a role in war. if you like maritime stories but also like american history or world history, robert watson is your guy. >> thank you for your time. >> up next on afterwards, the president ceo, anne-marie examines the intersection of technology and foreign affairs in her book, the chessboard in the web. she is interviewed by dennis mcdonough, a visiting senior fellow with carnegie key technology in international affairs program. >> host: hello everybody, i'm dennis and albert host today. we're joined by anne-marie's letter to discuss her exciting

new book which is called "the chessboard in the web". the most recent of several books that she has written. she is currently the presidency of new america. she was formally a director of policy planning at the state department informally dean of the woodrow wilson school at princeton. what is important although just some of their past assignments and a very illustrious career what's important in terms of today's discussion is that you'll see in her background that amory is both a practitioner and theorist or as a teacher, professor of international affairs. it's an exciting opportunity to discuss her book. let's jump and tell us about the thesis of the book and why you decided to write it now? >> it is great to talk to. and to be able to reflect on

both of our experiences. as for policy practitioners i've been writing about networks since 1994. as a scholar i've been looking at how to look at how the world was moving from big hierarchal organizations or the world bank. an increasingly toward networks, government officials like finance ministers. also big networks of ngos with the humanitarian disaster unc nongovernmental organizations playing an important role. when i was in government and you shared many of the situation room meetings, what was strike me as we knew there is a world of states and state reps and

sometimes i arrive in china and russia, i think of it as the chessboard world. it is the world of how to we essentially beat our adversari adversaries. we think about a move that we try to anticipate the moves they make. that world is there an important. equally important is the world of the web. the web of criminal networks including terrorists and arms traffickers in the world of business which is big network supply chains. in the world of nongovernmental organizations. i think of these as web actors is increasingly important actors. we don't have strategies on how to bring them together.

this book is a book that says ever going to have a world of strategies and how to deal with conflict between's dates we also need strategies on how to design networks for specific people. who do we connect, how do we connect them and run those networks to advance our goals. this book is a stres part of th. >> is a timely book very much. just building on what you said in your opening remarks, let me just go to what i thought was an effective quote that to depth argument in the book where you say on pages nine and ten that whatever the future brings we need the ability and the tools top rate effectively in a different world where states still exist that have corporate

criminal networks is a question of either or or that you're an idealist displayed in the web there's a question to both and how do you see that and how should the reader enter into the book back is back decades and decades among practitioners and students of the field that you been able to come out of. >> it's definitely both ends. it's a debate between realists and do we pursue our interest or values. those i would agree are both overplayed. i strongly believe that we have to pursue our values and that is part of our interest.

i would also say that we have to be able to put together chessboard strategies and web strategies and often it's a question of shorter-term and long-term. when you have an immediate crisis with an immediate stay, if you're thinking about the middle east and thinking about what we do with iran or what to do about syria? there's going to be an immediate set of choices that will involve other states. we push back, we try to cooperate and signal our willingness to cooperate, sometimes that works sometimes it doesn't. when you think about president obama's speech in 2009, new beginning with the muslim world, to really address the causes of terrorism and lots of other problems coming out of the

middle east you need to build networks. networks of entrepreneurs and civic groups, networks of muslim groups that are pushing back. that is where the web strategies commit. that is where you bring in business, civic groups and you design a network a particular way and run it. >> the question that leads me to raises someone they call page 37 of the book, the disaggregation of the state. as he just said it's been arguing since 1994 is even looking at the networks. you say that the proliferation of the networks as a result of

the disaggregation of the state, meaning that different parts of governments are peeling away from the chessboard model policy directed by the head of state and instead created networks of both private civic actors. the question i have is, as we're watching debates play out now, i would argue the election of president trump among things he argues as president and then as candidates a need to return american sovereignty. on the what we see most recently in the french election where one candidate was arguing very much to pull back from here. you. the document she made at the time to reassert. arguing that their best served

by aggressively engaging the european union. what is your sense of where this ebb and flow goes as it relates to the arc of the debate in the development of the network since 94 when you are making the arguments and digging into it. >> guest: that's a great question. it goes back, and the book i reprint that famous picture, you look at it and do you see an old lady or young woman. some of us look at it say it's an old lady and i see the big nose in the war. >> host: is going to ask about that because i saw the young lady and i don't know if that says something about me or what. >> i will leave that you and your wife. some of us see the young lady and some see the old woman. my point is that you have to see both. to do foreign policy effectively

you must be able to toggle between them. because in some cases the state needs to be unitary. before under attack that's no time for different government agencies the different citizens and corporations to be networking around the world. in those situations the president's commander in chief. everybody has to be on the same page. when were really under threat, and again i would say dealing with north korea right now or when you are working with iran there were many contacts through the government, the department of energy played an important role, it's what i will call a unitary state. somebody was in charge and everybody was on the same playbook. at the same time, in a globalized world and

interdependent world, our networks are a great source of power and advantage for the united states. the fact that our corporations are doing business around the world. the fact that our movies and entertainment are seen around the world. the fact that our universities are attracting students from all over the world and running campuses abroad. again, our civic organizations like inept networks abroad. we have to be able to do both. the second to segregate estate is a very academic term. it means that our cities and states are able to engage others. right now climate change, california on the cities of new york and chicago, and los angeles, they are actively networking with their counterparts abroad to fight climate change. they can do things on the ground

are similarly if you find the terrorism. you want the ability to help build educational institutions and businesses in states that don't have opportunity to fight the long-term causes of terrorism. so you have to toggle back and forth. sometime you need to be unitary, all hands on deck crisis or conflict state. in others places it's important that you stay open to the world and able to participate and network. >> host: it's great that you brought up californian climate change, that the times reported last week and maybe even yesterday the things that the state of california and governor brown are doing as it relates to work on climate, even convening a meeting of ministers of the government of mexico, administer

to the government of canada in california strikes me as a remarkable case. the question is, d.c. risk? is that ultimately, what is the risk in the for u.s. policymakers or use it interest? or, is it just a function that it just is a world as it is. if california were an independent country to be the seventh largest economy in the world, or something like that. it's just this way california has so just live with it. d.c. risk there? >> guest: absolutely. this is an old question in the supreme court has revisited it several times. i'm sure there'll be another suit right now about what individual states can do. early on the supreme court

informs or issued a ruling that said states cannot engage in treaties with other states. california cannot actually create a nafta, formally with the government of canada and mexico. on the other hand, and again this is happening in the 1990s were governor started leading trade delegations to china and other parts of asia for their states. california actively intervened and issues going on in the e.u. is a lawsuit brought about that about california's taxability. california's power was upheld. again this is back to seen the united states as both the unitary country and a country 50 states.

at the same time we benefit as a nation having our state be able to afford to relationships with other countries or states run the world. think about the sister cities network. i think chicago has more sister cities than any other city in the country. all of our big cities have those relationships, that is a form of soft power. that is people learning about the united states and helped with trading culture and the flow of ideas. but what you need to make sure is that a state or city cannot get you into trouble. the reason the founders insisted the foreign affairs power be located with the federal government was that they did not want states refusing to pay british creditors. the states were sympathetic to

american debtors after the revolution. so it's a balance, i tend to favor more autonomy for states and cities because in the web world you simply have to allow more independence. i am mindful that you would not want california making a deal with china that might imperil our defense capacity or undercutting other states economically. >> it's a remarkably diverse system as we dig into this, i want to come back to some of these case studies. i want to dig in for a couple more questions on networks themselves. the fitting of someone who has been looking at this for a long time ahead of anybody else i

know mark zuckerberg talked about this, i guess you know something about him creating a powerful network himself. you break down different networks and i think the reader will be quite engaged by the. i want to pull out one example that you talk about networks but in each of the networks you bring up you highlight the importance of diversity. i think that is pretty interesting. as you have hinted in your remark so far a network state ultimately is going to be a diverse state and there is strength in that diversity. page 134 you write that in the

context of a task network their best carried out by small, diverse but cohesive groups, diversity of team members provides multiple talents and perspectives while small size builds trust and spirit for the group to act as one and adapt to circumstances. if my memory serves me you try these conclusions out of a set of networks the former colleague of ours, highly decorated officer in the u.s. army used to carry out different counterterrorism. i'm interested if you want to spend time on the differentiation of networks that might be interesting but i'm also interested in the concept of diversity. one could argue the debate that we referenced in this country and in europe between those who want to stay in the european

union and those in the brexit vote who want to get out, there is a debate about diversity threatening something particular about them on the chessboard, something they identifies uniquely their own, the question i have is a little bit about the question of sovereignty. you argue it's both a chessboard and a network but, is there pushback on this trend because people are feeling their sovereignty right away in certain things they don't identify as their this powerful diversity, maybe they're entrenching, is that a fair conclusion or do you see a different one? >> guest: i think that is right. let me start at the end and then

work backwards. to oversimplify, you have states that are more close to more homogeneous. at least over ten years, 50 years you think about this great wave of globalization we have been through that starts in the 70s and 80s and takes off with digital technology. suddenly the world really is a web. look at the map of the internet we are all connected and you cannot see national boundaries. that process brings all sorts of benefits but it also has it brought its lots of immigrants and changing cultures, lots of

suddenly new ways of working and being that many people find quite frightening. one of the ways of understanding our politics and european politics is this desire to close backup and be a chessboard state. we are france, the united states, britain, this is what defines us. this is our people these are customs and here we are in the world stage. again, you do have to pay attention to that. part of that is real anxiety at a way of life that was familiar and comforting and that you can be proud of but many people feel is slipping away. you have to pay attention to that answer our ability to defend ourselves as a state. the other way to understand it,

it is the countries that have the most diversity internally and are most connected to opportunities and ideas abroad that will force the most. again, this is not all good or bad, some people will hear them say like being connected to countries where there are criminals like drug runners are again arms traffickers, or terrorists, we don't want to be open to those countries. those contacts and networks bring danger. fair enough, you have to protect against that. but those connections also bring us exports. in talent, and the diversity that brings us new ideas, all the people who study innovation sailor, innovation and

creativity comes from the collision of unexpected things. therefore all the same people who grew up in the same place in think of the same stuff are less likely to come up with something new that when you reach out to those who don't know so well and expose yourself to new ideas and put those together with your older ideas, that is the magic of the spark of creativity. when you look at that from the perspective of a country, the united states, a country that has connections all around the room through culture and business and people in educational system, in the world of the web that openness is our greatest asset. in the world of the chessboard we have to be closed enough to protect ourselves. >> host: i'm persuaded by the argument.

but, i think one of the most powerful thing in a well argued book is the argument you make based on sam mcchrystal's experience which you're not talking in terms of a broad international geographic geopolitical question, although he is leading other remarkable units in foreign countries. it seems to me in reading this book that general mcchrystal would argue on the individual tactical level what you just argued on the interstate strategic level. is that a fair reading of his experience? >> yes. it's a great example. i wanted to write this book in 2011 after it came out of government. we taught a course called making networks work and i have been

writing about networks for decades. i wrote an article in the atlantic about a working family and it got knocked in a different direction. while i was working on issues of women and men and work, their k the book, a team of teams. i was thrilled because he describes being in charge of special forces in iraq. he has to fight al qaeda in iraq and he opens with this description of an attack in the very quickly the people involved figure out what happened and reconfigure and repair the damage to their network and then go on. you are reading it and you think he is describing our special forces, he's not. she's describing al qaeda and

iraq and send that kind of flexibility, adaptability and nimbleness was characteristic of the al qaeda and iraq network that we cannot match it. even though our special forces is the most nimble part of the military we are to hierarchal. then he takes special forces and first takes a command of teams, he was on top and there were different groups, the logistics group and communication group and he figures that had to make that command into a team of teams, where his different groups, each one connected to all the other groups, but in ways that are flexible enough so the network can become one big

entity where everybody's connected to everybody else. he describes the strategy of shared consciousness. then it can come back together and this team of the different teams. each of whom can act independently. that is a strategy he's uses on the battlefield and as a business consultant. it's a great example of thinking strategically about the type of network you need for a specific task. i describe it as a task network and i could talk about scale networks. his is a very compelling concrete example of the idea of a strategy of connection. >> what struck me as an aside in terms of our time together in

the government is that in the military it seems that the experience he talked through of general mcchrystal was not the exception but rather the rule. the military had a remarkable way of after actually each of their undertakings so as to ensure their trying the best lesson in making themselves that much more number. seems to me that comes through in your book for the big strategists they say too often now we have strategists that are stuck on one side or the other of this divide between the chessboard and the web. sometimes maybe the public

perception is that our armed forces are strictly chessboard actors when in fact, they are precisely, and maintain the attributes you just talk through as being so beneficial. agile, open to rethinking, diverse, task oriented but also learning from each of those reiterations of the task. i thought it was -- that's what came to me as i read that portion of the book. we saw that time and again from our colleagues in the military side of the operation. >> guest: we really did. in many ways that is because the military has had to make the transition from the chessboard world of fixed state to state

battles, to the war, the conflicts against terrorist groups on the ground where, if you think about afghanistan or iraq, they were never fully fighting estate. there are fighting the taliban government of afghanistan. once that government felled in their fighting remnants of the television on the ground in the parts of al qaeda. that is right there. the chessboard world which of course during the cold war owes us against the soviet union. and then it was between the gap and you still imagine national armies clashing with each other versus now, and of course it starts in vietnam with irregular forces. . .

>> >> we were analytical lab say government surprised by the depth then praise -- pervasiveness that led to the arab spring as it is called now but but maybe a more effective team with the networks in the ground in

those countries would be more ahead of the curve and then that being one of the more fundamentally changed situation source systems or networks for when we hear in the government. is that fair?. >> i do think that's right to. there were ambassadors like a first in sweden who really got this. and then coming from the digital world to have an office of networking gauge met with our ambassador to new zealand said the same thing. and then to of the middle

east to be very well chosen but the foreign service officers and they can be in the foreign service up that 30 years so when they reach out to new business but they themselves are diplomats. and with those nonprofits going in and out. those people would bring their network with them why don't we have deeper contacts and in many of

these countries or those who were more sympathetic we have relations with the in lung negative egyptian government and they did not want us connecting. so it goes back to the point of sovereignty with this additional world of interactions we are sovereign with very formal relations and retried to return to society but often we don't have the same range of contacts as a society so not only to have better information but to engage with a crisis to protect

americans in interest. >> with those iranian elections. so what was referred to at the time as the green movement. so criticizing the outcome of the government. at the time reelected president of the dennis died. a debate publicly and in the government how deeply the united states should involve itself in to that political dispute in iran.

so across that standard chessboards save the relations that were covered by the experience and with the hostage crisis. and then to be into the network of civil society with that independent iranians to be independent of the united states or anywhere else. and then it my own mind but what the rest tuesday

independence of the movement to be funded by the united states. with the network of that activity. so what is the right answer? stood to be across the chessboard or across the web the right answer of the of policy outcomes. so is that even the right to outcome to be shooting for?. >> that is a great example. i remember president obama

was reaching out to the government of iran and then to engage iran the to the gatt anywhere to build relationships with the government for a the every me in nuclear agreement so he reaches out to a government from the u.s. or world point of view and then to freeze relations for a while. so you're absolutely right so i would like to see in that context cannot come

directly to be supported by the u.s. government mounted as the green revolution that the iranian government's says you are just western stooges but here is what we could do the to build those network strategies you would have been the u.s. government with universities and religious groups and frankly the d. asper but it is complicated it is passionately felt politics and wisdom. but you would have figured out doesn't mean to we

construct or find it and then had to nervous convening power and you could have supported business is san civil society is not directed by the united states government but actually encouraged that we might have that ability to save united states people are with you in the support you but from the governor appointed view to see a better position and better

able to communicate who we are as a people even without for more -- formal diplomatic relations. >> to be effectively have been interconnected world and into even learned their lesson. >> you need the practice of statecraft and that comes from the government and then they can come from a mayor

and to go back to climate change. then to you bring together arrears from around the world to say curbing emissions. with over 7,000 cities that to note the of language of the covenant something only governments can do. and to take action regardless whether donald trump pulls out of the paris agreement on climate change or not. so right now the obama administration was very supportive of that but the trump administration is less so.

to be civic organizations or mayors horror governors -- or governors to have more interest globally. but overall we have enough challenges with the without of a the government. >> even my bloomberg said it didn't even matter to him. or rather not to the outcome

whether president trump continued or not. and then to argue and then to envision with that there is some agreement. >> i have a former student who was working exactly on that and backs that up to say fundamentally the cities around the world. in bin to grow in the city's in those that are in charge of those cities.

to impose traffic control to live in this city and to take that action. and it is hard to imagine the supreme court said with police for traffic because the federal government does not that in to impose that but just to take another example take things like global health where the gates foundation with the big pharmaceutical companies the world health organization to immunizing

and vaccinate all over the world. because it is much less likely that global epidemic. that involves business and government in those are examples. >> a couple of books ago you call, you had this quotation and the american network world of the 21st century exist through the state. to the the central player to unlocking ovation.

so again my question is when he said the state the most connected is the central player what is the most network to state today? and what do we do with a state like north korea which is arguably to be prone to pressure namely china? so here is the al leiter -- the allied air to keep themselves out of the network that north korea makes itself resilience, if

not just stubborn and isolated the also more difficult to move?. >> yes. that is exactly the way i think we need to think about power. traditionally in the networked world is the number of connections as well bin to -- so think of a map of the internet.

so certainly the united states today to close aerosols' off from the world and by virtue of people or businesses that not all states have that civil society. and is that still true? so those connections are huge leave valuable as be cultivate them but china has the explicit network of a strategy that says openly to build trade networks and

cultural networks a real road that goes all the way to europe with this and relieve network strategy to exercise our power and build the web's and i worry that the united states first and closing of the borders and building walls is the opposite of what we need to be doing so if you look at north korea will use the is a state that is so disconnected and china is the one state that they

depend on so was the end up in eastern china so it means we have very little ability to exercise leverage warrior we've threatened the use of force and impose sanctions but they're not depending on our trade. here are the ways to find connections that our more specific and looking at where north korean leaders and thinking about from

those military and nuclear supplies. for those that have the most connections is china. >> and what we're watching in realtime is and to work aggressively with the chinese and to boil down this argument to be better able to protect its interest.

in the in in this period where in effect greater network and of that dislocation with that political push back. sova question and that i have, maybe it goes to the work you are doing so what is the of secret to maintain the dynamism even nasby pushup a very powerful and very understandable in a

where we have across the country. so how do we square those challenges both what you argue in the books a geopolitical imperative. >> what is the secret there there?. >> there are a couple levels. why are all to believe this is the greatest vintage for pro that there was an iron curtain.

that we did not have to justify to be open and. they actually had to put up walls to keep people in not out. so from that dominated society so it seemed very obvious. we have to be open to trade with 350 million in the u.s. economy will be like the netherlands for the rest of the world.

but to make his case why it is in their interest to protect yourselves. in to protect ourselves. overall bin is better but we have to protect ourselves. and then we have to connect the disconnected in the country. in with the global networks to benefit. in their often disconnected. those that are shrinking or dying.

to be from this great world of opportunity that so many of us talk about. some other places in their own state. and that what you you is to take care of people from the salvation army to the ymca with an adviser brent civic life. so what we have to do domestically as somebody who left my own home town, but many similar nations saudia connect the businesses in those places? so how do we

make sure they are connected to the value of the broader network?. >> this seems that your book lines up very nicely with your next book that i hope you'll write. so that is the biggest challenge of the time so the first time to be disconnected from that opportunity in that is made possible like all of those