He also talks about russia, the Iran Nuclear Deal, brexit. This is just under one hour. [applause] host welcome everybody to the heritage foundation. Im delighted to introduce sebastian gardner. This is on the topic of defeating terrorism in the age of trauma. Gorka is a National Security strategist and a nonresident scholar. He recently served in the white house as Deputy Assistant and strategist to president donald trump. Also as Vice President for National Security support and professor of strategy under regular warfare. He has also served as the nose group ofe guest instructor at the United StatesArmy Special Operations command at fort bragg. At theassociate fellow special operations university. He received a doctrine at the university of budapest and is the author of the New York Times defeating jihad the winnable war. Please help me to introduce Sebastian Gorka. Sebastian i like to thank john as well, especially at former for making the whole series possible and most widely of all, for giving me my official heritage type. I do like my salmon type. Im going to talk for 25 or 30 minutes and then we will have a q a session from the podium. It will be very brief and i will try to set the stage for what has changed. A change has been absolutely monumental clinic comes to counterterrorism policy out of the United States but also the effect of that policy on the ground. The obamaack to administration. Lets look at the reality of the terrorist threat globally and in the United States. The group that the Obama Administration have called the jdk, isis, the Islamic State of iraq have grown out of being a small affiliate, a small subgroup out of al qaeda and iran for being the first Jihadi Movement since the dissolution ozment of the original in 1924 to reestablish and Islamic State, a bureaucracy in the middle east. According to the financial times, this threat group was able to raise at least 2 a mother fromy as illicit oil sales, racketeering, local taxation, hostagetaking, it controlled territory in multiple countries of the middle east, iraq and syria being the foremost but also having territory owning affiliates as part of nigeria. To unclassified colonists on the front page of i alone hadon post, operational affiliates in 18 nations around the globe. That was the reality of the threat we face. That held ground in the middle east. It wasnt running, it wasnt hiding. , it hadiddle east alone 6 million human beings that it controlled on the territory. That is just three years ago. We have been told by the last administration that isis is a generational threat a generational threat. How children, our grandchildren would be fighting isis jihadis decades from now. I guess the Trump Administration has redefined generation to last just a few months. Because where are we today . Year into the Trump Administration, one of the most important things were steve bannon and myself, steve was the chief strategist. One specific aspect of the Islamic State, we call it the physical caliphate. We wanted to make sure that within weeks or maximum, months of coming into office with the unleashing of our military to do the job they are trained to do, the physical caliphate would be no more. We can actually make that statement, there is no isis caliphate any longer. Without with our iraqi partners, we have taken about think about rocco. Ago, thehree weeks last isis stronghold in syria has fallen as well. Not quite a generation, maybe eight months. So how is this possible . How have we gone from this massive historic caliphate rebuilding organization to it being in its death throes, currently. Very simply, because of two things. 8 correct determination of what the threat is and after the correct determination, the application of a strategic response. Administrationma last diagnosis so inaccurate . What was the problem . We could have several day symposiums on that. But let me give you the barebones. The Obama Administration came into office with a strategic intent to put america back in its box. You remember this phrase from the president , we believe in american exceptionalism the same way the greeks believe in greek exceptionalism. If that was the case, then you dont believe in american exceptionalism. If you look at the National Security strategy of the Obama Administration, it talked about strategic patients. Leading from behind. What happens when you are patient . What is leading from behind . Logically, what is it, is not want. You cannot leave from behind, you can follow from behind but you cannot leave. Renege your responsibilities, and you allow others to tilde vacuum, to have things like isis becoming as possible as they did. One, there was a flawed understanding of americas role. When it came to threat assessment, there was an even insulation. Atic the last administration denigrated the role of religion. But only that but because they did not take it seriously personally in many cases. They could not understand how religion could be a driver for violence. Instead of looking at the religious ideology of groups leftal qaeda and isis, the and ministration was driven by very very flawed concepts from social clients, specifically social movement theory. Can google it, social. , social movement there would have you believe that all death violence of an organize nature is the result of physical and economic issues. The people only become revolutionaries or terrorists because they lost their job, this is you get not my pain, im just reminding you of history. The roman state spokesman for the Obama White House actually said on National Television that we will be safe, there will be no more 9 11s if we have jobs for jihadis. Is it bad snl skit. Have you ever lost a job . Been fired . I am sure, immediately you want to go out and behead somebody, yes . So this flawed understanding, this denigration of the role of ideology, ideology was deemed to , i spent six years in the defense department. Half of my offices were muslim. Andook muslim girls brigadiers from around the world, people were fighting jihadist. Com. We took them with our allies and partners after spending a year in d. C. Study for a masters. We took them around and one of the places we went was the Obama State Department through the cutting edge of county messaging, the county messaging department. Yet have a dozen government officials who were supposed to be undermining the jihadi narrative and i had a muslim will asked that panel what they thought the role of ideology was. A great question, is per question. What was the answer . In unison. Play in has no role to this war. Stunning, i asked them to repeat the answer just so everybody in the room could believe what they were hearing. Ideology has noble to play. Causes andbout root upstream factors. That is john brennan. It is a very marxist interpretation of a threat. You brought it all down to us. Physical things. It cannot be spiritual. It must be physical. That tells you a lot about how the lesson ministration saw the world. It was a flawed diagnosis and as such, if you misdiagnose a patient, what are you going to give them in terms of treatment . The wrong treatment. Thursdayst got sicklecell anemia or cancer. You have food, go home and hydrate and take some aspirin, what will happen to your patients . They will die, that is the problem, misdiagnosis. That all changed when a certain Real Estate Developer from queens decided to run for the highest office in the land. I first met donald trump in the summer of 2015, i was invited to come and talk to him at a republican president ial debate. I helped him prepare for the debates and it was the high point of my left to come work with him as Deputy Assistant but i realize that i could have worked with this man within the first 30 seconds of meeting him because he is kryptonite to Political Correctness. Faceoked at the threat we clearly as a war. Not as some problem to be managed. But as a war. Not only that, he wants to win that war. That is what we have been doing as a nation. No longeral caliphate exists. Our troops have been published. I had the top of the top special operations guy on detail for the National Security council. Ithout apropos coming up to me he said sir, you have no idea how the morale amongst our forces has skyrocketed. Micromanaged and we are allowed to do our job and if it is clear that the president trusts us, much easier to win a war when that comes to your forces. We have gone under secretary mattis with a strategy of attrition, he has said this openly, a strategy of attrition to a strategy of annihilation. Think about recent, unclassified reports, u. S. Troops and their partners had over a thousand jihadis surrender to them in a day. Perspective, when did we ever have jihadi surrender . The whole point of jihad is what . You die. You die trying to kill the your 72because you have versions, you have the short salvation. The surrendering to end of the dow, you go straight to hell for that one. That tells you how much it really has moved from attrition to annihilation. What us to have to appreciate . We have to appreciate what the president has done in terms of leadership, not only the most his own allies but on among his own government, against the muslim partners. If you want to understand who the president is and where this nation is going in terms of National Security, you dont have to wait until monday for the release of the National Security strategy which i can type because i was in the meetings and it will be a very sound document. The National Security strategy whoeparated by nadia shaba this will be a very different document. It will be the Shopping List of nss is we have had since the bush years that throws everything in and has no prioritization, it will be a very rational document that prioritizes and will have the president possibly senate. It wont be a design by committee atrocity. It will be a president ial document. Nss, i cant to the strongly recommend two things if you want to understand where we counterterrorism, go back and read the president s warsaw speech and the president riyadh speech. , i knowly essential about the speeches, great members of the white house team, that have filled the first law of war. It was a bit obligated but it everybody, when you got infected cocktail parties can quote this to you. Every time they get it wrong. They said know your enemy, read the book and get for free online, it takes 90 minutes to read. , what he said was if you know your enemy, you will when half of your battle. If you know yourself and why you are fighting. Are, youow who you will win every battle as a war. He is absolutely right, whether you are fighting the nazis, whether you are fighting al qaeda, whether you are fighting allowed to know the enemy for the last eight years. Dont take my word for it, google it, in 2011, the white house instructed in an unclassified memo to the chairman and joint chiefs that in all counterterrorism training and federal prosecutions of law enforcement, there should not be mention of islam and the were jihad is prescribed. Think about that for a second. You are not allowed to discuss jihad when you are trying to train people to defeat jihadists. That is like saying during world war ii to not mention the word nazi because you can offend some germans. Absolutely asinine and absurd. That is gone. The Political Correctness is gone. Look at the riyadh speech, what is the president doing in riyadh . He could have given a nice, critical speech. The usual kind of diplomacy but of thewent to the heart muslim world, the area where islam was founded and this was muslim heads of state. He did not say hey, we like you, he said gentlemen, sort out your society. He said regular places of , raker of extremists societies of terrorists. As an arab woman told me to ask later, that is the speech we have been waiting for for 16 years. Not eight years, 16 years. Issues under the the carpet, hoarding at our muslim friends to start by clearing out their own front doors. Their own backyards. So what happened eight days later or nine days later . They get serious. Last month, mbs and saudi arabia got even more serious. Be done withcan leadership masses. On top of that, you have to know who you are and why you are fighting. This is close to the Brandenburg Gate speech. Why . Because of what it says about us and the return of america. It is not an accident that we chose the location of that speech to be where it was, it was not easy but we wanted the president to give that speech at the side of the warsaw uprising. In that speech, what did he say . We are a judeochristian nation. Are andly, it is who we we will stand shoulder to thatder with any nation stands for those values, whether it is israel or poland. Back and were not ashamed of who we are. That is the second part. And why you are fighting. If you dont know why you are fighting, you will never ever win. Technically, what should we expect in the future . About consulate talked this as an ideological war. Book defeating jihad talks about killing terrorists, that is great. That it is not a victory because when you have enemies that have a massive recruiting court, you can kill a jihadi with a drone strike and 20 guys tomorrow will volunteer to replace them. What have you just created . The last 16 years of what can be described charitably as exquisite whack them all. Longer when people no want to become jihadists. That is victory. Body bags, it was a bad metric during vietnam and not a better metric today. Just imagine the cold war, we must defeat the ideology. The great margaret thatcher, the great ronald reagan, they delegitimized the ideological communism, we must do the same with the global jihad is in. I look forward to the nss talking about the needs to focus our efforts with our muslim allies, especially the varieties, the egyptians. Emirates, the egyptians. Churchill was right when he said you dont go to war. You dont go to war unless you define your victory conditions. If you dont define victory conditions, you will never know if you want. In my as im concerned, book, defeating jihad i called the threat we face today a new form of hybrid to italian areas of totalitarianism. It has connections to the fascism of the 30s and 40s and the communism of the cold war. Those may have been secular, antichristian but this religious totalitarian hotels arianism is late because it is a totalitarianism. If you disagree with a jihadist, just as if you disagree with the nazis, there is one option left for you. Surrender. Then thent surrender only other option is to destroy them. Is a newace today totalitarian threat, not islam, anybody who says islam has no idea of the muslim world, they should travel from indonesia to saudi arabia. They should travel from jordan to pakistan. They can see that there is no monolithic islam. We have to make sure our muslim friends can defeat the seventh century version of islam that guides groups like isis and al qaeda. We would have one very simply with the falling of the trade when the black light of jihad is as universal that is universally as the swastika of the nazis, we will have one. Then, they will no longer be able to recruit. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much for the very strong remarks right now. Like to follow your speech with a series of questions on a wide range of foreign and National Security policy issues, your party referenced the new National Security strategy to , the firstxt week since 2015, in your view, what will be the fundamental difference between the new and the Obama Administrations strategy. . . Sebastian the style of the document will be very different. It was the product of an interagency process. This document will be the president s document. It is not understood, the fake news is still doing its thing. The president is neither an interventionist nor an isolationist. This may be copper kidded for the first palm is of the road to get their heads around but he is andher an isolationist libertarian model who thinks we should ignore everyone else and be fine. That is absurd after pearl harbor and 9 11. Nor is he an interventionist. Unamericanentally to invade other peoples countries and occupy them. If 1776 mean something doesnt intend to six is about antiimperialism, it was born in a response against imperialism. It will be a very wise middle secondly, as all National Security strategies should do and have done for about 25 years, it will prioritize as michael professor Graham Allison at harvard had a great video lecture online, you can see john hopkins applied physics lab. It starts with saying some things are more important than other things, not everything is equal and some nations are more important to america than other nations. Thats not politically correct but it is a fact of life as in some people are more important to you than other people. As such, this document will prioritize issues and relationships and you can expect three things to be prioritized. China, and the law ideological nature of the threat we face with terrorism. Thank you very much. I would follow with a question which i expect future heavily in the new strategy, the decertifiedcently the Iran Nuclear Deal, congress has been very slow to act in terms of reimposing u. S. Sanctions and that goes back to the white house for the movement view, candaceur Iran Nuclear Deal be salvaged . I in americas interest would better off working with the agreement . As i canceled the preside