Has the West Lost the Post-Cold War Era?

7/23/2019 Has the West Lost the Post-Cold War Era?

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Has the West Lost the Post- Cold War Era?

[music]

Amb. Kurt Volker: Is the United States losing the post-Cold War? Think about that for

a moment. The Cold War, going from the end of World War II until about 1989 or 1991,

that was a pretty defined time period. We had a standoff with the Soviet Union. We had a

collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall.

We had societies embrace democracy [inaudible 0:57] , join the European Union and join

NATO. There was a sense, as Franc Fukuyama famously wrote about, that this was the

end of history. Democracy, market economy, and these values have won out.

25, 26 years later when you look around the world today, you see things like ISIS and our

having to deal with this growing collapse of the Middle East, and the growingphenomenon of Islamist extremism and violence, the return of dictatorships in the Middle

East. You see Putin with an authoritarian Russia that's invading its neighbors. You see

China militarily asserting its claims to the South China Sea.

You have to ask yourself, "Is all this going right? Did we really win, or did we win only

to lose?" That's the question we're teeing up with tonight's debate. To tackle this question

we always divide people into two teams. I will be honest with you from the outset. We

deliberately tee up a black and white provocative question. Yes or no, are we losing?

The reality is that any serious person that we could ever put in one of these debates sees

nuances. They'll see something on this side, something on that side. It will not be as blackand white a presentation as the question implies, but we have organized people to try to

make the case of how we can think about this. Are we, in fact losing? Are we, in fact, not

losing?

The first team, those who will be making the argument that, in fact, the United States is

really losing the post-Cold War after having won the Cold War are Mark Moyar and DJ

Peterson. Mark Moyar is a veteran of RAND Cooperation. At SOCOM he's worked with

General McChrystal.

He is an author, and he has written this book called "Strategic Failure," which is how

President Obama's drug warfare, defense [inaudible 2:56] , and military amateurism haveimperiled America. No doubt where he is coming from.

[laughter]

Amb. Volker: That is to take the case together with DJ Peterson who is local and maybe

known to many of you. He is with Longview Advisors and formerly with Eurasia Group

and formerly with RAND Corporation. Takes something more of an economic approach


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and takes something more of a private sector and business look at what's happening in the

world, but also making the case that, in fact, things are not going our way.

On the opposite side of the equation, we have two people who I have known, I think in

the case of Kori it's now bordering on 27 years and in the case of Jim Foley we're

probably looking at 21 or 22. These are old friends from different walks of life.

Kori, I met when she was working at Joint Staff, working with the military in 1988 and

'89, and we were working together on the CFE treaty. She has gone on to an illustrious

career in many, many things. She is an author in her own right, of course, but she has also

been a professor at West Point, a professor at the University of Maryland.

She was the Director for Defense Issues at the National Security Council at a time when I

was doing European issues. She is now at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

She was the Defense Policy Advisor for the McCain campaign in 2008. She is a

well-known expert on defense issues. She'll be making the case that not so fast, we're still

the United States.

Jim Foley is an old friend and colleague as well. Jim was in the Foreign Service for, he

said, 32 years, which makes me feel better now. The last few times I've been introduced

to people I said I've been doing foreign policy for 30 years, and that's the first I've ever

heard that 30 number. To say somebody else has done it for 32 is [inaudible 4:56] .

Jim was in the Philippines. He was in Algeria. He was ambassador to Haiti. He was

ambassador to Croatia. He was processing Iraqi refugees and asylum seekers as they were

coming out of Iraq during our occupation of Iraq. He was the Deputy Spokesman of the

State Department. I think he comes with a wealth of experience about our country's role

in the world, how we do things, and what we can think about looking forward to in thefuture.

[crosstalk]

Dr. Kori Schake: I feel like that's a thumb on the scale.

Amb. Volker: That's the structure of tonight's debate. I am delighted that all of you

came to hear this tonight. We are also live-webcasting this, and it will be available online

as well. Our website is McCainInstitute.org.

I have to say you don't look like a tweeting audience, but if you are, the hashtag is

#midebate. It does stimulate a little bit of commentary online that we can refer back to aswell.

The structure of the debate is four minutes' introduction from each side making a case,

two minutes from each side responding to that case, and I as moderator will start asking a

few questions and try to draw them into a debate with each other.

Then I'll turn to you, the audience, to ask questions as well. I hope that we will have some


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thoughtful and insightful and provocative questions from you, members of the audience.

The one thing I would ask is that when we come to the questions from the audience to

please be brief and please be pointed in your questions, so that we can get the most out of

hearing from our debate response stage.

With that I'm going to open it up and turn to our first team of Mark and DJ, to answer thequestion. Is the US losing the post-Cold War?

Dr. DJ Peterson: Thanks, Ambassador. I think most Americans believe -- in fact, 70

percent of Americans believe the US is losing. I think so it's a pretty clear case. I'd like to

argue on three points. One is geopolitics, second is economics, third is domestic politics.

Geopolitics. Obviously, we could look at what's going on this week in Paris -- very tragic

-- but also very alarming. I think one of the key lessons for me is the pace of innovation

in terrorism. We thought al Qaeda was bad.

But ISIS is much different. Their ability to recruit, to raise money, to run a state is

something that the US is just not well-equipped to compete with. If you look at the US

apocalyptic millenarian death cult, we're an enlightened, Candide-oriented society. We

want to think about the positives and life is happy and good. I think we're having real

trouble fighting, matching, this death cult.

That's terrorism. Look at Russia. Their mission today is to reassert their rightful place in

the world, something they had for hundreds of years. We are not prepared to fight that

battle. Russians are behind Putin. This is a national mission.

The same with China. It's called the East China Sea. It's the South China Sea. It's not the

East and West American Sea. That they feel is rightfully theirs. They're building islands,

they're building landing strips for their airplanes. How are we really going to compete

with them? We don't have the guts. We don't have the ability to mount the navy.

Look at economics. If we think about economics and how countries project power it's

through trade. China two years ago eclipsed the United States as the world's largest

trading nation. Who calls the rules? IP, intellectual property protections. Cyber. They're

setting the rules of trade. Now, the trade agreement we have in the Pacific is quaint, but

really, are we going to be able to shape implementation? No.

I think the rules of the road in the future economically are fundamentally not ours to

control. If you think about it, we shaped the rules in the postwar era. Today we don't.

Finally, I want to just turn to politics. If you think about how this nation derives its

strength it's through domestic politics. Congress is the greatest legislative institution in

the world. That's what they like to say but we know it's not. It's a farce. Everybody sees

that our country is paralyzed politically. We're very polarized. I think the ambassador

rightly pointed out we're more about fighting each other than thinking about the global

challenges that the United States faces.


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We can't muster a realistic defense budget. We can't muster the kind of international

foreign aid that we need or the programs that we need to project American power. We're

really fighting with each other and it's based on political paralysis. I'll stop there.

Dr. Mark Moyar: Certainly, there are broad trends that the United States doesn't have

full control over, but in the post-9/11 era I would argue as the world's greatest power,we've had to a large extent the ability to forge our destiny. The Bush administration

certainly made some major errors. In the time we have here, I'm going to focus just on the

more recent events with the Obama administration.

I do think there were decisions made by this administration that account heavily for the

current problems we have. The problems I see with the current administration's problem

was the decision to withdraw from a lot of military commitments, a decision to cut the

defense budget, and a decision to try to find substitutes for military power, such as

surgical strikes, development assistance, and diplomacy. None of those have worked out

very well.

If you look at some of the major problem areas -- Iraq, I think in 2009 it was fairly stable

at the [inaudible 10:59] for disintegration, rise of ISIS. In case of Syria, we had a choice

to support Syria's rebels and we didn't do so. We ran out of time to support them. There's

a lot other places [inaudible 11:15] go into.

[inaudible 11:19] in terms of in Russia and China, we have strong and really [inaudible

11:26] and we've allowed our Russia and China team initiative on a lot of issues. There's

a lot of [inaudible 11:31] gravitating towards China and Russia, which in the United

States has more or less already in the back that we are losing influence to those countries

is an indication of how much we're advocating.

I don't think the situation is irreversible, but certainly the presidential leadership needs to

change fundamentally for it to turn things around.

Amb. Volker: I'm going to be turning audience back here. Jim, let me turn that to you to

start, and then Kori. It sounds pretty [inaudible 12:03] .

Amb. James Foley: I'm going to answer the question that was put, which is are we

losing the Post-Cold War, not are we winning Post-Cold War. Different question,

different answer. There's no question that US influence in the world is on the decline

compared to the Cold War, compared to the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the

so-called unipolar moment and our ability to shape much less dominate the world is notwhat it was. It's not what it was 15 years ago. It's what it was 20 years ago.

Part of that was due, I would argue, to our invasion of Iraq, which turned into a quagmire,

which depleted not only our resources, our treasure but also the public's appetite for

American engagement in the world, with meanwhile China benefiting very much as it

rises in power.


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Fundamentally though, this decline in US power influence was inevitable and is

structural. It's due to the radically changing configuration of power in the world, the fact

that we are now in a multi-polar world with many new rival powers, with multiplying

threats. It's a world that's much harder for anyone to control. It's a world that in many

ways is seemingly running out of control.

In that context, I would say though that losing implies that there's a winner. I don't see

someone beating us in the Cold War. Our rivals, China and Russia, have enormous

problems. They face the same complexity, but they have bigger liabilities. They lack

some of the inherent advantages that we have. Whether we are drawing on these

advantages as well as we could again is another question.

The fact that we enjoy the security of our geography that we have friendly neighbors, that

we have strong partnerships and alliances and a fundamentally strong economy makes

for, as I said, advantages that others, our rivals, don't have.

Finally, I would say that in relation to the multiplying threats in the world there, I wouldsay we emphasized that we are not winning. I see that and I would echo my colleague,

we're the adversary in this. I see this more as a function of our domestic problems. Our

inadequate leadership in response to many of these threats which again our colleagues

have highlighted really in my view has fundamentally domestic routes. I hope we come

to that later on.

Dr. Schake: One of the pleasures of being a historian of 19th century America is

realizing that we're not merely a country full of crazy, disputatious people run by

meddling politicians. That's what we, the United States, have always been.

Very often, these discussions about America in decline and whether America is losing theCold War, whether America is losing the Post-Cold War, they take the present and

project it into the future.

I would like to suggest to you that actually, the great dynamism and success of the United

States is that you very rarely can make linear projections from us to the future because

what we are is people who overturn the economy with new models, sometimes

catastrophic models for example on housing finance in the early 2000s.

The dynamism of American society and the very disputatiousness that we very often are

sorrowful aback in our political discourse are how we get to the right answer. There's a

magnificent article.

My favorite thing ever written about American Foreign Policy is by the journalist, James

Fallows. It was when he came back from being the correspondent in China. It's about the

role of the Jeremiah then American Foreign Policy. Remember the book of Jeremiah

from the Torah, the Bible. The notion is that we always think we're failing. We always

think we're falling apart. We always think we're bad at things. That's actually how we fix

things.


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If you think about two points in time when the United States was considered at the zenith

of its power, let's take 1954, America still had something like 30 percent of global GDP

coming out of World War II. We were rebuilding Europe in our image. Yet, the 101st

airborne was not training. They were forcibly integrating schools in the American South.

The McCarthy hearings were going on where Congress was claiming that the army wasstaffed with traitors. We overestimate just how wonderful the past was. There was this

mythic day where politics stopped at the water's edge and we were civil to each other. We

never were.

Let's take 1973, another point in time in which people thought that United States was the

zenith of its power. That's the middle of the Vietnam War. Not even the British would

fight that alongside us. We were fighting it in a way that we cast a long shadow of

America and Americans' willingness to shape the international order.

Amb. Volker: We're going to leave it there. I want to bring it back then to Mark and DJ.

Basically, it's always like this. The world comes and goes. We're fine. Jim, [inaudible18:02] ?

Amb. Foley: I'll, again, take a little bit more of a structural point of view. It's wonderful.

We love to dispute. We love democracy. We love the ability to ponder ideas. ISIS is not.

They're running fast forward. If you look at the world today, the pace have changed in the

challenges that we're facing, whether it's terrorism, whether it's cyber.

Everybody I talk to in the business they say, "It's getting worse and we don't have a

solution. It's going to get worse." If you look at climate, it seems like we dithering. We're

enjoying the debate or we're thinking about entertainment on television and enjoying that

disputatiousness, but really not watching the world move on or slip by us.

Dr. Moyar: I want to comment on [inaudible 18:57] points that adversaries here were

raising about the public will because I do think it's fundamental to this question.

Certainly, the invasion of Iraq did not turn out as people wanted. I think [inaudible 19:15]

strategically wise thing to do.

If you look back to the 2008 election, President Obama was actually running on a

platform of increasing the war in Afghanistan. We need to bear in mind there that the

American people do have some resilience. If you look back during the surge, there were a

lot of people saying that Iraq war had been lost and yet President Bush decided to put

more troops in. It turned out to work pretty well.

Even in the 2012 presidential debate when Romney argued that Obama got the military.

Obama assured the American people they were not going to let sequestration [inaudible

19:54] . If you look at our military spending today, less than four percent of GDP is

actually historically quite low and yet a lot of people think this has become very

expensive.


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We certainly have the resources to do it. There is broader question of where do the

American people want to go. Certainly, you see these trends in isolationism. You could

make [inaudible 20:15] as well. The isolationism we see right now is [inaudible 20:19] .

I'm hoping that's the case. I'm not totally sure that it is though. There is a danger.

Certainly, one of discussion [inaudible 20:30] this the millennial generation, are theyreally turning to isolationism? Somebody will think that certainly is the case. They're

very libertarian-oriented and they really don't care what's going on in other countries.

Amb. Volker: We're going to pause it there. I want to come back to this side now. Here's

the way I want to [inaudible 20:52] . I want to take Kori's starting point which is we're

disputatious people. We always feel like we're doing worse than we're doing well. Isn't

this actually really different one?

Is it what we're seeing with ISIS and the ideological issues different? Isn't what we're

seeing with China different? Putin is just icing on the cake. Maybe he's not different.

That's on top of all these other things.

Dr. Schake: I want to start by addressing DJ's very good point about structural factors.

As the way the international order is changing, globalization stampeding progress, the

advances in communication. Governments used to have a monopoly on information. No

government can believe that they do anymore. The way that free markets have advanced

to lift a billion people out of poverty is a magnificent advance.

The question that I would challenge our colleagues with is the structural factors that you

think are so damaging to the American economy and advantageous, for example, to

China. Can China continue to see the kind of growth that has without the kind of political

opening that has made progress sustainable in other societies?

Before I let you answer though, I want to say that if you think about the way technology

is advancing, communication is advancing, travel is advancing, what that does is

advantage societies who can manage change. The adaptable societies are the ones who

are prospering in this.

China is an adaptable society. There is no society as adaptable as us. The challenges that

DJ rightly raises, ISIS, Russia, these are the challenges of societies that are failing at

adaptation to how the international order is changing. We definitely need to deal with

those. The long-term structural effects are actually advantaging those of us who can adapt

to changing circumstances. That is America's great strength.

Amb. Volker: Let's stick with that point before we get to Jim. We'll come back to you

for another thing. I want to continue with the first question then. This point of

adaptability, this is something that we just made a strong case where the United States is

going to be the best at this.

Even though we have ISIS, even though we have China, we're not losing, we're just


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seeing change. In the end, we're going to be the society that's doing the best. How do you

disagree with that?

Amb. Foley: This piece of advanced technology is really interesting. At my last report at

RAND was on the information revolution in Russia. The big conclusion that we found

was that Russia got the Internet in the first part of this century. Russians are veryadapting using the Internet. At the same time, you saw rise of Putin or the consolidation.

They know what's going on in the world, but they want to be a strong power. The

Chinese, there's hundreds of millions of people on the Internet in China. What they want

is a strong China. They want a China that challenges United States and makes China the

greatest nation in the world.

Dr. Schake: That's not the only thing they want. 300,000 Chinese students are at

American universities every single year. They probably don't go home hoping their

congress behaves like our congress. They probably do go home, at least some of them,

wishing they had a government they could throw out of power when they don't like thefood safety protections, when they don't like the building codes that allows schools to

collapse on children.

It's poison baby milk that's going to bring down the Chinese government because they

don't have a way to adapt and address those things in a way free societies do.

Dr. Moyar: I was going to comment too. 10 years ago, there seemed a much greater

degree of inevitability [inaudible 25:11] . Unfortunately, partly because the United States,

it's been ineffective at promoting democracy, there is a sense within much of the world

that democracy wasn't quite as great as [inaudible 25:25] to be.

If you go into a lot of underdeveloped countries, they actually find the Chinese model

attractive because Chinese had the second [inaudible 25:34] growth without

globalization.

Hopefully, China will move in the direction of keeping that. I'm not sure that it's

inevitable. This is [inaudible 25:44] where the United States is losing is that there's no

longer the sense of much of the world that the United States way is the way to go and we

all need to follow. There's a lot of lack of confidence in our model.

Amb. Volker: This is a great point. I want to bring Jim in now. You're going to make

another point but particularly what Mark is saying about the belief in the inevitability ofwestern local values versus on the ground evidence of retreat in the effectiveness of

implementation of these values around the world [inaudible 26:19] last nine years saying

democracy is retreating. Are we losing this because of ideology and will?

Amb. Foley: We've learned some very hard lessons especially in recent years about how

difficult it is to plant the democratic seed around the world. We have much more

developed respect for the fact that democracy is the product of decades and maybe


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centuries of evolution.

To tie our sense of success in the world to this barometer which can go up and down, let's

add, we're had some significant successes and advances in democracy especially in

Eastern Europe in the last decades. My point I alluded to is that it is the health of our own

democracy, which is the most important factor.

It's the strength of our own country and our own institutions, which underpin our

security, our ability to respond to security challenges around the world, which is the

ultimate test. That's where we are not meeting our potential far from it.

The most important factor in enhancing our security and ultimately winning the

Post-Cold War is addressing the dysfunction that we've been talking about on the stage

here, at home even recognizing that we've always been rambunctious.

I believe though that the level of dysfunction domestically in the Congress in Washington

is having a very injurious effect. I say that as a former and recent American ambassador.

Indeed, it is an important part of our diplomacy to represent our democratic ideals. We

are not in quite the same position to do so than we were in previous times, sadly.

Amb. Volker: I'm going to throw this question to Kori, staying on this side of story.

Let's go to Europe. We've had in the last 5 to 10 years, we've seen Russia invade Georgia.

We've seen Russia invade Ukraine. We've seen the chain of orders army force. We've

seen them [inaudible 28:44] .

We've seen them toss overboard the CFE treaty that you and I worked on. We've seen

them toss overboard the INF treaty. We've seen them toss overboard Budapest

Memorandum that was a guarantee of Ukraine's security.

We've seen them completely walk away from the relationship [inaudible 29:00] where

they have previously committed and in fact in every post-1989 document committed to

respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of every European state and to refrain

from the threat with use of force.

You're seeing countries in the former soviet space terribly intimidated right now. Finding

their way back to Moscow because they don't know where we are. You're seeing

authoritarian Russia as opposed to democratizing Russia. You're seeing a Germany where

you have one former chancellor working for Gazprom. You have a current German

government going along with another [inaudible 29:39] pipeline to cut out the Baltic

states component.

How does this not add up to our losing everything that we thought we achieved as Jim

was saying? In Eastern Europe, we have this great success. Isn't these all coming

unraveled?

Dr. Schake: I would say two things in response. The first is that's actually deeply unfair

to the Federal Republic of Germany that you've described it in the way that you did.


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There has been no Western leader, not just European, no Western leader who has been as

strong and loud a moral voice as Angela Merkel has been, as Russia has been engaged in

all the depredations you said.

I'm not going to defend Schroder, but I do think Angela Merkel is the best politician of

our time because if I had had to bet money that she could stay far enough ahead ofmarkets to force off a collapse and slow enough that she could actually bring the German

public along on the bail out of the European currency, I would have bet 20 bucks on that

proposition. Yet, she got the timing exactly right.

On Russia, she has done the same thing. She has been actually quite brave in pushing

back, changing the frame of reference in which German business people think about

Russia. She did it on the argument that if there is no rule of law in Russia, then there will

be no long-term business prospects in Russia.

That's a values latent case. That's a very American case. We should be cheering that. The

Russians are playing a very weak hand, very aggressively and well, but that doesn'tdisguise the fact that they are playing a very weak hand.

Amb. Foley: Kori just won the argument for us.

[laughter]

Amb. Foley: Angela Merkel was leading, not the United States. The sanctions are result

of German resolve, not US power. The Germans are leading, not the Americans.

[laughter]

Dr. Moyar: I'd say also the fact that Merkel is the strongest leader in this case isindicative of the problem we face. Recently, in a foreign policy initiative hosted by the

President of Estonia, he said essentially they have no confidence in Western Europe to

defend them from Russia.

That's one of the most dangerous places in world right now is the Baltic States because

we've given Putin a reason to believe that he can go in there and we'll sit on our hands.

But we'll then invoke NATO Article 5 and then either we'll have war with Russia or we'll

have a collapse of NATO.

Amb. Volker: Is Russia weak? This is what Kori was making, that may look like they're

doing now, but are they really weak?

Dr. Moyar: I think they're relatively weak militarily. I do think...

Dr. Schake: They can barely beat the Ukrainians.

Dr. Moyar: Right now, even if put a small force in the Baltics, they could probably

succeed. But I personally think if we actually put forces in the Baltics on a permanent


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basis, rather than this rotational policy we have, we can actually deter him. I do think

Putin is relatively weak and he will back down if he sees that we are willing to confront

him.

But he continues to get the impression that we're going to roll over whenever he does

something. As long as he thinks that, he's going to keep grabbing it.

Amb. Foley: I believe Russia is fundamentally weak. Looking forward into the future it

will be ever weaker as it declines, especially demographically. Putin has so mismanaged

the Russian economy that they have a few prospects long-term for prosperity.

Russia is strong in its neighborhood. It is a military power. Power is the coin of

international relations. Let's remember, when we flagellate ourselves, as you did, for

Russia's encroachments and depredations, we presume that we have the power to prevent

Russia from doing these things.

Never in the Cold War did we think that we could intervene in areas nearest Russia that

happened to be in the Warsaw Pact at the time. But we didn't conquer Eastern Europe.

We didn't conquer the Russian Europe. Soviet power collapsed and there was a period

where Russia seemed to be embracing democracy. But in terms of sheer power, we

presume that we have something that I don't believe exists.

We face a very delicate dance in extending our power, in extending our deterrence, as

you rightly suggest, to the Baltics. These countries are now part of NATO. We have a

solemn obligation. Our security and our credibility depends on our willingness to defend

them and to project that we will defend them such that Putin understands that it's not

worth the candle.

When we talk about extending our power, extending our deterrence, it becomes more

delicate. We're certainly not going to do it vis--vis Russia in a country that's not a

member of NATO. That same paradigm applies even more vis--vis China and parts of

Asia where we are facing potential conflicts with China.

Dr. Schake: Can I say a word on Russia?

Amb. Volker: Yes, please.

Dr. Schake: It is illustrative that Russia has two allies, Belorussia and Syria. We

shouldn't be afraid of Germany leading. That's actually the measure of our success, not

the measure of our failure. We have created an international order where the burdens of

leadership are shared. The responsibilities of leadership are shared.

The behavior of our enemies, whether ISIS, Russia, or even our frenemies, like China, is

actually coalescing countries to our cause. America's Asian alliances have never been

stronger than they are at the moment. It's because of China's behavior in the South and

East China Seas.


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Our European allies are disappointed in us as they always are. Yet, the NATO countries

are pulling together. We are deploying troops into Eastern Europe, into the new NATO

members, which we hadn't done before. We're moving into the Baltics. Free countries are

slow to coalesce to the argument, but we have coalesced. That's why we've won the

post-Cold War. Because of the number of nations standing in freedom shoulder to

shoulder.

Dr. Moyar: I would say, I'm a bit more skeptical in Asia. Japan, right now, is taking

encouraging steps, although I think it's certainly possible the next Japanese government

may go in a very different direction.

We have seen, with the China Development Bank recently, we tried to get most of the

regions countries to oppose it because it was [inaudible 36:56] by our institutions and out

of our longstanding allies [inaudible 37:02] it was China, Japan being the one major

exception.

We've also seen a lot of Asian militaries trying to increase their taught Chinese. I'm moreconcerned. I do think that it's good that we are now trying to confront China over these

artificial islands. I think that that's one of the most positive things the Obama

Administration's done. But I think there's certainly a lot of uncertainty within that region.

Amb. Volker: Let me push back on you guys for a second on China. I'm willing to go

after Russia any number of ways. Let's take China for a second. China has created a

rapidly growing economy, economic miracle from where they were in the 1970s. They

have lifted 300 million people out of poverty. They have created a middle class bigger

than most countries.

They have been an effective participant in global economy or implicitly tied to the globaleconomy for their own wellbeing. They care about societal goals, societal values. Maybe

not human rights. Definitely not human rights and not democracy, but societal values of

poverty reduction, of education, of technology, of development, increasingly about the

environment.

They have high prows on stability. Even though we're going through the growing pains of

a rising China that is going to rival US in terms of size and capacity in the future, there's

a lot of reason to think that China may end up better and differently than where they were

under Mao and where we would ever expect Russia to be under Putin. China's a different

case.

While it's not something the United States is governing and controlling, we've created an

environment where the way China's developing may actually be something that lands in a

good place for us.

Dr. Moyar: Yes. Again, I think it's hard to know where the thing's going to turn out.

Although the characteristics you've mentioned could all have been said about Germany in

the 1930s. There's also similarities if you look at the Right nationalism within China right


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p.13

now. There are some parallels there now. Germany and Chinese are different people.

But I think there is certainly a possibility. China is trying to exert its power abroad in

ways that it hasn't done before. Ideally, we'd like to be able to channel those impulses in

positive directions. Under the current government there's certainly a lot of danger. We

have to think about it.

Amb. Volker: DJ.

Dr. Peterson: Yeah, I believe that I emphasized this nationalism piece. That's what's

holding the country together. As the communist social ethic drifts away, it becomes less

and less relevant, when you see growing income inequality, for instance, or massive

failures, whether it's food or environment.

It's the nationalism card that is holding their country together and will hold the country

together as it gets rougher. As China slows down, it has a lot of hubris. It is going to

channel that energy in other ways. The idea that China will be a peaceful or

Western-oriented big, prosperous country I think really masks centuries of Chinese

history and pride in the sense of they're very strong and central place, the central place in

the world.

Amb. Volker: Take the China question here, too, Jim. Particularly, there's the security

side that went from a $10 billion defense budget in '97 to $145 billion officially today. It's

more like $200 billion if you add all this stuff. They are building up these islands and

militarizing them. They're turning Russia's back.

Economically, whether you buy in the currency manipulation or not, the fact is we've all

lost jobs and economic advantage to a growing China. Isn't that another way of losing?

Amb. Foley: I tend to disagree with the way you framed the previous question,

portraying China as a benign partner, less a rival, and previously painting Russia as the

menacing pair, which it may be under Putin. But I think we have much less to fear. The

difference is that we have treaty commitments in Europe that I believe we will meet. I

believe Putin knows that we will meet. He will not test those, including hopefully in the

Baltics.

Whereas, we have treaty commitments to allies in Asia over issues involving rival

territorial claims and the Senkakus and over the South China Sea that may lead to friction

and worse, in period in which China's military muscle is expanding, regardless of whattheir budget is, but in terms of their capabilities, naval and air power in particular. At a

time when our defense capabilities are atrophying.

That may put us in some very delicate and potentially dangerous positions. I'm more

focused on China than Russia in that respect.

Amb. Volker: Kori.


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p.14

Dr. Schake: I agree with DJ's perspective. Namely, I am more concerned about a

faltering China than I am about a successful China. Because what I think I noticed about

the international order is that rising powers are countries that United States can figure out

how to handle, because they have a positive vision of their future. We can turn the keys

in the locks and find one formulation or another by which we and they can have common

interests moving forward.

In the last 20 years, we've done a pretty good job of that with China. The responsible

stakeholder business pointing out that they're the big beneficiaries of this American

dominated international order because it's permitted so much change for them. Chinese

nationalism is a very serious problem and it's likelier to be a problem of us if they are

unsuccessful than if they are successful.

Again, I think the challenges for China to get from where they are to where they want to

be are enormous. Let me just make a plug for a great new book. It's written by two

defense experts, August Cole and Peter Singer. It's called "Ghost Fleet." It's a novel about

a war between China and the United States in which we lose the opening round.

Slight spoiler, I promise I won't get too much away, our government proves incapable of

doing the kind of things that need doing. They scooped today's news. Hackers' forums

come in on our side in this conflict, just as the Anonymous hackers group has now come

in on the fight on ISIS.

What free societies are good at doing is lots of things beyond their government. That's

where our long-term success lies.

Amb. Volker: That's an excellent point and I wanted to flip that immediately to DJ and

to Mark. If we are measuring military weight in conflict, that's one thing. But if we'remeasuring societies and you look at United States and Western societies as having this

incredible resilience, isn't that just by definition mean that we're winning all the time?

Dr. Moyar: That's an excellent question. In this country, I do think we're starting to see

there's been a push towards multiculturalism in the last few decades, which starts to call

into question the durability of our culture. We face, though, a considerably less of a

problem in this regard than does Europe. I'm particularly pessimistic about their culture.

But also the fact that they have this fairly rapidly expanding Muslim population, which I

think just in the last couple of years, we're seeing some fundamental friction between

Europe and its Muslim populations. The attacks last week are...Clearly ISIS is trying toexploit that division.

If the West were unified, we'd be in a pretty good shape. A lot of the problem is there's a

lot of people within the West that don't actually believe strongly enough in the West.

Dr. Peterson: This idea of winning by default, maybe that's the case. Maybe we'll just

ride along, struggling, almost stumble across the finish line first. But that's not winning


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p.15

the post-Cold War era. It doesn't really comport with America's image of itself.

If you think about the US as the vanguard, again that Anonymous raising the challenge

against ISIS, it's like, "Wow." The world is really not in America's image if we're really

counting on Anonymous to help win our wars.

Another example. We're heading into the Paris Treaty talks around climate. 54 percent of

the world feels like climate is a serious threat. 45 percent of Americans think that. We're

behind. We're lagging. Where are we going to lead on these issues? Yeah, we might

stumble. You stumble across the finish line, but that's not winning the war.

Amb. Volker: Let me stick on ISIS for a minute. I want to turn this to Kori. In the '90s,

we have Osama bin Laden doing a couple of things. We allowed a few missiles at a

chemical weapons plant. In 2001 we had the attacks on the World Trade Center

[inaudible 47:46] .

In 2001, we launched into this war against terror and the war against Iraq. Fast forward to

2015, we've got an Afghanistan that doesn't look fundamentally more stable than in 2002,

maybe less. We've got an Iraq that looks like it'll never be back together again, an Iraq in

three pieces. With an Iran dominated Baghdad, the Kurdish regions [inaudible 48:16] .

Then, we've got a Syria that's falling apart. We have Islamic State. This is like al Qaeda

on steroids. It's not just a terrorist network anymore. It's a terrorist network with oil

tankers. Then, we've got the collapse of Libya.

We talk about broader Middle East initiative. Broader Middle East region is really falling

apart and into conflict, dictatorships trying to hang on, like in Egypt. Islamist terrorist

groups like ISIS are in Libya. Islamist political movements trying to dominate. Foreign

powers and foreign actors like Russia in Syria or Iran or Hezbollah.

How is this not losing fundamentally this whole region that have been so much more

stable in the '90s?

Dr. Schake: Two things I would say to that. First, I don't think the stability of the 1990s

is the right metric because most of the people of the Middle East wished they lived under

different governments in the 1990s than they lived under. The repression, the lack of

economic development, the lack of opportunity for change. This is a huge powerful force

in the Middle East.

They are in the midst of a terrible wrenching change. It's two steps further, one step backin a lot of societies. It's one step further and two steps back in a lot of societies. But they

do make progress in all sorts of places. Tunisia is a huge success story.

Amb. Volker: I was going to ask you, leaving aside Tunisia...

[laughter]


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p.16

Dr. Schake: Positive models in the region really matter. Because people share ideas.

They share best practices. They mimic each other all over the place. There is positive

change going on, although it's very hard to see in the midst of all of the violence.

The other thing that I would say is that, of course, we are a huge major factor of that

violence, both for the Iraq war in 2003 and for abandoning Iraq, in 2010. Pleaseremember that in the Iraqi parliamentary elections, in 2010, every major party, every

party that succeeded was cross sectarian.

Everybody voted for tolerance an inclusiveness in 2010. The institutions were simply not

strong enough to manage that when we left. There is positive change going on.

Amb. Volker: We're going to open it up to the audience to ask questions and say

comments. If anyone's ready now, I'll call on you. Otherwise, I'm going to [inaudible

51:07] . I see a gentleman here. We have a microphone?

Audience Member: The question is has the West lost, past tense, as if it's over,post-Cold War era. But it seems like we need to understand the Cold War to understand if

we won or lost the post-Cold War era. The clear definition seems to be during the

leadership and how we won the Cold War that there were bad forces at play, namely the

Russians. It was called Evil Empire. That was a clear, cold, correct definition made.

There wasn't any moral or ethical relativism at play, which seems to be going on today.

George W. Bush said, "There's an axis of evil at play," which may have been strong. But

we see what Iran is doing these days. We're still playing into their hands.

I'm wondering if we're losing the post-Cold War era because we haven't any definitions

as to what's happening in the post-Cold War era and allowing people, governments to doevil, for lack of a better word, and not really being clear of that.

Amb. Volker: The question, if I understand it, is are we losing, in fact, because we're

failing to react. That we could be doing, but we're not doing? Is that? This is to Jim,

maybe.

Dr. Schake: Want to take, Jim?

Amb. Foley: Yeah, thank you. You quoted President Bush having declared an axis of

evil. What I think I was arguing in the beginning is that, given the nature of power in the

world today, its diffusion, the multiplicity of threats, and the growing number of actors

that we have to contend with, it's not in our power simply to label evil and then eliminate

it.

We're in a kind of international situation that we're not used to, because for the last 70

years we were either in a bipolar framework vis--vis the axis of evil, the Soviet Union,

and then in a period where we felt that we were the dominant power in the world.


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p.17

My argument is that that is giving way to the old system that prevailed before World War

II, where you have growing numbers of power centers and an inability of one power,

such as the United States, to control, dictate, and shape.

We have enough challenges on our plate -- as a global power across the world, coupled

with enormous domestic challenges that you're all very familiar with -- that the idea thatwe could wave that wand, if we only waved it properly and labeled our enemies

accordingly, to prevail, I think, today is a fiction.

Instead, we have to prioritize. We have to marshal our resources. We have to deploy them

more intelligently. Above all, we have to get our act together here at home and come to

agreement in Washington on the basic direction of our government and what our

government has to do to tackle our challenges at home and abroad.

Amb. Volker: We could never win. That's not different today. Recognizing a problem,

having a leadership tackle the problem [inaudible 55:10] . Is that really what's missing?

Dr. Schake: I feel like, youngster that you are, you are totally underestimating the

amount of moral relativism that went on in the Cold War. There were so many Americans

who believed things were better in the Soviet Union, Lillian Hellman famously standing

up in the McCarthy hearings.

Moral relativism, the inability to call evil by its name, I actually don't think is the

challenge. The challenge is winning over the bulk of people in societies towards the

direction that we want. Again, let me just point out, that in 1956 Dwight Eisenhower and

his secretary of state had this long, agonizing conversation because the NATO idea was

losing its hold and Europe was lost to us. What are we going to do now? They are on the

Soviet side in this.

Amb. Volker: You guys have a comment on this?

Dr. Peterson: Yeah, I think we had the galvanizing kind of bipolar Cold War that really

kind of focused. Now that we don't have it, we don't know why. You have people like

Edward Snowden really scrambling it up even more. We don't even know what we want,

let alone how do we exercise power consistently to get what we think.

Dr. Moyar: I would say, I think, actually, Republicans and Democrats agree by and

large in terms of what our main interests in the world are. They don't want our homeland

to be attacked, they want a free trade environment that's conducive and favorable to us.But it's the question of, how do you actually protect those interests?

I think where we've struggled particularly in this administration is, number one, dealing

with adversary nations. Russia, China, Iran have all been tremendously emboldened by a

lack of resolve by the United States and have taken full advantage of it.

Then there's the question of, how do we rebuild the world in our image, is a big one. I


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p.18

agree with Kori that we had a big chance in Iraq that we blew, because Iraq was heading

in the right direction. Vice President Biden actually said in 2010 that democracy in Iraq

was going to be one of the administration's biggest achievements after he had

pooh-poohed the war in Iraq.

I do think there's a way to do it, but I think it's a long term process of, it takes, you haveto build a culture of democracy, and that's a generational approach. We tried, in many

cases, to try to democratize in a year or two, and that's where I think we've failed. But I

think as a result of that, people have been soured on the idea that [inaudible 58:07] make.

Audience Member: I had discussed it that everything is balanced and discussed it and

everyone's assuming that our way is the best way for cultures that are completely not like

ours, and a lack of respect for each culture in every country, whether it's Russia or China

or Middle East.

Who the hell says that our way is best? Why are we the authority if it says our way is the

best? How dare we think that we have the right to impose our systems on other people?That's really the crux of one of the issues, is that we walk in there with our cowboy boots

on, thinking that we are the right way, and 9 times out of 10 we're shown that we're not.

Amb. Volker: OK, thank you. Why don't we go first to each of you. Mark.

Dr. Moyar: I'll just comment on that. One reason I think Americans think that is that we

did impose our way on Germany and Japan, and that seems to have worked out pretty

well for us. I personally have been someone who has been resistant to imposing our way

in a lot of cases.

I've written a few books on the Vietnam War which actually I said that our biggestmistake in Vietnam was trying to turn the Vietnamese government into an American

government. I think we have to realize actually both Republicans and Democrats go

through phases where they want to do this.

I think it's certainly a good question to ask. Should we be doing this? Is there any moral

advantage? I personally think the way we can influence people the most is bring them

over here and let them experience our country. We've actually had some success with

that. A lot of success stories in Asia have been led by people that were educated in out

universities.

Dr. Schake: You make it sound as though we are making people watch Hollywoodmovies, use the Internet, want a 24-hour news cycle, and want governments they can

throw out of power, but actually the reason the United States is so dominant in the

international order is because most people choose to do voluntarily what we want.

We're not marching into Russia and making them be us. We're not marching into Saudi

Arabia and making them be us. We're not marching into Israel and making them be us.

They're all different from us. Where we create change in other societies, the Iraq War and


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p.19

one or two other example, mostly how we change the world is by the power and

magnetism of our ideas.

It's the belief that people have rights and they loan them to governments in limited ways

for limited purposes. It's true that 90 percent of people polled in Russia support Vladimir

Putin. Would you tell an anonymous phone caller, if you were a Russian citizen, that youdidn't support Vladimir Putin?

[laughter]

Dr. Schake: Of course not. It turns out there's a fair amount of evidence that the truths

we hold to be self-evident are actually mostly what other people want. That's what a

mother of six in tribal areas of Pakistan actually yearns for, the things we take for

granted.

Amb. Volker: I'm going to pass the microphone to the middle table here to [inaudible

61:40] .

Dr. Schake: Whales, and Whales.

[crosstalk]

Audience Member: Actually, building on the comments of the last two commentators

and questioners, it seems to me a big part of a definition of success would be a strong,

multilateral institution. I'd be very interested to know the panel's view on whether

multilateral institutions are strengthening.

Dr. Schake: Mr. Ambassador, do you want to take that first?

Amb. Foley: No.

Dr. Schake: OK. [laughs]

Amb. Foley: Let DJ take it.

Dr. Peterson: I think, in some ways, they're there by default. Again, if you think about

the post-war era, the US was largely the architect of multilateral institutions that matter in

the world. I think in today's world the US is fundamentally ambivalent.

If we think about IMF reforms, if we think about some major treaties that are out theregoverning warfare, for instance, or atrocities of war, we're very ambivalent. We're not

parties. We're not members of the International Criminal Court. In fact, there are a lot of

multilateral institutions, and many of them are trying to make their way without the

United States or despite the United States. Asian Infrastructure Development Bank is a

prime example.

I think they do matter. In some cases they're weakened or they're not as powerful as they


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p.20

are because the United States is extremely, in my view, conflicted. It goes all the way

through society. It's not just the White House.

Amb. Volker: [inaudible 63:32] ?

Dr. Schake: We always have that. You have the great institutional moment after World

War II that is a function of the catastrophe of the international order and the cost we paid

to restore it. You have this one great shining motor of multilateralism.

I think some institutions are strengthening. I think NATO is strengthening. I think even

the EU is strengthening. I wouldn't have bet 20 bucks they could get through the last

eight years as well as they have. I don't think the United Nations is weakening. I think it's

actually always been weak, and because of the five-power structure in it.

I think that we are missing huge opportunities. The main treaty I would like to see my

country ratify is the Law of the Sea Treaty, because we are the main beneficiaries of it.

But we're missing lots of opportunities like this. I agree with your underlying premise

that the health of multilateral institutions is an important measure of our success.

Amb. Volker: If we could pass a microphone back there, and I want to raise a follow-up

to this while we do. After World War II, the US was a principal architect of international

institutions and a new rule of law order.

United Nations, NATO, Central Treaty Organization, IMF, World Bank, European Coal

and Steel Community, Marshall Plan, International Court of Justice, a whole array of

things designed by people to say, "This can't happen again. We're going to create law and

order, and it's going to be modeled on democratic values."

What DJ just said is the United States now is, at best, ambivalent about this, fearing --

this is where I'm taking your argument further -- fearing that if we pursue these things,

they're going to be turned against us.

That we do an international criminal court, and people are going to go after US soldiers

in that court. We do the Law of the Sea, and it's going to impose on the United States

against our freedom of maneuvering activities in the area.

The question is really to Kori, or Jim. Isn't that indicative of our actually having lost this?

We started out the right way, with the best of intentions, and in fact, it's not working out

that way?

Dr. Schake: No. It's a testament to the fact that political leaders won't explain to my

mom that American soldiers aren't going to get dragged in front of the International

Criminal Court because we have a functioning justice system in this country that's going

to adjudicate those things. It's the failure of political leadership. It's not a more systemic

problem.

Amb. Foley: I would agree with that. Strong political leadership could, in principle,


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bring us into these instruments. But let's be clear that the nature of our political system,

our psychology, is a deep distrust. That's a political fact of international entanglements

and UN-type obligations.

This is something that politicians stoke, but they also respond to. It's not an easy case for

American statesmen to make. They all should be doing it, and I agree with youcompletely.

It's in our fundamental interest to be in the Law of the Sea Treaty. It would increase our

leverage against the Russians up in the arctic. It would increase our leverage vis--vis the

Chinese in the South China Sea, and our military strongly supports its ratification.

We can't get it through the Congress, despite, I think, support from the Executive, so yes.

Political leadership is needed. But, as you said, our history indicates otherwise over time.

Amb. Volker: Question from the back row? Sir?

Audience Member: Yes, thank you. I think there have been various references to anabdication of US leadership, and you can see the pendulums here seem to swing. We had

a cowboy administration. Now we have a very reticent administration.

But I would like to put the question to the panel of, now you have a situation where

before the events that just occurred in France, it was unclear what a strong executive

should do in Syria to prevent the extreme flow of migrants, and to resolve that very

difficult situation.

Now, in light of the French attacks, if you wanted to see America take a stronger role in,

let's say not losing the post-Cold War, what should a strong executive, if we had one, do

in Syria and Iraq in the current situation?

Audience Member: I have a question.

[crosstalk]

Dr. Moyar: Can I answer that, [inaudible 68:46] ?

Amb. Volker: Yeah. Mark, why don't you kick off? What do we do in Syria?

Dr. Moyar: Syria is probably the most difficult place in the world right now to deal

with. There were some fairly easy fixes, or fixes that at least had a chance of success.

In 2012, there were a lot of moderate nationalist groups that were asking for our

assistance, and General Petraeus, Secretary of State Clinton and others, were actually

urging the administration to provide arms to these groups. We did not do so.

In the ensuing years, most of those groups were either killed off, or they were co-opted

by ISIS or al-Qaeda, so you now have a much more difficult proposition.


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Also, most of the people who study Syria will tell you that a long term solution requires

[inaudible 69:36] Assad. Now that Russia has come in, Assad looks like he's got a pretty

good grip on power there. That has, I think, further constrained what our good options

are.

There certainly seems to be opportunities for cooperation with Russia now to go afterISIS. But there is a population of about 20 million people in Syria and Iraq, the Sunni

population, who view Russia, Syria, and Iran as mortal enemies. They will support ISIS

and al-Qaeda rather than allow those organizations to come in.

The only people who I think can actually resolve this ultimately are the Americans,

because they're the only ones who are somewhat distanced from the Sunni-Shia divide,

and actually have the manpower to go in there. None of the other countries there are

going to solve this.

Doing that is going to require a lot more US troops, and I'm not sure the American people

will buy that. If there's something like what happened in Paris in this country, I think youmight see that.

Amb. Volker: Senator?

Audience Member: Syria is clearly a problem from hell, and one can sympathize with

the desire on the part of the administration to not get drawn in, and the skepticism about

the ability of American intervention to make a difference, and not make a bad situation

worse.

I think it's becoming really clear, especially in light of the Paris attacks, what the costs are

of inattention, and we risk...We talk about our European allies, about the European union.

I think this unchecked flow, this tidal wave of refugees, of migrants into Europe really

risks destabilizing the European Union and ISIS itself risks further destabilizing the

Middle East, and exporting terrorism, as we've seen all around the world.

It's reached the point where I think neglect, inattention is no longer possible, and a robust

approach and robust intervention is going to be necessary to defeat ISIS. But I don't

believe that there can be a military solution without a diplomatic solution, and you can't

have a diplomatic solution if you're not also willing to go in and take out ISIS, but they

have to be married.

We need a robust, diplomatic agreement on a post-Assad Syria in which all the parties

can agree. That is easy to say, and virtually impossible to achieve. But it's going to be the

necessary foundation to a robust, potentially if not US led, with a much stronger US role

and then to eradicate the threat.

Dr. Schake: I want a bite at this apple, too. Start by protecting the people in Syria. Take

the pressure both of immigrants off of immigration to Europe and other places, but, most

importantly, take the pressure off of Turkey, Syria, and the neighboring countries that


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have six million Syrian refugees living there.

That means creating safe zones along the Turkish and Jordanian border that we along

with others are going to need to protect. I think a political deal that has Assad remaining

in control of a rump Alawite state and giving Russians their base, but then permits the

rest of the country to move forward and for us to fight along with the Syrian, Sunni, andothers to uproot ISIS from their midst and take away their territory is my preferred

solution.

Amb. Volker: Let me ask one more question. We'll do two. I'm going to ask my

question. Then I want to come to you. Then we're going to do our wrap-up round here

where each panelist has to give just one bottom line recommendation.

The question I want to ask comes back to the one that was at this table earlier, which was

listening to all this advice about what to do about Syria. The first question is, "Is this our

problem? Why do we have to do this?" The second part of that is, "Could we even if we

wanted to?" I'm not suggesting that we do want to. At least, it doesn't seem like it.

But even if we wanted it, do we really have the ability to fix these things? That seems to

be an underlying thing. Because everybody's talking about US leadership, but leadership,

exactly what does that mean? If it's not your problem and you can't fix this problem, what

is leadership there?

Let me pitch that first to our team that is advocating at a robust American revival, and

then pitch it back to Kori and Jim.

Dr. Moyar: In terms of can we actually fix Syria, I think we can. Is it our problem is the

tougher question. I think certainly it's now Europe's problem has become very clear. I

would say Europe is our most reliable partner in the world. I think on that basis, you

could argue, yes, that we should do it.

I do think the Sunni Shiite violence and the idea that we can just sit back and let that play

out, I think that hurt us in the long term to do that because it's [inaudible 75:04] . The

amount of hatred that's being generated there is going to touch us. We're already seeing it.

We are certainly shielded to a greater degree than Europe is, but I don't think we'll be

shielded entirely. I think probably it's in our long-term interest to see Europe not being

completely destabilized by what's going in Syria.

Dr. Schake: Can we solve it, and should we solve it? Yes, we should help solve it. Notonly because I feel like a government that kills a quarter million of its own people and

makes refugees out of 11 million others and that we could pretty easily take care of and

are choosing not to, I think that's a corrosion of the international order that we wanted to

create and that we believe fervently in.

Second, we should solve it because we helped create this problem. this didn't emerge


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p.24

organically. This is a function of the wars that are going in the Middle East, and we've

played a major role in them. We have a moral obligation.

Third, the practical obligation that Mark mentioned because this is destabilizing to a lot

of our friends and not just in Europe, Jordan, Turkey, other countries.

Can we do it? Yes! I think about the successful model of provide comfort in Northern

Iraq. People are now talking about how the Kurdish territories are the only successful part

of Iraq. Why is that? Because in 1991, we protected those areas as safe zones. We helped

them set up governments. We grew a leadership we could live with.

Yes, we can do this successfully. We've done it successfully in a lot of places.

Amb. Volker: In the middle table here.

Audience Member: Just a quick question for you. I was on the ground in Kiev a couple

of months ago actually. The resolve of the Ukrainian people is remarkable. The question I

have is these why love their country. Why hasn't the US led more? Should we? Shouldthe West lead more? What are the implications of that? What would look that?

Second question is we have a variety of presidential candidates who are talking about

their approach to dealing with ISIS, Syria. One who says he would bomb the expletive

out of the oilfields and then take the oil. What are the implications of that? That's kind of

a fun question for you. What are the implications of allowing Russia to lead?

Amb. Volker: Let's stick with one question. It was the question of Ukraine, which we

hadn't talked about yet. Why are we not doing more in the Ukraine?

Dr. Peterson: I think a few things. One, I'm not as optimistic about the Ukrainians andthem figuring out their own conflicts and conflicted interests. I think the story is getting

more muddled about where they're going and their trajectory. I don't think the West, the

United States, or Washington, for instance, for the purposes of this discussion is getting a

clear signal.

Second point, the United States is not going to spend money on a faraway country. We

just don't have the vision whether it's taking Yale's point where we're more enlightened

now, and we're not going to get involved, but it's just we don't have the guts. We don't

have the money. We don't have the willingness the make the security commitments that

Ukraine needs.

Dr. Schake: I think Ukraine's a hard example because they have blown earlier

opportunities for positive change, in 1991 and after the Orange Revolution. Yet, I still

believe we should be doing a lot more to help them.

I do think, though, that the international institutions and, in particular, the International

Monetary Fund has been doing a lot that's really good. The European Union has been

doing a good job of helping root out corruption, establish transparency. The IMF has


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been stalwart in dealing with the creditors of Ukraine and helping them get a fresh start. I

think we haven't done half badly, although I wish we had done more.

Of course, as DJ suggests, this center of gravity for Ukraine's success lies in Ukraine. But

it's in all of our interests to show the Russians that Ukraine can and will be successful,

because that's the right way to punish Russia's disgraceful behavior in Ukraine.

Audience Member: Thank you so much. We all, of course, we are now focusing in

Syria on the terrorism parts in Paris and because of how terrible those situations are.

But there is one older problem. We have not mentioned...Maybe we have mentioned it

very vaguely, which is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It has been a lot like that. Here, the

United States has a big word to say. Also, because possibility as we see it in every time

there is a new solution or proposal in the directed nations. That is very clear.

How do you see the [inaudible 80:30] the perspective for this conflict? Thank you.

Dr. Schake: I'm actually pretty downbeat about peace in the Middle East. I think Israelis changing in ways that will make peace with the Palestinians. I think the Palestinians

are also changing in ways that will make peace much harder. I'm a lot less hopeful than I

used to be.

I wish my country actually had the ability to fix that problem, but I don't think we do, and

I don't think we ever did.

Dr. Peterson: I think the US-Israel relationship is one of the strongest examples of

declining US power. The breach of faith and trust between these two countries is really

shocking.

Amb. Volker: Let me start wrapping this up because we have to finish. The question I

want each of you to answer...We'll do it rapid fire. I really just want one minute or

less...Even a sentence is just good. A bottom line recommendation so that if you were to

give your advice to the current administration or the next one, what would you like to see

them do? What would be your advice going in?

Amb. Foley: I would simply elaborate on what I was saying earlier, that the great

George [inaudible 81:54] argued that the United States couldn't be stronger abroad than

we were at home. What he called the health and sanity of institutions was critical to our

ability to protect power values in the world. I think that's where we're falling down.

This is a very complex world that we're facing today, just multiplying threats. The notion

that we can go in and engineer countries in our image, as was alluded to by one of the

questioners, that's ancient history. That was only 10 years ago we thought so. We don't

think now.

We need to focus on...I'm exceeding my minute. I understand. But what we need is the

next President and the next Congress to strike a deal on putting our finances on a sound


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footing so that we will pay for the government we need at home and the engagement we

need overseas. That's the predicate to rebuilding our military so that we can confront

these challenges from a position of strength and confidence.

Amb. Volker: Get your house in order at home first before you worry about the rest of

the world.

Dr. Schake: I endorse Jim's position completely. The most important constraint on

American power is our inability to pay for especially the entitlement programs that we

want. I don't want the next President or the next Congress to solves that problem. I want

this President and this Congress to make an entitlements deal that'll put our federal

spending on solid, sustainable footing.

Dr. Peterson: As a Californian, I'll give it the next leader needs to pull a Jerry Brown

and fundamentally reform our political system so that we have strong center that kind of

matches the electorate's interests and really gets rid of this divisiveness.

Dr. Moyar: I would say a couple things need to be done. One, just the public diplomacy

has to change. We are now in a position where the President is immediately saying we're

not going to put boots on the ground before we do anything, which just undercuts

everything we do.

I think we need to step up military spending, probably to at least four percent of GDP.

We're down well below that now.

If you look at Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, we're all short on funding

and our military personnel are getting burn out. The rates of divorce and suicide are

pretty alarming because we don't have the manpower to maintain all the commitments wehave.

Amb. Volker: Interesting. Thank you very, very much. I just want to interestingly note

that of four debaters, talking about is the US losing the post-Cold War on the world, the

answer starts with what we do domestically. Very interesting.

Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking our debaters.

[applause]

[music]

Transcription by CastingWords

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Has the West Lost the Post-Cold War Era?