Good morning everybody. Welcome to the peace game. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the President of the U.S. Institute of Peace and I'm delighted to open this up this morning. For those of you who are here for the first time, the U.S. Institute of Peace is in its 30th year federally funded, independent institute dedicated to a world without violent conflict. And so holding a peace game is squarely in our mission and we're delighted to have the opportunity to have such an incredible collection of policymakers and practitioners who are able to really move us forward on a critical issue that threatens global peace, which is violent extremism. I want to thank our partners in this endeavor for policy and David Rothkoff who is here with us. I'd also like to thank the Embassy of the UAE for sponsoring us today and being an important partner. For those of you who were able to join us last night, we had a wonderful start to this year's peace game with a video of a camp in Jordan, Zaatari Camp, in that marvelous three, I don't even know what you call it, technology that enabled you to really be in Zaatari Camp. And it was a very powerful and very moving film that really gave I think all of us an important choice point to start with this morning in terms of looking at the future of the region, either for a population of displaced Syrians who either can be a part of a positive future or could descend into the kind of hopelessness that would further exacerbate the many problems that we saw that we have in the region. We were joined by Tom Donnellan, the former National Security Advisor for President Obama and he really teed up for us a vision of a world that has higher threats than at any time since World War II in his judgment at a time where great power coordination was less than it had been for a number of decades and poses within that mix with the dissolution of so many states in the Middle East, the importance of addressing the problem of violent extremism and how important it is that today we really grapple with the kind of real recommendations that help us move to real action and a more nuanced, more complex understanding of the task at head. I'd like to also invite everybody to use your Twitters, is that how you say it? You tweet with the hashtag peace game and we look forward to that. We will use the results of this event to help us inform policy, inform recommendations and inform policy as we all move forward together. And with that I'd like to turn it over to David Rothkoff who's the CEO of an editor of foreign policy and is today's MC who will set us up for an important day. Thank you, David. Thank you, Nancy. It's great to be here. This is the fourth peace game. We try to do one of these every six months. We do one in Washington and again with the help of the Embassy of the UAE we do one in Abu Dhabi. So we try to bring different perspectives to this discussion. When this idea was hatched long ago, Kristen Lord over there, Nancy and I were sitting there talking about wouldn't it be great if we could somehow bring the kind of rigorous analysis and tools that are used to plan wars, to planning and exploring peace. Towards coming up with constructive ideas and solutions that can advance the cause of conflict resolution and do so in a way that would impact policy makers by bringing them concrete ideas. The critical component of doing that is a collaborative dialogue among people who really understand the problems. And the reason past peace games have been so successful is that we've been lucky to bring together groups of people like that. And the reason we are so looking forward to today's discussion is that the group of participants we've got here as role players is as good a group as we've ever had is more diverse geographically, is more diverse in terms of their experience and therefore I think is going to bring to bear a more sort of creative force in dealing with these issues. We use a lot of tools in the course of peace game. We use scenarios which we will go through two different kinds of scenario exercises in the course of the day which you'll see. We use wireless polling.  We'll get to those in a second so that even those of you who are in the audience can participate. We have panel discussions and guest experts. And very shortly we will kick off the first discussion with Steve Hadley, who is the chairman of the U.S. Institute of Peace and also former national security advisor. And I might add since I've written two books about the NSC and I'm a sort of accidental part time historian of the NSC. Steve Hadley is among the very, very best national security advisors we have and he brings and have had and he really brings an extraordinary perspective and so we're really lucky to start out with him. But before we do, because this is a collaborative dialogue and before we get into the nuts and bolts of it all, I think the most important thing is that everybody knows who else is here. Now, one of the things that makes Peace Game successful is our sort of respect for the time and rules that everybody brings to this. And we start that by asking everybody to introduce themselves in 15 to 20 seconds and sort of teach the discipline of respecting the clock simply by saying who you are and where you're from and who you represent in the Peace Game process so everybody gets to know what you're doing. And we're going to go around this middle table, this U-shaped table, and then once we've done that we'll get right into the panel discussion. But let me start with you. I'm Neda Bakos. I'm a former Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorism analyst and today I will be representing Al Qaeda. Hi, I'm Leanne Erdberg from the State Department. I'm a counterterrorism advisor and I will also be representing Al Qaeda. Tony first standing Chair of the Middle East Program at the Aspen Institute and I will be representing Business Interest. David Garten-Steinrass Foundation for Defensive Democracies. And I represent the Caliphate and our Caliph Ibrahim the first. Shlomo Borom, a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress, representing Egypt. I'm Michael Wahid Hanna. I'm a Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation and I'm also representing Egypt. Dr. Catherine Brown, King's College London, and I'm representing the European Union. Edith Laffer, Women Without Borders, Vienna, and I'm representing the European Union. Peyton Ahimi, I'm from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and I'm representing the Intelligence Community. Good morning. This is Ahmad Qiyani from the American Iranian Council. I'll be representing the Iranian administration, possibly Javad Zarif or Rohani. I'm Barbara Slavin. I'm a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. I'm also representing Iran. I'm thinking I'll be Kazim Soleimani today. Doug Ollivant, I'm a partner of Mented International and a senior fellow at New America and representing Iraq. Tom Stahl, I'm assistant administrator at USAID for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, and I'm also representing Iraq today. I'm Georgia Homer. I direct the rule of law program here at USIP and I'll be playing law enforcement today. My name is Joergine Illum. I'm a police commissioner of the Second largest police district in Denmark. We've been running since 2007 different programs addressing radicalization problems, and especially over the last couple years, the specific Syrian problem. And I'll be, together with Georgia, representing the law enforcement. I'm Nick Harris. I'm research associate at the Center for New American Security. Today I'll be representing local insurgent groups and I'm your partner for peace on the ground. I'm Philip Smythe. I'm at the University of Maryland and I'm representing the local Shia, the Baikia Zayna. I'm Tom Apire, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and I'm representing local Sunni communities. Masut Farivar from Voice of America. I'll be one of two representatives of the fourth estate. Viola Ganger. I'm a writer and editor here at the US Institute of Peace and career journalist and trying to soak chaos. I'm Sarnada Reynolds. I'm a senior advisor and human rights at Refugees International and I'm representing NGOs today. I'm Robbie Torbey. I'm with the International Medical Corps and representing NGOs. I'm Mary Casey Baker. I work for the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. I'll be representing Saudi Arabia. I'm Manel Omar. I'm acting vice president for the Middle East and Africa Center at the US Institute of Peace and I will be representing the Syria regime. Hi, I'm Tafiq Rahim, director of the Global Site in Dubai and non-resident fellow at New America. I am Bashar al-Assad. How are you, Qassim? You're doing well. I'm Sasha Meinrath. I direct XLAB. I'm a technologist and policy hacker and I'm here representing all tech and telecom. So what could possibly go wrong? I'm Jonathan Morgan. I'm the CEO of a data science startup called Pappali and co-author of the ISIS Twitter Census for the Brookings Institute and I'm also representing half of the tech and telecom industry. Good morning. I'm Gordon Gray. I'm the deputy commandant at the National War College and along with Laura, I'm representing Tunisia. Good morning. Laura Talverdean, associate director for research focusing on North Africa at the Atlantic Council, representing Tunisia. Good morning. Dan Brumberg, special advisor at USIP and I want to thank my colleagues for giving me the easy case of Turkey. Hi, Jim Jeffery, Washington Institute. I'm trying to represent the US government despite the uncoordinated elements to my left. Tough to beat that. Susan Reichle, I'm the counselor at USAID and we are whole of government. I'm Tamika Tilliman. I'm the director of the Bretton Woods II Initiative at New America. I will be representing both the Democratic and Republican voices of the US Congress. Hi, I'm Muath Alwari, formerly with the UAE National Security Council and with Ahmed here, I'll be representing the United Arab Emirates. Good morning. My name is Ahmed Alhamdi, coming from Abu Dhabi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I will be representing United Arab Emirates. Good morning. My name is Tom Parker. I'm a counterterrorism strategist with the UN Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force and somewhat conveniently, I will be one half of the team representing the United Nations today. Good morning, Lorenzo Vidino. I'm the director of the newly established program on extremism at George Washington University, the other side of the UN for today. Good morning, I'm Jocelyn Cezari, Georgetown University and Harvard University and I will represent Muslims in Europe. Good morning, my name is Farah Pandith. I'm the former special representative to Muslim communities at the Department of State. I had the honor of working at the NSC under Mr. Hadley where we pioneered CVE programs in Western Europe. Today, I will be representing a Western Muslim woman who is on her way to Syria and I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for hosting us. Thank you very much. That was a great start. It showed great appreciation for the guidelines, which was great. It also showed that some of you were getting into the roles early. Also great. It I think should be revealing to us even at this early stage that you are here representing the countries of the world and some of the most chaotic places on earth and yet it's clear the greatest chaos is in the United States government already. So we have a very similitude going for us. Anyway, what we are going to do now is to just give you a taste of what the polling feels like and then we're going to turn to Steve and then we're going to open up the discussion and frame the discussion. I'm going to get up just because I do that periodically during the day so I can walk over here. These are the polling devices. The way the polling devices work is the periodically questions will come up on these screens and there will be a series of answers. Next to the answers will be a number. You can hit the number and that will input your vote. You'll have eight seconds. At the end of eight seconds we'll know where everybody is. Everybody in the audience can participate as well. That gives us a sense of a bigger group and where the group is. These first three questions are kind of simple sample questions but they have to do with our opening set of discussions. This morning we are going to be talking about one of the critical elements in combating violent extremism and that is countering the success many of the groups that are operating today including notably the Islamic State have had recruiting foreign fighters and others into their ranks and so the question is if we are trying to achieve more peaceful outcomes one of the ways we may want to do that is via countering these recruitment blunting the recruitment efforts because that at the end of the day of course will reduce the number of people who are producing some of the bad outcomes that we're seeing in countries across the region. But how do we get there? I want to say this now and I'm going to say it again and Nancy will say it again throughout the day. Our objective is to come up not with 35,000 feet analyses not with the kind of things that you see in op-eds or in some of the papers that you may have seen that are abstract. We want to come up with concrete ideas and so that's up to you and as you go through the day what you want to be looking for whether it's in discussions or whether it's in scenarios when we take breaks during the scenario so you can collaborate with one another is what kind of ideas can realistically work. Now that realistically is an absolutely critical point. We live in a in a world full of constraints there are political constraints economic constraints there's circumstantial issues that have to be taken into consideration. We want to find the best possible path towards peace so emphasis on the possible and and that's what we're all here working together on. Let's start the collaboration and just to you know put our toe in the water with this polling to give you a little bit of a sense of that. We'll do this a couple of times through the day but if we have the first question you'll see you know how effective have efforts to stem the recruitment of foreign fighters bin to date. You can see it on all four of these screens there's a little clock at the bottom pick one very effective two effective three you're on the fence for ineffective five very ineffective soon as I finish reading them off the clock starts counting down I hope and you have now just a few seconds to put in your answer you change your mind just hit a second button whatever the last button you hit is what will count and then there's a moment and we tabulate it and you can see that 66 percent of you say efforts have been ineffective 11 percent very ineffective so 77 percent of you are on the ineffective side of the scale that gives you a sense of the challenge that lies ahead of us let's go to two more questions which I hope you get acclimated with this what recruitment counter strategies have been most effective now we've said these have been ineffective but has outreach to vulnerable communities been effective law enforcement surveillance and prosecution tracking and disabling of social media accounts or something else that would be other and so again we go to the countdown clock and we shall see that you say 40 percent say outreach to vulnerable communities 29 percent say law enforcement 12 percent say tracking and disabling of social media accounts and 18 percent of you have fallen into our trap of saying other because when you say other when we're polling then I'm going to ask who said other so you explain what you said okay so who said other why did you say other when you talk hit the button outreach to vulnerable communities doesn't uh it doesn't explain that you have to look beyond just particular places you need to go global and you need to build movements at the local level excellent point building on that similarly that you need an integrated approach just throwing money at vulnerable communities without understanding the drivers that are happening at the local level will not prove effective somebody else say other okay well i said other because none of the first three choices have in my view have been particularly effective and there must be other methods that have worked locally and in different countries that we would have to look into okay well hopefully we will do that here and anybody else surely somebody did because the numbers don't add up but okay in the you are warned if you say other we are going to come back to and we have ways of finding you um by your twittering all right one more to a tweet agree or disagree counter strategies targeting women recruits should be different than those targeting men strongly agree to strongly disagree this gives you a sense of a kind of arranged question uh and uh i in my head i'm predicting the answer let's see how good i am at this um so 83 percent of you are on the agree side of the spectrum that was kind of the obvious answer here uh strongly disagree who said strongly disagree okay people gonna play that game where they're gonna go and vote not own up to their vote okay we will come after you so okay Steve we've set the stage for this Nancy will kick it off with the first question for you great thank you um and uh i'm delighted to have with us here today Steve Hadley who is the chair of usip and a wonderful leader and partner for us um Steve you know we've already talked this morning about the dissolution of a number of states in the middle east as having been a part of the equation one of the one of the very exceptions uh important exceptions to that is Tunisia we just hosted president asepsie here on a recent visit um you were just in Tunisia Tunisia stands as one of the few states that seems to be succeeding after the events of 2011 and at the same time as one of the largest contributors of foreign fighters to the region talk a little bit about what you saw when you were there as to how those dynamics uh are in in counterplay well one it's a pleasure for me to be here with you this morning and i'm sorry i'm not going to be able to stay for the day i think this is a very important subject i think we're going to learn a lot and i want to compliment Nancy you and david for putting this together again and christin for being part of the original idea for it i think you're also sounds like can have a lot of fun today and i think i'm i'm sorry i'm not going to be a part of that as much as uh in the same amount is not being able to hear to learn learn what you're what you're going to learn tunisia is interesting um the origin of the arab spring a country that is opposed to its neighbors has done almost everything right teetered on the brink of kind of a muslim brotherhood takeover stepped back established a consensus process got a constitution has now a unity government that has 80 percent of the seats in the parliament and is committed to a reform agenda political economic and social doing all the things right why really three factors one was this vehicle of a national dialogue supported and really driven by civil society second a decision that the country made in the 1950s to give women full equality with men and invest in the education of their people as their most important resource and finally interestingly enough and the anata party which is a muslim brotherhood type party that is opposed to their counterparts in egypt thought power was a vehicle to establish democracy rather than a democracy is a vehicle to establish power and so this is a country is doing everything right and yet as nancy said three thousand of their citizens are with islamic state in syria so why is that and i talked to the advisor to the president and his comment was tunisia has run the course of the national narrative and vision for the country that was established in the 1950s and we need to come up with a new national narrative a vision for our country what is uniquely tunisia and what is the role tunisia is going to play in the region that give our people a reason to invest in the future of their country and i think he's on to something because if you look at the countries in chaos iraq syria yemen libya their countries i think that have also outrun their national narratives or really never had a strong national narrative in the first place so one of the things i would hope you would do today is you'll have a focus on the technology why is it the islamic state uses american-made technology to beat us in the marketplace of our ideas ideas every day why is that why how do you counter their visual images how do you counter the grievance narrative how do you deal with the real deprivation in their societies that is a recruiting tool but i think you also need to spend some time thinking about countering the vision of the islamic state and part of that is undermining their vision which is tied to the caliphate that is what gives them a riveting narrative for the region restoring the greatness of the people of islam lost for over a millennium now coming back that is a powerful image and phrases that we use like inclusive governments representing all society elements of society accountable and responsive governance justice and security those concepts important as they are the right concepts pale in comparison to the lure of the caliphate so i think we need to think about given that how do we roll it back and one of the things is we have to take that territory back so the caliphate essentially comes to an end but we have to at the same time talk about what is the affirmative vision the narrative for these states that will give their people a motivation to support together to support their states and to fight against isis i think that's really what we're missing thank you are there are there other i mean besides developing a narrative in the context of tunisia are there i mean they must be concerned about the 3000 people as well because not only do the 3000 people originate there but when they go off and they fight these wars they're learning skills that if they bring them back to tunisia they can be extremely dangerous in the context of tunisia we're there in in your conversations there programs that they're working on to nip this in the bud that are particularly effective have they not gotten to that point yet beyond simply describing a narrative i think they have not gotten to that point yet is my sense they're focusing on what can we do to get the kind of effective security forces so we can catch these people at the border and not let them back into society i think when they think about the broader problem i think one of the great strengths they are going to have and going to use is that this sort of emerging social cohesion that is built heavily on civil society which i think was was prompted heavily by the role they gave to women here five decades ago that that gives them a platform with which to deal with this problem that i think other societies really don't have and i think what they're going to end up doing is figuring out how to lever that kind of civil society and it is active civil society that system the president basically said the constitution of tunisia today was handed to us by civil society and we adopted it so i think their approach is going to be then reaching out to civil society and and energizing the society as a whole to try to come up with a plan to try to reintegrate these people but at this point they're very early in that process you know one of the issues that president sebsi seem to be wrestling with in his comments was that balance between human rights and the security approaches that might in many people's minds be necessary to stem the flow or to deal with the return how did you see that balance playing out in tunisia you know throughout this conversation is the discussion of how to include security forces on a in an approach that is part of a productive partnership and doesn't end up further alienating uh communities in the process one of the problems they have is um and it has echoes in a on the problem in iraq where a lot of people said you know you shouldn't have allowed the iraqi security forces to disestablish themselves which really what happened and you should have called them back and restored them tunisia is very interesting because we've spent some time with the minister of interior they took an approach that they fired all the heads of the ministry of interior but they kept all the soldiers uh all the people in the ministry and they thought they could retrain and reeducate um and it is a very divisive issue at this point that they are only now beginning to address through a truth and reconciliation uh device and it has vignettes like the following young gentleman i talked to he said you know i was incarcerated by the regime and i walked into the ministry of interior and i saw a man who was my jailer and who raped my wife in my presence as part of the torture that he imposed upon me and i said to myself why is this person still part of the ministry of interior so there is a huge issue in these transition societies if you fire all the existing structures you invite the risk of chaos but if you try to preserve them you don't address the underlying grievances that the population have against those people and i think it'll be very interesting to see how tunisia now handles that problem they are early in the process with their truth and reconciliation commission and i think this in a way can be a case study of how you deal with a very challenging problem you know there's a clear echo in what you're talking about of iraq and and and in some respects kind of the mirror image of what we ended up doing with the bath party right and and there's a lot of prescriptions you know sort of monday morning quarterbacking about how we handled that that said well if we'd only done it the other way everything would be fine and and clearly you're saying maybe not it may not be it may not be the case but let's turn for a second to iraq because clearly you had a lot of experience with that and clearly the genesis of of the islamic state is within iraq as you look back what do you think were the factors that fed into the to the growth of the islamic state so that we can sort of use those as guideposts and in the in the in the efforts to resist such developments in the future i'm uh probably not a i'm not a disinterested witness on the issue of iraq so you know you should take that into account in these comments uh look i the where we were through the efforts of two administrations in 2009 and 2010 was that al-qaeda in iraq had been defeated not destroyed but it had been defeated it had been so beaten down that while it could maintain a low level of violence it did not threaten the state and the state building process so that problem was done um then what happened well people will say the u.s went home in 2011 did not leave a residual force and we can discuss how significant that was two other things the sins of the maliki regime i think began to come into fruition and it was it basically subverted what was a unity government in favor of a more sectarian agenda and the response to that was very predictable among the sunnis and the Kurds i think the big thing was syria and when that uh civil war got started in 2011 a number of republicans and democrats were saying if this is not addressed four things will happen more people will die it will become more sectarian it will destabilize the neighborhood either because of refugee flows into places like lebanon jordan and turkey or because of terrorist flows into places like iraq and finally it'll open the door for a resurgence of al-qaeda and that's exactly what happened so one of the challenges we have to learn there are sins of commission mistakes people make a lot of people think going into rock in 2003 was a mistake there are also sins of omission a failure to act and sometimes the consequences of those can be even worse go ahead go ahead so on the on the topic of of whether to act or not when we talk about the the critical importance of creating a narrative into the future a new tunisia narrative alibia a yemen narrative should they get to that place what is the role of the united states how how are we helpful or not helpful as those narratives are born and created the narratives obviously have to come from the people and and it is the i think a principal burden of the leaders in a country like tunisia and iraq and elsewhere to while all the day-to-day pressures they have which are enormous if you're leading one of those countries have some time to step back and and think strategically about what is a narrative that is right given our history and culture and they can inspire and motivate our people they have to find it themselves but i think one of the things america can do through organizations like us ip and also through our diplomats is to be in dialogue with those national leaders and help them to understand that that is a critical part of their leadership challenge if they are going to lay the foundation for a stable prosperous society going forward and to engage that dialogue with them and share their own our own experiences because we have a national narrative reflected actually in the declaration of independence in our constitution about freedom and democracy that is held up for over 200 years and still compels and motivates not only our people but attracts people to our shows so we know sure so we know something about the power of narratives and i think we can be in dialogue with these national leaders to help them appreciate that this is an important part of their leadership challenge and then to be in dialogue them help them try to to define it okay so what we want to do at this point is open up this this conversation a little bit turn to some of you out there uh either for comments or if you have questions for steve or or just to throw it out and remember the the the title for this session is the search for an effective counter strategy steve has talked about some of the parameters and some of the challenges you know it's a very common for people to say well we need a counter narrative but in the case of tunisia there's a strong counter narrative and it doesn't reach everybody within the society so the question is what kind of counter narrative for whom a counter narrative about what is an economic counter narrative a social counter narrative a political counter narrative and ideological counter narrative a theological counter narrative uh you know how backed up does that have to be by results where does that fit in this continuum of things that we do and and and we're not going to come up with a precise prescription here for among other reasons the situation in tunisia as we've just discovered is very different from the situation in iraq and the situation iraq is very different from syria or yemen or libya or some of the other places where this is manifesting themselves what we want to zero in on is what have we seen that's actually effective or what might we consider that based on what we know might be effective and and and look in those directions now we've talked to catherine brown and jonathan morgan beforehand to think about this a little bit so they could offer you know in three or four minutes some thoughts to help trigger this conversation and then we may go back to steve after they talk and then we'll open it up a little bit to you in the remaining 30 minutes we've got in this session can i turn to you catherine first of course uh firstly it is of course a pleasure to be here as an academic to be surrounded by so many practitioners as well we usually stand on the sidelines looking in and sniping so it's a real pleasure to do something that might actually be productive well here the practitioners stand on the sideline and snipe too so you'll have something in common i'm okay so in terms of what do we know in about effectiveness or otherwise of counter narrative strategies the first thing i think that was picked up on this morning in terms of islamic state and others and we mentioned the idea that they have an effective narrative themselves but i would say that's only part of the issue if we deconstruct what islamic state saying there are three effective elements to what they're doing the first is they offer a critique of global politics and i think in order for a counter narrative to be effective we have to look at that critique that they offer as well and recognize that there are some elements of truth within that and challenge how we might respond to that the second bit is what was picked up on their vision their solution to that critique and that solution appears inspiring and it appears authentic and therefore what we might want to consider is how then do we inspire ourselves that narrative from our young people and i have to admit a little bit of anxiety around this notion that individuals like ourselves need to be coming up with the counter narrative rather than empowering the next generation to find their own narratives regardless of who they're meant to be countering and that therefore means empowering them to ask difficult questions of ourselves as well as of islamic state and others and then thirdly one of the issues i think is important is the question of what it means to be living in this world as ordinary citizens rather than as elites and in terms of that islamic state attempt to provide a way of life that perhaps we have yet to really figure out how do we give young people motive to carry on living and what does that mean how do you find meaningful life and that might be where the theological solutions might be found as well as the social economic and political ones which leads us then to think in terms of counter narratives how might we break this down to look at evaluating them so firstly we might need to consider at what point do we seek to intervene at what point do narratives need to be engineered are we talking about individuals who are seen to be at risk or are we looking at vulnerable communities and how broad do we target that secondly where does that intervention occur is it within communities or within schools or is it on the battlefields themselves second thirdly the question is who who should be doing this is it a matter for government or for civil society if governments are actively involved does that undermine the legitimacy of the programs and the good efforts that civil society might be putting in but if they're not involved does that not reinforce the idea that governments of the west in particular the illusion that they think muslim lives don't matter and i think that's something that islamic state have been quite good at presenting this idea that somehow for western governments muslim lives don't matter and i don't think that's true but that's an image that's being put forward that needs to be counted and then thirdly of course of course there is the question of well what do we do should there be a militarized response which was discussed last night at the talk how important is the use of force in countering the idea that islamic state are successful militarily or will that merely fuel the idea again that western states are more than willing to use the middle east as a battlefield for their own ideological games and i think that's really important in thinking through some of the ideas around islamic state because as well this question of a global versus a local agenda is really important and i think that's where this new form of islamic state is really interesting about countering violent extremism dealing with the global and the local is something that we really need to tackle especially today okay so that's very useful right it's a very useful structure because essentially katharine's provided us with the five w's here which narrative is it is it political, social, economic is it the military narrative where they're not gaining is it a theological narrative when at what point in the timeline do we intervene and where will it be most effective where who does the intervening and what specifically do we do and i think the what has a double meaning because it's not just what do you do to establish the narrative it's also what do you do to prove the narrative what you know words alone won't do it you know you have to actually demonstrate that you can deliver a result or deliver whatever is promised within the context of the narrative i just want to um i i thought that was very helpful and i wanted to ask a question about what i didn't hear you see say of a potential fourth criteria and that is um you know this this very powerful call to give your life and you know the the fact that if you join ISIS you are committing to potentially die or to die in in a way that we see with you know samurai cults and other places around the world how do you factor that in to the power of the vision and the find a way to live because it's actually a bit counter to that it is i think what's been really interesting is a shift in islamic states dialogue and their narratives to begin with it was very much about generating a fighting force that this was a warrior type initiative that you could be a hero and fight the jihad in their language and therefore your sacrifice would be worthwhile because you'll be fighting for a higher cause however possibly since the declaration of the caliphate you also see a change in the narrative which is saying we are more than a fighting force and so we talked about yesterday we are a territorial state and they're not just asking for people to sacrifice their life as fighters but to provide a life that can create this new state and i think that combination is what makes them incredibly powerful because it's not just about providing fighters in some militarized society although it is actually quite militarized and death is a way of life but their narrative very much focused now on creating the institutions of statehood okay jonathan thank you also of course it's a pleasure to be here it's actually nice on the opposite side being a practitioner and always being focused on doing things all the time to actually take a step back and talk about perhaps why so i think what we see a lot in the technology industry is that these narratives that we're discussing are actually playing out online so directly from person to person in social media so we see this on a global scale and i think it's important for us to discuss what we're actually countering what's the point of the counter narratives that we're talking about and for us there's a couple different things that are very specific and very actionable are we trying to stem the flow of foreign fighters or are we trying to stop recruiting or are we talking about the capacity for ISIS in particular to to radicalize its scale they have access to a communications platform that is being used in a way that's unprecedented and i think not only encouraging people to leave their home countries to go participate in the conflict on the ground but then also to perhaps self-radicalize and commit acts of terrorism where they already are with that in mind while we do of course want to talk about the content of the narrative that that we might use to counter the ideology of an organization like ISIS i think it's also important to talk about the actions that we can take immediately these narratives are difficult to coordinate there there's a number of different actors who may want to contribute to what that narrative ultimately is is it local actors is it state actors etc etc we're in an interesting position in the technology industry that we are the conduit for this messaging so we're in a position where we can take we can we can take action we can take very specific action and so what i think it's interesting that everybody was voting on the different ways in which we might establish an effective counter narrative i think we all in this room tended to side on engaging with people directly and having a dialogue and i understand that that is it's effective and it's nice and it's popular particularly perhaps in a more academic context but what we've seen i mean and we're twitter we know is that it's effective when you stop people from having these discussions online we are able to effectively degrade the networks the capacity for these organizations to reach the large audience that they currently enjoy by suspending people's accounts and so while we again want to talk about the words that we're saying and the content of the narrative i think it's also important to talk about the direct actions that we can take in the digital space not just the actions that we can take on the battlefield but the the direct action that we can take in the battle of ideas to ensure that we are sort of limiting the extent to which these organizations can share their message online and protect the communities that we've established in the digital space on social media like twitter and facebook and youtube from the kind of voices that are a direct threat to ideologically the way of life that we enjoy and that is part of the counter narrative this is part of this direct opposition to the ideology of these organizations like ISIS thanks very much and i think jonathan built naturally on kathryn's comment by going or restating the what as the how and looking at the technology component of it and saying we have ways to degrade them through taking specific technological steps last night you heard tom donlan and today you heard steve hadley saying another one of the houses actually defeating them on the battlefield and while that's not directly in the ambit of us and talking about a peace game here it does pertain to the narrative right if if if they're unsuccessful then that degrades their narrative and and so this big question of how what are the steps what are the tools is something i think we'll return to throughout the day you've heard now both of these comments and i was just wondering if you had a reaction to either both i have a reaction each on kathryn ground's very good points there's one thing i think we need to clarify in terms of how we think about it it's very easy and common to say there is no military solution to the problem posed by dash there has to ultimately be a political solution and that is true but when you're dealing with somebody like dishe with the brutality of their their tactics there is no political solution that does not have a military or kinetic element and the trick is to have a kinetic element that is reinforcing of the other elements of your strategy political economic social and doesn't run counter to it and also doesn't get in the way of your being able simultaneously to conduct your own kinetic operations and discredit dice for the brutality and inhumanity of theirs so it's a tricky business my point is the conversation doesn't end when you say well there's no military solution that's the beginning of the conversation of how you use the military element of what should be your solution and johnson morgan's point a very interesting point there we all talk about how you rebut the narrative of dash the other question is if you were a Chinese if I was a Chinese official sitting here I would say well you where you counter the narrative of dash is you cut them off you you know you control the internet you control social media you don't let them to get their message out and I think our solution has to be a combination of both but there is a dilemma when in the early days and jim jeffrey will remember part of the military came to us and said there is a social media internet channel that is being used as a recruiting tool and it's resulting in fighters who are killing our men and women in uniform please shut it down if we went to the intelligence community and said oh don't shut it down it's our principle of intelligence on what al qaeda is doing so there are dilemmas and trade-offs in this business but I think we've got to be we're all sort of marketplace of ideas and free flow of information I think we're going to have to be hard headed about this and both flow and affirmative narrative and look at measures we can do to cut off the access of dash to the tools of communication go ahead it's a balancing not only for that reason but we're seeing in Malaysia for example we there was just some reporting on how Malaysia is starting to do greater control of certain aspects of the internet for exactly this reason and the question is how do you balance the ability of young people to create their own narrative to have access to those those tools and not feel alienated or repressed against that other effort so it's it's a number of balancing acts it is and there's another one which we have to put on the table which is the role of religion and if you talk to the Moroccans for example they have basically used state control of religion to establish an infrastructure of training facilities and certifications of imams who will put out a counter narrative to the terrorists from the mosque now that's not our view of how you do church and state relations but you know a hard question in this part of the world is do you use a religion affirmatively in that way through state control to really institutionalize a counter message very tough issue yeah and in fact I think all of these have there is a there are tough issues embedded in all of these that I think we need if we are going to be intellectually honest to deal with today you know if we take a strong military action in order to degrade them on the battlefield and undermine their narrative there we may feed their narrative by saying look here is the U.S. in here or here is western powers in here doing this that proves they are trying to manipulate our world on the other hand if you are a country and you are an imminent risk of destabilization because of an extremist group you may not seek to choose the most democratic solution openness may not be your primary issue at the moment because the alternative destabilization loses all control and will give an opportunity to the other side meanwhile if of course you crack down you create a different kind of narrative for them and so you know this is part of the complexity that we want to deal with here but we don't want to not acknowledge these factors we want you know we want to be as practical as possible now we've got about 15 minutes here Manal is going to lead the way with bringing this open and then I'll go to Tony and we'll open it up so Manal I guess just a few points one is with the phrase countering narrative extremism it limits it almost to two sides recognizing that there are several narratives both in terms of the extremists I mean ISIS is only one form of the extremism there's other groups that have different types of narratives that we have to also be aware of and those lines continue to blur as we're looking for allies on the ground but also on our side you know it's it's not a matter of in my opinion creating counter narratives they exist they're there they're on the ground and I think particularly in terms of the question of the role of religion finding those connections between state being involved in religious institutions I think has always been a dangerous road in that context not only for the issues of legitimacy but also it will then stunt the organic narratives that are emerging most religious leaders have come out to condemn the type of violence from ISIS but the the other challenge that I think and particularly what is the role of the international community because I fully believe that it has to come from local voices in terms of the narratives but the international community might need to really do a better job of role modeling if we're saying that we don't want to see violence if we're saying that there has to be alternative solutions then what are the techniques that we can introduce that don't resort to violence it's not just a matter of the military intervention it's also a matter of who we talk to who we bring around the table it is often armed actors and if that's the case then those who are choosing not to have a violent form of uprising is missing and so I think the international community needs to role model in a much stronger way how to work with nonviolent actors people who are more interested in bringing the national dialogue or the peace activists together and I think we tend to really marginalize those groups and see them as ineffective yeah and I think Manal has brought up another point here which I'm glad she brought up early right the our focus here is not countering Daesh it's not countering the Islamic state it's countering violent extremism because we've seen what happens if you say let's eliminate core al-Qaeda you know you make progress towards eliminating core al-Qaeda and you end up with al-Qaeda and a bunch of other places and the Islamic state you know and all the other manifestations of violent extremist groups here and so one of the things we want to try to do and again it's highly complex because it differs country to country it differs region to region it differs insect to sect and it differs in a lot of other factors is periodically step back and stay what are we doing against the broader problem because if we defeat this group we are going to end up with five other groups do you want to respond to that we had a USIP board meeting here in April and Georgia Homer who's here with us today made a very interesting distinction on language and it's something it seems to me the group might think about she said there's actually two meetings of countering violent extremism countering violent extremism conjures up sort of kinetic responses directed it the terrorists how do you counter the terrorists themselves she said there's another interpretation and if you'll correct me if I get this wrong preventing extremist violence which actually talks more at the societal context and how do you build resilience against the narrative and attraction of the extremists I think in this conversation we're going to have our eye on both of those elements it's true and particularly since the second one is leads you towards more practical solutions very often as opposed to saying if only we offer a nice counter narrative and everything will be fine well I mean we're delighted that the UAE is sponsoring this but I'll offer them up as an example for another reason but there is a poll just done of the Middle East and of young people in the Middle East and it said where where would you like to live and they said well I'd like to live in the UAE there's jobs there it's growth it's a tolerant society in many ways it's you know it's changing it's evolving there's lively cultural life there's a there's a counter narrative right there yet this is still happening so it's not that there are the absence of narratives that's not the whole problem and I think we have to sort of go go to the next point Tony thank you I agree with you there's not an absence of narrative I'd like to sort of focus on some practicalities Tom last night referenced in Steve you also picked up on the fact that the Arab world is steeped in a legacy of weak governance and institutional structure let's go back this isn't new it's the Arab human development report of O2 and the four deficits we are all keenly aware of it I think we need to build a toolbox that is that underpins and narrative Tunisia is a great case study having just also returned and done a conference there we have an opportunity there both in terms of the civil society space the role of women and now this new government but you can't just talk about narratives and if you look at the White House press statement that the whole first part of it is about counterterrorism you have to look at the waiting generation and what is the and how that provides a funnel of opportunism for recruiting and radicalization so it's interesting for us too and I look at it as a tripod and it has to be integrated and part of our problem and I look forward to engaging with our government colleagues the concept of a coordinated comprehensive integrated approach that deals with these issues that underpins on the economic level we've seen poll after poll after poll you have a robust economic space you have an involved and you're incentivizing a government to do reforms that are corollary with civil society and the business world that then is reinforced by a robust counterterrorism strategy you cannot do one without the other and I'd like to put a big idea on the table early on David and our colleagues and I know it's difficult I'm keenly aware of the difficulty but the issue is emerge national security budget as long as we have no tools in the toolbox of a 150 account and we are constantly piecemealing whether we're going to our friends in the Emirates or the or others or we're looking at the private sector to underpin a public-private partnership to help fund some of these other economic and civil society spaces we're going to constantly be facing these dualities and not able to leverage an impact on the ground so I'd like us to start moving down the path of considering some new ideas that will help because we've got to tackle this it's not going to change and we keep it's the legacy of Charlie Wilson's war frankly easier to vote on the F-16s and the counterterrorism strategy much more difficult to have a robust non as I call it a hedge fund approach to this early four-year return on your investment high yield and nobody wants it they want to have show me now what are the matrices and then we can move forward but it'd be interested in having you all three of you comment do you want to offer a comment on it we uh in my time when I was national security advisor the 150 account was underwater and we basically got it reframed as a national security account we didn't merge the accounts but we got it reframed and and framed as a national security investment and it helped it helped save the account I think we've got to have a broadened understanding of what is our national security interest and what are the national security what are the tools we need to protect that interest and you know a lot of people around this room reflect some of those tools so I think you're exactly right but it's a little uphill because you know it's the hardware you know that people love to vote for I would just add to that and there was an effort with the OCO funds to use that strategy to augment the 150 and with with some success but with some vulnerabilities as well and what I think the biggest threat is making sure that the hardware doesn't overwhelm and creep into and subsume what would what what's in the 150 account otherwise so it's really about having national security understood in a broader frame that would enable us to but if I could suggest there is no understanding I think you can do the firewalls on the hardware but the 150 account is not only under water it is there are no tools and that's I think what we have to underpin the narrative with the tools in the toolbox okay we're gonna go around and take take a couple more questions I'd like to just add one thing in response to what what Tony said first of all it's useful to have a practical idea thrown out on the table because it's going to be very possible for us throughout this day to list the reasons why the challenges we face are profoundly complex and just as very often we see the perfect being the enemy of the good frequently in Washington and in other capitals we see complexity being the enemy of action in other words we see extremely you know we could sit there and we'd say well there's so many things we have to do that we either do tiny incremental things on all of them or we don't do anything at all and one of our mandates here is to focus on actions we can take now this was a very inside the Beltway Washington DC oriented action but it's an action and I you know there there are no points off here for coming up with concrete ideas I see Tom and then I see down here so let's just guess I see I see Tom, Susan, Jocelyn I see several people go ahead Tom Thank you I wanted to echo a couple of things first off the first is this issue of narratives I have to say I'm a real skeptic that this is a big question or a big answer I'm here representing your organization today which has the alliance of civilizations we believe in a culture of peace global citizenship we spend a lot of money promoting these I think they're good things but whether they're a solution to the one percent of the one percent that actually wants to go out and commit violent acts I'm deeply skeptical of that we've heard Tunisia held up as an example of a success story but I can't help but note they had a major terrorist attack just two months ago and that's not the only terrorist attack we've seen in Tunisia it's very very hard to reach extremists with narratives it's very hard to change people's opinions when they've been made we know this from cognitive psychology so while I think it's good to have narratives it's good to know what you stand for it's good to promote positive values I'm really drifting towards George's point and I know the Secretary General within the UN we've had a shift in thinking from countering violent extremism towards preventing violent extremism at the UN we think a lot about conditions conducive I know a lot of people in the academic community might take issue with our list of conditions conducive as actually having real causation for terrorism but addressing those conditions is an absolute good improving people's quality of life in those countries is an absolute good and that might be as much as we can accomplish I always love a reference to the statistical concept of sins of omission and sins of commission I started out life as an intelligence officer and as an investigator and I'm going to offer you up another thing though in forensic science we call it look hard to exchange principle which is the idea that you cannot interact with a crime scene without leaving a trace and as actors we face that anything we do has an impact doesn't necessarily have a positive impact I could take an American positive narrative and destroy it with one tweet of a picture from Abu Ghraib but it's very difficult for us to promote these narratives so the question we have to ask ourselves is when we do something are we doing good are we doing harm and I think that's a really good starting point okay Susan and then Jocelyn we only have four minutes so I encourage everybody to be crisp okay I'll be I'll try to be very crisp first thank you for putting on the table the idea of a March 150 account you know as representing the U.S. government but also having spent a couple decades with USAID I would put on the table that we do have the tools we don't have the flexibilities and the ability and I think that's what you were getting at in order to iterate to respond in a way that really uses all of our tools in our toolbox and we have in different countries I served in Colombia for four years and obviously we used all our tools in our toolbox and looking at a country that was on the verge of being a failed state at the end of 90s and where it is today is truly transformative as far as just a couple of the points on the narrative we've been talking a lot about a counter narrative but really having an affirmative narrative and picking up on your point about prevention as a matter of fact we chose very specifically not to use CVE when we issued our policy four years ago we talked about a development response to violent extremism and now changing that frame to prevention I think it's something we need to keep at the forefront as we move forward Okay, Jocelyn Yeah, briefly if we are aiming to counter extremism talking from the point of view of people who are living in the West extremism is not the major trigger for joining groups like Al Qaeda or ISIS the first demand on the ground is about religion and it came in your presentation the people who go online first go to look for answers to religious questions so we have to address the fact that there is a theology of hatred that is circulating and it's bigger than I would say the strategy of group like Al Qaeda and ISIS so if we do that it is an international community responsibility cannot be the responsibility of state whether they are Western or Muslim state it has to be about empowerment of groups in different civil society contexts that are already conveying or carrying narratives that have nothing to do with this theology of hatred the problem is when we think in terms of counter strategy we are already weak the problem is how do we reach out a level where the global market of ideas is not dominated by theology of hatred some of it even brought out by the so-called friends of the West these are questions that we're going to have to address very very helpful remark okay I'll take one last comment here we are right at the end though so you can get 30 seconds we talked a lot about I mean there's many solutions and it's multifaceted and I think that's why we have all these different perspectives it's not just one truth but we've talked a lot about the supply of foreign fighters you know in this counter strategy and I think less and we need to talk a little bit more about where they're going and the fact that when you have failed states and places where these fighters can congregate and you have an increasing number over the last three years that augments the problem immeasurably and you know when we're talking about the UAE they're doing as much as they can in protecting their area in preventing let's say Emiratis from going in different strategies but you have these places such as Libya, Sinai, Afghanistan, Iraq failed states, vacuums of power and I don't think we've had the discussion of where does that fit into the counter strategy where does aggressive diplomacy fit in for example Libya nothing is happening I think that these things are more shameful we pontificate in a summit in February on CVE and yet nobody's going and saying let's actually solve the situation in Libya at all you know so put that back to you guys that is a profoundly important point because the narrative is fed by opportunity or a sense of mission and so if there are places where there those exist or where they crop up or they can be created it draws people in and it gives them a sense of a role and a purpose we've now come to the end of this opening session I'd like to turn to Steve for last comment Nancy for last comment then I'll explain to you what happens next I have nothing more to say I think this is going to be a terrific conversation I wish I was with you I would just note I think the conversation has brought us to a really important place that will tee up for the rest of the day about exploring more deeply with more nuance the motives for why people are motivated to go especially in some of the places that are so failed as Tafik just said and how they search for meaning and what forms that meaning and just having that deeper understanding may better inform what we may or may not do and I'd like very much Tom's phrase conditions conducive as I think a good shorthand for what Tafik and several others were bringing forward just to have a shared vocabulary going forward thanks absolutely superb opening discussion I thank everybody who's joined into the discussion because you've set the stage that I hope everybody follows the peace game is as good as your contributions it's as rich as you make it so if you do not intervene if you do not seek to bring your ideas to the table there is no other way for them to get there and what you've had here is a series of examples of people framing ideas and putting them out there and advancing the discussion and we are enormously grateful for you doing that we're going to take a 15 minute break at the conclusion of that break we're going to come back and we're going to do our first scenario focusing on some of these questions of recruitment and I'll explain what the structures are and how that'll work when we get there please respect the 15 minute break which means that we will you should be back here and in your seats and ready to go at 10 but before you get up and before you go please join me in thanking Steve for helping to kick this off in a break okay if all of you would take your seats we'll get ready good excellent excellent okay so we're gonna now begin the first of the scenario sessions and that requires your attention you can keep eating what you've got before we begin though I'd like to welcome Ambassador Alatiba again those who were there last night so him who is our patron here and making this possible thank you very much again now here is how this is going to go we're going to do a few of these questions just again to sort of set the stage and give you a sense of glimpse into each other's views on this and then we're going to go to a little mini deck which will describe the scenario and then we're going to go right up to the sort of the first move of the scenario they're just three it's very simple and after the first move there's going to be a 10 minute break where you're not to leave but to actually interact with one another and to say given this situation what will we do now that may mean you interact with the people in your group it may mean you interact with other groups in your role and say well we're the united states we might want to work with turkey good luck with that by the way but you will then go and try those interactions and then when you come back you can say here's what we had in mind but playing within the rules of the scenario now I know because all of you have strong inquisitive minds full of complex insights that you will look at the scenario and many of you will go this isn't the way it would happen okay keep it to yourself okay rule number one of scenarios is go with the scenario we've got the breaks and the panel discussion so we can talk about the context but here we're just trying to create circumstances which can focus us in on some of these solutions that's all these are okay so just accept them for what they were kind of action forcing fictional events okay so let's start with the questions we've got I think five just to kick things off agree or disagree Dacia's use of social media has been the single most important tool in their recruitment of foreign fighters and we'll go from strongly agree down to strongly disagree this is what we call range question and the clock should start you don't even have to wait for me to finish you can start with the clock okay well that's not terribly helpful folks you're all over the place okay so 54 percent of you strongly agree or agree that the use of social media is their most important recruitment tool but 28 percent of you strongly disagree or disagree so there is some range and some tension and that would lead to a useful discussion 18 percent of you just couldn't make up your minds all right next question which has been the most effective dish use of social media to recruit foreign fighters dissemination of high quality propaganda materials that could be by high tech or not direct peer-to-peer recruitment or something else interesting dissemination of high high quality propaganda is 42 direct peer-to-peer is 47 so it's got a bit of an edge and then there is other who said other why did you say other because I really think it's both they create a media ecology in which this worldview is really accepted in which it has a lot of fans but then to actually get someone over there you have to peer-to-peer recruitment is extraordinarily important so I think it's the fusion of the two combination somebody else say other anybody else yes it's also the ecosystem in which all of this lives this is not in a vacuum so it's multifaceted so the choice needs to be and more integrated comprehensive understanding excellent anybody else but we'll come to audience questions a little bit later as we as we get into this anybody all right next which dish recruitment narrative has the most powerful draw the push to establish a caliphate the excitement and adventure of jihad opportunities to defend Sunnis from Shia oppression for combating the brutality of the Assad regime or five other okay again a bit of a spread the push to establish the caliphate has the lead here although it was mentioned several times in the conversation this morning so I think there may have been some campaigning for it and excitement adventure of jihad is next interestingly very few felt combating the brutality of the Assad regime fueled it who said other Jocelyn Farah Farah you seem to be very contrary I'd like to be that okay good well we'll come to you in a second Jocelyn I think the most helpful part of the narrative is to tell people that Islam is in danger and that they have to fight for it it's not about specific phrasing about the caliphate or the jihad or the local circumstances it's like presenting the fact that Islam is at threat and that's what motivates people especially the foreign fight thank you Farah yeah and I think that what we tend to do is try to put everything into boxes so that we can understand it very simply and so I'm rejecting the idea that it's one thing or the other because experience has shown me that indeed it's a multifaceted feeling it's emotional as well as psychological there are lots of dimensions to this so when we put it in this phrase that's why I keep putting other it is complicated okay however the phrase is most powerful and the reason is we know it's several things the question is try to pushing people towards finding one that may have precedence because again if it's several things you may not be able to actually take action against all of them but the question doesn't talk about region and the question doesn't talk about particular state actors and so it depends on what you're who you're asking which is why it is important to understand that the Zanzibarian and the Norwegian are not going to have the same draw but they're also going to all be interested in ISIS okay anybody else with another yes I think fundamentally their message comes down to we're strong I mean there's multiple aspects to it but one of the reasons that they're so eager to use brutality is that it demonstrates their strength that's why they're not bothered by it and if their message of strength erodes then ultimately they could experience a brand reversal the same way that their predecessor al-Qaeda and Iraq did brutality went from being a message of its strength to a message of how it overplayed its end okay next question we have two more okay what is the largest domestic factor pushing foreign recruits to Daesh in prominently Muslim countries lack of economic opportunities security state crackdown on Islamists political marginalization or other okay again other leads the way here political marginalization and lack of economic opportunities tie with state crackdowns lagging substantially who says other that isn't one of the I mean I can imagine that you both of your both of yours would apply here as well so we'll stipulate that Jim David it gets back to the same motivation that we looked at after 9-11 where we took a look at most of the people involved in the actual attacks and we applied one two and three to them and we said we just don't think that that's really it isn't push factors as much as it is at least in those cases pull factors of the ideology of the religion of the sense of identity and the sense of shame at the identity being unrespected and such that disrespected that tends to get people into this more than one two and three which and I'll get into this later one two and three of course are things we can kind of we think fix or at least try to fix whereas the other is very hard to fix slightly simpler answer but a lack of a social authentic place in their own society both of these though echo right there's I just want to feel better about myself how will I feel better about myself will it be for a theological reason will it be for an action but they're they're looking for some kind of a new mission or an improvement in their circumstance yes you know it's interesting that the other category has generated more and more responses because I like others probably saw that as all of the above plus other factors okay on you know I can cite a couple of other factors that my drive domestically some of these fathers to to the battlefield one would be the perception that the government is not Islamic enough and they want to go to a caliphate and live under an authentic Islamic government okay and by the way these are multiple choice questions right I mean we they have limitations the idea is to just crystallize thinking yeah but no I think in addition to all of the above the other factor is just what I would say the daily grind I mean the amount of corruption the amount of humiliation the amount that people have to go through in a lot of these contexts particularly those that are in transition and conflict but even the more stable leads people to suddenly care about their identity I think it's dangerous to see the identity as a driving factor identity only becomes important when it's threatened and when you're humiliated so those factors that lead to identity becoming such an issue I think is is one of the primary factors on the domestic front yeah there's also something which I sometimes call the stability tipping point in a society and to me the stability tipping point in many societies is when there is a sense within a population that working within the system actually will serve them versus working outside the system if the majority of people feel that they should work within the system it tends to be fairly stable if at a growing number of people feel that they have to work outside the system in order to gain their lives then that produces instability yes I you know I think we have to distinguish between necessary and sufficient conditions I think that the if you look at the two if you look at the kids who went and attacked at Bardo in Tunis he had a brother who decided not to do this sort of thing he led a completely different life what distinguished a young attacker in the case of Bardo was he had the opportunity to train on the Libyan border so the collapse of states the collapse of borders the capacity to take advantage of alienation or to have alienation challenge a certain direction is really the sufficient condition it creates the opportunity to take somebody who's unhappy distraught and turn that person into a combatant so these structural conditions I think are absolutely fundamental okay one or two more quick comments I actually saw number two and three as variations on the theme if you have security state crackdown on Islamists you're that turns into and manifests in political marginalization I think political marginalization you could actually define much more broadly than we typically do to include you know if you talk about the polity include social marginalization if you look at social and political marginalization everything else fits into that umbrella okay Salma I think that what pushes away these recruits from there on societies is a sense of alienation and loss of hope that it can be different that it can be changed and this sense of alienation is the result of many factors has been the religious one economic one the political one and I think that it is extremely difficult to say which of them is more significant thank you the last question what is the largest domestic factor pushing foreign recruits to dice in western countries perceive western indifference the Assad regime's atrocities struggle of Muslims to integrate economically and politically anti-Muslim sentiment is there something else that you think is driving them in western societies to go and seek a role in this so 31% and struggle of Muslims to integrate economically and politically almost the same in anti-Muslim sentiment now in other let's set aside alienation let's set aside the theological motivation Jocelyn talked about before let's set aside the opportunities created by the disruptions in societies which have come up several times what else other than those others yes Mary that personal search for meaning yeah I mean I think there's an entire psychosocial issue with you know teenagers girls and boys similar to what we have gang and culture recruitment you know in different places I think can't forget that it's a more generic one okay anything else yes the fact that they are living in largely functional societies but looking back on largely dysfunctional societies in their home region and I think compelled to try and change that in some way if it is their home region yes what I call the lack of symbolic integration which is more than economic social or political which is to feel part of the national narrative of the country in which you live okay which is alienation in another form alienation because it means that the counterpart which are the political institution have to make an effort to include it's not about alienation it's about enlarging what is the national narrative of the country no but the people are feeling alienated and one needs to enlarge the national narrative to bring them in yes all right so those are the five questions team this up if we could switch over to the slides and move quickly into that before we get to the slides do either of you have anything you want to say in response to any of these questions or any of what you've heard I think we always tend to find or at least search for what we think is the one reason everyone joins ISIS or the one reason that they feel alienated and I think it's like a lot of the feedback I heard there is no one reason there's probably 10 or 12 or 15 and everyone has a reason why they think it's better for him to join Daesh than it is to be part of a national country with borders and a flag trying to find the one reason and therefore fix it sometimes doesn't work yesterday one of the questions and the dinner was well how do we prevent radicalization I think the simple answer is to prevent to present a better alternative is to present a better narrative is to make sure that there is a choice for him other than Daesh that seems or at least appears more attractive and I think that's the way the UAE looks at counter radicalization is to create a society where people feel empowered feel part of the country and feel like if they stay in the UAE their future is going to be better than if they join Daesh Do you want anything? You know I think that the conversation has really reinforced how important it is to get specific because of the complexity the importance of context the nuance and you know both Steve Hadley and Minaal talked about the particulars of living in a very difficult transitional environment with the daily grind of corruption and humiliation I know that we've got a guest here from Somalia who's has that very much on her mind and so as we look at struggling with these issues taking it into a very particular issue which I think your teen us up for really becomes critical so that we don't get lost in the complexity Exactly and clearly the purpose of this is get a temperature get a sense of what's on people's minds what do they think top issues are but as we've said in the opening last night and as we said this morning there's no one approach we joked at the beginning where I joked with Nancy at the beginning I said I know where we're gonna end up you know there is a spectrum of choices there's a you know to use the structure Catherine brought up earlier you know there's a range of time standard vene there's a range of ways standard vene there's a range of areas standard vene there's a range of themes that differs country by country you have to use all of them but if again that gets us to the point I made earlier about complexity being the enemy of action if we say that the mind boggles you've got to you've got to sort of start someplace and so setting some priorities helps us with that and that's that's the purpose of doing it but let's do it a different way let's do it in the scenario context now this is not technically a war game with multiple moves and all the complexity that some of you have been in war games before may be familiar it's a simplified version where we're going to essentially describe a situation circumstance and three developments within that circumstance and use those to catalyze discussion and search for ideas and this is where we really want to move from the abstract discussion to what would work here what could we do here to advance the idea of peace broadly of countering violent extremism specifically countering violent extremism in this circumstance specifically so the title is you know what if they gave a war and nobody came commanding the virtual high ground and other strategies for preventing and defeating information age insurgencies there are a couple of setup slides here let's go to the first of them just to give you a sense you know the foreign fighter presence is growing as of early 2015 the number of foreign fighters to have joined the Syrian Iraq conflict has surpassed 20,000 as we heard Tom say last night the latest number is perhaps 25,000 some of the estimates have heard have been even bigger foreign fighter countries of origin listed here Tunisia leads the list Saudi Arabia is second Morocco Jordan Russia and France interestingly all have roughly the same number of foreign fighters contributed Lebanon has 900 56% of the fighters come from the Middle East and North Africa 19 from Western Europe 14 from the former Soviet Union and 11% from other countries by the way we'll give you these slides if you don't already I think you have them in your notebook correct are the slides in the notebook if you don't we'll give them to you anyway the next slide so Daesh recruits through sophisticated campaign they leverage social media they've created highly successful online recruitment campaigns and they they've used a number of factors to pull people towards them one is the brutality of Assad one is the sectarian battle another is kind of five star Jihad compared to some of these others they portray the conflict in Syrian Iraq as an exciting adventure where you can you can even have a good quality of life in the midst of it and then of course they touch upon historic and religious implications these are themes that recur in some of the the tools that they've been using and they've they've had a quite a successful social media recruitment effort using popular social media sites to allow them to infiltrate and influence the consciousness of young people Tom Donlan mentioned this last night and you know one of the areas that we're going to want to obviously address this is is is through that next and obviously factors at home as we've discussed push people towards it there's youth unemployment and middle east north Africa youth unemployment is 22% for men 39% for women there's security state crackdowns in some places you have political marginalization that we've talked about or alienation in what in western countries you have perceived indifference to west to the Assad regime the sense of otherness that we talked about a minute ago you've got anti-muslim sentiment 52% of the people in Spain have negative opinion of Muslims 50% in Germany 38% in France those are seriously negative conditions and frankly the turmoil can exacerbate it migration flows and other things can exacerbate it the next one okay so the next thing is going to be our first move again these are fictional moves they're not intended to represent anything that's actually happened they're designed to catalyze all of you into action and take it for nothing we're not endorsing them we're not predicting them we are simply using them as a tool okay next so the first of these is widespread barrel bombing by the Syrian government is met with inaction by the security council okay and so we have a statement the security council issues statement they say well we think this is terrible but we don't do anything about it and so the goal here is to determine how the international community can combat the perception of indifference in the eyes of the communities that are vulnerable to radicalization and recruitment this is obviously a broader you know it's a illustrative of a broader issue you know we have things happen bad things happen it could be barrel bombing it could be the the Syria conflict writ large where there's brutality and we don't respond to that the West doesn't respond to it broadly and so this gives an opportunity to recruit it gives an opportunity to say they don't care it's up to us we need to deal with this or their lack of care their lack of action is a sign that they just you know want to solve the kill each other and you know however it's characterized and so now the question becomes how do you combat that how do you combat that particular kind of message and so as as as Nancy said let's get specific in this move address this issue from the perspective of your organization now al-qaeda is probably not going to con you know counteract it you're going to try to take advantage of it so the question in your case would be how do you take advantage of it and the business interests it would be where do you stand in this how do you how do you how do you how do you how do you deal with that so does anybody have any questions so it is now about 25 after 10 I really would just like you to take five or 10 minutes don't go far away this is not a time to check your email all of you I know none of you will follow that guidance but in in 10 minutes we're going to get back together and we're going to dive right in with this and then move on to the next move and I'll give you a three-minute warning if you've got an idea where you can coordinate the United States can coordinate with somebody or wants to reach out to the telecom industry reach out to them create that kind of cross-pollination and we'll see you in 10 minutes or so ladies and gentlemen we'll begin again in three minutes we'll begin again in three minutes six or seven million of Herodian Americans considering that we only have one million UAE nationalists who are pretty much in the world that's for cutting exactly we've got to go back we're gonna folks we're gonna guys guys guys we're gonna okay we're gonna begin in a moment we're gonna begin in one minute one minute one minute all right ladies and gentlemen if you could resume your seats please thank you very much there's only one group here that's being uncooperative but I'm not gonna socially shame you all right okay everybody thank you very much I hope you've had a productive brief conversation because we are discussing social media here I'm not gonna say this throughout the day I just want to say it now but to give you a sense that we practice what we preach or you practice what we preach peace game is the number one topic trending on Twitter in Washington D.C. right now so that's positive it's ahead of Amtrak Stop Fast Track Stop Fast Track TPP wearing orange don't know what that's about Cuba growth Ivanovic which clearly is a French open reference run Warren run which is a reference to Elizabeth Warren Nick Young Rick Scott and more happy than not I hope all of you are more happy than perhaps that's all of you as well in any event so the question is how do you respond to this and and you know what's what's what's the first reaction and I'm gonna ask everybody to you know I mean if you've got something to say raise your hand but I'm gonna go to a couple people first and as is always the case in these things you should be ready to respond and I think what I'm gonna do first because of the nature of who we are and what we're doing is I'm gonna go first to Daesh and then Al Qaeda and then open it up to the rest of the group but when you see that what do you do the propaganda value of this for us is obvious we have a media team already deployed what we're going to do is undertake provocative attacks against Assad's forces with the goal of having them come out and try to pursue us when they do we'll have larger forces that are ready to surround Assad soldiers kidnap them and then we're going to produce an excellent video one which will show the barrel bombing juxtaposed by the execution of the Assad forces to show that the caliphate is at the forefront of taking revenge for such heinous attacks we also anticipate that to compete with us other rebel groups will also undertake an offensive when they do we anticipate that the forces of Assad are going to try to withdraw back towards Damascus when they do that we're going to capture other sites as we did with Palmyra okay you got despite the fact that you're yesterday's terrorist organization how will you respond Al Qaeda has actually got a much better stronghold closer to Damascus than ISIS does so in many respects ISIS needs Al Qaeda at this point in order to affect any kind of you know power struggle against the Assad regime however Al Qaeda is also looking to get more recruits and gain more and financial support so part of our goal here is to play against of course the western infidels that are you know allowing this to happen in addition to pointing out that ISIS isn't doing anything to protect the actual community and the civilians in the area they're not doing anything to help with Syrians we're actually going to go in and help the community provide some logistics food water in addition to attacking the Assad regime and possibly capturing more territory closer to Damascus okay so this is this is what's happening this is what's being fed out into into the network and we're starting to sort of see reactions to all of this on the ground now let me go to the NGOs that are on the ground then I'm going to come to some of you here here you guys are on the ground you're seeing this just what are you seeing in response to all of this and how are you responding to it so I mean I think you know it's not a perception of indifference it is in fact indifference to the suffering of the Syrian people through barrel bombs and other of course terrible weapons of mass destruction so first obviously the NGOs we don't have a I mean it's not our agenda to counter the indifference for Western nations and that's obviously that's not why we're there we're impartial we're neutral we do think that increased humanitarian assistance is very important it also needs to be widespread it can't just be to for instance Assad controlled areas or areas of the country where the assistance that can go in and can somehow the funding can somehow be traced in a way that that suits donor governments meaning that it has been siphoned off to you know basically extremist groups which is going to happen no matter what and that's the reality local groups should be more involved so they shouldn't be local actors local Syrian actors who work on humanitarian assistance they need to be involved in the planning they need to be part of the meetings they need to not just be seen as deliverers but in fact seen as actors who have you know capacity and the ability to serve their own communities they're in their own communities and by seeing them be empowered that's very important I think for the whole community um finally the social services as has been has been raised will be provided by someone inside of Syria to some extent and if it's not humanitarian actors then it's going to be some sort of militant organization more than likely and so that's that's another vacuum and that's another obviously opportunity to create loyalty in places that people may not want so funding humanitarian action making sure human rights violations are documented and that the media is also providing a platform for it okay so what I would really like to get is you know reactions that are coming of this at dealing with how this is spreading or how you might counteract to guess okay so first of all you know we are at the front lines of this fight is this you speaking as as Bashar al-Assad himself I think you know who I am I'm happy that you said my name twice out we are fighting the dirty fight that many people are on the table don't want to say they want but do want us to do they we have the support around this table of countries we know who they are I'm we know who they are we know who they are and they tell us behind the scenes and they're collaborating with us to confront Dash these attacks killed Dash rebels terrorists al-Qaeda whatever you want to call them this is these are the people who want to destroy Western civilization who want to destroy Islamic civilization and we can have the media propaganda we can have the NGOs who are being fed by local activists on the ground propaganda at the end of the day look at what's happened in the last three years you said al-Qaeda is dead well they're being supported by our friends Turkey and Saudi Arabia to take over the north part of our country right now so thank you Saudi Arabia and Turkey you've brought back al-Qaeda that's what's happening so we can have a discussion here about Dash we're fighting them I guess people here don't want to fight them but thank you very much okay well that's it that's it that's by the way that's a response to violent extremism right you know it's not it may not be the one you want it may actually not be one that actually is an effective response but that is one that is being articulated and you know Barbara here wants to in a completely uncoordinated way with the government and Damascus speak about from the perspective of the government in Tehran hello hello Bashar it's your good friend Kazim Soleimani I want to echo everything you said I think the last few years have shown us exactly what the alternative to the central government the legitimate central government of Syria is it's a bunch of murderous extremists as we have seen with with Dash we are supporting the government in Damascus financially and with military support training our generals have been killed in Syria trying to defend the legitimate regime against the violent extremists that are supported by Saudi Arabia Turkey and others we have of course the support of local Shia we have helped to encourage the formation of many small militia groups in Syria to defend our sanctuaries there Sayyida Zaynab and others and we have encouraged of course Hezbollah and Lebanon to cross the border and support the legitimate government of Syria against these murderous thugs but there is also a political dimension to what we would like to see as you may recall Iran was prevented from taking part in Geneva two discussions by the Saudis the UN invited us and then disinvited us and I think my my colleague ministers Arif has something to say about a political solution in Syria well that's we're not at a political solution in Syria we're just responding to this particular circumstance and I will thank you so much the Iranian government from the beginning of this conflict has been seeking a political resolution and as we've mentioned we see that processes are happening on the ground and we continue to stress that there's only a political solution the hypocrisy of the UN Security Council in even attempting to make a statement about barrel bombs while ignoring what is happening right now to the Yemeni population by the Syrian aggression with U.S.-made armaments okay so I am Saudi aggression against the Yemenis and I too no no I hope this feels good but look I love the play acting and you're doing a great job but we were on a sort of move towards the response I'm going to ask for one more local response and then I'm going to sort of widen it out we've heard from the Tehran we've heard from the Syrian government I do want to get what the local Sunni reaction is and then I'm going to open it out a little bit to other governments okay okay so speaking in the name of the people who are actually barrel bombs so we're not talking about perception of indifference we are talking about actual indifference that's killing us every day and it's all the most shocking that these planes that are barrel bombing us are actually operating alongside the USF force and the forces of other countries it's happening exactly in these regions where the coalition is operating and with regard to violent extremism this does not make us more supportive of Daesh because anyway Daesh does not defend us they're not fighting for us they have their own project more than often they're helping the regime as we see now in Aleppo but whether you like it or not al-Qaeda is helping us actually they're fighting they're dying for us it doesn't mean we agree whether everything they do and the kind of model of governance they're promoting in Syria is something we dislike I mean we've been doing we did an uprising four years ago to have more a more inclusive government for representative government so the kind of model they promote is certainly not what we we want but if barrel bombs continues like continue like this we will be neither willing nor able to try to check al-Qaeda's ambitions in Syria we're not willing because why would we oppose the only people that actually who actually do something for us when the rest of the world is watching and able simply because as you know these barrel bombs they displace people and that's my last point but if you would I mean the most effective check on these jihadi ambitions of governance is to have vibrant strong organized local communities you know local administration local councilors and so on so you know what you have to do we want on the fly zone to put it clearly okay okay so you've requested no fly zone but but let me say this you know in each one of these discussions we have 20 25 minutes to do it and we'd like to get people you know as many people as possible to join in you won't all get into each one but we'd like to have you know focus on the actions you may take to in the next to sort of counter the spread I think we've talked about some you know sort of the root bubbling up of of how an action like this may lead to to recruitment efforts now I'd like to talk about how do you counter it and what the responses may be in an effort to be not U.S. centric I will turn to the EU known for their swift action and almost everything but go ahead Thank you we're the European Union we'd like firstly to note the suffering of the peoples of Syria and Iraq in the current forms of conflict and we would therefore like to request to send in European Union observers to ascertain the facts on the ground and in partnership with that and alongside the United Nations and their facilitation we would like to invite Iran, Russia to dialogue with us the European Union in order to look at a sustainable future for Iraq and Syria and on that note we would also like to invite local civil society groups within the European Union to engage with our foreign policy actions through dialogue at the European Union level Wow how effective do you think that's going to be so I think it's problematic to involve Iran in trying to come up with a resolution to the Syrian conflict since they're a big part of the problem itself so for the UAE we'd register obviously our outrage disappointment at again the security council's failure to address the problem in Syria but more importantly against discussions involving Iran and Russia as if we can get a solution through working with them we'd like to work with our friends the Saudis and the Egyptians into trying to come up with a regional response to this problem that highlights our concerns Okay does Saudi Arabia Egypt want to respond to this? So Saudi Arabia's verbal responses that were increasingly disappointed in the continued ineffectiveness of the international community to combat the brutal Assad regime into attacks like this that targets civilians so our action is to work with the UAE to work with Egypt but what we will actually be doing is continuing to increase our funding to the opposition groups Okay Hi Saudi just saying hi over here She thinks she's the opposition group you mean by the way She would make the checkout to Leigh Ann Egypt Well Egypt has been very consistent over a number of years and we've supported the idea of a political transition in Syria and this latest outbreak of violence is reinforces that position we think it's critically important to bring in appropriate opposition members and to be responsible in the way that both sides engage in a political transition in Syria which we think is actually So now we've got some discussion about the political pardon me who said thank you thank you Egypt we appreciate your involvement all right thanks you wanted to well no did you want to make a point about a potential response that you think well I'm just curious what the impact on this security council in action what the impact of a massive humanitarian response is and how the various players are understanding that who does the massive humanitarian response okay okay but okay thanks so so so let's explore let's unpack that a little bit okay there's this event has taken place the security council isn't doing anything just how massive is your humanitarian response in Syria to these victims well we've deployed considerable resources in the region on the borders of Syria and are providing a tremendous amount of humanitarian assistance already we are speaking with the NGO community to leverage the resources that they have and we've also spoken to our friends in the media to ensure that the tremendous amount of work that our dedicated staff are doing in very dangerous and trying circumstances is well covered and given the credit that it deserves so Nancy this sounds to me like there is no humanitarian response no I think that the question I have for for a number of our colleagues here is why aren't why isn't that having any impact well but what that they're but what he said was we deployed on the borders there's no response in the country no no no there hasn't he there's nothing new there's nothing new and it's media spun that's not what I heard I think that's a misinterpretation of my statement okay so what's new we do have a very limited presence I believe on the ground in Syria not my area of expertise our camps and primary humanitarian assistance obviously is in more peaceful environment so across the border away from the fighting in response to situations like this where we can deploy more resources we do I would note after the is the Grisha attack in Kenya one of the responses of the Kenyan government was demanding the closure of a refugee camp that is run by the United Nations and we push back very strongly against that understanding that it was only likely to make things worse okay we'll take that for what it is well we have a much broader response which the ambassador will test to in a moment but on the humanitarian assistance side immediately we would obviously be working we're working very closely with our partners in the United Nations with our NGOs who are already on the ground who are on the front lines we're mobilizing our resources through the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and we're dialoguing across the international community and within the NSC in order to have a much more robust response given the security council statement your twitter ratings might take a dive as you listen to the U.S. response to this first of all we've done a lot of coordinating we've shoved to go along with the dialog exactly we have told the Turks no way to the no-fly zone implementation UN folks wanted us to think about a red line even the UN and we didn't like that because we're against military force we looked at options with the intelligence community to increase eyes on also we need to coordinate with the NGO community but again with the intelligence community we don't want anything to go bang over or on Syria nonetheless we'll do we'll roll out the usual suspects we're going to condemn this thing terribly we're going to issue a statement of regret that the UN Security Council didn't join us in this condemnation due to unmentioned states not allowing that to happen but the problem we have in our internal deliberations in the U.S. government is how do we pitch this in our anti-ISIS or not ISIS anti-violent extremism because it looks like we're not taking any action when you have horrible events happening in the Middle East so what we will cite is we're against Muslims dying we're going to help with humanitarian assistance we're going to stay seized with this and we're going to hope that some other event will come up and this one will go away because this one puts us on the horns of a dilemma because we really don't want to do anything active because of our other equities Iran negotiations our unwillingness to get involved in Syria on the one hand yet we realize this is a good recruiting tool for ISIS and al-Qaeda and violent extremism generally so we feel we need to do something about it even if that's not very much okay can the people of South Carolina respond to this please they must three quick points on the half the voters of the great state of South Carolina first the fact that we were 20 minutes into this conversation before we even heard from the United States is I believe a symbol of the abdication of leadership the abject failure of leadership that has brought us to this moment in the Middle East the second point I would make is this is a moment that demands leadership and we need to be serious about this we need to recognize that these problems are not going to solve ourselves and I would say to our friends in the region you're going to criticize us if we sit on the sidelines and you're going to criticize us if we act well I would rather be on the side of action and I think finally we need to recognize that that going forward the United States is going to have to play its role its rightful role in the world if we want to live in a safer world and solve these problems thank you thank the gentleman for healing thank you senator Graham and that may explain exactly why you are where you are in the polls let's hear 30 seconds each Western Muslim community Turkey business interests and then very quickly back to you guys but very quickly yes so I think it's totally typical that you look to civil society so far down the discussion why were you not asking about the impact of movement from Western Muslims you know I don't like the tone of this this is turning on the moderator it's a scenario I'm looking at my colleagues around the table having a conversation about what state actors should do when in fact it's Western Muslims that are moving to join the ranks of ISIS well how do you respond to all this are you going to join so this is part of the conspiracy theory you don't care about Muslims this is typical the usual voiceless lay Muslims in the West they they are appalled I would say by the current state of discussion of these issues and we Muslims in the West do not feel taken care of because what is at stake for us is a sense of justice it is not so much state interest and the more the sense of justice and fairness and dehumanization of some conflicts the more we are indeed attracted by people across the table who give us a strong positive quote unquote or helpful way of dealing with that and our hope would be to have a more neutral or supranational entity where we could have a discussion because if I shift my face and I am now a Muslim leader in Europe I am trying to reach out to the EU for example to create different way of foreign policy on these issues and until now unfortunately we have failed this is exactly where this thing this first session appropriately ends up and I know a lot of people want to jump in and I am just going to ask you to hold off 10 minutes and jump in in the second section because essentially what you saw unfold here was a development a set of response by those who could capitalize on the development essentially moderate inaction on the part of those who could have done something to develop a counter narrative and then the response of the alienated who might be recruitable saying we're ready now our goal here is not to recapitulate what's actually happening our goal here is to come up with solutions that might actually counteract it and try to identify ways to get to places we haven't gone yet and so one of the traps in these kind of scenarios is that you say well my government hasn't done anything so therefore I won't do anything and so then we sort of relive life and that's not something so what I'm really going to encourage you to do in each of these next steps is to say what might happen that could shake lose some action I think Nancy brought up the issue you know a big humanitarian response would actually resonate you know and the question is how do you get to that how do you get to that with the players we've got in the circumstance I know the tech community wanted to weigh in and we'll get to you in the course the next one there are ways that that there might be a response there there are intelligence responses that we might have in this we will explore the law enforcement responses that we may have in this and I want to explore those in the next one but I think in this first one we've achieved the goal of recapitulating what's actually sort of happening and what I really want to move us towards in each of the next ones is constructive action that hasn't happened yet because clearly we've got this problem and we're not solving the problem so let's go to the next move and the next move is police arrest 20 Muslims following student protests in Italy well this is what just happened there were people in the community which we just described they start protesting because they you know say students were decrying western inaction following the recent bombings it's amazing that we were able to predict this outcome um and and so they protest and now the situation is ratcheting up a little bit and the question is what can we do towards diffusing the situation and developing strategies to preempt the flow of recruits out of Italy and elsewhere in western Europe how do you work to promote the flow how do others work whether in intelligence or in law enforcement or in the government or in the media or in the tech community to counteract the flow to come up with something constructive we're going to take 10 minutes which will put us right at 11 um 15 so take time work it out and let's focus on constructive steps that can be taken thank you two-minute warning we're going to begin again in two minutes okay ladies and gentlemen can i encourage you to return to your seats all right so here we are and what we want to do in this section is talk about now that we've had a development an international development the barrel bombing and there was a response to that development to take advantage of it by extremist groups and not a particularly strong response in order to counter it from others it escalated and so now it's more important than ever that we actually find concrete steps that can be taken to counter violent extremism and I think in illustration of how that works in the real world and what we need to change comes from the example that Nancy brought up and so maybe Nancy want to talk about it for a second well just very briefly that was a very illustrative session in that it underscored the inaction that was available to us through the Security Council and it gets to Tom Donilon's comment last night of a very high level of dysfunction among the great powers in the ability to coordinate and move towards solutions in the absence of that there was in fact significant Western action around humanitarian response and probably one of the largest most massive most expensive humanitarian response since World War II was and is being undertaken in Syria with half of global UN appeals going to the Syria crisis right now and yet that doesn't register per the slide that talks about the sense of Western indifference and for obvious reasons when you're still being killed by barrel bombs but it goes to this critical issue of when you don't have the tools and the levers that you can legally take and you reach for the ones that you can and they don't register and you continue on with the narrative of Western indifference it provides it yet a different set of conundrums for action so as we look here we see we've seen this movie the question is if a lot is being done and that could be turned into a positive narrative what do you have to do to turn it into a positive narrative that's the question for us the narrow one right one is you could promote it better that might resonate to some degree it might not or you might say well it's not resonating because frankly the bombing is still going on so you actually have to take some action so that people say well gee they're not just doing this they're also doing that and it resonates more and that could be a step and even if you know there are steps between total inaction and all out war right and so even on the military side if you can't achieve peace without some kinetic action then we have to have that in our plan right you know I mean even though our goal is peace we have to recognize that and frankly it's a credibility issue in this and it's going to come up again so I think Nancy brings up a good point because it gets us a little bit there but let me go back to your European Union now because this is happening in Europe and I'm going to go to you and then I'm going to go to law enforcement in Europe and then I want to go to the intelligence community and say in this context what do you do to avoid this turning into a new stream of people flowing into these regions we're definitely turning to law and order implementation forces so the EU has already created links across the European Union to how to how to do crowd management for example has reached out to intelligence across the new member states so we would implementing more security police advisors we would turn to a EU best practice model which is situated in Denmark in Arhus the experts in putting this right they can deal with young angry cults also with young Muslim angry cults so we would turn to them and look to their expertise and draw on their expertise and in that way I think we would have immediate access to the young and could follow up with innovative community policing strategies okay so we just happened to have since you've mentioned Arhus we just happened to have here the guy is responsible for that is a big it's very convenient but so Jurgen or you and Georgia perhaps you may want to address this but it's been very disappointing on to now to listen to all these very interesting high political discussions because it doesn't really bring us forward in a solution of the problems so I'm representing both myself and my police district all police commissioners in Europe in looking for ways to solve this and we didn't really hear any solutions when we heard what the different countries were talking about okay well what the police agencies should do by themselves and collaborating with the EU and bilaterally is that first of all there's an intelligence question you have to of course be aware of vulnerable communities Muslim communities extreme Muslim communities you have to if you haven't already created contact groups between the intelligence and leading Muslim figures leading imams in your countries you should create some of these contact groups in order to raise the understanding what is going on in the Muslim societies extreme Muslim societies in order to be able to influence so this is on a more national intelligence level on the local level that's where I work you have to use community policing strategies it's important to stress that the police like much of the other social society has an important role in addressing this problem so what we should do within the police community policing strategies is that we should take contact to the Muslims local Muslim societies local use Muslim youth centers local imams and open the discussion what is going on and what is your perspective you young Muslim person what is your perspective on what we've seen in in Syria and in Italy open up for the discussion in some way express that we understand your anger of course we are all more or less angry with what's going on we we are unsatisfied and then again try to show them another path tell them what are the bound what can you do within our democratic society within the framework our legal framework how can you protest without crossing the line to become violent extremists could you perhaps join the European Red Cross or something if you wanted make a difference in in humanitarian perspective but is it those are the concrete actions we well though those are talk like the countries do we act okay new act and those are positive steps to be sure but do you also identify people who are a potential threat do you arrest people do you you know I mean what what other steps do you take Georgia so let me add the international police advisors here what we understand is how we do what we do is as important as what we're doing so so that we're not actually contributing to the problem and actually fueling the problems in the unrest how we do community policing how we pursue arrests how we manage crowd and protests is very important and then we have to do that and transparent and adjust and responsible and accountable way and we understand that and that is the sort of ethos of policing that we would like to encourage whether it's in Tunis or in Copenhagen okay the intelligence community is was invoked here by the EU as well and clearly there there is some connection here between crowds of people and identifying people who might be extremists and identifying people who might be moving forward what keep what can constructively be done here as well Peyton thanks for having us here we're not used to seeing the light of day but with that I'll do it by best to represent I would just like to put it on that the intelligence community informs the policy we're not the policy makers the reason why I mentioned that is that we will defer to the government as they make the policy but if I had a bell I would be ringing it right now we are very alarmed with what we're seeing in the communities we for years now have had concerns with certain threat groups that information has been reported up but it's not been acted upon if you want information about what's going on in the communities it takes time to develop those networks and to build those networks and to build those relationships it's not something that happens overnight it's not instant instant no matter what technology is involved whether it's communication or not communication is two ways someone's putting out a message and someone wants to receive it as long as you have those two options that communication that will occur some of the solutions that we're hoping that the government we can work with is is to kind of think outside of the box when you're making recommendations and policy recommendations we're asking to bring the intelligence community to the table when those are being made and not after the fact right to come up with a solution we see that often something else that we would like to do is remember that these bad actors if we call them our threat groups are working with intelligence communities it's just not the one that your that your government's working with if they can build those relationships and have those relationships we challenge people in the NGO community local citizens religious community state to also work with the intelligence community because those bad actors in your area are also doing that one of the other things is this multi-prong approach is something that we're very very interested in and we'd like to work with some of those groups to better surface some of the intelligence information to help law enforcement and our policy makers do that okay telecom community IT community clearly you're playing a role in this and the IC has been working with IT what do you suggest well I'd like to remind government the intelligence community and perhaps most specifically law enforcement that we have the capacity to monitor public discourse in a way that's well beyond your capacity and so we are of course open for business in that regard are you excuse me are you open for business in that regard will you work with them will you share this information will you shut it down what will you do well we're a very multifaceted technology and telecom community so well on the one hand an organization like Twitter or Facebook or some consumer facing organizations may be reticent at least to discuss publicly the ways in which they'll share that information I think it's clear that they will but I think it's also important to note that many of this information much of this information is already public so if you're an organization more like Palantir we're obviously willing and able to consume that data and provide actionable insights specifically to the intelligence community and law enforcement so as law enforcement was discussing identifying individuals who may be at risk or may be marginalized potential sort of potential for communicating and aligning themselves with bad actors these are people that we can identify based on the way that they engage with social media not perhaps to take to increase surveillance but perhaps just to initiate a conversation if that's the end goal and so I think it's that kind of identification that kind of monitoring of information at scale that we can provide and I think frankly we're also often overlooked or come to us when a decision has already been made as opposed to using the tactical intelligence that we can provide to inform the action in the first place I think we are at absolutely critical juncture in our discussion here which needs to be flagged the nature of the threat we're talking about unlike past threats cannot be dealt with by governments alone it requires public-private collaboration of a sort that may make some people uncomfortable but it requires the police working with the local Muslim communities both to help present an alternative narrative but also to gain intelligence it requires the intelligence community working with them but it requires the intelligence community and the police and governments working with the IT community who have much more information about who these people are and what they're doing and what they're saying and who they're relating to than exist elsewhere this requires a kind of it requires as was noted earlier the NGOs to play a role in this that is not the role that people have typically played but there is no role when one is dealing with a non-state threat or there's no there's no initiative when dealing with a non-state threat that doesn't involve some degree of this kind of expanded public-private partnership which is new territory and uncomfortable for a lot of reasons for people to deal with Tony you represent part of the private sector as you know I'm the CEO of a major multinational corporation and I am a little in your dreams you don't know that yeah right I am really struck by the cacophony of confusion that I hear in this conversation do you know the guy from South Carolina you sound a lot like well I do and I will actually posit a question to him but on the telecom side I'm I'm going to pick up where my colleagues left off we're brought to the table we as the private sector after decisions are made language on public private partnerships which is a new tool in a 21st century toolbox is a good tool but our government colleagues whether they're in Europe or in the Middle East or in the U.S. don't know how to use it don't haven't defined roles and responsibilities clearly and are really dissipating a very important tool Farah talked about the ecosystem we're tiptoeing around the ecosystem our intelligence colleagues say there are alarm bells I have alarm bells I have major interest in this region they're not being protected I'm thinking about pulling out in some places that will have a downward spiral in an already fragile environment give me some tools in my toolbox how are you going to incentivize me to stay and to remain engaged I will end with a positive note and since we are searching for solutions yes on the technology side and on my own business interest we know the world of business but and we have many partners in the region we're doing what we're doing because we see the value of engaging in this region and the huge opportunities for growth but frankly our government colleagues are not making it easy and I'd like to put the question to them what are you going to do for us how are you going to incentivize where's the conf you know give me some clarity Mr. Ambassador well okay we can turn to we'll turn to them and then I'll come back to you Manal but you know I had a conversation once with a senior official in the Jordanian government and talking about long-term stability in Jordan and I said what's the key to long-term stability in Jordan and he said oh that's simple six to seven million jobs and so this is this is the point that Tony is making in terms of you know can something constructive be done there so turn to the U.S. government put the point again not with I don't want to recapitulate past inaction but what is possible in the area of the public private partnership we talked about what would you do to work with the IT sector what would you do to work with the local Muslim communities what would you do to work with the business community are there specific steps you would take in these circumstances that may not have been tried but you think might be possible yeah based upon your urging us and all of our friends around this table to think outside the box of current policy we've thought among ourselves that aside from the usual coordination that I went into in boring detail before and talking to everybody one thing the U.S. government can do is to lead in taking another look at the crises you have given the humanitarian disaster that's a good pivot point to look at policy again and decide maybe we should take a more active role both diplomatically and militarily and in terms of assistance humanitarian and other in the Syrian situation to try to send a message that we do care about that region that we are engaged in it that has downsides in terms of combating violent extremism but in terms of dealing with the worries of the intelligence community and the downward spiral that would be generated if global business starts pulling out of the region undercutting all of our efforts you come to the conclusion that we have to deal with these weak governments these problems of limited legitimacy that they have and the economic and security problems that this is just going to involve more U.S. engagement and to supplement the ambassador we feel strongly that we really need to have all of our actors come together in the region from the private sector to the NGO community the IT com