The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He talked about his experience serving under president and obama. Steve and on behalf of the family, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the distinguished lecture. Mattis in front of an audience of 900 people, a scenario which would be unthinkable today. And the Chicago Council which we founded in 2018. For thes as a form discussion and elevation of diverse perspectives on the big global questions. It can be and policymakers, military leaders, journalists, and analysts throughout the year to discuss their insights with the public. The center produces original research to deepen our understanding of the proposed solutions to critical global the surveyincluding of American Public opinion on u. S. Foreign policy. The 2020 installment will be released later this summer. As the council approaches its totenary, they will continue enhance important work into the second century. Turning to this afternoons program, its my honor to welcome our distinguished speaker by way of a brief introduction. Dr. Robert gates served as the 22nd u. S. Secretary of defense under both president george w. Obama. D president barack he was also an officer in the United States air force who worked for the cia before being appointed directly to the agency. He was a member of the National Security staff in four administrations and served eight president s of both political parties. President of texas a m university from 2002 to 2006. Currently chancellor of the college of william and mary. He is the author of four books including his latest, exercise failures,americans successes, and a new path forward in the post cold war world. He has been the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs since 2013 and served as a u. S. Representative to nato from 2009 to 2013 and on the National SecurityCouncil Staff under president bill clinton. He was a coauthor with lindsay of americas abdication of Global Leadership. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming former secretary of state and former director of the cia, dr. Robert m gates. And the ambassador. Thank you to the crown family for their invaluable support of the council which allows us to deliver the timely and critical analysis to a global audience, and welcome to all of you today for joining us. If this is your first event with as, please take a moment to www. Out our website at thechicagocouncil. Org. We do research and report on a whole variety of issues that may be of importance to you. Todays program will be on the record. A recording of the conversation will also be available on our website and on social media shortly after we finish. Please share this with your family and your friends. As a reminder, the council is an independent and nonpartisan platform and the views expressed by individuals we host are their own and do not represent the institutional positions or views of the council. Ill start a conversation with secretary gates and after about 30 minutes or so, well take your questions which you can submit by typing ccga. Live directly into your browser. Submit the question you would like me to ask secretary gates. Please also consider purchasing secretary gates latest book. If you havent had a chance to purchase before todays event, well share it in the chat function here on zoom. Thank you for joining us here this afternoon, its really great to be back on the Chicago Council. Its great to be back here with you. Congrats on a terrific book, its a good and easy lead. You chronicled the exercise of power over the last 30 years by four different president s, well comment on the themes and commonalities in a moment. You were in the administration of George W Bush as the cold war was winding down and as the gulf war was taking place. You were director of the c. I. A. In the final couple of years of that administration. If you put yourself back in that situation at the end of the administration looking forward to the postcold war period, what did you think that world would look like and what did you think, what did you think at that time americas role in it would be or should be . Most Intelligence Officers are pessimistic by nature. In fact, the Washington Post at one point called me the eoyore finding the lightning and darkest cloud. When i stood in my office at c. I. A. , when i was director in december of 1992, i was really optimistic about the future. We, the United States dominated the world in a comprehensive way militarily, politically, econnormally, culturally, as i say in the book, unparalleled since probably the roman empire. We were actually making some progress on middle east peace after the demise after the iraq war, the first gulf war and we obviously have Good Relationship with russia at that point president reagan and president bush had both worked with gorbachev, we had reached out to boris yeltsin, the president of russia and the leader of the former soviet union, if you will. I really thought the future was quite bright and we had a great team in the first bush administration, jim baker was secretary of state, dick chaney was secretary of defense and brett sokov was National Security advisor, we worked together smoothly and it looked like the prospect was very bright. When you read your book, it doesnt look like the last 30 years that every panned out in the way you were hoping in some ways. The big question is what went wrong . That was the germ of an idea that really led to my writing the book was given where we were at the end of 1992 and fast forward 30 years and we are beset at every turn by challenges both internal and external, perceived as withdrawing from a Global Leadership role, in some respect we are. Were fighting three simultaneous crises here inside the United States, a racial cries, an economic crisis, a Public Health crisis and thayer all linked together in one way or another and were paralyzed. The congress cant do anything of any consequence because of the partisan divide. So i want to do wanted to go back and look at how did we get to this place, particularly in terms of the world. What were the things that went wrong and where there successes that we could point to. I used the book to review 15 different Foreign Policy challenges that we experienced during the last 30 years, the obvious ones, russia, china, iran, iraq, afghanistan, but also did we do the right thing and not getting into syria, did we do the wrong thing in the way we went about others, so the book is really, tries to address the question you asked, how did we go from the pinnacle at the end of 1992 to where we are today. Before i get to sort of answer which also lays out your view of where we need to go, as you mentioned, 15 major National Security issues, crises, pick one or two where we did it right, where we got it right, we did the right thing and it worked out in the right way. The two biggest successes that i write about in the book is colombia on a bipartisan basis under three successive president s, we were able to help colombia pull its back from the brink of becoming a state controlled by criminal syndicates. It began under president clinton and one of the lessons was we had a very strong local partner in president uribe who was determined to strengthen the institutions of colombia. He was anticorruption. He was dedicated to democratic principals and ideals and he wanted the colombians to do it themselves. And then on the other side of the coin, the Congress Actually limited the size of the presence the u. S. Could have in colombia. So initially it was 400 people, u. S. People in uniform and it finally grew to 800 but that was it and the same thing on civilians. And so it forced an arrangement in which we were in support of the columbians going against them themselves. We provided the equipment and intelligence, but they carried the fight. The other aspect of it, this is one of the rare instances in which the state department was in charge and there were many agencies that were involved, the Justice Department over 10 or 12year period trained Something Like 40,000 columbian judges. The main point was we had a strong local partner and we were in support of that partner rather than doing the job ourselves. The other success was president bushs initiative to deal with h. I. V. Aids in africa. And, again, it had broad bipartisan support for considerable funding, tens of billions of dollars over an extended period of time that literally saved millions and millions of lives in africa and one of the things that made it work was that a number of different agencies in washington had a role in it, but the president designated a Single Person to be in charge in the state department who had authority over the budget and over the programs so there was a coherence and an integration of all the government efforts in this arena that was very, very rare and the entire project ended up being really enormously successful. So those were two important successes i think during the period and quite honestly, out of the 15 examples that i cite, those are about the only two successes. I was going to ask you about the other 13. Take one or two where you think we really got it wrong and the lesson, then well get to the lessons that we learned from both of those about where we should go in the future. We go back those 30 years, where did we really get it wrong . I think one of the main lessons of the book and it draws on our experience in somalia, haiti, iraq, and afghanistan is that in every case, our initial military engagement was successful and the original military mission was accomplished quickly. The taliban and al qaeda were ousted from afghanistan literally in about five weeks. Saddam was overthrown in similarly small period of time. Our original humanitarian effort in somalia was very successful by our troops. But the one characteric all four had in common that led to problems was that we undertook to, we undertook nation building. We tried to change the culture and the politics of each of those countries, each with its own long history, some like haiti with a long history with us, and in every instance those efforts largely were a failure. And weve spent many years in places like iraq and afghanistan and one of the points that i make in the book is that i believe we were in a position to have left afghanistan in january of 2002. We had an internationally recognized government there, all of the different parties have come together and agreed on somebody to be an interim leader leader. The government had international recognition, a number of countries were prepared to contribute money for afghan reconstruction and construction and that would have been a moment for us to leave. But in every case, it was the original mission was a success, but only when we expanded our objectives and became too ambitious in terms of what we were going to try and do in each of these countries that we ended up getting into trouble. A common factor in success and failure seems to be that if youre going to involve yourself in a nation building exercise or helping a nation to solve the sorely and economic and political problems that may have led to the conflict, if you dont have a partner that actually leads that on the ground, youre not going to be able to success, you cant do it for someone else. You cannot impose democracy on another country. One of my favorite quotes is from churchill where at the end of 1944 was urged to overthrow a dictatorship in athens, greece, who was actually a very strong ally of the allies and impose a democratic government and churchills response was democracy is not a har lot to be picked up in the street at the point of a tommy gun. The point is you cant impose democracy at the point of a gun. So if youre going to be involved in nation building, i think what we didnt understand and this is the lesson i hope my book teaches, is it really is a long term undertaking and it say predominantly civilian undertaking. What we can do is encourage them, give them help as we did colombia in Institution Building and training judges and getting closer to the rule of law, a variety of civilian agencies involved such as Development Assistance with u. S. Agency for International Development and so on, so if were going to be involved in nation building and in some places i think we can be helpful and at very low cost, it has to be a civiliandominated effort and we have to understand that its a very long timeline. The truth is we had troops in south korea, weve had them there for 70 years. South korea did not become a functioning democracy until well into the 1980s. It was a long process. We had tens of thousands of troops in the country for that entire period, so this is not something that can be done with a short time line or, as i say, at the point perfect a gun. Let me remind our audience, if you want to ask a question of secretary gates, you can do so by typing into your browser and ask a question there and well get to that in a few minutes. The overarching lesson, i think, that this set of issues point to that really is at the core of your book is that the overmilitarization of our Foreign Policy, that the military is not only just a very large stument that the United States has, but has displaced other nonmilitary instruments often in our engagement broad. And part of it is a very strong military, the other part of it is a growing and weakening state department and economic instruments and other instruments of power that we had. Why did that happen . Shouldnt after the cold war with the peace dividend, the military actually gone down and the nonmilitary means of our poweren emphasized more than it turned out they were . A lot of people dont realize that one of the significant contributing factors to success in the cold war were the nonmilitary instruments of power. The cold war took place against the backdrop of the biggest arms buildup, arms race in the history of the world, but because the soviet union and the United States could not fight without both countries being destroyed, that competition took place using other means. For example, our decades long effort to deny the soviets technology that would assist their military programs, but also in the modernization of their economy. Strategic communications, the United States information agency, you know, its hay day was in the Kennedy Administration under people like edward r. Murrow and in the Reagan Administration under people like charlie wick had reached to every corner of the world. In the 1990s, i think because of the hubris that came with success in the cold war and our standing alone atop the world, if you will, i think that the congress and president s essentially thought that these instruments could be dismantled. It was the congress in 1998 that eliminated the United States information agency, the congress at the same time wanted to eliminate u. S. Agency for International Development and president clinton refused to do that, but then tucked the agency under the state department where it had less independence and lower profile. So all of these instruments that we either dismantled or saved of resources, even as the military, it had some budget cuts during the 1990s after the end of the cold war, but it remained enormously strong. So it was kind of it was a man bites dog story when at the end of my first year of secretary in the fall of 2007, i gave a speech in which i called for more resources for the state department. Nobody had ever heard of the secretary of defense calling for more resources for the state department, but as secretary of state condi rice would like to remind me, i had more people in military bands than she had in the foreign service. And so with respect to overmilitarization, it kind of recalls the old principal, if the only tool you have is a hammer, than every problem looks like a nail. And so i think we began to look at International Problems through that lens and that was one of the reasons in my view that we overmilitary advertise over military advertised our Foreign Policy. It was a tool rather than a last resort. The muscle memory for these institutions, you point out in the book that President Trump tried to cut state department and economic assistance by 30 in 2017, again in 2018 and congress restored those numbers, but those numbers are still nothing like what is necessary for the state department to be the kind of Effective Organization that you think it should be, the economic instruments could be stronger and more capable, the communication ability of the United States to be more robust. We need more resources, how is that going to happen . One of the ironies of the last 20 years or so is that as congress has become more and more soured on the use of military force, at the same time they have cut the resources for the nonmilitary instruments of power, so kind of where are you going from there . If you dont want to use the military, but youre not going to strengthen the civilian sector of Foreign Policy, the civilian instruments, then how do you sustain Global Leadership. Of course, my concern is that we are perceived and are withdrawing from our global responsibilities. I think its because people dont understand and our leaders have failed to educate the American People that engagement in the world is not about some kind of altruistic objective, for our Public Health and National Security is for us to be able to shape the International Environment and we do that through these instruments, through institutions we have helped build and through our allies and friends. But the point i make in the book is, if youre going to be able to sell the congress on providing more resources for these nonmilitary instruments, you also have to recognize that many of them are outdated, that our National Security structures are still based on the 1947 law that was passed sort of in the context of the cold war and the need for a restructuring of the National Security apparatus, the state Department Needs significant reform, both structurally and culturally, other agencies i think need change as well. Only if theyre willing to make these changes or if theyre willing to make these changes, then you have a stronger argument to go to the congress and get more resources. I think part of the problem is congress doesnt see them operating very well and, therefore, just didnt want to pour more money into a structure that it doesnt think works or is very effective. Before we go to the questions which we will very soon, another question for you that when you look at the world were living in today, nonmilitary threats like covid today are killing more people than military threats, we see it with the pandemic, we see it with an estimate that some 280 Million People are facing near starvation in the world, Climate Change really fundamentally changing some very big ways in which our societies are organized. These are becoming the new kinds of threats that i know you as the secretary of defense had to deal with it. How does it mean for the government, for the way they think of these things or tackle these issues. How do we integrate these in our National Security strategies . I think we need to, i think the National Security structure itself needs to be modernized. As an example, under the National Security act of 1947, the only formal members of the National Security council are the president , the Vice President , the secretaries of state and defense, period. The director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the joint chiefs are advisors to the n. S. C. Those four are the only members. There is no one that has a guaranteed place at the table, if you will, that has anything to do with economics, international economics, not to mention the other problems that were facing and why shouldnt you have a more flexible National Security council that allows not only the permanent presence of the secretary of the treasury, but perhaps others in the economic arena, but also the ability to bring in Public Health officials and people focused on the environment because the truth of the matter is, the National Security apparatus as strong as it is in 2020 is still far more effective than the domestic policy side of the white house and it has been that way almost forever. And part of it is that the president has so much more authority in the National Security arena to be able to get things done than he does in the domestic arena. And so in the gulf war, the Deputies Committee that we had they were dimensions of the war that had to be addressed. The start is for the executive branch and the congress together to figure out what kind of new structure needs to be put in place. And then you can begin to argue for the resources. Let me be clear, i am not talking about a zerosum game. I am talking about finding Additional Resources for these nonmilitary instruments. Cross costin is its ordinary. I will give you one example. , ourwe intervened in libya six month military engagement cost about 1 billion. Put together all of the , thesed civilian programs total cost is about 200 million. A fifth of the cost of our relatively brief military engagement. For every 1000 soldiers you send about 1 the cost is billion. That kind of put things in perspective. It certainly does. Let me move to some of the questions we are getting online. If you want to ask a question, we will get to it. First question that we have to what extent does Racial Injustice at home limit our ability to implement our Foreign Policy objectives abroad . Sec. Gates i think that the United States as a model for democracy and for the way its political life is conducted has been tarnished in recent years. I think its for several reasons. One is that were so paralyzed politically. People look at china and the chinese will say look at what weve done. Weve brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. We have 21st century infrastructure. People look at us and see we are totally paralyzed in terms of addressing any of our big problems here at home. Whether it is immigration, education or infrastructure, or as we have seen this week, the ability on the senate to agree on basic Police Reforms when it comes to Racial Injustice. And, i think Racial Injustice this has been a constant factor for america for really our whole history. I think that the negative impact in the past has been minimized by the fact that we were seen as trying to solve the problem. And we did make progress. Not nearly enough progress as we have seen, but i think most foreigners saw the United States as a model and a country that recognized its flaws and was trying to address them. Recognize them and admitted their flaws, but still attempting to remedy them. I think that the broader circle of failures has tarnished our political model overseas, just as the 20082009 economic crisis tarnished the model of american capitalism as far as the rest of the world was concerned. I might add, our inability compared to other countries to get control of the coronavirus is contributing to the image of an america that, frankly, for the first time in our history is perceived as incompetent. Ivo that leads directly to the next question which is about china and the degree to which we are engaged in a war of influence with china. The hearts and minds of folks abroad for influence in international institutions. As a competition that is now shaping what is happening in the world. How does this competition developing . How can the United States come out of this in a way that makes sure we are not on the losing end of it . Sec. Gates the problem is the chinese have been investing for years in the nonmilitary instruments that weve been discussing. And it started before president xi. President hu jintao at one point allocated 7 billion to expand the chinese Strategic Communications effort around the world. They have built confucius institutes. There are over 500 confucius institutes and universities around the world. We have about 80 of them in the United States that are basically tools for chinese propaganda, to monitor Chinese Students studying in the United States and so on. They have built television networks. They have purchased Communications Systems in other countries, particularly in africa. They have made a Worldwide Investment in promoting the chinese example, promoting the chinese model, and promoting chinese policies. They have one of the most obvious instruments that they have been using is Development Assistance through the belt and road project. It is roughly a 1 trillion undertaking. And dozens and dozens of countries all over the world have these projects. Now, you can argue that some of them saddle these countries with unsustainable debt. A lot of them are White Elephant projects. Theres corruption involved. The chinese required that the countries used Chinese Companies in using these projects. Nonetheless, scores of countries have signed up for these projects and it is a huge, global effort by china, in effect to shape the infrastructure, particularly in developing countries. But they are even doing belt and road projects in italy and some of the south american countries. This is another area where they have been willing to invest a huge amount of money. So, we need to back up as i say, how can the country that invented Public Relations be so far behind in this arena . It kind of goes back to the dismantling of the u. S. Information agency and more. And on the economic assistance side, Development Assistance, we need to change the way we do it. Another contribution that second president bush made, and that was creating new criteria for foreign assistance projects that were created through the Millennium Challenge Corporation and so on. Criteria of countries we support, that would provide assistance, they actually support the United States. And making something we evaluate. Greater accountability. Above all, we need to be more creative about how does government and the private sector in the United States totally outweighs the state funding that the Chinese Government can provide. How do we galvanize the private sector . How does the government incentivize companies to invest and develop in countries . In projects that make sense, that are profitable, that benefit both the American Company and the receiving company. We can do that. We do it all the time. Our Companies Invest all over the world. How can we help structure a partnership out of that that advances our interest . Ivo another question coming from the audience here is the u. S. Has long been blessed by two but in the world of cyber, that largely becomes irrelevant. What are the key implications of the cyber threat for our known security and how should we deal with them . Sec. Gates this is where i think our leadership, both in the white house and in the congress, has fallen short. In terms of educating the American People that we cant isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. Our oceans dont work anymore in that respect. We should have learned that lesson once and for all in 2001 when a bunch of people out of afghanistan became the first people to attack the continental United States since the war of 1812. Then comes the coronavirus, again, coming from outside our borders and we cant stop it. And, you have cyber our economy is totally integrated into the rest of the world. If you dont believe that, just ask American Farmers in the midwest who sell huge amounts of their crops overseas, including to china. Of course, cyber is the most, i think as i described in the book, probably the most significant weapon in a nations arsenal today because not only can it be used for political purposes in terms of communicating messages, in terms of planning bots trying to create division and trouble with another countries, and between other countries, it can be used to disable or reorient weapon systems. They can be used to wreck economic infrastructure. So, this is a monumentally important tool. And one of the criticisms that i have in the book is both the chinese and the russians have figured out how to use cyber to interfere in our democratic processes. And frankly, to set americans against one another and to try to set us and our allies at odds. We really have not done any of that. We have developed cyber tools to defend our infrastructure, to defend our weapons systems, but in terms of using cyber offensively, the United States really has no strategy and it does very little. Why cant we use cyber to get behind the russian and chinese firewalls to tell their people what their leadership is actually doing and how corrupt they are and so on . Ivo youre an intelligence analyst. That is where your background is. You look for patterns in order to understand what is happening today and where we may be tomorrow. A question related to that is what similarities or differences do you see between the current Global Situation and the 1930s . The global depression that was there. The very real potential for global war that existed in the 1930s. Is there can we learn lessons from that period that are applicable today . Sec. Gates i actually think that the more accurate comparison is the preworld war i period. Because now you have a number of great nationstates competing with each other for power, markets, territory, influence and so on. You dont have Effective International institutions. You have sort of unbridled economic competition. You have rising powers. Before world war i, it was rising germany and was perceived to be a declining or stagnant britain. And you have that now with china and the United States. And you have these massive militaries and we are deployed everywhere. Before world war i, the leaders blundered into a world war that nobody wanted and nobody expected. One of my worries is that when tensions are as high as they are between us and the chinese, between us and the iranians, between us and the north koreans, us and the russians and with all these deployed forces, what is the risk of an incident in the South China Sea or the baltic sea with the navies or air forces escalating out of control . We had a lot of agreements with the soviet union to prevent just that sort of thing. We had an agreement on incidents at sea, how to prevent incidents at sea. Specific procedures on how you would avoid getting having a situation escalate. I think that the analogy, the one analogy i think one of the reasons that world war i is a better analogy is i dont think you have anyone right now, at least in the United States, who is either ignorant of or unwilling to face the challenge posed by a china or a russia. There is not anybody saying let them conquer whoever they want, we will just stay out of it. I dont think we have that. Rather what i see is this unbridled competition between great powers that has its own risks. Ivo as you rightly said in terms of the cold war, we put together engagement. We talked to each other while we were competing and agreements, and thats not happening. What we are seeing is these troops deployed and the lack of conversations that are happening. I think that is the purpose of you writing the book, the exercise of power, in order to lay out a series of steps that needs to be taken and answer nonmilitary instruments of power. Create a symphony of power. So, ive got to ask, there is an election coming up. I think thats what they are saying. Whos most likely to make the changes you think are necessary . Sec. Gates well, in all honesty, i am not sure. Ive said some negative things about both of the candidates in the past. And i guess part of the problem is i dont see anybody even talking about these issues. In fact, i dont think either of the candidates is really talking much about any issues. So, i dont think we have any basis on which to judge because neither candidate, Neither Party has any set of coherent ideas on how you address any of these problems that weve been talking about today. And it would be nice to see some of come up and say heres how we will begin to address some of these problems. Whether it is the nonmilitary instruments of power, how did you integrate nonmilitary instruments . What role should the United States be playing . I think that is pretty fundamental. And neither candidate is talking about that. My hope would be somewhere down the road before november, somebody will actually begin discussing some substantive issues and give us some guidance in answering the question you ask. Ivo i hope they do, and if they do, they should do it at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Secretary gates, it has been wonderful as always to talk to you. Like i said, write another book, come back soon. Good luck with this one. To remind people, you can buy exercise of power by robert gates by going to our website and looking at the event page. Secretary gates, thank you so much for being with us. Sec. Gates thank you, ivo. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] taking your calls live on the area of the news of the day. Discussing policy issues that impact you. Covid policy. Bout and a discussion of President Trumps new Supreme Court list. Then, a Pennsylvania State representative, a keynote speaker at this years democratic convention, joins us to talk about campaign 2020. At 7 00 eastern monday morning, and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. Monday night, netflix founder and Ceo Reed Hastings and business professor aaron meyer discussed the unorthodox Workplace Culture around one of the one Biggest Tech Companies in the world. To do what you think is right to help the customers and the company you cannot be trying to please your boss. You are not allowed to let me drive the bus off the cliff. You have to fight for the better of the company. Dont seek to please your boss. Seek to please the customers and grow the company. We want people to think independently. Not just to implement their bosses wishes. Watch monday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan two. Dr. Robert redfield discussed the coronavirus pandemic at a Virtual Event hosted by research america. He talked about vaccine trials, the impact on minority communities, and in issues with politicizing the cdc. This is 30 minutes. About a vaccine pfizer said it was on track for a government review in early october. Moderna had talked about a phase three trial in september. Astrazeneca before this is in phase three