Or you could say，"No，the real problem is the flip side of globalization."Half the world"s people aren"t a part of it.It is true that more people have been lifted out of poverty by globalization in the last twenty years than ever before.It is also true that half the people in the world still live on less than two dollars a day，that a billion of our people still live on less than a dollar a day.Think about that the next time you buy a cup of coffee.A billion go to bed hungry every night.One woman dies every minute in childbirth.That too is a recipe for revolution，compounded by the fact that a hundred million children on never go to school at all.Or even on September tenth，you might have said，"No，the biggest problem will be terrorism，coupled with weapons of mass destruction，rooted in racial and religious and ethnic hatreds."
Here is what I would like to say：whether you would have given a positive answer，or a negative answer，there is something that all eight answers have in common.They all ref lect the astonishing increase in global interdependence.We have seen the collapse of distances and barriers bringing US closer together for good or ill.Terrorism is simply the dark side of our increasing interdependence.We have not repealed human nature or the fact some people see reality very differently than we do.Withmore open societies，organized forces of destruction simply take advantage of the same forces that make our lives richer，more diverse and better.
Therefore，all the great questions of the twenty-first century boil down to one：Is this new age going to be good or bad，for me，my family，my community，my nation and the world？That"s why Yale"s mission in its fourth century，to build a truly globaluniversity，is so important.I was delighted，Mr.President，when my former deputy Secretary of State and my old roommate，Strobe Talbott，became the head of your Globalization Center and his wife Brooke Shearer agreed to run the World Fellows Program.I said I would like to be a world fellow，and I was informed that I no longer qualify as a young world leader.So today you are stuck with my opinions without the benefit of further Yale study.
What do we have to do to make sure that we encourage the positive forces of interdependence，and that we restrain and combat the negative ones？I would like to make three points：First，we have to defend ourselves against terrorism.I want you to know that there are good people，lots of them，who have been working on this for years-Many，many，more attacks were planned on the United States but were thwarted by those public servants and our allies.During the millennium observances alone，there were plans for bombs in cities in the northeast and northwest，in the Los Angeles airport the largest hotel in Jordan，a Christian site in the Holy Land and a half dozen other sites.All thwarted.
Though good people are working hard，clearly there is more to do to build our defenses，to build our ability to be offensive，to build our capacity to maximize computer tracking networks to stop people who mean US harm.
I don"t want to say more about that right now，because the President，our national security teams，and our allies have sometough tactical decisions to make.I think we ought to stick with them and give them the room they need to make decisions.So far，they have been making good decisions and we have no reason to believe that they won"t do so in the future.On this，it"s important for America to stay united.Weare now and we must stay that way.
Again，I know it was frightening to have the first massive attack on American soil.And nothing can minimize the human loss.But let me remind the young people here that the century we just left was the bloodiest in all human history.Twelve million died in World War I.Twenty million between the wars，over twenty million in World War II，and another twenty million from government oppression after the war，not counting the millions who died in Korea and Vietnam，and later in the senseless slaughters from Rwanda and Bosnia.The world has never been free of violence.Today the price tag on the benefits of our interdependent world is greater vulnerability to terrorists.But our defenses will catch up.What we have to do as citizens is to think about what else has to be done.What else we personally can do.We have to lead an assault on the conditions of negative interdependence and create more opportunities for positive interdependence.
America should continue to work to reduce global poverty and spread the benefits of globalization to people in countries that haven"t felt it，with initiatives like more debt relief，more micro-credit，more sensible trade policies.America should contribute its fair share to the Secretary-General"s Kofi Annan"s health fund to fight the spread of the AIDS epidemic.America should deal with the challenge ofclimate change through conservation and the development of alternative energy，and through helping our friends and neighbors throughout the world do the same.
America should continue to promote democracy.One par ticular problem we have，in the present crisis，is that so manypeople who hear the siren song of radical Islamic fundamentalism，with its twisted reading of the Koran，live in countries growing ever larger，ever younger and ever poorer，where there is no democracy or chance to express dissent or even assent in a normal political way.That keeps the populace in a state of sort of permanent infancy，in which they never have to take responsibility for their own lives and making them better because they never get to take responsibility.Therefore it is very easy to listen to someone say your problems were caused by America"s success.