Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth Adm. James Stavridis USN Ret. 20240712

To be the supreme allied commander and it was an accident of timing with this decision. So i was the accidental admiral. Host that the navy was an accident as well as a career . Somewhat. Going way back i grew up in the marine corps family. My father was the fighting in korea and vietnam and i grew up in that environment and i went to Quantico High School and then went on to the Naval Academy thinking i would be a marine corps officer. After my first year the navy sends everybody out on a cruise and you go out on a ship beautiful cruiser on san diego it was late in the day the sun was setting and and i just wanted to be a sailor at that point so i told my dad and my mom and they were hoping it would be a marine that they got over it years later when i got my first star is that i think that came out okay. Host you almost left the nav navy . I did i graduated from annapolis and went to see for five years three on a destroyer in san diego and then to florida where i come from you today my mom and my inlaws live here. At the end of the fiveyear period i was on an aircraft carrier. And then to launch a missile but i couldnt launch an idea to save my life. The navy stepped into make me an offer that i couldnt refuse and i ended up going to the Fletcher School of law anduf diplomacy which is a graduate school of international relations. I learned how to launch an idea there i think. I began to shift the focus of my career from exclusively focusing on Maritime Operations coming out of my time at fletcher in the early eighties. Host as supreme commande commander, you say in the accidental admiral that you had 250,000 words to teach yourself, not others. I felt a big part of my job as a supreme allied commander is to t take ideas and move them across this enormous command there were 20 nations today there are 30 with 3 million people. 800 asian going ships a very big command and part of my job of the key ideas in the strategy. I spent a lot of time of writing for my own benefit. And also for the benefit of those in command. Host and one chapter is about the chateau . The official residence of the supreme allied commander. That french chateau on 26 acrese maintained and financed by the belgian government. And its not only a lovely place to live but a the supreme allied commander to host a dinner for the headsrn of tstate and then to host partners and allies and friends one of the most memorable dinners we held there was the Supreme Commander of the russian military. His namee was nikolai. We are both 5foot 5 inches tall and i used to joke to secretary gates, he would call me after i would meet with nikolai and say how did the meeting go . I was it was great we saw everything i to i which we did at our 5foot 5 inches of height. But it is an example for those to succeed in creating Real Security and that was a good example of that. Host from not book you write throughout my time as the nato Strategic Commander i was often asked what kept me awake at night a simple one word answer that was convergence. This was ten years ago concerned about afghanistan and libya and the balkans and piracy, cybersecurity it was the potential between groups between the United States that terrorist organizations and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Those are two streams like ghostbusters you never want to let the streams cross as we worried to from a nuclear device. And with that Islamic State and boko haram and also bob in Eastern Africa these continue to find ways to have weapons of mass destruction i worry about convergence over the last ten years my view has added to that concern cyberand cybersecurity because the groups are becoming more and more adept at offenses cybercapability infrastructure or medical establishment are all quite vulnerable. In the context of ten years ago today we are equally concerned of cybertools in the hands of such organizations of rogue states. Host admiral stavridis can you be isolated with the Supreme Commander of nato . Of course. You have to fight every day in a job like that to breakout of the cocoon your staff will try to put you in. This is for any leader of any sizable organization. Your staff will want to take control and dictate the tempo the organization of your day. Schedule your trips, control the information coming in and going out. That is the nature of the staff. They do that because it creates order where chaos might exist. Ou is commendable but then lational function but as a commander you have to fight against that isolation and to find sources of information and ways to communicate simply and truly to your organization and to demand you have a voice in your schedule where your priorities are. Your greatest asset as a supreme allied commander or ceo of exxo exxon, if you are the leader of a large organization, the most precious assets is your time. How you allocate and prioritize has to be reflected in your time. As a practical point we can think our priorities are xyz and a very good exercise every six months to look back at the previous six months and say to yourself in my prioritizing my time and that i would be prioritizing when my stated priorities was xyz. To use your own view and how it should be spent the staff that they tried to push the leader in. Host was it easier to get out and wander on the ship quick. It was. I wrote a book about that years ago when i was in my thirties. And simply a series of excerpts the first time i took command at sea i was lucky to be the captain of a brandnew guided missile destroyer. And on a ship like that its a big ship longer than a football field with a crew of 300. But its a small universe unto itself. We use it on the chair to survey the beautiful ocean or spend time in your cabin locked doing paperwork . So what about their back story and understand what brought them to the navy . And then to get out and move around and know your people. Host what is our liebert class. For every type of ship destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers, the first ship of that type is called a class. The first is the class leader especially the first one is called the Arleigh Burke class destroyer. For example i commanded the ebg 52. My wife laura is the proud sponsor she get to break the champagne bottle to chris in the ship and is the sponsor pbg 113. And every one of those destroyers is built along the lines of the very first. And that was bestowed upon admiral burke with the most impactful circus line in chief of Naval Operations for six years and the iconic naval figures all the ships in that class are class destroyers. So mine was called john barry not terribly well knownon a revolutionary war navy captain that we are proud to be in the barry like my wife is proud to be in the sponsor of 113. And then to be destroyer men and women to serve in that class destroyer. Host admiral stavridis, all books contain leadership lesson lessons. One of those is a combination of bold autonomy versus organizational fidelity. You have to have both. There is always attention for a leader in the traditions and culturef of his or her organization which can collide with innovation and a good leader knows i suspect in a twohour conversation life is not the on and off switch. Simply accepting tradition thats a false choice. And to think of that as a dial to make that perfect and a good leader has to find that balance between respect with the innovation that is necessary to keep that organization moving forward. And as a practical example of the British Royal navy in the early part of the 20th ndcentury constantly wanting to innovate and was constantly in conflict with the admiral. At one point simply too many times said we cannot do that. Its against the tradition of the navy and churchilldi exploded and said tradition . I will give you the tradition that there is time when we have to move forward luckily for churchill he found someone and early 20th century british admiral only two of them formed the partnership to help move the navy along. Host sailing true north. What is true north . Dguest adherents to what we broadly conceive of as moral and ethical behavior. In my mind you are ertrustworthy, honest, kind to others, empathy, and put yourselves in the shoes of the a other. Not just friends and family but if your opponents of those with whom you disagree. And democracy and Liberty Freedom of speech and freedom of advocate education racial equality, we execute those values imperfectly but they are the right values. When taken together that value set that is what it means to sail true north. Host you write come im also motivated by a growing sense we are witnessing the slow death of character. We are. I also say i think we over share publicly and underperform thinking about our character and internal debate. With sailing true north is not a book about leadership but character. Those are two very different things. Leadership is a door that swings to influence others. It swings forf good or ill. Fdr in the top five are the two or three where washington and lincoln, that door of leadership he exerted to get us to the Great Depression and world war ii was enormous. On the other hand think about a leader like pol pot from cambodia. Ruthless, thug, but he was an effective leader to mobilize a society. His lead to an awful genocide leadership is that door that swingsgs on small hinges and that is character in the human heart and determines where your door will swing. Frankly we are awash in books of leadership. We are underweight and books about character and sailing true north. So in the category deciding to write about character in the context of admirals. I chose ten from history going back 2500 years through the late 20th century. And then there are stories of character hence the title of the book sailing true north, ted add one ten admirals in the voyage of character. Host we will get into those in a minute. , we over share and our Attention Span has shortened. Those comments directed at anyone in particular . [laughter] no. All of us. But i think we can all point to public figures today who would benefit from doing a little more reading are thinking and going into the world of twitter, recently twitter expanded from a maximum of 140 characters up at 270te characters and that created a firestorm with twitter users who said now it will make them too long. Think of that. That is 270 letters. My argument is we need tweets like a shot of espresso but you dont want a diet of 50 is not aore lunch healthy diet a diet was some tweets and short and punchy reading and in myta view, newspapers to understand the daily cycle of news, events through things like reading the economist magazine, one of the great magazines of the world. Almost 200 years old, no bylines, no reporter ego, ego, resolutely journalistic and is detached from the daily news cycle. And we need to find time to read some books nonfiction but also novels to help us understand the world. Your reading die is like a physical fitness diet. You dont just to do one exercise but a pretty broadbased diet. Host what does the back of your Business Card say . It is blank. Perhaps i should think about putting something clever back there. Aa quotation i like a lot from arguably the greatest of greek writers, i want nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. I want it there because i think we need to be fearless in our lives. We need to do what is right without favor or fear. We also need that perspective that whatever we do, we are only here for a brief moment or two in this world. If i have to put something on the back of my Business Card i would put a quote from the modern greek writer. Host but you write a Thomas Jefferson o quotation is on the back. Actually it is on the front. But that is very famous from our second president and jefferson said i cannot live without book books. On the front of my Business Card is that on thes bottom. Host we will play a little video from 2015 from a retired admiral. You mentioned her in your most recent book sailing true north can you recognize the voice . When i was in command when you get your i greatest sense of satisfaction. Some of that when you are in command you are with sailors and marines with people who make miracles happen. You can only be delighted as a leadercc to help people go through Mission Success and then to congratulate every individual on the team. Host admiral stavridis did you recognize admiral how words voice . How dare you give it away erwithout asking. My very good friend admiral Michelle Howard the first africanamerican to be a four star woman admiral to the United States navyy i. She is a dynamo maybe 5foot tall and actually taller than she is. And as you heard she is thoughtful and kind and sales true north i first met her believe it or not as and midshipman at the Naval Academy i went to see midsummer night dream she was part of the cast and just retired as a four Star Navy Admiral and is someone i have enormous respect for hence the reason. You write in sailing true north love of country we often make as a nation is a quality leading to service for others and lucky enough to develop a trueue patriot. Y thats so true. Is ey School Teacher in rural South Carolina where my sister camee p to her career working in the Charleston School district. The teacher stuck there for 32,000 a year teaching a packed classroom. You think shes serving the country . Employee, i do. We need to talk and think a lot more about service. That is inextricably tied to character and i believe that we ought to think people in the military that we ought to thank all of the people i mentioned in i will throw in a few more. How about our diplomats and peace corps volunteers. How about our cia officers. We have so many different ways you can serve this country. And i will throw in another one which may surprise. How about or media. When i go into afghanistan as an allied commander surrounded by my personal security detail wearing bulletproof attire i would look over to the side and see a journalist, someone like my friend Richard Engel is our Foreign Correspondent at nbc news. He was standing there with an iller fitting, very small, probably not really bulletproof vest and i am armed with a 45 caliber weapon that i will never use because im surrounded by special forces who are going to use there is very capably, push comes to shove, as the saying goes. W all of those people serve the country in a wide variety of fways. So whenever people say to me thank you forr your service, i appreciate that, but go find a teacher and told her thank you for your service. Go find a firefighter and tell him thank you for your service. Go find a diplomat and thank her for working is the deputy chief in a big, tough embassy. There are a lot of ways to serve this country. Michelle halford embodies one of those services. There are many others. Host thats another of the leadership lessons that comes through in your book, being part of something larger than yourself. Guest you have to be. I heard that for the first time when i walked in the door of the u. S. Naval academy in 1972. Otherwise known as 1. 2 million years ago. It was funny i was just over the last couple of days a class of 2024 which arrives this year, 2020 with a four year course in annapolis, they went through their induction date, and of course because of covid, they were coming in over the course of several days actually to create social distancing, but it was the same thin look at thoses of young men and women, theres this desire to take on a huge challenge to be part of this class that walks through the door, well over a thousand and be part of serving the country, to be part of something bigger than just yourself. I stalled out in the class of 2024 as they walked in and got theirr heads shaved, looking a lot like mine right now, and they can do under that class with yet another marvelous class graduates from kannapoli kannap. Its not just in annapolis. But certainly the air force academy at Colorado Spring in co the Merchant Marine Academy at kings clean new york. These men and women go to choose to be part of something larger than themselves and i think that is the first step in maturity of leadershipthe journeyof leaderse importantly, its the first step in the journey of character. Host thanks for joining us on in depth in booktv. This was our guest is retired admiral and author James Stavridis who served from 96 to 2013 including a stint as commander of the u. S. Southern command and supreme allied commander in nato from 2009 to 2013. He served as the dean of the Fletcher School after that and currently works for nbc news and is an al operating executive ate carlyle group. Hes the author of several books, some coauthor thomas on his own. Here is a partial list. He was an editor on an update of command at sea that he wrote the accidental admiral which we talked about a bit, specifically about his time in nato in 2014. The leaders bookshelf came out coauthored by our man in, see power, politics of the worlds oceans came out in 2017, sailing true north came out last year, ten admirals and the voyage of character is a new novel coming out in 2021 and titled 2034, the novel of the next world war. If you have questions or comments you would like to make to admiral stavridis heres how you can do so. 202 7488200 in eastn and central time zones, 202 748820 202 7488201 bredea mountain of pacifithemountain as if you can also text a question or comment to the admiral. Qu 202 7488903. Thats the text number. And we have all of our social media sites as well. Twitter, facebook, instagram. booktv is our twitter handle. We will go through all of these including your email address so that if you want to make a comment you can do so. Now, we talked about some of your books but when we did not mention was a proposed book called veep state. Guest 2015 i was vetted for Vice President by candidate hillary clinton. John podesta who was her Campaign Manager is a friend of mine. John podesta called me up and said would you be willing to be vetted and i v said sure. Ive always said im open to the idea of surface. By the way, im a registered independent. Ive always been so. In addition to being vetted for Vice President , i was invited to trump tower to have a discussion with president elect trump about the cabinet position, so i mentioned it in the context of finding a bipartisan figure in many ways. So, i said to chief of staff, the manager john podesta, and of course secretary clinton was nice enough to call me as well. Sure, i will be vetted. That turned into quite an experience. Its quite the experience to be vetted for Vice President. And it seems providing the campaign with every article youve ever written, every media appearance youve ever made. All of your bank records and all of your social networks, all of your school transcripts, your dental records, medicalal recor, every tax return going back 20 years i think. It is a big flaw in that process. And its also done with a lot of secrecy because it was something the campaign wanted to keep secret. For well over a month it was quite done behind the scenes so i would be sending over this unbelievable highly Sensitive Information to a bunch of email addresses and at one point, i said to a very close friend and adviser, retired Navy Captain Bill harlow, who himself is a former spokesman at the cia and knows the intelligence portal 12. I said you know, i hope im not actually sending all this information not to the Clinton Campaign that somehow sending it to russian intelligence. That got us both chuckling. We found that pretty implausible actually. But we started to think about how that would make a pretty interesting novel. So we did a treatment of traded of hapless individual who is chosen to be vetted for Vice President who start sending all this information, he thinks, to the campaign, except unbeknownst to him hes actually sending it to an Intelligence Organization and so thats what ive described here is probably the First Quarter of the book. Then he has to figure out how do i get out of it. So we thought it was a clever book and it was meant to be tongueincheek kind of like a novel by chris buckley, thank you for smoking, that kind of book or a letter something in entertainment. But we wrote it up and send it off to our agents and or publishers and editors and was resoundingly rejected because everybody said its just so implausible that the campaign would be tricked like that. Now you know, four years later im not so sure. Who knows. Maybe we will just that one off but that is the story of veep stakes which of course is what is happening now with former Vice President joe bidenbi who knows this quite well personally. Hes in the process of picking a woman as he has said to be his candidate, so its really apropos at the moment. It was a fun little treatment to and is Still Available if anybody is watching. Host what do you think of military folks in Elective Office . Guest 100 in favor of it. Could i give you an example how about Dwight Eisenhower who was not only a superb genital, brilliant organizer become supreme allied commander of nato and president of Columbia University and went on to be i think a highly successful twoterm president of the United States. There are many marvelous books out there about eisenhower. I would encourage people to read a crusade in europe which is his autobiographical treatment of his time in command. He was also by all accounts someone who sailed true north and made his vocational mistakes in life and politics but overall was a superb kind of mid20 century president. During the period of time when there was real danger in the cold war erupting, he was someone who managed that set of challenges brilliantly from 52 to 60, and a great book about that is evan thomas is a about a bridge player by the way to bluff his geopolitical opponents. So there is but one example. Frankly, we could go on on this subject but theres plenty of precedent amongt both the electd office at the level of senators and representatives, and there is at the level of eisenhower. And i will close on another one who kind of got the way i think and that would be colin powell. Lei wish she had chosen to run r Elective Office. He would have been a remarkable president of the United States. He was a fine secretary of state as well as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Really a remarkable individual in so many ways, so i think that theres room for Superb Service from senior military in an administration. Host lets hear what the calls begin to say. Well start with chairman caliente california. You are on the side from James Stavridis. Caller thank you for taking my call. First i just want to say how impressed i was with your use of the word kindness. This isnt a quality i normally associate with military figures, and i think it is quite wonderful. My question is how far in advance does the military plan in terms off what strategy and o far and so on so many decades and kind of on a related note, how can we defuse what looks to be increasingly growing tensioni with china and the area of the South China Sea and i know there are two carrier groups going there now and i would like your thoughts on that. Thanks again. Host are you former navy . Caller no, i am not. Host thank you sir. Guest thank you for your question. You are in caliente so i will say that is a hard question on both counts. First of all, planning. The military is the absolute bastion of longrange planning. We are quite good at midand short range planning. I will put sometimes en masse. Short range is in the one to two yearnn frame. Mid range planning is in the three to five to seven year frame. Longrange planning is five to ten year without wire plans that went even further than that. Military planning goes tactical in other words if god forbid we got into a war with china we would have plans for how we would execute the war. If we got into the war on the Korean Peninsula because kim jong woke up in a bad mood and decided to attack the south not an impossibility we have detailed plans on how we would responded to that. Additionally, we have longrange plans and a good example of this would be back during the midyear period in the 20th century between world war i and world war ii, the navy in particular did a great deal of Detailed Planning for the navy campaigns that might occur if they ended up in a war with japan, for example. Vso, militaries are planning organizations and having said all of that, i will say that i think it was eisenhower who said no plan survives First Contact with the enemy. In other words, the enemy gets a vote. You could have a beautifully orchestrated plan, but the end of these actions will be part of how the plan unfolds and i think it was general patton who said a good plan violently executedd is better than a perfect plan you never get around to putting on the table. What he meant by that, and this is true for ally of us in every walk of life you can let your desire for perfect become the enemy of really good. You have to know when to put your pencil down, put your plan in place, resource that plan and know that there will some twists and turns but i will say one of the skills is planning. Its formally taught as a process even to our young men and women at our service academies. Again when they hit mad hit midr point that stuff and college for example in the army as legendary bastion of Detailed Planning and ntagain at the war colleges for the kernels and commanders and arnavy captains, army marine cos colonels the study planning again at each level learning more into developing more details so we are very good at that. It doesnt mean those plans are perfect. Ei assure you a detailed plan fr virtually every contingency the military could encounter globally. Your other question of course is off the moment and it is what can we do and i will rephrase it in this way what can we do to avoid stumbling into another cold war, this time with china, or god forbid to get in a shooting war with china and i think that is the most important question that our government should be thinking about internationally right now. That relationship through the United States and china and we have some significant disagreements with china. Their intellectual property theft. Cyber intrusions. The chinese claim the entire South China Sea the huge body of water the size of the caribbean and the gulf of mexico combined it is seen as territorial seas of china fisheries and above all 40 of the worlds trade moves through. We are concerned about human life with china and how they treat the 1. 5 million muslim defendants in china who are pushed into incandescents are essentially concentration camps on concerned about human rights in hong kong which ought to have another 30 years of two systems, one nation so we have a lot of disagreements with china. To the question of how do we approach china i would so you three quick things. Number one, the first part of your excellent question, we need a plan andin here again i can assure you of th the military hs plans for military engagement which i deeply hope we avoid that we do not have a national plan. We need one so my view would be to take someone like Henry Kissinger or perhaps our greatest living expert o on chia because announcin surmounted wit talented people who understand china economically and in the world of finance and culture and history, the world of military operations etc. , have got brain trust the commission that he will, a National Strategy for how we approach china is the number one, lets get the plan. Number two, philosophically use the following approach. Confront where we must go to cooperate wherever we can. In other words, avoid this kind of mindless cold war tension that exists between the United States and soviet union for decades. We should have a blended to speed approach which says we will confront you on intellectual property theft. We will confront you on your excessive claims of territoriality in the South China Sea. We will confront you which i fear may happen this year much t just brush a dateid in 2016 is a conference where they must but lets find some zones of cooperation. Where can we cooperate. We can cooperate on the environment. Shared desire to address the environment moreop responsibly. Whatever administration comes into power will return to paris peace accords. We could cooperate with china on the arctic where china has a significant desire to move through as the ice is melting. We could cooperate on diplomacy. How about the u. S. And china working together to address covid19 in the emerging markets around the world. Its the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective, and its also pragmatically the right thing for our economies so those markets can stay open. So the materials can flow to china and the United States. But when the tsunamis through the pacific the United States has hospital shifts that are deployed. Theyve deployed from the indian ocean. Can they work together. We should confront where we must, cooperate where we can. Third and finally, we need to be respectful of china, their history, their culture. One of the chapters is about a chinese admiral who in the early 14 hundreds was conducting voyagess throughout the South China Sea and indian ocean off the coast of africa. We need to understand that culture. That doesnt mean we are going to acquiesce and claims to own the entire South China Sea, but we need to put ourselves in the shoes of china and studied them tand understand them, read ther literature if we are going to do the first two steps. That would be my prescription for dealing with china as we go forward. Thanks for a great question. Host next coffer admiral James Stavridis comes from terry in detroit. Caller hello and thank you for taking my call. I just have a comment and a quickn question. I also a navy vet and i served as a part of the Naval Security Group Activity that ive always thought something of the service and im a huge proponent of service. How do we turn or reinvigorate the conversation about personal service to the country that at this time it seems the narrative now if everything is about me me me or the darker parts of the country. Hell do we turn the conversation into americans serving america as a whole . Thank you for taking my call. Guest with a deeply meaningful question. As the saying goes, thank you for your service. Im glad to talk to a fellow navy vet and thank you for your work to the veterans. The entirean organization headed by a friend of mine and at the moment headed by a west point graduate, you are all serving the country and part of this u culture of service. Youve asked the question how can we effectively move the nation to sail true north and ii think service is an enormous part of it. I will give you three quick ideas for a much larger conversation. Number one is those who are serving need to talk about it. They need to be active role t models and be engaged. They need to post what they are doing on instagram and talk about service, all of us. Not everyone is going to write a book about it, but every bit counts. Its an enormous conversation with it is a messy conversation and that is the beauty of america and its also one of our challenges. Number one, lets all of us who are involved in service and believe in its support, lets talk about it personally, on social mathworks and in every way we can imagine. Write a letter to the local newspaper, take the question you asked me to send it to theen detroit newspaper. Thats number one we ought to be talking about. Is thise . Going to be somebody that personifies the service and will embrace the idea of service and will support those who go into service and believe me i understand how politically loaded a comment like that is today whether you are here watchinght on msnbc and by the d of the night watching to see on msnbc or you wake up in the morning with fox and friends. The third way and again this is the larger conversation we need to have a system if we do this to some degree for example the military has the ability to go in and collect something called the g. I. Bill that will help pay education later on. We need comfortable programs for other walks of service, emts and peace corps volunteers, teachers in Rural Communities are underserved communities in the cities. We need to incentivize service and a good way to do that is through education or other benefits including some level of federal support when you buy your first house, for example. Weve had that culture for the military for decades and it would be a good idea to expand. I think that would be money well spent. If this particular challenging moment. Host we have one hour left with our guest, admiral James Stavridis author of several books. Heres how you can contact him. First of all four minus 202 7488200 in the east and central time zones. 202 7488201 for those of you in the mountain andt pacific te zones. You can send an email to booktv cspan. Org and you can stay message and if you do, if you would include your first name and city. 7488903 is the text of number and finally we have several social media sites ready to take your comments. Facebook, twitter and instagram. Just remember booktv is our handle. Lets take this next call from alberta and arkansas. Please go ahead. Caller yes, sir. I find that this time very few people, american citizens understand countries and how people are in other countries around the world. Poverty status or rich status or education status and one of the things i ended up joining the peace corps when i was a young man back in the 70s. Theres nothing like first hand knowledge of who people are, how they feel about america and all that poverty. You dont look at people if you lived in Central America for eight or nine years as being poor. So, i would like you to talk a little bit more about service if you can as far as peace corps and i appreciate your service of course. Its amazing how balanced you are, balanced and education and reading and also im interested in reading for high school students. Im hoping you are involved in some of that. Thank you. Host admiral . Guest thank you and again i will return the compliment as i did it to my nav to my navy sa moment ago and say thank you for your service in the peace corps. I would agree with you with all my heart about the importance of peace corps. But they say a couple specific i comments there. As peter said a little while ago when i finished up my 37 year career in the navy, my long misspent youth of the navy i started to think about what can i do next with my life and i started to ask mentors and everybody had a plan. Some people said you need to go into the Defense Industry andso work on hightechnology projects and others said you need to go into business and focus on the emergence of tech. Others said you could go and be in operations productive for a big Nongovernmental Organization like the red cross. There were a a lot of good idea, and i waited them out and i asked the mentors of a respect for most of all people that ive had the privilege to work for him to be around and i mentioned him earlier, secretary of defense robert gates. Instead of immediately giving me the plan, he said you know, admiral, what kept you in the navy for 37 years, maybe that will give you a clue as to what you might want to do next and i thought about it. Thats a great question. There was a lot i liked about the navy. I liked wearing sharp looking uniforms and being a mariner going to see operating the ship and travelingg around the world. The thing i loved was mentoring young people, taking care of sailors ande helping guide the trajectory of their lives so i said that secretary gates and he said you should go into education. Those were the most powerful words for me. We forget this everyone can remember is the director ofhe te cia and everyone can remember he was the secretary of defense for the bush and obama administration. What did he do in the middle, the president of texas a m and before that the dean of the bush school at texas a and m. And he helped me become the dean of the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy. That was where i really came in contact with the peace corp. Is the largest single cohort background of all of these marvelous graduate students that come to the Fletcher School come out of the peace corps so i learned a lot and i had so many bright young men and women who have taken two years out of their busy lives and decoded and icfectively mentor others. You are teaching others to do a wide variety of things from literacy to agriculture to cultural education. It is a marvelous way for somebody to give to the world and served the United States because they becoming a peace corps volunteer, you go and yrepresent your country in the best possible way any way that people of other nations look up to and respect. You are literally putting your time where your idealism is. Not everybody does that. One of our very close family friend of their young daughters, younger by my standards, somebody in their 20s just came back from two years as a peace corps volunteer and we were at a wedding a few months ago i had the chance to sit and talk with her in depth about her experiences to anybody that may be listening, we are in synthesizinincentivizing and pre same kind of response we do to someone that decides to go into the marine corps. Host before we get to the next callerpronouncing your name and im hearing Something Different from you is that correct . Everything you can imagine if the most common mispronunciation pretty much anything works and i think youve got it just right. Host jerry in brooklyn please go ahead with your question or comment for admiral stavridis. Caller that was a perfect Career Change for you. I cannot think of a better person withh the balance and yor thought process to work with young people. Working with people with disabilities, battered women, disabled vets its not about making money. I never made a lot of money in my life, but its about giving back and helping those that are less fortunate. I know that the young people are going to be very thankful down the road. Thank you for the Ivy League Education today and youve picked up where you left off when i was watching you on cspan sailing trip north and as soon as i heard you argue about character, that leadership and as the enabler of leadership you like to quote short people you told me, like napoleon that said a leader is a dealer in helping you mentioned Michelle Howard, four for ten young lady that came from a challenging background that took down the somali pirates. One thing before i go in your threestep plan i didnt hear you mention anything about the media. You have a picture hanging up in your officema of the blowup causing the outbreak of the spanish american war. There was a lot of the media with their yellow journalism like Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer but claimed the spanish were responsible for building it up and i think you used the word that they were actually called terroristsst back then. Host can you get to your question very quickly . Guest caller yes, im sorry. When they discovered it was thought host i apologize. We are goingng to leave it ther. Theres a lot on the table for the admiral to responds to. Guest i will finish the story for you because it is a good one. The uss battleship blows up in havana harbor. Immediately they spin the story progresseto tourists by the spae launched the war. In fact 50 years later we discovered that it s blew up because of an internal explosi explosion. There are two powerful lessons here. The first one is pretty obvious wherever you are and however high and mighty, recognize that your shift can blow out from under your feet at any moment. Have a plan b. And recognize the world can change forever in an instant. Second is the point that you were making that before you take precipitous action, before you lose your temper and start a w war, before you do that to makee sure you have all of the facts right because so many times that initial set of facts it turns out to be not so much, kind of like iraq. We knew that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That was false intelligence as it turns out. Nobody lied about the intelligence communitys got it terribly wrong and we ended up going to war. Think how different the world would be, who knows better or worse but how different the world would be if the dividend launch into iraq. So that is why i keep pictures of the ship navy on the wall in my office where i am. And theres none here just outside of the door. The other photo that i keep, which i hope you can see over top of me is a picture of myself and senator mccain. Senator mccain is someonsenatorn my view sale of true north. He made many mistakes in his life personal and political that hbuthe was a hero in the hanoi hilton and when he went to congress to represent the state of arizona, he did what he thought was right in addition to stories its important to have people that you respect and i think what you will find for most people is to stories deep in the character and knowing people like that at that sale true north of their lives i think is an important element of finding your own. Host we are going to play but who is this game. Heres another video clip. Every morning we were required to make it worth it to perfection. It seemed ridiculous at the time in light of the fact we p were aspiring to be a real warriors with. Making your battles that reinforces the fact the Little Things in lifeou that are many f you will see this book which i believe that in service the speech at the university of texas which was titled in iran as part of character is how you perform that adversity nearly all men can stand adversity. In particular he stopped with medical challenges in ways i cant comprehend this ive never broken a bone, never had a stitch in my body or spend the night in the hospital. Bill mccray then not very much and two examples in a terrible parachuting accident that his parachute didnt open or partially opened and somehow he survived that but he ended up hospitalized for a significant period of time and as a result he wasnt a part of the first wave of the war on terrorism and he trained his whole life and here he was in a hospital bed. He came back from that injury and went on to a great career as a senior seal officer and then ended up with a form of leukemia, very debilitating that creates cycles of taking a fourstar admirals that were sitting in the bus driving back from dinner at the white house intern tand turned though it ist said how are you doing and he said its just another mission. I deal with every day thanks for taking my coffee and thanks to cspan. Admiral, what a treat it is for a land within civilian like me to talk to you. I start every day on washington journal, but ive got to confess every now and then i catch the admiral and really do value your opinion. I am very concerned about how progressive china is becoming. If this is redundant, im sorry. You know, i would like to get i have some ideas of my own. Etim going to respond to them bringing the treaty over hong kong. I dont see anything wrong with telling china there is no student visa with any american universities. I dont see anything wrong with taking some of the Government Owned Company of the New York Stock Exchange and i would love for them to reclassify china not as a developing country, but thats a difficult country. I will take my comments off the air. We love you on cspan2 but we miss you on washington journal. Thanks and have a good weekend. Couple of planes we did cover some of this. All of the things you mentioned are examples from , very reasone responses that ought to be considered as part of a larger strategic framework and think that they would probably agree with what this credential and pop this one back in. We need a coherent strategic plan. The things you mentioned are all worth considering. In addition to the ones i mentioned earlier on the show, very important element of this is taiwan. Unlike hong kong which is the sovereign territory acquiescent halves 1997 with a caveat that hong kong would enjoy the status of one nation to systems in other words they would have a distinct system of jurispruden jurisprudence. They would have this economic h situation etc. , etc. China is violating that now so in addition to the things they mentioned earlier i would add it to this leverage here. China resolutely determined and wants toin pull taiwan into the sovereign work. They already believe that taiwan is a part. We have a strategically somewhat ambiguous relationship with taiwan. We could build on that in increasing weapontheincreasing y conducting more military obligationsli to. Into all of the places we could be conducting a for example with taiwan some that are importantly economically based to track diplomacy all of that needs to be part of the approach and it needs to be done coherently as a part of a holistic plan. It want to make a really important point here by the way. We have hundreds of thousands of Chinese Americans who live here in the United States. Jimmy is a first generation american, the first native born here. His parents immigrated here as students. His mother became a very successful dentist and his father became a very successful investor. Hes on the front line with him as a result of the integration of the United States from china over the years so we need to be very careful here and as we seek to bend relationship with china and its more appropriate ways to escape completely agree with your comment about china into the world tradebo organization. We need to be careful we dont break that relationship and end up in a very severe cold war or god forbid a shooting war, neither of which are impossible. And we recognize there are deep cultural diplomatic and personal relationships and play a good model of the next world war this is the text message we received. I am a 33 year active duty officer. Why are more americans not as extremely concerned with american statutes grant, washington and other great uses historical figures are being gleefully taken down . Our history is under attack by the left wing. T the idea not believe any state anywhere ever should be torn down. In my view that isnt appropriate. We are having a conversation about which statutes and with individuals from a period of history are and my money as i look at the spectrum therefore by definition they were traitors not only to their oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States but also took up arms against their nation. We think where there are such statutes and there are many of them are ou around the country,k that its time to have a commission probably come to the conclusion as i have but its time to take him down and put them in a museum and study the history of the civil war. They shouldnt be glorified wi with. The systems of individuals have gone after a statute for example of general and president grant im very aware of the movement to take down statues of the slaveowner for example i can understand emotion, but i think that is a different set of circumstances than the ones i mentioned a moment ago. So, the world should make these decisions based on the views we have the collective conversati conversation. My vote would be take down. The statutes can take down the monuments of confederate admirals and generals. Jefferson, washington, grant, not perfect. Slave owners in the pop spectrum of their life and times, the contributions are striking and needs to remain on display perhaps indicating that in addition to all that is known making the point that jefferson helped slaves. That is a valid historical point. To me it doesnt rise to the level of tearing down the Jefferson Memorial or tearing down monticello is a president ial home wherear my daughter christina went to the university. So, i think that there is room for meaningful conversations here. I do not believe ever blogs should be tearing down statues or anything else. I would guess that if i sat down with my brother officer, we could have a meaningful conversation about his concerns. And it might be a microcosm of the kind of conversation that the nation should be having. Host stephen is calling in from washington. That is a navy town, isnt it . Go ahead. Caller is as a matter of fact, the subjects i want to talk about is a periodically comes here to be reset. I am a korean war veteran, as the admiral knows, the army is in the process of contemplating being name changing. And he voted against all civil rights legislation. And he also voted against a proposition for doctor mlk birthday to be a national holiday. And he got a ship named after him. Not because he was a strict segregationist, but because he was a on the head of the appropriations committee. Whenever the navy would show up with a request for the coming year, he was only to happen to fulfill it because he was a big fan of the military. Guest terrific question another good example of national levelal conversation we are already having. And to believe he was a prosecutor failed to prosecute a significant case of the murders of africanamericans in mississippi. And you correctly point out from the limited level of knowledge about the propensity to be supportive of segregationist and a failed policy in every dimension so i certainly would be open to uss john cf. That would be part of the name changes as you may or may not know the u. S. Navy Just Announced the next Nuclear Power i know a lot about doris miller who was the africanamerican preworld war ii ended up as a cook before we managed to get away from segregation decembe december 71941 and heard the attack on pearl harbor charged it to the bridge and then went down to the deck on the ship in the fire to took personal command of one of the anti more air guns to shoot down a japanese aircraft. No regard for his life or safetye and awarded the navy cross probably shouldve gotten a medal of honor and now the navy has chosen to name the next Nuclear Aircraft carrier dori miller. Do have controversy there are a couple ofoo others and those that were named for a confederate naval officer. We have a ship called the nfchancellor will named for the confederate name of the battle. These are things worth looking at alongside the pretty obvious of the Army Installations around the country which are made for guard and lee and jackson and bragg and generals who took up arms against the United States. Those are pretty clear decisions. The other of lets have a conversation. A national and teachable moment and move forward in a way that does not tear apart wor destroy our history. That history is like a river. Indian say you never crossed the same river twice because it moves on. The river has moved on. What does that mean for us as a nation thats an important conversation. Host admiral, how did we get to where fort bragg and fort hood were named after confederate generals . Coco named duringd world war ii. They were. It is a long and complicated story that has to do with things going on in the south at that time with the collections of southerners who felt as though the soul south would rise again to be evaded by the north this is that part of the south not with the immediate aftermath of the civil war but a growing sense in the early part of the 20th century that somehow we needed to glorify this is the part of the rise of the kkk and the rise of Woodrow Wilson who has been named part of this thinking and again and to have that conversation i would be very surprised of the robert e. Lee statues and high schools are not addressed and i think its high time they were. Host calling chester nemitz a leader of leaders he was not respectful of women andan nonwhites. How do we judge him in that regard . Play a tape of his life. Like dori miller and then he rises to become the most iconic war fighting admiral in american history. Standing onn the deck of a big beautiful battleship the smell of c cordite from explosion is still in the air. Bodies are still exhumed there are hundreds still there today. He commands a broken and shattered us fleet and resilience. He quietly takes the best of the existing staff to reshape them and finds the war fighting leaders. Also the quiet warriors and how to tagteam their qualities and has to look at Douglas Macarthur and does everything right and sits on the deck of the missouri battleship the document surrender like many of his time not respectful of women or their role. And is a product of his times. And he was this way in the forties so judging by the standards of the 2020 is of not a valid test. But that is different of Stonewall Jackson taking up arms against the United States of america killing thousands and thousands of Union Soldiers in defense of slavery those are two very different cases. I stand with chester nimitz to honor his memory in the context to understand the history of what he is doing. I will close by saying this. We are doing things now and 50 years people will look back on us and choices we have made on the bioethics that and 50 or 70 or 100 years will look wrong. That river of history will move on. I hope those who judge me 100 years from now understand the context of the times but also are willing to make ourut decisions about my legacy. Host arizona please go ahead. Caller hello admiral. Thank you for coming on cspan and also for cspan2 have you as a guest. The way you make presentations the collective thinking is so superlative you are probably in the top three. And i am asked navy. I love the navy. With the fast frigate 1084. I love the navy and it is the number one spokesperson for the United States. People in those countries all over the world went out of the way to talk to us and ask us questions so we were pr representatives. Superlative. I was the first person off and the last person on and any place we stopped, we find somebody who spoke english and would ask questions about the country or the people. The common denominator all over the world that people had regarding americans they cannot understand why they were so happy. And in general we touched upon these two questions but not directly. Host if you could get your questions quickly we would appreciate that. How would you wait the non nuclear war standing of the world right now . Host second question . Caller knowing what you know, what is the top for circumstances that could happen in reality to trigger world war iii . Host we appreciate that. Guest if it was a clock and when it turns to midnight we end up with a world war i would say it is about 20 minutes away but is not imminent and about to happen. The other way to think is the cuban missile crisis. The hands on the clock were about two minutes. We are safer than we were at the height of the cold war in that missile crisis situation. Asking for four scenarios. I will give you two. The two possibilities that could drag us into a world war would be a conflict between china and the United States which occur in the South China Sea. With them bumping up against each other even as we do this Great Program. And in the South China Sea but that is what they claim as a territory on water. So to carrier battle groups to that escalate . Possibly. That would be an escalation i would be concerned about particularly. A second one would be a cyberattack. This could come from china, russia, north korea, iran have significant cybercapabilities. Then they can go on internet a couple days think again the internet of things 20 billion devices and it is the backbone for entransportation, electricit transportation, electricity, wae infrastructure. A cyberattack here in the United States would demand a significant response leading to an escalation. One other one is russia. A scenario where russia has a dramatic change of leadership. I think that is unlikely think Vladimir Putin has solidified his control over that country but i can see scenarios where russia falls out of totalitarian control if you will that has 8000 and nuclear weapons. That is very concerning and forth and finally with pakistan the Nuclear Armed tpowers constantly at each others throats at the moment the Nuclear Capability of both is under control but that ngcould certainly lead to a Nuclear Exchange that would be disastrous globally so those that would keep you awake at night but ill leave you with the thought that we have been in a worse position before much more at risk with the cuban missile crisis five minutes or two minutes to midnight. Now we are about 20 minutes meaning all the scenarios that i talk about there will be time to allow diplomacy and economics and other nonmilitary aspects to pull us back. Host we have 11 minutes left. St. James city florida nancy go ahead. Caller a fascinating show. Thank you for taking my call. Leading up to your next book my husband and i were at the southern festival of books 2019 Elliott Ackerman a thoughtful speaker on a panel discussing war and the military it was a Great Program so i am curious about the process of you cowriting your next book 2034 with someone like him versus novels on your own and then give us the insiders peak into your upcoming novel. I can by the way and then to write historical fiction with the American Naval captain at the end of the 19th century and please give my best to the dear friend a great writer himself. I wrote nine books because they were all nonfiction i always wanted to write a novel. Any booklist i offered to peoples two thirds fiction we learn best fromen reading fiction. I said im ready to write a novel and he said admiral you are a great writer but you are no novelist. [laughter]r] i said yes im like a little kid. I know how to write a novel i can may fiction and he said fine go ahead. Give me the outline. I sent it he called me up and said you are a great guy and a great writer but not a novelist and i was crushed he said i have an idea i do know a novelist who was shortlisted for the National Book award. So scott said how about if you and elliott rights it and collaborate. So i would do the outline or the big idea of the geopolitics in the technology and elliott who is truly a gifted novelist rights the people and the characters and its a nice mix. And 2034 so it set roughly 13 years from now and it is a story how the United States could stumble into a real shooting war with china. And what would that look like. With the strategic Nuclear Exchanges or stop at tactical . What role would india play . Because the role of india will be more and more important. And with a global war like this with a cast of characters and chineseamericans and russians and iranians also not a long book. Definitely not a technothriller. It is a cautionary tale what a war might look like on real people and i think its a very moving book at the end of the day and i think of the literature that it was cautionary and having a tactical Nuclear Exchange about a Navy Destroyer to seek the submarine and then becomes a modern day ahab as in moby dick and the cat and mouse game they play in the icy waters off the coast of greenland andhe iceland how that could of dragged the two nations into a war or on the beach by neville shoot about a Nuclear Exchange to contaminate the worlds environment. These are cautionary tales. Novels, fiction not designed to be predictive hopefully they are the opposite. Host we ask authors what their favorite books are what they are currently reading he sent us two pages we will show you a couple of those. The handmaids tale . Guest what a marvelous work of imagination. I will guess that many people will have seen the series on cablek television which i think is okay. But the book is so chilling it will stop your heart about patriarchy that dominates women. The ultimate authoritarian. State. With the nobel prize for literature is announced that it will be Margaret Atwood because of the scope of and has won the prize twice in the greatest of living writers. She is canadian. That is the ultimate cautionary tale for our time with the endgame of the authoritarianut state. Host currently reading, the glass hotel and red dress in black and white. Caller good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. Admiral i am a us navy vet on the uss mccormick as a vietnam war was winding down i have one very important question. What are your thoughts regarding a person who has not always live their life celine true north but who wants to end their years here on this earth in that direction . But to make the necessary course changes in their life that the life may exemplify sailing true dinner on north. Thank you for your service. Guest thank you for yours as well shipmate but the adams class destroyers the most powerful small ships we ever put to see. Your question is a perfect way to end the conversation today. I could not have scripted it better. But john mccain would be the first to admit his life was not always sailing true north. Ifai any of us are honest and then to back down from time to time but the more you sale at see the more you understand you can recover the course and come back from a bad turn and there are so many instances of that in literature and life and we need to celebrate those who have that capability above all. Some are very lucky and instinctively sale true north. My wife is like that and then to find her way on that compass rose to sale true north. So think about it in the quiet hours of the night ask our my doing and look for the examples in life and thats what sailing true north is about. And reid. Read. Read. Find the stories find the stories with others. Thank you for a great question and your service. Host as admiral stavridis writes in sailing true north, the outline for success is not always apparent in early exploits. Thank you for being on book tv. We appreciated. The fastest two hours and television. Thank you