c-span two. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including cox pit -- including cox. >> extremely rare. friends don't have to be. when you are connected, you are not alone. >> cox supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next, a conversation about current geopolitical issues including china's relationship with taiwan. former defense department officials discuss working toward a two state solution between israel and palestine and the potential impact of the 2024 election on international alliances. this is hosted by the center for strategic and international studies.

>> those still in the hall, come on in. look forward to having you here. my name is john henry. i'm president at csis. my role today is entirely ornamental. just to welcome all of you and to say how thankful i am to matt greene is here, bill lin will be with us later. you have made it possible for us to do the global security forum and we appreciate the opportunity. we have got a real lineup to -- a real lineup. we have the chairman of the joint chiefs coming. all six of the vice chiefs for the military services pit it is going to be a good day. the first panel is going to be a stellar group and we want to say

thank you to michelle and tom and jennifer. thank you for moderating. kari is the genius who has been pulling this together. she picked the topic gathering storm. it refers to winston churchill's famous autobiography really of the interwar period and how it was building up to what became the tragedy of world war ii. we don't want to imply that we are heading in that direction but we want to recognize the severity of the issues in front of us. we have this ghastly illegal war in ukraine. we have tension in the taiwan straits. we have a war in gaza pit we have iran throws 300 missiles at israel. i don't remember a time when we

have had so much uncertainty and risk in the world and we are going to explore that today. i went to say thank you to you for being here. it is going to be a good day. you all have to make it a great day by your questions and i know you will do that. please welcome kari to the stage. she is the one who has made this happen. [applause] >> good morning. director of aerospace security project here with an international security program. a pleasure to have you here answer the many folks joining us online. a stellar day. i want to go back to the title pit gathering strength in gathering storm. there will be an open question throughout the day. are we in a gathering storm but equally importantly and more importantly, how do we muster our sources of american strength working with our allies and partners to address that gathering storm? a couple other items. what makes today and this forum

particularly special is not just the caliber of the discussions and thought leaders we assembled today but that it is open to the public. no registration fees. that is -- you are going to get a diverse cross-section today and online of government industry, media, international attendees. also interested students from around the world and private citizens. having forums like this to exchange ideas and have a thoughtful public discourse is important in these turbulent times. we will have double breaks throughout the day. who have coffee on the second floor. use the opportunity to network and continue these important discussions. i want to recognize the honorable bill wynd, ceo of leonardo drs and former dictator he -- former deputy secretary of defense. generous support has enabled us to host this forum today. in case of emergency,

familiarize yourself with the exits here and the stairs and follow staff. please keep your conference badges on. that allows us to know you are here affiliated with the conference today. with that, let me welcome to the stage or first panel and ask them to start meandering up here. our first panel is called ends, ways, means, letting you a strategy with geopolitical reality. our moderator is jennifer griffin, chief national security correspondent at the fox news channel. the honorable michelle flournoy, managing partner at west exact advisors and from underscore terry of defense for policy. and dr. tom mahnken, president and chief executive officer for the center for strategic and budgetary assessments. going to turn it over to you, jennifer. >> thank you.

i have been at the pentagon covering national security for 17 years. prior to that i was overseas for 20 years. i'm so grateful to be here today. i think the topic that we have chosen for this global security forum about strengthening storms and storms on the horizon, i sometimes say it when i'm at the pentagon, i feel like a meteorologist looking at the horizon and i'm watching the storm and that storm and trying to protect as they are moving into place. used to be reduced to look at one storm at a time and that is no longer a luxury we have. i'm grateful to be joined by michele who is the cofounding and executive founder of west exec advisors trip she served as inter-secretary defense for policy under president obama and prior to that was at the pentagon thinking about strategy for president lincoln. at one point she was the highest rank female at the pentagon. now we have many high-ranking

females at the pentagon but she broke through those glass ceilings and has been studying war and what it takes to defend this country and the world for some time. she is a great strategic thinker so i'm grateful to have her here. tom of course is the president and ceo of center for strategic and budgetary assessment. he is a navy reserve officer, spent 20 years teaching at the naval war college and he has been writing recently. a decade ago tom focused on strategy in asia, past present and future. it will be interesting to look back on what you saw at that point, where we are and where we are going. two years ago, you wrote could america when a new world war? no light hope we are not facing a new world war but if we are, can we win it? you have written about the race for techno-security leadership

vis-a-vis asia and elsewhere and defense planning. as our defense planning match the challenges placed by russia and china at the same time? thank you, handle. i would like to start with you both spent time thinking about strategy and policy for years and you were looking toward the future when you were at the pentagon. what did you get right and what you get wrong yet go -- what did you get wrong? >> thank you for convening us. it is such an important discussion because i do think 20 years on, 30 years on, we will look back and see it as a time of profound flux in the international system and an inflection point. i think that going back to my first service in the clinton administration when we did the

bottom up review, it was the first time in decades had taken a clean sheet of paper to do building on the work colin powell had started in the bush administration but to really do a clean sheet check on our assumptions, planning and for sizing and shaping. the real shift was towards regional challenges like iraq, north korea and so forth. it was a different time. there was a time -- people call it unicorn moment. coming out of the cold war, the u.s. was uniquely positioned as a global power and influence. what has changed now is that we see the rise of revisionist russia even though by many objective measures, russia has long been in decline but we have under vladimir putin's ambition to re-create the soviet sphere of influence and as we have seen in ukraine, the use of military force to impose russia's will on

other sovereign states. we also have a rising china that is made clear under president xi jinping they are prepared to use coercive and aggressive measures to unilaterally change the status quo and the rolls's international order. most disturbing in my view is the willingness of not only russia and china but other malign powers like iran and north korea to start to form at least alignments of convenience if not the beginnings of actual alliances. in that context, a lot of the world took lily in asia but a lot of the world's powers are there want to sit on the sidelines and not be drawn into this competition with the united states between the united states and china or russia or their -- there is what has been called swing states in different context. on some issues they will align with the u.s. and europe.

on others, they will align with china and russia. it is a much more fluid, complex and unpredictable situation. i don't think we force all that in the day. i think we thought the unipolar moment was going to last much longer than it did. >> that is when you were looking at it in 1997. 2001. was there anything you did see coming that is playing out now that you weren't about? >> i think we saw certainly as you fast-forward to the obama administration, -- a couple thanks. back in the days of clinton, we thought the best way to contain iran was iraq to iraq and i run workaday computing and containing each other. i think the choice to go to war in iraq basically removed the shell of containment on iran and

we have seen the growth of iran 's use of pop -- of proxies, blind and fluent -- malign influence which is still a problem today. i don't think we sold the need to shift china's -- we saw the need to shift china's strategy until the second obama term should the thesis was if we enmeshed china and of in our international institutions and with investment and have them an economic stake in the rules based order, it will be a responsible stakeholder. and that was a thesis shared across republican and democratic administrations since nixon. we did not realize that was not realistic. the theory was not going to work until much later. >> the optimism of americans that if we embrace something, we can make it better.

tom, you were at the pentagon from 2006 until 2009. it was the end of the bush administration. what did you get right, what did you get wrong in terms of thinking of strategy and policy going forward? >> even before that i would go back to my time serving in the office of -- in the 1990's. even going back then kind of scary to think 30 years, there was concern about, interest in the rise of china and chinese military modernization. that was a hypothetical future thing at the time to by the time the george w. bush administration came into power, that was a key concern. if you look at the 2001 congenital defense review which was completed just before 9/11, it had a focus on china and the

operational challenges posed by china. by the time i. there, -- the time i got there, we were still concerned about china. the chinese had carried out their first successful anti-satellite test in orbit. we were consumed understandably so by the wars in iraq and afghanistan. that looming threat, that growing threat came in second place to the wars we were in and for understandable reasons. we also saw the reemergence of russia as a real competitor. it became manifest to us with 2/10 speech at -- with putin's speech at the munich security forum. my boss a good day bob gates was also there. >> what year are we talking about? tom: 2008. the georgia war also in 2008 and the russians resuming the pattern of bad behavior they had

fortunately gone away from for a number of years. there is increasing concern about those issues but we were fighting two important wars in the middle east. >> the middle east has been like a win myint old and us down preventing the pivot to -- like a landmine preventing us from pivoting to asia. that we are now seeing make a difference on the battlefield. what can you point to we have noticed? >> one of the things i was very early on as undersecretary, had the opportunity to press for the u.s. support for the iron dome system in israel and the theory at the time was if we could create really effective layered air and missile defenses for israel and reduce the number of casualties they would suffer from either hezbollah attacks or

hamas attacks or know that we have seen iranian attacks, it would create space and time for decision-makers to have a more recent, careful response and it would reduce the escalatory pressures. i think we have just seen that play out. the fact that iran's the biggest attack that israel has suffered was effectively made not effective. that bought time for the israelis -- for others like the united states to weigh in and for the israelis to take more considered action. >> the whole layer and a lot of people were talking about the iran durham that night but there were other systems. remind us what role the u.s. played in helping israel.

>> we do have a security assistance relationship with israel. we have a 10 year number into my of understanding. at the time it was getting congress to help invest in that system as part of the layered defense. i don't know how many lives it has saved over the years, but it has also allowed for more decision-making in this recent episode just as we had hoped. >> what weapon systems would you point to that maybe you argued for that these systems take so long to develop, what are you proud of that was put into place while you were there? tom: one that proceeded briskly that had its origins when i was in the pentagon but had a couple of false starts along the way -- a long-range strike was the b 21 raider that we were strongly advocating. went through a couple

iterations. weaving along very quickly -- moving along very quickly. jennifer: what difference will that make strategically? lindholm: for the united states, being on one side of the pacific and having interests on the others to being able to strike with precision over long distances is key. we are now in a -- large values of -- large volleys, having a network capability is important. jennifer: does china have that capability? tom: so far no. they are moving into the long-range strike is nice but that is not their comparative advantage. for us, aviation -- unmanned aviation is a comparative advantage. the u.s. has been for the first century.

michele: aside from a particular weapon system, i think the thing with of us have worked on overtime is as we were coming out of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, to really help the u.s. military shift it's thinking from being the dominant conventional force to preparing for a scenario in which it will be outnumbered in any asia contingency. china will always have a quantitative advantage in its backyard which means we have to think more creatively in terms of operational concepts, in terms of asymmetric approaches, how we take a legacy force, even those systems are arriving today. new aircraft carriers, fighters etc., but the thing that will give us advantage is marrying those with new technologies that will enable new impacts and new

concepts of operation. that was a real struggle. it is a mindset change. i feel it is still a struggle. there are points of light that are showing up. >> the replicative program is a great example. michele: it is the idea the department in a relatively short amount of time intends to field thousands of unmanned systems that can be teamed or operated by human beings to greatly complicate life and planning for the pla in the event of some kind of crisis with taiwan. undersea unmanned systems doing various missions, various functions. it is going to make it much more for china to decide to use force

and believe it can be successful against taiwan and will meaningfully contribute to deterrence. jennifer: what you are describing in terms of taking the notion of just your numbers and legacy platforms and using them creatively to get an asymmetric advantage, that is what ukraine is doing against russia. they are outgunned in terms of numbers and planes and artillery but they are using things in such a creative manner and i think that gets lost in the discussion as to what we are watching them do takes our legacy platform, diver them and have great impact in terms of being outnumbered. tom: i think it shows how innovation occurs. innovation is always difficult. organizations exist not to innovate. organizations exist to execute existing ways of doing things. that is why we have them.

it is usually under pressure as we see in ukraine, in israel over the years that organizations innovate because they have to. because -- for now for better and worse, we are at a point where the u.s. armed services are also in position where we have to innovate. michele: if we faced a massive drone swarm and attack, are we prepared to adequately defend our forces? that is a question being looked at very carefully in the pentagon. jennifer: if you're looking at the naval warships in the red sea, they are showing what it is like to be swarmed by those drones that the houthis are firing at their wedding lessons in -- they are learning lessons. i went you to look out into the future five years from now. what do you see perhaps that we do not come away needs to be

done right now to be ready five years from now and is the pentagon doing it? michele: how long do we have? if we do consider china the greatest threat which i think is true, i think it is absolutely clear president xi intends to, wants to reintegrate taiwan with the mainland on his watch should he has made that clear in numerous statements. we should take him at his word. it is also clear he preferred to do it through economic and political coercion, shrinking taiwan's international -- not use the military if he does not have to because that is a high risk proposition especially if the u.s. will step in to help. however, he has also told his military he wants viable options.

we don't know if it is for a blockade or invasion or both but he wants options by 2027 to -- by 2027. we have to be ready to be very confident in our deterrence, our ability to deny his success and our ability to impose great cost should he try. that is not a long time from now. these efforts like replicator, like other areas to rapidly integrate new technologies to create a resilient command and control isr system that is all domain from space to cyber to traditional domains of war fighting, that is a tall order to be ready by then. that is job number one of the department going forward. we can take a five year perspective on the middle east or russia and ukraine but i will see if you want to come back to

that. jennifer: what are you seeing five years from now? tom: five years seems like a long way away it i lead an organization that looks two to three decades out. that future is now here. to put into perspective, we are in fiscal year 24. fiscal year 25 will be beginning this fall. the pace that government is used to operating will not get us to where we need to be by 2027. need to take some urgent action. we cannot ignore the future but we have got two wars going on now. another one could kick off. we need to be prepared for that. jennifer: we hear often the pentagon is looking out five years and focused on resident she and the potential -- on

president xi and taking on taiwan in the manner he decides to. what other steps should the pentagon be taking they are not? tom: we have seen some of the limits of our defense industrial base, you nations stockpiles. we need to be replenishing those stockpiles. we need to be looking at new ways of deploying our forces. we need to be looking at new ways to be working with our allies. to work with our allies in terms of access. we have a strong team. if you stack things up, you have russia, china, iran, north korea . on the other hand, you have an impressive slice of the world economy and innovation. you have the free world. we need to be working more

closely with our allies. that is something we can be doing today. michele: i think the main pillar of the administration's approach on china has been to invest in strengthening our alliances and partnerships. they have announced august. they have had this historic meeting with the japanese prime minister. they are dramatically maturing and strengthening our alliance relationship. they are -- the stationing initiatives in the philippines. these are important posture moves i think will help us enormously if it comes to a crisis in the indo pacific. in this question of innovation adoption, the department has gotten much better at scouting for new technology with the iu

and other offices and services. they have gotten better at prototyping and playing around and experimenting with systems. they are still struggling to take successful prototypes that operators actually want in numbers in the field and getting them across the valley of death into the program of record or into the hands of the war fighter should one of the main lessons i learned in the pentagon was human beings behave according to the incentive structure that they face. we have taken our acquisition corps and in scented them to keep large major defense acquisition programs on schedule and on budget. your first -- your worst nightmare is getting hauled up before congress and skewered alive. don't take risk. don't disrupt your program.

keep things going from milestone to milestone. that is not going to get us the innovation adoption we need. in my youth, youth to talk -- i used to talk about acquisition reform at large. not going to happen. if we can carvel a sub cadre of ninjas or special ops of acquisition, train them in what agile acquisition looks like, what adoption of innovative systems, emerging technologies with speed and skill looks like, how to work with a venture backed and nontraditional defense equities -- attrition will entities. how to use transactional authorities and so forth. reward them for accepting more risk, weaning in, getting results faster, have a separate commotion task. start with a small program, get a big one, then get a portfolio.

you have a different career path that rewards that behavior. until we put something like that in place, you are going to get the same behavior. we have to get down to that incentive structure. jennifer: it is almost like a special speed lane. michele: that speed lane is a secretary to the defense has to pick five things he cares about or she cares about, deputy secretary, she cares about and hammer at the bureaucracy. jennifer: entrepreneurial from the bottom up. michele: if you're going to skillet, it has to be more than leadership top-down. tome: what that involves is rethinking risk. you are right. one certain kind of risk, which is programmatic risk. if we take our time and make sure all the boxes are checked,

what we are doing is creating another kind of risk. we are not going to have the capabilities we need when we need them. what we need to be able to do is think of time as a valuable asset, put a cap on requirements. get the requirements to what is essential to fielding the capability and realize speed itself is an attribute. we have done it before. some of our greatest achievements, the ms missile program, u2, those were filled in quickly. but with the knowledge that speed itself is an asset. jennifer: absolutely. some of the dust technologies comes on -- the best analogies come off the shelf and you ad a weapon to a drone and suddenly you have a new chapter in military history. does the current budget -- budget sounds so large and it is.

does it match the national defense strategy as far as -- what do you see when you are looking at the budget? michele: my sense -- i think the challenge the department is facing right now is the budget did not actually keep pace with inflation. in real terms, they are taking a cut even though the number looks bigger. that is a problem. that is on -- congress needs to address that. if we had -- if the department had more flexibility, with regard to programming, regard to managing portfolios of capabilities, you could make an argument the budget might be enough, but with all the constraints that are placed on the department in terms of limited ability to move money, limited ability to stop reducing systems we don't need any more.

jennifer: but then the congress -- michele: the department is forced to spend money in certain areas. given the real world constraints, i think we need to look at some increases, but i don't think fundamentally it is less of a money problem in my view as an ability to spend it on the right thing and create the incentives within the department to spend on the things that are most important. tom: budget is inadequate for the world that we face. we have had a shortage across three administrations that has been based on being able to fight a single conflict and be prepared for others. there are two wars going on now and the potential big one has

not kicked off and hopefully never will. we need to think seriously about the resources we as a nation need to put to our national defense. we can always do better. i don't think we are going to meet the nation's defense with the change we are going to find. michele: i would also say we should not just look at this in terms of defense and the military. we have always underfunded our diplomacy. the state department is on life support in my view. we have inadequately funded mechanisms of information, competing in the information sphere. you can go down the list of what makes and effective strategy and having a strong and adapted or tailored military for what we need in the future is essential but it is not just that.

we have to invest in these other areas. jennifer: national security and defense strategies, do they need to be adjusted and how? what do you look at ansi that may is inadequate right now? michele: you're going to have more of a critique. tom cole in the end inevitably will be paired the next administration with it is bite and or trump two, that will happen. rather than thinking about the procedure, let's look at the world we live in. there are three vital theaters. asia, europe and the middle east. multiple administration's tried to reduce our presence in them to lease and we see where that has led. -- resins in the middle east and we see where that has led. if you look at the world we live

in, with those theaters, the adversaries we face both singularly and increasingly cooperating with each other, that requires a u.s. that is engaged in those three theaters with our allies. it is going to need to acknowledge a world that we live in. michele: i do think we have to be able to deter in all three areas and be able to respond should our interest be threatened and deterrence fail. i believe the strategy has it right to focus on the indo pacific and deterring war because that is deterring world war iii. it would be a horrific military experience but also tremendous damage to the global economy.

all kinds of studies have been done that say if you disrupt tsmc in taiwan, you disrupt supplies to the rest of the world, you are going to look at 2 trillion plus dollars which is hard to conceive of, damage to the global economy and likely putting the world into recession. we really want to prevent this. in the middle east, i think it is less in my view about counting noses of how many troops we have on the ground and more a question of can we take this moment once the war in gaza concludes which we all hope will these soon. can we take that moment and work to realign the region to bring, to pursue, help saudi arabia pursue normalization with israel to align the gulf states with israel and the united states and

much of europe against iran which will be much more effective and can you also as a requirement of that you're going to need a different israeli government and a different palestinian authority to work with to actually get to a two state solution which and what dish -- which in my way we are not going to see a replay of october 7 and its horrors in the future. to me it is less about the size of our military posture and more how do we play our cards strategically to get to a new dynamic in the middle east? on russia ukraine, even though i think we are in a dire situation right now and i am hoping this very delayed aid will help ukraine hold the line and perhaps prepare for a better year in 2025, the real question -- the truth is nato has thanks to putin we found its purpose.

it is enlarged to include two countries we have always wanted to bring in and they were not sure and now they are very sure. and has also awakened europe so the fact they have to take the russian threat seriously and have to start spending more on their own defense. we have some good cards to play there to try to enhance deterrence and make sure this is the last adventure rather than the first adventure -- not first because there was georgia and crimea but that there will not be another adventure like ukraine in putin's future. jennifer: what kind of strategic threat does disinformation pose to this ecosystem if we are talking about gathering storms and what can the u.s., anti-gun government do about this? -- pentagon government do about this? tom: i will slightly refrain --

slightly refrain your question. wars are won and lost in the minds of the combatants. we have adversaries that are skilled in trying to sow dissension and to influence the minds of adversaries who happen to be us. in a previous era, we were good at doing that to them. authoritarian regimes have their own weaknesses that can be exploited. that is something we need to rediscover but we also need to be alive to the fact it is about information. it is about not just the reality on the ground but the perceptions that are out there in public and the perceptions of leaders. i totally agree china is the number one challenge. what does that come down to? that comes down to convincing xi

jinping he will fail if he tries to use force against taiwan. secondarily, it is about convincing the leadership of the people's liberation army that they will fail if they tried to use force against taiwan. >> the information warfare is happening now. i just visited taiwan where it was a major battlefield during the election. they call it cognitive warfare where you have the chinese messaging basically favoring one political party over the other: one the party of war. the other the party of peace. messaging that resistance is used -- is futile. the u.s. is fickle. they are abandoning ukraine. they abandoned afghanistan. they are in decline. they will talk a good game but they will not come. that is very real and it is happening. my worry is you look at the

calendar for the next year, you have a number of very critical elections in major democracies including our own. i think the key is really to strengthen the public-private partnership. we have a lot of technical capabilities to trace where things are coming from, to tag and flag deepfakes, information that originated from russia or from china. need to up our game in that because americans need to know if they are reading something or hearing something that started with rt, which is a russian propaganda outlet, if they are reading it in their local paper but they don't know the origin -- similarly with deepfakes of all kinds which i'm worried about given the sophistication of the technology. jennifer: speaking of the 2024

u.s. election, how is it interfering with u.s. strategic planning as far as you see at this point? michele:michele: it is introducing some degree of uncertainty in some areas because i think in biden two, you can expect a lot more continuity. in trump two, you can expect some continuity in some areas but a fair amount of change particularly with regard to the transatlantic relationship in ukraine which can be fairly catastrophic if trump actually did what he says he would like to do. and it is very problematic for our allies. every time i go anywhere, it is the number one question. the number one anxiety is what is going to happen. will the u.s. commitment to me still be there if a check of administration comes in? joy need to start hedging?

-- do i need to start hedging? the truth is they are hedging. jennifer: we lose a year of relationships because the election goes on for a year and the countries do hedge and they don't commit to anything not knowing whether the president will be president in a year and that creates a real continuity problem in terms of strategy. what do you see in terms of impact to the election? tom, allies, friends are attempt -- are perpetually nervous about the united states. we can go back to when our allies in the asia-pacific felt that we were preoccupied by the middle east. allies in europe felt we were preoccupied by asia. to be a u.s. ally is to always be nervous about those things. what i would say is we had four years of the trump administration. going on four years of the biden

administration. there's actually a lot of continuity. there is lots of continuity there and whatever happens, i think there will be a lot of continuity. that is not to downplay the nervousness, concerns of allies and others, but across administrations, we see a lot of continuity. maybe more continuity than the trump administration would like to admit. >> i think that is more true in the indo pacific and the least event it is in europe -- and the middle east then is in europe. trump has made it clear he does not intend to continue to support ukraine. and he will negotiate the best deal ever. that will be a win for russia. and i think that will encourage putin to continue to use force to expand his influence.

whether it is moldova next or he is stupid enough to attack a nato member like one of the baltic states. there is more of a fork in the road in my view in our european policy and transatlantic relationship between the two administrations then we see then under the middle east or indo pacific. i hope i'm wrong. jennifer: i would like to go to questions. if you have not done so already, you can submit questions but we have some good ones already. this one comes from the irregular warfare initiative. china and russia have expanded their influence operations and economic efforts in resource rich countries in the global south. we did not get around to talking about africa, latin america. while pushing the u.s. out and

distancing us from crucial materials for new capabilities, it looks like the global south is at the core of their global strategic visions, but as the global south integrated into the p.r.c. russia strategies should it be and how can the u.s. catch up after having neglected some of these areas? michele: a really important question because we tend to focus on the immediate region but a really desperate particularly with china with the ln road initiative and effort to lock up critical minerals and resources across africa and elsewhere, it is a huge concern. i think -- we cannot match the vri nor should we in terms of the money they throw at countries, corrupt practices they use. that is not us. we have a lot to offer if we put our best technology, our best

economic performers forward. i will give you a couple examples. one is a recent case of an ai company using geological data to pinpoint deposits of the most critical minerals. instead of buying a huge concession and drilling lots of holes until they find something, they know exactly where to go and what to get. they discovered one of the major -- i think the second-biggest and high quality coffer deposit in the world. the chinese mounted an effort to try to buy out one of their investors to get on their cap table and mount a hostile takeover. the embassy in zambia rallied, used all the instruments of power, treasury, commerce, intel, community, every bit of influence and basically defeated that effort without this company backed by the u.s. government. the embassy was given an award for its performance. that is the kind of thing we

need to do when we see the competition and unfair practices by china in something that matters. another example was the deal that was just announced the u.s. government was very supportive of. microsoft with the uae basically partnering to ensure that any ai and ai infrastructure they build across the gulf and other countries, it is not going to be based on huawei infrastructure. it is going to be based on u.s. infrastructure. these are examples -- we are not going to match china in foreign aid ever. it is not our way and politically impossible but we have the world's most creative, dynamic, innovative tech and private sector. we need to find ways to leverage and partner with them to be

instruments of american foreign policy. when their interest align, that is often quite possible and we overlook that kid we -- we overlook that. the entire one hand find our back when we don't use our prowess to our advantage. tom: that the authoritarian states have a particularly authoritarian model of building relationships and it is not surprising that they tend to seek out like-minded regimes in the developing world to try to reinforce those regimes. we do better beyond what the u.s. government does in terms of foreign assistance is unleash the power of the american economy, the american ngo sector . that is all backed by the rule of law. that is the other thing that makes the united states an

attractive partner along with other western states. when we conclude agreements directly backed by law. we look at corruption should someone who conduct -- -- with russia and china. we have a strong hand to play. jennifer: sometimes it feels like we are asleep at the wheel. >> may don't know countries and not africa. >> not because they are not qualified but because people are playing politics with the confirmation process and that, you know, the senate should know that we are time one hand behind our backs with those countries. >> the wagner group and russia moving in with coups across

africa. it looks like the u.s. is in negotiations now, being pushed out of niger, going to meuser very expensive drone base there and what impact will that have and what could we do to stop russia from basically -- russia is moving pieces around the chessboard in africa through these coups and pushing the military out. what impact is that going to have strategically? >> it's about strengthening those local authoritarian regimes. it's about the economic and political relationship between russia through private military corporations like wagner and these regimes. when it comes, to africa we are not -- when it comes to africa, fortunately, we are not acting alone. but i think it is something that we need to be concerned about and that is why we can never be

laser focused just on one region of the world, particularly because russia is active in africa and so is china. china is active in south america. china is the biggest concern. china is not just a concern in asia. russia is not just a concern in europe. >> another good question here. is the u.s. system of alliances overextended for this post unipolar erect? should it be scaled-back? i might miss pronounce this -- mispronounce this. >> quite the opposite. we need to be deepening the alliances we have in building out additional partnerships. you know, when you look at asia and you have quiet conversations with people, you know, many leaders in other countries admit that the u.s. is still their greatest source of foreign

direct investment. the fact that we did not move forward with a high standard to tpp was a huge strategic mistake that we should -- we will and should go through a long time. that aside, for the couple of exceptions, they will say it's very clear that the u.s. is our preferred security partner and we want the relationship. we have to be careful how we navigate so as not to anger china or provoke a crisis where we don't need one, but we are serious and we count on you, and we want more. we want a deeper relationship. that is the message across most of that region and we should be taking advantage of the fact that the countries are very nervous about china's behavior and they want our help and our interests align on this point. >> there are examples of the bell and wrote initiative being

pushed back in some areas. which areas are using that happening? lives on belt and road, i think japan, for example, japan's foreign aid has been a very important counter to what the chinese have done, but look, more broadly on this issue of alliances, i think quite the opposite to be overextended, i think our allies are key partners not only in their region, but beyond, so we talked about ukraine and aid to ukraine. the u.s. is a key source of aid to ukraine but so our european allies and so are our allies across the world. japan, australia, south korea, all different sources of assistance to ukraine. the australian government has cut a multibillion-dollar check to the united states to help build our submarine industrial base because it is in our

interest and their interest to do so, developing a guided weapon an explosive ordinance enterprise that will not only out for the australian defense force but also will provide munitions for exports so far from being just sort of recipients of u.s. assistance or allies, vital partners across the world. >> that is of course true of ukraine. that money is not being sent to ukraine. that is being invested in the defense industrial base so that the u.s. will have replacement weapons to use in other theaters if necessary. very good question from the danish defense attache, jacob russo, from the embassy of denmark. russia has changed its economy to a wartime economy. what are the biggest challenges for western democracy to match this? i will add, why hasn't the u.s. shifted to a wartime economy? >> i think, you know, one of the most important things we need to

do is a sentimental reassessment of the russia threat as nato and as members within nato. i think it does need to impact our defense spending, for europeans making sure they are spending enough but also how we are spending that money but some of the things are, you know, as you mentioned, shifting to more of a multiyear perspective on procurement on things i commissions. we made aspects of our defense industrial base extremely brittle by budgeting year-to-year and not allowing them certainties to build out surge capacity or longer-term plans for building production capacity so we have kind of created this problem ourselves and now, i think we take it -- to get out of it, we will have to give industry a longer-term time horizon where they can plan on additional production.

to ensure that they can replenish and keep supporting ukraine and israel and taiwan and others as aligned with our interests. i also think there is an opportunity here to get much more serious about transatlantic defense industrial cooperation. we always talk a good game but there's a lot of protectionism on both sides or preference on both sides. i am now seeing europeans coming to the united states and saying, hey, we have a critical capability that could plug the hole in your supply chain or take a brutal part of your supply chain and make it much more robust. we are willing to invest here. we are willing to create jobs here. we are willing to create new production capacity, and service the united states. i think we need to -- i guess i'm saying is we need to think more as an alliance has how we are going to do this together.

as opposed to each individual country just looking at it through their own particular needs. >> we went through basically a quarter-century where when we thought about the defense industry, it was all about efficiency, how to do things as efficiently as possible and for that world, that was probably the right thing to do and that world is gone. focus on effectiveness and how to do things most effectively. there is a cost to efficiency. the u.s. government needs to be a better customer for the defense industry and for industry overall and needs to set a good, consistent demand stigmata industry can plan against. and totally agree with michelle. first, we already have statutes on the books that are supposed to treat the industrial base of canada, britain, and australia

basically functioning as part of the defense industrial base but in practice, we don't do that so we should start doing that and certainly move to expand to other allies as well. >> we are about out of time. we want to end with one question from a student from american university and i want to end with a student because we are talking strategy, talking teacher, and these are the people who are going to be entering the national security establishment and hopefully looking out to the future and he has a good question. in the event that the pla takes control of taiwan, how do we ensure access is not gained to equipment and methods for producing advanced semiconductor technology? to end on looking towards asia, taiwan, china, how do we answer? >> that's a really hard question because if we were to actually destroy the equipment of tsmc, i

think it would do horrendous damage to the global economy and i just don't think that is the right answer. the good news is the chinese, if they were -- first of all, the answer is to deter, to deny, to prevent that from ever happening and that is the only good answer. if tsmc's electricity were disrupted or shut down, it takes them a very long time. it's not like you flip a switch. it takes a very long time. the workforce is very highly trained and that is not a workforce china has right now. a lot would depend on how the taiwanese, you know, whether they would resist, whether they would fight back, whether people would leave, etc., so it is a hypothetical that is a really hard, good question but i'm

going to cite the scenario and say we should never allow ourselves to be in that position because it would be too damaging to the world. however it turned out, we have got to make sure that we prevent that from happening. >> that outcome would be terrible not just because of the global semiconductor manufacturing that it would lead to other things, probably including, perhaps japan going nuclear, south korea going nuclear. it would cause a huge disruption to global order. >> in summary, the strategy is deterrence. thanks for joining us. i will hand it back. >> thank you so much.

you got us off to a tremendously strong start this morning and you framed the strategic issues we will be talking about throughout the day. we will have many breaks throughout the day. coffee and opportunities to network and exchange views. we will go ahead and break now so please go back in your seats promptly for our next panel that starts at 10:00 a.m. and it is the vice chief of staff of the military services. thank you. >>lier today, the u.s. supreme court heard oral president donald trump is immune from criminal prosecution for alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results. t, starting at 8:00 eastern, will discuss the case a potential impact and we wt your reaction

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