All right, welcome to judiciary. We're going to be considering two bills today. First senate or senate files excuse me. First senate file 39 digital identity. A little bit of a new topic for the judiciary committee but I'm confident they can handle it. And senate file 19 public health emergencies immunity amendments. A little more in our wheelhouse. We're going to start with senate file 39 digital identity. This is a product of the select committee on blockchain financial technology and digital innovations. Have with us my co chair from the senate senate office and we are joined by former representative Tyler Linholm who was on this select committee. I believe the two of you are going to present this bill is that is that what we're going to do? Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'd be happy to start. Okay. And Mr. Chairman, I do have another meeting coming right up. So I will start and then I'll hand over to former representative Linholm. We also have online I believe Mr. Dazza Greenwood who was part of the working group that worked through the blockchain select committee to prepare this legislation. So Clarissa, do you have Mr. Greenwood in the waiting room? Mr. Chairman, I do and he has been admitted to the meeting. All right, you can turn on your camera, Mr. Greenwood. And then we'll just let the three of you present together and and see where it takes us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, senate file 39 digital identity. It's a short bill and relatively straightforward. We'll go through what it currently does. A tremendous amount of time actually went into getting it to this point and it serves as a foundation for what we hope to be a substantial amount of additional work. The concept here with a digital identity is the idea of trying to formulate your digital presence in a way that we can then assign rights to it. A lot of what this does you could probably think well we could probably already do that under statute and that is probably true but it's not clear in statute and it's not unambiguous. So the work of the blockchain select committee recognizes that a digital identity and a representation of yourself through online operations, internet, blockchain transactions, banking. We already do these kinds of things but it's a little bit ad hoc and we wanted to flesh it out and provide clarity because these types of transactions are going to be more and more powerful and more and more important moving forward. Other states and other countries have also grappled with concepts of privacy rights but they've done those on largely an ad hoc basis. So GDPR which governs privacy rights in Europe and the CCPA and later amendments are in advanced privacy rights constructs on a west coast state and we're taking a little bit of a different approach because of the work that we've done in the past with the blockchain technology and digital asset custodianship where we want to build up from the idea of a digital identity empower that and then ideally in the future hopefully next year come back and look at privacy rights and property rights as they relate and interact with your digital identity. A different approach to how other states and countries have done it but hopefully one that is a more substantial approach to build off of and again we spent a tremendous number of hours with a lot of great legal minds coming together to work on this draft and really just get to the definition phase so that's what we're going to see today is a definition and a minor empowerment of that definition. Walking through the legislation on to page two. Senator just go ahead to drive I think to drive that home. This this bill is simply a definition. Mr. Chairman yes it's two definitions or two definitions references to those two definitions and then a link to the uniform electronic transactions act effectively as a baseline empowerment of those definitions as we'll see. Go ahead. All right I'm actually going to strangely start if you will on page three the bottom of page three and this is just based on legislative construct that that's where the beginning ends up being which gets to the actual definitions which are put into statute in title eight which are general definitions that apply throughout the statute and you see as used in these statutes unless the legislature clearly specifies otherwise two new definitions which are on page four. Personal digital identity means the intangible digital representation of by and for a natural person over which he has principal authority and through which he intentionally communicates or acts so there's a lot loaded into that definition and that was the bulk of the work that we did in the off season and Mr. Greenwood who's present here can go into the thought behind each of the words and phrasing after I take off in a few minutes. Organizational digital identity is parallel language but we recognize that as a minimum as we move forward we're going to want things like businesses and organizational entities to have legal standing and we're going to want to imbue those with separate rights from what a person is going to have a natural person so we just set up the construct from the beginning organizational individual as that delineation and then theoretically in the future we'll empower them accordingly with privacy and property rights and you'll hear in public testimony some of the thoughts behind how we're looking to do that so we put that into title eight and now again traveling backwards a little bit to page two or bottom of page one onto page two now we're creating chapter 30 of title 40 the digital identity act which begins with definitions and these definitions are simply references to those general definitions that we put in title eight and then the only other thing this bill really does as you can see on page two onto page three is clone the language for the uniform electronic transactions act which is already in Wyoming statute from a few years ago to empower your digital identity and your organizational digital identity with parallel power and authority to what you have with your electronic signature through ueda so again not a magnificent step but sort of the first step to recognize explicitly that your digital identity is representative and authoritative of your actions and you can see in romanet one acts taken through a personal digital identity are attributable to a natural person if they were the act of the natural person the act of the natural person may be established in any manner including a showing of the efficacy of any security procedure applied to determine the natural person to which an electronic record or electronic signature or other act was attributable parallel language in romanet two for the organizational and then romanet three again is ueda language getting to the intent and context of the circumstances surrounding the creation or execution of the event and at this point Mr chairman that's what the bill does but it's a foundation that i want everyone to contemplate what we're looking through in a broader picture where we want you to be able to act to this authoritatively as we get into a blockchain realm that's going to be typically through public and private key exchanges where if you have for example a business registered through the state of wyoming that has an organizational digital identity and a public key present that can be used for transactions with any company around the world authoritatively you as an individual if you opt to have a digital representation of yourself through your digital identity can have a public key and you know your private key and you can authoritatively engage in transactions you can screen information at your desire there's a great use case that we kind of contemplate as we began this discussion when you go in and you're you're buying a six pack of some delicious IPA and you walk up and you want to prove your age to the person at the cash register what do you do you take out your driver's license you hand that to them they know where you live what your name is whether you're an organ donor all sorts of things that you don't necessarily want them to know because what you want them to know is a simple binary question are you 21 yes or no digital identity concepts are trying to empower the ability to select what information you share with whom when and there are a number of commercial products out there frameworks organizations that are moving towards this we're trying to be entirely technology neutral and build a legal construct that enables all of these technologies to start in Wyoming and take hold here there's a lot of enthusiasm in that industry in space but this doesn't pick any of those technologies it doesn't say you have to have a digital identity it just creates that baseline framework mr chairman that we wanted to make sure was there so that industry can come and work with us and i'll stop there mr chairman see if there's any questions but then get to representative lintel and mr greenwood and i will be leaving in about three minutes sure and senator just i like to take the example you gave and uh and uh add to it a little bit because the example i like is my daughter who's purchasing a rated r movie at the supermarket and it requires her identification and the checker at the stand is a registered sex offender and when she provides her right when my daughter provides her id to that gentleman he uh he knows her address and uh when that's a completely unnecessary two-year point that we reach a place where we can answer and prove only the as you call it the binary question are are you of the age necessary all the all the other information doesn't matter um question senator what did you do to this bill to turn it blue mr chairman we had a number of meetings among the working group members after we first drafted the bill that came to the senate uh but the only thing that's changed is on page four when you look at the definitions uh on lines three and then mirrored below on 12 the original definition we had was over which he has dominion and through which he intentionally communicates or acts uh we were kind of uncomfortable with the word dominion and we spent some trying to trying to come up with a better term for what we were looking for sovereignty is the word we want to use sovereignty has so much baggage right so we couldn't use that but it's like the perfect word with tremendous baggage elsewhere in statute so we punted on it we came up with principal authority which didn't seem to contradict or overlap any other concepts got the point across principal authority means that you're the initiator of the authority effectively you've got that primary uh intrinsic authority and so we decided that was a better two-word phrase to capture what we're looking for than dominion and that's the only change twice sometimes these meetings are blurred to me but i feel like i may have spent eight hours discussing sovereignty yes this bill to only see it not in the bill that may be accurate and mr chairman my apologies but i have to run to another meeting you're in good hands with some incredible people that we have here and uh look forward to chatting with you both this later thank you all thank you senator mr linholm hey mr chairman good to see you yeah likewise uh mr chairman and uh committee members this piece of legislation comes from i know it seems like a really super simple bill and realistically what we what you're looking at really is a simplified version but the reality behind this piece of legislation is it comes from a monster amount of work trying to figure out this digital identity piece um and and the reason mr chairman on why i say there's so much work put in and yet this is fairly simple is because this is this is a big dog this is a monster this could be one of those next big things for the state of wyoming and i'm not talking about uh buying a buying a couple cans of booze or or uh rated our movie or something like that i i take a very different stance on this and why i think it could be a a bigger deal and it has to do with um online accounts and it has to do with when you're signing up for a bank account or something like that the federal government mandates that you do uh something called bsa standards which stands for the banking secrecy act that was first passed and i think it was 71 1971 mr chairman and was amended in the 2001 patriot act um all of which came well before where we are currently in technology with online banking and these digital asset exchanges and these community banks even having a um the ability to provide that uh that opportunity for you to cash checks online and so we're faced with kind of some old world regulation and how does the state of wyoming adapt to that um to allow allow this to happen because currently right now if you open up a online account i i don't know mr chairman if any of your members of your committee or yourself have ever opened on an online account for a banking type institution but we've got all these kind of every every outfit out there has their different kind of rules set up in place on how they verify your identity um mr chairman they've got to do what's called know your customer anti-money laundering standards so they've got to complete that that process and how do you do that online well different outfits do it in different ways one outfit i'll have you hold up your driver's license in front of your face with a newspaper from the from the day you're taking the uh the picture uh proving that it is actually you and uh then you got to scan your identity and all all of these different aspects trying to conform 2001 technology into 1970s and 2001 technology 2001 doesn't seem that long ago but folks i joined the u.s military in 2001 and that was 20 years ago so it it has been a little while and so for me that's why i'm excited about this legislation you'll notice um it it does go into title 40 the the new language does right there on page page one goes into title 40 and that's your trade and commerce uh statute that's your trade and commerce title and then it creates a new chapter um and that's chapter 30 digital identity act and so mr chairman that's creating essentially a placeholder for hopefully one day we can figure out that loophole and kyc standards um where we can allow these these little community banks uh like my community bank sonat state bank and these other institutions that exist in the state of Wyoming to be able to grow outside of their little communities and maybe do online banking in a way that no other jurisdiction can and that's what this is about is allowing our our little community banks our little little businesses in the state of Wyoming to grow outside of our border and expand their businesses and new businesses to come in and i think that's really where the merit of this of this legislation stands as as uh as senator rothas said or chairman rothas of the select blockchain committee um it does create that foundation which i think is important um we could not figure out how to uh pardon my language mr chairman how to bastardize the banking secrecy act um and that's still a work in progress i do know that there is some interest um from some us senators in the regards to fixing the banking secrecy act um to allow the state of Wyoming more flexibility in this regard and uh but i'm not speaking on behalf of that individual i'm speaking on behalf of myself so with that i'll stand for any questions mr chairman representative yin thank you mr chairman mr linholm i'm just curious where you are testifying from because you did not announce that at the beginning thank you mr chairman where are you testifying from i'm thank you mr chairman i'm testifying from my kitchen table and uh i'm usually in my basement but i've got too many political signs down there so i figured i better move my laptop upstairs away from said political signs so mr linholm when i want to open a bank account i just text my banker and say i need to open an account or i want to i want to get this loan or wherever it is i just text him so what how does how does that world change for me in Wyoming or does it really or are we really talking about bringing in um some i i guess some growth some outside Wyoming it's it's outside the world that's banking is that what you're talking about mr chairman i'm talking about both things so when you text your banker that's an existing relationship that you already have and that banker has already established know your customer and anti money laundering standards on you and they've got proof of that they can share those regular that that proof of concept in inside house they can't share that with another institution mr chairman if you were to contact another banking institution that you didn't already have an existing relationship with you would have to you would have to prove uh prove that know your customer and anti money laundering standards all over again fortunately most of us in the state of Wyoming i i suspect uh all of us in fact have had a bank account for quite some time and so it's really not that kind of a wild concept until you go to online until you open up a new a new account online and then all of a sudden it's it's it's pretty burdensome in that regard um but this this putting in that this in statute so that provides that opportunity where hopefully something um would shake shake loose as far as our regulatory entities the division of banking in the state of Wyoming those types of entities where they would be able to use utilize this type of legislation possibly um but also mr chairman i think this this is uh just like a lot of the piece of legislation that we've passed in regards to icos and all those things this puts a flag in the ground and does something in the state of Wyoming that no other jurisdiction has even contemplated and provides the most important thing um and i know the the legal minds on your committee such as uh representative oakley and yourself and i'm sure i'm missing some attorneys that i probably don't know um representative kregel but he's not he's not here now representative kregel is one of my uh one of my one of my favorite new legislators and then representative yen would give him an honorary jurist doctor that's handy mr chairman i don't know why i didn't get one of those but i but i think that legal precedence aspect mr chairman is is so important and that that's why Wyoming has seen success that's why iohk is domiciled in the state of Wyoming that's why kraken's moving here and the list goes on on these large institutions because legal precedence means the world to larger institutions and so yeah i guess that's a long way of answering your question mr chairman i finally saw a hand to my left and you're just eating chips maybe that's what maybe that's what it was i i had the barbecue ones earlier i'm good questions for mr lindholm oh it was you vice chairman wash it thank you as chairman former representative lindholm good to see you again uh as we were talking and listening to the good senator present the bill and he was talking about this being foundational to eventually establishing uh property rights and privacy rights associated with this digital identity uh the first thought to pop into my mind is are there any responsibilities to go along with those rights well these types of digital identity also carry with them some social or civil responsibilities mr lindholm yeah thank you mr chairman and to mr vice chairman um great to see you sir um i you know honestly when it comes to digital identity or this this type of legislation this this law doesn't exempt anybody from identity theft or any other type of criminal statutes um that are in existence um but there is a right and responsibility throughout the throughout the legislation as defined um specifically mr chairman um under on page three under roman net number three i think an important part of this piece of legislation um is starting on line 10 and that that is shall be determined from the context and surrounding circumstances at the time of its creation execution or adoption so mr chairman to you mr vice chairman uh to me um that essentially means that uh that that proof of digital identity for the execution of whatever type of transaction because this is only for transactional type aspects in that regard that would mean it's only for that one execution per time that you actually utilize that digital identity so it's not a it's not it's definitely not written as a cart block any other questions for mr lindholm all right got off pretty easy i think thanks mr chairman i was it i was expecting you to mess with me a little bit so i'm glad to get out with my my hide still attached i have uh unfortunately so many questions about this bill that i i just uh i want to follow up with the email on them to you all right mr greenwood thank you thank you very much um it's an honor to to be here uh my name is dazza greenwood i run law dot mit dot edu that is a um an initiative at mit that is focused on applying engineering to law um and uh we call it computational law in particular and um i run cibix dot com which is my um my private company and uh in in all of my endeavors since since the 90s when i was a government lawyer um the same issue has been coming up which is the need to solve if you will for for digital identity it's been really a missing piece um and and and and it all starts i think we're getting the right legal framework in place but but we can still see today when we think of digital identity uh representative lindholm uh mentioned accounts and this really being about like an account that we use uh the accounts that we have from google uh from our employers our patient portals government ids is social media of course uh they're all these fractions of identity and the one thing that they all have in common is that they're issued by somebody else they're in a sense owned and controlled primarily by some other entity they can set the terms turn them on or off change them um it's like a privilege in a sense um at best and and yet i think it's just plainly obvious now in 2021 the world is going digital um you know the activities we do in commerce and in and with government and and in health care and education every every part of our life and the economy and society increasingly is happening like the authoritative activities happening online but where is the space for our identity um the the one that arises from us um that's almost implied in most legal frameworks um that preceded the digital age um and we did a very careful analysis of wyoming statutes and the constitution and the the rules leading up from uh being a territory to a state many places where individuals were identified uh and there was a lot implied in in the individual uh and in the person and in the citizen and the resident um they're the ones that needed to consent to be governed they're the ones that um that from whom authority arose for them to conduct their affairs um they they were the uh well to to use the word we used to use they had dominion in a sense over their identity um and that was a building block and it made perfect sense that's all been confused somewhat based on the way architectures have evolved online and so there's some of this is just having legally we there's something missing that that is now solved in this legislation which is the first building block which is itself a definition just of there there describing a person's individual identity um the one that is of by and for them through which um they have principal authority principal p al um like in an um agency law the authority arises from them um and and uh and you know after much drafting and back and forth in many cycles of of feedback um from broader communities uh including at mit where we've circulated this in classes and in talks and sought to get a lot of feedback on this and uh and in other circles as well trade associations we think we've got it and part of the reason i i'm so such a fan of this definition is precisely because it is so simple like we really couldn't have made it more rudimentary and it's of the same size as the as the as the other definitions in in um in um in the chapter with the definitions that apply um across wyoming law you know they're all like you know 10 to 30 words and then we think that's the right that was that's what we were shooting for and we i think we felt that if if we couldn't explain this in that few words we we probably it probably wasn't ready for a definition that would serve the role as being to be a building block that could be referenced by and ultimately support and reflected in in other parts of wyoming law the first other part has been said many times is is uh uniform electronic transactions act and the rules of attribution of acts to people online and that that does get us toward the accountability or the responsibility that was being asked about a moment ago so one is um responsible for for the acts that they take through their digital identity um and i think looking ahead uh if this definition is acceptable and and is adopted and uh enacted in future sessions um some other areas of law that seem like they may be good fits may be identity theft and and possibly section um 63902 uh the unlawful impersonation through electronic means you know we we think the identity that is a person's identity should not be subject to uh you know a fraudulent or criminal impersonation uh so like that would be a perfect extrapolation of this you can imagine privacy but also civic civic uh and commercial um uh uh legal frameworks also uh benefiting from this so that we can start to in a in a recent way um adopt a sense of individual identity uh you know through the law and so with that i want to um i think pause my remarks and just say that i am very much in favor of this legislative definition and of this measure and and and i i hope the committee if if you believe it is of value and timely as well will seek to adopt it mr greenwood how many states statutorily define uh personal or digital identity so i i think that this formulation might be the first of its kind um there are many examples of digital identity in different ways being defined in statute uh i i mentioned identity theft for example and personally identifiable information and breach notification and digital identity if you do just like a westlaw or lexus search or something comes up all over the place that's partly why we added a word here to get to which facet of identity are we talking about not the identity that is coming from others which people certainly have rights and interests in and can cause them harm and and benefit but we added personal digital identity um to distinguish this uh and limit it to the building block which which um which is the one that sources from the person or sometimes colloquially people say self sovereign or self sourced identity um and so this is something that's been talked about a lot in um digital identity circles uh it was the center of something called n-stick national strategy for trusted identities in cyberspace which was a um a public private partnership that nist and um gsa and homeland security ran with a bunch of industry groups where they were attempting to come up with private sector led standards for this type of identity that comes from people and that can be relied upon by um by others uh and so there's been a a push towards something like this but this is the the first um of its type to be articulated in in a clear and I think very valid manner in statute and honestly we the people who have been barking up this tree we've always felt that statute was the right place to at least define the terms and allow others to build build toward those terms and and so we we hope that you will be the first to adopt this and part of the conversation the committee uh did involve the um hope and maybe expectation that um this definition might just have legs and we might in fact see this adopted in other jurisdictions uh to follow because it does feel uh very well known need is the same true for organizational digital identity yes well I'd have to do some more checking there the most important area that is reflected in various layers of law I'd say is the legal entity identifier lei uh which is more from banking and finance and like FinCEN uh financial crimes enforcement kind of angle and it's basically they're seeking to have a unique identifier for each legal entity as opposed to the tangled web we have of so many identifiers right now and that makes it difficult for you know commerce and regulation and enforcement investing and analysis and all sorts of stuff um but that's not that's an identifier that's going to come from a registry if it if it matures at all there isn't an actual legal definition of the entity and just to uh of the digital definition of the digital legal identity of the company and just to put it just to put that in context for a moment uh just a couple of days ago is working with uh with a startup who is seeking to build apps and services for companies to um take information from and connect information to their google business identity and so when you look at google maps you'll see lots of companies and you'll see them on the map and you can click on them and you can see their store hours their contact their website they're filling a gap here that I would think in the first instance is is that of state government in the united states to to fulfill the the government the state government through the secretary of state gives rise to or is the authoritative source of when a business is born by incorporation or LLC formation and and there you can't go to a registry but again there's no there there and so we have companies like google and of course dunham brad street and many others that are filling the gap digitally but they can only go so far at some point at the bottom of the stack we need an authoritative identity and a profile that that that entities can act through and it'll just end by saying if you think of things like phishing attacks when people get an email purportedly from their bank or from some company and they start to do things um how can they know whether this is the company it purports to be again the the ambiguity here and the that's being exploited or just causing confusion comes partly because we don't have an authoritative organizational digital identity and having a legal definition we think is a real good start and ultimately things like the apis and other reforms happening in wyoming secretary of states area um can adopt that and can extend uh can extend that into other areas of law and practice questions for mr greenwood mr greenwood the moment i realized i existed is when i had a wikipedia page online that's my digital identity all right thanks mr greenwood appreciate you we'll see him over this i'm sure we'll see this uh interim thank you


Greetings, everyone. Pilot Pete here coming to you from CES 2024. That's the Consumer Electronic Show where all the amazing new technology coming out over the next year. Some is already out, some is coming soon, and we've gotten to see some of it firsthand. One of the first things that Dave and I would like to talk to you about today is something we saw yesterday. We were in a suite with a company called Uproar that brings in a whole bunch of technology and we were waiting to talk to somebody and they were unavailable so we're like yeah come on in here we want to show you this and we're like yeah we've seen electric toothbrushes before oh my god were we wrong pleasantly surprised right Dave? I totally agree. Yeah this is a company called Oclean O-C-L-E-A-N and they do they make electric toothbrushes dental hygiene products they've got electronic flossers and cleaners. The thing that really impressed me was they call it the Oclean X-Ultra which is the X-Ultra S which is a an electronic toothbrush it's 130 bucks it's got Wi-Fi connectivity in it it talks to you while you are brushing to guide you and then when you're finished brushing it actually shows you how you did you can either see it in the app or really right on a little screen on the toothbrush itself and I've had Bluetooth toothbrushes before I've had Bluetooth scales before you know the kind you step on to weigh yourself moving from a Bluetooth scale to a Wi-Fi scale made this such a smoother experience because I didn't have to like pair up my phone with the thing every time now with a Wi-Fi toothbrush same experience you don't have to pair up to it so that's the Oclean X-Ultra S 130 bucks from Oclean.com. Amazing and as he said it talks to you while you're brushing your teeth it uses bone conduction technology to tell you slow down you're going too fast or lighten up on the pressure you're pressing too hard so little things like that and then at the end it pairs with your Apple Health app to help you keep tracking and improve your dental health and yeah and one of the cool things about it and I don't think a lot of people realize there's a high correlation between heart disease and gum disease so improving your gum health may help your heart health as well one other thing I'll take out yeah one of the other toothbrushes that they had there was the Oclean Flow Sonic electric toothbrush that comes in at $34.99 amazing six month battery life don't have to take your chargers on the road with you six months between charges who to believed it and the other cool thing about all their brushes is they call it maglev so magnetic levitation brushless motors for the power base inside the so weight brushless motors inside of a brush well there you go I guess there is a brush okay where it belongs yeah right fair so and they had some other really cool products there too they call it a water flosser and I think that the other name that you may be thinking of is probably patented so that's why they call it a water flosser they have a home model for $69.99 and a portable model for $79.99 and I love those things man they they're so much easier than using actual string floss to cut your gums up sure yeah for sure yeah yeah and then they they to keep your toothbrush clean to keep all your toothbrushes clean they have this thing that they call the Oclean S1 toothbrush UVC sanitizer that for $33 you can stick it on the mirror and it will sanitize your toothbrush for five minutes every what six hours or something to kind of keep it keep it rolling UV light to kill all the viruses and germs and yeah amazing you can hang five toothbrushes in it so right and again we thought we were gonna waste some time and go in there you know who needs another electric toothbrush what can you possibly innovate here we are guys are cutting edge well it's a toothbrush that syncs with your phone over Wi-Fi yeah yep yeah and it and it competes with the technology in the price on all the other large name brands so I'm excited to try one check us out make sure you stay subscribed here and our thanks to our CES coverage sponsors of course Mac updater core codes great product that lets you update your Mac and keep all the software up to date CCC backup aka carbon copy cloner another fantastic app that we run on all our Macs and collide KOL IDE a fantastic enterprise thank you all thank you so much thanks for listening and yeah we'll see you next time don't get caught


Well, thank you all very much for coming out, particularly on such a beautiful day when I know golf and other important pursuits represent some competing priorities there. I think it's uniquely appropriate that we discuss this important topic on a U.S. Navy base. That provides, I think, the right frame of mind here. Before I go further, I just want to make some acknowledgments and a disclaimer. I really give great credit to my co-editor, Professor Carnes-Lord, as well as other Naval War College colleagues who provided useful comments and help and Pell Boyer with the Naval War College Press who provided invaluable editing suggestions. We've endeavored to produce here and all, of course, in our personal capacity, no official policies or estimates of the U.S. Navy or any other institutions with which the contributors are affiliated. We've tried to produce what I think can be called one of the very few studies of its kind precisely because there are very few of them. We look at the complex and evolving U.S.-Asia-Pacific basing network both at the present, moving towards the future, but also bringing in an historical perspective to try to better inform the situation because there are certain historical dynamics and patterns that I think can enhance our understanding in this regard. Now, I said it was one of the relatively few studies at least focused in this area and we really thought this subject, when Carnes and I were discussing the potential topic, we thought this is really something that's been too neglected by scholars and analysts as well as wide swaths of the American general public. But what is noteworthy is, especially overseas, both allied populations and potential adversaries alike, devote great focus to U.S. military bases and facilities precisely because they are perceived to be essential and effective fundaments of American power projection around the world to support American objectives and also in particular the international system that we've worked so hard to develop, support and sustain in this post-war era. Unfortunately, but this, again, if you look back in history, is part of a continuity of realities to which American strategists and planners must respond, U.S. bases are increasingly vulnerable, particularly in the East Asian Latoral immediately, but also thanks to the increasing range of sophistication and number of Chinese as well as North Korean missiles are increasingly vulnerable further and further away from the East Asian land mass and increasingly, as well, the U.S. carrier strike groups and other surface vessels and other types of platforms that operate from them confront degrees of risk. So these are all things that must be understood, planned for, adjusted to, countermeasures are under development. This is all happening, but it's a work in progress that really merits a discussion, debate and careful thinking as well as, frankly, education to American and allied publics as to why these bases are important and necessary and what is required to continue to sustain the missions from them. And this at times can be politically complex to say the least. When we have bases in host nations or utilize bases, enjoy access to facilities in host nations. While the host nation derives a significant benefit, otherwise they would not grant that kind of access, sometimes locals have to bear certain burdens and challenges from these bases. What's more, these bases can sometimes be painted as part of a sweeping set of American hard power capabilities that can be mysterious, intimidating, even worrisome to members of populations abroad. And indeed, if you just see from the standard U.S. area of responsibility chart here, the entire world is literally divided into U.S. military areas of responsibility. A situation that is really unparalleled in the contemporary world and enables the U.S. to achieve what I believe to be its historic mission of sustaining a positive and peaceful international system as exemplified in the most recent U.S. maritime strategy. But nevertheless, this huge constellation of forces overseas is very noticeable and it can sometimes be a political lightning rod. There are not many other nations that have any semblance of this overseas presence, particularly after the Soviet collapse from which Russia has only very partially begun to try to recover some basing and influence in the near abroad, although with unfortunate recent events to include in Crimea, it's far too early to say that this is not an insignificant subset of international foreign basing and force projection issues. Beyond that, I would argue, it's really only Britain and France that regularly maintain military bases and forces overseas, this in large part to the historical legacy of their empires. And even in those cases, the claims and force postures are diminishing. As I said, this is a constant process of adjustment following the Cold War. The U.S. has shifted forces, closed bases, brought forces home, yet even as late as 2013, the numbers were still extremely impressive and I think they will stay in that general area for the foreseeable future. 695 overseas bases or facilities, 97 in overseas U.S. territories and the rest in 40 foreign countries. Now there are some patterns to this. The majority are only in three countries, Germany, Japan and the Republic of Korea, two locations of which we will soon visit here. But this does offer an interesting comparison to U.S. based facilities of which there were fully 4,364 in 2013 for a grand total of 5,059. This is truly the backbone of U.S. power and power projection in the military dimension. Shifting to the U.S. Pacific Command area of responsibility, which is the focus of the book and our discussion here today. We picked this focus for several reasons which were largely obvious to us but it's still necessary to make a case. This is by far geographically the largest and most sweeping area of responsibility. It imposes a certain tyranny of distance in projecting power in logistics, in making sure that things are where you need them to be at the right time and the right configuration. It imposes significant cost, the fuel alone to enable these long distance operations. But this is what makes the U.S. and Asia Pacific power and a key player in what is arguably one of the most, if not the most geopolitically dynamic arenas in the 21st century. If you look at both military development and economic dynamism, arguably two of the most important factors, I don't think you'll find that combination anywhere else. Therefore, it's incumbent on the U.S. not only to protect and safeguard the interests that come with having Hawaii and Guam and other Pacific islands, as well as the world's largest exclusive economic zone, much of which is connected with the Hawaiian islands and Guam, but also because of the unique mission of continued importance that the U.S. sees for itself in the world, it needs to have influence in this most dynamic area. It needs to provide a stabilizing capability so that other countries or sub-state actors do not attempt to disrupt what is a great area of prosperity in a region that remains very tragically haunted by history and not automatically stable in that respect. Now, here let me acknowledge two short comings in the book, and we're explicit about this in our introduction. In order to keep the number of chapters reasonable and to be able to really focus on the overseas areas, we had to not have chapters on Alaska and Hawaii. But as we begin our geographic journey from east to west across this region, these are obviously essential locations for the U.S. to project power from. They will remain so. They may even grow an importance particularly as Hawaii serves as a critical backbone and coordinating center of U.S. Asia Pacific presence, literally hosting the U.S. Pacific command, the U.S. Pacific fleet, and a variety of other critical, critical locations. In addition, Alaska really has arguably unparalleled strategic depth, and particularly as we move further into the era of long-range precision strike and increasingly advanced missiles, locations that are able to conceal and disperse facilities widely and even perhaps enable for some movement in critical times will be of greater and greater importance. And looking at Hawaii, here again, of course, Fort Island, which I've driven around so many times and thought about the history, stopped at the different places, this is really in many ways the epitome of the value and the vulnerability of basing. We, of course, work over time to disperse things from further, but there is an inherent efficiency and an operational synergy to concentrating facilities, to putting important things, very important things, fairly close together. And as the tragic events of December 1941 demonstrated all too clearly in this particular location, while that has benefits, it can also have costs. And this is something that planners have to weigh constantly, but there are not always easy solutions because of the tradeoff between that efficiency and concentration and the vulnerability. Yet as we move forward in this long-range precision strike era, this will be something for which creativity and deeper study I think will be necessary. Moving to the first chapter of our book, and I'll give you a series of quick vignettes centered on the maps with which we illustrate each of the chapters. I was in charge of producing the maps in conjunction with the services of a very competent cartographer that Naval Institute Press provided. And at the beginning I thought, oh, this is great, there should be some excellent U.S. government maps that will have everything in one place and it will be in a nice font and it's all perfect. And by the end I realized why that wasn't readily available. You have to combine different things, but I think in the end we managed to put in the vast majority of what was truly important. And even if you don't want to read all the little details which are more easily visible in the books that you can look at later, I think we can still look at the map in general and get a general geographic sense, a general geostrategic sense. There are some things that are logically done in a certain way, the way that of course the ports have to be and the harbor entrances have to be on the coast. You can put other things further in. But I want you to compare map by map and you will see some differences here. Guam, we think, is really a critical microcosm of where the U.S. is trying to go in terms of continually adjusting and improving its Asia-Pacific presence. It has tremendous promise. It played a critical role towards the end of World War II when we got it back by 1944, I believe. And then in the beginning of the post-war era, there was a tremendous ramp up in infrastructure that really helped make it the supermarket of the Pacific, the crossroads of the Pacific, all those critical logistical locations that have supported so much projection of American power into East Asia, into the Asia-Pacific. So there are many advantages here. Geography, existing infrastructure, an extremely patriotic population of American citizens who in local polling continuously give high support to sustaining an expansion of these facilities, which bring a lot to the local economy. I believe it's still true that Guam provides the highest percentage of military recruits per capita of any American jurisdiction. Moreover, in an era of fiscal austerity, infrastructure development money spent in Guam will go to local Americans. This not only is politically useful, it arguably is good when the nation can invest at home. However, Guam also exemplifies some of the challenges as we move forward with our basing portfolio. There are expenses in terms of developing the facilities, and they're often higher than expected, particularly in remote island locations such as Guam. There are extreme weather events. Guam, like Japan, South Korea, and some other locations, is extremely vulnerable to typhoons. There's periodic damage from that. That also factors into some of the building standards, thereby increasing expense all the more. Then there's the issue of communicating to the American people and Congress the importance of this investment. And there's been difficulty in Congress recently in terms of appropriating money to further Guam infrastructure development because there's a concern about how efficiently will that money be spent. Why exactly are we doing this? This is all the more reason why, while planning and decision making needs to occur within U.S. military circles and to include very private discussions and conversations, there's also a great need to educate the public, discuss these issues, explain why it's important, engage members of Congress. Why does it matter to them? Why does it matter to U.S. policy? So I think it will be important to watch Guam, watch the potential future infrastructure development, both in terms of military infrastructure, which has already moved forward to some extent, home porting of additional attack submarines. That's been very positive. But when you have all these people and all these military facilities in such a small area, this starts to severely tax the power grid, the waste management infrastructure. These are all things that over time will have to be addressed in Guam. And who will pay for it? How will this work? This is going to take some time. And again, getting back to the precision strike era, the fact is it is useful at places like Anderson Air Force Base to concentrate assets. It is not efficient to have them completely dispersed. But at certain times, it could potentially present a very lucrative target set. And planners have to think very carefully about how to work best they can within the parameters that they have. I should quickly say the Guam chapter, I didn't mention the author because I was the co-author. But also, Justin Michael, a Naval Academy graduate, spent a number of years serving in the U.S. submarine force, including aboard USS San Juan, now works in the private sector in strategic technology issues. So just wanted to acknowledge him, joy to work with him. Professor Toshi Yoshihara at the Naval War College, my colleague, has offered a very thought-provoking chapter on Japan. And he really brings the challenge of long range, or sometimes not so long range, potentially coming from China or North Korea, precision strike to the equation. He reviews a wide range of Chinese writings, some more demonstrably authoritative, others less clearly demonstrably authoritative, but nevertheless representing some sort of Chinese intellectual discussion about how to use Chinese military strengths, really the threat of their use for peace time deterrence. No one here is saying China wants a war here, but to pressure Japan and also to pressure the U.S. What I'll address a bit more in the conclusion, and I'd really be happy to go into, together with any other topics in the Q&A, is the issue of why China is developing this long-range precision strike, why it seeks to target ever more effectively U.S. regional bases and also U.S. platforms operating in the region. The short answer is that China has a number of outstanding island and maritime claims in what it calls the Near Seas, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. Many of these disputes are with U.S. allies. China wants to, now that its power is growing, further its position in those disputes, the prospect of U.S. military intervention, if necessary, is one of the biggest obstacles to China furthering its claims, as well as the confidence that American presence gives to its allies as well as to the region more generally. That is why China is developing, in part why China is developing new capabilities to try to hold these U.S. bases, U.S. facilities, U.S. platforms more at risk, thereby try to convince American decision makers and the American public that the risk isn't worth it and convince allied hosts that they cannot rely on this help when push comes to shove. So more on that later if you wish in a nutshell. That's my take on the situation. Professor Yoshihara goes into great depth. If you are at all interested in this, I do recommend looking at the specifics. It can be sometimes shocking if you're not familiar with some of the Chinese writings, how forceful they are about discussing how some missile strikes might be threatened under various contingencies. Again, they'd hope to just have the threat of this capability and win without fighting, so to speak, as the great strategist Sun Zhe says. But nevertheless, this is clearly a major issue for our facilities, for Japan's security, and for our alliance, our critical alliance with Japan. Fortunately, of course, a great deal of attention is being paid to this issue. Moving on to South Korea, another one of my Naval War colleagues, Professor Terry Rurig who runs the Asia-Pacific Studies Group here, contributes a very interesting chapter with a strong post-war historical perspective. Professor Rurig argues, and I agree, that the story of U.S. basing in South Korea has really been a story of the evolution of the alliance over the years to meet both changing strategic needs and also some changing domestic political realities on the Korean Peninsula. As again, I will touch on more in the Q&A, while U.S. allies clearly appreciate the value of the U.S. presence, in many cases, tremendous U.S. sacrifice, as exemplified, for example, by the Korean War. At the same time, I think, as Americans, it's possible to understand and accept how, even when dear friends who have sacrificed for you, you need their help, it can still be difficult to have foreign troops on your soil, some of the complications that come with that, and this can play in domestic politics in complex ways, and it's even possible sometimes that outside powers like China can try to manipulate this complex politics. In very recent years, we've seen some challenges in South Korean domestic politics. Fortunately, at the same time, South Korea's military continues to get increasingly capable, so this has set the stage for continuing a strong American presence, but adjusting it so that the South Koreans themselves are able to take more responsibility in critical areas, and the U.S.-based footprint is consolidated over time, particularly out of, for example, valuable real estate in downtown Seoul that has very sensitive political connotations, because both Chinese and Japanese forces have occupied that central capital area in the past. Moving on to Australia, we have a very detailed historical account, but moving right up to the present, by Australian specialists Jack McCaffrey and Chris Rahman. The U.S.-Australian relationship has been extremely close. Everyone knows that we've been shoulder to shoulder in every major conflict since World War I. There's a great deal of goodwill there. I have many stories that I could share that show tremendous Australian hospitality and flexibility, even when there were some friendly collateral damage from port visit interactions among the U.S. seamen from both nations to use the short version. The two authors bring us through a succession of historical eras in which Australia has desired a very close relationship, but what's been even more fascinating is the sheer range of high-tech facilities that have been involved here, some of which various parts of the Australian government did not profess full knowledge of at all times. To the extent that there is a complex domestic political issue in Australia, this might be one of the few things at the edge, what's going on and what facility at Pine Gap or something like that. I think the authors document clearly that because of Australia's geopolitical position and the succession of challenges that Australia has faced and continues to face, as well as the strong shared culture and values with the U.S., this is a very robust relationship that is poised to even grow meaningfully in the future, as exemplified most recently by the American deployment of several hundred Marines to Darwin. Nevertheless, I think for those who are interested in military facilities and technology, it's probably hard to find a chapter that gives this many insights into the many things that have happened on Australian soil because of the great alliance and the unique geolocation that Australia enjoys. Singapore is another interesting geopolitical example, although of course very different from Australia. Here our contributor, this time Chris Rahman, I think makes a strong case that at least from a Western or American perspective, this may be one of the most underappreciated host nations in terms of contributing to the U.S. overseas basing presence. Singapore from its very founding has been in an extremely complex geopolitical position, an island city-state in a largely unstable region, a very complex ethnic and religious sensitivities, some of which are directly connected with Singapore and the history and its historical connection with the Malay Peninsula. Then the issues during the Vietnam War era of the fact that very different from today, the U.S. China actually sponsored communist insurgencies in different parts of Southeast Asia. This was a major concern, of course, of Singapore's leader, Lee Kuan Yew, founding leader. He went so far as to say that without robust U.S. presence in the region during the Vietnam War, Singapore might not have survived the Vietnam War. Singapore might not have survived in its present form. There are interesting historical nuggets along the way that at least I wasn't familiar with, others may be. The fact that there had continuously over the Cold War decades been a small but extremely competent New Zealand contingent that helped provide a measure of security and political reassurance. This is clearly, Singapore is clearly a state that has to balance its interests and relations extremely carefully. As part of that overall approach, Singapore has been an extremely useful and friendly partner to the U.S. Not a formal alliance because of the political sensitivity issues, but the U.S. Navy has been extremely welcome in Singaporean port facilities, which are top, absolutely top of the line. Most recently, and on the cover of our book here, we see the littoral combat ship now in Singapore in the carefully, politically contextualized status of rotational forward deployment. An approach that supports U.S. operations quite effectively while preserving the addressing the political needs of Singapore and how it needs to characterize that relationship. And in closing on Singapore, I should also mention that Rahman documents very clearly Singapore's great value as a logistics hub through Commander Logistics Western Pacific, among other roles. I myself have been in the huge, refrigerated buildings of subcontractors of ComLog Westpac with forklifts speeding around with huge crates of food that are going to be shipped to the U.S. and shipped out to Diego Garcia and other areas. Clearly, Singapore is another critical node in this overseas basing setup. Completing the maritime leg of our trip westward before concluding with two slightly different types of focus points to shake things up and think to the future. Diego Garcia has to be one of the most exceptional locations in the world. This small, wishbone shaped coral atoll, a British Indian Ocean territory, referred to by some as the footprint of freedom, a tiny footprint only four feet above sea level at its highest point, although the secretary of the Navy assures us that there should not be any global warming problems in that regard before late in this century and not pronounced apparently till the mid of next century. We'll see about that. This location clearly has some very significant limitations in terms of being very far from the Indian Ocean latoral, extremely small in terms of what sort of facilities it can support, offering essentially no wind cover or protection necessitating putting ships out to sea typically during a storm, facing the risk that parts of it could be over washed and where there are significant type of wave action as in a tsunami.  First of all, there's nothing else nearby that works similarly well. With the addition of Marines in Darwin, you can argue that the U.S. has basing access in a second location in the Indian Ocean latoral, but that might have to be qualified a little bit. It's not an extreme case of having too much capacity or too much access at this point, shall we say. So it's not an extreme case of having too much capacity or too much access at this point, shall we say. In addition, there are no local, there is no local political opposition. Now, there are some, there's a complex history that we detail in our chapter and I say we because this Diego Garcia chapter was coauthored by myself, Justin Michael, whom I mentioned, as well as Walter Ladwig, a former colleague of ours at Princeton University, who is now a professor at Kings College London and did incredible work in the British Foreign Office archives. I think he was able to bring together some documents for our study that haven't typically been published on and putting together this Diego Garcia history. So while there is some complexity to the history there and a question of some of the people who have been living in the Chagos Archipelago of which Diego Garcia is a part, what is the future of that look like for now? The access to the base looks solid, the relationship with the U.K. is strong and this base plays a critical role, however distant it may be from critical areas of operation in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Again, getting to the constant problem of balancing strengths and weaknesses. If you're very close to the area of operations you want to operate in, that has benefits for how quickly you can respond. It means you are within range, however, of more missiles, more other so-called anti-access area denial systems. Again, like all other bases Diego Garcia plays in this complex context. Now for something not quite completely different, but to give a broader perspective, we brought in Professor Alexander Cooley, head of the Department of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. He has conducted what I believe to be unmatched research on the politics behind, the local politics and the government to government politics behind basing and this really came to the fore just after, in the years after the end of the Cold War and the ramp up of the war on terror, particularly post 9-11. Suddenly the U.S. needed enhanced access to Afghanistan and Central Asian bases were seen as being extremely useful and important in that regard. So the U.S. was able to gain this access, but the story as Alex documents becomes quite complex and it's a story that has to do with Russian geopolitical pressure, with changing regimes in some of these small Central Asian states, with type of political regime, corruption. To make a long story short, what looked like a sustainable basing relationship with a country like Uzbekistan soured and eventually ended when the authoritarian leader of Uzbekistan determined that he would do better to cast his lot with China and Russia who would continue to support him even as he severely oppressed his own people and may have authorized a massacre that in which his forces killed as many as several hundred, even as high as seven or eight hundred civilian protestors. Something that the U.S. could not just let stand by and that relationship expired. And of course Russia and China were very eager to be there and use this to their ends. In the case of other states such as Kyrgyzstan, there's sometimes been a situation of a corrupt leader whose son is in charge of the company that collects the payments from the air base, all these kinds of things. Then this type of leader sometimes will demand higher payments from the U.S. to try to solve his own political problems and that doesn't work well. And then ultimately these types of leaders may not be working in the best interests of their own people so they don't survive in office. Then another leader comes in who opposed this leader rides in on a populist platform but goes back to the battle with old ways, installs his own son as head of the airport revenue collection monopoly, getting $7,000, a $7,000 fee for every single takeoff per typical international civil aviation procedure. Anyway, there are a lot of details in Cooley's chapter but suffice it to say he raises some very important words of caution about how we really have to consider, if we're considering basing in an area, what government are we working with? What will they expect? Even if there are not local popular complaints, what will that government try to do? How sustainable will it be? This is one of our challenges looking forward. As we come to a close here and I'm happy to take your questions, let me address the last chapter by Sam Tengredi on sea basing. This offered a wonderful compliment to the many land focused components of our entire exercise here because one of the questions becomes if it's highly unlikely for the U.S. to get access to major new land based locations. No, maybe at the margins we can have some more but there are not huge uncharted areas into which we would likely be able to go. If the long range precision strike revolution continues to complicate the fixed basing picture in a GPS world of precision strike missiles where our land bases can't move, a lot of the stuff on them can't move, you don't even need the world's most sophisticated reconnaissance strike complex to dial in the coordinates on that and have them preloaded. So Sam Tengredi says, look, sea basing has not always been a popular concept. It never seems to quite come to the fore. It's related to the complex inter-service politics of the U.S. which basically boils down to who's going to pay for it. But maybe some version of this, some version of basing more assets at sea in different conglomerations, they might even shift and evolve, don't we at least have to think about that possibility. If some of the land stuff looks difficult enough, maybe we need to look more to the sea. And I think this subject is very much a work in progress and I think Sam deserves great credit for really bringing it up and it's the note that we wanted to end on because these are precisely the types of things that have to be addressed in the future. So I've alluded to the growing difficulties of the geostrategic picture. I've referred to some of the domestic political complexities that the U.S. needs to be smart about and sensitive to. And there's a lot more I'd love to talk about but the bottom line is the details are in the book and we have some minutes for Q&A and I would love to hear your insights and take your questions. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. What's happened to Taiwan and Okinawa and secondly, what's the status of China as far as atomic power? Well, those are great questions, sir. And I think we should probably write a whole other book on that. In terms of the situation with Taiwan, obviously as the politics have evolved over the years, in terms of U.S. basing, that's been a dramatic shift. Previously a very important U.S. basing location. Now a U.S. friend and security partner but not a location for U.S. forces because of the way that that all evolved with the formal recognition of the People's Republic of China. There's a lot more nuance there but that's the big dynamic. In terms of Okinawa, this, let's see if I can bring back the Japan map. So you refer to Okinawa down here. Extremely geostrategically important location. It's probably no coincidence that this Okinawa saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Pacific War, the Pacific Campaign in World War II. Part of the challenge here is a domestic political issue. Although Okinawa is 1% of Japan's total landmass, it hosts I think more than 3 quarters of all of the U.S. military facilities in Japan. This is a disproportionate burden on a very small, very environmentally sensitive set of tiny islands populated by people whose families typically have very painful memories of the battles that occurred there in World War II. They often have a feeling that they were left to take the brunt. There's a complex political history because, again, geography has some constants or patterns over time. Throughout history, this was a crossroads of Pacific civilizations. There were Chinese, Japanese, other Asian groups coming through here. It's a diverse complex culture that has differences from the mainland of Japan. The people there enjoy tremendous economic benefits from the bases, but whenever there's an unfortunate accident or incident, that can get sensitive very quickly. As a result of all this, Japan has worked with the U.S. to reduce the number of U.S. Marines in particular that will be stationed in Okinawa. Many of them are moving to Guam. With regard to nuclear power, that's a whole other story, but I think for our purposes here today, while China is, the nuclear that matters the most for the area we're talking about is nuclear missiles. China has a very strong nuclear deterrent force that they want to use to show that if something's really important, they can't be pushed around. They're working to develop nuclear-powered submarines, which are what you need to project long-distance submarine power effectively. That seems to be more of a work in progress and a gradual thing. Happy to talk more later about the details on that. Yes, sir. Dr. Irkin, interesting that the Philippines have invited us back. Can you address that a little bit? What's the dynamic with the U.S. forces going back into the Philippines? Can you give some more details? I don't know all the specifics on this. I either read that it was in discussion that the Philippine government had invited us back into the Pacific Bay because of the Chinese incursion at some of the Philippine islands. I was under the impression that it was undergoing. Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe I am because you look puzzled. Well, certainly I think it's a strong treaty alliance and over time and as Philippine domestic politics and leadership decisions permit, I think the U.S. has been able to make more of a military contribution to a partnership with the Philippines. There have been a lot of, I think, very productive counter-terrorism training, including on the Philippines' own soil. And I think certainly at the margins, access has been greater. In terms of Subic Bay per se, my understanding was that that's been turned into more of a commercial hub. I don't know of any specific plans in that regard. But this is all a useful reminder of the complicated politics of host nation basing. Mount Pinatubo really did Clark Air Force base in in many respects. But at the end of the day, it was Philippine domestic politics that closed Subic Bay for our purposes at the end of the Cold War. I think the Philippines really values the partnership with the U.S. but sometimes there are strands of domestic politics that have a perception of a colonial history that can be sensitive and complex. And then on top of that, this actually has an analog to the Central Asia problems that I was talking about. Under Marcos, we had some good cooperation with the Philippines, but the monetary price that it came at was higher and higher. The Marcos regime was demanding more and more and more money in terms of various basing fees, and it got to be quite a substantial amount of money. So these are all things that we'll have to deal with moving forward. I do think the partnership with the Philippines will continue to solidify and deepen in critical ways. I'm not well informed as to what geographic specifics there might or might not be to that. Well, I think just following up on that, I think what he's referred to was the Chinese South China Sea, where they challenged a few Philippine fishing vessels. And I think there's nothing had been decided, but I think the Philippines did ask that maybe we consider reopening parts of the bay. I suggested that. I don't say they would ask. They suggested that might be possible. Well, it's certainly a huge concern for the Philippines. I think it's been quite unfortunate the way that China's used particularly its civil maritime forces. China's developing and consolidating a tremendous set of coast guard forces that it can use to try to push its small neighbors around without actually making it a naval conflict that the U.S. would feel obligated to enter. And with the Philippines, this has occurred most prominently at Scarborough Shoal, where China really pushed the Philippines. And I think an issue that will have to be dealt with in U.S.-China relations over time is that apparently, as reported in the Financial Times and elsewhere, the U.S. brokered an agreement with China to, there was a confrontation between Chinese and Philippine forces. And this did not look like it was going to end well. So the U.S. reportedly stepped in, brokered a deal with China to let the Philippine forces leave safely and return to status quo ante. And that was seen as a good approach, but apparently the Chinese completely reneged on their promise to the U.S. on that. If true, that's a big deal and it's a sign of some of the challenges that we may face in the South China Sea there. The same time, it's a difficult and complex situation. It's hard for us to want security more than one of our partners does. And while the Philippines has made some valiant efforts to enhance its security, it has extremely limited naval and coast guard capacity. Fortunately, the U.S. and Japan, both together and separately, are working to help increase that Philippine coast guard capacity, to be aware of what's going on and to help patrol their own claimed areas. But you're right, this is a huge issue and we'll continue to see it manifest itself, I think. When Hillary was, is it his turn? Let me let this gentleman go first and then we can come back to you. I was wondering what the status of the native population at Guam is and has there been discussion about statehood with Guam? I don't know of that sort of discussion. My understanding is it's a relatively positive local politics situation. I think national military facilities are seen as a vital part of Guam's economy. I certainly have talked with people who have spent a lot of time on Guam. I've had privilege to talk with people involved with Guam's government. I think there are many people prominent in the governance of Guam who are proud of their Chamorran heritage, also very proud to be Americans. And if you look at it, the congresswoman from Guam, Congresswoman Bordalo is constantly working in Washington to increase awareness of the relevance and contribution of military facilities on Guam and to try to get congressional funding to build the infrastructure and build the facilities. So I understand a very positive situation. In any situation you will get a few people who might be unhappy with something. We have that all across the U.S. in very small quantities. What I think makes this country great is we let that happen and it doesn't have to be a big deal. I just came back from Washington in the early hours of this morning. I'm always struck by Lafayette Park right across from the White House. There's everyone in that park from someone who's been camping out to protest nuclear weapons for the last 30 years to someone who is railing about something but it's really not clear what, even to them maybe, to someone who just really wants to challenge you to a game of chess. I see nothing connected with Guam that really raises above that kind of a level. Of course historical sensitivities need to be acknowledged. I think that's very important. I think the U.S. government has done a reasonably good and increasingly good job of that. I think when people have shared interests and share in the prosperity of what the basing brings, that's how you get acceptance. If you look on the internet you can see some groups, some sort of protest groups that try to make a big deal of things and now they can connect on the internet and there's even a transnational aspect. But I see those as being very fringe elements in this regard. It was much more significant in South Korea's effort to develop a naval base on Jeju Island. I think that's where the local protest matters a lot more. In Okinawa there are some strong strands of local protests. I do not, to my knowledge, see that as being a real problem in Guam. In fact in my years of talking about Guam with various people I was told when President Clinton came to speak there the line for which he received the most applause was the first line of his entire speech My fellow Americans. So I think that tells us a lot about what we need to know. Yes sir. When Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State she was negotiating with the Russians to get them part of the Aleutian Islands. What's the status of that? I don't believe that could be true sir. I don't see how that would happen. I was at one of the lectures at the War College and one of your constituents was sitting next to me and I asked him and he said well that's true but he said I don't know the details. Well I will say I have heard nothing of this and I think given recent events it's certainly not going to happen now. Good. Yes sir. Just going back to the Taiwan issue since basically World War II was going through periods of embrace and then neglect 1979 diplomatic recognition changed but over those 35 years we've developed an economic relationship with them but the relationship has grown increasingly antagonistic whether it be vetoes in the UN against what our policy objectives are or incidents of reconnaissance planes being aggressively intercepted in the UNC. Isn't it time to re-examine our relationship with Taiwan and start imposing a cost on Chinese aggression? Well US-China relations I think are one of the most difficult parts of US foreign and defense policy at this point and I think this will continue to be the case moving forward. I don't see any lead up in both the importance or the difficulty. I was just in Washington speaking with some very experienced specialists some of whom had served in positions of responsibility in the US government and had some interesting perspectives. One of the things that I took away from that was that to characterize US-China relations it varies a lot depending on what subject area you're talking about. So when it comes to certain international financial and economic issues there actually are some shared interests between the US and China and they do do some things that our government considers helpful. They sometimes provide some substantial assistance through international organizations that can be useful. Of course recently it's certainly not the case that all economic issues are working well particularly with market access. We see tremendous discrimination against American firms Microsoft's offices being raided just like that. Starbucks being told by China's official media your coffee is too expensive. We could go on and on about all the problems. Suffice it to say they're worst and most intractable in the military arena. Now what to do about this? I think it's essential to start by trying to understand where do the greatest problems lie within that military arena. To put it very simply I think the biggest problems lie close to China in those three so-called near seas that I mentioned the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea and their immediate approaches. Where China is determined to increase its control over various island and maritime zones that it believes belong to it. What the US has to do and I think and work with its allies and partners to do is make it clear that there's a bottom line. China will not be allowed to use force or even the threat of force to change the status quo in a way that destroys the peace of this very vital but vulnerable region. I think that's what we really need to focus on from the perspective of American policy. The opposite of that is the area far away from China out in the Gulf of Aden, places like that. China is making some welcome contributions now in its 18th anti-piracy task force since December 26, 2008. Now do they run these anti-piracy task forces exactly the way that the US would see as most productive? No, they don't integrate with the combined task force 151 they operate in parallel. Are they doing this for solely altruistic purposes? Nobody does. Of course they're also trying to get some naval experience. Are they going to have a chance to lead 151 the way that a Japanese admiral will soon be doing? I understand? No. But here's the thing, compared to the significant and growing military challenges that China is posing in this immediate area I think most of the other stuff that it does overseas pales in comparison. So we need to focus very closely on that. Now I know we're, how much time do we have? We're up. All right, well so let me end on this point because it's an important point. There are three major schools of thought I would argue on how to deal with Chinese anti-access area denial, prostitution, strike capabilities. One school of thought says the US has to show that it can strike key infrastructure nodes and areas in China so strongly that China would never dare to engage in some sort of military activity. I think the problem with over-relying on that type of a threat for deterrence is the Chinese will not necessarily believe it's credible that US president would ever select that option because they think these contested areas and claims in Taiwan and other places are more important to them than they are to the US. A second school of thought says prepare to be able to cut off China's energy supplies with a distant blockade. I think, I know there probably have been talks about this in book lectures so I'm humbled to go into this area. However, I think if you look at the logistic you have to ask yourself how would this actually work in practice? There'd be risks that such an approach would not work operationally, could easily be fooled by false flags, false bills of lading, would end up disrupting the global economy and would risk cutting off oil to our key allies, Japan and South Korea as well as our key partner Taiwan, all of whom rely on it acutely. So if arguably the first two approaches have their pitfalls or at least relying them on them unduly could be problematic, what do we have left? What I've testified before the House Armed Services Committee and it's my argument and we can talk about it and rip it apart later is look at the basics. What are the advantages and disadvantages the U.S. and its allies and friends have here? Most fundamentally the disadvantages China's developing all these capable missiles cares deeply about the issues at stake. The disadvantages China has and the advantage that the U.S. and its allies have is that the U.S. wants to preserve the peaceful status quo and the functioning global system a critical part of which goes through this region. To achieve any of its island or maritime claim objectives China would have to fundamentally disrupt that it would have to be the aggressor. That not only has political and strategic advantages for the U.S. it also has operational advantages because it is much easier to maintain capabilities to disrupt, deny, dislodge or destroy if necessary any Chinese forces that tried to seize disputed islands than it is to control the whole area. In other words the very same types of anti-access area denial capabilities that China has built up so effectively in the late 1990s are precisely the same page in the playbook than in a targeted way can be turned back against China in a worst case scenario. And I'm convinced if we remain committed to maintaining strong undersea warfare capabilities especially maintaining a build rate of two Virginia class submarines per year at a minimum keep developing and equipping with the Virginia payload module missile capabilities with that sort of thing we're going to be able to keep the region peaceful and keep this valuable system going which I think ultimately is what this huge network of U.S. bases around the world is all about. Thank you all very much.


Welcome back to our Road to Survival FC 24 season. We are up and down, like a roller coaster, I was going to say something else, but I won't keep it clean. We've seen to be decent at home and absolutely abysmal away from home. We regularly concede five goals away from home. Yeah, and we're playing a really tough side. But today we're playing second place Manchester United who won 10 and lost two of their 12 games at Godderson. So we're going to have to make a couple of changes. The team, we went to Palace and got destroyed. So we're going to have to make a few changes, so let's see what Ned... Shall we go 4-3-3 for a change? Go ahead. Cos we've done well. Let's go 4-3-3 with a hold in midfielder. Someone just sitting. Say that's it. Yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it. Right. Come on. There we go. Tough game. You can't concentrate. Yeah. Come on. Come on. Nothing away in the out in five, ten minutes. Give nothing away. Well, that's better. Go on, that's better. Now, don't change. Get your drop back. Retreat. Retreat. Get back in the cut. Retreat. It's watching him walk past you. Stand him. I've got the runner. I've got the runner. OK. I've done it. Out, out. What's she doing? Pickford, come on lad. Wake up man. I've been good for you she yet. McNeill's got it. Nice. He's got it. He's got it. He's got it. That'll do. I like the call. Come, come, come. Come. Same ball. Same ball. Come on. Put him on. You're in. I don't know what you wanted. We've put the ball in the final third for you. You cry arson. Retreat. Nicolangol running through there. Stay with him. Over, get over. It's you mate. It's you, you're ready. No, no, no. I'm trying. You've got a cover somewhere. I was following the man in the middle.  I am not going to pick the ball up and then throw a bat here am I? Shame ball. Is it back to the man? OK. Ash for the bat then.  And again, and again, and again. And again. Where's the pass? That's it. Hold it, hold it. Get it in. Midside. Played it here. Shoot down Seamus. Why don't you shoot? I don't want to shoot. I just left foot. Win it, win it. It's me, it's me, it's me. I should have won it. Win it. Yes, yes. Out your feet. It's out my feet. Make anil's going. He's offside. That's you if you're offside. That's you isn't it? You should have passed it. Now we're shooting because there's a man in front of you. Early. Get them out your feet early. Before they read it. No, no, no. No one's reading. Get over. Get over one of yours. And again, and again. No shot. Out. Win it, win it. Out. How are you not winning others? How are you not winning that other? Oh god, there we go. Out. We're back to the man. Win it. Flickey. Nice. Battle's going. Nice. Make the run inside, people. Getting in it. We're getting in it. The court is coming in. Yeah. Well played. Am I? Am I? No, Seamus. And again. I'm lucky. I'm lucky. I wasn't unlucky. Seamus, that was a bit lazy. That passed me. Go on, block him. Go on, block him. It's a rash fit. All right, back in. Back in, people. Well, I believe we have views of a girl and the bread. Back in on Anna. It's him. Yes, well done. Well done. We're away. We're away. We're away. Oh, it's awful. Nice sabotage on this. He is. We were full and gone then. I don't know whether we were three or four. Come on. Come on. Oh, don't let him shoot. Oh, thank you. Oh, my God, he's going to cut off for that. Win it, win it, win it. Win it, win it. He's got to win that one, yes. No amateur. Dan Juermer, line, line, line. Has he gone? He's gone now. Yes, lovely. Just get out your feet and go. Better.  Go on, then, I've opened it off here. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Oh, how did you say that? He goes straight through his feet. He went through his legs and he cut it with his hand. Glorious chance, that was a glorious chance. Keep it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Great tackle. Well done. Brantweig's gone. Brantweig's gone. I don't know why he's gone. Brantweig kept backing. Oh, you give it to me. I nearly wasn't ready, that went. I'll give it a shot. I was running back. Get goalside. Win it. Win it. Midfield. Great turn. Go on. Go on. Go on. He's got no pace. That's a foul. Read the bottom game. Win this head that's coming in. You've got to get tight. You've got to stop that cross, boys. Go on, under, under. Get him on. Milner half tight. You know what? You played all well. Not a bad performance, really. You played all right. That's what they've done. OK. Don't concede early on yet. Make sure you keep getting back. Keep the discipline going. These are the top shy. Keep the discipline. You've got to stay in the game. They've had a good team talk, so let's rattle them and make them for Gary. Get over. No cross, no cross. Rattle them and make them for Gary.  No, keep it.   God sakes. Why? Why does every little p-roller go under him like that? Can you not change his setting where the goalie isn't crap when you come and defend him? Watch this. Jesus Christ. You're near post as well. He's getting a soul in January. Why was he on his own, though? I'm telling you now. No, why was he on his own? We didn't leave anyone on their own in the first half. He keeps us there. Obviously, every shot is stoppable, but that's why you have a goalkeeper just to save those shots, especially shots like that. I should never go in the back of the net. Well done, Brad Fawkes. That again, that again. Well played, well played. Come on, come on. Oh, I thought he was there. You know where that comes from now? You're giving the right back, giving the ball away, on the no press. You've done that too far. You've done that too far many times this game. Too far many times. I've never again. There's half an hour, there's hours left. I'm trying to take risks. Don't take risks, we're still in. We've got to be brave, man. Out.  Blick it on. Yes, better, you're the way. Go on. Go on. Go on, you're faster than them. Go on. Go on. I want to square it. I want to square it. I'm not going to square it.  It's that? No, no, no.  What was that? I'm so sorry, Barry. Oh, sorry. You are it. I got scared. I don't know whether I can do this anymore. Honestly. I don't know whether I can do this anymore. I thought you were going to ball over it. I don't know whether I can do this anymore. Go on. I'm going. Yes. One more. That was you again. That was you again. That was you again. And there goes the next goal.  I don't know if I can change to me. Keep them here. Honestly, we were just in the game. We can't, we work so hard. And you decide within three seconds to undo it all. Come out. I'm not running with people. I'm going to dribble. Even though there's no history ever that tells you you can dribble. Do you know what I mean? Jack Harrison's going to dribble. There's no history. That's cos I put you through with an open goal. You couldn't miss. I took the whole tee on. You didn't take anybody on. I'm going. Watch this. Yeah, go on then. Give the ball away again. Go on. Go on. Go on. Go on. Go on. Yes. I'm going to score. I've done it. I've done so well. You know you're at Beto Square. I've done so well. You're at Beto Square. Yeah, look at me. Right, go Beto. Watch that. Oh, my God. Wait, it's always ball. It's always... Yes, block it back. Oh, my God. It's all right. I've got nothing left to give, mate. I've got honestly got nothing left to give. Get over. It's a pointless thing. It's a pointless thing. I actually think we've been the best team here.  Where's Dan Jume? Where's Dan Jume? Who cares? You'll only dribble and give it away anyway. Go on. One more. One more. Yeah. Slipped him in. Probably the greatest past the games I've ever seen. Shoot. Oh, Barry. Oh, my God. On your own with a goalie at Neil Milley, you miss. I put it on a play for you. Yeah, you put it on a play for me outside the penalty area. Sorry, I've got it. Yeah, you've got it. Keep it. Oh, Jesus Christ. If you're in Pickford, that is all your fault. That keeps us terrible. If I was Pickford, I would literally be going to HR about you. I might be in the middle of the next game. You'd be playing on your own, mate. But you against the world. And I bet you're going to win 6-0. I've retired. I'm 10 on my resignation right now. That's all going on side, man. Referee. Go on, it's going your own, you may as well. Go on. Great goal.  Going your own. There's no point to having a second player. You couldn't pass water. That was a great goal. Only because I've run and took two defenders away. Come on, we can bring this back. We could have. No, we can't. No, we could have. You know if you wouldn't have decided to try and give as many goals as you can. We can bring this back. 3-3. It happened before. Once again. Play it. Another tackle. I played it through. You passed it through. No, no, I put you clean through the ball away again. You sure? Are you sure about that? Oh, no. Standing, standing, standing, standing. Keep it. Go on, quickly, quickly. We've got time. Left back, left back. Go on. Once again, I've had to go. And again, and again, and again. You're going to have to shoot once again. Oh. There you go. First touch. It's in. Well played. Oh, no, keep it. Donk. Right back. Go on. Go on, you're faster than him. Go on. Oh, man, Beth's up. Well, just two, man. Oh, what was that ball? Go on, up through. I genuinely think we have been the better team here. There you go. Unlucky that. We gave him a good game. In fact, I feel lucky that he didn't bring any fans. He's got no fans. We were definitely the better team, man. Let's look at these match facts. Maybe not. 16 shots, United 4 to us. 55% possession. We had more tackles. But that makes us the better team. 14th is, is sustainable. I just don't, I don't understand at what point you realise that you have to pass the ball up. I did play well there. I don't, you weren't, you were terrible. I've played well. You were terrible. That was a really good game. The first half. The first half, you listened. The second half, you come on, done your own thing. It's because they scored and I panicked. But I wanted to win us this game. How can you, what evidence is that? You could win us a game. There was no evidence. If that the glory goal was the equaliser, then it would be an even better goal. It just scored everything up down, so it didn't really count. If you wouldn't have had your finger on, triangle and brought you up and picked but to the edge of the box. Oh, that was just butter mashing. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't go, let's bring the keeper out. But then the other two goals are his fault.


Hello, my name is Raul Morales-Rosendiz and I work at Sembla, the regional association of Latin America and Caribbean Central Banks. Together with my colleagues Milt Onvega and Gregorio Horazzo from Central Bank of Peru and Anaí Rodriguez from Sembla, we present this policy paper on payment aspects of financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean, identifying progress, gaps and opportunities. As decade in response to a G20 global call, the central banking community adopted a new task to support the health of financial systems, that is, to promote a third and wide access to financial and payment services. Since then, financial inclusion has become an important objective for many emerging and developing economies' central banks. We believe that supporting inclusiveness in the financial and payment systems will certainly influence the central banking of the future, especially in times of disruptive financial technologies. Financial inclusion as a policy goal faces significant measurement challenges. This is explained, among other reasons, for having frail data and limited methodological tools. Notwithstanding, it is crucial to understand where the main gaps are and what opportunities they have so central banks and other authorities can best contribute toward greater financial access. We propose a new way to measure financial inclusion gaps and opportunities. Our work uses the CPMI and World Bank framework name payment aspects of financial inclusion. We try to assess how effective can be a financial inclusion strategy from seven different angles, from legal to market issues to key considerations on interoperable payment platforms and financial education as well. We develop an econometric logic model controlling by countries and the PAPI framework with data from nine countries of the region, resulting from a unique self-assessment methodology that we also suggest for this purpose. Our main contribution consists on how central banks can leverage the PAPI framework to self-assess their policy, regulatory and operational actions to support financial inclusion strategies from a payment systems perspective. In our model, we find for instance that whenever central banks have less control on strategy roles and actions and or the implementation horizon is longer, it becomes challenging to achieve financial inclusion goals. Moreover, we also demonstrate that regulatory and technological challenges are the most significant barriers. As such, our work can be used by central bankers and other relevant authorities to identify factors of success or barriers that should be considered in the design, attuning or deploying a financial exclusion strategy. We hope that your work is of your interest. Thank you very much.