The middle east, china, russia and other topics at an event hosted by Johns Hopkins school of advanced international studies. He also responded to the news of President Trumps decision to withdraw forces from syria. This is one hour and ten minutes. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is eliot cohen. Im the dean of sais and its my pleasure to welcome you to the 2019 lecture on International Affairs with general David Petraeus. The four i introduce general petraeus i i want to share a little bit more about the lecture series at sais. The series is named after charles ross off, steps in 1990 by his wife dorothy as a treatment to his life and he was on the interest in International Affairs. Charles was a hopkins alumnus and was a dedicated supporter of the universities efforts to improve our understanding of the world. That of course is the sais mission. Were particularly glad today that we have with us charles daughter kerry and his son and his wife to be with us for this event and want to express my gratitude to you into your family for making it possible. So David Petraeus is one of those people who actually really literally does not need a whole lot of introduction. Hes still going to get one that is not going to be very long. Hes currently and has been since 2013 affiliated with kkr, currently the chairman of the kkr Global Institute which supports kkr is investment committees, Portfolio Companies and partners with analysis of geopolitical and macroeconomic trends. But, of course, what he is most known for is a career of 37 Years Service to this country and the United States army, to include a command in the surge in iraq, central and then capping it all service at the Central Intelligence agency as its director. It is an extraordinary career not just of service but of Successful Service to the United States. What were going to be doing tonight since general petraeus and i met when he was a major and i was an assistant professor a long time ago, is not do this as a lecture but rather to do as a conversation. So i have a number of questions that i would like to put to him. Well have a conversation back and forth, and then were going to open it up to you all. Im going to say from the outset that when the time comes for the q a, i will be selecting people who either our students or look so much like students that i cant tell them apart. So theyre going to get first preference. With no further ado its great pleasure to have you again at sais, dave. Please join me. [applause] thanks very much. I want to add my thanks to the rostov family as well. I think ive done this once before but it is a real pleasure to do it with eliot this time being dean eliot cohen, and i congratulate you on that. Well talk about strategic leadership later on. I think youve been an extraordinary leader provide a different Strategic Programs and others here over the years but you are now truly the strategic leader for sais and i think the school is an extraordinarily good hands. It is a pleasure to be back here as well. We go way, way back, back to the days of the other heroes who are here over the years. And again to those who are fortunate enough to be where you are in the seats as a student or a former student, i congratulate you in particular. Thank you, dave, and thank you for your friendship and your mentorship over the years and also for engagement with this institution. Youve repeatedly visited us. He became came and spoke to us shortly after return from command from your first commit and iraq with the 101st. You even went on the staff ride with us to gettysburg. That was before that. That was when i stewing and fellowship in the of the war college and i subsequently then did a 2. 2 haiti in lieu of the fellowship so there will be a recurring theme here especially for the military fellows and military students here, which is the enormous importance of what might be turned out other intellectual comfort zone experiences. Graduate school was very much that kind of experience for me. I treasure it to this day and again those who are in uniform are actually from other institutions where this might not be the norm, where soulmate even told you as he told me that i was committing professional suicide by going to graduate school and still of the ranger regiment. I seem to avoid that but its really wonderful and i encourage you to make the very most of it. Of course we always think just how much more successful you event if you gotten your phd here rather than at stanford. [laughing] im in princeton, sorry. I get confused. Let me ask you a question. I wont make any jokes about, you know, a whole series of princeton jokes. Thank god for harvard, not anybody can get into princeton but anyway. Work with me here. Oh, boy. Youre the chairman of the kkr Global Institute, and i was thinking about your career. There you were director of the Central Intelligence agency, pretty to all of her secrets and, of course, you work on the joint staff and you have been a theater Combatant Commander and so many other things. It only struck me when i get in the government over the years have different information flows are and that if only one sees the world from that perspective than from the outside. What are the kinds of things you think you understand better now as a result of being where you are, and maybe should explain what then you were there with all the resource use, at your disposal . First of all, the kkr Global Institute which i treated says geopolitical risk for kkr and, frankly, thats becoming ever more important. It used to be certain a side like him with the fat when we were in countries we had never invested before and is much more important these days. Reintegrate the macroeconomic analysis of the 2027482001 mountain pacific we have as well and environmental social government issues analysis, which is also, anyone of these actually can be a dealbreaker and we use what we gather in that to supplement what the team is doing, the Financial Analysis of it. We have an Innovation Team that looks at how it might be disrupted by innovations down the road. All of that comes together, within essentially have three client groups, one is investment committees, america, asia, europe and even a bunch of others now, real estate energy, nextgeneration technology, goes on and on. Keep in mind we get somewhere between 205 210 billiondollar under management round the world. World. We own about one of the companies. Maybe more significant i was made a partner also about five years ago, which is wonderful. If youre ever on a partner offered a partnership with kkr, take it. Its really quite a wonderful thing. And in second group of clients, if you will, our Portfolio Companies again, we own about 100 of these outright and we have minor stakes or less than the joysticks another 5070 Something Like that. Often are grappling with issues. We did a 2 billion investment in Health Medications in former yugoslavia. Every single country was problematic and every secret case, when my people be on the board, pulled in as needed. Multiple trips to these countries and would go in with the u. S. Ambassador because its a u. S. Company although its all around the world and then the European Bank of reconstruction feldman on the other hand, and we would go in and sit with government officials and explain to them that their Competition Council it was anticompetition in the grip of a Political Party and not allowing our great firm to do what we were planning to do to improve Internet Access and a variety of other telecoms for them. This is not unique. Weve done this all around the world, and that is been very important. Companies that want to global we can help them in many cases. In a number of cases where we have not invested before, key examples would be mexico, the balkans, ethiopia, philippines and handful of others. They were headline risks as we called it and so the team and i will go in and evaluated and come back and we have to give thumbs up before you were going to do an investment. Ive actually vetoed a couple investments, one was really attractive in particular back in the old middle east area responsibility, and there was some repetition of risk that i wont go into that was just too much, despite how attractive it was financially. So that is been great fun. Then our investor groups, particularly our Strategic Investors as a calling, these are the ones that are very substantial. They all want to understand the world in which were all investing together so we do a lot of activity with them. Almost similar to what were doing here but again lets say they are bored or their stakeholder or whatever it may be, you know, its wonderful frankly to get paid to do what you love to do. Look, i love government but what everyone was international stimulation. I still i travel a great deal, boots on the ground still matter, about 25 countries a year. Some of the many more than one time. So does the world look different on this adage point than it did from within the government . Its a different perspective. Dont get me wrong were still concerned about security issues. Were still concerned about National Security issues, geopolitical risk again and all the rest of this. All of which it is as a director of the cia with less of the nationals could focus and more of a financial investment. Did you ever run across things or insights or views we say gosh, i wish id known that when i was at cia or for that matter centcom . Sure. Again it has to do with indepth knowledge of a particular country or even industry or development. Obviously the world has turned over considerable amount in the seven years since i was in, as well. Well talk about some of the most significant developments, but again i think geopolitics has become vastly more important than it was even one of us government. Dont get me wrong, there were plenty of challenges but in particular will come back to this theme again and again, the rise of china and the fact china is not just our biggest geopolitical competitor. Its also wasnt till the tariffs are biggest trading partner. Well come back more and more on this because thats the most important relationship in world by far, bar none, and it is aa think as previous secretary of defense says all china all the time and a lot of different respects. One of the biggest investors of our type in china, in asia writ large. Will get to china but first breaking news, President Trump has announced we are withdrawing American Forces from syria, particularly i believe from the news report i saw said that someone military posts along the syrianturkish border had already been american posts, had only been evacuated. This is part of the world you know very well indeed. Served quite a long time. What am i supposed to think . The press still have my email and phone number, and by reaction, frankly, was to share the concerns that even voiced by Senate Leader mcconnell and Lindsey Graham in a variety of different ways. For me as ambassador to u. N. Nikki haley and among a bunch of others. I say that with the caveat because its still not precise and clear to me what it is that was the policy objectives are, nor specifically what the policy is. In other words, how deep is turkey going to be allowed to go . How big a buffer is this works what do they intend to do with that buffer . If they are going to make millions of refugees in in camps right now, which is what speedy a say certainly speeded it appears in addition to having some kind of zone and separation between the syrian kurds and the turkish kurds, that could be quite disruptive. But again without the real specifics, and im not aware of those being reported at this time, i have significant reservations about that. By the way, the dod has put at a press release i was literally reading on the way here which did not offer further clarification actually. It seemed to be warning the turks as the president did in one of his tweets along the way as well. Again, without some real specificity on that particular policy initiative, its very hard to evaluate what the implications are. And among the implications in addition to again displacing some people and replacing them with others, could be that our partners, the syrian kurds who have fought and died in large numbers to defeat the Islamic State and eliminate the caliphate, noting that there are probably 3000, usually ass use Islamic State forces that are still in around iraq and syria area, but those kurds may take their eyes off the remnants of isis which are trying to regroup, trying to establish an insurgency and carry out terrorist activities. And also may take their eye off or have to take their eye off of these very large camps of family members at the Islamic State fighters. So the one most significant is the one that is up to 70,000 family members, mostly wise and then their children of Islamic State fighters. That is a huge challenge. This is a big conundrum, because countries are not most of these came to syria from another country, and the countries perhaps understandably but not hopefully a pretty reluctant to take them back, if indeed they will at all. So again theres a lot of Unfinished Business here. One of the lessons i think we have learned, ill go into the five big lessons we shouldve learned from the last 18 years of work, but one of them is you dont take your eye off this fall. Ball. If you do that, defeat implies they cannot account for mission without being reconstituted. As we saw an iraqi to take your eye off alqaeda and in iraq, e next thing you know they reconstitute themselves as isis and drifted into syria and gained a lot of power and they are backed. It seems to be there are two different kinds of arguments, even in jest during the afternoon, as people argued ts out about why this is bad idea. One is a once you have laid out, which is you take your eye off the ball isis comes back. Its destabilized in the right of ways. Theres also something about a commitment of the United States. Thats another factor. I do want to dry out a little bit on that, because you mentioned earlier on talking about kkr facing Reputational Risk. How important, consideration should be americas Reputational Risk . The reason why i ask that is i think its fair to say that the president , one of the things that makes this president unusual is he doesnt really think that Reputational Risk, and the since weve just been using it, matter a a whole hecf a lot. That is to say, reputation for fidelity, for certain kind of commitment to allies, to following through, for staying the course, although sorts of things. If you were to make the case for reputation, how would you make it . Its by no means unique to this administration. We can go back to the Previous Administration. We had a red line that turned out not to be a red line. That is quite serious and the Prime Minister of singapore for telling you, that doesnt just have ramifications in middle east and europe. That is significant ramifications out here. We have more than occasionally had more expansive rhetoric that it turned out we were willing to actually see through to conclusion. Asha alassad must go. Thats a pretty substantial statement made by the power of the world, and again we did not make him go. We didnt even have a safe zone, much less other initiatives. We perhaps could have been firmer with russian at various times, perhaps so with china on some issues as well. While certainly seeking to coordinate with him, to collaborate to have a mutually beneficial relationship. By the way i would go back with respect to the administration that you and i served together, the one you and i served in together, where there were opportunities. Now theres a lot of revisionist history of the relationship and those sort of early postwto days for china, and opportunities that might have sent messages very early on about subsidies not being allowed and emotional property transfer, and all these other issues. Again, there was a shrinking from that. But this is a narrower and Reputational Risk would like to hear a few more words about. That is, the risk that you incur when you walk away from an ally like the kurds. The argument, well theyre pretty, pretty imperfect and the connections to the pkk and so on, what if i understood you correctly, you think theres something almost in the nature of moral commitment that we have to them, is that correct . Look, i dont think its just today. I think we have that to some of the partners weve been working with, particularly in the post9 11 period. Youve got to be this is home of realist thinking after all. This is paul nitze, your first dean, was any . He was one of the cofounders. He was somewhat a different character. But again we also you walk through this and that. And again i think known for a realistic appraisal of International Relations and security situations. So i think youve got to be fairly clear eyed about that and you have to be very careful with your rhetoric. Thats really the issue at heart here, that if you do make a public commitment and you are the superpower, you need to follow through with that commitment, unless theres some explanation abou