Bill gurts im so excited to be with you today iwar, iwar, you are National Security columnist at the Washington Times and free beacon and in the introduction you talk about how this book is culmination of many years of experience following National Security, can you tell me a little bit why you published this book on the subject matter at this time . Sure, iwar is a look at the new form of warfare thats emerging in the 21st century. I covered National Security affairs for over 30 years in all over the world covering these and i think its a reflection of the Information Age that we are now looking at this form of warfare which i Call Information warfare and i define that as both the technical cyber that we have seen so much of in terms of cyberattacks from the russians and chinese as well as the content influence type of thing which really emerged in the last president ial election with the russian, cyber enabled operation. These two things, i believe, are going to be the dominant force of work fare. We are going to see that. Our adversaries are looking into this. A cheap way to achieve strategic goals out kinetic military in terms of resources and lives. Host you talk about how society typically when they think of warfare they think of it kinetic forms and this discusses nonkinetic forms. Do you think the media has an awareness of the warfare and the use of media and influence operation campaigns or is part of the goal of the book to raise awarns among the public . Yeah, the simple answer is no. This is the point i make in the book. Americans are largely in the dark. That includes our government as well as the public at large, as you might recall in raw recent hearing that you were the chair of the witnesses testified about the russian propaganda outlet rt, an official from rt told him that rt would have no audience in the United States if the u. S. Media were doing its job properly, in a sense what has traditionally been the role of the american media, that is to provide both education and information has really fallen out off. Theyre not really presenting the kind of news specially on internationally affairs and specially for our enemies. One of the things that i always tried to do in journalism career as well as as an author is highlight threats and the reason i do that is because if people dont have an understanding of the threat, then its really difficult to get the tools necessary to deal with the problems and so, again, this is a threat book, it deals with the main threats of Information Warfare and it tries to show that this is a serious strategic threat to the United States across a Broad Spectrum of areas from International Affairs to domestic affairs. So you talked about the increase of Information Operation and then Information Warfare as as strategic in the United States and one interesting part of this discussion that i think needs to be covered is the use of social media and you talk about that in the book, facebook users, you actually include this statistic 4. 75 billion pieces of content every day, so theres a lot of information out there. Theres a proliferation of information as we see in our facebook feeds, on twitter, on instagram, snapchat, you use choose the social network. Social media has changed the landscape of conflict. In the book, in fact, you talk about the Islamic States use of social media. You state, a distinct feature of isis media operation is agility and ability to respond quickly to events, often outperforming state media in the middle east. This has been enabled by the group use of social media and network of online supporters who will amplify the Islamic States message. What should the u. S. Do to combat that . Guest its a real challenge. I point out in the book that theres a conflicting approach to this problem. On the one hand, theres pressure to shut down the terrorist use of social media and on the other hand need to know what theyre doing. How do you balance the competing needs . Monitoring social media, much which is open source can produce valuable intelligence specially about people who are going to perpetrate attacks and this is really the problem that needs to be solved. Social media is been weponized and we need to figure out ways to be able to have the same kind of agility that the terrorists have demonstrated like, for instance, they will shut down twitter feeds or facebook sites from terrorists that are known to be using this to propaganda or recruit and rapidly they have their own private means of setting up new Communication Channels very quickly so its a series where you knock one site down and immediately they have three or four others that they can use and so theyre communicating. Now theyre getting even more sophisticated, they are going to encrypted communications, we saw this in the recent case of the terrorist in london who rammed a number of pedestrians on the bridge, that he was using telegram, a key tool, the Russian Software thats allowing terrorists to communicate in much more difficult ways for intelligence agencies in the west to detect them. Host does u. S. Law enforcement and as policy makers, do we have an adequate strategy ourselves to effectively use social media to combat misinformation with the truth and make sure that potential recruits of isis actually see information that we want them to see calling into question that this not the proper intrerpcion interpretation of islam, for example . Guest the main tool for this is a state Department Center for strategic counterterrorism communications. I spoke to a number of officials in researching the book and all of them agreed that they have a real challenge and the challenge is that theyre not really allowed to address the topic of islam itself. Theyve adopted at least under the Obama Administration and, of course, the Trump Administration is changing this now. Theyre talking openly about radical islamic terrorism, in the past there was violent extremism and i argued that this has made it very difficult for us to do counterideological operations so the state department under the center, they actually did a study and the study was based on some of experts, its a classified study, they wouldnt release it but had been reported on the press and the study said that because the u. S. Government has no credibility, that it shouldnt even attempt to try and do counterpropaganda efforts against isil and the terrorist groups online and that to me is a totally defeatist approach, you will never succeed if you dont even try and there are some new efforts just in december the latest congressional defense bill contained a new provision thats calling for counterdisinformation and propaganda which is mostly targeted against russia but it needs to be much broader and a much more targeted against all of the main adversaries and has the military, they love their acronyms, they have an acronym for them called cricket, china, russia, iran, korea and terrorism and so those are the main threats that we need to address and thing that im hoping that under the Trump Administration they will get more efforts, both resources people and leadership to tackle the tough problems. Host one of the most impressive parts of the books is you look at different case studies of different countries, you named, china, russia, north korea, iran and isis, Islamic State and i wanted to delve into some of the examples that we have seen of the u. S. Of Information Warfare by these specific countries, the first one i would like to go to is north korea. I think the general public is well aware of the sony hack because it got so much media coverage, thats, of course, the hack in response to the movie of the interview. Why was this such a significant event when it comes to Information Warfare because you spend a lot of time talking about that in this book . Guest i do a deep dive on the sony hack which took place in 2013 and based on the north korean government recognition that they were really opposed to this movie the interview, which was what i call a comedy, wasnt that god of a movie but an important thing in em posing the kind of problems that north korea poses. North korea needs to be understood and i dont think a lot of people understand that this is a crime against humanity regime. Un human rights commissions have exposed that and identified it and yet we are in the 21st century and we are still dealing with this regime that does horrible unspeakable things to its own people. Excuse me, the sony hack was the first time that a government had attacked a private industry for political gain and so the sony pictures, they went in and took information which was extrially damaging to the company as well as damaging attack, the software that was used destroyed the entire networks of these people. For research for the book, i actually interviewed a north korean defect or and he actually trained hackers in north korea, the u. S. And the west should take the threat seriously. What theyre going for ultimately is u. S. Infrastructure. The ability to turn out the lights to damage our infrastructure and prevent us from operating as a western society. Of course, everyone recognize that is the u. S. Is the most wired country in the world, everything is networked and so if you attack that infrastructure, you could cause strategic damage to the United States and thats the real danger. Now, the North Koreans are building on that capability. They are still considered a secondtier threat to the russians and chinese. Host in terms of north korea you are critical of the lack of response. Guest i think covering this issue for a long time and as far back as 2011, i learned from intelligence sources in the u. S. Government that senior officials of all the major agencies, the Intelligence Community, the pentagon, Law Enforcement had presented a series of options to the Obama White House and the options were basically they were saying, listen, we were under attack and other and unless we do something in a real way, these attacks are going to continue. Presented a range of options, whether that was government officials or hackers all the way to conducting offensive counterattacks that would actually go in and damage some of the infrastructure of these organizations, say, the chinese unit that was linked to the office of Personnel Management hack or some of the russians. White house rejected all of those options, so basically there hasnt been anything done. In the case of sony, they made some symbolic sanctions against some north korean officials that really would have no impact. It was things like blocking them from entering the United States or blocking them from access to the international financial, while those are okay, measures, they werent enough to really make an impact and as a result we are seen an escalating scale of cyber and influence operations. Its getting worse and not better. The reason is there needs to be a greater response. Admiral rogers, National Security agency chief has been one to have strongest advocates for a tougher deterrence response. In other words, hes been advocating that the cost of industry into that realm of Information Warfare whether its cyber or influence is so low that its irresistible for enemies to resist in that. Once the cost is raised, that would have a deterrent effect and say, hey, if you attack the United States, that will change the equation. I think the sony hack highlights an important question for policymakers that were grappling because sony is a nongovernment agency, what role to the department of defense play specifically when we are discussing admiral rogers, who real should be played in combating and making sure that we are sharing information with None Governmental Organization of Cyber Threats that are out there . Guest thats really the big problem right now. The lines of authority that allow the government to be be able to do things are being blurred. They have very modeled and not clear and the problem is that most of the infrastructure is in private hands. Privet are in charge of their own security. Theyre kind of constrained from using it and theres a lot of reasons for that, some are political, we saw some of the snowden disclosure really turned against the National Security agency which to me is the premier agency for cybersecurity. Other intelligence and Law Enforcement agencies in the pentagon have have good capabilities to counter this but theyre theyre constrained by law and by regulation about what they can do. Thats why i think we really need kind of a new entity. I call it information america where we would set up something that would be similar to the u. S. Information agency of the cold war era and would transcend various agencies because if its part of the Defense DepartmentInformation Warfare would be subordinated, it would be a support function. It would be impose by heavy secrecy which is their culture n. The state department, diplomacy impaired, in other words, the state department is oriented towards getting along with foreign nations. So if we had an individual agency that could do this kind of thing, i think it would help clarify those lines of authority and it could be, again, both a content counter and promotion thing as well as technical and cyber to be able to cross over these two things and perhaps interact better with the private sector. Host so that was an interesting proposal that i will get at tend of the interview. I also we wanted to highlight other countries who have utilized Information Warfare, we talked about north korea being in tier two, lets move onto tier one actors, adversaries when it comes to Information Warfare, china, and one of the examples that you touched upon, let me find the quote, you write, quote, no other nation today poses a greater danger to american National Security than china, a state engaged in an Unprecedented Campaign of Information Warfare using both massive Cyber Attacks and influence operations aimed at diminishing what beijing rewards as most strategic enemy, the u. S. , the example that ive experienced with china is the opm hacking, office of Personnel Management. I was one of the individuals that got the notification was part of the opm hacking, why was that such a significant event . Thats my first question, and second, talk about chinas broader capabilities and how they differ from the tier two actors . Guest sure, the chinese recognized early on that they do not have the physical capabilities to challenge the United States and right now china is challenging the United States and regards the United States as main enemy, the u. S. Has largely selfdeluded itself that china is a normal nation when in fact, it is a dictatorship, thats often lost in the debate over china and ive been covering that issue for over 30 years. The problem is the chinese, they are everyone talks about chinas rise but whats but what the chinese are also doing is trying to manage the decline of the United States. They have what they regard as the declineest theory of the United States. They see the United States as a diminishing power and that theyre a rising power and that theyre working to help diminish the United States, so thats the underpinnings of their Information Warfare operations against the United States. I highlight a number of areas where they do that. The opium act was unique in that 22 million federal records were attacked but that was just like actually one element of this broad thick that had been going on for at least a decade and the Intelligence Community had a code name for it, it was byzantine, Cyber Intelligence operation and they stole the records which included some of the most Sensitive Information that you could possibly have in the u. S. Government, things about security clearances, relatives and neighbors who were who were questioned about someone getting a security clearance, this information is extremely valuable for further cyberattacks, what the chinese can do with that information is using tools and be able to identify a systems administrator inside a defense contractor and with other intelligence they could target that official, learned his password credentials and used that to gain access to further Information Operations. A lot of times these attacks have been kind of diminished as somehow this is just intelligence gathering, but that is, i think, a real misnomer, these are attacks and the reason you cant say that its just simple intelligence gathering is because there are two things that happened when the chinese get inside a network like the office of Personnel Management, one, they steal massive amounts of data, but two, this is a little known fact, they plant something call sleeperAgent Software, that is software that communicates with beijing but almost impossible to detect, it may communicates back maybe once a year and mixed in with the software of the 1s and 0s that make up the millions of lines of codes. This is the real problem. In a crisis, they could use that software, that sweeper Agent Software to shut down networks or to do other damaging or sabotage efforts and so thats why we are having trouble with the terminology, just Cyber Intelligence or is it cyber sabotage, its a combination of both, is what i argue. Host and one statistic thats astounding when i read it in terms of the amount of data that the cyber chinese spies have stolen, nsa amounts that the amount of data 50terabytes of data, five times, all the information contained in 161 million books and other printed materials held by the library of congress, thats astounding. That demonstrates how much of a threat this truly is and how far behind the United States is and how we need to ensure we have a strategy to combat this type of warfare. Guest i would also mention that the use of that data is whats critical. I interviewed a person from datamining, tom riley and basically said that in china there are some 60,000 datamining companies that are emerging, so its not just that theyre dealing data but theyre having ability to manipulate and also to conduct future Cyber Operations. Host another tierone is russia and my committee in congress spent a great deal time on. Can you give the viewers a sense of the scale size, scope of russias use of Information Warfare because it is significant . Guest just last week i went to a conference where the Deputy Director of the National Security agency rick legged was giving a speech and afterwards i went up to him and said, i heard that a years ago that the director of National Intelligence russia had e clipped china as the major threat in the cyber realm and i asked, okay, who is the bigger threat, is it russia or china and he said, russia, and i asked him why, he wouldnt tell me. The reason is that the russians are building their Cyber Capabilities and their influence capabilities on their soviet past, again, as a Major Nuclear power, they had a tremendous Technology Base and a lot of the technologists that were involved in the soviet industry have now emerged as key players in the cyber realm and its a combination of both the private sector as well as the Intelligence Services are going great guns in using these Cyber Capabilities again their main threat. Under vladimir putin, main enemy, something that putin is using and they have conducted some extremely damaging Cyber Operations and are becoming known as recently as two weeks ago. There was an indictment against two Russian Hackers and two Intelligence Officer who is were involved in the yahoo attacked. Host i know that we have spoken a lot about cyber warfare but i think the case of russia allows us to influence Information Operations and Information Warfare and specific manipulation of the media and wanted to, quote, general chief of the general staff and the Russian Federation in 2013, he said this this is in your book, the very rules of war have changed. The rule of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has groan and in grown and i think as we are looking at russias increasing influence in particular when undermining our nato allies, we see a unique way that they are using Information Warfare and influencing operations, can you talk about that in terms of its operation in the ukraine and the crimea . Guest the Russian Strategic threat is extremely dangerous and i dont use that term lightly. I have been covering National Security a long time. I dont scare easily. But the things that have happened in russia over the last several years concerns me about what is happening there. One theyre emerging in cyber warfare and influencing operations but behind the scenes is also their Iran Nuclear Agreement development, in addition to modernizing across the range of systems, missiles, bombers, submarines as well as developing even Smaller Nuclear weapon that is are use nbl a conflict, i rent recently, lowyield nuclear weapons. The russians have changed their tactics to the point where they have this policy escalate to deescalate. Their convention forces have become so weak that they need nuclear weapons. When you combine that with the use of warfare to succeed strategic ends, you have a very dangerous situation. As it relates to crimea that was a case study on what has been known as hybrid warfare, they basically took over industrial region of ukraine without firing a shot and they used special forces troops without incig insignia, put forth small narratives that this part of ukraine belonged to russia, they organized demonstrations to make it appear that people in crimea wanted the russians to invade and take over the industrial heartland of ukraine and this was really a wakeup call to the west. I looked at what is motivate motivating for vladimir putin. He called the collapse of the soviet union, the biggest catastrophe for russia and he spent on reestablishing a russian supremacist state and will control all of the areas around russia including the arctic, by the way, which is a new target. So this is a very dangerous situation as we are seeing the russians emerge and under a regime that has designed on taking over nations, the apologist, propaganda have dismissed this by saying whats a Little Country a little section of a country like crimea, well, i think if we learned anything from the last century if aggression is allowed to pursue unchecked, it leads to very bad things, thats where we are now. Unless aggression by russia is reversed we are going to see more problems with russia down the road. Host when it comes to crimea, we saw how effective this information was in terms of shaping media coverage. I want to touch upon my initial question about what if the media is aware and encourage the media to understand whats happening, how can we do that because i am certainly concerned about this. I want to ensure that what im reading in the news is factbased and not shaped by adversaries. Guest yeah, its a real challenge. Dealing with the press today, my own business, the news media is in kind of turmoil. Its you find that newspapers had the huge Profit Margins when they were print advertising are now struggling survive setting up pay walls, but as i mentioned theres also been politicization in the media. The liberal media is dominated by three issues which is three issues, gender identity, racism and global issues. And these two issues have kind of created a Division Within our society so people are if you watch the network news every night as i do, i found it that its incredibly bias, the buy is so obvious that people arent getting a real sense and a lot of it is domestically focused. Theres been a loss of coverage overseas unless theres a major event, terrorist attack, we around covering overseas, we arent covering the threats. Its identifying the threats. The other thing is in the liberal media today there is this kind of a postmodern philosophy that the only real threats are from the terrorist who are on a fringe as far as nation states theres very little differences and, of course, our enemies dont agree with that view at all and thats where we need to focus on understanding these threats more. Host another very notable fact in the book is the fact that the russians conducted the first known cyberattack against a foreign nations lek call power grid. The military annexation of crimea demonstrate that had the russians are leading the way with cyberattack which temporarily turned out the lights for tens of thousands of ukrainians, from my perspective, that is deeply concerning, the fact that these cyberattacks can happen to Critical Infrastructure around the world or even in the u. S. , what potential threat does that pose in the u. S. And what can we do to ensure that we have the defense measures in place combat that . Guest its a huge problem. Thats the big enchilada in terms of Cyber Threats. The bad news is u. S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement has already detected both russian and chinese cyber intruders getting into the the networks that map the electrical grid or control the lek call grid. What does that mean . That means that theyre doing reconnaissance so in a future conflict or crisis, even, they could shut down the power. In fact, i present a fictional scenario in the chapter which shows that as a result of the crisis in the South China Sea where a u. S. Plane shoots sinks a chinese warship that rather than conducting a kinetic counterattacks the chinese dispatch covert commandos to pennsylvania at a specific node in the grid where they can they actually make it look like it was a natural disaster, a tree falling on power lines and they use cyberattacks to create a cascading power failure over the three grids of the u. S. Electrical grid. Thats exactly the kind of thing that people are worried about and i think some steps are being taken to try to strengthen and harden the grid against those attacks but its not going to be easy. For example, transformers, its been shown that through cyber you can cause a transformer to explode and blow up, replacing large transformers is going to be very costly and would take a long time because the u. S. Doesnt make transformers, theyre made in germany or south korea and so this is the kind of thing that, i think, we need a more comprehensive approach and obviously the infrastructure is they talk about critical informations but of all the Critical Infrastructures, everything runs on electricity and that should be the top priority, hardening our lek call grid. Host theres one additional country that you cover in this book and its iran. What type of threats does iran face when it comes to Information Warfare . Guest yeah, iran is definitely an emerging power in the Information Warfare sphere and what i highlight in the iran chapter is iran has gone from kind of lowlevel defacement of websites to Cyber Espionage to denial of service attacks escalating to the upper tier of those which is destructive cyberattacks, that is the ability to create damage and cyberattacks through cyber means and i also focus on the case of the hacking of the sands casino in las vegas which was a very sophisticated cyberattack aimed against the casino owner Sheldon Adleson who had made comments about iran and iran basically shut down and destroyed or damaged the computers of his casino, but more recently weve seen the iranians venturing into infrastructure and this is about a damn in up state new york where they were able to get inside of the controller of this dam and if they wanted to had this control been active, but fortunately it wasnt, they could have created a National Disaster which could have flooded a local community in up state new york. That to me is where the irannance are heading. Its a very serious threats. I think the government has done a little bit. They have indicted a number of iranian hackers which revealed some of the information but much more information has to be put out. We have to identify these threats, if we dont, then we are not going to know how to counteract those threats. Host absolutely, since i represent new york district, its concerning to me a targeting of up state new york dam but most important these highlights these Nongovernmental Organization institutions and the u. S. Needs to do a much better job in information sharing, whether youre a private company, financial institution, Critical Infrastructure, you have the tools to be able to invest in cybersecurity so these situations dont happen. Now, i want to look more broadly at some of the conclusions in the book. And this i want to preface this by saying, i am going to read the quote, the big question is where do with go from here, we have an opportunity with a new administration, with a new congress to put forth a strategy when it comes to Information Warfare and i found that quite compelling in the book you talked about a 2012 study produced by joint chief of staff and found that the u. S. Lacked the strategic understanding of Information Warfare needed in the war of terror. For a decade, quote, the u. S. Was slow to recognize the importance of information and the battle for the narrative in in achieving objectives in all levels. It was often ineffective, you talked about the need for new Information Agency, how is that one part of where we go from here . I would love to hear some of the conclusions you draw and the direction we need to move as policymakers. Guest yeah, its been a feature of my books that, again, i highlight a lot of the threats and it paints a pretty dark picture but i always try to present pro posals of how to present the problems and in this case, i present the outlines of the number of issues. I mentioned information america, i think its basically usia for the 21st century. How it can be tured, it is up for debate. Realistically it can be a combination of two where it would be supported by intelligence agencies and Diplomatic Service as well as, but really focused onsetting on programs so i present an outline on how we do this, obviously theres room for debate. We need to identify these problems and then come up with some solutions, i think ive got a pretty good idea that if we dont try to do this we are going to be in bigger trouble down the road. The problem is getting worse. We didnt talk extensively about the russian operation but clearly that was a new step and it left the government saying, well, jeez, we never thought about our election as part of Critical Infrastructure. Its very difficult to do in a polarized political environment. We need to come up with real solutions. Im optimistic that the Trump Administration will take a look at this. I know that like yourself and others in congress they are also looking at some solutions to this as well. Host in the solutions factor i like books that present ideas and recommendation, you talk about as part of information america a number of projects and some of them piqued my interest and they will pique our viewers interest. What would that mean, what does that look like . Already theyre interested in using big data. Thats basically all of this open source which was from social media, from other sources and putting it all altogether and identifying patterns. Its a complicated area. Again, you would have to have this in russian and in chinese, so there you have to develop new Language Skills and technology that can also sift in chinese characters and i think thats really a growth area for focus, to be able to use big data. Host another project you recommend that had the u. S. Needs to embark on is the hollywood project. Can you talk about what that is . I know we touched upon the north korea issue, i thought that was interesting. Guest this is the idea, promoting america. Promoting the ideals of freedom, liberty, democracy, free markets, you know, americans Film Industry was one reason why people around the world loved american. Unfortunately in hollywood today you have a narrative that portrays the United States in the worst light possible. Its almost a cliche in every movie that its anticorporate, its antigovernment, the bad guys are always who in the past used to be the good guys. Im not saying that we shouldnt let them do that but i know that theres a big market for proamerican patriotic movies that have a different narrative. Lets set up a proamerican Film Industry or studio, you know, i know glenn beck has talked about doing this. Its something thats urgent and i think it would be a commercial market for because films that do portray america well, it could be just dismissed as propaganda, i think we need to get over that and say, look, we have some great things to offer the world. We need to promote democracy against the chinese socialist model, against the russian fascist model and i think that would be one way to do it. Host this brings us to my next point. You mentioned the idea of the hamilton project. Obviously thats in response to the hamilton musical and the success that we have seen beyond all previous broadway plays. I saw hamilton and earlier in the book separate from this discussion of the hamilton project, you talk about how our Founding Fathers understood the importance of Information Warfare and influence operations. What would hamilton project look like . Ive said that i think every member of congress should go see hamilton because it does highlight the strength of our of our u. S. Republican democratic government and the challenge that is our founders faced. What does the hamilton project look like . Guest offshoot of the hollywood project. I think, yeah, i think that hamilton project really does show that you can use artistic venues to promote the best of america and i dont think we should should apologize for that. Again, the liberalleft narrative that america is evil country and should be all of its faults should be highlighted, my view is just the opposite. The america is the last best hope for the world and i think that we need to promote that view. Host what now im going turn the table, what is your recommendation for members of congress . I sit on the House Arms Services committee and the select committee on intelligence and we have oversight over the Defense Department and the Intelligence Community. What is your recommendation for elected officials in the Big Questions we need to be asking and the process we need to go through to be in a better place two to four years from now when it comes to Information Warfare . Guest i would say that the biggest thing congress could do would be to help the American People understand the threats that we are facing. That is really the key because if people dont think theres a threat or if they think that the foreign threat is just a reflection of the same thing that the u. S. Government does, theres a misunderstanding there. Congress can be of valuable resource in helping the Defense Department to promote things like understanding the chinese Information Warfare threat or the russian Information Warfare threat. Their information is we cant let anybody know this. In the cyber realm its been very again, the information explosion around world. Things travel at light speed and yet we cant get information out when something comes to light. If we could establish better procedures and policies to better inform and educate the american public, i think congress could play the key role there. All of the best things that i have seen in my career, more than 30 years in washington, have come as a result of congressional action. Here is an example, Congress Mandated that the pentagon produce annual report on the chinese military. The chinese hate it, they complained about it every time they do this annual report, but its one of the most important baselines for understanding whats going on. Similar things could be done with Information Warfare and Cyber Threats. Lets get these this information out there so people can know, so that our companies can know and we can take steps to fix the problems. Host one of the policy questions that we are grappling with is the importance of u. S. Cyber command. As you know, admiral rogers is dual headed and what should we do to mature u. S. Cyber command and what can we do to splitting the dual hat . Guest its a chicken or egg problem. Nsa which is Cyber Command, those capabilities are focused on intelligence gathering, thats their main mission. Cyber command, its job to both know the threats and to be ready when needed to be able to take action, either defensive action to block off guys or in the warfare sense to wage cyber warfare in the future. The lines of authority remained blurred, in fact, the pacific command, commander testified recently that the problem is that the lawyers are controlling things and he said either we change the system or reget better lawyers because theyre not allowed to use Cyber Capabilities because they are restricted by legal constraints so there clearly needs to be at some point, Cyber Command will be separated from the nsa and probably elevate today its own combat and command but until they can figure out the legal differences and figure out a way that nsa can directly support Cyber Command, its probably going to stay that way for a year or so. Host im a big believer in publicprivate partnerships and i think theres way to work with Silicon Valley, how can we more effectively work with the private sector, specifically our Technology Companies that are investing in research and development and Big Data Analytics . Guest Silicon Valley is the industrial heart of our country right now. I point out that a lot of the people in Silicon Valley have been coopted by the lift. There was a great article by a guy named Michael Anton who talked about San Francisco values and the political left has coopted many of the people in Silicon Valley whose instincts are much could be much more developed into a proamerican, prosecurity directive. Instead Silicon Valley is laning in the libertarian direction where they dont want to be interact with the government, they think the government has too many problems and its too bureaucratic. I think that there needs to be some some outreach. I know that the cia has its Technology Unit in Silicon Valley, the pentagon has Innovation Center there too. I think that the challenges is really to try to get them to contribute to this battle against foreign Information Warfare threats. I think if the leaders of Silicon Valley and the social Media Companies and the titans out there were educated to some of the things that im writing about, i think it would change their view on how to deal with the problems. Host do you think that this is an opportunity for this administration to invite members of companies that are leading the way in Silicon Valley . I think its a real opportunity for the Trump Administration to bring in the best and brightest, the googles of the world, ubers and would you think thats an opportunity for this administration . Guest absolutely. In fact, i think thats the first step that should be taken. They should form a Blueribbon Commission of experts. Sometimes can be oriented by the people you pick. It has to be done in a way that will create some real policy proposals. I think that would be the first step. Lets get some of the Silicon Valley people. Lets get some of our former Government People involved in Information Operations and lets get them all working together to figure out how to address this problem. I feel its a really urgent necessity because this problem is going to get a lot worse as we saw in the last election with the russian influence operation. Its not going to stop. James comey, the fbi director said, its going to be there in 2020, its going to be there in 2018, so this is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed right away. Host now i want to turn to some process on your experience to write this book. Can you tell me how long it took you to write . I know its a culmination of your career, but actual start to finish in terms of brainstorming to publication . How long did it take . Guest good question. I began work on the book in april of 2016 and my deadline to turn in the manuscript was august 1st. Host thats pretty quick. Guest very quick. I relied on a lot of my reporting that that i had done and i took some of the stories and did further research and further interviews with people and i tried to identify, again, without having known that the government had identified the major players, i was able to do chapters on each and every one of these and i had a lot of inside information. Thats one of the advantages to writing. This is the first book that ive written since 2008 and back then there wasnt the same level of access to information as there is now. We have so much information at our fingertips, its just an information explosion out there and its just incredible resources that are out there. For example, i found a report that was done for nato on russian Information Warfare, it was done by a polish woman and fascinating look at how the russians orchestrated the takeover of crimea and so a lot of information out there, i was able to get that, put it altogether. The publisher was very good. We had a little bit of a back and forth, we changed some of the chapters around. We moved the north korea chapter to the front and i think it came out very well. Host and the feedback has been quite positive. There are a number of parts of this book that actually made news, the north korea chapter is a great example of that. Can you talk about what your response has been to the feedback . Guest yeah, that was amazing. One of the solutions to the north korea problem i said was theres a way to change the regime in north korea and i think we also should realize that we need to change that regime, again, its crimes against humanity regime. It shouldnt be allow today torture its own people for so long as it has. My solution was to get Nongovernmental Organizations and have them send cell phones and computers into north korea. Lets get this medically sealed totalitarian state wired. We know from china that they can control the technology but also i know from the north Korean People theyre innovative enough that theyll eventually find ways around all of the government controls and breakthrough the information wall and get information. Once information can start flowing into that country, it will change. It will change very rapidly. I also mention that one of the tools would be to set up a government inexile, lets use the estranged brother of kim jong un to really put the pressure on him to change that regime, well, as we saw within weeks of publication of the book, the North Koreans through their ministry of state security conducted an assassination of kimjungnam using never agent. Two women to rub his eyes and within minutes the nerve agent had killed him. This took away a potential leader. In order to understand the korean regime, a family dynasty, three generations, target in military terms the center of gravity of the north korean regime which is the kim family. Host i had the opportunity to travel to south korea as part of the Intelligence Committee for new members who went to japan and south korea and the cover of the newspaper was two days after that assassination of kim jong uns half brother. It is a significant National Security challenge and it is going to be incredibly important for policymakers its important to Pay Attention to whats happening in syria and iraq but the north korean challenge is significant and having a strategy to shed light and ensure that north korean population actually have access to the truth and information because, i think, that will undermine the regime and have a potential future for a Better Future for North Koreans, certainly was eyeopening visiting there. We have reached the end of our book talk. Again, this is bill gertz, here to talk about his book iwar. This is a timely book. It has incredibly recommendations for policymakers. I want to thank you for your thoughtfulnesses and willingness to put decades of work into writing a book like this. Guest thank you very much, i know that youre really busy and i appreciate you taking the time h. Host thanks. Guest thank you. Here is a look at some books being published this week, Ohio Governor john ca kasich recalls his 2016 president ial run. Ten life lessons he learned from his father in the gift of anger. Caitlin jenner discusses becoming our aught enic selfin the secrets of my life. Former u. S. Navy seal recalls his military career and the death to Osama Bin Laden in the operator. Facebook chief operating officer and psychologist offer thoughts on resilience. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the future on book tv on cspan2. [inaudible conversations] good evening. Good evening and welcome to the barnes noble. We thank you for coming out on a rainy night in new york city. Before we begin tonights program if you could all please doublecheck cell phones and make sure they are turned off, we would appreciate that. So immediately following our discussion and reading, we are going to open it up to you guys for some questions and answers and then immediately following that we will begin our signing. We will pull the table out here and we will have gina situated on the stage and if you would line ure