Obama on iraq, afghanistan, iran, all the issues of substance. So ill ask him to explain. Also, the u. S. Economy, how much will it grow in 2014 . 2 . 3 . 4 . Wall street is wondering, upon dids are up s ars are pontifica. And negotiations with iran are two collscholars tell ust neuroscience is actually illuminate the issues. Somebody in france actually went a step further. But first heres my take. President obama gave a much anticipated teach on friday outlining reforms on the American Governments surveillance activities. Before i give you my reaction to the speech, i want to give you some context. Many American Companies are routinely the victims of Cyber Attacks from all over the world. For example, the National Nuclear security was a by contrast, the entire United Kingdom suffered 44 million Cyber Attacks in the entire year of 2011. Some of these are efforts to spy on america, enter into communications systems, telecome systems, steal secrets. Others are trying to disrupt normal life or kill civilians. Last year the head of the fbi testified that Cyber Attacks from foreign sources has surpassed terrorism as the single this debate about american policy cannot take place in a vacuum, there are countries out there and groups of militants and terrorists and they are actively using kpaefr signer tools they have to tap into phone systems, emails, bank records, power Plant Operations systems, Nuclear Facilities and more. President obama has taken on a worthy test, to see if american intelligence has got on out of control. As it deals with these threats and challenges, his speech suggests that no, the nsa is not a rogue outfit. But two facts need to be kept in mind, first that the United States has unique capabilities in this area and second that after 9 11, the American Government went too far in its efforts to search for a and Counter Terrorist threats. So hes proposed a series of reforms that strike me as a good balance between security and liberty. Hes preserved the basic structure of american intelligence gathering while putting in more checks and safeguards. One case where he may have gone too far is in limiting americas ability to spy on foreign leaders. Its a good idea for the United States to protect civil liberties, institute checks and balances and have periodic reviews of the whole system. But lets also keep in mind that i havent heard much about the chinese intelligence reforms proposals and i wont expect we will be hearing much from him or president putin or any other foreign leaders. Intelligence is the worlds second oldest profession for a reason, everyone does it. Lets get started. Robert gates worked for eight president s, his last job of course was secretary of defense. Starting under president george w. Bush in 2006, and ending under president obama in 2011. Hes just published his memoirs, simply called duty. An unusual and controversial move when one of the president s he served is still in office. And he criticizes that president or so many say. We will get to all of that, but i wanted to start off on the substance of the key decisions made on his watch. Iraq, afghanistan, libya, syria, iran. Youll note that secretary gates is in a neck brace, if youre wondering if its whiplash from his critics, its not, he tripped and broke a vertebrae. So fred kaplan calls this memoir a primarial scream. Do you think it was a primal scream . No, but one of the reasons i wrote the book was to describe, i mean everyone in the country sort of knows at a certain level about paralysis and polarization in washington and i wanted to make it real, in terms of how you deal with that on a day daytoday basis, when youre running the Defense Department and trying to fight two wars and to show that no matter how frustrated and how angry i got, by suppressing all of that i actually was able to get a lot of things done in a town where very few are. Youve gotten a lot of attention for the comments youve made about president obama with regard to after stang, basically that the present seemed like in the middle of the war, his heart wasnt in it. I want to start you with the substance. What i was most struck by, was the fact that the president start from 2009 on ward, he had to make big decisions, he also had to make decisions about whether or not to have a timetable, things like dwluchth. You say you agreed with every one of the president s decisions . Thats exactly right. And i continue to support those decisions, such as the strategic agreement with the Afghan Government that would support the United States and our allies there. I never had any quarrel with the president s decisions and in fact i was very impressed with how he would set aside the opposition, largely for political reasons of the Vice President a and virtually all of his civilian advisors in the white house to make a decision that he knew would be politically unpopular in the Democratic Party base. It seemed like your fundamental kind of inclination and approach is one that would regard this as a place not to overdo the military foot print or to overdo the commitments, i read you on syria, on iran and all of those places, you steam to be much more comfortable with what i take is the president s caution about getting too involved militarily in these places . Youre right and as is i think well known is i was opposed to the situation in libya. Can we just finish the wars we already before we go looking for another one . But if iraq and afghanistan have taught us anything, first of all, that our assumptions are usually wrong, and the first and most important of those asu assumptions is that war will be shomplt and second, we dont have enough humility about our inability to predict unforeseen consequences. So my argument against going into syria militarily was that it is an act of war to take down their air defenses, establish a no fly zone or humanitarian zone. Russia is a close ally of syrias, lebanon hangs in the balance. And we were putting gasoline on a very complex fire and we had no idea what the second, third and fourth consequences of our actions would be. And unless you have a clear idea of what your military is supposed to accomplish, and how long it will take, i think you need to be very, very cautious about introducing military force. And again on iran, it seems like youre pretty cautious about the idea of military intervention. Well, particularly in the Bush Administration. Because i felt that we still had time to make the economic pressures work. And again, we were already in two wars, our militaries were stretched very thin, our military was exhausted. And so the idea of acting precipitously to go after the iranians or to enable the israelis to go after them, where we didnt know the consequences but could well lead to a major regional war. I felt it was too risky. Let me ask you something about the book as i read it and your views. I look at all of those positions and it steams on the substance, you were very sympatico with president obama. On the substance, from what i can tell from reading what you say about the Bush Administration, you were much more unhappy, it seems to me pretty clear, you were skeptical about the iraq war, you were certainly skeptical and you write that about the freedom agenda, the idea of spreading democracy around the world. You seemed skeptical about the way afghanistan was handled in the years before you got there. And these are major, major issues. And yet, it feels to me like almost culturally youre more comfortable in the Bush White House than the obama. Is this the case just you might have agreed on obama, but just that word on the white house aides and biden, it just irritated you . I really dont think its that. I think in part, it was the time i served each of those president s. I served president bush in the last two years of his presidency. He had had a hard run for 5 1 2 years, since 9 11. He had learned a lot of lessons, he was a weiss wiser, more matu more seasoned president that i encountered. Neither he nor his Vice President would everybody run for office again. So it was a much less political environment. On the other hand, i served in the first 2 1 2 years of the Obama Administration, where a president was going to run for reelection, that was clear, and both the secretary of state and his Vice President had potential ambitionless themselves. So there was a focus on domestic politics in the debates in the Obama Administration that i didnt encounter in the Bush Administration, but i will say, had i been in the Bush Administration during the first 2 1 2 years, my suspicious is it would have been very similar. Well be back more with secretary gets, was writing the book dishonorable . I didnt set out to vilify anybody in that book and i dont think i did. And what will he say about Vice President biden whom he criticizes if biden called him le at 25th and hoffman. And the little room above the strip mall off roble avenue. This magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. And of those who believed they had the power to do more. Dell is honored to be part of some of the worlds great stories. That began much the same way ours did. In a little dorm room 2713. This magic moment [ blows whistle ] then spend your time chasing your point b. The war of 1812. [ bell rings ] you get to point b, and sometimes things change. But your journey is not done. Capella university is the most direct path to whats next, because our competencybased curriculum gives you what you need to move forward to your point c. Capella university. Start your journey at capella. Edu. Im back with with robert gates. Should he have even written this book at all . Listen in. Ive got to ask you about some of the criticism. John mccain says you shouldnt have written this book now. You should have waited. One of the president s aides said this was a dishonorable act. Even the wall street journals Foreign Affairs columnist said bob gates has a reputation for keeping his mouth shut. Maybe he should have paid attention to it this time. What do you say to people who say this was incredible discrete and dishonorable to do it in the middle of a president s term while the foreign policies that you were involved in are still playing themselves out . First of all, all the conversations i report are on issues like afghanistan and iraq where the policies are already set and the decisions have been made, and our course has been established. Second, i think a close look at the book would validate that nearly all of those conversations, in fact, present the president s both president s in a positive light of being tough minded, much pushing back, of asking hard questions, of doing exactly what American People would hope a president would do whenever the use of military force is involved. I didnt set out to vilify anybody in this book. And i dont think i did. But i think you have to read the whole book and not just quotes that are taken out of context. And i would just say i mean, the other piece of this is theres a whole genre of books out there that are written about insider conversations in the white house, quoting the president from private conversations, quoting private meetings and meetings in the situation room and so on, all done from the shelter of on background and leaked by people in the white house. What i wanted to try to convey to the book is dedicated to the men and women of the armed forces and what i wanted to what i wanted to say to the people in uniform and their families, the america that sent them to war is that these are tough issues. And i wanted to show the leaders of the country wrestling with these issues and the passion that they were discussed. I also think that, you know, this is a town washington is a town where everybody says its paralyzed. I also wanted to show how you can actually make things work in washington and finally a lot of the issues weve been talking about, how to deal with china, how to deal with russia, how to deal with allies like saudi arabia. I have worked for eight president s. I have the experience of working for eight president s and i think i have something to offer that debate. That debate is not going to wait until 2017. What do you think is the lesson. You know, president s sometimes write a letter to their successors. If you were to have set out a couple of things to worry about or to be focused on, for the, not just the secretary of defense but going forward, what are the thingsa worry you in the way that eisenhower wrote about. First of all, i would say that the one piece of advice that i would give either to a secretary of defense or to a president , a new secretary or president , is that absent an immediate threat to the United States, the use of military force should be a last resort not a first option. We need to be much more careful. I wrote in my first book that the dirty little secret in washington was that the biggest dubs wore uniforms. And thats because they have seen the face of war and they have been thrown into conflicts only to have Political Support evaporate behind them. And so being very cautious about the use of force, i think, is incredibly important. Right now the biggest threat to our National Security, as far as im concerned, is the paralysis in washington and the uncertainty with respect to the defense programs, uncertainty about what kinds of military capabilities were going to need for the future, where our record in predicting where we will use military force next is perfect over the last 40 years. Weve never once gotten it right. Reporter do you think we have to plan for china as a Strategic Military adversary . Well, i think our military plans for everything. I think that china is not a military adversary at this point. I think that the way the chinese and american leaders deal with each other in the years to come will determine whether or not that becomes the case. But i do think that our presence in asia is very important. Just as our presence in the middle east is important as a deterrent. Can you envision a scenario where israeli or u. S. Military action against iran ends well . Has the desired effect . Ends well jumps from the action to some period of time beyond that. I think that if there is a military action against iran, iran will not just absorb it or retaliate in a cursory sort of way, with a few rockets launched into israel and maybe a few hezbollah rockets launched into the northern part of israel. I think iran will retaliate and moreover, i would say, that that would make it inevitable, that iran will become a nuclear state. They will not become head on to us, but will find ways, i think, to inflict real damage, whether its against Oil Facilities in the gulf, potentially sinking some of our warships, whether its terrorism in the region, potentially here at home. But i think theyll react. If Vice President biden were to call you about this memoir, given what you said about him you said he has been wrong with every Major National security issue for the last four decades, what would you say . The interesting thing is that biden and i actually agreed on virtually every part of obamas National Security and Foreign Policy except for afghanistan. And in the book, i acknowledge i should have worked harder to bridge the differences between us on afghanistan, and i fault myself for that. What would you say to i would say, well, joe, this is the world both you and i know. Bob gates, pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Lots more ahead on the show. If youre wondering why iranians act the way they do on the world stage, i have a guest who says the answer is in the human brain. And he would know. He is a neuroscientist. Up next, what in the world . Why japans declining population may actually be a good thing. Youll be surprised by some data. [ male announcer ] away. [ laughing ]. Is the crackle of the campfire. It can be a million years old. Cool. Or a few weeks young. [ laughs ] away beckons from orions belt. Away. Is a place thats closer than you think. Find your away. For a dealer and the rv thats right for you, visit gorving. Com. Now for our what in the world segment. I was struck by some startling data this week. 2013, japan population soared to the largest natural decline in that countrys history. Its a trend thats getting worse. By 2060, japan predicts its population will have fallen by a third. 40 of japanese will be retirees. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. Imagine a United States where half the population were over 65. Health care costs would explode. New scientists claiming japans aging population could actually be good news. How on earth is that possible . After all, china relaxed its onechild policy last month precisely so it could avoid the fate of japan. And that fate, if you go by conventional wisdom, seems to be slowing growth and leading to unsustainable debt. Why . Our entire system is based on having enough Young Workers to pay for pensions and government services. Well, according to the new scientists, perhaps weve been looking at the wrong data. Consider growth. The number we tend to focus on the most. Look at the performance of a selection of rich countries in the last decade. Japans economy expanded by just 0. 8 a year on average. France was faster. The United States and britain grew at twice japans space. Now look at growth per capita, growth per person. This number gets less attention. The table is inverted. The u. S. And france is near the bottom but japan i