Transcripts For CSPAN Persian Gulf Security Discussion - Gen

You can follow the sent live on cspan two. A discussion on Security Issues in the persian gulf, including problems of a ram, russia, and terrorism. This is about one hour. He joined in 2020 after 39 years of sting wished ella terry service. He served as the commander of u. S. Central command. As theo serving commander of central command, he commanded the special operations command. ,n addition to his current role he is also distinguished fellow and National Security at the middle east institute. Are happy to welcome them. He will talk about a theme that has come up throughout the discussion this morning, which we are all aware of that werent sure what to think about. In 30 minutes, we will know exactly what to think about it. Introduce him. To [applause] its great to be here. Thank you for your flexibility in scheduling. This little light, i gave a speech in new york couple of weeks ago as part of my responsibilities. I gave them one of these new york clubs, very dark and heavily paneled rooms. I was speaking from a podium. I asked my staff to make sure there is a light. Good, but its dark. I need a little bit of light on that. Staff,anslated to my candlelight for this guy. Get a light for this guy. I will report back to them that you did well. Thank you very much. Welcome. Its great to be here. I know there are a number of former colleagues, representatives from the diplomatic corps here. Thanks for being here. Its good to see you. Are a variety of others from the department of defense and other places. Classmateest point that i thought was going to be here. I will hold on that. You, im coming up on the 11th month anniversary of my retirement from the military. A good transition out of the military. I think this is what is bringing me here today. Executivesd with his , that has been a great opportunity to get to know the Business World and meet a lot of businessmen and women from across the country. One that focuses on helping young enlisted veterans around the country. Been a greats opportunity for me to invest my time and energy into doing things that i think matter and are important to me. That my wife reminded me that marriage is for love and not for lunch. I was invited to get busy. I have. And the is important as i speak on this topic that we recall it was about 75 years ago this month when president roosevelt he initiated what would become a long relationship between the United States and saudi arabia and other countries in the region. As the story goes, they talked about many things during this meeting. They talked about their common responsibilities as heads of that, their shared new they both longed to be farmers. They talked about the fact that orre personal infirmities obstacles that they had to overcome in their lives. Roosevelt left one of his king, whichfor the became an object of pride for the saudis. They came to an agreement that centered around saudi arabia. It was then a fledgling countrys run by stronger nations in exchange for oil and other Political Support of the region. It was a mixture of personal relationship and National Interest that for better or worse has endured for over seven decades. That fdrir assessment understood he needed to engage and compete in this area to ensure access to the Critical Resources of the region and support our interests. The topic is Great Power Competition of the gulf. My job is to talk about the military aspects of this competition. Theink people understand general notion of Great Power Competition, like many other conceptual ideas, the war on partners onwe train regular warfare, the soft doctrinal approach to competition, it is oftentimes difficult to define and understand. I think its fair to say the Great Power Competition has replaced the war on terror as the preeminent descriptive term of our security focus. It has within the department of defense. It is clearly becoming a driving force in identification and characterization of National Interests, deployment of forces, budget considerations, capability, International Relations that support this. Prevailing that is about directly confronting. It is militarily more indirect than direct. The argument is often made on whether big power competition is warfare or not. It does believe on the taxonomy of open conflict. Its often about diverging interests. Syria, this isn an area where four different came together for a common purpose, to defeat isis. That began to divert in terms of all of our interests and objectives. That turned much more into a competitive environment than over our original purpose for being there. Great power competition is about the balance of power and the relationships that support the influence. Today, Great Power Competition is about domination of technology and domains. Contrary to what we may see in communications, Great Power Competition does not mean that alliances and partnerships are not important. They are more important in my opinion if successfully prevailing. Winning in this environment helps different connotations. It is about beating our adversaries. Importantly, in todays strategic context, its a much more subtle approach. When he implies several things. It implies a competitive advantage, outperforming our competitors in business parlance been seen as a greater value, higherquality, more desired and more reliable by our partners. Its about protecting our interests, those that are essential and those that are important. It requires that we maintain our access to a level of influence that is more power favorable to us than our competitors and adversaries. The passage to the suez canal. We remained the only country privileges there. That is a distinct advantage, something that persists during the most difficult days of our relationship with the egyptians. Winning means providing space for our leaders to strategic advantage. Capabilitiesilable , the capacity to go along with all of that. My main take away is we must compete in this region to support our overall National Security objective of maintaining competitive advantage of against great power competitors. Atdoes not mean we do this the same troop levels or operations or locations we have for the last several decades. It does mean policy and planning activities, a reliance that demonstrates our ability to maintain that balance of power. Any discussion of the gulf has to start with a discussion of our interest. There are five currently present. To ensure the region cannot be used as a platform for terrorists. Ensuring we have to ensure the instability does not impact our interest in other areas. You only have to look at refugees flowing from syria and the impact it has on europe and immigration policies in our country. We have an interest to prevent color of ration of weapons of mass destruction. We want to preserve access to critical lines of communication and resources. Finally, we want to maintain an overall favorable balance of power. Its fair to question. The more important aspect is a discussion of where they fall on a scale of criticality, from important to existential. Terrorism and access are probably important but may not rise to the level of being existential to our survival. Proliferationthat and maintaining a balance of power could be existential to our security and to our partners. An Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program would manifest itself as an existential threat to israel and would be seen the same our country. There must be a discussion of interests in this region. It must be part of our National Security process. We have to communicate this better to the region and our competitors but also to the citizens of our country. We have to recognize the interest in areas other than Eastern Europe have critical components to our overall strategy. This is an area where Great Power Competition has and will continue to take place, whether we want to or not. Someone argue that an equally critical contribution played out in afghanistan with our support against the soviets. Just as it did in europe with our large and longstanding military alliance. The middlewaters of east, the Chinese Naval vessels cannot recognize the tolications of this region the overall idea of competitive advantage against Great Power Competitions. Ats also important to look the current emerging threats and influences. Most of these will be familiar to you. There may be a different twist. I would highlight six areas. The topic of the day is Great Power Competitions, we have to start there. Russia while not economically strong poses a significant military threat to the United States. They possess access to the mediterranean through intervention in syria and look for opportunities to supplant our influence and play a role as a dealmaker in peace brokering the region. When we step back, we should expect russia to step into that void. China is the more significant challenge. They are planning to dominate technology, expand markets, create military parity and possible superiority. Thats a direct challenge to the United States. Region, they are increasing the luke perry presence, influence, activity. Theonly have to look at rridoric court or cour for an example of this. I view iran as an injured animal, attacked in itself but capable of lashing out. Solemani, wess of should expect the leadership looking inward and consolidating their power. This may limit the regional adventurism in the short term. This is an opportunity to keep the pressure on the regime, still reeling from losing its most prominent military commander and their own incompetence. While possessing the same capabilities they always have is not the same force as under the leadership of solemani. The new leader will not immediately or may never carry as hise gravitas predecessor. It can be argued the force as an institution may have more introspection on their part. This may be an opportunity for us. We should expect iranian proxies will not likely the escalate and for the most part test independence from iran. We can see the sin lebanon and iraq. The environment will continue to be an area where iran will exercise considerable boats, other fast capabilities. Iran is moving forward to restore components of its Nuclear Weapons program. We should expect missile capability to improve in iran. I think its important to note the gulf states have come to recognize they stand to lose the most and are not eager to see this escalate the law beyond the stages it has recently. They would prefer to see a trend of deescalation. , back to the future is a phrase that comes to mind here. Jihad is going local. They are using local fighters and impacting local successes. Isis will continue to exploit where it can, in and out of the region. Continue to use the instability of the region to reconstitute its plotting capability. The longstanding underlying tensions of the region, corruption, disenfranchisement, toxicic disparity, narratives are ever present. Iraq is in a difficult position. There is not a National Push for u. S. Departure, the protests continue under a week government. The kurds and sunnis are blocking a shia push. In this political sphere, iran will likely remain patient as we have not replaced him as a line of contention. Syria is also a difficult juncture. There should be concerned about whether the regime could control while the conflict in the northeast part of the country seems to have subsided or stabilized to some degree. The outlook in other areas is not good. Months, 400000 and 800,000 persons were displaced. Only a relatively small percentage of the deescalation has been captured. Progress is slow and bloody. There is an open conflict between turkey and syria in this area, with russia playing referee. Gamesda linked group power and influence gains power and influence. Al qaeda grows more interest by the day. Hashis vacuum, has below increased their recruiting and isis will take advantage of the situation. This has concerns about spillover into jordan. Situation inof the lebanon. It will likely get worse before it gets better. Ezbola willxpect h increase their position. Instability continues. Regionalmpact our unresolved conflicts. Saudi arabia is resolving yemen. With focused on rebuilding Regional Cooperation impacted by the three old fallout. Neither of these will be resolved quickly. Are on the precipice of an agreement in afghanistan that could lead to agreements on the discussionse and aimed at ending the conflict. We have to consider the view at home. It matters. We are less dependent on the resources of the region. The u. S. Is one of the larger exporters of the resource on which we depend from this region. There is fatigue on the home front lot about my lengthy engagements across the region that have expended american treasure in highlighted problems of the region that seem unsolvable. It would be a mistake for our friends in the region to underestimate how powerful this is on our policymakers and the public. Earlier, there is a strategic imperative to maintain our competitive advantage against russia and china. The u. S. National Defense Strategy makes very clear that maintaining our competitive advantage against the states is our objective. Recent guidance from the secretary of defense to our service jeeps and commanders makes this clear with a push toward irreversible momentum to Great Power Competition. Where does this leave us . Interests i highlighted earlier are relevant to one degree or another. Powerining a balance of remains higher relevant to our national Defense Strategy. We need to compete in this region. If we dont, are great power competitors will do so. Influence toce our support their broader strategic objectives. From a military standpoint, we will need force to pursue our objectives. We went Security Cooperation with our partners to develop their capabilities and assured integration among themselves. This should be our main effort. Ground need rotational and special Operations Forces to demonstrate resolve, protect vital assets, ensure access and basing to meet requirements. We will need a level of sustained presence in the region to watch and understand the partners, address threats beyond the capabilities of our partners. Forces require response based on the region that can give contingency operations. There has been a level of presence we can achieve to protect our interests. Its not just what we do, how we do it. Building and sustaining relationships is critical to this approach. Our task is to, return our relationship to where it was during the height of the isis campaign, a strong and behind the scenes partner agreed tasks. This can be done by returning to what has worked in the past several years, a focus on the defeat of isis activities, clear communications, information of our expectations that iraq ,rotects the Coalition Forces and continued respect for iraqi sovereignty. We need to normalize our methodologies in the region. We need to ensure we have measures in place to reduce. Syria is a brief example. And crowdedmplex operating environment, we were able to achieve our military objectives largely because we normalized how and where we were conducting operations. With an adequate mechanism to communicate with the russians. Convinced this saved lives and prevented further escalation. The news media has carried stories of contentious between u. S. Forces and syria and russian forces. Future expectations are clear and having the ability to communicate directly are important mechanisms to preserving interests. I would suggest in the future this must include iran. We should understand the significance and the advantage of small but highly focused programs to directly help our partners. Meood friend of mine told one of the best ways for us to help israel was to honor the Lebanese Armed forces. I believe this to be the case. Over the last 12 years, the Lebanese Armed forces have increased their capability, become more independent, become a more respected institution. This was accomplished through a small presence on the ground, less than 50 troops. Despite concerns on the administration and congress, there is a long ways to go with the Lebanese Armed forces. This is a clear area were we should continue to compete. Small programs work. They keep our footprint small, our mission welldefined, they are sustainable and affordable. They are popular with our partners in the region. Let me close by returning to my main point. We have to compete in this region. This is how we maintain the competitive advantage. Its an imperative for us to do so. I think fdr sought this 75 years ago. We have enduring interest in the region. I acknowledge these interests will not likely eclipse the interest we have expressed in other areas, maintaining our competitive advantage against china is an existential requirement. I do believe maintaining a balance of power that is favorable to the United States is a good approach. It supports our overall approach at prevailing against great power competitors. It does not mean we have to be engaged militarily. We need to have a sustainable plan that is predictable for our forces and our partners in the region. And isnstrate our intent affordable and understandable by our citizens. We need to exercise patience. None of this will be done quickly. We have to wind down ongoing conflicts and communicate our strategy and approach to our partners in the region. My time today is probably too short to do proper justice to this topic. It is more complex by the day. I hope i have offered you some food for thought from a former luke perry commander who spent a lot of time thinking about this region. I dont expect everyone will agree with