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Tavis: Nina Hachigian is a senior vice president at the Center for American Progress and a former staff member at the National Security Council. Mona Sutphen is managing director of Stonebridge International and a former special assistant to national security adviser Sandy Berger. The two have teamed up on the new book "The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise." Nina and Mona, nice to have you here.

Nina Hachigian: Good to be here.

Tavis: Congratulations first, this is your first big book.

Hachigian: That's right.

Tavis: Yeah, so glad to have you on the program. Before I get to the text, let me start - I'm always fascinated by young persons who've found, for whatever reasons, a pull to national security policy. So I'll start with you, Nina. What are you doing in this arena?

Hachigian: I'm the daughter of immigrants. On my mom's side, I'm first generation; she's from Germany, and my dad's side I'm second generation, he's from Armenia. So we spent a lot of time traveling in Europe growing up and I guess that's what got me going. But I've always, since my early memories, have been interested in what's going on in other countries.

Tavis: And for you, Mona?

Mona Sutphen: Actually, it's the same way. Although I grew up in Wisconsin, family never really traveled very much. Never even traveled to the East Coast growing up. But somehow the lure of foreign affairs was just always there from the very beginning. Always wanted to see the world.

Tavis: The book is called, again, "The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise." Is that possible? Because you tend to think that we live in a world where somebody goes up, somebody goes down, we can't all rise together. We're the superpower, we can't fall. So to the book's subtitle, is that doable? Is it possible?

Hachigian: It is doable, yeah. It's absolutely doable, and that's sort of the central message of the book, that we need these other powers to help us with the big security threats that we all face in common, like terrorism, climate change - that we can't keep our own people safe anymore without the help of these big powers. And they basically want what we want. They want an orderly world with open trade and they are economically, as their economies grow, our economy will grow. There's adjustments, of course.

Tavis: Who are these powers? Beautiful you identify them, of course, in the text. Who are these powers that we're talking about?

Hachigian: They are China, India, Russia, Japan, and the European Union.

Tavis: And they make this list, beyond the obvious - you focus upon those particular powers for what reason?

Hachigian: They have the ability to sort of support U.S. plans or to thwart them. They have global influence. They want to be big players. The list could change over time, but right now we feel like those are the key powers. We call them pivotal powers to sort of the future direction of the world.

Tavis: To Nina's point, Mona, what is at the top of the list of what might cause that list to shift? Because as I listen to that list, every one of those countries in my lifetime, even in your lifetime, has had some dramatic shifts in where they rank in the world and what their power base is and the (unintelligible) of the country. All those things change, as you said, all the time. What threatens the changing of that list?

Sutphen: Well it's interesting because we look at the trajectory in the book. One of the arguments we make is that you can't really predict what the trajectory will continue with these big powers. So today, of course, China looks as though it's the big kid on the block, but 20 years ago nobody was talking about China. So obviously powers like Brazil and South Africa, Korea, Mexico, those all have the potential to become pivotal powers.

But for now it's really these. If you add them up together, including the United States, it's two-thirds of the world economy and half the world's population. So it's a pretty significant chunk of folks.

Tavis: It's probably difficult to do because you got five or six countries here, but assess for me our relations or lack thereof with these countries as we sit.

Sutphen: Well it's interesting, relations obviously with the EU and Japan have been strong. They've been long-time allies with the United States. India we have a new relationship with and I think we're still trying to figure out our way with them and they're still trying to understand exactly what it is that the United States wants out of the relationship.

And China and Russia, we're now no longer in the Cold War. This is one of the core messages of our book, which is these powers now want what we want, they're interested in similar things that the United States is interested in. And so we ought to be channeling their energies in a productive direction so we can all be safer and more prosperous.

Tavis: Nina, back to this list, I wouldn't call India a surprise. I understand from looking at the book why it's on the list, but those other countries you expect to be there. China you expect to be there, Russia you expect to be there, the EU you expect to be there. Tell me more about India and our relationship with them that we're, to, Mona's point - too much. Mona, Nina, Nina, Mona. (Laughter)

Sutphen: We get that all the time.

Tavis: Yeah, I'm sure you do.

Hachigian: It's interchangeable right now.

Tavis: Yeah, exactly.

Hachigian: It doesn't matter. We respond to either.

Tavis: Okay, respond, then. I won't call any more names. No, seriously, Nina, tell me about India being on that list and what we're trying to figure out about this relationship.

Hachigian: Well India is the world's largest democracy, so we have that in common with them. They tested and developed nuclear weapons, so they were in our doghouse for a while. But we've come around to accepting they're a big force in the world, and they're key for a couple reasons you might not think of. They have been tracking Islamic extremist groups for decades.

And these small Islamic extremist groups are targeting the U.S., so we really need their help in understanding these groups and their motivation and in daily intelligence. Then, again, we share this idea of liberal values and India is important because it's a country that's a democracy but it exists outside of the western world.

So we can work with them in terms of trying to spread the idea of democracy and individual freedoms. And then we both have a great interest in Pakistan being stable next door. Obviously Pakistan and India have had a contentious relationship over the years.

Tavis: What do you make of the kind of concern and critique that I read somewhat consistently from certain thinkers and critics who would look at some of the countries on this list, these pivotal powers, and see reasons for us, if not to be threatened by them, to at least be concerned about a potential threat from some of the folk on this list?

Sutphen: Well this gets to one of the core messages of our book, which is of course you have to worry about what might happen down the path. So we're not saying let's just assume forever that China or Russia or India, never will they become a threat. That is possible. But what we're saying is let's look at the threats and the concerns that are affecting Americans today.

And if you look at that list, it's deadly disease, it's terrorism. These major powers are not the source of those threats to Americans, right? If anything, they're the opposite. We actually need them to help us thwart those threats. And so rather than focusing on what might happen 50 years down the road where you really can't predict what's going to happen that far in the future, let's channel their energies effectively so that we're working together to face these threats.

Tavis: So for those persons watching right now who consider themselves patriots and some of them beyond patriots, nationalists, but concerned nonetheless of the notion of, let's be frank, the U.S. staying ahead, staying out front. So we want to be friendly, we want to have allies, we want to get along with these pivotal powers.

But we really want to stay ahead; we're the US of A. So one of the things you talk about in the book with regard to our staying where we are and remaining a superpower is being innovative. You guys spend a lot of time talking about innovation. Talk to me about how critical innovation is for us staying wherever we are or regaining our position in those places where we're slacking.

Hachigian: It's absolutely critical. We have to do a better job of educating our kids in math and science so that we can grow innovators at home. We've been sort of importing talent but that's not always going to work because a lot of these people are going to want to stay in their countries where they have much more opportunities than they used to have.

But innovation, it has been the big engine of our economy so we absolutely need to keep it going. And I would say about those patriots, we thought that was the characteristic American mindset when we went into writing this book, and looked at polling and were shocked that poll after poll, year after year, Americans are very clearly interested in sharing power. They do not want America to dictate to the world. A large majority of Americans actually believe that, which was a surprise to us.

Tavis: Was that shocking to you?

Hachigian: It was.

Tavis: It's a shock to hear you say it to me.

Hachigian: It's absolutely the case, yeah.

Tavis: What do you make of that? What drives that?

Hachigian: I think Americans are pragmatic, ultimately, and I just think that they want to see results and get things done. And so they think that you've got to work with other people to do that. Everyone sees that in their daily life. You can't live on your own.

Tavis: I wonder, Mona, whether or not you think that being in a post-9/11 America and the threat that we continue to be on guard against dramatically plays a role in how we view these kinds of issues.

Sutphen: Well it should, increasingly. What we found is that the Cold War mentality, though, is really hard to break. In America there's this sense it's a very zero sum mentality. If China, if another power is rising, somehow America must be losing. And what we're trying to do with this book is crack that open and say okay, well, if there are people out here who are trying to kill us post-9/11, who are still trying to kill us today, and they're not with those pivotal powers, let's really look and think.

Does that make sense anymore, that old Cold War mentality in the world we face today when we have all kinds of threats coming from all kinds of places that really aren't country-centric anymore? They're terrorists, nonproliferation issues, that we need all the powers in the world to work together on.

Tavis: Because these pivotal powers on this list we discussed earlier are so different, their interests and (unintelligible) country - everything is so diverse, it's such a diverse list, I assume, then, from going through the text, that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy that works for getting the most out of our relationships with these various powers.

Hachigian: I think you're right. In terms of a one-on-one relationship with them, you're right. But we suggest that what the next president ought to do is bring all of them together around a table and try to focus their energies on tackling some issues that we all have in common, like climate change. Climate change is a huge national security issue.

So we think what the next president should do is try to get them all together. There's actually no forum today where this can happen, not all of them are members of any one group.

Tavis: All these countries, where they don't all belong to not even one group.

Hachigian: Well, they belong to groups where everyone is a member, like the U.N., but you can't negotiate with 200 countries. We're focusing on these five, and there's no place where the five of them can get together with us and really focus on given issues.

Tavis: Are you hopeful about something like that happening?

Sutphen: Well I think it actually is logical, so I am hopeful that the next president we have will take a look at this and say, okay, what do we need to really move these things forward? Because we are going to have to spend a lot of time focused on the Middle East, but we need to marshal this energy. They have money, they have interests.

They're interested in participating in the world. So we ought to take advantage of this moment where we do actually have shared interests. We'd be smart to do that. And then we can extend American leadership much further into the future.

Tavis: I guess what I'm wondering is whether or not, to your point about taking advantage of this moment, whether or not people are so fixated on the notion of terrorism, which leads you to the Middle East in the minds of most Americans, that you can't get traction on a conversation like this because, wait, wait, wait, wait, pivotal powers, we'll get to that later on. Right now we got to go to the Middle East and deal with these issues.

Hachigian: Well, and Americans are dying every day in Iraq so we do have to obviously focus on Iraq. But terrorism, oddly enough, is what takes you to the pivotal powers because for example the 9/11 hijackers, some of them lived in Germany. And the British police have thwarted attacks that were coming from London on transatlantic flights to the U.S., and I said earlier about India. So a lot of the terrorist threat, the pivotal powers can really help us with that threat.

Tavis: Right now, everybody in America focused for obvious reasons on a domestic agenda, but whoever the next president is will have to deal, obviously, with an international agenda. And so the new book tonight is "The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise." Nina and Mona, Mona and Nina, nice to have you here. (Laughter)

Hachigian: Thank you very much.

Sutphen: Thanks.

Tavis: All the best on the tour.

Sutphen: Thanks very much.

Hachigian: Thank you.