paik, senior fellow with the australia chair and former director of the pacific in southeast asia at nsc, will run her through a conversation, after which point we will open the conversation up. ambassador, we know how extraordinarily busy your schedule is, and really want to think you not only -- thank you not only for taking the time to come to csis, but for taking the time to talk about an extremely vital and important part of the world. ambassador? [applause] amb. thomas-greenfield: good afternoon, everyone. it's really great to be here with you. let me start by thanking john and charlie for the warm welcome , and thank you to everyone at csis, the whole team for having me here today. last november i had the privilege of leading a high- level interagency delegation to the pacific islands meeting in the cook islands. i will admit here that i had to look at where the cook islands was on the map. i have a huge map in my office and it was actually off the map, because it is so far. but i learned that the largest and most populous of the islands, no building can be taller than a coconut t