We have something called the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, theso-called Nunn-Lugar program. And yet I always find it somewhat stressing,or distressing, I should say, to hear it asked, "Why is it only the UnitedStates that's concerned about reducing the nuclear weapons with Russia?Why haven't other countries, other nuclear powers, volunteered to sharein that effort to help Russia dismantle
and dispose of their large stocks of nuclear weapons under the STARTI and START II treaties?"

We seem to be the only ones who are prepared to step forward to do that.And while other countries have complained about national missile defensein terms of the United States seeking to protect itself against a proliferationof weapons of mass destruction, it seems the United States has been leftto largely bear the burden as far as dismantling and getting rid of nuclearweapons. But how we manage that relationship with Russia is going to bevery important and very challenging, whoever is elected to the White House.

There is China. I just returned from China this July. And after a yearhiatus in our relationship for -- as what they said, obvious reasons --China wants to get back on a solid track with the United States. I hada very good meeting with the Chinese leadership, and they want to establishgood military-to-military relations. And it's important for us that wedo this.

It's also important how we manage the situation in Taiwan. Going backover history, many of you are familiar with Patrick Tyler's book, no doubt,about a Great Wall and how every president since Richard Nixon has hadto contend with the Chinese leadership over the issue of Taiwan. And itstill remains a major subject of debate. They are intensely interestedin the subject matter. I can tell you, if someone asked me, "What was onthe agenda?" I would say, "Three items: Taiwan, Taiwan and Taiwan." That'sexaggerating a bit, but it is something that they feel passionately about.And we have to deal with that issue and will continue to deal with that,hopefully in a constructive way.

I will tell you that I saw a change in both the tonality and also whatwas said during my visit to China. A year ago or less, China was talkingabout the possibility of their resorting to warfare, using arms, settinga deadline in terms of when these negotiations or discussions would becompleted or else they may be forced to use military force. When I wasthere in July, they said something that was different. They said that theydid not give up the right to use force, but they had no intent to use force.Now, some may say that's a distinction without a distinction, without muchof a difference, but I think it was quite a significant difference in boththe tone and the content of that message.

Secondly, I found that if you look at what is being said in China andTaiwan, the Chinese leadership will say, "It's one China, two systems."And if you listen to the new Taiwanese president, he has said, "One China,two interpretations." Somehow there is a way to breach that differenceif people of good will and creativity take advantage of the opportunityto find ways of bridging that peacefully. In the meantime, we maintainour posture. We have a one-China policy. We believe in the Three [Communiques],and support the Three Communiques. But we also support the Taiwan RelationsAct. That's hard for the Chinese leadership to reconcile, because, on theone hand, we're supporting the one-China policy. On the other, they believethat by supporting Taiwan or the Taiwan Relations Act, we're undercuttingthe policy. But nonetheless, we've tried to make it very clear that weexpect those tensions to be resolved peacefully and not through the useof arms and force. And that will continue to be our policy.

With regard to weapons of mass destruction, we are now seeing at least20, 24 countries let's call it two dozen countries who either have developedor are in the process of developing weapons of mass destruction. That'sa word that doesn't mean a lot, I suppose, to most people who hear it.And that's the reason why, when I went on television a couple of yearsago, I held up that five-pound bag of sugar, because it loses its meaningwhen you use that phraseology. If you take a five-pound bag of sugar andyou say, assuming this were filled with, let's say, anthrax instead ofsugar and you spread that with the right kind of temperatures and rightkind of wind over a city the size of Washington DC, you could wipe outalmost 70 percent of the population just with five pounds. There are tonsof anthrax in existence. There are tons that have been manufactured. Andso this is just one element that we have to contend with for the future.How do we gain control over these weapons of mass destruction, which areproliferating and will continue to proliferate? If you recall the wordsof the poet Auden, he talked about a "man clutching a little
case who walks out briskly to infect a city whose terrible future mayhave just arrived."

Those are the kinds of challenges that we will have to face in the future,as well as the threat of cyber-terrorism. We have a number of countrieswho are now not turning to amateurs or teenagers and hackers, but dedicatedprofessional cells, who are training in ways to disrupt our financial systems,our communication systems, our infrastructure, our power system.

You saw the fear that we had during the Y2K turnover. Thanks to JohnHamre, by the way, there were no tragedies. Some in the media asked, whatwas the big fuss all about? Why did we spend all of that money? And youcan imagine what would have happened if one plane went down or if we hadany kind of a tragedy involving multiple casualties, where the fingerswould have been pointing. But John Hamre, working with the executive branch,I would say, largely took that issue in hand. And we were able to makethat transition with no casualties. So that is something that we have tobe worried about for the future in terms of whether a country or groupcan shut down or cause Wall Street to certainly crash, whether you suddenlypick up your stock portfolio and find it says, "Zero. Thank you very much,but [your investment] is somewhere in the Bahamas" or the Cayman Islandsor maybe in a Swiss bank, but you don't have it anymore. Those are thekinds of critical infrastructure that we will have to protect. And again,John was in the forefront of our effort to protect the critical infrastructureof this country.

So those are, I think, the major challenges, in addition to reformingour military to make it more agile, flexible, easily deployable, more rapidlydeployable, and survivable. Doing all of that takes some time, but I thinkthat we have passed that point where we are now reaching sort of a criticalmass of innovation where we now have really integrated and ingrained jointnessin our training and our doctrine. And you will now see that start to multiplywith, I think, greater and greater efficiency.