the committee will come after the ranking member and i make our opening remarks i'll recognize the chairman and ranking member of the europe subcommittee for three minutes to make opening statements and other members of the committee for one minute should they wish to make opening remarks members are welcome to play a written statement in the record and we welcome our panelists and everyone who's with us for hearing on a subject that is actually much more interesting than it sounds for over four decades after the second world war the united states and europe  focused on confronting the threat posed by the soviet union that threat disappeared with the end of the cold war but it was replaced with a much wider more complex array of security challenges many of which emanate from outside the euro atlantic region do we have the right tools institutions and approaches to deal with these new threats that's the subject of our hearing today in addition to the potential instability in southeastern europe we are confronting the ever growing likelihood of a nuclear armed iran and the menace of al qaeda that continues to spread around the world a resurgent taliban in afghanistan and pakistan and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction we also need to determine how to deal collectively with concerns such as energy security and climate change the existing trans atlantic and european institutions such as nato the organization for security and cooperation in europe or and the european union have done a remarkable job building peace and prosperity in the euro atlantic zone for many decades but they are now reevaluating their roles and capabilities to ensure that they confront the challenges of the twenty first century as effectively as possible nato has been extraordinarily successful military alliance for the past sixty years but the purpose for which it was created no longer exists since the cold war's ended is transformed to address new threats but as demonstrated by the current difficulty in obtaining sufficient troop levels in afghanistan many alliance members question the desirability of engaging and out of area missions other allies question whether nato should and indeed structured to take on issues such as energy security as nato reviews its strategic concept what should be its mission for the foreseeable future and what changes if any need to be made to the structure of the alliance year zero atlantic organization with the most comprehensive membership comprising fifty six countries all with equal standing but russia has argued that c e become the preeminent secure organization in the transatlantic region and do more to strengthen its political military and economic environmental dimensions in addition to its human dimension and finally the has evolved from its initial function of serving peace between france and germany to developing a single economic union and seeking a more unified approach to foreign policy among the twenty seven members of the us has often policy maybe the is effectively handling humanitarian and transfer training responsibilities in afghanistan and it is conducted peacekeeping missions in chad the congo and the balkans but i o adequate the structure and resources to address the new threats and we wanted to do more while these three institutions are studying these issues internally and academic commentators including our witnesses have begun to identify the questions there have been few answers about the next steps some people talk about strengthening the existing institutions to address the new threats but they do not say how or whether that is all that is necessary others contend that we need to fundamentally rethink and restructure how the transatlantic community addresses these new threats this debate is also been fueled by the rio version reemergence of russia as a major power the euro atlantic community learned the hard way in august two thousand and eight that none of its institutions was sufficient to prevent the conflict between russia and georgia russian president medvedev has proposed a new treaty to rectify what he perceives as a failure of existing structures to create a unified security fear in europe is treaty is centered on the concept of individual security that is that one cannot one country cannot guarantee its security at the expense of another's some in the west reject this proposal arguing that is designed to undermine and weaken nato others believe it has generated an important dialogue about the existing institutional framework how should the transatlantic community respond to russia's proposal russia is a vital actor on issues such as iran and afghanistan happy i am not one of the fashionable to believe that this is now the pacific century and that the transatlantic relationship between the united states and europe is largely  european relationship with russia as the chairman pointed out and the role that europe needs to play in the world we all continue to want what was in the cold war ended twenty years ago a europe whole and free however it is naive to think that can be accomplished with the kind of regime that rules russia today we should not welcome into our ranks sponsors widespread corruption repressive political opponents and mount open aggression and intimidation against neighboring countries we should also recall the lessons of history and how it has been a certain path to a devastating outcome the leaders in moscow today despite their occasional quite simply recognize that they need to create the image of an enemy for their people in order to justify their continued rule our efforts to appease them  only lead them to raise the ante why they have done little to nothing to set a strong foundation for russia's future economic progress they have also done little to set a realistic foreign policy that will provide true security for russia in the future instead they have enriched themselves while sponsoring the most shameful methods to eliminate their internal critics all the while keeping the russian people distracted by creating up assad that their country faces a threat from the west particularly from the united states it's easy to see what is wrong with the policies of those who lead russia today but we need to see what is wrong with their own policies toward russia we cannot expect to have any real credibility if we condemn russia's invasion of georgia but then make excuses for that invasion ignore russia's continued occupation of georgian territory we admit russia into nato is councils and then offer to sell it weapons we cannot make major reductions in our strategic nuclear forces and play with negotiating away our right to deploy strategic missile defenses simply to cater to the russian leadership we cannot talk about human rights with sincerity if we ignore the all too obvious campaign of beatings and murders of independent reporters lawyers and activists in russia in recent years no this is not the time for appeasement arms sales in abandonment of those struggling for democracy in russia and the countries that once  soviet union it is important that the leading states of europe set for themselves a role that reflects the reality of the world as it is and of the events and policies in russia as they are rather than continuing to take the path of least resistance and wishful thinking for decades during the cold war the democracies of europe were basically asked to focus only on their own defense from attacks by the soviet bloc while the united states provided leadership around the world and invested in the preparedness of its troops and global force projection capabilities in the introduction of persuasion guided munitions and advanced technolog s comparable comparable with deploying forces that focus mostly on their own defense now with the the now the united states real comprehensive support from the leading states of europe in the fighting in afghanistan i am hopeful that the attempts by leading countries within the european union to develop strategic airlift capabilities to procured mance military technologies and to prepare at least some troops for rapid deployment line that they recognize that europe cannot continue to leave the us to assume all the responsibility for global security and stability i am hopeful that the mission to combat piracy off the coast of east africa is indeed a sign of new activism but i'm not overly optimistic the leading european states continue to allocate insufficient funding to defense and when they do deploy troops to truly important military operations such as in afghanistan many of them limit their troops exposure to combat by means of caviar the leading european governments cannot to promote cooperation and prosperity for europe when one views the historical context from churchill's nine hundred forty seven speech and enjoy calling for  the end result is the twenty seven member european union enjoys an unprecedented level of peace on the continent which is welcomed by all but with peace comes  a recognition that today's threats are different the cold war's over and the development of a new security strategy taking into account the u s europe and russia must take  a new turn in fact i believe the shared common interest of the united states and europe must give you russia as a potential partner for continued peace and security in today's global the world the relationship is simply too important to ignore it's not going to go away russia is an essential part of the security in progress in europe and its relationship with nato in a less is an important foundation to overcome east west security concerns while nato should remain the qana stone to the cold war is over and russia is no longer dominated by the communist party it's time for us to understand the cold war is over and people can't get you to give your opinion as to what should or should not be included because it's critically important i may have to reassess some of my positions because i found myself the inability of the russian members of the duma who attend our nato meetings to set aside those issues that we disagree on and dive wholeheartedly into those that we do help us it's really time for the leadership to take center stage on this whole issue of how to deal with russia in a modern times up as has been stated we're no longer in a cold war but leadership requires and require a looking situations with the intelligence and common sense that presents the immediacy of now and the future and there's no question about it when it comes to every major issue facing europe and the north atlantic russia is dead center i'm a member of the nato parliamentary assembly and have an opportunity to have visited russia and i've been gauge with them it is not a perfect country but let me just say if we are going to have global peace if we're going to learn how to work with our resources in a way that provides for energy security for a way to deal with nuclear nonproliferation and there's no question that we have to reset our relationship with russia and be bold enough to entertain the possibility of looking at russia as a partner with nato time and has expired was special assistant to the president and senior director for russia on the national security council staff from two thousand and four to two thousand and seven and director of director for russian affairs at the n s c from two thousand  to two thousand and four from two thousand and one to two thousand and two mr graham served as the associate director of the policy planning planning staff at the department of state and master wolfgang ischinger is the chairman of the munich those and six to two thousand and eight in december and bass serious and your became the co chair of the euro atlantic security initiative which will examine the security challenges facing the euro atlantic region and  recommendations for reforming the existing architecture miss sally mcnamara is senior policy analyst in european affairs at the margaret thatcher center for freedom of the heritage foundation before joining heritage she worked at the american legislative exchange council as director of international relations previously worked as an aide in the european parliament and is a press officer for the u k conservative party mr served in the soviet and russian armed forces during which he spent six years from one hundred eighty five to one hundred ninety one as a staff member of the delegation to the u s nuclear arms talks in geneva after and a senior research fellow at the institute of europe in moscow thank you all very much for being here mr ram why don't you start all the testimony in their entirety will be put into the record war world is also the hopes that we had a generation ago that would be witnessing the march of democracy and free markets around the globe under american leadership is not the case today rather we've entered a period of tremendous global flux and uncertainty that will endure until a new global equilibrium is established has consequences for europe and european security first  greatest importance i think it's clear that global dynamism is shifting away from europe and the atlantic region to asia in the specific region now europe remains important it remains important for the united states for a variety of reasons our closest traditional allies ally in that area but europe and the struggle for domination in europe is no longer the central drama of the current period and that means that the united states no longer has to worry about the domination of europe by a single power remember that we fought too cold to hot wars in one cold war in the twentieth century specifically to prevent the domination of europe by a single  power in the current environment we need a unified europe a unified europe that can work with the united states in dealing with global challenges in europe and beyond and this means that the united states should be encouraging a much greater role for europe unified europe both within nato and the e u as a as a security organization that is capable of dealing with the problems in europe and beyond so the goal of the united states global challenges and i think you're absolutely right that the challenges now emanate from beyond europe and not so much from inside europe that is a consequence very much of the policies that the united states and our european allies have for the past sixty five years in fact the concerns about instability in europe and security threats emanating for europe is probably at its lowest in history so we need to work on the global challenges and and now clearly neither europe or the united states is prepared to recognize a russian sphere of influence in the former soviet soviet soviet space but we do need to find a way that we can work with the russians to minimize the risk that challenges there will undermine our ability to work elsewhere the second challenge we face is how we define or how russia defines its own interest in europe and how we should define those  effectively against a unified europe which would have tendulkar power capability far outweighs russia the way the united states power outweighs russia so we'll have to figure out a way in which we can  bring russia's sense of its own interest in europe to the way the world is developing now do we need new mechanisms new architecture to deal with these new challenges i would argue no but move more of the discussion really has three pillars united states unified europe in the guise of the european union and russia and we should be setting up a triangular discussion  allies and institutionalize us russian summit which now tend to be ad hoc and make them a regular part of the architecture we also ought to consider putting in place at least manual event that brings the united states and russia together specifically to discuss security challenges both in europe and beyond and finally with regard to nato itself some suggestions first we need to encourage the others and eventually the nato russia council over the long term to become a us russia forum for discussing these challenges in addition we need between russia the united states and europe finally i think that the long term goal in addition for the united states into a pan european security on process the days are long since past when the united states and europe can agree on a policy or set of programs and then present them to the russians and hope that the russians will acquiesce hopefully russia at the outset of our discussions if we want them to be with us at the end and so i think it's very important that as we discuss the new nato concept for example that we do reach out as we have already to the russians to get their views to take them into account and extent to which we can meet their interests or accommodate them without of course jeopardizing the long term interest of the united states  increasingly we're going to find that we're not going to have a discussion between or among the united states dozens of other european allies are increasingly going to have a discussion that nato how we divide up the various security role the various positions within our military and security structures and so on so what i'm talking about is the recognition that as the issues like countries that aren't in nato the british and french think in the context of their entire security arrangements about subordinating some of know i think the process of both nato enlargement and european union a large well over overlap there's already a tremendous overlap in membership and i can foresee a time as europe moves towards and where unified had to make changes to the iran north korea syria nonproliferation act because the certification could not be met that is that the president could not certify that russian entities were not in fact continuing provide equipment materials technology and other assistance to iran's nuclear chemical biological and advanced weapons programs russia with china has one of the most single biggest obstacles to securing comprehensive crippling sanctions at the u n security council against the iranian regime are the actions that we deem to be helpful rhetorical assurances from the russian leadership on iran do not negate all other russian policies that undermine european and global security and stability and in turn u s security interests today as i look at russia's actions i'm reminded russia missile defense to the signing of the of the next start treaty could you please comment on russia's strategy in regard to the issue of missile defense and its possible implications for national security interest for the record because it keeps getting repeated and it takes on a certain ability and legitimacy that it doesn't deserve but i don't want to focus any more on that i want to go to  defense as being an opportunity to be again changing in terms of the psychology that you referred to and presumably the obsession what to would be no different in my mind than a us military action against serbia if it launched into kosovo we shouldn't have a double membership to russia and nato for some of the very pressing reserves that we mentioned on this committee seems very illogical for us to move with a new strategic concept for nato given this new opportunity this new window when every basic issue security cyber space the high north the climate change missile defense all of these russia the largest country in the north atlantic should be at that table in that regard i'd like to take benefit of your joint expertise to share with us what the response you feel will be what some of the challenges and problems might be and the reaction  debate that actually detract attention away from what we ought to be doing at this point and that is looking at areas of concrete cooperation between nato and russia we've talked about some already but i think concrete cooperation  but clearly it seems to me that the prime minister involved to a high degree and the different factions that are taking place how would the four of you describe the decision making process taking place today within the and what we're actually doing in the world and this is another argument for much more intense engagement with the russians the channels that we have creating channels that provide much direct access  bureaucracy but there are also a number of people that would prefer to have better relations and we need to understand that that's a reality need to deal with it but i think it's incumbent upon us to pass as much information forward on our positions as possible  that sort of where i think that i think we've got to be useful going find those areas that we can work together on russia the united states and nato i think that has to be the arrangement and i think it should be russia the united states without incorporating the the role of nato i think th nato to do anything other than that rushes off the cliff of irrelevance how can you read a new strategic concept for nato and you're leaving russia on the sidelines when it is russia plays such a critical role in every major concern the whole issue of energy their use of energy as a political weapon how can that be dealt with with russia in isolation the fear within the european countries themselves a divide of that to make that common sense  been on top in the thirty's the forty's or fifty's or sixty's even into the eighty's up to the time that he was packin a man to madison square garden and when the question was put the frank sinatra why  do this and pointedly i want to ask your question about that but really where are the problem areas within russia what is the thinking that on one side or the other and what are the what is that reasoning where is a real resistance within the european bloc that we need to work with why not identify these problem areas to greater cooperation and try to defeat these and most of them from my experience in dealing  what if what would you suggest because i'm always very focused in terms of setting the expectation bar at a level that's achievable what do you think with this administration if you were