 Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Abby Williams, Vice President of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the US Institute of Peace. I would like to welcome you to the Institute and to thank you for your interest in the topic of today's public event. Can we prevent the next war? Clearly, this good turnout on a Friday morning is an indication that there is broad, substantial interest in prevention. USIP is committed to the prevention of violent conflict. Our board of directors recently approved the strategic plan of the Institute, which identifies conflict prevention as one of the Institute's priorities for the next five years. We believe that violent conflict is not inevitable. The need to prevent such conflict is urgent, and successful prevention is possible. The violent conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and elsewhere continue to remind us of the importance of conflict prevention. While the level of conflict declined sharply following the end of the Cold War, largely from the termination of ongoing conflicts and reaching a low point in 2004, 2005, it appears that that decline has stopped. And of course, new conflicts continue to erupt at roughly the same frequency as has been the case for decades. The even skeptics of conflict prevention would accept that prevention is preferable to peacemaking and post-conflict peace-building in moral, strategic, and financial terms. It is always much better to prevent rather than to respond after all the blood letting has occurred and to manage the consequences. The responsibility to protect, which was accepted at the World Summit in 2005, recognizes that prevention is by far the most effective form of protection. In his speech at West Point last month, President Obama stated, America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict, not just how we wage wars. And senior administration officials, like previous administrations, have also underlined the importance of acting to prevent conflicts. Prevention is also what the United Nations was created to do to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. But we clearly have to take prevention more seriously and to do a better job at it. This is why we convene this panel to address key questions. What do we know about how to prevent new conflicts from breaking out? How much progress have the United States and the international community made toward preventing new conflicts? How can the United States enhance its own capacity to engage in effective conflict prevention strategies? We are fortunate to have three outstanding panelists who will address these important questions this morning. Their bios have been distributed, so I will introduce them very briefly in the order in which they will speak. Lawrence Wucher is a senior program officer in the Institute's Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention and works on early warning conflict prevention and the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities. He's the author of a recent special report published by the Institute, Preventing Violent Conflict Assessing Progress Meeting Challenges. Paul Stairs is General John Vesse's senior fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. And I should also add that Paul was my predecessor at USIP. So Paul is a member of the USIP family. He's the co-author of a special report on enhancing US preventive action, which was issued last October. And Paul Dobrianski served as Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs from May 2001 to January 2009. And presently, he's an adjunct senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. They would limit their opening remarks to about 15 minutes, and then we will have a question and answer period. So Lawrence, you have the floor. On the podium. Thank you, Abby, and good morning to everyone. I think, like Abby, I sense that there's really been a resurgence in the last couple of years and interest in our ability to prevent violent conflict. And we see that in more statements from senior officials in the US and abroad, as well as mobilization of NGOs and academic interests. It seems to me this is really the first time since maybe the immediate post-Cold War period when there has been this level of interest and attention to prevention. At that time, in the early and mid-90s, the interest in prevention was really, I think, stemming from a sense that now freed from the East West rivalry and the preoccupations of the Cold War, we could finally pursue these higher aspirations of humanitarian goals and paying attention to these parts of the world that may have previously been neglected. Today, I think that the interest in prevention comes from a somewhat different calculation, which is really that it's not that we can now afford to pursue these objectives, but that we can't afford not to. That we have so much on the current agenda in terms of the existing crises and conflicts today that if we don't get better at getting ahead of the curve and getting more effective at preventing the next conflict, we'll just simply be overwhelmed by the current agenda. If we do a little thought experiment, take any region of the world that interests you and think of the portfolio of the regional Assistant Secretary of State, and then imagine what if there was a new civil war that erupted next month in their region? The South Asia Bureau, they have their hands full clearly. What if there is a civil war in Bangladesh? How could they respond to that? In Latin America, what if there is a breakout of armed conflict across the border between Ecuador and Colombia while they're trying to mediate the Honduras crisis and so forth and deal with Mexico and other things? In Africa, where there's such a variety of crises being dealt with, what about a resurgence of conflict in West Africa? Maybe Mali and Niger erupt into large-scale conflict where we have some concerns about possible Islamic radicalization. We quickly can see that this is really something we need to take very seriously, and it's not just they would be nice if we could prevent these kinds of things, but we need to make them more central to our strategic thinking. So what I'd like to really do is make a short argument for the importance of prevention based on some empirical analysis, and then go to some recommendations that I make in my report broadly applicable, I think, to the international community. The argument for the importance of conflict prevention usually takes three forms. There is the moral case that, basically, by preventing wars, we can save lives. The financial case will save money if we can prevent conflicts instead of respond to them after the fact. And the strategic argument that we actually are able to manage our interests better and contain the stability in various regions if we can prevent conflicts from escalating into large-scale violence. I think these three arguments are enduring ones. They're true. I would reinforce them. But I think we can also point to some reasons why prevention is important today based on some empirical analysis. So first, as Abby alluded to, we've seen since the end of the Cold War a quite dramatic reduction in the overall number of armed conflicts around the world. Quite a positive trend that took us a while to wrap our arms around because it seemed somewhat counterintuitive, but it's quite robust. There's been a strong reduction in the overall level of political violence around the world. But when we try and unpack this, we find that the frequency and the rate of new armed conflicts, new onsets, really hasn't changed. In fact, hasn't changed for a period of decades. So roughly speaking, depending on how you count them, four or five new armed conflicts tend to break out every year. So if we look into the future and we think about how can we sustain this quite significant reduction in the overall levels of political violence, we're going to have to make a difference at this rate of new onsets. Because ultimately, the number of ongoing civil wars that we can bring to a conclusion is shrinking, thankfully. So the persistence of new conflict onsets. Second point is that we're actually, we may be entering a period of greater conflict risks from a number of specific factors, a point of four. First is the increased number of unstable regimes, what academics tend to call anocracies. These are not neither full democracies nor full autocracies, but some kind of middling type of regime where there's inconsistencies. There may be a deal of repression and control from the center, but also some kind of elections. Now, these kinds of regime types have been shown to be at significantly greater risk of breaking out into violent conflict versus democracies or autocracies. In fact, one analysis suggests that historically, they've been six times more likely to experience societal wars than have democracies. And the fact is that we've seen a great increase in the number of these kinds of regimes around the world that has accompanied the period of democratization. So while it's positive to see an increase in democracies, we also see this concomitant increase in anocracies, which tend to be a greater risk of conflict. Second regards global economic turbulence. Of course, we're still undergoing this global economic crisis, hopefully past the worst of it. If we look at the connections between economics and conflict, we find that negative economic growth, as well as economic shocks, that is to say a significant downward shift in the level of growth. Both are associated with increased risk of conflict. One academic study found that a negative growth shock of 5%, so let's say a country was growing at 8% and then because of the crisis, it's now only growing at 3%. That kind of economic shock is associated with an increase in 12% likelihood of violent conflict breaking out in the following year. So we can see that there are a lot of countries that, based on historical experience, are actually in a period right now and over the next few years will be at greater risk of breaking out into new conflicts. Third point is climate change. We hear lots of debate about climate change. One of the points that's talked about a little bit more on the margins is the relationship between climate change and conflict. And the argument is not that climate change causes conflict, per se, but that the greatest impacts of climate change are likely to be felt by countries that are already experiencing significant stress and struggling with instability and poverty. And that climate change could tend to push these countries over the line into full-fledged conflict. By one analysis by International Alert, there are 46 countries which will experience effects of climate change interacting with economic, social, and political problems, creating a high risk of conflict. The fourth specific factor that I think suggests we may be entering this phase of increased risk of conflict is what you might call shifts in global power distribution. And historically speaking, we find that when there are significant shifts in the distribution of global economic and military power and political power, these are dangerous periods. These kinds of transitions tend to be precarious. And the consensus at this point is that we're seeing some kind of broad shift away from what was termed the unipolar moment at the end of the Cold War when the United States was truly predominant to something closer to multi-polar dynamics and that there tends to be, generally speaking, a shift towards the East and towards some of the mid-income developing countries like Brazil and India. And there's huge debates around the shape of this kind of path of changing power distribution. But there's clearly some kind of shift going on. And again, a historical record would suggest that this is a period which brings specific kinds of dangers that declining powers may be more likely to be aggressive to try and maintain their position of dominance in their regions or globally. So I think these four factors really should give us some reason for concern about the likelihood of new armed conflicts breaking out in the next several years. The other part of my argument for the importance of prevention is in relating prevention to post-conflict peace building. And some make the case that really when we talk about new conflicts, we're really talking about the same old conflicts that are cyclical and that most new conflicts are really just the relapse of conflicts that ended and our post-conflict peace building efforts failed. And that's what we're seeing. So that if we really focus on post-conflict peace building and get that right, we will really solve the problem of conflict prevention. By my analysis, this is actually a flawed argument. If we look at all of the cases of new conflict onsets since 1990, only a minority of those are actually can be considered relapses of recently terminated conflicts. So a number of these are truly new. At least they break out in a country that hasn't experienced conflict in several years or between parties that have not previously been at war with each other. If we just look at the last few years and some of the conflict onsets of the last few years, Russia, Georgia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Chad, Pakistan, very few of these can be, if any, can really be considered sort of classic cases of failed post-conflict reconstruction or peace building. But they really represent kind of new challenges and new conflicts. So this all to say that I think we do need to focus not just for humanitarian reasons, not just for moral reasons, but if we wanna do our best and most efficient job at managing the levels of global political violence, we do need to pay greater attention to effective strategies for preventing new conflicts. My report goes on to then try and assess the global progress in three domains, in the normative and political support for conflict prevention, institutional capacities that have been developed for this purpose, and then knowledge that's been developed around how do we target and shape preventive strategies. To get to the recommendations, I wanna just give you a word on each of those. Basically, I would say the normative and political support at a general rhetorical level globally is quite strong. The institutional capacities is a story that's very mixed and needs significant attention and knowledge is somewhere where I think there's some very positive signs, but also a ways that we can continue going further. And let me take them up in the recommendations. Which I try to draw to be generally applicable through the international community. First and unsurprisingly, I think at this point is to try and recalibrate the balance of policy attention and resources between conflict prevention, peacemaking and post-conflict peace building and really shift our attention more upstream towards the prevention issues. Try and make it truly a must do priority rather than something we get to after we deal with everything else that's on our plate. Second, monitor implementation of existing political commitments to prevention of armed conflict. As I suggested, I don't believe as much utility in debating whether prevention should be on the international agenda. There are lots of existing commitments to doing this and the question is how do we make sure that our institutions, our governments, international institutions are living up to these commitments. Third, bolster international, excuse me, institutional capacities for prevention. I think here we have to recognize that experience suggests that when we have generalized capacities that aren't sort of earmarked, if you will, for prevention, they will tend to get sucked up by dealing with the crises of the day. And so even if the kinds of things that we're talking about, whether they be mediation capacity or securities, assistance, or the like, they may be the same kinds of tools that you would use in other settings for post-conflict reconstruction or the like. If we don't sort of wall some of those off for prevention, we're likely to find we have little left when we try to take up preventive cases. Fourth, try and expand our knowledge of conflict prevention to help move from the conflict prevention toolbox to effective conflict prevention strategies. The toolbox is the metaphor that's really used extremely frequently and is useful in pointing out the range of measures that we can apply to conflict prevention strategies. But it only goes so far. We need to think about what is the strategy, how can we anticipate the plays and counterplays of different parties, excuse me, and apply the same kind of serious strategic thinking to conflict prevention that we apply to war fighting, peacemaking, and all kinds of other things. And then finally, develop new political strategies to try and regularize the practice of conflict prevention. Too often our advocacy of prevention tries to rely on kind of calling on our leader's goodwill, their better angels, and just pay more attention and that will solve the problem, just do it. I think we need to try and develop some more sophisticated strategies, political strategies, institutional strategies to make this more of a regular and not a special kind of activity that goes on within our institutions. So just to conclude, if we go back to the question of the day, can we prevent the next war, which perhaps is meant to be rhetorical, but I guess I would just make a vote in the affirmative. We don't need to imagine that we can prevent all wars to think that we can influence conflicts around the world and political dynamics and reduce the rate of new conflicts erupting. Could we imagine a world where instead of four or five conflicts every year breaking out, we have two or three? And would that make a difference for the United States and the global community? I'd say most definitely yes, thank you. Well, thanks everybody. Thanks Abby for the invitation to speak here today. It's good to be back at USIP. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here, to see many old friends, Bruce Jentelsen, Michael Lund, who've done the real intellectual spade work in the area of conflict prevention. We owe a great debt to you and others here as well. As Abby said, the council commissioned and I wrote, co-wrote actually, the report on enhancing US preventive action. And I wanna give you a sort of a brief outline of the principle findings, the core arguments and recommendations of that report for you today and I'm gonna try to be as brief as possible. In terms of core arguments that they pretty much echo much of what Lawrence has already stated at the outset. US has to put more emphasis on preventing crisis since the end of the Cold War, the principle emphasis has been on stabilization and reconstruction actually, the downstream response to conflict management. I think on average since the end of the Cold War, the US has conducted a stabilization reconstruction mission every 18 to 24 months, each lasting five to eight years. This has been a hugely costly undertaking in terms of not only operational costs, but also lost foreign assistance, foreign aid and so on. And we argue in our paper that the imperative for preventive action is even greater today. The US is militarily overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan to say nothing of other deployments around the world. We're seeing increasing attention given to Yemen today. We're hemorrhaging resources. I think we've already spent three quarters of a trillion dollars in Iraq. We're up to a quarter of a trillion dollars in Afghanistan. And of course, I'm not even mentioning the many thousands of Americans killed and wounded in both those wars. Simply put, the US cannot afford another major military commitment at this time. We have to prevent the next war. Just in the immediate future, but for the foreseeable future, we're, as many of you know, 12 million dollars, sorry, 12 trillion dollars in debt. There are of course other reasons to put more emphasis on prevention, important political strategic reasons. Lawrence laid out, I think, that very compellingly. I think we are potentially entering a very dangerous period for many of the reasons that Lawrence mentioned, emergence of new powers, traditional sources of instability that is set in motion as a result of new power distributions in the world, new security threats are emerging, proliferation, organized crime, and so on. New stresses as a result of environmental change, I think we'll begin to see that more and more in the future. Now as many of you have followed conflict prevention in the past and done important work in this, it has gone in cycles, and as Lawrence said, there was certainly a renewed rhetorical commitment to this at the end of the Cold War, and we're starting to see that now, sort of the wheel has turned, if you will. The key is actually to translate that rhetorical commitment into a real operational commitment, and as we argue in our report, the US has not done a good job in organizing itself effectively for preventive action. I think this is evident in three areas in which we go into in our report. Firstly, in terms of long-term efforts to reduce the threat of conflict, before it emerges in places that we really care about. Secondly, medium-term efforts to prevent crisis from developing when we start to see the early signs of instability and conflict emerging, and of course, short-term efforts when a crisis has begun to break out and to try to prevent it from escalating and reducing its consequences. Let me go through each of these key findings which are in the report. Firstly, in terms of threat reduction, conflict threat reduction, the US has no coherent strategy or strategic planning process to address potential areas of instability, and certainly in the areas that we care most about. We do some long-term assessments, but these are not integrated into, as I say, a coherent strategic planning process, and there is no real coherent set of policy responses and strategies, as Lawrence mentioned. I think this is most evident in the foreign assistance programming area. As many of you know, this is a deeply flawed and broken system. It's, however, a major tool for addressing instability around the world, particularly in weak states. Currently, there are 20 agencies overseeing 50 programs in 150 countries. This is just not working, and I'm happy to see that there's efforts underway to try to address this. There's also poor coordination between civilian assistance and increasing military assistance in this area, which has grown in recent years as the US military has begun to play a more important role in what it taught calls phase zero or shaping operations to try to reduce the potential for conflict. Secondly, in terms of crisis prevention, we have a huge intelligence collection effort, a very effective one. There are several very useful and important early warning products that are produced on a regular basis, watch lists of unstable countries and sources of potential sources of mass atrocities. These are all produced, but from our assessment, these are however largely disconnected from any kind of established preventive planning process within the US government that would respond to these warning signs and design appropriate measures. It's just not, just doesn't exist. Now, SCRS, the Coordinated Stabilization and Reconstruction has the authority to do this, the mandate to do this, but it just hasn't had the resources and the real institutional cloud to do it. Thirdly, in terms of crisis management and mitigation, intelligence collection and response to emerging crisis, it's very difficult to shift resources at short notice. The Bush administration developed interagency management system to try to manage crises. It's never been put in practice. Thank you very much. And it's consequently, there's very little, I think confidence that it actually would work if pushed to do so. There's very little surge capacity in the system to respond to crises, particularly use, be able to access emergency funds at short notice for particular crises, although I see Congress is now finally addressing this issue. So there's much to do in terms of improving the actual organizational predisposition of the US to preventive action. So what do we actually recommend? Personally, in terms of improving US strategy, we think the first order of business is that the US needs to develop a clear and coherent strategy that differentiates between different conflict prevention priorities based on their real significance and importance to the US. We have to, this has to be set out and provided in a coherent fashion to provide broad guidance to the rest of the US government. And we think this should be part of a reinvigorated strategic planning process that should be run out of the NSC. It's currently very, very weak. In terms of early warning, we advocate streamlining the current early warning process. The Director of National Intelligence should, as it's part of its annual threat assessment, also produce an annual assessment that would lay out the most worrisome areas of instability so that Congress and both the rest of the government was really informed of what our priorities should be. The various watch lists we feel should be consolidated into a single list rather than the multiple lists. We think that's important, again, to emphasize where the real priorities should be. And these should also be prioritized. As anyone who has seen these lists, they tend to be undifferentiated in terms of their likely impact and consequences. Most importantly, these early warning products should be integrated into an established interagency preventive planning process. At the moment, they tend to be delivered and essentially, as someone said, they're basically drive-by warning. The briefings are given, but it doesn't actually trigger a specific preventive response to specific warning. Thirdly, in terms of planning and programming, we argue in the paper that this should now shift to the White House. That is where the real authority lies to actually move the system and we advocate the development of two dedicated NSC directorates for this purpose with associated interagency planning committees. Firstly, a directorate for development and governance to oversee foreign aid programs and other foreign assistance programs. Secondly, a directorate for prevention, stabilization and reconstruction to really do the planning that we advocate needs to be done in response to early warning and to oversee in a sort of seamless fashion planning for stabilization and reconstruction. SCRS, despite its flaws, we feel it should be retained and strengthened, but it has to give greater emphasis on prevention, perhaps even being renamed the Coordinated for Prevention, Stabilization and Reconstruction. Finally, in terms of resources, we endorse the efforts underway to rebalance the civil military capacity to reverse the sort of hollowing out of USAID, and so we are very supportive of the current efforts to increase the number of AID positions and positions of the State Department. The temporary authorities that have been awarded to the Defense Department for foreign assistance, particularly in the area of security assistance, I believe we believe should be migrated back to the State Department. Again, there are signs that that's happening. Congress should also, I think, approve, and I think they've, in the omnibus bill that was passed just before Christmas, continue to fund this rapid response, this crisis response fund. I think they've given 50 million. I think that needs to be increased in the future. The various civilian response calls that the SCRS manages, I think they should be enhanced in the future. It's a very slow halting process at the moment, but I think their relationship with expeditionary capacities AID need to be reviewed, and there's still a tension in the system between who does what and what places and so on. And I think there are finally some other diplomatic initiatives. I'd like to see the development of a mediation support unit developed at the State Department as well as other diplomatic surge capacities to backstop diplomatic initiatives that might be necessary at short notice. So overall, we lay out a kind of blueprint for reorganizing the U.S. government to making it more predisposed to react and both anticipate and react to potential sources of instability. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any further question. Thank you. Good morning to all of you. First, I'd like to congratulate the U.S. Institute of Peace for holding this very timely and important roundtable. And I'd also like to congratulate and recognize all of the panelists and our moderator in their analyses and also the recommendations. But I think also very significantly what struck me is that these reports have very practical recommendations and realistic recommendations that I think can be put into place. And interestingly enough, both of the reports are mutually reinforcing. I think that Lawrence, as he gave in his presentation, is really giving a very compelling series of arguments as to why this issue matters and why it must be a priority. The CFR report, I think, placed more of a premium on the bureaucratics and what are the kinds of changes that should be undertaken. So with that very broad statement, let me try to summarize some of the core points and then add to what has been said. I think the first most critical point coming out of both of these reports is the fact that there is a need for the development of an effective strategy, that the approach cannot be ad hoc, that it cannot be piecemeal, that you have to have it substantively integrated and in order to achieve that, you have to have a bureaucratic process that is established, which in fact does that, which is integrative and in which you're tapping not only the public side, but also in the reports that mention the importance of the private side and how that must be integrative too. So I wanted to add that point because it wasn't necessarily something that was highlighted this morning, but it's something that struck me. It's not only the framework that's set up in government, but also the private side. Many of you here in this audience who are committed to these issues and have worked on these issues, your role is critical. So first, there's a very need for a strategy development of a strategy and in turn a strong interagency process. The second piece comes out of the CFR report, which does go in at length about the importance of NSC and the White House's role. Personally, I have to say I'm very sympathetic to that argument. The NSC is to have a kind of a clearing house, an integrative role. The only question that I put forth and maybe it's something that Paul can answer is why have two divisions instead of one division here? Maybe the answer is it would be too overwhelming, but also what I would worry is by having two, are you really ending up with having two tracks and really having ironically, maybe not the kind of integration that you would want. Thirdly is both in the reports really underscored the importance of good intelligence analyses and the importance of very active and thorough review of watchlists. Our knowledge remains then about how to respond and this is I think one of the biggest challenges, but that's very much interrelated with the first point. If you develop a strategy, that's going to be very much part of the kind of process. Lawrence highlighted and you heard him say the importance of monitoring implementation, also looking at your toolbox and having a review of your toolbox. I think that's right. You know, we have a lot of instruments, but I think one of the challenges are they being used effectively? Is there an overall strategy? And then in turn, how do you use those particular instruments? Many of them are itemized in the report. One that I wanted to pick out because there have been here in town a number of fora devoted to the role of women. And I wanted to mention that in this mix because in fact there have been a number of round tables specifically devoted to the issue of women, not as victims, but women in the role of leadership and impacting conflict prevention. And are we thinking more creatively about how to tap resources there? There's a second point in the toolbox that I also want to pick out. I had one of the responsibilities when I was in government. I happened to be the special envoy to Northern Ireland. I was very struck by actually the individuals who for decades had been not engaged in dialogue but engaged in violence and use of force are now very strongly committed to the issue of lessons learned and how they have actually used that and transferred that to other countries to sit down and to talk about, these are better ways forward. So another piece that I would put into this mix is also using more effectively the issue of lessons learned and maybe some of the people who were initially committed to if you will the use of force but now have stepped back and have said that's not the right way. Their voices can in fact be some of the most compelling ones in preventive actions. Both the reports I think very importantly talked about the regional context. I didn't hear that so much this morning but I wanna highlight it because I thought it was very important about not only what we do but the kinds of bridges that we build with other institutions and how effective that could be. This is a critical point, not only from the development of strategy, from the development of support, also the issue of putting this at a high level, having a good network both publicly and privately but also the ever perennial issue of resources here and how you can do this most effectively. You need to have a network. You need to look at a situation not only purely in an isolated context but you need to look at the broader impact all the way around. A comment on the issue of the State Department's Office. One of the things that I have heard a number of State Department officers speak to on the State Department's Office which in the Council on Foreign Relations report advocates its continuance. I think it serves an important role. I think it was a very good development. I think that it does play a very critical role and it will continue to do so. But one of the issues for that office I think is how effectively to get out into the field and really have a complementary role to our embassies and our people on the ground where it adds value and where you're not going to have duplication. We have a lot of analysts back in Washington but I think where really assistance is needed is in the field, preventively. That's one of the things that I would add to this mix. Two last points, resources. Resources are very limited. Both reports talk to this issue extensively. I was very struck by a statement or if you will, a line by Robert Zellick, the head of the World Bank. He had an article in the December issue of the IISS survival. I don't know if many of you had seen it but if you had seen it, he posed one of the questions about resources and resources being too limited and what are the challenges. He basically said it's hard to get donors to pay attention to something that has not yet happened. When I read that, I said that goes to really, I think the core of this issue and the question is really, how do you get around that? How do you make that compelling arguments? Well, I think we've heard some very compelling arguments this morning from our two experts. Finally, I would say Paul mentioned how we look at long term, medium term and then presently what we do. I'd pick on one aspect of the long term and that is far too often we in the United States we want quick results and we concentrate on the quick but we don't take the time or the effort to really, really spend a lot of time on the longer term and from that standpoint, I would wanna say that that long term commitment and strategy matters greatly for this issue. If we're going to have an impact and this is going to be, as Lawrence said, a must do priority that absolutely has to be a part of our strategy forward. In sum, I thought both of these reports are outstanding in their analysis and I wanna underscore again in their practical recommendations which I think are ones that are not only concrete but very thoughtful and very doable. Thank you so much. Well, I would like to thank Lawrence and Paul for their excellent presentations and Paul, of course, for her insightful observations. I would like to, as the moderator, to maybe pose some questions to both Lawrence and Paula before opening it up to a question and answer session from the audience. The first question I think it's for Lawrence. You rightly mentioned that there's been strong support for conflict prevention at the normative and at the political level and that one of the recommendations is that we should monitor effectively the implementation of existing political commitments to conflict prevention that have been made by governments, international organizations and NGOs and I think that's right. But I wonder whether perhaps you might take it a step further and say how exactly one would do this monitoring which is a critical recommendation. The second question would be for Paul. The report, of course, touches on a number of important bureaucratic changes to help our government do a better job in conflict prevention. In your presentation, you did not discuss in a great detail about the resource issue. You alluded to it in the observation that greater resources would be needed at USAID for positions and also resources for new positions at the State Department. And I wondered whether perhaps you might comment on how feasible the recommendations would be on the resource issue, not only given the real political constraints, and difficulty which Paula mentioned in the piece by Zelek in trying to get resources for something which hasn't happened, but also the very serious fiscal and economic challenges that we now have in front of you. And then third, for Paula, I thought since of course you've spent a great deal of time at the State Department and you're there for eight years, one of the realities of governments and bureaucracies and foreign ministries, international organizations is of course the institutional culture in those places tends to be rather reactive. You're talking about the UN or regional organizations, the OSEE. So I wondered whether you might reflect on the basis of your experience, how you move, say for example, the State Department from this culture of reaction which is fiendishly difficult to one of a culture of prevention which I think is part of this issue. Thanks. Yeah, the question of what does it mean to monitor the implementation of these political commitments? I'm not thinking of anything too fancy. I mean basically I mean advocates of conflict prevention, whether they be NGOs, citizen groups or other governments or other international organizations, taking the political commitments in the words of these leaders seriously and sort of echoing them back to those leaders and saying well what are you doing practically speaking to make this a reality? So if we take just one example as a UN Security Council resolution which expresses its determination to pursue the objective of prevention of armed conflict as an integral part of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Now when, and they also in that same resolution expressed willingness to consider what they call prevention cases at the Security Council. So the next time there is a case that you or we believe should be considered by the Security Council which is not yet a full blown conflict but there's some reluctance among the member states to consider it. Well this is the kind of thing I think that can add a little bit in terms of the persuasion and the pressure to get them to change their actions. And also just I think trying to say if you've made this kind of commitment what is it you're doing? You don't have to do every recommendation in the CFR report but you have to do something. You can't just make these statements and then say well we're trying really hard. That's not good enough. There needs to be some tangible action that they can point to. Thank you. Paul? Thank you. Before I address your question Abby about Resort I just wanted to get back to your question about why we recommend splitting up or creating two separate directives in the NSC. And as you alluded to we felt that it was just too huge and undertaking to put everything since conflict prevention in itself that is so multi-dimensional and huge in itself that it was still better to focus efforts designed to oversee foreign assistance to promote governance, democracy and so on in one direction and more specific efforts to plan for contingencies to anticipate potential crisis and oversee their management in another one. But the senior directors for each respective director would be able to, well would be coordinated but also would sit on their respective inter-agency planning group. So they would be fully coordinated but we felt it was just too bigger an area of work to fall under one director. On the resources issue it's less that we are pushing for more resources for prevention and rather than a more strategic reallocation of existing obligations and appropriations. I think this is most evident in the area of foreign assistance which is as I say hugely incoherent in the way funds are allocated the priorities that are given to certain countries and I think we all know some of these issues quite well. The amount of money that's being appropriated for use by the military for this preventive action and it's really about making more rational use of existing resources as much as increasing there. Where I think the more funds are necessary is to respond to short-term crises. Lawrence has heard me talking about this concept of just in time prevention because it's so difficult to anticipate crises and react to them in advance that you nevertheless have to have this nimble flexible capacity to respond to them when the signs are unmistakable. So having a flexible source of funding to manage conflicts before they or prevent them before they really get out of hand is I think where additional resources are really needed. On your question my very simple answer is that's not an easy task. Whatever institution one talks about in terms of changing culture. But let me say I'm an optimist and I'll give you a very concrete reason why. As the Under Secretary for Global Affairs I'll pick out that piece because in the first period it was the formal title. Part of my portfolio was dealing with health and science issues. And guess what that exact same question was asked of me many many times health issues. You didn't have health issues at all addressed in the context of our foreign policy or strategy and was there any preventive action? In my unit my line at the time we had an office. I looked at the whole growth of the issue of addressing HIV AIDS tuberculosis malaria but it went beyond that. Also to dealing with SARS, dealing with avian influenza and where there was actually an international network created and in which it became truly I think a very significant change. An orientation of how practical action mattered greatly in preventing the spread of a virus. And then the other area I'd pick out is an interesting one. Some of you may know it some of you may not and that's the area of science actually. There was interestingly enough Richard Solomon's wife and Solomon the scientist was very active in the issuance of a report that came years ago at the end of the Clinton administration recommending that there be a science envoy or a science administrator if you will at the department. Well out of that the whole culture shifted from just purely having science agreements to actually having now you have I think up to 50 scientists interning in the department. And you know how they're funded by the private sector. I'm mentioning that specifically because of the point about resources not only from government but the role of the private sector. So forgive the long examples but I'm an optimist that in two significant areas where you had virtually no culture surrounding those issues they evolved. And so with the establishment of SCRS I think that office has grown significantly. The first head was Carlos Pascual now our ambassador to Mexico. Now you have John Herbst, ambassador John Herbst two very seasoned diplomats but not only that created thinkers. And I think that it has moved significantly from where it was to where it is now. As you hear from these reports more needs to be done but I'm optimistic that there's a foundation from which to build upon here. Thank you. Well let me now open it up to questions from the audience. We have a microphone there so perhaps the easiest thing would be for you to just walk to the microphone if you have a question and then just tell us your name and institutional affiliation. Bruce? Bruce Jannelson, I'm actually here I'm wearing both my hats. I'm a professor at Duke University and currently serving at the State Department on a consulting basis as a senior advisor to the policy planning director. First my compliments to panelists on the written work and also on your presentations into USIP for all of its work which I've had a long and valued relationship. A couple of comments and maybe a couple of questions. One I think I want to pick up on a point that's in Paul's report right at the beginning to emphasize it because I think it's very much, it's very important which is that while we focus a lot on the organizational issues and they're extremely important, Paul makes the point up front that it's also about strategy. And so while we've got to get the organizational structures right both in the State Department and our agency we really have to think through the strategy component. And Lawrence makes this point too about thinking not just sort of in terms of instruments but putting it together. And it kind of relates to your question Abby and to Paul's comment which is when we're to imagine a speech by President or Secretary of State fundamentally dedicated to this question of prevention as distinct from say a paragraph or two in a larger speech or if it became a framing issue in certain kinds of documents. You could see the bureaucracy responding to that, right? Then suddenly that might affect allocation resources that affects people's own sense of how they're gonna get ahead. And I think that that's why the focus on strategy how do we think about this like deterrence? I mean how do we think this in a lot of different ways? At the same time that's very tricky. I mean I think the inherent dilemma of prevention just came out in some of your discussions and it was in the paper today with the WHO now being accused of was H1N1 really as bad as you guys said it was how do we know was this a case of prevention? Was this a case of overreaction? And you can imagine that's an inherent dilemma in prevention. I wonder if anybody has any thoughts further about how to wrestle with that. There is some traction, let me just simply say within the administration now some work on this just to sort of just to make that general statement. Question for Paul on the tier one, tier two, tier three. How have you guys tried to operationalize that? I mean in terms of where we would put certain countries and then go back and see sorts of things. I mean think of a number of countries now and while on the one hand it may come off the watch lists on the other that has to be factored in with sort of the levels of importance you did. And then the other question suggestion for anybody really is is there work being done not just on what USG needs to do but on partnering with other key entities? UN, the International Peace Institute is doing a lot. NATO, this is part of their consideration of the strategic concept. So one of the other steps to complement your studies on what USG should do might be to sort of figure out how to connect with what might be done elsewhere and if there's anything being done I'd be interested if not maybe you guys could be the ones to do it. You want me to? Yes. This is gonna sound like I set Bruce up to ask this question and I'm gonna take the last part first but we're actually doing a complimentary study that looking at enhancing international preventive action and particularly focusing on how the US can leverage international capacity for preventive action. I think we hear the refrain all the time that none of these problems can be dealt with individually they all require partnerships and I think that's very true and again however there doesn't seem to be a coherent strategic approach within the US government correct me if I'm wrong Bruce about how to leverage this terrific capacity and it's not just resources it's not just people able to carry out mediation missions or oversee elections which can become flash points of conflict but it's the legitimacy that collective action brings to preventive action and in terms of providing access to particular areas that may be off limits to the US and given that most if not all of the principal conflict challenges are primarily internal it requires that kind of legitimacy to transcend the barriers to intervention into other states affairs so it's absolutely important we're looking at what are the relative or comparative advantages in different organizations for particular types of threats again using this sort of three stage approach of risk reduction, crisis prevention, crisis mitigation management and looking at who does what how can they what can they bring to it and then in turn how the US can leverage those capacities I should say we're also following us up with the third report which actually gets to your suggestion which is looking at how we can better harness the private sector both in terms of business community media various NGOs, private diplomacy actors but that's another issue we can perhaps have an organizer meeting on that because I think that's the private capacity is also a key element here. In terms of your first point Bruce this is the need for a strategic approaches is clearly important I didn't discuss what is in the report about how we should do this we lay out a kind of schema a three tiered schema which lays out where US preventive priorities should be and there are clear dilemmas to doing this but it was basically driven by the notion that not all conflicts are equally consequential both in terms of their absolute impact but also more specifically to their impact on US interests and if we are to think strategically in terms of the attention that we give to any particular area the tasking that we give to intelligence agencies and analytical groups to warn us of certain threats as well as the seriousness that we take the warning when it does come it has to be driven by some kind of prioritization and that's kind of what we offer but as we've discussed in the past Bruce there's a real issue here because some countries that may be way down on the list of priorities can suddenly become very important in terms of the threat they pose so there has to be a system to review prioritization to suggest that maybe a country or particularly area of the world that was for some time being considered a low priority issue if the confluence of events or there is some set of indicators that suggest that this actually has the propensity to rise up in the level of, then there should be the flexibility to do that and to review it and I'm not sure there's any other way to do it otherwise you treat everything as equally important and that isn't being strategic but what I think is somewhat controversial about what we argue is that some issues that may not be the pet areas of concern for some groups are relatively low in our estimation and we put much more importance in ensuring that great power rivalry and interaction with rising powers doesn't become a source of instability and to many that's considered kind of old thing in terms of conflict prevention but we think unless you have got that part of the puzzle right then everything else is of less importance. Sorry for a long wind. I think perhaps what I would do, I would take the questions in sets of two, please for now, okay, and then turn it to the panelists to make sure that everybody has an opportunity. Yes, hello, my name is Mona Kennedy, I'm not affiliated and I'm interested in the particular case of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. My question is how significant was it as a case of conflict prevention to both the UN and to the US and what were the lessons learned? How significant are they to us today? Thank you very much. Michael Lund, Woodrow Wilson Center. Thanks for striking another blow for conflict prevention if I can put it that way among this whole series that we've had here and other places. Just not to get into the bureaucratic squabbling about where the main emphasis or responsibility should be but to ultimately touch on Paul's argument about the NSC as being critical here. It seems to me we're to some extent getting misguided by thinking of prevention as a special action, not withstanding your discussion of threat reduction as being kind of the first tier of emphasis and attention. But rather than that, it's not something that should be thought of and I think we're moving in that direction in fact as some sort of something that's added to normal diplomacy development and defense policy but integrated into the fabric of what these organizations and programs do on a more day-to-day basis. Not withstanding that some countries are obviously requiring more priority attention than others but there's already movement in this direction. The donors through OECD, DAC and UNDP and World Bank and so on are already fashioning development programs to be more conflict sensitive although that's not gone as far as it should go in their respective institutions. Another sort of argument on behalf of sort of pushing the responsibility down to the ultimately the level of countries, particular countries is the whole notion of fragile states. We haven't really talked about fragile states but in some ways I think we're moving in a direction that defines that as kind of the source of a lot of these other problems including for example, the vulnerability of Haiti right now to a credible disaster. A very weak state that just doesn't have the ability to do anything. So if the problem is fragile states and the inability of institutions to cope with emerging problems within their sphere as you two guys know from our colloquium last June at the Wilson Center. There was a lot of emphasis there on strengthening the existing resiliencies and institutions at the country level and what the international community in the US should be doing is putting a lot of emphasis behind that as the first front so to speak in conflict prevention. Given that sort of argument I wonder whether the NSC as high up as it is in the hierarchy is the appropriate place for the responsibility given the being swamped with so many other issues traditionally, conventionally and not therefore accentuating and buttressing the existing activity at the lower levels including development agencies working in particular countries. It seems to me we've got a sort of this also helps to mitigate the resource question the political will question. It's not like we're looking for special things turning points in these countries but we're monitoring on an existing basis either processes of deterioration or processes of strengthening. Thanks. Okay. Well, the first question was on Macedonia and I hope the panelists and will permit me if I take the liberty of responding to that question they at least give some observations because I served in the UN mission in Macedonia as the political advisor at the mission and also did a book on it. So let me just say things in terms of the lessons and I'll be quick. I think the first one is that one of the difficulties of prevention is that sometimes countries at risk certainly the political authorities do not recognize or do not want to recognize the bare problems and to seek the assistance from the international community to help. In the case of Macedonia, you had a very far sighted president, President Ligorov who recognized that there was a problem and asked the United Nations for help. The second point I would make is that the UN got there early enough to make a difference. And it is, you know, as Ford says in Marymutt Wives of Windsor, better three hours too soon than a minute too late. So we got there early enough to make a difference. The third, I think the Macedonian experience points to the importance of an integrative strategy certainly for UN missions. And I think that also applies to other kinds of help trying to make a difference. So you had a military mandate to monitor and report developments on the border, both Nordic and implemented by Nordic and American troops. You had a political mandate, a good offices mandate which the special representative of the Secretary General used to try to deal with the very real internal problems in the country and we developed a social development side to deal with some of the underlying causes in the country. The fourth thing I would say, of course, there's always, there should be some, the mandate should be, the resources should be commensurate with the mandate. So we had not a yawning gap between what were being asked to do and the resources which were being provided certainly on the military side, also on the political side. And the final point I would say, it was fairly successful because at the political level you had united support in the Security Council certainly amongst the P5. And of course this was in the early sort of honeymoon period at the end of the Cold War. And really what you have in the Security Council on any issue is really if it's going to work the co-lessons of five foreign policies of five different countries. And in 1992, those interests came together, which helped. But let me now turn, I get Lawrence to at least maybe comment on the point that Michael Lundray and Richard might want to do as well. I think to thank you for the comments that are quite helpful. To the question of sort of fragile states at the heart of this, I guess I would flip it a little bit and say we're seeing less of a trend of states becoming more fragile and we're seeing a trend of the governance challenges becoming greater and more complex. The implication is not just analytic but it's I think that we need to think about governance solutions at the state level but also at the global level, the regional level and the sub-state level. So strengthening capacities of states is certainly one extremely important leg of that. I think the sort of question about mainstreaming versus specialization there's a tension there. Sometimes diplomats will say, well everything the State Department does is conflict prevention or development professionals will say everything that USAID does is conflict prevention. There's a certain amount of truth to that but it doesn't quite work, I think. So we need, it seems to me, a certain kind of signal of a special priority even if the activities that are undertaken are going to be common activities that would be done for other purposes to signal a priority from the top and to establish kind of regularized processes and dedicated capacity and resources. So I think if we see cases like SCRS where prevention and stabilization reconstruction are all given at least in the mandate equal billing, we find in reality that prevention gets the short end of the stick. Yeah, I would second Lawrence's comments and I agree with you, Michael, that conflict prevention is not a discrete standalone activity. I didn't have to tell you his and it gets back to Bruce's point that because of that you require, because it covers so many different things and you get at a particular challenge in so many different ways that it puts the emphasis on strategy and making sure that this is a coherent approach. But you still need, however, somebody to push that and to have the in place procedures and processes that would further that kind of attention to a preventive strategy. But creating a sort of standalone entity at the NSC for conflict, I think would be a mistake. We wrestled with this on the genocide task force, prevention task force. Do you create a sub directorate or part of another direct purely for the prevention of genocide? And we largely argued against it because we felt that it was just all from that whole process. It would seemingly check a bureaucratic box, but frankly, make the task even harder. And so I think it's critically important that it be integrated into mainstream frontline efforts. In terms of the fragile state and where that should be run out of, I think it would also be a mistake. I think, frankly, it'd be impossible to put all the responsibility for managing that at the NSC. What we were pushing was, nevertheless, an entity there that would oversee, manage, coordinate, guide that activity that would still reside primarily at AIG, State Department, and other agencies. It has to have that centralized authority that has the real backing of the president and the White House. Two more questions. Thanks, Bridget Moikes with the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Just to echo, thank you for this important work and for the panel and discussion. I'm encouraged by the opportunities there are right now to make it progress on building prevention capacities, particularly on the civilian side, which is what the discussion has been focused around here. But my question goes a bit more to the do-seen-that reliance on military force. There was an AP article this week that signaled that an upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review will make the priority over the next four years, winning current wars while preventing new ones. So the military is looking at prevention, which is encouraging. But I'm not convinced, I guess, that the U.S. can be a leader on prevention without directly addressing its military, its own reliance on military force. So I wonder if you could speak to that. Yeah, Bernard Harvon from the World Bank and echo some other questions that you've already asked. But the first, I think you lay out a convincing case, but I think the big question for politicians or decision-makers is, where has it worked? And poor old Macedonia keeps on being put forward as the one possible case. But there's been a lot of work done, for example, on disaster prevention. The last time there was a 6.8 earthquake in California and two or three people died, we see in Turkey or in Haiti today, in terms of thousands dying because there wasn't a real disaster reduction strategy. I think the links with conflict prevention, partly because they're so ideological, that case hasn't really been made. So I would support Lawrence's point about there still needs to be a lot more empirical analysis between prevention measures and what actually works. So I'd like some reflection on that. And secondly, the big elephant in the room is why when we talk about conflict prevention, we don't talk about the huge escalation in military expenditures, both globally and in the US. Is that something which is off the table in this discussion? Thank you. I wonder whether Paula, would you want to... I don't think either of those, I think. Okay, all right. Because I know you've been in the... I would like to make a comment. I've made notes on some of the points. Okay, so I'll give you an opportunity at the end. And I know we have two more questions. Exactly. I'll come in and then we'll move on. But why don't we make it quick so we can get to the last two questions. On Bridget's point, it is heartening to see that the US military putting emphasis on this and it's at the same time unsurprising given that they bear the brunt of many of the stabilization or all the stabilization reconstruction missions. And so as I alluded to briefly, they've been broadening their concept of operation to embrace early prevention, what they call shaping operations, phase zero operations. And this has been going on for several years and moreover, butchering it with actual foreign assistance, particularly in the area of security assistance to key countries. In terms of over dependence, I think if you asked any of them, they would say, no, we have to have a full spectrum of capacities here. The decisions to prevent or to intervene shouldn't just be a question of never doing very little or sending in the Marines, so to speak. And there has to be a more developed set of options available for any given situation. And we've in other contexts have laid out that kind of framework in sort of mixing and matching different diplomatic, economic assistance activities to provide that kind of broader range of options. In terms of cases of things that places the work and Bruce has done excellent work in this area in terms of where interventions, early interventions did work, sometimes not as well as hoped. Probably a recent case that a lot of people hold up was the intervention in Kenya after the elections in 2007, 2008. While the international community was late to the effort, it nevertheless mobilized itself very effectively to prevent that conflict from the initial conflict from escalating further. And it is held up as moreover as a case of what is called hybrid preventive effort in terms of partnerships between international organizations, national governments, as well as the private sector. And I think there's some other cases, Sudan and Indo-Pac conflict where intervention at early stage, often in quiet terms, has worked. Parts of Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, South Africa. Michael, please jump in. You know the record better than most. So I think there are plenty of cases and people, you're right, do tend to focus on good old Macedonia as the one shining example. But I think the record is actually much richer than it is held up today. Last two questions. Yes, thank you. Like everybody else, really appreciate the opportunity to have this session. I'm Chick Donbuck with the Alliance for Peace Building. First an observation like everybody else and then a question. The observation being that language matters and words matter. And one of the difficulties we've had for forever in the kind of work we do is a fuzzy identity of who we are and what we do. Using several words, post-conflict reconstruction, conflict resolution and so on, but the word peace building has begun to emerge as kind of the core word, the USIP, now uses it, if you could look at the handout today, the right below USIP is peace building and then going on and peace building not just referring to post-conflict which somehow got into the lexicon, but peace building is prevention, mitigation and post-conflict. And I think if we can just a word to everybody in this room and everybody else, to the extent we can do that and identify it that way. And Paul as we talk about SCRS, I would love to see it be called the Office of Peace Building. And then we develop a real understanding of what that is all about and have something to build around. The second comment though is that we have a tendency in the peace building world to talk among ourselves and I think we've done the research and developed the intellectual capacity and grasped the concept of what needs to be done strategically and integrated, a whole of community, not just a whole of government, though that's been difficult enough, but a whole of community to integrate the private sector and so on. What we've not done a good enough job of is conveying that message to the policy makers on Capitol Hill or within the government agencies. And there are two concurrent initiatives underway right now where those policies can be dramatically impacted. One of them is the QDDR and the other is the efforts on behalf of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to rewrite the Foreign Assistance Act. And so my question is, are the people on the panel and others actively engaged in actually taking these messages to the people who are creating these new policies so that peace building can actually be incorporated in a robust way into U.S. foreign policy as we go forward? Thank you. My name is Stephen Anderson. I'm with the Civilian Response Corps through the Department of Justice. I'm interested in some of your thoughts on SCRS. That is, you've mentioned the fact that it's under financed, that it lacks clout, that it competes with USAID. I get the sense that you think it's being maybe suffocated in part by the Department of State. And I wondered if you have thoughts as to whether you believe it properly should reside and be nested within the Department of State or whether it should be in the NSC or for health elsewhere. Thank you. Go down. Sure. First one, comment on the question of knowledge and where has it worked and what works. I do think we can tap into the historical cases to address the key questions for policymakers more effectively. But at the same time, let's not hold ourselves to a higher standard than we do for other objectives or pursuits of our foreign policy or international action. Is our knowledge of effective conflict prevention really all that more deficient than our knowledge of what works in alleviating global poverty or countering radicalization or a whole host of other things that we judge to be important and we do our best and we try and learn as we go on but we don't have really perfect knowledge of, I would say not. Just a comment on Chick's Point, USIP is definitely supporting the QDDR process, particularly the working group on preventing and responding to crisis and conflict. And as you know, they do have a sub-working group which is specifically dedicated to what they call targeting prevention. So I think, I know they have looked at these reports and we were in conversation with them trying to make sure these ideas are in that process. I'm less familiar with the process on the Foreign Assistance Act reform, but certainly that seems like a good opportunity as well. Paul, do you wanna touch on SCRS and perhaps I know you've followed the following the systems. Sure, yeah. Yeah, we were also engaged with the folks doing the QDDR and the extent they've sought our advice, we provided it in formal settings and I think some of the ideas contained in here have been circulated around and what we've understood, been received quite positively. SCRS, I must admit, caused a lot of hand-wringing on my part because I'm not familiar with the process because there's a lot of people who I think would like to have seen it go away. They felt that it was something that really was unnecessary, particularly, and maybe distracting from some of the efforts of USAID, particularly in the area of sort of expeditionary capacity. We felt though that on balance with the right resources, with appropriate authorities, with appropriate leadership and backing from the White House that it was still important to retain SCRS, certainly not should be shifted to the NSC, which should not have an operational role. But on balance, it should remain where it is. More effort obviously be put on the prevention side of its mandate, which it has, but not really pursued in a forceful fashion. I think it's now starting to get the resources that it needs. I think in the last on-the-bus bill, it didn't quite get them out of money, wanted for those civilian reserve component. But on balance, I think it can play a role and will eventually be accepted because I think the other bureaus within the State Department will understand that this is not some small insurgent operation. It's actually now quite a large bureau in its own right. And I think over time, it will start to play or be seen as an effective player in the system. I just had a few points to make before we close. Just on that last question, personally, I won't repeat, but I support what Paul just said. I think it certainly has grown. It's gotten more of what it's needed. It has still some ways to go, but I think it's really advanced significantly. It should be at the department. Three quick points. Going back to Bruce's point on strategy, I just wanna underscore that because in my own commentary and reading the reports, if I had a single message that really came out of these reports that I thought was absolutely critical was that. And that was your point right off the bat. And I wanted just to reiterate it again, how critical that is if we wanna make a difference in this area. Secondly, I couldn't help but pick up on fragile states. The title of Bob Zelik's piece in survival is Fragile States Securing Development. I happen to myself chair at what's known as the Bipartisan Policy Center as part of their national security initiative, a stabilizing fragile states. I see that as critical in this mix. We've touched upon it, but it directly relates to preventive action because when you look at the roster, you're looking at fragile states. My final point is in preparing for today's meeting, and I hope my colleagues don't mind because their reports are outstanding and they're full-fledged reports. I was preparing and reading some things and trying to get current, not only on their reports, and I was struck by several things. I came upon the article that I've mentioned by Robert Zelik, Fragile States Securing Development. The Wilson Center had this round table on the role of women in prevention and conflict resolution. But also, I mentioned to my colleagues and I got this from Hans Benendijk's shop, and I don't know if all of you are familiar. It's a new journal of the Center for Complex Operations. Why I'm mentioning it to you, what struck me is its diplomacy, defense, and development. John Herbst has a piece in here and it's interesting, it's totally devoted to this topic, from Senator Luger to John Herbst from a military perspective, and I found it a very interesting reading. The only reason why I'm mentioning this is I was struck by the fact that this issue has a lot of traction. These different quarters are coming together to really think about what are the most practical ways forward and that we do need change. So that's on that note that I would... Well, thank you very much. It remains for me now just to thank you, our audience for joining us this morning and for your active participation, and I'd like you to join me in thanking our three excellent panelists for their contribution. Thank you.