 Good evening, and thank you for coming to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. My name is Andrew Schwartz, and I'm Vice President for External Relations here, and have the great privilege of working with Bob Schieffer and the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism in this fantastic series that we have in foreign policy and national security. And as you can see, we're going to talk tonight about foreign policy and the challenges the next administration is going to have. We have an absolute all-star panel, including our own Arno de Borgrave, who has been a journalist for some 60 years. And when I asked Arno once who was the most interesting person you've ever interviewed, he didn't miss a beat, and he told me it was Charles de Gaulle. So you can see what kind of experience we have on this panel. And I'm sorry to embarrass Arno, but I just love him, and it's so good to have him on this panel with all of our other friends. And with that, I'll throw it to Bob Schieffer, and thanks for coming to CSIS for the series. Thank you, Andy, and thanks to all of you for coming. This is the partnership between TCU and CSIS, and we're very proud of it at TCU, and it has really gotten the name out there, and we like being associated with CSIS. It's a great thing, and I'd also like to say I'm very pleased to see General Scalcroft today. I appreciate having you. This adds a little more prestige. It's good to see you, and Arno, of course, 30 years at Newsweek. He covered most of the world's major news events, including 18 wars. At the age of 21, he became the Brussels bureau chief for UPI. Three years later, he named Newsweek's bureau chief in Paris. At 27, he became senior editor of the magazine. He held that position for 25 years. He became editor-in-chief for the Washington Times in 1985. Held that job for 1991, and then became associated for the first time with CSIS. So we're glad to have you here, Arno. Bill Crystal, everybody knows Bill. Editor, publisher of the Weekly Standard. Widely recognized as one of the country's leading political commentators. I insisted on ideological balance today, so I insisted we have someone from the New York Times. Well, I'm glad you can be here to fill that role. Susan Page is my old buddy. She's the Washington bureau chief for USA Today. She also appears each week on the Journalist Roundtable on CNN's Sunday Morning Interview program. Late edition. She's won numerous awards. And among other things, is married to Carl Lutzdorf, who is the bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News. And one of my oldest friends, Clarence Page, no relation, has been a columnist member. We're married, but not to each other. Columnist and member of the editorial staff at the Chicago Tribune. His columnist is syndicated nationally. He's also an analyst on the Jim Lehrer News Hour. He won the Pulitzer in 1989 for commentary. He also was part of a team that won another Pulitzer for the newspaper in 1972. And Henry, CNN's senior White House correspondent, has just taken that role. Congratulations to you on that. I've known Ed since we covered Capitol Hill together. Those days he was working for Roll Call. And came to, how long have you been at CNN? Almost five years. Almost five years, and was very involved in this year's campaign. So, enough introductions here. Let's get right to it. And I think we have to start, Clarence. I hear there's a little new story out in your territory out there in Chicago. Nothing ever happens in Chicago. What are you talking about? What world is going on out there? And what is this thing all about? Well, I hear that the governor has been selling a Senate seat on eBay. That's just a bit much. But even as, I deter myself away from the TV, but we have to come over here because President-elect Obama is having a news conference, even as we speak, thinking, hoping, imagining that we will actually be interested in energy policy right now. But I can guess that he won't get a single question about energy policy by the time it gets to the reporters. But at this point, we have a governor who is somewhat in seclusion, but he is planning his next move while the legislature was going to move toward impeachment and a special election. But the Democratic-controlled legislature realized if we have a free election, a Republican might win. So suddenly plans shifted about noon today. The whole discussion just went around to some other measure like impeachment and let the Lieutenant-Governor step in, which can take months, leaving us with one empty seat there for the Senate, unless maybe we have to appoint himself because nobody else wants to take the job now. Well, I was going to say, it seems to be a little danger that he would appoint anyone because, I mean, who would accept him? Who would take it? But you don't really realistically think he would appoint himself? I wouldn't have realistically thought he'd be after my job last week. I told him last Tuesday morning when I found out he was shaking down our corporation to have editorial writers fired. And secondly, so it's disappointing that nobody in Chicago rose up in protest over that. But when they heard it was about Wrigley Field, then they got mad. But you don't really, at this point, do you think now that the legislature is not going to move to impeach him? I think they will move to impeach, but just beginning the process of that takes a while. And of course, he'll actually have a right to defend himself, which if he takes that, it could go on for months. I imagine, though trying to imagine what's going on in the Governor's head right now, that he's probably thinking about how to plea bargain with the U.S. attorney. That's what I would think. But then again, I wouldn't have laid down this David Mamet dialogue on the U.S. attorney's recorder either. But I think that would make sense though, because in the prosecutor's handbook they do encourage plea bargains in this kind of situation to avoid further delay to the state and the process and all that. All right, well, there's another big story, and I don't know if you all caught this on the way in, but this afternoon, Caroline Kennedy let it be known that she is interested in Hillary Clinton seat in the Senate from New York. Susan, where does this go? Well, The New York Times broke this story about noon, and it took only a call or two to confirm it, the rest of us. So I've got to assume that Caroline Kennedy wanted this story to come out today. It's hard to imagine that if she wants the Senate seat that her uncle once held that she could be denied. We were at a dinner last Saturday night where David Patterson, the governor of New York, spoke, was very coy about who he'd appointed the Senate seat, but she would be certainly, I think, a popular, very well-known, in some ways hard to imagine why she wants to be in the U.S. Senate, but if she seems to be headed there. Well, anyone who would want this appointment would certainly be wanting to campaign for it when they have to run. Is it hard for you to imagine Caroline Kennedy standing outside some manufacturing plant at seven o'clock in the morning shaking hands with people just coming off the night shift? It's, you know, people who run for public office put up with a lot. They put up a lot with raising money, seeking votes in places like plant gates. On the other hand, she's seen politics up close her whole life. So one can only assume that she has some sense of what she'd be getting into if she's appointed to this seat and then runs again in two years. Does anyone here think that she's going to get the active help of Hillary Clinton? Not initially. It seems like she maybe had some other candidates in mind. And I think as Susan points out, it's going to be a tough race. I mean, she initially could be appointed, but then she'd have to run in 2010 for the final two years of Hillary Clinton's term and then have to run again in 2012. So you're talking about raising, you know, something like $30 million per race and doing all of this campaigning and getting out there. And as you know, Bob, there's not a good track record for appointed senators getting re-elected. A lot of times, the person who's sort of hand-picked ends up getting their clock cleaned. Now, this could be a different case because she's somebody who obviously has amazing name recognition. She's been very reluctant though to get into the spotlight, so that's what would be fascinating. She got out there just sort of a tippy-toe out there in President-elect Obama's VP search. She was helping with the vetting and all involved said she did a fine job. But that's a lot different than actually being the candidate yourself. Now, the most disappointed person has to be Chuck Schumer, who thought, finally, he could actually be the senior senator from New York. Not to be. That's an extremely bright part of this, a happy part of this story, I think. Chuck Schumer, who I like personally and I've known a long time, but nonetheless, he's a congressman. He runs for the Senate, beats an incumbent, Al DiMotto in 98. There he is. You know, the senior, one hand's going to retire two years later. This is his moment to be the senior senator. He writes that in New York, Hillary Clinton shows up and dominates the news in 99, 2000 that she's running and that is elected. And even though Schumer is nominally the senior senator, somehow Hillary Clinton got a little more attention over the last eight years. And now she goes into the cabinet and, you know, and now he's freed of suddenly Flaria, step forth and blossom, and now Caroline Kennedy shows up. If you know Chuck Schumer, you're sort of abused by this. Well, I must also say, you know, after Hillary Clinton, I mean, after Caroline Kennedy was so quick to endorse Barack Obama early on, I think it'll be a cold day in New York before you see Secretary of State Clinton. I'm sure that she will take the nonpartisan role that Secretaries of State always do in this particular case. I don't think she's going to be anxious to get out there and campaign for it. Any resemblance between this panel and the foreign policy is purely coincidental. Well, you know, the strength of American foreign policy depends on domestic policy. It is an elective system that we have here. We have to get the domestic politics settled first and that's what is the basis for all foreign policy, I think. So anything involving Chicago neighborhoods is foreign policy, believe me. Well, let's talk a little bit about this. Why don't you talk a little bit about this, Arnaud? What do you see as the main priorities that Obama has to set here on foreign policy? Because in addition to the domestic politics, he's also got a lot of problems about money and the financial crisis. Which limits his action abroad. Number one, I would list Afghanistan. Number two, I would list Iran. And number three, the Middle East or the perennial, the Israel-Palestinian problem. But Afghanistan has become very urgent. They're now blowing up dozens of supply trucks coming up through Afghanistan to resupply NATO forces and U.S. forces in Afghanistan. About 200 have been destroyed in the past week. Now we've discovered through some very good reporting in the London Times last week that they are paying off Taliban not to destroy these trucks. And in some cases, Taliban fighters get aboard the truck and lead them through roadblocks. So in other words, we are paying for all of this. It's about $1,000 per truck to get through to Afghanistan. And there are two supply roads. One is 1200 miles, the other 600 miles. And I don't think anybody's taken cognizance of how serious that situation has become. Plus the fact that we have only three NATO allies who are willing to do any fighting there. Canada, the Netherlands, and the Brits. The others have 45 different caveats against doing any fighting. So it's a very difficult situation. And I think one that will require President Obama's immediate attention and not strictly in terms of moving more troops over there, because that can't be the solution. One of the outgoing NATO commanders said it would take about 400,000 troops to make any kind of a difference in Afghanistan, a country the size of France. So whatever troops have put in would, in my judgment, be to enhance a bargaining position. We are roughly where we were after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and negotiations with Taliban have become inevitable. What are we trying to do in Afghanistan? Are we trying to establish some sort of Williamsburg on the... Is this ever been a nation as we think of a nation being? Is that what we're trying to do, or what exactly are we trying to do? Despite the fact that only 3% of Afghan women can read and write and 16% of the men can do the same, they all know that they've always gotten rid of the foreigners over centuries, including Alexander the Great, who couldn't wait to get out of there and finally find a way out through the Khyber Pass. The Brits back in 1842 lost 15,000 men. They killed everyone except one guy, so you could live to tell the story. And the Soviet Union, we know what happened to them. They had 150,000 men and they're chuckling now because they think that we're doing... repeating all the mistakes that they've made. So that's why I listed as number one. Number two, of course, is Iran. There again, we have three former central commanders, General Zinni, Admiral Fallon and General Abizade, who have all said at one time or another that we should learn to live with an Iranian bomb. Obviously, it was something in return, geopolitically, a big bargain. Whether that's possible, I don't know, but I'm quite sure that President Obama is going to try to fuel his way through that figure. And then the Middle East, of course, we know about. No need to go into that again. Other than that, I think he's... everything's fine. Don't forget Pakistan. Fascinating to hear you walk around the situation and not even mention Iraq. All those are big challenges, as you point out. I agree with all of them. But then you just had President Bush take this secret trip to Iraq. A reminder again, we've got over 100,000 troops there, and it's going to be a very difficult situation with President-elect Obama. And I think one of the biggest challenges for him is figuring out how quickly to bring those troops home. I mean, he made that promise in the campaign to bring them home within 16 months. And we picked Secretary Gates to stay on at the Pentagon. He specifically said in that press conference a couple of weeks back that Secretary Gates will have a new mission, which is to bring our troops home. But then he sort of added a couple of caveats near the end of the press conference about it's going to depend on conditions on the ground. You've got to pay attention to that. And it was interesting, President Bush yesterday on his way back on Air Force One told reporters that he said something effective. I don't want to put words in President-elect Obama's mouth, but I think that Secretary Gates picked, sent a signal, that he's going to carefully study what's going on on the ground. Is he going to be able to sort of stretch out that promise of 16 months in terms of all combat troops or not? That was a big promise, obviously, for his supporters. And it's sort of fascinating that Barack Obama's campaign was largely launched at the beginning about change in Iraq. Now, as you point out, Bob, it's really been overtaken by the financial crisis. And I think as you point out as well, Afghanistan is a war that everyone seems to be talking about now a lot more than Iraq. But it's a war we can't forget about. It's obviously a big one. The situation is improving day to day. Sure. Let me go to Bill. How do you, you were on the other side, how do you think Obama's done so far? And is he getting, I mean, I think it's been, as far as I'm concerned, one of the smoothest transitions that I can really recall in the last long time. But the other part is smooth transitions don't always mean you're going to have a smooth presidency. And sometimes, I mean, Ronald Reagan didn't have all that great a transition. There's a Bill Clinton, of course, and it took him two years really to recover from it. But how do you think Obama's done so far? I think he's done fine. And in foreign policy, I think it's as good a, my point of view is good a group is certainly, I could have expected an actually pretty good group, period. I mean, but I took about 10 minutes to look at what happens in the first year of incoming administrations tenure in the world. And a lot happens, typically, and a lot of it's unpredictable. And I mean, I'm sure President-elect Obama knows this. We can sit here and say it's likely to be, I mean, the opposite is a major crisis, major problems we've been talking about. But of course, things can happen where no one much expects anything to happen. And I'm sure they will. But I know, I think it's a serious team. I think Iran is a tough, I mean, we'll be, the clock, the two clocks on Iran quite match up. He wants to do his diplomatic initiative, which of course he'll do. That's going to take a little while. There's an Iranian election. What is that in May? It's hard to see you can get much going before then. You've got to get the Europeans coordinated. And the nuclear clock is, it's hard to know, but seems to be ticking pretty quickly there. And, you know, I don't think he wants to simply stumble. He may make a policy decision that the cost of trying to use for us to prevent a nuclear Iran are greater than the benefits, but I don't think he wants to just sort of happen inadvertently. So there will be some moment, I would think, in 09 or maybe early 2010, where he really has some major decisions to make or to go to the Europeans and say, are we really serious now about a big ramping up of sanctions? You know, we can decide, and certainly generals, anyone can decide that we are okay with a nuclear Iran, but there are other actors here who may not be okay with it, and not just Israel, who everyone focuses on. And the great threat of the nuclear Iran to me is not that they're likely to use a nuclear weapon against Israel or against us. Probably not even, though this is more risky, that they'll provide a nuclear umbrella for terror, but that they just set off a nuclear Iran race in the Middle East. I mean, the Saudis and the Egyptians are going to sit there and say, well, fine, Iran gets nuclear weapons and we're going to depend, well, then, on what? On nothing right now. Now, maybe you could argue, and people will make this argument, we'll have extended deterrence, as we did for Europe in the Cold War. We're now going to defend, I don't know, we're going to really offer a nuclear guarantee to the Saudi regime. That's a little, I mean, it's, we do a lot with the Saudi regime, but a public guarantee of, you know, against, I mean, that we're willing to risk a nuclear exchange for the sake of their sovereignty or territory, and that's a pretty tough thing I should think. So, I think Iran really is a huge item, you know, sort of that President Obama is going to have to deal with very fast. On Afghanistan, I would just say, I think there, I think that's been the good war. And the Democrats, in particular, who were anti-Iraq for, you know, for reasons they thought were good reasons, they very much wanted to go out of the way to show they weren't simply against fighting the war on terror and they weren't, you know, the governor and I doved, so they were for a tough policy in Afghanistan and even for an increase in troops there. Honestly, and I say this is, I think no one was a stronger supporter of the surge than in Iraq than me. I don't think the arguments have been laid out as carefully for the surge in Afghanistan as they were in Iraq. Maybe they have been, obviously they're just doing this work within the Defense Department and elsewhere, but I, on the outside, certainly, I don't think one can see the level of preparation that exists for the surge in Iraq and serious people like General Keane, the former Army Vice-Chief of Staff and General Petraeus himself had really worked this through and thought it had a pretty good chance of success. So I think, on Afghanistan, there's a real danger politically to the president-elect that he'll send a couple more brigades clearly over the next three, four, five months. I think that's already pretty much set up. But if the situation starts to deteriorate, you will get two things at once, I think. On the left wing of the Democratic Party, why exactly are we intervening more deeply in this country? Can't we do this in other ways? Can't we negotiate? Can't we? And from the Republican Party, and I say this not, I hope this doesn't happen, but I suspect it will, a certain reassertion of a much more traditional Republican wariness about foreign involvement, wariness about nation building, distrust of the Obama administration. We saw this under Clinton a lot, you know, the Republican opposition on the Hill to Bosnia and Kosovo. And you could get Republicans turning from being a sort of hawkish interventionist party to a sort of, I don't know, Fortress America, slash, you know, let's be, we don't want to stretch ourselves too thin. There are a lot of some of these arguments maybe intellectually respectable. But I just think politically he could have more of an Afghanistan problem than he thinks, but he may understand this than people think. Six, eight, nine months later. And the truth is it's hard to publicly make the real case for it, I think it's Pakistan, which is, can you really plausibly have an adequate outcome of Pakistan if there's total chaos on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border? And therefore you sort of have to stabilize part of Afghanistan to some degree to prevent further destabilization of Pakistan, but that's a pretty complicated argument. But they have a privileged sanctuary, the Taliban has privileged sanctuaries in Pakistan, and each time we don't bond them, as you know, that sets up all sorts of suicide bombings all over Pakistan. What shape would you think, I'd just like to get to see what the panel thinks about this. What kind of shape is President Bush leaving Iraq again for this incoming administration? I mean we saw the pictures, he goes there and holds the news conference and they go shoot that. It's pretty quiet over there right now. It looks a lot better than a lot of people thought it was going to look right now. Much better than anyone thought so years ago. And here's the trouble though, I don't think, the drawdown in Iraq, by taking Secretary Gates, of course not even murmuring about replacing Petraeus at Sankam or Odierno at MNFI, I believe Obama has basically will not do a faster withdrawal than they think is proven. I just can't see how we can afford it. I don't think those men would in fact stay in their positions if they thought Obama was really endangering the hard-earned, hard-won success that had progress that was made there. Which means I don't think we get it very fast with the drawdown in Iraq. There are provincial elections in January and national elections at the end of the year. That's where the Bush administration always increased troops correctly I think because you want to have the most security to have a fair election to encourage full turn. It's very important that this election that we get soon to be turned out unlike in 2005. So I think the pace of the draw on Iraq can stay low. I think he pays very little political price for that. I don't really think the Left or the Democratic Party goes crazy if combat forces aren't out of there at 60 months. That was a central point. But if the casualties are down I think you can get away with Clinton was going to withdraw troops. Everyone comes in saying they're going to draw down troops from places where they don't draw down troops. As long as casualties are low I think he's okay on that. Well I think he has to begin I think that he doesn't necessarily have to meet the government deadline which through the campaign after this campaign was launched he kept hedging a little bit more and he did even more as you noted at his recent news conference. But I think he's got to get on a trajectory of draw down. I don't think it's the option of maintaining what do we have about 150,000 troops still there now more than we had before the surge began. He doesn't have the option of continuing that. He's got to be it seems to me politically speaking on a path of reducing troop levels and he said to bring most of the combat troops out. That path will be gradual. I will predict right here there will be over 100,000 troops in Iraq a year from now. This is usually right on target there Bill. Sorry I couldn't resist. But I agree though that the left is giving him some problem in terms of the nation magazine for example and a few others but polling indicates he hasn't fallen off much from a 91% approval that he had among Democrats on election day still right on the mid 80s and there is a sense I was at a convention of community organizers here in DC last week which was the first time anybody from the transition team Valerie Jarrett and one of the other officials was there because these are his people community organizers he promised them he was going to meet with them in a transition and I sent Valerie over and it was quite remarkable Valerie Jarrett was actually encouraging the crowd to hold our feet to the fire kind of like FDR did like when he came in to keep them on that trajectory so that they can argue on Capitol Hill that hey I'm getting trouble from the left you got to give me a break here but we are on a glide path I believe was the term that Colin Powell used toward withdrawal toward a draw down in Iraq things are going in the right direction and not too many people are going to quibble with him about hey we're not getting out fast enough we want to go to some questions from the audience but as we're waiting for our first person we'd like to ask them either to these microphones here let me just go around the panel did anybody expect Barack Obama to name Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State no not at all I thought in talking to a lot of senior Obama advisers right before the election right after the election not about her that specific job but about her in general a lot of his senior advisers felt that he had turned the page on the Clinton and that he won without by not picking her VP I think he wanted to be magnanimous I think he thought also it might be better to have her in the tent than outside the tent yeah and he believes in that concept as well the Lincolnian concept I guess but that also politically it might have made sense to bring her in now rather than having her in the Senate maybe picking away at different things her people insist that she never would have done that that she was on board and you have to say in her defense that she campaigned a heck of a lot harder for him than I think any of her sharpest critics thought she would I think she'd be terrific she also has a deputy secretary of state in the form of her husband that's good or bad well it's a fact he knows people all over the world he knows presidents heads of state on a very personal term he's been traveling the world now for years so obviously it's bound to be part of Hillary's input I thought it was especially surprising given that he didn't even seriously consider her for vice president much to the annoyance of the Clinton folks didn't better for that job he made it pretty clear that he was going to go in a different direction to then turn around and give her this most senior post in the cabinet I thought was surprising now that Clinton people argue that this is an even better job than usual because Barack Obama will be so consumed with his first priorities which is the nation's economy that she's going to have an even more important role than secretaries of state always have we'll see if that turns out to be true I'm sure that Jim Steinberg will be happy to learn that Bill Clinton is really going to be deputy secretary of state I didn't expect it I don't think anyone expected maybe I guess the notion of Bob Gates being reappointed had become fairly common by October or so of the campaign but certainly the Clinton appointment and to some degree the Jim Jones appointment are a surprise you probably could have made a lot of money if you had gotten all three for a trifecta which is always a good reminder of how surprising politics is in all kinds of ways and that everyone follows these things so closely I didn't pick Hillary for vice president which I actually thought would have been a rational logical pick politically Kennedy Johnson, Reagan Bush it's a picker that the secretary of state was interesting and bold it's going to be interesting to see how the team works I think Jim Jones is the one I'm most curious about I mean he is a very bright guy a very impressive guy but I'll say this with Brent sitting here National Security Advisor is a staff job and it's a tough job and it's not really the life of I wouldn't say that being a four star general for six or eight or ten years is necessarily the best preparation for being National Security Advisor he's a very able guy and maybe he can serve that role but he's used to having thirty people hopping to to carry out his slightest whim he's not used to hopping to when the president buzzes in at six o'clock in the morning because something's happened in the world and then figuring out how to get Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates and the CIA director on board I guess DNI and CIA do we know that DNI is Admiral Blair or that's at least the rumor but no CIA I think that's a tough point because the truth is what is the left most hate about the Bush presidency Guantanamo torture eavesdropping that part of the war on terror the homeland security part and I think he's got a very tough line to he's going to get he's getting griefings which I believe I'm not cleared for anything are making him slightly less unsympathetic to some of the things that Bush may have done I would say and to the intelligence that's acquired through various of these means and he's God knows who wants to protect the country but he also has views and he can't pay in on a certain criticism of everything that Bush did and I think that's going to be tough to fill with the right person and that person's going to have a very delicate line to walk as is the Justice Department what to do on the kind of homeland security do you want to add anything on that I was surprised by the Clinton appointment as well but I think it tended to confirm for me he really doesn't kill that much about foreign policy in other words he wanted a strong figure over there and by one you get two like Arno said and what is intriguing to me now is speaking of deputy secretary of state Susan Rice parking her own transition team over at state we wonder what's going to happen there but we have a branch office for the United Nations ambassador here as well but it's become a cliche among pundits that where the Clintons go you have drama cliches are based on truth so I'm waiting to see what's going to happen I wonder and I say this in a serious way if he knows he's got his hands full with the domestic policy but if he really wants to make an effort to find some sort of peace settlement in the Middle East you make Hillary Clinton the secretary of state and you put her in charge of that and you're going to have political problems I mean you can't get that done without some political problems you're going to get criticism from the right by making her secretary of state and kind of the point person that I wonder if you give yourself a little additional political cover at least on the left and I wonder if that has something to do with what this appointment is about and I think she's eminently qualified. It may come in handy if BB Netanyahu wins as he seems to be ahead right now. I don't buy the argument that he Charles Scott never made this point too he doesn't really care about foreign policy or he's going to be so preoccupied with the economy he may not care about foreign policy but foreign policy is going to care about him and I think he knows that I'd say I don't know the president-elect at all but people I know well who work with him briefed him say actually he does care quite a lot about foreign policy he's educated himself quite extensively and I think he's all presidents well all presidents during the Cold War and all presidents I think in a post not 11 environment when you've got troops deployed in two different parts of the world etc are going to have to be foreign policy presidents and I think he's genuinely, I get in credit he's tried to have a very strong team and I think he's willing to have a strong team and what happened to Richard Danzig in this lineup he was mentioned for all sorts of tough positions and then his name just dropped off all the list does he get deputy secretary of defense I guess they're negotiating the gates I mean it's unusual to have a holdover across party lines and so I guess secretary Gates has said his current team will leave and Democrats will come in but he of course has to have people he's comfortable with too well and also if he puts the guy there everybody thinks he's going to succeed yeah it's a little weird he's going to walk in there with no power I think that'll be quite a problem well let's go to some questions out here first I would like to thank Bob because I can finally watch all you guys without having and lady without having to switch the channel on Sunday morning and miss the ad so we appreciate that very much I think one of the challenges that this administration is going to face is how do you remodel the economic political system UN system to reflect the power to break countries and so on Doha ended which got very little attention to multilateral trade negotiations because China and India simply refused to step up to the plate and assume more obligations consistent with the development we all know how well China is doing financially during this financial crisis we do know that in the UN they've been discussing how they're going to reapportion how they're going to reapportion the security council I'd be interested in your views on these issues thank you Steve Landy Manchester trade it seems to me that inevitably we're going to have to go back and look at what happened at Bretton Woods after World War II and new economic and financial architecture for the whole world is going to have to be gradually put into place today we're dependent very much on China but China is still willing to be our banker and they've got major problems with their own middle class at this point and they may have similar programs that they've got for their own people before they help us so all of this is coming to a headed team for me and on the domestic side I mean we started with that I'll just defend Bob's proposition that foreign policy and domestic politics are related I mean we're going to have a very nasty recession over the next year we have a lot of us have fought against protectionism for 20 years in our own little ways and actually have won those fights pretty consistently and the kind of that's been the dog that has barked but never really bit out people. Now there's going to be a resurgence of protectionism and isolationism and xenophobia and truthfully under Reagan, Bush, Clinton Bush it never really has gotten that serious and the administrations have basically been able to stay on a pretty free trade pretty open to capital and investment, pretty internationalist we can quarrel about what kind of internationalist we're pretty internationalist agenda pro-lians, etc. I mean I am worried that if we have a very you know we have not tested this proposition with 10% unemployment and with a year from now in our country or in other countries if Doha failed in a good economic environment and this is a case where the president himself has a party that is not on board entirely free trade or freer trade he even toyed with silly things I think like you know going back negotiating NAFTA that sort of disappeared for now but I think that will be a domestic test of Obama and the Democratic Congress to some degree USTR is in another position I noticed that he hasn't actually they've talked about it's torn between his base and what he I think he thinks will be good governance because they've talked about Congressman Becerra who's sort of more towards the base and now the name of powerful junior the former congressman has come up a little bit as a more centrist possible pick and I think for USTR he was a trade rep because you know you've got that push and pull and you've seen the Colombian trade back stall here at the end of the Bush administration a lot of these trade packs that people thought would sort of be a slam dunk we've given the economy or not going through anymore next question yes my name is Kami but I write for the Pakistan inspector my question is about the article Mr. Crystal wrote last week you seem to be drawing a parallel between al Hamas and Altaiba and my question is do you really believe that they are parallel organization given that al Hamas doesn't have any real country it's a just by organization whereas Altaiba has on its backing whole country Pakistan and how can we resolve this very difficult issue of Pakistan without addressing Pakistani insecurity that India is kind of encircling Pakistan before Pakistan has problem on its western borders and now it has problem on eastern border according to Pakistani diplomat they don't say it's public but they say in privately that there are 100,000 of raw agent in Afghanistan who are trying to destabilize Pakistan through Balochistan so unless we address that issue unless we resolve Kashmir issue where 80,000 Kashmiri have been killed there is no way we are going to have peace in Afghanistan and in Pakistan so it's like we are being so kind of wishy-washy about this resolving Kashmir issue do you really believe that we could do something about that without addressing Pakistani insecurity that's a question that's a question we need to have a think India Pakistan I don't think the people think I have huge insights on the India Pakistan issue no I think let me put it this way I think the mainstream view in America right now is whatever the historical complexities of Kashmir or whatever the perhaps reasonable or unreasonable insecurities of Pakistan what do they think India really is going to invade Pakistan I doubt it I think they have a lot of power that it is intolerable for a government a government either that the Bush doctor in this respect I think has bipartisan support terror groups that are hosted in a country that are visible and that are unquestionably engaged in terror activities either the host government has to crack down on them or there has to be the possibility of intervention to crack down on them and one cannot ask India to sit there when people debate from an organization that clearly with which there has clearly been collaboration of parts of the deep government of Pakistan not the current civilian government and just say well that's fine that's just a price to doing business that's nothing can be done about that and I think in terms of both that and the Pakistan Afghanistan situation I think I just think the United States at least is going to expect some greater control of and pressure over on the domestic terror groups in Pakistan that doesn't mean that maybe that can be combined with some new diplomatic initiatives to assure Pakistan but we have been pretty generous this US administration has been pretty forthcoming towards Pakistan pretty generous with Pakistan but we can't resolve Kashmir and it's not clear that there is I mean that the status quo is going to change in Kashmir very quickly I could add Pakistan to understand Pakistan we are going in and out since 1962 there are four provinces until last February 18th were governed by a coalition of six political religious extremists I met with the chief minister in Peshaw he told me that he is a great admirer of Mullah Omar of the Taliban and that he had a great deal of esteem for Osama bin Laden and he was running a whole province same thing in Balutistan we also forget that the Madrasas about 12,000 of them are still producing about 100,000 kids a year young boys who have grown up to hate America hate Israel and hate India it's a huge problem good evening Joe Madden saved our four coalition thanks for all coming out tonight you guys talked briefly about the top three or four priorities and we are wondering where do cases of mass atrocities like Congo and Darfur fit in and if not in the top three what kind of resources should be given to this well I think Bill mentioned Susan Rice or no I'm sorry Clarence mentioned Susan Rice having a very active role as US Ambassador to the United Nations if she's confirmed and she's spoken openly about paying a lot more attention to those huge problems so I think that that's one sign also Joe Biden you know as a presidential candidate talked a lot about intervention in dealing with genocide and he's somebody we haven't really mentioned so far as you talk about the team how he's going to fit in is another big question he was picked as VP to sort of check the box on foreign policy and maybe thought he was going to be the prime time player on that and then he started looking around the room and saying well Gates is here and Clinton and General Jones and you sort of have to wonder whether or not Joe Biden is really going to have a big seat at the table or not well I mean look I think that's a very good question I mean we talked about Afghanistan and Iran are ultimately maybe thinking if she changed against you but Obama could face serious choices obviously Darfur which is a long term ongoing problem but he has explicitly said if I'm not mistaken he's talked about a no-fly zone put a cap on Darfur which I mean I myself have been four for four years but that's fine if he wants to do it he'll have support of all the neocons he ran against and of liberal internationalists what about Zimbabwe would it be crazy to think that the first deployment of US troops under Obama could be 10,000 troops as part of an international force who's only including African Union and NATO forces into Zimbabwe to restore order and to take care of newly deposed hopefully Mugabe government there so I very much agree with the notion that A. I think Africa between Zimbabwe and Darfur and the pirates off Somalia and Congo they're really a huge that is the place where Bush is leaving Obama very a lot of very difficult situations and I think it will be an interesting test of where he is just personally as a president on the sort of humanitarian intervention more broadly Susan Rice deeply regrets obviously take at her position in 1994 when she argued against intervention in Rwanda will that translate into an actual intervention in one of these other cases I think one of the questions he's going to have though is he has the troops to do and you also can't do everything it's not that anyone is in favor of genocide of course not but you come in with all these pressing problems and with probably as I don't replicate Bill maybe said some challenge from some place we aren't predicting now from Russia or from some other hotspot that chooses to challenge a new president and I think one of the characteristics we one of the things we've learned about Obama is he's pretty disciplined he's able to focus on his priorities that sometimes involves making tough choices I guess the deployment of troops to some new battlegrounds not something he would want to do in months of his administration especially if you consider the country like the Congo is one third the size of the United States superimposed on a map of the United States that would go from Maine to Florida and from Manhattan to the Mississippi River I can't imagine getting involved in such a situation one issue that hasn't come up yet but has been touched on peripherally is the whole business of US Agency for International Development there's been some talk of getting a cabinet post to represent aid issues it's been a real challenge over the past administration what its role is who sits at the table I wonder what the thinking is that you folks hear about what's going to happen to US Foreign Assistance and USAID interesting I mean it's funny a Bush official the other day was mentioning me that in the in all the debates between McCain and Obama the three debates they all sort of duck the question of this financial crisis what does that change any of your priorities you're spending except for Joe Biden in the Vice President's debate was apparently at one point when he was asked that question he said something effective we're probably not going to be able to do as much with foreign aid as we had wanted to and this person was pointing out to make the point that President Bush as part of his legacy has really tried to make a big deal and rightly so about what he's done to fight malaria in Africa what he's done to fight HIV AIDS around the world very unexpected even by some of his own supporters that he's been this active on these issues and it went to Africa with the President earlier this year but there you have Biden who sort of prides himself on his foreign policy credentials saying that maybe we'll have to cut foreign aid and so I'm not certain that doesn't mean it's going to follow through on that but I don't know that the prospects are great for vast increases of those resources when you have Biden making a statement like that number one is a candidate but number two the budget crisis that is ballooning where estimates of a trillion dollar annual deficit it's always sort of one of the things that's on the chopping block I think foreign aid is going to be a very difficult sell as wrong as that might be I mean it's just no money and when you look at they're talking about now a public works program that could cost up to a trillion dollars they're just simply going to have to be some priorities there no matter how worthy some of these causes are I think it's going to be a very difficult sell President Bush increased foreign aid and of course for President Bush he gets no credit for anything he did more than any I believe liberal or democratic president has done both on the humanitarian side and on the strategic side of foreign aid I sort of agree with Bob the amount of money there but look trade helps trade helps as much as or more than aid and you could make a case that something like Columbia free trade or some of the other captors some of the other free trade agreements I had in Africa I would say well but you can make a case that reducing some of our own barriers to imports would do as much good as any particular foreign aid and there I do worry that Obama Bush tried to do some stuff and couldn't do as much as he hoped I'm not sure how much stomach they'll be for that either here at home so that's glorious Hi Adam Lansman from Boozown Hamilton I asked this question in a personal capacity but I was wondering what you felt about the increasingly assertive and aggressive stance from Russia and how that will play into the next administration's foreign policy choices Well of course it could be one of the great challenges of resurgent Russia we've kind of gotten used to not having Russia as an ally or at least not as somebody's causing us a lot of problems that seems to be you know turning around now and with all kinds of complications with NATO allies and with our new friends in the former Soviet satellite republics you know more about this than I do I take a rather the opposite view I think that we should have invited Russia to join NATO right at the end of the Cold War that would have kept them on the straight and narrow as they moved or felt they were towards some kind of democratic regime and I also think we tend to forget how we would have reacted had we lost the Cold War and we certainly see that Mexico and Canada and the Warsaw Pact all of Europe is now Comic Con and suddenly the Russians are putting in radars and missiles in Puerto Rico and in the Bahamas I think we'd be pretty upset and I think we mishandled the whole situation we should have sat down with the Russians told them what our concerns were about Iran and incoming missiles from Iran that would threaten Europe just as much in the United States but at least sit down and discuss it as a common problem Don't you think and I've just asked this of the panel that we need to just reassess our policy toward Russia it's under none who's chairman of the CSIS during our last session here said we need to make a list of things that we need Russia's help on and Russia needs to make a list of things that they need our help on and then we ought to have some serious talks about things that we can work on together it seems to me like this is the problem that's kind of gone in the ditch that there might be some ways things that could be gone and just get this in a better situation in the ditch right Yes ma'am I'm Marilyn Erwood just here in a private capacity Dennis Ross was very active in campaigning for President-elect Obama I had the impression just from all of that that perhaps he would have a role in this administration I haven't heard anything concerning that and of course he had been in the Clinton administration and I'm sure that potential Secretary of State Clinton I think probably may still have a role That's what I was going to ask to any of you The great thing about Hillary Clinton unexpectedly becoming Secretary of State and Jim Jones someone unexpected becoming National Security Advisor and the Keeping Gates is that three year jobs were filled up with people who were not really from the Democratic Foreign Policy Establishment So everyone else has now been pushed down a notch which is sort of amusing again if you're a close friend of Dick Holbrook it's a funny time Now I'm going to get a phone call last time I made this joke in public I got a phone call the next day from Richard Holbrook and the claiming that I had mentioned it in this context but no but I mean a lot of very good people and I'm a friend of Dennis's and let me know a lot of very able people if you're at that level you expect a pretty high level job I think Dennis could go back to being a Middle East envoy especially if you were also given Iran I think Dennis has spent a lot of time working on Iran trying to figure out a diplomatic solution to Iran I'm a little dubious about some of those solutions can you make the Saudis can you have a deal where the Saudis sort of pressure the Chinese to get tough on Iran because the Saudis supply so much Chinese oil complicated diplomatic schemes which Dennis is good at and maybe that would be a role but I think there will be people who we will all have expected to see in this administration who won't be yet at least for the first two years of course then there'll be a shake up and things will happen just because of the kind of accident of having Senator Clinton become Secretary of State and Jones become National Security Advisor and Gates stay at defense and of course I think there's an assumption that the Obama administration will move much more quickly on a Middle East front than the Bush administration did and then that way Dennis Ross would be you know need no transition into filling that kind of role another name too could be Secretary Colin Powell and people around him say that despite all speculation about a cabinet post that there's really highly unlikely he would do a cabinet post but he would be open to President Elect Obama reaching out to him to be a Middle East envoy, be a troubleshooter and something like that and maybe based on some of his experience in the Bush cabinet he might want to do that I believe Dennis Ross will always be an influence on any administration that is there just because he is so highly regarded so I wouldn't worry that he's not going to be a part of this Mark Stuckart from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation thanked the panel and Mr. Skolcroft for the remarks and this gathering it's absolutely terrific and also CSIS for co-hosting we've talked a lot about smart power and soft power here at CSIS and you've already addressed the foreign assistance question I thought I might bring up but can you say a little bit about energy security we'd like to talk about that well energy security is something that General Jones has been working on now at the US Chamber of Commerce and he's just come out with a major plan not for energy independence any such thing as possible but very much in keeping with what President Obama will be talking about which he talked about today when he appointed the new energy secretary and that is wind power solar power all these things are coming down at great speed there's a lot today you can do a house in solar power for $24,000 and it can be brought down with a government push brought down to $5,000 very very quickly and there are hundreds of thousands of miles of rooftops in the United States all of this is going to change dramatically over the next 5 to 10 years I think there's a strange circumstance where with gas prices coming down so much and you see in some cases in this area $1.82 a gallon it's good for people in the middle of a recession obviously to pay a lot less of the pump instead of $4.50 a gallon but I don't see the same urgency that people had 6-8 months ago when it was $4 a gallon there was a lot of people talking about any plan and everyone seemed focused on it now as you mentioned at the beginning President Obama was unveiling his energy team it was sort of a not only how fast the gas prices went up and then down again but how fast the public enthusiasm for energy conservation went up and down just as fast the whole debate is off the public conversation right now this mention of Jones does raise one point in the last couple of days about Obama's way of staffing up I think Jones will be key on energy security I think he'll be key in general actually I'd say there's been more if I had to pick one person to follow closely over the next 6 months in terms of Obama's foreign policy I think I'd follow Jones a little more than actually the gates including his experiment in the West Bank he knows a lot about that too I'm not going to do anything until the Israeli elections and I think actually Obama said over and over this is not going to be an Arab Palestinian-Israeli agreement in the next 6-9-12 months I think he'll focus more on Iran but think of the importance he's made Larry Summers is the economics art in the White House Jones is a national security advisor Carol Browner's environmentalists are in the White House and there's a dash of double-headed as the White House health person it's an attempt I would say to have the strongest White House staff in my memory it's sort of amazing to double there is an energy secretary he doesn't have to have an energy secretary there's an EPA administrator he hasn't been a tradition of having a very strong environmental person I think I'm even forgetting maybe one other area where he's going to have a sort of White House czar and he's got a very strong Chief of Staff it'll be fun to be in these White House senior staff I'm serious Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, Jim Jones these are not Carol Browner who has strong views and I don't think Carol Browner's views are going to a green energy or a green economy are going to be the same as Larry Summers but I think that tells me that Obama I assume what he wants is White House driven policy I don't think he's putting a lot of cabinets out there and saying go do your own thing that can be impressive it can be strong it can be a recipe for real disaster we thought Powell Rumsfeld was a tough fight but I mean think of some of the the tensions he's building in these people in the White House and then also with strong cabinet secretaries and that Deputy Secretary of State he's trying to replicate Hyde Park and the White House is what it is let's have, we'll get it close to the end here Steven Piper, Piper Pacific International maybe just following up on this last point some critics of the Pentagon have sometimes accused it of being an independent sovereign state that doesn't need to deal with the rest of the government I think one of the interesting comments that Secretary Gates say and quite different from his predecessor is that one of the needs for national security which is his principal responsibility is to increase the Foreign Service Officer Corps and to increase the size of AID I think he was kind of famous for saying that DOD has more lawyers than USAID has permanent staff and more musicians in marching bands in the military and we have Foreign Service Officers That's good Is this going to be reflective or might this be reflective of a more comprehensive integrated approach to national security that it isn't all military but that diplomacy is a critical element of it I think that is their goal and Gates was saying how far they'll get with this but in my own sense of it is this is where they are and this is what they're going to talk about This is the whole direction of Obama's positions during the debates during the campaigns and sometimes he took a heat for it I expect his first dramatic move in foreign policy may well be to lift the Cuba travel restrictions and make the kind of dramatic move that sends positive signals through Latin America may lead to a lifting of the embargo and lead to some economic stimulus as well because of the very fact that so much of South Florida in Miami the Cubans under age 30 went two to one for Obama it's just an astounding show of what's happened over the last 50 years so he feels like our foreign policy needs to be modernized And he's going to make a speech we know in the capital which is a very powerful statement about the use of diplomacy as well as the military in talking to friends and adversaries You should make it in the Baghdad of course but we'll see if you it is now the freest capital in the Arab world but maybe you won't I think it's such a bum rap that Bush is having a militaristic foreign policy what exactly was fine no one to quarrel with Afghanistan there was one war that we can quarrel about Iraq with Iran what was she doing with North Korea agree or disagree she tried to increase the size of the foreign service they did increase foreign aid she tried to increase AID and improve it the U.S. Defense Department so far from being a world in itself does a lot of the soft power stuff in the U.S. government now because the rest of the government can't do it now if Obama wants to spend some serious time overhauling state to make it an operational agency that war power to him to have serious people in justice who are deployable abroad to do rule of law missions war power to him that's not traditionally the way these agencies have been set up those cultures are very hard to change and the truth is when you end up in Iraq in a tough situation where you're up in Afghanistan it turns out you send out the lieutenants and the captains and they do the diplomacy they do the economic development partly because in those situations having military assets behind you is helpful I think there's a lot of easy talk frankly about this beefing up the civilian soft power side of the U.S. government really making that happen would take a huge effort that I'm not sure the administration is ready for given the crisis they're facing it's going to be hard to spend time on you have a secretary of defense who was talking about this publicly at least in July if not before as I think Bob said there's no doubt that they have that goal but will they have the money to back it up that's the soft power we call it smart power which is a conjugation of soft and hard power alright let's go to one more question because we are getting caught thank you my name is Yan Wen visiting fellow CSS here I have been following up the series every month I've learned a lot thank you very much, very interactive for this one my question is how do you guys President-elect Obama's first trip somebody a lot of media here says first trip should be to go to China but according to the U.S.-China issue experts here they said U.S.-China relations goes very smoothly it's not the top of the agenda to go to China what you comment on thank you I've heard the first trip of you I don't think any of us have any idea but I've heard that Indonesia is at the top of the list right now which would make a lot of sense given the fact that he spent some of his childhood in Indonesia Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world and also seems to have kept its homegrown terrorists under control I think in early April he's supposed to go to a financial summit in Britain he's been invited by the Prime Minister and I think it's going to be interesting that he's got an issue that he's got to attack with Russia, China, Iran but if he's globetrotting his first year a lot in the middle of a recession back home he's going to face a lot of domestic pressure as you were saying before there's only one commander in chief and so he can only form so much of that out to Secretary Clinton and others he's got to do some of it himself there is only one commander in chief but on the other hand I think there's going to be a lot of domestic pressure with the recession to not be globetrotting Thank you all very much for coming on my last presentation