 Chair of CSIS and on behalf of the Board of Trustees I want to welcome you to our inaugural inaugural event of smart women's smart power The purpose of this series is to amplify the voices of women leaders in international business foreign affairs and security policy It's an opportunity to highlight their Contributions and their unique stories Before an audience that is both deeply engaged and knowledgeable about these issues This is an exciting new initiative at CSIS and I'm so very pleased to be here to help launch it at CSIS we are proud to promote women and Women's leadership half of our staff are full-time staff or women and many of our programs are led by women and it should come as no Surprise that one of these women is also leading this effort She is senior vice president the Henry a Kissinger chair and director of CSIS is International Security program dr. Kathleen Hicks cat would you please stand and let us acknowledge you because we wouldn't be here without you Thank you cat for being a leader in this field and for helping CSIS bring these valuable discussions to Washington I also want to thank Andrew Schwartz Andrew. Where are you our senior right over there our senior vice president of external relations? Andrew has played a large part in helping to bring this effort to life and in developing the exciting smart women Smart power podcast series. We launched two months ago Andrew. Thank you We hope that each of you will download and follow this wonderful series, which I learned just now is what the in the top 20 podcasts of of all podcasts we certainly We certainly wouldn't be able to bring this series to you without the generous support of our sponsors and partners fortune and city Fortune our media partner and long-time host of the most Powerful women International Summit is a recognized leader in convening smart women and an absolutely ideal partner to help CSIS bring this effort to life We are also thrilled to have Nina Easton fortune contributor columnist and host of chair of fortune's annual most powerful women International Summit She is moderating this new series as well as our weekly podcasts and you'll get to hear her voice every week She does a wonderful job interviewing on those podcasts during her time at fortune Nina has moderated Hundreds of conversations with women who are making a difference in their field and we couldn't be more Thrilled or couldn't ask for a better host than Nina to join us tonight We also are extremely excited that now Nina has joined CSIS as a senior associate non-resident associate Finally, I want to recognize city our sponsor which has been a leader in the finance industry in promoting women's leadership Development both internally and externally through their city women effort and now I'd like to welcome to the podium Candy Wolf Cindy city's executive vice president and head of global government affairs to say a few words on behalf of city Candy Thank you all. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to join us tonight for this inaugural event I know that it's a busy time of the year and we probably had holiday parties But I think it's much more fun to be here We were discussing that perhaps we needed some eggnog to enjoy, but thank you for all for coming City is very pleased to sponsor this new series with CSIS and with fortune We first discussed this opportunity In this initiative with CSIS I knew it was an ideal opportunity for a city as a global bank doing business in over a hundred countries with a Workforce comprised of more than 50 percent of half women the opportunity was obvious and a statistics show women bring unique talent Ideas and distinctive skills to the workplace so smart women's smart power highlights women at the pinnacle of government and business and Recognizes the societal and economic value of women as government leaders and entrepreneurs So we're pleased that we have ambassador powers here tonight to kick off this event And there's no better person to interview her than fortunes Nina Easton. So on behalf of city I thank you again for joining us in our first of the of many other events in the series and our nargo event for smart power smart Women and smart women's smart power. Excuse me, which order? Thank you all for coming Well, good evening everyone and thank you again for coming. I'm Kathleen Hicks I direct the international security program here at CSIS. It's very gratifying to have such a great crowd here I'm also pleased again to welcome you and I do want to take that extra moment as Linda Hart did and acknowledge Andrew Schwartz for his work here behind a room full of great women Sometimes there's a great man and that is the case here Andrew and we appreciate that without Andrew's tireless efforts We wouldn't be here today Also, we're blessed to live in a country where a series like this is even possible Where there are women of power in the fields of international economics and international politics and relations Where there are men and women who can come together to acknowledge them and happily do so And we want to use this program in this platform that we've built not only to celebrate the achievements of these women and to inspire future leaders But also to draw attention to the needs of the many women who are treated as second-class citizens in their communities in their countries With these goals in mind There is perhaps no one better suited as our guest at the launch of this series than Ambassador Samantha Power the US Permanent representative to the United Nations Ambassador power has had a distinguished career both inside and outside of government with a notable dedication to human rights her research on genocide and subsequent book on the subject won her a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and She's often credited with spurring then senator Barack Obama's interest in Darfur and helping raise awareness of the conflict there Ambassador power has not only written about the world's troubled places. She has visited them Most recently as many of you probably have seen she headed to a bolestric and guinea Liberia and Sierra Leone for a firsthand look at the international response to the disaster there and the disease outbreak Although such a mission might strike fear in some it was just another day at the office for a woman who began her career as a Journalist covering wars and conflicts in places such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda among others Prior to her work in government ambassador power served as a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government Teaching courses on human rights US foreign policy and UN reform As many of you know ambassador power was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States States with their parents when she was nine year old so she represents the best of the American dream Please join me in welcoming both Nina Easton and Ambassador Samantha power the true embodiment of the smart women's smart power series Well, welcome ambassador power to be here a couple. Wow. We do have quite a crowd here. Wonderful I'm gonna do once again promote our podcast. It comes out every week You can literally take your smartphone go on podcasts and find it right there smart women's smart power And I also want to Reiterate our Twitter handle at smart women So please follow us Please become part of the community and part of the conversation because we are so excited about this effort and it's so great to see you all here Thank you One other small piece of housekeeping There've been a lot of thank yous here and a lot of thank yous that need to go around one person I do want to thank Laurie Burtman of the Pennington Family Foundation was really key to making this happen I want you to keep her in your thoughts and your prayer She was in a very severe car accident and is in the hospital in Louisiana and I just wanted to give her The credit that she deserves in helping launch this. So, thank you Laurie So we've got this ambassador here. Who's an Irish born Yalie graduate of the Harvard Law School who grew up with the a single mom and doctor where I read that it was the biggest sin was to Make dull remarks at the family dinner table boring to be boring She goes on to write a Pulitzer Prize winning book Accusing the US of others of being a bystanders to genocide and evil So what happens? That's a topic of today. What happens when this passionate outspoken? Incredibly forthright woman becomes a diplomat a diplomat at the United Nations and Shortly after she becomes a diplomat The world frankly explodes with bad guys and yes evil And I have to say while there's lots of people disagree over the over the Obama foreign policy What everybody I think can agree on is that there has been no one more pointed and strong and forthright And and and and diplomatic undiplomatic undiplomatic undiplomatic in her condemnation of lawlessness and barbarism And I think many of us in this audience have our own favorite Samantha Power moments For me it was the March 19th meeting of the National Security Council Putin had just invaded Crimea and annexed Crimea and I remember this well because I tweeted it Ambassador power accused and then of course he offered this sort of fiction-laden explanation for why he did this and so you you accused Putin of showing more imagination than Tolstoy or Chekhov Then you went on to say as thief steals property that does not confer ownership How awesome is that? So Ambassador I'd like to start with Russia. You've repeatedly used your UN position to stand up to Russian officials not only for the military aggression and disregard for international order, but also for telling bald-faced lies How has that gone over and I wonder if you could take us behind the scenes about your sense of how effective those kinds of words are Well, there's a lot of propaganda. First of all, thank you all so much for being here. It's amazing to see so many people Should come to the UN sometime we security council meetings you know all these seats and Thank You Nina for doing this and Kath and the whole team and it's amazing to see so many remarkable US public servants who are now part of The non-governmental world, but are still doing such amazing work who I had the chance to work with so this is great for me but And that was a way of stalling so I didn't have to talk about Russia No What I would say is that I mean a couple things first The message I think is received in the places where there are still ways of getting messages projected and so One of the accompaniments and indeed something that preceded Russian aggression in Ukraine has been a clampdown in Russia on media using all kinds of funky laws and Strictures on payment and overtaxation and outright arrests and intimidation and so forth so The place that one of course would like to see one's message landing is there and I think over time because of the effects Certainly of the sanctions you're starting to see more end of the the Russian Casualties coming back and families getting very upset about the number of Russians who've been killed in Ukraine who are allegedly not in Ukraine All of that is causing some ferment, but my message would not be landing there I think for the Ukrainian people it has been and it very important venue to show us Being prepared to stand in public and lay down the facts. I mean, there's more of a sense of relief Among Ukrainians one talks to then you then you would expect I mean in other words, it's happening to them They know the facts they assume that right thinking people are seeing and absorbing the facts But but when they when they're watching Russian television and seeing upside-down land and how black is white and up is down and You know that kind of level set and that just Basic truth-telling again, which is being done by the US government around in all kinds of institutions But because it's happening in front of the Russian ambassador. It has more salience one challenge working within the United Nations is how many countries Just don't want anything to do with this and Sort of would just sooner Ukraine went away where they weren't didn't have to Take a position one way the other and so one of the things that I'm actually most proud of In the life of this horrible conflict in Ukraine is that we were able to mobilize a hundred votes In the General Assembly on the illegitimacy of the Crimean referendum and ultimate annexation And that sounds like a you know, of course you could I mean they're just lopping off part of someone else's country But the Georgia vote, you know, just several years previous had only been about 20 people willing to step up And actually put themselves on the record because they were afraid of angering Putin and so forth So voice matters Principle of course matters and every country in the UN has an interest in the international order Being enforced and countries not being allowed to do what Putin is doing But self-interest also drives state behavior and so you've really got to convince people that we're going to be with them on the other side And that you know in taking a stand They're gonna have allies and that's a reliable so your audience you see as being multiple Ukraine and Russians to some extent The international community to to stand up as well because Again our policies are having an effect But the broader the base of support for our policies the more that will put pressure on Putin over time What did you personally do to get those votes? well, one of the things I learned from Richard Holbrook a long time ago the late Richard Holbrook who I miss every day I miss his phone calls getting yelled at for all the things I'm not doing right But you know, there's a temptation to be very transactional in diplomacy and Particularly when you're the United States and there's a lot going on and part of kind of everything that's going on whether it's the development goals or Internet freedom or the peacekeeping reform or South Sudan such wrapping up public Syria, you know, you're in everything so the temptation is to go to other countries when you want something and we want what we want when we want it and and Often countries are responsive and that's US leadership often really pays off I've tried to and again with Holbrook's counsel from a while ago in the back of my mind Really invest in the kind of just the relationship. So taking a bunch of African ambassadors to an NBA game I've done a hundred courtesy or 102 I think courtesy calls on different ambassadors where I just go to their Missions and I go my team gives me all these points. I'm supposed to ask for this and that the other thing and usually I just say You know, what happened when your country got independence, how did that happen exactly? And they're you know, they're they're but but getting people to talk about what matters to them And not always starting not always wanting something not always, you know We do we want a lot and and that one of the things that is so amazing about working For the US government and can be exhausting I think for countries who have to take our calls the whole time is again the number of fields on which we're playing and asking other countries to step up and with an agenda and it's what I think you know foreign service officers I'm always telling you, you know, you should feel incredibly proud at the number of asks we're making of governments about You know asking countries to contribute on You know gloves or chlorine or motorcycles on Ebola or asking people to contribute a couple engineers for the South Sudan Mission or asking people to vote a certain way on a Ukraine You know the fact that our embassies all over the world are these vehicles for leadership on so many fronts You know is is is really important, but but can't just show up in those circumstances You really got to make I think respect and the dignity of these individuals and what they're going through I mean I went not long ago to the mission of Benin and I just I asked the permanent representative to tell me a little bit About his village where he grew up and and he told me about it and I said well how's that village faring you know given climate change and because it's a Coastal country that's been famously a lot of erosion. He said oh my village doesn't exist anymore You know and you just So if you actually get behind the positions and there's a lot of positional warfare within the UN system and The G77 which is a block that can be very challenging for us to work with But if you disaggregate it and just sort of try to understand what people are bringing to their jobs every day Their life experiences their national priorities, which are often not ours But if we want them to play on ours, you know understanding better what's driving them and how's that relationship with your Russian counterpart, right? It's alright. I mean I will say this There's a professionalism that also comes with doing this. I mean a recognition that unless Russia has a great interest in the Security Council remaining the premier organ in sort of international order and the enforcement of peace and security and so At the same time we have these very dramatic confrontations. We had 26 Ukraine meetings in the open chamber where Versions and I have a former writer, so I take great pleasure in these sessions. You know really what can I say this week? But at the same time we've had those 26 meetings. We've also Authorized peacekeeping mission to the Central African Republic Declared Ebola threat to international peace and security and called on countries to live travel restrictions You know put in place an arms embargo for Libya, you know the work of the Security Council goes on and so and Iran of course negotiations that Haven't borne fruit yet, but nonetheless are progressing constructively with Russia very much at the center of it So you you call a spade a spade you never pull punches But you also recognize that there's a broad set of interests that we're pursuing through this right this body, you know I this weekend. I was rereading your book problem from hell and of course that begins with you're going to Bosnia as a reporter and and really almost on the verge of trying to save lives really and You watched You were there during the period when 7,000 Muslims were killed 16,000 children and at the time the president President Clinton had said he'd warned about the shelling of Sarajevo and there would be consequences and As you put it American resolves soon wilted and I have to say and I'm sure you've heard this before but You know, I read that and what was back in the back of my mind was Syria Syria today The Charles Assad's use of chemical weapons and bombs against his own people And even if you personally stood up and talked about you know industrial killing and monstrous crimes I mean your language is amazing The use of starvation is a tool There is the question of red lines set and not and past and Numerous us officials saying that Assad must go Which of course hasn't happened. How do you? How do you answer that? There's a lot there. I'd say a couple things one just to separate this the Syrian chemical weapons red line as you know in the wake of Horrific killing and more than a thousand people including hundreds of children more than a year ago now just after I got into the job The president did decide to use force because the red line was crossed in such a flagrant way and The result of him moving forward in that way was that we had a huge amount of diplomatic leverage Such that I was able to negotiate at the Security Council the dismantling Of Syria's chemical weapons program now Syria and Assad find a way to be brutal Even as they've had you know, basically now a hundred percent of their chemical weapons declared chemical weapons program removed And most of that now destroying the rest of will be destroyed soon But now they found a way to use just household chlorine and stick it in barrel bombs It looks like at least on the basis of what the OPCW has recently found. So we're pushing on that issue I think that what what? You know what what I described back in the day when I was looking at other cases was administration after administration not Sufficiently prioritizing atrocity prevention or mass atrocity response not looking into the toolbox of US foreign policy that might be used on Nonproliferation or on promoting trade and not applying it to when it was quote nearly People you know getting killed Syria suffers no shortage of high-level attention. We've meetings with the president now every week on the larger anti-ISIL effort and and on Syria as well and We have employed just about every tool in the toolbox except one right which is Making war against the Shah Al-Assad to bring about the outcome of the end of his regime or to bring about the outcome of protecting civilians and The president's calculus. I think many people in this room would agree with which is the risks of that kind of military conflict Are substantial The uncertainty of what that kind of military engagement would produce Is off the charts. We have certain Devastation before us which is why we continue, you know every day to think what more can we do and up at the UN You know, we tried to bring an ICC referral forward. We got a Finally again, maybe sounds like a very small thing, but it's gonna probably save hundreds of thousands of lives We've got the Russians to authorize finally cross-border humanitarian access. You can actually reach people who've been In areas that the Syrians weren't allowing cross-so-called cross-line access from Damascus outward But you know whether it's support for the moderate opposition now with the training equip program as well crippling economic sanctions You know the pursuit of an evidentiary base so that people can be held accountable eventually and a full-on effort to mobilize other countries around a diplomatic political process I mean we we are doing an awful lot Within the toolbox that in the old days I was describing it not even being opened what we're not doing is going to war To bring about the end of the regime and so people mean that's why it's it's the It's such a heartbreaking Crisis and the devastation goes well beyond even the statistics and it is just and now the world food program because we're out of money We've spent more than three billion dollars in humanitarian assistance three billion dollars in this budget environment to help the people of Syria And yet the rest of the world isn't stepping up to the same extent So now the world food program is having to cut off rations to refugees who are living in neighboring countries So again, we there is no shortage of a desire to help the people of Syria what there is is a Consequences calculus that the president has to do As a responsible commander-in-chief, and that's where we've ended up doing everything short of going to war So one of the tools in that toolbox would be destroying Assad's air power, which is what he uses against war The population yeah, but that but some you know some even a former Obama official like Anne-Marie Slaughter Supports that and I was just wondering what your view of that is. I mean I just stated my view. That's war and and the you know, you can reasonable people have a view about Which tool should be used and why we should have used military force, but what none of us can do anywhere is And I don't think Anne-Marie has done this But he's used euphemisms, you know to say no-fly zone and to suggest that that's not war no-fly zone You know means planes not being allowed fly in the sky means threatening that those planes will be shot down if they fly So again, there's a we have a very live debate in this city And we have this a live debate around the world about what can be done and whether You know the the benefits would outweigh the cost given the the tragedy But I don't think saying things like just take out airfields or just you know In some ways, that's a little bit of a sleight of hand It is war and it and and one has to be prepared to live with the consequences of how that might unfold If one takes that step Wanted to we're gonna open this up soon to questions on whatever fronts you want to take it to so I'm gonna ask a few more questions UN reform to turn the page just a little bit was it was a big part of your purview when you were at the White House You're now inside the beast. What do you think most needs reformed in the UN? Where do I start? I mean You know, it's a beautiful Amazing kind of thing that a hundred ninety three countries come together every day and argue and You know huddle off in the side about what kind of you know business their countries can do together and You know, sometimes I I think if countries could get along like ambassadors get along You know, we really could have world peace by by Christmas And so far as we again this point about dignity and listening at least on our good days You know, we fight like crazy too as you've said and seen but the challenge with the UN is Its rules and its procedures and its traditions have been evolving over 70 years, it's about to celebrate its 70th anniversary and You know, we know that the US government to its rules and its procedures Often need to be simplified those of us who have dealings we go to the DMV or we go and we fill out a financial aid form If we're a young person to go to college or something President Obama has made a real put a real emphasis on simplification on kind of changing making trying to make The interaction of a citizen at least with the federal government more like that with an iPad than with Pascal code Right. It's really challenging because that these rules are built up over time and often you need regulations and deregulations The UN the challenge is to take anything away whether an office that was created 40 years ago Maybe for some good function Or a set of rules or a set of habits you have to get People to agree to do that and just the vested interests and so forth that get that grow up over time Mean that you and given the G77 dynamics, there are more than 130 countries who consider themselves part of that developing world group There's usually a pretty sizable blocking coalition And sometimes it's not that of the G this that 130 countries want to preserve some anachronistic office It's just that they want those other countries to support it on some other thing And so as a result that there's just no one who can say that the that the Procedures and the structure at just the time we need to be lean and nimble and you know moving as threats move and And so for the bowl of being a very good example of this The just the the human resources process takes an endless amount of time. We authorized a Peacekeeping force for the Central African Republic, which is in the midst of horrific religious violence And we authorized it now it opened in September. We authorized it back in April and Despite giving the the I say the UN but basically member states and the UN all those months of lead time It is now only at 70% force size and we're now December right so we're eight months after the authorization of this force. It's at about 50% civilian capacity and you know just the hiring the inability to get experts deployed the inability to have Rosters, let's say of medical professionals or things of the kind that we know we need for Ebola That's what I was gonna ask you. Yeah, drill down a little bit on Ebola. What happened there? Well Just in terms of the main to be fair. Okay, let me let me just turn a little bit from the bleakness of it all This secretary general has been committed to reforms and he has basically for it to work he has to make a personal priority of a few which is what he has done and Most of those are gonna come to fruition by the time he's gone putting audits up online whistleblower protections Cutting staff posts that people were clinging to for generations So that's on the on the kind of budget side And human resources is going to require That kind of effort and it's something that's very much a priority for me We actually have a nominee to be ambassador for UN reform Who's pending who's just voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? We're hoping That senators McConnell and Reed will come together and confirm this person because having a dedicated reform effort is Extremely important on a bowl of though again, and on a bowl of their several layers to it I mean one is yes, the bureaucratics once the General Assembly and the Security Council created a UN mission called the unmear the bureaucratics of getting people deployed quickly are Challenging to overcome the secretary general and gather all the heads of all of his agencies and said I want no red tape This is my priority I want people succumbed from the world food program to this UN agency So they have hired people faster than any UN mission in history that kind of leadership really has made a difference But still slower than an NGO could and if the UN is to add value and take advantage of the fact that it can pool Resources from all around the world it needs to be you know, it can't be that doctors without borders is getting there two or three times as fast So that again is just something that needs fixing But there's just a lot of suspicion in some developing countries that this is a way somehow the United States may be to be You know trying to Jerry rig the system in a way that's in our interest It's just it's just hard to get an embrace is a question of how the UN longer discussion How the UN can remain relevant but let me let me just just add one thing if I could just sorry but the But the second layer of it isn't just the bureaucracy. I mean in a way to look at the UN for the Ebola outbreak or epidemic I think is is it's a part of the story But you had in those three countries health systems that had just never been Maintained or fortified that region had never had an Ebola outbreak before It also Nigeria had had a polio outbreak and it turns out it was able to draw on some of the professionals who've been used in the Polio context to do contact tracing and so forth That's one of the reasons Nigeria was able to get its outbreak under under control Just called up those that same group of people who were 20 years older or whatever and and put them back into service But the weaknesses of those systems the The difficulty in social mobilization the weaknesses of the of governance generally You can't blame the UN for that right those are national systems and I think out of this We all need to we bilateral donors need to invest much more in the global health Security architecture and that's why the president has just launched this new global health security initiative So that it isn't the epidemic that drives the response. It's also the cause of prevention Mm-hmm, and Ebola will come back or it'll be some different infectious disease We need not to spend billions of dollars on this outbreak and then you know kind of say okay We'll we finished with Ebola in 2014 2015 And then see this come back We need to repurpose a lot of the investments that we're making now in ways that are going to serve these societies in the longer term Great easier said than done. Yes I'm going to start opening it up to questions. Raise your hand and I knew there'd be no shortage Mike's will come around Let's start this gentleman right here and this woman. You'll be the next Pink Please I I should say just a couple rules identify yourself Keep it short and it has to end in a question mark I'm an intel analyst I think the next logical move for mr. Putin would be to take the pro-russian Transnista region and make sure that Ukraine is surrounded and I see our country doing absolutely nothing To prevent that from happening How about a NATO trigger force in Moldova and NATO trigger force in Moldova well Let me start by rejecting the premise the notion and I don't know why our discourse so often Does this I'm myself guilty of it at times, but to say that the United States has done absolutely nothing It's just a strange non fact-based statement What we have done is put in place and brought our European colleagues along to putting in place Very very biting Economic sanctions that have caused the ruble to depreciate capital to flee And they're generating an internal debate in Russia Of the kind that we haven't seen there in some time in part again because of the repression Which silence is such debate as it as it arises So these sanctions are abiding and in the long term We are expecting to see much more pressure on Putin and these sanctions over time. We do Very much believe are going to affect his calculus It is not instant, but again I would not if you if you actually look at the number of sectors that are affected and the toll that they are taking It is a very very strong response on the economic side. We were also providing a lot of non-lethal assistance to the Ukrainian security Forces and of course loan guarantees and so forth as they try to get their economy back on track As I was about to get to we are investing in NATO and in dialogue with our Eastern European partners and Our objective however is not to go to war We are not actually seeking To do things that would put us in on a pathway to a military confrontation With Putin we don't believe there's a military solution to these issues And so we are pursuing a series of measures that again we think over time are going to affect his calculus and Okay, you let the ambassador move on right here. Yes. Oh, thank you so much Thank you so much ambassador. Please identify yourself. Thank you so much is an honor and pleasure to ask this question My name is Rita Herona Adkins. I'm a journalist I write for Asian Pacific American audiences here in the United States as well as in Asia You had been one of the most powerful voices Regarding genocide and I'm referring if you could sort of kind of throw back to Cambodia a Little-known country with very few people and yet you were one of the powerful voices You did not necessarily gain everybody's approval, but you were one of the powerful voices regarding genocide My question madam is what are the lessons that we have learned from there? And do you think that the world has sort of kind of moved on along the path of your own? Vision about the importance of genocide and to human society. Thank you so much. Thank you lessons from Cambodia Well, we've made Not just us but our also our predecessors in the Bush administration have made a very substantial investment in the Tribunal For Cambodian the hybrid Tribunal so as to try to ensure even all these years later That the perpetrators who are part of the Khmer Rouge who orchestrated this terror against the Cambodian people were held accountable That has been another you know kind of UN slash again a hybrid body that has not Produced results with the speed that the Cambodian people have sought but finally we've started to see the verdicts come down we think that's a very important part of You know not turning the page on the history Before there has been some kind of reckoning within Cambodian society, but beyond that I think that when you look back at mass atrocities over time It's just very important to take Real leadership on human rights Generally and so in the Cambodian context, you know, we don't want to make the standard for when we Start to sound the alarm a genocide or we want To work with countries that are coming out of years of repression To try to ensure that they have freedom of assembly freedom of speech, etc. And there've been real Challenges on that score with Hun Sen I was got to travel with President Obama a couple years ago to Asia to Burma and then to Vietnam and then to Cambodia and again, he's very forceful always in dealing with the leaders of countries where The rights of individuals are being repressed My hope is that Cambodian young people get Educated in what happened also about the crimes of the past has been a bit of a variable Attention to that issue in textbooks and so forth But I think there's been some progress there in part with the support again of the international community. We have a question right over here. Yes Thank you very much and thank you for your leadership on human rights and ambassador My name is Amal Moudalleli. My question is on Syria again on the North Lie zone Your allies would say that you are already at war in Syria, but against the Islamic State Your allies say that you already at war in Syria, but against the Islamic State What can you do so that your policy or your Campaign against the Islamic State does not help Assad and they say it's helping Assad and can keep the coalition together Because some of your allies are not crazy about staying in if you're not going against the Assad. Thank you Thank you very much We are I mean the president has indeed Launched a campaign to destroy and degrade ISIL and that has involved strikes inside Syria as well as in Iraq I think it's important to note that the moderate opposition groups in Syria Had been fighting ISIL since December last year and indeed one of the reasons that the Assad regime was able to Pick up territory over the course of the last year was that they were fighting on on two fronts Against ISIL because they couldn't tolerate that form of rule And that level of brutality and of course against the regime who's it's just a different form of brutality And and horror being inflicted on civilians So I think you know again, this is not an easy or a short Campaign, but over time as ISIL gets degraded and already we're seeing signs of that, you know small towns And communities being taken back inside Iraq Strikes against oil fields that they had been using and Oil refineries that they've been using in order to profit in order to fuel their war Strikes against heavy weaponry that the moderate opposition couldn't fight against I mean some of the weaponry of course confiscated from Iraqi forces and which had been provided by the United States So as ISIL gets degraded that is going to have an effect also on the dynamics in Syria And that two-front war We're hoping we're the As this thing unfolds you should see the moderate opposition being able to stand its ground and benefit In the areas where the moderate opposition and ISIL are bumping up against one another separate from that on the regime issue Which you also rightly mentioned We have gone to Congress and received support for a five hundred million Dollar training equipped program an overt program where the moderate opposition will be Trained and that's not just about ISIL. That's also about putting pressure on the regime. We don't believe there's a military solution I mean, that's my earlier comments. I think it testified to this But we also recognize that without more pressure on Assad. He's not feeling an incentive at all To go to the negotiating table. So we recognize again that more pressure is needed and the training equipped program We think can be one form of pressure, but also if ISIL As ISIL gets degraded in Syria that also should benefit the moderate opposition With this scarf, thanks scarf right there. Yes Hi, I'm Aliza. Thank you so much for being here. This is great My question is about the current civil rights protests in response to Ferguson and others and there's one down the street How do you think they're being viewed abroad? Do you think they're going to in both by citizens and by governments? Do you think they're going to inspire? Change reactions. What are your thoughts? Well Irrespective of the event In this country and this is of course a transfixing one and extremely sad set of events where trust has broken down clearly and in communities and You know clearly more dialogue and and more engagement is needed But I think what I what I see from New York at least and from trips around the world is Whatever happens inside the United States, whether it's You know a long debate about health care and universal health care Which people around the world are very interested in or the events in Ferguson or Staten Island, which people are very interested in people focus on our process in dealing with these kinds of national events or national In the case of health care, you know national debates As much as the events themselves and so I think as these weeks progress, you know to see The Obama administration file a civil rights or move forward with the civil rights investigation And and you know that as a kind of just looking at the checks and balances in our country You know, it's it's we have never pretended certainly from the Obama administration that we don't Have issues of human rights in our own country that there aren't difficult very difficult race-related issues in our country And issues that need to be worked through. I think what we pride ourselves on Is that we face those conversations squarely and that's certainly What I what I try to emphasize in my dealings with other countries mainly they just have questions you know, what's next how will this work and and You know how we handle it and when we come together In peaceful protest as as has happened around the country That's an inspiration and it's also a model and sadly a model. That's not followed often enough In many of the non-democratic countries within the UN before I Go to the next question. I wanted to turn the spotlight just back to you for a minute Because there's a lot of where was it way it was other it was elsewhere I meant back to you in your life because there are a lot of aspiring young women Want to follow in your footsteps? I I suspect in this room Couple things. What was the best advice you've ever gotten in your career and While I often get accused by people of being sexist in answering this question It is on the minds of young women because I get asked it all the time You have two small children and you're in a crisis-driven job and What advice do you have what advice have you gotten and what advice would you give women coming up that path? I Will avoid language about having it all or having part of it all little bits of it all But Shelly's here from Shelly and I had our babies at the same time. We have perfectly parallel parenting experiences Five and five and two year old. I Mean the best advice I ever got in my in my life is not career advice to have children This is the best thing that ever happened to me apart from my marriage Which was tied in great better even I Don't know if he's here. He was coming, but hopefully he's not Hopefully he's not here yet But podcasts Okay, so so that the my kids are everything for me I mean, I think on the professional side probably the best advice I ever got Was from more to Brahmowitz who was a career ambassador at the State Department ran the Carnegie Endowment before Jessica Matthews My first boss in Washington when I was an intern here and he just his basic thing was know something about something You know that and I find this with young people like there's so much idealism out there now on college campuses But he who fights every war or she who fights every war can sometimes fight none because you're spread She wants save the world Instead of that little sliver of the world that you could actually learn the language in or really get to figure out What what makes a community tick and so I just urge I think I think you know going a little bit deep Sooner rather than later What when I went to the Balkans that was that passed for deep didn't feel deep defined your life It defined my life and it turns out you know now when I work on refugee policy I learned about even though I'm not working on Balkan refugee policy, you know, you just learn about the refugee system You know I encountered Russian diplomats there and so in some ways there's some previews for what I'm experiencing I mean in other words if you take on one thing, there are series of aspects to a particular issue whether it's you know in the American public school system or You know something abroad that then can you can extrapolate from whereas if you're doing just spread and there's a lot of particularly with social media and the ADD we all have That temptation is ever-greater now and so but on my children, I Don't know if I wasn't given this advice, but the advice I would give Which I'm sure my children's therapists years from now will be saying was bad advice But I talked to my my daughter's too young She's just too but I talked to my five-year-old about my day as if as if he's a peer almost and Your ambassador to the moon. I was yeah. Well, that was initially that was during serious CW those negotiations because I was never around He said mommy, you're not ambassador to the United Nations. You're ambassador to the moon But but no, but now I had a Massive he's just learning to read and of course no kid wants to do what they're not yet good at certainly not my kid and And he you know he guys just try these are really short words. I know you can do them It's bad. You love baseball that you know, he was mommy. That's it. I'm going to Russia You know like that's his that's that's going that's what passes for you know, I'm gonna You know, it's not I hate you or whatever. I'm sure I'll get that later. It's just that's it I'm done, you know, this is this is but but the sweet thing by the same token is he became and I've heard a lot of People in governments for the foreign policy these kids Maybe others are gonna have issues with therapists later too, but Mount Sinjar this effort on our part To help these Edie's who were up on the mountains and these these families with these children and The hunger and the thirst that they experienced and the effort to help them and you know many tens of thousands Thousands at least getting off the mountain and so forth now still vulnerable in very different ways the women and girls of course enslaved But this it was When the decision-making was happening I happened to be on leave for a few days with my son But I was on the phone the entire time talking about the Yazidis and and so I had to explain what was Mount Sinjar I explained it to my son and he just the notion of being up on the mountain and stuck on the mountain So he asked about it all the time and when we were at Thanksgiving We were having this bounty here in New York with my own parents And he just said mommy is there any way I can get my turkey to Mount Sinjar But they see no cuz cuz I told them there's still some people up on that. So, you know, he gets his his Can learn from Putin on the one hand when it comes to reading But on the same, you know if you that empathy from early and just bringing him into the loop if I'm not gonna be there I want him to know to know why something important. Yeah, exactly the stakes of it Maybe you're doing here share that that goal. Okay, we have a lot of questions. I know you've tried very hard way back in there. Yes Voice of America Ukrainian service Natalia Robert I actually would like to thank you from all of Ukrainians on behalf of all the Ukrainians for being a strong voice at the UN to help us fight the fight against the Russian aggression and I Actually have a very specific question Nadia Savchenko case. She's now being in the Russian jail and she's being convicted of crimes that she did not commit and Savchenko Nadia Savchenko the Ukrainian pilot that was kidnapped in Ukraine Yeah, and I was wondering whether there is a way to help her release and whether this Has been a subject of discussions at the UN. Thank you very much. Thank you I have raised her case in my public remarks at least once and I think maybe twice We have raised it in Moscow. We now have an ambassador in Moscow Thanks to that Senate confirmation Challenging to get ambassadors through has been a little less challenging lately, but having ambassador there has been very very important Basically every senior US official who has an occasion to engage with the Russian Is is raising this case both on the merits because here was a pilot absconded and you know brought back to Russia and now being charged, you know on these in this Trial that hardly comports with due process or or anything, but I mean the whole thing has been extremely troubling from the start but also as a As a testament to Russia's involvement, which it still continues to deny I mean when someone gets whisked From Ukrainian territory to Moscow. It's just one more Part of the evidence of the extent of the Russian involvement and the shamelessness with which Those kinds of actions occur I would note also Her case rightly is getting a lot of attention, but there's so many unnamed hostages also Who Have just not been heard from and who are presumed in some cases To be in detention facilities, you know maintained by the separatists, but also whose fates we just don't know and so That is something again that has to be part of any Long-term Negotiated settle and we had hoped that Minsk would allow progress on some of these issues and it calls of course as you know for prisoner releases And unfortunately just as with the rest of Minsk there just hasn't been implementation despite the Russian promises What have you learned about the how to capture the world's attention about atrocities whether it's genocide Whether it's individual cases like this whether it's it's very interesting with ISIS Some would argue that it took beheadings on video to get the world It's certainly the United States fully engaged. Have you given some thought to that I? give a lot of thought to it both because I want to do my job as well as possible and You know secure the outcomes that we seek and convince other countries of things But also because of my background as a journalist how to tell a story and how to Bring an audience along is sort of what I would bring you know or seek to bring anyway to every job so for me It has taken the form of trying it's sort of as you're suggesting with the killing of Jim Foley and Stephen Sotloff You know those Though those horrific acts I underscored What ISIL was made of what it was intending to do across the region and to Americans of all stripes that it encountered In a way that no amount of talk of statistics could and so That's that's something Again absolute worst scenario in every hostage Precisely because they are individuals and we can track their individual fates You know we're deploying all our diplomatic as you've seen diplomatic intelligence military tools to try to secure their release But again didn't work for for Jim What I've done in the Security Council is there's a sort of state environment where things have been done for a long time in a certain way But I've tried to bring in those individuals. So we talked earlier about Syria chemical weapons We went forward with an ICC referral resolution that I mentioned which Russia and China vetoed and of course had that gone through what it would have meant was that people who have been victimized by chemical weapons or by barrel bombs or napalm or clusters or whatever else aside was using Or for that matter the terrorist groups are using Would have had the chance to testify and tell their story in court one of the great Virtues of these institutions these international justice bodies is not simply potential deterrence and the capacitation of People who are seeking to wreak havoc in different parts of the world But just the the affirmation of the dignity of those individuals who you know they were taunted and said no one will ever remember You know no one will ever believe you and then they get to step up and testify as to what happened So Russia denied Russia and China, but Russia was in the lead Ultimately denied so far the Syrian people that ability to come to an international court in their Sunday best or their Saturday best and Tell the story of what happened to them So when that vote occurred in the Security Council I brought to the Security Council chamber with me someone who had survived the chemical weapons attack and it actually been left for dead And his friend spotted his finger moving and then gave him a shot of something and I mean he was literally out Kusei and Kusei told me I asked him in advance a couple days in advance I said what would you if you were going to the hay what what is it that you would wish to say and so when Russia And China cast their veto and I would had it I said look That you know Russia saying Assad didn't do the chemical weapons attack This is ludicrous for all the reasons that we've long presented But if Russia really believed that then they should be want this to go to the Hague So that people could tell what happened to them and here today in the Security Council And I pointed up in the gallery and I said we have with us Kusei Hussain who's survived the chemical weapons attacks Yeah outside Damascus and He he has asked me on his behalf To read the statement that he would have given Had he gone to the Hague and and so I read it in his voice and you could honestly just What would have been just so there they go again another fourth Russian right veto It humanized the stakes of what they were doing the power of storytelling is basically yeah in in a nutshell Yes, no, it's it's fabulous to hear you say this. I think we're about out of time do we You're on a schedule So I'm gonna ask you and we have I know we have a lot of questions. I apologize, but I'm gonna ask you to look forward We're we kind of breezed across 2015, which was a very difficult troubling 2014. I mean 2014 what I say Did I say 2015? Yeah, sorry Which was a very difficult obviously a very horrific year on the international front as you look into 2015 What are your great worries? Well, wherever ISIL is they are Executing People who refuse to be like them or who can't be like them or they're enslaving women and so forth. So You know, we are engaged in a multi-year campaign We are we are supporting Ground actors who need to step up and ultimately the over time the success of this campaign Requires the Iraqi forces to come together in a way that they haven't succeeded in doing for some time So it's a very difficult campaign. We're seeing signs again that many Sunni want to get out from under ISIL but the cost of doing so is Extreme and so ISIL keeps me up at night Assad keeps me up at night because his brutality and disregard for The fate of his people really does seem to know no bounds And right now, you know, we we don't yet have Russia and Iran Where they need to be and we need them to be in seeing that the longer this conflict goes on You know, not only the more civilians are Killed, but the more foreign terrorist fighters gravitate to Syria the greater the instability Across the region across the world so that's within that context and Ebola which we talked about briefly We now just as I was coming over I saw on my blackberry that the WHO has said Sierra Leone now has Surpassed Liberia for the number of cases. So I think what's been remarkable about the President Obama's leadership and the way in which other countries once we leveraged our deployment of troops and our real ownership of the Liberian situation in support of the Liberian government Is what's great about science is you can actually measure the impact you can see the number of infections come down You can see people going into treatment sooner and the rate of deaths of those infected going down And and so that's been very gratifying in the Liberia context to see American leadership produce such meaningful dividends and this is a virus as you know as a mother you can't if you're Can't even wipe the tears off a child because that's you know, that could be carrying a bowl If you want to take care of your other chill, I mean it is it is the most inhuman Form of sickness and death and has the most dehumanizing effects on society So we've made these inroads and we can see how it is done But in Sierra Leone, you know, you're seeing the number of cases Going up and up and up and of course everything we do in Liberia because it's a all these countries border one another is Vulnerable as everything the the international community and the guineans are doing in Guinea is vulnerable if we can't get each part of this Under control. So that's a kind of early 2015 big priority We need to bend the curve in Sierra Leone and begin to see the kinds of impacts that we've seen in Liberia and where do we go final question with Putin? Well, I think happens there again, we're going to continue to put pressure and We've been some signs in in recent days again of the Effects of the sanctions not only in Russia proper, but also in the separatist region the Ukraine just ran into the our ambassador to Ukraine and I was in the State Department earlier today and The one good piece of news out of Ukraine is the Ukrainians have just formed a government They're they're getting on with the business of building the state And we need to not we need to focus on that as well because as The if the Ukrainian economy can stabilize if the democracy can deepen that is also again a powerful antidote to the kind of rule that Putin and his separatists are putting in place in the eastern part of the country and in Crimea Ambassador Samantha power you have your hands full So it is such an honor to have you here. Thank you so much for your candid fear