Editor's note: Tamara Cofman Wittes testifies before both the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa for a joint session on threats to Israel in the region and on the world stage. Read her full testimony below.

Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. I am delighted to offer my views. I must emphasize, as always, that I represent only myself before you today; the Brookings Institution does not take any institutional positions on policy issues.

About a year ago, I appeared before this committee to discuss the likely impact on the region of a nuclear deal with Iran. On the afternoon following a day Israelis began with the discovery of yet another Hamas tunnel from Gaza into Israel, and that ended with the bombing of a bus, it seems like a very pat, and a very sobering opportunity to give you some thoughts on the threats facing Israel from terrorism and the impact of regional disorder. I’ve had the chance to discuss these concerns with a range of Israeli officials and experts in the last several months, and I’ll share my impressions with you.

Let me begin with Iran, the government whose policies and proxies lie behind some of the worst threats Israel faces today. When I appeared before you last year, I said that “Whether there’s a nuclear deal or not, I predict we will see a more aggressive approach by Iran in a host of arenas around the region, where the upheaval has given them greater opportunities than before.” And indeed that’s what we’ve seen — Iran, helped in Syria by Russia, has pushed forward assertively to advance its influence and strengthen its allies around the region. The Iranian threat — not primarily the threat of nuclear capabilities but rather these other dimensions of Iranian behavior destabilizing the region — has led Israel and the Sunni Arab states of the region to find more common ground in the past year than perhaps ever before.

That said, I want to emphasize that in my view this escalation of Iran’s attempts at subversion around the region was inevitable with or without a nuclear agreement. While sanctions relief will, over time, give the Iranian government more resources, the Islamic Republic has been committed to this path since 1979. Ever since this revolutionary regime was established, it has sought to exploit the cracks within societies across the region to expand its own influence. Iran never lacked motivation for its assertions of power. Iran’s sanctions-induced economic hardship did not prevent them from giving Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars a year, or prevent them from spending billions of dollars and their own soldiers’ lives keeping Bashar al-Assad in power. The Arab uprisings of 2011, the civil wars that emerged in their wake, and the sectarian narratives employed by Iran and its Arab adversaries have all given Iran unprecedented opportunities to expand its activities, and it has exploited those opportunities very successfully. So yes, Iranian interference across the region is likely to continue in the wake of the Iran deal — and it was getting worse with or without the deal. The main driver of instability and threat in the Middle East today is the civil violence in Syria, Yemen, Libya, and increasingly in Iraq. Ending those civil wars should be a top priority for the United States and others concerned with regional stability.

In a major speech in January outlining Israel’s strategic environment, IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot noted that the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran is a turning point for Israel, because the nuclear threat from Iran used to be the biggest threat Israel faced. While Israel does not assume that Iran will fully comply with the deal, Eisenkot recognized that the dismantling of centrifuges and the Arak reactor, and the shipment of uranium out of the country, have concretely rolled back Iran’s nuclear capabilities. He also noted that the IDF does believe that Iran will work hard over the coming five years to gain the advantages they will get by complying with the terms of the agreement. Indeed, Eisenkot said that he did not anticipate Israel facing major nonconventional weapons threats in the near future, because the nuclear deal has rolled back Iran’s nuclear capabilities and put them under tighter controls, and because of the removal of chemical weapons from Syria. That gives the IDF important breathing space in which to focus on building up capabilities to address other threats and opportunities. Let me address now some of these other threats.

Syria

For the first several years of the war in Syria, Israel took a fairly hands-off approach: concerned over the emergence of jihadi groups, but wary of Hezbollah and Iranian involvement backing Assad. Israelis used to see the Syrian government as a stable and predictable adversary, and even sometimes as a check on Iran and Hezbollah. But today Israeli military officials judge that it’s unlikely Bashar will again control all of Syrian territory, and they see him as dependent and subservient within the Syrian-Iranian alliance.

As a result, it’s clear today that the scenario that most concerns Israel in Syria is one in which Assad remains in power in Damascus, and remains dependent on Iran for survival — leaving Iran with stronger influence on Israel’s northern border than it had before the war. Iran is determined to sustain Assad in power because Syria is the strategic depth and channel of support to Hezbollah, Iran’s most effective regional ally, and is also a good entry point for Iran to the Arab-Israeli arena. According to a new BBC investigation and other sources, Iran has reportedly bolstered its IRGC forces in Syria with militias made up of Iraqi Shia and of Hazara refugees from Afghanistan, who are picked up in Iran and given minimal training before being sent to Syria to fight. The level of Iranian investment in Assad’s survival is impressive, and should increase our skepticism that the diplomatic talks including Iran will yield a constructive outcome. Israeli officials also worry that continued chaos in Syria, should the war continue unabated or escalate, could allow jihadi groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State to launch attacks into Israel from the Golan. Israel will be looking to the United States, and to some extent the Sunni Arab states who share its concern over Assad and Iran, to advance its interests in the diplomatic talks.

Hezbollah

Of even greater concern to Israel is the impact of the Syrian war on Hezbollah. That concern has several dimensions.

First, Hezbollah’s investment in saving Assad has altered the political equation in Lebanon in ways that could destabilize the country. Hezbollah fighters have been operating in Syria, perhaps about 5000 at a time in rotation, and they have lost about a thousand fighters there. This emphasizes very clearly for all to see (including the Lebanese people) that the organization is not so focused, as it claims, in defending Lebanon, but rather on increasing its own power and influence and securing Shia and Iranian influence in the Arab world.  In addition, the Syrian civil war has spilled over into Lebanon already, reigniting sectarian tensions and generating an influx of one million Syrian refugees – that’s adding 25% to Lebanon’s population. The tensions in Lebanon are evident in its politics – the sect-based political factions have been unable to agree on a president for the past year and a half. Hezbollah has been boycotting parliament as well, exercising its effective veto over the political system, and preventing any progress on basic governance in the country. If sectarian tension in Lebanon increases, and particularly if Sunni extremist groups fired up by the Syrian war carry out more violent attacks in Lebanon, Hezbollah could easily choose to try and win political points domestically by attacking Israel. Thus far, Hezbollah has not chosen this path, perhaps because of Israel’s deterrent power, perhaps because it worries about overstretch fighting on two fronts; but one cannot assume that reticence will last forever, and unintended escalation is also a possibility.

Second, the prospect of an outcome from the Syrian war that leaves Assad in power and Iran in effective control of the country presages further transfers of weapons and technology from Iran to Hezbollah through Damascus. Iran has already enabled Hezbollah to expand its rocket and missile arsenal to nearly 100,000, some with advanced guidance and some with range that would enable them to target infrastructure and to reach all of Israel’s population centers. This prospect makes leaving Assad in control of Damascus a deeply concerning outcome for Israel’s security. Israel has acted to try and prevent the transfer of advanced technology to Hezbollah through Damascus several times over the course of the Syrian conflict — but 100% success would be a miracle.

Third, the Syrian war has given Hezbollah fighters extensive experience in conventional warfare, increasing their battle hardiness and thus their capabilities in the event of another war with Israel. Should Hezbollah embark on a campaign of rocket attacks on Israeli territory, the scope of the threat would likely lead Israel to move quickly toward a ground offensive in southern Lebanon designed to reduce or eliminate the attacks.  But as Eisenkot noted in January, Hezbollah has scattered its presence across 240 villages in southern Lebanon; each has a defense system; and each, of course, also has a civilian population. In the event of a new confrontation, Israel will be facing a more entrenched, more experienced enemy and the IDF will face real dilemmas in ground operations in southern Lebanon.

Hamas in Gaza

Iran continues to seek to provide funding and weapons to Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad in Gaza. While Hamas has reportedly rebuilt some of its tunnel and rocket capabilities since the 2014 conflict, it has not so far sought a new confrontation with Israel. Rather, the rocket attacks from Gaza in 2015 were launched by salafi groups in the Strip that are seeking to compete with and displace Hamas; and Hamas has dealt with them harshly. Recent reports suggest that, under pressure from Cairo, Hamas is also trying to sever links to Sinai militants and prevent its own operatives from going into Sinai. In other words, current events indicate that Hamas seems more interested right now in survival in power, than in confrontation with Israel.

Should Hamas provoke another round with Israel, there is no question that the IDF would face many of the same challenges militarily that it faced in 2014 — in terms of the threat from tunnels, and in terms of the way Hamas embedded both fighters and weapons within the civilian population. Indeed, fighting terrorism in a heavily populated environment is a long-term challenge for the IDF, whether in Gaza or potentially in southern Lebanon or the West Bank. Building up new tactics and capabilities against this challenge is a key task for Israel’s military in the coming years.

The West Bank and the “Knife Intifada"

The wave of violence that began in September last year has comprised hundreds of attacks, and claimed the lives of several dozen Israelis, over two hundred Palestinians, and several Americans. According to public comments by officials, the IDF and security services understand this violence to be of a different nature than past terrorism by Palestinians. The attacks do not, for the most part, appear to be directed by any organization, and the individuals who carry out these attacks often do not seem to have planned the attacks in advance in any meaningful way. The lack of organization or direction means that there is little tactical warning that Israel’s security forces can use to prevent these attacks; they can only react.

According to the briefings I received in January, the incitement that was evident in the Palestinian media and in politicians’ statements in the early months has been significantly reduced, and the IDF was expecting a reduction in the overall number of attacks due to increased efforts both by Israel and by the Palestinian Authority. This past month has seen a dramatic drop in the number of attacks. Two weeks ago, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gave a notable interview to Ilana Dayan of Israel's Channel Two in which he condemned the violence in robust terms and called on Palestinians to stop these attacks. He acknowledged the problem of incitement in the Palestinian media, and spoke powerfully about his security forces' coordination with Israel to prevent attacks. He also reiterated that he sees Netanyahu as a peace partner and is prepared to meet with him at any time.

Overall, Israeli security sources say clearly that the drivers for those who carry out these attacks include despair at the lack of any political horizon in the conflict with Israel. This points to the fact that the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict carries a continuing cost for both societies, and that cost may be increasing over time. The status quo in this conflict is deteriorating, not static, and reminds us that a negotiated resolution of the conflict remains Israel’s best option for long-term security.

The Israeli government has sought to avoid responding to the attacks in ways that severely constrain the wider Palestinian population. For example, throughout this wave of attacks, 120,000 Palestinians have continued to work inside Israel and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli government has also sought to bolster the Palestinian economy in other ways. These steps are directed toward stabilizing a shaky Palestinian Authority which is a crucial bulwark for Israel against instability and inroads by radical groups into the West Bank.

Palestinian politics are not immune from the governance challenges faced by other Arab societies. There is a wide and growing gap between the Palestinian leadership and the public, particularly young people who see little prospect for economic, diplomatic, or political progress in their current circumstances. Continued uncertainty about leadership succession in the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian national movement more generally also raises concern over a potential weakening or collapse of PA security forces. Israeli officials I spoke to expressed concern that the anger and violence currently directed against Israel would, if it continues, inevitably turn against the Palestinian Authority as well; and that could provoke a collapse of the PA or an end to Israel-PA security cooperation. This could leave the IDF feeling pressured to reenter Palestinian population centers in an ongoing way, and could make the West Bank vulnerable to inroads by ISIS and other radical groups.

Sinai and ISIS’s Egyptian Affiliate

The ISIS affiliate in Sinai has continued to attack Egyptian targets nearly every day. The most recent statistics from the Tahrir Institute, which tracks terrorism in Egypt, recorded 74 attacks in the last quarter of 2015. These included the downing of a Russian passenger plane on October 31st, which has devastated what was left of Egypt’s tourist economy. ISIS has also claimed assassination attempts against government officials and individuals accused of supporting the government, IEDs, and armed assaults on various military and civilian facilities.

Egypt’s counterterrorism campaign in Sinai has been of limited impact in reducing attacks; one Israeli source told me that the Egyptian campaign was mostly good as “making the sand jump.” There are concerns among some observers both in Israel and here in Washington that the Egyptian military’s tactics may even be counterproductive. Egypt has, for example, razed homes along the Sinai border with Israel, destroying farmland and displacing thousands of Sinai residents. Such tactics may be alienating Sinai residents and giving ISIS more room to operate. Similarly, Egypt’s overcrowded jails are reportedly hotbeds for extremist recruitment.

The Obama Administration, as you know, is redirecting US military assistance to Egypt away from long-term commitments to major weapons systems, and toward effective counterterror and border security capabilities. This effort deserves the robust support of Congress. The United States also has both legal and moral obligations to ensure that its support for Egyptian counterterror efforts does not contribute to human rights abuses, which have vastly escalating in the last two years in Egypt. I know this is an issue your committee is watching closely.

Conclusions

It’s clear that the changes in the region have shifted the nature of the threats facing Israel — from state-centered and nonconventional threats to non-state, terrorist and insurgent threats. Israel has long relied on deterrence and superior military capabilities as the backbone of its defense. But the new threat profile challenges that approach. As General Eisenkot has asked, how does one deter terrorist organizations that are not accountable to anyone? Likewise, overwhelming conventional military capabilities are better suited for a major land war than for a campaign against a terrorist group that is embedded within a civilian population.

From a broader perspective, there is in fact a sort of “threat trough” for Israel at the present moment, which presents important strategic opportunities. Iran is pre-occupied with its geopolitical competition with the Sunni Arab states, and its nuclear program has been rolled back in concrete terms, taking that threat off the table for a period of years. Some of Israel’s worst enemies in previous years – Syria, Iraq, and Libya – are consumed by civil war themselves. Hamas has less Iranian support than in the past, and is contained and reticent after its 2014 confrontation with Israel; and Hezbollah is for now wholly committed in Syria.

Two opportunities emerge for Israel from this changed threat environment: first, time and space to undertake longer-term planning for the structure, size, and capabilities of the Israel Defense Forces to meet the challenges ahead, especially from non-state actors. Second and perhaps more importantly, to seize the moment to determine what it wants in its future relationship with the Palestinians, and to push forward with steps to advance the two-state solution that Israel’s leader continues to avow is in his country’s best interests. This unique moment should not be wasted.

As the United and Israel continue discussions on a new ten-year memorandum of understanding on defense assistance, it will be important to evaluate this fundamental shift in Israel’s threat environment and help Israel prepare accordingly. Enshrining US-Israel defense cooperation in a new MOU will help address emerging threats, and will give the IDF needed predictability in funding to implement its new long-term plans. Most of all, a new MOU will send a clear signal to adversaries and friends alike about the depth and breadth of the US-Israel defense partnership. In other words, the significance of the MOU goes well beyond a dollar amount, a specific capability, or a specific source of threat. I hope it will be concluded soon.

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With ongoing crises in Ukraine, Syria, and other regions of the world, U.S. global leadership is arguably as critical now as it has ever been. However, many question how the United States should exercise its leadership, what foreign policy agenda it should pursue, and how it should configure its military and security agencies going forward. In a recent speech at West Point, President Obama laid out his foreign policy agenda for the remainder of his presidency. While the Obama Administration will pursue the president’s agenda as laid out at West Point, others in Washington have different views on how best to manage U.S. foreign policy going forward.

On June 11, the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings will host Senator John McCain (R-AZ), former presidential candidate and member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, for an address on the future of U.S. foreign and security policy. The address will be introduced by Brookings Senior Fellow and Director of Research for Foreign Policy Michael O’Hanlon, and the discussion following the Senator’s address will be moderated by Senior Fellow Robert Kagan.

After the program, Senator McCain will take audience questions.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #McCain

November's U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment report showed continued improvement in the job market, with employers adding 211,000 workers to their payrolls and hourly pay edging up compared with its level a year ago. The pace of job growth was similar to that over the past year and somewhat slower than the pace in 2014. For the 69^th consecutive month, private-sector payrolls increased. Since the economic recovery began in the third quarter of 2009, all the nation’s employment gains have occurred as a result of expansion in private-sector payrolls. Government employment has shrunk by more than half a million workers, or about 2.5 percent. In the past twelve months, however, public payrolls edged up by 93,000.

The good news on employment gains in November was sweetened by revised estimates of job gains in the previous two months. Revisions added 8,000 to estimated job growth in September and 27,000 to job gains in October. The BLS now estimates that payrolls increased 298,000 in October, a big rebound compared with the more modest gains in August and September, when payrolls grew an average of about 150,000 a month.

Average hourly pay in November was 2.3 percent higher than its level 12 months earlier. This is a slightly faster rate of improvement compared with the gains we saw between 2010 and 2014. A tighter job market may mean that employers are now facing modestly higher pressure to boost employee compensation. The exceptionally low level of consumer price inflation means that the slow rate of nominal wage growth translates into a healthy rate of real wage improvement. The latest BLS numbers show that real weekly and hourly earnings in October were 2.4 percent above their levels one year earlier. Not only have employers added more than 2.6 million workers to their payrolls over the past year, the purchasing power of workers' earnings have been boosted by the slightly faster pace of wage gain and falling prices for oil and other commodities.

The BLS household survey also shows robust job gains last month. Employment rose 244,000 in November, following a jump of 320,000 in October. More than 270,000 adults entered the labor force in November, so the number of unemployed increased slightly, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 5.0 percent. In view of the low level of the jobless rate, the median duration of unemployment spells remains surprisingly long, 10.8 weeks. Between 1967 and the onset of the Great Recession, the median duration of unemployment was 10.8 weeks or higher in just seven months. Since the middle of the Great Recession, the median duration of unemployment has been 10.8 weeks or longer for 82 consecutive months. The reason, of course, is that many of the unemployed have been looking for work for a long time. More than one-quarter of the unemployed—slightly more than two million job seekers—have been jobless for at least 6 months.  That number has been dropping for more than five years, but remains high relative to our experience before the Great Recession.

If there is bad news in the latest employment report, it's the sluggish response of labor force participation to a brighter job picture. The participation rate of Americans 16 and older edged up 0.1 point in November but still remains 3.5 percentage points below its level before the Great Recession. About half the decline can be explained by an aging adult population, but a sizeable part of the decline remains unexplained. The participation rate of men and women between 25 and 54 years old is now 80.8 percent, exactly the same level it was a year ago but 2.2 points lower than it was before the Great Recession. Despite the fact that real wages are higher and job finding is now easier than was the case earlier in the recovery, the prime-age labor force participation rate remains stuck well below its level before the recession. How strong must the recovery be before prime-age adults are induced to come back into the work force? Even though the recovery is now 6 and a half years old, we still do not know.

I came across an interesting chart in yesterday’s Morning Money tipsheet from Politico that struck me as a something that sounded intuitively correct but was, in fact, not. It's worth a comment on this blog, which has served as a forum for discussion of jobs numbers throughout the recovery.

Between last week’s BLS employment report and last night’s State of the Union, we’ve heard a lot about impressive job growth in 2015. For my part, I wrote on this blog last week that the 2.6 million jobs created last year makes 2015 the second best calendar-year for job gains of the current recovery.

The tipsheet’s "Chart of the Day," however, suggested that job growth in 2015 was actually lower-than-average if we adjust for the change in the size of the labor force. This is what was in the tipsheet from Politico:

CHART OF THE DAY: NOMINAL JOB GROWTH — Via Hamilton Place Strategies: "Adjusting jobs data to account for labor force shifts can help shed some light on voters' economic angst, even as we see good headline statistics. … Though 2015 was a good year in terms of job growth during the current recovery and had higher-than-average job growth as compared to recent recoveries, 2015 actually had lower-than-average job growth if we adjust for the change in the size of the labor force." http://bit.ly/1OnBXSm

I decided to look at the numbers.

The authors propose that we should "scale" reported job gains by the number of workers, which at first seems to make sense. Surely, an increase in monthly employment of 210,000 cannot mean the same thing when there are already 150 million employed people as when there are just 75 million employed people.

But this intuition is subtly wrong for a simple reason: The age structure of the population may also differ in the two situations I have just described. Suppose when there are 75 million employed people, the population of 20-to-64 year-old people is growing 300,000 every month. Suppose also when there are 150 million employed people, the population of 20-to-64 year-olds is shrinking 100,000 per month. 

Most informed observers would say that job growth of 210,000 a month is much more impressive under the latter assumptions than it is under the first set of assumptions, even though under the latter assumptions the number of employed people is twice as high as it is under the first assumptions.

BLS estimates show that in the seven years from December 2008-December 2015, the average monthly growth in the 16-to-64 year-old (noninstitutionalized) U.S. population was 85,200 per month. That is the lowest average growth rate of the working-age population going back to at least 1960. Here are the numbers:

Once we scale the monthly employment gain by the growth in the working-age population, the growth of jobs in recent years has been more impressive—not less—than suggested by the raw monthly totals. Gains in employer payrolls have far surpassed the growth in the number of working-age Americans over the past five years.

Headline writers have been impressed by recent job gains because the job gains have been impressive.

Ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections in Ohio, Florida and other states, the 2016 presidential candidates have been talking about the future of Social Security and its funding shortfalls.

Over the next two decades, the money flowing into Social Security will be too little to pay for all promised benefits. The reserve fund will be exhausted soon after 2030, and the only money available to pay for benefits will be from taxes earmarked for the program. Unless Congress and the President change the law before the reserve is depleted, monthly benefits will have to be cut about 21%.

Needless to say, office holders, who must face voters, are unlikely to allow such a cut. Before the Trust Fund is depleted, lawmakers will agree to some combination of revenue increase and future benefit reduction, eliminating the need for a sudden 21% pension cut. The question is: what combination of revenue increases and benefit cuts does each candidate favor?

The candidate offering the most straightforward but least credible answer is Donald Trump. During the GOP presidential debate last week, he pledged to do everything within his power to leave Social Security “the way it is.” He says he can do this by making the nation rich again, by eliminating budget deficits, and by ridding government programs of waste, fraud, and abuse. In other words, he proposed to do nothing specifically to improve Social Security’s finances. Should Trump’s deal-making fail to make us rich again, he offered no back-up plan for funding benefits after 2034.

The other three GOP candidates proposed to repair Social Security by cutting future pensions. No one in the debate, except U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida, mentioned a specific way to accomplish this. Rubio’s plan is to raise the age for full retirement benefits. For many years, the full retirement age was 65. In a reform passed in 1983, the retirement age was gradually raised to 66 for people nearing retirement today and to 67 for people born after 1960. Rubio proposes to raise the retirement age to 68 for people who are now in their mid-40s and to 70 for workers who are his children’s age (all currently under 18 years old).

In his campaign literature, Rubio also proposes slowing the future rate of increase in monthly pensions for high-income seniors. However, by increasing the full retirement age, Rubio’s plan will cut monthly pensions for any worker who claims benefits at 62 years old. This is the earliest age at which workers can claim a reduced pension. Also, it is by far the most common age at which low-income seniors claim benefits. Recent research suggests that low-income workers have not shared the gains in life expectancy enjoyed by middle- and especially high-income workers, so Rubio’s proposed cut could seriously harm many low-income workers.

Though he didn’t advertise it in the debate, Sen. Ted Cruz favors raising the normal retirement age and trimming the annual cost-of-living adjustment in Social Security. In the long run, the latter reform will disproportionately cut the monthly pensions of the longest-living seniors. Many people, including me, think this is a questionable plan, because the oldest retirees are also the most likely to have used up their non-Social-Security savings. Finally, Cruz favors allowing workers to fund personal-account pensions with part of their Social Security contributions. Although the details of his plan are murky, if it is designed like earlier GOP privatization plans, it will have the effect of depriving Social Security of needed future revenues, making the funding gap even bigger than it is today.

The most revolutionary part of Cruz’s plan is his proposal to eliminate the payroll tax. For many decades, this has been the main source of Social Security revenue. Presumably, Cruz plans to fund pensions out of revenue from his proposed 10% flat tax and 16% value-added tax (VAT). This would represent a revolutionary change because up to now, Social Security has been largely financed out of its own dedicated revenue stream. By eliminating the independent funding stream, Cruz will sever the perceived link between workers’ contributions and the benefits they ultimately receive. Most observers agree with Franklin Roosevelt that the strong link between contributions and benefits is a vital source of the enduring popularity of the program. Social Security is an earned benefit for retirees rather than a welfare check.

Gov. John Kasich does not propose to boost the retirement age, but he does suggest slowing the growth in future pensions by linking workers’ initial pensions to price changes instead of wage changes. He hints he will impose a means test in calculating pensions, reducing the monthly pensions payable to retirees who have high current incomes. Many students of Social Security think this a bad idea, because it can discourage workers from saving for retirement.

All of the Republican candidates, except Trump, think Social Security’s salvation lies in lower benefit payouts. Nobody mentions higher contributions as part of the solution. In contrast, both Democratic candidates propose raising payroll or other taxes on workers who have incomes above the maximum earnings now subject to Social Security contributions. This reform enjoys broad support among voters, most of whom do not expect to pay higher taxes if the income limit on contributions is lifted. Sen. Bernie Sanders would immediately spend some of the extra revenue on benefit increases for current beneficiaries, but his proposed tax hike on high-income contributors would raise enough money to postpone the year of Trust Fund depletion by about 40 years. Hillary Clinton is less specific about the tax increases and benefit improvements she favors. Like Sanders, however, she would vigorously oppose benefit cuts.

None of the candidates has given us a detailed plan to eliminate Social Security’s funding imbalance. At this stage, it’s not obvious such a plan would be helpful, since the legislative debate to overhaul Social Security won’t begin anytime soon. Sanders has provided the most details about his policy intentions, but his actual plan is unlikely to receive much Congressional support without a massive political realignment. Cruz’s proposal, which calls for eliminating the Social Security payroll tax, also seems far outside the range of the politically feasible.

What we have learned from the GOP presidential debates so far is that Republican candidates, with the exception of Trump, favor balancing Social Security through future benefit cuts, possibly targeted on higher income workers, while Democratic candidates want to protect current benefit promises and will do so with tax hikes on high-income workers. There is no overlap in the two parties’ proposals, and this accounts for Washington’s failure to close Social Security’s funding gap.

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in Fortune.

Unlike prime-age Americans, who have experienced declines in employment and labor force participation since the onset of the Great Recession, Americans past 60 have seen their employment and labor force participation rates increase.

In order to understand the contrasting labor force developments among the old, on the one hand, and the prime-aged, on the other, this paper develops and analyzes a new data file containing information on monthly labor force changes of adults interviewed in the Current Population Survey (CPS).

The paper documents notable differences among age groups with respect to the changes in labor force transition rates that have occurred over the past two decades. What is crucial for understanding the surprising strength of old-age labor force participation and employment are changes in labor force transition probabilities within and across age groups. The paper identifies several shifts that help account for the increase in old-age employment and labor force participation:

• Like workers in all age groups, workers in older groups saw a surge in monthly transitions from employment to unemployment in the Great Recession.
• Unlike workers in prime-age and younger groups, however, older workers also saw a sizeable decline in exits to nonparticipation during and after the recession. While the surge in exits from employment to unemployment tended to reduce the employment rates of all age groups, the drop in employment exits to nonparticipation among the aged tended to hold up labor force participation rates and employment rates among the elderly compared with the nonelderly. Among the elderly, but not the nonelderly, the exit rate from employment into nonparticipation fell more than the exit rate from employment into unemployment increased.
• The Great Recession and slow recovery from that recession made it harder for the unemployed to transition into employment. Exit rates from unemployment into employment fell sharply in all age groups, old and young.
• In contrast to unemployed workers in younger age groups, the unemployed in the oldest age groups also saw a drop in their exits to nonparticipation. Compared with the nonaged, this tended to help maintain the labor force participation rates of the old.
• Flows from out-of-the-labor-force status into employment have declined for most age groups, but they have declined the least or have actually increased modestly among older nonparticipants.

Some of the favorable trends seen in older age groups are likely to be explained, in part, by the substantial improvement in older Americans’ educational attainment. Better educated older people tend to have lower monthly flows from employment into unemployment and nonparticipation, and they have higher monthly flows from nonparticipant status into employment compared with less educated workers.

The policy implications of the paper are:

• A serious recession inflicts severe and immediate harm on workers and potential workers in all age groups, in the form of layoffs and depressed prospects for finding work.
• Unlike younger age groups, however, workers in older groups have high rates of voluntary exit from employment and the workforce, even when labor markets are strong. Consequently, reduced rates of voluntary exit from employment and the labor force can have an outsize impact on their employment and participation rates.
• The aged, as a whole, can therefore experience rising employment and participation rates even as a minority of aged workers suffer severe harm as a result of permanent job loss at an unexpectedly early age and exceptional difficulty finding a new job.
• Between 2001 and 2015, the old-age employment and participation rates rose, apparently signaling that older workers did not suffer severe harm in the Great Recession.
• Analysis of the gross flow data suggests, however, that the apparent improvements were the combined result of continued declines in age-specific voluntary exit rates, mostly from the ranks of the employed, and worsening reemployment rates among the unemployed. The older workers who suffered involuntary layoffs were more numerous than before the Great Recession, and they found it much harder to get reemployed than laid off workers in years before 2008. The turnover data show that it has proved much harder for these workers to recover from the loss of their late-career job loss.

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On June 23, voters in the United Kingdom will go to the polls for a referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union. As one of the EU’s largest and wealthiest member states, Britain’s exit, or “Brexit”, would not only alter the U.K.’s institutional, political, and economic relationships, but would also send shock waves across the entire continent and beyond, with a possible Brexit fundamentally reshaping transatlantic relations.

On May 6, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings, in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America, the UK in a Changing Europe Initiative based at King's College London, and Wilton Park USA, will host a discussion to assess the range of implications that could result from the United Kingdom’s referendum. 

After each panel, the participants will take questions from the audience.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #UKReferendum

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• Brexit—in or out? Implications of the United Kingdom’s referendum on EU membership

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The failed coup in Turkey on July 15 to 16, organized by factions within the Turkish military in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Erdoğan, represents both a victory and a new trial for Turkish democracy. Although the Turkish citizenry brought the country back from the brink of anarchy and civil war, many analysts see last week’s events as a consequence of the political instability and discord that has been mounting for years as Erdoğan has consolidated powers, marginalized the opposition, and redefined Turkey’s democracy. How will the president react in the aftermath of the coup? Will the democratic backsliding intensify, or can the thwarted coup offer new opportunity for reconciling the deeply-polarized nation?

The upheaval and political instability in Turkey also holds significant implications for Turkey’s foreign policy and the fate of a neighboring region already in turmoil from the war in Syria and insecurity in Iraq. The West desperately needs a stable, democratic, and predictable partner in its NATO-ally Turkey to address the many challenges besetting the region and to fight the Islamic State (or ISIS). How will recent events affect regional stability and Turkey’s cooperation with the West on security issues, including the resettlement of Syrian refugees? What does the failed coup mean for the coalition against ISIS engagement in Syria?

On July 20, the Foreign Policy program (FP) at Brookings hosted a panel discussion to consider these questions and other domestic and international consequences of the coup attempt in Turkey. Brookings Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on the United States and Europe Fiona Hill introduced and moderated a wide-ranging conversation featuring FP Senior Fellows Shadi Hamid, Kemal Kirişci, Michael O'Hanlon, and Ömer Taşpınar.

After the discussion, the speakers took questions from the audience.

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• Turkey coup attempt was a shock
• Institutional collapse of Turkey unprecedented
• Disaster averted in failed Turkey coup
• Incirlik Air Base not irreplaceable
• Turkey after the coup attempt: Implications for Turkish democracy, foreign policy, and the future of the Syrian War

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• Turkey after the coup attempt: Implications for Turkish democracy, foreign policy, and the future of the Syrian War

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Event Materials

• 20160720_turkey_coup_transcript

Event Information

The failed coup in Turkey on July 15 to 16, organized by factions within the Turkish military in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Erdoğan, represents both a victory and a new trial for Turkish democracy. Although the Turkish citizenry brought the country back from the brink of anarchy and civil war, many analysts see last week’s events as a consequence of the political instability and discord that has been mounting for years as Erdoğan has consolidated powers, marginalized the opposition, and redefined Turkey’s democracy. How will the president react in the aftermath of the coup? Will the democratic backsliding intensify, or can the thwarted coup offer new opportunity for reconciling the deeply-polarized nation?

The upheaval and political instability in Turkey also holds significant implications for Turkey’s foreign policy and the fate of a neighboring region already in turmoil from the war in Syria and insecurity in Iraq. The West desperately needs a stable, democratic, and predictable partner in its NATO-ally Turkey to address the many challenges besetting the region and to fight the Islamic State (or ISIS). How will recent events affect regional stability and Turkey’s cooperation with the West on security issues, including the resettlement of Syrian refugees? What does the failed coup mean for the coalition against ISIS engagement in Syria?

On July 20, the Foreign Policy program (FP) at Brookings hosted a panel discussion to consider these questions and other domestic and international consequences of the coup attempt in Turkey. Brookings Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on the United States and Europe Fiona Hill introduced and moderated a wide-ranging conversation featuring FP Senior Fellows Shadi Hamid, Kemal Kirişci, Michael O'Hanlon, and Ömer Taşpınar.

After the discussion, the speakers took questions from the audience.

Video

• Turkey coup attempt was a shock
• Institutional collapse of Turkey unprecedented
• Disaster averted in failed Turkey coup
• Incirlik Air Base not irreplaceable
• Turkey after the coup attempt: Implications for Turkish democracy, foreign policy, and the future of the Syrian War

Audio

• Turkey after the coup attempt: Implications for Turkish democracy, foreign policy, and the future of the Syrian War

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20160720_turkey_coup_transcript

Abstract

An individual-based computational model of smallpox epidemics in a two-town county is presented and used to develop strategies for bioterror containment. A powerful and feasible combination of preemptive and reactive vaccination and isolation strategies is developed which achieves epidemic quenching while minimizing risks of adverse side effects. Calibration of the model to historical data is described. Various model extensions and applications to other public health problems are noted.

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Published version of the CSED October 2007 Working Paper

ABSTRACT

Background

In classical mathematical epidemiology, individuals do not adapt their contact behavior during epidemics. They do not endogenously engage, for example, in social distancing based on fear. Yet, adaptive behavior is well-documented in true epidemics. We explore the effect of including such behavior in models of epidemic dynamics.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Using both nonlinear dynamical systems and agent-based computation, we model two interacting contagion processes: one of disease and one of fear of the disease. Individuals can “contract” fear through contact with individuals who are infected with the disease (the sick), infected with fear only (the scared), and infected with both fear and disease (the sick and scared). Scared individuals–whether sick or not–may remove themselves from circulation with some probability, which affects the contact dynamic, and thus the disease epidemic proper. If we allow individuals to recover from fear and return to circulation, the coupled dynamics become quite rich, and can include multiple waves of infection. We also study flight as a behavioral response.

Conclusions/Significance

In a spatially extended setting, even relatively small levels of fear-inspired flight can have a dramatic impact on spatio-temporal epidemic dynamics. Self-isolation and spatial flight are only two of many possible actions that fear-infected individuals may take. Our main point is that behavioral adaptation of some sort must be considered.”

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ABSTRACT:

Early experience with federal campaign finance reform suggests that the new law is fulfilling its primary objective of severing links between policymakers and large donors, and thus reducing the potential for corruption in the political process. Instead of languishing or seeking to circumvent the law, the national political parties have responded to the ban on soft money by increasing their hard money resources. While outside groups appear active, particularly on the Democratic side, their soft money financing should remain a small fraction of what candidates and parties will raise and spend in the 2004 Elections.

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