American Umpire (2015) - full transcript

Since World War II,

the United States of America

has been involved in

more foreign conflicts

than any other nation.

Presidents of both

political parties

have told us the United States

must umpire the

world's conflicts,

and that if the U.S.

does not do this job,

the world will not be safe.

- The international

system that was set up

at the end of World War II

is not functioning

as well as it should.

I think that the

world is fragile.

- If the United

States steps back

from the historic role we

placed since World War II,

the world will come

apart at the seams.

Yet the costs

of leadership are high.

In a world of rich nations,

why does the U.S. have

to shoulder this burden,

mostly alone?

- We made it very difficult

for other countries

to play a role,

because they don't

see the need to.

They know that we'll do it.

- American allies

are very, very adept

at telling the Americans

arguments as to why

the Americans must do

this, must do this project.

If you don't do it, no one

will, and the world will end.

- Why are we acting as

the world's policeman?

And I think the American

public really would like

to have an answer

to that question.

In this

hour, we will examine

the history and the future

of America's military

commitment abroad.

U.S. troops have been

coming home for generations.

Home from deployments abroad,

home from war.

Some reunions are joyful.

Others are filled with sorrow.

How did the security

of the entire globe

become the responsibility

of the United States?

- Well, I think that the

part that's interesting

about being the U.S., frankly,

is you're damned if you

do or damned if you don't.

- I know the American

people must ask

at the end of the Cold War

when we so

spectacularly succeeded,

and the Soviet Union collapsed,

and all of these great

new democracies were born,

why did we have to keep going?

Elizabeth Cobbs

is a professor and author

who's researched this

tangled question.

For 25 years she has

taught the history

of U.S. foreign relations

at universities in

America and abroad.

She's studied policy

and talked with

those who made it.

- The Chinese feel that

they have been maligned

and disrespected.

She asked the question,

"If democracy is spread

all around the world,

"why do we have to

keep defending it?

"Why do we volunteer when

other democracies don't?"

- I've asked this question

of myself and others

for many decades.

So I began to think that

there was a connection

between the way that

we operate at home,

the way we deal with

relations between the states,

and how we deal with

foreign countries,

and that reminded me

of a word that I found

in the federalist papers.

It was the word umpire,

and that made me

think about baseball.

You can't play baseball

without umpires.

They make the calls,

they decide what's

foul and what's fair,

who's safe and who's out.

- Out!

- The founders understood

that politics operate

at a lot like team sports.

The 13 states were very, very

different from one another,

and it could be a nightmare

to get them to play together,

and so what they devised when

they wrote up the constitution

was a federal umpire

to keep the states cooperating,

to prevent war between them,

to take down tariff

walls between them,

to impose a kind of

common citizenship.

The states were

not always willing

to reach that common compromise,

or to accede to the rules,

and so that's why an

umpire plays a crucial role

in the early days

of the republic.

- This had never really been

tried before in world history.

The idea of taking states

and putting them together

without one of them

trying to clobber

or conquer or rule

over the others,

but rather using a kind

of cooperative go between,

an umpire to keep

peace among them.

The system

wasn't perfect.

The Civil War was the

bloodiest conflict

in our nation's history.

But most problems were

solved without violence.

With an affective

federal umpire,

and big protective oceans,

the U.S. grew strong.

By 1890, the United States

enjoyed domestic peace,

and the world's largest economy.

War torn Europe was different.

It had no enforcer

of common rules,

and no common market.

There, bloody conflicts

repeatedly surfaced.

- The last thing

the founders wanted

was to get drawn into

Europe's continual conflicts,

and so they came up with

three basic principles

of American foreign policy

that guided foreign

policy for 150 years.

The first rule of

American foreign policy

was often called

Washington's great rule,

and it was the idea

that the United States

would always be

a neutral nation.

The great

rule of conduct for us,

in regard to foreign nations,

is in extending our

commercial relations,

to have with them

as little political

connection as possible.

- He said that we

should have economic

and trade relations

with countries,

but we should try to avoid

becoming drawn into

their politics.

- We were neutral, we

were reflexively neutral.

This is an old reflex.

Jefferson and Madison

had done it too

in the Napoleonic era.

United States

entered into treaties

throughout the 19th Century,

but no military alliances.

- The United States not only

wanted no military alliances,

they wanted no military,

and this was the second

founding principle

of the United States.

No standing army.

They didn't want a standing army

because they believed that

it always ate away the

resources of any country,

and that it was always

a threat to liberty.

It's what kings had used

to control the people.

- The idea was that we

would not have a large army.

It could be raised quickly.

Men would pull the musket

down from over the fireplace,

and they would go

off and do their job

then return there.

- We certainly disarmed

after the revolutionary war,

we disbanded the Union

and Confederate forces

for that matter,

after the Civil War.

Samuel Adams said

a standing army

will always be a danger to

the liberties of the people.

This was very different

from European countries

which maintained large armies.

- The Napoleonic wars define

a initial phase of a era

in the history of warfare,

where big industrial states

relied on mass conscription

of their young male citizens.

And the United States, for

almost that entire period,

is the big outlier.

It has no large

scale standing force.

- There was a third

founding principle

of American foreign policy,

and this was the idea

that the United States

should never intervene in

other people's problems,

that they should

solve them themselves.

John Quincy Adams best articulated this on July 4th, 1821.

America goes not

abroad in search of monsters

to destroy.

She is the well wisher

of freedom to everyone,

but she is the vindicator

only of her own.

- This idea that if the

United States goes abroad

and fights on behalf of others,

we will be drawn

into their conflicts,

and their conflicts

become our own,

and overtime that will

sap not only our strength,

but our values, our culture,

what it is that is

appealing to others

that they wish to emulate.

- For the first 150 years

of American foreign policy,

we operated on three principles.

Neutrality, nonintervention

and no standing army.

Sometimes there were

military crises,

but we responded in our own way

and on our own terms.

All the way through World War I.

President Wilson

declared neutrality

two weeks after the

war began in 1914.

America stayed on the sidelines

for nearly three years.

But the catastrophic

war dragged on.

Germany declared unrestricted

submarine warfare

to cut off supplies

to its enemies.

Neutrality frayed.

American merchant

ships were sunk.

The U.S. finally stepped

up to the plate in 1917.

Even then, Wilson made clear

that he wanted no part

of a formal alliance.

- Wilson again honoring the

old isolationist traditions

of his republic,

refused to make

the United States

a formal treaty obligated ally

of his comrades in arms.

The United States was

gonna fight alongside them,

but not exactly with them.

When the war ended,

America brought

every soldier home,

and reduced its

military by 90 percent.

U.S. even hosted the world's

first disarmament conference

to prevent future wars.

The major powers agreed to

destroy their own battleships.

Army bombers sank

the USS Virginia

off the coast of Cape Hatteras

on a calm morning in 1923.

- So, after World War I,

the United States did

what it had always done,

which was to return to

its founding principles.

The 1920s was a

very sunny decade,

and the United

States could afford

to ignore problems abroad.

Also, it had its own traditions,

which was a tradition

of neutrality

and not getting involved

in other people's problems.

Then almost

overnight, everything changed.

Stocks crashed, The Great

Depression swept the world.

- In The Great Depression,

countries like Japan,

Germany and Italy,

their leaders told their people

that the only way they

could restore prosperity

was through conquest.

And so Italy attacked

North Africa.

Japan attacked China.

Germany conquered almost

all of western Europe.

And the basis of

this was the idea

that only through conquest

could you really get the

resources you needed.

Now Americans, again, more

than ever wanted to stay

as far away from

that as possible.

- I think that this country

should heed the advice

of its first president,

and avoid all foreign

entanglements.

- Let them fight

their own battles.

They mean nothing to us.

- I think we should stay

out of this entirely.

Congress passed

five neutrality laws,

each stricter than the next.

But neutrality frayed again,

as the war got closer

and closer to home.

Britain alone

stood up to Hitler.

We shall

fight on the beaches,

we shall fight in the

fields and in the streets.

We shall never surrender.

In a last ditch effort

to stay out of the fight

and advert another world war,

President Roosevelt sent

letters to Hitler and Mussolini,

asking them to respect

the independence

and sovereignty of 33 countries.

To Adolf Hitler, this

message was a huge joke.

He recited the 33

names to the Reichstag.

From Sweden and Denmark

down to Iraq and Palestine.

The arrogant Nazis

merely laughed.

This was their only

answer to Roosevelt.

At the time,

the U.S. army ranked 19th in size in the world,

behind Portugal.

Congress reluctantly

approved a peacetime draft.

Our military had so few weapons

that some GIs trained

with wooden guns

and pretend tanks.

They substituted bags

of flower for bombs.

When Japan bombed the U.S.

Naval Base at Pearl Harbor

on December 7th, 1941,

and Germany declared

war on the U.S.,

America could remain

neutral no longer.

- Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,

a date which will

live in infamy,

the United States of America

was suddenly and

deliberately attacked

by naval and air forces

of the empire of Japan.

There is no blinking at the fact

that our people, our territory

and our interests

are in grave danger.

We will gain the

inevitable triumph

so help us God.

British Prime Minister,

Winston Churchill said,

he went to bed and

slept the sleep

of the saved and thankful.

American military

help was on the way.

Resistance fighters

in occupied France

took courage as well.

- I grew up with a mother

who got into the underground

resistance movement

when she was 19.

She got arrested.

She was able to escape

and welcome the arrival

of the American troops,

just west of Paris.

And my mother

always told me that

when things really

look bad, really,

there is America.

Working together, the

allies gradually won the war,

and began to talk about

how to win the peace,

how to break the cycle

of repeated wars.

- Some rather brilliant

people looked back,

and what did they see?

They saw two world wars, 70

million people were killed.

- The World War II generation

looked around and said

it's a pretty crummy world.

We've just fought a second

world war in 20 years,

we have no way of

really settling issues

short of warfare,

so they established

the United Nations,

they went to Bretton Woods

and came up with

a monetary system.

Delegates from 44

allied and associate countries

arrived for the opening

of the United Nations

monetary and

financial conference.

Invited by President Roosevelt

to the first major

world financial meetings

since the London

conference of 1933,

to be discussed are plans

for the stabilization

of world currency.

- So they created

an architecture

that had the purpose of

creating a more peaceful world

where part of the formula

was that everybody

was succeeding economically.

So the premise was that we

were more secure in a world

where there was less potential

for a sort of conflict.

- The idea behind

the United Nations

was that of economic and

political cooperation,

and the United States

had no notion at all

of leaving its military behind,

and in so, in fact,

the assumption was

that we would do

what we had done

after every other single war,

which is to bring

our military home.

- Maintaining a large ground

force occupying Europe

and trying to straighten out

all the centuries of

European problems and so on

was not something that

they could easily imagine,

especially Roosevelt and to a

certain degree Truman as well

did not anticipate a globe-girdling military establishment.

But the

world was not stable.

Shell-shocked countries

in Europe and Asia

did not trust their

former enemies.

In addition, the Soviet Union

became increasingly aggressive,

setting up police states

on its western borders,

and pressuring

Turkey to the south.

When a communist backed

civil war broke out

next door in Greece,

London called

Washington for help.

- Britain was a kind of

lynch pin in southern Europe,

and they were there

protecting the peace,

and what happened is

they called up Washington

and said we're broke, we

can't do this anymore.

We are pulling out,

and if you want

Greece not to fall,

and which, of course,

if Greece fell

then Italy could fall,

and if Italy fell then

France could fall,

and this kind of

effect could cascade,

and so the United States

would put on notice

that if it didn't want a return

to an incredibly

destabilizing war,

that it would have

to do something.

So, what happened is

that Truman did something

he never expected to do,

which was to go

back to the Congress

and say we have to

return to Europe.

Alarmed at

the rapid expansion

of totalitarian interests

in Europe and Asia,

President Truman advances

a joint session of Congress

on our changing foreign policy.

- The very existence

of great state

by the terrorist activities

of several thousand armed men

led by communists.

I believe that it must be the

policy of the United States

to support free peoples

who are resisting

attempted subjugation

by armed minorities or

by outside pressures.

Should we fail to

aid Greece and Turkey

in this fateful hour,

the effect will be far reaching

to the west as well

as to the east.

The free people's of

the world look to us

for support in

maintaining their freedom.

If we falter in our leadership,

we may endanger the

peace of the world,

and we shall surely endanger

the welfare of this nation.

- And this is when the

Cold War really started,

and it not only, the

Cold War started,

but the United States agreed

that it would take

leadership in that war.

And so 1947 is the key

year in American history.

That's the year at which

George Washington's great rule

was replaced by the

Truman doctrine,

and the idea was not only that

the United States would take

leadership in the cold war,

but that it would really

step up to the plate,

and this defines American

history ever since.

Republicans, democrats,

every American

president since 1947

has followed the

Truman doctrine.

- Then the conduct of

U.S. foreign policy

after World War II was

informed by our experience,

our history, as the

umpire between the states

in our early days.

The one crucial

difference though

is that there was no

formal grant of authority

to the U.S. government to behave

as the federal government

did to the states.

- Was the farewell

founded in the Cold War?

Yes, I believe it was.

Was it a relatively simply

argument in the Cold War?

Yes, I believe it was.

There was a single focus,

there was one state,

and that state had

a lot of capability.

The Soviet Union flexed

its growing military power

in a blockade of Berlin,

trying to force its former

allies out of Germany.

West Europeans began to fear

for their own safety once again,

and urged the United

States to help form

the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization

to keep the peace regionally.

We will now proceed

with the signing of the

North Atlantic treaty.

NATO was

America's very first

permanent armed alliance.

- The old joke about NATO was

that it had three purposes.

To keep the Russians

out, the Germans down

and the Americans in.

And in its essence

it did its job.

This four-pointed

star is the emblem of NATO.

- The jackpot question is why

did the economic

reconstruction of Europe

also yield a military

alliance that NATO

which became kind of the point

of the spear you might say

for what some people would

call the militarization

of American

diplomacy ever since,

that we've made a much

bigger bet on our military

as an instrument of

policy since World War II,

then I think the

architects of World War II

fully understood or foresaw.

Following NATO,

America gradually signed

defense alliances with

countries around the world.

Militaristic Germany and Japan

became peaceful democracies.

Encouraged by the U.S.,

they changed their focus

from territorial conquest

to economic development.

As historian Josef

Joffe has written,

the Germans found it

was more profitable

to polish their BMWs

than their jackboots.

- All of western Europe

benefited enormously

by the American sponsor order

because for the first time

in its bloody history,

you know, 500 years of war,

there was suddenly a

player in the game,

and who can protect

each against the other.

So this grand experiment

of European integration

where these arch enemies,

France and Germany,

suddenly link hands,

would not have been possible

without big brother

standing behind them,

ensuring each against

the risks of cooperation.

- Commerce followed where

that stability was imposed,

imposed by the Americas.

During the years

of the Truman doctrine,

nation states gradually

replaced empires.

The UN grew from 51 to

nearly 200 countries.

- What happened with the UN

was that every

country in the world

singed onto the premise

that a country deserved

the right to exist,

that every country had

the right to exist,

and that was absolutely

revolutionary

in all world's history.

- The great lesson of

American foreign policy

in the last 70 years

is that we've created in a

sense these global norms,

these global laws that basically

most countries adhere to.

I mean, that's the

great accomplishment.

Countries don't see much

purpose in seizing territory

from other countries.

- We had a security

and economic commons,

that was put there with

a lot of leadership

from the United States.

That doesn't mean we told

people here's this and this.

But when the United

States comes with ideas

and researches in a

problem solving way,

there's a response.

Economists

describe the second half

of the 20th Century

as the golden age.

Trade boomed, gradually

even communist countries

came to accept free markets

and world cooperation

as a faster, safer

route to prosperity

than dominating their neighbors.

The Berlin wall fell.

The moment Berliners have waited 28 years for.

The Cold War ended.

- So, when the Cold War ended,

the question became

should the United States

continue to exercise the

kind of emergency role

it had been playing

for 70 years.

How can you normalize this

world security system,

and is it time to

share the burden?

- The Truman doctrine guided

American foreign policy

from the end of World

War II into the 1990s,

and since 1991, the demise

of the Soviet Union,

and the ending of the Cold War,

the United States

has really wrestled

with the question

of what the next

overarching doctrine will be.

The United States

hasn't really come to terms

with developing a doctrine

for the long-term.

It's a fair question to say do

we need more burden sharing.

- Europe, as an economy,

is about the same size

as the United States.

So, it's not reasonable

to have one of them

providing the lion's share

of the basic

advancement and security

and the other one sort

of free riding on it.

- It's pretty obvious

that the Europeans

don't do enough.

- 95 percent of all

foreign soldiers

and sailors, airmen,

marines in the world

deployed outside

of their countries,

they're Americans.

When it comes

to world security,

the United States supplies

the cash, equipment and lives.

- American leadership thought

it would be front loaded

with a lot of American aid

to get things up and running,

and then the Europeans

would largely run the

show for themselves.

That hope is gone

absolutely unfulfilled

for now three generations,

and there's been a constant

badgering of the Europeans

over many years

to pay their fair share.

- Very frustrating for anybody

in our national

security community

to be working with NATO.

We're spending 4.5 percent

of our GDP on defense,

and the vast majority

of our allies in NATO

are spending two percent,

less than two percent,

one percent.

- Every year the

defense secretary

gives the speech to Brussels,

says contribute more,

and every year the European

defense ministers they'll clap

and they'll sort of say,

yes, that's a great point,

and they won't do it.

If we step back, will the

Europeans actually increase

the military

contribution to NATO.

They might.

They will to see themselves

as staging a threat,

but that's the big point.

They don't see themselves

as facing a threat.

There a reason they

don't spend money

on their military,

because they know

they live in a region

of great peace and security,

and they have a great

ally in the United States

who will help defend them

when they need to be defended

if that ever happens.

- We need NATO that

varies an interplay

between America saying okay,

we're still going to be there,

but hey, it costs so much.

And the Europeans should cover

basically more of the costs.

- We have to be very blunt

with other countries.

We cannot carry the

full burden for this,

and America has no

moral obligation

to do the impossible.

If what we're going to

do is break the bank

of every American tax payer,

if what we're going to do

is put our boys in the mud

to do what they

need to also have

their boys do alongside us,

then this is something

that can't be sustained.

It's not sustainable, it's

not manly for their countries

not to man up and

carry their own share.

- Their economies are

benefited from the fact

that they don't have to

pay for national defense.

We've been doin' it since '46,

so that's a long time.

Why would you suddenly expect

the Germans and the Italians

to say, oh, forget

that, let's pay now.

I just don't see it.

I don't see any European country

that would be prepared to

sacrifice any pension payments

to increase defense.

And their view is we can do it.

- There was real

hope and excitement

at the end of the Cold War,

that the United States

could begin to stand down,

and that the Europeans

would take upon themselves

their own security,

and the first test was

the breakup of Yugoslavia,

the Balkans.

And when a terrible

civil war broke out

that resulted in the

absolute slaughter

of muslim civilians

and all different

kinds of people,

ethnic cleansing.

What happened in the Balkans

was that the Europeans sent

witnesses and advisors,

but they were not

willing to use force.

They were not really willing

to put their men in harm's way.

- When President Clinton

came into office,

Bosnia was going on,

and the idea was

that it was Europe,

the Europeans should

deal with Bosnia.

Why should we get

involved in it?

The first President

Bush had said

he wanted to see a Europe

that was whole and free

and a peace.

One of my predecessors,

Secretary Baker,

had kind of indicated why

should the U.S. do this.

We would be getting reports

about the ethnic cleansing,

and people being

displaced and ravaged

and women being raped,

and terrible horrors going

on all over the place.

And one after another

people would come

to the different

ambassadors and say,

why aren't you people

doing something?

Because, ultimately,

we needed to deal with

what was unacceptable.

The statute of

limitations on war crimes

does not run out,

and it would have been

better if the Europeans

had done it,

but they weren't doing it.

- Back in the '90s,

I did a series of

lecture tours of Germany.

This was when the Balkans

were coming apart.

I remember in one forum

where a German asked me,

he said what is you

guys gonna do about

what's going on in Kosovo.

I said a lot of people

in the United States

wanna know what

are you gonna do.

They say it's in your backyard,

why are you looking

to us across the ocean

to solve your problem.

- We have been

touched by tragedy.

Yet, President

Clinton was ultimately

forced to intervene

in the Balkans.

He called the United States

the indispensable nation.

- America stands alone as the

world's indispensable nation.

- Historically, Americans have

always valued self-reliance.

It's one of our

fundamental values.

And we've created a situation

in which Europeans and other

allies are dependent on us.

And that's not

healthy for anybody.

- We have accumulated so much

global power to ourselves,

that we've made it very

difficult for other countries

to play a role,

because they don't

see the need to,

they know that we'll do it.

So I think this

indispensable nation talk

ends up driving a foreign

policy of constant activity,

and also of defining

your interests

in the broadest

manner imaginable.

- The notion of the

indispensable nation

is fraught is many,

many respects.

It conveys the notion to others

that they don't have

to pull up their socks

and handle their

own problems, right,

so, ah, you're right,

you are indispensable.

Come over here and be

indispensable for me,

and I can divert another

percent of my GDP

to building schools or roads

or any number of other things,

which I might not do if

I had to defend myself.

Valdimir Putin denies

knowing who the gunmen are.

- Russia gets

obstreperous in Ukraine.

These troops

were happy to tell me

they were Russian...

- A Russian.

- And what happens?

The Europeans run around

like chickens with

their heads cut off,

and they wait for the

Americans to show up.

The president announces

that he's gonna find

another billion dollars

in exercise money.

So I'm listening for

the chorus of Europeans saying

yes, and we will match that.

Yes, we will find

500 million dollars,

yes, we will do

much of anything.

But these are rich countries.

This is welfare for the rich.

Americans don't understand

they're providing welfare

for the rich abroad,

and you should scratch

your head about that.

We keep them as children

or as teenagers.

- The shared

responsibility is not good.

It creates a culture

of dependency.

Dependency is always dangerous.

However, it seems to be

pleasure both to the parent

and to the child.

- Nobody likes dependency,

and no parent wants a kid

in their basement at age 30.

We want them to grow up

and be self-sufficient.

Polls show important

shifts in U.S. public opinion.

Recently, for the

first time since 1960,

the majority of Americans

agreed it's time

to let other countries

get along on their own.

Polls also reveal

a generation gap.

Young people say the government

should focus on

reducing our deficit.

Older people believe we should

prioritize military spending.

- I think what this younger

generation has concluded

in the two wars that

they lived through

didn't yield the results

in terms of gains

for the national interests

that made them worth while.

- I'm not a dove.

You know, I supported

the gulf war,

and I supported drone

strikes, for example.

But these wars just seemed,

for lack of a better term,

so stupid and so unnecessary,

and so undermining

of U.S. security.

I couldn't anybody

could possibly

think they were a good idea.

I hope that this

generations of Americans

will sort of say, no, no moss,

we don't wanna do this anymore.

- I think it's very hard

if you are a young American

to figure the United States is

spending so much on defense,

and is building hospitals

and schools and roads

around the world,

and schools and roads and

hospitals are in poor shape

in the United States in

many parts of the country

and there is real poverty.

- They see correctly that

much of the rest of the world

free rides on us.

We're the ones who tend

to take an active role,

sacrifice our soldiers and

our equipment, et cetera.

And so it's a frustration.

It's the sense we

gotta do these things,

but damn it, I'm

not happy about it.

American

spends more on defense

that Europe, Russia

and China combined.

We outclass the world

in military might,

but have lost our

lead in other arenas.

Around the time America

adopted the Truman doctrine,

we had the highest per

capita income in the world.

Today, we rank 17th.

- If we could save some money,

if we could avoid some wars,

are there problems at home

that we could commit

those resources to.

Some people would like to return

that money to the taxpayer,

because they think

taxes are too high,

and it's basically

corrosive American liberty.

Some people would

like to use that money

to improve the

educational system,

because they think

human capital,

better human capital is

the key to American success

in the out years.

Some people look at

American infrastructure

and scratch their heads and say,

this is in such bad shape

that it's gotta be actually

an inimical to our

economic efficiency.

Beyond the

short term costs

are long-term costs.

The peak year for

disability payments

to World War I

veterans was 1969.

The peak year for

World War II veterans

was 1986.

For Vietnam, the costs

are still rising.

The current estimate for the

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

is four trillion dollars.

The financial aftermath

strains our budget.

With lower defense costs,

Europeans can give priority

to things like education.

- Our schools are

not competitive

with the people that we're

providing military for.

The U.S. trails

18 other countries

in terms of high

school completion,

but we're way behind in

terms of what kids learn,

and this is a real problem.

In the past we've been

able to rely on having

such a high skilled labor force,

and we are facing a world

that is very different,

where our competitors

are moving ahead of us

in fundamental ways.

America's

future leaders,

in business as well as politics

graduate college deeply in debt.

Education!

When

do we want it?

Now!

What do we want?

Education!

When do we want it?

In contrast

with students elsewhere.

- European students

don't pay tuition.

- We do not have a case of

students getting out of school

highly in debt.

- I travel all

around the country

talking with people

about this question,

and most people wanna know

is it time, is it possible

for us to draw back down

on our overseas commitments,

and there are two

sides to the debate,

and the side that we

hear often the most

is that it's too dangerous.

That if we don't do

this, no one else will.

- The United States

learned a very hard lesson

on September 11th.

That the real threats

to us were really

not necessarily from big powers,

but rather from failed states.

The terrorists of 9-11,

Al Qaeda came from Afghanistan,

the fifth poorest

country in the world.

- I do think that

the world is fragile.

I think that the

international system

that was set up at the

end of World War II

is not functioning

as well as it should.

- If the United States steps

back from the historic role

we played since World War II,

the world will come

apart at the seams.

- We have to maintain

some form of ready forces

in a world where time zones

have shrunk due to air

travel, sea travel,

and certainly in an age

when a couple of nuts

can cause industrial

level damage.

So, what you wanna

do with strategy

is set up shock absorbers

so you have the

fewest big regrets

when the surprise hits,

because there will

always be surprises.

Always.

- I'm the one in France who

said on the evening of 9-11,

today we are all Americans.

People thought generally that

it was a show of solidarity,

but I meant also

we're all targets,

and that's really

the way I still feel.

To me, our world is not stable.

- When you're under

the kind of pressure

that we faced after

September 11th,

every day after seems

like September 12th,

you go to work thinking that

something's gonna pop out

of a door, another attack,

another spate of violence.

Would I like to see Europe

in particular spend more

on its defense?

Absolutely.

It's an outrage

that the Europeans

have allowed their

military forces to decline

to the level that they have.

But I'm also not willing to

stake the security of the globe

and American security

on the hope that

they're going to do so.

If they don't, then we'll

just have to step forward.

- But the point is, I don't see

who's gonna step in and do it.

Who's gonna do it?

So, is it fair?

No.

Great nations pay a

price for bein' great.

That's one of 'em.

But there

is growing concern

that America is on

the wrong track.

Some say threats have

been exaggerated.

Security needs are

different from before,

and policies should be

recalculated in response.

- We need to

fundamentally rethink

the international

security architecture over

which we presided.

Now, for about

three generations.

Europe seems, by

historical centers,

quite stable and really

not a source of threat

to the stability of, the

security of this country

or the stability of

the world at large.

- War between France

and Germany or Britain

is simply, absolutely

inconceivable.

Relations with

Russia remain tense.

But Russia is not

the Soviet Union.

It's a smaller country.

Today, Germany, France,

Britain and even Italy

have bigger economies

than Russia.

- It's not the only country

with nuclear weapons in Europe,

it's certainly not

the only country

that could fighter planes.

The Russians on their best day,

probably themselves

could only put

about 10 divisions in the field.

They've got problems everywhere.

- I expect better

of policy makers

who say that we live in

the most dangerous time

in their lifetime

or the most dangerous

time in world history.

That's not true.

It feels that way sometimes,

if you don't make a

conscious decision

to actually think

about where we were

20 years ago or 40 years ago.

Or 60 years ago.

And I think if we allow those

fears to dictate our policy,

it will lead to us taking steps

and doing things

that in retrospect

we will regret.

- Americans are more

likely to be killed

by their furniture

than they are by a terrorist.

They're more likely to be killed

by a TV falling on top of them,

or falling in the bathtub.

We focus on the terrible things

that happened in Iraq

or Syria or elsewhere,

and we ignore the reality of

the world that we live in,

which is one of extraordinary

peace and security.

Extraordinary relative

peace and security.

It doesn't mean that

all wars have ended

and there's not still suffering.

But the reality is that we

made extraordinary progress,

and I think recognizing

that reality

is really the most effective way

to have a better foreign policy.

- The question really

is are we over doing it.

Is there more military

spending happening

than America needs to ensure

its safety, secure, and safety,

its territorial integrity.

Are we spending more,

are we doing more?

I believe that we could

spend less, do less,

and spend those resources

on something else.

So why

don't we spend less?

Has fear gotten

the better of us?

- Fear serves pretty much

the entire national security

infrastructure if you will.

It serves politicians,

it serves pundits,

it serves defense contractors.

Human rights organizations...

Everybody sort of

has an advantage

in escalating the

sense of a fear,

because it allows us

to devote more attention

to their issue.

Everything in foreign policy

discussions in this country

drives us to a position

of more activity.

- American allies

are very, very adept

at telling the Americans

arguments as to why the

Americans must do this,

must do this project.

If you don't do it, no one will,

and the world will end.

Well, the Americans

should basically say,

the world will end for

us or for you, right,

and if the world

will end for you,

then I actually think

that you will do more

if you have to do more.

There are also many

problems that an outside force

simply cannot solve.

In these cases,

military intervention

can make things worse.

If we've learned anything

from the major interventions

that we've made since World

War II in Korea, Vietnam,

Iraq and Afghanistan,

no matter how much military

muscle and might we can muster,

our ability to really

rearrange the political culture

and institutions of

foreign societies

is very, very limited.

- The intervention in Iraq,

I have to classify that

as just a catastrophic

foreign policy failure.

It's the best military

that's ever been fielded

in the span of world history.

It is Thor's hammer,

but the problem

that you have then,

is see, Thor's hammer is there,

and then every problem

that you look at globally,

it's a nail to be dealt

with by Thor's hammer.

And the costs are severe

when we are engaged

in an intervention

that's not well

politically informed.

- One of the things we know

is that self aware,

politically self aware groups

really rankle at

governments by outsiders.

And even the impression of

governments by outsiders.

They just don't like it.

- And basically, as I

look back over these wars

into World War II,

Korea, Vietnam,

Iraq, dear I say Afghanistan,

stick Somalia in

there somewhere,

other expeditions.

When America goes to war with

murky political end states,

then you end up in a situation

where you are trying

to do something right,

but you're not sure if

it's the right thing,

and suddenly you end

up with a situation

where the American people

say what are we doing here,

and what kind of people are we

that we do this sort of thing.

If you don't know what it is

that you're going to achieve,

then don't be surprised

that eventually

you've wasted treasure, lives,

and the moral authority

of the United States.

- When we discuss

threats abroad,

often the first argument

is that the Americans

have to go somewhere

and do something.

People forget that the

United States of America

has big oceans to

the left and right,

and we can put many,

many layers of defense

between us and trouble,

which means that we should

think very, very carefully

before we go out to try

and meet the trouble,

to lance the boil the

cauterize the wounds,

'cause it turns out that

these kinds of

offensive strategies,

necessary in some cases,

are nevertheless quite

fraught, quite expensive.

- Where do we stand 70 years

since the start of

the Truman doctrine?

Things have changed

dramatically.

World war no longer threatens,

bombed out countries

are now prosperous,

and they are peaceful

and they are strong.

Nations have proliferated.

Some of them are

really poorly governed,

but you can't fix all of

their internal problems

with outside force.

In fact, nobody

can but themselves.

Playing umpire comes with risks.

Umpires struggle

to be impartial.

- You missed him, he's safe!

They become targets.

- We don't want our umpires

to be partisans for

one team or the other.

- He's safe!

- The catcher was in position,

you're out of position.

You've been out of

position the whole game.

Umpires have a

limited field of vision.

They're not always right.

When conflicts arise,

it's good to have company,

and spread out the

responsibility.

In baseball, umpires

back each other up

and share the hotspot.

- And I think the United States

has precisely the same problem

in the internationalist fear,

that the easy cases

aren't the important ones,

it's the hard calls,

and that's where we get

ourselves into trouble.

- We are not the only power.

I think we are still the most

powerful country in the world,

but we are not alone,

and it goes back

to saying initially

that there's nothing in

the word indispensable

that says alone.

The problems that are out there

require cooperation

from other countries

and from international

institutions,

and the question is how

you motivate the others

to participate.

- If you look back on

the last seven years

of American foreign policy,

the most extraordinary

thing that America has done,

had everything to do with

the international system

that we helped create.

We helped create the

World Trade Organization,

geared toward international

peace and security.

Liberal democracies

have to a large extent

become the norm.

How do we improve that?

How would do we

solidify those gains?

- We're aiming for

a more complex world

in which the function that

the United States performed

in the past 70 years

is gonna have to be

performed by cooperation

among major powers,

and they will have to

include China and Europe.

- Are we spending too much,

or carrying a heavier

share of the burden?

We are, but we don't have to.

We do not have to.

We're simply not

doing those things

that could inspire leaders

to take some of the burden

off the Americans.

But there are folks out there

who will stand by us

if we'll just let them.

- Here's what we

think should do.

We're going to give you

the keys to the car,

and it's time for you to basically police the neighborhood,

and it doesn't seem

to be a lot to ask.

I talk a 10-year phenomenon

of handing over the

keys to the car.

This strikes me to be a

fairly conservative glide path

to responsibility.

It seems to me that in 10 years

we could probably get

the Europeans accustomed

to running the show

for themselves.

- We tend to be so self-critical

that we forget about

our accomplishments,

and accomplishments are

what you build upon.

As Washington and

Jefferson understood,

it's our economy and our ideas

that are the foundation

of American liberties,

not the gun.

- When I was the

ambassador in Afghanistan

I had an opportunity

to travel down

to this village in

southern Helmand province

where we had a company

of about 120 marines

who were fighting very hard.

These tribal leaders then

went on a walk with me

around their village,

and they pointed out

a irrigation system

that had been built by USAID,

U.S. Development Agency

in the late '50s and '60s,

they asked me if I knew some

of the peace corps workers

that were there in the 1960s,

and I flew back to

Kabul that night,

I was unable to sleep,

and it came to me.

The sad part was that

none of those marines

will be remembered.

Who was remembered was the

development agency decades ago

that built that

irrigation system.

It was the peace

corps volunteers.

If we're going to

remain influential

and persuasive,

we're going to do it

through our culture,

we're going to do it by

setting good examples.

We need the sword that

the marines and the army

can draw and have to bring

to bear from time to time

in a very dangerous world,

but don't lose sight

of the fact, ever,

that the strength of the

United States of America

is in our political system,

and it's having

a vibrant economy

that helps to persuade

others around the world

to be with the United States.

They set the example,

I wanna be like them.

- I think the policy lead

and the American public

agree on one thing.

They all want the

United States of America

to be a secure state

so that Americans could go

on about their business.

The difference is

in what they think

needs to be done

to achieve that.

Given that immensely

favorable security position

that the United States

enjoys inherently

on this rich and wonderful

and productive continent,

defended by this

fantastic military,

it's not so easy

to make the case

that security problems abroad

are major problems

for the United States.

American people should be

asking hard headed questions.

It's perfectly fine

to ask the question,

what's in it for us?

- We honor those who answer

the call of their country.

They fulfilled the policies

laid out by the presidents

Washington and Truman,

and the world that they

fought for is here.

The first and second phases

of American history are over.

There's no major nation

that threatens the peace

of the entire world

as happened during the Cold War.

Yes, there's terrorism,

and it's a problem,

it's a serious problem but

it's everybody's problem.

So, the question really

becomes how can we best lead.

And good leaders

develop new leaders.

They inspire them and they

hold them responsible.

The stakes are high,

and the time is now.

Our founding fathers understood

that the world needs umpires.

The most stable system

is one that everybody

is prepared to defend,

not just the brave men and

women leaving home today

for distant shores once again.