Lori robinson was a Lieutenant Colonel when she first came to brookings in 2001 and we had the great pleasure spending a year with her in her new career military education which is like more of an education asset brookings to the military fellows than for them but created a friendship and sort of a fan club. Brookings that continued over the years as she rose through the ranks. A lot of you know her story and well talk about her story this morning before we also get into some of her observations on Strategic Issues before the country and then have time for your thoughts and questions as well. And also im very happy that this is happening during Christmas Season because in Holiday Season more john i feel like ive got my Christmas Wish in getting the chance to welcome Lori Robinson back. Her story since were like enough to cspan coverage today, for those of you who want to watch its a wonderful life and may not want the Jimmy Stewart version, you get just as good a version with general robinson, amazing story. She was from an air force family but chose not go to the air force academy herself and went to the university of New Hampshire but air force rotc. This is by the way a couple years ago even though she looks about 35, she is a couple years older than that. This was back in the 1980s and then was commissioned an officer, became whats called an error battle manager with his eye for described as the person tells the f15 pilots where they can go. So to speak. It literally is the person who does that. She moved up to the ranks, was the first woman ever at the Fighter Weapons school which is the Real Top Gun School because its the air force version of top gun. L. It are looking for the real sort of tom cruise and demi moore g. I. Jane, this is the real thing right here in terms of the first when he did that as well as many other accomplishments throughout her career. All of you t know that she was e of thee very few roughly halfdozen women ever in the u. S. Military history so far to attain the rank of 4star general, which happened about 2014 i believe when she penned d on four stars and a first position with that rank as the air compound Component Command at their command. Should present been nice Wing Commander for the 405th Expeditionary Wing and a ploy to the middle east and have a lot of combat experience in the broader iraq, afghanistan and centcom theater. Shes seen a lot of the world into various roles, and on top of that as you all know she finish a military career as the first woman in American History to lead a combatant command when she ran Northern Command at norad from 20162018. Of those you doing the math may recall that time is when kim jongun was launching his icbm tests, and when President Trump and kim jongun had not yet become such good buddies. So theres quite a bit of tension in the t relationship, d she was the one responsible for protecting the country in the event of a north korean icbm attack against north america. On top of that if that wasnt enough she then had to manage the military assistance to broader sibling authority efforts as the three big hurricanes hit in the fall of 2017 or 2017 as well. And. And so anyway, were going to talk a lot more about career, but without further ado please welcome please join me in welcoming general Lori Robinson. [applause] he is way too generous with his complements. Pretty sure everything i said was just a fact. Tried to be consummate although again i am just thrilled. What id like to do if it could, ill try not to call you lori too much because you deserve the title general robinson and truly remarkable story that all this can be inspired by but it couldnt have been easy throughout any point of your career as a woman, and of what to bring her back to the earlyrl days especially and start there, i just described a little bit of how it was first to decide to join the military as woman and then the early years of working your way up to the ranks in a very macho culture which is still is today i think, how did you handle that and what was the big challenges and what were some of your insights or personal methods of dealing with that culture . So michael is right come , md was in the air force. At 18 years, and the oldest of five, the oldest to youngest is six years, and my dad sitting to look at the fact hes going to have to pay for college for five kids and hes like, lori, once you go to the air force academy . I was like absolutely not. Ive been in air force for 18 years and are ready to do something else. Egos would you like to go to college . I said university of texas, hook em horns. And he said im paying, youre going to the university of New Hampshire because its our state of residence and so i was going to be an english major, teacher. But the first year i was so happy to be out of home, my grades might suffer just a little bit so i decided to become an english major and the teaching you would have to take a picture so much what am i going to do with this . I decided to join rotc because i thought for years and that would be good. When i got, my job was air battle manager, the guy in charge of our detachment said laurie, talk to your father. You need to get out of this, youll never get promoted. I thought im not going as by dad to do anything. Im in it by myself. Luckily enough as michael mentioned, i had the privilege to be part of an initial squadron at the the Fighter Weapons school, the best institution and of his first table instructor there, but i will tell you when you ask somebody about what molds you, that was probably one of the places that really molded me. The place that taught me about being part of the team, because you would brief with the pilots can execute with the pilots, debrief with the pilots, hang around together. But more important, the biggest lesson i learned there, we had a boss, and our boss was awesome to us, you realize youre you are part of something bigger than yourself. And i r r thought, what is he talking about . You know . It was over time i realized that it wasnt about me, that it was about the institution. And so that place, that time really molded me. Just for context say, my husband is sitting up here, he was at Dulles Air Force base at the same time and thats will remit. He flew for the thunderbirds and a very dear friend of mine, retired lieutenant general, my husband is a retired to start, a second table instructor at the Fighter Weapons school and she what the entire syllabus for discipline of intelligence. So i will tell you, as a woman there i thrived because it wasnt about being a a woman. It was not getting the task done. It was of being very confident of what it did and tried to get best of what i did. When you walk into a room though and you realize you were the only woman in the room you become very self aware of that. But what i realized in that community, and it was all Fighter Pilots, was what they cared about was you being good at what you did. Thats what was important. And so from that i would tell you, if you went to my career and what we call a combat air forces, so Fighter Pilots, i flew on the back of a wax, on joint stars. It was understanding one, that it isnt about you, it is about the institution, two, the more that you can teach people that work with you and work for you to be better than you, when you leave the institution, hopefuy you left it better than when you got there. And so when i got to my first flying unit and my career field of the time with one of those career fields what we c would sy eight their young, and my goal was to make it, everybody to realize they were part of something bigger than themselves. So over my career i have tried very hard to teach. I would always say to my subordinate commanders or other commanders say, as long as its not illegal, immoral or unethical, lets learn from whatever experience it was. I think that shaping and understanding about the team effort and understanding that your part of something bigger than yourself, was really, really maybe a different human being. As a increased inff rank, was a two star in qatar, was a three strut Langley Air Force base and then a four star in the pacific and out in colorado, you know, the notion that ithe was a woma, and i am [laughing]gh that notion, that would be the headline the people would say. And my headline wasnt this. My headline was, im a commander. Im a general. Im an airman, and they just happen to be a woman. And if i make the woman more important than all those other things, then i didnt disrespected institution. I do realize that ive done things that other women happened. Av i do realize as michael said, the first everyry female combat command and have recognized that come at a realize i have a lot of people watching what i do. I do take that on, too. But i dont want the woman to be the headline. I want the commanded to be headline. I have just tried all the time, michael, to be a team player, to be the best, any job anybody ever gave me, and to make those around the better than the. Did it get easier or harder as you rose through the ranks, being a woman . Did you reach a sort of 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 in some ways become harder . Im curious, ive never asked you this question before. I said to michael, be nice. [laughing] so heres what i discovered. In my circle, in the air force, and with the friends that i grew up with, it was a nonevent. Thats just lori. Lori is doing what lori does. And for them, in fact, i had very good friends that i was a four star with and a three star with andy to start with, and so for them that was like, that didnt matter and a two start with. This isnt meant negatively but it was interesting now with the other services because there are not as many general officers, a female general officers in the other services. So i felt, i tried hard because in my circle everybody knew me so that wasnt, they knew it i was capable of. They trusted me. I trusted him. I put extra energy when it entered a new job that was going to qatar for your as commander, you know, i didnt know general mattis at all. And nowow im working for generl goldstein but when he is not there general mattis is there. And so i worked extra hard to quickly build the trust. Ly i never ever felt that people didnt trust me but i wanted to earn that very quickly. Just because i was different, you know . Ill tell you a story. I went to china and met the chinese air chief, you know, he again, its a different culture, right . Its that howdy bill that trust that trust as quickly as you can and no, hey, either as the command of the Pacific Air Forces. Again i just happen to bee a woman. Anduse i was differented because in Different Services and countries, i put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that i kept everything on an even Playing Field and im here to do a job. As an abouthe manager, maybe just a little bit on that, i would like to explore what that means for for a crowd on televn and here and watching and learning about the military. Can you tell us, you are involved not only in the air to air relevant but the air to ground, the grant attack piece of that, right . You essentially, you and your colleagues remapping the entire orchestration, the entire choreography of a concerted effort that involves everything from Electronic Warfare come talk fighter aircraft, ground attack aircraft, hole punch a lot of put together thats right. Let me give, this credits old enough to give you my first analogy, top gun. Thats the second weapon to school but top gun, if remember at the end of top gun with the round scope and the guys talking the maverick asymptote and were the bogeys are come right . And get a couple of nods . Good. Thats what i did. Im talking everybody, the Fighter Pilots and if i was out on the radio want to tell them what the bad guys are, to ensure the guys are going 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 takers, where they could get gas and all that stuff. Worried about other orchestration to ensure that the joint force commanders were met. So whatever was asked of us that we knew what we had to do to ensure that those objectives were met. And often because i deployed to saudi as a young one deployed to him on as you mention, our missions would be anywhere from 12 to 20 hours long. You learned a battle rhythm. Again as recent as your session to the airr force has been, as young as you still are, you still have seen a lot because when you join the air force we were just operating our first stealth aircraft, and cruise missiles were a new thing. We had not yet seen all the laserguided bomb accomplishments of operation desert storm. Desert storm itself was only 10 smart bombs, 90 dumber bombs by total tonnage. Now were added air force where those percentages have reversed, or even more, where we have an large number of stealth aircraft, where we have laserguided bombs, gps bombs, where we also understand the limitations of these things because you have to know with target is for you can name aim a weapon at it so counterinsurgency warfare weve seen the limitations as well. Weve got all sorts of Unmanned Aerial Systems out there. I just wandered from the point of you whats been the most striking change in air combat over that time and that career . Thats a great question. The thing ive been amazed about, if you go back a look at Desert Shield and desert storm which the air force has been in the desert since 1991, we have left, or in the middle east, and look at the way we fought in desert storm, it was how do we deconflict february sources to ensure they get to the target . Versus, if you look at now, we work very hard on integration. How to be consummate each other, how do try to make sure that whatever the capability we need, we can integrate it into the total force . And to include where do we use drones . How to use nonkinetics, all of that. I think the joint fight has grownfi tremendously. And i think to me and a warfare scenario, its the joint fight that is really taken shape. And i think thats been so beneficial. When you can go overseas and to work with your joint brothers and sisters and then you come back and you see them someplace else, you know each other. Its not all of a sudden youre walking into the building and you cant, you know, whose that . But when it starts up there, now youve been to the desert together, youve been to afghanistan together, you have been to iraq together, whatever, but youve got thiss common background. And i think as ive watched that over time i think its been a very positive thing for not just warfare, but for the department of defense. We will come back in a couple of minutes and talk about the application of these capabilities in todays security and firemen and some of what youve seen with getting with china and specific and north korea, the first i want to come back to the question of the state of military today and specifically the question of gender integration and diversity. I guessitit im going to ask yoo questions, one about whether the glass is halffull or halfempty, and regardless im sure theres morry euclid would suggest the military can do to improve. You are one of roughly a half a dozen women who have reached the rank of four star, which is great, but i also had excellent to be there are not many in the pipeline, after you all theth women have may not have another women 4star, general note is tilted in service, but this may be a blip at least for a while. And then its about 15 of all military personnel today who are women, which is lot more than it used tos be but obviously nowhee near 50 . Im not sure if 50 is the correct goal but most of all what i wonder about is i still see a lot of reports of sexual mistreatment and abuse in the military. Thats true across our whole society i dont want to pick on the armed forces specifically, but i see this trends continue to get a lot of headlines and cause a lot of concern, rightly so. I guess again in light of your own story and of which is in todays armed forces, is the class halffull or halfempty . After we talk about that i would love to a couple of your suggestions for how the military can do better by women. I think the glass is at half. Heres the positive things. Theyve opened up all the jobs you could do in the military to women. You cant ask for that. The military is a meritocracy. I did speak at a talked about about in the tenant is lieutenant is lieutenant when you raise your right hand. And i think from that perspective thats why it is half. When you look at the sessions, we are doing a great job of assessing a good percentage of women. 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 as imagined was a thunderbird pilot. We were leaving nellis ellie got to know why bomber, and it was time for us to move and they were going to send him to korea and the two okinawa, japan. And, of course, he had gotten promoted early so he made rank early. He was ara fight about. Hes a Fighter Pilot and im an air battle manager. I was never going to be more than a Lieutenant Colonel if i was lucky. He was going to be a general officer. I said to david, i said david, why dont i get out and used it in an i will follow you around and we will do all that . Weyo didnt want because of kids. He looked at me, as sweet as he could and he said, and what is it you would get if you got out . And io was like, well, i dont know. And he goes, okay, you state in and ill go fly for the airlines and go into the reserves. And so when it comes time to make those decisions, if thats the hard part, is, and its a have the militaryar married to military. It can be to make people that bothpe have jobs and how to orchestrate alle that . And so i would say its as after i think we do good job of assess