Years of the early work on u. S. Terror. From politics, policy and leadership. My husband, john mccain, fought his whole life to promote american characterdriven leadership and democracy to the public, and its incredibly important today to carry that legacy forward by any means possible. Todays installment, the roles of freedom and democracy in American Foreign policy, will feature general. R. Mcmaster who served in the military for 34 years, and held the position of the 26th 26th assistant to at the president for National Security affairs as well as being a close friend of my husband for many years. He will be talking about his new pock, battlegrounds, the fight to defend the free world. With dr. Michael crowe, the president of Arizona State university, Mccain Institute trustee and a dear friend to my family. Were honored to host a pair of thoughtfully general mcmaster and professor crowe on what will be a timely discussion on u. S. Foreign policy. Go ahead and begin. Great. Glad to see everybody here. General mcmaster, nice to see you again. What i want to do first is say the book, fantastic piece of work. You got many tags on it. I want to say sometime relative to a set of core ideas you put out in the book, in fact some i think that are fantastic in the sense theyre really concepts we should be using in this articulation of our thinking about Foreign Policy and National Defense policy and so forth. I are difficult rated 20 questions for you. 17 id like to have quick answers tothat is not elongated answers and then the last three i want to spend a bunch of time on. The first one is we have seen unbelievable chance since 1945. You look at the result of the two great wars of the 20th 20th century. A peaceful europe, economic progress like no one could ever happen possibly imagined, we have the relinement of germany and japan into successful economic democracies. So the question to you is, all back to wilson main promise, protect, defend and advance democracy. In general, how do you think things are going in general, in the last 120 years in general, how do you think were doing . Well, what a professor to be with you and be here at an institute that is named for a man for whom i have tremendous respect. Senator mccain, and what a privilege it was to know him over the years and i admire his and his record of service and i admire you and your record of service and what you have done at Arizona State. That a wonderful institution. Thank you for the ant opportunity to be with us. Ought to be pretty happy if. If you look at this last 100 years in the context of the brad sweep of history, i think we have made tremendous progress. Especially after the two most destructive wars in modern history, world war i and world war ii. To have crafted ann a an enduring peace without great power conflict and a peace has liftedded hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But i think we cant be complacent. Complacency never works. [loss of audio] i lost you there for a second. Okay. Let me go to the so we sort of do things no complacencies, progress, tremendous struggle. In fact its the struggle for the in some ways the soul and the core of humanity. Will we be individually free humanned and advance our own lives based on the corporation principle of of democracy as a species or not. So we have made tremendous progress. And one word you use in battleground is an important one to me as an old huge list and heavy weight wrestler and other things i was involved. In whats the core of the fight and its more than mar sham what this cower of the fight. The core of the fight is we have to compete effectively, to ensure that our free and open societies remain secure, are prosperous, and it can extend to our influence effectively. I think we have to recognize that we have to compete and reenter arenas of competition because we vacated but a of overoptimism in the 1990 and too much pessimism and resignation in the 2000s, and we are at a fundamental level in a competition between our free and open societies and closed authoritarian systems. The fight and the competition is much more than marshalits philosophical. Its not cultural, but its about Core Principles of who we are as humans, and there are marshall elements we have to defendant your from being overrun by others or round by others. That the nature of the fight. Its everything basically. Its everything. And i make your argue. In the book argument for strategic competence and that is the ability to integrate all of our elements of National Power with efforts likemind partner he dont want to militarize policy but dont want to only you democracy or Law Enforcement or information communication. Its our ability to integrate the experts increase log i integrate efforts across the Public Private sector and take the proven to problems approach to problems which is a interdisciplinary approach to challenges and opportunities. Bring in your whole where you really made some significant contributions to the design of our national dereceives policy and national Foreign Policy. Were still in the short answer form. When does something not become any longer a strategic threat . Ill use russia which you talk about and has been a strategic threat to the United States and may still be a strategic threat to the out. Ive been to russia many times and i remember my first visit there in 1991 i got a off the plane and said youre kidding me. They dont even know how to gas up an away. Air plane. They cant float a navy, the economy is declining a dictator who roams the planet doing whatever he wants with this sort of new approach. Mexicos economy is now almost as large as russias economy. There are fading g20 and mexico is a rising g20, he the question when is a throughout no longer strategic, at what point . Its strategic if you have a Massive Nuclear arsenal and youre unscrupulous, russia wants to drag everyone else down. Putin recognize the restraints, economically, demographically and the covid19. Recently the poisoned his political opponent and engage said sustained campaign of political sub version. What russia really wants to do is sow doubts about who we are as a people to polarize our society, pit us against each other and reduce our confidence in our democratic principles and institutions and processes. Russia isnt Strong Enough to create vulnerabilities in our society but they are Strong Enough to exploit them, and that is whats we see russia dog. Putins theory of victory is to be the last man standing and to be successful in his campaign of subversion against the free world. The classic pigs of a dictate position of a dictator, singularly focus of an individual who has no interest beyond himselfs. And driven by the emotions the sense of honor lot of after the collapse of the soviet union and the ambition to restore russia to national greatness. Using the tools he has available which are limit it bud also very dangerous. Dangerous as they decline so perhaps the nature of a different kind of classified classification for a strategic relationship. Next quick question. Before world war ii the u. S. Army what a small institution, the military of the United States was generally only expanded for the time of war. We never found ourself in a position of maintaining a war footing or war capabilities for decade after decade. So this is the first anytime our republics history we have done this. What do you think are the collses or the risks of maintaining im not saying its good for bad its the way it is. The cost of a permanent war footing. A permanent deterrence footing we hope because what you want is you want to build an armed force that can convince your adversaries they could not accomplish their objectives through the use of force against you. We realize in the 20th century if there ever was acknowledge age of Free Security when north america could rely on the two great moats of the atlantic and pacific ocean, technology elimit nateed that age of Free Security and were in an increasingly interconnected and shrinking world in which challenges to our security overseas can quite readily reach our shores and thats whether its jihaddist terrorists leak september 11th w coronavirus that reached our shores earlier this year. So i think with the argue. In bounds i we have to stay engaged and we have to have a broad range of defensive capabilities, not just military. To convince or adversaries they cant accomplish theyre objectives through the use of force or the use of other means below the threshold of what might elicit a military response. So that segways to my next quick question. How do you design a comprehensive Defense Strategy, military, cyber, bio, climate, politicalern phoenix. The military is not well equipped to deal with those things and not equipped to deal with 0 some of them at all. We look at the response of pandemic we look like a pack ol of fools because we can get our act together and make command and control decisions and a lot of things going on at all levels, not just the national level. The question is a simple one. How do you design a comprehensive Defense Strategy and design a comprehensive testifies strategy that is more than the military. Start with design thinking. Start with frame thing complex challenges, understanding that on their own terms and then viewing them through the lens of our vital interests. Why do we . Then we can craft goals and subjectives and then the inventory, the tools and advantages we haved a our disposal. Thats the beginning of being able to develop a policy and strategy. Also important is understanding what are the assumptions are in which we have to operate. The assumption, what are the limits of our competency the system that we have, but also what are our competitive advantages, and very importantly, its very important to acknowledge the degree to which others have agency, and authorship over the future and recognize the interactive nature. So we dip a lot of these steps in washington and tend to rush to, as were comfortable with already or we tend to try to fit everything into a military stovepipe or cylinder of excellence instead of recognizing the real competence comes with integrating our efforts. The design approach is exactly it, and it probably does mean you articulate this. You talk about identify and respecting to some extent the agency even of our adversaries or competitors and enhancing the agency of different groups within the United States itself, which means rethinking the entire process as you suggest later in the book and to be nonlinear. Were so linear right now in our thinking we just follow these historic paths and none of that as covid has shown none of that works, linear thinking, we knew covid was coming comingd there would be great pandemics. We thought in linear ways and were not ready, i the models were wrong and we misunderstood the problem. Had to learn continuously and document. We werented a agile was we need to be. The words we have to emphasize that is the ability to coordinate and integrate efforts. Were a federal system. Were a republic. And were not going to have strong centralized control and that we would be terrible its it. He we have to coordinate and integrate more effectively and with the private sector as well. In short form, world war and world war ii changed europe and the future every. The lean lighten. Was save, social and cultural progress was saved. Those two wars ensured the stabilization of europe and it looks like people are no longer interested in the maintenance of this alliance and the many of this western alliance so good or bad. I know the answer but how bad is the nonmaintenance of this western alliance . Its bad. The situation in the prospects are not as bad as we think. I think theyre a greg realization we in to a growing realization we in at the free world are in this together. You look at the demonstration of the Chinese Communist party and the wolf order diplomacy and nothing like the prospect of death to focus the mind and i think that in the west, within europe and between europe and the United States the transatlantic relationship over the uunited kingdom and culturally and in terms of principles and values connected to the continent that i think we recognize now were in a competition. Thats the first step. And we have to cooperate together to build a Better Future for generations to come and i think theres growing realization as were in this crisis of covid, the recession associated with it, and a cries of confidence as well. One thing you introduce in the book very well and very clearly is this r. N. G. W. , russian next generation warfare. I they hold crimea because of their successful implementation of those method odd comprehensive conflict, law fare, social disruption, political disruption, cultural disruption, social media messaging, interruption of democratic processes and a number of those here in our country and other countries around the world. The question then on rngw, if thats what the enemy is using why are we not counter it with the same kind of approach or undermining that approach . Short answer. Were starting testimony think were getting more adept at this. When i say we its the u. S. Government but the u. S. Government along with allies and partners. There is a lot of great coordination going on with likeminded country that doesnt mealed the doesnt meet the eye. When you look at the contrast when russias attack on the 20 selfand their lack of effective is in in 2018. You can see some changes in policy that have unleashed our cyber capablities. What i is also point is that you use actually your competitive advantages. What you see in particular with conducting Law Enforcement investigations that are important not only to indictments and the sanctions on these groups like the Internet Research agency and warfare law fare. We have been able to pull the curtain back better and compose in the kremlin to sunlight and thats the best disinfect infect which and many call now cyber enabled Information Warfare against us which is part of the Overall Campaign of political subversion. One thing that i kept coming back to in the book was this notion of youre writing this book with the u. S. Still remaining as the sole super power on the planet and then i remember the last big sole super power on the planet was rome which then had internalization of conflict. Unbelievable social and political disruption, weakness, flats, people being killed on the floor of the senate, the tribunes and the councils at each others throat and the dem miles of the entire empire. Any worries out our empire . I wouldnt call it an empire but i have a concern about the free world overall. I think that what youre seeing these days is heartening in connection with a much higher degree of international cooperation. If you just look at the reaction to recent a aggression by the Chinese Communist party and how that brought together india, australia, japan and the out, how to Work Together the United States, how to Work Together with partners on that problem set and then i think the relationship with the eu, with eu countries, with the uk, is getting stronger as well. If our free and open societies Work Together, especially i think from an economic perspective, japan, the eu and the u. S. Cooperating together, its really going to be tough to beat and i think thats the best shot at convincing our adversaries they accomplish enough another what they want without trying to do it as our expense and the expense of future generations. Ill skip around here a little bit. So, you used the great quote if you know your enemy and you know yourself you need not fear the result of hundreds of battles. I say to myself, we do know russia, and they were defeated by us. Did we know vietnam . No, we didnt know vietnam. And this was the topic of a previous book i wrote [loss of audio] and [loss of audio] host do we know china . I think were learning more about china. I think what we have thats narcissistic view of china, we defined china in real estate to out and. We two can change china. If we welcome china into the international community, theyll play by he rules like recall as and change their liberalize and change their form of government but that wasnt the case because we underestimated the degree which ideology and emotion drive this constraint of the Chinese Communist party in particular. He. We all know china is anything but monolithic or home homogenous. Its important to distinguish between the Chinese People broadly and the Chinese Communist party which is small permanent of the Chinese People and theyre in power. In the 15 largest cities of china and several of them many times and a lot of actives that hundreds of thousands of organizations, american organizations, companies, universities and eyes, working in china, doing things in china, work with the people, not so much with the government but with the people and with the economy in lots of ways. Do we know iran . I dont think so. I write the book, a policy toward iran has missed two big aspects of understanding the behavior of iranian. The ideology of the regime and the ideology of the revolution and really who is in charge are revolutionaries. They were won, you can say republicans andrevolutionaries won out. The ayatollah and how they viewed the word, that was interesting the way you brought in the multiple ayatollahs. Description this is an element of this, theocratic dictatorship. This second fact we miss sometimes is iran has been fighting a proxy war against us for four decades, and so we tend to focus on a discrete issue. What is iran doing in iraq or syria, lebanon, the Nuclear Program . What i thin