Cliche of a everything wrong that can happen to somebody. Eventually i asked her what i asked everyone i photographed. How do you what me to describe you . She shot back with Something Like it is what i am. A prostitute, and a child of god. Sunday on q a. Lori robinsoneral was the first woman in u. S. History deleting combat command. She discusses defense policy and international security. She spoke at the brookings institution. Michael welcome on to brookings. I have the honor and pleasure of welcoming general Lori Robinson. Im glad youre here to join us. She was a Lieutenant Colonel when she first came to brookings in 2001 and we spent a year with hurt and her midcareer military education. Its an education for us at brookings. It created a friendship and a fan club at brookings that continued over the years. You know her story and will talk about her story before we get into some of her observations on Strategic Issues before the country, and that have time for your thoughts and questions as well. Im happy this is happening during christmas season. I feel like i have gotten my Christmas Wish in welcoming Lori Robinson back. I think her story, since we are lucky enough to have cspan coverage today, for those that to watch and wonderful life, you have just as good of a version here with gentle robinson. She was a from an air force family. She chose not to go to the academy herself. She went to the university of New Hampshire but air force rotc. Even though she looks about 35, she has a couple of years older than that. This was back in the 1980s. She was commissioned an officer. Became whats called an air battle manager, the person who tells the f15 pilots where they can go, so to speak and she does that. She moved up to the ranks. Was the first woman ever at the nellis Fighter Weapons school, the Real Top Gun School because it is the air force version of top gun. If you are looking for the real sort of tom cruise and demi g. I. Jane, this is the real thing. In terms of the first one to do that as well as other accomplishments throughout her career. And she was one of the very few half dozen women in the u. S. Military history to attain the rank of fourstar general which happened in 2014 and had her first position with that rank as the air Component Commander previouslycommand been Vice Wing Commander and had a lot of commander experience in the broader iraq and afghanistan theater and seen a lot of the world in her various roles. She finished her military career as the first women in american commandto lead a combat when she ran Northern Command out of norad from 2016 to 2018. That period is when kim jong un was launching his icbm tests and President Trump and kim jongun had not become such good buddies. There was quite a bit of tension in the relationship and she was responsible for protecting the country in an event of a north korean attack against north america. On top of that, she had to manage the military assistance to broader civilian as the three big hurricanes hit in 2017 as well. And so, we are going to talk more about her career. Without further ado, please join lori welcoming general robinson back to brookings. General robinson he is way too generous with his compliments. Michael every thing i said was a fact. I tried to comply men temporary. I am thrilled. I will try not to call you lori too much because you deserve the title of general robinson. It could not have been easy throughout your career as a woman and i want to bring you back to the early days and describe a little bit of how it was to design the doing the military, and then the early years of working your way up through the ranks in a very macho culture, which it still is today. How did you handle that and over the big challenges and some of insights orow, personal methods of dealing with that culture . Gen. Robinson michael is right. My dad was in the air force. Ive always i am the oldest of five. My dad is looking at the fact you have to pay for college for five kids. He is like, why you go to the air force academy . And i said absolutely not. I have been in the air force for 18 years and im ready to do something else. Where would you like to go to college . I said the university of texas, horns. Em he said im paying and you are going to the university of New Hampshire. And but the first year i was so happy to be out of home. My grades might have suffered. I decided to become an english major. The teaching you will have to take what am i going to do with this . I decided to join rotc. Four years will be good. Manager,t my job, air the guy in charge said talk to your father. You need to get out of this. You will never get promoted. Im not going to ask my dad to do anything, im in it for by myself. I had theough privilege to be part of an initial squadron at the the Fighter Weapons school, the best institution. I was the first female instructor there. Askll tell you when you about what mold you, that was probably one of the places that really molded me. That place taught me about being part of a team. He would brief the pilots, execute with the pilots debrief , with the pilots. You would hang around together. More importantly the biggest lesson i learned was we had a boss. He was awesome. He said to us you realize you , are a part of something of bigger than yourself. I thought what is he talking about . It was over time i realized it was not about me. It was about the institution. That place, that time really molded me. My husband is sitting up here. He was at Nellis Air Force base at the same time and that is where we met. He flew the thunderbirds. Husband mine, my she is the second female instructor at the Fighter Weapons school. She wrote the entire syllabus for her discipline of intelligence. I would tell you as a woman because itived wasnt about being a woman. It was about getting the task done. It was about being competent at what i did and being the best at what i did. When you walk into a room and you realize youre the only woman in the room you become very selfaware of that. What i realized in that community and all Fighter Pilots was what they cared about was you being good at what you did. That is what was important. From that i would tell you, in you went through my career and it was what we call the combat air forces. Fighter pilots. I flew on the back of awacs and joint stars. Its about understanding it is not about you, its the institution. Two, the more you can teach people to work with you and work thenou to be better you when you leave the institution, hopefully you left it better than when you got there. When i got to my first flying in my career field at the time was one of those career fields where they ate their young. My goal was to make it and everybody realized they were a part of sunday bigger than themselves. All my career i have tried very hard to teach. I would always say to my subordinate commanders, as long as it is not illegal or immoral or unethical, lets learn from whatever experience it was. Shaping at Nellis Air Force base and understanding about the team effort and understanding you are a part of something bigger than yourself was really it made be a different human being. As i increased in rank, two star in qatar and four star in the pacific and out in colorado, the notion that i was a woman, and i am, that would be the headline that people would say. My headline was this. I am a commander, he general, and airmen, and i just happened to be a woman if i make the. Woman more important than those other things, ive done disrespect to the institution. I do realize i have done things other women havent. I do realize the first ever female Combatant Commander and i recognize that and i have a lot of people watching what i do. And i take that on, too. But i dont want the woman to be the headline. I want the commander to be the headline. So i just tried to be a team , player, to be the best at any job anybody ever gave me, and to make those around me better than me. Michael did it get easier or harder, as you rose through the ranks, being a woman . Did you reach an atmosphere and ambience and a group of people where it became more natural for them to think of you as all the things you said . Or did it, in some ways, become harder . Im curious. I have never asked you this question before. Gen. Robinson i said to michael, be nice. [laughter] gen. Robinson heres what i discovered. In my circle, in the air force, and with the friends that i grew up with, it was a nonevent. It was rambunctious lori. That lori is doing what lori does. And for them, in fact, i had very dear friends i was a fourstar with and a three star with and a two star with, and so for them, it didnt matter. It was interesting and this isnt meant negatively it was interesting with the group ash other services because there werent many other general officers and the other services. I tried harder because in my circle everybody knew me. They knew what i was capable of. They trusted me and i trusted them. Energy in a new job. Qatar. For exampleqatar. , going there as a deputy opponent commander. I didnt know general mattis at all. Now im working for general goldstein. When general goldstein is not there, general mattis is there. I worked extra hard to quickly build the trust. I never, ever felt that people didnt trust me, but i wanted to earn that very quickly just because i was different. Ill tell you a story. I went to china and met the chinese air chief. He i was a fourstar. Again, it was a different culture. How do you build that trust as quickly as you can . Im here as the commander of Pacific Air Forces. Again, i just happened to be a woman. So, because of his different and because it was in Different Services and countries, i put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure i kept everything on an even Playing Field and im here to do a job. Michael as air battle manager, id like to explore what that means for the crowd on television and here watching and learning about the military. You were involved not only in the air to air element, but the air to ground element. The ground attack piece of that. You and your colleagues were mapping the entire orchestration, the entire choreography of a concerted effort that involved Electronic Warfare aircraft ground attack , aircraft, the whole enchilada, is that right . Gen. Robinson thats right. This crowd looks old enough to give you my first analogy. Top gun. Thats the second weapons school. If you remember at the end of top gun, the round scope, hes talking to maverick. Anybody . Can i get a couple nods . Ok, good. Thats what i did. I was talking to everybody. The Fighter Pilots on the radio, one to tell them where the bad guys were. Two, to help them drop the bombs to put on target, they had a , path to go do that. We also worried about the orchestration of tankers to ensure the commanders objectives were met, so whatever was asked of us, we knew what we had to do to ensure those objectives were met. Often because i deployed to saudi, our missions would be anywhere from 1220 hours long. You learned a battle rhythm there. Michael again, as recent as your session to the air force has been, as young as you still are, youve still seen a lot, because when you joined the air force we were just operating our first stealth aircraft and cruise missiles were a new thing. We hadnt yet seen the laserguided bombs of operation desert storm. Desert storm was only 10 smart bombs. Now were at an air force where those percentages have reversed, or even more, where we have a large number of stealth aircraft, where we have laserguided bombs, gps bombs, and we also understand the limitations of things because you need to know where the target is before you can name a beautiful and precise weapon that it. , weterinsurgency warfare have seen the limitations as well weve got Unmanned Aerial Systems out there. I just wondered whats been the most striking change in air combat . Gen. Robinson thats a great question. The thing that ive been amazed about, if you look at Desert Shield and desert storm, we havent left. You look at the way we thought and desert storm, how do we deconflict everybodys forces to make sure you get to the target . Versus if you look at now, we work very hard on integration. How do we complement each other . How do we try to make sure, whatever capability we need, we can integrate it into the total force . And where do we use drones . How do we use nonkinetics . All of that. I think the joint fight has grown tremendously. And i think, to me, in a warfare scenario, its the joint fight that has really taken shape. Thats been so beneficial. When you can go overseas and you work with your joint brothers and sisters and you see them someplace else, you know each other. Its not like walking into a building and whos that . When it starts there, now youve been to the desert together, afghanistan, iraq, wherever, but youve got this common background. And i think, as i watched that over time, i think its been a very positive thing for not just warfare, but the department of defense. Michael we will talk about the applications of these and the security environment and what youve seen dealing with china and the pacific and north korea but i did want to come back to , the question of the state of the military and gender integration and diversity. I guess im going to ask you two questions, one about whether the glass is halffull or halfempty. Regardless, im sure there is more you can suggest the military do to improve. Youre one of a halfdozen women who have reached the rank of fourstar, which is great, but there arent that many in the pipeline coming after you and we may not have another woman fourstar after general miller today, still in service. This may be a blip, at least for a while. Then its about 15 of military personnel that are women, which is more than there used to be, but still far from 50 . Im not sure if 50 is the goal. But still far from 50 . Im not sure if 50 is the goal. Hi still see a lot of reports of sexual mistreatment and abuse in the military. That is true across all society. I dont want to take on the armed forces, specifically, but i see those trends that cause a lot of concern. Rightly so. In light of your own story and what you see in the armed forces, is the glass halffull or halfempty . And then after we talk about that, id love to hear of couple of your suggestions. Gen. Robinson i think the glass is at half. Heres the positive things. They opened up all the jobs you can do in the military women. The military is a meritocracy. I did a speech. A lieutenant is a lieutenant is a lieutenant when you raise your right hand. From that perspective, thats why its half. When you look at a sessions, if you go to the academies, were doing a great job of assessing a good person percentage of women. I think the hard part comes time when people are thinking about families. I think the hard part is, and ill tell my story about that, my husband was a thunderbird pilot. We were leaving nellis and we had gone to hawaii bummer. [laughter] and it was time for us to move. And they were going to send him to korea and me to okinawa, japan. And, of course, he had gotten promoted early. He made rank early. He was a fighter pilot. And im an air battle manager. I was never going to be more more than a lt. Col. If i was lucky. He was going to be a general officer. I said david, why dont i get out and you stay in . Ill follow you around and well do that. We didnt want kids. He looked at me, as sweet as he could, and he said, what is it that you would do if you got out . I said, well, i dont know. He said ok, you stay in, and ill go fly for the airlines and go into the reserves. So, when it comes a time to make those decisions, thats the hard part. It doesnt have to be military married to military. They can be two people that both have jobs, and how do you orchestrate all that . And so i would say its at half. I think we do a good job of assessing. The hard part is keeping the women in. I havent touched base on this. I know people are looking hard on that. One of the things i would always get young ladies, come to talk to me how do you do it . , you have to have the hard conversation about whose career comes first. Whenever you dont have pressure on you. Because the second you have pressure, it becomes an emotional decision and not a rational decision. Have that constantly. Have it every now and then. And then decide how long can you be apart . How far are you willing to live apart . What is it the longterm goals are . But do it rationally when theres no pressure. So now, david and i didnt do that. That was a Lesson Learned for me. So, i think, first of all, that has to be a family decision. It has to be something that is talked about. Because sometimes maybe its the womans career that has more potential than the mans. But just have that conversation. And then i know the services are working hard. I just saw in the ndaa, they extended paternity leave. So thats a good thing. The services are working hard on, how do we make it so that we can keep women in . We talk about women, but i want to say its about diversity. Its not just about women. Its not just about women. Its about how do you keep different talents sitting around the table . How do you ensure you have people of different genders, different races, different backgrounds, different experiences, so when youre at the head of the table, youve got a whole bunch of different voices sitting there . We can talk about me as a woman, but i think the bigger story is how do we keep a diverse table . Because i think that makes you a better commander. That makes you a better decisionmaker when you have all those different voices telling you things that you probably hadnt even thought of or didnt even know. Michael i was thinking about daves comment, what kind of civilian jobs could you do after being an air battle manager . I guess offensive coordinator for a football team. [laughter] but that would probably be even more of a breakthrough than to stay in the military. So i wondered, when youre talking about the child raising years, should the military do more to let people leave for five or 10 years and come back at rank and still have a future . I know there have been some efforts, but i th