 Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Robin Wright. I'm a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center I am really delighted and honored to have Doug glute here to join us this afternoon for a conversation on Wars of the future and the wars of today Doug is a unique person. He is a scholar a soldier a Policymaker and a diplomat and defined that level of competence with that long a career and working for both Republican and Democratic administrations is Rare if if not totally unique Doug is a graduate of West Point and Harvard. He served in the military for 35 years rising to the rank of Lieutenant General He was director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff running military operations worldwide he also was a policymaker we're serving at the National Security Council under both President Bush and President Obama and most recently he was the US Ambassador to NATO the world's largest military alliance. So we're going to talk Have a conversation for a half hour 45 minutes and then we're going to open it up to your questions So let's begin with the elephant in the room and that is is NATO obsolete Well, first of all, thanks to us IP. I think most of you probably turned out to see Robin Not me, but I come to listen to Robin as well. So we have that in common It's good to be back in the States. And this is one of my first opportunities. I left government on January 20th And having settled back in with my family here in Arlington It's nice to be back in and have an opportunity to do events like this. So thanks to us IP for the invitation So I think if someone calls NATO obsolete all that person has missed about 25 years of recent history if Obsolescence was what NATO was in the Cold War It's important to remember that the Cold War ended in 89 91 and I think NATO went through a very fundamental adaptation in that period In fact, President Obama at the Warsaw Summit last summer Referred to a Pivotal moment and he said that today NATO is at a pivotal moment. I think the only other moment like today Was that period 89 to 91? Where after 40 years of the Cold War NATO? Fundamentally changed it did a couple things first of all changed politically and went from in that period 16 allies today, they're at 28 so it enlarged politically it opened its doors to former Warsaw Treaty members former Soviet Socialist republics like the three Baltic states and welcome them into the community of democratic nations Hinged on democratic values, which is what the alliance is all about so it changed politically It also opened its doors by way of partnerships So not membership, but partnerships to 40 other countries So it started at the end of the Cold War with a mere 16 sort of hunkered down behind the sandbags of the Cold War and a few years later 16 became 28 and no partners became 40 partners among the partners every Soviet Socialist Republic and Russia itself That's that's pretty fundamental political change over a period of two decades after the end of the Cold War It is certainly shows that kind of adaptation certainly shows not an obsolete Organization that's stuck in the past, but really one that's got its head up is paying attention and is contributing now NATO's military lines. It also changed militarily after 40 years of Cold War, which was Absolutely anchored in collective defense I mean, I grew up and I suspect there are others in the audience who grew up in the US military or in the US diplomatic corps In Western Europe at that time. This was all about the collective defense of Western Europe I mean that was the race on debt of NATO from the from its origins in 1949 at the end of the Cold War though NATO realized it didn't need to have 300,000 American troops in Germany Defending a border which no longer existed And so it adapted Fundamentally the US adapted and 300,000 US troops today became 30,000 so we decreased by you know My math fails me here, but a lot 90% right And so we we did not stay anchored in the military The military posture of the Cold War we changed with the military forces that remained in NATO We took our show on the road So Soviet Union dissolves in 91 by 95 four years later 60,000 NATO troops go to Bosnia two years after that 50,000 into Kosovo after after 9-11 NATO joined us in Afghanistan. In fact, that's really significant Because if NATO were obsolete It seems a little peculiar to me that an alliance that was designed to defend Western Europe against the Soviets right actually invoked its collected defense clause Not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall with Western European allies supporting us and The attack was not in Western Europe But it was here across the river and it was in New York City and it wasn't by the Soviets It was by something called al-Qaeda now an obsolete organization wouldn't pull off those kinds of adaptations on the political front and on the military front so I Deny this notion of obsolescence. It doesn't mean by the way that NATO should rest on this laurels No meaningful organization not US IP not the US government not NATO Can afford to just sit back and let things let events wash over it So there's more adaptation to take place and we can talk about that, but I am quite Adamant that NATO is not obsolete. It's up to the task. It has adapted before And it's in the midst of further adaptation now. Can you talk a little bit about all my answers won't be that long? No, I hope they are. It's very thoughtful. How is the US role in NATO evolving? How is it adapting either to the nature the changing nature of threats? or The role that our partners are willing to absorb Well the first fundamental change if we're if we're still adapting as I suggested the first fundamental change at this strategic inflection point or Obama's pivotal moment Has to do with responding to a newly aggressive Russia to NATO's east and To a whole host of very complex challenges to the south to NATO south geographically. So this is the the ISIL Challenge to the south. This is mass migration mass illegal migration from the south. This is an unstable neighborhood to the south Arranging from a bit by extension Afghanistan through the Arabian Peninsula through the Middle East and across the northern flank of Africa So the the challenges here for NATO today are very different if you look geographically to the east with Crimea and Donbass Russian military posture nuclear-saber rattling and all that and if you look to the south which is this sort of potpourri of of terrorism migration and instability so to the east NATO's taken some very fundamental steps in the last two years And that's why I marked the last two years is as a point similar to 89 91 in NATO's long history since 2014 and the illegal seizing of Crimea and the destabilizing of the Donbass in Ukraine NATO's taken the following adaptive steps Okay, number one. It has turned the corner on defense spending. I mean some people would like to claim responsibility my staff worked very hard to to get to the point where we built the political consensus to reverse the trend in declining defense spending and now NATO defense spending is making real increases for the first time in like 20 years But it wasn't my staff. It wasn't me. It wasn't my staff. It wasn't the Obama administration. It was Vladimir Putin Okay, Vladimir Putin was responsible for this fundamental adaptation in the spending habits of our 28 NATO allies And we can go into more details there about that. So that's pretty fundamental adaptation. These are these are national Treasury dollars They are now being committed to increasing defense capability across the 28 allies. That's pretty fundamental The second thing is NATO is today and Americans are today Deploying where they have never deployed before and this is across the eastern flank of NATO geographically ranging from Estonia and the Baltics all the way down to Bulgaria on the Black Sea and We have a NATO presence. There are NATO flags flying for the first time in NATO's history in these eastern flank allies You know over the last 20 years. We didn't think we needed to deploy forces there Why because we had Russia as a partner, right? And we were in meetings with Russia. There's a Russian delegation to NATO There was a few weeks ago. I had a Russian counterpart Alexander Grushko Ambassador Alexander Grushko And we were in partnership. We thought we for 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union We thought we could craft a political partnership, but that has very much changed in the last couple years So we've now deployed forces where they were never deployed before To the south NATO is in the business of counter-terrorism in a very fundamental way You know most of the press most of the attention goes to the 65 nation International coalition, which is not NATO, right? But this is the US-led coalition Hosted now by run now by Brett McGurk over in the State Department and others But what people miss is that NATO the 28 member states of NATO are the force provider For that counter-ISO coalition all 28 allies today contribute forces to the 65 beyond that about 20 additional partner states also contribute so the majority of the counter-ISO coalition Contributors have NATO roots How is it that you can put together on the fly an international coalition like that? And it's actually more dangerous to the enemy than it is to themselves, right? How is it they can be militarily effective? It's because they've done this before in NATO exercises in NATO school houses And on NATO battlefields like in Afghanistan So in a sort of indirect way in in the sort of shadows of the coalition You have NATO providing forces and NATO providing the interoperability the effectiveness of those forces that drives the counter-ISO coalition Finally NATO is contributing a couple very sort of niche Capabilities one is we're flying AWACS planes This is airborne early warning and air command-and-control aircraft over Turkey And we're providing that air picture to the coalition out of al-adid air base and cutter NATO has a training mission in Iraq so NATO is back into the mission of training Iraqi soldiers on on categories of tasks that Prime Minister al-Abadi has asked us to do so we are side-by-side with the coalition in terms of building Iraqi capability Third we've gone to other states in the region outside of Iraq which we believe are at risk Because they live in bad neighborhoods So Jordan Tunisian Morocco, and we're providing training and assistance there. So NATO is very active It's not much in the press, but it's very much in the action both in the south and into the east So some pretty fundamental adaptations when you when you add that up I make the point that the only other time since 1949 that NATO has adapted has been charged to change its Fundamentals as it is today was the fall of the Berlin Wall 8991 and I think we're at another Pivotal moment or inflection point now in NATO's long history. It's just we're too close to it right? I mean when you're when you into fundamental change like this Sometimes it escapes you you need a couple years a perspective before it becomes obvious But I'm giving you a heads up. I think we're at a pivotal moment Let me I want to ask you about both Russia and and ISIS slash al-Qaeda Let me begin with ISIS and al-Qaeda the United Americans Identify ISIS is the greatest national security threat clearly our European allies feel that much more immediately with all the attacks And as you point out NATO was involved in his first Deployment outside Europe in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda Take a look at the broader issue of extremism as this administration has and what more can NATO do? In fighting the idea. I mean, maybe it can't do anything. What more can the The member states how can they pool their resources politically diplomatically? In social media whatever to deal with this threat, which is likely to be around for a long time and particularly when you look at how ISIS may evolve post caliphate how al-Qaeda may resurge as many fear because it's embedded more effectively than ISIS has and How can it adapt down the road in dealing with what is likely to be our top security threat for the foreseeable future? Well, my first response Robin is that we could do more of what we're doing now So yes, we have a training mission in Iraq for example, but look the training mission Iraq is a multi-decade problem It's this is not something where Mosul, you know, so now the big fight the shiny object is the liberating of Mosul Okay, well, that's gonna happen, but the Iraqi forces are gonna need help and assistance for I Mean pick a number of decades a couple decades anyway so NATO can Can't move into that space as the coalition moves elsewhere and can take on some of the institution building and take the long-term perspective in investing in Iraqi capacity, so We're tailor-made to do that. We should do that But actually there's a tougher chore I think at hand for NATO Alice and that is to because the ISIL threat Internal to NATO so here in the United States as one of the member states But in Paris in Brussels, I mean the Brussels Airport two miles from my office in NATO headquarters was bombed last March, right? So but there have been ISIL sponsored attacks or related attacks in other allied states as well Germany for example has suffered The Paris's or France has suffered a number The big issue there I think is that you're not going to see NATO troops as NATO patrolling the Eiffel Tower in Paris But you're going to see French troops on the streets of France And NATO however while it doesn't deploy under a NATO flag into these internal situations I might not I don't think there's any need for our military to be patrolling our streets by the way Much less French military patrolling American streets. Those are internal security issues The first thing we should do there is be much more facile in sharing intelligence than we are And we should use the NATO intelligence backbone, which was designed for the Cold War. It was adapted for these out-of-area Missions like in Afghanistan. It could be used today to share internal security intelligence And and we have the machinery we have the classification system We have the distribution all the protocols are there We should be doing better in terms of NATO is the back up of Sharing intelligence among the 28 allies and also reaching out to some of these 40 partners I mentioned as well. So Sweden Finland Austria are all in this network It defied me for three years as the permanent representative to NATO We couldn't get more intelligence pressed through this intelligence pipeline So that's one thing if I were still there in Brussels working this issue that would be high on my list But there's one even more fundamental. I Think it's very important as we take on this internal security challenge that NATO serves as a bastion as A standard bearer for democratic values We cannot respond to this threat in a way that is self-defeating Because we drift away from what we really believe and who we really are in fact You know, I'm sure all of you carry like I do the Washington treaty Okay And you know you got to read halfway down this thing before you get to the part about an attack on one Is an attack on all right, but you only have to read the second sentence To understand what underpins NATO founded on the principles of democracy Individual liberty and rule of law That's that's the bedrock of NATO those values So as we respond to this threat to which NATO as a military alliance is not ideally suited to respond militarily right the thing we have to do and and NATO is a very important reform to remind ourselves the 28 of us that we are bound By certain democratic values and if we drift from these values First we will not be effective Against against ISIL because ISIL and others like ISIL will use that drift That drift away from our values against us Right, but second of all we won't be true to ourselves And we will place frankly we will place the alliance at risk So there's some things we can do kind of on the margin militarily. I think Intel sharing is a very practical initiative But I think even more fundamental is this question of values. So Be true to who we are be true to what we signed up for And among the 20 these 28 democracies hold ourselves to account no drift on the values I'm actually surprised to hear you say that we could and share more intelligence. Do you have a feeling that there's a Reluctance among any of the allies To share what they know 15 16 years after the 9-11 attacks so intelligence sharing it There's probably others in the room who are more expert at this and me But as a practitioner right as a as a consumer of intelligence, right? The protocols for sharing intelligence have been built up over years and years decades and decades and tend to feature a Rather exclusionary approach to sharing intelligence. So if there's a Challenge in a particular allied country. Yes, we're gonna share intelligence with that ally But it's tend it tends to be done bilaterally or in small Exclusive groups what I'm suggesting is that across the we should open those pipes and not for tactical intelligence You know like terrorist X is believed to be in the third floor apartment at the intersection of Street 1 and Street 2 That's of no interest to an ally four countries away, right? But intelligence that reflects the broad trends of the movement. So you have the core of ISIL in Iraq and Syria, what about the eight franchises? How are they doing? What's the US intelligence assessment of the relationship between the franchises and the core? What happens? What's the US analysis of what happens when Mosul and Raqqa are as they say? Liberated and no longer in the physical control of ISIL So what's the next phase look like these are not things that involve? Tactical internal security or police actions, right? But they're more operational and strategic that's the analysis that we should be sharing now So that when we come to that next phase against ISIL and there will be a next phase and a phase after that This is going to be a long-term problem, and it may not be called ISIL It may be called son of ISIL or whatever When we come to that we have a base of 28 like-minded nations That have shared their analysis and therefore have a basis for action and we don't have to start from scratch Because the initiative rests with the enemy. So that's the intelligence. I'm talking about higher-level intelligence, which I think we can be more Inclusive and more sharing, but do you have a sense that there's anyone in the alliance that's not sharing vital intelligence with us? So I don't really have an opinion of that I suppose that because the protocols today are not in place among all 28 and Because of this sort of intelligence sharing bias, which is only need to know right? I suspect that's the case, but I don't have any hard evidence of that All right, so let's turn to Russia Relations have been particularly fraught since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and this month Marks the 10th anniversary of Vladimir Putin's famous speech in at the Munich security conference when he talked this week Unique is later this week in which he blamed the United States for Instability in the Middle East because of its clumsy handling of the Iraq war He for undermining international order by its expansion in the Baltics and provoking an arms race with its development of missile defense President Trump has repeatedly talked about bettering relations with Russia How realistic do you think that is? How do you when you look down the road at the basic differences we have? With Russia, how do you how do you kind of project into the future? Look from NATO's perspective. This is a pretty clean-cut answer. That is that that Russia Fundamentally tore up the rulebook in the seizing of Crimea and the overt Semi-proxy destabilizing of the Donbas. I mean this is breaks the fundamental rules of the road in In the world. Yes, but certainly in Western Europe, which had suffered so so much from Past experiences of violating sovereignty and violating international borders and so forth We lived under those rules now for some time And even basically during the Cold War we sort of abided by these rules I mean these rules go all the way back at least to the UN Charter But through the Helsinki agreement through the NATO Russia funding Act Which is an agreement between NATO and Russia about the rules of the road and so forth, right? So the rule book was ripped apart with the seizing of Ukrainian territory Crimea in what three years ago in fact three years ago this month So there's no disputing that and there's no Collaborating there's no accommodating that basic fact, okay, and NATO is not going to get over this Okay, this is not something that NATO is going to forget why because borders and Sovereignty are fundamental To keeping Europe on the peaceful side of the equation. That's fundamentally an American interest to and and I think Obviously since the end of World War two that's been the big project in Europe So on that side, there's no accommodating, but there are a lot of other issues on which we should be Searching for common ground with Russia. So let me just you know cite a couple examples counterterrorism We should be sharing one of the count one of the ISIL Franchises is in the North Caucasus There are Russian citizens today fighting under ISIL's flag in Syria and Iraq. So Russia's got skin in this game not to mention its obvious activities in Eastern There I'm sorry Western Syria That's that's an issue Afghanistan Russia's got an interest in stabilizing Central Asia Most of the Central Asian states many of the Central Asian states were at one time Soviet Socialist Republic's not Afghanistan But Russia's got its own history in Afghanistan as well So it's got an interest in those for Russia those southern flank Central Asian states That That is a fundamental concern for Russia Look an American astronaut today Doesn't get into space unless we find a way to cooperate with Russia because they fly on Russian rockets right think about Assad and The the disposal of his chemical arsenal That project right which by the way the results of that project the impact of the project should be very evident to us today What if what if Assad almost said sit on what if Assad today had his full chemical arsenal? well, he doesn't because the Western Alliance and Russia Cooperated and got that stuff out of Syria and disposed of it safely So there's a lot of areas where we should be open to cooperation with Russia now all of those May seem a long way away right and it's sort of a bridge too far. It's just too difficult There's some very practical near-term steps that that NATO is working with Russia to try to accomplish number one Transparency, you know, I described that we're deploying forces now where they've never been before well When we deploy those forces into the eastern flank Nations of NATO we're deploying them closer to Russia We have been completely transparent with who's going where with what strength and so forth and what we ask of our Russian Colleagues is they'd be equally transparent. They'd be reciprocal right so Defense Minister shorygu the Russian Defense Minister claimed that he was going to respond with NATO to NATO's Commitment by creating three new divisions in the Western military district Well, we would like to know more about these three divisions where they're going to be what strength are they going to be? When will they be so we would like to a reciprocal exchange of information so that what we're doing is actually portrayed accurately It's not amplified. It's not it's not distorted And we would like equally to have confidence in what Russia is doing Another another case in point is risk reduction There have been over the last couple years a number of very dangerous close encounters military aircraft with our military craft Russians aircraft with our aircraft Russian aircraft buzzing our fleet and in all cases in international airspace in international seas right and We've so far avoided a shooting a shooting match, but when a Russian fighter Comes over the horizon in the Baltic Sea and closes to One of our ships at a distance the width of this room at Several hundred knots per hour You can imagine that the captain of that ship of that US ship in the Baltic Sea has a matter of seconds To figure out whether this is game day Or this is just harassment and we can continue to rely on the professionalism of our forces and And hope that they don't misjudge one of these incidents, but you know humans are flawed and accidents happen and So that kind of activity We should put a stop to we should agree that this is irresponsible behavior and That if these are rogue pilots, then they should be held accountable If they're not rogue pilots and this is a matter of policy then change the policy so in both Transparency and in risk reduction. There are some very Prudent and I think immediate steps that we ought to be taking by the way those are the two key topics In which we engage the Russian mission to NATO day-to-day and that's why there is a Russian mission to NATO I was in Russia last week and just on your point about the number of Fighters Russian fighters who have joined ISIS the official Russian Estimate is five thousand, but Russian officials told me on background that was probably twice that and that's very telling I want to press you though. You talked about NATO's position on Russia But President Trump has taken a much friendlier tone when it comes to Russia is the United States or is this administration? Breaking from in any way small or large from the NATO position on Russia do you think it is Kind of out of sync with the fears of most of our Most of our European allies well here. I'd separate rhetoric much of which trails from the campaign days And however on January 20th rhetoric becomes We move into the realm of policy right so I think it's too soon in soon in the policy arena to judge that there's any Disconnect I mean I'm heartened by the testimonies of Secretary Mattis now Secretary Tillerson one of the first calls that Jim Mattis made on day on the first duty day as secretary defense was to Secretary General Yeah, Stoltenberg of NATO so he went on the record very early on the morning of the first day by picking up the phone and calling NATO He'll be by the way Jim Mattis will be I think I mentioned in Brussels this week for his first ministers meeting So this is the 28 defense ministers all come together roughly quarterly And I expect a strong statement there I think it's now a public that vice president Pence will go to Munich and Detend the Munich Security Conference, and I think we'll get a very good plug there for the importance of our European allies and so forth So I think it's too soon to tell I haven't seen any policy actions That put the this administration at odds with NATO There have been some early rhetoric which seems a little discordant but actually some of that rhetoric as well has been sort of moderated and Moved into the mainstream so so far so good and not I'm not ready to judge based on what two and a half weeks of administration time Okay, so I want to look at Iraq and Afghanistan. Let's begin with Iraq when you were in the Bush admin well when you were at the Joint Chiefs you delivered a message on behalf of the Joint Chiefs to President of Bush that there was skepticism and less than Total support for the idea of a surge of US troops Part not because the military didn't think it couldn't Manage or achieve its goals, but because of concern that the political framework might not or the political solutions necessary to make all Iraqis feel they were included and represented in the political process would be achieved and You know in the end the Joint Chiefs have turned out to be right the Iraqi militia the Iraqi government did not do what it took to reform the Political system to include its various ethnic and religious minorities and 13 years later 13 years later. It's kind of a deja vu that we're facing the same kind of Militant or extremist challenge and the Iraqi government 13 years later still hasn't taken those steps How worried are you about the future of Iraq? Let's say we do manage to Liberate Mosul to force ISIS out of Iraq that we may face the same kind of challenges the same Vulnerability of the system and even less ability at this stage to produce a convincing Solution that will make people want to hold Iraq together. I mean how worried are you about Iraq's future? So you remind me those days in what late? 2006 so President Bush commissioned Things in Iraq were grim right so President Bush commissions Interagency study in Iraq led by JD Crouch The Deputy National Security Advisor the joint staff participated in that so I had the joint staff chair along with John Sattler the J5 You're right the Joint Chiefs Position on that policy question should we surge or are there other adaptations? We should make to turn the tide and Iraq did not favor a surge and in fact neither did the field commander General Casey nor General Abizade the the Senkant commander at the time Why was that the position of the uniform military at that time? So part of the answer was the one you mentioned there wasn't confidence that This surge in military activity would would lead to a counterpart Counterpart progress in the Iraqi political situation And so the concern was you could surge and you could certainly have a tactical localized Temporary impact which in fact the surge did have right so we we surged 30,000 American troops Went to 20 combat brigades in Iraq 170,000 total troops and it had attempt it had a effect it did tamp down the violence Especially the violence in the center of gravity, which was bagged out and to this I give credit to Dave Petraeus And Ray Odierno who were who were managing the surge on the ground But the Joint Chiefs had a slightly deeper perspective on this and I think we're concerned that The politics in Iraq were not showing the kind of progress which would which would make these tactical Effects durable Okay, and to that point I think by and large that's accurate now They had another concern as well, and that was that the surge would American eyes the war in a way that would be unhelpful in a period where Remember we had already been there three and a half years where American presence was creating antibodies there were antibodies against the American presence and Many of the insurgent attacks were against us So there was a concern that we could actually worsen the situation by increasing our presence and slow the Transition to Iraqi forces where the uniform military believed the responsibility had to be moved It had to be moved from an American Western fight to an Iraqi fight And that process was underway at the time of the surge and we were we were concerned right that this was going to set back the Transition process now in the end I think you have to give the surge credit that it did have a it did it did stem The sectarian violence which was tearing Iraq apart at the time on the other hand I think we have to admit that it had a rather temporary effect because it did not spark either The increased capability of the Iraqis they were quite happy to see us do it right? Nor did it end up in the in the more telling measure Nor did it end up in transforming Iraqi politics And so I remember at that time in fact So six months after the surge is when I went to the White House to work on Iraq And at that time we had four or five or six. Maybe John Wood will remember Although he was doing mostly Afghanistan on my team We had four or five or six benchmarks for Iraqi political progress. So this is the hydrocarbons law the Provincial powers law and others here will remember I can't remember all five and then I have to go back and check my notes by and large They're unfulfilled to this day right and the result is that you have a sheer majority government Which is less sectarian than maybe some of its predecessors, but still has not Still has not come to grips with the fundamental political dynamics in Iraq which make Iraq vulnerable to insurgents to al-Qaeda in Iraq today to ISIL and so my concern is that we can Iraqis can liberate Mosul, but we haven't gotten at the under pinning problems that make Iraq vulnerable And until we do We can train Iraqi forces For all of our lifetime and add our kids lifetimes to that okay, and we'll continue to train But until we get to the politics of this none of that training none of that capacity Will be very meaningful in terms of stabilizing Iraq Is Iraq sustainable? I mean if this goes on I just can't imagine that it goes on for your children and their children's lifetimes that at some point Iraq doesn't Erode From the weight of it. Well, I mean I think I think the Iraqi state is sustainable But I think they're living on a bit of borrowed time in terms of the they they have to and I believe this Iraqi government does Feel the urgency to get on with some of this hard business, but the politics there are enormously complex and gridlocked stalemated and Unfortunately, there's very little room for anything but zero-sum political dealings, so if it deal was good for me or it's good for my opponent then it must be bad for me and so I'll oppose it and So you're at political stalemate, so is it sustainable? Sure, I don't think Iraq's going to break apart anytime soon but you do wonder how a state goes on and on and on through through waves of What for any other state would be existential violence? I mean how many car bombs can Baghdad endure? Well, apparently quite a few Because they went through remember the whole insurgency while we were there then there was a bit of a lull after we left But then al-Qaida Iraq was replaced by ISIL some of the same people al-Baghdadi was an AQI guy And now he's leading ISIL right and they're going through another wave of violence and you read in the newspaper Today there were three or four car bombs in Baghdad and a couple hundred people died and tomorrow we're just back at work I I don't know it's this is one of them one of the things that still puzzles me after walk watching and Observing Iraq now for a decade. I don't understand how that state can endure this level of violence And not fraction But it does it's amazingly durable All right, so to Afghanistan America's longest war the top US commander has now asked for thousands of more troops We have 8400 there now training Afghan forces and fighting terrorism When you look at the You know how long this has gone on Is Afghanistan Winnable and What does winning actually look like and if you were? Advising the president would you say To send more troops and and for how long would there be limits on it? This is basically the question that we've responded to year after year after year in the NSE should we send more troops? So look, it's there's some there's some parallels here with Afghanistan with what I just said about Iraq, right? so What does success look like in Afghanistan? We've been pretty clear from the very outset that the goal is No more 9-11's right no safe haven for international terrorists now In the what 15s going on 16 years that we've been there our national objective has drifted from time to time It started out as pretty clean cut Get the guys who gave us 9-11, right? That's what took us in in October of 2001 There was a period of time when we imagined that this is going to be perhaps simpler than it is And that our goals could expand and that we could we could if I remember when I first got to the NSE and looked at the national Objectives for Afghanistan. It was Democrat. I mean some of the adjectives in the objective statement were democratic market-based economy respect for the rule of law and and You know safe haven or safe safety for all minorities and And genders okay great, okay that objective defied anything that looked like Afghanistan Okay, then after a while we tried that objective on for size not making progress in fact Losing ground we that eventually came back. I think in 2009 when President Obama made it pretty clear after two strategic reviews of Afghanistan that the objective was to Was again back on al Qaeda Now there's a connection between al Qaeda the narrow objective and the broader objective if you can stabilize the state of Afghanistan and Afghanistan is self-sustaining Right, then it will deny safe haven to al Qaeda. We don't have to do it ourselves So that's a bit of the stretch goal. I would argue that today We have achieved our objective in Afghanistan in the narrow sense There's been no instance that I know of of international terrorism being planned Plotted commanded and controlled from Afghanistan Okay, since 9-11 So check, okay, no safe haven now. It doesn't mean there's no al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan But they're not there's no danger to us or anybody else outside of the area in which they live Which is pretty localized and by the way very very remote area in Afghanistan now I still has today a presence in Afghanistan. It's it's quite modest, okay? I don't know of any External plots coming from that ISIL presence in Afghanistan Outside of the localized area. So so in a sort of very realist Steely cold-eyed view we've attained our objective in Afghanistan now if we want that to be sustained with no US presence Then we've got a lot of work to do with the Afghan state and this as much goes to this point about building military capacity, which by the way we put something like $70 billion over the years into building at an Afghan military and this is against the Taliban. Okay, the Taliban have no aircraft No drones Almost no vehicles Except the ones they take from us and so forth, right? I mean this is a classic rural Poor insurgency posthum based insurgency And we've poured tens of billions of dollars against it The problem is that the military capacity we've built and this is a little bit like my comment on a rock has not been has not been coupled to political progress and So you have this military out there and it's fighting, but it's fighting in the midst of a government which can't deliver for the people a government which is still driven by Corruption and I mean Industrial scale corruption. I mean Afghan military officers senior military officers by their positions in many instances Pay for their positions. Why because they know once they're in position They'll come out ahead. Okay. They'll recoup the down payment okay border border crossing sites are Big problems with regard to corruption and so forth so until you get at those underlying root causes until Afghanistan becomes a credible a State with credible governance in which the people can rely Then we're gonna be fighting the Taliban for a long time or Afghans will be fighting the Taliban for a long time But the Taliban have also today Taken 15% more territory than they had two years ago in 2015 I mean that's really striking it when you consider how limited their resources are compared with What we've given or sold the Afghans what we have there what NATO has Have provided and that's just a staggering fact But this this demonstrates one of the realities of a fight like in Afghanistan like that in Afghanistan And that is that the Taliban have at their disposal tools tactics Weapons that are give them a huge advantage like like the roadside bomb, okay This is in military Jargon the IED. I don't know why we didn't just call it the roadside bomb But this is the improvised explosive device, right? This is the old artillery shell ammunition Dud which is rewired placed on the under the road bed and exploded when a government vehicle passes or one of our vehicle passes IEDs roadside bombs caused 70% of U.S. Casualties Combat casualties so one technique Caused 70% of the casualties and that number by the way has stayed pretty much consistent Even though we poured tens of billions of dollars Into an effort to try to counter These roadside bombs why they're cheap All the materials are reasonably available. It doesn't take a bomb scientist to plant this bomb You can train most of us in this room could be trained. I don't recommend it When the bomb detonates the guy who detonates the bomb walks away it becomes an anonymous Weapon and he can do it again tomorrow Okay, so for a Decade and a half now we've been fighting these guys and Unable to get at unable to counter this very asymmetric tool Why is it asymmetric because the cost for him is very low and the price for us is very high So the cost-benefit ratio is completely in his favor, right? And so if you're deploying a bomb that costs 50 bucks To build and detonate and the guy who did it today can do it again tomorrow with almost anonymity Okay, you can spend a lot of billions Trying to fight that asymmetric tool the suicide bomber is I mean in a sort of a grotesque way There's another example of an asymmetric means, right? So you One attacker dies he takes 50 civilians or 10 Soldiers with him That's asymmetry so the Taliban have this huge advantage the the other fundamental advantage they have and why they're able to counter an Afghan force of 350,000 the Taliban have always been in about the 25 to 30,000 range, right? We've fielded 10 times that number of Afghan security forces Why is that I mean why isn't that decisive because the Taliban can pick their they can pick their time of attack They have the initiative and the Afghans have to defend everywhere So 350,000 Afghan army and police spread across the country and a 30 million population Is rather hard to defend so and by the way the Taliban are capable folk. I mean these this is not a rag tag You know pick up tape. They're they've been at it for a long time. They're quite good But the asymmetry of their techniques and the initiative that they have they can pick the time of attack Gives them huge battlefield advantages And then finally they're fueled by the fact That they their image of Afghanistan is not at all the image of what they see in Afghanistan today So they're driven. They have good tactics. They have asymmetric means and they have the initiative Those are pretty those are weighty advantages for the Taliban. Okay, so I have one last question and then we'll open it up to the audience We advertise this as the conflicts of today and tomorrow, so I want you to look ahead a little bit. What are the next? Threats the next crises down the road. What's the next generation of threats? What are the characteristics of those conflicts and how do we adapt to them? Okay, so this is actually the question I prepared for it because it's what the title says, right? I'm happy that we're getting there So I think if you look for it now, let's just take a 10-year window, right? If the last 10 years are prologue To the next right and we don't have a cataclysmic Change then I think the 10 years that we face will be characterized by three trends Okay, trend number one. I think that the scale and scope of conflicts The scale and scope of conflicts in the next 10 years will stay below open over state-on-state conflict Okay, so imagine a threshold of Conventional war which is state-on-state What I'm saying is that maybe this won't come as such a stark prediction that most of what we'll face in the next decade We'll be below that threshold. So I don't expect too many state-on-state invasions here, right? So it's state against non-state actors. It's state against non-state actors. It's internal Conflicts, so civil war insurgencies terrorist attacks, but internal conflicts And then there's a another variant and that is conflicts where a external actor a state Sponsors instability in Another state so here think Hybrid warfare is the term we use it at NATO, but this is misinformation campaigns This is hacking of political parties. This is This is yeah, so yeah, you want to know what hybrid warfare looks like I mean in my book it looks like the hacking of the US political process But by the way, this isn't the only place in the NATO Alliance where that kind of cyber activity is taking place It's taking place elsewhere. There are Campaigns across Europe today in the Netherlands and France in a couple months later in Germany this year All of which are going to be suspect or subject to that kind of External influence so but all of this right whether it's a civil war or it's an insurgency Or it's sort of De-stabilizing malign influence from one state into the activities internal activities another are all tucking below This threshold of conventional armed attack. Why is that first of all? It's because our conventional forces are quite good and I still think we live on the Reputation and the demonstrated capability of American armed forces. It goes all the way back to the first Gulf War Okay, but yes the fall the the overthrow of the Taliban was another demonstration the race on Baghdad in 2003 was another demonstration people are not good. They're not going to take us on face-to-face So I think there's a conventional deterrent effect which establishes a threshold and most of what we're going to see in the next 10 years is below that. Okay, so that's characteristic number one Characteristic number two has to do with this asymmetric tools that I mentioned Those are going to be the dominant tools in the next 10 years Right now you may have some exceptions. You may have you know, North Korea Doesn't look very asymmetric if it develops an ICBM or Iran an ICBM or something like that But most of the tools are going to be tools of tear tools of asymmetric things like roadside bombs Suicide bombers and that sort of thing. Why again cost-benefit analysis is in the hands of the attacker That's good news for the attacker. Second of all, they're anonymous. So do we really know who did the hacking? Here in the United States. Well, we have some ideas. There's some forensics there, right? But are we actually holding people accountable so that others will be deterred and won't do it again? I'm not sure we're at that level. So below the threshold Asymmetric weapons and here's the third one this one we might it might spark some questions I think most of these conflicts will fall below the threshold of vital US national interests There'll be things that we're interested in and there may be some of these internal conflicts that are important to us But I don't see on the horizon much prospect for an attack or An outbreak of violence, which rises to the vital national interest category. Why is it again? I think we have to we have to remember we have to remind ourselves that our Strategic nuclear deterrent posture and the deterrent effect of the best military the best Navy the best Air Force the best army the best Special forces which resides in this country today has a suppressive effect on State-on-state violence, so I don't expect open conflict with An ascending power like China. I don't expect open conflict with Russia I don't think Russia intends to invade NATO why because the first tank they bump into is an M1 Abrams tank with combat crude or crude by guys who are all wearing right shoulder patches because they've been in combat together and That's not a fight Russia wants to pick Okay, so so I give a lot of credit to Something that I think many Americans miss and that is this deterrent value of the forces that we have in place to now Look, we can get better and there's some investment or opportunities here in our nuclear forces and our conventional forces that Reinforced this threshold or this deterrent barrier, right and keep the Keep the upcoming conflicts below the threshold and below US vital interests now. Here's the challenge When we choose as we have occasionally in the past to deploy our World-class nobody can match us conventional capabilities into one of these conflicts Which is internal to some nation-state which is maybe sponsored by another nation-state? But it's below vital national interests So we're now getting down into lesser interests important interests or just interesting interests, right? We do that at considerable risk Because those are not the fights That our forces are built to fight We typically deploy we run the risk of deploying into situations. We don't understand sometimes The presence of a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand troops like our troops actually Contribute more to the problem Then they do the solution and that's not what was intended But it's because of cultural geographic political sometimes ethnic factors That's so complicate the situation that we should be very very wary of deploying this World-class conventional force into unconventional situations. I think if anything reflects if the history of the last what 15 years reflects anything is that When you put a hundred thousand and so I pick a hundred thousand because that was the peak of US forces in Afghanistan in 2010-2011 actually there were a hundred and forty thousand Western forces under NATO flag or in Iraq The peak was I think at 170 Western forces when you put that Presence of Conventional forces who by and large were not organized trained and equipped they weren't built to do that task and You put them in an environment which is as foreign to them as the other side of the moon and You keep them there on one-year tours and expect them to master the situation and contribute to the solution Quite frankly, that's an under in my experience. That is an unrealistic expectation So we should separate carefully what's vital to our security What what our vital interests are and what our sub vital and if we get into that lesser category We should be very very Prudent and cautious about deploying forces So for example, if you gave me a choice between the model that we're using in Iraq and Syria today Which is relatively low profile small footprint special operations forces centric Providing things to the Iraqi forces that the Iraqi simply don't have like precision fires and so forth for world-class medical Evacuation capability and so forth to the other model the other extreme of the model which is in 2007 2008 170,000 Westerners doing it for the Iraqis I Pit today's model. I think for the reasons I've outlined it's got a much higher prospect of success So the three trends mostly below the threshold of vital national interests so internal conflicts external sponsorship hacking that kind of thing mostly asymmetric tools Okay, and mostly Mostly not involving US national vital national interests. That doesn't mean no interest, but not my Okay, that's great. I'd press you on specific countries, but I will leave it to questioners Let's start here. Do we have microphones to be passed around and please identify yourself Andrew Pierre on okay That was a terrific discussion. Thank you very much. It shows your Military background and skills as well as your political skills as an ambassador and so on I'd like to take this question we had of Europe is slightly different level maybe a more political level There are winds of change in Europe right now like what we had last night this morning here In many countries as you know, well know important elections coming up in France in Germany Brexit in the UK There are governments which are shifting in in Poland, Hungary, other parts of Central Europe The Baltic states seem a little stable, but these winds of change are leading to what is term populism some might argue that we're now having a growth of populism right here and in the United States and And this raises the question I think of How we look at NATO You put an emphasis on Sort of less vital Parts of our interests, but I would assume but you can disagree with this that we view NATO We should view Nate NATO is absolutely vital But it's not clear that outside of the military then the political forces in Europe and maybe in this country also Will come to that same judgment and if that's the case Are we really facing a situation where we are eroding public support on both sides of the Atlantic for NATO and the situation in which the Russians could certainly take advantage of it That's a good question. So so first of all, let me affirm that yes I think that The NATO alliance is above the threshold. It's worth fighting for In fact, we have a internationally binding legal commitment by way of the Washington Treaty I mean, that's what a treaty means right that if one of the other 27 is attacked we are obliged to to respond By and the treaty actually says how we would go about doing that. So Yes, that's worthwhile. I mean, I think Jim Mattis said I mean, this is a line I wish I had thought of as the NATO ambassador, but Jim Mattis said it first in his testimony He said look if we didn't have a NATO we would have to create one We would have to invent one. So I'm quite happy that we have one and that our forefathers. Sorry ladies They were all fathers at that point in 1949, you know crafted this thing It's an amazing organization. And as I said my opening remarks is also proven amazingly Durable Because it has gone through distinct phases and it has found its way through those phases so vital NATO no question I Agree with you that institutions Like NATO and like the European Union But not only those. I mean other American institutions below the federal government Many of these are coming into Question people seem to be in a very questioning mood these days and wondering whether some of these older 67 year old like NATO institutions are worth their weight and Have they are they just bureaucracies, you know, have they just endured because They were there and they'll be there tomorrow and so forth. I Actually think for NATO as long as it continues to adapt and Doesn't prove itself obsolete and I think I've made the case that it is not today obsolete and as long as it remembers that It's it's center of gravity the essence of NATO is Solidarity at 28 then NATO will be okay I'm going to come contrast it with the EU here in a second The key here is that NATO's mandate is relatively narrow and it's a narrow mandate on which the 28 And there's a pretty it's a pretty diverse group of 28 I mean think of the diversity between Erdogan's Turkey and Theresa May's UK or Justin Trudeau's Canada and and one of the Baltic states. I think this is a pretty diverse group or Italy and Norway right, so What pins it together a simple one-line pledge, which is if I'm attacked I have 27 best buddies Okay, and it's a narrow scope. I mean we don't take on the euro. We don't try to get common Trade, we don't try to get common immigration policy. We don't try to get a common currency We don't do all that the EU on the other hand has much broader aspirations its organizational mandate Includes all those things I mentioned in many other things so labor restrictions labeled law labor laws trade finances There are road signs. I mean everything right so the EU's task is much much more difficult and I I think what we saw with Brexit and maybe what we'll see in the coming years in the wake of Brexit are increasing sort of centrifugal forces in the EU Forces that cause the EU member states to wonder whether they're getting their value for membership in the EU and Whether the balance between the responsibilities of the center the EU in Brussels and the member states in the 28 Soon to be 27 when the UK leaves in the 27 capitals whether that mix is right Who does what and I think the EU is going to go through a bit of a Self-recony a self-examination and introspection of whether they have this balance, right? I don't however so having just spent three and a half years in NATO headquarters. We're not Gazing in the mirror at NATO headquarters. I mean we know what NATO is about We're quite rock-solid on our commitment We accept the diversity across the 28 democracies. I mean there's a lot of diversity there you mentioned some of it We continually remind ourselves of these founding values I pointed out But there's room inside those democratic values for different flavors of democracy, you know, and we see some of that playing out today So I'm with you. I'm I guess in some I'm not fearful about the sort of fracturing or flying a part of NATO because of its narrow mandate and its foundation on values I do think that Brexit is a warning sign to the EU that it needs That project deserves some introspection Just a minute. I have a question. I've been asked to put to you from Eric Schmidt at the New York Times Turkey says it will not accept Syrian Kurds the YPG as part of the force to reclaim Raqqa from ISIS What other alternatives exist to defeat ISIS in Raqqa, but also preserve US-Turkish relations? Well, look if I had to answer that question, I'd be you know, the Sencombe commander, but Joe Votel has that job so look, I think that a Fundamental discussion early in this administration will be between Washington and Ankara about and with the other key coalition members who make up the 65 nation coalition about the way ahead and I Don't have I don't have a fixed opinion with regard to the Syrian Kurds Right now. They're one of the more capable forces on the ground in northern Syria. So they're attractive in that way But if you're if you're President Erdogan, obviously has a different view on this And I don't I don't have an independent judgment in terms of the YPG So Eric's gonna be be disappointed in my answer But the reality is you got to use the forces you have but on the other hand you don't want the coalition to fly apart because of fundamental disagreement like the use of the Syrian Kurdish forces, so This will be this will be an early intense conversation Between the United States and Turkey when when that part of the bilateral relationship kicks off here But again, you know, we got to give this an illustration a little time. It's two and a half weeks Okay in the back and then there was a woman here. So let's do it in that order Hi Chuck Woolery a former chair of the United Nations Association Council of Organizations I really thank you for history on leading up to that and really excited about to hear what you were prepared for the advances What I'm curious about I've been looking at these the evolution of weaponry now for probably 30 years I'm a biologist by training and and and now the convergence of things like bio weaponry drones IEDs it seems like our Mentality in addressing the threats we face are not keeping up with the advances in technology and and that that we as a very complex Society are extremely vulnerable in many respects if it's an economic issue if it's a biological issue That we stand to lose a lot with a very small investment on their part like the IED thing I just want to know if you get up our head That's a that's a clean restatement of my premise that these asymmetric tools and I didn't mention biological weapons But that's those are potentially on the list of asymmetric tools as well. They have this sort of Undeniable battlefield advantage And it is first of all this cost-benefit ratio, right? It's they tend to always favor the attacker And then the second this question of you can live to fight a second day So it's not just a one-time attack because of because they tend to be anonymous So you can imagine any you've probably studied examples of the potential use of biological weapons that are hugely Advantages to the attacker but in terms of cost and benefit and which will be very hard to attribute to the attacker But cyber attacks look look this these hacking incidents also fall in that category So it's a it's a very diverse set of tools from the roadside bomb to a potential biological to To to internet hacking That really in a way defied defense and And you're right we we're not where we need to be on this thing now Why are we there? We're there first of all because technology enables Some of these tools right so internet hacking didn't exist what 10 or 15 20 years ago But also because nobody wants to confront us face-to-face And we shouldn't I guess my major point this afternoon is we shouldn't Discount the value of that because at least we're not being challenged conventionally and at least we're not being threatened With nuclear weapons why because we're quite good at that Right, so we've forced the competition below this threshold which is Not very it's not very comforting but but at least we're not dealing with the even worse situations above the threshold and There was a woman here Hello, okay You are my name is Elizabeth. I'm a student at Georgetown and I wanted to go back to your earlier discussion on Iraq So you sort of mentioned how sort of you were sort of surprised at how long a rock could last throughout all this like new These many years of violence and sort of a thought that flew through my head was like well Obviously, they've survived because the US has wanted to survive and it supported it But you know the converse of that is that if the US doesn't support Iraq then it would just it will you know Make him maybe completely dissolve so my sort of two-part question is if is the you is If is the as a rock or does a rock only exist because of US support and If that is the case should the US just continue to support Iraq indefinitely or should it use kind of the same regime changing power it had to I guess you know take out Saddam Hussein and reconstitute the borders of the Iraqi region into more stable units So in my view a rock exists as it does today, and it has almost it has little to do with the United States So I think I might have a slight different view on this I think the dominant factors in terms of the shape that Iraq's in today and the potential for stability and coherence as an Iraqi state has Frankly only on the margins anything to do with the United States of America and what we choose to do and what we choose Not to do it has mostly to do with Iraqis and and this is my point about Being rather Sober I'm not suggesting Being rather suspicious of And and suspect of notions that we can go to a place the United States could go into a place like Iraq with our understanding of Iraq and all the cultural political geographic historical regional dimensions of that complex puzzle and Engineer and deliver an outcome Americans after the last 15 years ought to be damn careful about reaching that conclusion. Okay. No, I'm not suggesting that was yours Well, no, I don't think so I would argue that when we Send 170,000 American troops to suppress an Iraqi insurgency Right, that's we're kind of taking in on ourselves to engineer an outcome. I Would argue today when we send several thousand US troops in a low profile way in a way where You know We probably tragically lost fewer than 10 soldiers in Iraq last year Right where if the Iraqis don't take an action Frankly, nothing happens That's the model that puts the burden where it belongs Which is on the Iraqi? Armed forces to deliver an outcome But more important than that more important than you know, what comes at the end of a gun is what happens in Baghdad So we can't want these things we can't want an outcome we can't design an outcome and want it more than they do if we did that's called colonization and The world tried that for a generation or so and you know that didn't work so well, but I'm not recommending that so I Guess what I'm after what I'm after here is a the point is that the indigenous Authentic Iraqi solution will be durable whatever it is will be durable and Sustainable well beyond anything we can influence Okay, that's just that's where that's where I'm at after ten years of watching. We only have ten minutes left So let me take three questions and then let Doug answer them. Let's take one here and one Thank you Scott Worden. I direct the Afghanistan and Central Asia program here at USA. That's easy I want to ask what you think is both the future and the need for democracy and governance work and programming in the next ten years and I want to Implify that by noting that you started by Underscoring the value of freedom and democracy in the NATO Charter You noted the maybe mission creeper overreach in our democratic ambition in Afghanistan and you just talked about the centrality of getting inclusive politics right as a sustainable solution for Iraq Against all that. I think that there's going to be a nostalgia in in this administration or among others for Can we just have strong man rule in this area and that kept the lid on it for many decades? And so that's kind of out there as the as the alternative and I wonder how do you evaluate those contrasting examples? And what is absent strong military force? The democratic and governance approach to this and the man with glasses here and who else had a question? We find it Yeah Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is my name is never sugar loser Which I'm ambassador of Montenegro to the UN to the United States. Sorry. I was there before this well Mr.. Ambassador mr.. General when I was thinking how to address you We that I should call you mr.. Ambassador mr.. General I think that I should address you in both capacities because the your lecture Fits both capacities really very well and thank you very much for inspiring lecture and the conversation this week, yeah, I have Plenty of questions that I would really like to ask but I will focus only on one I fully show your thoughts about adaptability of NATO in particular in the last 25 years and Certain comparison of the situation 25 years ago and all the challenges that NATO and the whole Europe and the world Face at that time and the current ones the ones that you you explain and one of the policy that has Proven as a success a successful one is open-door policy of NATO I Hope that next time in similar occasion when we see you you will be talking about 29 members of NATO rather than 20 28 So I would like just to ask you how do you see how do you now? Given the adaptability of this very important organization the the future Open-door policy. Thanks, and one more in the back here. Oh That's all right nevermind go ahead Thank you. My name is Romine Manavi. I'm councillor at the Afghan embassy here. I have Afghan embassy in DC I have two questions one is on Afghanistan and Sure, I want to know your thoughts on the On the issue of NATO being obsolete. So what do you think of the logic behind this? issue he addressed at the beginning of our Meeting no, I want him to you know clarify what are his you know? Proposals for structural change and NATO that some of them need to be highlighted. I think and also When it comes to Afghanistan, you know that they Our region is highly concentrated by Almost over 20 terrorist groups and it was a stated by a general and they called some recently that they around the world There are almost a hundred terrorist groups and there are almost 20 of them Centered in that area. So what do you think how NATO could approach and dealing with these terrorist groups and also Dealing with the countries that are state the sponsors of terrorists in that area you discuss the situation in Afghanistan and the Taliban being Pithing against the government will have to leave it there the external support for a Taliban is an issue That's you know of highly concerned for the Afghan government. Thank you so much for so Let me just take these in reverse order. So so NATO is not obsolete and I think we made that case early on So there and I don't know I didn't I've not asked Mick Nicholson the US commander in Afghanistan to account for the 20 out of 100 and so forth, but but my observation is there has not I don't know of a terrorist group that could be resident that that is resident in Afghanistan today that In the last since 9-11 has sponsored an attack outside of Afghanistan So so and maybe we could talk about this later I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, but Yeah, so that's my statement however is confined to Afghanistan and and when we look at US objectives in Afghanistan I Think that's an important data point to understand that al-Qaeda has not struck from inside Afghanistan outside, which is why we went to have Afghanistan on Montenegro, I agree with you the next time we meet could we just agree that there are 29 members That that would be good. Of course, you know, everyone should know this is in front of the US Senate now It's been voted out of committee The process here is that when the treaty is amended Because we had a member and it's only happened six times before so this would be the seventh occasion since 1949, right? The treaty actually gets changed, right? And so it has to go through the same process as when the treaty came into effect originally so all current members have to go through their constitutional process as we're doing now just up Pennsylvania Avenue by way of Senate ratification I'm comfortable. I'm confident that's going to happen and so And I'm also confident that the US position on this will not have changed Across the divide of the two administrations. So I think we're going to be okay with that. I agree with you I think NATO enlargements of the move from 16 members In 89 91 to 28 today has been a success story Why? First of all because it has brought 100 million 100 million Europeans under the NATO flag And why is that important? Not because it's 100 million soldiers or military capacity entirely But these are 100 million people who now live under democracy And in some cases, they're still emerging democracies and in all cases. They are imperfect democracies like Okay, but the point is they signed up for the second sentence Okay, and that's been I think a an operational impact on democracies in central and eastern Europe and the Balkans But it's it's been a motivational tool And I will tell you that in NATO headquarters The most active the most vocal The most vibrant members Among the 28 ambassadors Include most of the central and eastern european allies who are damn glad to be in NATO today Especially when they see what's happening To the east I don't think open door is going to go away Why because it's in the tree just so you know it turns out that it's article 10 And it says that the alliance shall remain open Thus the open door Title right it should remain open to european Democracies that reflect the values so you got to get through the values check right and are able to contribute To the collective defense and then finally it states that the vote at the end of the day has to be unanimous So we're after 28 Current members agreeing that montenegro should be 29 and i'm comfortable. It's going to happen Then over here to afghanistan And and this broader question of On the one hand we can build security forces We kind of know how to do that, but do we really know do we have counterpart knowledge and ability On the governance and democracy side And uh, frankly, I leave my last 10 years of experience Not optimistic That we can that we have That we have the I think we have the expertise But I don't think we have all the tools in place and mostly what i'm concerned about Is that we try to apply tools And expertise that we imagine Will be effective in places like usip and just across the street and foggy bottom and so forth right But these are us Ideas these are us concepts these are us engineering techniques And the places that we're applying them to Defy us models I guess in the underlying problem here Is our ability to understand The local settings in a way that enable our achieving our objectives Rather than enable stalemate Or actually in some cases enable Countering our objectives being sort of self-defeating And the challenge here, I think quite candidly is that the Personnel systems the interagency system here in this city Does not give me a lot of confidence that we know that we can master The problem set with enough Granularity enough feeling for the problem That would enable us to make inroads on governance I gotta tell you that's that's my experience in afghanistan and iraq We we we kind of know how to build an army now the reality is we try to build an army just like ours Which is also impossible. Okay, but let's set that problem aside, right? We really don't I think Know well and we don't have the tools assembled We don't have the mastery of the subjects To get at something that's a one or two orders of magnitude more difficult Than building an army which is building A credible representative durable political outcome And as long as the politics lag a generation behind the military, right? What you're gonna see what and as I predicted in one of my trends is more and more internal instability Right that just aims for stalemate Yeah, we keep so we'll you know the iraqis will liberate mozal And isle will become son of isle And it'll pop its head up somewhere else You can pick the provinces on bar would be a nice guess By the way, how how's the rebuilding of ramadi and feluja going today? Okay, well, I'll tell you the roots of the son of isle are in ramadi and feluja, which have already been liberated Okay, but in the course of the liberation they were destroyed Okay So until you get at that cycle Which fundamentally has to do with the harder task, which is politics governance rule of law Then we'll be training iraqi forces and this is my prediction My 12 year old daughter will be training iraqi forces someday. Okay, because that's it's an unending cycle until we get at the root problem So there's good. So this is your line of work. There's a lot of work It's good to be tough. It'll be tough going but it's vital Doug let me first of all say how lucky we have been to have you in the service of the united states for all these years Well, these things did not turn out so well Well, you've given it your best efforts and we were so grateful today for you to to hear your first time since Coming back from nato at the u.s. Institute of peace and really a breathtaking Analysis of the world the threats we face and please join me in thanking Doug