Host Dana Goldstein is the author of the teacher wars a history of americas most embattled profession. You are watching booktv, television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see here online at booktv. Org. In dont wait for the next war a strategy for American Growth and Global Leadership, wesley clark lays out his plan to preserve u. S. Leadership in the world over the coming decade. During this event by the Commonwealth Club, general clark is in conversation with the hoover institution. Good afternoon and welcome to todays meeting of the Commonwealth Club. You can find us online at commonwealthclub. Org on facebook and twitter and our youtube channel. I am the moderator of this conversation. I was the director of Defense Strategy and the National Security council on the Bush Administration and Senior Policy Adviser in the 2008 John Mccain Sarah Palin campaign for president but the reason general clark asked me to moderate this discussion was i had this distinguished chair at interNational Security studies at west point, the alma mater of wesley clark and taught economics. He was a soldier in the service of our country for 34 years, graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at west point, was awarded a rhodes scholarship, studied in britain, held enormously influential and important military positions culminating in being a the Supreme Commander of europe, senior military commander during the air war in the 1990s and in retirement and investment banker, big shot businessman and author of several good books, one of which he is here today to talk to us about. Join me in welcoming wesley clark. [applause] his terrific book, my copy of which i do not have with me, thank you. Here we go. Dont wait for the next one. The lack of strategy the United States currently has in capacity, really preparing for the set of challenges our country is facing, very nicely, to talk about his book to maximize his time for conversation with you all but i want to talk to a couple points. The first of which is tell our audience who have not had a chance to read the book the two or three things you most want them to understand from it. The title of the book dont wait for the next war a strategy for American Growth and Global Leadership comes because that what americans always do. We always wait for war. When george w. Bush was running for office in 2000 he said he wanted to be like a ceo president , but the less ceo we had on this side of the atlantic was george iii and we fought the revolutionary war against him. We dont like strong executive leadership. We have checks and balances in the constitution and we believe politics works best if we get the issues, interests counteract and ambition counteract ambition in formal institutions we show it all in public and that is the way the american system works, the result is we wait to be challenged. We were fortunate because we had a couple lotions that protected us but the reason i am saying dont wait for the next war is because there is some enormous problems coming our way. Is not just isis. It is not just Vladimir Putin, it is the fact that the culmination of these issues is will threaten our ability to lead the world and manage events the way we have all become accustomed to since the end of the second world war. End the treaty with japan fought wars in core we and vietnam. Ike told us come to get there, there is so much evil out there that if we are not strong, if we dont submerge the differences between democrats and republicans weekend cope with the challenge by the soviet union and was a winning formula. It mostly work for for years, democrats and republicans never got off that well, but republicans are always like lets get some more weapons and be tougher, dont trust these people and democrats are always like cant we have a nice agreement . We could share god, with demand stuff so there was always a disagreement in this, but it worked for the administration, for i, kennedy, nixon, carter, reagan, then we lost the soviet union for ford, we lost the soviet union and when we lost the soviet union we lost our adversary and our strategy. In the 1990s she was working in the joint staff and i came in from the First Cavalry Division in fort hood, texas, and was asked what is the strategy. Is like a test question. I went to see my boss, with a polish accent, what is our strategy . Go find out. So i ended up writing a strategy. It was called the strategy of engagement and enlargement and we thought was a good product. We identified the nature of the challenges facing us in the post cold war environment. It was erudite. The title sounded like an advertisement for a mens pharmaceutical product honestly. But the real problem with it was americans were not engaged in foreign policy. The cold war was over. There was no challenge. We went our own way and we had a great decade in the 1990s. We created 22 million jobs, and americans never had it so good. I remember when i retired i stood on the parade field in summer of 2000, what a wonderful thing it is to be an american. The Investment Banking, dot. Com, technology, all the things i have been watching and reading about all my life, i was 55 years old, let me out there, coach. We were on top of the world and the armed forces were in such wonderful shade. When i was a Battalion Commander europeans told us dont come back to europe, not disciplined or aged jaded, it was embarrassing. There was no question, we were top of the heap and then 9 11 and then it was war and we came together just like that. 80 of the American Public wanted to strike Saddam Hussein including the newspaper. Some people said not so fast, maybe doesnt have weapons of mass destruction, didnt do any good. We brush through afghanistan, left a few troops, let Osama Bin Laden go to pakistan and there we were in iraq. Now it is 2014 and we are back in iraq. People are asking what is the strategy. That is the problem. We have threats from terrorists all over the world, not just the middle east, we have cyberthreats, jpmorgan just got hit. We invented the internet, we are threatened by our own adventure. We fixed the financial crisis of 2008 sort of but we really havent. It is not solidly fixed. Is still shaky out there in europe is about to go, caused by austerity in europe and china is said the spending power. Never has there been and ascending power that did not cause a war. Can this be the first time . Can we deal with the country to 4 times larger in population. A totally different system of government, they are not about to come of france a few like democracy, Like Congress in beijing to help us. They have their own system and finally Climate Change. Everyday we are pumping out more Greenhouse Gases into the atmosphere and every day we are moving toward that mark of 2 degrees centigrade, 250 parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere pegged as the danger zone. We have big longterm challenges and sharp crises so i wrote the book to try to give you a frame for how to think about it and give myself a frame to think about it. One thing i very much like comes from golf which says the question which is the most important shot in golf and the answer is the next one and you use that as a metaphor for anticipating crises and suggest that we need to unlike the historical approaches, we have a qualitatively different approach to managing these problems. Can i ask you what you mean in that regard. Or tip one of the five shaping problems we identify and the book and give a concrete sense of what we qualitatively different the need to do . Lets take the case of china. We grew double digit rates per year. They sent people to get technology back, they ask for western investments, look at the technology, use cheap labor to capture foreignexchange, using the foreignexchange to buy up Natural Resources around the world, building their own educational system, learning from us on how to do it and building up their military. So there goal is to become the china that dream, what does it mean . Nobody understands but in the summer of 2013 they published document number 9, the greatest enemy of china is western democracy and the idea you could have freedom of speech and human rights, this could destroy china, so it has to be squashed it every opportunity so the china dream isnt about democracy. Is about Something Like restoring chinas historical role in the world, china wants to be the center of world civilization so what were doing is reacting to everything that comes along so china declares a new what they call a defense identification zone. If you fly through this aerospace you got to report to me. We through a couple bombers through it but it is still there. China says those islands over revers, those are our islands. Okinawa where we got those marine stations, we see this happening and we talk about it but what is our longterm strategy to work it . There has never been an american president giving away a strategic industry to put a smile on the face of a foreign leader. We had president after president go to china and get better relations, we help with your high tech industry, aviation industry. In 2011 ge said there was a ge spokesman his said the future of Civil Aviation is in china end gene eat will be fair which is great for ge but where is the avionics where did the develop . Did ge put its own money into developing those avionics . No. G e put its money into buying back stock but it took taxpayer money dedicated to the u. S. Military to develop those avionics. You can see chinas trajectory. You sort of know where theyre headed. You see what were doing here, so what happens . Were going to come to a collision on this. Whats our strategy not to collide . I was in china last year and the chinese, one of my friends there in china is, apparently, well connected. He put it this way, he said, we know everything in your companies because 60 of your fortune 500 companies have research and Development Centers in china, and we know everything in them. We know all about nasa because we have chinese scientists who work there. You think youre going to put your bases in the philippines, but we give the philippines 3. 5 billion a month in remittances through hong kong. If we dont give them remit tapses, therell be no bases there if we dont want those bases. By 2019 we will have four aircraft carriers in the northern pacific. So so when you lack at this look at this, you say this doesnt sound friendly. Whats the strategy . Thats the problem im addressing. I want to press you on this a little bit more because i agree that the American Government very often doesnt have a strategic perspective, but it does seem to me that their one country on which at least the last five american president s have had a consistent grand strategy is actually china. And that strategy has been identifying what bob zoellick when he was ahead of the world bank described as a responsible stakeholder. That is, we are in favor of a prosperous china, we are in favor of a strong china provided that that china plays by the rules the United States established. And we had that policy, have had that policy in the expectation that authoritarian capitalism is impossible to sustain, that as people begin to have their needs met, they grow more demanding of their government. They, that freedom is as the Founding Fathers say inherent in human life and that everybody yearns for it. Not nearly. If i understand what youre saying just here and in the book, you think thats a mistake. And so i want to know the china policy you would advocate. Are you saying that we shouldnt be doing business in china . Are you saying we shouldnt be educating Chinese Students . Are you saying that we should be more confrontational with the chinese even if our allies in asia are unwilling to . Help me see the policy agenda that goes with the strategy youre outlining. Well, saying that we want china to be a stakeholder, thats a responsible stakeholder, thats not a strategy, thats an aim, thats a goal. So when we started this strategy, we always hoped that china would evolve democratically. As corey said, we never could imagine you could have an Effective Modern economy without freedom of information and allowing the sort of trappings of the beginnings of democracy. So we saw an evolution toward a more open china. Thats what we sought. But as weve watched this emerge, its not becoming more open, its becoming more closed. Now, weve been a little ambivalent in our own policies because, on the one hand, weve said we believe in constructive engagement, but weve also maintained our defense treaties. Now chinas neighbors its not china is not always a nice neighbor. When i talk to these countries, they tell me about the chinese ambassadors who come in and, actually, theyre pretty pushy, and theyre pretty tough on these local countries. So they come to the United States and look for help. And as corey implied, they dont want a confrontation with china, but they want another shoulder, they want us out there. We have to find a more strategic course with china, one that doesnt assume that they will automatically mirror us and become democratic. Theyre going to have their own system of government. And to deal with china we, we he to deal from a position of strength because they dont look at personalities. Theyre not charmed by the best looking president s or the most, you know, articulate speeches. Theyre looking at chinas longterm interests and how they advance them. So weve operated for 40 years on the basis of hope. Its time to look beyond that and say, okay, were going to have a country that may have a gdp larger than our own. Its not going to be a democracy. Its going to be after what it wants. How do we deal with that country. Number one, we put our own economy in order. Number two, we make sure we talk to the chinese privately, in advance. Theyre very open about what their intentions are. We knew they were going to claim those islands. Talk to them in advance. Dont let them get out front. Number three, we maintain the effort on both bilateral form and international law. So when they say we want those take it to the hague. Lets look at the maps. Lets go back to international law. And we invest in our military and keep our military Strong Enough that we can go toe to toe with china in a crisis. They have to understand if theyre rattling Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in our direction which theyve been doing recently then were likely to come back by saying, you know . That air defense system, antiballistic Missile System we put in place in alaska that was supposed to protect against north korea, maybe it should be strengthened. Maybe theres another power it should be protecting against. The chinese have to understand that their actions have consequences and that we have the courage and the means to take those actions that are necessary in response. Thats what i mean by having a longterm strategy. That cant be done by a quick visit to china with some favorable headlines. At the same time, we cant expect that we can overturn the chinese government. We dont want to do that. So i know theres a lot of sympathy for the hong kong demonstrators and pushing for democracy, but really the system in china on the mainland, thats their choice. Thats not our choice. We dont have the communist party in the United States, but when we push for democracy, we get the mirror image response from china that were trying to overturn their system of government. So were going to have to be respectful of their right to choose as a nation. Theyre going to have to be respectful of the world that we established at the end of world war ii. And if we want to retain that world, were going to have to make sure were Strong Enough, first economically, and then militarily to defend it. So let us move on to the economics, because one of the really interesting sections of your book is about economic power as hard power. And you have several specific suggestions for improvements to the American Economy, and i think this california audience would be especially interested in the energy piece of it and in particular how you balance your strong support for energy exploration, Energy Production in this country with conservation and preservation values. We, i mean, are you with me that the American Economys not creating jobs and growing the way it should be . I mean, thats pretty clear after the financial crisis, right . So how can you do it . So im in the Investment Banking world. In fact, one of my banking partners is here with me now. Were in a Company Called ugr, and we look across the industry, and we raise money for companies. If you wallet to raise money for companies if you want to raise money for companies that theyre doing apps for iphones, its pretty easy. A couple of guys in their mid 20s from stanford come in, we have this great idea, how much do you need . 250,000. Done. You come in with real projects that require development and building things and you think about where this country is right now, you realize were not doing that in infrastructure or in industry nearly as much as we did 50 years ago. So how do we get this started again . Well, warren b