Transcripts For CSPAN2 Harlan Ullman Anatomy Of Failure 20180107

There, there are events at the atlantic counsel we do have duty. Theres events we do out of fascination, interest. And there are events at the lank counsel we do out of friendship and long years of bonding. This is all three of those and thats where duty also grows as well. Ive been stealing the ideas for years. And thats why it always kind of upsets when he writes a book because then i cant say that was my my idea or his idea. But this is one of those absolutely brilliant ideas. Which is when you hear about interesting ideas look why didnt i hear or say it that way. So just or the first paragraph gives you a sense of how well many of us sometimes engage a little bit too much in mush. But that does not happen to be one of harlem weaknesses. President s this is a start presence, politician and failed to embrace this simple truth for more than half a Century America has lost every war it has started. And you find yourself saying yeah thats right and failed in military interventions contrived ignorant or just wrong. Some of those words couple of them resonate so so just in the beginning in the introduction, with you find yourself just continuing to read, and his vignette and reflection on his experience and i hope youll talk about some of those but then using them and weeding them through larger message of the of the book. So i as you can see ive made a lot of notes and i put a lot of pages here. But the last two chapters i found particularly powerful because reaches conclusion basically how to win, and the way forward. And the brains based approach to sound stretchy and so when i first saw brain first approach i always said well, why would there be any approach but were going to have you talk about that because i think where you go into here, and Start Talking about the the threat of the internal cost so theres a lot of richness. A lot of richness in this bock. So with what, good evening. [laughter] and welcome im fred kemp president ceo of the atlantic counsel and im happy to see friends, friends here, and im just delighted that we can have a rich conversation. So really good tbrowp. Up group. The title of the provocative book is anatomy of failure why america loses every war it starts. And it examine war and president who is fought them from vietnam to the present day and addresses questions of where and why the world most powerful nation went wrong. And then where and how we failed to learn from our mistake. You are not required to agree with him. He will make graiment disagreement difficult and painful for you but i do want you to know that thesis if you see that hes got something a little bit wrong, question him why he concluded in the way he did. For those who who dont know hair i have bio here but i like the one on the book cover better. Hes a strategic thinker who creator spans business and government. Chairman of two private companies and advisor to the heads of major corporations and governments be with the principle author of the shock of shock and law as you know applied in iraq. And originator of a brain based approach Strategic Thinking and served in combat assignments in vietnam and in destroyer command at sea. Mald ph. D. From Fletcher School of law and readers now resides and lives in washington, d. C. And just a joy to see you here. So that is who he is, and he is an out of the box thinker and also joining us tonight dig into two of my other two favorite people suzanne eisenhower chairman of the group fortuned countries in abroad including cocacola and i could go on about u suzanne but wonderful to have you here. Policy scientist member of three Different Department of energy blue ribbon commissions for three dirchts secretaries. Visiting fellow at the Harvard Institute of plux and distinguished fellow at the center for national interest. So thank you. And then rounding out a group a provocative writer and for the financial times, work since 1995, and before that, the guardian. And the f2 served and top chief and new delhi in washington and Washington Bureau chief. So with that, let me turn over to you to share with us the conclusion of your book. After which im going to ask suzanne and add to make some initial remarks and then move right into a discussion from there. Thank you for your generous remarks it is a pleasure to see you fred and i have been associated since fred took over his institution hes intellectual entrepreneur first magnitude and done wonders suzanne is a long standing vat gist expert on too many things. And ed lewis i dont to make eds head too big but hes close to lexus to poke swirl and idolizing american and anybody that i know today is more than 50 years ago before many of you were born, i was in wariner springs, california as a young lieutenant jg in mngts in middle of winter going through preparation for vietnam. Frostbite was the issue. But last time anybody suffered a case of frostbite in vietnam was during ice age at what stage i began to wonder what the hell am i doing and does this make any sense sh and over time those experiences compounded. The title why does america lose every war it starts is but prevent it from happen hadding but let me say we won ones that counted and with ones we didnt start world world war i world wi the first dwufl war of course most porpghtly the cold war. And ironically the reasons that we won were the polar opposite to why question lost. Youre familiar with lithny but not so much a second iraq war and sadly afghanistan. But every time we used force without sufficient cause of good reason, we failed. And let me take you quick will you through a litany of only some of our failure an explain why and then what do we do to prevent that from happening. The bay of pigs started things. If you jump to Reagan Administration, you have beirut in october 241 marine and Service Personnel kill masters degree arm blast and went many for wrong reasons several days later you go through iran where we illegally harm and jump forward to furs u day of the Clinton Administration in somalia black hawk down in 1993, we go to 199 9 when it took 78 days to get this bombing took us 100 hours to across saddam many 1991 and big areas iraq war, afghanistan, the encourage into libya in 2011 which prompted the civil war. Now why . I argue there are three overarching reasons first president we elect and jack kennedy was very careful to say theres no school for president. President s we elect are not ready for prime time. Take the last four. Bill clinton, george w. Bush, barack obama, and now donald trump who was probably least qualified experienced person. They are not ready and usually they rely on advisors who are good at getting them elected but not good at govern second they exercise poor strategic judgment and ill come back to that poor strategic judgment and third their knowledge and unctioning of the situation was best elect before september 11th, who knew. The difference between sunni and shia with but you go back to vietnam mob thawnd there were four different warses beginning on we didnt understand the politics. Theres some other about ares first a lot of these problems are simply difficult. And probably more difficult than during the cold war and the 20th century but 20th century no matter how dangerous was a bipolar situation by their world war i it was a Central Power against the allies world war ii allies versus access cold war east versus west now the situation is far nor complicated. Second, we have a broken government. Look at this tax reform bill that the senate passed. It is a disaster and im not saying that as a republican or in the because im neither. Government is broken and one of the sad aspects of this as i write in any book u. S. Military is going to pay price because it is headed it for a hallow force. Simply because we cannot pay what needs to be paid to maintain a military because of internal cost growth thats excessive and because we have a situation many terms of management oversight that had to be invented by kgb nobody can operate unders whats happening. Thirdly, president said objectives and aims that are unobtainable or o reflect practices. Jack kennedy pay any price bear any burden, Lyndon Johnson going to find on the conso we dont fight them on the mississippi. Fast forward to george w. Bush, im going to change the g orbs strategic landscape of the great or middle east and he did and not for the better. Knowledge and understanding im going to go back to granada remember in 1982, october, beirut blows up a and theres a small revolution to ship Prime Minister is killed and all of a sudden Reagan Administration said we have to do thing. We have 233 students at the medical school at st. George and theres be a big runway being built so we have to save students because theyre no jeopardy and fun way is used built soviets because cuba is not big muff of an Aircraft Carrier for them so we send many a force of about 8,000 people its a military disaster because we didnt have joint operation. And combated by a tough terrific navy vice admirable named joe meth calf hes getting pounded bit white house save the students. Save the student, and meth calf funnelly wires back the students are not in danger. What . We have Just Launched invasion and by the way, the night before invasion maggie calls up reagan and says ronny youre not going to invade are you he said no im not going to invade which he later records in his autobiography i have no other choice but students were not in jeopardy and guess who was building the air will, the british government. Become in the 1950s, britain has decided that granada it going to be the center peace for tour ism and contract was held by the Company British corporation u knew clark family owned it to the right of the con and what is being good capitalist did they do cheap labor who has cheapest labor kuhns and what did he say ill sending you my boys with one caveat we have to have arm imardz. And so knowledge and understanding was really, really efficient. My point here is that president s often find themselves too isolated and i argue for a range of solutions i begin with a brains base to approach this Strategic Thinking colin powell said that is air gangt but others said it is common sense but we dont do it. What entails brain base approach first, this is 21st century were acting if it is the 20th century. Detainment im sorry deterrent deterrent wases based on bipolarity east versus west how do you deter a situation in which we have the best army navy and air force in the world and the meme doesnt have onesome how do you deter an idea how do you deter vladimir putinen from active measure of intimidation interference using money to buy his way into all sorts of things in so the notion of using 20th century thinking in 21st industry is just mutts we still do it. We have to realize also that the world is entirely interconnected and interrelated what happens here assents there is. Can i give you one big example . Jerusalem. There are 1. 5 billion muslims by the way, one tenth of one they decide to become radical is big. Second part is that we have to focus on understanding having knowledge and understanding. We dont do a very good job. I argue in the book for a park kind of approach. For those of you who dont recall broke german codes during world war ii we immediate to get into the social media and one of the areas where the atlantic counsel has been bringing it was using social media to track a Russian Paratrooper all the way to ukraine. We can do that. And we immediate to establish the equivalent of a wikipedia for the government so you can interchange with all of this information which youre not going to get from the 16 or 17 stole pipe defense organizations so we need to be able to do that and finally, you have to focus on will and perception you dont need to send a bullet but you immediate to get peoples attention that was the basis for shocking a lot by the way was not used in operation in iraqi freedom in afghanistan it was awful in iraq it was just not done but you heed to focus in perception you want to get people to do what you want them to do and stop doing things that you dont. And military force may be necessary its never sufficient, and one of the problems we have done today is weve used the military to Foreign Place where is it does not work and quite frankly being been occasional critic of the pentagon im astounded that the pentagon functions as well today as it does. I dont know how these guys and gals put up with this stuff it is nonsensical in the extreme you dont get a budget but you have oversight so forth and i invited a number of people from pentagon to come here tonight. You know what they said we would love to i have to contact my lawyer to see whether i can. This is madness. So the brain based approach consist of these three arts. Now, what else do we immediate to do . In nfc we need to have a red team that challenges all of the policy assumses that are made. We just recognized jerusalem what was the strategy and hoping to achieve does this make sense, we dont do that in the pentagon, i think we have to separate the joint chief of staff who were double headed as joint chief and service choaf and their job is is to provide at joint chief strategic advice and guidance and military doesnt always get it correct but nonpartisan and educated and tcially experienced and they are consistent. They are there for a very long time. Coining that separation is important to bring much better advice to the president and his team. Thirdly, if congress is going to be part of the landing it better be part of the takeoff. I think what we immediate to do is have equivalent of a National Security counsel of congress interestingly the one person who has joint duties in both branches is the Vice President who by the way is president of the sthat. We put together the key member of the house and the senate to make a small nfc end 12, 14 member who is coordinate with the white house so they can be part of the takeoff as well as a the landing but one area ill stop here because i know suzanne have a lot of things to say is education. The secret weapon we have certainly in the department of the defense is education. We need a major revolution we can start by taking the National Defense universe and turning it into a National Security universe in which members of the entire government can go. National security is no longer state defense and intelligence. Commerce treasury, interior, these Homeland Security all of these can be far more had important and unless we really train and educate people along the line, were going to be way behind the power curve let me give you a final example. One of the things we dont do is to train and prepare flag in general offices when theyre flag and general officers. Ive been on the Advisory Board of the supreme ally command to europe for dozen years and have gone with four commanders. Jim jones, john, jim, and phil how much time do you think any of them had to prepare for that job . Anybody want to guess . Zero. Ive got two vice admirable sitting here in the audience who will tell you the same thing. Generals or admiral you go to a new job you dont have time to prepare for this. British take senior offices and give them two or three months so they have things that can be done in the second part of the bock if you read youll understand. If we do it we wont be engaged in lack the understanding, jolt and we lose and ill tell you theres nothing worse than losing i spent a lot of time in vietnam and believe me i bear some of those scars. Thank you very much. [applause] and so well get to you as quickly as we can. The Atlantic Council loves book events, but we love even more the ability to discuss issues in depth and try to reach conclusions. And so we always try to marry a book event with people who have expertise where they can comment on it, they can ask questions, and they can reflect. Im going to pass to susan and ed, but before i do just so you start thinking about it, i have sort of two reflections myself. One of them is 9 11. That wasnt a war we started. Or was it . And then was shock and awe in afghanistan the right response, and did we go too far. So keep this in your mind. And then the other thing is to what extent everything youre listing sort of starts going more seriously awry at the end of the cold war. Yep. We lose some of our bearings. So these are my first kind of questions. But let me turn to susan and then to ed for your comments and your reflections. Well, thank you. First of all, fred, thank you very much for the invitation to be here at the Atlantic Council and, harlan, i got an enormous amount out of your book and thought your summary just now was a very elegant way to bring everyone in this room up to speed. Its a little overwhelming to start first here since i have so many things i want to say not only about your book, but this great introduction youve just given. I think that youve done a brilliant job of describing the failure to think strategically. And so im always searching, having been in the Foreign Policy area for more than 30 years now, ive always been searching for the higher idea. Yes, we dont do strategy very well, but at one point in our history at least during a period that i have studied and im sure many others here in this room have too, thats world war ii actually, we did strategy really pretty well then. And it was a collaborative effort with our allies, but it was complicated. And one thing that strikes me thats different about world war ii and this period you describe is that in those days strong leadership was defined as being flexible. As bringing with it a capacity and a skill to compromise. After world war ii as america emerged as a great superpower, id like to think that that kind of agility existed throughout the 1950s. You would understand why i say that. [laughter] but certainly, as weve gone farther and farther away from world war ii strong leadership is increasingly defined as someone who digs his heels in and wont and is standing firm. I actually heard Winston Churchill in the never, never give in actually quoted in response to u. S. Domestic policy. I thought, wow, okay. I think somebody needs to go back and read when that, you know, that monumental speech was given. In any case, this failure to be flexible then justifies taking tough positions that put us in an uncompromising situation. I would also say that in thinking about all this and, fred, last time i was at Atlantic Council, i had the great honor of coming and speaking up for one of my mentors, general andrew j. Goodpastor. And i was so fortunate to know many of their generation. They took me under their wings when i first came to washington. One i didnt meet because he really goes back in the mist of time, is a very famous general in army circles named fox connor. Fox connor served as John Pershings righthand person during world war i, he went on to be Dwight Eisenhowers mentor, etc. But he was a man, i think, of few words, very pithy but always right on target according to George Marshall and dwight can eisenhower. Anyway dwight eisenhower. Anyway, he said never fight unless you have to, never fight alone, never fight for long. And i think what happens in this country is because we are inflexible, we dig our heels in, then we get into longer and longer engagements. And the longer they get, the more we have to justify this to the public. And we do this by continuing to ramp up, you know, the notion of the threat itself. I mean, were sitting here in washington thinking that, you know, that there are boogiemen under all kinds, every kind of bogeyman under our beds. Ive never seen such a group of terrified people, and yet the things that harlan points out so well in his book that could be employed, you know, to alleviate and prioritize the threats to this country, these arent even being tried. So well done, harlan susan, thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to be here. Ed. Thats brilliant, susan, thank you. Likewise, thank you very much, fred. And thank you, harlan. Its a genuine honor for you to invite me up here even if you way overrated my capabilities. Well, actually, i would say that hes not overrated your capabilities [laughter] which is true, but hes given you your next book project. He has, yes. To go on the road. [inaudible conversations] im going to, ill get into the book in a moment which i think is everything a book should be. Its provocative,st clear, and i think its its clear, and i think its pretty much correct. But im going to pick up on what susan said about the Second World War not just because you made the good point although i couldnt help thinking when you were saying people misquoting churchill, i suddenly had we shall abolish obamacare on the beaches [laughter] and not just because ive never said that. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] not just because your grandfather played such a central role in the Second World War, but because the Second World War is the last war that america got into not voluntarily, but got into for noble reasons with a clear path to victory. And its not just noble reasons, this is, you know, in history probably in terms of black and white view events, the most white approach you could have to any war. This is the just war of human history. And it was a war americans didnt want to go into, wasnt prepared for, didnt have an entrenched bureaucracy, didnt have the 20th century pentagon that you rightly bemoan that we still have. It didnt have any of these things. It had to think up strategy and devise military approaches on the hoof. It had to improvise. It had to use brains. It had to, it had to innovate on the spot. And thats extraordinarily fine hour in terms of American History and any countrys history. And so i think of that partly because thats the last real war in which none of us have any doubt. And you do a brilliant job of going through every single other war since then and casting doubt on them. I think also of another great Person Associated with the Atlantic Council with whom i did a book event here, brzezinski, and him talking to me about afghanistan. He was immensely kind for a relatively young person coming to washington, an immensely kind mentor. When i asked advice, he would give it fully, and it was brilliant. And he described being given x number of afghan soldiers, x number of afghan troops, this targets being met, that targets being met, and his response was so whos training the taliban . And it was a really good question because the answer was nobody. Nobodys training the taliban. And there was a [inaudible] sort of ratio of x number per week. Like the kill ratio, weve all watched the ken burns, the extraordinary ken burns documently series. Like documentary series. Like that mcnamara delusion that metrics give you a false comfort. Were still doing that in afghanistan. Were still talking about how many people we train. Were not talking about how many desert, just how many we train. Which gets me on to a third very, very brief analogy. You mentioned that were all here for expertise. I have no military expertise, so im probably here under false pretenses. Im slightly less unexpert in politics. And the analogy i kept thinking of when you were talking about this great, great reliance on technology that we are sort of putting our faith and budgets in on drones, on data and our intelligence budgets too, not just our military budgets. This is a data worship. The analogy i kept thinking of was Hillary Clintons campaign. Where is the knowledge on the ground yep. Right. Where is the understanding of context of local conditions. Now, the pentagon have this wonderful phrase, Situational Awareness is a force multiplier. Which in english means if you know where you are, you dont need so many men or women. And you make this point, i think, very, very forcefully; knowledge of context, brains but also strategic knowledge, is something we havent had at senior levels since the bush senior administration. Absolutely. The last four president s in different ways not just this one have really badly failed on that count. Which brings me on to my final point, because i know that expertise in this room greatly exceeds mine. So i dont want to take up any more air time. You recommend very, very strongly a strategic approach, which we havent had, a brain space, a 21st century [inaudible] mindset and knowledge of culture of the world that were dealing with. With which i fully agree. But i do have a question. How on earth are we going to get there . Were going the wrong direction. Most of us abhor donald trump, but the democratic partys sole Foreign Policy is russia, and its not Foreign Policy, its for domestic reasons. Thats the democratic partys view of the world. Its that russia is the number one gee no political foe. Geopolitical foe. Its mitt romneys line from 2012. They dont have really a view on china. The view on trade, to the extent they have one, is to be more populist than trump because trump isnt delivering. So where is the brain space, strategic mindset going to come from yep. Is, i guess, the question im left with. Great question. I think well come back to you, harlan, first to respond to these things. Before you do and to my initial question as well. Before you do, i think just because we have the value of susan here and aside from all your other work, you know a lot about president eisenhower. Somehow he came out of world war ii with everything he experienced and wasnt hungry for more military engagement. E explain explain that to us. It seems with everybody year the revaluations of his presidency that he rises further and further in peoples estimation, and then well come to harlan to answer the well, i think he was, he had a sort of a complex upbringing. I dont think this is entirely the reason, but few people realize he was raised in a passive household. And like ulysses s. Grant, he went to west point because he needed to get an education, and they would pay you if you went to the military academy. So he was really he certainly wasnt a soldier who loved war. He was a soldier who served his country and rather like the fox connor quote i just gave you, you only go to war if you have to. He was, he really believed in americas power was in, was derived in large measure through restraint and the problem is every time we go off on one of these escapades as you have so artfully articulated for us, we actually lose a little bit more of our power. As a matter of fact, were more inclined to use our power today at very point where we, perhaps, have never been weaker. During the Eisenhower Administration all the way up until the Reagan Administration, we were the Worlds Largest creditor nation. And from the early 90s, we became the Worlds Largest debtor nation. This is an absolute diminishment of our power and our priorities. I dont know what that was about him, but he was really serving a higher cause, and it wasnt, it wasnt about war. It was about serving a higher cause. Thank you. Harlan. And then [inaudible conversations] im going to be very brief. These are great comments. I would just amplify susan. When you think about our great generals colin powell and whether you agree with Dave Petraeus or not, but people who have really served they feel the same way. So this is part, if youve known war, then you know that theres a better alternative, and this is part of the military institution. And that is a great strength. I will not get into a debate. You make a good point about september 11th, who started it. But i will say this what was our objective in afghanistan on september 12th . We did not have one. If Osama Bin Laden had been tilled in tora bora killed in tora bora in november as he should have been be it had not been because of the incompetence of a certain general who i will not name, it would have been over. There was a brigadier by the name of jim mattis, you may have heard that name, with a thennavy captain seal named steve harwood. No, bob harwood, who had a plan based on how geronimo was run down by the army in 1867 in the sierra madre to capture bin laden. The finest altitude fighting force in the world, by the way, is the u. S. Marine corps who trained at fort drum at 600 feet. So if we had gotten bin laden then, it would have been over. Once we went in, the taliban were toppled, we were focused on iraq, iraq, iraq, and afghanistan was a secondary war. Regardless of who started it, we used afghanistan as a pretext to change the geostrategic landscape of the middle east. Regarding shock and awe, unfortunately, it has a bad name because it not necessarily a military instrument. This is out of sun tzu, and it pays pains me to say who is the best example of shock and awe . Ill give you two initials, v. P. , vladimir putin. He puts a handful of troops in syria, he fires some cruise missiles from the caspian, half of them land in iran. And all of a sudden this is a superpower. I mean, this is shock and awe. And this is what the russians have done in many ways brilliantly because theyve used their brains, sadly, and we have not. You make a great point, ed. We may not be able to fix the situation. I have argued for a long time that perhaps a political system invented by the best minds of the 18th century cannot withstand the 21st century. And its a problem. If you make the joint chiefs only the joint chiefs for strategic advice and if you begin to attack assumptions, you may make progress. But my concern is the next president is going to follow the pattern of the last four president s. And the good news is that we do not face, in my judgment, existential threat. The reality is that no longer is the american promise what it is. Whats going to happen, in my view if we dont change things, is that standards of living are going to decline over time, future generations are not going to live as well as we do, our generation. And the fact of the matter is, welcome to the 21st century. But this is not existential. Could we do better . Yes. But the political system now has become so broken, is so polarized youre either with us or against us. Both parties have lost their minds and their souls, and theres no alternative. But the good news is its not existential. And those of us in this room will probably live pretty well, but future generations may not do that. Thank you, harlan. Any comments from the two of you, or shall we pick up some questions . Lets pick up whoa. [laughter] the questions that i saw first, lets go here and then well come up here. Lots of questions. In fact and identify yourself for other people in the room, who you want to address the question to or whether you want it to the whole panel and finish [inaudible] member of the Atlantic Council board. My comment is to harlan. The most successful American Intervention has been in lebanon in 1968 under president eisenhower. Absolutely. Yep. There was a civil war. We sent the marines, but we told both sides stop it. We had people who knew lebanon, we had good diplomats, we had a good cia, and these guys took us seriously. And i think we should really emphasize what happened then. I agree with you. 60 years ago. Unfortunately, things have changed and not for the better. [inaudible] thank you, fred, and thank you, harlan. Its great to be back with please dont ask me about pakistan. Please. [laughter] im [inaudible] im the former founding director of the founding director, that means youre always going to be the founding director. [laughter] and now a distinguished fellow. Great to see you. And trying to decipher what happened since 2008 in the region and the u. S. Relationship in your book. I entirely agree with the point that i think both susan and harlan made which is, you know, it reminds me of lewis carroll, you know, famous quote. When you dont know where youre going, any road will take you there. That seems to be the approach that weve taken. But my question to harlan is how to we get out . How do we get out . You know, you examined how we got into wars and how we last wars lost wars. I think we need to examine why we find it difficult to exit conflicts. We are now in a conflict in afghanistan that has been going on for 16 years. Thats multiples of what world war ii was about. Why cant we stop digging that hole . For all the reasons that you mentioned, you know, whether its the numbers for the attrition, eds point about number of people being trained, body bags, all those counts, what can we do about exiting . Can we learn maybe even from the soviets and the november 1986 politboro meeting when they decided quietly that they would leave two years later, but they said we have to go to the region and get people on our side . Were not doing any of that. What can we do differently thatll work . Well, maybe nothing. And so one im going to pick up one more. Im going to pick up one more, but i think actually looking at afghanistan through the prism of your book and the fact that were there now and have to make decisions is a really good question. So one more and then well come back to you. I see a bunch of others. Oh, hi, wow. Im the ambassador of the republic of kosovo, so obviously many are going to consider my remarks biased. But i dont think america has lost every war it has started. I believe the kosovo story is a true example of america winning the war. And there might be different explanations to it, but i believe, number one, america didnt act alone. It brought together a large coalition. And it entered into the war only when it became the last resort. There was a long, intensive, extensive process of negotiations that failed. And the war in kosovo was won without even one u. S. Soldier losing their life. And today kosovo is by far the most proamerica nation on earth. So i dont think that america has lost every war, first. And secondly, i think that the notion of victory has changed, has evolved. We dont consider any longer a victory only removing a dictator, changing a regime. Now victory is considered much more. Its associated with democracy, with liberalism. So i think this is where we get it wrong. So maybe we should redefine the notion of victory and what winning a war means. But by all terms, you have won and we have won the war this kosovo. So maybe we should learn from our examples of success. Let me take that question thanks for that. And then thanks. You could argue that the [inaudible] world war ii with the germans and the japanese. My concern about kosovo was that it took 78 days, it should have taken 78 minutes. And how many kosovo people died in the interim. It was a horribly executed campaign by nato, unfortunately. We destroyed very, very, very little. The serbs were brilliant at disinformation, hiding in am camouflage. And even though things worked out, 78 days was too long a price. That was my consideration. If we had started using Ground Forces initially, that would have been over much more quickly, i think with longer lasting consequences. Because right now the balkans are still a potentially blazing area. Not just kosovo, but the rest of the region. So i dont think its over there, its over yet. But the fact is that that was badly handled for a lot of reasons based on president ial refusal to take the action that was necessary. Because we have the pleasure of the ambassador being here, would you mind if of course not. A little bit of a discussion here . Hold on for a second for the microphone. Well, of course we would have liked being kosovar myself, you know, 18 years ago i was a refugee. Millions of kosovars had to of course. Leave their homes. And there were thousands of people who lost their lives. Of course we would have preferred a quicker victory, grand troops, but then that wouldnt have been victory by your terms because Many Americans would have lost their lives. Oh, on the contrary. Milosevic would have keeled over in a heartbeat. And remember who introduced the threat of Ground Forces, the russians. I mean, poor wes clark who was the commander, the reason he got fired or, actually, he was retired early, was because he was demanding Ground Forces all along. So my concern was we waited too long, it took too long, it should have been over, and we could have had a better outcome than has transpired. But youre right when the war was over, when the war was over, kosovo is a better, safer place now not only kosovo, the entire region is well, well see. Its a working problem. Its still Unfinished Business very much so. And thats probably one of the failures on u. S. Foreign policy, the lack of ability to follow up. Really . Like in the Second World War with the marshall plan. [laughter] we dont follow up . How can you possibly say that . The rest of the balkans is pretty much Unfinished Business. I hope youre right. More prosperous than it has ever been, and i think you won that war. As a kosovar well, im glad to hear you say that. So as an american, thank you for your gratitude absolutely. [laughter] and thank you for your service. Lets move on to something easy, afghanistan. First of all, one of the things about shock and awe was whats the outcome you want. World war ii, what was your grandfathers instructions . Occupy europe and destroy the German Military machine. Boom. We dont set right outcomes. In iraq the second time, nobody asked what next. I was a talking head on fox, all the legitimate talking heads on fox asked the same question, what next. So youve got to know what youre doing. Secondly, its very difficult for president s to extricate themselves. Lyndon johnson wanted to get out of vietnam. How did you do it . How could you do it . Richard nixon took four years, five years. And so youve got to stand up and be able to say, look, this is a losing proposition, we have to do these kinds of things. And i think that the way that this really can be done better, if you have an nsc in congress, congress can start probably is to have people start asking that question before you get engaged. Because if we dont and if our knowledge and understanding is weak, if were getting in for reasons of expediency, Political Campaign promises or ideology, were going to lose, and were not going to do were going to fail in our mission. But its a problem. Its a problem. Do either one of you want to comment on kosovo or afghanistan . No . Okay, great. So i theres so many people with questions, ill do my best. Here and then david and then, please. Well take these next three, please. Thank you. This is a great talk. Doug brooks, afghanamerican chamber of commerce. I know you well, doug. [inaudible] exactly. Yeah. Just two quick points and then one afghan question. Panama and el salvador would be two examples that maybe push back on your model no, we provoked in panama and so forth, yeah. And on afghanistan perhaps some other conflicts, if we go with maybe a south korea model, sort of a longterm engagement and operation instead of a were going to win this and be out in ten days model, maybe that may be a more successful way to do it. I cant remember the first time bob, when did we go to afghanistan with jim jones . 2005, 6 . I cant remember. [inaudible] ive been to afghanistan, more importantly pakistan. The problem was, it was a mess. And the reason it was a mess, we did not fully understand the culture of the pashtuns, we didnt fully understand the decentralization, we didnt understand the notion that all taliban are pashtun, but not all pashtun are taliban. And when we went in with nato, we guided the war so stupidly. I mean, i forget who was in charge, but it didnt work. We had 18 provisional reconstruction teams. None of them talked to the others. And so this was war by committee. And we didnt or and then the aid that we brought was so badly conducted because of, you know, the drug problems, the corruption, etc. , etc. , etc. And so we should have stepped back, and we should have used a brainsbased approach saying what can we possibly do and do it well. But every mistake that could have been made in afghanistan, we made ten times over. In fact, the russians were trying to be helpful because they tried everything we did, provisional and we just were too arrogant to listen. And so now were stuck. And going back to susans point, what will it take to make a change . David jones was a chairman of the joint chiefs of staff 40 years ago. David was a great chairman, and he said its going to take a crisis. Right now the pain that were suffering in afghanistan, syria and iraq is certainly below the tolerance level or i should say its tolerable. We start sending a lot of people home in body bags and maybe the incident in niger in which four servicemen were killed and that caused a real hullabaloo, maybe that will make a difference. But unfortunately, we got afghanistan when the constitution was a disaster. We had to make, we had to make a negotiation. Youve got Abdullah Abdullah and ashraf ghani who hate each other. Afghanistan is the worst of all worlds. And quite frankly, i think the only way out is to begin reducing our presence and containing, because if were going to stay for the long term, its going to cost huge amounts of money and blood and treasure, and we cannot turn afghanistan into something that its not capable of being. Id like to go on to other questions. Also, i think your point on a postconflict which is not this book, but the south korean postconflict, germany postconflict, we could learn a lot if you have an occupying army, things tend to work out better. Especially when the other side has capitulated. Remember in germany and japan there was no terror, american soldiers were not killed. I mean, they had really surrendered. That has not happened elsewhere. David [inaudible] George Washington university. I regret that im still on afghanistan, but thank you for writing this provocative book that im looking forward to finishing. Ive only just started. But i have another afghan question where youve served. Hmn . Where youve served. As a diplomat. Yeah. I would question whether its really an american war anymore. I guess what i would say is this my forefathers fought and sometimes died for an empire, the british empire. And they understood hooray. That to have [laughter] but they understood that to have a fair amount of power in the world you sometimes had to give in blood and treasure. And its sometimes a longterm project. We did the same in korea and japan. Yeah. And i really think as my colleague here did that afghanistan is not so much a war as a longterm project to keep an area of the world, to make it unfavorable space for the development of terrorist organizations that can attack the United States. And really thats all. Its still going to be a mess. Of course it is. But we cant leave, i dont think. And were also not dying in any kind of numbers. So i dont really think it fits with your thesis, and i would just push back. Im not sure what youre pushing back on. I agree with you, its not in the sense of war today, but when we went in, i think its failed because its taken 16 years and because we have people who are fighting. I think its failed because we didnt use a good brainsbased approach. We got our assumptions wrong. And as i said, if we had killed Osama Bin Laden in november, december of 2001, we would be out of there. So i see this much more as a quagmire, and its someplace that were stuck politically. Its going to be very, very difficult to get out. And, quite frankly, the islamic threat has spread worldwide right now. Afghanistan is not going to be the breeding place. And the point is, if you go in, you want to win. The ambassadors question about how do you define victory. It should have been a more stable country with some semblance of the rule of law, nothing more than that, and weve not been able to achieve that and, quite frankly, i dont see how its going to be achievable for the next god knows how many years. Ive got far too many questions, im only going to be able to take three more. One there, mic there and here. I apologize. If the questions come really fast, i might be able to go to a fourth, but then well wait and go back to you for a final round. Please. Lori [inaudible] thank you very much for this terrific book. I havent had the chance to read it, but i say as americans we tend to be a bit smug, and i think youve shot a big hole in that smugness. My question is actually in two parts. Whether the problem that you describe doesnt also involve the centric focus of the powermaking elite, that part of the problem in vietnam, in the war on terror is people dont know much about these areas. We focus on europe, russia, china yep. And whether that relates to the question of cultural knowledge of these remoter areas like the middle east, like sunnishia. And also what you mentioned about which would be know the enemy, sun tzu. But were the best, you know, weve got the best technology when it comes to airplanes and tanks, and we conceive of war as one tank shooting at another tank or an airplane at an airplane, and the rest of the world and people have said this by developing different kinds of warfare, hybrid warfare, putin. And were not very good at dealing with that because it involves cultural knowledge of which we are abysmal, and the british were better in their time. So thats the first part of my question. [laughter] thats not the real problem. The second part applies specifically to the war on terror. Theres an excellent article in der spiegel from about two years ago describing the core of isis as the former iraqi regime and albaghdadi is nothing but a figurehead. We dont have a discussion about that here in washington but if that article is correct, when were fighting the war against isis in the absolutely wrong way, providing a cover for saddams former regime to draw on islamic sentiment. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mike [inaudible] hi, if youve already dealt with this, sorry, i was late, then you can skip to the next issue. But what about korea . Here is this cavalier talk about nuclear war and people who ostensibly know better saying who . Well, i always thought maybe incorrectly that Lindsey Graham was supposed to know about stuff, talked rather cavalierly that, well, itll be okay because all the dead people will be koreans. You know, youre sitting there in this seat, what do you do about korea . You fast forwarded to my final question to the whole panel, so thats terrific. And i think lets take this. The origin question was why u. S. Loses, and unfortunately the comment about the nature of the world having changed because of the demographics which was not stated but its an important aspect and the u. S. Is economically not being half of the worlds economy, whatever, after world war ii. But most importantly, the real reason that i dont hear ever stated anywhere is simply the fact that basically the u. S. Would not even be able to win world war ii name because of the geneva conventions, human rights and all the laws of war and constraints on the military that make it unwinnable. And thats the dirty secret thats not even mentioned anywhere. Now, and the prediction is simple, its only to going to get worse. Thank you very much. And i think we do have time, this is the last question. So, please [inaudible] yeah. Brigadier general [inaudible] deputy army nice to see you. Flag officers did come i appreciate the panel. I would have called on you earlier. I didnt wear my asus, i will next time. My question is, you talk about the president s role in entering war and then you talk and critique the pentagon i dont critique the pentagon. I mean, well im sorry, i did not read the book. But you provide some recommendations for how the dod can perform better. I was just interested on your thoughts of the role of the cia and how they could better so, harlan, keep all this in your head. Were going to do this final round opposite the way we started. And so ed and then susan and then you. And with ed and susan, you may deal with anything else youve heard here, but particularly, you know, youre reporting this, youre observing this. How do you think north koreas situation is likely to unfold from what youre seeing . Because on the one hand, it could fit into this book which is was it provoked, was it not provoked well, i do cover this. Well, guide. I just always well, good. I just always assumed there wasnt a good end, and im starting to hear from people that are reexamining whether or not thats true. Lets start with harlan. Ill give you a Quick Response to, just a couple of points. One i think the british are overestimated. Were just not using our knowledge of ireland right now, and we havent for 800 years. [laughter] were in america. Which, of course, was, you know, lost in an asymmetric war in which, essentially, washington was leading the taliban. But we were better looking. Better looking. Excuse me. And wonderful hats. [laughter] and then one other point which i want to reinforce that you just made. I mean, you mentioned numbers and kill ratios. We think that how many people we kill or are capable of killing is a measure of our potency. A little number that occurred and that was very little reported in the last few days, estimates of the collateral damage, the civilians killed in the isis bombing campaigns in syria and iraq yeah. Are between 56,000, double what was killed on 9 11. Not even meriting a story of its own, just news in brief. This is a lot of people who have been killed that dont bother us who are, happen to be in the vicinity basically held hostage by these former baathist people, these eye us people. Isis people. And we need to Pay Attention to those numbers. So on north korea so im reinforcing your point there. On north korea i just had this wonderful thing, a lunch with the ft with daniel ellsberg. Lunch at the ft, as you might know, is this weekly interview. And hes got this book coming out, titled the doomsday machine, and hes alarmed and has a certain perspective. We were discussing the accelerated nature of kim jong uns timetable and how he keeps beating our expectations both in terms of the nuclear yields and the missile range. And clearly what Lindsey Graham has said about South Koreans not mattering, what trump has indicated about japanese and South Koreans not mattering removes a deterrent that kim jong un might have thought a red line with america used to have but doesnt have anymore. And so hes accelerating to develop the one threat that apparently, the only threat that america really cares about, the ability to strike the mainland. Because the japanese dont matter, the south, its perfectly rational for him to accelerate his program. So hes going to test a Hydrogen Bomb in the atmosphere at some point. He has to to make the icbm range credible. He needs to marry it he has to demonstrate that. And thats, when that will happen, it could be next week, it could be never. I dont know, wouldnt dare predict. But when that happens is when trumps going to realize finally that this promise he could never keep which is that north korea wont go nuclear because it was already nuclear before he was elected, this promise he cant keep he now cant bluff his way out of. And thats going to be the moment of acute danger for the residents of seoul and possibly tokyo. Im not making any prediction. But brilliant book, excellent book. Really, everybody should buy it. [inaudible] well, im struggling with myself to figure out how im going to allot my time here with what i want to say, but i guess i think one of the great challenges to our capacity to put together a really coherent strategy is that we suffer from Massive Group think in this city, that if you dont agree with the new consensus that has developed, then youre called names, you have your reputations damaged. I spent almost 30 years of my career going to the the soviet union and russia, and i am watching terrifically talented people who have a deep cultural understanding of that country being called names, being called unpatriotic, being called treasonous to, and as long as we have this kind of attitude which, by the way, we can control in this city. We can control how collegial we are with each other, how we open these kinds welcome these open kinds of brainstormings. Let me tell you a quick story. I sat on a doe Commission Department of energy. Department of energy, sorry, to analyze the potential for radiological dispersion device. And we had all of the experts from the laboratories, all this on this panel, and, well, they did a fine job. I have to tell you, only rich people would think like this. So i raised my hand and i said you know how we were attacked on 9 11. A group of people, a small group of people actually weaponized a commercial airliner and use it against used it against us. Now, this is the kind of leverage that groups of people who do not have the resources would think of. Do we have a terrorism expert on this panel . No, we didnt. Do we have anybody who could convene a group of people who think, you know, in a completely different way . Well, they couldnt. And i dont actually know, im sure after my, you know, abrupt comments that somebody went off and said something, and maybe thats the reason the panel came to its glorious end. [laughter] but not to have a terrorism expert while were trying to decide how these things are used. And so thats part of group think too. We were all there probably to get somebody a contract to study radiological dispersion devices when, in fact, this is a real deal. And so thats sort of my plea to this group. This is where id say we start, harlan, how to we start to enact some of the great ideas youve got in your book . Lets start right here. Lets start by making it possible for people who know something about these cultures to be able to speak without fear of being called, you know, outside the norm. Because, frankly, in any Smart Society anything thats been going on for 16 years where you keep doubling down instead of readjusting says that theres something wrong with the elite. The elite that makes these decisions and continues to throw good money after money that has not fulfilled its objective. And thank you so much. Time for your epilogue. [laughter] first of all, thank you for coming and thank you for the questions. Ill try to be exceedingly brief. To the generals point, i have huge admiration for what the pentagon is doing. We are now entering a hollow force. Youve got 58 brigade combat teams, three are ready to fight tonight. That is not your fault. Navy collisions, all the things that are happening there. One in three watches underway in port, that is outrageous. The air force is 2,000 pilots short at least. And so we have a huge problem. God bless john mccain and Mac Thornberry and jim mattis and joe dun forksd but theyre not going to be listened to, because youre not going to get the budget you need. And unfortunately, were going to have to look at how to we change our requirements and, indeed, reduce our number of forces to fit the budget which were going to get. And the pentagon i admire enormously for dealing under these circumstances. About the cia, i have huge qualms about the cia because management becomes a requirement. My notion for a very long time was to take a noahs arc approach, one of each species, and make them experts in areas. I go into the book where a graduate student at fletcher who was there not to study, but to do other things preferably with coeds worked his way up to be foreign minister and then Prime Minister of libya. They were coming out of the closet. We didnt recognize it. But if we had cia people who were able to mature and there are op to sit numbers in these areas countries, thats the best way to do it. Your question, one of the reasons we cant do this is because weve got too Many Organizations of government, nobodys in charge. Who is in charge of cyber in the United States . Anybody want to tell me . If i do, youll write me a check for a million dollars. You wont be able to cash it, by the way. [laughter] whos in charge of active measures . Nobody. We have a real problem of Decision Making and authorization there. About korea, north korea, id make two points. Do not panic and do not overtweet. The balancing [laughter] effort is going to be china. China is not entirely unhappy that north koreas developing Nuclear Weapons. And by the way, if any of you remember the glomar explorer of 45 years ago that Howard Hughes had which rescued a hotel submarine, a russian, soviet submarine, i hope were doing that with the warheads or the rockets that are coming back that the koreans are shooting up, because my guess is theyre much further away than what they expect to be. In 1949 stalin got the bomb, and we panicked. In 1964 mao, who was nuts, got the bomb, and we panicked. Kim jong un may not be in charge of korea, he may be a figurehead. I dont know that, but its something to think about. Korea wants to get to a point where they have a deterrent. Once they do, china does not want to push too far and let korea go too far. I am sure the chinese have warned us i cant vouch for this that if we were to use Nuclear Weapons against north korea, china would enter the war. Im convinced we have got that message. And so what we need to do is realize this is not the end of the world. We need to use diplomacy, i hope we are sending negotiators to kim. There are confidencebuilding measures that we could take. There are 20,000 pieces of artillery and rocketry just north of the Demilitarized Zone that could to obliterate seoul, and in a matter of 30 minutes deliver the equivalent of two hiroshima bombs of conventional ordinance. Anybody who thinks a war there is not going to kill hundreds of thousands of people or more is nuts. So this notion were going to bury you, its counterproductive. We have to say lets be, let us not panic and let us not overtweet. I think the message to take away is that the United States is a lot stronger than we think if we do as Susan Eisenhower recommends, use our brains and not our wallets. And that transformation will be, perhaps, the most remarkable thing that we can do. And to that end, the huge debts and deficits that we are acquiring in part from this tax bill but also from uncontrollable spending may be the best thing that has hit us in a long time because its going to force us, as i said, to use our brains and not our pocketbooks. Thank you all very much for coming. [applause] so just one minute in closing. First of all, ed, the name of your book was time to start thinking . Which is another great book. You have to go read it. But i think the bottom line of this is its time to start thinking. The Atlantic Council exists for this kind of discussion. Not that everyone will agree with what harlan is saying. We had a great debate on kosovo, a good discussion on afghanistan. But its time to start thinking and talking about these issues. We think its an Inflection Point in history perhaps as important as 1919, 1945. You can pick your own Inflection Points in history. How the u. S. Responds at this point in history has outsized importance. And because of that, this kind of discussion also has outsized importance. So thank you for these wonderful panelists. There are refreshments outside, there are books outside. Thank you. [laughter] [applause] i love the title of your book, by the way. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] and now on booktv, Silicon Valley historian Leslie Berlin described the growth of the Major Technology Industries Including personal computing, video games and biotechnology. Shes introduced by and in conversation with marguerite gong hancock, the founding executive director of the computer history museums exponential center. In an Information Age version of florence and the renaissance during 196918976 1976 and within the space of just 35 square miles, there was a big bang here in Silicon Valley. The valley was the epicenter of,