but if there's no follow-up, not much gets done. They don't even have a secretariat. So they tend to task agencies like the IMF, the Financial Stability Forum, the WTO, but do these institutions even have the resources, capability, or political will to tackle these unprecedented challenges rapidly at this time? And there's even a debate on the future of the G20 leaders process. Is this going to go on? Is the G8 going to re-emerge? So it's really open. So we really got to see, is there a road map going forward? And then finally, is there any recognition of these broader security challenges that I mentioned? That this has gone beyond just being a pure economic crisis, to being a political, strategic, and potentially security crisis, or are we missing some of the greatest lessons of the Great Depression in the 1930s? So that's a lot I know and a lot to chew on, and I look forward to your questions and thoughts on that. Thank you, Stephen. So I'll touch on the NATO agenda, and I'd like to just, first of all, outline a bit why the NATO summit, what's the significance of it? What is the overall goal of the rest of the Allies? And then talk a little bit about what does President Obama and the U.S. administration hope to get out of it? What would be sort of cast as a success, given that this is also, as some of my colleagues mentioned, his first meeting with all of his fellow heads of state and government, as they say in NATO, who will be attending the NATO summit 26, going to possibly 28 members of the Alliance. So the summit, like those of you who've covered NATO, will know that oftentimes NATO schedules a summit and wants to highlight one thing, some part of its evolution or development, and indeed that was part of the goal even many years ago, when it was decided, of course, that this important milestone, 60 years of its existence would be a great time to take stock and focus on the Alliance's past successes and future direction. But of course, like many other NATO summits all through the 90s that ended up focusing on the Balkans, this summit is going to focus on Afghanistan. There's no question about it. But let me talk a little bit, though, about the other parts of the agenda. Because of this fact that it is sort of an unusual summit and the notion that it's being held jointly in Strasbourg, France, and Kiel and Baden-Baden, Germany is to be partly symbolic and to reflect the fact that NATO has contributed in enormous ways to the stabilization of Western Europe and the recovery of those countries and the development of the European Union and that sort of touchstone, coupled with France's decision and a very controversial one, as many of you know, within France to rejoin or as they prefer to engage in full participation in NATO's integrated military structures is another part of this symbolism of it being a Franco-German event. The timing is certainly not optimal from the Obama administration's perspective because coming in very early before all of its policy reviews are completed, first of all, in Afghanistan, but also on a number of other issues related to transatlantic relations. It's made it a bit, I'm sorry, a bit challenging with not all of the full interagency team in place. But nonetheless, obviously consultations are going ahead and particularly on Afghanistan, there's been a great deal of back and forth. On Afghanistan, the summit agenda, just as actually there was a summit last year in Bucharest in April, almost exactly a year ago, this domination of the question of what is NATO's future mission in Afghanistan and, of course, looking first to the strategy, the new strategy and approach that the Obama administration will be putting forward, but also to look at how NATO might restructure its own activities and the critical juncture at a time when, as you know, violence is continuing to increase in the south and the east even during what is normally considered a relatively less intense period of the counterinsurgency now with the high part of it, with the snows melting and the mountain passes and obviously the problems of sanctuary in Pakistan coming this whole question of how can the alliance deal more effectively with this erosion of security and how also, and there's a lot of discussion over the last several years of how can the alliance better integrate both some of its activities that deal with stabilization and reconstruction and the development of civic action but also with other international organizations and with the Afghan government itself, and that is a big part of this agenda and so defining that concept and how this will fit in with what will be presented, I think not as a fetid complet, but as a proposal for further discussion and refinement of the Obama administration's strategy and how the allies can support it. The other big issue out there that was a bit previewed already in the ministerial, there was a NATO ministerial meeting earlier this month, of course, Secretary Clinton was there to discuss the whole question of Russia, what, there was a ministerial decision to essentially agree to go ahead and resume as soon after the summit meeting, NATO-Russia dialogue within the NATO-Russia Council and also looking for specific elements of future cooperation. The big question is well what is it that the United States and its allies can do with Russia in that context and that will be certainly an area of discussion. There is also the question of what to do about the very robust commitment that was made last year to Georgia and Ukraine that they will, indeed will, become members of NATO someday. Enlargement is not on the agenda this time. There will be some effort though to discuss the commitment without walking away from it and how relations with Georgia and Ukraine can continue to be strengthened, by NATO and other member countries. But there is also the question of how will that be balanced with this opening to Russia. There is sort of a one bit of tidying up Croatia, two of the Balkan countries Croatia and Albania had been invited earlier to join the alliance and it looks likely that Croatia will join making it number 27 and Albania possibly if all the necessary protocols are ratified by the various member governments. So that's another bit of, and lastly a bit of the agenda, sorry, the summit will launch a process and this is a bit of NATO internal business and housekeeping but it has broader strategic significance and that is the question of NATO's new strategic concept. There's broad consensus that the alliance strategic concept which dates from 1999, essentially the blueprint for what is the nature of the challenges NATO confronts and how should the alliance be done militarily and in its political dimensions. That hasn't really been refined for a decade and well, that last concept and I actually was involved in some of the drafting of it in government at the time was very focused on the question of instability along the near periphery of alliance, particularly the lessons being learned at that time in very hard ways about dealing NATO's role in peacekeeping in the Balkans. It states the whole awareness that came also starkly after September 2001 about the global nature of security problems. The last strategic concept didn't say much about terrorism, it talked a little bit about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It did talk about some other questions of the need to enhance integration of efforts in peacekeeping but it didn't really grapple with this notion of long duration missions that NATO's finding itself involved in. Related to this and one other last bit of housekeeping which could be somewhat controversial although it looks as if it's coming together, the current Secretary General of NATO Yachterhoof Scheffer the Netherlands his term is expiring right after the summit. The leading candidate who has the support of the U.S. evidently in most of the major European governments is the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen. However it's a controversial figure in Turkey and because of the whole cartoon episode a few years ago and the idea that this could be controversial. There are a couple of other dark horse candidates, Peter McKay the Canadian Defense Minister and there's sort of another candidate who's sort of there I think in the mix more to make a point Radik Sikorski the Polish Foreign Minister who wants to make the point that 10 years after the Central East European countries joined the alliance it's maybe time for the alliance to have a Central European military general. Now just quickly on Obama's measure of success or what the administration hopes to get. First of all it's very much the same sort of sense as Reggie talked about obviously this is President Obama's chance to be among his peers in the alliance to establish his style of leadership. There's tremendous expectations and indeed a lot of discussion I think of people in the government about we have to sort of manage expectations and this is not a step-by-step approach but I think the goal is to I sense is to try to balance of providing a strong sense of leadership but also in the emphasis that you saw in some of Secretary Clinton's consultations and other consultations administration that also we have a president now who's listening. That was one of the big laments I think about previous administration that there seemed to be more in broadcast mode all the time and even going back further and looking at other administrations this whole question this delicate balance within NATO and within really the transatlantic relations more broadly how do you provide a sense of strong American leadership without making it look as if we're just coming to give them the plan and hoping that they'll all fall in line smartly behind us so that will be and I think President Obama is as gifted as anyone and trying to strike that kind of balance now on Afghanistan I think their American expectations are being lowered or Europeans are trying to lower American expectations and indeed some of you might have heard the British defense secretary who in here last week I'm sorry he was noting how he too didn't expect there to be much in the way of additional European combat troop commitments there may be some modest additions but it's more likely that European governments will be offering trainers for both the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police but also and there is some effort underway within the EU in fact led by the Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski to try to develop a friends of the EU for Afghanistan that would pride provide some additional capability on the EU side to strengthening governance and civil society within Afghanistan so that will be very interesting to see if there is anything forthcoming and I think there will be but the other thing is to basically secure a strong endorsement of the US strategy that will be certainly a mark of success for the Obama administration on Russia I think the allies will be looking for what is the Obama administration's approach I think given all the focus on the financial crisis and the Afghanistan Iraq rebalancing I'm not sure how far along the policy is on Russia clearly the arms control agenda in the US bilateral context to start follow on other things will be some prominence in the sense that the administration wants to move out on that but the whole question of what would the US like to see the alliance do with the Russians, what are areas do we see of useful mutual cooperation I think is yet to be defined or I haven't seen any signs that there is a clear commitment on that but there is some hope that perhaps they can be movement back one sort of interesting issue that's out there in the background which is very related to NATO's operations Carter of resupplying the ISAF mission in Afghanistan which would run through Russia and that could be one of the big issues on how is NATO willing to have Russia have in a sense a bit of control and leverage over its supply line to the internet security force from western European ports through Russia into Central Asia and then on to Afghanistan so to have a secure northern route given the perils of the southern route and so lastly this question of the president needs to show that he's established a clear process for an effective process for developing this new NATO strategic concept and support some ideas on internal reform and also that he's struck a new approach and a welcoming of the French into full participation in the alliance because I do think that that will both give France more influence in the alliance and NATO some additional and quite capable military assets but also hopefully finally square the circle begin to square the circle on some of the difficult questions of NATO cooperation with the European Union and the whole concern that France was really pushing the EU security identity and capabilities and alternative to NATO and hopefully this will begin to put some of that to rest and NATO and the EU can find some way to cooperate so let me turn it over now to for a discussion of Turkey I'll keep it brief because I know you've got questions and it's 20 to 10 you may be wondering why it is that he's going to Turkey but there is actually a thematic link between his first three stops and the one in Turkey and it's also great symbolic importance Turkey's a member of the G20 and Prime Minister Erdogan will be participating in the meeting in London Turkey's also a member of NATO it actually possesses the second largest army after the US in NATO so it's very much a component of the effort to strengthen the transatlantic defence cooperation of course with respect to the first stop Turkey's an emerging market and having been very successful in its recovery program it's obviously going to be affected by the crisis so that will be something that the Turks and the Americans will talk about and of course the third is that Turkey's in the middle of an accession process trying to get into the European Union there are many problems with respect to that process the US has been very supportive and has been using trying to use this influence with the Europeans and so you can actually see the logic which led to the crisis of Turkey when you take the overall trip into account but there's also great symbolic importance attached to the trip Turkey's not just a member of the Western community of nations but it's also because 99% of its population is Muslim it's a member of the the Islamic world that President Obama has been trying to reach out to echoing Reggie Obama will start with a great advantage when it gets to Turkey because his name is not George Bush he's not only unpopular in Turkey as well as in the Islamic world there's a sense of goodwill towards the US and particularly towards President Obama with his assumption of power and the entire Islamic world will be watching the speech he will be making at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara now the administration has been at pains to stress that this is not the great speech that he promised to make in his first 100 days directed at the Islamic world but this may be a distinction without a difference because he's going to a country which is Muslim and the entire Islamic world will be watching to see what kind of message he gives and whether he will indeed move away from the confrontational relationship that characterizes the relationship between US and the Islamic world during the days of President Bush the Prime Minister, Turkish Prime Minister has publicly called for redefinition of terrorism by the US as it fights the global war against terrorism, a phrase which has not been used by this administration because he said that that was just too broad and was alienating the Islamic world so the words will have to be chosen very carefully when he gets to Turkey beyond these what are the issues that will come up in Ankara one is of course Iraq Turkey did not back the US in 2003 it caused a great crisis in US-Turkish relations US troops were not allowed to go through Turkey in order to attack Iraq now Turkey is willing to cooperate as the US begins to withdraw and Turkey is obviously going to be a key country in trying to maintain stability after US withdrawal the problem there is that Turkey has a difficult relationship with the Kurdish administration in the north particularly with the PKK bases from which terrorist attacks have been launched on Turkey Syria and Iran Turkey encouraged the Bush administration for the resumption of dialogue with Syria and the initiation of dialogue with Iran to little avail during the Bush administration the Obama administration may be more open to Turkish suggestions on both of these issues Turkey also played a key role in the indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria something that the administration wishes to encourage it's not clear when that will pick up and whether the Netanyahu government will be as keen as the previous government in utilizing the Turkish role on this the problem there is the Turkish criticism of Israel during the Gaza war and its advocacy overall for Hamas something that the US has not been willing to pick up beyond that there is Afghanistan and Pakistan Turkey has diplomatic leverage with both countries fellow Muslims of course but the Turkish government may not be open to the idea of sending combat troops something that has been mooted in the attacks between Washington and Ankara the Turkish General Staff has said not a single combat troop will be sent to Afghanistan and the Turkish Defense Minister confirmed that just a couple of days ago so he may be as he may come up as empty-handed with Turkey as is likely to with the other Europeans when it comes to this issue and finally on the US Turkish agenda which you may not be familiar with is the Armenian Genocide Resolution this will come up this will be brought up by the Turks the resolution has been introduced in Congress the Turks are worried that having committed himself to supporting the resolution during the campaign as candidate President Obama may not follow the example of Presidents Clinton and Bush and may in fact use the word genocide himself frankly none of the areas of cooperation that they will be talking about will materialize if this passes because the Turks will undoubtedly retaliate and we may go into deep freeze in the US-Turkish relationship if it passes one last word of caution of course it's welcome news to the Turks that the new American President is coming to Turkey so early in his administration but the visit is occurring before the US has actually put together finishes review of US foreign policy and has determined when sorry how Turkey will fit into this equation the US-Turkish relationship is a very complicated one there will undoubtedly be problems down the road and the fact that the visit is occurring so early before the review of US foreign policies has occurred may create problems but nonetheless it's welcome to the Turks and it's a good development that is going to Turkey with that I'll stop thank you we look forward to your questions and comments yes one broader question about the G20 in the six decades since World War II you know American dominance and leadership of the international economic system has been pretty much unchallenged the current crisis has given way to challenges to the dollar as the international currency to calls for letting emerging emerging economies have more say how real is this threat and how much is it a challenge to President Obama what I would say right now what you saw with the flow of capital in the United States is that we still for all the talk about multi-polarity I think it's really it's really a multi-tiered multi-dimensional world but the United States is at the center of so much of that but it does raise a real question that's not a given going forward particularly if we have kind of irresponsible fiscal policies or we let our debt get out of control or we fail to manage this process properly in the next couple of years that is a real risk and I think you see with the statements of China and Russia on a new currency model you know I don't think that's realistic in the short term but over the longer term they see the projected deficits for the United States they see that we may not be tackling some of our long-term problems and if that trend continues I think there is much more of a risk that we would lose our ability with being the central reserve currency and having confidence in our markets so a lot of it's going to depend on US leadership over the next couple of years How much is that a challenge to President Obama at this meeting? Well it's a huge challenge right now because you can already you can see people kind of already rustling you know even before some of these plans go forward even before the United States has seen any kind of run on its currency or really challenged to its treasury bonds you know kind of rattling the sabers about what's the problems if the dollar gets massively devalued or the US economy fails to take hold so I think it's a clear warning sign that they've got to address this up front and if they don't there's going to be severe ramifications from global markets I'd like to add one word to that for the whole period since World War II that you mentioned the United States has been the champion of the open free market global system and that is now what is under threat from various directions so it's really up to President Obama to step in and confirm that the United States is still the guardian of the global system which the United States was instrumental in creating after World War II and which it has always been the leading champion of and also to set an example because if it's the United States begins to relapse into protectionism with Mexican trucks and by American clauses and all that then everyone else in the world will say well you know the US is doing it they're the big free marketers why can't we so I agree it's a very important X I think Reggie's exactly right on that point and one of the key things you see is all the trade talk that's going on right now is all defensive you know it's all kind of like how do we prevent backsliding and if you talk to people if there's no offensive agenda it gets very risky because people again push the bounds of these by America acts or what they can do domestically in terms of protectionism through subsidies I mean subsidies to autos or others could basically be a smooth holly 2.0 I mean there's a lot of ways to get to this race to the bottom of protectionism that don't involve tariffs and if everybody's pushing that system and you've got a WTO system that doesn't have the political will to step into the breach or the capability to quickly review these you've got an incredibly dangerous situation and at the same time you've got an administration that has yet to really take a strong position on their WTO Doha around South Korea maybe chairing the next G20 you know where you're showing this up and we may be walking away or at least kind of looking down the U.S. Korea FTA at a time when the EU looks like it's going to complete one and they sign it at the G20 meeting so it's really raising questions about what kind of leadership the U.S. is going to show towards open markets and I think that vacuum can quickly become very dangerous. A couple of questions one for Reginald Dell and one for Stephen Schrage Reginald you tantalizingly said earlier on that you could provide a couple of examples of how Barack Obama has no instinctive feel for Europe whether you could fulfill my curiosity satisfy my curiosity on that and Stephen I was interested in what you said at the end of your piece about whether the economic crisis could yet become a wider security crisis and the lessons from the 1930s in that respect you just expand on that thought a little bit I'll give you just a couple of examples one was when Obama went to Europe last July and first of all started by asking to give a speech at the Brandenburg gate whereas virtually anyone who knew anything about Germany would have been able to tell him that that would not not only would that be refused but it was sort of heuristic presumptuous to ask for that and in his speech in Germany he addressed the people of the world it was all about he said people of Germany he used it as a platform for talking to the whole world rather than focusing on European issues and when he did he talked about these walls in the Atlantic which don't actually exist and secondly I think he didn't have the right feel in his meeting with Gordon Brown just recently the British press vastly exaggerated I think some of these issues but it was great fun anyway the stories were but the whole his sort of body language when he was giving the briefing answering a few questions with Gordon Brown his whole attitude seems to suggest he didn't think this was such a big deal as the British did and the British Britain is the United States probably still it's closest ally it's got the biggest contingent of combat forces in Iran Afghanistan after the United States by a long way it's a member of the UN Security Council cooperates incredibly closely with the United States he just didn't give the impression that he sort of appreciated that he now has to sort of do something I'm not quite sure what to try and prepare that public relations laps and it's going to be difficult because if he comes to Britain with another gift for Gordon Brown then it implies the first one wasn't adequate yeah British CDs on the lessons of the Great Depression I found it really interesting because there's been a couple talks and most of them all debate was it fiscal policy, was it monetary policy but they kind of avoid this whole issue that we really don't know because ultimately everyone turned inward and it led to this instability and again like I said no one's suggesting we're in the 1930s right now but you've got a situation where we are turning inward I mean you look at the first state of the union style speech or the presentations most of it is not focused on foreign policy you know it's been focused on internal domestic economic challenges which is what I think happened at that point in time and I think we run a real risk I mean you look at like the coverage of the newspaper headlines in 18 months before this crisis you would barely see anything about housing bubbles or financial challenges they were all buried on the back pages it was all Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran Russia now it's flipped 180 degrees none of those challenges went away and indeed the financial crisis may make many of those worse I mean you've got a huge population bulge across the greater Middle East that was concerning people when oil was at $150 a barrel now that it's more around $50 a barrel it's still going to be a great challenge you've got potential unemployment everywhere from Eastern Europe to protest in China from unemployed workers I think these are not things that may be bubbling to the surface right now but when you've got people like the Director of National Intelligence that are seeing the raw data in the field and they're saying already raising warnings that this is our number one national security challenge the risk is that we're behind the curve again as we were approaching the economic crisis and realizing that we may have to be prepared to take rapid action to shore up countries or institutions as they face these challenges everywhere from Mexico you've seen a lot of press lately about the drug lords and kind of the instability there so I think we've got to focus on both and realize the security interconnections in a way that I think is really rare and hasn't really been done and Steve can add some things on this too I think you are seeing that in terms of a lot I mean even people that are open free market advocates you had Gordon Brown talking about British jobs for British workers you had President Sarkozy talking about pulling back in auto manufacturing plants into France or jobs so I mean you've seen some of that domestically and some of that is focused by other groups that may take an even more militant stance towards nationalistic moves so I think it's a natural response to some of these economic challenges but it's one we've got to be very cognizant of Steve did you want to add? No I was just saying in some ways some of the essentially European countries have been bellwethers on this you've seen obviously two governments fall already Latvia and Hungary you know the rising expectations in all those countries has been diminished and led to a lot of social turmoil so you see you know in Hungary and some other places rising sort of anti-Roma gypsy sentiment anti-farm or some xenophobic growth of some of the sort of it hasn't really you know ballooned yet but it is a worrisome trend and I think a number of people and including as Stephen said the DNI and others are looking at this and what does this mean longer term but you even see some turmoil in some other very stable West European countries obviously the garter in Ireland demonstrating about layoffs there I mean the national police there I mean you know some concerns about you know the social fabric there not to say Ireland is going to be unstable there is a lot of social turmoil out there about you know where some of the cutoffs going to come layoffs going to come in the you know particularly in countries where you have a large public payroll so but let me turn that into the member of the questions the lady in the back on the wall I'm sorry I am Sabine Muskat from the Financial Times Deutschland the question for Dr. Flanagan is on about the future role of NATO I would just like to hear a little more from you on where you see the debate going with regard to what NATO should be in terms of between the different poles from being more defensive alliance or an interventionist alliance especially in times where it's hard to get troops for anything and also if you think that the new administration has had enough time to think about these issues or if they were totally preoccupied with their Afghanistan strategy thank you very good question and I should have touched a little bit more but I was trying to be concise but yeah this is there really is a debate one of the questions that will be really sort of brought out in the discussion of this new NATO strategic concept is how much should the alliance focus on what it calls the sort of these long distance expeditionary missions and dealing with instability that could and other other problems out in the far reaches away from NATO territory to affect NATO security so Afghanistan being particularly that one of those missions but even in the nearer periphery in the Balkans NATO is still involved in mission obviously a major mission in Kosovo it's supporting the EU mission in Bosnia Herzegovina in some ways so there's still a lot of NATO engagement in the this was a study that is available on our website that we did with a number of three other think tanks here in town on NATO's future direction talked about this idea of a need to rebalance that between NATO's involvement in what we call the away game or the game out there on the sort of preventing threats from reaching alliance territory versus some desire on the part of a lot of the public and particularly in European countries that have seen recent terrorism episodes in Madrid and Istanbul and London that NATO ought to be seen as a bit more active in doing and centrally European countries also worried about this because of E-Russia NATO needs to rebalance and be sure that it has effective capabilities to address the potential for direct threats on alliance territory be it from terrorism weapons of mass destruction and of course for some of the centrally European countries particularly the Baltics the sense that well does NATO have credible plans to come to our assistance if indeed for whatever reason we had some kind of a little bit of a dust up with the Russians or the Russians argued that they were coming to defend Russian speaking citizens in Latvia or Estonia how would NATO respond and so those are all difficult questions that will need to be addressed but I think what you're going to see is some rebalancing of in the discussion of the strategic concept this will be not so much coming to forth the summit but longer term this idea that NATO needs to rebalance somewhat where it's putting its investment and showing how it's also and indeed some of the some of the stuff that needs to be done at home game is not not necessarily that expensive but it's more a level of attention to do some what NATO would call some deliberate or they're now calling prudent planning for various contingencies that might come up with regard to say the Baltics to continue to work on this question of what does the alliance want to do whatever the US decides to do on the future these two missile defense sites that are a bilateral issue between the Czech Republic and Poland what does NATO want to do about missile defense and the long-term potential for a threat from Iran and other countries so one thing we haven't touched on is NATO-EU defense cooperation let's just go by the way and needs to be touched on Turkey's a member of NATO but it's not a member of the EU so there have been problems associated with Turkey as NATO-EU defense cooperation which is very important for the future has been tackled so that's one of the issues that will on that and come up on the trip Thanks President Obama I want to emphasize during the campaign that his popularity in Europe would help further the US goals I think one of the things that he even talked about during the campaign was the idea of getting more European cooperation in Afghanistan and I'm just wondering it sounds like from what you're saying that he's not going to get necessarily a greater commitment of resources there is he making a miscalculation on this and how is that going to play out at the summit and also I had a question for Bülent about Turkey I'm just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on how you think Turkey could play a role in brokering talks between the United States and Iran Just to say quickly on the Afghanistan and the NATO the security side of this I think that what I was trying to suggest that I don't think that President Obama will probably not have much luck obtaining additional combat forces there just isn't the willingness on the part of most of the European allies to do that right now and including I think as Bülent said there was some hope being pinned on Turkey but because of the counter-insurgency in the southeast and other demands Turkey's not yet there I do think there will be a willingness and many of the allies I think are already preparing their packages to provide additional support to the training missions which are not unimportant because they would relieve some of the US forces from their mission and also additional civil resources in some way I think the administration would argue that if they could get more and particularly and this goes to what Bülent just alluded to about the NATO-EU problem if they could get more EU engagement over time in strengthening governance I mean what you hear from General McCarron and others and General Petraeus and their accounting of what's wrong in Afghanistan it's the whole civil side of that mission it's both weakness in Afghan governance and the development of the civil side and the efforts that isn't well integrated the money's going down a rat hole people don't know where it's all going to and what it adds up to and how is it meshing together in a coherent way so that's that's one of the things that I think that President Obama would I think and many of his advisors are hoping and certainly Holbrook as he looks at this idea of a number of European counterparts working with them I mean some talk about will we have sort of a contact group like we had on the Balkans to better integrate the overall effort so a lot of this could still have additional hard power assets in Afghanistan I think is probably going to be kind of slim but Reggie. A couple of points on that this is what I was talking about is where all these great statements come in actually in contact with reality with the political realities in Europe with how Europe sees its own interests and however much it might be desirable in the American view for Europeans to send more troops to Afghanistan or to change the caveats that govern their performance country like Germany for example cannot do that with the best will in the world because the parliament the Bundestag won't let it I mean there are these basic political factors that the deployment of troops in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular in most European countries and European governments are not going to for the sake of pleasing Obama to sacrifice these concessions on these fundamental interests and political requirements and so that's where he comes confronted with what Europeans regard as their own best interests which are not the same as American ones in many cases that also applies to the stimulus economic stimulus where he's asked for a coordinated world economic stimulus and again Germany is not going to have said it's done enough it's not going to do anymore Germany is still absolutely haunted by the inflation of the 1920s that led to Hitler and these are fundamental things that you can't change just by talking nicely and I think that from my understanding as the Obama administration has sort of shifted on that somewhat to accepting that there's not much point in making demands on Europeans that they're unable to accept or will have to reject that's counterproductive and it's not good leadership and therefore you know let's remember that all this the communiques are going to be issued at the G20 for example it's been being prepared for a long time it's not the leaders going to sit down and say well what should we say now you know it's all basically done and they're going to settle on vague statements about well we'll do as much as we can with a good idea to have more regulation that sort of thing and so it's not going to be a question of using his political capital at the meeting to get the Europeans to change their interest positions yeah on Iran Turkey was very worried during the Bush administration that they would indeed be conflict between the U.S. and Iran and the kind of tensions that arose after the U.S. attacked Iraq would leave it in a very difficult position so it's been very supportive of the idea of a dialogue it also wants to play the role of a mediator after Secretary Clinton visited Ankara the Turkish president went to Iran and conveyed the messages from the Clinton visit to the Iranians afterwards the Iranians said that they preferred a direct dialogue with the United States but that's not really on the cards because we'll participate in the meeting in the Hague on Afghanistan whether that then develops into a direct dialogue between the U.S. and Iran is not clear and Turkey certainly wishes to use its good offices to facilitate this but it really depends on whether the Iranians want to curb their nuclear program because the Turks are opposed to the development of a nuclear weapon on the part of the Iranians yet at the same time that they think that there was too much pressure put on the Iranians and the best way to deal with it is through a dialogue but if there is a dialogue indirect or direct and that fails then Turkey will find it in a very difficult position because now it's on the Security Council it will have to sign on to additional sanctions and that's something that the Turks really want to avoid if they can So two quick questions thanks for doing this several of you talked about Obama's first opportunity to go and sort of show his chops abroad I wonder what you think if you could sort of describe what you think he has to prove both substantively but also stylistically and how we measure whether or not he's achieved that at the end of the eight days and then second quickly on the on sort of EU U.S. European U.S. relations if you had to identify one thing that represents the biggest block or challenge would it be the sort of disagreement over stimulus or is there something else that represents most likely the largest point of disagreement that we're likely to see particularly at the G-20 Well I think overall the biggest question will be okay you've talked a good game you've said a lot of the right things not all the right things because he hasn't there have been these big gaps in international economics now let's see if you can roll your sleeves up and say in a sort of take charge way yes we are going to defend the global system free trade system yes we are going to we are totally committed to abstaining from protectionism or actually confronting protectionism that's very important to Europeans and I think the there are quite a few issues between the U.S. and Europe which won't really emerge as great clashes in this trip because that's not what anyone wants I mean it's still the case that European leaders want to be seen next to Obama preferably with Obama his arms around their shoulders and a big smile popular in Europe and nobody's going to try and raise awkward subjects with him we haven't really gone into the whole missile defence question which is very interesting because as you probably know the Czech government fell yesterday and Obama's due to meet the Czech Prime Minister in Prague the whole point was to go there because the Czech Republic is the president of the EU so that creates a rather complicated diplomatic and political problem but that's really for the Czechs to resolve that their country remains the presidency so they have to put up somebody to come and meet and I think it will be the current president but if Obama withdraws on missile defence which he seems to be doing then he is going to leave the Czech and Polish governments out there hanging in the wind they went to great lengths to reach agreement on basing those facilities there even though their public opinions were largely against it and for Poland it was regarded as a new US security guarantee in the event of trouble from the east so in Eastern Europe that's a pretty big issue I think you know Reggie on some key points I think the overall test is going to be does he map a way forward I mean they're going to paper over any differences in this G20 statement you know likely if there are big disagreements they'll have kind of innocuous language that as appropriate or whatever that kind of muddles the differences but is there a concrete action plan and steps that he's going to lead to get out of this crisis and to rework the international system if it's just a statement and it's just words and there's no follow up plan because there's key questions whether even the G20 is going to go forward at a leaders meeting if there's not that then I think there's going to be real questions is this crisis just going to kind of continue to drift without any clear leadership the two key issues below that that I think or at least on the economic side are showing kind of potential rifts between the U.S. and Europe I think the stimulus and the regulation is one but I think more deeply it's a question of regulation whether it's at the international level it's driven from a more top-down international approach or whether it's drawn at a national approach that's then coordinated internationally I think the EU and a lot of others and you've seen this talk about currency kind of want to rein in U.S. power or capabilities into more of an international system that will kind of whether the U.S. goes along with that is going to be a tension I think it's why you see them pushing regulation so far to the front of the agenda at this time the second one is kind of the protection is trade front you know the U.S. has as Reggie said has always been the leader pushing this forward now that we've kind of stepped back a bit the Europeans are kind of or I think and others are a bit nervous who's going to kind of take up that banner and charge forward are they going to have to do it is the administration going to do it and that's creating a lot of uncertainty internationally this is to Burlant and Mr. Flanagan how likely is a Turkish veto on Rasmussen how likely is a Turkish veto on Rasmussen for NATO sense I sense pretty unlikely I think that they wanted to make the point I don't know that Prime Minister Rasmussen himself had really been he had been seen as a form of expression in the Danish internal debate but I think the Turks want to make a point but I think they won't but consensus seems to be very heavy I mean it would probably be 25 to 1 at this point I think on that question from what I've heard so I doubt it as far as I know there has been no disagreement in the selection of international secretary general before ultimately they come together and everybody approves it but as of yesterday a member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly who specialized in foreign affairs made a statement that Turkey was still opposed to Rasmussen that he was unacceptable to Turkey so I think some more diplomatic work needs to be done on this issue there's real bad blood between Rasmussen and the Turkish Prime Minister the Turkish Prime Minister is a man who does carry grudges he does not really like Rasmussen and NATO remains the one link one firm contractual link between Turkey and the and the western community of nations because it's still in the extension process for the EU and it doesn't really want to deal with the secretary general in whom it doesn't have any confidence so I'm not as comfortable with Steve that this issue has been resolved or is about to be resolved it could go right down to the line if there's anybody else who wants to ask about Turkey I'll take it otherwise let it go thank you yes sir I'm Daniel Anish with Czech Daily Paper Osporarske Noveni I'm getting slightly worried what will happen in Prague hearing that President Obama doesn't have the instincts because he will meet as well Czech President Váslav Klaus who sometimes doesn't have instincts neither so we will see however to the missile defense the Czech government failed to have a confidence vote which means that the treaty was not ratified in parliament and probably won't be for a long time so in fact doesn't this have given advantage to Obama that now he can say the ball is on the Czech side until they ratify the treaty I can't decide anything on missile defense so couldn't he just turn around the whole thing well yes he could say that I think the Poland is probably a bigger problem but I think that Obama is backing away from it anyway and there's not very much support in Congress has been chipping away at finance for missile defense so they've been doing the job of the opponents of the deployment in Europe already but I think that's a fair point and of course it looks like the Czech Republic won't ratify the Lisbon treaty either for the time being so it's quite significant what's been happening in Prague I think it's not clear that the administration's review on what approach it will take on missile defense is completed indeed there was a very interesting development with the announcement that Representative Tauscher would be named the undersecretary of the security policy in the State Department and Reggie has been leading the effort and in fact spoke out about this at the Munich conference leading the effort to question within the US Congress the way in which the United States has been pursuing missile defense even with regard to the sites in Alaska but also the so-called third site in Europe of this spiral development and deployment and is the system really fully proven so there's that debate that's already out there within the Congress as Reggie said and I think that's a good question and even more prominently I think with Representative Tauscher getting that portfolio assuming she's confirmed which I would expect but I think in any event the administration's inclination and indeed there's some question about as we go forward with the Quadrangle Defense Review too where do we want to put the investment and is it really that urgent the Secretary Gates even last year had hinted that there could be some delay additional of the sites in Poland in the Czech Republic because the timing of the Iranian threat might not be, I mean the 2013 was the original target date but I think the Bush administration as a legacy question wanted to get the construction underway and make sure that these systems were eventually developed and deployed rather than stretching them out I think the Obama administration's inclination at least at this point will be to keep the option open but not press ahead to say what helps. The other thing is the polls frankly the polls feel they got the big thing that they wanted which was the commitment of the United States at the end of the last administration to enhance their air defenses which is directed against the potential of any kind of Russian intimidation or targeting is much more important for the polls and I think probably the Czechs didn't quite push that button but for Central East in Europe that concern rather than the Iranian one which they see as a longer term and maybe less direct threat is why I think that the support out there isn't all that strong so I think the administration will be able to finesse this but at least for now I would review the longer term but it also has to be careful not to look as if it's somehow capitulating to Russian pressure and particularly the fact that Medvedev made these threatening noises about well we'll deploy additional missiles opposite Poland and that's why and this is why the U.S. is delaying this so it has to I think there'll be an effort to keep the option open argue that the threat isn't as emerging the threat is still there but it's not as pressing maybe as the construction has to start in the next year or so and that let's continue to look at other options One sentence on that if Obama wants to use it as a bargaining chip with the Russians then he has some interest in maintaining the value of that chip I mean if he's going to let it go anyway then he hasn't got anything to trade I have just one comment to it I was at the missile defense conference now one day ago at the Reagan Center there was the general Cartwright who is deputy chief of staff and he said ballistic missile defense is passe as an email nobody is doing that so we have to concentrate on other issues like sensors information from satellites so and the guys the professionals from the industry were just sitting there and watching him and listening what was going on Definitely some questioning within the military establishment as well on priorities and particularly as you start to look at other things that might go away like future combat aircraft and various ship building programs and other things as opposed to spending on something that at least some people in the technical community feel yes sir what you mean in Europe or in the United States well he will continue to be regarded I think by the European general public as a superstar I don't think there's much he could do I mean because we're surely going to get some wonderful photo opportunities as glossy shots and everything I think there is a huge hope among the European people that he would be hard for him to prick that balloon just at an economic summit the details of which most Europeans are beyond most Europeans they don't follow these things very closely they just see a bit of it on TV so I don't think very much but there are some concerns in Europe which surfaced in the campaign that he wasn't I mean this is sort of ironic when he's being accused of being a socialist here there were a lot of people in Europe who suddenly discovered he wasn't as far left as they thought he was but that was on issues like the death penalty and gun control and they were rather horrified and they thought oh my gosh we've supported this guy and here he is in favour of the death penalty which is one of the other items on which anti-Americanism is based in left wing circles in Europe but I think overall he'd have to work really hard to mess it up continuing somewhat in this question of style and popularity but if I think back for example to Kennedy's remembered visit to Europe it's not really Kennedy or the issues of the time but it's Jackie Kennedy and so I'm wondering what role you see for Michelle Obama and what you expect her to see doing and if that will be an important part of sort of extending this aura I think it will be because she is seen as glamorous in Europe obviously her gender is totally different from the G20 summit in the NATO meeting in fact she's been as you know hitherto in the White has been kept aside from policy and treated more as somebody representing glamour and motherhood and those non-policy related areas but she's definitely part of the image yes and a positive one I should add on the British side of course Obama's going to see the Queen which is something that apparently he's very excited about because one international rock star recognises another one I mean she's right up at that level I mean she's getting on in years but she's still a very glamorous figure and one got the impression he was rather more pleased to see her than he was to see Gordon Brown again yes take of the movie the Queen one quick brief he's obviously going to have time for quite a number maybe of bilateral meetings especially in London is there anything particularly at stake are those going to be mostly for show does it matter who he meets with who he doesn't meet with with so many people in one place the bad is going to be China I mean obviously you've seen from the pages you know from the Secretary Geithner's nomination hearing about the currency speculation with the recent statements about the Chinese about treasury bonds and whether they'll continue to buy them that is both from an economic standpoint perhaps the most important bilateral relationship and one where there's the most issues to be flushed out over both the short and long term so I think that's obviously going to be critical in addition to the European leaders also in some of the others that are out there like South Korea obviously he'll be meeting and you've got the pending free trade agreement and they may be chairing the G20 going forward so there are a number I think you could go down the list of the different bilateral meetings Russia is obviously one where they've tried to press the reset button and it may have gotten off to a bit of a rocky start so looking at those major powers and how those relationships starts and the fact that this is going to be a chance for those bilaterals people will be very closely reading the tea leaves to see where those go both in terms of the multilateral interactions and the key issues bilaterally after those meetings. Just to say a quick word about Russia which I think is really important and the Russian Nedvedev will be taking a measure of Obama in the way that Khrushchev did of Kennedy in Vienna in dealing with Russian leaders or Russian governments that you hit the right note of firmness it's not enough just to say let's be friends and let's enjoy playing with this little yellow and red Lego piece with a button on it that doesn't work with the Russians I mean in fact that's just the wrong way to go about it because they think here's someone I can lead up the garden path you've got to stake out clear firm positions with them and not just say can't we all get along together I think just on that I do think that the bilateral meetings this is a heavy multilateral agenda in some ways the only place in going back to the question about Michelle Obama too that really the major bilateral visit is to Turkey which is very interesting and that will be very interesting too in the way in which both the president and the First Lady interact with the people in Turkey so that will be where they can be more visible in terms of the impact but I think that in some of the bilateral meetings on the margins of the G20 others that and I don't know what the full schedule on them are but I'm sure they'll be very frenetic but I'm sure with Russia my senses the Russians are quite pleased because they've gotten signals that the U.S. administration does want to put the more traditional arms control process back on track in the background that are including some of our former colleagues here who are advising on how to proceed on that so the whole question of and the sense of urgency that the Russians have of getting the start follow on treaty worked sometime this year further efforts on other aspects of strategic stability and the discussions that were reached or the agreement that was reached on a longer broader strategic dialogue I think some of that could be done on progress and the fact that he will have a chance to see Medvedev and to at least show that there's a direction coming and I suspect who knows there might even be an announcement of a U.S. Russian summit meeting because I think that is one of the interesting, missing dimensions that's out there right now. Thank you all very much and I hope that was helpful and again we're happy our media folks are happy to provide some of the things that I mentioned too for those of you it's been out for a while but this report on NATO may be helpful to you as background and it's a short executive summary it's on our website.