 My name is Lise Grande. I'm the head of the United States Institute of Peace, which was established in 1984 by Congress as a public nonpartisan institution dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict abroad. It's my privilege to welcome this afternoon Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs Jessica Lewis, who plays a critical leading role in our country's national security and foreign policy and who is here today to discuss the best ways to improve security sector governance in partner countries at a time of unprecedented strategic competition. USIP is proud to be working on these issues with a number of partners. USIP's initiatives include specialized dialogues that bring security and law enforcement forces together with citizens and communities to agree on priorities. We've implemented these kinds of specialized dialogues in more than 22 countries in Africa, in Asia, and in Latin America. We see them as very important ways of stabilizing areas, countering violent extremism, and preventing tensions from erupting into open conflict. We've also, just because you and I were talking about, recently published the findings of an important nonpartisan senior expert group that looked at the capture and corruption of security sectors by elites in a number of partner countries. Our security sector team, led by Philippe Le Roux-Martin, is just about to share options for reforming the security sectors in Ukraine. This very important work is based on more than 200 interviews, the majority of which were done in Ukraine during the war. It's ready for when the country decides to transition from war to peace. So often, we don't start thinking about security sector governance and reform until the war is long over. What's important about this study is that that work is being done right now in the middle of the war. Much of this work is possible because of the partnership that we share with you. We are, on behalf of a grateful institute, delighted to welcome you here, and we want to thank you for the partnership that has led to this work. I hope everyone joins me in warmly welcoming Assistant Secretary Lewis. Thank you for being here. Thank you. So what the Assistant Secretary and I have decided to do is to have... We've agreed on six questions. So I'm going to be asking Jessica these questions. She'll be responding to them. And then we're going to leave time right at the end of the meeting for exchange and questions with all of you. So we'll start with the first question. Assistant Secretary Lewis, we know that your bureau has given increasing priority to security sector governance. This has been something very important in the last few years. We want to know why you are doing this and what are some of the examples of how the bureau is prioritizing this issue? Great. Well, first of all, let me just start by saying thank you for your leadership, but really I've been a fan of the work of the US Institute for Peace for many, many years and think that the forward thinking that you describe is just so mission critical both for the world but also for those of us at the State Department because it allows us to work in partnership on some of these just incredibly difficult problems. Let me start by turning to security sector governance itself. So when I came in as Assistant Secretary a couple of years ago, I really wanted to set up my priorities for the bureau and I chose working on security sector governance for one really core main reason. And I think it's that this is at the center of what makes security assistance and security cooperation work. One of the things that my team has talked to me about is that you always have security sector governance. The question is, do you have good security sector governance? And I think that is at the core of sort of the shared work we're doing and I really want to thank you for this new report because as we look at elite capture, as we look at the challenges of corruption in the security sector, I think the work that you have done and will continue to do is gonna help drive our thinking on this. Let me talk a little bit about how this fits into the work of our bureau at large. I think as many of you know the global demand for security sector cooperation has increased exponentially, mostly due to the war in Ukraine and demand from partners on the Eastern flank but also in the Indo-Pacific. In some areas, our workload has increased by something like 15,000%. And in that context, it's as important as ever that we remain focused on security sector governance as really the foundation that underlies all of this core work that we do. So we want our security sector partners to achieve their long-term national security goals but we need to account for their oversight and their management of security sector institutions, look at their resources and where they're willing, really work with partners to strengthen both their policies and practices. And one of the things we were talking about is that we think about security sector governance and the provision of security including territorial defense as a public good. Just like health and education or any other public service, the security sector should be accountable, it should be transparent, all of the things that we think about across the board and countries. And it's not just a values-driven argument although of course that matters too but we understand that partners who have well-governed security sectors are gonna be able to make the most of our US security cooperation and assistance. And so that's again why I see it really as foundational. And I think as you were looking at in the USIP report on elite capture is that partners who have weak security sector institutions, they're more corrupt, they're less reliable and less effective and which is something that I think we need to even think more about, more vulnerable to malign influence. And I think many of you here in this room probably know this better than I do and can talk about sort of numerous examples of that. We also think that investing in security sector governance is a comparative advantage for us. And so some of our strategic competitors, they offer sort of more of a transactional approach, I would say. And what we're really looking at is that longer term commitment in the security sector. And we, unlike some of our competitors, we sometimes see with other countries that you end up in real dependency cycles, in corruption cycles, very important to make sure that doesn't happen. I also wanna talk, I give you a few examples of kind of like the specific things that we do in PM working on this. I think many of us, many people when they think of our bureau think of the great work that we do on arms transfers and things like that. But I wanna talk a little bit about how we are working with the interagency on the security sector governance project. And, excuse me, I think it's really important to understand that this is not something that PM can do by itself. We have to, by definition, work with our security. I mean, work with the interagency because working on security sector governance in a vacuum, in a country, if there's no underlying rule of law, it literally wouldn't make any sense. So one of the things that we have focused on is our GDRP program. And really what this is is a program where we provide advisors into ministries of defense to work on a whole host of issues. When I first came in as assistant secretary, I was really actually thrilled to find out that this program exists. And one of the things we've been working on is really being strategic about where we place those advisors and the work that they're doing. And just to give you a few examples, those folks, they can work on everything from acquisitions and making sure that your systems work correctly to cybersecurity, which is where we've seen, I see my team nodding in agreement with me. But cybersecurity actually is an area that we think is really important, both obviously from a security sector governance perspective because think about all of those systems being hacked, but just in terms of also feeding into larger national security concerns. So I know that this is also part of what, as you mentioned, everybody is working on when it comes to Ukraine. And I know the State Department next month with USIP will be sending a team of senior level experts to Kyiv to begin working with Ukraine's ministry of strategic industries to assist in the development of transparent and efficient policies and processes for governing, regulating and overseeing Ukraine's defense industrial pace. So again, I think this is a really good example of the way that we need to be forward-looking and forward-leaning. So we have many other examples, but I wanna make sure we get to other questions. Jessica, one of the things that's so striking about the Ukrainian example is that the commitment of Ukraine to reform is being made in the middle of a war that they are prosecuting. You have much of the credit for their resilience and for their commitment to do that. Actually comes from the US. The US was such a good partner, so forward-leaning and so determined to help the Ukrainians address not only their war needs, but what they have to do in order to win the peace. Why do you think the US made that commitment to Ukraine? Well, I think fundamentally we made the original commitment to Ukraine because they're standing up and fighting for democracy in their own part of the world. And we believe in that in a core principle way and we believe in the core principle that you can't just go invade other countries and a whole host of other reasons. I think as you talk about the questions in front of us on Ukraine is we have to do, well and the Ukrainians have to do, many things at the same time. So obviously we've worked tirelessly to get them the weapons and the training that they need to fight this war. But at the same time, just as I was laying out across the board, they also are doing this ongoing work to take a look at across the board, not just in the defense sector space, but to look at how they are going to make sure their systems are working, how to make sure they have accountability. I think one of the things that's been really interesting for us on the security sector side of the house in Ukraine is that we have been providing them, we don't provide direct assistance or anything like that, but we are providing them with weapons and we have worked very closely with them on accountability, on working to make sure what we call on counter diversion efforts, sort of the example I always like to use is that you wanna make sure that the border guard knows that the thing in the back of the trunk is a stinger, not a set of skis. And those are the, like in the symbolist terms, what we're trying to do is make sure that as weapons go into Ukraine, that they're not being diverted, that they're not falling into the wrong hands. And that's broader than security sector governance, but all of this ties in as we look at our long-term work with the Ukrainians. Madam Secretary, your bureau covers a lot of issues. Right before the meeting, Jessica and I were sitting and talking about everything that the bureau does and it's a really long list. It's a long list. So how are you balancing the need for reform of security sector governance on the one hand while you are providing many of the sectors that you're working with, many of those governments with critical, lethal equipment. The short answer is we have to do both. We have to do both at the same time. And I think that's actually part of my job as the assistant secretary is we could spend all of our time just responding to the crisis of the day. By the way, there's a crisis every day, I'm sure for many of you as well. But in this case, we also need to look at the long term. And what I believe is that this investment on security sector governance is really the long term investment. And I also believe that if we don't invest in this, we will all pay literally or figuratively on the back end. And when we talk about the consequences of poor security sector governance, you can see that in the simplest terms of sort of payoffs to someone for a weapon system or charging too much and all of the ways that that can play out in the corruption space. But I think you can also see it sort of in these basic democratic structures. Meaning I also look at things like civilian governance of a military, assuming that's the structure in place in that country. How do those systems work? So I think we try to think about this broadly as well and all of the different pieces. And just to go back to a point I made earlier, we have been really looking at a whole of government approach and sort of breaking down those barriers to managing that, not only with our own interagency, where sometimes we have to break down barriers, but also sometimes in other countries as well. And so that means we have to look at things like how are public expenditures working? How is budgeting working? What is the transparency like in the ministry of finance? Maybe we have a GDPRP advisor who's in the ministry of defense, but in this country's system, the decision making is really happening over here. What are the national procurement authorities? What is the parliamentary oversight which can be very different or similar to ours? So I think it's a whole host of pieces that we have to invest in and look at at the same time that we are continuing to work with these governments, whether it's on security assistance or provision of lethal aid. What's so interesting about security sector reform is how unwilling most of our partner governments are to engage in it. So we're very keen. They may be less so. How do you build cooperation on this set of issues? You know, look, I think, first of all, and we talked about this a little, I think that lecturing in my view doesn't work, by the way, with anybody. Like, if I'm trying to change your mind on something, me just yelling at you for 20 minutes is unlikely to make you change your mind. So I think approaching this with expertise, approaching this as part of what we like to think about as long-term investment, and approaching this understanding that different countries come to this from different perspectives in different places. And I think one of the things that we talked about in terms of strategic competition, and this has really been something the secretary himself has talked to all of us about, is making sure that we are offering a choice, not that we're demanding that you don't work with country X, Y, or Z. But instead, the United States is offering a choice, and we think that that choice can provide your country with things that are in your national security interest. And I think when it comes to security sector governance, we have to make that case too. You know, if I were a minister of defense, and I knew my money was gonna be well spent buying the weapons that I believed I needed to secure my country, which I assume is fundamentally your goal as minister of defense, then you don't want things being siphoned off. You wanna have a good transparent acquisition system. I'm not naive. I understand that these are complicated, hard questions, but I think they're really worth having. Right. Secretary Lewis, you talked earlier about the importance of accountability over the security sectors, whether it's parliamentary oversight, or oversight from within the government itself, or from the partners who provide support to that country. I know your bureau has given priority to this. It's hard to do. What do you think are the most successful strategies? I think as we look at successful strategies for actually making these work, I think part of it is, going back to what I said earlier, you have to start with how the country's own system works. So it's not gonna be a one size fits all. We have a very, for example, on the parliamentary front, I'm a former Hill staffer. And so we have a very clear and robust oversight system that I am well acquainted with, and could walk you all through if you're interested, both on arms sales and everything else. In our system, there is congressional oversight and sales over a certain amount have to be sent to Congress and then voted on or not voted on, but many other systems don't work in that way. So how do you look at this fundamental question of oversight, but in the context of that country's system? Or on the transparency side, I know that sometimes when we send a GDPR advisor out, you may find out, by the way, this can happen here too, that none of the computer systems can talk to each other. And so sometimes what you're doing is not sort of having an esoteric argument with somebody about the pros and cons of transparency, you're literally saying, hey, your acquisition system computers can't talk to the ones that are on the finance side, right? And so I think looking at all of these different ways and approaching them step by step based on what that country's needs are. And also I think, and I haven't said this before, let me be clear that this is a project that we are working on and very committed to, but there is a lot more to be done. I am not here to argue to say that everything that PM has done and that USIP has done and the interagency has done has solved this problem. I think what I am arguing for is that we need to make a long-term investment in security sector governance. And working with European partners, working with other partners around the world as well, and recognizing that this is gonna take many, many, many years. Secretary Lewis, your colleagues are colleagues at the Department of Defense have dedicated enormous resources to trying to either mitigate civilian harm or reduce civilian harm. They've developed response plans when incidents do occur. They've developed extensive protocols. It's been a decades-long project for them. What actions has the Bureau taken to advance mitigation measures? Are you confident in these? Do you expect to see more? How do you anticipate that other countries will share in common purpose with us these same kinds of approaches? Well, look, I think that civilian harm mitigation is at the core of a lot of the work we do. And again, there's not one piece individually that solves all problems. But let me talk about sort of the newest thing that we just put in place. We announced at the beginning of September, it's called the TURG. I did not make up that acronym, which stands for the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance. But really what this has done is we established a new, bottom-up institutional process to assess and respond to new incidents of civilian harm and then take steps to help prevent them from recurring and then ultimately drive partners to conduct military operations moving forward. And I think there we're really focusing on strengthening respect for international norms and consensus on the protection of civilians. And the TURG, along with other pieces, and happy to talk through those, I think are really a combination of different steps that we can take when we're working with countries. Now, this is truly brand new for those of you who have worked at the State Department or anywhere else. Like we announced it, then you have to develop your standard operating procedures, the SOPs, and then you have to sort of get it moving. And so we are doing all of that literally in real time as we speak. And so I think there are a whole host of pieces that we have put in place to work on this issue. So you mentioned that you spent years on the Hill. And we know that there are many of our elected representatives, many Americans, who really worry about the potential misuse of U.S. security assistance by countries who values don't actually align with ours. And where there's limited, if any, political will to do the so. In your experience, how does the U.S. weigh our commitment to anti-corruption, our commitment to human rights, when we're also at the same time engaged with those partners on defense trade and arms transfers? How do we weigh it? Well, I think all of this is governed by something called the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, which is the underlying or overlying which way you want to describe a policy that lays out and was written under and updated under this president that lays out how we need to deal with this set of issues. And so when we work with other countries, when we provide the arms, we have to assess those questions. Questions of human rights, questions of democracy. We also have to look at questions of ensuring how we're gonna do end-use monitoring, which is a whole other set of questions. And so as we assess those, we have a robust interagency process where we literally hash through each of those issues. Sometimes I think it's very simple. I'm not gonna name countries here because that wouldn't be appropriate, but you can imagine there's some countries that or some weapon systems that it's easier to see exactly where the landing place might be. And then other times we really have to sit and work through each set of those issues. Not only are we responsible for those issues because I think it's important to understand the breadth of responsibility. And this is really a shared interagency responsibility. We also are responsible for looking at questions of technology transfer. Or if we provide this system to a partner, is it likely to fall in the wrong hands and then be exploited and used against our own warfighter or used in a way that would be very concerning? And so the whole breadth of issues we have to take into consideration. So there's been, I think, many, many years of experience and a whole realm of expertise that comes in to look at these questions. I will say that I think the era that we're in right now, in this post-Cold War era, particularly as you look at Ukraine, what's happened there, the Eastern flank, we have seen an increased interest demand for security assistance in a way that I think is very significant. And one of the jobs that we have to do at PM is to both respond to that appropriately and thoughtfully, but also recognize that as we move forward, we have to figure out ways with our trusted allies and key partners, in some cases, to actually streamline the systems. And it's interesting, I get asked questions on both sides. So for example, if you look at something, let me give you an example of where that would be true, because I think that will help people understand what I'm talking about. So if you look at AUKUS, so I think many of you have followed AUKUS, there's pillar one and pillar two, pillar one is focused on the submarines, pillar two is really focused on this question of with two of our closest allies, the UK and Australia, how can we set up a system of defense trade between the three countries that allows for innovation, cooperation between universities, the defense industrial base, et cetera, the governments, as the next generation of weapons are being developed. And so I think that's a really good example when I'm thinking about like our closest and allies and partners, how do we work in those spaces? So all, and even in, let me just say, even in those contexts, we still have to take into account questions of like, what happens with retransfers? Meaning, if you have a US system, we have rules of the game and export controls that say you can't re-export it to any country and how are we gonna manage that? We still have to answer questions about, can we make sure that the export control systems in these other countries are compatible with ours so we know those protections extend? And we still have to answer these core questions of how do we make sure that our technology doesn't fall in the wrong hands? So even with our closest partners and allies, that has to be also at the core of what we're looking at in those scenarios. The administration launched the Indo-Pacific strategy a year ago and just two days we're gonna be celebrating the anniversary of that right here. You talked about the partnership interoperability and how crucial that is to protecting our shared interests, particularly in places like the Indo-Pacific where we have an adversary that we're competing against in many regards. Do you think that the interoperability in our partnership is being driven by that competition? I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. I think that is one piece of it. So if you look at what's happening in the Indo-Pacific and the investments across the board that we're making in the Indo-Pacific, I think the secretaries talk about cooperating on a whole host of issues. For example, with the PRC we've also talked about competing with them where we need to. And then I think in the Indo-Pacific from a Paul Millik's perspective we really had to look at the question of Taiwan. And I think in that case under the Taiwan Relations Act and the One China policy we have been working hard to make sure that Taiwan has what it needs to defend itself. And I think that has, we've done some really innovative things in that space over the past year. We've provided for the first time Taiwan has received foreign military financing for the first time they received weapons through presidential drawdown authority, which is the authority that allows us to pull directly from DOD stocks and to provide it to another country. This is the main authority actually, it's not the only authority, but one of the major authorities that we've used in the Ukraine context. So we've also been doing a lot of innovation in that space. I think the other thing that's really interesting in terms of the Indo-Pacific, in addition to the other work that we do, PM also negotiates all of our security cooperation agreements. And we completed, just to give a shout out to my security cooperation agreement team, we completed nine this year and a normal year, it's something like three. So thank the team when you see them. But one of them was an agreement with PNG that I think was really significant in the Indo-Pacific region. And then we've seen a whole host of investment and we also updated other agreements and other parts of the Indo-Pacific. So a whole host of investments and interest throughout the whole region, whether it's the Philippines, Vietnam, there's a long list. So I think as we look at that part of the world, we're also looking at security sector governance. We've done work on cybersecurity. We've done work on maritime governance, which to state the obvious makes a lot of sense in that part of the world. And so I think all of these pieces come together. And to me, it comes back to sort of this basic principle that the president and the secretary have sent out for all of us, which is that we are better able to achieve our national security goals when we're working closely in partnership with our allies and partners. And sort of everything that we're talking about here in the security cooperation security assistance space falls under that rubric. And I think when you look at the Indo-Pacific space in particular, you can see, and I don't take red up for these because PM supports these, but a huge number of new initiatives that have really worked to do that across the region. More to come, I'm sure on all of that, but I've been very pleased to be able to work on that over the past two years. With your permission, may we open the floor? Of course. Can we invite questions, observations? Philippe, do you wanna start yourself? Excellent presentation, and I will in a very self-interested way ask your question that is related to our report on elite capture and corruption of the security sector. It was very easy, not easy, it was hard for us to produce and consult with the interagency but there's a very long list of policy options and recommendations. And even if it was hard, I think our assumption from the very beginning is that if we wanna tackle elite capture and corruption of security sectors of partners abroad, it is a very difficult thing to operationalize, both on the ground, but also here in Washington DC. So I would welcome your thoughts as to how, from your perspective and where you're sitting, what can be concretely done to make security sector assistance more effective in contexts where there are partner nations that are or security sectors that might be captured or might be corrupted? I mean, I think this is sort of the, I'm trying to think of the right term, this is the core question, right? I think that with, let me start with the easier piece of the answer. I think with countries who are willing to say, hey, we see the value in this, come provide us with technical assistance or whatever it might be. I think that is the easier place to start. I think what you're asking is, if we're already, if we're trying to work in places where that is not the opening that we have. And I guess what I would say is really two things. One is, I do think we need to be realistic about what we can and can't do. And two, I also think and believe that as we can show countries that when you have a security sector that is governed well, where there is transparency, that you actually are better able to achieve your own goals. I mean, look, there are, and you probably know this better than I do, there are a million stories of, huge amounts of funds being paid to produce something that either is badly done and then doesn't work for the commander when he or she needs it out in the real world. So I think we also have to be able to show why it matters, even if you're not gonna join us at the beginning. On the second piece that I think I also wanna address, which may be the sort of maybe more subtle piece of your question, which is how do we keep this conversation about security sector governance going in a world that is full of massive crises on a daily basis? And to me, this is something that I also have to own. I think part of it from my perspective is institutionalizing it within our building, institutionalizing it across the interagency. And I think we've seen that happen, whether it's F leading a process where they're asking this question and saying, hey, how are we looking at this from a budgetary perspective? Whether it's our team investing in new and different ways. I think it's also the work that we're doing with the Department of Defense in the long term who can have these conversations in a very different kind of way sometimes than we can walking in the door. So those are both really hard questions, but both really worthwhile investing in different ways over time. May we invite other questions, please? Hi, Nathan Toronto Defense Security Cooperation University. And so thank you so much. A problem that I think about a lot is how do we know when a partner is close to the sort of good security sector governance that you're talking about, right? So we're sitting across the table. What are the things we look for? Do we know, hey, these guys just need a nudge in the right ways and good go, right? They're almost there. How do we know when there's a really long road here? I don't see the end of it. Well, my instinct is to say, we need to have one of those charts that has green, yellow, and red, the stoplight charts. Maybe you guys haven't spent enough time with the DoD people. They're always bringing over stoplight charts to tell me how we're achieving our goal. So we need a good stoplight chart is my first answer to the question. But more seriously, look, I think that's a lot of what our team and I think the team here has been working on is okay, what do we need to know on the transparency front? What do we need to know on the acquisitions front? What do we need to know? I mean, I think they're, and then sort of what are the negative factors, which is the flip side, which is, when you can see that an entire security sector is owned by a small group of elite, right? Who are then producing everything that then is being bought by the Ministry of Defense, then that might be a good indicator on the flip side. So I don't wanna get ahead of the experts as they work through and continue to develop that, but I think we need to ask those questions, I mean, sorry, we need to develop those criteria and I know there's been good work on that. The other piece that I think is really important is I do think if you do all this good work on the security sector and it's not tied in to what's going on in that country's judicial system. So for example, just to give an obvious example, if you don't have any rule of law in the country and you have or within, and we haven't talked about this as much, or within a military, then how are you gonna hold people accountable? And so I think those pieces also have to be tied in to these questions. So it's not just what's happening in the security sector that matters, but it's also the larger context in which the security sector is operating in. And I think we also need to be honest with ourselves that as we look at democracy and the rule of law around the world, obviously we continue to support it, but this has been a period where unfortunately we've seen on the democracy side, we've seen some backsliding, we've seen some challenges. And so we aren't operating in a vacuum. The Secretary-General, he allows a two finger on that point. One of the Institute's areas of concentration is fighting violent extremism. And we do significant research and engagement on the very sensitive issue of when you take a securitized approach to fighting violent extremism and you produce the opposite outcome of what you intend. So that securitized approach implemented by security forces, which we are providing cooperation to, acts in a way which so infuriates their populations that rather than reducing violent extremism, we've increased it. It's such a sensitive issue, such a difficult problem. What's your insight into that? No, I mean, I think these are really valid questions. And I'm not trying to dodge the question, but we also have some of the work that we do, particularly in the counterterrorism space is less in my world. But I think that the questions you're asking about is, how do we make sure that when we're providing security assistance to a country, and if they're coming down hard in ways that backfire that that doesn't ultimately undermine the goals that we're all working towards. And look, we have some sort of key structures in place that are designed to help us and make sure we're not doing that. Some of those are very basic like, if a good takes place, they're rules of the game that say, hey, then you can't provide security, you can't provide, excuse me, security assistance. But I think beyond that, part of what we are doing when we're working with a country, particularly one that has challenges in this space, is also making sure that the security assistance we're providing them is targeted and appropriate. And I also want to differentiate a little bit between what we do and what INL does on the law enforcement side. Sometimes we'll see a country, for example, that will have really significant problems on the police force side, but actually the military sometimes can sometimes be better governed. So I think we also try to work with our counterparts across bureaus so that we're communicating with them. And then I think the sort of third element for me anyway is working with my counterparts in the regional bureaus who are really the expert on what drives what's happening inside of that country and their region. Again, because the intention with our security assistance is to build, deepen, and strengthen relationships with partners and allies who are going to work together with us on shared goals, shared national security goals, rather than the flip of that. But it is a complicated and challenging problem. We have time for one more observation or question, sir. Thank you, Secretary Lewis. I hope I'm not out of line here as an intern at the State Department, having been here for four weeks. Welcome. Thank you. I work in the Africa Bureau with my fellow colleagues right here. I'm in the Regional Peace and Security Office. I was wondering how you contend with the turn for countries, especially in Africa where I'm working, to turn to private military or private security companies, whether Russian or American. And how does PM focus on holding these folks accountable through the good governance that you've been mentioning? Well, first of all, welcome. I know that the intern program at the State Department is very robust, and we were just talking today in senior staff about how great the pain internship program is, which I also strongly support. I think this is a really good question. I mean, the truth is, is that in those countries that you're talking about, we're not actually, in most of them, we're actually prohibited from providing security assistance to those countries because of exactly what I laid out. But I do think that this question that is at the core of this, which is, in addition to what I think is some coercive behavior and some other pieces that have led countries to these moments, is are there ways in the future that we can do better about helping countries address their security needs? I think this idea that you're gonna sort of buy private security is incredibly destabilizing. I think it is not just destabilizing to individual countries, but it's destabilizing to regions. And again, PM doesn't own the work in this space because with these countries, we actually can't work with most of them. But I think this question of how we ultimately address this, I think, as you all have followed probably more closely than I, Wagner, the question of Wagner, the future of Wagner, what a whole host of other sort of offshoots that may or may not happen from there. But I think when we, this is one of the things that I worry about, which is, again, we need to stay focused on these issues and understand why they happened so that we don't see more countries turning to private security as the way they see that they can enforce security. And again, I'm not saying that I necessarily buy the arguments behind that, or that that is that the way they're choosing to address security is the right way to do it. But I think if that trend continues, I think we're gonna have ongoing and serious problems in the region. And we look forward to working with you on that during your internship at the State Department. The Secretary Lewis, your bureau, the one you lead, has often been described as being at the tip of the spear of United States efforts to promote global peace and security through our partnerships. I think it is a point of pride and exceptional that under your leadership, this bureau is committed to reform of the security sectors that we work with to good governance and then bravo to you. I hope everyone joins me in thanking the Secretary. Thank you all.