McMaster on New Book

want to ask you General McMaster. First of all, how are you and what's your world been like over the last six to seven months amid the virus and the shutdown? Well? Well, he thanks Carol. I I you know, I feel very fortunate. I mean, we're in a good place here. We we uh, we're able to draw in one of our daughters, my son in law, and our twin grandsons, uh there with us and and uh. And I'm one of the fortunate

few that can work remotely and teach remotely. I taught a of course at the Graduate School Business here remotely, had a had a great time doing it. Not as good as in person, but but ortunately we've been able to continue to interact with people at least on zoom and so forth, and we feel very fortunate thanks for asking, Carol. General. You know, when we think about our foreign policy, our military role in the world post World War Two, it's

been a pretty consistent theme of internationalism too. For lack of a better word, that seems to have taken aree return and last four years, i e. Put America first again. How do you view our kind of foreign policy and our military positioning? How do you think it should be in this world where there's not just where the Cold War has been one, but now we have lots of other issues, as you mentioned, including China, right, Paul, Hey, thank you. In Battlegrounds, I described this as a lack

of strategic confidence. We lack confidence in our ability to implement a sustained, reasonable and sustainable foreign policy and approach the national security. And I think hopefully what we've learned from COVID nineteen is that threats that develop overseas are belt best dealt with early. You know, once they reached our shores, we could only cope with them at an exorbitant price. And of course this was our experience in not eleven as well. In connection with the threat from

Jehada terrorism. But what I'm afraid of, Paul, is that we saw the ninety nineties as a period of of optimism, over optimism, maybe even hubrious and complacency about threats that

we faced. And then in the two thousands, you know, we suffered a serious of strategic shocks, not eleven finanticipated length and difficulty of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the two thousand two nine financial crisis, and our confidence now is shaken, and I think what we need to do is restore our strategic competence as the first the first step in restoring our competence, our confidence and in our foreign policy and our ability to build a better

future for generations to come. But your book also deals with, you know, us approaches to some of the challenges on a global level that we have seen, and you say specifically that resulted in missed opportunities that have left us at a strategic disadvantage. And you get into it, you know,

what have been our biggest missed opportunities in your view? Well, Carol, these are these are missed opportunities associated with when are describing the book of Strategic narcissism, our tendency to define the world only in relation to us and assume that what we decide to do or choose not to do is decisive the favorable outcomes. And the problem with that

is we don't acknowledge our competition. We don't acknowledge that others rivals, adversaries, enemies also have authorship over the future. And so we define the world as we like it to be. In connection with China, for example, we assume that China, having been welcomed into the international community, would play by the rules and as a prosper would liberalize its economy and then and then ultimately liberalized its form of governance. Well, China utter the Chinese Communist Party and

Fujianping is not doing that's doing quite the opposite. So we needed to shift our policy can cooperation and engagement to a more competitive approach. Three administrations in a row harbored this illusion of a better relationship with Vladimir Putin, UH and and the and then just reaching out the Vladimir Putin would would almost have the effect as if

you were the grinch you all on Christmas Eve? Is Hartwood growth two size is larger that he would stop his campaign and sustained political subversion against us, And of

course that's not the case. And I think the deficiency that's in common from China to Russia, to Iran to North Korea to the problem of Johdahs terrorism is that we don't acknowledge the agency that others have, and we don't think enough about the ideology, the emotions and aspirations, the driving constrained the other generally, master we have about fifty seconds then we're gonna do some news and come back. But I just want to just quickly ask you, who

do you think is our biggest threat right now? Is it Russia? Is it China? Is it the Middle East? Who is it? It's it's the policy these in actions of the Chinese Communist Party and a very sophisticated campaign of what I described in the book is co option, coercion, and concealment. And so we have to be much more effective and much more effective at defending against this campaign, but also strengthening our competitive advantages so we and the

rest of the free world can compete more effectively. General one, I I could just take a quick look at Russia. It's it's been an you know, how do you view their view of the world, and how we should counteract that to the extent we need to. Is it better to go against Russia with allies or go one on one or two as this administration is trying to do to kind of I guess curry some favor with this

Russian leadership. Well, hey, thanks, Paul. What I think it's important to understand what's driving Vladimir Prutinent, because Vladimir Putin is Russia's policy right now, and and what Prutent is driven by is this sense of honor lost at with the breakup of the Soviet Union and our victory, the free world's victory in the Cold War. And what Putin is determined to do is to restore Russia to national greatness. Well, you know, he doesn't have a lot of material to

work with. Of course, he has a huge, dangerous nuclear arsenal, but his economy is about the size of Texas economy or Italy's economy. So his theory of victory is to drag everybody else down under the theory that he can be the last man standing. And the way that he's doing that is to polarize our societies with cyber enabled information warfare directed against us. This is a this campaign

of of of disruption, disinformation, and denial. He wants to he wants to against each other in a way that reduces our confidence in our common identity within America, within countries in Europe, across the EU UM and then and then reduce our confidence in our democratic principles and institutions

and processes. And I think what is needed is is a concerted effort to expose this behavior to i'll turn this behavior, but then also to restore our confidence in ourselves so that so that this this campaign doesn't have the effect that it has been having on us. And and to answer your question, it's best done obviously with partners and with allies and and really fellow victims of

this aggressive campaign. When I described in Battle Rouns as your Russian new generation warfare, and of course I don't believe, I don't believe that that any kind of an accommodation with with with Putin is going to happen. I think taking a conciliatory approach is going to be futile. And and the story that I tell in the book is how three different administrations have got approached. You remember when

George W. Bush said he looked into prudent soul. Remember when Secretary Clinton, you brought the reset button to Geneva with lab Roth and prison. Obama leaned over and said Tom ad bet If, who was keeping the seat warm for prutent? Hey, you offer some more flexibility after the election. And and we were threw missile defenses for example from Poland. None of that worked. And and and uh and this is why I think, you know, President Trump should should

come to this conclusion. You know, he's already laid to the game on this that he's not going to be a friend. You know, he's just not going to be a friend. Well, and I do. I don't want to get political. I don't want to point figures, you know, fingers and you were, you know, national Security advisor from

eighteen so, you know, during the Trump administration. But I do wonder you know what kind of signal it kind of sent said sent to the world, um General McMaster to see what seemed to be an alliance between the commander in chief here in the United States and putin Well, it wasn't in the line. So here's here's what I

think we have to do. First of all, the President Stevens don't help, especially when he draws into into question the fact that Russia has engaged in this sustained campaign of subversion against us, did in fact attack the election. And I think that what we have to be, first of all to to counter it. He just don't be our own worst enemies. I mean, I tell the story of Bottle Grounds about how both political parties in compromised our principles so they could gain partisan advantage over the other.

That's a big mistake. I think the other important aspect of this is to is to at least as we look back at this that period of time and we defend ourselves today that we don't either deny Russia's Russ's attacks on us, for the President does some times to time or say they determine the outcome of the election, which we can't say either, right, and and so again, I wish we would just work on this together and recognize that what she really wants to do is reduced

our confidence. I don't I don't think you know. I don't. I don't think they care you know, who wins our elections. I think what they care is that the significant portion of Americans doubt the legitimacy of the result. What's the state of our cybersecurity in this country here, it's become such a huge issue, particularly from the election onward. Right. Well, well, I'll tell you, Paul, it's much better. It's much better.

And and you know, I was I was happy to have a hand in this, a small role in this, and work in the together with the departments and agencies to ensure that we're more effective in cyberspace. We can compete more effectively in the recognition that a good defense requires a good offense too, so so the authorities that are cyber warriors have are much more significant. There's also been very significant developments in terms of securing cyber infrastructure.

There's no organization with very capable people who have worked on that. They've worked on that in connection with the election in particular, and as you know, we have a very decentralized system. But but there are federal standards and there's a lot of good collaborative work going on between the states and between the federal government. So I think we should have confidence in our election. Now. Offensive cyber

against infrastructure, that's still a very significant threat. Cyber enabled information warfare, significant threats cyber enabled crime such as the as AS ransomware that North Korea has become uh particularly adept at. It is still a huge threat. So what we need is a continuous effort because this is a battle. The battle is not going to go away, right as soon as we get better in one area, our adversaries adapt and and and take on new techniques and develop

the capabilities. Well, we are definitely living in interesting times and your book really takes us through um the regions of the world that we really need to be sitting up and paying attention to. Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, Thank you so much. US Army retired general, former National security advisor on the phone from Stanford. Check out his book. It is called Battlegrounds, The Fight to Defend the Free World. And a really timely conversation