The Commonwealth Club online program, i am gloria, president and ceo of the common club, i was honored to serve as a Deputy Assistant secretary of defense in the 1990s. There are many issues today surrounding National Defense in our military, should the military be used with domestic unrest such as the recent protest, should the u. S. Be terminating many of her arm controlled treaties and contemplating resuming the clear testing. Should the names of Confederate Military leaders be removed from u. S. Military bases and theres got to be removed from our Public Places . To address these questions and many more, today will have a unique conversation between two recent secretaries of defense, doctor robert gaetz and general james mattis. As a bipartisan secretary of defense secretary robert gaetz served under george w. Bush and barack obama, he is the author of a new book, exercise of power, american failures, successes and a new path forward in the postcold war world. Doctor gaetz was an officer in the u. S. Air force and spent 27 years of the cia. He served as cia director and became the first career officer in the cia history to move from entrylevel employees ahead of the agency. Secretary gaetz served as the Security Council staff in four different administrations and for eight president s of both Political Parties. For his numerous professional contribution, secretary was awarded the president ial medal of freedom, the nations highest civilian award by president obama. He is also a threetime recipient of the distinguished intelligence medal, one of the cias most procedures honors. In conversation with him today is general james mattis, general mattis served as her 26 secretary of defense from 2017. He is now the babies family distinguished fellow at Stanford University who were into station, general mattis served over 40 years in the marine corps starting as an infantry officer, he later served as commander of the u. S. Joint forces command it is nato Supreme Commander for transportation. General mattis also directed the military operation of more than 200,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen coast guard and marines. And as commander as a u. S. Central command. He commanded forces of the persian gulf war, the war in afghanistan and the iraq war. He has been all spoken recently about the president s use of military troops and domestic unrest in washington. Please join me now in welcoming doctor robert gaetz and general james mattis for the very unique conversation. Thank you, doctor, its a pleasure to be here with the Commonwealth Club, its been devoted to finding proof with over 100 years, we all recognize that he grew into his leadership role with a wealth of background in a very tough position. Secretary yates is my former boss, predecessor in office and inspiring role model, he was i in one recent review of the foot soldier who rises in command and reading your book, one that i would be reassured or required reading for president and cabinet officers when they come into office, i was struck by you attributing a large part of americas 25 year decline and status and prestige and his failure of postcold war president and congress to recognize resource and offensively use what you call personal nonmilitary instruments of power. Can you explain this fundamental failure and the significance of the title in for your book. Principal thank you to the Commonwealth Club for inviting me. The germ of the book where it began with a question in my mi mind, of how the United States had gone from a position of supreme power probably unrivaled since the roman empire in every dimension of power in 1993 to a country today that is set by challenges everywhere. I thought about how did that happen, how did we get here so i began looking at all the challenges that weve had since 1993 and thinking about what we have done what we had not done that contributed to the decline in our role in the world in our power in the world. , what i came up with was a set of nonmilitary instruments of power that have played such an Important Role in our success in the cold war against the soviet unions and it largely had been neglected and withered after the end of the cold war, at a time where we continue to fund our military, we basically dismantled all of the nonmilitary instruments of power, diplomacy, economic leverage in Strategic Communication and more, we can go into that later. As i looked at the situation at these challenges from somalia and haiti in 1993 and others, right up to our relationship with russia and china today, north korea, it occurred to me that we have failed in many respects to figure out how to compete with these powers outside of the military realm. In th the reality is 15 challens that i write about for all purposes, i consider 13 to be failures, thats white in the title the word failure comes first, theres a couple of successes and their important successes and thats to be learned as well. But we had a lot of problems during the 27 year period and i would just conclude by saying the wars in iraq and afghanistan both began with very quick military victories. The problem that identifying whether was iraq and afghanistan wars to mali or haiti or others was once we had achieved military victory, we then changed their mission and decided to move to try to bring democracy and reform the government of those countries and thats where we ran into failure. Id like to go into more deeply than what you mentioned, the symphony of power. And they took a few notes from your book, you give a brief overview of the type of instrument you are referring to and where they might be more apropos goal or most likely then used in the Military Form of power. And if they are not played, why are they not played, historically what are these instruments, what do you look to that bring the forefront here. The instruments of power are obviously the military that i would also say cyber in my opinion cyber has become the most effective weapon that a nation can have because they can accomplish military political and economic harm for the ones adversary, its difficult to identify who perpetrated the attack, cyber attack, it takes time to figure out contribution in more damage in the more important it is to identify exactly what of the zeros came from and cyber is a huge player now in a way that it is never been before, can dismantle or disarm weapons and redirect weapons, it can shut down infrastructure and its a very versatile weapon and it does not take the time in enormous expenditure of dollars or money of a Nuclear Enterprise or chemical or biological would represent. So i think cyber is a very important one and weve been pretty good about developing for military purposes but i think we have not taken advantage of it an offensive way with either either political or economic targets another important instrument is an economic measure and these can be both carrots and sticks and the truth is as they make the point in the book, we develop the sticks part of the economic instrument pretty well, we levy sanctions on any country that looks at us cross eyed and its become actually very complicated for a lot of companies because we got so many sanctions against the Many Companies figuring out how you can do business internationally and stay within u. S. Laws and become a fulltime enterprise for lawyers and accountants in these companies, we got the sticks part down pretty well, embargoes, tariffs, sanctions and so on. Where we have fallen down and where we once had real capability, how do we use economic assistance or our economy as an asset, as a carrot to encourage and other countries for what we would like them to do or follow policies. Whether its loans and discoun discounts, whether to economic concessions, trade concessions and so on. We are very good at sanctions, were not so hot at figuring out how we might advantage someone in dealing with us. President clinton and president bush were both pretty good with africa when they arranged debt relief or number of african countries back in the 1990s were the early 2000 and that really helped a lot of african countries, thats a rare example of us using economic measures as an instrument of power, Strategic Communication or as we used to call it the cold war propaganda, how do we get our message around the world, the chinese have developed this to an extraordinary degree, couple years ago he allocated 7 billion to the chinese to build a Strategic Communication network around the world, we on the other hand in 1998 dismantled the United StatesInformation Agency and talked what we call Public Diplomacy into a corner of the state department. Period the elements of our government do Strategic Communication but theres no coherent strategy, each goes its own way and we also lack the capabilities and reach that the chinese have. Theres a variety of other instruments that i have just briefly mentioned, things like intelligence and how we use it with other countries, science and technology, higher education, culture, use of nationalism, as we watched russia and china interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, we have failed to use their own nationalistic feelings to help build their resistance to what the chinese and russians and others are doing. Religion is an important instrument, we have not thought about it in that way but religion has played a big part in international affairs, particular since the end of the cold war and all you have to do is look at the role of religion in motivating terrorist to see that it has real power, there are a dozen or more of these instruments and the problem is we have neither resource them nor have we figured out a cohesive strategy, coherent strategy on how to bring them together as a call in the book is a symphony where they played together and each strengthens the other and overall strengthens the hand of the United States in dealing with the rest of the world. Why havent we enlisted these other instruments in the symphony of power, america has the power of intimidation if were threatened obviously an imperfect world, we need the military and we need the cia, why havent we summoned the instruments of inspiration that are so strong in america. What is the reluctance for us to use nonmilitary . It is a tough question to answer, i think part of it is that congress has been reluctant to fund these nonmilitary instruments, really going back to the end of the cold war, it was congress that disestablished usia, it was congress that wanted to disestablish the u. S. Agency for international development, president clinton stop that but still diminished usaid by bringing it under the state Department Rather than independent agency, the congress has not funded the state department properly, the state department has been starved of resources except for a couple of brief periods during the george w. Bush of administration when there was an increase of officers, its been reluctance on the congress and they hate development assistance, theyve considered a waste of time, for going to spend money why are we not spending at home than other countries and they dont see how that can benefit the United States, i think partly its been a big part of the reason of the reluctance of the congress to fund it and in all honesty, the reluctance of the most part of all four administrations to push for such funding, the irony for me, at a time when the congress has become more and more resistant to the use of military force overseas in the aftermath of iraq and afghanistan, the same time they refused to fund or make or robust or nonmilitary instruments that could take the place of some of the military activity. In that regard, you brought up the war in iraq, you mentioned earlier the change of what we call often times the department of Defense Mission creek, we go into iraq and you write in the book that happened so often after the cold war, there was a lack of imagination in the white house and the state department on how to access nongovernment civilian expertise in order to strengthen nonmilitary capabilities, they seemingly had no appreciation that you going to say the importance of the private sector from contractors as an instrument of power and it just begs the question, how can we leverage the private sector, obviously we keep the government out of some market things, we dont want a government run economy, how do we enlist the private sector in enhancing our ability to basically exercise power to again go to the nonmilitary aspects, how do we do that . The first thing is to recognize that it actually has something to contribute and then you can figure out how to make it work, one of the things that frustrated all of us in the department of defense, i made sure all of the iraq and afghan war experience was a relatively few number of civilian experts, there we were engaged in nationbuilding and there we had very few relatively speaking civilian experts who were in country and helping make that happen. One of the estimates ahead some effectiveness in both iraq and afghanistan was something called provincial reconstruction, at a time when we had at the peak of our presence in iraq, we had 170,000 troops in the country and we had 360 civilians in all of the erts and the entire country of iraq, one of the things that i proposed as secretary of defense that got no traction was to go particulate, one of the things that we really could provide help with was helping both afghans and iraqis of improving their farming techniques, and how they took care of their herds and that kind of thing and because theyre both basically rural countries. So i suggested to the state department, why dont you go to our countrys landgrant universities, ive been the president of texas a m and 90 with these universities were doing around the world in terms of faculties working and very hospitable and insecure situations, when and go to the universities and ask them to help, to partner with us and augment what were trying to do in these countries, many of the faculty members were already in those countries so how could we help them and how can we help provide funding and so on. We also had the advantage that the head of the National Association of landgrant universities was a man named peter who had been the president of Michigan State university and the head of usaid under president reagan. Heres a guy who knew what we needed to do and couldve galvanize these universities to really be a powerful partner for us, nothing ever happened. Similarly, i think where we can use the private sector or where we can partner with the private sector is in figuring out how we will counter chinas road initiative, the trillion Dollar Program of infrastructure building ports and airports and highways and sports arenas and so one in most places around the world. A lot of these things are White Elephant projects, they involve a lot of debt for the receiving country, the chinese make these countries sign contracts with Chinese Construction Companies that do these things. They dont pay much attention to doing things honestly or ways that actually benefit the people of the countries that are receiving these, if we can somehow, we cannot compete without, the chinese were there state owned enterprises and statebanks into one can find thh to fund these projects, we cannot do that, our economy and our government does not have got, we are not structured that way, what we have is a private sector that invest all over the world and how could the United States partner with private companies in the United States and incentivizing to invest in some of the developing companies and bring jobs and environmental concerns, bring sustainability and in a way that does not settle these companies with projects into being useless or saddled the countries with huge amounts of debt. We dont really do much in the way to incentivize companies to move down that path, it is a resource that i think we can make better use of. Finally i would say we have all these enormous numbers of churches, charities and others that do projects around the world whether its in terms of health in alleviating or getting rid of diseases or the works of the gaetz foundation in a number of others, they dont want much to do with the government but is there a way we can augment their activities and if we work in partnership with them, how can we Work Together and frankly there isnt much done to try and move down that road, these are just three examples of where i think we have a been very imaginative on how we can leverage our great strength and translate that into efforts of what i would call shaping the International Environment in a way that serves our national interest. We dont need to be altogether in these efforts, after all its the responsibility of the president and the government to advance American Interest and protect American Interest around the world, that means you have to shape the International Environment and these are the tools in which you can used to shape the International Environment. We have tried on many occasions to shape the environment, as you point out, not very frankly successful. We have tried to help multiple countries gain stability, one of the successes was columbia, that one worked, why did that one standout, why did that work when its among a number of dozen of failures. Columbia was a success and it was a success under multiple president s. So by the late 1990s, columbia was on the verge of becoming a narco state, a criminal state, the leftist insurgency was on the verge of being able to take control of the country and the government what made our effort in working with the colombian successful in controlling and defeating, was first of all we have a very Strong Partner in columbia, the president of columbia, the president with a very strong person and honest person, he was determined to defeat, so we started with the president was committed to the democratic principles and the rule of law and he was determined to lead this fight and at considerable risk to himself i thought the second thing that helped us was there were 30 basic institutions in columbia, they were weak, they had been established and we can help strengthen those institutions inside columbia to help carry the fight, that included both the police and the military, also the judicial system, over the course of the colombian partnership, the planned columbia effort, the Justice Department trained 40000 judges in columbia. A third area and reason for success, i actually give credit to the congress, the congress limits it the number of americans who could be in columbia at any given time to help the colombian government, when the plan started, they limited us to 400 military people to 400 contractors that rose to a hundred military in a hundred contractors that was at that met the colombians had to fight to fight themselves in our roll had to be limited to supporting, training and helping to become better at carrying the fight. So we cannot take over this enterprise because of the limits that congress put on us, so we were there in support of the colombian government, i think that was another reason for success for the colombians to solve the problem, we can help them but we were not going to run the show and do it for them we really had support, bipartisan support and was funded ten years or more by three successive president s, so we had the time to make things work and had the bipartisan support to get the funding. Because about 10 billion over ten to 12 year. We help the colombians put down and regain control of their own country. The program originally was sold counter necrotic that limit the amount of cocaine the United States back in the 80s and 90s, we try to bring cultural and political change to the country, to make the country more like us, to bring democratic principles, honest government and so on. And without realizing that we were trying to change the cases, iraq and afghanistan as an example, thousands of years of history and the fact that her own democracy evolved over time, we are still facing problems created at the beginning of the United States with the race issues that we are dealing with in the United States today. We still have an imperfect democracy and weve been working out of for over two centuries. So thinking that we can force this to other countries i think is one reason why first of all weve been involved in these long lasting wars in iraq and afghanistan after the initial military victories but its also why we fail. One of my favorite quotes is from Winston Churchill in late 1944, he was approached about overthrowing the dictatorship that was running greece at the time, dictatorship that was very supportive of what the allies were trying to accomplish in beating the germans. , beating the 90s. They wanted him to install a democratic government in churchills response was democracy is not to be picked up on the street. I think the principal still exist, you cannot force a country to build a democracy they have a very good democracy today. , the only democratic Arab Government and the entire middle east. A lot of the iraqis that you know still do not believe that they dominated government serves their interest particularly the kurds in the sunnis. There is a long period tough road ahead for iraq but i think a big part the failures in these countries was trying to bring social, cultural and political change basically using the United States military. I think our role should be encouraged democracy, to provide people with tools as we did to colombians and training and encourage them to move toward democracy, the notion that we can force in bringing about overnight i think contributed to several of the failures during this period and the other failures where lack of imagination in using the nonmilitary instruments and frankly being to ambition, i argued against our intervention in libya because i did not see where we had any national interest. You have two quotes that highlight this challenge about americas role in the world, one, america to make the world safe for democracy, this is brought from Woodward Wilson approach or in the world of John Quincy Adams to make the wealth richer and the freedom and independence of all in the dictators and champions and how when youre confronting the events of the world and what is americas role in the streets out of hong kong and other people with some respect and democrats on the world and so where does america go forward and when do we go forward, using the symphony of powers and how do we do this, what does it look like in your district . John quincy adams comes out of the same document, and in the search of monster hunter monsters to destroy, we ought to not go looking for trouble. I think as i write in the book, i think duncan c adams has to coexist it is from the beginning of our republic, we have seen ourselves as a city on the hill to follow and as part of our Foreign Policy to do all we could to advance the interest of the democracy and reform and human and political rights. Where i draw the line is the military to make that happen, i think as weve been discussing, you cannot force a country into democracy, these institutions have to be developed, one of the lines that we all use was having one election is not phenomenas with bringing democracy to a country, democracy is based on the rule of law, based on institutions and the role we can play is helping countries develop those institutions, this is where the civilian part of these instruments of power that i talk about is so important, it is our people helping them develop their own institutions and encouraging the development of those institutions. Usaid in a number of private foundations in the United States funded a huge number of nongovernmental organizations in russia for example in the 1990s to try to encourage the development of Democratic Institutions and the rule of law and so on. Its evidence that those were working in that in 2000, Vladimir Putin essentially eliminated the ability of all of those ngos to work in russia. In some points there were thousands and thousands of these and now theres just a handful. Same thing in china. I think we could use a variety of tools including i would say our intelligence capabilities and covid action, the cia action played a big role in the success of solidarity in poland and taking on the communist regime, there is free institutions that supported solidarity of working independently, the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul ii, the cia and the American Labor union through the aflcio. So we have these instruments that we can used to encourage those trying to bring democracy to their own country and to help them strengthen those institutions but its us helping them, its not us train to force it on them. When you look at chinas advantages, you noted some with their state run economy and what they can do with money going into certain places, perhaps loading up dead on countries that will never be able to repay it and developing some degree of control over some sovereign decisions, do you think the u. S. To stricter moral standards actually weakens us in this competition . That is going on between the china model clearly an authoritarian model, its hard to believe they would practice a kinder gentler model externally from the country than they practice from their own people. Are we actually weakened by taking a more moral stance as we look at our role in the world up against the chinese model which is basically by your allies, shoulder your way in, dismiss other nations sovereignty, whether it deems diplomatic or economic or moral sovereignty. Where do we stand in this competition . I think we all know that america, as much as we love it and as much as we admire it and as much as we believe it is unique in the history of the world and a unique force for good it is still flawed and we are seeing the results of that in the streets of most of our cities in the last few weeks. But we do stand for some things, it is not by accident that on tenements where is the spring of 1989 that the Chinese Students erected the statues of the goddess of liberty that looked an awful lot like the statue of liberty of new york harbor, its not an act that the hong tom protesters are waving American Flags, its not an accident that during the pushback on the uranium regime that a few months ago after they shot down the airliner that they had painted an American Flag the students painted an American Flag on the steps of one of their schools to not step on it. I think the rest of the world knows that were flawed and were about the only country in the world because we try to get better. We consistently, we know what we believe in and we work every day to try to make her actions coincide with our beliefs and what we profess to that we are wired into the mire the most with the democratic country. I think we have to address our problems at home and we do have to be a model and frankly we are not a very good model right now and the politics is why we cant tackle the big problems of whites infrastructure or other things, we still have to battle Racial Injustice but we are trying to fix these things and i think other countries recognize that and as long as we continue to profess our ideals, as long as we try to help them create democracies, i think our ideology if you will is still to be admired around the world, the truth is i think it is tarnished as a result of several things over the last thousand years or so. The 2008, 2009 economic crisis in this country undermined sentiment around the world that the American Economic model was one they wanted to emulate. I think economic inequality of this country is a problem that other countries see and make them wonder whether the American Economic model is when they want to follow. But what is new since the end of the cold war is a paralysis in our ability to get big things done, the two Political Parties are frozen at the federal level in their war on each other for all practical purposes, everybody forgetting what makes the american system work is compromise. I think right now, xi jinping in china is pointing to the problems we have, economic and political, look at the chinese model, this incredible 21stcentury infrastructure, a modern infrastructure in your country, we get things done. Our model is the one you should look to and there are a lot of countries like the chinese and say their approach is better than the american approach, our ideology, belief and liberal democracy and capitalism we have a lot of repair work to do at home. Most of the world believes america stands for freedom and freedom and political life and that is our ace in the hole if you will. The problem is we have a competition in the world that is going to go on for quite a while that is as old as democracy but between democracy and authoritarianism, communism as dead as a doornail. In france or someplace. Authoritarianism has beaten historical roots. If we dont get address our problems and move forward as a country our ability to defeat authoritarianism will be at risk. That is a long answer to your question but i believe our ideology of freedom and compounding that ideology is an asset for us in the world, not a liability. Most of the country, what freedom means, we had villagers and prime ministers, how does america do it. No matter how bad something gets we learn from it, acknowledge weve got to improve, roll up our sleeves and do it. We have young people on and we are going to switch to audience questions shortly but knowing we have some young people watching, as they watch what is going on in washington dc some approach me, why should the go into government yet you went and not for one to or in the air force or cia, you stuck with it through good times and bad. What can you say to young people about government service, the very hard work and noble work of building a country because it is not built yet. Young people say why should i follow doctor gates and put my lifework into the country or even 5 years work. How do you respond to that . I would say at the end of your life you dont want to look back and realize you only lived for yourself. George h w bush, the first president bush said the only way to have a full life, some measure of Public Service in it. Public service has never been easy, we get focused on our own time. I joined the cia in 1966 ju